Death

I changed my books from locker to backpack. Put the textbooks I didn’t need into the little metal space, put the books I wanted into my pack. Grabbed the earbuds that would be confiscated if seen in class. School policy.

I picked up the novel I’d laid on the bottom of the locker, and stuffed furtively into the smallest pocket of my backpack. I can’t remember what it was. Dune I think, but around that time I was on a vampire kick. No, that must have been it, because I can remember stuffing it in my backpack before anyone could see it. It was what they call a “bodice ripper,” the majority of vampire novels being romances. The cover featured a woman, corset pulled aside almost to the nipple, while some male figure, given much less prominence than the naked breast; began to sink his teeth into her neck.

That might have been ambiguous enough, to a classmate who wasn’t acquainted with the conventions of romance cover art. I could blow it off as a horror novel. The title however was in pink, and curly cursive. No ambiguity there.

Backpack zipped, and secret safe, I closed the locker and walked for the bus. Through the press of students, down the stairs outside the front door, earbuds in, ignoring the crowd. I tried to get lost in my own world. A little island of calm in a sea of voices. People shouting at each other, calling names, waving, pointing. It was Friday, and this was high school, the topic of discussion among the masses was how drunk they were going to get over the weekend.

The prevailing opinion seemed to be, ‘so fucking drunk, bro, you don’t even know.’

The allure was lost on me. As a theoretical it seemed interesting to go to a party where alcohol was feature. As a practical, I didn’t get invited to parties.

I walked slow. In a few weeks I’d learned to time it so that I could be at the door as soon as my bus showed up. That way I didn’t have to wait, and try not to look like I was waiting alone.

Up the steps of the bus, into a seat near the middle. The cool kids sat at the back, but the back was where the bus bounced most, and got in the way of my reading. And I wasn’t cool enough to sit back there. The back of the bus wasn’t the kind of place where you could show up and fit in. You had to deserve to be there.

The front of the bus was where the kids who were too cool to be cool sat. Good students, with blond hair and expensive shirts. The ones who had a future, and cared about it.

I was a middle of the bus kid. A guy who didn’t have a crowd, and convinced himself he didn’t want one. Willing to let the world pass by while he read a book. Other kids had learned that sitting with me wouldn’t bring conversation, and I was left alone.

Once a pretty girl sat in the seat next to me. She talked to me, but didn’t talk about what I was reading (Lloyd Alexander), or what I was listening to (Beats Antique), and instead asked me about what I did after class. It was hard to have a conversation about it, because I didn’t do anything after class. I tried to tell her that I played a badass medic when I felt like it, and I mained Blitzcrank, when I wasn’t turned off by the community. She asked if I had a girlfriend, and terrified of the implication that I might be a loser, I responded that I did.

I didn’t.

After a bus ride of failed communication I got off at my stop, said goodbye, and was ignored.

She never sat next to me again. Sometimes I wished she would so I could try to figure out what I had done wrong. Most of the time I dreaded that someone else might try to sit next to me and keep engaging me in conversations I couldn’t relate to, until I died of boredom on the bus.

The bus driver waited three minutes for stragglers, before closing the door. She did it in a way that made it clear she wasn’t opening it for Jesus himself, should he have missed the last ride to Jerusalem. Jesus was going to have to ride an ass, just like he had last time.

Then she slammed the bus in gear, and took off. I switched play lists to something ambient, I was really in to Digital Daggers at the time, and they had kind of a tragic, angry, Lost-Boys-sort-of-vampire vibe. It didn’t fit with the romance, but it was good enough. I opened the book and found my page and got back into it.

I was deep into the part where the protagonist has discovered her love interest is a vampire. It’s my favorite part of a vampire novel. The author decides what legends about vampires to keep and what to throw out. “Sure they’re the living undead,” she (or he) says to herself, “but being killed by garlic would be inconvenient to the part of the story where they order in Italian. I better leave that one out. The spaghetti really ties the scene together.”

When you think about it for a second, every part of the existence of vampires is equally unbelievable. Immunity to mirrors just requires more creativity from the author, and usually gets tossed out the window. “Oh,” says the vampire in the novel, “You believe that trash about socks? That’s silly! Take it from me, a creature that catches fire when exposed to sunlight!”

It’s hilarious every time.

That’s why I missed my stop by three, and when I got through the scene in the book and looked up, realized my mistake.

I got off the bus, lying to myself all the way down the stairs, that this was good, and I wasn’t disappointed in my day. I was going home, it would only take another 15 minutes. I had a little homework to do, and then I could read or lounge around for most of the weekend.

It was late September, and the school year hadn’t taken hold. Most of the freshmen were still finding friends. I had transferred in when my dad got a job there, so I didn’t have anyone who would be ignoring me this weekend. But I’d been around this neighborhood before, and I knew my way home. It wouldn’t be long. I’d cut through the alley connecting Florida and 13th and shave off some time.

I walked as fast as I could, feeling the heavy backpack on my shoulders, and wondering what I would have for dinner and stopping dead in my tracks as I turned the corner inside the alley.

It was sort of an industrial sector out here. Car mechanics, and people that did things with glass, and boxes, and laser cutters. The alley made a sharp right angle, and then came to a dead end, so only the cars that needed to get into the shops around it used it. But there was a narrow drainage path at the far end a pedestrian could fit through.

There was a group of people clustered in the alleyway, gathered around something that looked like a metal trash can with rods stuck through it. Because of the angle I came up within five feet of them, and tried to figure out the most polite way to get around whatever they were doing there.

I’m good at noticing things, and while I was stopped there I began to notice some things that were… alarmingly impossible.

They looked like they worked construction, but each one of them was wearing a suit coat and nice trousers, with snow boots. They all had winter hats on.

That wasn’t impossible.

What was impossible is that their arms and legs would occasionally ‘clip’ out of their clothing. One of them would bend his (its) elbow, and I would see the joint, and their skin, poke through a previously solid object. Then it would disappear inside it again.

Having noticed that, I moved on to noticing that their arms and legs were weirdly out of proportion. Upper arms too long, forearms too short. Knees in places they shouldn’t have knees. Just how many knees does a person have anyway? Not that many, I’m sure.

Then one turned away from me, and I saw that he didn’t have a head, just a face. Under the hat was empty space, while a face, like a mask, floated in front of the hat.

No it wasn’t a mask, like their head was invisible. This one was wearing an ushanka, and with his back to me, I could see the inside of his face. His eyes were attached to something back inside the hat, and his tongue went down the back of his throat. I could see the inside of his mouth, and if I had thought about it at all, I would have thought, ‘so that’s what teeth look like from the back.’

I didn’t think that. This is what I thought, oh crap. Oh shit. Oh fuck. These are impossible aliens like those Alex Jones freaks are always talking about. Oh Jesus, oh Zues, oh Ishtar, oh Abrahamic god. One of you might be real, and I promise to sacrifice a goat, or whatever, to your glory, because I need to be saved from this unholy shit.

Which is a lot to think in just a few seconds.

I don’t know if I was breathing too heavy, or what, but at some sound, they all stopped, like startled deer. Then, as a single unit, ever one stood straight and turned to face me.

Very carefully, like nothing at all was happening, I walked as far around the group as I could, keeping my eyes on them all the time. I’m sure I looked like a harmless scared kid. Who am I going to tell about the freaktures in the alley way. This kind of crap would get laughed off of reddit!

With my face toward them, I made a large path around, and then backed toward the culvert, and the freedom of the real world. Without moving their legs, their bodies moved to follow me.

Then one of them made a mistake. It was standing on top of the metal thing, and turning with the others, and suddenly cried out and fell.

Sideways.

It fell down sideways.

Like gravity didn’t work on the thing, it was flailing its arms and pinwheeling as it fell, parallel to the ground, and right at me.

I held my arms up bracing for some kind of impact, when it just disappeared, a few feet away from where it would have bowled me over.

My only memory then, is one that still wakes me up in the middle of the night. Blinding pain.

#

I first felt a drop in my pelvis. Like a weight had traveled down the trunk of my body, and landed on my solar plexus. The shock wave traveled down my legs, and I and felt my knees shift, twist and give way. Dropping onto them, onto the pavement, hurt. I barely noticed it with the fire in my back.

There was a tugging on my shoulders, and in the small of my back. It felt like I was carrying a bag of water on each shoulder. I could feel my shirt as my chest inflamed and swelled up. I’ve been stung by something. A scorpion probably. I’m going to die. Death would have been a comfort at that point.

The fire spread to my face. It felt like someone was punching the bones from the inside of my skull. I felt my cheeks and my nose contort, while my eye sockets lit on fire.

My shoulders contorted, I might have been screaming. I don’t know now and didn’t know then, what a dislocated joint felt like. Whatever that was, this was the opposite. Like my elbows, shoulders, wrists and ankles were being slammed deeper together. Crammed into my body.

They say that bone pain is second only to burns on the pain scale. They say a lot of things are the most painful thing. Whatever they say to you is wrong, because whatever this was, it wasn’t comparable to a human feeling. It was agony personified.

Then it all stopped. Or I passed out. I don’t remember anything else after that, in any case.

Waking Up

I woke up, opened my eyes, and closed them again because it hurt to keep them open. Not that tired-eyes-hurt, but just like they couldn’t focus. I took stock of my surroundings eyes shut.

The first thing I noticed was that my mouth tasted like shit. So bad it had pulled me awake.

The second thing I noticed was that I had been sleeping on my back. I couldn’t remember another time I had been conscious of the way I was laying when I work up. This is because I’d been strapped down. That thought came with some panic. I put it aside to focus on the third thought.

The third thought was that I was uncomfortable. When I shifted there were things on my legs and a tube running somewhere around my thighs.

Easy conclusion: I’m in a hospital. I’ve never been in a hospital as a patient before.

From there it went: Whatever happened to me was bad enough I ended up in a hospital.

Finally: They have fixed whatever happened to me. That’s what hospitals do.

“I got water right here, sweet pea.” That must have been a nurse on my left. Eyes still closed I gave something like a croak, and then just nodded my head. The back of my bed raised up, until I was sitting. I pried my eyes open long enough to see a straw in front of me. Like an invalid I opened my mouth, got a straw stuck in it, and sucked. Water had never tasted so good in my life.

“Are you uncomfortable anywhere? Hot? Cold?”

Oh, yeah. I was freezing. “Very cold.” My voice squeaked when I said it. Fucking puberty. I had alternated between a bari and a bass since 11, my voice hadn’t squeaked in a year. I tried to let the embarrassment pass over me.

“I’ll get you a blanket, sweet pea.” With water inside me I had enough energy to open my eyes, and watched while she moved over to something that looked like a mini-fridge. She pulled out a stack of thin blankets and spread them over me. I was enveloped in thin cotton that would have been terrible, but they were warm like they had been in an oven. So there’s such a thing as blanket ovens. Maybe this world isn’t so bad.

My but had scooted down in the bed, and I put my hands down to lift myself back up, and my world collapsed around me again. I still felt the swelling on my chest, felt the blanket pull down over the inflamed skin. I must* have been stung by something. Or I’m allergic to the ground. Yeah, I passed out, got too much ground on me and swelled up. Then: You’re being an idiot Ash. This is some kind of medical conundrum. They’ll have to call in experts on swelling, and bones that feel like they’re breaking. It’ll be just like one of the TV shows, where everyone is mean to each other because they’re geniuses.*

While I came to terms with my infirmity, the nurse came over to a computer on a stand, and started checking monitors, while typing furiously.

I wiggled my legs around and felt the catheter between them. And then I felt something terrible. Or a lack of something, and the lack was terrible. Oh god. I can’t feel my balls.

I don’t remember not having testicles, so I guess they dropped early. I do remember asking my grandpa about them, and I must have been four. So for all of my life that I can remember I’ve had testicles. And for all of my life that I can remember, I’ve known exactly where they were at all times. You have to think about what your toes, or your ears feel like, sure. But just like my index fingers, or the inside of my mouth, I didn’t have to concentrate to know where my balls were at any given moment. And where ever they were now was not attached to my body.

Okay Ash. Stay calm. Sure you’ve been castrated somehow, but there’s hormones, and you never wanted kids. I’d never had sex, now maybe I never would. Could you still ejaculate if you’d lost your testicles? That’s not something I could remember them covering in sex ed.

“You okay, darling?” The nurse asked.

Too shy to ask such a deeply personal question from a lady nurse, I tried to cover for whatever expression I had on my face. “Just…” Freaking out. “Wondering what happened to me.” My voice wouldn’t stop squeaking, but it had fallen to the bottom of my priorities for the moment.

“You’re gonna have a long talk with the doctor about that, he’s gonna explain it all to you. You came in in a coma, and you’ve been out for,” She checked her watch, “Six days and five hours.” She winked at me, “You’re lucky you woke up now, they were gonna put a feeding tube in you this afternoon. They are very uncomfortable to remove.”

She went over and started freeing my straps. I stretched my arms and legs as they came loose, feeling the collection of tubes and wires on my hands and around my legs.

“You were picking at your IV lines while you were out. It’s common. We couldn’t have you pulling them out and getting all your blood everywhere.” She finished tucking them away. “That better?”

“Yeah.”

“I called Joann, she’s going to come in before the doctor, and get some information from you. Then your doctor will be in. You want me to turn on the TV?”

I nodded. Anything to block out the knowledge that I was no longer a man.

The nurse was on her way out the door when a woman in a long skirt, or maybe a dress, came in. She was broad, rather than fat, and was wearing a knit shall. “Hello dear, name is Joann,” She told me. Then to the nurse, “I’ll page doctor Stanton when I’m ready for him to come in.”

The nurse, I still didn’t know her name, gave a nod. “The doctor has to tell us when you can get some food in you. Meantime, here’s some water. I’ll be back with him, so I’ll see you soon.” She walked out through a pair of glass doors.

Joann took her time getting a chair just right, so that she could look at me, as I lay on the bed. “Alright honey. My name is Joann. I’m your child advocate until we can contact your parents. So lets start there. I need your name.”

“You don’t know my name?”

She looked at me from under her brows, “You weren’t in any position to answer questions when you got in here, hun.”

“Ashley. Ashley McKinnon. Ash.”

“Ashley. That’s a pretty name, dear. Is that em cee, or em ey cee?”

I was starting to feel patronized. What is with all these ‘dears’ and ‘honeys’. I’m not a child. “Em cee.Just call me Ash.”

“Okay, Ash,” she made marks in her notebook. “Let’s get your date of birth next, unless you know your social security number?”

“[REDACTED],” I said.

“That’s very good, it’ll give me a nice start. How did you memorize that?”

“It was my student ID number for awhile.” The blankets were making me tired, and I realized that I didn’t even need to get comfortable if I wanted to fall asleep at that second.

“Alright, Ash. I’m a child advocate, do you know what that means?”

I shook my head, and then took a stab, “You work for the government?”

She laughed, “Good guess. I work for child protection services, or at least they pay me. Actually I work for you. We haven’t been able to reach your parents, so I’m here to help make the decisions your parents would have made.”

She didn’t add the rest. I was found alone in a coma. She wanted to know why my dad hadn’t been there. She was following up to make sure I hadn’t been abused. That knowledge made me want to cry. She couldn’t help what was going on in my house.

She followed that up in a way that confirmed my line of thinking, “Ash, I’m bound by the rules of confidentiality, do you know what that means?”

I shook my head. Nothing I had heard of.

“It mean that I don’t have to report anything to the government that you don’t want me to. If you ask me, I’ll keep any secret.” I nodded, more than a little relieved and almost ready to trust, “Except—except Ash, where your well-being is at stake. If someone is hurting you, or you’re hungry, or there’s anything sexual going on, it’s in both of our best interests if you tell me.”

I sighed, the conversation was exhausting, but Joann seemed so nice. She asked my father’s name then, his phone number, our address, where he worked.

I gave here all that, finishing with, “He works in Sandia Labs. I have no idea what he does.”

Joann put her pen down then, and looked at me, “How are you feeling, Ash?”

I started to say, “Fine,” and instead I found gallons of tears streaming out of me. My voice wouldn’t stop squeaking, high like a girl’s, even while I was crying. Joann put her things aside and then sat carefully on the bed with me, squeezing my swollen chest, and holding me.

After a few minutes I was all cried out, and really embarrassed about the mess of snot I left on her shawl. She brushed my apologies off, “It’s machine washable. Everything I knit is. Now if you’re feeling like a brave girl, we can meet with the doctor, and get a better idea of what’s happening.”

A brave what now? My hand went to my hair as I said, “I’m a boy.” My face was flaming, equal parts embarrassment and betrayal. That was a cruel mistake for someone who was supposed to care for me.

“Oh, I’m so sorry! I didn’t realize.” She picked up her folder, “I’m so sorry hun, let me just make a note that you’re trans, so no one else makes that mistake.”

“I’m not trans. I’ve always been a boy. I was born a boy.” I’d never seen someone’s face freeze before. Like, really freeze. But all of the muscles on Joann’s face stopped moving as she stared at me. I saw something like real fear there, amids the confusion. Seeing that I found out I had more to cry as I sobbed out, “What’s happened to my testicles?”

Joann stayed silent, and pursed her lips. She came in for another hug, but didn’t say anything. Her silence broke me out of the crying fit this time, and I shrugged out of her embrace. Instead she picked up my hand and said, “Nothing happened to them, dear. They were never there.” Then she reached into her bag and pulled out a makeup thing and opened it. She showed me the mirror inside and let me turn it toward my face.

After that all I remember is screaming.

As a case in point, let me mention the observations reported some 30 years ago by the visual anthropologist Edmund Carpenter. Carpenter recorded the reactions of adult Biami, and isolated tribe living in the plateau of Papua New Guinea, when introduced for the first time to their own mirror reflection, video image, and other Polaroid photographs of themselves. Carpenter reported a powerful expression of fear and anxiety in these adult individuals: “They were paralyzed after their first startled response - covering their mouths and ducking their heads - they stood transfixed staring at their images…(Carpenter 1975:452)

It is my contention that the fear expressed by the Biami adults, confronted for presumably the first time with their specular image, rests on the fact that the individual oneness to grip with the profound discrepancy between what he or she feels and perceives about the self from within his/her own body, and what other actually perceive of him or her… (Philippe Rochat, The Structure and Development of Self-consciousness, 2004.)

That would have been pertinent context, if I had ever read it.

An hour later the Klonopin had been working for 45 minutes, and the blind panic had mostly subsided. I read on the Internet awhile before that the little girl in The Exorcist had been purposely prevented from seeing her reflection in the mirror while in makeup. They had put child actors in monster masks before and the freak out was intense, when their cosmetic was real enough to fool a child.

Well I wasn’t a child, I was 14, but seeing a face that wasn’t my face in the mirror had hurt. I didn’t even remember what it looked like. Joann had snapped the makeup box closed, I guess. When I was cognizant of what was going on in the room, I realized there was a nurse there. She was sitting in the chair across from me and reading a magazine.

Making sure I don’t hurt myself.

“The first thing is to breathe.” My mother told me. I was six and she was teaching meditation, as a way to calm down. “Now become aware of your surroundings.”

There were a lot of ways to do this. I liked to count lights. Mom taught me to count the number of yellow things in the room, but this was just as effective. I started doing it every since I saw “Chain of Command II”. I would imagine Patrick Stewart screaming at David Warner, “There are four lights!” Good way to remember what I was doing.

I counted the bulbs, I counted the lights on the panels. I counted all the on light LEDs, from the TV to my heart monitor. There are 27 lights in this room.

“Now become aware of your body.” Was I hot or cold? Warm mostly. My arms were cold. I put them under the blanket for the time being. Where were my toes? At the end of the bed. What were my hands doing? Laying on my stomach. Was my head heavy? My mouth open? My brow furled? Yes, no, no.

There was a stretching on my shoulders, just underneath my clavicle. My chest was swollen, and sensitive. Okay, Ash. Let’s cope with that.

The apron they’d put me in was tight at the neck, because it was tied in the back. I couldn’t look down my neck line. I would have to go in manually.

Conscious of the nurse in the room, under the blanket, I reached my hand up to touch my chest. Gingerly, I expected it to hurt. Instead it felt like… like touching a part of my body.

Only… an intimate part of my body. I felt the heat on my face as I blushed.

I poked myself. Squishy. Then cupped a swollen pec. I’ve never felt a breast before. But if I had to guess, I wold say they feel like this. When I lifted up, I felt the stretching on my shoulders release.

Okay. I have breasts. Shit. What are they going to say at school? I could feel the dread rise up at the thought, and get pounded down by the Klonopin. Now was not the time to think about that.

What was it time to do? Close my eyes and continue to meditate.

I lost track of time, keeping my thoughts centered on my breathing. When I was aware that they had wandered I pulled them back.

Breathe in. Slowly. Slowly. Breathe.

When Joann came into the room, I realized that my hand was still on my breast, and I pulled it away, and prayed she hadn’t noticed. I was a teenager. I was good at furtive, but needed practice with non chalance.

Following Joann was another woman. Tall, blond hair, professional dress. Older, fifties I would guess. I noticed that I could see her cleavage, and my puberty brain put everything that had happened to me aside to focus on that. I told my puberty brain to cut it the fuck out, and tried to focus.

“Hi, Ashley. Joann says you like to be called Ash?” I nodded. “I’m Doctor Gunn, but you can call me Katie. I’m a child psychologist attached to the hospital, and Joann got me right away when you had an anxiety attack. I’d like to ask you some questions if that’s okay?”

When adults ask you “if that’s okay?” they usually mean that you don’t have a choice, but in this case I felt like she really meant it. It didn’t matter, because hanging out here and trying to deal on my own was more scary than anything she could ask me. “Sure,” I said.

“Great,” Then she proceeded to ask me a bunch of questions, all of which I answered with “no.”

Had I ever had an anxiety attack before? Had I ever had any memory problems? Was there a history of mental illness in my family? Had I ever suffered any head trauma? A bunch more question that aren’t important.

She made check marks in the folder for every answer, and her questions sounded more urgent as she went on. Finally I told her that my family had no history of dementia (that I knew of), and she blew out a deep breathe and slowly closed the folder. She put her hands together and looked at Joann for a bit. “How are you feeling, Ash? Are you getting nervous again?”

I was. I could feel myself coming down from the high, and everything was going crazy in my head again. Doctor Gunn looked to Joann and whispered, “I hate doing this, but…” Then she got up and went to the intercom on the wall, and pressed the button, “I’m authorizing another Klonopin.” She turned then, “I have to talk to Joann for a second, hang on while the nurse gets your med, it’ll only take a moment.

Then there was a nurse there, helping me swallow a tiny pill, while Joann and Katie had a conversation in urgent whispers outside the door. The nurse left, the two came back in. Joann looked determined, or maybe resolute. Katie looked… worried? Shocked? Flabergasted. Yeah, that one’s good.

They sat down in front of my bed and Katie started up again, “Ash, sometimes in my job, I have to give bad news to parents. I’m not used to giving bad news to children. Even if I were, in your case I don’t know what I should say.” She paused to struggle, gave herself some deep breathes, and almost looked about to cry when she started up again, “When Joann brought your case to me, I assumed you had suffered a severe case of gender dysphoria, something to do with the coma. Things like this happen when your brain shuts down from damage.” She laughed a little hysterically, “There was a man who woke up from a five month coma fluent in French. A language he’d never heard before. That I could handle. Your case—”

“Your case is different,” Joann interrupted her.

“Very different. Ash, do you remember… having been a girl before?”

It seemed both a very weird question to ask, and at the same time one that should have been asked a long time ago. “No. I’m a boy,” my voice betrayed me. Not squeaking, I realized that now. Just like it had never dropped at all.

“Okay, I wanted to be sure this had something to do with your accident. Ash you were found laying in an alleyway, a mile from your home. Do you remember how you got there?”

Ah. I chose that moment not to talk about the freaktures. “No,” I lied.

“Well there was no trauma to your body, Ash. When someone goes comatose it’s not necessarily because of anything we can see on the outside. It could be any number of things hiding in your brain. So when you were admitted, the first thing we did was an MRI of your entire body. We didn’t want to miss a blood clot in your leg, or a bleed in your spleen.” Katie looked then, very scared at Joann.

Joann said to me, “Ash, I’ve been able to get a hold of your father. He’s adamant that he doesn’t have a daughter. So adamant that he’s refusing contact from us. He says he’s remanding custody to your mother.”

“She’s in Denver,” I told her, “there was a custody thing.”

“Normally Ash, I would want a parent here to help you cope with this, but what Katie has to say is very important, and I need you to understand so that we can get your input. With children your age, we try to consider your wishes as much as possible, and you…” It was her turn to breathe deep, “You have some decisions to make.”

Joann gave Katie the nod to continue, and Katie picked up again, “Ash. You are biologically a female.”

I shook my head as strongly as possible. My own experiments aside, I knew that I wasn’t crazy. That she couldn’t be right.

“Ashley, we have pictures of your ovaries.”

Joann took over again, “Your birth certificate lists you as a boy. Your learners permit is a boys. I have access to your medical records, and you had an CT of your pelvis three years ago.”

I nodded. I had fallen and broken my coccyx, most embarrassing injury a kid could have. The doctor had had trouble with the x-rays and ordered the CT. It was an interesting experience. I would have told all my friends about it, if I had had friends. As it was I got to do it for a special show and tell. Some of the class clapped. That was nice.

“You already know this,” Joann said, “No ovaries.”

Katie finally broke out, “Ash there’s no medical record of this. There isn’t even a Biblical record of this. I don’t have any idea what to do here.”

Joann laid her hand on Katie’s wrist, “Let me talk to him alone please. He understands now, and I have to go into advocate mode. I can’t do that with you here.”

Katie nodded and stood. She looked like she was about to touch me on her way out, maybe give a limb a squeeze. Instead she just looked at me and fled.

Alien

Joann stood as well and came over to my bedside, “You haven’t eaten for about a week, so I don’t know what the doctor wants to do, but it’ll be at least a day before you’re on real food again. Do you want me to get you a Popsicle?”

“That would be nice. Did anyone find my backpack?”

“It’s in one of the cupboards, would you like it?”

“Please?”

She went over to the cupboards on the wall and fished around until she had my backpack in her hands, and brought it over to my bed. “Do you want cherry or orange?”

“Cherry please.”

“I’ll be right back.”

She left, and I opened the pack to find my book. There was another book in the pocked along with my vampire romance. I pulled it out and turned it over in my hands. Flatland: A romance of many dimensions. It was old, but in good condition. Cover had little damage, just some wear. I opened it to the printing page and saw, ‘First Edition.’ Then under all of the printing information, Copyright 1884. I didn’t know how much it was worth, but I would guess: a lot.

I turned the page to see, in very weird handwriting, “Aisling, this will start to explain.” I wondered who Aisling was, and who had bought this for them over a century before. “I hope they got the explanation they wanted.”

Joann came back then, and I put the book aside. She unwrapped the Popsicle for me, the right way, keeping some of the wrapper around it. Then she sat down again and leaned her elbows on her knees. “We have a lot to talk about. I got a hold of your mom, and she’ll be calling me back soon. She’s getting a plane ticket to come down and see you.”

I leaned back and sighed with my Popsicle in my hand. Then remembered it and popped it back in my mouth.

“Ash, we have to talk about what to do, and I want to lay some decisions on the table. Right now, with present technology, and a lack of time travel, you have one option. Remain biologically a girl. That’s it. With a visit to a therapist for a bit, you might be able to start hormone treatments.” She leaned in and put her arm on my leg. Normally I would be creeped out by a stranger touching me. Instead I was grateful for the contact. “I told you, I work for you. Nothing needs to be reported. And Ash?” Here she leaned in, “I’m not against fudging some records here.”

It was a relief. I’d have a penis again, get rid of these boobs, and be okay for the rest of my life. I could use the right bathroom and change in the right locker room. I took the first bite out of my Popsicle, and felt a few dribbles on my chin..

“Your insurance is required to pay for transitional services, but they won’t do that if the government says you’ve always been a boy. I have to talk to your mom about it but… I know some people in Social Services who won’t mind a little incentive to… move things around for you. It’s very illegal. But imagine what would happen if we tried to do this through the court system.”

She made a lot of sense. This was in all of the shows about children who have some kind of accident and have to hide it, so they won’t become an experiment. I was just thankful I had an adult who understood.

Her phone rang then, and she took her hand off my leg to look at it, “It’s your mom.”

I reached for the phone, took it, figured out how to answer it, and put it up to my ear, “Hi mom.”

“Hi dearheart, how are you?”

“I’m okay. I’m a girl now.”

“That’s nice sweety, how’s school?” I love my mother.

“Rotten, the classes are easy, but the students are crap.”

“How would you like to come live with me for awhile?”

“That would be nice.”

“Good, the closest plane I could get leaves at eight in the morning. I’ll see you .”

I hung up the phone and handed it to Joann. “That seemed like a nice phone call,” she said.

“Yeah, my mom is a psychologist. She’s hard to phase.”

Joann gave me a smile, and then laid her hand on mine, “I can stay here for awhile, or I can let you get some rest.”

“I just want to read my book,” I gestured to Flatland.

“Do you want me to stay? They can bring a bed in for me.”

I tried not to cry as I said, “Yes.”

I opened the book as Joann took out a kindle and her knitting. Then six hours went by.

Flatland was… well it was staggeringly racist. Like, ‘triangles are dangerous, so we encourage wars between them, when we’re not imprisoning them as examples for school children’ racist. And it was alarmingly sexist. Like, ‘women are more dangerous than triangles, so we keep them in a closet at home, but it’s okay because they only have a short term memory’ sexist.

It wasn’t until I got to the part where Mr. Square was talking about how color and art were illegal that I caught on that it was satire.

Mr. Square is a resident of Flatland, which exists only in two dimensions. Half the book is about the limitations of living in flatland, while the other half is about his experiences with Mr. Sphere, and his subsequent imprisonment for trying to tell the inhabitants of Flatland about the third dimension.

Mr. Square lives in a pentacle house with his wife and children and grandchildren, and Mr. Sphere takes him outside, and shows him that the house isn’t a collection of lines. He can see the whole of his house, even the inside of his cupboards, and the intestines of his children from outside.

It’s truly fascinating, once you get past the typical 19th century dialog, and the fact that the only time no one seems angry, is when they’re casually sentencing one another to death. Aisling must have had some strange questions for someone to have given her this book.

I finished it around eleven o’clock, while Joann was snoring softly in a roll away across the room, and went to sleep.

I swam slowly into consciousness sometime in the morning, so late it was early. Joann was still snoring, but she’d gotten steadily louder over the course of the night. It reminded me of my gramma.

In the dark I could see a nurse sitting next to my bed and asked, “Can you hand me my water?”

The nurse leaned forward and scooted the aggravating hospital table closest to me. As it did so, I felt my whole body freeze. The nurse—it wasn’t a nurse—had disapeared a portion of her arm as she moved the table, then reapeared it while it spun into place.

Well you’re a girl now, no reason not to scream. I opened my mouth to do that when it said, “Please don’t scream. No one can hear you, but it hurts my ears.”

I listened and realized that I couldn’t hear Joann’s snores anymore, and laid back, resigned. “Make it quick,” I chocked out.

“I’ll go as fast as I can, but I’m not sure you’ll be able to understand all of it.”

“Make it painless then.”

“Most of the physical pain is behind you, but the next few months are going to contain a lot of the emotional sort.”

“What are you talking about?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m asking you to make my death merciful,” I didn’t feel the need to cry, but I thought it would be appropriate to feel that. I was a little disappointed in myself.

“I suppose I could drop by in eighty years, if they’ll let me, and I remember.”

I sat up and looked at its mask face. I could see light shining through from all the way around it’s eyeballs. In an act of defiance I took a sip of water and said, “You’re not here to kill me?” I tried to do it archly, and was bad at that.

“No.”

I took another sip, and tried to pretend I was in a Quentin Tarantino movie. “Then may I ask why in fuck you are here?” Spot on Ash.

The thing ruined the dialog by being reasonable, “We felt—I felt, that you were owed an apology—”

“Oh, fuck off with that.”

“—and an explanation.”

“Not even a Biblical record…” Katie had said.

“Okay, you can fuck on with that.” It turned its head in a dog-like expression of confusion. “I mean, go ahead.”

It gestured to the book, “I’m glad you found it, it will help.”

Some things clicked, “You spelled my name wrong.”

“No, I was quite caref—Ah, I understand. I’m sorry.”

“Anyway, what was it supposed to explain?” Only I knew. The pieces snapped into place. “Do I call you, ‘Mister Sphere’?”

“Mister Glome would be more appropriate.”

“What’s a glong?”

“Glome. It’s a four dimensional sphere.”

“I thought I couldn’t see that.”

“You would see it like Mister Square did. A bunch of shapes that moved in ways you didn’t know were possible.” It waved it’s arm to demonstrate. The flesh between his shoulder and his wrist came undone, while his elbow bent in the wrong direction.

I laid my head back, and gave up the charade, “Okay, you made your point.” You can probably cry in front of this thing. He doesn’t know anything about humans. “What did you do to me?” My voice cracked as I said it, and I didn’t bother to clear it.

“You were injured in what will go into our report as a ‘construction accident’.”

“Well I hope whoever is responsible hurt as bad as I did.” A thought occurred, “Anyway they disappeared before they hit me.”

“And that never made you curious?”

I gestured to myself, bumping my breast as I did so. Damn, that smarts more than I thought. “I’ve had other things on my mind.”

“Yes.” It sounded truly sorry when it said, “I’m afraid I don’t even have the context to understand your situation.” It shifted in the chair again, and steepled too much fingers underneath its chin. “When she fell, she fell on top of you, and damaged a part of your body that doesn’t exist to you.”

“…” I said.

“It doesn’t exist to you, because it’s not in the third dimension.”

“…” I said.

“I have another book that will help, if you wish. Have you read any Vonnegut?”

“He’s on my list, after Anderson.”

“I would move him up the list. Slaughterhouse 5 is what you’re looking for.”

I felt the tireds hit me, and laid further back, “So they hit me where I don’t exist, pretend I accept that. Why am I like this?”

“She hit you at nearly ninety miles an hour. Nine point eight of your meters squared, you understand. It didn’t hurt her, but her insurance is going to take a hit. It almost killed you.”

I was too tired to retort.

“We did our best to save your life. You were in surgery for nineteen hours.”

“I thought I was found on the sidewalk within minutes.”

The freakture looked and surprised me with sarcasm, “Really, Ashley McKinnon? You’ve seen what we are in space. What did you think time means to us?”

I did my best to shout, but it came out as a cry, “Then why didn’t you fix me?”

It looked very sorry, head down, the tension drained from its face, “We don’t understand much about your bodies.The kind of experiments we’d need to do to learn would be incredibly unethical. No doctor or scientist would do it.” It finally hit the crux of the discussion, “Your gender lobe suffered permanent trauma. The part of you, outside your comprehension, that makes you who you are was crushed. The only way to repair the damage and save your life was to fuse some of it together.” Its face looked so sorry then that I almost felt bad for it. “That’s how you came to be this way.”

I closed my eyes. I’d been so close to crying this entire conversation, and now I finally felt tears on my cheeks. “You’re saying you can’t fix it.”

“No more than you could regrow a limb.”

“Why didn’t you just let me die?”

“We have ethical standards, and everyone deserves the chance to live a life, if not the life they dream about. You have many more years to come, Ashley McKinnon. I hope one day you’ll forgive us for giving them to you.” Mr. Glome stood then, all bones wrong, and alien. It made a hand gesture that probably meant something in its own idiom. “For what it’s worth. We are desperately sorry.”

The alien disappeared then without another word and left me to my tears.

Mom Arrives

I forgot what had happened to me when I woke the next day. I was snuggled in my bed, and reached down to adjust my balls, as you do in the morning.

When I touched soft lips instead, I figured they were hiding away, searched harder and hit something wet. That’s when it all came rushing back to me, and I really let out a sob. I curled deeper, and put my hand to my heart, felt breasts there. In an action I found foreign, feminine, and comforting, I tucked my arm between them, and felt sorry formyself.

“Whatever you do, you can’t afford self loathing,” my mother sat on my bed.

I felt tears and snot on my face, and realized how deeply I had been crying. My mother stroked my hair for as long as I needed to, and hummed a song she had sung me for as long as I can remember. It’s from “The Tain III” by the Decemberists. It’s hauntingly sweet, and I can’t reprint it here, for fear of being sued.

(Oh, fuck it. -Ed)
For the wind is blowing, it hurts your skin,
As you climb up hill side, forest and fen.
Your arms full of lullabies, orcids and wine.
Your memories wrapped within paper and twine.

The room that you lie in, is dusty and hard.
Sleeping soft babies on piles,
Of yards,
Of gingham, taffeta, cotton, and silk.

Their dry hungry mouths cry,
For your mothers milk.

(Please don’t sue me -Ed.)

I feel asleep again in sorrow, but wrapped safe in my mother’s voice.

When I woke again, it was after 11:00 AM. There was dried snot on my pillow, and my hair was wet from tears.

My mother was knitting on a chair next to me.

“Hi mom,” I breathed out.

“Hi, dearheart. How are you feeling?”

“Sad.”

“I understand. Would you like some breakfast?”

Fuck yeah, I would like some breakfast. “How do I do that?”

“I already ordered for you,” she pointed to the aggravating hospital table, “it’s French toast. Your favorite.”

I wolfed it down the way only a teenager can, in minutes, then pushed the aggravating hospital table away from me. It scooted to the side instead and I punched it and hurt my hand. Then I punched it harder and harder, sprung the table open so the it unfolded, punched it closed, and then swept everything on it onto the floor. I laid back, feeling no better.

My mom watched my outburst without dropping her knitting. “What would you like to do now?

“Cry some more.”

“I think you’ve done enough of that.” She moved the table aside to she could look at me, “Joann had to leave, but I’ve been thoroughly briefed on her plans. I think she has the best idea. I’m happy you have someone with your best interests at heart.”

I was exhausted from all the crying, and still felt like I should get on with the day. “What does she want to do?”

My mother sat on the bed, and held my hand for a second. Then put it on the bed so she could lean. “According to your medical records, signed by your doctor, we’ve discovered you were intersex, during puberty onset.”

“They’re saying I’m a hermaphrodite?”

“They—you don’t use that term. It’s crude.”

“Can you just ‘discover’ that?”

Mom waved her hand, “It’s less common, but it happens. Usually when the boy starts menstruating through his penis, and finds out he has a uterus inside him. Joann’s report says that you’re choosing to live as a girl now, until you can be reassigned and get some surgery.”

I flounced, really flounced, back onto the bed, “Great, everyone knows I’m a freak, trying to unfreak myself.”

“You can think of yourself as a freak all you like. But you’re my child, and you can be as normal or as abnormal as you want to be.” She got up from the bed, “I’ve already signed the forms, as your parent or guardian. I’m afraid we’ve entered, ‘I-know-what’s-best-for-my-child territory. When and if you’re ready, you can get hormones and surgery. Right now, I want you to stay healthy, and work with what you have.”

In case you haven’t guessed from when I said it before, my mother is a psychologist.

I put my fingers to my temple and rubbed. “Okay. Then I want to know when I’m getting out of here.”

“I’ll see what the nurse says.”

My mother came back with the nurse, “Good news. You’re getting released.”

The nurse gave me a smile, “Want all those tubes out of you?” I gave her an emphatic nod.

The IV came out of my hand, and a bandage was taped over the tape marks from the tape the taped the IV on with. The pulse-ox was taken off of my finger. The things on my legs were undone. If I was walking I was at no risk of blood clots, outside of a family history of dying early from blood clots.

Then it was time for the catheter. My mother kindly left the room and waited outside. I spread my legs, at the nurses request, and because I didn’t want her just yanking it out. I was humiliated as a stranger started poking around a vagina I’d never even seen, and which nevertheless belonged to me. I had to resist the compulsion to snap my thighs shut and never open them again. But then I’d never be able to put on pants, and I couldn’t handle a skirt.

The nurse had brought a needle.

“Are you going to stick that into me?” Try to keep the fear out of your voice next time.

“Yes,” she said, “and it’s a good thing too. Otherwise this is excruciating.”

“Well get on with it then,” I said, not unkindly.

She hit me in a very personal place, and I resolved never to look her in the eye again, for fear that one of use would fall over dead from embarrassment.

The removal was still the weirdest sensation I’ve ever felt in my life, as she pulled the tube out of my numb, girl, urethra.

“You did good honey,” she said, as she put all her stuff in the cart, and left me to my shame.

My mother came back in and sat down, “I med the release nurse in the hallway. You’re all set to go as soon as you put on some clothes.”

“First things first,” I told her, “I want some rules,” and I outlined all of my rules:

Rule no.1: On the inside I’m still a guy. And I will have guy thoughts, and guy hobbies, and do guy things.

Rule no.2: No girl clothes; No skirts. No dresses. No bikinis. No heels. No makeup.

Rule no.3: No bras.

“Please trust me, that you will want to wear a bra,” mom said.

Rule no.3: Okay, I’ll wear a bra. If I have to.

Rule no.4: They said I have ovaries. I am never going to become a mother, and I’m not having periods. Therefore there’s no reason anyone can object to my using birth control

Rule no.5: Guess I’m a lesbian now.

“I always figured you’d be a lesbian. Your father owes me a hundred dollars now.”

“That’s not funny mom.”

Mom pulled her chair over and showed me some forms. “I was thinking we would change your name.”

“Why?”

“Ashley McKinnon already has an identity. It will be easier to enroll you in school if you have a new name.”

“I don’t want to answer to a new name. I’m Ash.”

“I know, dearheart. But I just…”

It’s hard for her too. Okay Ash. Let’s be considerate. “There are a lot of ways to spell Ashley. Lets just change that.”

She looked a little relieved. “I was always going to name you Ashley. But if you have been a girl I was going to spell it the Gaelic way. Ay-I-es-el-I-en-gee.”

“Ay-sling?”

“No, ‘Ash-lee’.” She smiled, “Be proud of your heritage of not being able to spell anything like it sounds. At least we’re not Welsh.”

“That’s racist.”

“True though. Welsh is beautiful, but they spell for shit. You thought English was bad?”

“Okay mom. I’ll be Aisling.”

She smiled and popped her pen on the paper and started filling things in.

Then it happened. I had to pee.

I breathed deep, and looked at my mother. I could feel the whites all around my eyes.

“Bathroom is over there, dearheart.”

I got out of the bed, and tried not to plod inside. The seat was cold.

Peeing felt the same, but my bladder was arranged differently inside me. I peed sitting down as a guy, when the occasion demanded it. But I had always had to move around and get my insides lined up right. Now I just sat and the pee came out. It felt like normal peeing, other than…

Other than that I could feel it dribble down my lips.

And I dripped. I could feel all the wetness down there. Further back than I would have expected if I had thought about it. I closed my eyes, but tears didn’t come. This was everything a man feared. Everything he’s proud of. Me man. Me pee standing up. Me jiggle and me done.

I reached for the toilet paper, and wiped myself off. Then I crawled back into my bed, and refused to look at anyone or anything.

My mom put the forms in her purse. “Let’s get you dressed and get you out of here.”

I found the bag they’d put my clothes in and took it into the bathroom to get changed.

Several problem immediately arose. My pants were too long for a start. For a finish, everything else about them. They had an inseam which on me looked like I was wearing a diaper. My but was shaped differently. Bigger, I was certain. Higher on my body. Because the pattern of the pants were designed for a flat but, my ass sucked the crotch of the jeans back.

I came out of the bathroom and looked at my mom, distressed beyond measure.

It was worse than that, but I couldn’t tell her about it. I had switched to boxers, as all young male children do, in middle school. All of that cloth that I used to hang out in was superfluous now, and it rode around inside my pants and bunched in seemingly random places.

My face flaming so hard me mouth shook, I asked the nurse for a pair of underpants. I meant panties. I should have asked for panties. I couldn’t.

Nurse left, and came back with a disposable mesh pair, wrapped in plastic. “I’m sorry, but this is all we have,” she told me.

My mother gave me an arch look and said simply, “We’ll have to go shopping.”

“I know.”

“I don’t think you do. I’m sorry to tell you, honey, but look down.”

I already knew about my shirt. In my old body it came down to my waist but with a pair of boobs the hem was riding up to my navel. “No, mom. I know.”

“Dearheart… you look like it’s fifty below outside.”

What does she… oh god no! I looked at my shirt. Yup. There were my nipples, poking out so hard you could see the areola around them. I gasped and covered my shame reflexively. I realized I looked like an anime pinup as I did so.

Breathing heavily, I panted out, “Bra shopping. First thing.”

“We’ll go to Target. It’s not class, but it’s clothes.”

Target

Target

I kept my arms crossed on the way out of the hospital. I kept my arms crossed in the car. I kept my arms crossed on the way inside. If I had died right there, I would have kept my arms crossed all the way to the morgue.

As a boy, I hated going through the women’s section of Target. It was hard to do without imagining everything that was supposed to fill in the underwear on the halls, hangers, shelves, and hooks. I always made me feel dirty.

It still made me feel dirty, but for the while I belonged there. That made it almost better. And I was too distracted by the thought that, arms down, I was a walking sex object; to worry about sex thought. Puberty brain had shut the fuck up for the time being.

My mom went straight to the desk next to the changing room and told the attendent, “We’d like a bra fitting, please?”

The woman was a professional bra fitter. She looked at me and didn’t say anything that would make me feel like falling through the floor. She didn’t ask why a girl with breasts so big they made her shirt ride up was only now getting to this. She didn’t say, “Oh, first bra, huh?” or “Well you’re a woman now then.”

She said, “Let me find a tape measure and we’ll go to a changing room.”

I was pathetically grateful.

Here’s how you get a bra fitting. First you stare at yourself in the mirror. You notice that you have frekles now, and there are some on your boobs. You see that your nipples are larger than you feel comfortable with. Your puberty brain tries to cut through all the embarrassment, and tell you how hot you are. You don’t listen.

The measuring woman then stands behind you and puts a tape measure just under your boobs, over your boys shirt, and you wonder how that will help. She says, “hmmm. Twenty nine.” Then she looks like she’s remembering it, and you try to too; while you wonder if that’s big or small and you don’t know which one to hope for.

Then she puts the tape measure, over your shirt, across your nipples and you stand stock still in shock, and she says, “Aaaaand, thirty four. That’s a C cup.”

And you think, Oh my god. I’m hung.”

Bra fitting lesson complete.

She waited at the door, and we went out into the bra aisles.

One of the signs on the ceiling said, ‘Intimates’, and it couldn’t be more right. It didn’t matter how plain any of these were, they were all… well… very intimate looking. Like something that someone else would see you in only if you wanted them to. Well now you’re* going to see you in them, Ash. That’s a weird start.*

“You’ll need an under wire,” the underwear lady says. “Annnnnnd… I’m not trying to embarrass you, but you don’t needed padded.” She looked through a selection. “Every girl needs three bras. Black, white, and nude.”

She poked around. And asked my input on styles. I went with the first one she pointed to in every case. I didn’t like any of them. It made me very scared, but the ones I wanted had bits of lace on the edges. And—oh shit—one had a bow on it. But I thought it would look—oh fuck—good on me. I was definitely not strong enough to point out what I wanted there, in front of her and in front of my mother and in front of myself.

My mother just watched the two of us, as she handed them to me, and mother followed me to the dressing room. She led the way inside. “It’s nothing I haven’t seen before, Ash. And trust me, you’ll need some help.”

I shed my shirt face flaming, expression resolute. This seems simple enough…Nope. Putting my arms through the straps first, and struggling to snap it behind me, was wrong.

Mom looked at me in pity. “When you get better, you’ll be able to do that. In the mean time, put it on backwards and upside down, and inside out. No honey, like this.” She touched me to show me. This time I didn’t freeze, but the girl in the mirror was blushing so hard it extended down to the top of her breasts.

“You fasten it in front and turn it around. You put your arms through the straps like this. Then you flip the whole thing up.”

This seems inefficient and time consuming. I resolved to practice until I could do it the right way. Girl or not, I had my pride. Still. Mostly. Okay, not at all.

Then she stepped behind me, and fingered one of the shoulder straps, “Tell me when it’s comfortable.”

She tightened them, and I said, “Wrong way.”

She loosened them, and I stopped her, “There,” when she found a sweet spot. “It’s still a little tight.”

“Looks like you need the last buckles here.” She unsnapped my bra and resnapped it. It was better but still… confining. “This isn’t nearly as comfortable as I assumed.”

My mother gave a little sigh, and put her hands on her hips, in a gesture that looked wrong on her, “Welcome to womanhood. Okay, that’s one down, let’s do the next.”

We were working on bra three (black) “There,” I told mom, as she got the last strap done.

“Alright. Let me leave you. I’ll take the tags off of this one and ring it up outside.”

“Thank you,” I meant it.

“Do you want to… Why don’t you just stay here a little bit.” She put her hand on top of my head. “I’ll get your some things to try on.

I nodded, and she left.

I looked at the girl in the mirror, in a bra and boys pants, and tried to imagine she was me. I felt my hair. It had been long for awhile. My dad hated it, but he thought if he didn’t say anything I would stop rebelling and get it cut. More fool him. I’d wanted long hair since I saw how cool Klingons looked with it. Around four years old.

The girl had boobs. Like real boobs. Like an adult. I tried to arrange them in the bra to be more comfortable and almost succeeded. The bra mashed them together into something that would be cleavage. I’d never realized before that cleavage was something your clothes did to you, not something you just had. That gravity and flesh didn’t cause cleavage on their own.

I heard a clatter, and turned to see that my mother, my blessed, blessed, mother, had thrown three pairs of pants and five shirts, all on coat hangers, over the top of the dressing room door. “Try these on. I can’t get you shoes, I don’t know your size,” mom said from outside. “Aisling, I know you don’t want to, but try everything on please?”

Hearing my girl name, even if it sounded the same, just made me blush harder. The girl in the mirror was pretty when she blushed. That made me hate her a little bit.

The first shirt fit. A little too well. It looked like it worked, it was just… hugging. Every curve I had. When I looked the in the mirror, I saw I had been right. There was a terrifying dividing line between scrunched together boobs. You could just see it at the neckline, which came down lower than I was (now) comfortable with. Still… it is* comfortable. It’s a yes.*

The next shirt looked like it should fit, but didn’t. It was loose at the bust and everything hung down. What the hell? They were the same size.

The next shirt was looser than the first, but still hugged, and didn’t cleave. I’m okay with this.

The fourth shirt was tight in the bust, and fluttered around my tummy like a dress. None of this makes sense.

Shirt five was fit the best. Loosish and comfortable.

I threw the two over the side, “I can just wear three shirts all year, right?”

“No. I’ll get more. Try on the pants.”

Goddamn it. I needed new underwear. Not for any aesthetic reason, but because I was wearing hospital underwear. “Mom? Can…” Oh god. “…can you get me a package of panties?”

“Already did, dearheart,” They slid under the door. “They’ve been wrung up. Go ahead and split them open.”

Dear mom, if I had to have any parent it would be you, -Ash. They were uniform color. No flowers, no lace bits. Just pastel panties.

Pastel panties without a way to tell you were to face them. No fly.

“Tag goes on the left, dearheart,” Mom said from outside, and then “I’m going to get more shirts.”

I got out of the mesh hospital underwear, and then into the panties as fast as possible, avoiding everything happening in the mirror. They fit snug, and I expected them to crush my balls, and then realized where I was, and depressed myself all over again

The first pants were fine in the hem, and very very wrong in the crotch. When I got it to the waist the inseam was trying to crawl straight up my vagina. Mirror check. Hint of the camel toe I had so longed to see just a couple of days ago. Hard pass.

And so the charade went on. More clothes over the side, more trying on, more throwing back. More failures than successes.

Finally I had four pants, and six shirts, and mom said that was enough to get us between laundry days. “Take the tags off of one outfit,” she said, “Bernice says it’s okay. I’ve already wrung the rest up.”

I slipped on a pair of jeans. Stone washed, and a little too tight. They looked great on the girl in the mirror though. Made her ass look spectacular. That and a white shirt, and I was good to go get shoes.

I came out of the dressing room to see my mom with a shopping cart piled high. I tried to tuck my hands in my pockets like a cool guy. “Mom? I can’t fit my hands in my pockets.”

“You won’t be able to fit anything else in them either.”

“Why?”

“Pockets are for genders that get to feel comfortable and have a place to put things. There’s only one of those. Guess which one it is?”

“I’m guessing it’s the one I just got kicked out of.” A little gallows humor.

“Good guess. Shoes are worse, but we’re gonna give it our best shot.” She paused, “And Aisling? The white bra is there for your white shirts.

I looked down to see the black of the bra shining through the thin white shirt. This will never end. Let it all burn. “Well I’m not changing right now.”

Mom gave me another look, and then said, “There are times when making that mistake is appropriate, but you’ll find out when they are. Usually they’re laundry days but…”

“Please stop, mom.”

The mens shoe section was full of comfortable shoes. The womens shoe section was full of heels. And boots with heels. And sandals with heels. “Rule two mom, no heels.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to, dearheart. I eschew them whenever possible.”

She looked around. Mens shoes are ordered by group. There are sandals, then there are sneakers, then there are dress shoes. Women’s shoes are thrown at the shelves, and fuck you for even trying to find anything. You’re lucky we even stacked the sizes together, ladies.

So we wandered, and my mom tried to find sneakers, and… and I looked at shoes. Rule no.2 was going to be very hard, I realized. Everything had a heel. Even if it was a little heel, it was a heel. Rule no.2 was going to hold strong in the face of adversity. I picked up a pair of ladies Vans and caught my mom’s eye.

“Lets see what your new size is, because you’re not a men’s eleven anymore, I can tell you that.”

Yeah, I had big feet. What they say about big feet holds true, if the locker room is to be believed. I wasn’t popular, but I had reason to gloat. Yeah. Had.

I hadn’t put shoes back on in the dressing room, what would have been the point. So it was a simple thing to lay my foot on the always cold metal measuring thing.

“A four and a half,” mom said. “Well you know what they say about girls with small feet.”

“No? What do they say?” It was hard to keep the alarm out of my voice.

“They have trouble finding shoes that fit,” my mom pushed her glasses up her nose. “In your case we’re in luck. Try these on.”

I pulled the paper stuffing out of the toe, and slipped them on. Comfortable sitting. Comfortable standing too.

My gaze focused on a pair of slipper things, and unbidden something leaped into my mind. I’ll have to come back for those.

I fled the shoe aisle, and from there the store, and finally into my bedroom.

If you are here for the plot, please go back a chapter. Due to a clerical error on my part, it did not appear on the front page.
If you are here for the part where a TG girl masturbates for the first time, go wild.

Exploration

I don’t have any idea what my vagina looks like.

Do all girls know that? Some of them? None of them?

I was home, I’d put stuff away. It was late and I didn’t have school any time soon. “We’ll work on getting you enrolled in a bit,” Mom had said on the drive home. “I have to look into schools in any case. You’ve had a busy week.”

And I was only three days in.

I was in my room, leaning on my door, and wondering what to do with myself. When I had gone to live with my father I left my laptop here. He had promised to buy me a new one, then hadn’t. It was gathering dust on my old desk.

Okay, Ash. What’s first order of business?

Well social media was out. There was nothing I could stand to look at on facebook or twitter. I sat down anyway. Opened the lid, and ran updates.

For a teenager with a broadband Internet connection, I hadn’t seen many vaginas. The porn I watched was mostly blowjobs. That’s what I wanted more than anything. The thought of a woman putting her mouth on my dick was a huge turn on for my adolescent brain. In some of my favorites there was some sex. I had usually come by the time it came on.

I got up and locked the door to the bedroom. Then shed my pants with a little difficulty. In the end I had to stand on one leg to peel them off of the other. I sat on the edge of the bed and shed my panties as well.

Yeah. That’s it. Not very helpful from this angle.

I had a full length mirror on the other side of the bed. I did a little somersault across to it. Okay. Here goes. I put my hands on my knees, still tight together, and didn’t move them. Look, you have a vagina now. You might as well see what you’re packing. Hands, still on my knees I opened my legs. Well that’s still not helpful. I hadn’t realized just how down this thing faced.

Okay. Lean back. Open legs.

Well that was certainly different than what I had before. It was all folds and more folds. I felt terrible being turned on by all of this, but… I scooted a finger across it. I thought I would feel myself getting wet. This is just there. I’d been feeling a familiar feeling in my loins (if you’ll excuse the lame term), but nothing like an erection.

It had a similar consistency to my own precum, maybe a little thinner. And it smelled very arousing. Like a musky flower, all sex and potency and sin. Well I was a lesbian now so…

I smeared my hand around in a way I was definitely going to have to do more of in a second, and licked my fingertips. Like salt flavored honey. A slightly revolting but entirely accurate description. None of that, “sweet/spicy nectar” here. I tell it like it is.

This time when I reach down there’s a lot more of it, and I’m feeling my breasts getting hot. When I lick my finger,s a little trail sticks to my bottom lip and I catch it with my tongue.

Alright, pretty well lubed down there, lets try this—GAAAAAAAGH!

It felt like someone had reached up inside me, through the floor of my pelvis, and was trying to rip me apart. All the porn stars just go right inside. Why can’t I do that? Pain. Pain was why I couldn’t do that. My eyes were watering as I pulled my finger out. That was just one finger. Don’t people use their whole fist sometimes? I tried again to see if it would be better the second time. If anything it hurt worse.

I stuck my finger in my mouth and sucked on my pussy juices as a consolation prize. Then that got everything running again, and my brain just spun around from horny to frustrated to desire to not feel pain.

Wait! Women used vibrators on their clits, right? Maybe I could just use my hand, and kind of bounce it up and down. Which part of me is* my clitoris?* I practiced drumming my fingers everywhere to see if I could find it, encountering various degrees of pain.

Okay. Well apparently I’m so bad at being a girl, I can’t even masturbate. I sat up and looked in the mirror some more. I was still wearing a bra. No one was here. May as well oggle the first real pair of breasts I’ve seen. I couldn’t get the bra to unsnap. I had to pull myself out of the shoulders, and then pull it off over my head, and throw it across the room and stick my tongue out at it.

I sat back on the bed again, hands on knees, and couldn’t help but notice that my cleavage (I had cleavage!) went almost to my neckline like this. I took a hand away to pick on up. Heavy, and kind of like holding a water balloon. In my hand like that my finger tip brushed my nipple. Oh my god! No like stroking an erect penis on the pleasure scale, but it had a lot of potential.

I put my breast back down, and looked at them in the mirror. Did I have big nipples, or normal? They looked big. Can… can I suck them? An emphatic ‘no’. Brushing? Rubbing? Rolling? Pinching? God yes!

I lay back down to concentrate, put a finger around each nipple and experimented different ways of pinching them. Never too hard, sometimes too soft. I found my favorite was to roll one around with the edge of my finger, tracing the areola, while my other hand gave little twists to the other side.

It was delicious, but felt like it would take me forever to get where I was going. Maybe taping wasn’t the right idea. Lets explore the downstairs the same way. Right hand still tweaking my nipple, I let my left creep down. I was even wetter than before, if that was possible. I licked my fingers again and got back to business. This is okay to touch. This is okay to touch. This hurts.

It was like bare skin on the head of my penis. I am—was—uncircumcised, and if you haven’t had experience with having a foreskin, let me put it this way. Touching it with anything dry, even your silken underwear, hurts way too much to stand for long. That especially goes for your fingers.

Some part of touching myself hurt just as much. In a different way, but not much different. That must be my clitoris. Or maybe not. Because right above that spot, over a little ridge was another place. And when I put my finger on that place? Bingo. Now I knew the route, just had to figure out how to drive.

