Chapter 19: A Holiday Surprise

Karen skipped lunch that day, and found a quiet place in a lounge area of the Student Union; her stomach churned as she settled onto an overstuffed chair, not far off a main lobby where a TV played CNN without sound, its words streaming along the top of the screen. She saw how the streaming letter cut off the foreheads of the TV reporters, idly watching it, but not comprehending the words. Her mind was on Mark Hamilton, running over and over the sweet times she had with him during the summer, wondering if they could ever again occur. Finally, she drew out her cell phone, held it in her left hand and punched out a text message:

“Mark. I miss you. Merry Christmas. Karen.”

She waited five whole minutes before hitting the “send” button, worrying over whether a girl dare be so forward. She didn’t expect an answer.

*****
She hardly concentrated on her classes that afternoon, eagerly awaiting the “ding” on the phone that she got a text message. There was none. Now that the play performances were completed, she had no rehearsals, but she had agreed to work at a yarn shop, located not far off campus, where Christmas buying had kept the place busy. Her friend Tracy had alerted her to the job, realizing how skillful Karen was with a needle.

Tracy pointed out the online ad which had announced the shop, “The Spinning Wheel,” was looking for a person with skill in knitting and crocheting for a temporary job during the Christmas season.

“You’re a natural for the job, Karen,” she had said.

At first the shop owner, a vigorous, fiftyish woman with short gray hair, was astonished when Karen applied.

“You’re so young, dear,” the woman said. “And you’re skillful with the craft?”

“Yes ma’am. Let me show you.”

The yarn shop owner obviously was impressed and took Karen on for a ten-day stint in the store, assisting with some training class and with clerking duties.

Even with the constant distractions of customers and work duties, her mind still wandered to her beloved Mark; she couldn’t have heard the cell phone “ding” over the din of the store, so she looked at her cell phone almost every two minutes, it seemed.

*****
Tired, exhausted and disappointed, she returned to her room at 8:30 from work, finding that Ramini was gone. She remembered her roommate had a get-together planned with her Indian friends that night. Karen remembered how tickled Ramini was when she related how she found three girls — also Indian students — who welcomed her in their company, even though they knew she was transgendered. There was, she knew, a built-in resentment toward transgendered girls in the Indian society, even though there were thousands in that nation and other Asian nations.

Karen took a long shower, enjoying the sweet scent of a soap that was advertised to soften her skin and make it “lovingly touchable.” Shamelessly, she viewed her slender, feminine body in the mirror, posing like a model as she did so. Her arms and shoulders, in particular, were so white and smooth, devoid of any definition that would have betrayed her masculine gender.

When she was finished drying her hair, she let it flow naturally down to her shoulders. She applied a slight bit of lotion to her face, but otherwise kept her face clear of cosmetics. Karen wandered nude into her room, finding a short pink lace nightgown that had thin straps over her shoulders and went down to mid-thigh. She stepped into it, her movements dainty and feminine, and pulled it up over herself. She donned a pair of white, satiny panties, pulling them up under the nightgown.

It was only then that she went to her computer to check her email. Maybe, just maybe, she thought, Mark responded to her own brash email. If he did, Karen wondered, would he be angry with her for her forwardness?

There it was, and email from her beloved Mark. Dare she open it?

Her heart pounded uncontrollably; she seemed to become breathless, and finally she clicked on it. It came up on screen, but Karen, frightened to see his words, closed her eyes.

Finally, she opened them and read:

“Dearest Karen: You have never been out of my thoughts. Weren’t our 6 wks at St. Albert’s so magical?

“I was awful and cruel to walk away from you that night, rather than tell my parents the truth about you. Can you ever forgive me?”

“I don’t know where our friendship will take us, but I hope we continue to be friends. I know you’re different, but you’re all girl to me. I have been researching all about TGs and TSs and all that. I understand, I think.

“I trust you are having a great time at the University, probably making lots of friends. Any boyfriends?

“I know you have been following our team. We’re really good and will get a bowl bid. Not sure where or when, but it means I may not be home for Christmas. We’ll need to practice, I know. You might be interested in knowing I have joined a community theater company in Ames. Seems I can’t get acting out of my blood, and I am hoping for a nice part in a play in spring when I won’t be so tied up to football.

“Let’s keep in touch. Mark.”

Karen smiled, realizing Mark still wanted to be friends. And then this line: “I don’t know where our friendship will take us.” What does that mean? It means he still cares for me, doesn’t it? Karen read and reread the letter several times over and then broke into tears. Oceans of tears. What else could a girl do?

