With Permission from Catherine Linda Michel

All praise for this little story is due to the originator of this universe, I'm simply playing in the mud in the backyard here.

If there happens to be something you don't like, that would be all me.

Enjoy.
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Kerry stood bent over a worktable, studying plans for the new wing to the Home. Her mind wandered a little, meandering over the past 2 years. It was still somehow unbelievable, that she had had such great good fortune. From practically dying on the ice one morning to bossing Cathilynn’s construction crews had been a hard journey, gathering her childhood knowledge and working through the memories of her father those brought up and then her adult memories and applying it all to the courses necessary to get her General Contractor’s license.

Tons of bookwork, struggling with maths that made her head hurt at first and then became as instinctive as walking. 2 solid years of catching up on basically the entirety of High School and plowing her way through the bureaucratic maze that was the licensing system.

The books and the studying went pretty well, and she honestly found it easy once she’d grasped the maths.

Counseling, on the other hand, wasn’t going very well. She’d talked out the animosity, the hatred, the isolation and the fear, but the emotional walls wouldn’t drop. No matter how hard she tried, after that first night the emotional closeness never quite returned. She couldn’t even bring herself to do more than return a tender, well meaning hug with a stiff cold one.

She silently cursed herself, knowing she had hurt the young girl’s feelings earlier by not returning the hug she had offered so freely. The child needed love so badly, why couldn’t she give just that little bit of herself? She knew she wanted to, but when the time came, she froze over again and became “The Ice Bitch”. Her workers saw a little bit past the façade and realized that she actually cared for their welfare and what they thought and that made a huge difference in how her worksite ran, but they also knew that she would be right up on the scaffold beside them for dangerous tasks, that she wouldn’t ask any of them to do something she wouldn’t go do herself.

The kid had no way to know that though, and that nagged at her. She tried so hard to do right and yet it didn’t seem to matter next to the hurt she knew she’d caused the kid.

Kenny sidled up next to her. “Hey yo, boss lady! The guys are thinking maybe its gettin to be about Miller time, ya know?”

“Kenny, you know damn well I ain’t gonna feed my boys any of that watered down horse piss. I swear that shit loses something on its way through the horse’s kidneys!” she carefully wiped a tear from her eye and turned to face him. “Tell the boys I’m taking em out to dinner tonight at Kobe! All the beer they can drink! Tools down in 30 minutes.” She somehow managed to sound chipper and upbeat and Kenny took the point, striding off with his loose-limbed gait to tell the others.

She couldn’t understand her own feelings. More time on the job for her translated into more sleepless nights babbling in her sleep about construction details and how to handle her crews and it was just getting to be more than she could handle. Charlotte woke her up more than a few times, telling her she’d been arguing with an inspector or something in her sleep, yelling loud enough to wake up half the wing. Cathilynn was worried and she knew it and that just added to her stress. Sometimes, as much as it hurt, the only thing that would tire her enough to go back to sleep was standing a dementedly hopeful watch in the hospice wing.

Somehow, it put it all back into perspective, that her pain meant so little next to those who were dying. It made it a little easier to sleep when she could help them, even if it just meant holding a hand while they cried out in insensate agony. Somehow, that was comforting for her. Pain and death were old friends and she knew them well.

Still, there was something wrong with her. She knew it, but she didn’t know what to do about it. How do you manage to reach out to others? To make friends?

She didn’t know how, didn’t know how to share and so she retreated into textbooks. Others tried to reach out and she was so bound within her own fears that it never came to anything and eventually, even the endlessly loving people at the Home began to relate to her on the same level. Cold, professional, and unapproachable.

Somehow, she knew she had to fix that, but she didn’t have a clue how to begin. She didn’t feel like she could approach Irene or Cathilynn to ask for help. They had entrusted her with a duty, to see that the new wing and additions were done well and she was going to live up to that expectation if it killed her.

To admit that she couldn’t handle it would be, she felt, to let them down. So she held her shame inside herself and it festered. It was a nasty little pustule just beneath the surface, prompting her to crawl into every recess of the building, checking to see if joins were made properly and micromanaging everything.