Nope. Tapping it was still a bad idea. Pinching, like my titties? Nothing to pinch a hold of. Rubbing down seemed to work. Maybe circles. Yeah, circles was good.

It was around here that I became cognizant that I had raised my legs off the floor. Some thing in my body wanted to spread them open, and lift them up. My body was telling me good things, as my clitty sent little pulsing shivers, and warm humming pleasure over my body. I decided to indulge the feeling, and got my knees up around shoulder height. Hmmm. I couldn’t rub my titty that way. But my fingers on my pussy were feeling so good. And legs up just felt right.

I’ll just quicken the pace then. I hit the first hill. The one that lets you know you’re on the right track.

‘This direction to orgasm town.’ My right hand found itself creeping up my calve as I went. My legs went further and further back as I climbed higher.

Then my climax swept over me. I may have shrieked it his so hard. As good as the first orgasm, when I was twelve and desperate to feel it for the first time. My legs convulsed as every muscle in my body tensed up. Then it went on. And on. I kept shuddering and jerking and thrashing around, as I rode my fingers through it until the end.

When I came as a guy, once the ejaculation started that was it. The drop off was sudden. Here my orgasm just seemed to keep going until I couldn’t handle any more. And once I put my leg down and took my hand away, there wasn’t any drop off. Just a long, gentle, ride down.

Everything around me seemed soft, and I was warm, and snuggly.

Only after five or six minutes did my legs get uncomfortable from where I had splayed them out coming down. After only a few more minutes, I moved them somewhere more comfortable. After many more minutes I got up, and found my panties and my bra.

I dug around in my dresser for a pair of flannel pajama bottoms, and curled up in bed; to fall asleep in seconds. Dreaming soft dreams.

Staring

I woke to find my hands pressed in between my thighs. That should have been uncomfortable and wasn’t. It was comforting. I rolled over to go back to sleep and found that everything was wrong with my body.

Not that. That was still wrong, but I had woken up with some of the knowledge permeating my brain.

What was wrong was my breasts. One was half-in, half-out of it’s bra cup in one direction. The other was half-in, half-out at an opposing trajectory. One shoulder strap was on, the other was pinning my arm at my side.

I found my way sitting, and tried to get out of the damn thing without damaging it. I flung it across the room again and collapsed on my covers. Well,* you masturbated last night. Might do it again.* Scared too. Felt too good. I was not going to get into this girl thing. I tried to go back to sleep and found myself reliving last night in my head. What must a tongue feel like on that spot? Probably not as good as a blowjob.

Probably.

But I hadn’t eaten since last night, and breakfast called to me. Time to go downstairs and face my mom while not thinking about the taste of my own pussy on my lips.

Bra back on, I tried to decide how dressed I wanted to get dressed, and went into the kitchen in pajama pants and a new shirt.

Mom was in the kitchen reading the paper. The sunlight streamed through the windows, I would guess it was after one. I was allowed to sleep in. Teenagers are supposed to do that.

“How was your night?” Mom asked. There was an empty cup of coffee next to her elbow. I needed some of that.

“Good,” Transcendent? Illuminating? “Is the coffee cold?”

“Mm-hmm. You’ll need the microwave.”

“Yech.” I set about making some fresh.

“Rinse the pot then.”

“I know mom.” She was reading the paper. She couldn’t possibly have seen that I was about to turn on the coffee maker with three lines of cold coffee still in the pot. I added one more scoop than was recommended, made toast and then came to sit next to her at the table. I pulled the comics too me and started the process of folding them right so that I could read them in order. Mom always folded one page behind the other when she read. It was an age old process.

The paper didn’t carry Dilbert. I was glad. I read over every strip, no matter how unfunny it is, I can’t help myself. Yes, especially Garfield, a strip carried in 2,500 papers that has never featured a single joke. Unless you count that dog-cum-drinking one.

And I do.

Mom got up to rinse out her coffee cup at the same moment my toast popped. She brought it to me with bonus prize orange juice. I set about slathering the blackened crust with butter while I finished “Blondie,” and wished to hell I could stop reading that strip. Man is lazy and eats sandwiches late at night. Those three words cover 90% of America, and this guy still can’t write a joke that anyone relates to.

There. I hope you enjoyed this small commentary on the state of newspaper cartoons in America.

If you’re not reading from America, let me add that Fred Basset and Andy Capp are garbage.

I munched toast and orange juice and tried to decide what I was going to do with the rest of my day. I had got out of bed, so there had to be a rest of my day, even if the plan was to sleep through it.

“Please don’t sleep through the rest of the day,” my mom asked me, as she set coffee next to me.

“What else should I do? My life is ruined.”

“It works better if you put your hand like this,” mom put the back of her wrist to her forehead and cast her head back. “Watch. I have errands to run! And I need my son’s help.”

Something about that hurt, and it wasn’t my pride. “I’m your daughter now.”

“Are you? You made rules.”

I made a pphhhhhhhhhp noise, then got to something that had been bothering me, “I woke up and my boobs were everywhere. How do you keep them in your bra while you sleep?”

She laid her hand on my wrist, “You take it off before you go to sleep.”

Face flushed, I laid my head in my hands.

“I was wondering why you were wearing it under your pajamas. They’re not the most comfortable things, you can take them off when decency allows.”

I put down my coffee mug, “I need to go do something.”

Upstairs I took off my shirt and stood in front of my mirror with just bra and pants. Dressed? Not today. I tried to undo the bra from the back, and got one hook undone. With the bra like that, I couldn’t get the second one and had to turn it around again.

Then I put my pajama shirt on and went back downstairs.

“I suspect that feels better,” Mom said, from the table. She’d finished the paper and was knitting with her new cup of coffee.

I sat down and felt everything on my chest shift around. Do I feel comfortable talking about it with her? Barely. But I had questions to ask, and she was safe. “It’s better, but everything is so floppy. How do you deal with that?”

“You just do. What do you want to do today?”

“I just want to sit and read for a bit, while you go to work.”

“I’ve canceled with all my clients for this week, you get my undivided attention. I mentioned that we have errands to run.”

“I can’t go anywhere like this.”

She sat back and put her knitting on the table. “Well, you can’t stay home for the rest of your life. And if you’re going to stay here, we need to take care of logistics.”

I gave a deep, teenage, sigh, “You love logistics.”

“Do you want your allowance, or not?”

“Oh right. Yes I would like some money please.”

“Well then you have to wear something you can go to the bank in.” She picked up her knitting again. “Why don’t you get dressed, and then we’ll go out.”

Upstairs I opened my closet to find some new pants. I hung my clothes in the closet now, instead of putting them in drawers. Actually I mostly stored my clothes on the floor. That was unlikely to have changed with my gender.

What did change with my gender was the way it hurt when I opened the door and knocked it straight into my right boob. Damn that hurts. I have a new set of dimensions now. More depth to my body.

These pants. Getting them on was a pain. I had to scoot them up over my hips. They were boot cut, but they still clung to everything above my calves. That shirt I was in. Shoes. Smack my left boob going out the door. Why can’t I go through a door anymore?

Mom grabbed her keys, and I slumped after her to the car.

“How much do you think you’ll spend in a month?” Mom was taking me to her credit union where I had once got a children’s account. You know the kind. Where they give you a folder to store quarters in, and you feel like you’re special, and you can save money now, and you grow up and realize you can’t.

Target last night I was out in the night time. In a place where everyone was concentrating on shopping. As we stood in line at the bank, I was aware that everyone was looking around at the other customers. Making judgments. I put my head down, tried to hide inside myself. Avoided anyone’s eyes.

I hung close to my mother, and wanted to reach out and take her hand, like a little boy. Wanted her to chase off all the eyes looking at me. When she felt me near she rubbed my back and I felt a bit better. “As far as their all concerned, you’re just a teenage girl, here with your mother,” she kept her voice low.

“I can’t handle this,” I whispered to her.

“I think you can. We’re up next.”

Mom told the teller we needed an appointment to set up a joint account, and we got directed to a little waiting section, and were told to wait in it. Because that was what it was for. I sat and crossed my legs and found a magazine.

My mom sat down and pulled out her knitting. Then she looked at me for a moment and seemed like she wanted to say something, and didn’t. Instead she knit, until she looked up like she was going to say something else. And didn’t. And then set her knitting aside. “Aisling, you’ve seen how a woman crosses her legs.”

“Yeah?”

“Do you know why?

“I never thought about it.” The way I was doing it now was uncomfortable, for some reason.

“If you were wearing a skirt, you’d be showing everyone your panties right now.”

“Well I’m not wearing a skirt, mom.” Rule no.2 hangs on tight.

“Just something to keep in mind, dearheart.” She went back to knitting.

I picked up the magazine again, then waited. When I was sure she wasn’t paying attention to me, I put one knee on top of the other. I could feel the balls of my femurs line up when I did it. It was much more comfortable this way. I switched back to ankle on knee in an act of defiance, realized that sucked, and put them back.

My mom had a tiny smile on her face as she continued to knit. I wiggled my ‘on top’ foot from the knee, and then stuck my tongue out at her.

Around this time a man in a nice blazer and tie and carefully messy hair came up and offered his hand to mom, and then to me, “Hi, Aisling. Hi Ailene. My name is Cameron, why don’t you come on back to my office?”

Inside a bank office, with its bank desk, and giant bank window, and bank computer, and bank pens, and bank pamphlets, Cameron sat down and leaned back, and stared at me. “So I understand you want to open a joint account with us today.”

“Yes,” mom said, “and I’d like to attach a credit card to the account.”

“Okay,” Cameron turned to his computer, while still staring at me, “let’s see what we’ve got here.”

And so we gave him a bunch of information, and he offered us types of bank accounts, and it was all boring, and all the while I got more and more uncomfortable. Am I imagining it? He’s staring at me, right? He looks at mom sometimes, but mostly he’s looking at me.

I tried to be polite because I didn’t know what was going on. Tried to contribute to the conversation because I was basically an adult. Tried to shake off the uncomfortable feeling that was sitting in the back of my head. Maybe I just don’t like him. He is* a bank stooge.* A beholden of a financial corporation. A bourgeois salesman, without the talent to do something creative or meaningful. Just move other people’s money around. No, that’s not it.

He was making me uncomfortable. I knew my feelings, and I knew that. I just didn’t know why. It wasn’t until mom had finished filling out her forms, and he passed those forms to me, that I watched his eyes and realized. He’s not staring at me. He’s staring at my breasts. His eyes took a moment to dip, and make tit contact, and then flashed back to my eyes again.

I picked up a pen from the desk, and hunched over on myself filling out the forms, trying to make myself as small as I could. My hair fell around my face making a little safety curtain, and I focused on filling in the little boxes very carefully.

After I handed him the forms he left to go get something, and I leaned back in my chair. He was, like, mid twenties. I was fourteen. Even if he was a girl, I wouldn’t want anything to do with him. Well you’ve been checked out now. How did that feel? Bad. I felt really bad. I didn’t know why I was so uncomfortable, and I didn’t know why I didn’t want to just punch him. But my first feeling wasn’t self defense. Well it was, but it wasn’t martial self defense. It was the kind of self defense where you just try to make yourself not a target. Where you run away.

As a guy, I’d always wondered why women didn’t just call people out when they were sexualized. Now I knew. For a start, it was too embarrassing to bring up. He was embarrassing my by staring and telling him not to stare would just call attention to the fact that he was staring. And if I did bring it up, I couldn’t prove he’d been doing it. I couldn’t prove that he had been making me feel uncomfortable, because how could I? All he would have to say is ‘Oh, I wasn’t’ and then the whole thing would be worse.

So when he came back, I just refused to meet his eyes. I turned my body away from him as I took the card he offered me.

He handed me a pamphlet with all my account information, and we left the bank. I could feel his eyes on my ass on the way out the door. I could feel them on my breasts as we walked to the door in the lobby. I could feel them on my crotch as we got into the car. I could feel them all over me as I started to cry.

School

My mom let me take some time to compose myself before she started the car. Again, she didn’t ask anything. I don’t know what she thought happened in there, but I don’t think it was as bad as what actually happened.

When the sniffles had stopped I asked her, “Where are we going next?” Trying to pretend that nothing had happened.

“Well I had a couple appointments scheduled, unless you want to just go home.”

I did just want to go home, but I also wanted to pretend that everything was normal. As normal as getting donkey-punched into the wrong gender could be. “Where are the appointments?”

“A couple of schools, I thought we could take some tours.”

“I’m never going back to school.” I was being petulant, I knew it.

“Well I don’t believe in home schooling, and if I did I wouldn’t think myself qualified. You need someone with a degree in what they teach, and you find them in schools.” She gave me a hard look, as she stopped to wait for traffic out of the parking lot, “So you’re going to school until you’re 18. After that I don’t have any control over what you do.”

“I’ll run away,” I said it earnestly, but there was a smile on my face. Mom was being a mom, and caring for me. They say children need rules to let them know you care. If you had told me that, I would tell you I didn’t believe it. But after today I would know I was lying.

“I’ll have to chipped, like we did with the cat. You know the government can use them to track you from satellites.”

“I that true?” That didn’t sound true. That sounded like something grammpa would post on facebook.

“Sure it’s true. Are you telling me you don’t read your grammpa’s facebook posts?”

“I muted him after he posted the eight hundredth thing about how lazy young people are.”

Mom pulled onto the highway and started for the center of the city. “I used to get those posts during family dinners, and I couldn’t mute them. Who says technology limits society?

We listened to the radio for awhile. Mom liked NPR but had no illusions about how much I loved the news, “You can hook up your phone if you want.” I had to connect my phone to the stereo’s blutooth, and when I’d got that done I got ready to blast some Die Antwoord, when mom said, “No Die Antwoord.”

“They’re good.”

“They’re not.”

“Major Lazer?”

“Who are they?”

“They’re good, you’ll like them,” I said, knowing that she wouldn’t.

Mom took her exit off, “You only say that when you know I won’t.”

“Okay,” I settled, “how ‘bout Jonathan Coulton?”

“Who’s he?”

“Like Weird Al, but he writes all his own songs.”

“Let me hear.”

I started with ‘Re: Your Brains’ because it’s the best way to break someone into Coulton, and by the time mom pulled into the parking lot she was singing along with the refrain, and occasionally flubbing a lyric.

“This is no where near our house, mom,” I said, as we entered the… main hall I guess. The big open part in front of the doors, anyway.

“No, but they have one of the best academic programs in the city, and the light rail comes within walking distance.”

“You want me to ride the train with the junkies?”

“You’ll find it’s nearly painless. Heroin much less so. Try to abstain.”

I pouted, realized that I was pouting like a girl instead of coming up with a witty rejoinder. That girls could come up with witty rejoinders wouldn’t occur to me until I was exposed to Jane Austin, and teenaged friends. “Well I smoked pot once, so I guess I’m ready for the hard stuff.” That got a look of shock from her. “You flinched. You owe me lunch.”

“Lunch has passed dearheart. We barely made it before the school closed as it is. Besides, I’m not enabling your munchies.” She said this as she walked to the counter where a very fat receptionist was working. “Aileen McKinnon, here for a school tour.”

We both had to sign in, and put on name tags, and get our pictures taken, then put on new name tags because the fat guy had screwed it up. The new name tags had our pictures on them, and both our names screwed up.

Stupid Gaelic.

I’m sorry Gaelic. You’re beautiful. Please don’t let one of your little people read this and curse me.

Then he brought out a senior, who looked like he got blasted in the face with an acne gun, wearing a letter jacket and told him we need a tour.

The senior’s name was John and he gave mom and I a cool once over. I shrank deeper into myself, and hated that I couldn’t meet his eyes. But that was it. No lingering gazes, no request for my number. Instead he shook my mom’s hand, and away we went.

He showed us the bigger gym as he told us about the footballer teams that blah blah blah the blah’s in blah, blah, and last year. He showed us the smaller gym as he told us about the cheer squad, I blanked out everything he said after, ‘our cheer squad.’ He showed us the library as he told us about the golf team. What in fuck? This school has a golf team?

I nudged my mother’s elbow, and whispered, “Is this what you came to show me? The golf champions of Denver?”

She interrupted John in the middle of whatever he was talking about, “Why don’t you show us the art labs now?”

He had clearly been leading us back to the front office, but he shrugged, and said, “Sure.”

We walked by the art rooms, where I could see that there were 12 or 14 wheels, and desks that swung up, and— “Are those cintiques?”

“Me-huh-oh,” said idiot John. “I don’t come down here much.”

“Thank you John, you’ve been very helpful,” mom told him. Anyone else would think she was giving him a compliment. To me her voice was whithering sarcasm. He turned to lead us away while my mom pulled out her school pamphlet and read through it, not about to move away. I was transfixed. There must have been 10 of them in there, only 8 students, all preoccupied with drawing on the state of the art computer monitors. “They have animation classes,” my mom used the carrot, “two-dee and three-dee.”

That cinched it, “I’m sold.”

“That’s good dear.” She turned to idiot John, “You may take us back to the front office now.”

John did that, eager to get rid of us and text his friends about how boring his office job was, a hobby he would enjoy for the next 50 years.

We met next with the counselor and figured out my school schedule. The schedule went 1st–8th on Monday. Then on Wednesday and Friday it went 1, 3, 5, 7 and Tuesday and Thursday it went 2, 4, 6, 8. On the big class days there was a half hour for lunch if you didn’t have that period off, and you got an hour and a half lunch on two days of the week. This meant that optimal scheduling was to have both 5th and 6th off and have an hour and a half for lunch every day of the week.

Unfortunately the counselor wanted me to sign up for seven classes, and I couldn’t make the case that I needed something off with my mom right there. And I had to choose from a bunch of pre-reqs in any case. Might as well get them all out of the way. Needed a year of English before I could take another language. “They have Latin,” my mother said.

“Why would I want to learn Latin?”

“Don’t you want to read all of the graffiti in Pompeii?”

“Do you think that will be on the test?”

“I’m sure you can write an essay on the meaning of cacatur cave malum.”

She has that smile, where she’s said something really funny, and she knows no one got the joke. Fortunately I had a phone.

The counselor suggested design, so I could take real art, and I agreed. Anything to get that idiot class over with. There was also algebra that I wasn’t interested in, until he said it was a prerequisite to code, which I was. Then he started in on the social— “Shitter beware? Really mom?”

“See? Latin is useful.”

My counselor smiled like he got the joke, and we both knew he hadn’t. I signed up for drama, instead of speech, and got a 5th period lunch.

“Okay, well then we’ll see you Monday,” the counselor said. “We’ll have a badge and a student ID when you drop by here in the morning.”

Mom looked at me, “Can you handle Monday?”

“Would it matter if I couldn’t.”

She turned to the counselor, “Aisling has just been released from the hospital. She’s fine, but she needs the doctor to clear her before she can begin school. Can we do the week after next?”

Mr. Counselor nodded, “Sure, I’ll just put everything back a week in our system.”

“Yes, it would matter,” my mother said, turning back to me.

To embarrassed to thank her, I just bit my lip and nodded, and hoped she got the message.

It wasn’t until we were outside and I had thrown my name tag in the trash that I managed to say, “Thank you. I’m gonna need this week.” It was still difficult to get used to my voice. I was constantly clearing my throat when I talked.

“I know,” mom said. She unlocked the car and we sat inside. “Aisling,” she didn’t start the car, “you know how much I believe in therapy.”

“Yes, mom.”

“I have an appointment set up for you. Doctor Malmon. He’s worked with more than a few adolescent cases of gender dysphoria. I think it would be a good idea for you to go.”

“Can I think about it, mom?”

“Of course dearheart.”

She turned the engine over and I thought about it. It would be very nice to talk to someone. I hadn’t seen a therapist during my time with my father. He believed that talking to someone you had to pay was some sort of weakness. And my mom was being great, and super understanding. But there was so much I was scared to tell her. About my body. About how I was feeling. About the way I felt about my body. About everything at all.

“Okay,” I said, as we took our exit off the freeway, “I’ve thought about it. When is my appointment?”

“Tomorrow afternoon.”

“Oh good, I can sleep in—regular.”

“Regular for you dearheart.”

I got out of the car, and went up to my room, where I found a copy of Slaughterhouse 5 sitting on my bed. This time the dedication read, “Aisling,” I got that now, “Vonnegut wasn’t right, but he wasn’t wrong either.” It was another first edition, hardcover, first printing. Worth about (google search), $3,500.

Well when you have all of time and space at your disposal, what else would you give someone.

Over the next several days, I read, and I got to know Dr. Malmon. He had time for me every day for the next week, which was a big relief because I had a lot to cover.

Slaughterhouse 5 is the story of Kurt Vonnegut ending up in Dresden during the firebombing. He was captured and the prisoners stored in a slaughterhouse (slaughterhouse 5), which is why he survived the devastation of the city. Only it’s also not about that. In the middle of writing the book, he takes off on a science fiction story about Billy Pilgrim who has come “unstuck in time.” Billy’s consciousness moves through his life non-linearly, skipping around through the events. Halfway in I found, during the part where Billy Pilgrim is kept in an alien zoo, the passage Mr. Glome was talking about:

There were five sexes on Tralfamadore, each of them performing a step necessary in the creation of a new individual. They looked identical to Billy–because their sex differences were all in the fourth dimension.

One of the biggest moral bombshells handed to Billy by the Tralfamadorians, incidentally had to do with sex on Earth. They said their flying-saucer crews had identified no fewer than seven sexes on Earth, each essential to reproduction. Again: Billy couldn’t possibly imagine what five of those seven sexes had to do with the making of a baby, since they were sexually active only in the fourth dimension.

The Tralfamadorians tried to give Billy clues that would help him imagine sex in the invisible dimension. They told him that there could be no Earthing babies without male homosexuals. There could be babies without female homosexuals. There couldn’t be babies without women over sixty-five years old. There could be babies without men over sixty-five. There couldn’t be babies without other babies who had lived an hour or less after birth. And so on. It was gibberish to Billy.

—Vonnegut, Kurt. Slaughterhouse-Five: Or The Children’s Crusade, A Duty Dance With Death pp. 145–146. 1969.

I put the book down to think after I read that, and didn’t pick it up for a day while I meditated on it. Not right, but not wrong indeed, Mr. Glome.

Therapy

“Do you believe me?” I asked Dr. Malmon. It was our fourth session together. I had just finished explaining Mr. Glome to him. I expected to hear the tired refrain, ‘I believe that you believe.’

“It’s hard not to,” The shrink said instead. “You gave me permission to consult with your doctors and other experts.” He paused and gave me a look, “I hope you’ll understand if I leave the extra dimensional aliens out of my consultations—but from what I’ve seen… your explanation is as likely as any other.

“What I mean,” he continued, “is that there is no explanation for what’s happened to you.” He gave a little chuckle at the thought. It hurt a bit, but I understood his dark humor. Hard not to laugh about it, even though it had happened to me. “Doctor Gunn in particular was very distressed. She wants to run tests and make sure you haven’t imagined the whole thing. An MRI, a DNA panel. She wants to science an explanation out of it. If the explanation is actually science fiction—maybe I should say ‘science fact’—I think it would make her head explode.”

I liked him. It was nice to have a psychologist who didn’t just ask what I was feeling, but was willing to help and provide input.

Dr. Malmon continued, “Joann, and then your mother, and you too, I think; were all strongly against the idea. Medical ethics prevent her from doing anything. Do you know the story of David Reimer?”

I shook my head.

“Reimer’s penis was destroyed during a botched circumcision. On the advice of his doctor he was reassigned as a girl and raised as one. All while the doctor, John Money was writing a book on how gender was learned. The old ‘nurture or nature’ question.”

I interrupted him, “What’s that?”

“The question of whether we’re born some way—nature— or raised that way, nurture. Prone to violence, or caring; or our upbringing is responsible. Most often the debate is raised with homosexuality. The ‘pray away the gay’ crowd loves the nurture theory, as you might expect. Myself, along with the majority of medical science take a different view.

“But there are other implications,” he continued, “Whether Hitler, for instance, was destined to become a maniac from birth, or whether his mother’s preoccupation with ‘cleanliness’ promulgated his dislike of ‘dirty’ races.”

I loved his vocabulary too.

“Hitler was obsessed with dirtiness and disease. His speeches are replete with allusions to the ‘infection’ that Jews and the mentally ill were bringing into the ‘pure’ German race.” He paused and considered for a second, “There are apocryphal accounts that his sex life was both bizarre and disgusting.”

This perked my puberty brain, eager to learn something it could use. “Bizarre how?”

“Well it’s just rumor. But there was a lot of shit involved.”

Good going puberty brain. It slunk away in disgust. “You were talking about the other guy? David?”

“Thank you for reminding me. His doctor engaged in several very questionable experiments, trying to get David to assume feminine gender roles. Including sexual ones. David never came to terms with his artificially assigned gender. Both he and this twin brother committed suicide. In almost every way the doctor’s experiments and theories are a complete failure.”

“I have to turn back into a boy, is that what you’re saying,” I had started to cry, and I didn’t know why. Scared of the surgery, I suppose. Scared that I could never be a real man again. Scared that I would want to stay this way? Probably not. That thought definitely had never ever entered my mind.

Is what I kept telling myself.

“For my own mental health I mean,” I added. I didn’t want to commit suicide. And I didn’t want to want to commit suicide.

“I have some thoughts about that, but why don’t you continue to share.”

I told him more about the past week, my fears of going out in public, which had—not subsided—but gradually decreased. I could go to the grocery store without wanting to flee in shame now.

“I think we should stop there,” he said. “I want to talk more about what I’m thinking tomorrow.”

Mom took me home, and it was her turn to choose the music. She went with the classic 90s station, instead of classical classical.

After dinner I was sitting at my computer when I heard my gramma call. Gramma only calls the land line. She learned the number decades ago, and refuses to learn another one. So my mother kept the land line and so I could talk to gramma too, there was a phone in my room. Mom picked it up, and I waited for the, ‘Gramma wants to talk to you’ shout. I waited ten minutes and didn’t hear it, so I called to mom, “Mom, I need some help with something.”

“I’m on the phone Aisling,” she called. I knew she would take the pone away from her ear, and cover the receiver, and that’s when I picked up my phone. She never heard the ‘click’ as I got on the line.

I hit the mute button fast, before calling, “Never mind, I found it.”

“… Sorry about that, mom, Ash needed something.”

“That’s okay, tell me more about it.”

“He’s just in so much distress. It’s terrifying me. There’s nothing I can do to help him with her—condition.” She was already confusing pronouns. How does that* make you feel, Ash.* I wasn’t sure.

“I feel so helpless here.”

“Have you talked with your therapist?” Gramma was a doctor too, but of podiatry. She got mom into therapy young, like me, and it stuck. Hard.

“Yeah. She wants me to stay empathetic as I can. I’m hiding so much from Ash. I can’t let her see the way I’m freaking out, it would just hurt him more. He needs a strong role model. Someone to let her know that everything is going to still be okay. That she’s still loved and it will work out for the best.”

“There’s no one that can do that better than her mother can, dearheart,” gramma told her.

“I know that, and thank you. But keeping up this exterior of calm is wearing me down.” Mom gave a little sniffle, “I know that she’s strong enough to handle it. She’s young, and he has a huge future ahead of her. He’s not going to let this slow him down, I know it. But standing on the sidelines, and hoping every time she falls down that she’ll get back up is truly heartbreaking.”

“Do you remember when you came down with whooping cough?” Gramma asked her. “You were a rare case. I had you vaccinated but one of your classmates still managed to give it to you when you were fourteen.”

“I couldn’t forget mom, I cracked a rib coughing.”

“For 98 days—I counted—you were hacking and coughing and crying and despairing. And there was nothing I could do. The bacteria was in your esophagus, and you had to get it out. I had to watch you struggle. Hold your hand when you woke up in the middle of the night, coughing so hard you threw up.”

“I peed. Several times. Once in class.” They both laughed, but mom sounded hysterical.

“You came home crying. I had to watch it all, and do whatever I could. Now your in the same situation, and I know if I can do it, so can you.”

“Mom, this isn’t going to go away though. It’s permanent.”

“So you said. And I’m sure you’ll explain it when you’re ready. In the meantime you need to be there for your child. I know you have the strength.”

They tried to move on from the subject from there, and after a few seconds I hung up the phone.

I waited a couple of minutes, thinking in my chair. My knee was tucked under my chin again, up next to my boob. I had found myself touching my breasts occasionally. Something about it was comforting. I wasn’t wearing a bra right now, having ditched it almost as soon as I got home.

Then I untucked myself and padded down the hall to my mother’s room. The door was cracked, and I paused, and then pushed it open. She was lying on the bed, in the ‘Disney princess crying’ pose, quietly sobbing into her pillow. As god is my witness I hadn’t the slightest idea what to do. Dad had made her cry sometimes, I remember from being little. So I did then, what I had done further then; sat on the bed next to her and rubbed her back. I hummed our song for a bit, until her tears stopped and she began snoring.

I tucked her in and went to my own room, and crawled into bed. I put one hand between my breasts, and thought long thoughts while my tears dampened the pillow.

“So my mom doesn’t know what to do either,” I told Dr. Malmon.

“How does that make you feel?” I hate that question on general terms, as being a statement that the psychologist has no idea how to relate to you. They’re just trying to fill in until you hit on something they can comiserate with.

In this case he had a point. Identify your feelings, Ash. “Helpless. Scared. Distressed.”

“Your mother is having a hard time with this. Not as hard as you are. But this affects the people who love you, because they love you.” Malmon scooted around in his chair, “I wanted to share some things with you Ash, I think they’ll help. You know that I counsel young people who are transitioning, or want to transition, or want to not want to transition?”

I nodded, trying to figure out where he was going with this.

“Over the week I’ve taken a lot of notes, and do you know the note I haven’t taken?”

“Hmm?”

“Possible gender dysphoria.”

“So it’s a definite then?” Now I really wasn’t sure what was happening.

“Ash, you don’t show any of the signs of dysphoria. You’re not disgusted by your body, you’re perplexed by it. You’re not trying to reassume your gender. You seem to me to be adapting to it.”

Angry I said, “You think I want this? That I wanted it all along?”

“Not the least bit. But you haven’t shown me that you don’t accept it. That you can’t accept it.”

“Does this mean you won’t sign off on my transition?” That terrified me. I think.

“We have to meet for a year before I can. My position will very likely change. But for right now I would not diagnose you as gender dysphoric.”

“Then what am I?” What else could I possibly be?

“To me you look like someone who is trying to deal with bodily trauma. I’ve treated some people with limb loss, and sudden disabilities. That seems more like what you’re going through.” He paused to think some more, trying to moderate what he was saying, “Ash, I think in your case, you’re trying to adapt to a body that doesn’t seem like yours anymore, but you are adapting. What we tell people in cases of trauma, is that you have to stop defining yourself by wht you were and start defining yourself by what you are.”

I felt like, in some way, his words had helped me pass a roadblock. A week ago they would have just made me cry harder. Now I felt like they would help me deal with the days—the life—ahead of me.

I was still a boy. The rules still held. But I couldn’t act like a boy this way and still find myself functioning. “Thank you, doctor Malmon. I’ll think about what you said.” Trite, Ash. Trite but true.

“That’s all the time we have. Say hello to your mother for me. I think we’re seeing each other every two weeks from now on.”

I shook his hand as I got up, and went out the door.

Come what may, I would be ready for school on Monday.

Crew

What does a guy who’s a girl, wear on his first day of school? I had always just gone to school in whatever I happened to put on that day. My mother hated it, but I didn’t see the point in wearing something different on the first day. Today I stood in front of my closet, and wondered what I was going to wear. This shirt. It was the one with the little loopy bits on it. These pants. They were the ones that fit the best. This bra. It went with the shirt. These underwear. In only a week I had a favorite pair. They were blue. I like blue.

I had an hour before I had to be there and no idea how long the train ride would take. “I can drive you in on the first day.” Mom had said. I hadn’t wanted her to do that. “What if you forget something?” I would call her and have her bring it to me. “I can’t be your go-for, Aisling.” Please mom? “Do you need to do this yourself?” Yes mom.

And so I was going to the light rail station, with an app that told me when I should leave, and what transfers I would need. I had my shiny bus pass in the wallet that wouldn’t fit in my back pocket anymore. I had shoved it inside the backpack, which made the whole point of a pocket wallet moot.

I got my earbuds, made certain my phone had a charge, and emptied my backpack of everything but a notebook and pens. Empty, it slung over my shoulder like a wafting corpse. By the end of the day I would have all new textbooks to hate inside of it.

Downstairs I found a Poptart while my mother stood with her hip on the sink and watched me with a coffee cup in her hands. She handed me my own cup, a travel paper one (we had a stack under the sink) with a lid. “Do you have all your things?”

“Yeah, mom.”

“Do you know how to get there?”

“Yeah, mom.”

“Do you have your phone on you?”

“Yeah, mom.”

“Okay,” she came and gave me a little kiss on the forehead. “You’ll do fine. Call me if you need anything.”

And I was out the door, putting on my earbuds and playing a dubstep mix tape.

I got to the platform just in time to wait five minutes for the train. I sat on a bench in the shade. Shade slowly becomes a necessity in a city that gets 300 days of sunny skies. Despite the Octoberness of the month it was a nice 70 degrees in the morning cold.

Gradually people started filtering in. Cyclists with their road bikes and helmets and silly pants. Business pricks in suits and briefcases, schlubbing with the common folk. 20 somethings, who knows where they were going. And three children, one stroller, and an overworked single mom.

The train came on time. I would learn later to get in the first car. The first car is furthest from the stairs, so no one gets on it except the people who feel like walking the extra 50 feet. This first time I got on the last car, already filling up.

The train wasn’t full, but I had to go down the car to find an empty seat to slump in. There were signs saying not to put your feet on the other seats. I tried to, and with my new height it was much less comfortable than I thought it would be. Instead I crossed my legs, lady style (it really was more comfortable), and read the last bit of Breakfast of Champions while the train took off.

I watched carefully for my stop, then followed my phone the five blocks to the school and checked in at the front desk.

Matt was there, and his first words to me were, “We have a problem with your test scores.” Then he said nothing to me as he took me back to Mr. Counselor, and I sweated over what the problem could be.

“Good to see you again, Miss McKinnon,” Mr. Counselor stood and gestured to the chair in front of his desk. “We didn’t see your scores for the aptitude tests until last week when Albuquerque sent the records over,” he sat and blew out of his lips. “They’re… impressive.”

“They should be. I had to take the dumb test five times.” I had been pulled out of my English class once a week, for five weeks, to fill in little bubbles for an hour.

“Yes. Well. Have you considered an AP class?”

“No. Why?”

Mr. Counselor shuffled his reports, “Because frankly you test out of everything else we offer. I could put you in English four but… Look Aisling, you’re not going to find it challenging.”

“Can I just not take an English class?” I found the prospect a little disappointing, to be honest. I didn’t like to take a class I didn’t need, unless it was an art class. But English offered the opportunity to expand my reading list.

“You can. With Common Core I can just test you out of everything. But frankly,” he used that word too much, “It doesn’t look great on your transcripts. Admission officers are going to ask if you’ve actually learned anything.”

“I was planning on art programs.”

“Frankly, they still look at your English scores. The good ones do at any rate.”

“And AP English looks good.” I wasn’t asking a question.

“AP English your freshman year looks very good.”

“I’m coming in two months into the semester.”

Mr. Counselor leaned forward in his chair, “Frankly,” there was that word again, “I think you can handle it.”

“Okay, AP English it is.”

“Great!” He printed out my new class schedule, and signed an excusal note for me. My new first class was “Health,” which was a pre-rec for PE, for god only knows what reason.

On my way out Matt handed me my ID badge in a little sleeve and told me to keep it visible at all times. I put the lanyard over my neck and went off to ‘Health.’ Seeing the stragglers going to class, I noticed that none of them was keeping their ID visible at all times, and felt like a dork.

I stood outside classroom 234 for several minutes. Okay Ash. A classroom full of people. Not just people, your peers. They are going to judge you. But, they are going to judge you based on what they see. They’re going to see a pretty (you know you’re pretty) girl, who’s just starting a class like a new student.

In all likelihood, no one will care.

Confidence at nearly 30% I opened the door and walked inside.

The teacher was writing notes on the board, looked at me and said, “What do you want?” Like a coach who thinks he’s a drill sergeant. My confidence crashed to nothing, and I felt my eyes water. The guy realized that he’d just yelled at a vulnerable young woman, and that this could get him another meeting with the PTA, and immediately softened his tone. “How can I help you, little lady.”

He surely can’t know that’s worse. If I’d dealt with that all my life I’d be more pissed than embarrassed.

“I’m Aisling McKinnon. I just transferred in.”

He went to his desk, leaned over the drawers, and started pulling things out. “Lets get you on the seating chart.” I glanced at the paper. He’d filled the desks from front to back, so the only spot left was furthest from the door.

I just wanted to come in and sit down. No wait, this was better. If I sat in the back, no one could stare at me.

“Michelle, you have a new friend.” This guy was a real treat. He handed me a syllabus, and the homework plan, and a pamphlet on exercise, then stood straight and went back to the board.

I went to the back and sat next to Michelle. Michelle had hoop ear rings and bangs. Her nails were sharp and I couldn’t figure out how she was using the phone, hidden under the desk, with them on. My ‘Hi’ was not returned, as I pulled out a notebook.

Here are my notes from the first class:

Organs
—Heart, lungs, etc
—Skin largest
—>Groups
—> I leaned this in 5th grade biology
Why am I relearning it just so that I can run around on a track.

The rest was a dragon I drew.

All I had to do was get through history and then I had design and drama and English

Drama was interesting. Ms. Clark wore a skirt, took her shoes off to teach the class, and told us to call her Sally, when no one in the administration could hear us. I was given a small introduction, and asked to tell everyone a secret about myself, and that this secret should be a lie. This is some kind of drama thing. I went with a firm belief in unicorns.

Two months into the semester we were playing a game called “Machine” to warm up. Someone stands in the center and performs a simple repetitive action. Then everyone around them takes turns joining their “machine” with their own simple action.

The key word is “simple”. When I had figured out an action to add (full body stamping the invisible somethings that another student was loading onto what I had decided was a conveyor belt), it only took five or ten stamps before I realized what a mistake I’d made. By the time the warm up ended, five minutes later, I was getting dizzy from exertion. And from throwing my head back and forth.

I wasn’t told how Machine ends. Machine ends with the explosion of the machine. Most of the other students exploded by throwing their arms up and crashing to the floor. Someone next to me exploded by flinging his body through the machine and knocking everyone over.

“Curtis, this is the last time I’m going to tell you to stop doing that,” Sally said. Curtis responded by flailing his body around, and making more explosion noises, which got him detention.

We took our seats, and I noticed that one guy, wearing black pants, a black shirt, black boots, and an army jacket, was waiting for me to choose a seat. Then he sat next to me. I knew I was new, but it was hard not to be shy about it. It’s okay, with luck he won’t talk to you.

“Hi,” he talked to me, “I’m Regular Dave.”

“Aisling,” I told him.

“I know. You were introduced in front of the class, remember? You really believe in unicorns, don’t you.”

Try one word answers, see if that will get him to stop. “Sure.”

Regular Dave nodded like he understood a secret truth. “I do too. As a pure virgin, I’m hoping to tame one.”

Oh my god he’s a Jesus freak. Then Regular Dave put his thumb under a Satanist pendant and gave me a wink.

I stifled a guffaw as Sally started talking to the class, “Okay, we’ve finished up with improv, so now we’re moving on to monologues. You’ve learned to act with your body, now you have to act with your voice. There are monologues starting on page thirty five of the book, but you can choose your own. The one’s in the book should all be under two minutes. If you choose your own, it needs to be under two minutes too, unless you talk to me. By next class you should have a monologue chosen.”

And then she gave us free time to choose our monologues, and everyone spent their time talking instead.

I was sitting in the middle of a group of friends, who all decided that I could be ignored, while they talked around me.

Regular Dave rescued me, leaning in and saying, “Do you already have a monologue.”

I just found out that we had to do them, what are you talking about? “No, why?”

“You haven’t opened your book yet.”

“Oh, no.” I gestured around me, “I was listening to the conversation.”

“It does sound compelling. I’m fascinated to know which one of their classmates is a slut too. Whatever you do, don’t do Sophie’s monologue from Star Spangled Girl.”

“Why not?”

“Because everyone is going to do it.”

“Really?” I picked up my book and started leafing through it to find the offending text.

“At least a hundred and five percent of the girls, and usually one guy too.” He leaned back in his chair.

Don’t touch your hair. Don’t touch your hair. Don’t touch your—goddamn it! I brushed a lock over my ear, and rested my elbow on the back of my chair. My arm ran across my breast as I did so, and I hoped he wouldn’t notice me blush. I still couldn’t touch them in public without feeling like I was doing something wrong. I kept expecting someone to laugh at me every time I brushed them, or adjusted my shirt. “Have you taken this class before?”

“No, I usually sit in on the auditions. Only a year and I’m already sick of that piece.”

“Why do you sit in on the auditions?” I knew I should be feeling shy, but he was just so easy to talk to.

“I’m the STD,” he said it like he expected me to laugh, and I defied him by only raising an eyebrow. “The student technical director.”

I had no idea what those words meant strung together like that, other than he was a student, and directed something technical. Other than the semantics it didn’t tell me a lot. I was about to ask more when Sally took the class over again.

“We have five minutes, so beat the rush hour traffic. On your way out, there are audition sheets next to the door. This semester we’re doing Spring Awakening—” Here Regular Dave threw his hand over his head in the classic “woot” expression, “—And it’s gonna be a lot of fun, David. It’s a hundred extra credit points if you audition.”

On my way out the door Regular Dave walked ahead of me, then stopped and gestured to the board, “You should sign up.” Then he blocked the doorway, and leaned against the wall with his arms crossed.

Well I don’t have to take the role, and the extra credit means I won’t have to do the monologue… “You won’t let me go until I sign up, will you.”

“Nope.”

“Give me your pen.” He whipped a beaten pencil on a clip out of his pocket so fast I almost didn’t see. Then tapped the paper where he wanted me to put my name. I carefully printed it on the line on the sheet, under the word “Crew.” Regular Dave threw me a huge grin, and left without another word.

1st Meeting

Directly after Drama was Math, and I had some problems finding the classroom. I got no introduction this time, just sat down, and was pleased to learn that our section had been covered last year at my old school. This was going to be a breeze. No studying in for this.

And after that was lunch. Which I had been dreading. Occasionally, in the distant past, I had been tolerated at lunch tables. That never lasted long. I never felt like I had anything to contribute. Everyone was trying to make the table laugh the hardest, but all their jokes sounded so stupid to me.

I had pre-packed a lunch, and entered the cafeteria looking for an empty table. There in the back were a few unoccupied, sad, little, unloved bits of refuge, where I could read and pass unnoticed.

On my way toward them I heard someone call my name, “Aising!”

And then several more voices called out, “Hey, Aisling!” or something similar.

Red faced and mortified, I considered hunching over and ignoring whatever bullying was about to start, when Regular Dave called, “Come sit with us.”

I had never been asked to sit with some group. I had never been asked to sit anywhere. Some forgotten feeling rose in me. Hope.

I turned to see a motley collection in the middle of the cafeteria. Spilling off of their small table, and borrowing chairs from other ones. Eight or nine kids, all various ages and genders and sizes, dressed in black pants, almost all of them, and wearing black boots almost exclusively. Regular Dave lounged in a chair with it’s back to me, and had wheeled around to wave his arm for me to come over.

I almost tripped over my shoes coming to join them. Please don’t make an ass out of yourself. Now is not the time to be Loser Ashley.

Regular Dave pulled out a chair and as I sat said, “This is Aisling, she’s one of us.”

Huh. Is this what popular kids feel like? If they didn’t, or they ever had, the wanted to. I didn’t know what I was one of, groups liked to call themselves things, and I didn’t know anything about these guys. None of them were dressed in letter jackets. None of the girls wore makeup, save one, who was only wearing purple eyeliner. None of them were dressed in what I knew fashion was like.

In fact, looking around I could see that I wasn’t one of them. Here I was in a pastel t-shirt, and jeans, surrounded by what looked like a bunch of roadies. And instead of pointing out that I clearly did not belong at their table, everyone said hi and introduced themselves. There was Big Davey, who was big, and Wee Davy, and Regular Dave now made sense. There was a Bree, Autumn, Sarah and Rachel. And there was Jeremy. Jeremy didn’t introduce himself, until two people had introduced himself as Goober. Jeremy clearly didn’t want to be called Goober. He’d been loosing this fight for a long time.

At this time someone else might have talked about what they were wearing in more detail. Couldn’t care less, then or now.

I’ll talk about what was on the table in front of us instead. Cards. Lots of cards were on the table. Perhaps a game of some sort? “What are you playing?”

Autumn put a card on the table, and Wee Davy groaned and threw his down. Then he scooped a small pile of pennies into the center of the table, and Autumn raked them over, taking the pot.

Everyone sat down then, as Autumn shuffled the deck. “Lunch money. Someone give her some change.”

Bree, sitting closest to me pulled a roll of pennies out of her pocket and counted out five to me. “The goal is to take everyone’s lunch money. Normally we play for pennies. I’ve hear of groups that buy in with a hundred dollars.”

Everyone argued over whether that was true until Autumn finished dealing, then argued about it some more while they beat each other with fists, boots, and clubs. Well with cards that represented fists, boots, and clubs. Goober targeted me early on, because I was the noob, then everyone piled on him. After that it was a free for all. I was third from the last, with Bree and Big Davey battling to the finish.

The bell rang, Bree was down further and gave her money to Big Davey, and everyone split up.

I walked off to English feeling like being a girl wasn’t all bad.

Then I opened my locker and ran the door into my boobs and everything sucked again.

Physics was over and I felt the familiar melancholy of a school classroom emptying out. People with places to go, and things to do. The feelings of welcome over lunch had all ebbed away, and I was alone again. Ready to walk to my bus and try to negotiate my way through an unfamiliar system, to an unfamiliar home.

I left the classroom, and followed the flow of people. In the wrong direction I realized, but I didn’t want to look like an idiot and turn around. The school was a loop. I lied to myself and tried to make myself believe that I needed to see the rest of the school in any case.

And then on my way past the auditorium I heard Bree call, “Aisling? Where are you going?”

I turned. Does she want to talk to me? What if I miss my bus? Do I hang out or go home. The decision was easy. I had people. They weren’t friends yet, but they said I was one of them, so maybe that was the start of something. “Home?” I told her.

“Oooooooh, are you changing? Do you have a car?” Autumn was sitting on the floor next to her, chatting with Goober, and I couldn’t tell just what they were all doing here. No one was making any move to leave the school.

Even if they all drive, don’t they want to go home? “I ride the bus. I don’t have a car. Why would I change?”

“Well the meeting is in a half an hour. Are you really going to work in… that?”

I still didn’t have any idea what she was talking about, and vacillated between running away, becoming a nun, and taking a vow of silence; and seeing what the hell she was talking about. I went with the former, moving toward the center of the group, like that was were I was supposed to be, and then asking, “What are you talking about?”

“Oh, honey,” she laid her hand on my wrist, “we have to work on your grammar. It’s ‘what the fuck are you talking about.’”

“Okay, yeah. That.”

“Susan will get here in thirty minutes and unlock the stage. Then we have a short-ass meeting, and get to work.”

One thing to know about me. I find it very hard to confess my ignorance to anything. So standing there, with no idea who Susan was, or what the meeting was going to be about, or what ‘work’ entailed; I just nodded my head. “Oh, Regular Dave didn’t explain that to me.”

“That dumb-ass,” she said the insult fondly. Perplexing. “Hang out with us.” And she sat down. I sat down.

Then the regulars started filing up. Wee David was there next, plopping down with one ear bud in, and jogging his head to music. Big Davey showed up and leaned against the wall.

Everyone turned to Big Davey at this time. Big Davey gave a knowing nod to everyone. Everyone looked like they were going to ask Big Davey a question. Big Davey waited for them to ask.

Autumn finally caved, “Did you get it?”

“It’s in the car, Regular Dave is watching it.”

“Which one did you get?”

Big Davey didn’t answer because Sarah came up at that moment, wrapped her arms around Big Davey and kissed him. “Did you get the Vimle, or the Kivik?”

“I thought we were getting the Färlöv,” Autumn said.

“No one wanted the fucking Färlöv,” Bree told her. Bree was mean. I liked Bree. “It’s a hundred dollars more than we had, and it’s an ugly piece of shit.”

“Sorry, Autumn,” Sarah told her, “but it is an ugly piece of shit. It has throw pillows. What are we going to do with throw pillows?”

“Okay,” I said, “This is a fascinating conversation. Will anyone tell me what the hell you’re talking about?”

Big Davey looked at me, “Should we tell her?”

“She didn’t put any money in, so, fuck no,” Bree said.

“Besides,” this from Autumn, “I wanna see her face when she finds out.”

“My face is right here, you could tell me now, and then you would see it.”

“Not as fun that way, love.”

The door to the stage opened and a woman in her mid fifties with fluffy blond hair propped it open without saying a word. Goober helped Autumn up, Wee David pulled the ear bud from his ear, and everyone filed inside. There was a calm flurry of activity. Everyone knew what needed doing, and they went around turning on the lights they needed, opening up the garage door behind the stage, arranging the curtains. When that was done they all sat down in the garage part, while I was still reeling from my first real encounter with a stage.

It smelled like dust. But so much dust. And so many different kinds. A zoological treasure of species of dust.

There was the dust of the stage itself. Dirt, rubber scuffs, mixed with wood polish. The dust from the curtains, impossible to vacuum, I suppose. Heavy cloth, with a velvet nap, cloth and fabric. There was the dust from the auditorium, a hundred thousand shoes, mingled with the chairs. And the dust from the shop. Sawdust, hot metal. Work dust, that knew it was dangerous. Dust that could lop your finger off, if you hadn’t learned to be careful so hard you no longer thought about how careful you were.

We stood in the center of light and activity but beyond our little island was a dark abyss. The house wasn’t lit, and it was a blank nothing beyond.

I don’t know if what I was feeling had a name, but I wanted to feel it forever.

“It’s like that every time,” Regular Dave said from behind me.

I felt like I had been fooled into a profound experience, and then caught with my pants down, “What am I doing here?”

“I told you, you’re one of us. You’re a techie now.”

Susan was dumpy, not really fat, but over the years her face had melted like a wax sculpture. Everyone was standing around her in the shop. Along the back wall was a pile of lumber on steel bars. They seemed to be there to separate one pile of lumber from another, but I couldn’t tell by what criteria. It made it look like someone had done something to the gravity in here, and a house had fallen sideways onto the wall and disintegrated. There was a table saw, and I knew what that was because it was in the middle of a table. All the other things? Well they were sharp things, and probably had names, so that momma sharp thing could tell them apart.

“We’re finalizing the designs for the set this year,” Susan told us, “so it’s platforms and flats for the next two weeks, because everything we have is in really bad shape.” She turned to me, “What’s your name hun.”

“This is Aisling,” Sarah said. “She’s cool.” I tried not to beam.

Then Susan killed my vibe, “Those shoes are okay for today, Aisling. But Wednesday I need to see you in some boots, or you don’t touch a thing in here. There’s lumber down stairs in the truck, go bring it up. I want 15 platforms done today.”

And then everyone filed out, and went downstairs, and propped the door open. In the back was a truck, but not like a truck. Like a truck. Not a truck that you buy because you think it’ll be cool to have a truck. Like a truck you buy, because you need a truck. A scaffolding had been welded along the back so that a bunch of plywood sheets could be stacked lengthwise while the rest of the truck was filled with 1x and 2x. I looked around, chagrined to see that everyone else was wearing, or putting on, heavy work gloves. I was trying to decide if I should say something along the lines of, ‘Oh you guys use gloves? I stopped a long time ago’ when I was jerked out of my plan. I looked down to see Rachel had slapped a pair of rat eaten gloves into my chest.

“Here, I just bought new ones,” then she climbed into the truck and started passing big hunks of wood to people.

Bree was the first in line, and I expected her to take a 2x, and then bring it inside with someone’s help. I expected wrong. She took one, and then another, and then another, and then another. At three she swung around, very carefully, adjusted them on her shoulders, and took off. Well okay. But that’s Bree, Sarah won’t—Sarah took four. Autumn took four. So it went until it was my turn in line and we were out of 2x4s. Oh thank god, I can probably carry four of the skinny ones. And Rachel put four on my shoulder, and I said, “Hurk.”

She stopped, and did her best not to look at me with pity, “By the end of the month, you’re going to be throwing those around like they’re toothpicks.”

I gave her a wan smile, and spent the next ten minutes trying to get them inside without fainting, while people carrying a lot more passed me on the stairs. I managed one more load, and by that time the guys were carrying in the plywood, three to four at a time.

I put my load on the pile, which Wee Davy was busy sorting. He had a forty gallon trash can next to him, and was throwing smaller pieces of wood into it, while he shuffled the other stuff around. “Hey,” I asked him, “does everyone always know what they’re supposed to do here?”

Wee Davy looks at me a little confused, “She told us what to do, we’re making platforms.”

“You aren’t making platforms,” I don’t know why this bothered me. I felt like I fit in, and didn’t fit in.

“No, I’m organizing the lumber, so that other people can make platforms. Then I’ll make platforms.”

“Okay,” It was time to admit my ignorance, “how do I make platforms?”

“Oh!” He seemed to get something, and threw the planks into his hands into the trash can. “We have to get Rachel or Regular Dave, I can’t certify you on anything. Come with me.”

On the stage there were three teams of two, each one working over the plywood with tape measures, and chalk lines. Rachel and Regular Dave and Susan were talking as a group, while everyone worked. Wee David didn’t even wait to interrupt, “Aisling needs to get certified on everything before she can start.”

Susan nodded, “Will you do that Rachel, get a form out of the desk, and put it on the wall.”

Rachel nodded, turned and appraised me. “Do you have a hair tie?”

That’s probably one of the girl things mom wanted me to buy. “Not with me, no.”

“Alright, we’ll have to get a rubber band. You can’t go into the shop with your hair loose, it has to be up.”

“Why?”

“So a band saw doesn’t catch it and rip your scalp off.”

“Hair up in the shop, got it.”

Rachel pulled a form out of a desk inside the shop, threw a rubber band at me, and misspelled my name on the form. “No, it’s spelled A-I-S-L-I-N-G.”

“Aysling?”

“It’s Gaelic.”

She handed the form to me and I corrected the spelling. Then she took it, put it on the wall, and screwed it in with a screw gun. “There.” She looked at me and waggled the gun, “What’s the point of keeping thumbtacks around?”

Over the next half hour I was taken through the shop and told all of the ways not to do things. This is a miter, hold this, don’t do this, don’t do this, don’t do this. Here’s a quick square, use it like this, not like this, not like this. This is a band saw, don’t touch this, don’t put your hand here, don’t lean. Here are the nuclear launch codes. Don’t press this button, or this button, and especially not this button. And on and on like that.

What she didn’t ever explain was how to do anything, just how not to do it. She assumed that I would figure out what worked. And at that point I wasn’t sure what I could possibly be doing here.

And then I got to build a platform and fell in love again.

Platforms are the Lego of stagecraft. They’re the bits that actors walk on, or stand on, or talk on, or whatever it is actors do. A platform is just like it sounds. A 4x8 piece of 3/4 inch ply, with 2x4 runners. You put them on legs, and stabilize them, and they can be anything you want, as long as you want something that you stand on at a certain height.

Rachel put a screw gun in my hand, and handed me some screws, “Do not ever put the screws in your mouth,” she said, speaking around two screws sticking out of her lips. “This runner is cut, put two screws here.” She watched me. “Now put two here.” “Good.” “Do the same on the other side.” “This needs to be cut,” she handed me a 2x4. “The ply is four feet across, and there’s a two by on either side, how long does it need to be?”

“Umm,” Do some quick math— “Three feet eight inches.”

“Right—” I turned to cut my first piece of wood, ready to step into the fire, “—but wrong,” she finished. “Two by fours are measured before their trimmed. They’re actually one and a half inches thick, and three and a half inches wide.”

“Okay,” More math thinking, man I’m not used to this, “So that’s three feet, nine inches?”

“Yup. Go cut it.”

I went in to the shop, Rachel didn’t follow. She’d showed me what to do, and now I had to do it, and she wasn’t going to watch me. This seems easy enough. Just don’t touch anything in the shop and flee. Instead I put the measured hunk of wood on the miter, and cut it. Wow that was easy. Then I did it three more times, threw the end in the pile.

It was around this time that I began to realize what I had been feeling this whole time. Power. Here in this shop, I could do anything I wanted. No one was watching me. I could build a ship. I didn’t want to build a ship. I wanted to build platforms. Why did I want to build platforms? Because no one was there to tell me I couldn’t. Someone needed platforms. I knew how to build platforms. I will build someone platforms, and no one can stop me.

That was what the stage was. Everything you wanted to do to have a play was there. It was versatility. It was can-do attitude. It was a cornucopia of untapped potential.

One platform done, I realized that Rachel had left. Jeremy was with me now, and we were just working. We didn’t talk, we didn’t have to. He could see what I needed, and he did it. I could see what he needed and I did it. And for a little bit the world was perfect.

The Loft

Sometime around platform number three I stopped to rest, because everyone else had stopped to rest. I sat, legs splayed in front of me; arms, like a tripod, behind me. Autumn and Sarah were discussing the play we were doing, as if they had both read it. Because they had both read it. The discussion centered around the set design, and had nothing whatever to do with the rest of the play.

I had done some drama before. In my experience the discussion was all centered around the difficulty of a particular scene, or the motivation of the character. On the other hand, all of the actors had contributed to building the sets (which were marker drawings on butcher paper), there were no lights, flies, or sound. Apparently the stage techs did not give a flying fuck about the character’s motivation, of the subtleties of playing them.

I asked something about it, as round about as I could, “Do you think the lead will be difficult to play?”

Bree shrugged, “Not my problem. So long as they can find the light and get to sound checks on time, I couldn’t give a fuck.”

“Are we getting a choice between painting and building again?” Sarah asked her.

“As long as I have anything to say about it,” Regular Dave said from behind them. He was carrying a really big box with Big Davey. Big Davey was around five foot tall and Regular Dave was closing in on six foot, so there was kind of a mismatch there. “Susan has left. We have about an hour fifteen. Sarah, can you bring in fly bar one?”

Sarah got off the ground with minimal effort, and went stage right, where a group of… well… very complicated pulleys stood against the wall. She did somethings that seemed only a little less complicated, then called out, “Fly bar one coming in downstage!” And started cranking the rope.

From down from the ceiling—the flies I guess—a big metal bar descended, while everyone moved out of the way. She held her place over by the fly pulleys while Regular Dave took some strap things from Rachel. He carefully cinched the box up, and attached some caribiners to it. Then he and Big Davey clipped them to the fly bar and screwed them on tight.

I could see that there was a picture of a couch on the side of the box, and made the leap when Rachel asked, “Hey Regular Dave, what’s the safety factor on a couch?”

“Sixteen,” he told her. Everyone laughed.

I’m sure I’ll get one joke eventually.

Everyone stopped laughing when Sarah called, “Give me a second to load eight hundred pounds on here.” She turned to a stack of weights.

“Don’t you dare,” Big Davey called to her. “It weighs fifty pounds. You’ll send it through the fucking roof.”

“Don’t joke then,” she flipped him off. He flipped her off.

“Take it up,” Regular Dave called.

“Fly bar one going up, downstage!” Sarah shouted again, and the bar went back up.

Autumn got up, and offered me her hand. I took it, and brushed dust off my ass, as Regular Dave led us over to a ladder standing next to the fly pulleys.