*****
Karen never cared about sports, especially football. It was a crude, barbaric sport she thought, a belief she had reinforced during her Thanksgiving holiday when she sat down with her brother Sonny and watched parts of a few pro football games. It was the only way she could find time to be with her brother who was wrapped up in football and sports.

“They’re out to hurt each other, Sonny,” she exclaimed after viewing a particularly hard hit against a quarterback whose helmet flew off in the collision.

“Oh, sis, that’s the nature of the game,” Sonny said. “Besides they’re all getting millions of dollars to play.”

“But that’s gruesome.”

“Sis, you’re just a girl. You wouldn’t understand.”

That’s why Sonny found it weird a few weeks later, when Karen arrived home for the holidays, that his sister showed so much interest in the Iowa State Cyclones, particularly a player named Mark Hamilton.

“Why him, sis?” Sonny asked.

“I’m just interested, that’s all. Is he any good?”

“Mark Hamilton? Well, I’ve heard a little about him, and he’s supposed to be good, sis. He’s the reason why the Cyclones are going to a bowl game this year. Let me check him out a little more for you.”

Sonny began punching away on his laptop. After checking several screens, he looked up at Karen, his face weaving into a mischievous smile.

“I see he’s from Milwaukee and he’s a drama major,” Sonny began. “Wow, and his biography says he wants to go into acting after graduation. Unless, of course, he goes into the NFL.”

“Thanks, Sonny,” Karen said, her face hardly hiding a satisfied smile.

“Wait, Mark Hamilton? Isn’t that the name of the boy you met at camp last summer? I thought you were sweet on him then, which I thought was weird since you’re both boys.”

Karen blushed.

“It’s him,” Sonny said loudly. “You’re in love. I know it. My sister’s got a boyfriend.”

“Oh shut up, Sonny. I just wondered how he was doing that’s all. Thanks for checking for me.”

She turned to leave the room, but Sonny grabbed her arm. “Tell me, sis, how can you have a boyfriend? You’re still really a boy and you can’t have kids. I’ve been studying up on you and this trans stuff, sis.”

“Oh Sonny, you have to understand, dear,” she began, sitting down on a chair and pulling it up next to him. “I really have feelings like any girl would have. That’s all. We’ll take care of my anatomy later on, so I’ll be just like a real girl in just about every way, except babies. But I will be able to love a man.”

The two engaged in an earnest conversation about the subject for nearly 30 minutes, with Karen telling the boy the entire story, figuring that though he was now only 14, it was time he learned about life.

*****
The days leading up to Christmas were busy, tense and filled with anxiety. Karen, of course, took advantage of the fact that the Olympus needed waitresses due to the always heavy rush during the season, and she worked nearly every day from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., or longer, depending upon the crowd. The tips were great, and she always put 20% of her tips aside to be eventually deposited in a special account she had set up to use for eventual sexual reassignment surgery, breast enhancement and perhaps some plastic surgery on her nose.

Then, there was the need to buy gifts for her mother, brother, Aunt Harriet and also her aunt and uncle, Gerianne and Frank, and a cousin, Ellen. Gerianne was Cecelia Hansson’s sister, and they had surprised Karen by being understanding and receptive to her transition into girlhood. Ellen, the cousin, was several years older than Karen, and was the epitome of the “girly girl,” seemingly always in dresses. She, too, welcomed Karen warmly during a brief Thanksgiving holiday.

Strangely, Karen’s social life had largely died. Angela had decided to spend most of the holidays skiing in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula with Doreen and it appeared that Aaron would not renew their friendship.

“You oughta take some time off and have a little fun,” her mother said.

“Oh, mom, I’m enjoying my time at Olympus,” she said. “Besides, I’m making lots in tips. I’ll need the money.”

“Oh honey, I think I’ll be able to help you out in a couple of years when you go through all the operations,” Cecelia said. “Besides, with your scholarships and what you’ve earned, I’m not paying that much for your college, anyway.”

Karen smiled, pleased that she and her mother had been getting along so well. It’s like they were mother and daughter forever. And now, Sonny was calling her “sis.”

Actually, she was eager every night to get home so that she could sign onto the Internet and see if there were any messages from Mark. She was rarely disappointed; nearly every night, there was a chatty message from Mark, usually telling her how football practice was going. He made no overt expressions of love or promises of ever seeing her again.