“All in all”, she thought to herself “I’m the kind of boss I would have hated.”

It didn’t seem to matter how honest she was with herself about her shortcomings, she was driven and that drive took precedence over her own happiness. In truth, if she looked at it, she didn’t feel like she deserved to be happy when others were suffering. Something had to change, but how, and what?

Later that night, they sat around the Hibachi, watching the chef do tricks with his cookware and put on a show. Unknown to her, Kenny had paid the chef to present warm saki with every dish and to make sure her cup was always full. She had never had it so had no idea what she was slamming down. By the time the 3rd course was served, she was buzzed. By the 5th course, she was well on her way to very drunk. By the end of the meal, they literally carried her out of the restaurant. Most of the guys weren’t any better off, so it was James, the quiet giant who very rarely spoke that wound up carrying her into her room and gently tucking her, fully clothed, into her bed.

He didn’t expect the deep, passionate kiss she gave him right before passing out, and although it was very nice, it bewildered him. He knew how he felt about her, no question. He was in love. What he didn’t know was how to even begin to say such a thing to her.

The next few days at work were decidedly odd for both of them. He dreamed of their kiss and so did she, but while she dreamed of it with a sense of longing she was yet unable to feel in her waking self, he was wracked by guilt, not being able to escape the feeling that he had somehow taken advantage of her in her drunken vulnerability.

Kerry awoke after a night of very confusing dreams. She hadn’t really ever wanted to have sex with anyone. Being so horribly abused just gave her a visceral repugnance to the whole idea. But she had spent the night having erotic dreams, dreams of a strong , loving, protective man who made her feel so happy.

She knew that long before her journey began, she had always dreamed that a handsome prince would rescue her from durance most vile, but there had never been true hope. Jake had been a kind of father figure to her and Cathilynn was sort of a distant godmother, benevolent but not the sort of person she would ever presume to approach with her personal issues.

There was a little more closeness with Irene and some of the others, but since that first night she had withdrawn and there wasn’t any sort of real connection. She understood that it wasn’t their fault, that it was her who had pushed away the attempts at friendship and the offers of help. Understanding that didn’t make her any less lonely though. Her therapist had helped her work through most of the issues from her time in prison and honestly, with the tattoos gone, the nightmares had lost their edge. She simply curled up in her bed and soaked her pillow sobbing instead of waking screaming at the top of her lungs.

That was progress of a sort, wasn’t it?

What she couldn’t explain to herself was what she had done when James laid her in the bed. She had grabbed him and kissed him, and no chaste, nonsexual kiss, either! More to the point, she had wanted to do much more than that and only her fear had kept her from going further. She found herself deeply, sexually attracted to someone for the first time in her life and she had no idea what to do!

No, that wasn’t quite right. She knew exactly what to do, but what she didn’t know was how not to feel dirty doing those things, how to not hate herself. How to not feel violated.

Intellectually, it was very simple. What happened in prison was rape and here she was free to choose.

Emotionally? Anything but simple. How do you reconcile insensate terror with desire when both things have happened in similar circumstances? When the very fact that you might desire a man fills you with longing and dread at the same time?

There had been Tremaine in jail and she had felt these things for him. Something happened one day and then he was gone. Alive, from what she heard, but somewhere else. After that she had withdrawn even more and that was when they started calling her “Ice-Bitch”. She still had to act like she enjoyed servicing the men but when she wasn’t doing that, everything about her was frozen. After a while, that became her normal protective veneer.

Jake knew enough and cared enough to get through her emotional shields, and when she almost died, there was a moment when she had seemed to connect with both Irene and Cathilynn, but then her Ice Bitch self came back to the fore and that faded. Forming personal connections just seemed to be beyond her.

Then this thing had happened to her last night and cast her even farther adrift. Who could she talk to? She had alienated everyone who tried to help and didn’t know how to fix it. It was the next Friday before she decided what had to be done.

From Kerry’s Diary.

When it was time to knock off, I called Kenny over. He came sidling up in his normal way that looked liked his joints weren’t quite connected right. “Kenny, I want you to take the boys out to Kobe and show em a good time, and if you wanna go somewhere after that(He knew I meant the strip clubs) the cover and liquor is on me, ok?” I handed him my card. “Oh, and please ask James to come see me.”