“Four years ago,” Autumn told me, “Susan had to go somewhere—”

“—to get high in the park—” Goober interrupted.

“—so she left the keys with Jessica. She was the STD, graduated that year. Jessica worked at Home Depot part time, so she took the keys over and copied every one of them.”

“These keys,” Regular Dave showed me, “Have been passed down between STDs ever since.” He unlocked the metal plate the blocked off the ladder, bowed and waved gentlemanly for us to proceed.

Rachel went first calling, “On ladder!” Before she started climbing meticulously. Never less than three limbs on a rung.

I was next, and I stepped forward and put my hand on the ladder when Autumn put her hand on my shoulder and yanked me back. “Wha—”

“Safety first,” she told me. Then she stepped between me and the ladder and waited without touching it.

When Rachel called, “Off ladder!” Autumn called just like Rachel had, when Rachel called “on ladder”. Then started climbing.

Then I was next, and I waited until I heard her call out, and climbed just as carefully.

The top was a huge, new kind of special. Dark for a start. The light filtered up from below, making this a weird twilight realm, fifty feet above the stage. We were over the house, where three rows of catwalks were connected by one walk that went from the back of the house to the back of the stage. Along bars—haphazardly placed—were long, tubular lights, with levers and hooks hanging from c-clamp type things.

I was spellbound all over again, until Rachel called beside me, “Off ladder!”

I turned to her, trying to shake off my awe, “I could have done that.”

“But you didn’t.”

I had to give her that. I stepped away from the ladder and looked down at the stage. I’d like to say it looked tiny, and it did, so I will. At the same time, I was aware that this part here was also the stage. And the walkways that led back to the house were the stage. And the flies that stretched still further above us were the stage. And it was all the stage, and it was huge.

Rachel left my side and started down the catwalk, to where the box sat suspended on the bar. She started pulling the bar closer, then called down to Regular Dave, “Hey genius. The loft is back there.” I couldn’t see what he did, but I saw her flip him off. This seems to be a common refrain here. No one is upset by it. When I’m comfortable enough to flip someone off, I’m in. I started to plan who it would be, and why I would do it, as I wandered along the cat walks thinking.

Finally Regular Dave called, “Off ladder!” and we were all up here. By this time Rachel and Sarah had wrestled the box off of the fly bar and were negotiating it further upstage over the catwalk. I followed the crowd, which followed the two of them, eager for something new to discover.

What I discovered was “the Loft.”

The Loft sat above the shop, but not over the shop. The Loft was poorly lit, until someone flipped a switch, and a light hanging precariously from one of the rafter bars came on. Then the Loft was too brightly lit, and I could see that it was pieces of 3/4 plywood c-clamped on the rafter bars. Two feet below were foam ceiling tiles that I knew would shatter to bits if I put the slightest weight on them.

The Loft was about fifteen feet to a side, and the rest was empty space. At some point guard rails had been erected as sturdily as everything else these people did. At first glance it looked like it would come apart in a second and we would all plunge into the abyss. Then I noticed sturdy bolts, strung high tension cable, and thick wood. Whoever put this together knew exactly what they were doing. “When did you make this?” I asked.

“No one knows how long it’s been here,” Wee David told me, from where they were setting down the box. “Since the school opened we guess. Jessica put in wire rails. Before no one came here because they were all terrified.”

Box down on the floor, three people whipped out sharp knives and started cutting it to pieces. Then they pulled packages out of the pieces, and started cutting them out of their pieces. Wee David and Rachel started passing the bits to Autumn and Bree who had loaded a screw gun each, and were already reading the instructions.

The a couch like the one that had taken my mother and me half a day to finish was together in about ten minutes. That done, Big Davey picked up three screws off the floor. “When you have parts left over, that just means you built it better than it was supposed to be,” Bree told him.

Regular Dave sat on one of the beams and crossed his arms, “Did anyone bring a gel?” No one had. “Aisling, go to one of the ellipsoidals, and find a gel. Try to get darker than fifty percent, but anything will do.”

“Sure,” I told him, “I will do that, because I totally know what all of those words mean. In fact, I know so well that I should give you a test on them.” I did my best to not be terrified as I leaned on the rail, “Now, what do they mean?”

“Let me show you,” he said.

An ellipsoidal, it turned out, was one of the long lights. Gels out it further turned, were transparent colored plastic that hung in a frame in front of the part of the light where the light came out. Regular Dave took one of these, melted into a little bubble, back to the loft, where he put it over the little can shaped light.

“What do you think guys?” The loft was bathed in hideous green/yellow light.

“It’s shit hideous,” Sarah said.

“Blue? Red?”

“Red,” said everyone.

“Can you do it, Wee David?”

Wee David got up from the couch, where Rachel promptly sat down, and grumbled his way down the ladder. Yes, he called out, “On ladder!” and “Off ladder!” Then he called it again when he came back.

“What game should we play?” Bree asked.

Everyone started to say games I’d never heard of, when Regular Dave checked his watch and said, “We only have thirty minutes.”

“Hang on,” Sarah pointed at me, “She hasn’t been sworn in.”

Everyone agreed, that, yes, I hadn’t been sworn in. “Is this something with blood?” I’m not afraid of blood, unless it’s my own, and I have to bleed it.

“No,” said Regular Dave—

—at the same time, “Yes,” said Bree. “You can’t go easy on the new girl just ‘cause you’re hot to get in her pants.”

I looked at Regular Dave with a whole new sense of fear. Oh, god. Not him. Not now.

“I’m not trying to get in her pants,” said Regular Dave.

Whew.

“That will happen later.”

Crap.

Regular Dave pulled a screw gun off of his belt, and flipped a knife open.

What the hell are you doing here, Ash? Everything about today had been surreal. For a moment I felt myself outside my own mind. This couldn’t be me. This kind of thing didn’t happen to me. I didn’t make friends like this. I didn’t end up inside peoples secret lofts. I’m really at home right now. I’m reading a book, and imagining all of this.

Then reality snapped back when I saw myself offering my hand, palm out.

“No, use this one,” Autumn told him. “I just got a new one.” She leaned forward on the couch, and pulled a knife out with a clip on the handle of a pocket. I could see as she did that there were two other clips on that pocket, and three on the other side of her jeans.

She handed it to Regular Dave who said, “This is a Kershaw, are you sure?”

“I said I just got a new one.”

Regular Dave shrugged and looked at me. I had put my hand down, and I held it out again, palm up. “I’m not gonna cut your palm,” he said. “It takes weeks to heal, and I can’t have you bleeding all over my tools.”

Rachel laughed, and looked to the group, “He thinks they’re his tools.” She threw a gum wrapper at his head.

“That’s it,” he said, “You don’t get the keys anymore.”

“Please? I’ll suck your dick.”

“Okay you get the keys again.” He took my wrist in his hand then, and with Autumn’s knife, he drew it across my upper arm. I didn’t hurt at all, but I said ‘ow’ out of reflex. Then he took my right wrist, almost tenderly (I tried not to think about that) and put my palm on the cut.

My mind had gone numb at this point, like what was happening was happening to someone who had a clue. Who was cool.

“Put you hand on the screw gun.” I did. “Repeat after me, ‘I Aisling McKinnon do solemnly swear…’”

I repeated all this, don’t make me write it twice, and I won’t make you read it twice. It’s boring for both of us.

“ ‘… will not, on pain of death, dismemberment, and more death, reveal the keys, the Loft, or our extracurricular activities, to any faculty, parents, or shit-eating, cocksucking, actors.”

Extracurricular activities? It’s just tech club. Wait, is this a club? Whatever.

“Free from jealousy or envy I will play without inhibition, so do I swear.”

I finished repeating. What the hell does that all mean?

Regular Dave took my hand off the screw gun, as the crew said, in unison, “So swear we all.”

Autumn got off the couch, “I’ll show her the first aid kit. Save my place.”

“You all have to go,” Regular Dave said, and the crew started to file out. All except Sarah and Big Davey. “Rachel,” Regular Dave admonished, “you owe me something.”

Rachel turned back, “What about them?”

Sarah had turned around on Big Davey’s lap, and looked up from where she was kissing him seriously. “We’re gonna stay and christen the couch.”

I only realized my mouth was wide open, when Autumn whispered, “Your mouth is wide open.” I shut it, and cursed my titties, hard and pointy enough to be shot out of a cannon. As I left, Sarah was busy unbuckling Big Davey’s pants, while Regular Dave sat on the couch, and Rachel got down to kneel in front of him.

What in hell has happened to me here?

I remembered to call ‘off ladder,’ this time.

Skirt

“Who’s going Aisling’s way?” Bree said.

I was sore all over. I had finished six platforms. Rachel sucked Regular Dave’s dick. We were walking out of the back parking lot, through the door under the stage. Night had fallen, and it was somewhere around not too late.

“Where does she live?” Sarah asked.

Sarah had sex in the loft. “In Aurora, on Mississippi,” I said, “Near the light rail.” Everyone was splitting for cars. I texted my mom, but hadn’t heard back yet. I had expected to be really late, taking the train. Like a loser. Or maybe loser Aisling had died.

Rachel got down on her knees and sucked his dick.

“That’s me,” Autumn said. “Come meet Bruce.” I followed her to a… car. I’ve never know cars. I guess it was an SUV. It was big. Like, really big. And a very ugly color, somewhere between brown and gray. I got in the passenger side, feeling all the while like I should wait for permission, or for Autumn to open the door or something. But that was loser Aisling thinking. This Aisling didn’t wait for some fucker to open her door. She just got in some stranger’s car, and got taken home.

Sarah just unbuckled his pants. Just like that. Like she knew what she wanted to do. And how his pants worked.

Bruce reeked of hippy air freshener that I was certain would give me a headache. Autumn closed her door, rolled down her window, and before she even started it up, she lit a cigarette. “Hope you don’t mind, because I’m not gonna stop.”

“No, that’s fine.” With all the air freshener going on in there, I wasn’t going to smell when I got home.

Rachel on her knees, then coming back to the stage like nothing had happened.

Autumn pulled out of the parking lot, and I resisted the urge to give her directions. There was an uncomfortable silence, until I asked, “Was that… was that normal?”

“Oh, no. We only build new platforms every few years. Some stages keep using them until they fall apart, but Susan has high standards.”

That’s not what I—They all did that next to each other. I could still feel my damp panties, and I didn’t know what arousal smelled like, but I was pretty sure I smelled like it.

“Are you East or West of Chambers?”

All that sex, and they just did— “West.”

“I’m on the East. Do you have a first and second period?”

I haven’t even had my first—oh. “Yeah, I don’t have anything off until fifth.”

“Okay, I’ll be at your house at six thirty.”

“Oh, no, I’ll just take—” That was loser Aisling speaking. “Are you sure?”

“Just give me some gas money.” And then she talked all about tech. She’d worked fifteen shows, four at the school. She was a junior. She wanted to keep doing it, but not professionally. There weren’t a lot of jobs.

“Right. But the… the sex thing. Normal?”

“Oh. Oh yeah.” She gave me a wink. Loser Aisling would ask more questions. Cool Aisling would be cool, like that was cool.

“That’s cool.”

“What have you worked?”

That was it. I had to confess. I told her all the parts where I had never done this before.

“You’ll love it then. It’s just like playing with Lego. And working a show? That’s stress like you’ve never felt before. But it’s a hell of a rush.”

I pointed the way to my house, we were close at that point. She dropped me off at the driveway. I went inside, trying not to think about Rachel, and what Regular Dave’s dick was like, and what it tasted like, and her on her knees, and how it would feel in my throat… Then I realized what I was thinking, and scared myself more than any thought I had had until then.

I breezed in the front door like nothing had happened to me, to find my mother sitting on the couch, reading a thick book. She looked up as I came in, “You’re home late.” It wasn’t an accusation. Instead an invitation to tell her more.

I came over to the couch, and laid my backpack down in my chair. It was a deep armchair, not a recliner, just a comfy chair. My mom had the couch, I had the chair. I didn’t sit in the chair now because I knew if I sat down I wouldn’t get up. “I think I made some friends.” Or something.

She looked at me over her glasses. I don’t know where she learned it, but when she looked at me like I should talk, I just wanted to talk to her. It was weird. But with being a girl, it seemed like we had more to talk about.

Still, what I was about to ask was both emasculating and em-adulting. I was 14, and I wanted independence, and now I was going to have to compromise that. And I was still a boy, and… “Can you take—can we go—shopping?”

She put her book down, and untucked her feet into a pair of crocs. God love her, but she was so lame. “Sure, it’s late, but I’m sure some things are open. What do you need?”

To stop thinking about sex, and other people having sex, and how badly I want sex. Then my stomach reminded me that I hadn’t eaten since lunch, 20 million years ago. “Something to eat for a start.”

“How does Panda Express sound?”

“What kind of shoes do you want?” Mom asked. We were standing in the aisle of a… some shoe store in the mall. It was like a shoe store. Smelled like leather. Benches with foot measures, and mirrors. A stock in the thousands, and they don’t have the shoes you want in your size.

I didn’t have to give it a lot of thought, “Something with steel toes.” One day of doing stage construction, and I knew how important that was without having been told. When you’re lifting a platform up, or putting it down, easiest thing to do is set it on the toe of your boot. I toughed it out for one day in my sneakers, I wouldn’t be able to do it for two.

We went down the aisle. The store was local owned and high quality, that’s why my mom liked it. They had Birkenstocks. Mom loved Birkenstocks, but she never bought them. She didn’t have to. She still had the pair she bought before I was born.

She found a store lady, with a name tag and a vest, to ask, “What are the best work boots you carry?”

The lady wasted no time taking us to the work boots section, which was filled with work boots. Then she took us all the way down to the last five feet of the aisle, where the womens work boots were. “We have CATs and we have Dickies, and we have a bunch of other brands I hate.” She picked up a pair, “What size are you.”

I saw an immediate, and limiting, problem, “I need them in black.”

The lady sucked her lip, “Well then we have these.” She picked up a pair, and “You look like a four but lets measure.”

I didn’t move. I was at war with myself. With my psyche. With my identity. With everything I thought I knew about myself. In a very small voice, barely squeaking it out, I said, “They’re… kind of ugly.” I tried to keep myself from blushing.

My mother gave me the strangest look, half surprise half understanding.

The store woman opened her mouth, about to tell me that ‘if this is the kind of boot you’re wearing, you’re going to be attracting women who don’t care about that.’ Then she caught to look mom gave her and thought better of it. Instead she thought about how she could keep us in her store, and her commission. “Oh! We just got something in. Measure your feet real quick.”

I already knew I was a four. But I took off my shoe to see my tiny girl feet again. Something about looking at them made me feel humiliated, and I did my best to stuff that feeling deeper inside. I put it on the cold metal tray, and slid the dial down.

“I was right,” Store woman said, “I’ll be right back.”

Mom didn’t say anything while she was gone, and I couldn’t help but be grateful.

Store woman, after far longer than we expected, was back. “It took my awhile to find your size, we just got these in. They haven’t been stocked yet.”

The side of the box said, Caterpillar Black Jace Waterproof Steel Toe. I expected her to pull out something terrible, and readied myself to just go with it. Instead she pulled out… “Perfect.” Shut up, Ash.

They were black. They had suede, and buckles. The were womanly. The had—gulp—not a heel precisely. Just kind of a larger ramp from the ball to the heel. More pronounced. I hadn’t resolved to never wear heels, at least not consciously. Looking at them now I internalized that vow, and then carefully put it aside. Maybe I could wear heels like this. Maybe… maybe I could wear heels a little taller than that?

Shut up Ash. I didn’t know what I was thinking, after a day of not knowing what I was doing. I was tired. My head was tired.

Following that train of thought was Rachel, getting down to the business of sucking cock, because she had said she would on a whim. Now is not the time to think about that. But my brain kept coming back to it.

I remembered at that moment that no one could see my erection. I didn’t keep trying to stop myself from thinking it. But thinking it suddenly felt safer.

What does precum taste like?

Not much safer.

I left the shop, wearing the boots out, with mom. She didn’t look at me as we walked, but I could tell I had all of her focus.

“So. Do you want to buy some new clothes?” She asked.

The first time she asked was when I found out that boys inseam didn’t work with my body anymore. That was a week ago. I looked at my reflection in the shop windows as we walked past. Lengthening hair, girls jeans, t-shirt, freckles. “Okay,” I said, as quiet as I could and still be heard.

“Do you want to… look more like…?”

“I said okay, mom.” I saw the look on her face, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap. Where do we go to buy… that kind of stuff?”

“Well I’m not taking you into Victoria Secret, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“MoOOOm!”

She just laughed. “Let’s just go easy and try Pac Sun.”

We walked in, and past the, mannequins. I began to understand all that stuff about body image everyone keeps talking about. These mannequins didn’t look anything like me. I know they were wooden and (generally) andro, but…

They were all so tall. And elegant. And just wrong. Weird necks, weird calves.

That wasn’t it, of course. I was dissembling to myself. It was their tits. Conical, and pointy, and way too far apart. It was like their clothes had no impact on the shape of their bodies. My boobs were constantly getting mashed into bras and strangled in t-shirts. I didn’t know a lot about breasts but I assumed mine were perky. They looked perky to me. But when I took off my bra, gravity still took over. These mannequins didn’t have to worry about gravity.

My mom caught my eye and gave me that look again.

“I just… now that I see it, I don’t think these things look anything like a real woman.”

“Of course not, honey. No one would buy the clothes if they did.” I followed her deeper into the store, “Just what are you looking for?”

“I think I need black.”

“Oh honey, you’re not going goth, are you?”

I looked around me, “This isn’t Hot Topic?”

“Clever girl.”

I blushed are the pronoun. It definitely wasn’t hot topic in here. The walls weren’t painted black, and they weren’t blaring god-awful music, but there more subtle indicators. Brown wood motif with soft low hanging lights. Those round little clothing racks. The ones that were so fun to hide inside when you were little and could fit.

Mom was going around and brushing hangers aside, humming softly to herself. I couldn’t remember the last time we had gone somewhere to hang out. Not that I wanted to hang out with my mom.

I was lying to myself. This was nice.

She looked at me over the rims of her glasses again, “Do you want me too just pick out some stuff?”

“Yea—no. I’m a big boy, I can shop for clothes.”

“Alright.”

I picked through the rack, quickly realizing that I had no idea what would look good on me. All that practice with mirrors had helped, but my face and my body were still new. I didn’t know what girls wore. They just showed up in school in clothes that would give you a boner in math class. Beyond that the process was a mystery.

My mother continued to watch me. “How ‘bout some help?”

Oh, thank god. “Sure.”

She “helped” me, by picking out pants and watching my face. Occasionally she would hit on one that I knew was hideous, but other than that I didn’t ca— “Wait, go back. No, not those, back further.” I pulled a pair of jeans off the rack. Black, yes. Stylish? Perhaps. But something about them said, ‘you should wear me. I’ll look good with you inside me.’

Big Davey was inside Sarah. He could be inside y—Holy Christ, I’m loosing it. Had to stay focused. If anything, I was a lesbian. Rachel’s underwear rode out of her pants as she knelt down, hot ass resting on her heels. That was almost better. Only a few seconds after I started that line of thought, I could feel bullet nipples again. On the plus side of the negative side, I wasn’t in a shop, with my mother, and an erection.

I managed to pull myself back to the present, where I was looking at the jeans.

“Okay, now I know what you like,” mom said, and started going through the rack again.

“Let me see them on you,” mom said, as I went for the changing rooms with four pairs of pants and five tops, in various styles and color.

The changing rooms were just off to the side of the shop. Not even in one of those little hallways, like a target. No room to psych myself up for what was to come, out of my mothers sight. With confidence I didn’t feel, I opened the door and breezed inside.

Okay, lets start this. First order of business, shoes off. I sat on the little bench, undid the buckles, and wiggled my toes. Cant wiggle your toes inside steal toe boots. I put my feet flat on the floor and stared at them for a bit. Feet like this I would expect to have painted toenails. I’m like this forever now. It’s forever until I can get the hormones and halt all this puberty. But my feet would still be the same. I brought my gaze up, past the pretty girl in the mirror, to the pants I’d hung on the hook. The big tag said that they were low-rise, boyfriend, jeans. I didn’t know what that meant. I didn’t know what they would look like on me. I didn’t know what I was doing here. I didn’t know what I was.

“You’re a techie now.” I heard Regular Dave’s voice in my head. Okay, well techies wear black jeans, when they weren’t wearing black army pants. And (former) boy or not, I couldn’t bring myself to wear army pants.

I stood and robotically took my pants off. The familiar feeling of vulnerability followed them onto the floor. I was naked in public. It was amplified by the fact that I had a girls body. And a girls pussy. There it was behind the panties in the mirror. This is a bad time to touch yourself. Right? That in itself was enough to send me scrambling into the pants.

Hm. Well okay, this is what boyfriend pants are like. For a start, the cuffs were rolled up. They came that way. I think they were supposed to stay that way.

There were shirts—no, just ‘tops’ in here. I found myself going through them, and deciding on something yellow with stripes. Problem.

“Let me see,” mom called. I don’t know how she knew I had an outfit on.

Dressed now I could feel okay about opening the door and going out into the store.

But I couldn’t stop myself from tugging on my shirt as she looked at me.

“Turn around.”

I stumped my way around, refusing to turn like a girl.

“You look nice.”

“The shirt squeezes my boobs. I don’t like it.” I was lying. It made them look huge. Way above the C cups. I don’t know why that made me feel proud, and I decided not to read anything into it.

“Well you look nice, but you can try something looser.”

“I think I’ll go with it.” Oh shit. Did I just agree too fast?

“Okay, honey.”

In the end I left the dressing room with three tops and two jeans.

And then I saw it, and my heart stopped. My mother followed my gaze, and said nothing in that way she did. I made my way, trepidatious and with care across the store. It was faux leather. It had a zipper. The hem was different lengths. I fingered the fabric for a moment. Then I gave in, and took it off the hanger and into the changing room with me.

After staring at myself for several minutes, I heard my mother ask again, “Can I see?”

I came out of the changing room, looking down. Not ashamed exactly. Just… like a stranger in my own head.

My mother raised her eyebrows as she looked at me, “Daring. Do you want it.”

I sucked on my lips, and nodded my head slowly without making eye contact.

“Okay honey. You can have the skirt too.”

Secret Entrance

Rachel on her knees. Sarah unbuckling a belt. What does Regular Dave’s dick taste like? What does Big Davey’s cock feel like?

Don’tmasturbatedon’tmasturbatedon’tmasturbate.

I had come home and put my new clothes way. Home to my room with its comfortable mess, and its desk, and its laptop. My mother had reminded me that my clothes hung in the closet now. I had put my new boots by my bed. And then I was lying there in my pajamas. My boy pajamas, with flannel stripes, trying desperately to keep my thoughts (and my fingers) away from my pussy.

Finally I got up, and got my laptop. I put it on the bed in front of me, and just stared at it for awhile. Together on the couch. Right next to each other.

I opened the screen. I found my earbuds, and connected the blutooth. Then fished around under my bed for the little mirror. It wasn’t shameful to an onlooker to have a mirror floating around, I reasoned, as I kept it stowed under the bed.

I always kept my browser opened, and unbidden I was moving the mouse to the bookmarks, finding the folder cleverly labeled ‘boring bookmarks’ and opening up redtube.com. And I was typing in blowjob, like I always did. And I was finding a familiar video. And I was skipping ahead. Past the interview. Right to where the girl started getting undressed.

I shed my pajama pants. And then my damp panties. I had always wondered what pussy smelled like. Now my pussy smelled like it. I tried not to be aroused by it, and couldn’t help it.

I put a leg on either side of the laptop, and again I set the mirror in front of me and looked at my own vagina. This time as I did so, I compared notes.

I had more hair than she did, but it was light fuzz. My lips were a little puffier. She spread herself wide for the camera, and I put a finger on either lip like she did, and spread myself open. Well. I guess this is my clitoris. With my other hand, I ran a fingertip over it slowly. Yep. I shuddered a little bit at the sensation. I tried it harder, and that really hurt!

Okay, that doesn’t work like I thought. I tried the way I had before, pushing that little hood down on top of it, and running it in circles. I felt my calves start to twitch as the feeling shot deep into my pelvis. Yeah, that’s the stuff. And while it was feeling good, I was nowhere close.

The girls got on her knees then, and I hit the buffer back again.

I couldn’t see her pee hole or mine. And her entrance seemed squished. She spread herself more (I’d missed that part) and I could see it get larger. I looked at my own. How can a dick even fit in there. I tried what I had done the first time, but more carefully. My finder felt good up to the first knuckle. After that it was all pain. Even the first knuckle thing wasn’t nearly as good a rubbing the clit the way I returned to doing.

This time when the guy came into view, and the girl got on her knees, I put the mirror aside. She unbuckled his pants, and then his zipper. I guess it wasn’t just porn stars who knew how to do that. It was a dumb thought, girls wore pants. Even it they didn’t, it hardly took a manual to know how to use them. The the thought was still surprising. I can do that too.

That’s when I noticed how deeply my thoughts had changed. Normally I would imagine myself being the guy, watching the head of my dick disappear into her mouth, and imagining what it felt like. Alarmed, I began to realize that, as I stroked my cunny, I was thinking about the way that dick would feel in my mouth. Did she like the taste? Did the skin feel the same way in her hands as my skin had in mine? Was it sweet? Salty?

My fingers were going faster and faster, and I skipped forward a few minutes. My head was all in my clit now, as the biggest sexual organ in the body (my brain, you perv) started down a trail it’d been contemplating all day. Everyone has that part of the scene that they want to cum for, and I knew what it was now.

I’ve never had a thing for money shots. Not really. It always seemed like an un-exciting conclusion. Like the porn didn’t have anywhere to go, so they just decide to end it somewhere. The industry just gets to the closest thing to a resolution, and throws some semen at it.

But that time, as the guy sprayed cum on the roof of her mouth, I thought about the way it hit her palate, and the way if felts, and my legs shuddered and jerked, my toes curled, and I came in tandem.

The orgasm lasted nearly 10 seconds, and I felt my whole body flush. When it was finally over I collapsed on the bed, suddenly feeling too relaxed to move. I managed to stay awake long enough to put my things away and crawl under the covers. Finally all the dirty thoughts were out of my head, and I could rest easy and think about the next school day.

Somehow my sheets were fluffier, and my pillow softer then, and I snuggled, really snuggled; like in the fabric softener commercials; into my bed and went to sleep.

I rushed out the door thirty seconds before Bruce rolled to the curb. Autumn already had a cigarette lit, and we took off.

As we got on to Mississippi and headed for Englewood she cast me a side eye, “So,” she took a drag, “you rub one out last night?”

“What?” Yes. “No!”

Another side eye, “Well I did. Watching Rachel in action got me hot as hell. Trust me, she is very talented.”

Whoa.

“I think it’s because she plays the bassoon.” She caught my confusion, “It’s a double reed instrument, you know? It’s like lifting fucking weights with your tongue. Oh, you’ll like this,” she turned the radio up.

We stayed quiet as the song played. It was about building the robots in order to take over the world. After that was a song about a toy designer who was fired for his designs, then destroyed the toy factory in an act of revenge. The music was… fun. That was the best description. A little metal, a little rap, and something entirely different. It had an energy too it that was equal parts in-joke and rightous fury. Like some kind of mergence of hip hop and opera. Hip hopera, if you will.

“What is this?”

“Doctor Steele 2: Electric Boogaloo.”

“That’s the name of the band?” That could be the name of a band.

“No, it’s Doctor Steele. He’s going to take over the world.” She turned onto Hampden, “At least he was. He retired in 2011 and took all his stuff offline. No one even knew his real identity. He always wore machinist goggles and deepened his voice in his shows and videos.” We turned into the parking lot, ten minutes early, and Bruce started the search for a parking space that would fit. “See he had a forum for his fans, who he called “The Toy Soldiers.” It was an in-joke, but from what I can figure things started getting a little out of hand.” She shut Bruce off and threw her second cigarette out the window. I got out and waited while she came around the car.

“Like plots for a school shooting or something?”

“Well remember Obama had been elected, and there were all those right wing crazies around? My guess is he got a visit from the secret service that chilled out his publicity a lot.”

“There are still a lot of right wing crazies around.”

“Yeah, but it was all new then.” She opened the door to the school for me, “I love your boots! Are they steel toe?”

It was hard, but I kept myself from getting shy, so I tried to just grin instead, “Yeah.”

“Nice, you’ll have to tell me where you got them. I’ll see you at lunch.”

So. That’s what having a friend is like. Okay. I found my way to history, took my chair, and waited for the teacher to be late.

I got out of the class without falling asleep once. An hour and a half class could really wear on you, but I was looking forward to an extended drama class. With Regular Dave, whose dick—you can’t spend the whole class with erect nipples Ash.

I sat next to him anyway, then we all stood to play “machine” and then a couple other warm up exercises. Curtis got detention again.

The lesson to learn that day was just how long two minutes could be. Everyone pulled a topic out of a hat and then had to improvise on a hypothetical for two minutes.

Regular Dave got “The world has run out of cheese, what is your plan?” He had the class in stitches explaining what a simple matter it would be to go get cheese from the moon. The problem, he said, was that the moon, like Earth, was flat. A spaceship had to be careful landing on it, or it would flip on it’s axis and fling you out into space. He was getting into the logistics of harvesting moon cheese using hedge clippers when his time ran out.

There were a few people in between his turn and mine, and after watching the rest of the class I began to get really sick of the words, “Look…” “Okay, so…” and “What you have to do…”

Mine was “You were turned into a vampire a hundred years ago, how do you get a driver’s license?”

“What people don’t seem to understand about vampires, is just how advantageous mind control is,” I started. “Got pulled over by a police officer? Force wave him away. Need to get through customs? ‘These aren’t the imports you’re looking for.’ That’s not the real problem of course. The real problem is that the DMV is staffed exclusively by vampire hunters. That’s why it takes them so long to do anything. They’re in league with the cops as undercover agents. They keep tabs on anyone who doesn’t show up on camera (because some vampires are young, and stupid enough, to try to use an ID), and then they hunt the vampires down during their breaks. The parking lot of the DMV is littered with vampire ashes. They have street cleaners come in every night. DMV employees get to keep the trophies, any jewelry or money still on the vampire when they turn to dust. That’s why the lines move at a crawl, only one window open, despite the fact that there are twenty people in the office.”

I looked around the class, and could see the rebuttal on everyone’s face, “Some of you are thinking, ‘well vampires can’t go out in the daytime, and the DMV closes at five. Do any of you really believe that myth? Vampires burning in sunlight? Don’t make me laugh.”

The conclusion got guffaws from the class and after a round of applause I sat down, and took a fist bump from Regular Dave.

The only other monologue that sticks out in memory was from a girl who answered the hypothetical, “You are the coyote and the road runner is chasing you.” She did it without addressing the incredible philosophical underpinnings of Chuck Jones work, got riotous laughter, and pissed me off.

Regular Dave watched my expression, “She played the lead in Chicago last year. Let’s call her… difficult to manage.”

I gave him a heartfelt smile and felt better.

“Phone number.” Regular Dave told me as we left Drama and headed toward the cafeteria.

“You first.” Are you flirting with him? How would you know if you are? If you are, stop it.

Regular Dave handed me his phone, and I made a contact and put in my number. “You spell your name wrong.”

“I spell it right. Everyone else spells it wrong. Why are you heading away from the cafeteria.”

“We are going to the secret entrance.”

“Oh that’s good. Is it a secret entrance to somewhere, or is this a sexual euephamizm?

We came to the door to the pottery studio, he winked at me and held the door. The studio was empty, the damp lockers closed, and the wheels bare. Everything was as clean as a clean pottery studio can be, which means there was a thin to inch thick film of dried clay on everything. “If we had your number you would have gotten the text. There’s never anyone in here during lunch. Usually someone is using a lunch hour to throw, but a half hour is too short.” We went back into the kiln room, and to a door in the back with a warning sign to keep closed and locked at all times. Regular Dave unlocked it, and turned on the light inside.

“I appreciate the thought, but I’m gay, so I’m not playing ‘seven minutes in heaven.’” There you outed yourself. And you’re confused. Or a liar.

“Noted, but the principle use of this closet is not sex games, but the ladder inside.”

I looked past him to see a red painted ladder leading into the ceiling, “Oh.”

At that moment we heard the door to the studio open, and I rushed inside the closet, while Regular Dave quietly closed the door.

Oh! There was barely enough room in the closet for one of us. Regular Dave was chest to—no way around it—breast with me. I felt my nipples sproing to life, and cursed my gender and my psychology.

Regular Dave grunted an apology, he wouldn’t have understood why he needed one, but it was polite; and moved to the ladder. “Ring it once for on ladder,” he smacked the bars and the gave a little clanking ring, “Twice for off.” He started up.

I waited until I heard two clangs from the ceiling and came after him, feeling more sure on the ladder as the rungs caught the dip in my boots.

At the top I rung the ladder twice before being surprised to find myself on the grid. Regular Dave leaned on a rail and cocked a grin at me, “Secret entrance.”

Sarah, Wee David, and Bree were in the Loft already, Wee David on his phone. “Autumn and Big Davey can’t get in. Mister Berger is in the pottery studio showing someone around. They’re watching to tell us when it’s clear.”

“Sucks to be them,” Bree said, “Do we have time for a game?”

“Aisling has a sixth period. After that.”

Hey wait a second. “Why can’t I play a game?”

Bree looked at me, “What game do you want to play, hun?”

On the spot, I searched my mind for games I liked to play, “Lunch money was fun.”

“Big Davey has the deck, and he’s off fucking Autumn.”

I looked at Sarah, “I thought he was your boyfriend?”

“He’s everyone’s boyfriend,” she said, “why do you think we call him ‘Big Davey’?”

It was rhetorical, but I answered, curious, “I thought it was ironic. He is quite small.”

Sarah and Bree laughed, “Oh no kiddo,” Sarah told me, “he’s very big.”

“What—oh.” In the red light no one could see me flush. “That’s cruel to Wee David.”

“Oh Wee David is fun, but in,” and she rubbed his crotch and looked at him like a coquoette, “other ways.”

Thank god my tits stayed flat at the news. Then I shifted and felt the tiny wet spot on my panties. Goddamn it!

Bree got back to the thing I said, “It was a figure of speech, hun. If she says they’re watching out for us, they’re watching out for us.” She shuffled the cards, “Prolly making out though. Games.”

“I have Exploding Kittens,” Wee David said. “We can play ‘daisy chain’.”

“Oooooh, second,” Sarah raised her hand.

Regular Dave (I was both disappointed and relieved at his nickname for reasons that would go unexplored) cleared his throat, “Let’s let Aisling learn to walk before she runs.”

Thank you. Wait what does that mean? How am I in this deep?

Sarah put her hand down, and lay her head in her chin, “Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine.” But she gave me a smile.

“‘Go fish or dare’?” Bree said.

I could figure out what that meant, and made an educated guess, “How ‘bout ‘truth or go fish’.”

“Second,” Regular Dave raised his hand.

“Lets do it then,” Sarah got off the couch, “We barely have time as it is.”

Bree shuffled a last time and started dealing, “Seven cards, or eight?”

“Eight,” Wee David said.

“I thought ‘go fish’ was with five cards,” I said.

“We deal more so that people don’t have to ‘go fish’ as much,” he replied.

I found my place in the circle, between Sarah and Regular Dave, and picked up my cards as I got them. Trips 8s and trips Jacks. I put the pairs down in front of me and waited for Regular Dave to go.

“Sarah,” he went, “Do you have any sixes?”

She threw him a card, and then put her head on her fist. Regular Dave thought about it for a long moment. “Well?”

“I’m trying to think of something I don’t know about you. When was the last time you masturbated?”

She thought, “About two days ago, I guess. Hard to say.”

That made me next, “Bree, fives?”

“Go fish.”

“Aisling,” Sarah asked me, head still on hand, “Do you have… any fives?”

I handed her my card, heart in my throat.

“How often do you buff your muffin?”

Okay. Time to lie. They clearly wouldn’t accept ‘never.’ How often do girls masturbate? Remember how I can’t admit my ignorance? Well it makes me a fantastic liar. “Every week. Sunday afternoons.”

“‘You gotta get those numbers up,’” Bree said, “‘Those are rookie numbers.’”

I gave her a ‘fuck you’ smile.

And so we went around in a circle. Bree had never done any drug harder than pot. Regular Dave had walked in on his parents most recently last month. Wee David had never given a foot job. And as I took a seven from Bree, “What kind of porn do you watch?”

“Lesbian-anal-strapons.”

Come on tits, that was arousing, right? Wait, no. They couldn’t get any harder if they tried.

At this time everyone but me got a text. “Mister Berger is gone, and you have five minutes to clear out.”

Wee David and I threw down our cards, and Sarah kissed Bree, and the Wee David and I were on the ladder and I was heading off to math, with him beside me. “What do you have?” I asked him.

“Algebra two.”

“Algebra one,” I said. “How do you play ‘daisy chain’ with Exploding Kittens?” A perverse sense of curiosity was compelling me to ask questions that were going to get me horny.

“It’s one of the only ones we can. First one to explode has to go down on the second one, and so forth.” He brushed his hair out of his eyes, “I play to lose.” We got to the math section and he opened the door when I came to my room. I really can open my own doors, guys. “Hey,” I turned in the door and then had to step aside for other enterying students, “I’ll see you after school.”

“Where?”

“We all hang out outside the auditorium after school. That’s kind of our place.”

“Sure. See ya.”

He nodded his head and ducked toward his own classroom.

I took my seat and tried not to imagine I was sitting in a puddle.

We miss you, Doctor. Wherever you are.

Bookstore

At the auditorium, Autumn was holding her keys, and everyone was sitting around and waiting. I came up and said “Hey,” and everyone said “Hey,” and Bree gave me a hug, and I didn’t know why. They were waiting for me.

They were waiting for me.

“Sarah wants to go to Cornerstone,” Autumn told me. “Do you want to come or go home?”

“Oh, I can just take the train home, it’s not a problem.”

“Don’t be such a little bitch, come to the bookstore with us.”

Wow, okay that hurts. Wait, bookstore? “It’s a bookstore?”

“Used books, snacks, new books, snacks. There’s ice cream next door.”

Be cool Ash. “I like ice cream.” And books.

“Great,” and we all headed for the doors. I went for Bruce, and Autumn went for Bruce, and Sarah went for Bruce, and Regular Dave went for Bruce, and then Autumn said, “I have a kitchen sink in the back, I can only take four,” and the others went for Rachel’s car.

No one told me I couldn’t ride in Autumn’s car, because I wasn’t cool enough. No one brushed me off. I was going to a bookstore because I wasn’t a little bitch, and I could do stuff with these people because they wanted me to.

Autumn lit a cigarette on the way out of the parking lot, while I got tired of the competing smells. Then Regular Dave lit a cheroot, and it got worse. Only it got better, because the thing smelt heavenly.

I was sitting in the back with Regular Dave, and watching things go by as Autumn got out onto Hampden, and took us west. This was a part of Denver I’d rarely been in before. Sort of downscale homes mixed with dirty pavements, and high rises.

Bruce’s back had van seats, and yes, there was a kitchen sink behind them. Big and stainless steel, with a faucet attached. Also back there was a kennel cage and a fifty gallon drum, half full of water. As we drove I put my hand down straight between the seats, and accidentally brushed Regular Dave’s knuckles. I felt his hand turn at the contact. The way you turn it when you might take hold of someone’s hand. Before he could reach out, I moved my hand away, and set it in my lap. Don’t jerk away. Don’t hurt his feelings. Why was that important to me?

But something about the brush against his knuckles stayed in my head, all the rest of the ride. Human contact maybe? Maybe I wanted to hold his hand. That was stupid, of course I didn’t. And yet…

At University I put my hand back between the seats. He had his elbow resting on the arm rest then, pointing and saying to Autumn “Pull in here, lets check the gym.”

There was a small park, with a gym in the center, being held by Mystic. There was only a Magicarp on it, down to 150. Everyone in the car pulled out a phone and started attacking. I had my phone in my hand, watching and waiting.

When they’d got the Pokemon down to 20 CP, I made my move.

There was stunned silence in the car and then Sarah said, very quietly, “What. The. Fuck.”

That released a damn of emotion, and Autumn and Regular dave started shoulting. Things like:

“Where the fuck did some Instinct cocksucker get a shiny Snorlax?”

And, “It has a cee-pee of five thousand?”

And, “It was Mystic before, who the hell around here is Instinct?”

And, “They’re right beside us!”

Everyone started craning their necks around to see who had taken the gym for Instinct, while I put my phone away and crossed my arms.

Sarah caught on the fastest, “Aisling, what team are you?”

I smiled at her, raised both fingers, and flipped off everyone in the car.

Regular Dave leaned forward and put his head in his hands. “Well that’s fucked. We invited a little Instinct bitch into our midst, and she has a shiny Snorlax. We’re never taking another gym again.”

Hey. “First off, you invited me here. Second off, if you want to raid with my Snorlax you’ll never denigrate Instinct again.”

There was a long moment in the car. Then Autumn put Bruce into gear and pulled back out onto the street.

Cornerstone Books sat next to an ice cream shop (as promised), in tiny dilapidated little parking lot. Autumn found Bruce a parking space next to Rachel’s car, a red sedan that had seen better days. Some people wanted ice cream first, some people wanted books first. Because we couldn’t bring ice cream into the bookstore, books won.

Cornerstone Books smelled like a bookstore. Not just a bookstore. A used bookstore. Where all the books have fermented to just the right smell and are hoping you’ll open them up and smell the pages and bring your mind back to all the great times you’ve had in used bookstores.

I didn’t notice that I had ditched the others, until I was deep in the back wandering through the sci-fi/fantasy section, and looked to see that no one was around me. They’ll find me if they need anything. I picked up a couple of old Star Wars novels and tried to remember if I had read them. Timothy Zahn just runs together in your head after awhile. There was a big Dragon Lance collection that I skipped right the fuck over.

After awhile I found myself in a cartoon books section, on the bottom of the shelves. I sat down, and started to look for something I hadn’t seen before. I sort of lost time when I felt a hand rubbing my back, just under my neck. I smelled Regular Dave’s cheroot, and leaned way too far into his hand.

Way too far.

“Need some help up?” He asked, looking down at me.

No. “No. I’m fine. I meant to do that.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to knock you over.”

“You didn’t I just…” I just leaned into your hand, and you smell good, and you feel good, and I’m thinking way too hard about this. “I just fell over.” I grabbed my book and hauled myself to my feet.

“What’s this?” He gestured to the book.

“Think Good Thoughts About a Pussy Cat. It’s George Booth. He drew for the New Yorker and Playboy.”

“Is he funny?”

“Yeah!” I leafed through the book until I found ‘Ip Gessa Gul’ and showed it to him.

Regular Dave moved his lips as he read it, and guffawed at points. “This is great. Where did you find him?”

“Down here, that’s the only copy.”

“Can I have it? I want to get this one.”

“Not on your life, I saw it first.”

He gave me a pout, “Please, I’ll ea—nope, gay. Sorry.”

Stupid nipples. Life saving bra. Stupid puberty brain. You don’t want him. “How ‘bout… why don’t you buy it for me.” I put my hands behind my back, and twisted the ball of my foot back and forth. Then I rushed out, “That way… that way, it’ll kind of be… like, ours. And then I can pay you back when I want it.”

Regular Dave gave me an appraising look, and there was something in his eyes that I loved—no hated. Definitely hated. He took a step forward. I didn’t give ground. “I can think of ways for you to pay me back.”

I met his eyes, and tried to still my heart from beating, and tilted my chin up—

—“What did you find back here?” Bree said.

I don’t know if that was a moment, but it’s definitely ruined. Regular Dave took a step back, and still had a Han Solo grin on his face. “Aisling found a book, that she will let me buy for her.”

“Fucking fantastic. Buy me a book too.”

“No.”

“I’ll—”

“You have braces, Bree. Stick my dick in a woodchipper why don’t you.”

She flipped him off, and grabbed my hand, “Come away from this loser, Aisling. You don’t need his gaff.”

She took my hand and I, goddamn me, reached out my hand and almost brushed Regular Daves chest. But Bree was laughing, as she took me behind another book case and whispered, “My braces come off in a week, and he’s the first guy I’m gonna blow.”

I couldn’t help but giggle, really giggle. Then she giggled as I said, “Turn his world upside down.”

“Right?”

God I wish I had a dick. She’s so cute. No, Autumn first. Then Bree. Then Sarah. Then Regular Dave can ea—stop it! I was so confused.

She pulled me out of the book cases toward the counter, where Sarah was buying a paperback novel. I realized what I needed, and asked the second girl at the counter, the one who wasn’t ringing up, “Do you have a copy of The Odyssey? I need really good footnotes.”

She went to her computer, “I recommend Fagles translation, let me see if we have a copy.” Typety typety type, “We have one.” I followed her into the back. “It’s versed, and everyone I’ve talked to who read multiple versions loves it. Is it for a class?”

“Yeah, I read the Barnes and Noble version, but I think it wasn’t the best, and I’m looking for something better than the teacher recommended.”

She handed me the book, “Come back and let me know what you think of it.”

Everyone waited for me, the last one to check out. Minutes later I was ordering chocolate chip cookie dough, and we were laughing, sitting on the cars in the parking lot.

“Why did you get The Odyssey?” Rachel asked me.

“We’re reading it in AP English, I have to get through the first five books by next week.”

“Yech. Why not just watch the movie?”

I looked down at my cone, trying not to brag, “I’ve actually already read it.”

I’d like to say that everyone looked at me in shock, but no one did. Dammit, now they’ll think I’m a loser. Backpedal fast. “When I was eight, I found a copy of Greek Myths for Children on my father’s bookcase. I must have read the thing millions of times.”

Autumn said, “That’s pretty hardcore. The Greeks were into some fucked up shit.”

I hit the first part of the cone, and got icecream on my nose, “The book tried to tone it down. Like the bit with Persiphae and the creatian bull? It said she got a wooden bull to ‘see it up close.’”

“Is that the one where—?”

“She gets in the wooden bull, covered in cow piss, so that the Cretian bull will fuck her, and knock her up with the minotaur? Yes, it’s that one.”

Everyone looked at Big Davey, and nudged him, and laughed about it, and I laughed with them.

“I gotta get back to my car,” Sarah said.

“I have to go too. Aisling, finish up. You can’t eat the ice cream cone in Bruce.”

“Yeah, Bruce that has footmarks on the ceiling?” Wee David said, “You can’t—eat—in there.”

Autumn threw her napkin at him, got down from the hood and got in her SUV. I picked up her napkin and followed her.

Bruce pulled up outside my house, where my mother was outside on the porch, reading. Aumtumn seemed like she was about to say something, as I grabbed my backpack. I didn’t know what it was, but from the expression on her face I wasn’t sure I wanted her to say it.

“Why don’t you come meet my mom,” I held her off.

“Sure.”

We climbed the steps to the porch, “Mom, this is Autumn, she’s my friend on the tech crew.”

Mom looked over the rims of her glasses, appraised her for a second longer than Autumn was comfortable with, then said, “Pleased to meet you Autumn. Would you like to come in for some hot chocolate?”

Autumn hesitated and looked at me. I gave a shrug, “I mean… if you don’t have to get home and whatever.”

“Sure,” she said.

Mom got up, and I opened the door for Autumn. She stepped inside and I said, “Sorry about the mess,” reflexively more than anything. There wasn’t much of a mess, per se. There were just piles of books that my mom and I left everywhere, a very sofisticated computer my mother had built, a netbook, a laptop, and two tablets, strewn over a couch and two chairs.

“It’s nice,” she looked around, and I pointed to a chair.

Instead of sitting she followed me to the kitchen while I played host and found cups and filled the water heater. “Why don’t you just use the microwave?”

“For what?”

“Hot water.”

“Disgusting.” The machine started hissing. I had 48 seconds to get the chocolate ready, and got powdered chocolate with marshmellows into three mugs just in time to pour. While I worked I explained why the microwave made inferior hot water, and Autumn listened, skeptical. “Look, just trust me,” I finished.

“Sure, luv.”

I handed her the mug, and one to the mother who had come into the kitchen to watch us. Then we shuffled into the living room and sat. Mom asked Autumn about her name, and then her hair, and her eyeshadow. Autumn told her all about it, and then asked where she’d found the sweater she was wearing. Mom told her she knit it, and Autumn crocheted, and they talked about that.

I kind of let it wash over me, and at the same time I felt jealous. Here they were talking like… well like girls talked. Somehow I wanted in on this, and I didn’t know how to start or what to say.

Then my mom put me on the spot, alway ready to embarrass her son—daughter, “Aisling you should try makeup like her.”

“Mom.”

“What?”

I’m… to young? No, that’s loser Aisling talking. “You never wear any makeup.”

“Sure I do. I just don’t wear it around the house.”

Oh.

“I can teach you,” Autumn looked to me, and I bit my lip.

Rule no.2 was wavering, looking at Autumn and how striking her purple eyeshadow looked. I knew what my new face was like, when I remembered I wasn’t a boy. Maybe it was a little plain. Maybe makeup would make Regular Dave, or Wee David, or Big Davey, look at me differently.

Maybe it was another reason to spend time with Autumn. I really liked her. She was comfortable, and welcoming. And more than a little hot.

“What should I wear?”

“We can see what looks good on you. I don’t want to cover up your cute little freckles.”

My freckles aren’t cute, because I’m not cute. Wait, she thinks I’m cute? I blushed at the thought, and no one called attention to it. “Maybe,” was all I could say.

Then mom asked me about my design class, and I had something to contribute. When I talked about getting a new tablet, Autumn asked to see my work.

“Go show her,” mom said.

I hesitated at the top of the stairs, Autumn in tow behind me. There’s about to be a girl in my room. My room where I fantasized that a girl would kneel in front of me as I sat on my bed. Where she would take my dick in her mouth, and suck on me until she swallowed my cum. My room where I had masturbated as a boy and as a girl, watching blowjob videos. My room where a pretty girl was about to come in and be alone with me. My room where I didn’t have a dick to suck anymore.

And I gave up, and opened the door.

Autumn looked over my shoulder as I stood there, and then gave me a little nudge, and moved around me when I turned. She went to my bed, and lounged, in the Kitty Galore pose. I realized that her tank top was pulled down, and I could see the top of her boobs, and felt my nipples harden for the hundredth time that day. Stay in the moment, Ash. Focus on what is.

Then Autumn locked her eyes on mine, and ran her hands through her hair, lifting it up and spreading it in a wave, “Shame your mom is home.”

My breathing was heavy, and I could feel that my eyes had dilated watching her there. I gave a swallow, and tried to remember what I was doing. She rolled over onto her chest and kicked her legs in the air, while she stared at me from under her lashes, “You know, you’re cute when you’re horny.” I kept trying to breathe. My nipples were so hard they hurt. She laughed then, “Show me your artwork.”

I couldn’t speak, I just went to my desk and opened my laptop, trying to keep my hands from shaking. I worked to open up my Artstation account, with it’s paltry 15 followers. Laptop in hand, I swiveled in my chair to see her sitting up on my bed. Hands at her sides, arms squeezing her boobs up and out. Still at a loss for words, I handed her the computer and she started looking through the images.

“These are really good, what website is this?”

“Art Station,” I finally found my voice, “I gave up on Deviant Art awhile back. It’s great if you want anime or My Little Pony, but this site has better standards. In that there are any.”

She spent some time leafing through, and saying, “I really like this one,” and “You did her expression really well,” and then she got a text. “It’s my mom, wondering where I am.”

“Do ya gotta go?”

She put the laptop back down on my bed, “Yeah, shame. I wanted to see more of your stuff, luv.” She hopped off the bed, and adjusted her tits. I glanced away, because it seemed private, and because I couldn’t get any hotter right then. “I’m done, you can look now,” she ran her finger along my cheek, until I turned. “Really cute. Show me out.”

We went down the stairs, my mom had retired to bed, but the living room light was on. At the doorway she turned, and glanced doown, “I really had a nice time with you tonight.”

Oh my god, is she… is she getting shy? And before she could turn away, I darted forward, and kissed her on the lips. It was just a little peck, but it was enough to light fireworks in my brain.

Then I fled inside before she could say anything.

Eat Like a Boy

***TRIGGER WARNING: Eating Disorders***

After a very confused night, I wasn’t sure Autumn would be at my door, and took my time getting breakfast. Then I heard Bruce honk outside, and had to grab my bag, figured I’d charge my phone somewhere, sometime, and rushed out the door.

I piled in the SUV and Autumn took off for the highway again. “It’s your turn to choose the music,” she said, hanging her cigarette hand out the window. “Something I’ve never heard before.”

“My phone needs to charge.”

She pointed to the cable coming out of the cigarette lighter, and then to the one coming out of the stereo, “Aux line.”

I plugged my phone in and opened Spotify. “Beats Antique?”

“Bad-ass show. Really incredible. I don’t know what that chick does, but she is some fine-ass trim.

So that didn’t fit the criteria. “Nine Inch Nails?”

“Are you asking if I’ve ever heard of Nine Inch Nails?”

“Ye—no. How to Destroy Angels?”

“Love ‘Big Black Boots’. Guess again.”

We were fast running out of highway. This early the traffic jam on the junction of 25 and 225 was more of a slight slowdown. “Zella Day?”

“Who’s she?”

Right. I put on “Sweet Ophelia” which has a killer drum thing, and great lyrics, despite the fact that they make absolutely no sense.

About nine bars in Autumn said, “I do not like this.”

“Don’t be such a little bitch,” I told her, “she has the voice of a broken angel.”

“Fine.” Autumn threw her cigarette out of the window. “Your hair looks nice today.”

I touched it and cringed inside at the reflex, “Really? I didn’t do anything different with it.”

“I should say, ‘your hair always looks nice’. I love the waves, do you curl it.”

“No, it just sort of does that.” Say something a girl would say. “I like your hair up. It shows the highlights really well.”

“Thanks, I brought a hair tie for you, if you forgot again.”

“Nope!” I dug in my backpack and showed her the package of ties, in different colors.

“Hmmmmm. You should do the green, it’ll look great in your hair.”

“Really?” Stop saying that, Ash. I had planned on only using the three black ones at the bottom of the package.

Then we talked hair, and I learned hair, the rest of the way to school, playlist forgotten.

‘Health’ dragged on and on, as Mr. Provolt talked about the circulatory system. Occasionally I would jot a note, when he said something I had forgotten I already knew. This time I glanced around at Michelle and had a characiture drawn full portrait of her in my notebook by the time class ended and I could go on to real art.

Design let me sketch in colored pencil for a glorious hour and a half. I had been worried about using them, never having gotten a good result with them before. Then I watched my classmates grinding their pencils into the paper like they had a grudge. I tried going like that, and ended up with a technique that worked well, but was incredibly time consuming.

Then I went for lunch with butterflies in my stomach, ready for whatever that held.

Lunch held Bree, and Autumn, and Wee David, and Rachel, and Regular Dave, and no loft. There was a class in the pottery studio, and the music room, so getting above the stage was out.

Only the upperclassman had an open campus, so Autumn, Rachel, and Regular Dave could leave if they wanted. They opted to hang out until everyone got bored of not leaving campus and decided to ditch the place. Bree hung around until she had to leave, and then we were pilling into Rachel’s car and heading off to Chipotle to get some lunch.

Mom had given me the credit card from the bank with these instructions:

“This debit card gets two hundred dollars at the start of the month. You don’t get any more than that, so make it last.” She softened her tone a bit, “There’s a line of credit attached, in case of emergencies. If you run in to a problem you call me before you use it.

We headed for Rachel’s car which was named ‘Rachel’s car’. Autumn called shotgun before we even stood up from the tables. As a 4’5” girl, maybe 105 carrying a goat under either arm, I was told it was my place to sit in the middle. I mentioned that I didn’t have a ‘place,’ you sexist pigs.

That’s not what happened. What happened was Wee David said, as we were leaving, “Bitch!”

And Regular Dave said, “Like hell, Aisling’s the girl, she rides bitch.”

And I said, “Fuck you, you sexist pig.”

And Rachel, as owner of the car—and as such, independent arbiter—asked me to please sit in the middle, because Wee David was nearing six foot and 200, and Regular Dave was smaller and shorter, but not by comfortable margins.

I got into the back seat and did the scootching thing you do to get into the bitch seat. Then Regular Dave squeezed onto one side, and Wee David squeezed onto the other. I was stuck with no elbow room, and barely any shoulder room. I was glad I couldn’t fit anything into my pockets, because I knew whatever it might have been would be biting into my legs right now.

Both of the boys leaned away a tad, for which I was grateful, and…

And Regular Dave’s hand was on my leg.

Not really on my leg. He had draped his fingers on his lap, and his fingers had brushed my thigh, as he (apparently) forgot about them. I had no idea why, but the whole car ride, the conversation, the banter, compressed itself down beneath my consciousness. Because there was a boy’s hand on my leg.

I gave a deep swallow, and tried to deal with what I was feeling. Well first I was feeling his fingers on my thigh. They felt electric, and intimate. That was bad, because I was clearly reading way too much into this. It was a normal thing for him, and should be for me. It was a casual touch, because we were in such close quarters. He isn’t freaking out here, why are you?

Second feeling. Lust. Straight fucking lust. Not arousal, not horniness, lust. His fingers had a line to my insides. In that I wanted them inside me, despite knowing it would hurt. Maybe it’s good when someone else does it?

Third feeling. Violation. But… some kind of… good violation? That was wrong, right. That’s not a positive thing. Only it was a positive thing. He was in my personal space, not of my volition, and he was just there, and I didn’t want him there, only I badly, badly, wanted him there.

And while I was gulping, and feeling, and thinking too hard about the whole thing, until my entire world was just a couple of fingers resting on my thigh, we arrived at the Chipotle.

Then Regular Dave gave my thigh a rub with his hand and said, “We’re here, space case,” and my entire world exploded.

Okay Aisling. That’s what getting touched by a boy feels like when you’re a girl. But then I had to normal, and get out of the car, and try to imagine that the whole thing hadn’t happened.

It was surprisingly easy. And surprisingly hard. My body still did all of the things it was supposed to. It got out of the car. It stood in line. It stepped forward when the line moved. Meanwhile my brain was screaming Sombody touched me! And it was fantastic.

Then I was sitting down with a chicken burrito and a coke, and listening to Regular Dave tell everyone how I had laid out the gym yesterday, and people were asking me questions. I put it all out of my head, for fear of going mad.

We were halfway through the meal—well Regular Dave and Wee David and I were halfway through—when Rachel looked at me in disgust and said, “Aisling, you eat like a boy.”

Wow, that… hurts. Why would that hurt? I put my burrito down, and wiped my face with a napkin.

Autumn looked at me, and then at Rachel. “I have to go pee,” she said. “Rachel, you should come with me.”

They got up and left, while Wee David and Regular Dave looked around in confusion. Then they went back to talking about whatever they had been talking about. Professional wrestling maybe? Or baseball? I don’t remember.

I don’t remember because my stomach felt sick. I looked at my burrito, and suddenly it looked disgusting. A big mess of flour and meat and waste. A tortured mass, that God himself couldn’t love. I didn’t even want to pick it up in my hands. I just stared at it, and indurred the feelings us disgust tearing up my belly.

Finally I got up and threw the last half of the burrito in the trash, and came to sit down with the boys again, mortified that they would say something. They either chose not to, or hadn’t noticed at all, and I didn’t know which one I should be grateful for. Boys.