Karen always responded with similarly chatty messages about her day. Hers were longer, going into much detail about gossip at work, her friendship with the senior waitress, Sharon, and her time with Aunt Harriet. She loved the old woman, and the two had spent a whole afternoon together shopping, having lunch and even stopping at the end of the day for a cocktail. She wrote:

“Aunt Harriet lied for me about my age and I had a cosmopolitan. It’s my first real drink of alcohol. Just think I was even a virgin at drinking. Guess I’m not a typical co-ed. LOL”

She wondered if Mark was bored with such details, but he seemed to want them. She always ended her messages with, “Your friend, Karen.” Every so often she wanted to sign off with “With deepest love, Karen,” but always resisted the urge. Yet, she felt she should: it was how she really felt.

*****
On Christmas Eve, the Olympus closed at 6 p.m., but it was nearly 7 p.m. before she was able to leave and rush home to get ready for the Hansson Christmas-sharing time, set to begin at 8 p.m. Aunt Harriet would join the three Hanssons, along with Aunt Gerianne, Uncle Frank and cousin Ellen.

Karen took a quick shower, protecting her hair with a shower cap, since time did not permit a shampoo. She tied her hair in a ponytail, powdered her face and applied a natural shade of lipstick, and grunted as she saw what she thought was a most ordinary face in the steamy bathroom mirror.

“It’s not like we’re having any company,” she mused, thinking that family — and the Hansson family always counted Aunt Harriet as family — wouldn’t care.

Since it was the family’s Christmas celebration, she wanted to wear something bright. She found a full skirt of cheerful greens and reds that ended below her knees. Despite general agreement from her friends and family that she should show her lovely legs, she loved the feel of full, long skirts. It just seemed more feminine.

She put on a white satin blouse with a collared neck and puffy long sleeves. Over the blouse, she wore a Christmassy vest of dark green materials embroidered with cherries, holly leaves and curlicues of gold thread. Since her mother maintained a cool house in winter, she felt she should wear stockings to cover her legs. She found a pair of white cotton knee socks, and sat down to pull them onto her smooth legs. Tired from more than eight hours on her feet at the restaurant, she decided to wear a pair of ballet-style flats. Karen looked at herself in the full-length mirror in her mother’s bedroom, and wondered if maybe she didn’t look too much like a middle-school girl. The fact that she had tiny breasts that were enhanced only minimally with stuffed A-cup bras would seem to confirm that image.

As she considered whether to change to something less school-girlish, she heard a rap on her door, and her brother’s voice, yelling: “Come on Karen, we’re all waiting. You girls are always so slow.”

It was enough to make her giggle, but she managed a “coming bro.’”

“Aren’t you the cutest thing!” exclaimed Aunt Harriet as Karen entered the living room where everyone had already gathered. Karen was about 15 minutes late, but her mother had explained that she had to work late.

“Oh cousin, you’re so darling,” gushed Ellen, running to hug her.

Sonny was sitting Indian-style before the family’s Christmas tree, a large double balsam that dominated the living room, fully decorated with what seemed thousands of tiny lights, strands of garlands and sparkling ornaments. Both Karen and her brother insisted, overriding their mother’s wishes, to continue having a traditional tree, even if it meant shopping in the ice cold winter at windy tree lots and hours of decorating.

“Gosh, sis, if you weren’t my sister, I’d ask you out for a date,” Sonny said.

“You’re too young for me, squirt,” she retorted playfully, even though her brother now had grown taller.

“Well, you look about 15,” Sonny said, laughing. “Just about right for me. But, wait, I’ll call my friend Winston over. He needs a date.”

She stuck her tongue out at her pesky brother, and everyone laughed.

Karen made the rounds, hugging everyone, and thanking them for coming. “Get yourself some egg nog,” her mother said. “Then join us Karen. We’ll begin opening gifts shortly.”

Everyone else had drinks, Karen noticed, and as she headed for the buffet table, the apartment doorbell buzzed.

“Now who could that be,” Cecelia Hansson muttered.

“And on Christmas eve,” Aunt Harriet echoed.

Karen, being closest to the door, said: “I’ll get it.”

She passed the small hallway mirror, glancing into it and scowling because she hadn’t taken more care with her makeup. She didn’t know there’d be other people showing up.

She almost fainted when she opened the door. As the cold air from the hallway pushed into the apartment, she looked at the figure standing before her, his strong handsome face smiling and his arms cradling a bouquet of white and red roses. She said nothing, astonished by the sight of the young man.

“Hi Karen,” the man’s voice said. “May I come in? It’s cold out here.”

Still saying nothing, too shocked to move, Karen moved back as if to beckon the person into the apartment’s small foyer.

“Who is it, Karen?” her mother said from the living room.

