Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

September 01, 2023:

“You want me to do what ?”

“Uh…like, I was wondering if maybe you could possibly maybe, like, just for a few wee—days—er, no, like, for Homecoming just, like pretend to be my girlfriend?”

I sighed in exasperation, “Jae, I pay you to do my homework for me, why would I— I’m not even a girl , Jae!”

There was a timidity in Jae’s body language that I would usually call kind of cute—even if he was only an inch shorter than me—but today I was more than a little annoyed, “Rich, I’m sorry, I told my parents I have a girlfriend—I never asked you for money! And that she did cosplay!”

I was still drawing a blank, “Yeah? And? I can’t be the only person you know who does cosplay!”

A face somewhere between ‘annoyed’ and ‘blank’ emerged on Jae’s face, “I hang around you all the time, Richard. I don't have any other friends. Besides, most people think we're already dating !”

“We’re friends?” Okay, it was hard not to tease such a pitiable guy sometimes.

“Rich!” Christ, I thought Jae was going to stamp his foot against the hardwood floor of my bedroom for a minute. Fruity gestures always did suit him.

“Okay, okay, calm your tits, bro,” I giggled, clumsily turning my back to my friend to browse my closet, “Fuck Jae, the closet thing I have to woman’s clothing is, like, Asuna’s school uniform from SAO or Shirona’s outfit from Pokemon…”

“Shirona?”

“Nevermind! Sheesh, normies…anyway, my good sir,” I said while removing a piece of lint off of my Sephiroth cosplay’s top—I really needed to buy those protective wrap thingies for my cosplay—“I fear that I’m going to need some sort of stipend for buying clothes. Assuming I followed through on this silly little farce of yours, that is.”

Jae’s lips became a long, flat line so strained I feared his cheeks were going to tear, “Rich. Richard. Richie. You’re rich , why the hell else would I be taking a hundred bucks off of you to do your homework every week?”

With a hint of sass, "I thought you never asked me to pay you for that?" 

Jae retorted with a disgruntled, low growl that left me stifling a giggle.

True, the generous allowance from my well-to-do folks and my own income from Instagram modeling were indeed keeping me quite liquid, “Nevertheless, honey,” Yeah, I didn’t understand why I was always so flamboyant around Jae, either, “A ‘girl’ has her needs.”

“So you’ll do it?”

It was kind of cute how relieved he sounded. Well, as they say: in for a penny…

“You said you needed this for Homecoming, right?” Well, it was senior year, it’s really no surprise how desperate Jae was. “Jae, we’ve been flying solo at these school dances for years, my dear, I don’t think your folks are going to be surprised if you just admit that you lied to them about—” 

Jae quickly closed the distance between us—the speed of which made me dizzy—and stared up at me with his cute, dark eyes, “Rich, please , it’s senior year! I don’t want them to think I’m some sort of loser.”

I could feel the warmth of Jae’s heightened breath on my sensitive chest, which stirred up a mixture of feelings in me I didn’t, like, really know how to feel about. Hell, even just the closer proximity made me feel a bit… off . To reassert dominance I brought up and twirled my right wrist before laying my index finger on his chest, “Are you sure you’re not just gay ?” I grinned mercilessly, using my finger to push him back a step.

“No, Richard, I’m… listen , I’ve seen your girl cosplays, it’s not gay to be attracted to… that !”

I must admit, teasing such a cute boy like Jae was always kind of fun. Sure, I was straight myself, but I’d known Jae since we were in elementary school. Making him squirm was just a thing we did. Together. “Gee, I’m flattered, Mr. Jeong.” That hadn’t come out as dripping with sarcasm as I’d meant it to.

“O-of course,” Jae stammered, finally dropping his deep gaze into my eyes, probably to stare at his shoes. That’s when he noticed my shirt. “Wait, Rich…are you wearing breasts underneath your shirt?”

So, like, showing was easier than explaining. Lifting my baggy Thunderpussy shirt over my head I revealed my prized acquisitions. “Voila, Jae Jae!”

Jae was stunned, “Holy shit , Rich. Are those r-real?”

“Yup! I’ve been on HRT since last April. I love what it’s doing for my skin and getting to play with tits is kinda cool, too!”

Jae fell back onto my bed, still in disbelief. Finally, the shock faded just enough for him to cover his eyes, “Oh my God Rich, I’m sorry, just cover them up, please!”