Rachel and Autumn came back, and sat down, and ate daintily, like ladies. I remained silent, and stared at the table in front of me, as the conversation moved on to Dungeons and Dragons. It was a conversation I would have loved to take part in. I had the source books, and had resolved to find a group to play with, until I realized I didn’t have any friends.

But all I could feel was the crawling in my stomach.

I was a boy, who was a girl who ate like a boy. I was disgusting. I didn’t know if it was a girl thing or a puberty thing, but I could feel the rest of my life being ruined by this one moment.

It was a relief when everyone got up to go to the park, with an hour left before class started up again.

We were at the park, and I finally realized that my life wasn’t completely ruined. I’d just have to learn to eat like a girl, never talk to Rachel again, and prevent this travesty from ever intruding on my life. Maybe mom can teach me?

We sat in the park, and Autumn was on her third cigarette of the lunch break. Regular Dave had lit a cheroot. Wee David had pulled out Exploding Kittens, and despite having withdrawn into a little hole inside myself, I was dealt in.

At least it isn’t daisy chain. I never wanted it to be daisy chain, because I couldn’t imagine anyone touching my wretched body again.

I won. It was hollow. Then Rachel stood up, “I have to pee.”

“I’ll come too,” Autumn said, “come on Aisling.”

Oh, right. That’s something I do now. Why? Who knows.

Wee David glanced at Regular Dave, “Women.”

Regular Dave muttered to him, “The bathrooms here are single use, man. I don’t get it.”

I followed the other girls over the hill, “Are the bathrooms even open this time of year?”

Autumn smirked at me, “No. But they don’t know that. You want to talk where the Y chromosome can’t hear you?”

Riiiiiiiiiight. So that’s why. Probably other reasons too, perhaps.

Then Rachel turns and I stop dead, and look down like a beaten dog. “I’m sorry, for what I said, Aisling.”

Wait, what? No, I mean, Yeah, bitch you should be. But what came out of my mouth was, “No, I’m sorry…” I didn’t know what to be sorry for, and I didn’t know why I said that.

“No, I really am sorry. You know Sarah had a problem in her freshman year, and she still struggles with it. We got a call from her mom, and her therapist, and stuff, and we try to be really carefull about it. It just slipped out, I’m sorry.”

Then she hugged me, and I hugged her back, more out of shock than fidelity. Rachel put her hands in mine and sighed, “Friends?”

Wait, is she a bitch, or isn’t she? It was all really confusing. “Yeah,” I said, and I made eye contact for the first time in 45 minutes, “Friends.”

“This is how you make a flat,” Bree told me. We were making flats that day, having produced all of the platforms we needed. Bree held a staple gun in one hand, yellow pneumatic cord going into the ceiling. She handed me a tube of wood glue. “Glue here.”

Bam! She stapled the pieces together.

“Glue here.”

Bam!

“Glue here.”

Etc!

When we had one done, she handed me the gun, and I did the next one. And it went on like that for awhile.

I thought as I got deep into the work. There were four other stable guns going, and talking was difficult. The stage had been just as incredible when I stepped out onto it this time. But there was something different now. Belonging. This was my stage. I worked here. It was whatever I wanted it to be.

“Do you feel like that?” I asked Bree. I had decided to let her into my philisophical musings.

“Everyone fucking feels like that. We’re a team. We make everything happen. This is our space.”

We laid the flat we’d finished on top of the stack, and I went to cut more lumber for the next one. When I brought the 1x back, Bree continued. “The actors have their fucking black box. They have their fucking lines. They have their ‘craft.’ But we run the stage. We’re the ones coming in here and building, and rigging, and lighting. We tell the actors where they can and can’t stand, what they can and can’t touch. You’d be amazed what those dumbasses think is okay. You want to cartwheel off the goddamn platform? Sure, we’ll be here to call the ambulance.”

We finished the frame, put the 8x4 on top and glued it into place. It was my turn to go around it and staple it on, which I had decided was my favorite part. Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam!

I stopped and cocked my elbow on my hip, gun in hand, and looked at the flat with a sublime sense of pride, while Bree summed it all up. “Then at the end, they go off and have a party, and congratulate themselves and what a good job they did, while we strike. This is our stage. The actors just borrow it.”

When Susan took off to do whatever she had to do, we had finished three quarters of what we needed, and everyone was still working. The door closed, and I exepected Regular Dave to come in. Instead three teams finished their flats. That’s when we stopped.

Regular Dave went over to the ladder, and we all climbed up. Sarah and Rachel both mentioned my boots, which had been saving my poor toes all day. It made me feel really good. And the steel toes made me feel like I’d taken the initiative, done something right on my own to fit in with the group. I techie. I wear black. I have serious boots.

The grid was great again. Third one off the ladder I stopped to look down on the stage. Everything up here seemed so special. The refrain from Digital Daggers “Bad Intentions” went through my head as I had climbed the ladder, and now it seemed especially appropriate.

Come with me,
Deep down.
You might like what I’ve found.

Everyone got off the ladder with a similar air of reverence for the grid, and then went for the Loft. I steeled myself for whatever was coming and followed last.

Spin the Bottle

As the last one into the loft, I didn’t get a seat on the couch. Instead I found that someone on Tuesday had brought up a bunch of fluffy pillows, and a bright green inflatable chair. “That is never going to last,” I said, looking at it.

Big Davey laughed, “We alrealy had to patch it twice. It only cost twenty dollars though.”

“What are we playing?” I asked, eager to seem eager.

“Spin the bottle,” Bree said. “Wee David finished the app.”

“You can code?” I asked.

Wee David nodded as he pulled a tablet out of his backpack. “But I can’t draw, so the graphics are pretty bad.”

“Aisling can draw,” Autumn said. “She can make, like, a bottle and stuff.”

Everyone looked at me, and I shrugged, put on the spot. That seems cool. “Yeah, I can do that.”

“Great, we can talk about it later,” he laid the tablet down and everyone found a pillow and clustered in a circle.

“Limits?” Regular Dave looked to me.

Bree answered instead, “Lets save the hardcore stuff for show week, when we’ll really need it.”

“Aw,” Big Davey had been silent and spoke up, “I was really looking forward to getting my dick wet.”

“Michelle will come back,” Sarah rubbed his back.

“She won’t. Wanted me to quit Tech Club. Said I was going to get a disease.”

“That’s stupid. We all get tested.”

Regular Dave cleared his throat, “I was asking Aisling. She’s the newest.”

Then everyone looked at me. Okay Aisling. What are you not willing to do? “Um…” Do you really want to take a chance that a guy will roll to fuck you? “Hand jobs?” Wait, some girl could eat you out. Or you could suck Regula—cut it the fuck out, Aisling. “No, wait… oral.” Three in seven chance you’re screwed, and you might even enj—shutupshutupshutup.

Bree looked at me, “Are you sure. There’s no pressure here.”

Everyone else let out a chorus of “No pressure”s.

That’s an out from everybody, Aisling. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

“Ground rules though,” Regular Dave said. “Aisling is a lesbian.” Thanks for outing me, asshole. Now I won’t—godamnit.

“So was Goober, until he met us.” Bree adjusted her bra a little bit. It seemed like a very private thing to do, but in this atmosphere it was okay.

I hadn’t seen Goober since that first day. It was still interesting information.

“Enough,” Rachel told her, “Aisling is gay, and there’s no pressure.” She looked at me with an expression part apology and challenge, “Unless she wants some.”

“What is that supposed to mean,” I felt my face screw up.

She shrugged, “Sometimes a little pressure helps you explore yourself, Aisling. It did me.” Very interesting information. “Just remember not to do something you’ll regret later. That one is harder.”

“Is no one going to let me talk about this great app I coded?” Wee David asked.

Sarah gave his back a little rub, “Poor baby. Why don’t you tell us what a good job you did.”

“Thank you.” He bounced around a little. “I didn’t think about setting limits, that’ll have to be in the beta. But every time you spin, there’s a chance to escalate the level, see all the actions have a level, kissing, and removing an articel of clothing, on one, and then up to—” he looked at me, and then shrugged, “Up to DP at the top. Every time you spin there’s a fifty percent chance to escalate, and a fifteen percent chance to de-escalate.”

“Those numbers don’t add up,” Sarah rubbed his back again.

“They don’t have to. I made it that way. I may have to tweak the numbers a bit, but that’s what this test is for.”

“We’re your beta testers?” Autumn looked a little offended.

“Technically, you’re my alpha testers.”

“Fine, put it down, I’m tired of talking, and I want to get my dick sucked,” Autumn told him.

“If you pull out your dick, right now; I will get down and suck it on the spot.”

She made the ‘eat pussy’ gesture instead.

“It’s a roll of the dice, babe.”

“Roll them already,” Bree told him.

“Okay, so there are—” count count count “Eight of us.” Tap tap tap, “Now we just spin to decide who’s first.”

Guess who ended up going first. Go on. Guess.

The pointer spun to me, and Bree grinned, “Aisling. Take off your bra.”

“Thank you, I can read it.”

“Since it’s the first one, just leave your shirt on,” Rachel said.

Okay, Aisling, how do you do this one. The idea that I wouldn’t do it flashed for only a moment in my mind.

I started to lift up my shirt, when Autumn reached for my back, “Need a hand?” And she undid my bra, through my shirt, with her left hand. I felt my boobs tethered by gravity once more. Again I was grateful for the red light. I tucked my arms into my shirt, through the straps, and then pulled the whole thing out through the bottom of my shirt. I shook it in front of the others. See what you made me do? Then I dropped it and shook out my hair.

“Spin it,” Autumn said.

I reached out and hesitated. “Anywhere on the screen.” Wee David said, which is where I tapped it.

“Bree, anal beads.” Bree leaned forward to read it.

“Whoops!” Wee David reached for his bag and dug out a notebook, “Well that’s the first bug.”

Bree sighed, “And here I brought beads with me.”

“Oh, I brought beads too,” Sarah gave her a fist bump.

Bree tapped it, and it spun to Sarah. “Make out,” Bree read for us all. “How does she decide who?”

“She taps it,” Wee David said. Sarah tapped and it spun back to her. “Hmmm. Second bug. Just decide who, I guess.”

Sarah, put her hand on her lips, in mock thought. “I choose… Autumn.”

Autumn got up—Don’t be jealous Aisling, this group gave up on jealousy—and crossed the circle. Everyone watched as she sat her smaller body on Sarah’s lap, backwards, wrapped her arms around Sharah’s neck, and licked the other girl on the lips. “For how long?”

“Thirty seconds,” Wee David sounded so proud, “we tap the screen and a timer shows up.”

Autumn drew a finger down his chest, “You really did think of everything.”

Wee David caught her finger, licked it, and Bree tapped the screen.

Autumn licked Sarah across the lips again, and when she went in for the third time Sarah reached out her own tongue. Autumn leaned down further, and slipped tongues past and into her mouth, and then they were off.

I was watching so hard, I didn’t realize until I shifted, and my shirt scraped across my tits, just how hard they were. So errect they felt like there was a rubber band wrapped around the base. God I hope no one—wait would it be better if they did notice? Did I want someone to call me out? I felt heat in my belly, and couldn’t decide if my thoughts were turning me on more.

At second 25 Sarah wrapped her arms around Autumns neck, and was clearly settling in for the long haul, when the pad beeped. Autumn gave her a last peck on the lips and went back to her place in the circle. She sat and tapped the pad again.

It swun around to Regular Dave, and Bree read, “Underwear, Regular Dave.”

Look Aisling, you were a guy. You were in the guys locker room. There is no reason to be excited about seeing—there it is!

Regular Dave had kicked off his boots, and stripped of pants and boxers in a matter of seconds, and I saw his dick. That heat in my belly had gotten worse, and I could feel another spot on my panties. Wait a second, that’s what they’re calling ‘regular’? He was as big a me… as I had been. Un cut, shapely, unerect, but I could see the bit of his head peeking through, slick with precum. He sat back down, cross legged, and spread his hands.

I avoided meeting his gaze with my eyes, then I avoided meeting his penis with them. Look around like you’re bored. Okay, look back. Now look around again.

Bree ran her fingers up his thigh, “There’s our little friend.”

Regular Dave made kissy lips at her, and spun the wheel.

It landed on Autumn again, and Bree grinned a shit-eating grin, “Finger yourself.”

“Thank god,” Autumn started unlacing a pair of hightop boots, “I’m so fucking wet, right now.”

The situation in my own panties got worse.

Autumn pulled off a pair of blue stripped panties, to reveal a completely shaved pussy. Then she looked around at each of us, sat back on one elbow, and spread her legs. She ran her fingers down big outer lips, “How long?”

“Doesn’t say,” Bree told her.

“Guess you just do it until it lands on you again,” Big Davey told her.

Autumn blew him a kiss, hit the tablet, and started rolling three fingers around a glistening wet clit. I watched her big and small lips twist around, as she sighed.

“Bree,” Bree read, “Shirt and bra.”

The room started to swim around, and everything got so much more intense, as she revealed a pair of nipples with bars through each one. I didn’t even know you could pierce those.

“When…” I couldn’t not ask, but I had to clear my throat to do so, “When did you get those done?”

“Last year, they took forever to heal before someone could play with them again.” She looked at me and ran her tongue over her teeth. Then with a flourish she tapped the bottle. It spun to Big Davey, “Big Davey, finger blast.” She looked as Wee David “Fucking poetry, dude.” She touched the screen again, and it spun to Regular Dave. Regular Dave gave a shrug and got up.

“Let’s not, bro.” He touched the pad again and it spun to Sarah.

“Woot.” She got up, “This is what we have a couch up here for.”

Big Davey had beaten her on the couch and she put her head in his lap, looking up. “Pants off or on?”

“Off,” said everyone.

“Woot,” she said again, as she kicked her legs and shucked her pants onto the floor. I couldn’t see her pussy from this angle, just watched her lean into Big Davey as he ran his fingers down her belly and between her legs. She gave a little gasp as he entered her, and we all watched and listened as she began to moan and sigh.

I turned as Autumn reached a foot out and rested on my knee. She was deep inside herself, two fingers two knuckles deep, and twitching.

God I want it to be my turn again.

Bree spun the bottle, Sarah being busy, and I got my wish. “Aisling. Titty gropes. Pure fucking poetry.”

I stopped breathing as I reached out and spun for the first person to touch my breasts who wasn’t me. No idea what was coming, or what I wanted.

It came to rest on Autumn, who was not paying any attention. Regular Dave nudged her, dick now semi, “You’re up, slim.”

“Give me a second. Just a second. Just a—gawd!” Her leg twitched in my lap and relaxed again. “What am I doing now?”

“Groping Aisling.”

“Sweet.” Then she looked at me, and I could see the question on her face, “You ready for this, luv?”

I just about swallowed my tongue, as I bit my lip and nodded.

Still bottomless, Autumn licked her fingers off, and got up. I expected her to sit on my lap, like she had with Sarah. I expected a frontal assult. And with confidence I didn’t feel, I raised my chest to her.

“No, luv,” she walked behind me, and sat with a leg on either side of my ass. “It’s much better like this.” She put a hand on my shoulder and leaned me back.

Sarah gave a gasp, and bucked, but Big Davey didn’t relent as she made humming groans in her throat.

“Shirt off, or on?” Autumn whispered in my ear.

“Uh…” I wasn’t ready for that, despite the intense sexual atmosphere. “On. Please?”

“Sure, luv.”

I gave a gasp, I don’t think was audible, as her hands touched my sides, just above my hips, and slipped under my shirt. It wasn’t the world occupying force of Regular Dave’s fingers on my legs. It was more attention sundering, but less intense. She trailed her fingers up the sides of my body, until they were just under the line of my breasts. Going slow, she stretched my shirt so that she could move just her finger tips in little circles just on the side of my boobs.

I closed my eyes and leaned into her chest, and the rest of the room slipped away. After a few second of circles, her fingers moved forward, until they were under the line of my breasts. Back and forth, tracing the curves. I arched my neck into her shoulder, and she whispered, “Oh, does poor luvvy want more?”

“Autumn, it’s you,” someone (probably Bree, she’d appointed herself the MC) called.

“I’m busy. Make Wee David do it.” She nuzzled my hair with her cheek, “Luvvy doesn’t get more yet.” But instead of lines back and forth, she started making circles with her finger tips on the tender flesh. I think I sighed at some point, and shifted my legs. Then a finger on both sides brushed my nipple, and my brain whited out. She started tracing circles around my areaolas, and the pads of her fingertips made contact with a nipple every once in awhile. After the initial shock I managed to come back to myself in time to blank out again, when she put the pads of her fingers on each engorged tit, and roll in cicles.

“I think we’ll just do this for a bit,” Autumn said. I realized that I’d put both my hands flat on the floor, and was straining into her. I don’t know how long it went on. I knew that it wouldn’t ever be enough to get me off, and I knew that was okay. It was really just fine the way it was right then.

Then Autumn went in for the kill, and I realized that it wasn’t okay back when I felt that, because this drove all my feelings up three sizes (that day). She stopped the nipple circles to trail her fingers back to my sides, and brushed them forward until there was a finger on either side of each nipple. Then she pinched her fingers closed at the same time she gave a whole-hand clutch to my breasts. I kicked my feet out, and I think I hit Bree. I vaguely remember someone commenting that the wet patch on the crotch of my jeans was the size of a silver dollar. And I know Bree ran her finger over it. I jerked again, and then her finger was gone and it was all about my breasts again.

Autumn was alternating betweeen grabing, and cupping, and then she moved around and cupped each breast, curling her fingers around until she could pinch and turn each nipple. She was gentle, but intense, and I found the arches of my feet trembling.

I was brought out of it by the sound of an alarm going off. My eyes gradually opened to see Wee David’s splayed legs, as he ate Bree out, and she clutched the nape of his neck.

“Five minutes to finish up what you’re doing,” Regular Dave said. The tablet was off, and cast aside. Everyone was in a state of disarray, clothes strewn around and boots off.

Rachel was making mmm-mmm noises while I watched her give Regular Dave the first blowjob I had seen in real life. Well she seems to be enjoying it. And she did. She looked like a porn star, giving it her all.

Autumn gave my nipples a savage tug then, and turned them up and down. “You’re close,” she whispered. She moved one arm down my belly, “I can finish you off fast. What does my luvvy want?”

That! Want that! And at the same time, it was a hell of a lot faster than I wanted to move. Fear won over desire, and I moved her hand away. Instead I twisted and got up, until I was kneeling above her, and craned my neck down for a kiss.

I had wanted something a little chaste but serious. That’s what I intended. But as soon as my lips touched hers, her mouth opened, and I found my tongue inside it. Her tongue slipped inside mine, and somehow made my mouth feel full. Like I was getting a hug in my mouth. But charged and potent and I didn’t want to stop, even when she reached down and caressed me through the cloth of my jeans.

The timer rang again, and Regular Dave said, “Everyone nut and get dressed.”

Makeup

No way around it, I had to take off my shirt to put my bra back on. But something had changed about me. Maybe it was because I was a freshman and I had bigger boobs than Rachel. Maybe it was because I had just taken part in a micro-bachanal. Whatever it was, I stripped off my shirt with only a little hesitation, to the general boredom of the rest of the Loft. I picked up my bra, put it over my shoulders, and then turned my back on Autumn. She had just got her panties on, and was hunting for her pants. I caught her eye over my shoulder, “Can you snap me. It is your fault it’s off.” She stood and brushed my hair out of the way. “Last clasp.”

Then she gave me the shivers with a kiss in the center of my back.

I went down the ladder with muscles that felt like water, and a spring in my step. I hadn’t gotten off, not everyone had. But there was a feeling of cleared air. Like we had all come just a little closer together. I felt like we were synched up, as we finished the last of the flats. Thirty minutes after Susan showed back up, it was time to go home.

“Buckle your seat belt, or you might fall out of the chair,” Autumn said, as I relaxed into Bruce. I was feeling cuddly and warm. The smell in the SUV was still overpowering, but familier now. I opened my window and let the wind blow through my hair as we drove through the dusk light.

At my driveway I turned to her. What’s etiquette here? “Thank you for groping me”?

She leaned in close and put her finger to my lips to hush me, “We’ll do it again, real soon.”

When she took the finger away I kissed her. Closed mouth, but with feeling. “I’ll see you tomorrow?” She nodded. I bit my lip, and grabbed my pack before I could say anything else.

I sat down at my laptop, then got up, took my shirt off, and ditched the stupid bra. I looked in the mirror and cupped my breasts. The way Autumn did. She knew I was close. Next time I’ll be ready. She was sweet, and attractive, and a little dangerous. I thought I liked her more than I should have, faster than I should have. I gave myself a little jiggle, noticed the little freckles on white skin. I pinched my own nipples for a bit but it wasn’t the same. Then I sighed and put a shirt on and sat back down.

There was an email from my father.

I ignored it, and went on tumblr. Bree had a page, I knew, and Autumn. They had linked to the rest, so I followed them. I needed a profile picture, because my handle was edwardisasparklefairy. Not really pertinent to anything in current events, but it had been, five years before.

I posed in front of the webcam, and did my best to make my emerald eyes sumwhat alluring. Hmmm. Not like Autumn’s eyes. I need eyeshadow. Nope. Remember Rule no.2. But maybe I could try it out with Autumn? In my bedroom, where no one would suspect anything.

I opened my email tab back up and stared at the message again.

That picture could use some help. I pulled it into photoshop and got to work with my tablet. Subtle burn on a new layer over my eyelids. Adjustment layer and make it… Purple. No, too girly. That was a bridge too far. Aisling you’re drawing makeup on yourself to see what you’ll look like, because you want to wear makeup.

No I don’t Aisling. I want to see if I can make my eyes look sexier.

I mean, no I don’t Aisling. I want to see what it looks like for no reason at all. That was better.

Burgundy then. Dial the color a little bit. Cut out the rest of the room and put it a mask on an adjustment layer, fade it out. Bloom the light in the background.

I looked at it for a moment. Redder cheeks. Bring back the skin tone so that the freckles are a little muted. Bring up the skin tone so the freckles pop.

Open up the browser. Stare at the email.

My lips are too… something. Dark? No, light. I added more red, and then added a little purple. Export as .jpg, and update.

Autumn had already connected to me. I scanned her feed a bit.

I switched to the email tab again, then immediately dialed away from it.

I went to facebook, and cleared all 48 friends. Kept my mom and my grandma. Used the same picture.

Back to the email tab, I hovered over it. Then tapped my mouse.

Ash,

I’m sorry. Please come home.

Who does that bastard think he is? I wrote a three hundred word reply in two minutes, then deleted it. Then I wrote two word reply, and deleted that. Then I wrote 500 words, carefully over half an hour, and deleted that.

My father left me in the hospital, because he ‘didn’t have a daughter.’ Joann would have told him exactly what happened, or as much as she understood had happened. He still didn’t come. It hadn’t hurt much then, because I was dealing with so much. But it had turned raw and then festered. Emailing me wasn’t antibiotics, it was pus.

He had my number, he could have texted. He could have done anything. The coward just sent me an email, because that’s the way he wanted to communicate. Without communicating. He wanted me home where he could ignore me. Leave me to whatever I did and rely on my being there when he wanted attention, not the other way around.

I don’t know what I am to him. Certainly not his daughter. Probably not his son.

But here? I could… I could be my mother’s daughter. You know. For now.

I closed my laptop without replying and got up to turn my light off. Then went to bed, occasionally trembling with hurt and rage.

Autumn texted me to say she was going to be late the next morning, which was fine, because I’d needed more sleep.

I hit her back and recomended we skip first period. I didn’t need to learn nothing in History. She sent me back a smiling face, and I rolled over and went back to sleep.

Mom shook me awake a half an hour later, “Are you going to school today?”

I explained the situation to her by saying “Mmph,” and rolling over.

“I guess one day won’t hurt.”

“It’s just the one class. Autumn is running late.”

“I can take you.”

“I’d rather die.”

She got off the bed, “Suit yourself, because if you fail this class you’re a dead woman walking.”

When I heard her leave for work I couldn’t get back to sleep again. I climbed out of my bed and took a shower. A few weeks ago, in this situation, I would have wandered around the house in a towel, as I got breakfast, and I was fastening it around my waist when my arm ran across previously absent protrussions, and I realized that a different configuration was in order. Fine.

Ah. I needed a bigger towel. Or smaller breasts. Or a shorter trunk. Well.

I tied it anyway and headed downstairs to find a poptart. The towel came undone from the shaking halfway down the stairs, and had to be retied. Then again going up the stairs. I couldn’t do it with a poptart in my hand. I left it there and finished my poptart while staring, naked, into my closet.

Rule no.2: No girl clothes; No skirts. No dresses. No bikinis. No heels. No makeup.

On the other hand you bought that skirt. Why did you buy it if you weren’t going to wear it? I didn’t have an answer for that. I pulled the hanger out of the closet and laid the thing on the bed, and stared at it. “Daring.” Was I in a mood to be daring?

My doorbell rang and I went to open the door, remembering to put a shirt on only when I was halfway down the stairs. Then running back upstairs to put on my pajama pants. Autumn stood on the desk with a tacklebox. “I thought we could do your makeup, since we have some time,” she jiggled the box and it rattled.

“Is that… is that all your here for?”

“We can do your makeup, or you can pay me back for yesterday.”

I opened the door all the way and she gave me a peck when she walked inside. My knees almost gave way, and my heart stopped, “Let’s do makeup.” Before I did something extreme.

Autumn sat me down on my bed and pulled my computer chair over, then laid her tackle box on the trunk at the foot of my bed. She opened it to reveal tubes, and jars, and brushes, and pencil things, and lipstick things, thin plastic cylinders, and big (also thin) plastic cases.

I looked straight ahead as she took my chin in her hand and tilted my head this way and that. “I don’t want to do foundation. I don’t want to cover up those freckles, and in any case I don’t have a light enough shade.” She took my hand, and turned it back and forth a bit. “Let’s see here. Green eyes, can’t do green.”

“Do you have anything pur—dark red. Like a burgundy?”

“Sure, luv.” She dug around in the box and pulled out four different cases. Then with a brush she smeared five different swatches down my wrist. “I think this one, or this one.”

“That one.”

“Okay. Let’s see,” she dug around some more and pulled out several pencils, and drawing them across the swatch we’d—I’d chosen. I had no idea what they were for, and didn’t want to ask for fear of seeming stupid. “Which one.”

There was a pink that looked fantastic paired with the red. I pointed to it, then realized it was pink and screamed in shock inside my head.

“Okay, close your eyes.” I felt her paint with the brush on each eyelid. Then it went way and I opened my eyes. “Not yet, luvvey.” My breath quickened hearing the name she had called me during the bacchanal, and I shut my eyes tight. “Don’t squinch your eyes, or I can’t work.” I felt the pencil tip just above each eyelash, and then under the bottom lash. “You can open your eyes now.”

I opened them to see her holding a mirror in front of me, and jammed them shut again.

“You have to look sooner or later, luv.”

Right. Open your eyes Aisling. I looked to see a very pretty girl in the mirror. She wasn’t cute, she was… not sexy—well no, sexy… but in, like, the right way. Like, if you could distill cuteness down to the sexifying point, that would be the way this girl looked. And then I turned my head. That girl must be you, Aisling. That girl, that you would totally fuck, is how you look.

“Lips?”

If that’s what a little makeup can do to my face, then what would lipstick do? “Yeah.”

“Pink or r—”

“Red.” There were some tubes and sticks pulled out, and I pointed.

“No, luv, I want to try this one first.”

That one didn’t look red at all. It was in a tube and looked brown.

“Why are you closing your eyes?” Autumn asked, as she came at me with the tube.

I kept my eyes clenched closed, “Just do it.” The lipstick ran over my top lip, and then the bottom.

“Pucker,” she said. It was wet, and tacky. More sticky than chapstick and made my lips feel heavy. “No, don’t run your tongue over it. There was a reapplication, then my lips were wiped off when that wasn’t enough to undo the ruin, and a re-rapplication after that. “Mirror.”

“Yeah, I’d fuck me.”

Autumn stood and kissed my nose, then started packing all her things away. Deprived of the mirror, I went over to the one that stood between the window and my desk. The one I had first seen my vagina in. And now my made up face. I found a brush, and ran it through my hair as she finished packing.

“Ooooooh this is great,” I turned to see Autumn holding the skirt up, and then putting it agains her legs. She was wearing slim jeans and high tops.

“You can wear it if you want.” I’d never shared my clothes before, and hell if I could figure out why I wanted to now.

“Have you worn it?”

“No, it’s new.”

She gave me a look, “I can’t wear your clothes before you do. Let me see you in it.”

“I’m not even sure I want to wear it today.” I gestured to the sunny 80 degree day outside, “It might be cold.”

“Well you’d look great in it, and I want to see.” She threw it at me.

“Fine,” I giggled to cover up my shyness, “Turn around.”

“You’ve watched me finger my own pussy.”

I made a turn around gesture and ignored her eyeroll, waiting until she had her back to me. Then I stripped out of my pajama pants, realized that I was bottomless, and hunted around my dresser for panties.

“You’re a fire crotch!” Autumn had peeked.

I covered myself instinctually, and felt my blush all the way down to my nipples, “Turn around!”

She rolled her eyes and turned again, “Is it true they taste like cinnimon?”

“I wouldn’t know. And that’s racist. Okay, you can look now.”

Rule no.2 had lost two pillars today. Skirt and makeup. I wanted to feel bad, but it felt like I was walking a tightrope. Not the part where I could fall at any time. The part where I was balancing above everything, watching the ground below and knowing that I was doing something incredible.

Autumn turned and gave me a “whoot whoot,” while she pulled the imaginary cord on an air horn.

I had to look down, because my grin threatened to crack my face in half, “Thanks. You really think I look okay?”

“Girl you look dangerous to be around. You just need a better top.”

I hadn’t planned on that, “All I have are t-shirts.”

“Oh, take mine,” and she dropped her jacket on the floor, and pulled off her tank top. It was black, and had stripes, and matched the skirt. She threw it on my bed and went to my closet.

I picked it up, and felt it in my hands as she perused my paltry collection. It wasn’t spaghetti strap, Rule no.2 wouldn’t be swept aside. It also wasn’t long. “I’m… not sure I’ll fit into it.”

“Your giant boobies you mean? Try it on and we’ll see. Did you lose all your clothes in a fire or something?”

I took my shirt off, feeling okay since at this point she’d seen or touched everything I had to see, and could touch whatever she wanted. “No…um… I just switched from my dad’s house.”

“Is he gonna send your clothes?”

“He’ll probably have them all burned instead.”

“Lose a custody battle?”

“Not a loss as much as a forfit.” Man, it is easy to skirt the truth here. “He sent me an email, asking me to come live with him.”

She turned from the closet holding my favorite shirt, “Well if you stay here you’re gonna get mad laid.” She slipped the shirt on over her bra and against all reason it fit. “Last year I was the new girl, and everyone wanted to play with me.”

I giggled, and didn’t notice how girly it was, as I finished getting my bra on, and slipped on the tank top.

Autumn put her finger on her cheek, “… you need the jacket too.”

It smelled like cigarettes and her perfume, and it was a little stiff as I slipped it on. The hem was short and didn’t reach down past my waist. I turned in the mirror, marveling at the reflection.

“I’m gonna buy you some knee highs to go with it,” Autumn winked at me.

They would complete it. Rule no.2 was a ruin, and Autumn planned to dance on the rubble.

“Come on, we’ll hit traffic and be on time for fourth period.”

Only In Porn

I breezed into the room, feeling my palms sweat. Regular Dave was sitting on a desk, facing away from me. I stopped there for a moment, and seriously considered running away. At the very least taking a desk as far away from his as I could, and never meeting his eyes. Or talking to him again. What would you think if he did that to you? I would think he was mad at me. That might actually be better. Or worse. I didn’t know what it was about him but I thought about him in my other classes, and at home. His sense of humor. His sandy blond, shaggy hair, and pretty blue eyes.

The night before I had spent the half hour in bed, before I went to sleep, imagining those eyes and that hair looking up at me from where his mouth was burried in my crotch. It took forever to fall asleep, and I didn’t worry about it then.

Confronted with the real thing I worried about it obsessivly. I am not gay. Of course that wouldn’t be gay, only there was Rule no.1. I was still a guy, and I had guy thoughts. That made it gay, and I wasn’t gay. There was nothing wrong with being gay, I told myself that because I was woke. But there was something wrong with it, because it wasn’t something that I was. I liked girls, and I was going to continue to like girls. And maybe just suck some dicks. Strike that thought from the record, stenographer.

I dropped my backpack next to Regular Dave and he taked and took a double take. “Have… have I seen you in makeup before?”

“It’s just something I’m trying out.” I downplayed so I wouldn’t seem like the kind of girl who he wouldn’t like. Only I didn’t care if he liked it or not.

“Do or do not, there is no try. And you definitely did.”

“I apreciate the reference but don’t understand your point.”

“You look nice.”

I tried not to gush, “Thanks.” And failed.

I took my seat, smoothing my skirt underneath me. He didn’t say anything about the skirt. He hates it.

“I think I’m not supposed to say that you look good in a skirt. So I’ll say you look great in a skirt.”

I touched my hair, realized that was bad, and twirled a lock in my fingers instead. Damnit that was worse. You are definitely flirting with him. But it was okay because he thought I was gay. I wish I had told him I wasn’t gay. I mean straight. Please start the class already.

But Ms. Clark wasn’t even in the classroom and I couldn’t stop talking to Regular Dave. I cleared my throat instead, and broke eye contact, and fixed eye contact, and broke it again.

“We won’t be able to do any extracurriculars tomorrow. Well we can, but the crew is dutchmaning the flats. No one wants that in…” he looked around the class, “… places.”

“Yeah, that would be pretty gross. You poor baby, you’re going to get blue balls.” See that? That’s flirting. That’s what you don’t want to do.

Regular Dave winked at me, “I’ll manage something.”

The wink hit my nipples harder than the veiled proposition. The bell rang and I still hadn’t been saved. I put my finger on my cheek, and copped an innocent look, “I guess you could call someone.”

“I did get someone’s number recently.”

“I put my hand to my breast in the moi move and horrified myself by winking at him. And then acted on a half hour of fantasies, “Sometimes a girl needs a little garauntee of reciporcation.”

“Consider it garauntee—”

“Okay everyone, let me do attendance and then it’s warm ups.” Where the hell had she been? We all faced forward, and the conversation dropped off, as Ms. Clark made two marks in her book and slipped her shoes off. “What do you want to do today?”

The consensus was Machine and we all stood and shook out, which makes me feel like an idiot every time. Curtis stepped forward to start the motion and Ms. Clark put her hand up, “You don’t get to play Curtis. And you definitly don’t get to be in the center of the machine.” Curtis threw his pen across the room and got another detention.

I girl I recognized from my Algebra class went to the center and started pumping her fist in and out, close to her chest, I came forward to turn it into a cam shaft, and the machine started. Regular Dave came to stand behind me and became a bellows, going up and down. He faced away from me, which was a very apropriate idea because his legs were close to mine and…

And as I turned the wheel of my cam shaft my ass would occasionally brush his leg. This is a normal thing. You try not to touch people during machine, but it happens. Everything is inocennt here. It still caused a hitch in my breath every time it happened. My arm was getting tired and I focused on that, instead of trying to anticipate the rythm. When I caught myself trying to sync up with him, beads of sweat had broken out on my brow, and I sqeezed my eyes shut until the last person joined and the machine exploded.

I turned to fall to the floor, and found myself in Regular Dave’s arms as he reached out and caught me. “I figured you would forget not to fall in that skirt,” he whispered in my ear.

Whisper some more. Whisper anything. “Thanks,” was all I could say, as he carefully set me down, and then collapsed next to me. Please let this class be over.

“So you can draw?” Wee David asked me. We were having lunch in the cafeteria. Everyone was either tired (the girls) or wanted more (the guys) and feminism won out. We were taking a break from the loft until tomorrow, and playing Cards Against Humanity.

“Yeah, she can draw,” Autumn played my wing-woman. “Who had ‘my cavernous rectum’?” Big Davey held up his hand and she threw him the card, “You know what I like.”

Wee David kept talking to me, and I found myself really liking his eyes. They were dark blue, and fierce. I wanted to reach out and touch some part of him while he talked to me and I had no idea why. Is this something Regular Dave did to me? That bastard. “I’m okay. I don’t know much about, like, icons and stuff.”

“Could you learn? Cause I could use little pictures and stuff for this.”

“Like what?”

“Well like things that pop up when people get something. So if the bottle spins to ‘butt plug’ theres a picture of a butt plug and stuff.”

I thought back to the bead joke, that I thought had been a joke. “You guys… you do that?”

“It’s rare. I mean, Goober is the only guy who’s really into it. Hey Bree, how big is your butt plug?”

“Which one?” Bree put her selection into Rachel’s pot. Wee David and I had been sitting out for the talk.

“The red one.”

“I think the wide part is tree inches.”

Wee David turned back to me, “That’s kind of her thing, but I put it in for anyone who wants to experiment.”

That was something I was certain I didn’t want to experiment with. Not even a little bit. Wasn’t even the slightest bit erotic. That was dirty in a way that completely turned me off. I didn’t want anything in my asshole because I wasn’t gay. But you’re gay for chicks now, and (like the porn Bree watches) sometimes—NOPE. All the nopes.

“You should have, like, an opt out button. Something where you can cancel on the butt stuff and do something from the same sexiness tier.”

“Oh, that’s great!” Wee David pulled out a notebook, and I dug a pen for him out of my bag. When I gave it to him, I found myself holding it for longer than I should have.

Dammit Aisling. You are not ga—you are not straight. You like chicks. God his eyes are gorgeous.

He wrote, “Opt out —> same tier. Limits?” And then touched my fingers for a moment as he gave my pen back. “Right now, can you just do a bottle for me?”

“What kind of bottle?” And we talked about that for a long while. Something classic like a coke bottle? Or something adult like some Old no.7? Maybe a bottle of lube? Why does it have to be a bottle? It could be a dildo, or a plug.

“We’re techies, it should be a screw,” Regular Dave said from my right. I hadn’t forgotten he was there while I didn’t flirt with Wee David. I couldn’t forget he was anywhere. But, “Free from jealousy or envy I will play…” And somehow his being present made not flirting with Wee David that much easier.

“I want to sell it to the general public, dude.”

“So? It adds an extra innuendo. Who wants to open a ‘spin the bottle’ app and get hit with double penetration?”

I cut my laugh short, and felt my nipples cut long. Wait, real people actually do that? I thought that was a porn thing. Sitting between the two boys I suddenly realized the temperature of the air. They’ve both done it too. That’s something that… Whoa that thought went so too far, it was infinity far. Time for a breather.

I stood, “I have to go to the bathroom.” And I locked eyes with Autumn.

“Oh, I’ll go with you,” she leaped up too.

Regular Dave brought in the rest of the table on the merits of a screw as Autumn and I fled the table.

I found a stall and found that a skirt really worked for what the bathroom was for. While I didn’t remember having to pee, I found that I still had something to do in here. Can I just pee on command now? I knew I didn’t have anything to injure if I held it. In fact that’s what I had been doing. Waiting until in class to go, so that I wouldn’t meet anyone in the bathrooms.

So far it had worked, and the ladies seemed exactly like the mens other than the lack of urinals.

And the boxes on the sides of the stalls. What the hell were they for? Not something I could ask anyone.

As I did the thing I sort of came in here for, Autumn said from next to me, in the stall, “So what did you want to talk about?”

I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t say anything. Talking in the stall was not done.

“Aisling, are you okay.”

“I’m…” I cleared my throat and tried to speak at normal volume, “I’m fine. Can we talk in a second?”

“Why?”

“Do you want to talk now?”

“Why not?”

I finished, pulled my panties up, and unlocked the door, “Because—It’s okay now.” I went to the sink.

“Don’t be such a boy. This is the sanctum of woman. We talk here.”

New information. Rule no.1. I would not talk in the stall. Ever. I could manage while I was out and she was in though.

“Have you done… that?”

“I’ve done just about everything after a year with them, be more specific.”

“Everything?”

“Just about.”

“Even double penetration?” My nipples had cooled it, because all I could feel was shock.

“You really have to be in the right mood. It’s mostly a show week thing.”

She opened the door and went to wash her hands. Once clean she put her hand on my arm, “You don’t have to. You don’t have to do anything. I don’t think Rachel ever has. She doesn’t even like anal.”

That’s not even enticing. Dirtiness is not hot, and that’s dirty and you don’t want anything entering the exit only. There’s no girl who would enjoy that. They do it in porn for money.

Autumn turned to the mirror pulled a compact out of her backpack and started touching up her eyeshadow.

“You’re eyes look so amazing,” I told her. Then blurted, “You just do that as a favor for the guys, right?”

“What anal? I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t enjoy it. Like I said, no pressure.”

That’s gay. Only gay guys like that. She’s… She wasn’t lying. I knew she wasn’t.

“Doesn’t it hurt?”

She looked at me, with her newly done eyes, “It’s intense, if that’s what you mean. What do you think Wee David is for?” She handed me the tube of lipstick, “You need a touch up, luv.”

“My mom needed Bruce,” Autumn told me, as I came to the group after Math. Her ass, that Wee David had fucked, looked great in her jeans. Is what I didn’t think. Wait, no. I’m gay. I can think that. Can’t I? In any case I tried to think about it less. Tried not to think about his dick sawing in and out of her asshole. Tried not to think about the way her eyes looked while he did it. Tried not to think about the way she said it was intense, not painful. I haven’t even had regular sex. How much more intense could it be? Just a finger was more painful than I could stand.

I realized I had blanked out, and caught on to what she was saying. “—installing that dumb ass sink today, and can’t fit the fucking thing in her Camry. You wanna take the R line together?” Her mouth, with which she had moaned while taking it said. “Aisling? You in there?”

“Yeah, sorry. Math was really boring. We can take our time getting home, there’s a Cubone that none of the casuals have picked up.”

“Well no Instinct bitch is getting it.”

“Fight me.”

She laughed, I laughed, she had done anal, we said goodbye to the others and walked out the back door.

We had to track through an alleyway to get the Cubone, which Autumn kept pronouncing cub-one. She continued until I threatened to slap her in the face. Then she did it again, and I punched her arm, and she pouted and stopped.

She got the pokemon too. “Now you owe me,” I told her.

“Fingers or tongue?”

Everything! “You start, and I’ll tell you when you can stop.”

She waggled her eyebrows, and we set out for the platform. We talked about pokemon, and then repeated things we had seen on tumblr (which she called and I resolved to call, ‘tungle’). It turned out that she was only in the middle of homestuck, and that she shipped Karkat and John.

“Ew, why?”

“I just like it. Don’t be a homophobe.”

“Okay, I won’t. But why?”

“You don’t like yuri?”

“No, I think it’s kind of gross.”

“Are you sure you’re a girl?”

Nope. Rule no.1. “Last time I checked.”

We walked up the stairs and waited on the platform. “Look, guys like lesbian porn right?”

“So I’ve heard. So does Bree.”

“Bree likes a lot of weird stuff. Here’s the thing though, girls don’t like lesbian porn. I don’t even like lesbian porn, and I was a lesbian.”

“Was?”

“I was more confused than I wanted to admit to myself.” We sat next to each other in the middle of the train. At 3:35 it was barely half occupied. No one was standing and there were still seats available. “I mean, I wasn’t confused until I met the crew, and then seeing what they did… It just kind of unraveled my world, you know? Like the guys are mostly straight, but even them, on occasion. ‘Cept Big Davey.”

Wait was that hot, or…

“Anyway, what I was saying about the porn stuff. See for the most part you and I want a plot with our story. We want to feel the emotions with the characters in our porn. Guys just want to see people fuck. So in yuri there’s a long plot (usually) with a drawn out character arc (usually) at the completion of which the characters (usaully) realize they love each other, and maybe kiss. There’s also lots of hearts drawn on the panel if they have sex.”

Autumn reached down, in a casual motion, to where my hand was resting on my lap, and casually took it in hers, all while she continued talking, “Now what’s the plot of a lesbian porno? Two women meet and fuck. The end.”

My heart was racing as she held my hand, resting in my lap. It was a little uncomfortable, so I move our hands to sit between our knees. I didn’t pull my hand from hers and she gave my hand a little squeeze in affirmation. “You’re saying that homo-porn is made for the opposite gender?”

“I sure find it hot anyway.”

I didn’t know what to think of that, and I continued not to know as the train came up on the Nine Mile station. I did know that I was holding someone’s hand. Someone who had indicated pretty clearly that they wouldn’t mind having sex with me. Someone who was, at this moment, trying to seal the deal. Someone who had indicated this by almost coming out and saying it.

“Hey, listen,” Autumn tapped our hands up and down as she talked, if I didn’t know better I’d say she was nervous. “The contractors are gonna be finishing the cabinets when I get home. It’ll be a lot of noise, and dirt and fucking commotion and stuff.”

Well, are you going to let her close that deal? I didn’t know. Things were moving fast, and it wasn’t even Friday yet. In three weeks I’d worn a skirt, put on makeup, joined a swingers club, become a techie, started at a new school, moved to a new city, and had been abandoned by the only gender I’d ever known. It had been an exhausting month. It might be nice to just go home and decompress. Maybe take a nap.

Instead I put my head on her shoulder, “My mom won’t be home until five thirty at the earliest.”

Heavy Petting

“Hey mom, I’m home!” I called as I opened the front door, knowing she wasn't there.

Autumn let go of my hand to take off her backpack. She had held it all the way from Exposition station, cigarette in her other hand. She had only released it to catch a Magicarp (we both got that one).

I closed the front door, and then didn’t know what to do with her. Then she stepped forward, and I gave ground until I was backed up against the door. She leaned in close and I leaned forward to kiss her. It was soft, at first. The whole house felt like the smell of rose water, pink and silky in my brain. The light was softer and I could smell her cigarette on my shirt (the shirt she was wearing), and I didn’t mind.

The kiss got harder, more urgent, as we both started breathing faster. She ran her hands up my forearms to wrap her hands on my waist. Holding me still as we tilted out heads, and traded tongues. French kissing is like a kiss you can feel with two brains. I ran my fingers up her arms, and realized I could focus on kissing her and touching her at the same time.

And I wanted to touch her all over.

I got to her upper arms and moved on just my fingertips, as I trailed them up the sides of her breasts. They were firm, almost like muscle, under her bra. Filled up and aroused. Touching me made me feel tingles in my thighs, and up my back. I’m touching a girls breasts! Through her shirt, but points for progress.

She broke off the kiss to lean her head back at my touch, and her own fingers ran up the flat of my stomach, just under my breasts. Bra on was almost as good as bra off because every part of my skin was on fire. I started going with the flow, and bent forward further to kiss her under her ear, and then laid little pecks down the line of her neck. My finger tips caressed their way over the top of her bra, and then up over her shoulders.

She stepped back and even halting the kiss was wonderful, because I knew it was an invitation to go further. I was so giddy I giggled, and she giggled, and I kissed her fast, took her arm, and pulled her up the stairs.

The door to my room was closed and this time I pinned her against it, and kissed her again. She wrapped her arms around the back of my neck, and I realized we were almost the same height. I dug in her shirt, and touched her bare tummy, trailing my fingernails across it, and then wrapping my arms around her back. She swayed her hips back and forth, and something about that drove me crazy. I leaned in and she lifted her foot and placed it back against the door, knee reaching beneath my skirt and up into my crotch. If I had balls that would really hurt. As it was it was delicious, even as I felt my wet panties press into my lips. I dropped my weight so I could feel her leg press into that special spot, and everything turned pink for a moment.

Then Autumn put her leg down and I stumbled, and while I was catching my balance she turned the knob and pulled me into my bedroom. I swung about and swung back in to kiss her as she backed me into my bed. It was just the right height to catch me behind the knees and she kept kissing me as I toppled onto the bed.

Autumn put her hands under her tank top (that I was wearing) and disengaged so she could run her palms all the way up my chest and palm each breast. I knew what she wanted and sat up so that she could pull my top off. Then she pulled my shirt (that she was wearing) off, with that sexy crossed arm pull. Both of us in our bras, we went back to kissing as she crawled on top of me.

I’d never understood the phrase, “legs intertwined,” until her knee was in between my legs, and I had a calf wrapped around hers. My skirt had rustled up to my hips, and I felt cool air on my thighs, and then her leg pressing into my mound. She let me gasp, and took to opportunity to get her hand under my underwire, and squeeze my breast. My first thought was that it was pretty uncomfortable, and when she squeezed again I realized it was fine for the moment as long as she kept it up.

I reached a hand up to pull her bra strap off her shoulder. She took her hand away from my breast to shrug her arm out of the strap, and then ran that hand up my back, as my fingers brushed the bare flesh of her left breast. I rolled a little bit, wondering what she was up to, and kissed the arm that was holding her up on the bed. It wasn’t sexy, but it was the best I could do at the moment. The best she could do was unsnap my bra again, and that was sexier than it had been before. I felt my breasts fall down onto my ribs, and then she had pulled my bra off and flung it away somewhere.

Some animal instinct had taken over. I didn’t know how to be sexy before but I knew now, as I sat up, took her breast, and licked the bare nipple. Autumn made a low sound in her throat, and then started tearing her own bra off, to be flung (by me) over my shoulder. When she leaned down to kiss me again, I grabbed her shoulders and rolled the two of us over.

On top now. This is where a guy should be, right? But I didn’t feel like a guy just then. I didn’t know what I felt like, I was just feeling things. Her lips on mine, her sent in my nose, her hair pooled around my arms as I cradled her head, elbows above her shoulders. I was straddling her, my skirt barely on now, feeling the fly of her jeans through my panties and reveling in it. Dropping back and leaning over so that I could rub myself on her.

She reached her arms up and pushed my shoulders lower, and I knew what she wanted. I scooted my knees down on the bed and curled my back, to take spend some quality time between her breasts and my mouth. Again, I didn’t know that I would know how to do this. But I had a pair of breasts, I’d spent some time getting to know them. I focused on her right (I’m left handed, it seemed natural) blowing cool air over it for a moment, before running my tongue around the areola the same way she’d done with her fingertips in the Loft. I gave it a flick, the way she couldn’t have done with her fingers, and then brought the tip of the nipple into my mouth.

Autumn arched her back, and wove her fingers through my hair, as I went soft, then hard, and soft again. I could feel all of her in my mouth, like I was taking in her whole breast, even though it was just a nipple that I had behind my lips. She was making little sighing noises as I went, and I found my left hand running over her face. Like I was trying to comfort her. Keep her safe from all of the pleasure. Somehow she got my thumb into her mouth, and it tickled down to my belly, in a way it shouldn’t have.

I stopped for a second for breath, seeing that her nipple was twice the size now, erect and engorged, and switched to her left. No teasing this time, just sucking until she was gasping for breath, and reaching up to clutch my own breasts. She did something with the nipples that was just right and my back leaned itself back so that I could feel more. Reaching up to hold her hands on my breasts and try to get her to do it harder.

She lifted her head then, and Autumn was the first girl to put my tit in her mouth, holding my hands back. It felt like the nape of my neck was being drawn through my core and straight into her mouth. Deep inside her. My hips bucked without me meaning to buck them, and that just brought me back to the way her body felt under my pussy.

Autumn put her hands on my stomach and struggled to sit up, and I backed off the bed. It gave me the perfect opportunity to start taking her pants off. That was harder than I thought. I had to work out how to unbuckle a pair of jeans from a foreign angle, head fogged with lust. Once I had them undone and the zipper down, she took pity on my fumbling and brought her legs into the air to peel them off.

Do I… I could… Is this when? Take off her panties for her? That was… was this moving too fast? My decision was made for me when she scooted to the edge of the bed, sucked on my nipple for a moment, and then pulled my skirt off. She sat back on the bed and looked immensely proud of herself, and I had to kiss the smile off her face.

I don’t really know how it happened but I was sitting with my back to her again, cradled, and feeling her naked nipples on my back. My legs were splayed over the bed like I had broken my back, as her fingers inched down my abs and her left hand pinched and pulled my nipple.

I could smell the sex in the room, the naked arousal. Sweat and skin, and a smell that your nose says, “you shouldn’t like this, it’s wrong.” And you say, “Shut up nose, I love it.”

“Don’t squirm, luvvey, you’ll make it harder for me to do what you want me to do.”

I sighed and turned anyway, and kissed the crook of her arm, as her fingers trailed down to my mound. Lower. Lower and faster. Get there now. But she didn’t. She crept as she whispered little croons into my ear. “Does luvvey want my fingers lower? Does she want them on her little clit? Should I rub them there? Should I make her feel good?”

“Stop talking and start doing,” I whispered/cried.

“Okay, luvvey, here you go.” And someone else touched my pussy. “Oh, luvvey is dripping, she wants it so bad. Tell me where I should go.”

I can’t do it, I’m too embarrased.

She rubbed precisely the wrong place, and it felt great, but not great. “Up or down, luvvey.”

I can’t do it, I’m too embarrased. She’s touching my pussy, and I can’t tell her how I would touch it.

She went further down, past where I needed her to be, and touched the tender place. The bit that hurt. I squirmed but didn’t say anything, and her fingers moved away. “I don’t think my luvvey like that. She should say when I get her right.”

I can’t do it, I’m too embarrassed. Her fingers should know what to do, and I should be happy with it. But they didn’t and I’m wasn’t.

“Should I go up here then,” and she brought her fingers to my belly button. I giggled and found the liquid to take her wrist and put her hand back. “Oh, luvvey doesn’t want to say then?”

I shook my head into her elbow.

“Guide my hand luvvey.”

I brought her fingers closer, until they were perfect, and held them there. I took my hand away and then let out a long, low moan as she went in slow circles. She had a finger on either side of the good place, and it was pulling my little lips around as she rearranged my brain. There was someone moaning in the room, real sex noises like you hear in porn. It’s only when I turned my head and heard the sound change that I realized it was coming from me. I thought the only did that in porn too. I never made a sound when I was a guy. But I wanted Autumn to know how good she was making me feel. I wanted her to do it more, and I thought the sounds will help somehow. At least that’s what was going through my brain. The truth is that I couldn’t stop it, even if I tried.

She went a little faster, and I started crying and moaning at the same time. And then faster and I started making “Ah” noises that rose until they became shrieks. I kicked my legs, wanting the lift them, and wrap them around something at the same time. I felt my toes curl up, and had to grab something, anything, if only it would bring me over. Finally I felt the orgasm rush through my body, from my clit to the top of my head, and down into my toes. Then turn around like a wave and roll through me again. My wrists curled, and the arches of my feet spasmed, and I tried to keep it going, while Autumn rubbed the last of it out of me.

I spent a few moments panting, wondering if I would ever feel like that ever again. Then she brought her fingers to my lips, and I licked them off. The taste of my pussy on my tongue made me realize that I could feel like that again, but that it would be a thousand times better to make Autumn feel the same way.

I took her hand and kissed the inside of her wrist. Tried to figure out the best way to turn over without hurting her, and hurt her leg with my elbow as I roll over and kiss her. The taste of my pussy was on my tongue, and in case that wasn’t sexy enough, she broke off to reach between my legs and bring some more to her lips.

I took the time to suck on her nipple again, took a risk, and gave it a tiny nibble, pleased to hear her cry in shock and pleasure. Then with her teat in my mouth I reached down for her cunny. I didn’t draw it out, figured we’d had enough of that, just brushed between her folds and heard her pant harder.

“Up just a bi—riiiiiight there, luvvey.”

Pulling on her nipple and teasing it with my tongue, I put a finger on either side of… wait, wasn’t that her clitoris?

Autumn stiffened, “Too low luvvey.” She made eye contact as I found the place just above her clit, “Make me feel goood again.”

I varried my pace, fast and slow, until she put her cheek on the top of my head, and clutched me close. That must be the right speed. I’ll keep it there.

Tit in mouth and hand on clit, she got to climax faster than I had, rolling her hips into my palm, and twitching her legs. He held my head so tight that it hurt, and cried “Don’t stop!” She was thrashing about before she calmed down, taking my fingers and licking her juices off.

We cuddled for fifteen minutes after, until I got cold laying so still on the bed. Autumn yawned and stretched and reached for me when I sat up. I’d never cuddled with anyone who wasn’t my mom. That was when I was little. Autumn had decided to be the big spoon, and wraped her arm around my, curling her hand in mine and tucking it between my naked breasts.

But it was time to either get under the covers or put on clothes. Because they were equally difficult and my mom wouldn’t react great to finding us in bed together, I decided on clothes.

This meant finding my panties, which I couldn’t do; then getting a new pair. And then having to hunt for Autumn’s panties because she didn’t have the same option. Then finding my bra which she tossed into the dresser. Easier to spot than hers, which I had tossed behind the mirror.

I didn’t want to wear her tank top, that smelled like cigarettes, or my shirt that now smelled like cigarettes, and fished a pair of pants and a new top out of my closet.

We were at the table, enjoying late and post-coital coffee when my mom came through the door and kicked off her shoes. “Hello Aisling, hello Autumn.” She came and gave me a hug, “What are you up too?”

“They’re renovating Autumn’s kitchen, and she came over to hang out.”

“No tech today?”

“No. Tomorrow.”

Mom looked the two of us over and then went into the kitchen, “Well I suppose I should get to know Aisling’s girlfriend. Would you like to stay for dinner Autumn?”

Autumn shot me a look, saw my terrified eyes and said, “Oh, Aisling’s not my girlfriend—”

“You’re very nice to cover for her dear. But my daughter’s lipstick is on your neck.” She dug her keys out of her purse, “Ethiopian okay?”

Ethiopian

“I’ve never had Ethiopian before,” Autumn climbed out of the back seat of our Outback. We had sat together in the back, holding hands all the way, while my mom asked questions.

“Eet-hio-pian,” I corrected her before my mom could. “It’s good. You’re okay with spicy, right?”

“It’s not my favorite. I’m not a frat boy with something to prove.”

Autumn and I held hands all the way to the door and I watched my reflection in the window. Who is that pretty girl? And who is that pretty girl with that pretty girl?

My mother opened the door to Nile, “Ethiopian is a little different. Everything is mildly spicy, but you feel the spice in your sinuses more than your mouth.” She checked in with the matre di and turned to me, “Oh, Aisling, I brought Kleenex this time.”

“MoooOOm.”

“You’ll want them too, Autumn,” she continued to embarrass both of us, “it will loosen everything up in there.”

Autumn stuck her hand in mine, and gave my heart a little thrill. I was holding hands with someone in front of my mother. Where she could see it and everything. Mom ruined the moment by not even saying anything, as we sat and kept our hands on the table.

A waitress came around, handed us steaming wash cloths and asked about drinks.

“How do you feel about cloves?” Mom asked Autumn.

She shrank for a moment and then grew the stones I loved her for, “I love them, but their expensive. And too many will tear up your throat.”

Mom looked perplexed and ordered three teas for the table. Then it dawned on her, “You smoke Autumn?”

“Occasionally,” she under-exaggerated.

“Don’t expect me to buy you any, don’t smoke in my house, and if you offer one to Aisling I’ll break your legs.” Mom said, without looking up from her menu. “We always get doro wott, Aisling. I’ll order that. Would you like to get the beef or the lamb?”

Autumn looked at me with a ‘what?’ expression. I didn’t know whose side to be on, and chose my girlfriend. She’s not really your girlfriend. I mean you fool around with her. And you like her best. But you still want to fuck all the other—girls. Just the other girls. That thought made my nipples hard. A mental image of my face, peering up at Regular Dave as I swallowed his dick, leaped into my head and was quickly stamped down.

I decided to rescue Autumn from my mothers enigma in any case. “We eat family style. Mom and I like to each choose a different meat dish.” Autumn gave a single slow nod. “Have you ever had lamb?”

“My mom makes it in stew sometimes.”