“Mother, mother, it’s Mark,” Karen squealed, her voice out of control with emotion.

She turned to hug Mark Hamilton, but he backed off. “Don’t crush the flowers,” he said. “And let me get my coat off.”

He found a bench where he laid the roses. He took off his coat, found room to deposit it and turned to hug her. It was a warm hug, and Karen immediately found comfort in his strong arms. She turned her face up and they kissed. It was a sweet, but too short, a moment and she led Mark into the living room, their arms around each other’s waist.

“Surprise!” The room resounded with cheers and laughter.

Karen was puzzled. She looked at Mark, questions forming in her mind.

Cecelia Hansson explained: “Mark called me a week ago and wondered whether you might like a visit from him on Christmas Eve. He wondered whether you still were interested in him.”

Mrs. Hansson paused, suppressing a giggle.

“Interested in you, I told him. That’s all she seems to care about, I told him. Well, he wasn’t sure he could get here, so he asked if he could come. I said yes, and invited him for tonight.”

“Oh mother,” Karen said. “Thank you, thank you. But why didn’t you tell me?”

“I told her not too, Karen,” Mark butted in. “First I wasn’t sure I could get here on time, since the coach is giving us only today and tomorrow off and I have to leave tomorrow night. And then I had to tell my parents everything about you, and feared they might make it difficult for me to get here tonight. But after I explained your situation, I guess they’re somewhat Ok about you. And I need their support, Karen. It’s a 90-mile drive and I needed dad’s car.”

“Mark, I love you,” she said, again turning to hug him.

As they hugged, she heard Sonny say, “God they’re mushy.”

“Yes, you two, it’s time to stop that and you should introduce Mark to the family, Karen,” her mother agreed.

It can be an embarrassing moment for a young woman to introduce her boyfriend to her family, both for herself and for the boyfriend. Both were fully aware that the family would examine the boy closely, looking for any pimples upon his looks, personality and demeanor.

Needless to say, Mark passed easily with the entire family; his good looks and strong masculine body was accompanied even more with a polished, friendly demeanor. While cousin Ellen gushed over him mercilessly (to Karen’s disgust, tinged perhaps with a bit of jealousy since Ellen, too, was a pretty girl), it was Aunt Harriet who came to the rescue:

“Come sit next to me and help an old woman’s heart come alive,” she said to Mark with a twinkle in her eye.

“You old flirt, Harriet,” Cecelia Hansson said, smiling.

“I’d be honored to join you, Miss Harriet,” Mark said, placing himself on the love seat next to the old lady. The young man’s action pleased the whole family, including Karen who loved both her Aunt Harriet and Mark. She wanted them to enjoy each other.

Karen squeezed onto the sofa between her mother and Sonny and the gift exchange began.

*****
“This is just like being at camp together,” Karen said as she nestled her nightie-clad body next to Mark, wearing only his boy briefs and a tee-shirt.

The two were cuddled together on Karen’s twin-bed, which easily provided room for a loving couple. There had been a brief debate about sleeping arrangements that night, with Sonny begin willing to sleep on a living room couch and giving up his bed to Mark. Cecelia Hansson thought that would be the best arrangement, but it was for Aunt Harriet to provide the answer that satisfied Karen and Mark.

“Posh, Cecelia,” Harriet said. “Both of these young people are 18 and they once were roommates. They got to know each other up in Camp.”

“But, Harriet, it’s just not proper for unmarried people to sleep together, and besides that’s just a twin bed,” her mother argued.

Mark interrupted the discussion: “Look, I don’t want to embarrass anyone. I’m sorry I’m putting any of you to an inconvenience. Maybe I’ll just drive home tonight. It’s not too late.”

“Mark, it’s 90 miles,” Karen said. “You won’t get home ‘til after 1 p.m.”

“I already said that Mark could sleep in Sonny’s room,” Cecelia said.

“Bullshit,” the old woman erupted. Harriet rarely spoke in such terms, but Karen knew she could cuss like a trooper when she had to. “Let them enjoy a night together, Cecelia.”

“It’s not like Karen’ll get pregnant, mom,” Sonny piped up.

Everyone laughed, and at midnight Karen and Mark found themselves together in bed.

“That was the happiest time in my life, Karen,” Mark said. “Those six weeks with you. Even when you were Kenny I felt a love for you.”

“Really?”

“Oh yes, not a homosexual kind of love. You know. I have no desire to do what gay lovers do, honey. I just want to kiss and caress you. Someday, I hope, you’ll have a vagina and we can be complete lovers.”

“I want that, too, Mark. And I want you to be my first and only.”

