You Don’t Have To…

My name is Shane and I actually don’t mind my name at all it’s just the rest of me that has extraordinarily been off kilter. I guess it sort of started when I was little but that’s actually kind of hazy and repressed stuff. By repressed I mean there’s stuff that just sometimes that kind of just pops into my head that comes up when I see something that would have been like normal and stuff.

Normal for like an average girl. Okay well not average, not like the girls that I grew up with. I never could really quite fit in with that aspect of being a girl. Up flipped hair with the roll over tease and the hair spray that they’d use to keep it in place until all who passed the girls bathroom in school tasted it in the air. Hannah Montana and Hillary Duff and all of that stuff just went passed me.

I was the girl that no one knew because no one knew I was a girl and I liked stuff when I was younger like Adventure Time and Justice League Cartoons and I liked comics and Kim Possible.

I was the odd geekette, the girl that stayed in the shadows and away from things because…well frankly people in my school were assholes. We had a couple of gay kids and their lives were a living hell and I think there might have been a couple of lesbians but they weren’t out and we had no trans kids of any kind that I knew of.

Besides myself.

And boy wow it wasn’t easy getting there…like realizing it, or rather admitting to it past all of the crap in life that is aimed at telling you what’s normal.

So that’d be girl wow actually.

I mean I hear things about people knowing and looking back I think I did but then again I didn’t at the same time because I’d always heard stuff in my life about like “The gays.” and “The Queers.”

Dad wasn’t really an issue with that stuff he’d just huff and shrug and a lot of it was he was just not there, he was working all the time but my mom’s family lived closest and there were certainly enough of them that I got and absorbed the message.

Like my Uncle Jack and his whole family… Honestly I have cousins that likely came out the womb with a mullet.

And they lived close enough that they’d been childhood playmates.

I guess I internalized enough of that that I was the gloomy kid.

But like I was sort of talking about I knew but didn’t.

It took me awhile before I figured out that I wasn’t just watching the girls because they were girls but because I was watching the girls with this sort of silent inside of me wistful sigh.

Oh I was still attracted to girls and I was still having the normal biological responses and stuff but there was other stuff going on too. Like I just…well Lacy my first girlfriend we dated and that was fun, it was young teen awkward but it was fun and I didn’t just get the awkwardness…there was something that just felt like it wasn’t like the way it was with other people dating.

Then Beth…she was my first and we dated and we went out a lot when I was fifteen. And sex was great but it was…

It felt unfinished.

And then I was with Marcy when I went that year to cadet camp and it was this whole sort of it summer for me. Marcy and I snuck sex like everyone else did on base and it was still something like unfinished and there were all these thoughts going on in my head. Like why does she sound like that, how does that feel?

And one night we were having sex and I was doing a really good job in the whole foreplay thing and suckling her nipples and fondling her breasts and it sank in. I really wanted to know what that was. What Marcy was feeling and I wanted to know with this almost deep aching need.

I was good with most of the sex but I wasn’t good with the kind and the way that I was having sex.

It took me a week to really think that over and earned me a lot of bruises and a black eye from not seeing an elbow coming my way during a lacrosse match at camp. And then it was more looking and trying to figure out things by watching the girls and I’m not like inexperienced with like stuff on the internet so I sort of knew about she-males and stuff in porn. And yeah I know it’s not cool to go there but this was when I was like fifteen heading towards sixteen.

So…then two and two got me close to three-point-eight-five.

It drove me nuts the rest of camp.

And when I got home I spend a lot of time reading and going to porn sites and stuff. Even if I couldn’t log into them they were there and there were like clips and it sort of did things for me and it didn’t. Okay it did because I was like fifteen and I got a lot of use out of tissues and I spent a lot of time dreaming and fantasizing and sleeping.

Oh yeah I was full on falling into a funk.

And my dreams.

Sometimes with girls and sometimes with those other girls and even a few times with guys.

And it wasn’t the me in the mirror in my dreams.

Scared me a lot and freaked me out a lot and then it got worse.

School started.

And really and honestly the first week of tenth grade I knew.

I knew that I wasn’t really the person that I thought that I was.

And waking up to being trans well was a really huge life deal.

Actually knowing what’s wrong sort of showed me those first hints of dysphoria in the mirror. When the me in my head was really not matching what I was seeing.

Of being sort of wanting to date a girl from school and wanting to sort of be like her.

Not that I wanted to be like her but I wanted to be the real me and pass and stuff. I didn’t even want to be like gorgeous and stuff I just wanted to just be without getting my head kicked in for it.

Remember what I said about the gay kids.

Oh and then there was crushing on the new guy in town Tommy Morgan.

The first time I seen him it was just…he had long black hair that was kind of like unruly but really thick like a mane and he had good sized arms and he had tattoos and he dressed in that whole metal head standard of blacks and fatigues and the big heavy leather jacket.

And he wore make up in that just sort of goth way.

Have you ever met someone that turned your sexuality as you knew it on its ear?

Tommy did for me.

We never hooked up I was waaaay too shy and he was actually kind of scary but wow he stared in my dreams a lot and he was the first boy to give me a case of blue balls and a hard on that actually hurt.

And I didn’t want to fuck him…not that way.

As long as I had ever experienced I was into girls and then Tommy shows up and by Christmas all I wanted for Christmas was me with tight little perky breasts and my hair grown out and Tommy under my tree.

Oh I had this dream where I was the real me and I’m not even sure what kind of house I was living in in the dream but the living room had plush carpet, it had a fireplace and it had a Christmas tree.

And Tommy was waiting under the tree with his hands tied behind his back with a ribbon done in a bow and a choker around his neck and he had a sexy black sleep mask over his eyes and then there was his cock. It was dream styled big and it was hard and it was too wrapped up.

The red satin ribbon was an inch wide and it had been wrapped around his cock like it was this sort of candy cane adding this sort of pressure that reddened his head and kept him hard and hanging out and the ribbon went all the way back to his base and his balls and was tied there in a ribbon.

I was in a teddy and satin panties and I wasn’t tucked so I could feel my hardness pressed against the sensual fabric and I kind of had a butt too and I sort of dream swayed my way to him and I started with kisses to his body first and his skin tasted like mush but also like someone had dusted their hands just a little with cocoa and ran them over his body until the scent of guy mixed with the scent of chocolate.

