Jess Stone had breasts. He had been like this his entire teen life not quite fitting in anywhere that he had lived and at the same time he hadn’t really had the chance to. His folks moved around a lot with his dad being a hydrological engineer but they were slightly afraid of what might happen to Jess if he attended school. Some people just didn’t get it or wanted too. Jess was now attending a new school when he decided to change things...

Only it was everyone else that was getting changed!

 

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Image Credit: anime couple

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*A year before Tilting At Air Conditioners…
 
 
Jess rolled over with a hateful look at the monkey. His dad had got him the thing as a joke and it banged away at the cymbals and screeched eyes rolling and grinning.

It was way too early for this.

He reached up over his bed and fumbled around until he found the shinai there on the rack and pulled it off and sat up and used the bamboo sword to whack the monkey.

“Asshole…” The monkey flew across the room and banged three more times before stopping. Jess let out a long breathy sigh and fell back onto his bed with a flop.

“What a great way to start my first year in real school.”

He rolled out of bed and rubbed at his chest. Yep it was starting; they were getting sore as he felt the buds there under the tiny bit of fat layers and his nipples. He walked to the bathroom and looked in the mirror.

Another sigh.

“My brain needs coffee.”

He turned the shower on getting the temperature right first before getting in. back first to the water he had made the mistake of having showered and blasting his breasts with the heavy spray.

Yes Jess Stone had breasts. Or was starting them, he had a gynocomastia but it didn’t matter to Jess. He had been like this his entire teen life not quite fitting in anywhere that they had lived and at the same time he hadn’t really had the chance to. His folks not only moved around a lot with his dad being a hydrological engineer but they were slightly afraid of what might happen to Jess if he attended school. Some people just didn’t get it or wanted too. Add in that he was baby faced and pale skinned and they assumed things.

And Jess had become very oddly opinioned on his condition. He’d said no to the whole idea of surgery and he’d embraced it in his own way.

But his dad got a full time job here in Chicago working for the city and he was more than tired of being held back for being different and sheltered because he was different. So he’d put his foot down and he told his parents that he was going to school.

Jess towelled off and headed into his room to get changed. Racer backed sports bra and boxer briefs. Tank top and a Tokyo-Giants baseball jersey. That might get some people irate but Jess didn’t really care. Sports socks and cammo patterned canvas sneakers that matched his army green used combat jacket.

He filled his pockets. Multi-tool, hockey tape, yo-yo, hacky sack ball, memory cards, I-pod, PsP, Smartphone, tissues, wet wipes from KFC, Hot sauce, Soy sauce packs, ketchup, plum sauce, vinegar, sugar packs, coffee, teabags…Jess had lots of pockets and he’d been all over and he found that there was a lot of things you could do just by having odd little things on hand…like packs of condiments, wipes, ect.

He carried more stuff too like a Tide stain pen, hotel soap; a sham-wow….it was all useful.

How many times have you wanted salt and pepper? How good are fresh hot MacDonald’s fries with vinegar on them if you like it on your chips? Hot sauce for your KFC?

Jess even had a mini-flashlight, mini Swiss army knife, nail clippers and a laser pointer on his key chain.

He grabbed his jacket and his shoulder bag. Not a purse, but a bigger heavier bag for his lap top and tablet plus a few notebooks and some other school items and a few more things and he headed out to get to go to school.

He got into his car and turned the engine over, he had scrimped and saved to get enough to pay half on his beat up 1969 Grand Prix…it was a classic car and it was running too, the body needed a lot of work but the worst stuff had been patched and sanded and primed and he even got a couple of coats of paint onto it without too many runs.

Besides a really good couple of coats of wax buffed in really helped too.

The neighbors had bitched about that, apparently in middle classed suburbia they frowned on stuff like you setting up a self made spray tent. Mr. Pope one of their neighbors tried getting them fined by the city for putting up the tent.

That was one of the first air-conditioners he had tilted with since they moved here. Trans phobia was the second…his folks had gotten grief from some of the conservatism types since they all knew his parents had a boy but just go out jogging with a bra top on or mow the lawn in one.