“Good, you get the lamb and I’ll get the beef. Just choose whatever looks good to you.” I picked up my menu and searched. I couldn’t remember the name of the thing that I wanted.

“So there’s different plates, and we all share?” Autumn asked.

I adopted my mothers demeanor, perused my menu and said in an offhand voice, “Something like that.” I glanced up fast to see the private smile on my mom’s face.

Autumn reached out and tapped my hand idly with her finger, “You’re not telling me something.”

“Yup.” It was hard to keep the smile out of my voice.

“What are you not telling me?” She tried again.

“Well if I wasn’t telling you something, it would spoil the point to tell you wouldn’t it?”

“Secrets already, Aisling,” Autumn crossed her hands and mock pouted, “I want a divorce.”

“Fine, but I get Bruce.”

“Over my dead body.”

“A fight to the death then? Fine, but I do my killing after dinner.”

Autumn conceded defeat and picked up her menu. “Why are they all stews.”

“It’s a very thick stew, like chili,” mom told her.

“Okay, I want tibs wott.”

“How adventurous are you?” I asked Autumn.

“Well I’m in an Ethiopian restaurant, with my lesbian girlfriend, and I’ve done other…” She looked under her eyebrows at me, “… adventurous things.”

“Great!” The waitress came, “I’ll have the Kitfo” I started us off. The waitress put down our drinks while she dug out a notepad. She didn’t look much like a waitress. Didn’t stand hip cocked, didn’t have the attitude you find in a white waitress. She stood a little stiff, and her… well her attitude wasn’t servile, but it was different.

“Guh!” Autumn said. “I thought you were talking about Djarums. What is in this tea?”

“It’s cloves,” the waitress told her. “It’s very good. Not too sweet.”

Autumn tried it again, and made a face like she could tolerate it for the meal, “It makes my mouth tingle.”

The waitress had no patience for her lack of acumen, and turned to my mom, “What else?”

“Tibs wott, and the kitfo,” mom told her.

“You know the kitfo is—”

“Delicious,” mom interrupted.

The waitress gave her a look that said clearly, ‘well you better like it, because I’m not taking it back.’ She finished in her notebook and left without saying anything.

My mom sat back and sipped her tea, “This place is the best in Denver. We have one of the largest Ethiopian populations here, and every one I’ve talked to says this is their favorite place.”

Autumn looked around, and then leaned into the table, “I think we’re the only white people in here.”

“Refreshing, isn’t it.” Mom didn’t ask. “Imagine how it feels to be an Ethiopian immigrant eating in a Taco Bell.”

Autumn waggled her head. I could see that the girl who had told me, blithely, that she’d taken it in both holes, was out of her depth. I admit I was enjoying it a little bit.

“It’s good to try new things,” I told her.

“Ooooooh,” Autumn gave me a look that my mom would have slapped her over, if she could see. “I’m going to remember you said that.”

My mother was engrossed in watching the tables around us, and didn’t see me lick my top lip, or she would have slapped me harder. Then she came back to the conversation, and broke into our subtle flirtation, “So, Autumn, what do you tell a stranger about yourself?”

Put on the spot, Autumn shrugged.

Mom pushed again, “What do you think is the most important thing about yourself, what makes you Autumn.”

“Well I do tech.”

“Aisling hasn’t told me much about it. Do you act in the play too?”

“Oh, no!” Autumn was off, telling her about the shows she’d worked, and what she did.

Then my mom diverted her, “How did you get into it?”

Autumn’s parents were both local actors, her mother had played some big roles, Kate, and Medea. Her father was usually cast in a supporting role, but had played Michal in The Pillowman. Autumn wasn’t interested in dressing up like anyone else, and so she had been given load and unload jobs when she was 12. From there she was a dresser for her father, and then a helper at the props table for a show. When she was 13 she was a painter and stage manager for a children’s production of The Music Man. She made a gagging motion every time she said the name of the play.

She had worked the Paramount, and the Bellvue, but never the Buell, and she was interested in pursuing it in college as a minor, but wanted to go into engineering.

“You're a STEM girl?” My mother asked her. “Are there any other girls in your classes?”

“I was the only one in my drafting class. There were two others in Electronics. And I was the only girl in Shop one and two.”

“Does that feel lonely?”

Autumn shrugged again, too teenage to admit weakness, “I guess. Sometimes I feel like no one thinks I can do things.”

“What about the teachers, do they encourage you?”

“Gomez does. Standish did his best to fail me, despite the fact that my work was the best in shop.” At this time the injera arrived, and Autumn looked at the basket of little roles, tore off a piece an nibbled on it. “The bread is hot. Aisling, why is the bread hot?”

Then the food arrived and Autumn’s brain shorted out. The waitress who brought it pointed to each dish, “Kitfo, doro wott, tibs wott, lentils, beans, salad.” And then left.

I tore off a piece of injera and my mom looked askance at me. “I’m a lefty mom, and I don’t wipe my butthole with my bare hand.”

She looked pained, and turned to Autumn, “Don’t touch any food with your left hand, dear.” Then she tore off a piece of injera used it to scoop up some of the kitfo and popped it in her mouth.

“I’m kinda glad you hid this from me,” Autumn told me. “Is that raw meat?”

“It’s kitfo.”

“I’m going to pay you back for this.” She picked up some of the raw chopped beef with her flat bread, “Oh god. This is the fourth best thing I’ve ever eaten.”

Mom chose the moment to stop the conversation dead, “See that my daughter never makes the list.”

“Mom!”

She smiled like she’d won the game, and dinner continued.

“Missus McKinnon—?”

“Aileen, dear.”

“Aileen, can I please have a cigarette before you take me home?”

We were standing outside Nile, and Autumn was dancing back and forth like she had to pee. The three of us had gone through two orders of injera, seven clove teas (it had grown on Autumn) and a hundred kleenex apiece.

“I suppose if you must.”

Autumn threw me a gratefull glance, despite the fact that I hadn’t done anything, and whipped out her pack. As she was lighting up I asked her, “So what do you think of Ethiopian?”

“Eh, it’s alright.”

“Shut up, you loved it.”

“Okay, it’s great. I wish I could take my parents here.”

“Are they not very adventurous?” My mother asked her, standing out of the smoke.

“My grandma cooks like a beast. She’s southern. She cooks for the stage whenever there’s a show on, and there’s always a show on.”

“We’ll have to have dinner with your parents then. Don’t give anything away,” my mom broke her composure to give Autumn a devious grin. “Aisling and I enjoy surprising people.”

“Yeah,” Autumn punched me in the arm. “Thanks for that.”

Autumn and I rode in the back seat together on the way to her house. She scooted into the middle so that she could lay her head on my shoulder as we drove. The sexiness was still there, a little dangerous remembering what we’d done with my mom in the car. She started tracing little designs on my leg as we went, in between giving my mother directions.

At her house she grabbed her pack, kissed me on the lips, and politely declined my mother’s offer to meet her parents. “We can do that next time,” mom told her. “Come sit up here with me Aisling. I’m not your chaufuer.”

Autumn was barely inside when I got a text: “You’re going to be on that list”

“I’m going to TOP that list,” I fired back.

Mom glanced over as she drove, “Are you flirting?”

I turned me phone away from her, as non-chalantly as I could, “No.”

“You can. I like her. I don’t like that she smokes, and I’m serious about breaking her legs, but she seems like a very well put together young lady.” Mom turned onto Mississippi, “Does she see anyone?” She meant therapy.

I shrugged.

“I know it’s not cool to ask, but perhaps you should.”

“That’s really lame, mom.”

“I’m a parent, I’m supposed to be lame.”

“Don’t make me lame then.”

“Do you know when young boys first see a therapist?” She asked. “On average?”

“No.”

We stopped at a light, and my mother shifted into first. She refuses to drive an automatic. “Ten years old. Do you know what that is for a girl?”

I rolled my eyes, despite being interested in the answer.

“Just after her first suicide attempt.” The light turned and mom ducked us into our appartment complex.

“Autumn isn’t like that mom.”

“You didn’t notice the scars on her wrist?”

I didn’t have an answer for that, except, “I might bring it up with her.”

We went inside, I hid in my room and continued to text, “I’m better than kitfo you know”

“Prove it”

“We don’t have a baccunal tomorrow?”

“?”

“Like a decadant roman orgy”

“Bra, you’re gonna be covered in glue”

My head swam as I wrote, “You guys don’t want to cover me in other stuff?” I remembered the girls in every porn, come on their face. It was totally just a joke, that I was totally joking about. How far does this mind-fuck go?

“Only if you loose Shithead”

I got on my computer and looked up the rules to Shithead. It didn’t seem difficult. “Only five can play.”

“We play with two decks. It’s really a shame we only have three guys”

Yeah that was— “I’m fine with our odds the way they are now” But it was time to have a talk with my mother.

Downstairs she was curled up with Gaiman on the couch. I came in and sat in my chair, “Mom?” She set the book aside, and then curled to face me. “You know I like girls, right?”

“That seemed pretty obvious to me. Did you let her do your makeup?”

I didn’t answer, just twisted my fingers, “What if… what if I didn’t like girls anymore.”

She paused for a moment before saying, “Buyer’s remorse?”

“It’s not a joke mom. Autumn is great. Like, really great.” Mom crossed her fingers on her knee, and let me go on. “It’s just that… just that… I think I’m really confused about things.”

“I’ll help if I can.”

“What if—what if the accident did something really bad?”

“Worse than scrambling your gender around?”

“What if it did something to my head?”

“Well what if it did? Could we do anything about it?”

“Can you, like, use psychology to fix me?”

Her face said, “Fix you how?” But her mouth didn’t. Instead she said, “You know Aisling, there are psychological differences between the way men and women think. It’s not just cultural. For instance when a man has something to talk about, he feels more comfortable focusing on two things at once. Playing a video game, or working on a car, or hunting a mastadon.” She put her chin in her hand and looked very much like a psychologist, “Women on the other hand feel comfortable just sitting and talking. Sometimes a client will complain that her husband never listens to her, and I explain that when she wants to talk to him, talking while he does something with his hands is just how he talks. It doesn’t mean he isn’t paying attention.”

I flopped on the chair, “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Aisling, what are we doing right now?”

“Talking.”

“Any thing else?”

Oh fuck!

Cramps

I woke up feeling like death. My head ached, my body was sore, my boobs felt tender to the touch. I could feel them stretch as I got out of bed, stretching my skin from the clavical down to my shoulder blades. It felt like a wire brush had raked my insides.

A shower helped a little bit. I stayed under the water too long, and crinkled my fingers. Washed my hair, and winced when it came time to wash my boobs. I remembered how to tie a towel, realized I was just going to my room, and went naked.

I put on a bra and it hurt, though I was gratefull for the support. It took the stretch off a little bit. I stared at my floor for several minutes, trying to decide if I felt bad enough to stay home from school. I was coming down with something terrible, and I might get someone sick. And staying home from school meant not going to school.

But I wanted to see Autumn. It was a Loft day, and there was tech later. I’d look like a loser if I showed up for tech and nothing else.

I grabbed a pair of pants, the ones I looked greatest in. If I was gonna feel like crap, I might as well look great.

Only I couldn’t get them over my thighs. Fucking growth spurt, that’s why I feel so bad. I threw them across the room in frustration, and picked up a looser pair, laying on the bed to put them on, and then just laying there some more.

Mom had done laundry yesterday, and I chose my least favorite shirt, it matched my least favorite way that I felt just then.

She found me downstairs, hunched over a bowl of Cinimon Toast Crunch. “I don’t know if I’m going to school.”

“You do look like hell warmed over. Do you have a temperature?” She checked my forhead. “Nope. You ditched a class yesterday, that’s your one a month.”

“When did we make that rule?”

“I made it. And just now.”

“Fine,” I checked my phone. One text from Autumn, an emoji of a speeding car. I didn’t text her back. The PSAs on texting and driving had had just as big an effect as the ones on seat belts. Instead I found a coffee and waited for her on the porch swing.

When Bruce pulled up, I slumped inside. Autumn cast me a glance, “You okay?”

“I think I’m coming down with something.”

She reached out and squeezed my arm, and I came in for a kiss on the forehead, “Poor luvvey. I can make you feel better.”

“Not that it doesn’t excite me, but right now I’d rather die.”

“Well we have to take a break anyway.” She got onto the highway, “Yesterday was great, by the way.”

I smiled at the memory, moved, and hit my breast with my arm. Are these things always going to hurt? They were my favorite and least favorite body part at the same time.

We listened to more Dr. Steel on the way, and heard the cover of the Inspector Gadget theme, and Land of the Lost.

I walked into ‘Health’ wanting to die.

Big Davey and I climbed the ladder into the Loft. He went first and I found myself idly watching to see if I could see the reason for his name as he went up the rungs. He has a nice ass in any case. I’d never thought of guys having a nice ass. What the hell was nice about it.

After my talk with mom, I was no less confused. But I wasn’t stamping on my confused feelings. Rule no.1 was being eroded as I wondered if I was bi-sexual, and what it would mean if I was. It was a lot cooler to be a bi girl than a bi guy. But I could remember the way Autumns titty tasted in my mouth. So I was surely gay at least.

Inside the loft I made my way to the couch, and gave up a little piece of my mind for some comfort. Bree and Big Davey had each claimed a side and I sat in between them, collapsing onto the cushions. Big Davey reached over and rubbed the sweet spot on my back, and I killed myself by laying my head in his lap.

“I think Aisling is out of commission,” he said.

I felt small there. Small but comfortable. This was the Loft. I could be myself here. Whoever that was. I put my feet on Bree’s lap, and she started. Then she unlaced my boots and put them on the floor, cuddling my feet.

I faded out for a moment.

I faded in, and my first thought was that I was late for class. But everyone else was still in the loft, so it must be fine.

Bree had shifted onto the circle in the floor, so my legs were free. They were playing Munchkin, but everyone still had clothes on, and the atmosphere wasn’t one of naked arousal. I imagined for a moment that it was because I was feeling so poorly, and then remembered that we were all taking a bit of a break. You can’t just orgy all the time, I guess.

I snuggled into Big Davey’s jeans, trying to worm my way back to sleep and felt something.

It was soft and hard at the same time, and it was his dick, and yeah it was big.

And a wave or red hot arousal shot through me. All I could think about was his dick. His big dick. His big dick that was next to my head. I could—no.

My nipples were rock hard, and I was… okay with… some thoughts that I might have. And while I was okay with them, I found myself thinking about relaxing my back into Autumn’s breasts at she fingered my clit. I shifted my legs and felt my wet panties, and got hotter, knowing how hot I was.

My mind went from fingers to tongue. I had tasted pussy. I had felt a tongue on my nipple. I could just imagine what it would feel like on my clit. What Autumn would look like, as I watched her stripy hair between my legs and felt her tongue where her fingers had worked so dexterously.

Shit, I need some kind of relief. This was like regular teenager horniness cranked up to another level. The first time I ever masturbated it was because I had been driven into a frenzy late at night. I had had to do something—anything—to relieve the pressure.

This was only a step below that. Autumn was up here, and for a moment I thought of just dragging her onto my lap, getting her head in my crotch, and satisfying the feelings that were burning up my body. My aches and pains had morphed into full body horniness. But they were still aches and pains, and I didn’t want to get off of the couch. And besides, look at what I was doing to Big Davey.

I nuzzled him again, perverse in my innocence of action. At the same time I wormed a hand between my legs. I was asleep, I was getting comfortable, it was natural. Oh. I’ve wet through my jeans. There was a dollop the size of a silver dollar down there. I opened an eye again, no one was watching me, ‘cept maybe Big Davey. I strained my hips against my hand, felt it rub me right, and take the edge off of what I was feeling. Time to stop that now, Aisling, or you’ll never stop again. I did it a few more times anyway.

Big Davey surely noticed. I felt his erection go from around a seven to a ten. Man, something about that felt good. He was just looking at my body and getting aroused. It made me feel powerful, and soft somehow.

I rolled over to meet his eyes looking down at me, and said kittenishly, “My, is that from me?”

He gave me a slow nod, and a saucy grin. Before I could think about it I felt my hand reaching up to where he cock had build a tent in his jeans. What the hell are you doing, Ash?

And before I could do something that I’d have to have a long talk with my shrink about, the bell rang for 7th period.

“So, Aisling, are you all caught up?”

I was sitting in English, and I wasn’t used to the attention. The seats were in a rough circle, no seating assignments, no attendence. You either came to the class and passed, or you didn’t and you didn’t. AP English, I had quickly learned, was about discussion. There were no worksheets, there were no tests. You read the work, came up with a perspective, and ground an essay out of your mind. Or you failed the class.

I was feeling like shit in a microwave and Mr. Markle put me on the spot.

Everyone in the class turned to look at me. I felt stupid.

Then I looked around at their faces, as I tried to prepare my thoughts. No one was looking at me with anything other than respect and curiosity; and a modicum of boredom. That gave me a little boost of confidence. Everyone was waiting to hear what I had to say.

I crossed my legs (at the knee). I did it out of nervousness, but: Everyone thinks you did it deliberately, Aisling. “Yeah, I’m with you guys on book six.”

“What did you think of the first books, fill us in on your thoughts.”

I played with a pencil a little. Aisling you had thoughts all the time that you read this, and he wants to hear them. “It’s interesting that the first time we see Odysseus is near the end of his story. Homer borrowed from Quentin Tarrantino and started his story at the end, Pulp Fiction style.”

A few laughed. Most must not have seen the movie.

“Interesting,” said Mr. Markle, “Do you suppose he’ll ask one of the suitors for his wallet back and let them all go?”

Someone whose name I didn’t know spoke up, “‘My armor is the one that says Bad Motherfucker on it.’”

That got a bigger laugh, and I stiffled a smile, trying to stay concsious.

“What else leapt out at you?”

“Well Homer opens up with Odysseus crying. He’s just weeping there. Seems kinda…” I shrugged.

Another boy interpreted my pause to search for words as a chance to break in. He was well-dressed, was trying to cultivate a goatee, and I didn’t like him at all. “Well for the ancient Greeks there was nothing wrong with crying. He’s just expressing himself. That kind of feeling was manly for them.”

“Sure,” a girl countered, “but he’s not doing anything. He’s just whining until someone shows up and helps him make a ship. He doesn’t have any free agency.”

“He’s passive,” I said.

“But nothing he’s done has gotten him anywhere,” Mr. Markle said. “He’s been trying to get home for twenty years at this point and nothing has helped. After all this time, maybe he just wants to cry about it.”

“He’s While E. Coyote,” I muttered, unconcerned if anyone heard me, and knowing they wouldn’t understand if they did.

Mr. Markle heard me. “What do you mean?”

I was on the spot again, but it was something easy to speak about, “Chuck Jones said in and interview that he always viewed the coyote as a figure of Greek myth. ‘Riling against the gods,’ he said. I mean, the coyote goes to extreme lengths trying to find something that will work, and he’s cursed to fail every time—”

“How do you think you would feel if the first time you saw the coyote he was crying?” That Kid cut me off.

“Well,” the girl spoke up. She would be pretty, once all her acne scars healed, “I’d think it was kind of a shit way to introduce a character.”

“What did you think of what we read this week? Does anyone want to start? Odysseus washes onto shore, and Athena has sent some women to wash their clothes in the river that runs into the sea, so they can find him. Then what?”

“Well again,” the girl said (It looked like she and the boy were the largest contributers, not a good number in a class of twelve.), “No one has any free agency. The women don’t just find him. They’re sent to find him, and they have to be tricked to do it. Odysseus doesn’t search for anyone, they just find him—”

“But that’s how the Greeks saw the world,” That Kid interrupted her this time. “Everything was caused by the gods, there was no chance. Anyone you met could be a god in disguise.”

“No,” I told That Kid, “That’s how Homer told them they should see the world. He didn’t want to give any of his characters free will, because that’s too hard.”

“Was it too hard?” Mr. Markle said, “Or had the idea of a character with free agency not been invented. Did Homer understand that his character should take positive action.”

The discussion went on like that. And That Kid kept interrupting me. Around five minutes till the end of class, and maybe the dozenth time he cut me off, the discussion went like this.

“Odysseus didn’t want to compete until someone goaded him—”

“But he has to remain in disguise—”

I slammed my book into my desk, everything he’d said just making me more livid. "I. Am. Talking.”

“Okay, dude, don’t be mad.” Something about that just made me more angry. Like being mad was my fault, not something he had caused.

I searched for something to throw at him, while Mr. Markle diffused the situation, “Next time let’s give everyone a chance to speak. Books seven and eight by Monday.”

As I got up to leave That Kid stood… not in my way, but clearly trying to talk to me. I don’t know what he wanted to say, but it started with, “You shouldn’t—” I didn’t hear the rest, because I turned my shoulder and walked around him.

The Synopsis

“Alright,” Susan started the meeting, “ “Muslin,” she pointed, “Glue. Troughs. Someone run downsair and start filling some five gallon buckets with water. The rest of you get that tarp down, and start setting up.”

I caught wise to the idea. The lauan on the flats would absorb any paint we put on it wrong. Wood diffuses paint in a way that isn’t very attractive to the eye. I just ‘looks’ wrong. It’s why painters paint on gessoed canvas. Canvas also absorbs the paint differently, it’s more easily absorbed, and lays down smoother. So we were basically covering the flats in canvas, making them easier to paint and better looking at the same time.

Big Davey got to his feet, and I got to mine. As we left the rest were spliting up into teams and tearing muslin. I didn’t know what was going on, other than that it would be a mess. I was glad I was wearing clothes I didn’t much care for. I guess these are my painting clothes now. I was going to need to replace them. Will someone not my mom go shopping with me? Sarah looked like a shopper. She always looked great. Maybe invite Sarah to take me shopping? That would require more social graces. I could develop those. Being a girl made it seem easier.

Oh, we were at the sink. I put my two buckets next to Big Davey’s buckets at he put one in the floor sink and started filling it. A thought occured as I looked at the mop bucket next to the sink, “Why is the sink underneath the stage, where we have to carry the mop bucket up?”

“Because there’s no such thing as a perfectly designed stage,” Big Davey said.

I had only been down here to go to the bathroom, and I took the time to explore while the buckets filled. There were the dressing rooms. Three of them, actors, actresses, and other. There was the door to the costumes and props rooms. There was the mess that could never get organized. It was a mess that was doing the best it could, okay? Alright? It was trying.

There was the door to the orchestra pit, and the stack of not enough music stands. And there was the green room, with its wall covered in two and a half hundred lipstick prints. Over the years I would wonder again and again: why the lipstick prints. Was it an actor culture thing? A right of passage? When did they do it? Before the show? At the close? It seemed sweet, dickish, and inscrutiable all at the same time.

“This one is full,” Big Davey said. “Why don’t you take it up while I fill the rest?”

“I can take two.”

“Lift it out of the sink for me then.”

I had to use two hands, and barely made it over the lip. Fuck, as a guy, even a weak guy, that wouldn’t have been a problem. “I’ll take this one upstairs while you fill the others,” I told him.

With two hands on the handle, waddling, and leaning, I managed to get it up the stairs by the time Big Davey had filled the other three. When I came back down he was waiting for me to carry the last, while he one handed the 2 and 3.

“Jerk,” I scolded as I hoisted the bucket. This one was heavier with my exhausted muscles.

“You deserve it, tease.”

I cursed myself as I fluttered my eyelashes at him, and watched his dissapear as he left me in the dust carrying a bucket in either hand.

On the stage Sarah and Bree were up to their elbows in the cheap plastic troughs, mixing Elmer’s glue and water. There was a pile of torn muslin on the floor, and Susan was busy with Autumn measureing more over the flats. Who didn’t have a partner? My heart thrilled a little bit to see that Rachel and Alex were working together and Regular Dave was the odd man out, standing in front of a flat with his muslin and trough, and trying to work.

Without a word I came over to help him, dragging the muslin through the trough of glue. I got it all over my pants, and then all over the arms of my shirt, and on my nice new boots. Damn. Well it’s Elmer’s. The boots are still good. With his direction we pulled the muslin out over the lauan, held it taught while it dripped, and slowly lowered it onto the wood. We smoothed the bubbles, and I did that wrong.

“Push them toward the edges, don’t just spread them around,” Regular Dave showed me. I did that while I squatted over the floor, and found out that when you get a bubble to the edge, it burps a string of glue out onto your shoe.

That done, he stood across from me, and went from one edge to the other pulling it taught…er. And then from the other side. Until we’d done a full circle. Then we smeared the edges down to the side. I liked the feel of the slimy muslin under my fingers, as the frayed string clung to the side of the flat.

One flat done, and I’m a goopy mess. These clothes are the only ones I’m wearing to tech from now on.

After an hour and a half we had a row of flats against the wall drying and Susan called for a break. I guess she wasn’t taking off today. Who wants to get all stoned when you’re a gooey mess. “Twenty minutes,” she said.

We went down to the parking lot underneath the stage, and then went back in and found a bunch of chairs and took them outside.

Autumn sagged in a chair and lit up. Everyone sagged with her.

As we all cooled down the conversation went to Pokemon, and then circled around to the show. Everyone thought the play was hilarious, in the most darkly humorous way.

I sagged too. When I had time to think about it, I still felt like crap. Working it off had distracted me from the way my boobs ached. Autumn rubbed my back a little bit. “I don’t even know what the play is about.”

I got a run down of Spring Awakening which, as you have not heard, I will now proceed to relate:

“We start with Wendla,” Rachel said, “She’s outgrown her dress, and her mom is pissed about it. She asks her mom where babies come from, figuring she’s old enough to know, and her mom blows her off. Then it’s over to Melchior and Dude Who isn’t Melchior, and they’re screwing around. Dude Who isn’t Melchior knows fuck-all about sex too, and he asks Melchior. Melchior is all, I’d tell you everything you want to know and then some. Dude Who isn’t Melchior says it’s too embarrassing, and says, ‘draw me some sexy-ass diagrams that’ll explain it to me.’ Then its…”

“All the kids,” Regular Dave took over, “They’re all hanging around, and Dude Who isn’t Melchior pops in to tell them that he probably won’t fail out, cause there’s some other dumb ass failing too. As long as he can beat the other guy, he’s in class next year.”

“No that’s the scene after,” Rachel said.

“Okay, then it’s the scene with Wendla and the basic bitches.”

“Lets not,” said Sarah.

“They’re the 19th century equivalent of basic bitches, and they’re going to be played by basic bitches here.”

“Yeah, okay. Continue.”

“Wendla and the bitches are hanging out, and Martha—who never shows up again—tells them all how her parents fiercely beat and molest here. And everyones like, ‘Huh. That’s nice.’”

“No,” Autumn said, “They’re all like, ‘that’s terrible.’”

“Yeah,” Bree ashed her cigarette and then spoke with it in her mouth, “But they do jack-shit about it.”

Rachel picked up the thread, “Then it’s the scene with Moritz—I remembered his name—not getting shit-canned. It gets really fucked up at this point. Wendla meets Melchior in the woods, and asks him to beat her.”

“No she doesn’t,” Autumn lit another cigarette, getting disgusted with everyone, “She feels guilty, because she’s never been beaten, but her friend gets jacked by her parents every night.”

“Don’t forget molested,” Bree seemed delighted in bringing that up again. Everyone seemed really into the way this play went.

“It’s never clear that Martha’s dad molests her,” Wee David said. “They just kind of gloss over that one line.”

“Her dad fucking ripped off her bra, and she took off out of the house with her titties out, what do you think that is, helicopter parenting?” Bree defended her interpretation. “She knew what was coming after the ripping, and fled the fuck out of there.”

“Anyway,” Regular Dave tried to get the synopsis back on track, “She asks Melchior to beat her.”

“Like,” Rachel said, “literally hands him a stick and tells him to go to town. He hits her and she’s like, ‘did I just feel a light breeze?’ So he smacks her again, ‘that tickled.’ And Melchior is all, ‘it’s on now bitch,’ throws the stick away and uses his fists.”

“Apparently he’s either her grandma,” Big Davey decided to make a contribution, “or Wendla comes back from the forest looking like seven kinds of hell, so often, her parents gave up asking questions about it.”

Autumn gave up her defense, “Either way, it never comes up again.”

“Then there’s act two scene one,” Regular Dave started ushering everyone inside, “—which is getting cut, everyone—because nothing happens.”

The ground now littered with cigarettes, the conversation moved inside. Susan was still working, I think to make everyone else feel like crap for taking a break. We all picked up the duchmaning while the explanation continued.

Rachel said, “Are we cutting scene two then?”

“Scene two of what?” Susan asked.

“Act two scene two? Nothing really goes on there either.”

“No,” Susan got up with the flat she’d been working on and laid it against the wall. She did it by herself and I couldn’t have told you how. “The girl playing Wendla needs more lines, because the play is basically all Melchior carrying it.”

Autumn worked on the next flat with me, “Act two scene two is the bit where Wendla has some aunt that just spawned, and she has no idea how. Wait, are we doing the scene where dude-face masturbates?”

“It’s a girl now,” Susan told her, “We have five guys who auditioned and over thirty girls.”

“But ‘she’ masturbates to that Venus painting.”

“She’s a lesbian now,” Bree told her. “We’re woke.”

Susan goes back to treating another flat by herself, “Hans is gay, in any case. Or maybe bi? What are you kids doing now?”

Autumn leans in close to me, “Everyone know that Susan is a lesbian, but she’s not out. Older generation and whatever. Don’t bring it up.” Then to Susan, “We’re having lipstick parties, and sticking vodka soaked tampons up our pussies. Haven’t you been on facebook?”

“I really want to hear about the rest of this play,” I said.

“Okay,” Autumn said, “So that girl masturbates, and it also has no effect on the story, but whatever we’re keeping it. Then Melchior rapes Wendla.”

“What?” I was rightly horrified.

“It’s not really clear that she’s raped,” Wee David said.

Bree threw a loaded piece of muslin, that hit him center chest with a splat, “Pig. She says no.”

“It could be, like, a James Bond thing. That’s how I read it.”

“James Bond, Dekkard, and the President are all rapists. Catch wise.”

Wee David pulled the Dutchman off his shirt, shrugged in a way that pissed me off, and got back to work.

“Yeah, Melchior rapes her in a hay loft. Annnnnnnnnnnnnd, scene,” Autumn seemed pissed about it too. I took some womanly solidarity out of that. Then tried not to.

“All the stuff with Melchior’s parents is cut,” Susan stacks another flat against the wall.

“Then the next scene is great,” Autumn and I finished off the last of our flat. There were three more to do. “Moritz is hanging around, and Ilse shows up. She’s been hanging around at some German kind of carnival thing. She was having fun and sucking everyone off, or maybe dancing? It’s a little ambiguous. She models for painters, and talks about how great that is, unless she’s just a slut. Then she tells Moritz that she got held captive by this one painter for fourteen days. He made her walk around in a maid costume, so you know how far that fetish goes back.”

“Which?” I asked, “Sex slavery or maid costumes?”

“Sex slavery is older than the bible,” Rachel said. “Maid costumes less so.”

“Ilse escaped, and wants Moritz to walk her home, as you might imagine an escaped sex slave would with a guy she actually knows. What with the way her rapist is still out there. He refuses and commits suicide instead.”

This play just got better and better. I really couldn’t wait to see it.

Rachel finished her flat and all the flats were taken, so she came over to help Autumn and me. “Then it’s act three, and all of the school masters are expelling Melchior. I don’t know how we’re going to do that with three actors. That’s for them to figure out. They found his description of sex things in Moritz stuff, and because students all over are committing suicide—”

“Which I guess was a thing in Victorian Germany?” Autumn said.

“Guess so. They decide to blame ‘obscenity’ on his suicide.”

“Yeah,” I said, “I’ve known about sex since I was eight, and I killed myself too. Sounds like it would hold up.”

“Meantime Moritz is getting buried, and absolutely no one is upset about it, except the girls. Wait, we were wrong, ‘cause Martha shows up again. She says she’ll dig up her families roses, to plant on his grave, and get the shit beat out of her for it. Again, no one bats an eye.”

“And Ilse is there,” Autumn winked at me, “She’s my favorite. She hid the gun he blew his brains out with, for basically no reason.”

Regular Dave came in to finish the last flat, so that flat was gonna be the most well done flat we made. “There’s a dumb scene that will get shortened a lot, where Melchior’s parents decide to send him to prison. I guess you can just decide to do that with your kids?”

“Sure, sounds likely,” Autumn said.

“Do we keep the circle jerk scene?” Rachel asked him.

“Yup. Melchior is in prison planning his escape, while the other inmates have a circle jerk to see who gets a penny.”

“I’ve always wondered,” I said, “The last guy to finish in a circle jerk… does he get applause?”

Everyone laughed until Regular Dave fell down, and the last flat was done.

“Saturday at noon,” Susan told us. “We’re painting the platforms, finishing them on Monday. Autumn you have until Monday to turn in designs, or I’m pissed.”

“They’re done. I just have to use the printer in the design lab.”

“Email them to me, I’ll make notes, and tell you what you need to redo. Then we start construction.”

We all left, or at least went outside to hang out some more. It was after seven on a Friday night, and no one was going home just then.

Besides, they had to finish this multi-perspective, spoken essay.

Everyone filled up the bathrooms washing the glue off, and the basin sink where we cleaned the paint brushes.

Outside Sarah hadn’t said anything for awhile, and she continued to say nothing because Wee David had his tongue in her mouth. Autumn was smoking and Regular Dave had a cheroot, and we decided to go up the street to the pokestop.

As we walked Autumn put her hand in mine, and then Sarah came along side me and put her hand in my other. Everyone was wearing shirts and pants in various states of glue hardness.

“Third from the last scene is a doctor seeing Wendla because she’s preggers,” Regular Dave talked from behind me, wafting the aromatic smoke into us. “Her mom refuses to tell her why she’s pregnant, and she still has no clue. She kind of figures it was the whole rape thing, but she still isn’t sure. She thinks that you get pregnant by loving someone, and she doesn’t tell her mom what’s happened.”

“Then,” Autumn squeezed my hand and grinned at me, “There’s a couple having gay sex in a vineyard.”

“They just kiss,” Wee David said.

“Yeah. After they’ve clearly just had sex. One of the guys says something along the lines of, ‘are you ready to go again, already?’ I’m a hundred percent positive it’s because the other guy is rock hard and stroking it. There are basically no stage directions in the whole play.”

“He’s talking about the grapes they’ve been eating all day.”

“Read the subtext. I’m trying to perv out with Aisling right now. You’re getting a lesbian masturbation scene. Why can’t you stand me being happy.”

“It doesn’t actually matter to the plot in any case,” Wee David said.

“Don’t be a prude, I’ve seen what you’ve done.”

Wee David blushed, and shut up.

“So Melchior has escaped from prison, and he gets to a graveyard where Moritz ghost shows up. He’s carrying his own head, so firearms were far more effective in those days. He tells Melchior how great death is, and keeps telling him to take his hand. Death is basically a communicable disease, you know. Death shows up, or maybe it’s not and it’s god, or an angel? Not clear. He says Moritz is lying and Moritz cops that being dead blows. Melchior sees Wendla’s grave, and Death (or whoever) says she died of a botched abortion. It’s a really happy play. Then Melchior fucks of with the specter and Moritz cries. Fin.”

Period

I woke up Saturday morning feeling even worse than the day before. And I woke up so wet I could feel it on my thighs. I reached down to touch and found I’d dried flaky. Wait that wasn’t what was supposed to happen, was it. In growing alarm I reached down to touch and brought my fingers to my eyes. There was dried blook flaked on my fingers.

Ohhhhhhhhhhshit! “Mom!”

I got out of the worst shower of my life, feeling like my insides had been scraped raw. Well that feeling is where your uterus is. Great to know. I tried to forget the blood in the drain and the way it soaked the soap and left my hands looking like they were covered in fuzzy blood. That would stick with me all my life.

Out of the shower and in a beach towel I’d found in the closet, my mother came into my bathroom with two packages. “I went to the store for you. I figured you didn’t want to stand in front of the “Wall of Womanly Shame.” She was entirely correct, and I loved her for it. “That time is coming though, because these are stop gaps.”

Great.

She held the packages up, “Would you like to wear diapers or risk death.”

“Whats the third option?”

“Early menopause.”

“Great.” I considered for a moment. On the one hand, tampons seemed like the blood stopper of choice for most women. On the other hand, they were a piece of cotton you jammed inside you. That didn’t seem great. On the third hand, pads didn’t carry a chance of toxic shock syndrome that could kill me. On the fourth hand, they were basically diapers. I sat on the toilet and put my head in my hands. “Biologically female.” In the back of my mind I had known this was coming, but it sucked much more than I thought it would. “I’ll take increased dignity with chance of death.”

“Popular choice.” She put the box of tampons next to me on the sink. “There are instructions, but you’re going to have to find your own method of… application. And once we figure out what your flow is like, we can get you a better product.”

“Please don’t say that.”

“What, ‘flow’?”

“Yes, that.”

“Would you prefer ‘gush’?”

“No.”

“Slosh?”

“Get out mom.”

“Sure dearheart, I’ll let you figure it out.”

Still on the toilet I pulled the packet too me and took a look. “Stand on floor with one foot on toilet or raised surface.” I did that. “Insert applicator.” That must be the end with the little star.

“Relax as much as you can. Just get it in an inch or so,” mom said from outside the door.

“Mom!”

It went in with a little pain and stretching. I hit the plunger, and was hit with a very uncomfortable sensation. It was like stuffing a wad of cotton into your bleeding mouth. Not like where a dentist had removed a baby tooth or something. Like the back of your mouth was bleeding and you were cramming a big piece of cotton in there. Only it was in your genitals. It didn’t hurt, but it felt like it should have. I removed the applicator and felt the little string come out.

Well I guess I’m equipped for whatever. Man do I not want pants today.

“Those pants are filthy.” Mom caught me at the table reading the comics and having a poptart.

“It’s just a lot of glue.” When I twisted wrong I could feel the tampon rub my insides. “We duchmaned yesterday.”

“Oh, well that explains nothing to me dearheart.”

“We glued canvas to the flats so that they’ll be easier to paint.” She sat at the table and took the comic page I’d read from me. “Bizzaro is good today.”

“So you’re wearing the filthy clothes today because…”

“Oh, we’re painting platforms. These have now become my painting clothes.”

Mom nodded, and then laughed at Bizarro. “Do you want a ride to tech today? I’m not doing anything.”

“MoooOom!”

“Okay, I’m sorry I asked.” She looked a little hurt.

“I… I guess it would be okay. I can text Autumn. But just drive me there, I’ll ride back with her.”

Mom smiled a little bit, then said, “You’ve been coming home late every day. Do you need a cerfew?”

That was the nice thing about my mom. We discussed my limits. “Well if you’re feeling uncomfortable, I guess.” I rushed on, “But I’m really just hanging out with my friends, and I’ve been back before nine every night this week.”

“Hmmmm. Let call nine your soft limit, and ten your hard limit.”

“Aren’t… Aren’t those sex terms?”

“For bondage, dearheart. Thereapists have to learn these things sometimes. But the terms are usefull. Try to be back by nine, and if you’re in after ten I’ll use your hide as a rug, okay?”

She was funny, but I couldn’t let on that she was funny. I gave a teenagerish one shoulder shrug instead as I finished my poptart. I gave her the rest of my comics, and sat in the chair, bleeding slowly into a rag inside my vagina. God this sucks. “Mom?”

She put down the comics to look at me.

“Could I have some money to shop for clothes?”

“Would you like to go shopping today or tomorrow?”

“Maybe… Maybe you could just give me the money, and I can go shopping… like with my friends.” I have to figure out how you ask a friend to take you shopping, but one step at a time Aisling.

She thought about it so long I was sure it was a no, then said, “I think that would be alright. Target clothes are probably not what a teen girl wants to wear in any case.”

“Mom. I’m still a guy.”

“Yes you are dear.” She didn’t add what we were both thinking. “You’re a guy who wants to go shopping with his girlfriends in a boutique.” Mom cleared her throat instead, “How much money do you think you’ll need?”

“Probably like, sixty dollars?”

“Where are you going shopping?”

“I don’t know, wherever everyone wants to go, I guess.”

She didn’t really look at me when she said, “Let’s make it two hundred.”

“Clothes aren’t that much mom.”

“Oh? Are you shopping for boys clothes?”

“MoooOOm.” I thought my voice had squeaked again, but it was just my girls voice. I cleared my throat anyway and said, in a very tiny voice, “No. Girl clothes.”

“Then you’ll need two hundred dollars, dearheart.”

I wasn’t mad, but I got up from the table like I was, and stomped to the kitchen to wash my plate. Why did I act mad? I wasn’t actually mad. Then I felt tears streaming down my face, and I started to blubber as I held my plat under the water. Finally I just dropped it in the sink, and wiped my nose on my sleeve, trying to stop crying.

Mom carefully folded the paper and came into the kitchen where she held me tight. I hugged her and kept crying. “I’m sorry,” I said, “I didn’t mean to act ma—ah—ad!” My voice cracked all over the place on the last word.

“It’s okay,” Mom said, and just hugged me tighter. “Are you sure you want to go to tech today?”

My mood swung around 180 degrees. I stepped out of her hug, “Yeah, why are you trying to stop me?”

Mom raised an eyebrow at me, then she sighed like all the air was being let out of her, and sat back down at the table facing me. “I’m going to ask you a question that will enrage you for the next forty years dearheart. It goes, ‘do you think you’re acting this way because you’re on your period?’”

Holy motherfucking shit, she’s right. And instead of answering her, I let out a shriek. A really girly shriek. Like a girl who can’t take anymore. Then I bolted upstairs, flung myself onto my bed, and cried into my pillow.

My… let’s call it a fit… lasted about twenty seconds. Then I realized that I had tech, that the loft was a thing we could do today, got overwhelmed by horniness, realized that I needed to change my sheets because they were bloody, was consumed by rage, and finally got up and threw my pack together.

I went to the bathroom, figured three tampons could last me the rest of the day and went downstairs. Mom was reading on the couch with her shoes on. “I texted Autumn,” I tried not to cry or rage, or whatever it was that my feelings were. “Would you please drive me to the school?”

Mom just got up off the couch, put her keys in her hand and walked to the door. I followed as contritely as I could.

It was my turn to choose the music. In a fit of pique I went with something really girly. I was in the mood for Alanis Morriset for not reason at all. Mom said nothing as Alanis raged through the drive to the school.

At the slowdown approaching I–25 she finally spoke, “I’m glad you’ve found something you like here.”

I sighed and put my head on the back of the seat, “I kind of did it by accident. There was this crew, and they wanted me in. And I got in.”

“I think it’s good for you. What do you do?”

Sex. “We just kind of hang out.” And there’s a lot of sex. “And do stuff. Like pokemon.” And sex. God I want some sex right now. Then I realized that my whole body was gross, and scooted around in my seat. “How long does this bleeding thing last?”

“Normally three to five days.” Mom turned into the parking lot of the school.

“No, turn here,” I pointed. “Go around the back of the school.”

Mom turned underneath the stage where the parking lot was. Some of the others were sitting outside. Autumn wasn’t there yet, but Regular Dave was hanging out. He’s the one. He’s the one I’m gonna have sex with. As soon as I’m not disgusting. I didn’t stamp the thought down, and that terrified me. No. I’m still gay. Wasn’t I. God damn.

Mom reached out for a hug as I got out of the car. I brushed her off, “Not here mom.”

“Alright dearheart. I love you. Have fun.”

I leaped from the car, blushing, then turned and called, “I love you too, bye mom.”

She backed away as I came to join the others. Desperate and gross.

Little Cans

Susan got there to open the door at 12:35. We all filed in, and sat for the briefing.

“We need two buckets of black paint, rollers, and pans. Someone show Aisling where they are.” Regular Dave took me down stairs, and opened the closet. I was full of painting equipment. Rollers, extension poles, brushes, buckets of paint. “Aisling you take these,” he handed me a bag of roller brushes, and four of the unequipped rollers. “I’ll take the pans and a bucket,” He pulled them out of the closet and set them down. “We’ll come back for the poles and the other bucket.

I can take a bucket, I want to get strong. Brushes in hand I picked up Regular Dave’s bucket and challenged him with my eyes. He met my eyes for only a moment. They said, “Okay, whatever you want to do. And I headed upstairs, trying to balance everything.

This time I got upstairs before Regular Dave beat me. He was only two stairs behind, but I still did it. He let you beat him. He’s either a gentleman or a jerk. Whichever it was he had a dick that I wanted to ri—This time I did stamp it down. At the same time the image of his face, while I sat on his lap, leaped into my mind. I let it stay there for a moment, before my hips moved the tampon inside me and I hated my body again.

We cracked the paint buckets, poured a ton of black into the roller pans and got to work. The ply hadn’t been treated or anything, and soaked up the paint poorly. It meant four coats for every platform. This was something I knew how to do. I could paint. I picked up a pole, screwed on a roller with a twirl, and started rolling before anyone else.

We worked for two hours. Autumn and Bree and Big Davey all had smaller hand rollers and were going over the sides of the platforms. They did it while the first coat was drying, so we worked like an assembly line. One coat, move on to the next platform while they worked the sides. Get down a row of four, go back to the first. First isn’t dry. Sit on your haunches for ten minutes and bullshit with the others. Get back to work on the first platform.

Susan took off at hour three, and we were on until five. Regular Dave pulled us into a huddle, “We’re behind schedule, we have to get two thirds of these done by the end of the day. Loft for a half hour?”

There were “Aws” but people nodded their heads. The ladder was unlocked and we went up.

I sat on a pillow, feeling terrible. Sarah sat next to me and rubbed my back for a bit. She seems interested in me. ‘Free from envy.’ But I felt a little envious of Autumn. She saw Sarah comforting me, and sat next to the two of us, but she sat on Regular Dave’s lap. Whatever, I could get comfort out of Sarah too. I laid my head on her shoulder.

“Are you okay Aisling? You look pretty terrible.”

I tried my best not to cry, “I’m just… just going through a hard time.”

“Hard time, or hard time of the month?”

I just put my head on her neck and tried not to die of shame.

Sarah put her arms around me, “Does anyone have any emergency chocolate?”

Bree gave a nod and headed for the ladder.

“Are you taking anything?”

“Like Midol?”

“Like birth control, Aisling.”

Wait that’s a better idea now then it was before. Talk to mom. Why was I thinking about dicks so much? “Not yet, I see a doctor soon.”

“Okay, tell us when you do. We all sync up.”

I lifted my head up for a moment, “I thought that was a myth.”

“No kiddo, we do it artificially. Anyone know what day we’re on? I haven’t counted.”

“Put it on your calendar,” Rachel took out her phone. “We’re on day 13.”

“Well boys,” Bree came back into the loft, smart enough to extrapolate the conversation, “Looks like the break is going on for longer.”

“Well we still can—” Wee David started.

“Entertain your fucking selves today,” Bree finished for him. She handed me a bar of dove chocolate, “Sisterhood.”

I broke off a piece and felt it turn to rubble as I chewed. It didn’t make me feel much better, but it made me feel like I’d needed it. “Does the pill help with how shitty I feel?”

“Yeah, luv,” Autumn said. “Makes everything less terrible.”

Thank god. “That’s great because I almost didn’t come to tech today.”

Sara scooted away so I could lay my head on her lap. I laid my head on her lap, and just felt awful for a bit.

I could smell Sarah. I don’t know if it was from the loft or what but I could smell her pussy through her jeans. I had to lift my head up, because it was getting unbearable. Around that time Dave called time, and people started to head off.

Hey. You’re a lesbian in an orgy club. And I kissed her before she could get up. In under thirty seconds it was getting pretty intense before we realized where it was going and mutually broke it off. I cleared my throat, “Hey. I need to go shopping somewhere and…” And ‘do you want to come’ sounds dumb, Aisling. Think of something else, “… I don’t know any stores in Denver.”

“Are you doing anything tomorrow?” She stood and helped me up.

“Having my… my period.”

“Right. Tuesday? We’ll ditch the guys.”

“That sounds great.”

Downstairs everyone got back to painting. I didn’t get down fast enough to get a hold of a pole painter, and had to grab one of the handhelds. It was slower going because I had to get up and get to a pan every 20 seconds. Susan showed up at 4:00 and started on a fifth. Someone had hooked up a blutooth speaker and we were all (sort of) jamming out to Taylor Swift. You might think that my new gender would give me a new found liking for Swift, and you would be wrong. Maybe if she had some songs about how much periods sucked, but I think that’s more of a Lady Gaga type deal.

And yeah, I liked Lady Gaga. I had always liked Lady Gaga. I could admit I liked Lady Gaga now, to people I met casually. So that was a plus. I’m a girl, and I’m (mostly) gay. It’s cool now.

I thought about it as I worked and while I felt like my uterus was being swept like a chimney. That must be what cramps feel like. Great to know that now.

I had been sure I would be gay as a girl because I had been straight as a guy. Hadn’t I. Sure hadn’t looked at any gay porn. I hadn’t minded seeing guys dicks in my porn, but that was because they didn’t matter to me. Occasionally I would speculate about relative length, to my benefit. Otherwise they were a blank spot on my consciousness.

Now? Now I thought about dicks.

I thought about doing things.

With dicks.

Like, to them, and stuff.

Why? The tampon had been fine, if completely unarousing. My fingers must have been a problem because things had been so new down there. I could use my own fingers now. Or Autumn could use her fingers on me. Hard to imagine that things could get better than they had when another person rubbed my clitoris.

But I liked Regular Dave. As a friend. But, like, sort of the kind of friend you wanted to do stuff with. Or to. And I was part of the Orgy Crew now. That kind of thing was okay in this group.

I worked my way around the last platform, and went back to the first. Sarah was coming around the first, and the second hadn’t dried yet.

I was sitting down to wait for a bit, when my phone alarm chimed, just once. I went downstairs to the bathrooms, grabbing my backpack and hoping no one saw me do it.

The girls bathroom downstairs was just as covered in graffiti as a common mens room. The janitors didn’t seem to think graffiti removal was a priority down here, and I would guess some of it to be as old as the school. Sisterhood reigned here as well. While the walls of the stalls were a good list of who was a slut, and who was a bitch, and who fucked Steven Archibald in 1999; most of the names had been scratched away.

There were a few dicks scratched on the walls, and some comparisons between boyfriends. Big Davey had an endorsement, signed by names I recognized and didn’t.

Okay, how do I do this with pants on? I went with sitting on the toilet, leading way back because hunching didn’t work. Ow. Relax your muscles Aisling. Think of trees and rainbows and waterfalls. There, that got it.

I stood and pulled my pants up, scooting them back and forth on my waist. I realized too late that I was shaking my ass, felt embarrassed, and then felt like I was hot doing it. Everything is confusing now.

Now I had my tampon wrapper and syringe thing and where did I—Oh wait. That’s what those little boxes are for!

My god did I need some chocolate.

Platforms 8–12 were drying when I came back upstairs, and everyone was sitting around, while Susan talked. I snuck up to Bree and bummed more chocolate.

“… look good, Autumn. Everyone give Autumn applause.”

Autumn stood and took a bow, and I felt pride for her. Not my girlfriend, but the first person to get some sex onto me. Yeah, that was a nice feeling.

“I went to Kinkos and had them printed Autumn, so you wouldn’t have to spend the money on draft paper. I know they make you buy that shit. Care to explain?”

Susan took us into the office to the side of the shop, and put up each plan on a board that looked like it was there for plans to be on.

“Susan wanted me to keep it at three sets,” Autumn pointed to each of the pieces of paper, “With minimal rigging. We have three settings, the town with the exterior school with exterior and interior of Wendla’s house, the forest slash river slash graveyard, and the interior of the school, which will double as the prison.”

She pointed at one of the designs, and I had no idea what any of it was, “The trees will all be rigged on bars two and three and, they span the stage and there isn’t enough room for them in the wings. We’ll be doing the ghost in the graveyard with a scrim on bar two.”

Autumn cleared her throat, and I imagined she might be nervous talking about it. “The school and prison will be in the wings, and we’ll move the buildings in the background—I forgot there are buildings in the background on bar five, in front of the cyc—to change the location in act three. Umm…”

Susan rescued her, “What about the hayloft?”

“Oh yes,” Autumn grinned, “I’m really quite proud. We’ll be able to turn Wendla’s house to the side, the whole thing will be on wheels, and bring the hayloft out behind it. So it’ll look like the hayloft is attached to the house!”

I started clapping and it picked up for a moment, while Autumn bowed again and sat down.

Susan started explaining our work flow and telling people to figure out what they wanted to work on.

We broke out then and started for the stairs. Autumn was taking Sarah home too, she didn’t have a car on the weekends. It meant that we were driving further into Englewood before heading into Aurora. Sarah sat in the backseat, and found some moist towels to try and scrub some of the black flecks off of her face.

“We’re all going shopping Tuesday after school,” she told Autumn, “if you want to come.”

“I don’t have any money to shop right now, but I’ll come.”

“Oh, I’ll get you something. As long as you let me take it off you.”

I felt a little. I don’t know what that feeling was. Autumn wasn’t mine, but what we had was special. Then I realized that if I thought what Autumn and I had was special, and Autumn thought that what we had was special; then Autumn (or I) having something else that was a different special wouldn’t take away from anything.

Still, I reached out to take Autumn’s hand in mine as she drove.

Shaving

I slept in till 3 on Sunday, and then found out I’d ruined the same set of panties twice. Last night mom had handed them to me, “These are the ones you wear to bed on period days now.” They were the blue ones. I loved them much less now.

I thought of the trivial angst of having ruined my favorite panties. Wait. I had a support group now. I texted Autumn, “I ruined my favorite panties with my stupid uterus blood.”

“I like you bare anyway”

That’s to innuendo to pass up. “I thought you liked my fire-crotch.”

“I love it. But we all shave”

She hated my pussy. I buried my head in my pillow in shame. Then my phone chirped.

“I’m going to shave a little fire bolt into yours”

“Careful, you’ll burn your tongue” Look at that. I could flirt with girls too.

She sent me an emoji of a kissy face and a campfire.

Shower. I feel less gross today.

Old Tampon. This looks like a hell-cats hairball.

New tampon. It’s like getting a turkey baster filled with q-tips.

Stare in mirror. Less hair… Oh no!

I could see the little reddish hairs on my legs. Starting at my ankles and coming up to just below my knee. They were barely noticeable, but they were noticeable. I went to school, in a skirt, with my legs unshaved.

Everyone must have been laughing at me.

My life was over.

Damage control, well past the time it would have been useful. “Lol. Did you see I wore a skirt without shaving my legs?”

“No. When?”

“That one day I wore that skirt that time”

“Did you not shave? I didn’t notice”

Crisis averted! I kept crying anyway, and couldn’t stop. Everything was fine, no one cared, why was I still crying? God periods suck.

I managed to compose myself enough to slump down to breakfast in my pajamas. I was too embarrassed to be seen with bare legs, and too upset to put on real pants.

My mom was sitting in the living room, reading again. I called to her, “When can I get an appointment with the…the lady doctor?”

“You can make an appointment on Monday.”

“Will you make it for me?”

“No.”

“WhyyyYYy?”

“You’re fourteen and you need to start making your own appointments.” She looked over her glasses at me, “Besides, do you want your mom in the waiting room while you’re getting probed?”

“Do they do that?”

“They did for me when I had my first period. I’m told that the lady lady doctors have attempted to change this practice.”

“There are guy lady doctors?”

“Used to be that’s all there were.”

Nothing about that seemed right to me, and I took a moment to come up with an analogy while I sipped my coffee. “That’s like taking your car to a mechanic who has learned about engines all his life, and has never driven a car.”

“They used to handle dead bodies before they—” she made a finger fisting motion,” so think about how far we’ve come from there.”

I went upstairs and found the nook I had rooted. Spring Awakening was on Project Gutenberg, and I downloaded it, then went downstairs to read with my mom.

The crew was right, there were no stage directions. As a simple example, when Wendla hands Melchior the stick to beat her at no point does it mention that he takes the stick. As a complicated example the stage direction (Melchior rapes her) does not appear in the text.

Considering the political climate of 2017 it would be hard to think that—

Wendla.

Don’t——don’t, Melchior!——

Melchior.
Wendla!

Wendla.
Oh, Melchior!——Don’t, don’t——

—was anything other than rape. At the same time the fact that they even have sex isn’t in the text. You might actually think, as Wendla does, that babies come from kissing. The kissing isn’t in the stage directions either. She just tells him not to kiss her.

“What are you reading,” mom asked. She’d pulled out her knitting and was reading at the same time.

“The most fucked up play I’ve ever read in my life.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s the play we’re doing.”

“Sounds great dear. Will I have an uncomfortable PTA meeting?”

“Oh, most definitely. I’m thinking it’s because of the cuts to sex-ed. Some redneck is going to complain that they should be teaching their child about sex.”

“Do you want to do it?”

“If it gets canceled the tech crew is canceled.”

Mom gave a sigh, “I suppose I’ll have to defend it in my first meeting then. It would be nice if you’d let me make friends before I alienate half the association dear.”

“I didn’t make a single part of this happen, mom.”

“No dear, you’re right. That was unfair, and I’m sorry.” She tucked her knitting away, “I suppose I should see what I’m defending. May I read it?”

I had finished, and I handed her the reader.

At first she just read, then she let out a little snicker. Then a guffaw. Then a graveyard cackle. It only took her about twenty minutes to read what had taken my forty, and when she got to the end she was wiping tears off her face. “This is wonderful Aisling. Are you sure you don’t want to be in it? You’d make a fantastic Ilse.”

After a mere week in tech is was ready to defend my social class, “I’m crew mom. Not cast.”

“You don’t want to be in front of the audience?”

“Ew. No.” And I was surprised to find that I didn’t. I wasn’t that great at acting, and acting meant leaving my friends. More than that though. Acting meant that I wouldn’t be making things, or making things happen. I wanted to build stuff. I wanted to be responsible for making the show happen. Not a collection of people and the audiences imagination, but a real show. With showy stuff.

The rest of Sunday drifted by. I read Odysseus. I went through my history homework. It was all on the computer, emailing my teachers the assignments. Except English, which I would only have to discuss in class.

Around 5:00 Regular Dave texted me the information for their Discord server. I pulled it up and took a look at the rooms. There was a room for dank memes, full of dank memes. Most of those were tumblr conversations I’d seen them share on tumblr. Seemed kind of redundant.

The chat board on the other hand was a long lesson in juvenile innuendo.

Bree: What’s everyone up to?

Wee David: porn

Rachel: porn

Big Davey: Your mom

Autumn: Hi Aisling!

Aisling: sneaks into room, sits on dave’s lap

Regular Dave: Which dave?

Aisling: All of them

It went on like that, and I found myself participating more and more. Then I got a PM.

Regular Dave: You fit in fast

Aisling: I got thrown in the deep end. Turns out I can doggy paddle.

Regular Dave: Can you now? Can you doggy…
Regular Dave: …
Regular Dave: … with a paddle?

Okay Aisling. Regular Dave is your fantasy, but fantasy isn’t reality.

Aisling: Well, buy me a drink before we start with the whips

Regular Dave: lol

Regular Dave: Coffee?

Aisling: When?

Regular Dave: Now?

He is a fantasy. You aren’t going to fuck him. You can’t even fuck yourself comfortably. On the other hand, Regular Dave had invited me into the group. Well, harangued me into the group. But the group was great. And Regular Dave was…

If you’re going to coffee you aren’t going to go confused, Aisling. That statement worked two ways. I wasn’t going to go into the situation, I was going to make a decision and then go to coffee. Easy decision Coffee was fine.

Because as long as I wasn’t confused, I was going to…

Make out with him? You’re still being confused.

Yup. Make out with him.