I kissed him on the lips but I didn’t untie his hands, I didn’t let him see me either. Then I kissed other places and then on the mouth again too and he sort of groaned and growled a little and I could feel that sound vibrating in his chest and it just sort of magnified the feeling in my of being not a guy in me.
It was alien and sexy and powerful.

I kissed his lips again and he bit mine just a little as I pulled away and that was just.

He had this smile on his face even as tied and blindfolded as he was.

Oh fuck yeah.

It was the first time that I had sank to my knees and it was sexy feeling it wasn’t like just doing that and being there but it was just…that slow sink with my knees and legs together in that sort of a slinky kneel.

And Tommy was still blindfolded so it was just for me, for the way that I felt.

And then it was kisses to the tip, using my lips to suckle but to drive him wild with the sexy puff that they were and the bow that they had tracing their shape over him and then tasting, and tasting over and over getting my mouth used to it and getting him groaning, then the occasional sexy swear snarl.

Until I was ready…ready to slowly pull on the ribbon and loosening the bow and freeing him and yet I was still in control, he still could see but only sense me and his hands were still tied and it was all just me in control and safe and wanton.

Even winding that satin ribbon over my hand and fingers until it was sort of like a glove that reached up and fondled him until it became too much and I took what he had at my leisure.

And other times I was the one tied up…and I knew it was him…he still smelled like chocolate, he still had that growl…and he was the one that could free me, that could untie me…and yeah…he kissed and suckled my breasts and he did this almost sweet nibble on my nipples and then a soothing suckle to offset the way that they were aching from the raw scraping of teeth.

Then he’d go down on me and he’d take me into his hand and his hot wet mouth…

And usually that’s as far as those dreams sort of went with me self-indulging and the after it’d hit me in the dysphoria feelings because my dream where I was the one that was being tied up like a Christmas present I had nothing of what I had in the dream and I couldn’t really honestly feel those things that I really wanted to feel. My body was glaringly not right, like everything inside of me was wrapped up in the most gawdawful scratchy wool.

So yeah grade ten was a super crush on Tommy and it was torture.

I knew that I had to do something.

Anything because it was getting worse.

Do something was starting to get a plan and to get out of there. And that included doing my one required semester of P.E. and then I switched to Home Ec. In that slot. To hell with people seeing me change and judging me.

Then get a part time job. That was actually easy enough really I got on like so many of the other kids at Mickey-D’s.

Oh and you can get that smell out of your clothes by pouring some Dawn dish soap into the washer with the work clothes from there it’s all these little grease particles that get into the fabric do that and it’ll wash out the smell.

My first plan was getting hormones and I knew that I couldn’t come out to my parents there really was just no way not with my family. So I did the school thing and actually started to hit the books.

Getting into university and one away from my family was looking like how I was going to really have any chance of a life.

So no more screwing around.

And then save money for a car.

What do you want for your birthday Shane?

*Mentally*…Breasts.

Actually. “Money towards my car fund.” That was the given answer and the same for Christmas.

And by the time I turned sixteen and got my beginners and my insurance I was the proud owner of a blue 2002 VW Bug with close to three hundred thousand kilometers on it and it was a whole thousand dollars and tax. But it ran, it was actually in not bad shape and it was easy on gas.

And a license gave me I.D and I.D. let me get my own internet billing with dad thinking that was okay because it made his life easier and he and mom didn’t use the computer much in my house so he took that money to get HBO and I got my internet bill in my name.

And that was important because once you have ID that says you’re sixteen or older and you have a bill in your own name you can get a post office box.

And with a post office box and a pre-paid credit card you can get hormones.

But it has to be a prepaid credit card and not a debit card. But the thing is you can get those now anywhere like even in those big racks where you see all of the gift cards. Yep right in there. But the thing is that most of the clerks in most places don’t even look at them they just scan it through and sell it to you.

And a pre-paid credit card and a valid address in your name makes you an adult in the eyes of the internet. It’s not true but it’s what they call a legal fiction.

And that’s how you get stuff without the folks knowing and going through things.

I went to full time hours in the summer that year because I had a car and that meant I wasn’t late or at the mercy of the bus schedules and by the time that school started for grade eleven I was taking my own dosages and blockers and using the yam creams and the Japanese breast cookies and shaving and waxing and slowly building a wardrobe of things that I bought in Woodstock and kept in carry-on bags in my car.

I stealthed through the school year with the exceptions being school work in which I bumped up my English marks by doing Nano that year and showing the story and results to Mrs. Winston who was actually enough of a geekette herself that she had entered it too that year.

It was after school was done in July that shit hit the fan.

It turned really hot and typical of living in Fredericton the river in the middle of town will either blow cooling air through town or the air will just stop and it’ll just sort of hang there and all the river moisture in the air feels like a lens.

It was really hot, hot enough that I had boob sweat.

It was sooo hot and I had to change and I thought that I had the house to myself.

I had my bra on just getting into the larger A cup size but my shirt was off.

“Shane….?”

“Oh shit….” Witty wasn’t I?

“Those, those are boobs.”

“Uhm…yeah…” Drymouth, oh dry-panic-mouth.

“Why do you?”

“Mom…I’m a girl.”

“No…I was there, you have a…a…you have a winkie you’re a boy.”

“No…not quite…it kinda doesn’t work that way with me mom.”

“We should go see a doctor….it’s supposed to work.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

She blinks s few times. “What did we do wrong?”

“You slept too close to that space heater in your room and you over cooked me when you were pregnant.”

She goes white and then what I said caught up with her. “Shane Jesus fucking Christ that’s not what I meant!”

And I did it; I crossed my arms under my bra and looked at her. “Well ask a silly question.”

“It’s not a silly question!”

“Mom…it’s nothing that you did, it’s nothing that anyone did it’s just me.”

“Are you gay?”

“Nope I’m pansexual I think.”

And that cued up the look that said that I hurt her brain.

“You know the bible says that…stuff is wrong.”

“One no it doesn’t not really and two it says a lot of stuff that no one bothers with until it serves their purpose and three we don’t go to church Mom.”

“Well…well…I don’t like this, it’s wrong!”