It was hard not to giggle at such a pious boy. With a loud snap of the strap of the cute pink bra I’d picked up, I donned my Thunderpussy shirt again, “There, ya happy?”

Jae slowly poked an eye out through his fingers to confirm the enemy retreat, “Oh my God. Holy shit , Richard?! What?!?”

“Like I said, Jae, I’m on HRT.”

“Wait, what ?”

Clearly Mr. Jeong needed an explanation.

“Hormone Replacement Therapy, dear,”  For some reason that ‘dear’ wasn’t sounding nearly as condescending as I meant it to. After a beat I added: “Estrogen.” 

“You’re taking estrogen ?”

“Yup-yup! Some guys do it to look cuter, after all.”

“A-are you transgender?”

“Me? Transgender? Like, as in, a girl? I mean…why would I be a girl?” Not, like, that there’s anything wrong with that or whatevs.

“Uh…maybe because you’re literally taking estrogen to look cute ?”

“Sir,” Gosh, I couldn’t muster up any sarcasm today, “I cosplay anime characters. Most of them are twinks, of course I want to look the part !”

I could tell from Jae’s face that his mind was, like, gettin’ blown and shit ‘cause of the way his eyes kept bulging out and stuff, “Yeah. Anime boys tend to look a bit like girls. Girls , Richard!”

So, like, it felt like people normally let out a big, dramatic sigh at moments like these in movies, so I played the part, “Jae, honey , just because I want to look like an anime boy who happens to look a little girly sometimes it doesn’t mean I’m a girl. Come on, don’t be so closed-minded!”

Jae stood from his perch on the edge of my bed to close the gap between us once again, “Rich, you’ve been calling me ‘honey’ and ‘dear’ for weeks now.”

Drat, I suppose he wasn’t picking up on the sarcasm I obviously meant to exude, “Jae Jae, hon—Sir. Sir. Please, there is no way I of all people could be a girl or transgender or whatever the fuck it’s called.”

Now Jae looked unconvinced, “Why’s that, then?” Heck, he sounded unconvinced, too.

Against my orders my body produced red to fill my cheeks, “B-because…like…I…like my… my thingy-thing-thing down there and stuffs .”

Jae was silent for a good ten seconds before I could audibly hear him gulp, “Oh. Yeah. Huh.”

The room fell silent for a length of time I couldn’t determine. Letting myself crash back onto my bed I stared up at the ceiling, “I feel like too much of a fraud to even say I wish I could be a girl, Jae. I mean, yeah, I know that there are porn actresses who keep their…but isn’t that just because they need to pay the bills until they can get surgery?”

I shot my eyes over my mounds to look back at Jae, just standing idly in the middle of my bedroom, “I…” the uncertainty in his voice was more than obvious, “I…don’t know, Rich. I’m sorry.”

One little question and the entire fucking mood was shot. Goddamn it. 

Finally, Jae’s hoarse voice spoke up, “Listen, Rich, we don’t—”

I cut Jae off right there, “No, Jae Jae. We’re going to do this. I’m going to do this.”

I couldn’t really be a girl—but at least I could pretend to be one for the closest thing my detached-ass could call a friend. Shooting straight up off my bed I pierced my gaze into Jae’s and showed him my guts, “Jae, what kind of girl have you told your parents I am?”

Out of the bottom of my field of vision I could tell Jae’s knees were buckling, “Uh…I just said she was—you were—cute. And that you liked anime and were smart.”

If I had to guess, I probably wore a nonplussed facial expression in response to such a description, “Jeez Jeong, you sure know how to describe a girl.”

‘Bashful’ defined Jae’s shoulders’ body language, “Uh…sorry. I’m not good at handling my folks…” Jae crossed his arms across his chest, squirmed at the sensation, and then shifted his footing in his place. The little wiggle in his hips was so fruity, but I couldn’t help but crack a devious grin. God, if only I were into men.

“Tell me about it,” I retorted, stifling any queer —lulz—thoughts. My parents still didn’t know I was on HRT and I’d planned to keep it that way. It was just way too much to deal with. Stepping over to my makeup collection I did a quick assessment of what I was going to need to refill on before designing my new look. “But no, for real Jeong, you’re refilling my makeup collection. Pronto. We’re damned lucky this is Friday, I’m going to need at least two days to give my girl self a proper design.”