There were a lot of people that were offended by him not hiding the fact he was different. The local kids wanted nothing to do with him much. Okay some of the girls weren’t too bad and some of the problem girls in the area talked to him likely to prove a point or something but he never judged them for doing that. Hey if his garage was a place they could just hang out then fine.

But them doing anything seemed to peeve off some of the neighbors. Like doing their own lawns. And the fact they didn’t use the lawn care companies, or spray their yard full of pesticides to make everything green.

No violets or butter cups no lawn clover and definitely no dandelions. And they had lots in their yard since Jess’s dad really didn’t believe in it.

Another air conditioner.

Now what’s meant by that is Jess, Jess had a thing for life’s bullshit, for peoples bullshit. He just couldn’t take things. He wasn’t a shit disturber usually but like the thing with the spray tent and the nosy neighbor. He went to city hall and spent the day getting all the information that states under city law that any home owner can maintain a non-permanent structure for five working days.

He got copies, and had them notarized and put them in every mailbox on the block.

And like the uproar about his breasts…it was fun to see people being assholes about that while wearing a pink breast cancer t-shirt…and just to further comeuppance he wore that shirt without a bra.

And when one of the neighbors was complaining about the yard he put up a sign he made with the computer with the flowers from the yard. “We’re all beautiful, not a green parking lot.” She saw the sign and got in a huff and left.

Jess liked to tilt at air conditioners. He wasn’t some crusader into politics or an enviro-nut but he was tired after being misunderstood in some of the places that he’s lived and he’d been such a fan of fiction and science fiction, fantasy and comics that Jess was done taking things just like he was done hiding.

But these little challenges that had popped up now and then in his new suburban life he had taken to them by saying this was tilting at air conditioners in reference to Tilting at Windmills from Don Quixote.

And so far it had been a good way to live his life, one thing at a time…be fearless and respectable, charge these challenges that life throws at you.

Jess was a firm believer too in one of Dr. Phil’s sayings…yes the TV shrink and even though jess usually found him an idiot there was truth in. “You teach people how to treat you.”

It wasn’t a long drive to school and he had time to stop at Fairplay Foods the closest supermarket to where he lived in the edge of Lawndale. He went here because it was a good place to shop too and there was usually something that he could get.

Like The loaf of bread on sale for .99 cents and some tomatoes for .48 cents per pound, now at home that’d be enough for him because one could do pretty good for a meal or two with just a nice toasted tomato sandwich but he wanted some stuff for school and he settled on getting 4 cans of that Progresso canned soup that was on sale for 4 cans for five dollars. That’d do he had a can opener and the rest he could get at school.

Other that stopping for a coffee he pulled into school around the same time the busses started to arrive and he locked up his car and set the alarm he bought for it and headed into the school.

He’d been getting looks ever since he’d pulled in with the muscle car and even more now that he was seen. He was getting sized up, it’d been the same with every town or city he’d moved to and he made his way to the office to register. The main thing was the meeting with the school’s guidance councilor and he was trying to keep an open mind and not treat them with the whole stereotype that the job had been saddled with.

Mrs. Kirkston was in her forties he figured and still decent looking especially for a woman that has an office job. She was looking over his things after he had printed then out. He had them on a flash drive.

“You didn’t bring the originals?”

“I’m mostly home schooled these are the originals in the sense that we don’t often print things out. Well except the extra curriculars and the letters those are scanned in but you’d have to take one of my mothers limbs to get those after the trouble we had getting them back.”

“I can see that given how you’ve moved. Is there anything special you need to do or have done with your medical condition?”

“Uhm no, I’m still a boy despite the budding evidence.”

“Are you sure, we have been trying to get a gender neutral bathroom set up here.”

“You’d be better off with handicapped access bathrooms.”

“Well we’re trying to get funding for those too but we really have to try to keep up with the times and the LGBTQ factor’s growing.”

“Well have you asked these kids if they want a special bathroom?”

“Well no but we should show that we’re sensitive to their needs, like yourself and your situation Jessie.”

“Well if you’re serious about it then don’t, treat them like how they are presenting and let them be like all the other kids.”