“It’s me mom…trust me I wasn’t doing cartwheels for being different, no one actually goes out looking for this.”

She gave me this look like she didn’t believe me. “Your father’s going to want to see this.”

“Okay but I’m wearing a top.”

“Top…you’re not wearing My clothes.”

I decided it was better to not say that I didn’t really have that much of an interest in her clothes. “That’s okay I have my own.”

She gave me this look that was pissed off and confused and hurt and she left.

She left and then came right back and stared at me worked her mouth for words and nothing came out and she left again but this time in tears.

Oh that hurt inside so much.

I’m still not sure if I would have rather had this big raging super freak out instead of hearing her downstairs and moving things around as she stress cleaned and was crying her eyes out.

Between the heat and the guilt and there was a lot of guilt at not being honest with them and I ended up crying too on my bed and slid my pillow over my head to drown out the sounds of her crying.

I pulled my head out after who knows how long but it was when dad ran a finger down the bottom of my foot making me kick violently.

I hate being tickled; I’ve never been tickled in that good way and especially my feet. You tickle my feet and I am so Not responsible for my actions.

I looked and it’s dad and he had a drink in his hand which is unusual for him since he’s not really a drinker and he has two actually.

He passed me one and I could smell the rum in with the coke.

I took the drink and he moved the pillow and he looked at me and I’m there on my bed in front of him in my bra.

I took two big drinks of the drink and was coughing.

“So what do I call you?”

“Shane.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“That thing I keep reading about the LGBT thing it’s like real right?”

I nodded still kind of stunned.

“And you’re the T part of it?”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“You’re going to really do this?”

“I’ve been doing this for a year Dad.”

He took a drink to digest that and he looked at me. “Are you still looking at college?”

Okay not where I thought he’d go…

“Uhm…yeah.”

“Won’t it be easier if you have the gender stuff in order first?”

“You’re not freaked out?”

“I’m plenty freaked out Shane; this isn’t something a parent expects.”

“You’re pissed off.”

“Not really, it honestly wouldn’t do that much good for me to be mad at something that you’re this dead set on. I mean my brain does this little twitch at all the things that you likely had to do to do this so I’m pretty sure that you’re serious.”

“You don’t think I’m sick or crazy?”

He actually chuckled. “I’m a truck driver kiddo; you’re not the first trans girl I’ve met so no not sick.”

“You left out crazy.”

He actually smiled and took a drink raising an eyebrow.

That made me smile if dad could joke about it then things were cool.

He looked at me. “I am disappointed that you didn’t bring this to us.”

“I was too scared, I mean look at how mom took it.”

“I’ll talk to her, but you could have come to us.”

“Really with our family?”

He took a minute to think that over and got up and kissed me on the forehead. Which was weird, but kind of nice. “Good point, now got get your stuff wherever you’ve got it and move into the house.”

“Uhm okay…” I was shocked, honestly shocked.

He leaves and I kill the rest of the rum and coke and go down to my car and start bringing my bags in.

I was unpacking and then taking out my other clothes here and setting them on the bed to start to sort through stuff. Honestly I wasn’t all that interested in tossing away most of my things because I liked a lot of them still and besides they were mine and gendering clothes sucked.

But that’s when I heard the fighting start up and it kind of made my chest clench up and stuff.

There wasn’t a lot of stuff I could hear but it was mostly mom doing the loud stuff like.
“He’s not a girl!”
“I’m not calling them that!”
“I don’t care!”
“What will people say!?”

That’s when I heard dad yell. He’s not a yeller usually unless distance is involved but this…
“I don’t fucking care what people think!”
Yay dad…

Then there was more muffled talking and stuff and then mom with…
“I’m not calling him that!”
“I don’t care!”

Then more muffled stuff and then dad with.
“You haven’t seen these kids Kate, you haven’t seen them having to deal out there with fuck all. I’m not doing that! I’m not seeing my daughter getting into shit like that! I’m not going to see her have her life thrown out on her.!”

Oh holy shit go dad.

Then mom… “Her!, Her, Shane’s not a fucking her, he has no fucking idea what it’s like being a her!”

“And we don’t know what it’s like being her for fuck sakes Kate. She’s doing this, I can tell you right now because I’ve see that look she had in others I’ve met and she’s doing this with or without us.”

I didn’t hear the rest because the volume of the shouting went down to normalish and then I heard the door slam to mom and dad’s room.

I knew from the footfalls it was mom and that she was crying again and it all sort of welled up inside me too and I sat on my floor in the middle of my clothes and cried too, I hate crying, yeah even as a girl I hate crying and this was a bad one.

Bad enough that when I saw the garbage bag with my stuffed animals in the back of my closet as a kid I went and I crawled into my closet and pulled them out until I found Cookie Monster and hugged him tight to me and bawled.

I fell asleep there only to be woken up by the sound of dad’s semi-backing up with the beeps and stuff and he was parking it in the spot where he parks when he’s not going driving for a while I could hear him shut it down.

I looked around in there and it was kind of sad really because here was this space where I lost stuff, parts of me that I just sort of filed away and stuffed out of sight and out of mind. Old toys and things that I had since I was younger.

Who knew I had so many Wonder Woman comics? Actually I had about a hundred comics with Wonder Woman and She-hulk and other female heroines and I think I was nine or ten maybe. (Sniffle) “I want these, I want this stuff back.”

And then I found my boxes of art stuff. I’d been pretty into that and I can remember loving to draw and to watercolor paint and sketch and I even had all sorts of books on how to draw things. I can also remember that I quit over having the bigger kids, the bigger boys grabbing things and tearing some of them up and calling me a sissy.

(Sniffle.) “Fuck that…this is mine…I don’t care I want me back.”

I take a breath; how did all this happen? Like losing so much of me so fast from other people. I pick up my boxes and then I got out of my closet and then…

And then I took some of my things and went to the bathroom.

I was still really upset and yet there was that ache in my chest that kind of was turning into that kind of medium stubborn mad and I opened stuff I never thought that I would get the chance to here and I took a shower.

You have no idea the feeling of that first shower of freedom until it happens. Not the sneaking a girl shower with samples when the house was free but with my puff and my body wash…shea butter by the way is one of my favorites and I break out a new razor and I shave and get all the stuff I’ve really wanted gone, gone. And I lotion and then tweeze and fix my hair to the way I like it and not the whole way that was passably guy like.