“And I want you to be my first, too.”

Karen stiffened. Their legs were intertwined and she had felt Mark’s penis harden against her; her own tiny penis, too, was aroused.

“You’re a virgin?” she questioned.

Their faces were about three inches apart on the pillow, and they spoke in soft whispers. She saw his head nod affirmatively.

“I thought by now you would have slept with every Cyclone cheerleader, you handsome hunk,” she said, her eyes dancing mischievously.

“Oh Karen, you don’t know how hard being on a football team is; it seems we’re always in practice, or studying playbooks or working out. And then there’s the school work. There’s not much time for girls, especially when you have a girl like you waiting for you.”

She kissed him.

“I’m going to be a real girl before long, Mark,” she said. “I’m starting hormones next month, and will be hoping for my surgery within a year after I graduate. Mom is developing a fund for that, and I’m working lots. I make good money waitressing.”

“It can’t come too soon for me, Karen,” he said, smiling.

“But what about your family, Mark? I know how important they are to you.”

He hesitated, as if he didn’t want to answer.

“Well, first I need to tell you about me,” he said, finally.

“Ok.”

“It dawned on me that night of the play when we were kissing outside, that while I was kissing you as a boy would a girl that you were still a boy. Isn’t that strange? Of course, I knew you were a boy, but during the four or five weeks of play rehearsal as you began living as a girl, I don’t know, but I guess I just became comfortable thinking of you as Karen.

“Then in the garden, as we kissed, while our parents were inside, I realized that I couldn’t go through with it, since we were both boys. So I just walked away. That was so cruel I know, and I’m sorry.”

Karen watched as he confessed, her eyes filling with tears. She loved him so much.

“I couldn’t get you out of my mind, Karen. Every night, regardless how tired I was or how sore I was from all the hits I took as quarterback, I thought of you, my pretty, lovely, darling Karen. So I did research about transpeople like you, and then when you told me you were now living as Karen, I knew were could be together.”

“Mark, I love you,” Karen said, kissing him.

“Then, my parents and brother came to Ames for Homecoming weekend, and we visited together most of the weekend. On Sunday, we went to the Student Center and were having coffee while my brother was off playing video games and my father asked if I had any girl friends, even winking at me as if I should be sleeping with every girl on campus. He can be such a bore.

“Without thinking, I said I had one girl friend named Karen. And they asked if she was a student there, and I said, no, it’s Karen whom you met at camp this summer. And my mother said how nice that was. My dad, too. They both liked you and our two moms really hit it off, as did our brothers.”

“Oh, Mark,” she smiled.

He shifted his body, separating their two bodies, apparently to lessen the sexual stimulation.

“But then I told them there was one problem, and they asked what that was. And I said that Karen’s a boy. They were surprised and wouldn’t believe it at first. I quickly explained what I thought your situation was. My dad was, like, you know, no way, but mom kept asking questions. She was truly curious, so I gave her a bunch of information and links on the internet to look up stuff about transgendered woman. She’s good with the computer.

“And she studied up on it, too, and even dragged dad to the LGBT Center in town where they met a marvelous, older woman, a TG, who explained it even more. My dad’s still not happy about it and worries about what it’ll do to my football career. But mom’s in love with you.”

“Oh Mark,” Karen said, hugging him even more intensely now. Soon they were asleep in each other’s arms.

*****
“How sweet it is to wake up with you in my arms, Karen,” Mark said as the first light of dawn filtered into the room.

Karen had been awake for several moments before Mark opened his eyes, and she studied his face, relishing the slightly sour smell from his mouth and body and his rhythmical breathing as he slept. They had ejaculated before falling asleep, their cuddling too intense to resist, and the mixed odor of perfume and dried sperm created an oddly erotic scent.

Mark glanced at the glowing clock; it was just before 7 a.m.

“I have to get up since I have to leave by 9 a.m.,” Mark said. He explained that he had to get home by 11 a.m. on Christmas morning for the Hamilton family’s gift-giving time, and faced a nearly two-hour drive back. He could only spend a few hours with his family that day before having to fly back to Ames to prepare for the bowl game six days away.

“Let’s spend a few more minutes together, my darling,” Karen said. “Then, let me take quick shower before you shower and I’ll make us breakfast.”

“That’s sweet. Just like an old married couple.”

“Just like an old married couple, dear Mark,” she repeated, kissing him.

At that moment, Karen was the happiest girl in the world.

THE END

Author’s Note: In a few months it is the author’s intention to complete and publish another novel chronicling the life of Karen Hansson. Stay tuned.