Aisling: Sure. Come pick me up.

Regular Dave: Address?

I gave him the address I’m not going to give you.

Regular Dave: An hour?

That should be just fine to get ready.

Aisling: Sure

An hour to get ready. I could finish this book of The Odyssey and have a half an hour.

I didn’t do that.

I sat on my bed for a long moment.

Then I went downstairs where my mom was on the computer, “Mom?”

“Yes, dearheart?”

“How do you… can you teach me… Ineedtoshavemylegs!”

She looked up from the screen and for a moment her face had an expression I couldn’t read. Or maybe I could and I didn’t want to because it was terror. As soon at it was there it vanished, and she gave me a soft and understanding smile, “Sure dearheart. Lets go upstairs.”

She took me to her bathroom. The one in her bedroom. The one that was strange, foreign, feminine, and that I only used in an emergency. The one where I had been careful to leave everything where it was and put the seat down.

I left the seat down in my bathroom now too. I hadn’t lifted it up in a month. I probably never would again.

Mom handed me her bathrobe, “I’ll wait outside while you take your pants off.”

“Can’t I just roll them up?”

“Can you?”

Oh, right. I could barely get these pants over my thighs from the waist hole, much less the knee hole. “I can’t.”

“Then no, dearheart. Pants off.”

She left, I put my pants on the floor, and opened the door wearing her bathrobe. It smelled like her shampoo.

“Sit on the toilet and put your foot on the bathtub,” she reached through the shower curtain as she spoke, and pulled out a can of Barbasol. It was pink. I crammed my second thoughts down into the bottom of my brain and took it from her.

“Put some in—”

“I know how to use shaving cream, mom.”

“Okay, then spread it on your leg.”

I started at my calf and quickly ran out.

“Ankle to thigh, dear.”

“But I don’t have hair there.”

“You didn’t have hair on your neck and you shaved it too. I saw you.”

“That was machismo. I might have had hair there some day.” Man that was easy to admit.

“Well this is whatever the opposite of machismo is.”

I spread more shaving cream around, “Femininity, mom.”

“I wasn’t going to use that word with you.”

My period started crying. Mom came in for a hug and I held up my hand. “I’m okay.” I sniffed and dabbed my eyes with the Kleenex on the back of the toilet, “Hormones.”

Mom didn’t say anything, just handed me a razor. I started, and she put her hand on my wrist. “Hold it perpendicular to the flesh. Don’t go in little strokes. All the way up your leg. Now just flick it into the sink. You should be doing this in the bath but…”

“I get you, mom.”

It took five minutes to do both legs, and the razor looked like I’d shaved a cat. “Can I use your shower?”

“Of course.”

It was just a rinse, but out of habit I got my hair wet, and came out of the shower with my hair dripping all over my mom’s bathrobe. “Do you want to wrap your hair up? It’ll dry faster.”

I blanched and felt the blood drain out of my face from the scalp down, “Too much mom.” But on the way out of my room I leaned in the door, “Mom?”

“Yes, dearheart?”

“… can you help me fix my hair?”

Coffee

I sat outside on the porch. Hair only a tiny bit up, in a hair band, skirt, and t-shirt. I looked like looking nice was a habit. Like this was just what I wore when I was going out. Nothing special. Don’t infer anything from the way I look. We’re two friends meeting up and no one expects a thing.

At least I hoped.

And while I sat there, toying with my phone (Regular Dave had sent me a text saying he was on his way 20 minutes ago) I tried to decide how far I would go. I would kiss him, but only if he kissed me first, I decided. I would do… whatever else… but only if he… whatever else. And we wouldn’t go all the way. Unless we did. Solid plan Aisling. You have this down to a T.

Shut up Aisling. I’m trying.

The period pains had mostly subsided. I took some Motrin from the kitchen cupboard, where mom stored all the pills.

I swung my legs for a second. In a manic fit, I had done something terrible and raided my mother’s closet. I knew she had a pair of calf-highs in them. I knew they wouldn’t have a heel. And I knew (now) how well they would match my skirt. They were tight, gunmetal black, and had a spur strap with buckles. Can women’s clothes be colored gunmetal? Probably called “slate.”

“Are those my boots?” She had asked, knowing they were.

“We’re almost the same size,” It was a poor defense, but I made the play anyway.

“They look good on you. Don’t let Autumn keep you out too late.”

I hadn’t corrected her. We both knew I was dressing up. We both knew why I was dressing up. One of us knew who I was dressing up for, and it would never be her. Ever.

Regular Dave drove a beaten white truck of generic make. Possibly a Toyota. I ran down the steps, checked myself, and then strode really cool to his door and got inside. Regular Dave hadn’t dressed up up either. Instead he’d put on a cologne that smell like the island of Hawa’ii had ejaculated all over him. It was kind of sweet. The gesture. The smell was so sweet it was suffocating. I was going to get used to it, or throw up. You’re not going to throw up where a boy can see you. I would not do that if my life depended on it.

“Where are we going, doll?”

“Leela’s, daddyo.”

“Parking downtown?”

I turned in my seatbelt and batted my lashes at him, “Don’t you want to show a girl a good time?”

“Give a guy a chance.”

“I won’t blow your dice, if that’s what you mean.”

“My fingers can roll the dice just fine.”

Goddamn it. My flirt was stuck on with him and I couldn’t turn it off. It was like he sucked it out of me. Oh, new line! “You know, if a girl didn’t know better she’d think your intentions were intentional.”

“Everything I do is intentional, doll.”

“Then intend to get me back here by nine.”

Regular Dave laughed, “Will your daddy be waiting with a shotgun?”

“With pruning shears.” I dug out my phone, “A real gentleman would let the lady choose the music.”

He turned onto the highway, “Ma’am, I’m a gentleman in all but purpose.”

Please calm down nipples. He isn’t—oh. Around 40% I would say. Man being a guy really taught me how to tell the difference between a wrinkle in the jeans and a wrinkle in the jeans.

Leela’s is just about the only 24 hour coffee shop in Denver. Well, other than Waffle House. It’s down on the 16th street mall (one street south, actually), where parking is insane and the people are insaner. The sidewalks are a mess down here, littered with gum and cigarette stains. Nowadays Uber and Lyft cars patrol the area by the dozen, and on a Sunday the bars are still overflowing onto the street up until last call.

Leela’s leaves their front door open all of the time that there is, and in every weather that exists. In the middle of a hurricane you could go down to Leela’s and find their front door open.

Regular Dave and I waited in a very short line, his hand close to mine but not touching it. When we got to the part of the counter that wasn’t the bar he let me order a mocha and then got some kind of espresso drink. We held up the line waiting, because Leela’s has only the one place to order and pick up. Drinks came, we found the couches and sat down. Well I sat down. He vacillated, torn between sitting across from me and sitting next to me. I patted the couch cushion to my right, and scooted to face him as he sat down. “So, what did you bring me here to talk about?”

He looked blank. With his face.

“You must have wanted to talk about something.”

“I guess I just wanted to talk to you a bit.”

“See? That wasn’t so hard.” I disturbed myself by patting his knee, “We’ll get you woke soon.”

He took a drag of the espresso, “You just seem cool, and I wanted to hang out.”

That’s not what he wanted. But I would play his game. I crossed my arms, so that they pushed my breasts up and peaked the cleavage out of the top, “Oh is that all? You know we can hang out at school.”

“Well we can’t get coffee and talk about whatever we want at school. Those boots look great, by the way.”

The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. The way to a woman’s heart is through her wardrobe. We’re like Narnia. Oh shit. I thought ‘we’. Think about that later, flirt now. “Thanks. I borrowed them. I might not give them back.”

“Whoever you borrowed them from doesn’t deserve them.”

“You’re sweet.” I caught him with my eyebrows and reeled him in, “You really think they make me look good?” Feed me compliments!

“They’re great, and they make your legs look great too.”

We chatted about nothing for a few minutes, while he continued to tell me how great I looked. It was like being in control somehow. All he was doing was saying, “I like the way you look.” But to my mind he was falling down in worship. I felt a little like a goddess. It was a pretty great feeling. “Thank you for inviting me onto the crew,” I told him.

“Oh sure. Do you like it?”

“Yeah! I’ve never built anything before. Not just sat down with a pile of things and made a thing out of all the things I had… I mean, I’ve played with Lego—”

“I love Lego—”

I patted his leg, “Don’t interrupt me. I’ve played with Lego, but this is that cranked up to 10.”

“You mean up to eleven.”

I patted his leg, with a rub this time, “Don’t tell me what I mean. If it was up to eleven we’d be building mechs to take down the clans.”

Regular Dave nodded like he had no idea what I was talking about. Mech Warrior really is forgotten. The flight sim is dead. “Building a Thor to take down the Zerg then. Is that better?”

“That one I get.” And we talked some Star Craft.

“Why did you though?” We hit a lull in the conversation. My ankle was resting on his knee, he was turned toward me, and there was some familial tension going on. Like friends meeting over coffee who might fuck later.

“You looked cool.”

“No, really. Why?”

Regular Dave shrugged, hands out, “You look hot, and cute at the same time.”

Okay, I just baited him into complimenting how great I look and I’m angry at him for telling me I’m hot. I didn’t even think it was a period mood swing. I was just a woman mood swing. “And so you invited me into your club to get with me?”

He either knew that he’d stepped in shit, and was too smooth, or he never felt it squish under his boot, “Nah. That we could have done anyway. No, you just looked like a techie.” He sipped his espresso and looked off into the distance, “Like a techie that doesn’t know she’s a techie yet. We’ve all been there.”

I signaled that I forgave him by switching my body around and leaning on his shoulder. It was hard not to touch him. He looked… not tortured… but deep in his thoughts. I don’t know why that made me want to comfort him, but it did. “What do you mean?”

“Tech isn’t like acting. No one gets in to tech because they all know about how great being a theater tech is. Most people who watch a show don’t even know that it’s a job that exists. They know that someone must build all those sets, and run the lights and sound, but who it is doesn’t matter to them. Most of them assume that it’s just actors out of costume moving the sets and whatever. So you don’t get into tech because it’s what you want to do. You get involved because you kind of fell into it. Wandered onto a stage and couldn’t leave. Brother does it, so you pick it up and love it. Parent’s in the theater and you need something to occupy your time.” He gestured to me, “some guy you like told you to do it, and you did.”

I toyed with the back of his hand as I said, “Who says I even like you.”

Regular Dave scooted away from me on the couch, and I felt hurt until he started talking and I understood, “Aisling, I’m getting some really mixed signals here.”

I reached out to touch him and thought better of it, “Why?”

“Are you gay?”

“Oh.” I sat back on the couch and looked away from him. Shrug, “Yeah, I dunno.”

“Can you sort it out? Because the energy I’m getting from you is not so much like a lesbian.”

I tried not to let my hormones take control of my mood, which was crashing hard. I know how to calm down from angry. How do I stop feeling petulant? “Why did you take me out here then?”

“Because I like you.” He rubbed my calf through my boot, and then read the situation and stopped.

Man, the entire night spoiled like yogurt in a sauna. But I came there having resolved not to be confused. I had made some decisions about myself. He wasn’t going to understand that unless I explained everything to him. Well not everything. Maybe 1% of everything. Autumn had said that she was more confused than anything…

Let’s go with that, since it’s the truth. “I do like you,” I slumped. “I just didn’t want to, and then I didn’t want to want to, and now I don’t know what I want.” I put my chin in my hand, “I’m just…”

“You’re just confused.”

I put my legs back on his lap so he could rub them, because that felt nice. “I’m not just confused. Everything in my brain has come undone in the past week.” Not knowing what I wanted to do with my body, I turned it around and leaned into him again, “Can we just stop labeling things and just go with it?”

“Sure. I just didn’t want to cross any lines here.”

He was being respectful? I mean—of course he was being respectful. He was a sex crazed rake, and de facto president of an orgy club, but that didn’t mean he had to be an asshole about it.

Regular Dave put his arm around my shoulders and rubbed my arm. Then he took a cautious look around my and snaked his arm under mine and held my hand. The way we were set up his arm brushed over my boob and sort of cuddle it, while not actually getting presumptuous. That feels so nice. I held his hand closer, found it was all soft and warm, and felt a flood of emotions. Pretty much all good emotions. This was good cuddles.

And they could get better. The world seemed to twist and snap into focus as I realized it was the perfect time to crane my neck up and kiss him.

Makeout

His lips were a little chapped. Firmer than Autumn’s were. Manly, I guess.

I was just a little kiss at first, maybe an offer of something more. An opening bid. Regular Dave held still for a second. Maybe he needs some convincing. I reached up farther and let him know I was serious about the whole thing. Then he kissed me back, plying my lips with his. It was intimate and a little shocking to feel his tongue brush my bottom lip, and I suppressed a shudder of excitement. We played for a moment, and then he pulled his head back. He wasn’t breaking it off, I knew. He just didn’t want to get carried away in a busy coffee shop.

I put my finger to his bottom lip, like a tease, “We should go somewhere. Private.”

Out on the street, he leaned down to kiss me, and cupped my jaw as he did so. It made me feel small and delicate. Something that he had to handle tender and gentle. We walked to his truck, and I found that he’d put his arm around me while we walked. His jacket smelled like him. Cigar smoke and work grease. Tenderness and desire.

The meter still had 30 minutes of the hour he put on, and he walked me to my door. When I was in the seat I was the perfect height to reach out for his face, draw him close and kiss him again. His thin hair tickled my forehead and then he ducked away to get in the driver’s seat.

When he got in I kissed him again, seatbelt unbuckled and one leg curled beneath me. He laid his palm on my leg for balance, and I reached down to touch his hand. He took this as a signal to move it higher until it was around my waist and I realized that’s what I wanted all along.

He leaned away to start the truck, and I took a moment to zone out. I wasn’t going to think about what I was doing there. I wasn’t going to think about how this was something I never expected to do, in a long week full of that. I wasn’t going to anticipate. I was just going to rub his leg as he swung up to 14th and then ducked under the convention center. He pulled near the loading dock area, where an SUV had been parked after hours, and cleverly disguised us as someone who was supposed to be there.

He undid his seatbelt and reached across to kiss me some more. I was more urgent that time. Like the buildup over the last 20 minutes had suddenly turned into a flood. Our hands were suddenly everywhere. On his neck. On my neck. On his stomach. Flat and muscley. Why would that turn me on? On my thighs. On his forearms. I had never wanted to touch someone all of everywhere all at once, and the urge was dizzying.

He had his elbow on the seat-back over my shoulder, and had wrapped his upper body around mine. That kind of touch should have made me feel claustrophobic, but I felt wrapped up and…

Dominated.

That’s what this was. I wasn’t kissing him, I was being kissed by him.

With Autumn there hadn’t been any give and take. We switched back and forth, one kissing the other, neither in control nor out of it.

With this I was giving. Wanted to give. Wanted him to take. He was wrapping me up and making me feel nice, but that was the point. He was making me. Pulling it out of me.

Each kiss was me asking him to give me another. Each touch was asking him to touch me more. Until his fingers snaked up under my shirt. I put my hand on his arm, “Wait.”

He stopped kissing me for a moment, and I realized that his hand on my breast was actually what I wanted. I took my hand off, and kissed him again. Now I want you to. And he did. Fingers sneaking over my bra straps. Dipping in and running the backs of his fingernails over my bare flesh. I think I sighed into his mouth. Telling him what I wanted and knowing that he’d give it to me.

At some point he snuck across the console, and was kneeling half between the seats, half in front of me. It looked uncomfortable and I didn’t have the energy to take pity on him because he was nibbling at my neck while his hands teased over my breasts.

I had my hand woven through his hair when he undid my bra. His hands on my nipples were much more rough. I don’t think he even moisturizes. I wasn’t complaining. He cupped the right one, supporting it in his hand while his thumb teased my teat up and down. He gave it a little pinch and pull and I gasped “Gentle.”

“Sorry,” he licked the bottom of my earlobe and did it again, not trying to open a water bottle this time.

“Just—” I kissed him again, “just—” I gasped, “just—” I crooned.

“Why don’t I keep doing it just like this?”

I nodded, tried to giggle, and moaned instead.

I had slumped in my seat, legs and skirt akimbo. I scooted down a little farther so that he could keep doing more of what he kept doing, and he scooted in—

And my eyes snapped open as I was catapulted out of the moment. That was his dick. I touched another guy’s dick.

It was against my upper leg, not really my thigh. It was hard. It was arous—confusing. It was very confusing.

I tried to think my way through the confusion while his hands were busy turning me into putty. And then I remembered that I had decided to come here, and I had decided not to be confused by what happened.

I opened my legs, and he leaned the rest of his frame in between them.

Then I was there. And he was there. And there was a dick between us.

And I reached down and touched it.

I was of two minds, as I felt his cock through his jeans. Mind one thought, “Ew I’m touching another dick, this is gross.”

Mind two thought, “This is the first time I’ve touched a dick and I’m going to enjoy it.”

He was hard. Rock-solid hard. Sticking up at a very uncomfortable angle. We’ve been flirting all night. I can still be coy. “Let me help you out here,” I wormed him around, hands over pants, till he was sticking straight up. Then for good measure I ran my palm down to his sack and back up to his button fly (that’s not a euphemism).

Regular Dave stopped long enough to pant a little bit, and then lifted me up in the seat. My skirt pooled around my hips as he brought the two of us together. My panties were still on, his jeans were zipped and buttoned but there was a dick between my legs, and it wasn’t mine.

He ground into me while I tried to process everything and it was…

Why didn’t I think I would enjoy this?

Well because if you had asked I wouldn’t have thought it would be enjoyable. Part of the heat was knowing that his dick was right there. That it was hard, and it was in the general area. Part of it was knowing that he was in control of what happened to me. The base of his dick was right at my entrance, and my lips were squishing all over the place as I hoped and prayed he’d manage to open them up. I didn’t want him inside, I was still a mess down there, come to that; but I knew that getting his rod right over my clit was going to be—

Oh that got it.

Holy hell.

It was nothing like fingers, even gloved fingers. It was a hot drippy mess of firm flesh, and it was bumping me exactly where I needed to be bumped. Twisting me around.

And we’re still clothes on.

My breathing was fast and loud, and at some point had become moans. It was a girl thing to do, and I didn’t want to stop.

Then my phone rang with a text. I fumbled for it, dropped it between the seats. Regular Dave hunted it up for me without taking his focus away from kissing my shoulder.

When I turned the display on, and got it up to eye level, I dropped it again because he’d pulled half my right tit into his mouth and was sucking.

I put my hand on the seat, straining, I don’t know what for; found my phone again, and gasped in shock.

Regular Dave took that as encouragement and went a little too hard. I was glad because it kept me from really encouraging him, “My mom just texted, I’m late home!”

Regular Dave and I didn’t talk on the way home. His hand was on my leg, and mine was on his. We were tracing little swirly patterns around. Around the exit onto Mississippi I reached up to brush my hair behind my ear. My hair must have been a mess. Oh god, she’ll know. I pulled the passenger eye shade down to get to the mirror, and then did my very best to get my hair put back together into it’s band.

It was salvaged—in that I had got it moving under it’s own power—but it was unmistakable that something had happened.

Regular Dave dropped me at the curb, where my mom was sitting on the porch. He leaned in and I brushed him off, “I’m still in the closet with her.”

Regular Dave took a moment to compute our respective genders and came up with a syntax error.

“She knows about Autumn, but I think polyamorous bisexuality is a coming out I’ll wait to have until Christmas. Twenty years from now.”

“You know we aren’t poly—”

“Yeah, we just like to fuck, but I’m still working on decoupling that.”

It was too much therapy talk for Regular Dave, “Text me, doll?”

“You got it, daddy-o.”

I walked up the steps and tried to brush it off, “I’m sorry I’m late, we got caught up with something.”

“Autumn has a new truck.”

“Yeah well her parents—”

“And she’s a guy now too? Which one of us are you lying too?”

I sat, then slumped, next to her on the porch swing, “I was hoping you.”

“I think that’s a grounding offense.”

“No, please? It’s just this guy, and you saw me get all dressed up. I didn’t want to get dressed up, but I did want to get dressed up, but I didn’t want—and then I did want—”

“Did you and Autumn already break up?”

I found myself crying, and my mom took me in for a hug. I remembered that lying and being found out would get tech taken away from me, and that Autumn would very definitely be coming over again. “No, we weren’t really together.” Something about that was confusing and sad. A half sad. I put my head on her shoulder.

“Oh, dearheart.” She put her cheek on my head, “You’re just throwing yourself down this hill before you’ve even put on your skis.” She rubbed my shoulder, “Did he like my boots?”

I sniffed, “Yeah.”

“I suppose having a daughter I should have know my wardrobe wouldn’t be my own anymore.”

I was still high on the make out session and kissing a guy, and being a girl, but I still said, “Mom!”

“Just keep the boots and say thank you, honey.”

I changed my tampon before bed. This one looks like the Mouse King during the French Revolution. Just a little bloody neck stump.

I put on fluffy pajamas.

I crawled into bed.

I texted Autumn, “Just made out with Regular Dave”

“You go girl! Better than me?”

“Nah. Slightly bigger penis though”

“I’m so embarrassed. The pills haven’t been helping.”

I had discord on my phone, and I messaged Regular Dave a “had a great time :) goodnight”

I thought for awhile as I went to sleep and conclude only one thing: I wasn’t Ashley anymore.

Maybe I never had been. Maybe Ashley was just a dream that Aisling had dreamed. No, there were records. And memories. Mostly good memories. Ashley was isolated, maybe that was it. Aisling wasn’t isolated, that much was certain. Maybe Ashley would have found out he was gay eventually. Or bi. Or whatever.

I wasn’t even sure what sexual orientation I even was at this point. Regular Dave was a nice guy, who I wanted to hang out with. Ashley would have liked him. Ashley would have wanted to be his friend. Aisling wanted to suck his dick.

Why?

I didn’t have an answer for that. Something in me wanted to be more like Rachel, and be able to…please (?) him. Something in me wanted to… I guess I just wanted to make him feel good. If we were guy friends I’d game with him, and we’d go to movies, things like that. As a girl I had other ways of making him feel good.

If I was being truly honest with myself, my motivation was more basic to evolution than anything else. I’d seen something I wanted. I wanted it to be mine and I wanted it to want me. I had a way of doing that. With my mouth and that thing’s throbbing cock.

And I wanted control. Regular Dave made me feel out of control. Of my emotions, my inhibitions, my body. I could regain some of that control by taking control of him. And by making him feel out of control.

Sometime around that thought I fell asleep.

OBGYN

I woke an rolled onto a crusty patch on the bed. Just once can I wake up and find everything normal? It doesn’t seem like too much to ask.

I threw the covers aside. At some point in the night I’d been too hot and had thrown my pajama pants off. My shirt had rumpled around and my tummy was bare. There was a shiny dried film on it, and I recognized the entire situation.

I had had a wet dream.

Like a boy wet dream.

Like I had ejaculated in my sleep.

I wasn’t entirely up on my female anatomy. I mean, I knew my vocab. I wasn’t sure where the cervix was, or what it did, but the rest wasn’t hard to figure out.

So that conclusion was impossible. Holmes’ axiom stuck in my head: Eliminate the impossible, and whatever remains—however improbable—must be the truth.

Having ejaculated was impossible, so that was out. Unfortunately that left me with nothing improbable to consider. I stripped my sheets in any case, while I decided that this was some hitherto undiscussed girl thing, and bore no more thought.

My tampon was very faintly pink at the tip. Thank god that’s over for the next 26-ish days. I threw it away with a sense of relief coupled with satisfaction and accomplishment. That thing sucked from the start.

Downstairs, dressed, hair dripping, I realized that I had woken early on my own. My alarm must have gone off while I was in the shower. Mom was already dressed and on the phone. She finished as I walked into the kitchen and made myself a poptart, “Okay, we’ll see you then, mmmmmmm-bye.” She turned to me, “You’re skipping first period again, so sohelpme if you fail this class.”

“I’m cool with death, but why?”

“You asked, I did. You have an appointment with the lady doctor in half an hour.”

My heart dropped through the floor. Everything everyone everywhere ever had said about the gynecologist coming to me in a rush. “So soon? Couldn’t you have made it for next week?”

“If you wanted it on your schedule you should have made it yourself. After last night I’m feeling a sense of urgency. I’m far too young to be a gramma.”

She handed me a cup of coffee, and I made my way to the table. “You’ve been wearing gramma glasses since I was six, mom.”

“Is that when I graduated? I wanted something to make my face look like a therapist’s. Seems silly now, but it’s too late to change.” She found her purse and went into the living room for her shoes.

“You’d look weird without them too.” A counter point occurred, “Anyway pregnancy is off the table. And anyway, I’m too young to have sex.”

“Why? I started at around your age.” She gave me that ‘I’ve won’ smile again.

“Mom!” She was standing around like she was waiting for me to get ready, and I realized it was because she was waiting for me to get ready. “Can we just cancel it? I don’t really feel like coming face to vagina with a speculum today.”

“No we can’t, and you’ll never be ready for that. It’s immaterial for today’s visit though, I told you they don’t do that anymore.” She got her purse and stood next to the door. “If you cancel the appointment I’m taking the charge out of your allowance.”

I ran up the stairs, “Let me get my shoes on.”

What did people do in waiting rooms before cell phones? Probably read these magazines laying around here. They all looked boring.

On the table in front of me where two of the same issue of Sports Illustrated a Time from last year, and Cosmopolitan. Miley Cyrus was on the cover. Why does a women’s magazine always feature stripped down women on the cover? Are we supposed to want her? Want to be her? If they had a woman on the cover who was sitting in a hot tub eating chocolate cake it could be the latter. Miley looks like she’s never eaten chocolate cake in her life. She was eating an ice cube instead, which looked about right. Tongue out in her signature “Bill the Cat, expression. (Aaaaaack!) I hadn’t been a woman long, point of fact I hadn’t even been a woman yet, but even as a guy I would be asking what the hell she was doing wearing a denim tube top. But lets be honest, no one wants to be Miley Cyrus. Miley Cyrus had been trying to be anyone but Miley Cyrus for 14 years. I used to have a crush on one of the girls on Hanna Montana. Couldn’t remember the name of the character or the actor.

I picked up the magazine anyway. “SEX… Your Way” I read. Then underneath, “Kisses, Touches & Positions to Satisfy Your Body—Get It Girl!” Is this a guide on how to masturbate? Because I have the Internet. Maybe I could use some pointers? I opened the magazine and flipped past 6,000 pages of ads before finding the article.

On my way there I paused at an article on crystal sex toys and paused. The article specified that there was no proof that crystals had any healing powers. Then in the next sentence pointed out that the Chinese had believed they had healing powers for 2,000 years. In the next sentence it pulled a quote from a doctor saying that crystals can’t heal shit. The sentence after that was someone who sold crystals saying that they could cure cancer. It went on like that before finishing: Read on for their purported powers and suggested uses. The “on” part was scant, and was just pictures of crystal sex toys and what the crystals were supposed to do.

There was an egg shaped piece of jade. You were supposed to jam that inside yourself to “bring humor and happiness.” I guess because saying “I slammed a rock in my lady-pipe” is something the wrong kind of clown would say. There were obsidian cock rings, because obsidian “taps into your dark side and detects bad vibes.” It didn’t say what obsidian did when it found the bad vibes. I was—had been a 14 year old boy. If obsidian detected bad vibes in my dick, every arrowhead buried under the city of Denver would be glowing red hot. There was a Red Jasper Massage Wand. The instructions were: Make windshield-wiper strokes over your clitoris.

OW! I had a clitoris and I liked soft thing on it, thank you, Cosmo.

On the other hand… the egg was supposed to make your pussy stronger. Make you better at sex. I’d never had sex, and I had no idea if I was good at it. Everyone seemed sure I would be, Autumn and Regular Dave in particular. But none of the others had expressed any doubts.

Of course, none of them knew I was a virgin. Might be good to have a leg up on the competition.

It was $60 for a small, and I was sure I wouldn’t need a medium. I can probably order one online?

At that time my name was called and I put my finger in the page, deep in thought. I followed the nurse into the office and kept reading while I waited another ten minutes.

There was a knock at the door, and the doctor breezed in. “Hello Ay-sling, I’m Doctor Swanson.”

“It’s Aisling,” I had my hands on the bed at my side, in a stress pose, and I didn’t meet her eyes.

“Aisling? Is it French?”

“Gaelic.” I still couldn’t look at her.

“Let me put a note in your chart so no one else makes that mistake.” She went over to the computer and I noticed that she was both young, and very good looking. Chin length brown hair and soft features. Just a little taller than I was, and according to the nurse who took my vitals, I was five foot even.

Well. Four eleven and a half.

“So,” She turned to me and I looked away again, “According to your intake you started your period, was everything normal?”

I shrugged and then nodded.

“No problems?”

“Well it all sucked, if that’s what you mean.” I finally managed to look at her directly.

She crossed her legs and put her hands on her knees, “So what can I do for you?”

“I was hoping for some…” I swallowed. “… some birth control?”

“Are you sexually active?”

“No.” Man this is hard.

“Well normally we don—”

“I mean… I’m sort of… incipiently. Sexually… active,” I gave her a wan smile.

“So no sexual history up to this point?”

“Up to a couple of d—weeks in the future.”

She gave me a smile that suggested that—had we both been guys—she would have given me a high five. “Sure. Pill, shot, or implant?”

Shot or implant? I loosened up, a little from my curiosity, a little from her attitude, “What are the advantages?”

“The implant is 99% effective and lasts four years, the shot lasts three months.”

Implant sounds pretty sweet then. “Disadvantages?”

“The shot feels like getting injected with toothpaste, and if you have side effects you can’t go back in time and prevent yourself from getting it. The implant? Pretty much none. You don’t even feel it.”

I opened the magazine, and handed it to her. “Not like, say, a rock?”

“Like a rock under your skin?” she said, as she took it from me. “What do we have here?”

“Do they really work?” I asked. “I mean I know crystals don’t work, but will they make me better at sex, and stuff?”

Doctor Swanson looked over the page for a moment, then picked up the phone on the desk, “Hang on a second, Aisling. Yes Cindy, it’s Carol. Listen, can you remove all of the issues of the September issue of Cosmo from the waiting room? Thanks. No, that’s all.” She put the phone receiver down and muttered something that might have been, “Fuck you Gwyneth,” under her breath.

My curiosity was burning as she swung around and looked me in the eye, “Aisling, you’re young. That’s all guys need. When you’re in your forties you’ll need to be good at sex, and by that time you’ll have had some practice. Eggs can make the walls of the vagina stronger, but that won’t be a concern for you for many years.”

She put her hands on her lap, “You’re mother is a doctor, so you understand that when a doctor says ‘I would not recommend’ they really mean, ‘for-fucks-sake, do not’?”

“Well she’s a psychologist.”

“So you really understand, good.” she did the unprofessional thing and put her hand on my knee, “Aisling, I ‘would not recommend’ that you put any rocks inside your vagina. Not rocks you find on the ground, or rocks that someone has washed really well, or rocks you buy on the Internet. The smoothest rock can still be porous, and they can still have tiny indentations. Those are places where bacteria and fungus and grow and thrive. Even if a jade egg made you Virginia Hill, I would not recommend using a jade egg.”

I gave a little nod, “Okay.”

“Okay, back on track then, because I’ve been meaning to say this: The implant goes under your skin, not in your vagina.”

“Oh, then let’s—” Wait a second. Do you want to be the one having your period while all the other girls are in the loft having fun? Sisterhood is only good for so long. “—do the pill.” She raised her eyebrows and opened her mouth to sell the implant and I rushed on, “I’m… kinda… Look we’re all sort of doing this…” She’s been really understanding so far, and she’s nice, and she can’t tell your mom if you don’t want her to. “I’m sort of in… a club.”

“A period club?”

“No, like a different kind of club.”

She raised her eyebrows further, then said, “Wow. Okay.”

“We all synchronize so no one gets left out.”

“That shows… remarkable forethought.” She wiped her brow, and then her composure snapped back. Someone is gonna have some great reddit content tonight. “Okay, I’ll give you my favorite prescription for your age.” She reached into a drawer and pulled out a little box, “Just take one everyday. When you get to here,” she pointed, “You start your period.” Then she pulled a little wooden phallus out of the drawer and a condom, “For two weeks from starting to take the pill, you can still get pregnant.” She opened the wrapper, “Pinch here. Place it on the tip. Roll it down. Now show me.”

Face flaming again, I demonstrated that I was aware of how to use a condom. I’m glad she had an example, because I’d never even pulled one out of the wrapper before.

“Good! Alright, here’s the story girl.” I bridled at the pro-noun and then flushed. “I need you to come back and see me within six months of starting sexual intercourse. Tell your mom it’s a routine checkup or whatever you need to do. But see me. Okay? I have a sample of the pills if you want them, or you can just go to the pharmacy.”

“If I can have some now, that would be great. Side effects?”

“Some nausea, doesn’t last more than a week if you experience it, or you see me. Sometimes headaches. All birth control has a possibility of weight gain. As a doctor I recommend regular exercise in any case. And your period will be lighter, fewer premenstrual symptoms—”

“Yes please.”

“Been a little rough, huh? There’s some chance of irregular bleeding in the first month though. And this,” she gestured across her chest, “Might get a little tender. And a little bigger.”

“Works for me.”

“I hope so dear, when girls your age are jealous they can get cruel.” She stood up and brushed down her skirt, “Alright, see within six months after, and go get some, girl!”

The solidarity, and Doctor Swanson’s unprofessional encouragement, helped me feel pretty great about the whole thing. Oh shit. Just when did I decide to actually do this? Somewhere inside me a brain cell was saying, in Charlie Day’s voice “Everyone’s on the gas, no ones on the breaks…”

I met my mom in the waiting room with my prescription in hand, feeling like I was trying to plug a cracking dam, while the water rushed past my fingers.

Mr. Glome’s Follow Up

I made it through all the Monday classes. Worked on what was becoming a full page colored pencil drawing in Design, failed to come up with a monologue in Drama, Played Exploding Kittens (SFW edition on NSFW cards) at lunch, and managed to give as well as I got in English.

I should probably mention something about Intro to Physics. Yeah, I should really get around to that.

Tech that night was finishing painting the platforms. I had brought a smock and packed my painting jeans (which were also now my period jeans) in my pack. I changed in the changing room, which seemed both appropriate and lonely. The play list was Alice and Chains, the work was exhausting.

Autumn and I chatted on the way home about Pokemon, her parents latest argument (something to do with money, but she didn’t know what), the last Muppets movie, the upcoming Star Wars movie, and the Chinese position with regards to Taiwan juxtaposed against the Bush Doctrine. I’ve made one of those up. Guess which!

She didn’t want to go home, but felt like she should go home, and so she dropped me off. Mom wasn’t home yet, so I made a snack and went up to my room to chat on the server or do whatever teenagers do when bored. I was trying to figure out if I should masturbate first and then do homework, or homework first. I walked into my room, threw my pack on my chair heard an “Ooof.” And shrieked.

Mr. Glome picked my pack off his lap and set it down carefully, “Miss McKinnon. How are you?”

I tried to decide whether to be mad at him, taking up more than a couple of seconds, before deciding to push off the decision until later. “Dirty. Wait here while I take a shower.”

“Certainly.”

“On my planet, it’s customary to shower alone.”

“I’m aware of this.”

“It’s also customary not to look at people through the wall of their house as they shower.”

I got the impression that he was doing his best not to look amused, which tilted me a little further toward feeling angry.

“I gather you wish me to observe this custom?”

I gave him a tight smile, “Please.”

I closed the bathroom door, stripped, and washed a gallon of black paint off of my hands, arms, face and hair. By the time I was clean the water had taken away all my vinegar. I had accepted that, whatever he wanted to talk to me about, it was something at least moderately important.

I came into the bedroom in a towel, pulled clothes out of the closet and off the floor, and went back into the bathroom to change. When I came back out Mr. Glome was twirling around in my chair. “I’m back, you can stop being bored now.”

“Of course Miss McKinnon. I’m sure you’re wondering why I’m here.”

“My guess is this is a follow up appointment. You’re going to see if I can extend my knees all the way, and whatever.”

It would be really gratifying to say that this deduction took him by surprise, but it didn’t. “You understand that it’s far more complicated than that.”

“I do, and you already know it. Do I have to take my clothes off for the examination?”

“Not at all,” the alien’s eyes disappeared and left holes in his skull you could see light through. “Pulse eighty nine, lungs clear, liver and kidneys healthy, ovaries in good shape.”

I sat on the bed and swung my legs a little bit. Mr. Glome’s eyes returned, and he pulled out a tablet and started writing things down. “Any pain over the last four weeks?”

“My period felt I was getting scrubbed out with a steel brush. Otherwise a headache now and again, but that’s all.”

“Good,” The alien stood, “I have to palpate the region.”

“What does that mean?”

“If means I’m going to skoosh your scar and see if it hurts.”

“I thought I couldn’t feel it.”

“You can’t. This will be uncomfortable in other ways. May I?”

I didn’t feel like trusting the thing, as calm and urbane and likable as he—it—was. “What’s in it for me.”

“You might like to know if you have an infection and are likely to die soon.”

“Would be convenient. Palpate away.”

He stood and came over to the bed and then his head disappeared, followed shortly by his arms and then most of his upper body.

For no reason at all I flashed to a childhood memory. The first time I had seen a dead animal. It was a cat that had been plowed over on the side of the road. I was walking with my dad in the summer heat. I pointed at it, and said something, and he told me not to touch it and just kept walking. I remember feeling confused and dirty. I guess I would have been around four years old.

But the memory was different that time. I don’t remember what I was wearing or what I looked like, but in my memory flash I was a little girl, not a little boy.

And then that feeling left, Mr. Glome came back, and I could remember it correctly again. “What the hell was that?”

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you what you might have experienced. I wouldn’t have any context. But everything there looks good. You appear to have healed very nicely and will be making a…” he gave a soft chuckle, “‘full’ recovery.”

“Not feeling very full right now.”

“I may have mentioned that I don’t have any context. I can assume one of any four genders.” The alien sat down in my chair again, and spun his hands 360 degrees (in the wrong axis) as he put them on his knee. “You have questions.”

I nodded a bit, and took some time to compose my thoughts, “So, I have a gender lobe? What else do I have?”

“All the normal things that you wouldn’t be able to see or touch. You evolution matrix, your temporal sense, things like that.”

“Is there…” I paused and then rushed into it, “Is there a sexual part?”

“Sexual organs? I’m afraid Vonnegut was wrong about that.”

“No, like… like my sexual attraction… corpus… thing?”

Mr. Glome sat forward and put his chin in a hand that had first too many, and then too few fingers, “I’m afraid I don’t understand what you mean.”

I was feeling on the verge of tears, and fresh and clear at the same time. I still looked away and ran my fingers over the bedspread, “Is there something that could make me gay?”

“Oh. Yes. I’ve heard of homosexuality.”

“Or bisexual, whatever.”

“These terms mean little to us, so I’ll try to understand what I can. I don’t believe there is anything in your hypercortex that controls your sexual gender preference. I could always be wrong. I have a joke for you, Miss McKinnon.”

“What is your joke, Mister Glome.”

“What do you get when you cross a cow with an octopus?”

I shrugged.

“A visit from the ethics committee and an immediate revocation of your funding,” He smiled and his lips disappeared behind his teeth. It made him look like a particularly proud skull.

It was hard to laugh in the face of that, but I gave it a try. “I understand. This is some Nuremberg type shit.”

“Indeed it is. As much as we might learn, cutting into a human just to see what makes you tick would be both wrong and terrible. But Miss McKinnon, I don’t believe that you are suffering from any damage to a homosexuality part of your brain.”

“Oh.” Well there goes that theory.

“Did you have any homosexual thoughts while you were a boy? Do you have new thoughts? Do they cause you distress?”

“Are you writing a dissertation?”

“I have a report. There will be a paper. My name will be on it. You can choose not to answer.”

I let out a deep sigh, gave up on decorum and laid down on my bed. I found myself on my hair, and fluffed it out from under my back. “I didn’t have old thoughts. I do have new thoughts. I was distressed. Now?” Eye roll, directed at the universe and my place in it, “Now I don’t know. I want them to still be distressing. I want to want to not think them. But they’ve came so much I couldn’t stop them.”

Mr. Glome paused for a second. I couldn’t see but he made it seem like he was writing things down. “My insight, Miss McKinnon is thus. You were a boy. You may not have been a homosexual boy. You are a girl now. Being attracted to boys would not make you homosexual.”

I flopped my arms on the bed. After a long moment I said, “I’d come to pretty much the same conclusion.”

The alien stood, “I’m afraid I have to go. I’ll be back to check on you in a few months. Shortly before my capture.”

As weird as this conversation had been, talking to him had made me feel better. I didn’t want it to be over. “Is there a way I can contact you?”

“Easily arranged. Write me a note.”

“How do I get it to you?”

“Just write ‘Dear Mister Glome’ at the top of the note.”

“Then what?”

“Then write the note. I’ll be watching.” And the alien disappeared again.

There was a thing he said that I should have found important. I lay there for several minutes trying to remember what it was. I gave up when mom came home and we got dinner.

Thrift Shop

I met with the Crew in front of the Auditorium doors after school. It was Tuesday, and I had a shopping trip to go on.

The day before we had finished painting the platforms. Tomorrow we were moving on to set fabrication. Today we were leaving the boys behind, because I needed more clothes.

Autumn gave me a hug, and Rachel and Bree were holding hands, and Sarah was standing up, and the guys all looked like they were ready for whatever. Until Rachel started walking off and said, “Bye guys, we’ll see you tomorrow!”

Everyone giggled. All the girls giggled, anyway.

I giggled too.

“I’m sick of driving all your asses around,” Autumn said. “We’re taking Rachel’s car.”

“Sure,” Rachel said. “Where did you want to go first?”

“Scoff!” Autumn said, “Scoff I say! We’re going to Cherry Creek, bitches.”

Bree opened the door to the Rachel’s car and waited for me to get inside. I waited for her to get inside. Autumn brushed past us and sat in the middle, which meant that I had to walk around to the other side of the car. I was good with it because it meant I’d get to cuddle Autumn some more.

We’d been texting back and forth, but she hadn’t been able to pick me up that morning because of some reason that I forget. We hadn’t had any time alone to ourselves for a bit.

I missed her.

Which was stupid. It had only been a couple of days since we’d… I guess sort of had sex. Well really tame sex. Well great for me, but I think Autumn had wanted to go farther. And all the woman-bleeding in between had cooled things, and I wanted to heat them up again.

But I didn’t know how to go about doing that.

My feelings about the shopping trip in general were conflicted. This was a girl thing, that I was doing with the girls. I had been telling myself that it was just because I needed someone to shop with, but everyone had leaped right into the idea of a girls day, and I had no way to stop it.

I sat behind Rachel as she drove, and Autumn put her head on my shoulder idly. She held my hand and Bree’s hand. This time it wasn’t hard not to feel jealous. We were all together here.

And I got her head on my shoulder, so I won.

We found parking North of the outdoor mall, on 3rd street, and walked. The air was crisp without even being cold. “Crisp” air is just dry, and Denver is a hair away from the deserts of the Southwest. The leaves were thinning out of the trees, and people were out shopping for the fall collections.

“This is what we want,” Sarah pulled open the door of a shop, and we walked inside.

Inside it smelled like a thrift store. “Is this a thrift store?” I asked Autumn.

“You want good clothes for cheep? Go to the thrift store in the most affluent part of the city.” Then her eyes lit on something, “Here. You. This is perfect for you.”

“How… how do I fit into it?” I picked at the cloth. I didn’t know what to call it, but it was a deep auburn, and very tiny.

“First off, you’re a twig, so it won’t be a problem. Second, it’s a shrug.”

“It seems kind of superfluous.”

Bree pulled it off the shelf and held it up to my hair, “Oh, it’s perfect. Matches your freckles.” Apparently convincing me to get this piece of clothing was going to be a team effort. Bree handed it to me, “It is superfluous. All women’s clothing is fucking superfluous.” She saw my confusion and sighed, “Okay, Aisling. You’re an art slut right?”

“I’m not—”

“You are. And you understand art concepts, like framing, right?”

“Yeah,” I was still smarting from the slut thing. I had no idea why being a slut was terrible, as a guy I had liked sluts. But… You know what? That’s Bree. Find a way to call her a cunt later and call it even.

“Well this,” she waved the sides where they came together, only on a “shrug” they would never come together, “frames your hot-ass tits.”

“I guess…” Wait… this is art? I know art! I picked up the little sweater thing, and looked at the color. But it had really tight sleeves. I couldn’t wear a regular top with it.

Then Bree said something that stopped me dead. “Besides, dress code. We can’t wear spaghetti straps unless we have something covering our shoulders.”

Nonononononononononono. Deep breaths. Figure out a way to call the whole thing off. “I… don’t like… tops like that.”

Autumn was going through more things on the rack while Rachel leaned across, “Well the weather won’t give you a chance to for much longer. Do it while you can. You need a low cut top to go with it, and you won’t find that in a shirt.”

“Can this please not become a conversation about why I don—”

“I got it!” Autumn snapper her fingers. “Aisling, everyone loves your freckles. Flaunt them, honey.”

Sarah leaned in, two of her own hangers already in her hands, “Just how far down do they go?”

“All the way to her nipples.”

I turned beat red as everyone giggled, then Rachel said, “Don’t gloat just cause you got there first Autumn.” Then she stepped in and gave me a quick kiss. “Did anyone tell you I play the bassoon?”

Well. No one had really come on to me like that before. I just bit my lip.

“Good.” She put her fingers up to her ear and mouthed, call me.

I had to do something to break the moment, and went with the clothing in my hand, and the knowledge that I could art clothing. Arting clothing is called fashion, Aisling.

Shut up Aisling. Fashion is a girl thing. This is clothes art. “It needs… Something light. But not too light. Maybe blue?” I would focus on the fact that I couldn’t wear the thing without my shoulders bare later. Color was my primary consideration at that time.

Several blue tops were found, some discarded, some held up to the fabric then discarded. “Oh, that one right there!” Sarah pointed at my hands.

My hands were only holding the bolero, in between two hangers on the rack.

“This one,” she came around and held the burgundy next to a deep blue…

A deep blue dress. Not a skirt, a whole dress. For covering your whole body in. It had inch wide straps, and a deep-cut bodice, and embroidered hearts on it.

And I knew that I couldn’t do this anymore.

I couldn’t do it anymore because… Oh, my god. I wanted this.

It’s exactly what I came here to do. That all became clear to me then. I brought all the girls out here so that they could talk me into buying girly clothes. My whole body felt numb as she took it off the rack, and handed it to me.

We browsed more wracks, grabbing and arguing. I felt that empty feeling when you haven’t eaten in hours, and your blood sugar plummets all of the sudden. Not because I was hungry, but because I’d realized something unthinkable about myself. The term “self-sabotage” made sense in a way it never had before.

There were a few more skirts, a few more tops, a sweater. Then I was handed all the clothes I had come here for, and was shoved into a changing room.

Well. I’m having another emotional crisis in a dressing room. Do they make these rooms for anything else? Because apparently that’s all I use them for.

Okay, Aisling. Got to get out of your head, and get back in your bootie.

The dress was blue cotton, and draped over my shoulders. It came down almost to my knees and had a scoop neckline that dug more than a little bit of cleavage out of the available real estate. I found myself fluffing my hair to get it out of the dress. Then holding it up, and looking at my reflection. Then down. Then back.

I looked pretty. Not cute, not hot, not fuckable, not anything but pretty. I put on the shrug sweater and then you could really see the definition of my tits, and the cleavage between them popped into the foreground. There. Clothes art. Now I just needed to art up some heels—nononononononononoNO!

Maybe.

I stepped out of the dressing room, and got aws, and hoots. Sarah stepped out beside me in a sea-green top and black leather stretch jeans. We talked about how great she looked. They talked about how great I looked.

Sarah turned to go into her dressing room, and I felt… definitely not disappointed about putting my jeans on again. Absolutely not that.

If you had asked me if I could see myself buying a dress someday, I would have said yes. I could see myself buying a nice dress for a pretty girl, who I was in love with. Possibly as a birthday present, or for valentines day. I could see myself doing it in high school even, surprising my girlfriend with a red box like in some movie I only half watched. Later she would let me take it off of her. Very slowly.

Well there I was, having bought not one, but three dresses for a pretty girl. But they were going home with me, and I was the pretty girl. Later I would let someone else take them off of me.

I couldn’t say when I had lost the thread. Rule no.2 has slowly eroded beneath me until I was standing on a pebble. The worst part—the worst part—was that after seeing that pretty girl (again, me) in the mirror, wearing the dress…

I had wanted to wear it. Wanted to feel it on me. Wanted to be seen it it. Wanted everyone to see what a pretty girl I was, who looked so pretty in her pretty dress.

I was so far beyond myself, leaving the shop with the girls. I can’t recall any of the conversation. I can’t remember where we went or what we did. All I was thinking about was taking the dresses home and putting them on. Going to school, or somewhere in public. Meeting someone I liked, one of the Daves, or anyone on the Crew really. Having them say, “You look beautiful in your dress, that you are wearing like a girl, Aisling.” Maybe if I wore it right they would buy my something to eat and then we would go to their place and I would let them take it off me.

“I’ll take it off you,” Autumn whispered to me.

Shit. “How long was I talking to myself?”

“You’re lips have been moving for the last half hour,” She slurped a slurpy drink. “Occasionally a word would leap out. That last sentence was the most clear you’ve been.”

I was too shell shocked to be embarrassed right now, “Oh.” I looked around the Cherry Creek Mall. “What are we doing now?”

“I promised you I would buy you boots.”

“No, that’s okay.”

She laughed, “It is okay. Because that’s what I’m gonna do.”

“Please don’t,” but I think I only said it in my head, because she’d grabbed my hand and pulled me to catch up with the others.

We went through the mall carrying bags and slurping drinks, and looking like the worst kind of high class high school trash. And I mentioned this and everyone laughed, and we all started strutting. Wrists out, pretending to carry our teacup poodles in the purses we didn’t have. Sarah was the only one wearing something like a heel, and so she pulled it off best. Rachel tried walking on her tiptoes, but she was wearing a pair of steel toed boots that couldn’t do that.

“Wait, wait. Wait. Stop. I’m going to see if I can do this. I used to be able to do this.” She put her arms together in what might be a plie, or some other ballet term. Whatever it was, it looked like it sounded French. The idiocy of trying to stand on point in steel toes was lost on us all, until she toppled over and took Autumn and me out too. The shock of hitting the ground fled quickly as we all collapsed into giggle fits.

We passed the children’s play area, where bored parents tried to get toddlers to exhaust themselves enough that they could do some shopping without risking a melt down. Past shops with romantic names. In that they were from far away and sounded strange. Past carts selling t-shirts, plushies, and things with lights on sticks that waved.

Under a hallway on the promenade, when we had almost passed it, I saw a cart that needed my attention, and jerked Autumn’s arm. She called to the others, “Did you not see the Lego cart?”

Sarah and Rachel didn’t care, and Bree came bolting over to look. They had a (heh) cart sized selection of Lego. Mostly custom or hard to find sets, in a glass case. Some not-very rare Star Wars sets, and a hundred strong collection of tertiary custom characters. Ones that I’m sure weren’t licensed.

There was Darth Maul, and Qui Gon, and Hagrid, sure. But there was also Plo Kun, Kit Fisto, and Charlie Weasley. Dragons, orcs, gollum, Benny (complete with broken helmet), and a tube of kragle. I searched for, and found, a Luminara Unduli (the green skinned Jedi with the dots on her chin), for ten bucks. The Lego head dress looked really weird and I considered abandoning it. But even though she appears on the screen for seven seconds at most, I’ve had a serious thing for her since I was five.

I bought the figure, passed on a special display case, tried to put her in my pocket, and found that she fit just barely.

“Is she like, a role model?” Rachel asked.

“More of a fantasy,” the honesty leaped out of my mouth before I could stop it.

She laughed and held her hand out. I gave her the figure.

“Well now I know what you’re into.” She held the figure out and put her hand on her hip. “I think I could pull it off. What’s with her hat?”

“It’s some kind of religious shall thing? It’s never really explained.” We went up the escalator, where I stood stock still and didn’t touch anything, out of longstanding and deeply ingrained fear.

“What’s her name?”

“Luminara Unduli.”

Sarah took the action figure from her and made light saber noises, then chopped Bree’s hand off, “Isn’t that a wizard spell?”

And then Bree stopped writhing in agony and clutching her wrist to say, “That’s lumos.”

Sarah laughed again, and called us all nerds, and we called her a squib, and she said she was a Griffyndor, and even if she only knew one spell that would make her the Slytherin valedictorian, and Autumn punched her in the arm because Autumn was a Slytherin.

And then we all had to stop giggling because we were getting really weird looks in the shoe store that I didn’t want to be in.

Boots

It was called Aldo, only I think it was called ALDO. Hard to be sure, didn’t see it in lowercase anywhere else. I wondered all the company memos looked like the boss was screaming the name of the company.

It looked like Escher’s shoe closet in there. The decor was minimalist, without being minimal. This meant that it was cluttered with piles of box shapes, hollowed out; floor to ceiling prisms, and white shelves. This meshed poorly with the concept that shoes are made out of colored and dyed leather, and that would destroy the white surface ambiance.

In whole, the neat rows, and careful displays of shoes, couldn’t throw off the impression that this was a hoarders collection. I kept looking around expecting to find a dead cat. Like every women’s shoe section I had been in so far, it was organized by blindfolding a monkey and letting it throw darts at a board, only less precisely. And while I knew that shoes were traditionally mirrored across the body, I still wanted to see two of the shoe I was looking for on the shelf. I knew it was redundant, it just niggled at my mind.

“If Autumn is buying Aisling boots, why am I buying her something?” Sarah asked.

“Because you promised me, and I promised her,” Autumn told her. “That’s exactly what a stuck up Griffyndor would say.”

“I promised to buy you something I could take off of you, I didn’t mean your shoes.”

“I’m buying Aisling shoes. You’re buying me something else.”

Sarah did a Sarah-flounce, and then Autumn whispered in her ear and she perked up, “Okay then.”

Like a group of gathering hunter/gatherers, our group had spread out to cover more ground. I found myself working my way toward a back corner, perhaps looking for somewhere to hide. Or looking for boots that Autumn could buy me that I would wear. I had bought a dress that day. A dress that would look great with boots. Boots that should have had heels, but wouldn’t because I’d already bought a dress that day, and my god how far could I unravel in just four weeks.

The summer sandals had all been washed away and the fall/winter collection was in. And there were a lot of boots. And there were many boots without heels. They just weren’t… me. I didn’t have a sense of my own fashion. Didn’t know quite what I wanted to say with my clothes. But I didn’t want to say, “Don’t mind me. I’m just an Eskimo going to work.” Which is what these boots said.

Or at least what the ones without heels said.

Again, I didn’t speak the language of fashion, but from what I could understand, all of the boots with heels said, “fuck me.” Perhaps that was the guy brain that I was trying so hard to hold onto. The part of me that understood that women wore clothes to look good at sex.

I picked up a pair of suede ankle boots with a two inch heel. Put them down again because I wasn’t actually interested in them. Picked up another pair, and as struck by a thought: I was being a woman and I was being shopping for clothes, and my primary consideration so far had not been looking good for anyone.

That was certainly on the list, perhaps one beneath the top. Instead at the top was: Do I like the way I look.

In retrospect it was a profoundly obvious thought to have. Somehow as a guy I had assumed that women dressed the way they did, solely to have an effect on me. Is every guy that conceited, or was it just me?

Bree came over and took me out of my mind by picking up shoes and telling me what she thought of them.

“Hey,” I asked her, “do you ever think about how guys think about you in shoes like that?”

She looked at the shoes in her hand, fall wedges with strappy bits, and turned them over. “Well yeah. Mostly I think, ‘fuck everyone, I look hot.’”

I processed this as Autumn came over with something behind her back, held out two pairs of knee highs to me and said, “You choose. Samuela,” she revealed one, “or Marye Black?”

Standing on the edge of Paradigm Valley, I took the plunge, “I’ll try ‘em both on.”

Boot pair one was slate suede. There was a strap (serving no purpose) around the ankle with a very cool buckle on it. The strap went through the buckle and was tied around itself.

Boot pair two was form fitting. The heel, or at least where your physical heel would go inside the boot, was shaped so that it looked like a nude heel. The sole of the boot was separate so the thing looked like you were wearing a big leather sock under sandals.

They both had a zipper up the back. They both had chunky, three inch heels.

“Fuck everyone, I look hot.” I got a size six from the shop attendant, who was just thrilled to have five teenaged girls running amok in her shop. I slipped off both CATs, put on the protective foot things and slipped on Boot 1. There were some hmmm noises, mostly from myself. I zipped it up and put my heel to the side so that I could see them. Autumn handed me the other half of the pair, and I put it on too.

Then both of my feet were confined in women’s boots, the way I had felt boxed in only a few minutes before. But I wasn’t confined anymore. I could wear heels if I wanted to, and after looking at those boots, I wanted to.

I put both my legs out in front of me, and felt the weird way that the floor was too far away from the heels of my feet. The way my feet were pulled around and I couldn’t do anything about it. My arches were stretched, and wiggling my toes felt weird.

I wasn’t sure how I was going to stand up wearing them. Instead I put it off, looking around and whispering to the others, “I’m not sure we’re supposed to try on the shoes here. I think that’s far too plebeian for a store like this.”

Bree snorted, “I don’t buy shit I don’t know will fit me. Fuck the norms.”

Can I stall any longer? Probably not. Time to figure this out Aisling. I put my right foot in front of me, flat, and the left one I put to the side on its toe. I held out a hand and Autumn hauled me to my feet without even an exhalation of breath.

I took a practice step, and then another, and then a strut. I was wearing the boyfriend jeans, but I’d still had to roll them up to get the boots on. I held onto Rachel’s shoulder and balanced on one leg to roll one down. Then Bree’s shoulder to roll down the other. Sarah was watching it all through the screen of her phone.

I went to the mirror, and turned my feet around so I could see them from every angle. This meant copping some poses I would have killed myself rather than cop this morning. Later that afternoon I might die of shame, after I smashed Sarah’s cell phone. But in the moment? Fuck everyone, I look hot.

I came back and picked up boot two, and swapped them out. Getting up was easier. Walking was the same amount of hard. I was used to rolling my stride across my whole foot. Instead my heel hit the floor and snapped my foot flat. It meant shorter strides. A rabid feminist might say that it was because men psychologically wanted to hobble women. But while she said that my ass was going to look a lot hotter in these boots than hers would in her Birkenstock’s.

I turned my back to the mirror and looked over my shoulder. Yeah my butt looked great. And there was something weird about the way my ankles looked. But like, good weird. Exotic weird. Make you look again weird.

“Autumn, you’re getting me these ones.”

Autumn wanted Sarah to buy her that thing she said, but they couldn’t for some reason. It was rounding six o’clock, and everyone was tired out from all the shopping.

I carried my bags with the shoe box sticking out, back to Rachel’s car, where we loaded everything into the tiny trunk. This time I got the middle, and alternated between putting my head on Bree’s shoulder and Autumn’s.

“Don’t tell any of the guys,” Bree said, “but I get my braces off tomorrow.”

“Will it hurt?”

“Are you gonna eat an apple first?”

“Your mouth will be sore.”

“Whose dick are you gonna suck first?” That was from me.

Bree turned and put her hand in mine, “I know this is all kinda new to you, and you like Regular Dave… I was gonna just do them all, but we can do him together if you want?”