No make-up, nothing all stereotyped but just me and some Secret anti-persperant spray and clean bra and panties and a station personnel shirt from the Questionable Content web comic and a pair of shorts.

Of seriously the whole cleaned up, being me in my house feeling was so powerful I was wiping away happy tears as I was walking down the hall and ran into mom.

She looked bad, crying and blotchy and her hair was a mess like she slept in a bad way. And she just stood there and stared at me.

It wasn’t a hateful stare just more like a stunned look. I kind of always think of it as the buffering look like when you’re trying to see something online.

I took a breath. “I love you mom.” I said it and headed to my room.

She didn’t say it back, which hurt at the time. Hurt a lot.

I went through a lot of feelings that night with being hurt and angry and scared and all sorts of variations on that. I did actually get to the point of turning on my music and getting to the clothes and in the process of being scattered I ended up tearing my room apart from the way that I had it to trying to figure out the way that I wanted it.

I got through things slowly and at one point mom was there watching drinking a cup of coffee or it was in a coffee mug at least. She didn’t say anything and neither did I. I hated it; it was awkward in that hurt to breathe a little sort of way.

Then she says. “I think dad’s going to order pizza.”

“Where from?”

“Pizza Twice.”

“Okay.”

Pizza Twice was a local thing and it’s two for one and it’s that very local very cheapest in town pizza with lots of grease and really iffy crust but it’s kind of dad’s favorite for like price and stuff plus he likes ground beef/hamburger on his pizza and they loose cook theirs instead of cooking it and having it like a beef crumble you see in most places and they’re like that kid of chunk toppings pizza.

“Can we get garlic fingers?”

“Yeah okay.”

I guess that’s a start right? No freaking out and just kind of talking.

Garlic fingers I think are a Canadian thing by the way. It’s like pizza dough but it’s brushed with garlic butter and then pizza cheese is added to it and then it’s cooked and then it cut up into like squares and you can get with a dipping sauce that’s sweetened condensed milk and roasted garlic and a little vinegar all whizzed up together or like marinara sauce.

I headed down when dad called and we ate and it was quiet and awkward and there was a lot of that parental telepathy stuff going on and I beat a hasty retreat to try and get my room sorted.

It was a while after that I heard them in the basement and then the attic talking and doing stuff but not yelling so that was good.

I bagged up the things I didn’t want and there was stuff for the donation places and there was some trash too, clothes that were past salvaging, old sneakers and just some things I had because they had just been sitting around forever.

Okay yeah there was more than a few things there was seven garbage bags of stuff for the trash and three of donating clothes and I carried those to the garage and the dumpster and then while I was at it I got some cleaning stuff and stiffened and mopped and did my walls and blinds and tossed my curtains and a lot of bedding in the wash and y’know it was likely the first time it was really cleaned since I moved into my room.

Heck I even flipped my mattress and then put all of my things away and some in new places.

But my places.

You be surprised how important a little self-ownership of things are when you’ve been living I hiding.

I noticed mom there again with boxes of things. “Here…if…if you’re going to do…if you want you can have these things. And there’s mirror for your dresser we didn’t put up before because it was too girl like…well we thought you wouldn’t…and you need a good mirror.”

I was kind of shocked but a good shocked. I mean she was really trying, I could tell she was but it was still this huge thing to her. It was a huge thing for me too but I wasn’t going to say stuff like that.

“Thanks mom.”

She just nodded and looked on the edge of doing or saying something but left instead.

And that sucked.

It was kind of bittersweet really going through all of that and what was worse was the fact that my whole summer was like that only punctuated with some pretty significant things.

Like getting my I.D. changed.

That wasn’t as hard as it could have been and mom was not thrilled at the thought of me getting that F on my driver’s license and other I.D. and the only real pain in the bottom was getting the things amended with my social insurance and my provincial medicare cards which needed letters.

And that required me going to see a therapist.

Which went over to the point of him starting out by saying. “You’ve been dangerously self-medicating you know that I could not recommend that you go ahead at all with this.”

And that’s when I walked out of his office.

Two weeks alter and a filed complaint and I was in a new office with a woman therapist.

“I see you walked out on your other therapist before the end of the first session.”

I looked at her. “He went at me with an accusing tone and basically threatened me by intimating that he could gatekeep me into not going through with transition. I didn’t let him finish whatever he was going to try to pull and I left and then filed a complaint.”

She almost quirked a smile, a she looked at me. “No padding?”

“No.”

“And you’ve been taking hormones for how long?”

“Just over a year.”

“So if I asked how you were getting them you wouldn’t tell me?”

“Nope, because I will be myself one way or another honestly as much as I likely have issues and things to work on this isn’t one of the ones that needs it.”

“Oh then why are you here?”

“Honestly because this is easier than me getting a lawyer to actually get all of my I.D.’s sorted out.”

“You’re blunt Shane.”

“I’m in a hurry.”

“Why if you’re going to do this anyways?”

“I’m starting my graduating year this year and I want it all sorted out when I go to apply for college.”

We stared at each other for a few minutes and then she nodded. “I’ll sign off, honestly you’re right if you’re bound and determined I can’t do anything but make things worse by getting in the way but…”

“But?”

“I want to see you still and work on some of those things and I want you to take this card and get an appointment with them. Dr. Graham might be a lot of things but he’s right and self-medicating can be dangerous.”

I looked at the card and it was for an Endocrinologist.

“Okay deal.”

It was pretty much sort on me being finally really on my way and I didn’t even have to out myself. And the Endo was actually a pretty good guy and knew what was going on and he didn’t like lecture me and stuff and over like a few weeks we got things balanced out and my prescriptions all set and it was onto actually starting to live my life.

Mom had evidently talked to one of her brothers or sisters and they blabbed to the family and they told two friends and they told two friends and then it hit Facebook and boom I was out.

And it just completed the rest of my summer that year ever so nicely between dad being off working because he drives right up until Christmas and that left me in the house with mom is all of that awkward semi talk but not really talking but avoiding each other and me going to work.