“Really?”

“Really.” He smiled at her. “Sometimes being too Pc is just dumb, people get upset that LGBTQ seem to get special treatment and this isn’t its equal. Argue that and get the funding for the disabled bathrooms.”

She smiled at him. “What about your case?”

“Mrs. Kirkston none of the things I’ll be doing in the bathroom will require me to be taking my shirt off.”

“But you’re taking gym. Is that a good idea?”

“It’ll be okay.”

“Some kids can be less than understanding?”

“It’ll be okay or it won’t having gym just lets them know sooner than later eventually it’ll get out.”

“I could argue the point that you shouldn’t take the class.”

“You could but do we really want to get into all of that with everything you’ve got going on already?”

She looked at him intently for a few minutes. “Okay, I’m getting you to sign a waver that you were counselled against it though.”

“I respect the need to cover your backside ma’am.”

She actually laughed. “You’re a very easy young man to get along with Jessie; I usually don’t talk about policy with the students like this.”

“You should you might get surprised.”

“I just might.”

They continued talking and going over his classes and what he’d be taking and some of the schools teams and programs before he was done and the next student was called in. he had his map and a few leaflets from the various school teams and clubs and the welcoming edition of the school paper.

Arms full he moved through the chaos of first of year start up looking for his locker and getting looks and a few whispers and stowing the books he’d gotten from the school store for his classes.

“Tokyo giants? What kind of bullshit’s that?”

Jess looked up to see a couple of guys leaning on lockers in varsity jackets. He thought hmm, this must be the jock element that you keep hearing about. “It’s a baseball team from Japan.”

“This isn’t Japan its America.”

“And…your point is.”

“Why you wearing it huh?”

“Because I like the team.”

One of the three the biggest walked up. “I don’t like it or your attitude, take it off.”

“Uhm…no.” Jess stepped right up into the guys face making him blink.

“Take it off if you know what’s good for you.”

“Take off your sneakers.”

“What? Huh?”

“Take off your sneakers they’re likely made for cheap in a sweatshop so they offend me. Take them off.”

“I’m not going to take off my goddamned sneakers; you have any idea who I am?”

“Nope and I don’t really care. I know what you are and heckle and jeckle there behind you?”

“Huh? What are you talking about?”

“You’re a scared little asshole that needs to make some rep at the start of the new year to make sure that everyone knows just how big and tough he is and that he can walk around with all this bullshit and swagger and claim his place in the food chain because it’s likely the only thing you guys know is how to play with balls.”

He grabbed Jess by the shirt and slammed him into the lockers. Jess had been expecting this or something like it and he grabbed a crotch full of jock and squeezed hard. The jock yelled and dropped and jess followed him to his knees. The other two moved in and he shoved the big guy backwards into them and stood up and went into an aikido stance.

They looked very unsure of jumping in now and pulled their friend away. “C’mon Keith we gotta get to class.”

The big jock called Keith pointed at him. “After school four o’clock.” Then gave him the evil stare at him for at least half of his trip down the hallway. People were looking at Jess and there were murmurs and whispers and he got his books and headed to class.

Most of his morning classes were class and course prep, the stuff they’s need, lab fees and lists of stuff that they needed and the usual chaos of the first days of school, or so he’d seen on some of the more realistic TV shows.

And there were whispers about him and Keith…even to the point of he jumped them or had kicked all of their asses, and even one that said he was from Japan and he knew martial arts.

Lunch came and he went out to his car and got his things and went to the cafeteria and got a tray and some things of butter and salt and pepper then got even more stares by a bunch of people as he opened the can of beef stew and right there in the cafeteria and used one of the bowls there and microwaved his lunch. And even just asked the kitchen staff to borrow a knife for a few minutes and sliced up a tomato on a saucer and thanked them for the knife and went over to find himself a seat.

There were a lot of people looking at him and he just smiled and took a seat by this pretty girl with streaks of pink in her hair and lots of cheap bangles and stuff. She blinked at him in surprise.

“Don’t sit here.” She said here voice soft but he could tell she wasn’t a girl, not biologically.