“What about us?” Rachel asked grinning and glaring at Bree from the rear view mirror.

“What about you bitches?” Bree made a jacking off motion with her hands. It scanned in the moment, but out of context the signal wouldn’t have made any sense. “I was hetero first, and I haven’t had a dick between my lips in two and a half years.” Her face looked like it was going to split in two, “So if I have to break Susan’s fucking legs to make it happen, we’re having some serious Loft-time tomorrow.”

The prospect was enticing, arousing, and terrifying all at the same time. “What game did you want to play?” I asked Bree.

“Fuck games. I’m getting down to business.”

As we got out of Rachel’s car and Bree switched to the front, Sarah turned to Autumn, “Do you think you can give me a ride home too?

We grabbed McDonald's on the way to Sarah’s house. Then we sat in the play area and intimidated little children, and adults, by being teenagers in public.

The conversation wasn’t about Pokemon at all.

It was about Bree.

Specifically it was about what a slut Bree was. And how she had begged her parents for money to get her nipples pierced, and they had said no, so Bree had begged the Crew. All the guys had pitched for her piercings, and they had all gone with Bree to the parlor, where Bree’s big sister had posed as Bree’s mom and signed the form. Then Regular Dave had got with Bree’s big sister, because Regular Dave was a slut.

“A rake,” I put in.

“A what?” Sarah said.

“A male slut is a rake. Short for rakehell”

“Ohhhh, I like that,” Sarah mulled it over for a second.

“It doesn’t have the same negative kind of sound though,” Autumn said.

“You could go with the British unisex ‘slag.’”

“That’s much better,” Sarah said.

Then they were off again. Regular Dave thought he was great in the sack, but he wasn’t. He did a thing with his tongue when he kissed that he thought was hot and wasn’t. And Wee David and Big Davey weren’t any better. And Bree was such a bitch, anyway. She thought she was all that, but she wasn’t.

“I kinda like Bree,” I said to the table. Loser Ashley would have let them talk about her it meant keeping friends. But Cool Aisling was gonna fuck both these girls, and it didn’t matter what they thought. Wait. Which gender did that thought come from?

“Oh, I love Bree!” The two of them said, more or less in unison.

“Aisling,” Autumn turned to me with a French fry held like a cigarette in her fingers. “We all love each other. Give us a chance to act like women here.”

“Oh.” I guess that makes sense. “Okay, sorry.”

Because anyway Bree was such a bitch…

I still hadn’t made it all the way through my cheeseburger when I held it in my hands like a cross and said, “What does… What does Regular Dave like?”

Autumn shrugged, “Same thing every guy likes. Suck his dick right and he’ll follow you ‘round like a puppy.”

“How do I—what’s that like?”

Sarah looked at me and took a sip of her Coke like “Girl?” But she said, “You ain’t never seen porn before?”

“Well yeah, I have, but…”

“She’s a lesbian, remember?” Autumn told Sarah. “She probably watches, like, all girl stuff.”

“No I have I’m just…”

“You wondering how the straight girls get by?”

“Kinda.”

Sarah shrugged, “I don’t really like the way he tastes.”

“Really?” Autumn asked her, “Oh, I love it. Regular dicks are just like, meh. But uncircumcised, is like, like they’re actually genitals, you know?”

Sarah shrugged again, “It just tastes so different.”

“Well I was gay first, so it’s probably better for me. Like, an uncut cock doesn’t taste anything like pussy, but they’re in the same venn.”

And at that time, for no reason at all other than it was the topic conversation, I resolved that—given the chance—I could be on board with sucking the right guy’s cock.

Black Box

I got up Wednesday morning and checked my closet. There were dresses hanging inside and a box with my boots, so that hadn’t been a dream. I fingered the fabric for a second. Considered slipping it on and looking at myself in the mirror.

But today was a tech day, so it was time for jeans, steel toes, and my best underwear.

My best underwear wasn’t very good. Well everything else I promised myself has fallen apart. Am I allowed to buy lingere, or do I have to be over 18?

When Bruce rolled up Autumn and I exhanged grins, a deep kiss, and a sense of anticipation. It was her turn to choose the music, and she went with a John Williams playlist. “It’s a lot of horn,” she said, “But the string parts are worth it.”

I spaced out during Design, pushing the place on my pencil where I had set the undo button on my stylus over and over again. What could Michaelangelo have accomplished with an undo button?

At lunch we took off for McDonald’s. No one had seen Bree and she wasn’t answering her texts. When I was asked the first thing I thought was she’s at the dentist and her mouth is going to need a lot of rinsing by the end of the day. And what I said was, “She said she might be late but she didn’t say why.”

It still wasn’t cold yet that year. There was some discussion over Halloween costumes and parties. Sarah’s father was out of town on business so she was holding the party in two weeks. I gathered that more than the Crew would be attending. Her sister was a senior and had booze connections. I sat on the picnic table with Autumn sitting on the seat between my legs. Her cigarette smoke kept getting in my eyes, but it was nice just to touch her. At some point Regular Dave sat behind me. I felt my body tense up, regret it, and then lean into him. His shirt was rough, but he rubbed my back.

Everyone wanted to know what Rachel would go as. She was deep into the cosplay scene, had a sewing machine, and was going to switch to costumery instead of stage construction. She wouldn’t tell us a thing, but she kept making eye contact with me as she denied.

With the hurdle of Lunch passed, the rest of the day seemed to go by in a rush. I hadn’t finished the books of the Odyssey that I was supposed to, and filled in a few things from memory. Enough to get in some conversation. That Guy continued to monopolize the conversation like it made his dick hard. It was almost more contemptable than galling, but I didn’t have any ammunition to shut him down with.

And then I came to the auditorium, and waited with the others, and wondered just what the loft was going to hold for me.

“Alright,” Susan said. We were sitting on and around stacks of platforms. “Final auditions were yesterday, the cast list will be released on Thursday. I need two people to set up the black box.”

I raised my hand.

“Okay Aisling and Bree—Where’s Bree?”

“She’s running late,” Autumn told her. “I know what the box needs the best, I’ll show Aisling.”

Susan didn’t nod, but didn’t not nod, “Then everyone else is on the special flats. I got Autumn to draw up everything we need, there are only ten.”

I followed Autumn to the shop where she oppened a cabinet and pulled out five different rolls of colored masking tape. “Find… Two tape measures and a square.”

I found the tape measures in a bin, and the square sitting on a table next to some more squares. Autumn gave me a grin that was positively wicked, and I had no idea why. She grabbed Susan’s keys off the desk and lead me down the hall to the black box.

The black box was actually a room. The wall of the room were painted black, and the floor was black and the ceiling was very high. And also painted black. Autumn went to the light panel, and pulled all the sliders up. I could see the that black walls were actually black curtains that ran around the walls floor to ceiling.

“This is where the dipshits rehearse,” Autumn laid her plans in the center of the floor, “And they need to know the dimensions they’re working with. I didn’t put any stairs on the set, just the ladder into the loft.” She thought for a second. “Remind me to remind Rachel that Wendla can’t be in high heels. At least for that scene.”

“Were there high heels in nineteenth century Germany?”

“Hell if I know. But Rachel might find out that there were, and get inventive. I don’t want Wendla catching her heel on that ladder and breaking her neck.” She kneeled and looked at the plans. “Okay, lets do the house in white tape.”

We measured out the difference in angle, so the Wendla’s house was cheated the same way in the box as it was on the stage. Then laid the tape down and used the square to get the other three sides.

Then the hayloft in yellow, over the white tape. Then the school/prison in red. Then the spacing where the bars with the trees would be in green. Autumn took a sharpie and wrote what the tape was for on every straight line.

She got up and took my hand, “Help me set up the legs.” She went to some of the curtains and started pulling them around, then dissapeared inside. I followed her, and found that it was all a cunning ruse when she grabbed me and stuck her tongue in my mouth.

There was a hard wall on my left, it was musty, and her kiss revived all of the feelings I’d been feeling less than a week ago. She wrapped her arms around me, almost beseeching, and I obliged by nibbling my way down her neck and cupping her breasts in both hands.

She leaned down to whisper, “I’ve always wanted to do something in here.”

I kissed the line of her jaw next to her ear, “Mmm?”

“Can I owe you a favor? Promise to get your fantasy next?”

I ran my hand down her tummy to the line of her jeans in answer. I didn’t know where things were going, but they were going there fast and they couldn’t get there fast enough. My eyes had adjusted enough to the dark that I could see that there was a ledge running around the edge of the wall, about shoulder height. Autumn broke the kiss, turned and scrambled up on there. There was just enough space for her to sit comfortably, back against the wall.

I moved the climb up after her, and she leaned down. She couldn’t get far down enough to kiss me, but she ran her finger over my cheek and the booped my nose. She was breathing heavily and her eyes had an uncertain question in them. I wasn’t sure what she wanted of me, what her fantasy was, until she put one leg on either side of my shoulder.

Oh.

Well that was actually a fantasy of mine too. Find a nice girl and bury my head between her legs. I didn’t answer Autumn, instead I unbuckled her pants. She giggled, and scooted forward, worming her jeans down, and then popping off her panties.

“How do we…” I started, but she lifted her legs, joined at the ankle, over my head. With her feet behind my neck she drew me in close, and made little nudges.

I kissed the inside of one thigh and she sighed and opened her legs more. I kissed the other thigh and she mewled and twitched her but forward. I didn’t know what to do, and I knew she wanted me to do it right then. I would have to settle for teasing her.

So I reached my tongue out and tasted pussy straight from the source.

She was gushing wet, and tasted like skin and must. Like the inside of a flower you can’t name but can smell. I ran my tongue up one lip, and then down the other, trying to get my bearings. With my fingers I traced the sides of her thighs. She found me hands with hers, and clutched them, begging me to go forward.

My tongue found her little lips then, and she shuddered. It was pretty simple to follow the line up to her clitoris. It felt much larger under my tongue than it had under my fingers. Hotter and buldging out. When I brushed it with the tip of my tongue she gasped, “Go on luvvey.”

I went for it. Ups and downs at first, while she started moaning. Then backs and forths and she screamed. It was harder work than I thought. After very little time my jaw began to ache from being kept open. When she put her hand on the back of my head and tangled my hair in her fingers I decided to soldier on, listening to her gasps and cries of pleasure.

I learned through some experimentation that stopping to lap at her lips was less positive, and trying to get my tongue in her hole just caused her to pull my hair back up. She wanted me to lick her clit. She wanted me to keep licking it, and she wanted to cum from the way her clit was being licked.

Somehow in all of this I found that I could reach up far enough to cup her breasts. This lead to a struggle to concentrate on getting my hands under her bra and keep my jaw from snapping off. She took her hands off my head, and pulled her cups over the tops of her breasts so that I could clutch at her breasts first. When I took a nipple in thumb and forefinger, pinched and rolled, she started to climax. Shrieking like a wild cat, she kicked the back of my head a few times. I wasn’t certain at what point I should stop, so I just kept going. She jerked around and was finally still enough that I was certain I’d gotten it all out of her.

Autumn lay panting and stroking my hair, while I smiled up at her from between her legs. “Okay luvvey. I just wanted to be first. Wanna suck a dick now?”

I tried not to think about what I looked like in the dark, her legs around my, her pussy juices on my chin, as I gave an eager nod.

Blowjob

Bree was waiting for us when we got back to the stage. She caught my eye and put a finger to her lips. Everyone was looking over Autumn’s drawings on the wall.

“So is that everything we need?” Susan was asking.

I put the tapes and the square back where I found them, while Autumn went over and looked at the list Susan had in her hand. Her cheeks were still a little flushed, and there was dust in her hair and on the seat of her pants. “Are these the miscellaneous flats?”

Susan mmm-hm’d.

Autumn went to the plans, and then checked the list, “That’s all of them. Susan, if you’d asked I could have just drawn up all the abnormal measurements.”

“But then how would all the children learn? Okay guys,” she stapled the list to the wall, “Here’s what we need. Aisling? You and I are going to do the eaves.”

I was more than a little intimidated, as Susan pointed to the triangle part of the roof. Everyone else on the piece of paper had square shapes, and Susan and I had the only triangle. She took me to the table and sat me down with the plans, and handed me a weird ruler. “It’s in one quarter inch scale, do you know how to use this?”

I took the triangle ruler from her and then shook my head.

“Alright. On the side here where it says one quarter? Every quarter inch is one foot. So hold it up to the eave, how long does this side need to be?”

“Um…four feet.”

“And this one?”

“One foot and…wait…and six inches?”

“Looks like it. So what’s our angle?”

I looked at the paper for a long moment and finally said, “Susan? I don’t even know where to begin.”

“Well you haven’t taken any trig, have you? It’s okay.” She pulled a scientific calculator out of the drawer. It was covered in scratches and had a corner missing. Tippity-tip tap, “We’ll call it twenty degrees, and the lumber will forgive us. Now what’s the other angle?”

“Um…” 180–90–20= “Seventy degrees?”

“See? I knew your were smart.” She pointed to the lumber, “Get to it.”

Okay. Wait. “Which side of the triangle should I cut short?”

“What do you mean?”

I tried to show her with my hands, “Well if the right corner goes like this, then one of them has to be three quarter inches shorter. Which one should it be?”

“It’s a very good question,” she looked at me kindly, then slapped her knee as if she had just remembered something, “but ultimately doesn’t matter because we’ll be using braces.”

While I was figuring out how to make the miter cut at an angle, Bree was at the table saw cutting luaun into braces. I got to see her actual teeth unimpeded when she grinned at me. By the time I had all the lumber cut she had the six braces I needed, and I took the whole mess to Susan.

Who took me back into the shop and showed me how to use the table saw to cut at an angle.

And then back out onto the stage.

It all felt special in a way I wasn’t sure about. Like how fathers and sons feel maybe? Susan wasn’t my dad, and I wasn’t her son, and neither one of use had the parts to be either one of those things in any case. But she had singled me out of a group of eight. Just to help work me through something I’m sure she could have done herself. It made me feel needed. No, wanted. Like if my only skill had been to stand still and hold things, it would still be a skill that Susan would have both utilized and valued.

I had one of the flats together when I realized that Susan had gone over to help someone else. Letting me fly on my own. I picked up the flat and laid it next to the other irregulars we had finished. Said hi to the others for a second. Went into the office and fished up another stack of staples. Slammed the magazine of my staple gun into place like a boss. Got back to work.

I was still busy when Regular Dave laid his palm on my shoulder, “Are you coming?”

It took me a moment to realize that there was a world beyond the one in which this flat existed. That the universe wasn’t me, a staple gun, and some 1x. And when the outside world intruded, I put my hand on his and said, “Help me up. Let’s do this.”

There was a manic feeling for all the girls, going to the ladder. Bree kept her teeth hidden with her smile, and was first up the ladder. We stole looks at each other. Made eyes. While all the guys obliviously went on their way.

In part it was the sisterhood thing. Bree was gonna get some. We were going to help Bree get some.

In part it was a control thing. We—I had something someone wanted. I could give it to them if I felt like. And in that moment man did I feel like it.

On the grid I was the last girl up. Bree had scrambled away, and Rachel was walking off as I called “Off ladder,” and waited a bit for the boys. I walked close to Regular Dave on the way to the Loft, all of my blood in my brain. I was like putting a pile of iron filings next to a magnet. We had energy. Bree was going to use him. I was going to watch, learn, and then help.

I was going to do this!

We got into the loft. Sarah and Autumn and Rachel had all taken the couch. I sat on Sarah and Rachel’s laps. Bree had been first into the loft, and had shed her shirt, bra, and pants, in a flash. The guys all came in to find her squatting on the floor, a nipple in one finger, the line of her panties pushed aside. I watched Wee David’s face as it slowly dawned on him what was going on. Regular Dave was next, I could see his expression go from confounded to calculating. Big Davey was last, finally catching on when Bree leaned back, ran her tongue over her naked teeth and showed everyone her pussy.

The couch was a big pile of woman-flesh, watching bemused as Bree sat forward and crooked her finger at Big Davey, beckoning him closer. All the Daves took a step forward, and Bree let them gather around her. One by one she unzipped three flys.

She took her time with each. Stroked Wee David, as Regular Dave got his boots off. Switched to Big Davey, licking up his shaft and kissing his head, while Wee David got his pants off. Pulled down Regular Dave boxers with two hands, and slipped her mouth around his cock without using her fingers.

Sarah and Rahel were warm under me, watching it all. Autumn had leaned forward, both hands between her legs. Sarah was working on getting her bra off, and getting it untangled from her shirt. And I was cupping my own—

Wait, both of my hands were on the couch. Rachel was cupping my breast, feeling it over my shirt. I wasn’t sure what to do, only that I wanted some way to get more of it. I leaned my head back, and she licked her way up my ear.

All the while we watched Bree take on three dicks. She would fist one of the guys, suck on another, and finger her pussy with her off hand. Then get on her knees and deep throat Wee David, pop his dick out of her mouth, and switch to Regular Dave. Bree was a flurry of activity, trying to get as much cock down her throat as she could handle, and then handle some more.

Rachel had undone my fly, and I lifted my legs up so she could strip my pants off. They got hung up on my boots, and I tried to watch Bree get slobbery on Big Davey’s rod, and kick my boots off at the same time. When they went flying I had a moment of terror that they would fly over the rails and be lost forever. One hit the floor and skidded, the other flew into the guardrail and flopped down.

Pants off, Rachel got down to business, running her hand down my tummy as she squeezed my breast in her other hand. Bree kept up the show, now concentrating on Big Davey exclusively. Wee David was stroking his own cock and watching as she tried to deep throat Big Davey. He was long and thick, and she was giving it her all but choking.

There was a hand on my clit, it wasn’t mine, and I was filled with a conflict. Watching Bree take on approximately all of the cock she could handle, I wanted to be down there with her.

I wanted…

I wanted to be used.

That probably wasn’t healthy, right?

I put the thought away, as I watched my underwear come off, pulled away by Autumn’s hands. “I have a favor to return luvvey. You watch the show and enjoy.” She held onto my butt and gave a gentle shove.

Rachel obliged by depositing me on the couch. She stripped her shirt then. Laid it aside carefully. Bra too.

And everything faded away when I felt Autumn’s cool breath on my lips.

Bree had spit and precum, and goo running down her chin. I couldn’t stop thinking about that, even as I felt Autumn’s tongue run up one lip and swirl over my clit. It all seemed so decadent. Wrong, and hedonistic, and alluring. Her tongue went up my slit, and my vision tunneled. It felt like she had pulled my conscious into my pelvis, and that’s where my brain was now. Her mouth was wet and cool, like a breeze on my pussy.

When she started in earnest I lost focus about what she was doing. I had done it myself and knew it was just a tongue running up and down my clitty. It was so much better than my fingers. Rolling around down there, she was getting me close faster than I knew was possible.

Big Davey came. Spraying his cum into Bree’s mouth, as she opened wide and smiled. She was panting as she scooped up what had missed her mouth with her fingers, and slurped it all back onto her tongue. She swallowed, pushed Big Davey into the blow up chair, where he collapsed.

Squatting and plugging her pussy with one hand, she beckoned Wee David with her other hand. Opened wide. With the lack of attention he’d gone a little limp, and she worked to get him back in order.

Autumn still had her lips on my crotch, and I couldn’t tell what to focus on. I knew that watching Bree was catapulting the experience in a way that just wouldn’t stop. I realized that I’d orgasmed at some point, my muscles were tired from clenching at my climax. But Autumn was still working away. I loved that, because I’d hit a plateau, somewhere above the climax. It was like a second level where I could stay, feeling her tongue and watching live porn; for about forever.

Bree was on her knees, feet straight behind her, rocking her whole body like a lever, as she fucked Wee David with her face. Grabbing his butt, and pumping him into her mouth. Wee David was around four inches long, but I noticed as she deep throated him that he was tapered like a triangle. Tiny head, but big base.

Bree’s mouth was slick with cum already. He slipped down her throat and—

Holy shit! Autumn did something with her mouth that ripped me out of my body for a second. I felt every muscle in my body tense. My arm flew out, touched something hard and held on. As Autumn turned my mind inside out, I realized it was Regular Dave’s chest I was grabbing. In a moment filled with wild and manic desire, and reached down, and grabbed his cock. I didn’t have time to notice that it felt like iron wrapped in silk. Hard flesh over soft stretchy skin. I just knew what he wanted—knew that I wanted him.

I came down softly from Autumn’s ministrations. Felling aware that she was doing something with her fingers and her mouth. Something that stretched me deep in my solar plexus. I have her fingers inside me. There’s something inside me, filling me up and— and she made a motion with her finger again. I stood on my tiptoes, while sitting on the couch. Back ramrod straight. Regular Dave made a twisting motion with his hips, and I realized that his dick was in my hand.

I knew exactly how to grip him. How to squeeze him just right. How to run my hands over his head.

As I squirmed in Ecstasy on Autumn’s finger tips, I jacked him furiously.

I was in so deep. Feeling everything. Regular Dave was right there. Overcome with lust, I hurried down from Autumn’s ministrations, and flipped myself over.

I was naked, in a room full of naked people. I’d had a mind numbing orgasm, or several (I’d lost count). I wanted something else. Between Regular Dave’s legs now, I was still hanging onto his dick. Feeling something incredible. I had made my decision a day ago and here his cock was in front of me. Hot and ready.

His precum was salty, and tasted like sex. I licked it out of his little gap, and felt him twitch in my hand. I wasn’t thinking about whether I was gay or not anymore. All that mattered was getting him off.

When I took his head in my mouth, I wasn’t feeling shock anymore. It felt like a mushroom on the roof of my mouth. I could feel the stretched skin of his frenum under my tongue. Licking under it. Over it. I swirled my tongue around his cock head. Ran it around the underside, where it flared out. And I took the plunge and slurped his whole dick into my mouth.

I had to move my hair out of the way, and tucked it behind my ear. Like I was concentrating on homework. His skin moved over my tongue. Feeling like a hot Popsicle. Something inside me shouted. No, it’s a dick. You’re sucking a dick! I couldn’t tell if I was angry or delighted with myself.

I looked up, tried to meet his eyes. The bit of him I wasn’t sucking on I was stroking with my fingers. Regular Dave had leaned his head back. Reaching his hand around to stroke my cheek. Then lifting it to my hair. That made me frantic. I rocked my head up and down, driven now to please him.

Bree was at my side, whispering in my ear, “You’re doing great. Get him off girl.”

I stopped to give her a grin. Then offered his cock to her mouth. “We promised to share.”

She smiled at me, and ran her tongue up his shaft. I did the other side. I could smell the dick on her breath. Raw cum and sated passion. We met at Regular Dave’s tip, and he gasped as we played out tongues over it. Then met for a kiss.

Bree took over for a second. Diving down on his rod until he was gasping.

“I got him close, I can tell.” Bree kissed me again, and put him in my hands, “Go ahead. Finish him off.”

I wanted to. I needed to. Regular Dave would coat my mouth with his jizz. I went at it in a frenzy. Feeling Bree’s hands running over me. Running up the base of my neck, and lingering on my temples. I felt the dick in my mouth twitch. God yes. Cum in me. And then there it was. Jetting into my closed mouth as I hung on.

I tasted semen for the first time. It was disgusting. It’s basically mucus. Why do I love it so much?

I pulled away from him, leaving a string of drool between his cock tip and my chin. Breathing heavy, I had him all in my mouth. Somehow I wanted him everywhere now. But this would do for the moment.

Of course I swallowed. I wanted it so much I had no other choice.

Bree kissed me then. I could smell the semen on her breath mirrored in mine now. I tried to put away my shock at what I’d done, and found myself starting at square one when she broke off and said, “Oh, you swallowed it all. Save some for me next time, okay?”

Regular Dave leaned down to kiss me, and my first thought was, “Gross.” My second thought was, “Oh, yes that’s nice too.” His lips were still hard and manly.

Bree took his chin in her hands, and turned him her way, “It was a team effort, and this half of the team needs something from your half.”

“Sure, but…” Regular Dave gestured to his own deflated penis, and the state of the other men in the room. That state being supine.

Bree sighed, “I guessssssss. Your fingers will do scout, you know how to use them.”

I stood up with her, I don’t know why. I sat down on the couch next to her, and pulled her into my lap. Regular Dave got to work. “Wow, you are gushing.”

Bree sat up for a second, “Less commenting more—ohhhhhhh, yeahhhhhhh.” She leaned back again, and stretched her hand up to feel my hair. “Harder. Really go at it—like that.” I ran my hands over her chest, and my fingers found their way to the bars in her nipples. When I pinched them she gave a little leap, from where Regular Dave had her impaled. “Grab the whole thing.”

I didn’t know if she was talking to me, but I grabbed at her tits like the were oven dials. She sighed, or she would have if she hadn’t been moaning instead. Regular Dave was rocking her entire body with his hands. I didn’t know what to do, but I knew she wanted something hard. I pulled them down toward her tummy, timidly at first. Then harder as she stretched her mouth up like a little baby bird. “Oh shit. Oh fuck. Oh shit. OhfuckOhfuckOhfuckOhfuckOhfuckOhfuck. Oh! Fuck!” She came.

Regular Dave laid back on the couch and everyone took five.

Post Mortem

\o/

This seems as good a time as any for a feelings check, Aisling. I was laying—Bree in my arms—in a dazed stupor. Around 90% was feeling of afterglow like the trinity site. 10% of me was trying not to panic.

I counted the ways one could experience oral sex, and decided that, of 8, I had experienced 3 in one day. The oppourtunity to cross of “as female, recieving male,” was present all around me. If I hadn’t orgasmed so hard my tonails hurt still, I might try to get an even 50%.

Rachel said not to do something you regret. As a guy who had never had sex that seemed impossible. As a girl who had stuffed the nearest cock down her throat in the throes of passion it was more easy to identify with. So here I was a pretty to beautiful girl, with a beautiful girl in my arms, with whom I had sucked a dick.

Get back to your feelings Aisling.

Right. I was feeling calm. Euphoric. Relaxed.

Conflicted.

Why am I feeling conflicted?

I had a good point. I made up my mind days ago to do this. If paper calendars still existed I would have penciled in “become a cocksucker,” for the end of the week. Oh I guess that’s what I am now. A cocksucker. The word carried a feeling of debased pride within itself.

Like it or not, it’s one of many things that I had decided to do with my mouth. Pussy muncher had no such connotations, and I was one of those too. I decided to own the title, while still being ready to slap anyone I didn’t know who called me that.

My thoughts were drifting in a maze of post-orgasmic bliss. Best to focus on my feelings again.

Euphoric. Relaxed. Frustrated.

Okay, that’s just surfased. Is it because you sorted out conflicted?

Why was I frustrated?

Because this past month had been like bootcamp, Disney Land, and armeghedon all at once. Because I had friends now, who I was definitely forming bonds with. You don’t suck someone’s dick, and then have just anyone kiss you then express displeasure that there’s none left in your mouth for them. That’s a bonding experience.

I hadn’t wanted friends all of my life, just most of it. Now I had them, and I had to be a girl as well. A girl who had made friends seemingly effortlessly. The kind of friends who would share their friends dicks with you. Who would kiss you with a mouthful of disgusting cum, and love you for it.

And it was disgusting. Tasted just like boogers. And I loved that taste. Felt proud for enjoying it. Wanted more of it. I knew now that I could make a guy cum with my mouth. Girls were different. If they didn’t feel right, or didn’t like what was going on, they didn’t have to orgasm. I had been a guy and I knew how it was with them. A girl gets her lips on your dick, and she can pull the climax right out of you. I knew what it had been to be in a frenzy as a guy, desperate for a woman. Now I was a woman, and the possibility for control was almost endless.

Feelings Aisling. You’re thinking about your feelings.

Euphoric. Relaxed. Melancholy.

Oh good. You’ve worked through “frustrated.”

I was feeling melancholy because this was one further step away from being a guy. Not the ultimate step, maybe. I didn’t know what the ultimate step would look like. I just knew that simply sucking a dick with wild abandon hadn’t been it. Maybe I wouldn’t know what that step was until after I’d taken it.

That was a frightening thought. My plan up until two weeks ago was to wait until I could start taking some testosterone, and then get my life on track. My plan up until a week ago was to not enjoy being a girl, but enjoy the people around me. My plan as of two days ago was to find a way to suck a dick.

Did that make all the other plans obsolete? I was in with these people, and this was 2017. If I wanted to transition I wouldn’t get lynched. But what did I have to go back to? Was I feeling melancholy because this was just another reenforcement to this new life? To whatever a space alien accident had thrust upon me?

Bree stirred in my lap, and absently fingered her nipples. She blew me a kiss, and then yawned.

Regular Dave checked his watch, and made a spinning motion with his finger in the air. Bree sat up all the way, kissed me again, and started looking around for her clothes. There was a hunt and scrabble thing going on. People searched for their clothes, found someone elses clothes, didn’t know whose clothes those were, put those clothes back where they found them.

I had used my moment of introspection to spot the majority of my clothing. I uncurled and found that my legs were still rubbery from all that orgasming I had just done. Pants felt weird to put back on, like my skin was supposed to always be naked.

People stretched, and yawned, and gathered up. In ones and twos we all went back to the ladder.

Okay Aisling, where are you now?

Euphoric. Relaxed. Ready.

\o/

On the ground I had never felt better coming into tech. I had no idea what any of those tools did, or where they went, or how to put them in my hands; but I felt these were problems for someone more uptight than myself.

My pussy hurt though. Not the inside, but the outside. It felt stretched, like getting an indian rub on your arm. I figured my lips weren’t used to being pried open like that. It wasn’t pleasant, but it was overshadowed completely by how pleasant everything else felt.

“Let’s huddle,” Regular Dave pulled us all together. “Susan way underplays us at the start, and way over plays us at the show. Let’s branch out a little here. We have the plans right here, so lets start on the irregular platforms we need while we dutchman the last of the flats.”

I raised my hand, “Can I do not dutchmaning?”

“Chica you can do or not do whatever you want at this point.”

I blushed, but didn’t turn my eyes down.

“Aisling is on platforms. What are the rest of you mother fuckers doing?”

Everyone said one or the other until we’d all divided up. Team Platform was me, Sarah, Autumn, and Bree. I raised my hand, “What will all the women be doing while the four of us are doing construction?”

“Your mom,” Wee David shot back. It fell short, but got laughs.

We broke and the four cool people split for lumber.

Autumn spent some time staring at her blueprints, while we hunted things up. Finally I came over and stared at them with her.

“I think I outsmarted myself,” she said.

“How’s that?”

“When I lit on the school meeting room and the prison being the same thing, I just thought, you know, ‘round.’” She pointed to what I gathered was the wall of one of the sets, “Susan said she’d show us how to do it, and I know how to do it.”

“But…”

“I don’t know how to make a guide that big.”

“You said you know how to do it.”

“I know how to do the construction. I don’t know how to draw a curve that big.”

I looked at the section. The curve went across two platforms and looked to be about three feet deep. “It looks easy to me, we just need a compass.”

She looked at me like I was an idiot, “Where are we going to find a fucking compas with a twenty foot radius Aisling?”

I looked at her like she was an idiot, “Don’t you have any string?”

After a lot of hunting we came up with some 30 gauge wire. After that it was pulling out the platforms we would need, and aranging them the way we needed to graph the curve. Only the platforms were four inches off the ground, and the plywood was 3/4” off the ground.

We didn’t have any extra ply.

Susan came in then and looked at what we were doing. We explained what we were doing and looked at her like four deer staring down an oncoming semi. She nodded her head as we went and said, “I’m interested to see what you come up with.” Then she went out into the auditorium and watched us.

“Can we just do them like they are?” Sarah asked.

“No,” I told her. “The arc of the compass has to be twenty feet.”

“Twenty four and a half feet,” Autumn corrected me.

“Whatever. At that distance a short in the string—”

“Wire,” Sarah said.

“Whatever. Would turn into six inches to a foot off of the measurements.”

Bree sat down, head in her hand, “Look at the fucking brain on this one.” I don’t think she meant it to be mean, but it came out mean. And hurt my feelings.

I didn’t have a witty rejoineder. With a tiny voice I said, “I pay attention in math class, okay.”

Autumn rubbed my shoulders, and whispered, “It’s okay. Sometimes she gets like this after she gets laid.”

I felt diplomatic and came to sit next to Bree, wincing a tad as I sat down. She gave me a grin like she got that, and then sulked some more. “Can we afford to be off by six inches.”

She sighed, “No.”

“Are you angry with me?”

“No.”

“Then lets figure this out.”

“Why don’t we mark where everything would be with tape on the stage?” Sarah said. “Then we can lay the plywood flat, see where everything needs to go and mark it up that way.”

“It sounds easier than measuring everything out with a chalk line,” Autumn said. “That’s what I was about to suggest.”

And so we put down a platform, marked the edges with tape, moved it over, marked it with more tape. Moved it again. We laid the platforms we had to cut across those, and could see the way the 12 foot arc was going to run across them. We found the midpoint in the arc using the guides we’d laid down in tape, and got the two peices of ply set up.

“Wait,” Bree held up her hand, “We should make the two platforms the same.”

“We’re doing that.”

“No you’re not, this one is eight feet and this one is four.”

Autumn looked down at it, and then to me and I shrugged. “But we can get more wood out of it my way.”

Bree said, “But then you have two weird platforms that only work for this one thing. We can’t fit them into another design. If we do it my way we can reuse them.”

“Make them the same!” Susan called from the house.

Bree stuck her tongue out at all of us, Gene Simmons style. Or Miley Cyrus, whichever description you identify with.

“Okay,” Someone said. We started moving the plywood around until we had it right.

I got the wire, and Autumn reeled it out against a tape measure. “We need to keep it stable,” I said, holding onto my end.

“I got it,” Bree said from next to me. She was carying an 80 pound stage weight in two hands. “Run and grab me a c-clamp.”

I brought it back to see that she had found a board and screwed a screw into it. We clamped that to the top of the weight.

Bree stood and looked at it, “Oops.”

“What?”

“Now we have the same problem.”

Sarah came over and turned the whole thing upside down.

Autumn meanwhile had made a loop in her end of the wire and then tightened it around a pencil. As soon as we were ready to go, she dug it into the wood and made the arc. Over the next ten minutes we had saw horses, a jigsaw, and then two neat half arcs. We took a moment to stare at our handywork while Susan came up to the stage. “You all did good. Now clean it up.”

Penis

It was a week later. I had sucked 5 dicks. I had been eaten out 4 times. One of those times Bree had put her thumb just over my pucker and I had squirmed until she took it away. Then at night I still thought about it. I had been finger banged once. It occupied the majority of my fantasies now.

Then I woke up with a penis in my hand.

It was mine.

I had raging morning wood and woke up idly feeling myself up. It was that hard in the morning feeling where it’s not there for sex, just making sure all systems are functioning. It’s anoying but feels good so you don’t mind it too hard. Until it gets too hard.

It took me an embarrassingly long time for me to figure out what was wrong with the picture. And when I did, I had to rewind everything in the past two months. Had it all really happened? I realized at that moment that I had one hand underneath my girl breast, and one on what might as well be my girl cock.

Shit. Freakout?

What good would it do? I’ve learned to trust my senses over the past unreal months. Aisling is me. Aisling is a girl. Aisling has a penis. Aisling might as well get up out of bed, because Aisling has to shower.

I looked down for a checkup. Well it has foreskin now. That’s new. I skrunched it back to see the glans, and man did that feel weird. I don’t even have the words to describe how weird it was. I did that dick flop thing as I got into the shower, bouncing around at a 90 degree angle to my body and weaving back and forth with every step.

I kept my brain numb to stay functioning as I washed it off in the shower. The newly protected head was so tender the falling water felt like getting pounded in the eyeball. I still washed around it. Yup, still a vagina underneath. No testicles. I looked like it was just an extension of my clitoris, but a full penis.

Maybe I should see if I can still jack off? Oh it’s gone. While my concentration had wandered by penis had disapeared as mysteriously as it had come.

The panic chose that moment to overtake me, and I collapsed to my knees in the shower and started crying.

The crying jag only lasted a couple of minutes. My whole world collapsed and was back together again in the time it takes a poptart to cool. If I had learned nothing else than I had learned that I was still me. I might be a girl me, or a bisexual me, or a shemale me, but I was still me. Nothing could affect the core of my planet, just the surface.

Clearly this was not an intended effect or Mr. Glome would have said something. No, none of the effects here were intended. Let’s call it an unintended complication. In anycase I needed a better idea of what was happening.

Hair dripping down my back, I went over to my desk and hunted up a peice of paper. On the backside of an old math test I’d tossed on the desk, I wrote: Dear Mr. Glome, I have a penis and I don’t think I’m supposed to have a penis.

Then I went and dried my hair better, put on underwear, and sat looking at the paper in my underwear. I had decided that he wasn’t writing back anytime soon, and searched for where I put my pen to write him again. When I glanced at the note, pen in hand, there was a return message. In my handwriting.

Ms. McKinnon, my experience with human sex organs is limited, but I seem to remenber that women are not supposed to have those.

I wrote back the word “Right?!” and then underlined it a couple of times. I stared at the piece of paper for awhile, but nothing happened. When I turned to look out the window and wonder about what I should wear and turned back to check, there was an answer for me.

Is it a permanent affixture?

No.!

I got up to get dressed. I had wanted to wear a dress that day. I had pretty dresses, and I wanted to wear one, goddamn it all to hell. And now, with this penis thing going on? I could think of a million things that could go wrong and all of them, all of them, featured a girl (me) with a raging erection poking through her dress during class.

I found a clean pair of jeans on the floor, where clothes went, and hiked them on. When I glanced at the paper there was another return note: This is delicate. I will need to examine you if you wish to know more.

I figured as much. How soon can you do it?

I decided to test something, and glanced away from the paper for a moment. When I looked back there was a reply. I cannot travel to see you immediately. I will finish what I’m doing here and then be there in 57 hours, give or take. From then I have to be in the area for a month so that I can be captured.

Again, I missed what would have been a very good time for a followup. Please see me when you can. I know I wasn’t wild about being a girl (sorry about yelling at you) but I’m even less wild about being a girl with a penis.

I looked away, and when I turned back there was no new writing on the paper. I figured that was the end of the conversation.

It was the Saturday before Haloween and there wasn’t any tech that day. Susan had cancelled it so that everyone could go party, and not because she wanted to go party. That would be unprofessional. It was just for us. And not for her. Obviously.

I waited for a moment to see if my penis would come back, and when it didn’t I got back into my Pajamas and didn’t look at the plastic bag peaking out from under my bed as I went downstairs for breakfast.

It was noon, and mom had made me a sandwich under ceran wrap on the counter. I opened it and came to the table to find the comics. My phone chirped from beside me and I checked the message: picking you up at 8. Wear something you can get fucked in

I wrote Autumn back, I’ve got the perfect thing

“Mom?” I realized at that moment that a Haloween party would probably go past curfew just a tad. “Do you mind if I go to a Haloween party?”

Mom sighed but didn’t look up from her book, “How long have you known about this party, Aisling?”

Oh. “Um… two weeks?”

“And why am I just hearing about it now?”

“Because I’m a teenager and bad at responsibility?”

“Damn right you are dearheart.” She put her book down refilled her coffee and came to sit next to me at the breakfast table. For a moment she looked very tired. Then she said, “Aisling, you know I was a teenager once.”

“Yeah mom.” Frankly the idea had never ocurred to me.

“And I had my own Haloween parties. So I’m in no position to tell you not to drink. And even if I was, I’m under no pretentions that you would listen to me.” She drummed her fingers on the table for a moment, “We’ll say this. You’re going to explore your limits in anycase. I want you to get to the point where you know you’re out of control and then stop.”

“I wasn’t planning on drinking mom.”

“You weren’t planning on telling me about the party either. So planning is also something you’re bad at.” She sighed again, “If you go beyond your limits you’re going to have fun, because you and I are going to get up at noon and go to an amusement park.”

I shrugged like it would be easy, because I had never experienced a hangover before. And for someone who had never experienced a hangover it didn’t sound too bad.

“And Aisling?” She leaned in close, “If I hear that you’ve gotten in a car with anyone who has had even a little bit to drink, I’ll chaperone the next school dance.”

This is a much worse threat than I could have imagined. “Okay mom. Um… Can I maybe get money for an Uber?”

“I’m trying to decide if you’re old enough to budget for your own drunken antics—what am I saying, we’ve already established that you aren’t. Yes dear, I’ll throw an extra twenty bucks in.” She stood and took my finished plate to the sink. “I’m not going to talk to the parents of whomever is throwing the party. But you will have your phone on you, and you will answer when I call, and you will come home if I tell you to.”

I nodded.

“Okay. Now in case you need extraction, like the situation gets weird and you don’t feel safe? Text me your code phrase and you’ll get a call about a family emergency and suddenly have to leave.”

I laughed, “And you said that making up code phrases was silly.”

I fingered the bag I was holding. Then I opened it and dumped the contents on the bed. What fell out onto the bed wasn’t a bikini, or a corset, or platform heels. In a way it was a little worse.

A bright yellow tank-top, red suspenders, and hemmed cut-offs.

“You’re going to be cold,” Mom told me. “You remember, I always put extra room in your Halloween costumes so you could wear a coat under them.”

“I’ll be fine mom,” I had told her. And then I had bought them anyway.

For every year I had trick-er-treated it had snowed the night before. Up until two years ago, and it looked like it wouldn’t this year either. Try telling me global warming isn’t happening. (That year it wouldn’t be until December 19th that it snowed in the whole state. All the ski resorts had been trying to buy a senetor not already owned by a patroleum company to do something about it. So far, no luck.) But it was bitter cold outside.

I sighed and stripped out of the pajamas I’d worn all day.

Is there a correct way to put on panty hose? Turns out there was. Well that was why I bought two pairs. This time I unrolled them down to the toe, dipped my piddies in, and rolled them up to my thigh. Then I had to figure out how to do that with the other leg without tearing this pair too. I unwound them and did both legs at the same time. When I got to my hips I said a little prayer and pulled them up all the way.

I turned around in the mirror, not knowing what a run in a stocking looked like, but figuring that a lack of abnormality meant that there wasn’t one. I can a hand over my thigh, feeling the bright white, silky, nylon. It felt great on my skin, and made me feel…

… sexy?

Well definitely that. Confident too. Like a soft outer core of sexiness with a chewy center of self reliance. Something about putting them on made me feel like I was okay going out into the world naked. I wasn’t naked, I was wearing hose, and I was going to be wearing other clothes besides. But they felt like some kind of armor against whatever the world might say about me.

I put on the hot shorts and the tank top. I had to stop myself from tugging it down further. Then I took the shorts off and clipped the suspenders to the back. Shorts back on I threw the suspenders over my shoulders and fastened them in the front. I checked in the mirror. Only one thing missing. I put my hair into a side pony tail.

There. Perfect Misty.

Bruce honked outside.

Drinks

“Then she stabs his hand with a pen and says ‘Trade you, gun for pen!’” Autumn was explaining her costume. It was leather (well, vinyl) and purple and pink. She’d had Rachel’s help adapting it from a motorcycle jacket, a ski mask, and a one piece swimsuit. She was unhappy that she hadn’t got the boots done in time for Halloween, but was looking forward to finishing them over winter break. Or spring break. In time for Comic Con anyway.

“So she’s like a girl Deadpool?” I searched my thoughts for something that would show that I had read Deadpool and hadn’t just seen the movie. I finally decided on, “Does she fight Wolverine then?”

“What? No. At least not yet.” Autumn took us off the freeway and onto Bellvue, “See she arrived in the Em Cee Yew from our world, where they are all just comic characters. And she quickly figured out that bystanders get killed in the comics but anyone in a costume is pretty much immortal.” She paused to throw her cigarette out the window and light another one, “I mean, Spider-Man has died, like, 90 times.”

“Is she funny?”

“Yeah! But like … like girlie humor, you know?”

I had no idea and said so.

“Like she doesn’t talk like 4chan, she talks like tumblr.”

“Even when I was a guy, I thought that 4chan was a burning mound of pig shit, surrounded by a tire fire, in the deepest pit in hell.”

Hang on.

Shit!

“I’m not saying every guy—” Oh thank god she wasn’t paying any attention. “—I mean I liked the movie and I don’t have a penis. I mean his voice is just a guy’s voice. And hers isn’t.”

We started winding through the back roads along Bellvue where the houses seem less like a place to live and more like a country estate. I spent some time trying to do something about the hose/shorts situation. The garters of the hose went up to just under the hem of the cutoff shorts. But the slightest movement would bring them down lower, and then I would have an inch of bare flesh. The whole point of the hose was to make the shorts safe! I had been … daring with the hem. So daring that sitting down I could feel the bare flesh of my but on the seat. The hose were there to make that okay, so they were just a pair of pants with the illusion of porn star jeans. I hadn’t taken into account that fabric stretches and contorts. One of the most important thing about fabric.

Autumn pulled up to a gate—an actual gate. Not like a gated community, like the house—and only that house—had a gate. She hit a code, the gate creaked open, and we drove the last 200 feet past a manicured lawn and coiffed hedges.

We were unfashionably early, the way you’re supposed to be for a friends party when that friend has invited 100 other people. Autumn parked on the gravel behind several much nicer cars. Sarah waved to us from the garage-to-interior door, then glanced back, and snuck the rest of the way out.

On first glance I thought she was dressed as Morticia Adams. Then I realized that her hair was wrong and she was Elvira Mistress of the Dark. I didn’t actually know what Elvira did, was just aware of her as a phenomena. My immediate guess would be that Sarah also didn’t know who what she did, but wanted a chance to show off a dress that would make her breasts look flattering.

And flatter her breasts it did. Not having a push up bra really hit Sarah boobage hard. But it also flattered them because (as I was beginning to appreciate) not everything a girl could wear worked with big tits. My suspenders for instance were all over the place and in need of constant maintenance.

Sarah was wearing some thigh high kinky boots to go with it, and I was pretty sure it was illegal for someone as young as she was to wear boots that sexy. I had an unbidden fantasy about getting those boots wrapped around my head, and figured I’d express it out loud.

Sarah responded by grabbing my suspenders and pulling me in for a chaste little kiss. “I don’t want to ruin my lipstick. Yet.” Then she snapped the suspenders and oh my god did that hurt.

I shrieked. Autumn punched Sarah in the boob. Everyone made up. We went inside.

_oOo

I was a bit surprised that Sarah’s family could afford a gate but apparently had to skimp on the interior walls. She gave us a quick tour which involved waving her hand at the kitchen/dining room/living room/rec room/game room/TV room/den/library, and saying, “It’s not much but we try to make it feel like home. Don’t go into a door that’s already been closed and don’t go upstairs.” Then she leaned in close, “When things wind down we’ll go upstairs to wind them up again.”

This is not the right time to get a chubby. Never is the right time. My phantom dick chose to listen to me for the moment. I could feel the weight of it, but it wasn’t being corporeal somehow.

There were other people there, most I didn’t recognize. I had a vague feeling that I’d seen them or at least classmates that looked similar to them, wandering the halls of the school. To be honest it takes a lot to stand out from the crowd as a teenager. I think that’s the reason we’re all so desperate to. None of them were techies and most looked like they were into things I found unbearably boring. The mix was 60/40 men to women. The former looked at me and Autumn like we should be embarrassed to have muddied their gender. The latter looked at us like we should consider ourselves lucky to inhabit whatever deranged fantasy they had. I took stock and decided that I wouldn’t set my cup down, or drink from anyone else’s.

There were a few batmen, a Thor, a very poorly made Kylo Ren, a … man in a tuxedo, a stripper police officer, a stripper soldier, and a very inventive stripper Batman.

The girls all seemed to be wearing … I turned to the other girls, “Did every girl here decide to go as a skank?”

Sarah coughed into her drink, Autumn gave me a raised brow, “Did you wear those shorts because Misty wears them, or because you wanted to look hot?”

I … well … it’s not … “That’s different.” I managed to land it.

Her eyebrow only crept up further, “How so?”

“It just is.”

“Sure. You dressed up in a costume and didn’t give any thought to how hot you would look.”

I didn’t know how to back down. Ashley wouldn’t have backed down because Ashley was a guy. He wasn’t a strong guy but he understood the rules of being a guy. What would I do now?

I settled for booping her nose. “Boop.” Then, “What do I drink if I want to get drunk?”

~oOo~

Sarah led us over to the kitchen, the counter’s of which overflowed with very large bottles. “There’s going to be a custom run when Kyle shows up, the kegs are out back, and we’re the only house party in the school with a fully stocked wine cellar. Do you want me to mix you a basic bitch cocktail?”

“What’s that?”

“That’s a cosmopolitan. Only instead of citrus vodka you use vodka, and instead of cointreau you use more vodka.”

A tall senior-ish girl laid her hand on Sarah’s wrists, “Please Sarah. This is a gin household.” She turned up her nose and sniffed in disdain.

Sarah looked her in the eye, grabbed the handle of vodka and took a swig. The girl laughed, took the handle from her and guzzled. “Gwen, this is my friend Aisling. Aisling this is my big sister Griselda.”

Gwen picked up a red cup off of a stack, and offered one to me. When I reached for it she pulled back, “Five dollars a cup.” Then she looked at Sarah, “Or will she be paying you back.” She made it quite clear that she knew exactly what she meant.

I was gratified to see Sarah blush. Gwen laughed and handed me the cup, “On your tab then.” I picked up a sharpie from a pile and put my name on it. Then Gwen leaned in close, “Sarah and Autumn know who not to talk to here. There’s a bunch of guys I didn’t invite who will show up anyway. I can’t tell any of them to leave, because if they get upset we can’t exactly call the cops.”

“Like who?”

“A couple of third year seniors, at least one graduate with a suspended license and a sealed record. Anyone goes creeping on you, come find me.”

Sarah took my cup while I parsed that and handed it back to me full of red. “Tell me how you like that.”

I took a sip and said, “hmmm.” That’s not what my brain said. My brain said, WHAT YOU HAVE JUST PUT INSIDE YOU IS POISON! DON’T PUT POISON INSIDE OF YOU. Shut up brain, they don’t call it intoxicated because the x is cool.

“I’d call that a ‘no’.” Sarah took the cup from me, “Lets see what you do like.”

Here’s a summation:

Rum and coke: bad

Vodka and soda: bad

Gin and anything with gin in it: hate hate hate hate bad.

Beer: could be better

Red wine: tastes like church

“You wanna try a white?” We were in the wine cellar where Sarah’s parents had spent a small fortune insure that if the end of the world came they wouldn’t be thirsty. Big Davey and Bree had come in during gin and beer respectively. Big Davey was drinking beer. Bree had brought her own bottle of Jack Daniels and did not need a mixer.

Continue list:

White wine: acceptable

Sarah grabbed a few bottles (who would notice them missing?) and we went back upstairs where things were starting to get moving.

It is at this time that I learned a very disappointing fact that I would not unlearn until I went to an actual orgy for the first time. There’s not a lot to do at house parties other than get drunk.

There was music. People were laughing and playing games. But the games were games that got you drunker faster, and the laughter was at people being too drunk to play the games.

There was beer pong. I watched that long enough to watch the ping pong ball roll in the dirt get washed off in a bowl of disgusting water, and sail straight into a cup; then decided to never play that ever.

One group was playing drinking card games in the den. The crux of the game seemed to be that each card caused you to drink. You know, like you could all alone. But in different ways I guess?

Regular Dave and Wee David had shown up and Rachel was still missing in action when someone found the DVD collection and put on the Halloween classic Mission Impossible II. Before the clock hit six second in someone had found a drinking game online. There was one bullet point: Drink every time Tom Cruise runs from—or climbs on—something.

I sat next to Sarah on the couch, and the guy who put in the DVD crunched in between us and put his hand on my leg.

I froze, and shied away.

Autumn crunched between the guy and me.

The guy put his hand on her knee.

Autumn pulled a knife on him, “Listen I’m just drunk enough to want to cut you, but not so drunk I’ll miss something vital.”

The guy sat on the floor in front of the couch and looked hurt. I didn’t feel sorry.

After the intro where Tom Cruise is the worst rock climber and should be dead a dozen times over, someone pointed out that the problem we were having was that we only drank once and then there was another 10 minutes of climbing or running. We were supposed to drink constantly as he ran from—or climbed on—everything. The rules thus modified we all set out to get very very drunk.

Blowee

It was later. The world was a long way away from wherever I was at that second. It was like looking at everything through a wide angle lens. Even my hands were several feet away from me. Only they were right there too.

The movie had finished the party was getting rowdy. A bunch of people had found their way to the swimming pool to shouts and applause. The beer pong table had seen steady turn over and unsteady players. I had had … some number of wines and the bottle was empty. I was 90% sure that I hadn’t drunk it all, but I knew that my judgment was just as drunk as I was.

And I was very drunk.

And very happy.

And I had to pee all the time.

The main floor had three bathrooms and a stream of people going in and out. I went in, realized that someone had done something unspeakable inside, weighed it against wetting my pants, and went as fast as I could. On the way out I screamed to the room, “I did not do that!”

My cup was still empty and the white was gone. I broke the rules, but I opened the wine cellar and went down to get another bottle.

The cool air of the basement did a little to bring me to my senses. I knew that there wasn’t any quick “get out of drunk free” card. “Health” class had taught me that, and nothing else. So I was still just as drunk, I just seemed to be thinking better.

Thinking so good that it seemed like a great thought to lie on the floor for a bit.

I heard the door up the stairs open and called, “Someone’s in here!”

“Aisling?” It was Big Davey.

“Yo.”

“Are you okay, you’ve been down here for a half an hour?”

“Is that all? I’m sure it’s been much longer, only five minutes.”

He came down the stairs and sat on the step at my feet, “You’re drunk.”

I looked up to see his face, “You’re horny.”

“Well I’m drunk too.”

“Fine,” I rolled over onto my side, “But we’re doing it this way.”

“On the hard basement?” He burped, “Not that appealing. Come upstairs, it’s died down enough we can sneak off.”

That really got some things into gear, I’d been background horny before but now—Shit.

I stood up as quickly as I could, which took about a minute, grateful for the dark. My phantom dick was un-phantomed with an absolute vengeance. Harder than Wolverines adamantium erection. I turned by back in the gloom and paid minute attention to the wine labels. This was hard because I was actually standing in front of a basin sink on accident. Breathing deep, I tried to think my way out of being drunk and think my erection away. I knew that both were impossible, but decided that I was drunk enough not to know that.

My breath hitched in my throat and then got shallow as Big Davey came and wrapped his arms around me. First around my waist, then palms up and over the tops of my breasts. He nibbled at my neck for good measure.

Tell him to stop, Aisling. In a bit Aisling. His hands are going down your pants, Aisling. It’ll be fine he’ll just get a shock.

Instead the shock was all mine because when he touched the tip, he just went lower and gave the base a squeeze. I wasn’t sure if it was the drunkenness or the fact that no one else had ever touched my dick, but it felt like he’d yanked on the base of my spine. My gasp was covered up by his riotous giggles. He spun away, and I waited for him to start … I don’t know. Probably call everyone down to the basement so they could laugh at the freak. The thought caused by brain to put in an advance order for tears. I could feel them like little drunken prickles behind my eyelashes.

I turned to see him doubled over, hands on his knees, “Aisling. Aisling. Look. Look, Aisling. Oh my god. Oh my god, Aisling. Oh my god, I’m so stoned. It felt like. Man I thought I was sobering up. I reached into your pants and felt a dick!”

Which put me in a really weird mood. The kind of mood where nothing could possibly be a bad idea. All impulse control was gone, and I was operating at the decision making capacity of a toddler. I turned around, closed my eyes for a second, sucked on my lips. Then eyes open I unbuckled my pants. My dick flopped out. Still chubby, down from ramrod iron under the pressure of anxiety.

Deep breath. Focus your eyes, Aisling. Try to stay present here.

Big Davey stood up straight, and stared at … well all of it. He cocked his head like a dog trying to understand English. Tilted it the other way. Finally he found words, “That’s a cock.”

Dumb words.

Less dumb words, “Aisling, I have buried my face in your pussy. I would have noticed if there was a cock there.”

I chocked on a sigh and looked to the ceiling before I said, “I can’t explain it in a way that will make sense, and you can’t understand. Because we’re both ineb—eneebrate—enerbrated—that thing.”

Big Davey came closer. Very closer. I found his eyes and we locked contact. Face inches from mine his fingers brushed my cheek, then the line of my breast, then wrapped around my cock.

“This is real,” he said. Profound in theory. Trite in context.

I was hard in his hand. Like silk wrapped around iron. He moved his hand from base to middle, then from base to tip. He knows exactly what he’s doing.

I was breathing harder now, eyes closed, feeling his breath in my mouth. I was trying not to over-sigh.

Hand still moving back and forth he asked, knowing what I would answer, “What do you want, Aisling?”

And I whispered the words I’d always wanted to say, in the context I’d always wanted to say them, “Suck it.”

He squeezed harder at the base and then increased pressure on the way up. I felt my foreskin stretch over my head and my lungs didn’t quite catch up with their job. “What did you say.”

I gathered my brain together, opened my eyes, and locked them on his. “Big Davey? Get down on your knees and suck my cock.”

His kiss was just a tap on the lips. Lids shading my eyes I watched as he, cock still in hand, slowly knelt. Felt his breath on the head of my rod. Watched him open his mouth wide. Then close it, and stroke me up and down some more. “Is this really what you want.”

I managed to say, “You fucking tea—” and then shuddered a gasp as I felt his tongue run up the vein in the base. It was all I could to nod at him when I looked down again.

He put his tongue to the tip. Gently pried the slit apart. My grip on the sink tightened and my wrists locked.

Then his mouth was on it.

~oOo~

I have then and since read a lot of descriptions of blowjob. They always talk about hot, or at the very least warm. That’s never been my experience.

Then and now I always feel coolness when there’s a mouth on my cock. Wet? Absolutely. But cool wet.

Not like—say—sticking your dick in a freezer. Do this: blow hot air on your wrist. Take it away from your mouth. Feel the memory of heat, mixed with the cold as the condensation of your breath dries?

It’s like that.

Like that and it was all over my rod. He sucked his lips in and bobbed his head, fucking me with his mouth. Letting me fill him up.

The week before Big Davey had taken his turn and I had sat on his face and made out with Autumn. I didn’t remember him being such an aggravating tease then. But in the wine cellar he was viciously taking his time. I would feel myself get a little closer, and moan, or twitch in his mouth, or breath too loud; and he would pull me off of his lips. Run his tongue over my frenum, or along the tip. Swirl it around the head. And when I was close to just grabbing his hair, back my dick would go inside.

I didn’t know if he’d ever done this before, but giving a blowjob when you know exactly what feels good has to count as research at least.

Finally he had enough, ran his palms around my ass, and started vigorously deep-throating me. My hands slipped off the sink, as my knees went weak. And yet there was still something missing. Within second of realizing that, I had a fist wrapped around each nipple, tugging and kneading. My eyes were closed and rolled up in my head. My hair had come out of its ponytail and was tickling my back.

As a girl I usually felt the build to orgasm as one steady long stream. This time it was like walking off the edge of a cliff. One second it was great, the next it was incredible and the next I was holding his head and feeling my cock spasm as my climax was milked out of me.

_oOo

Yeah, he swallowed.

_oOo

“So it just appeared like that?”

I had glossed over some salient points, banking that Big Davey wouldn’t remember this in the morning. It felt good to talk. “I mentioned it to this alien I know. He said he’d get back to me.”

Big Davey laughed like I had told a joke, “Well no one would believe it if you told them. I have the taste of your cum on my breath and I don’t believe it. Good for you?”

“Just what I wanted tonight. First time?”

“Yeah, it’s harder than it looks.”