Okay work wasn’t actually that bad, the manager didn’t fire me and she didn’t make a big deal of it except to switch out my uniforms which was good because they were new and smelled good and after about two weeks of shift rotations it was pretty obvious that I wasn’t much different except that I might have smiled a bit more and was a bit more relaxed because I’d stopped pretending.

The only assholes were some of the kids from school at work and it was kind of cool because my manager didn’t take well to assholes hitting on the other girls or causing us trouble either.

I did lose two tires from getting slashed and that had the police called and then there was a parking lot camera installed and a rule that on the back shift no one leaves alone.

Which was only good sense.

Then there was school.

Holy shit I really wish that I could say that it was okay but it really wasn’t.

Between shit from the kids at school and my own cousins too going all about the whole faggot stuff and some of the girls that I went to school with who weren’t bad before but after I came out they acted like they fell off of the Radfem’s space on Tumblr.

And some of the staff was iffy at best and then there was the whole bathroom issue.

And yeah they made me use the staff bathroom.

I know that I could have fought it but I honestly really didn’t have the willpower or the fight left in me after even the first month of school. Some of the people I was friends with turned hostile and the others just sort of drifted off and ignored me.

And the school’s LGBTQAI+ group well it was actually for shit, it was a few openly gay guys and some kids that wanted to sort of be allies without actually being part of the whole thing so they really just sort of ignored me.

Which was kind of for the best because Nathan Jones he sort of gave me that vibe that he wanted really nothing to do with me…y’know in that gay guy that doesn’t really like any other part of the acronym. And I’m pretty sure that I heard him say effing dykes to Walter Clark one of the other gay guys.

I kept to myself in a shitty sort of fringe exile where people sort of talked at me that to me and then it was usually for school stuff and then there was just y’know that sort of contact.

Actually the few people that were sort of okay to me were the other outcast types like the smoker kids or some of them and some of the metal heads and skater kids but Fredericton high school was amazingly whitebread and magnanimously middle classed.

And Tommy was actually sort of okay to me…okay he wasn’t a dick but we really never talked much and heartbreakingly he had a girlfriend Rhonda Lockhart who was all gothy and edgy and she was actually really hot and she was already out of school.

The only interaction I have ever had with her was in those nights when I was feeling way too pent up and put on some tunes late at night and lit a black cherry scented candle and slipped into that whole fantasy place of a three way which kind of worked and kind of didn’t and as it turns out as attractive as Rhonda was I didn’t really interact with her any and I just wasn’t into her.

Not to mention the big shift in myself sexually since all of my hormones really were kicking in and doing what they were supposed to do. It took a lot to get me excited down there and then it took a lot of focus too. If my head wasn’t in the right space then…fffffttt…it’d just fizzle and in a hurry.

And then there’s the whole feelings thing.

I wanted to not just feel like me and I was on the way to that which was actually nice, even more than nice. But it was the deeper stuff that I wanted. I wanted to be cared for, to cuddle with someone and do things and kiss…I really, really wanted to be wanted and that was actually really powerful a thing for me.

Heck being wanted and having someone was part of my fantasies.

But I still enjoyed the sort of set up still and I like scented candles and tea lights and stuff like that.

And then just as I was settling into this sort of quiet and resignedness of being alone for the foreseeable future…something happened.

It was while I was writing Nano for that year I saw Holly Tyler and she’d been one of the girls that was never on the list of the popular girls and she was kind of friendly and stuff but really shy and sort of kind of did what I did and blended in as much as possible with the rest of us wallflowers.

I know I wasn’t the only one that looked and stared the first day of November when she came into the cafeteria to get a coffee and she was in a dress, it wasn’t even anything like fancy but it was really stunning.

A sort of soft pale umber tinted yellow with daises on it and spaghetti straps and it was cut close to her body and to just up past her knee and she had her hair down and she was actually wearing a little make-up.

We locked eyes for a second and she smiled at me and I smiled a little shy smile at her and she went and got herself a coffee like a lot of us do before class.

I was not expecting her to come over and sit with me.

I actually jumped a little when she did and said. “Hey.”

“Uhm…hey?”

She smiled and it was a really nice smile too… “Oh cool you got your braces off.”

She blushed and some of her hair did the bang-fall and my fingers itched to move it. “Yeah, finally. I hope you don’t mind me joining you?”

It was my turn to blush. “Are you sure that you want to do that? I mean I’m not exactly on the need to be seen with list.”

“Me neither Shane.”

I coughed. “That could change you’re getting a lot of attention.”

I sort of point out a bunch of the usual suspect guys checking her out and they’re not even being subtle about it. Holly rolls her eyes after looking their way and makes a face. “Yick Mitchells”

“Mitchell’s?”

“Y’know Fedora boys, neck beardies, doodbros.”

“Oh…I always called them Gastons.”

“Gastons?”

“From Disney the guy from Beauty and the Beast, Gaston he’s scary as hell because he’s real and he’s like all those guys that we hate that think they know better than us what we need and don’t actually care because if they had their way we’d all be doing whatever they want.”

She looked over her shoulder at them and they were still trying to catch her eye or something and she chuckled a little. “Fracking Gastons.”

“Fracking? You’re into BSG?”

Holly actually gets a pained look on her face. “I was until it became this whole thing of only certain numbers and models of Cylons, it was lazy as heck really with those levels of advanced intelligences that they wouldn’t have the ability to actually have randomized appearances and personality templates?”

I nodded. “I loved Starbuck but then they started messing with her with the whole getting married thing and she was like…it was like they had no idea what to actually do with a strong character that was a woman so they purposely effed her up.”

She grinned and drank her coffee. “Yep, that’s why Firefly got boned they had women characters that were too powerful and you can’t have women talking dominantly about sex or like have a powerful sex worker type.”

And from that part it was on and we went into full on geekette mode talking about our fandoms and stuff into the bell and walking to our lockers and then I got shoved into the lockers with a really hard shove.

I’m not too big, I wasn’t like naturally small or anything but after my hormones and not working out or doing sports and watching within like reason of like what I’d been eating I was like a hundred and thirty pounds or so and Brent Fraser was six foot three and played defensemen for the hockey team.

I was lucky he didn’t shove me out of my sneakers when he did that and I hit the lockers hard enough to see stars.