“Sorry miss, I didn’t know it was taken.”

“It’s not miss its Johnny.” She looked down ant her food.

“Looks like a Miss to me.”

“I’m a guy.”

“Really?”

She stared at him and he sat down anyway and looked her in the eyes back for awhile and speared a slice of tomato and ate it.

“People are going to talk…you’re going to beat you up.”

Jess shrugged. “They’ll have to take a number there’s a line.”

“What?” She looked confused.

Jess pointed with his fork. “Bluto there along with heckle and jeckle seemed to take offense to my baseball jersey.”

“Who?”

Jess rolled his eyes. Didn’t they play cartoons anymore here? “Keith and his two sidekicks didn’t like that I wasn’t being American enough for them and we had an incident and now I’m taking it that I’m supposed to meet the three of them afterschool at four to have a fight or something?”

“Oh you’re that Martial arts guy.”

“No…I only know enough to look fake really but they don’t know that and since they didn’t seem too keen on mixing it up there and then…they plan on doing it after school.”

He smiled at Keith who was glaring at him since noticing that he’d been pointed at with Jess’s fork.

“You really don’t care that I’m not a real girl?”

“Nope, are you transgendered?”

“I don’t know…maybe…I like guys and I thought I was gay but I like the clothes too because they make me feel more me but it’s not like I hate my stuff it’s just…I’m a freak I guess.”

“You’re no more a freak then anyone else here Johnny.”

“Oh sure, so I’m normal then.” Her voice was bitter.

“No one, no one is normal, they’re just really good at one…lying to themselves and two…lying to other people. You’re actually on the better half of normal.”

“Yeah, sure…”

“No, you’re being honest.”

“Oh yeah and that’s worked out so well for me. People hate me here like they did at my last school.”

“Don’t let them win.”

“Easy for you to say, you’re normal.”

“Well yeah sometimes it’s really easy to talk about stuff and harder to put it into practice. But I’m not the popular definition of normal either. I’ve never had a hometown, never really went to school before and never been on a date or had a significant other and I’ve got breasts.”

“What…” Johnny just stared and blinked at him in shock.

“Gynocomastia, I’ve been growing my own breasts for awhile now.”

“On purpose?”

“No, it’s a gene and hormone thing.”

“Do you want to be a girl?”

“Nope.”

“Are you getting them cut off/”

“Would you?”

“God no, you’re lucky.”

“From a certain stand point yes, I’m not going to freak out about something that’s actually not that bad.”

“Not that bad?”

“Nope, I’ve lived in South Africa and I’ve seen bad…people over here have no idea what bad is.”

“I suppose.”

She watched him as did several others closest to their corner as he took out slices of bread from the loaf he bought and butter them and ate it with his beef soup and tomato slices.

“Can I ask you something…?”

“Jessie.”

“Huh?”

“My name is Jessie.”

“Oh, okay…can I still ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Did people tell you about me so we could sit together because we’re different?”

“Nope, you’re kind of the first person that I’ve really had much of a conversation with the whole day. I saw you here alone and figured why not?”

“Oh.”

“And I thought you were pretty.”

“What?” She blushed.

“I think that you’re pretty.”

“I…” she was smiling and blushing now. “God thanks Jessie; you’re the first person that’s said that.”

“Yeah but I can pretty much be sure that I’m not the only one here thinking it though.”

“No…no one’s even really talked to me other than when they have too or they have something nasty to say.”

“People treat us the way that we let them.”

“Yes Dr. Phil…”

“It just so happens to be true.”

“It’s a charisma thing if you have a high charisma score then people will tend to flock to the things that you do or say. Most people have this sort of sheep mentality and will go along with what’s popular even if they don’t believe in it just so they don’t stand out and draw the wrong attention.”

“Charisma score? You’re a gamer geek?”

“Guilty.”

“Me too or I used to be before I was getting y’know into all of this and my life fell apart.”

Jess looked around and saw a few gamer kids, how’d he know? One of them this little short slender guy with light brown hair and glasses was wearing a t-shirt with the image from the cover of the old edition D&D module adventure Death’s Ride. “You haven’t played with them?”