With that I turned away and strode back into my own work area. I had managed to act nonchalant in front of Kenny, though I was sure he knew what was going on. The truth was I was terrified. Think of something beyond terrified and that’s what I was. Then James walked into the room and looked into my eyes and suddenly I wasn’t.

I was nervous, unsure of myself, a little scared and feeling intensely vulnerable, but I wasn’t where I had been an instant before. Feelings aside, I had to say my piece.

“James” I began, then sort of faltered, finding myself looking at my feet instead of into his intense green eyes. “I’ve given the entire crew a night out, without me there, just for them. They all deserve it. I’ve taken this night apart from them unlike the way I normally do it because I want to have dinner with you. You don’t have to if you don’t want to, it’s nothing like that. This won’t affect your job status in the slightest way. You are an excellent worker and will always have a job with me, based purely on your skill.”

“With that said, would you like to have dinner with me tonight? We can go wherever you want.” I still couldn’t bring myself to look into his eyes.

I felt him move closer to me and then the pressure of his sausage-sized forefinger lifting my chin until I had to look at him. I could barely breathe.

“I would be honored to escort you anywhere you wish to go.” He leaned down and lightly brushed his lips against mine. I think melting is the right word for what happened to me then. I just felt like jelly had replaced my bones. It was really scary!

The idea of sex had always been something forced for me, an act of submission to dominance, but this was somehow different, even though it was the same act, submitting myself to a man. This was something I wanted to do, so badly that it almost hurt. It was somehow completely different.

When I unconsciously leaned into him on the way out, I felt a sense of security, of wholeness. We wound up at a little Thai restaurant. The Pad Thai was beyond marvelous and he made me laugh. I hadn’t truly laughed in so long I had almost forgotten how, but he reminded me and then he dropped me off at the door to my apartment with a gentle kiss.

I wanted so badly for him to do more and I cried myself to sleep wondering what was wrong with me. I had every intention to seduce this wonderful man and I couldn’t seem to open up enough to just do it.

I woke the next morning, running through my usual routine, a quick toilette, then dressed for breakfast and another day of work. Right at my normal time I opened the door to my apartment, ready to dash out and found a dozen red roses with a note attached.

“You need a break” it said, “So this is your day, whether you want it or not. A car will pick you up at 9. Casual dress.” There was no signature.

Ok, that’s weird. I decided I’d do what the note said so I exchanged my work clothes for a suit. Very simple, grey watered silk with a skirt just above my knees and an eggshell silk blouse with just the lightest detail on the collar and cuffs, A simple gold chain, faux pearl drop earrings and a slim watch did it for jewelry. Ok, so it wasn’t casual, but I hadn’t really managed to develop a casual wardrobe. It was either work or business dress for me and in my off time, usually just sweats.

Still, even with having to add makeup and doing something with my hair, I was left with 15 minutes to burn and I was fidgeting. I didn’t know what was going to happen and that made me really nervous. I decided to meditate because I was way too nervous to be able to speak coherently.

The knock on the door jolted me out of my meditative state, but I followed my personal rule and waited 30 seconds before I opened my eyes and began to move. By the time I was at the door, I could see James with his hand just getting ready to knock again. I had a little moment of panic because his hand looked so huge through the peephole.

I had known it had to be him doing this, but to be confronted with the reality was an entirely different thing. For one thing, I was overwhelmed with this sudden rush of desire and I had no idea how to deal with that and at the same time I was so far beyond terrified I felt like I couldn’t breathe.

Somehow, I managed to open the door and he came rushing through to catch me as I slumped to the floor. My vision had faded to just a tunnel, but the thing in the middle of that tunnel was his face, that giant, plain face that looked like it had seen a thousand winters up north. I could feel him cradling me in his lap and feel him kissing my forehead, rocking me and yelling for help.

None of this really came together for me for a couple days more. From what everybody tells me, I was pretty much curled up in a ball crying my eyes out for 2 days. Nobody but James could even touch me without provoking a violent reaction and even he got it a few times. I watched the recordings and saw the ways I hit him. I felt bad for him when I saw some of the cheap shots I took, but I honestly didn’t remember doing it so it was really weird trying to apologize.