“Heya Hols this fag bothering you?”

She turned on him. “No She’s not bothering me you frakking Cromag.”

Brent looked confused, like he couldn’t get that she wasn’t awed by his display of all the muscles he had and that he was like talking to her, because he was like that you know you should be honored by his advances.

“I’m a fucking what?”

I got up off the ground and Holly came over to stand with me and she glared at him. “I said She isn’t bothering me you assclowns you are so take off.”

He glared at both of us. “Freaks.”

I shook off the stars and looked at him. “Wow was that really necessary?”

“Shaddup fag.”

“No.”

He actually got madder by me just saying a simple no.

“What’d you say?”

I look at him and we were getting a crowd. “I said no.”

And I wasn’t even bothering with stuff like make me It was just a no.

Brent looked like he wanted to pound me. And he looked actually helpless at the same time because he was actually getting some looks from the more neutral kids that didn’t really try to concern themselves with who was popular or who it was fashionable to hate.

He did a fake lunge at me and I didn’t give him the satisfaction of moving and he looked like that was get madder and he punched the locker beside my head and that made me close my eyes buy Holly had my arm in her hands and I didn’t flinch. It took me everything that I had for it not to make me flinch but I didn’t and he spun and he stormed off saying to Holly. “Fucking cunt!”

And she said. “Yup, I love cunts they’re fucking awesome.”

Oh…

I looked at her and so’s a fair amount of people and she actually gave me this sort of blushy shy smile. “Wow…so that’s one way for me to come out huh?”

I couldn’t help but grin at her. “Oh yeah so got mine beat.”

She smiled. “I have to go to homeroom I’ll see you at break?”

“Uhm…okay?”

And let me tell you my mind wasn’t at all about my class work then because I was trying to figure out if she wanted to be friends, more than friends? Was she into me? What happened that she came out?

Was I just someone to hang out with? Because I’m like her and not likely to fit into the whole LGBTQAI+ thing here?

And there was like all of those questions and more all mixed into a whole lot of pretty crushy yay feels.

I mean Holly was really pretty and like not hiding herself anymore and she was really smart and she was brave and we had things in common. I think I mentally sort of sighed all through second period.

Break came and I waited for her in the hall and it was sort of easy to spot her because there was that scandalized buzz from the busy bodies and some of the whole people moving out of the way before the caught “The gay”.

We met up and we went to the canteen and I got some gum and a can of Sprite and we just sort of picked up in just talking about random stuff and she was going to go and use the ladies bathroom and she stopped because I stopped. “You don’t go in here.”

“No, it was such a big thing with the fighting with parents and the faculty that I just said yeah okay. Which kind of makes me feel sometimes a little extra shitty because I should have fought that for like other people like me.”

Holly looked at me. “Don’t, being like a vocal and stuff and standing up for our rights is one thing but doing it out of guilt is no good and doing it when you just don’t have it in you isn’t good either Shane.”

I literally remember that big sort of sigh that came out of me.

It’s a really big thing to have someone to talk to, and about stuff like this too.

Isolation sucks.

And then Holly did something really cool, like really cool and she walked with me to the staff bathroom and we used that. Not together doing our business because I wasn’t comfortable with that kind of openness yet but when we were done she set her bag down to hold the door open where everyone could see us as we fixed our hair and touched up our make-up.

And people fucking see us.

Yeah they looked and they could so suck it.

It was really cool and we met up at lunch and talked too and we left.

Oh yeah we did the thing that people with cars actually got to do and we left the school and we went someplace else to eat. Okay it was only down the street a few blocks to Kentucky Fried Chicken but it was still one of those things…Car, and leaving and neither of us leaving alone.

Isolation loses a huge amount of power over you by just being with one person…just having a friend and when it’s imposed by like some arbitrary rule or social bullshit like her being a lesbian and me being trans it kind of falls apart.

And we didn’t really do that much but become friends that day and hung out together and talked and I kind of got why, I mean with me being sort of a safer bet to be around coming out and stuff.

But I honestly didn’t mind because it was something, after people I knew turned out to be dicks or worse and left me like rats fleeing a sinking ship having a friend was a pretty big deal.

And it was like that for a while us hanging out in school and then during my days off outside of school. And that felt like a miracle honestly. I know some of the people that knew about me hated it, hated that what they were trying to keep going with that isolating me and stuff wasn’t working any more.

Oh it wasn’t like full on bullying and even the crap that I used to get like online had died off as most people couldn’t be bothered to keep up the straight on hate comments and PM’s and stuff especially after I changed all of my privacy settings and all of that.

But no one had really tried to be a friend, or to just talk to me and treat me like a human. Not until Holly at least. After a few weeks of that it was like some people wouldn’t treat me like I was such a social disease.

We went to shows at the movies Holly and I and we’d go shopping. It wasn’t like I needed a whole lot of things or that I was a clothes-horse but it was hanging out and seeing things and just doing normal things.

Like getting my ears pierced. Which was a kind of very yay moment for me? And we went shopping for some new make-up and finding things that worked for me better than the little kits that I had. And we did more than that typically femme stuff we went to play videogames at Star fox arcade downtown and we bought ice cream and we walked around the first night we had snow together.

That was a night too….

I’d drove her home and she sighed as we sat in the driveway and I looked at Holly and Holly looked at me.

“I had a good time Shane.”

“Me too, I never really just walked around to just like walk around.”

“Yeah, it was a nice date.”

“……………..?”

And before my brain really processed it Holly sat up and pushed herself over from her seat to mine and she slipped her finger under my chin and she kissed me.

Oh it was that index finger sliding sort of fast-slow down my jawline to sort of curl under my chin and her thumb actually touching my chin as she held my face like that and Holly kissed me.

It was long and slow and sweet with this feeling when she was starting to part from my lips like she was tasting me with this little inward flex of her lips that met her tongue and she smiled at me. “Oh that was nice.” She said.

“But you’re a lesbian…”

“And?”

“I’m trans…” She looked me in the eyes actually stopping me from finishing with that thumb.

“You’re beautiful Shane.”

“I am?”