“I…I haven’t had the guts to really try just walking up to anyone.”

“We should sometime.”

“Jessie…’ She almost whined.

“Nope, too late we’re friends now I think. I’ll be dragging you out into the light y’know.”

“No….it burns.” She laughed and he laughed with her and they were getting lots of looks.

They actually talked the rest of lunch about the gaming that they’ve done and how hard it was to find gaming stuff in English while living in Cape town or in Japan where the general assumption of being a gamer meant video games and how the entire thing there was so different. They even talked about anime and manga of which Johnny had some knowledge of but Jess was practically fluent in. They had a great talk for most of lunch with Johnny seeming to wake up from the quiet droop she was in and talk and smile and laugh.

The got up and bussed their trays and were nearly there when a girl in a group of like-wise nicely dress girls stuck her foot out from the table they were at and tripped Johnny. Jessie let his tray go all over the girl that did it, left over soup and juices from the tomato and all and caught Johnny around her waist.

The girl shrieked. “You asshole! Look what you did!”

He set Johnny carefully on her feet and he looked at the girl. “Sorry it was an accident.”

“Like fuck it was! You dropped that tray on me on purpose!”

“No, that was just karma, you tripped Johnny so whatever happened as a result was your own fault.”

“Like fuck it was! Are you some kind of fag!?”

“No not that I’m aware of, why are you a bigot…wait you are since you seemed to have decided to trip a girl that has done nothing to you.”

“I’m not a bigot!”

“You tripped Johnny, why then?”

“Because he’s a freak!”

“Oh so you are a bigot?”

She got really red in the face and stood up and screamed at Jessie. “I’m not a bigot!!!”

“Then why did you trip her?”

“That’s not a girl!”

“Looks like one to me and according to the schools LGBTQ charter she is a girl. And you denying her the right to be herself makes you a bigot.”

“Fuck you!!!” she screamed at him.

“Uhm…no, I only date other human beings and not bigots.”

“I am a human being!”

Jessie then raised his voice.

“Then maybe just maybe you should actually try and act like it then!”

He evened his tone to the scathing one he reserved for idiots and internet trolls and rules lawyers.

“You tripping Johnny without any other provocation other than you’re being a bigot or you were just oh so caught up with being cool around your friends that you decided to pick on someone that you have the least bit of compassion towards.”

He rounded on her three friends.

“And I suppose that you three think that bullying people is cool!? That you all can feel so smug and pretty and superior that you can look down on someone who’s actually brave enough to be themselves? Hmm?”

She stood there with this look on her face that was utter shock. There was this whole expression on all of their faces of…..but…but…we’re pretty and popular…no one talks to us like this…?

She sniffled and went angry cry on him. “Fuck you!...fuck you you asshole you don’t know one damned thing about me!”

He got right in her face. “Feels good being in someone else’s shoes doesn’t it?”

He abruptly turned from the three popular girls and went to Johnny who was staring at him in this whole mixture of shock and embarrassment and tears. She was shaking too. Jessie slowly knelt and picked up all of the stuff she had dropped on the floor and put it on her tray and then stood up and offered Johnny his arm.

She stared at it and at him.

Jessie whispered. “We teach others remember?”

She nodded and sniffled and took his arm and bit her lower lip a second before holding her head up and he walked her to the trash and dish station and then out of the cafeteria.

He smiled at her as there was a smattering of applause from the gamers table and some of the not so popular and pretty much average kids were sitting. He looked back and gave the room a nod and the short gamer guy with the cool t-shirt gave him a big silly grin and a thumbs up.

He smiled at Johnny. “So Miss can I walk you to homeroom for registration?”

They got about ten feet down the hall and she turned to face him and buried her face into his chest and started to bawl…really losing it full on ugly cry.

“And they say you’re not a girl…okay…skipping class it is.”

He picked her up into his arms and carried her up the stair until he found the school library and he found a quiet spot in the stacks and sat on the floor and held her on his lap and in his arms as she cried out what felt like years of pain.