I shrugged and drank from the bottle we had between us, “I guess it is? I mean, now that I’ve actually had one I know what I’ll do differently.”

“You’re weird, you know that Aisling?” Big Davey waxed drunkenly poetic, “Weird but cool. I’m so glad I know you.” He gave me a big hug, then laid his head on my lap and played with my shoes.

We went up the stairs holding hands, and cuddled together on the couch for a bit. Someone had turned on Cartoon Network and we watched terrible anime while the world devolved into drunken chaos.

Fantasy

Big Davey lead me through the party, a deeply mussed Misty. No one whipped out a camera to show our mutual walk of shame. And in any case my debauching was going to be much less news worthy than the videos that had already been taking.

Like right now through the patio I could see a bunch of people, phones out, shooting the impromptu pool party. As predicted, the casual drinkers and hangers out had gone home, and this was the point where the serious teen aged alcoholics would be blacking out. Best capture the party with your pocket memory.

Yeah I was drunk too, that doesn’t mean I can’t judge. In fact while your drunk is the most popular time to get judgey.

Big Davey lead me up a small flight of stairs and up to the first door on the left. He knocked softly and waited for Sarah to open the door. When she did the two of us scuttled inside, and Sarah closed the door again without a sound.

After the raucous downstairs the quiet in this room was deafening. Sarah’s bedroom was three times the size of mine, and had a balcony. With a hot tub.

I don’t think it was her hot tub, I’m pretty sure it was her families and it just lived on the balcony that wrapped around the entire second floor. But God. Damn.

“I found her in the basement, getting her dick sucked,” Big Davey reported to the crew, scattered around the room.

I punched his shoulder, “You didn’t seem to mind sucking it.” What a big funny joke this is! Tis to laugh! I might die.

And there were some scattered laughs, but at this point everyone was trying to enjoy the drunk they were, in some peace and quiet.

Then someone tapped me on the shoulder, I turned saw my Jedi wet dream and started coughing on my wine.

Rachel was a cosplay genius with her own sewing machine and the time and money to dedicate to it. In front of me was a pitch perfect Luminara Unduli. Green skin and headdress right out of the movie.

All I remember of the next three minutes is gushing over her costume, as she explained how she had put it together. I don’t remember anything she said about that because the phrase jump her bones was going through my head on repeat.

She was still talking about the stitching and the framework for the head dress as we were all sitting in a circle. And all I can think about is her as a circle formed on Sarah’s floor. I didn’t notice the circle because I was still thinking it (and because I’m more than a little drunk) when Autumn tugged on the hem of my shorts. I sat in her lap while I told Rachel about Luminara’s appearances in Clone Wars. She put her chin on her fist while I talked and she took my cards off the floor and handed them to me when it was my turn.

That’s when I found out that we were playing Exploding Kittens (two decks to accommodate the number of players).

I burnt my defuse card on the first turn, bad luck but it happens. I was too drunk to have a strategy.

Here’s a run down of Exploding Kittens really fast. You take turns drawing cards. If you get an exploding kitten you lose. There is one less exploding kitten in the deck than there are number of players, so it’s a game that you don’t win, so much as you avoid losing. Players start with 4 cards and a defuse card, and there might or might not be more diffuse cards to draw from the deck; that depends on the number of players and the trustworthiness (or sadism) of the dealer. If you draw an exploding kitten you can discard the defuse card to put the kitten back in the deck. The rules are clear that you can put the kitten anywhere in the deck, and stipulate specifically that you can put it right the fuck back on the top, where the next player must draw it.

I wasn’t really paying any attention to the rules, because Rachel was showing me her Jedi boots while I put the kitten back on top of the deck.

She wasn’t really paying any attention as she took the exploding kitten card off the top. She still didn’t appear to be paying attention when she threw her cards into the discard pile and held up her hands.

I was still drunkenly talking and there was a lot of background chatter. Then the thought Oh, we’re playing daisy chain, caught up to Rachel’s very intense stare.

I swallowed some wine to deal with that. It wasn’t until two turns later that I drew, found out I’d lost, and realized that a smarter Aisling would have been hoping for that outcome the whole time. The way Rachel clearly had been.

My breath was coming fast, but I felt in control when I asked, “Is that lipstick waterproof?” They make waterproof lipstick, right?

Rachel shook her head but I’d fallen backwards into my own mind, because Autumn had her hands under my shirt. She swung me to the side of the game a little bit, and in a couple of moves she had my suspenders off my shoulders and my pants unbuckled.

I still wasn’t taking any agency, but not because I was drunk. This appeared to be out of my control. Rachel was going to eat my pussy, and in a little bit …

None of that mattered because Rachel was going to eat my pussy and everyone wanted her to.

She got onto her knees and pulled my shorts off, the red suspenders flailing around as she threw them over her shoulder. Autumn still had cards in one hand as I lay in her lap and one hand went from one nipple to another.

And I felt a now familiar sense of pseudo-anxiety and there was no way to stop any of this.

_oOo

I was not feeling the anxiety because of the sexual situation. It had been a couple of weeks with these people building up a tolerance to sexual situations. In any case I was at a level of inebriation where I would have been immune to the tension even if I could feel it.

No what upset me was that I really didn’t want to be eaten out.

No, that isn’t true. I did really want that. I wanted to feel her breath on my pussy, and her slick tongue on my clit. I wanted to look into her eyes as she stared over my mons at me. I wanted to come all over her face.

But I couldn’t.

Or at least, I didn’t know how to do it.

I’ve been pretty up front about everything that has happened, or at least the first times. But not my first time getting eaten. If I have to be honest, it’s because I’m embarrassed about the whole thing. I would have to count on my fingers to figure out how many times I’d been eaten out before and who had done it. It felt nice, every time.

But it hadn’t felt more than that.

Yes, good, and certainly don’t stop. But it didn’t get me off. All the other times I had lain there and slowly realized that I would not be getting an orgasm any time soon. And that had built up into a feeling of recrimination: that I didn’t appreciate my friends enough when they were nice enough to give me a tongue bath. And that had stressed me until a climax was out of the picture. On three occasions the eater had decided to escalate to fingers, and that changed the game.

On one I had faked.

Well not faked, but Wee Davey had sat down beside me and I had to cast Bree aside so that I could get his pants off. She asked if she’d gotten it, and I had nodded. Which is basically faking.

So as I lay in Autumns arms and felt her run one finger around my areola, and as I hummed in my throat as she drew a card and pinched my nipple at the same time; and as Rachel crouched over me like a predatory animal that was getting ready to slurp my quim; all I could think was, this isn’t going to work.

_oOo

I braced myself and closed my eyes. Something nudged my muff and then I heard Rachel breathe in. Her nose was skooshing the wet spot on the center of my panties into me. I was a conflict between being drunkenly sexed up, and apprehensive. That was more for her than for you. And then, wait. She thinks I smell like sex. Finally, shut up with your commentary, your smell is turning her on. That got me in the right head space, the aroused headspace, and I opened my eyes to watch her.

Then I shut my eyes again, because what I was watching her do was run her tongue under the panty band around my waist and watching her was getting in the way of that. She managed to get her tongue really in there too, until I felt it tickle my hairs. Then the tongue went away and there were a few little kisses and the tongue was back along the band around my left leg. It wormed it’s way in, snuck around for a taste of me, and darted away again. When it came to do it again to the other side I think I sighed, and Autumn squeezed my breast in tandem.

“I’m out,” Wee Davey said.

“She’s busy,” Autumn told him, “Take my defuse card.”

I let the ensuing argument wash over me, because Rachel’s tongue was sneaking across my lips, pulling the band into her teeth, and then she was tugging my panties off with her mouth. I had to open my eyes to watch a green skinned alien between my legs. When she got my panties to my knees I lifted my leg up, got a little tangled, and then felt very strong fingers hold my thighs still and finish taking the panties away.

“Pull up her stockings,” Bree reminded me that I was still wearing them.

I tugged them up myself, and managed to find her across the circle. She was sitting on Regular Dave’s lap and he had his hands in her pants. Is everyone watching me? Do I even like that? “Shoes on or off?” I asked her. I would decide whether I liked getting watched later. In the meantime people clearly liked watching.

“On,” three people answered. They were just my vans, but who was I to judge.

I was the girl who was getting her legs spread, the girl who was tucking her knees around her arm pits, and the girl who was pointing her toes as a Jedi went down on her. In case you lost track.

Okay Aisling, just relax and you’ll be coming in seconds from—ooooooh. Rachel’s tongue tickled along the ligament inside my thigh. Then the bitch stopped to kiss it and I giggled. I stopped giggling when Autumn bent down to kiss my forehead, and instead strained up to find her lips. She tasted like a mixture of alcohol and lust.

I opened my eyes again to see Rachel get down on her elbows. Hazel eyes made a brief contact with mine before she had to focus her attention again. And there it was, a cool tongue on the outside of my lips.

Just relax and experience it.

The tongue went up one side, and smeared over my clitty, setting a moan out of me, before it fell away again. Then up that lip, and moan, and down. “You don’t taste like cinnamon,” Rachel told me.

“What do I—” I couldn’t finish the thought because she’d started in earnest, licking up and down my button. Her tongue was hot in the center, and cool at the edges. Warm on my clit while my lips chilled. I felt the room drift away and tried to keep feeling. There’s a lesbian licking your clit, while another plays with your tits. You’re like Queen Misty, being pleasured by her servants. This is hot, Aisling.

Eyes closed I could see myself on the floor, shirt up over my tits now, bra on the floor, stockings on, pants somewhere. Rachel had her head buried in my snatch and my head was lolling around. I could hear myself breathing heavy, more gasps and signs than moans. And I could hear them rising in pitch.

And while I felt the pleasure build quickly, and heard my gasps turn to consistent if subtle cries; I could also feel the top. The point at which it would rise and go no further. Could feel the tangential wave on the edge of my fingertips.

There it was again. The point where it got good an no better. I just had to put myself in the right head space maybe?

Okay Aisling. You look great, your pussy is getting licked by a Jedi. Do you need a fantasy? Why? What could be better than this? My imagination failed me as Rachel started alternating the tension of her licks. Hard hard hard. Soft. Hard. Soft soft soft.

Maybe if you watched? I opened my eyes to look at her head, bobbing back and forth between my legs. I could see the lace trim of my stockings on either side of her green face. It was enough to get the tension up a notch. Okay that’s what I neede—nope. The tension drifted back down again.

How long had she been doing it? Long? She must have because Autumn scooted out from under me and started caressing my face. “What does lovey need?” She crooned.

I shook my head, I was not going to get embarrassed about this, because then my climax was out of the question. At the same time I was asking myself the same thing and getting nowhere.

“Oh, lovey needs Rachel’s special trick,” Autumn told me.

I tried not to nod. I might have succeeded. Anything to get me over.

Autumn’s bare thighs were on either side of my head then. I have no idea when she had stripped off her leotard, but her bare pussy was above my face. She was on her knees, not even bothering to splay them an give me a chance to reach up with my own tongue. But the scene again brought the tension up, and the tension again receded.

I didn’t want anyone too stop, but I was on my way to getting despondent. What was wrong with me that I couldn’t orgasm from this. It was great. I demand that I have an orgasm right now, body. Do it.

Several things happened then in very quick succession. Autumn ran her fingers over my tummy to my pussy, and with two of them she reached into my pussy and pulled all of lips (big and little and everything) apart. I had a moment to feel exposed and dirty, and wasn’t sure I enjoyed the feeling or not. Then Rachel pucker her lips and put them on my clit. I could feel both of them encapsulating my little nubbin. I suddenly wasn’t sure if I was laying on my back, or if my whole body was resting in between her lips. I decided to let out a little cry about it, let her know that this was good, when Rachel gave a tiny suckle and popped me into her mouth to suck on.

I don’t know how to describe the noises I started making, but I was told later that I “shrieked like a wild cat,” so we’ll go with that. Everyone started to shush me, but I was in the middle of climaxing and couldn’t stop. I remember someone saying, “There are still people downstairs!” If I could have stopped making the noise I would have told them that I wasn’t doing it on my own. Rachel was sucking all of these sounds out of my clit. I was really the victim. But I couldn’t stop making the noises to tell them that, so I just kept making them instead.

Autumn either saw a perfect opportunity or cause for alarm. Either way she decided to smother my voice with her pussy. I had the presence of mind to close my lips, which just mean that I was making a buzzing on her pussy.

My legs were beginning to cramp and I still wasn’t coming down. I realized that I had a quim on my face and a duty as a friend. Autumn blew that thought out of my mind by grabbing a nipple in each hand and giving a twist.

It should have hurt cruelly, but I wasn’t sure I could feel anything that wasn’t pleasure and more pleasure.

Rachel let me down finally. Literally and figuratively. I realized as my body came back into focus that she had been holding my hips off the floor and up to her mouth.

Autumn got off my face and sat back, and they both gave me a breather.

When I managed to sit up I found that Rachel had my bottle of wine, and was looking around with an unbelievably smug look on her face. She gave me a wink when I took the bottle.

“Has anyone every managed to pay you back?” I asked her. Around us I had appeared to have missed most of the action. Everyone was in a stage of undress, and other than Autumn and Big Davey (who appeared to be mid-late fuck), there was a “just came” atmosphere.

“Not yet,” Rachel told me. “But you are welcome to try.”

I leaned forward and kissed her, tasting myself mingled with her lipstick. “Your…your dots have smeared,” I said as I started trying to figure out how to get her Jedi pants off.

_oOo

Autumn and I cuddled in the back of a Lyft as the sky lightened at the very edges. I was adamant that she not drive. She had some kind of argument formulated when I cut her off with, “If you drive, I’m grounded. If I’m grounded we can’t hang out.”

The driver knew better than to ask how the night had gone. I wasn’t even sure if it was policy to let under 18s use the app. When I sobered up I would realize just how creepy the guy had been, but those were sober thoughts I couldn’t think just then.

I kissed Autumn goodbye, and left the Lyft driver a big enough tip he wouldn’t report something. I slunk inside and into bed, thighs still tingling sore.

Funnel Cake

I woke up at 8 AM the next morning feeling great. This hangover thing was a piece of piss, I didn’t know what everyone else was complaining about. My head didn’t even hurt. I checked my email, screwed around online for a half an hour, and figured I might as well go back to bed.

_oOo

I woke up five hours later. It was a terrible mistake. The sun was streaming through my bedroom window and straight into the back of my skull. My head was filled with the feeling of a pile of burning tires. I didn’t know how it could feel that way, but it did. You know that plaque on your teeth? The stuff you scrape off of them with your fingernails when you can’t brush? Well every muscle in my body had been packed with that stuff. I won’t go into what my mouth felt like, other than it would never be clean again.

I groaned. That made everything hurt worse.

Mom was sitting on my bed and just another person sitting two feet away from me was too much. “I let you sleep long enough. Time to go to an amusement park!”

Rolling over would take too much energy. I hid under the covers instead.

Mom got up, “If you aren’t downstairs in half an hour I’ll be back with an air horn.”

Forty five minutes later I managed to get down the stairs, limping on my injured brain. It took everything I had to sit at the table and eat buttered toast. The uncut tips of my toenails hurt.

Mom just sat watching me. I glared at where I thought she might be through the glare of sunlight on my retinas, “Stop enjoying my pain.”

I couldn’t make sense of her expression, but hated her for whatever it was. “I would but you’re making it too easy.”

“I’m never going to drink again.”

“You didn’t drink this time.” I opened my mouth and she held up a hand, “If you had drank, I would have to ground you, so think carefully about your answer.”

“I’m never going to drink in the future.”

“See? You can be smart. Put your shoes on, we leave in as soon as I find my keys.”

Putting on shoes hurt. The sidewalk shot agony through the tips of my hair with every step. The hot seat of the car was unbearable. The smell of the hot car drove thought from my mind. The sun had leveled up and was attacking every part of my being.

Then we started driving and it got worse.

_oOo

We got out of the car in the parking lot of Elitch Gardens. If I hadn’t been thinking hungover I would have realized that something was wrong. My mother would rather walk eight blocks than pay for parking.

The line was easy, it wouldn’t get really busy until later when people showed up for the haunted house at a time more appropriate to experience a haunted house.

I was feeling okay by that time. Not great. Not even good. Somewhere a few degrees North of functional.

Elitch Gardens used to be a Six Flags franchise, but they split. So all of the Warner Bros shit that used to adorn the rides and merchandise shops was all gone. Notable blank stickers on the bat wing ride now, or empty spaces on the shop signs. It was a little pathetic, and as usual I struggled to care beyond noticing it was gone. Even when not hungover the whole thing just gave me a “huh” moment.

We passed a few rides, the ones that are supposed to lure you into the park. Mom is a daredevil, and likes the really hardcore stuff. The ones you have to pay an extra $25 for and have names like The Vominator, or The Ejection Seat. I played the dutiful son on most of our visits, and held her glasses while she got shot up 300 feet at 200 miles an hour, or whatever.

Then I had always felt … unmanned by watching her. Cowering in fear and sweat in line. Never as brave as my weakly woman mother. It was nice to think that as a weak little girl I wouldn’t have to face that manly shame.

But we shared a thing for the roller coasters. I loved the roller coasters. We would always try to get onto the front car and be the first to feel the drop.

All of this was very unappealing at that time. I tried to let my mom walk ahead of me in the crowd so I could pretend to lose her and find somewhere to sit down. She walked beside me instead, filling my head a proposed ride list.

“I was thinking Tower of Doom first, then the Mind Eraser, Log Ride, that wooden one, something that spins around, and then something hardcore.” She suddenly switched directions, “Of course we need to do the ferris wheel first.”

And on the way there it happened. We passed a funnel cake cart.

Cinnamon and butter and dough fried in grease all went straight into my nose, shot into my stomach and caused a devastating and instant reaction.

That is to say, without any advance warning I puked. Everywhere.

Hands on knees and doubled over, things I remembered having eaten weeks ago came pouring out of me in a gush. I took a quick breath in, smelled more funnel cake, and heaved again.

I felt my mom’s hand on my shoulder, guiding me away from the cart. I stopped to vomit two more times.

My eyes had stopped processing while my digestive system was busy, so my first visual memory is of a handful of Kleenex wiping off my streaming eyes. Mom had come up with roll of paper towels, I have no idea where, and once my eyes were a little clear she went to work on my mouth.

She didn’t say anything the entire time, just got me cleaned up enough to get to the car without looking like a complete wreck.

There was a bottle of water waiting in the car, still cool. I rinsed my mouth out, spitting onto the asphalt, then took a sip. Before I could realize that was a mistake it was all out of me again. And once I’d puked up the water there was nothing else and I started dry heaving.

“Drink again, so you have something to bring up,” Mom put another water bottle in my hand.

I did that, and then that happened, and then I felt much better.

I took some more Kleenex to wipe the vomit snot off my face, and stood straight for the first time in fifteen minutes. “I’m hungry now.”

“Let’s get you some grease,” Mom said.

_oOo

Pete Contos’s restaurants are a fixture in Denver. There are eight on Colfax, including Pete’s Grill, Pete’s, and Pete’s Kitchen. They’re good diners, big portions of cheese and meat and eggs, swimming in grease. Pete’s establishments are known for good food, friendly service, and a grandfatherly owner; who loves his patrons, owns 90% of LoDo, and has deep ties to the Greek mafia.

Inside Pete’s Kitchen the wall are full of photos with famous people. There are a bunch of local sport people I don’t know at all, as well as Drake, Jessica Alba, and Drew Barrymore smiling with Pete Contos. It’s cramped but open 24 hours, and the gyros are incredible.

I didn’t have a gyro, the souvlaki was a little too rich for me.

“You need grease,” Mom told me, as we sat. “The grease absorbs the last of the alcohol in your system, and gives your body some energy to keep your liver going.”

I ended up with a huge plate of corned beef hash and eggs. All of that throwing up had made things better but I knew I’d never be able to smell funnel cake the same way again.

“So what can you tell me about it?” Mom asked.

“We watched movies. No one really did anything but get drunk. I guess that’s the only way a party is fun?”

“Wait until you go to a faculty party. Alcohol is the only way to handle it. You’d never think that people that smart could be so boring. I guess they’re all used to communicating with research papers.” Mom put down her gyro and fixed the wall with a stare, “Did you do anything you regret?”

I definitely don’t regret getting my dick sucked. I definitely regret having a dick. I paused to munch before I said anything. Then, “I don’t think I’m as gay as I thought I was.”

“Do you think any of those descriptions work on you?”

I desperately wanted to tell her about everything. The loft and the Crew, and what all those people meant to me, and that I had a sexuality but I didn’t know what it was and I didn’t even want to know. And I knew that, girl or not, this wasn’t a conversation that would go down well. “I guess not. It’s not something I think needs defining. It just is.” But there was a line I would cross and we were at a juncture were I could. “How old were you when you first—”

“Older than you are now.”

“But when you first got interested?”

Mom gave a little sigh, still looking off in the distance. “I was on a bus trip. We had all gone on a field trip for school, a French circus—like Circ Du Soleil. There was a boy I liked there, I made sure I sat next to him.” She smiled soft and melancholy, “I don’t remember anything from the second act, because that’s when his hand found its way into my sweater and changed everything about the world.”

Mom! I didn’t shout. Didn’t even think.

Why?

Well she wasn’t embarrassing me.

Why?

… She was talking about herself?

Why?

To relate to me. It was working.

“Are you going to tell me about the boy? Do you like him better than Autumn?”

“No? Yes? Not really. He’s just different is all.”

“Aisling, would you like to know what I would tell you if you were my client?”

This was new found territory for both of us, “Um … sure?”

Mom stole my toast, “There are a lot of theories about the evolution of human relationships. When we look at our closest cousins chimps aren’t monogamous. Bonobos are … bonobos are like meth driven swingers. Claiming that monogamy is ‘traditional’ still isn’t an answer, because what the Right calls ‘biblical’ marriage doesn’t exist in the bible.

“Despite this monogamous relationships have slowly become the norm over the past 30,000 years. There are polygamists, and one tribe in Mongolia is agamist.”

“What’s agamy?”

“They just have sex with whomever they want. There’s no marriage and no relationships. The women raise the children without much help, but the tribes all take care of the women who are raising the children.” She gave me a sad little smile, “Raising a child on your own is actually very easy, as long as you have someone who can do every thing else for you.”

The waitress came and refilled our coffee. Mom thanked her and smiled and told her she liked her fingernails. I paid attention as they talked nails and mom got the number of a new manicurist. God love my mother, and in every other relationship she was calm, healthy, and kept perspective. But with a manicurist my mother was a catty diva, ready to throw each of them to the curb the second they did something wrong.

She turned back to me, “It’s a little chicken/egg, but our culture sees sex and love as the same thing. You can uncouple these concepts, but it’s hard.” She put her hand on mine, “So be very careful about why you choose to love someone. Being the first person you fuck isn’t a great reason.”

Piercing

“So?”

“So what?”

“So are we going to talk about it?”

“Talk about what?” This was a text conversation I’m considerately putting into conversation form, between Big Davey and me. I was zoning out and trying not to remember the way his lips closed over the head of my phantom dick, while I browsed instagram. My phantom dick had not made an appearance in the two days since it had been sucked to completion. In the time since I had told no one and while it filled my fantasies I wasn’t eager to talk about it.

Big Davey, on the other hand, was. “I sucked your dick.”

“I sucked your dick.”

“Okay, we’ve sucked each other’s dicks. So are we going to talk about it?”

We would not, because I stopped responding and messaged Autumn instead. “Big Davey is pissing me off.”

“:(”

“Whachadoin?”

“Stuck in math. You?”

“Sub in history. We’re watching Platoon.”

“Why?”

“I dunno. I guess he just really wanted to watch Platoon today.” The sub was the only one watching the television, everyone else was on their phone. I waited for her to reply and looked at more looks on instagram.

Big Davey hit me back, “Okay, so I guess you don’t want to talk about it.”

“They should call you big brain Davey,” Workshop your come backs next time, that was horrendous. “You’re a regular Sherlock Holmes.”

“Okay, fine. Can we still hang out”

I ignored him for a little bit. On screen Charlie Sheen came face to face with the sexual violence of war and made me want to throw up. Had Sheen been accused of rape? Better google that. Looks like nope. (He would that next month, but by The National Enquirer, so take it with a grain silo of salt.) My phone buzzed in my hand again as Big Davey sent a question mark. Fine.

“Of course we can still hang out. I don’t not want to hang out with you. If I stopped being someone’s friend after they sucked my dick I might as well be a guy.”

“Harsh.”

“:)”

“Ditch your next class?”

“Nope.” Maybe. “Why?”

“I have to get my oil changed and it’s the best time to do it.”

“You want me to come with you to get your oil changed? You don’t get a lot of second dates, do you?”

“We’ve never hung out.”

“There was this one time :P”

“So we are going to talk about it?”

Then Bree messaged me, and Bree and I had only messaged a few times, “I’m gonna buy you a present. Ditch your next class!”

Well between the two of them … The bell rang as the sub watched war on a small CRT screen.

~oOo~

Bree was waiting for me outside the auditorium. “Lets go fast,” I told her, “I’m kind of avoiding Big Davey.”

She nodded like she got this, but still put on a matronly expression as we walked, “Don’t let things get normal. We don’t do normal.”

“What does that mean,” I asked as we absconded through the main doors.

“Normal, like the relationships other people have? Yeah, we don’t do those.” As if to illustrate she put her hand in mine as we walked. And to make the illustration clear, she only held two of my fingers.

Those two fingers I had put inside her less than a week ago.

“Okay, well how do I keep things from being normal with him?”

Bree shrugged as we got to her car, “No subterfuge, no prevarication, no avoidance. If that doesn’t work, I’ll sit on his face while you ride his cock and everything will get sorted out.”

“Wouldn’t that make it worse?”

“Don’t you think it’s worth a shot?” Bree grinned at me as she she sat down.

“Ouch!” It felt like … I don’t know. Pain. But in a part of my body that I didn’t know where it was.

Bree lifted herself off the seat, “I’m sorry! Did I sit on your hair?”

“My hair? No.” I touched it to make sure. Wait… “My hair isn’t that long.”

“I thought I saw some of your hair on the seat when I sat down.” She shifted around in the driver’s seat. Nothing.

“It’s gone whatever it was.” I put my seatbelt on, “So what are you buying me?”

“Okay, it’s sort of not a thing, but—” She started the car and put it in gear, “Do you want your ears pierced?”

No. Absolutely not. I would not like that at all. “Maybe?”

“I’ve got a thing with a piercer on Colfax, and I’m going in to get a labret. I mean, if you want …”

“You’re doing this now?”

Bree got us pointed toward the highway, and I braced for her to light a cigarette. Then I remembered that she didn’t actually smoke. I might have been riding with Autumn too much.

“Well her boss is in on the weekends and evenings, when they actually do business. I don’t exactly have parental permission.”

Ah. “This is the guy that did your nipples?”

“That guy my sister used to sleep with. Then she stopped. Then she started apprenticing at his shop. I don’t know if she still fucks him. Anyway, she isn’t going to need my parents to be present.”

“I’ll go with you, but I’m not getting my ears pierced.” I crossed my arms in the seat. “And I get to choose the music.” I reached for her (radio) knob.

_oOo

You are not getting your ears pierced. I looked around the inside of the parlor. There were very good piercing and tattoo parlors. Some of them were even on Colfax. This was not one of them.

It wasn’t particularly dirty, or at least it wasn’t not clean. But the green vinyl sofa in the seating area was cracked and torn. The glass in the jewelry display case was chipped and taped. The tile floor was in good repair, but the tile had been laid some time in the 1970s.

And the art on the walls was really bad.

Like, really really bad.

Every example contained at least three tattoo tropes. Flames, skulls, eyeballs, bat wings, and any of the above but in faux-chrome.

I was introduced to Bree’s sister, Gwen. Gwen was in a tank top, had hair that had never been professionally dyed, a face full of metal, and the start of a sleeve. And she was absolutely gorgeous.

“I’ve got an hour,” she told the two of us. “What am I putting holes in?” She asked me.

“Umm, her lip.” I pointed at Bree.

“Are you watching?” Gwen asked me.

“Do I have to?”

Bree gave me a look like, “Don’t be such a pussy.”

“Okay, I guess I’m watching.”

Gwen took us into the back, and drew a curtain between us and the door. Snip/snap she had a pair of gloves on and was looking over a tray full of needles in plastic wrappers. Bree had flopped into the chair like she had the hots for the dental hygienist, and was smiling in the little mirror next to the chair.

Gwen prodded her bottom lip a few times, the rubbed it between her fingers thoughtfully. Then in a few seconds she had Bree in some kind of torture device. Forceps with a hole in them for shoving a needle through. Bree didn’t make a sound when the needle went through, and she had a new stud in her bottom lip in the time it took me to grimace.

It looked super cute.

Then everything had been thrown away and we were back out in the waiting area. Bree and Gwen were talking and I wasn’t getting my ears pierced so why were we still here?

We weren’t still there, we were getting into Bree’s car and heading back, late, for 4th period.

_oOo

At lunch Autumn got up and rushed over to me, and then stopped. “Oh.” And we came back to the table together.

“What? What’s, ‘oh’?”

“I just—it’s nothing. You didn’t get your ears pierced.”

“No, I don’t want my ears pierced.”

She sat down, a lot farther away from me than I would have liked, “Well I didn’t know that, okay?”

I didn’t understand where all this tension was coming from, and tried to reflect on it as I got up to get a bowl of Raman. I had brought a Raman bowl with me, the kind you get a h-mart with the Japanese you don’t understand in big bubble letters. There was a canteen to fill it from at one side of the cafeteria and while I was filling it I watched Sarah and then Bree comfort Autumn. Then I watched Autumn throw her lunch away and run out the doors. Sarah went after her.

I sat back down and waited for my noodles to cook. I had no idea what was going on and no one would tell me.

It wasn’t until I was in 6th period that I reached into my bag for my calculator and my fingers brushed a little packet. Curious I pulled it out and found a pair of earrings and a cardboard backing.

They were cute little tyrannosaurs, made out of some kind of clay, and bright green.

The bell hadn’t rung yet, so I threw a quick apology to the teacher and went to the bathroom, earrings in my fist. At the mirror in front of the sink I held them up and tried to figure them out. The tyrannosaurs didn’t have a lower jaw, and the earing post stuck straight out of their upper jaw. I pulled one off and held it up to my ear. Oh, it looks like it’s chomped on my ear! It was absolutely darling.

I didn’t know you could get cute earrings.

Well I did. You could get little kittys and unicorns and stuff. And they could be cute in the kind of way that people look at you and think, “she has unicorn earrings. Cute.”

But this was…

Goddamn. I wanted to try them on and see how they looked on me, and I couldn’t because I didn’t have my ears pierced. I don’t want to get my ears pierced, I just want to wear these earrings!

_oOo

I had an excusal for my last class, and I got into my mom’s car from the loading zone just as the bell was ringing and binding the unfaithful. I said a careless prayer to those who did not have psychologist appointments.

We listened to NPR, it was my mother’s turn on the radio. I learned that a 2 year old, Montana power company, that had never built more than 100 miles of line, but with ties to the Secretary of Energy had been contracted to fix the Puerto Rico power grid, (without a bid). I learned that the people of Puerto Rico were very surprised by this. I learned that they would rather not, thank you. I learned that they would like a power company with expertise in rebuilding 10 million miles of lines. Just as I was getting sick of learning the segment ended and I learned about The Lion King broadway show.

I kept the earrings clutched in my fist the whole time until I walked into Dr. Malmon’s office and carefully put them down on the table in front of me.

He stared at them for awhile, then picked the packet up and turned it over in his hands. Gravely he nodded to himself, then put them back on the table.

We both stared at them for a bit.

Finally he said, “Are you asking me if you should?”

I shrugged and didn’t really look at him. Instead I told him about the dress, and the boots, about the shrug, about the way I had found friends.

I didn’t tell him about the sex things—any of the huge quantity of sex things—I had done. I would of course, I could tell him anything. In good time.

Instead I finished with what had happened that day and the most heartfelt shrug I could manage.

“You think,” the doctor summed up, “That Autumn got Bree to take you to get your ears pierced. Without a parents permission. But more importantly, without your permission. So that she could gift you these earrings?”

“I don’t know any other way to see it.”

“How do you feel about that?”

I closed my eyes and leaned back on the couch. With my eyes still closed I said, “Why didn’t anyone tell me about this?”

“About the earrings?”

“About all of this,” I gestured to myself, and the room, and the earrings, and the orgy club. “Why didn’t someone tell me about the fun stuff.”

“The fun stuff?”

“The fun stuff about being a girl.” I opened my eyes to glare at him. Dr. Malmon opened his mouth but I went on, “No one said that I would like wearing a dress, or that I look hot in heels, or that there were—” I picked up the earrings, “—good earrings. earrings that I would want to wear. Dresses that I would want to wear.”

“Would you believe me if I had told you?” I gave him a rueful look and stopped my instinctual response which was to flip him off. “Maybe a better question is, ‘would it have mattered if I had?’”

That was actually kind of a stumper. “Maybe?”

“Well there isn’t anything we can do about it now, is there. What are you going to do about it?”

“I don’t really want to get my ears pierced,” I started. “I’m not happy about not being asked if I wanted them pierced. I don’t know why Autumn freaked out after not asking me. I have to have a talk with her about that. So what I’m going to do is walk out of here, text Autumn that I need to talk to her during tech, get into the car with my mother, and politely ask her to take me to get my ears pierced.” Dr. Malmon started to interject and I interrupted him, “I don’t want to get my ears pierced, but I really want to wear these stupid fucking earrings.”

Tree

Mom dropped me behind the stage, and I felt the first cramp right as I got out of the car. That may explain a little of Autumn’s behavior today. Synchronization may be a very stupid good idea.

I was ten minutes late, and would have missed the meeting. Gwen needed mom’s signature on some stuff. My ears felt sore, and heavy. That was because there were little tyrannosaurs biting them of course. Goddamn it.

The door to the stage was propped open, and I told mom I could get a ride back. Agenda: Talk to Autumn. Talk to Big Davey. Build awesome sets. Don’t freak out on anyone. Bleed.

I brushed my earlobe with my fingers, squared my shoulders, and went through the door and up the stairs to the stage. The stage that was every bit as wonderful as before, letting me know that I was still here to build things. That I could build anything.

As I came in there were two big things happening. The big big thing happening was that the platforms and flats that would make up the house and hay loft were being assembled. At this time it was three platforms and three flats on the ground, while people put wheels on the platforms, built the braces to hang the flats on them, and got ready to raise the hay loft platform.

The smaller big thing was that a beam of light was shining in from the house and illuminating a piece of luaun. Autumn knelt in front of it drawing something. Gotta start somewhere.

I went over to see what she was doing, observing silently. The beam of light was coming from one of the incredibly expensive moving heads (of which we had two). The luaun had been hung on a fly bar so that the image the light projected onto it could be traced. Which is what Autumn was doing. With a carpenter’s pencil she was digging in the outline of a tree. This seemed like a very safe way for someone who could not draw a tree to make good trees.

I didn’t say so.

The tree also didn’t look much like a tree, so much as a big bunch of sticks.

I didn’t say that either.

Instead I went to the shop to find my own carpenter’s pencil, slice the tip sharp with a few strokes from a knife, and started outlining the tree next to her.

_oOo

Over the next five minutes Autumn and I had a dozen conversations. Each was creatively drafted, full of emotion and deep meaning. Around half of them ended in a disastrous screaming match, three ended with us together on the floor, there was one each for both of our murders, and one in which we ran away together to Nicaragua, got caught up with the contras, robbed a bank to pay them back, found out the bank was run by the Swedish Mafia and fled again. She shot me in the back as I was getting on the helicopter in Ibiza. It was raining of course.

I probably should have shared a few of these conversations with the person I was supposed to be having them with. But Autumn wasn’t talking out loud, and I hadn’t come up with a way to open my mouth.

Then we finished the tree outline and Autumn said, without turning to face me, “Bring the bar down so we can hang the next one, and I’ll put holes in it.”

If there was any time for honesty, these was probably something like it. “I don’t have the slightest idea how to do that.” She groaned and her eye roll started at the base of her neck, when I threw out the peace offering, “Would you please show me?”

Autumn put her pencil in her pocket, and took me over to the rigging lines. Showed me how to unlock them, called, “Fly bar one coming in down stage!” and tugged on the rope until the bar was down at my chest height.

She did all of this with a maximum of bitch.

While she went off to put mounting holes in a piece of luaun, I went to the tree we had just drawn. It had been suspended from the bar on two lines around a foot long. Each line looped into a carabiner, and I very carefully unscrewed each and unclipped them. The luaun flopped to the floor and I surprised myself by catching it in my hand and swinging it behind me.

Autumn stepped up with a new piece, she’d slammed a drill through two corners. As we put it on the caribiners she stopped for a second and looked at me. I had just enough time to make eye contact and wonder what expression my face should have, when she ducked her head. “Think you can manage to raise the rod?” The words were a challenge but the tone was softer. Not chastened, not contrite. Almost…mortified.

Her body language had changed too. Really embarrassed. I still don’t know what is going on, and until I do, all of this is completely normal. I’m acting how a normal person acts and I’m pretending that she is too.

I put my hand on the fly bar, “This is bar one, right?”

She nodded and had the weird feeling that I was only ever going to speak to the side of her face for the rest of time.

“Fly bar one coming up, downstage!” I called, as I pulled on the rope. I locked it into place and went back to draw trees. I will pretend this is normal until I make it normal again.

_oOo

It didn’t get normal again. After an hour we had four trees done, I had put in a tampon, and there was a small break.

Regular Dave checked his phone, “No games today?”

As a collective, us women shook our heads.

He sighed. “Okay, well Susan will be out for another forty five minutes, so let’s take a smoke break and get back with it.”

Outside in the smog Autumn still wasn’t looking or talking to me. Bree and Sarah both said something about my new earrings, which made me feel nice. I’m pretty sure that made Autumn feel awful because she drew in on herself and sucked down half a cigarette.

Big Davey touched my ear, which made me flinch, and then I had to consciously relax as he finger the little T-rexes. He could look without touching right?

Apparently not. Wee David fingered them too. Autumn was never going to talk to me again.

Or not. “Do you know how to switch the gobo on a moving head?” She asked. We were back inside at the bar. We had just pulled the fourth tree off.

I shook my head.

She smiled at something over my shoulder and said, “Okay, come with me. This will be fun.”

We went down the stairs and into the house, and up the aisle to the ladder at the back. Autumn let me climb first, telling me I didn’t have to call out. Patrons get upset when you’re yelling in their ear during a show. I tapped the ladder any way. Two taps, and eye contact with a smile from Autumn.

Then an oof and a gasp, sometime around when my knee was at her head height going up.

I turned, “Did I kick you?!”

“No, I think I just got some of your hair in my face.”

I reached for my head, and said for the second time that day, “My hair isn’t that long.”

“Well then I guess it was your tail. Try to keep it out of my face.” She laughed. I laughed. Very funny joke. Did nothing for the tension between us.

I got up the ladder to see the inside of the booth, where every available surface was covered in graffiti. There were two office chairs, who knows how they had gotten them up the ladder, but everything else was cheep wood, painted black. A single desk ran the length of the booth and on it were five different boards, each covered in 200 dials, knobs, switches, buttons, and sliders, for a total of approximately 1,000,000,000,000 things that could go wrong at any one time. There was also an ancient computer showing the Windows 98 screen saver. It’s keyboard was tucked on its side and who knows where its mouse was.

Autumn batted my tail out of her face as she came up through the trap door, “That thing is a menace.”

“What is?” I looked behind me and couldn’t see what she was talking about.

“Your—never mind.” She pulled the keyboard toward her and hit the space bar. “Aisling, meet Horizon. Horizon sucks.” On the screen were around 20 different boxes all showing 0% and a bunch of blank number spaces. Autumn scrolled down until she found one box that read 100%. It was #57, for all the good that information will do you. With that light (it must have been a light) selected she slapped a bunch of keys so fast I couldn’t see, until one of the not blank slots read: Value: 2

We both looked to the stage where the light on the piece of luaun was now an entirely different tree.

There was a tense moment where neither of us said anything and then we both spoke at once, stopped, gestured for the other to go first and spoke again. Autumn held up a hand then and said, “Let me. I’m sorry I acted like I did.”

Which is where I decided that, if she wasn’t going to hate me for the end of time, I could stand to stick up for myself. “It’s really not cool to try and force me into some body mod, and then get angry when I don’t do it.”

She bit her lips. Clearly I was supposed say I was sorry too. “Then why did you do it.”

“Not because of you. I just…” I felt the prickles behind my eyes, “I just wanted the earrings. And if you had shown them to me and asked…”

Now Autumn was crying too, and we were hugging and both of us were blubbering.

We calmed down enough to get back onto the stage and keep making trees. Things weren’t normal again, and might not ever be. But we were both okay with that.

Tail

I rolled out of bed, and checked to see if I had a penis that morning. That morning I didn’t. Score. Wait, no. That meant is was still a girl. Yeah, but a girl without a penis.

Out of the shower I stood in front of my closet and stared for a long time at The Outfit. I could have worn The Outfit a long time ago. I had not for one simple reason. Ever seen Lysistrata? That reason. Probably a worse problem in a dress than in a toga though.

But I hadn’t had a penis for three days, so it was time. I went back into the bathroom and got little red hairs all over my razor. Legs smooth and tampon changed, I put on the boots and modeled them in the mirror.

Oh, that was too good. I grabbed my phone and took a picture. Too good, but not too good enough. The mirror was full length, and I could ditch my panties, turn my hips this way to model the boots, arm holding phone covers the breasts…

I wasn’t dumb to the situation, sending this to a friend would be distribution of child pornography. So whoever I send it to has to be either very trustworthy, or my greatest enemy.

I put my panties back on while I decided that a little Photoshop to strip out identifying features would also be a good idea. I mean, as good as this terrible idea could get.

Dress on, I took a few more selfies. With this kind of start my day was going to be great!

_oOo

Autumn kissed me good morning, and we spent the ride to school with her hand riding up my bare thigh. If it hadn’t been shark week and I wasn’t terrified of a car crash…

We saw the rest of the crew outside the auditorium, and everyone told me how great I looked. The dress was weird on the back of my thighs though. People kept tugging on it while they walked past. Flipping it aside.

Time passed, I looked great for all of it.

_oOo

I was in design, sitting on a stool and working on icon designs. It was easiest to just sketch them out, from a huge list that Wee David had sent. Some of them were easy enough, like “kiss” or “timer” or “stop”. Those I had flown through and wouldn’t need much speculation on. Others were harder. How did you sum up “titty gropes” into a simple 32x32 image for example? Assuming I could avoid anyone’s attention long enough to get some ideas down in the first place.

I had had some difficulty with the stool and the dress. Getting the dress part under my butt had been easy, smooth it aside while I sat down. But it kept riding up whenever I moved. Eventually it would be bunched at my back, and I could feel the edge of the stool on my thighs. I’d have to get up and sort it out.

I was almost used to walking in the boots, and the way the heel caught on the edge of the stool and hooked it while I sat made me feel… adult. Like really adult. I pretended as I drew that I was working at a big art firm, working on the hottest new app.

There was a snicker behind me, and I turned to see everyone at the group of tables against the wall turn back to what they were doing.

Dammit, my dress had ridden up again. I got off my stool to adjust it when one of the other girls in the class brushed my shoulder.

I turned to her to hear how great I looked, and instead she whispered, “Everyone here is really understanding you know. You don’t have to hide your tail.”

Not having any idea what she was talking about, I took a moment to take her in. She had a collar on, with a tag, so not like a BDSM thing. She was wearing white and black ears and corduroy overalls with a white and black ringed tail safety-pinned to the butt. I would say she was probably a ring-tailed fox, and was trying to remember whether they were in monochrome, while I smoothed out my dress and felt hair.

Not like, a hair. Like a big mess of hair. Like some part of me, that was mostly hair, was sticking out of the bottom of my dress.

My brain braked like a semi on black ice, and I could feel the trailer start to tip. I said, “I don’t have a tail,” while I moved…some muscles. I didn’t know what muscles they were at the time, and could not explain to you what moving them felt like. What I knew then is that I had never had those muscles before, at least in any way I could feel. And I knew that if I did have a tail, then that was exactly what moving it would feel like.

The hair brushed over my hand and away and I felt the expression on my face freeze starting from the mouth and then working its way up my face. When the stillness reached my eyes I managed to say, very politely, “Please excuse me. I have to go to the bathroom.”

_oOo

Don’t run. Don’t run. Don’t run. My boots made a rhythmic tap tap tap on the tiles as I walked very calmly to the bath room. Then very calmly opened the door and very calmly stepped inside. Very calmly I leaned the door closed and then in a panic I ran for the mirror, nearly tripping on the heels while I hitched up my dress.

Dress above my waist I turned. No tail. Whew. Okay, then I guess moving these muscles like this causes noth—fuck!

There is was, wagging around. No, not wagging. What did cat’s tails do? Swish? It wasn’t really swishing either. It was doing whatever monkey tails did. That’s what it was most like. I tried to get it to coil and the whole thing disappeared again, from the base up which should have been impossible.

Well. More impossible.

Okay though, that was how I got rid of it—nope it was back. Whatever I had done the first time had sort of worked, the tip was looped over into a coil. Maybe I can move it this way to get rid of it? The tail moved in the opposite direction I wanted, and stayed stubbornly real.

I dropped the hem of my dress and put my face in my hands. Breathed deep. Breathed deeper. Breathe in. Slowly. Slowly. Breathe. Breathe in. Slowly. Slowly. Breathe.

I needed to tell someone about this. I needed to tell someone about this who could keep a secret. I needed to tell someone about this who could keep a secret and had the period off.

Goddamn it. I texted Big Davey, “Okay, we can talk.”

_oOo

I spent the next five minutes trying not to flex my tail, while flexing my tail. I clutched my phone and tried to stay calm.

Without any preamble Big Davey brushed through the bathroom door. “Do you want to stand or sit?”

“Out!” I shouted at him.

Big Davey put up his hands but didn’t make a move until I stamped my foot. He backed out through the door and called, “Much less private out here.”

I dug in my backpack for my lipstick, please don’t ask me why. This was hard enough and even a little makeup was sure to complicate our communication. Only that communication was already fucked and I needed some armor. Lipstick make woman strong.

He was leaning against the wall outside when my boots made me stalk out of the bathroom. “Okay, you can come in, but I need you to not be gross.”

He shrugged then diffidently followed me inside. I had practice now. Knowing the damn thing existed, I could start to feel where it was. I turned my back to Big Davey and lifted the hem of my dress over the top of my panties.

“You know I’ve see—whoa.”

“Seen what? Seen my ass before? Or seen my tail?”

There was a long pause while I stared at the wall. I tried to move the thing and felt the hair brush the back of my knee. Then there were two fingers, right where my tail met my spine. It made me jump in the boots and I let out a startled gasp. Do NOT get an erection, Aisling. Do NOT. It hadn’t been arousing, just very shocking.

Big Davey stepped away and brushed my dress down. “Okay. Well compared to your dick this is somewhat easier to deal with.”

I rounded on him, “Easier to deal with? I have a tail.”

He put his hands on my shoulders and I realized just how badly I needed a hug. “You have a tail. No big deal.” There was a sound out in the hall and we both started. “Lets go somewhere we can figure this out.”

_oOo

“I’m having a serious crisis and you take me to a library?” I whispered to Big Davey as we strode through the door. I had grabbed my backpack in Design and explained to Mr. Jacobs that I was having a “personal emergency”. He took one look at the hot young woman in front of him, his 50 year old experience came up with the worst he’d been told, and he excused me.

Big Davey and I threaded our way through the stacks and he whispered back, “Can you think of a better place to go and think?”

I couldn’t and didn’t want to say so.

“Besides, getting caught together in the bathroom here and they aren’t going to call our parents.”

“Stop making good points,” I grabbed his shoulder. Big Davey turned and I gave him a quick, chaste, kiss on the lips. “I owe you big.”

“Well I haven’t actually done anything to help yet. But I’m getting some ideas about how you’ll repay me.” We found a quiet study corner and sat. “Okay. First thing to figure out, does is disappear and reappear?”

I could feel it inside my dress, but I had a feeling if I moved it…no not that way…but that way—that got it. “I think I managed to make it disappear.”

Big Davey gave an apologetic shrug, sat forward and ran his hand over the small of my back and then down further. “I can’t feel it. Does this mean it’s another fourth dimension thing?”

“What else could it be?”

“Have you called the alien?”

“I don’t exactly have his phone number.” I shifted in my seat and the tail was back.

“I can see it!”

I turned. I had managed to get my tail around the real space of my dress fabric. Now it was sticking out of the hole in the back of the chair. “Shit,” I whispered.

“No, don’t move it. This works for us.” Big Davey reached out and thought better of it. “Does it feel weird when I touch it?”

“It feels weird everywhere, dude. This whole thing is weird.” I froze and stood stalk still while he ran his hand down the length of my tail.

“How weird was that?”

“I don’t have a way to put it into words you would understand. ‘Discussion would be meaningless without a common frame of reference.’”

“Yeah those are words.”

“Just… I can see why cat’s like it, but it makes me feel very vulnerable.”

“You should try sucking dick.”

“I have. Yours. Now I need you to put it back in your pants and focus for me.” Let’s just call the atmosphere weird.

“Okay, we’ll make clear that no one can touch your tail.”

“No, Autumn can touch it. Wait, make clear to who?”

Big Davey sat forward in the midst of the smell of books, elbows on knees, “Aisling, we can probably keep your disappearing/reappearing dick a secret from the others. I can help with that as much as I can. But this? Can you even wear pants with the thing?”

I sighed and felt tear prickles on my eyes. “I can just move it out of space. Keep it there.”

“Okay, and when it comes out?”

I closed my eyes and didn’t start when he brushed a tear off my freckles. “Okay, we’ll tell them. But only them. Meantime.”

“In the mean time, I have an idea.” Big Davey pulled a safety pin from a row of a dozen that were aesthetically punking up his army pants. He bent over my back and I leaned forward. I could feel the pin slide in to place right where my back became my tail. Over the next several seconds he had used another pin, a pen cap, and a length of headphone wire, to fashion… something. “These headphones were dead anyway. Okay, so we just paint that mess black and tap it to your forehead.”

“What in god’s name are your talking about?”

“See, you just have a tech mod tail. You 3d printed it and added servos, and the whole thing is controlled with this little EEG right here. Like those cat ears that they sold at comic con that one year.”

“You’re saying we’re going to disguise my tail as some nerd core fashion?”

“It’s probably the best idea I’ve had so far. Or did you want to try cutting it off.”

“Okay. Once I can get the tail under control it won’t be a thing. No, please don’t cut it off.” I ran my hands through my hair. “It’s great too, no one can touch it because the parts are very delicate.”

“And it’s a prototype, so you don’t feel like making anyone else one.”

“Good, yeah.”

We both stood and I unmussed my dress, feeling my tail on the outside.

“Then on Wednesday we can use game time to tell the crew about it.”

“Yeah. Fuck.”

Arangements

I wish that I had blanked out how the rest of that school day went. I haven’t. The two of us got the headset all fixed up, made a compelling back story with character development, three act structure, and tragedy. Then we didn’t use any of it because people looked at my tail, saw the safety pin, and figured it out.

Everyone asked if they could touch it, and by everyone I mean two people. I explained why they could not and they didn’t. Crisis (nominally) averted.

I went to AP English and sat in my place in the circle, letting my tail flip out of the little hole in the seat. That actually felt kind of nice. Kind of right.

We talked about the end of the Odyssey, because we were at that point. If you don’t know about how the Odyssey ends, let me fill you in real quick.

Odysseus comes home, where suitors have been thirsting for his wife for 20 years. Athena disguises him to get him into his palace, and when it’s time to reveal himself he and his son lock all their maids away, and kill every last one of the suitors. Then they unlock the maids, show them the bloody hall and say, “clean up all this mess.” The maids do that and then Odysseus has them hanged. He kills all the maids.

I had some things to say about this.

“So the suitors have been hanging around, and it’s strongly indicated that they’ve been having sex with all of the maids, right? For twenty years the maids have been getting raped, by people we’re supposed to hate.”

“Who says they were raped? Homer says they were ‘unfaithful.’” That Guy said.

“Homer doesn’t say that they were raped,” I speak directly to him, “Because there was no word in Attic Greek for rape.” He opened his mouth and I continued, “The closest thing they had translates to ‘molestation’ and was a crime between two men. Man on man rape was a crime, but the idea that women could not consent to sex, wasn’t even in the language.”

“Bu—”

“Let me put it in words you can understand,” I told him. “There are twenty women living in your house right now, and they all want to sleep with you—” That guy quickly hid a smirk that said “yeah, probably.” “—and they all look and act like Lena Dunham.” His face fell visibly, and then I saw the calculating look I knew was coming. I knew it was coming because I knew how he thought. How I would have thought. “You’re thinking that you can wear a blindfold? Well they all have vagina dentata. Any time they want sex with you, which is all the time, it hurts like razors on your dick. That’s what being a woman is like. All the time.”

Mr. Markle asked me not to use swears in class for maybe the eighth time, and I told him I wouldn’t as I tried to cross my tail behind my back. Then he said, “Today we actually have a word for rape, and legal language, and it seems like most people understand it’s wrong. Have we come very far?”

“‘I moved on her like a bitch.’” Is all I had to say.

_oOo

I dodged That Guy on the way out of class again. Man he really wanted to talk to me. Oh well fuck him (Please punctuate that sentence in in any way you feel like.)

Autumn and I listened to Kesha on the way home. I know. Hear me out.

“It’s her first album since she started suing her producer.” I told Autumn.

“I heard about something to do with her manager?”

“Her producer,” I corrected and moved my tail out of space so I could sit comfortably. That was getting easier. “She sued him to get out of her contract on account of he’s a complete piece of shit.”

“And this is Ke$ha without him?”

“How did you pronounce a dollar sign in her name? And no, this is actually Kesha, no dollar sign. She couldn’t get out of the contract so she still owes them six albums.” I was queuing the song as we left the parking lot but not ready to hit play. “But that cocksucker wasn’t involved with any of it, and has actually left the label.” Now that I was a cocksucker I could put a lot more derision into the word. Weird how that worked. “Anyway, okay? Listen to this. This is Kesha without doctor Luke.”

I hit play on Woman, which is very much a pop song. It’s a really good pop song, but it’s undeniably pop. And it has a special place in my heart because the refrain ends with “I’m a mother fucker.”

Autumn nodded her head along with it, because it’s a head nodding song. When it ended she said, “You know I hate Pop, right?”

“Did you hate that?”

“I didn’t, only it was Pop, so I did.” There was some kind of traffic on 225 and Bruce pulled to a stop.

“Okay, definitely a Pop song,” I agreed. “Almost more Ke$ha than Ke$ha was. But you can see what she can do without that cocksucker holding her back. Okay? Now this is from the same album.” And I played Godzilla. I’m not going to ruin your first listen to Godzilla for you. It’s great, and if you haven’t heard it before you should listen to it. Right now.

Autumn listened to the whole thing, stunned. When it was over, “That was nerdcore.”

“Yeah.”

“That was a nerdcore song.”

“I know.”

“That was a nerdcore song, by Kesha?”

“It was and is.” We crept past a black SUV that had plowed into a little red hatchback and ripped their car in two.

“Play it again.”

I played it again and then one more time before we went to the last track on the album. As Autumn pulled up at my house I grabbed my pack, “I don’t know what we’ll see from her in the future, but I have a lot of hope. Listen to the whole album.”

“I will,” Autumn kissed me goodbye and took off.

I unfurled my tail back into space and tried to see if I could wag it while I came up the steps. I couldn’t, not really. It was too flexible, more like a cat’s tail than a dog’s. Wagging it from the base just make it swish. I didn’t really want a tail that wagged, so I was okay with that. Come to that, I didn’t really want a tail, but a tail had been foisted on me. I guess it was a good thing I couldn’t wag it.

I unlocked the door and hunted the house for an alien. Mr. Glome had a weird habit of showing up when this kind of shit went wrong. A minute of peaking in doors and around corners yielded nothing, so I sat at my desk and wrote it a note.

_oOo

“Dear Mr. Glome,” I wrote. “My guess is that all humans have a 4th dimensional tail. You probably see them waving about all the time?”

I waved my tail a little bit. Then I took off my dress and my panties and put my back to the mirror. It was furry. Sort fine fur that was exactly the color of my hair. Ginger red. Let’s see. This is…left. And this is…disappeared and reappeared on the right. So if I put my hand out like this…okay, and then…nope it’s gone. I had been trying to wrap it around my wrist. I was pretty sure it was prehensile, if I could just make my 3d mind work in 4 dimensions.

“You are right of course, Ms. McKinnon. Oh dear, has something happened?”

I picked up my pen and practiced not writing swear words. “Yes something happened. The dick was bad enough, but I really need this gone.”

I waited for his reply and practice curling the damn thing. Wait, that was surprisingly easy. Don’t need lessons to curl your tail. You just think of it curling. Kind of.

“I’m afraid I’m not a surgeon. Even if I was, I wouldn’t be certified to perform on human anatomy. No alien is.”

“You just did a big ‘ol surgery on my gender lobe!”

“That was trauma surgery. An emergency. The performing has already received a medal for their work. I think an elective is beyond their skills.”

I forgot about my tail and put my head in my hands. “What are you telling me?”

“I cannot remove any part of your body in a way that you would find satisfactory.”

“Okay. Fine. Will you please look at it any way?”

“Of course, Ms. McKinnon. I can meet with you on Friday at 6:37 PM. Where would you like to meet?”

What better place to go to think, indeed. “I’ll meet you at the Aurora Public Library then. Science fiction section.”

“How very appropriate. I will see you then.”

I put my pen down and got some clothes back on, which was great because my father called then and I didn’t want to see his name on my phone while not wearing underwear. That’s a completely normal reaction to having your father call. You’re weird.

_oOo

I looked at the phone and saw it was him and before I could decide whether or not to answer it I had already answered it. And before I could decide to hang up I had put it to my ear. And before I could decide how I was going to answer I had said in a cheerful voice, “Hi, dad!” The fuck is wrong with me?

“Hey Ash,” he was just as cheerful. Maybe more. “How’s it going?”

I felt the muscles around my jaw tighten hard enough to crack my teeth, “Everything’s just great. Started a whole new life.” Without you.

“I’m gonna be in Denver on Friday for work, do you want to tell me all about it? I’ve got some of the books you left here, I was gonna drop them by.”

Ooh. Books. Wait, then I have to see him. “I have some things to do on Friday.” My father made an upset noise. Or maybe a disappointed noise. It annoyed me an made me want to change my mind at the same time. “But we can meet up afterward, maybe?”

“You sound busy…”

“I’m not. I’m really not. We can meet. Do you want to go play video games? Or a comic book shop?” Dammit, what did my dad like to do? “Or get coffee or something?”

“No, we can play video games. If you think you can make it.”

“There’s Nickle ‘a Play near here. It’s like Chuck E Cheese except you don’t have to eat any of the pizza. And they have arcade games for a nickle.”

“Okay, let’s do that. Friday at seven? I have meetings at the DTC but we should be done by six thirty.”

“Let’s say seven thirty.” I should be able to get my tail examined in that time.

“Sure Ash. I’ll see you then,” and he closed the line.

I put the phone down with a feeling like I didn’t know what I was feeling or what I should feel. I opened up my laptop and got on to Discord. One thing was for sure. I wasn’t going to see him alone. “Who wants to meet an alien, and then back me up with my piece-of-shit father and play some video games on Friday?” I wrote.