His response was astounding. That deep rumbling bass of his was almost hypnotic to begin with. “Cathilynn told me about you, you know. Several weeks ago, when I asked her if policy prohibited my asking you out. I told her I was willing to find other work if it did. Apparently she decided I needed to know. I haven’t told anyone, but it took me a little bit of time to think about it and realize that what was under the clothes didn’t matter. I fell in love with that person I saw underneath the driven taskmaster and whatever you might have been born as is simply not relevant to me.”

“I’ve seen your strengths and I wouldn’t go up against you in a business arena, you’re a shredder. I’ve also seen what I think is your only weakness and I’m so crass as to want to exploit it. You need love, perhaps more than anyone I’ve ever met. Well, I do too and I think just maybe we can exploit each other’s weakness to our mutual benefit. Would you like to give it a try?”

Now some people might think that sounds a little cold hearted, but it was exactly what I needed to hear. A man knew all about me, still wanted to date me and it wasn’t just for sex(although I had to admit I was really starting to want that), he meant real falling in love kind of dating!

The way he just laid it out there, bald faced, no attempt at even minor misdirection, was perhaps the most alluring thing he could have done at that moment. Still, I was a bit like a deer in headlights, trying to think of what I wanted to say. I certainly didn’t want to seem too forward.

“James, I think we should talk about this later, perhaps at that dinner you promised me before I freaked out and caused all this drama? I’ll tell you you’ve got me right, and I think I could fall in love with you and I’ve known you long enough to know you’re a damn decent guy, but you have to realize I’m about 3 or 4 levels beyond scared. The only thing I’ve ever done that could be called sex was being raped, so please understand that I have lots of fear centered around the whole idea.”

Somehow I’d made the words come out past the choking lump in my throat. I was on the verge of breaking down in tears again and I felt him move up to me. He held me in his arms, gently, as though he was afraid to hug me more tightly. I wanted nothing more at that moment than to have him hold me tightly and make me feel safe, for I realized at that moment that he did make feel safe and protected and secure. Somehow in his arms I felt whole and I clung to him with a ferocity born of desperation. I was clinging desperately to a man, and it had nothing to do with a threat or anything other than the fact that I wanted him to hold me.

Now some of you readers have to understand, I’m not like a lot of T-girls. Lots of my sisters are into women, same as they were before. Me, I’m into men, same as I was before. James was like a dream for me.

I won’t pretend that weren’t a lot of issues that we had to fight through( and trust me, with James and I on the opposite sides of an argument, it could be heard quite a ways away), but 3 months after we finally dedicated the new wing of the Home that love built, James and I were married. My company has grown quite a bit now, but James mostly ramrods the projects. I’m busy taking care of our children.

Okay, they aren’t our biological children, that isn’t possible yet. They are my dead Afghani friend’s cousin’s children, but in our hearts, they are our children. Sometimes they have nightmares from things they have seen in the wars and they come to share our bed and find respite from their demons in a warm cuddle.

I still stand watches in the hospice ward. I’ve given up on the mad hope that the poor souls in there will live and now I just do my best to be there and be supportive until the end. It breaks my heart, and more than once James has had to come and tend me when I break down at a death, but I always manage to hold it together until they have gone. I remember the night Amber and Stacy died. It was almost a week before I could function again, but I managed a brave front for both of them and I held their hands as they took their last breaths.

I don’t know what the future holds, but I know it has to be better than what was before. If nothing else, there is love and that makes all the difference in the world. I think Hamid and Ibrahim would tell you the same, but right now they are with James and that is a time for only men. They still aren’t comfortable with the idea that I will not wear even a headscarf, much less the Hajib or Bhurka.

I might not agree with their faith, but in some way I have to respect it. I can’t simply tell them to believe the way I do(or rather don’t). What I can do is make damn sure they respect women, starting with their adoptive mother. I think I have a pretty hard row to hoe there, but I’m more than willing. I have two wonderful sons and I want them to grow up into decent human beings. That’s a parent’s job, right?