She nodded but didn’t say anything as she came in for another kiss, and then another right after that and we were getting into that over and over kissing loop that you see in like romantic movies sort of and she only stopped to pull away just a little bit, just enough to actually run her sweet sexy lips against mine…soft, so soft and then there was this whole other sensation too of her lipstick on my lip gloss as she did that really slowly first one way and then the other and then she kissed me again.

And she pulled me out of my jacket, well pulled and I houdinied.

I kissed her back hoping that I was kissing her right and it was kind of hard because parts of me were making me want to shift and squirm and my breasts were aching so hard and they actually fought against the tension of my bra as they were literally swelling because on my needs calling up all that blood to them from being stimulated.

It was like she knew…well looking at it holly did know, we both had breasts and we were both so getting to that good achy pressing through the fabric of our bras and her hands slipped behind her and she leaned with them on my dash as she actually straddled me and she still kissed me over and over and her hair did that full falling forwards loosely hanging sexy bangs thing and it was so sexy and hot that I made a whimper and she smiled.

And then her hands came up and she cupped my breasts…all aching with need and…and…and…she heated her hands her palms on the heating vents of my dash and she was cupping my still growing and aching breasts with those hands and I shoved my chest to her arching my back and crying out with a gasp and… “Ohhhhh…nnn...nngh…Ha...Holly…”

And I popped in my panties going from being quite hard to popping off like in a wet dream but from Holly’s super sexy and hot touch.

I whimper and panted quite hard as she cupped and gentle squeezed and curled her fingers over my breasts and I could feel the scrape sort of touch of her nails through my tee-shirt and through the lace in my bra…the sensations were so intense and so powerful.

Holly was making me shiver and sweat and making my heart race in the most amazing way that it ever had in my entire life as we kissed and my brain was just falling into this whole new dimension of pleasure that…words for this are always so hard for me really but breast sensations are just that and the best way is to say alive…usually their just there, they go through all the things that breasts and nipples do but right now they’re alive and they’re more than just breasts…they’re me, they’re mine and there is such a massive connection to myself image and sexuality that it’s just beyond the sensations and part of the sensations and there’s this fucking infinitely awesome connection when your soul and your body both say yes and blows your mind.

And then she actually take it up even higher as Holly’s thumbs slide down as she’s been touching and scratching and cupping and now with her holding my breasts she’s running her thumbs up and down over my nipples as they were desperately trying to push out through the fabric and now she’s creating this insane friction and pleasure and heat and I shove my chest again at her and…oh holy shit this was…she pushed her thumbs into my nipples using the cloth and the bra all over again and yet she was sort of forcing them down and it hurt…but it hurt in this kind of great way like when you get bit…but bit just right and she kissed me and she kissed me and my flesh, the nipples almost tried to move from pushing down on something soft…but were held in place by my bra and it all just sort of make them try and squirm and dance under her thumbs and made me cry out…flail at the seats and the seat covers and pound my feet against the floor of my car.

Oh if I was in bed my feet would have been pointed and my toes would have been that astounding sexual curl.

I had this super-fast raise and stiffen in my panties and popped again….it was like just enough to cum…but it was hard just enough to fire…and when it did it felt like my skin fired up so hot and I wanted more and I wanted out of my clothes because I just couldn’t stand to be in them.

“Take it off, take my shirt off.”

She grinned while she’s broke the kiss and she ducked her head in this like a bow instead of a shy thing and she looked me in the eyes and said. “As you wish.”

She doing Wesley, flipping the role, making me…oh yeah that was so, so sweet.

And then I got to do the arms up peel out of my shirt bra reveal thing with her and Holly was even slicker than that because as I was up-shirting she unhooked my bra and when my arms came down she slip the straps off of my shoulders.

I almost whimpered at the coolness and the sudden vulnerability and the feeling of being free of the bra when I was so turned on that I was swelling.

And Holly leaned back and she stared at me.

Just a look, a look that was just seconds and it’s enough to make my insecure shit come to a boil.

“What…?”

“Wow…”

“Wow..?”

“Yeah Wow, you’re beautiful.”

Wait, what…me?

I’ll tell you that are seared in my brain, that moment and that feeling.

“Mmm..Me.?”

“Yeah you.”

“But I’m…”

Holly looks at me and she leans in and kisses me and she touches me….up my sides with fingertips like silk and edgy sexy nails that make me shiver and she only backs off the kiss to whisper things to me.

“Yeah you are…you are a beautiful girl and I was sure that there was some kind of thing going on with you because I noticed you last year and…”

“And…?”

“And I’m not into guys.”

“But…but…”

“And I like your butt Shane, you have a cute butt.”

We were still so face to face and in kissing range. Hell we were kissing or she was kissing me in between things she was saying almost like kissing me was her taking a pause for air.

“Holly…god I want this, I’ve wanted this all of my life y’know…just to feel right and just to be seen…and not gawked at….I…I don’t know what to do Holly…I love you as my friend, I like you hugely in the crushy way but I don’t want to fuck things up.”

Tears are slipping out of the corners on my eyes and making a mess.

“Shane…honey…”

(Sniffle) “……yeah?”

“I’m seducing you remember, I want you okay.”

(Sniffle and a bobble headed nod.) “But why?”

“Because you’re beautiful and you’re smart and you’re funny and fun to be with…because we click and we get our jokes and references and you make me a coffee every time you make one for yourself and you know what kind of popcorn I like when we watch movies and you ball your hands up with nerves when that girl that should get to be with someone might just get kissed because you’re scared for her instead of swooning.”

Okay I was bawling, I bawl every time I think about it and she kissed me again and she backed away to do that lippy graze thingy again and she smiled for me.

“But you can touch me Shane, I so want you to touch me and I want to feel you inside of me and I want us to finally happen…we’ve been friends and dating for a while now and I really need you tonight.”

And she shucked off her coat and she pulled her blouse free of the waistband in her skirt and she lifted her arms.

And I pull her top off and we started making love in the front seat of my car.

It was not like any time I was with those other girls, this was so, so very different and it meant more. Being touched, actually touched and explored and had like an interest in was so new to me…and I don’t know if it was me pre-transition or it was this way because I was a guy or seemed like a guy and it was the way things go between a guy and a girl that left me feeling…academic.