I could smell the confusion hanging in the air around Jae like a hunter could smell the coming rainfall, “What do you mean? It’s just for a single night and we have, like, a month until Homecoming.

Ugh, men. “Jae, I can’t just show up to the dance as a girl. People are going to ask questions!”

“Well, actually I don’t think anyone will no—”

“Yes, they will, my good sir. I don’t want to make a scene so I’m going to have to spend the next few weeks going to school as a girl .”

I could see Jae’s computational challenges on his face but shrugged and grabbed my messenger bag off my computer table, “Come on, Jeong, Daddy needs to buy his little ‘girl’ some makeup. And clothes.”

“Wait, wha—?”

***

September 01, 2023:

My trip to the mall with Jae had thankfully been a pleasant one. After picking up the necessary makeup—mostly some eyeliner and shadow that I had been wanting to try out for a potential cosplay—with a little help from Jae’s debit card, Jae and I began hitting up the womens’ specialty stores. I grabbed some cute leggings on Jae’s dime but I still wasn’t really sure what my boundaries for the ‘girlfriend’ Jae apparently had was.

“Alright champ, what exactly are you looking for?”

I knew that we were in a crowded mall during COVID season but Christ, you could see the sweat pouring to Jae’s scary-beautiful eyes, “Uh…maybe…uh…can I say…uh…you know…like…listen, you really don’t have to—” Jae’s voice grew more and more muffled beneath his KN95 mask, forcing me to lean in even more than I usually did.

“Jae, just fucking come out with it already! You know I can’t, like, hear for shit!” I had taken to standing closely to Jae over the years to hear his mumbles better, especially when shopping in the mall.

Through my own poor hearing and below the roar of the crowded mall and behind the barrier of Jae’s mask I could just barely make out my bestie clearing his throat, “...do you mind maybe a Victorian look?” 

What the fuck had I gotten myself into.

“No, you.”

“Uh…maybe a white tras—”

“You like Goth girls, right?”

“...What…?”

“Goth girls, Jae. Pale skin, makeup, clothing that miraculously looks ‘cute’ and ‘sexy’ at the same time?”

Jae fidgeted in place, crossing his arms across his chest, twitching from the sensation, and then nervously bobbing his head in place ever-so-slightly, “Er…uh…I mean, I’m really more into—”

“Goth girl it is, then, Mr. Jeong!” The things I do for my cute friends, “I mean, it wouldn’t be that big an issue. You’re definitely not beating the weeby-simp allegations, though.” It was hard not to smile my way past the annoyance on his face through that sentence.

“Rich—”

“—Rach! Like, ‘Rachel’!”

“ Rach , you know that the only weeb between the two of us is you .”

“Yeah, but I bet you’d still wanna fuck a Big Tiddy Goth E-Girl Weeaboo Girlfriend with huge Mommy Milkers!”

“ This behavior is exactly why people think we’re dating, Richard!”

“Chirp!”

“Ugh! Fine! Yes! Okay, ‘Rachel’!”

Jae slapped his palms over his masked-face and let out an exaggerated groan, which, tee-bee-aych, just made it more apparent how I was hashtag-winning.

Besides, Jae and I had talked about the girls we’d been into for years and I was already building the equipment load in my mind for a week’s worth of outfits. “That debit card is going to be melting by the time I’m finished with it, Jae Jae babe,” I said with a played-up cockiness. 

Rubbing his eyes, Jae said something about “Uh, actually, I just need to sync my phone with the POS' pin pad and…” But I was already on the move to the next store.

***

September 01, 2023:

After the required clothes were acquired—I specifically made Jae swipe his card even though the salespeople said that his card was the type that needed to be inserted or tapped and would not work otherwise—I had Jae pay for additional-additional makeup for my look. Bidding him farewell, I told Jae the game plan: “Alrighty dear, give your gi—er, boy—the rest of the weekend to perfect his look. I promise you’ll enjoy your investment when you see it Monday morning, got it?”

Between soft-pretzel bites the young Mr. Jeong had the audacity to ask: “So, wait, what are you going to do about pronouns and name stuff on Monday? Are you just…going to pretend to be you but trans at school for a month?”