I want to be touched and held and kissed…I want to feel the trace of lips and the feeling of someone else on my skin…I want fingers that can make me shiver and a nuzzle that will give me thrill bumps as it glides over me.

I want that connection, the connection that I was having with Holly and sharing back with her.

She actually even made it better when she fumbled through her purse while we were hip over hip and her straddling me both of us topless and making enough steam to fog up my windows pretty seriously. She gets her MP-3 player into the jack in the dash of my car and she has a song starting to play.

*Black Velvet* By Alannah Myles is the first song playing.

“You made us a mix tape?” That was awesome, MP-3 or CD or yeah even a cassette if that someone has a player, a mixed tape is always a good thing.

Holly grinned. “Yeah, I made you a mixed tape. That’s what happens when you watch High Fidelity.”

“I love it, it’s super sweet.”

“Good, you’ll be my girlfriend then?”

There was a lot of ways that ran through my head about how to answer her but kissing her was what I did and it was really the first time for me to be the one kissing her and it felt good.

Holly has these soft sweet lips that are really cute too, they’re sort of medium in like the whole fullness thing and she is so expressive too. And it was just me kissing her the way that I’d want to be kissed. A Tootsie pop kiss…a round lollipop kiss where you slowly meet your lips to theirs with that soft parting acceptance of their kiss but it’s you doing the kissing, tasting her lolipopness and then enjoying it, the spark that’s her flavor playing across her lips and to yours and then the actual moment when you are having that sweet candy moment, the roll and swirl with your tongue and then pulling away from the kiss with that savoring way that it goes when you’re trying to pull off her flavor…then I’d lick my lips and do it all again.

And at least twice more before we break from kissing and she pants… “I take that as a yes?”

I’m panting a little too and nodding. “That’s a yes, that’s definitely a yes.”

And then we started kissing again.

And our hands moving, touching and gliding over skin…Holly seems to like the tracing of my nails up and down her spine.

I love when she slides her hands up my sides and over my ribs until she gets to my breasts or the sort of where I’d have side boob or will and she slips her thumb and forefinger arch around the sort of semi crease there in this soft almost whisper tease.

And she did the cupping things and then the thumb thing…and I groaned at the way those feelings just sort of took me over like a flash flood and then shock, ever so effing amazing shock went through me as Holly’s thumb flicker off of my nipple as she moved it and that felt good…and it hurt…and then as that ow was sort of still processing there was a hot wet mouth suckling on my nipples and her hands doing these soft squeezes to my breasts.

And more kisses in between and I slip my hand down and she’s soaked and that makes me blush really hard because she’s like that…over me?

“Turn your hand over…”

“What?”

“Turn your hand over Shane…use the backs of your fingers.”

“Okay…”

It took a second to focus with Holly doing such amazing things to me and I want to do those amazing things for her too and I turn my hand over and use the backs of my fingers to get slick and to use that slickness and push my fingers down and over her mound and dipping down and sliding across her labia.

“Gnnn…good…relax it though…let…oh…yeah…th..that…” She gasped.

That was me loosening my fingers like she said but just a little and her folds actually meet those spaces between my index and middle finger and my ring and baby fingers just enough to sort of have this little groove for each of them as I move back and forth they’re getting this slick rub down and tease…okay…okay I actually though of something on my own and bent my middle two fingers just enough that they curled and curled just enough to slip into the groove of herself and I feel contact a little and I use that wrinkled knuckle skin as something ribbed to rub her with.

“Oh…oh ff..fuck Shane…yeah, yeah that that’s perfect…faster baby, faster.”

I flexed my wrist and move more and more and Holly presses so close to me that our breasts were touching and she was riding my hand as much as I was flexing my wrist more and more to get her off and she cries out a few times and she gripped the car seat and rode and rode.

She’s starting to shake and I change the position of my hand and slipped my thumb inside of her and she whined really loudly and I moved my thumb inside of her until I found her little love nubbing and I used all her slickness and the feel of it to…PlayStation her little thumbstick…around and around and only it’s edge until she was crying out. “Shane, Shane fuck…Shane! I’m going to cum Shane!”

And then knowing where it is I put the top of my thumb on her love-nub and move it back and forth with just enough contacts as to say that I made contact and move my thumb fast.

That worked…That worked so well she rode my hand and she grabbed the car seat and pressed us breasts to breasts and she bit me. Right there on my collar bone settling her teeth around it and not biting hard but still biting and joy-whining around the bite and I could swear I felt the orgasm vibration that was running through her body humming with that whine into my bones….and I think part of me popped too…not like a real pop-off…my body couldn’t do that again but it sort of was like that…this little sort of pleasure spike.

I think, I think I liked getting bitten.

I mean if you did it right.

We stopped after that panting and just held each other and I cried, like holy fuck I’m not alone and some one wants me cry.

And she was crying too.

(Sniffle.) “Holly…what’s wrong?”

(Sniffle.) “Oh…(Sniffle.)…nothing Shane, I’m just fucking happy.”

(Sniffle.) “Happy?”

(Sniffle.) “Yeah…we’ve been dating but we never called it dating and…and I didn’t want to wreck our friendship.”

“I didn’t know, I mean I wanted too, hell when you showed back up I school after Halloween you were just so friggin beautiful.”

“And alone Shane…there’s no girls here to date that want to date me that aren’t in university…and I’m too young for them… (Sniffle-laugh.)…they told me as much.”

“Their loss, you’re smart and sexy and amazing.”

“Thanks and you’re amazing too Shane, you’re out and the shit that you have to deal with and you’re beautiful too.”

“I don’t usually feel like that.”

“Like what?”

“Beautiful…brave….I just, I just have been so…alone.”

Holly looked me in the eyes and she leaned back into the steering wheel. “You don’t have to be Shane, You don’t have to be.”

Then she took my face in both her hands, moved some of my hair ad she kissed my with one of the most amazing, tenderest make the world spin round us while we’re standing still kisses.

Of course I kissed her back.

And when she broke the kiss.

“C’mon my folks work nights, lets go get showered together and cleaned up and we can snuggle up together with some food and hot chocolate.”

Three minutes later we’re thrillingly going from my car to her house with our things in our hands and bare-chested and laughing and freezing and kissing as we fumble with keys and each other into one of the most amazing of relationships.

The end…?