Ugh, details, “Yeah. Fine. Fuck. I hate disrespecting real trans people like that but I’m just going to have to pretend to want a vadge or something if someone asks. What the fuck are pronouns?”

“Like, going by she/her and stuff—how do you not know what pronouns are? Anyway, I mean, I don’t think it’s really anyone’s busin—” 

“As for my name…fuck. Yeah. Any ideas? I guess I’ve got major Raven energy in store or something but that seems almost too on-the-nose for a trans girl...”

“Maybe something that contrasts with—”

“Maybe just stick with ‘Rachel’? That’s got some ‘tough Goth girlfriend’ vibes, right? Actually, I like that, so let’s go with that. For sure.”

Jae seemed like his processor was running behind or something but he finally spoke up after I shoved his shoulder, “Oh, uh…sorry. Yeah, no. Rachel’s a cool name. It really fits you, Rich—er…Rach?”

I couldn’t say why but a nice little tingle tap-danced up my spine when Jae called me Rach, “Yeeeeeah, dude, Rach is totes a cute name to call your girlfriend—FAKE girlfriend, I mean...”

Jae brushed his damp hair off of his forehead as he got up from our food court table to toss his pretzel’s wrapping in the nearest trash bin. I knew it was going to be a very scrutinizing—who the fuck even invented that word?—four weeks so I’d stuck with a salad for my post-shoppeggedon dinner. Returning from his little trip to the trash bin, Jae showed the confusion on his face before re-donning his mask, “‘Totes’?” I heard through the muffing of his mask.

Jae had a habit of being just a little literal sometimes but it’s what I loved about him, “Yeah, ‘totes’, like, ‘totally’ but cuter!” I sing-songed, lifting my pitch into the same range I used to troll guys on voice chat. 

“Oh, yeah, right, gotcha," Jae took a nervous breath—which had the effect of making him squirm cutely. "Jeez, it’s always insane just how much you sound like a girl when you do that.”

Like, it was hard not to tease a guy like Jae when he said things like that. With the most saccharine sweetness I could muster I replied: “What, like, this, babe?” I threw another index finger on Jae’s chest, just to get him off balance again.

This time, though, my best friend grabbed my wrist mid-motion and closed the distance between us himself, bringing his mouth close to my left ear. “Yeah, like that, Rach.” 

Jae’s deep, dulcet tone was opened first by the warmth of his cinnamon soft-pretzel breath, weakening my defenses like a gas attack before the enemy began its ground campaign. My knees buckled for the briefest of seconds but I was determined not to falter, “Hah, yeah, sure, bro!" Reaffirming my stance, I wrapped my arms around my bestie's shoulders—causing him to twitch slightly—and moved in for some gay chicken.

Jae broke off before I could finish my counterattack, turned and began making his way across the mall food court for the nearest exit. He turned and—in the cheekiest of gestures—flashed me the most handsome shit-eating grin I had ever seen.

Had my teasing awakened a beast?

I felt a twitch somewhere I didn’t expect and instantly felt my cheeks flush upon realization.

***

September 04, 2023: 

Monday finally rolled around as it is wont to do (and all the little children are wont to decry).

Over the weekend—as I practiced my unfortunately ‘faux’ girlification—I’d noticed my hair needed actual styling, so I’d made a secret little trip to the salon to get the rough edges evened out. It had been two months without getting a trim, in fact, and I found myself feeling very particular about the mane that rode down the length of my spine. While a good trim and wash is always relaxing in its own right I found the anticipation for seeing how my dear Jae would react to my new hairdo its own joy.

“After all,” I reasoned to my bathroom mirror reflection, “Surprising the boyfriend with a new hairstyle is always fun!” Not that Jae was, of course, my boyfriend. For real, I mean. Still, it was always kind of fun to try and get a reaction out of him. I’d definitely never felt comfortable teasing a girl like that—women go through enough shit with men as it is, after all, and I’d gotten to know enough women through the cosplay circuit that I didn’t want to betray their trust. I took being a good ally super-DUPER-serious!  

It’s, like, why I always made sure to eat a girl out before I penetrated her!

I was beyond thankful that I’d managed bangs. I’d been worried for the past few years that I wouldn’t always be able to maintain bangs thanks to the affects testosterone tended to have on the body. Luckily, even with my slightly…off…forehead I was still able to pull off the look I’d wanted: using my long, blonde hair to cover the left side of my face. I enjoyed the mystique of the look and it’d always done me well for my Shirona cosplay. Combined with the loose [copyrightable band graphic tee] and baggy black jeans I felt like I’d captured what I’d wanted to for the first day of this little ‘transition’: casually Goth, in a sort of girl way, without being insanely girl.

Well, putting aside the heavy makeup and accessories. I had been very taken with fully transformative makeup styles of a certain influencer I had spotted on Insta. Through makeup alone they had managed to completely transform their face—which, like, I totes wanted to make sure I captured—and even if it meant drawing a little attention to myself it was definitely something I’d been really interested in trying out. I knew exactly how I wanted to play off the character of Rachel, giving her an almost ethereal appearance to be supported by a surprisingly bubbly personality. I knew that was key to knocking folks off balance, for sure. I didn’t want to rock the boat so much early on, so I knew that I wanted my clothing to ultimately remain within the school regulations.

Not to go on a tangent in the first person, of course, but those regulations are such bullshit. I’ve seen far too many girls get ill from heat exhaustion just because they weren’t allowed to wear supposedly ‘distracting’ clothes that revealed—lé fuckin’ gasp—skin. The way men dictate how women dress with their victim-blaming attitudes toward women has always annoyed me, especially as I’ve gotten closer to women in the cosplay community.   

Armor equipped, I slipped quietly down stairs and past my folks—both lawyers—and wished them a good day as I slipped out the door without being seen. Jae, parked—as always—in his shitty Hyundai Kona, looked more than a little shocked by my transformation as I crammed all 6’1’’ of me into his passenger seat. 

“You like?” I couldn’t tell you why I felt so nervous. I know that I didn’t typically enter casual company showing my interest in makeup and costumes but even in just this really casual outfit I felt strangely naked, so I held onto my messenger bag tightly for reassurance. 

“Holy shit, how much makeup did you have to use?” I could tell Jae was genuinely shocked in an “I’m so impressed” way, which was a relief.

I did my best to hide my insecurity, “Like—uh…I spent more on practicing over the weekend than actually doing it this morning.”

Jae placed his right hand on his gear stick and switched it into reverse to back out of my driveway but I could tell he was taken back, despite the steadiness in his deep voice, “God, that cutesy voice is kind of unsettling with that look.”

Sensing his confidence flailing I took my shot and leaned across to his right ear and whispered: “That’s the point, honey.”

A twitch in his slacks’ crotch landed in the corner of my eye’s field of vision and I couldn’t help but giggle as a nefarious plan birthed in my mind like a new galaxy, “Heeeey, babe, turn this way.”

The poor bastard never saw it coming as I landed a kiss on his lips. They tasted like toothpaste! Jae flew back so quickly he hit the handgrip with the back of his head, “Fuck!”

I couldn’t help but burst into a shrieking giggle, “OH EMM GEE, dude, you should see how stupid you look right now!”

For his part, Jae was handling it fairly well for Jae Jeong, “Holy SHIT, Rich—I—what the fuck was that ?”

Now, I’m not queer, but there’s just something so cute about seeing my bestie so darned worked-up , so—still leaning over in my seat towards him—I angled just enough so that Jae would get a look down my collar at my cleavage. I was quite happy to wear this cute, frilly purple bra and I was curious if he would react. I’d known from years of talking about the girls we liked that we were both Hashtag-Men-of-Culture when it came to lingerie, “Notice anything you like?” I asked, making sure to move my purple-coated lips as carefully and sensually as possible. I'd spent the whole weekend working on my facial expressions in the mirror. “Also, like, call me Rach, not Rich, I don’t want anyone thinking I’m pretending to be trans!”

Rubbing the back of his head Jae countered, “Wait, aren’t you pretending to be trans?”

“That’s besides the point, SWEETIE! GAWD!!”

Wearing a face that could have been interpreted as ‘constipated’, Jae returned to backing out of my driveway and onto the street. After a moment’s silence—and without even turning toward me—he added “Nice bra.”

I knew a mischievous giggle was enough to deal him psychic damage.

***

September 04, 2023: 

We arrived at school moments later, butterflies having made a fine home in my stomach. The rest of the drive there had been uneventful, although I had struggled not to just turn to him and grin the biggest, dumbest grin ever.

I had been called a faggot for so many years, and always tried to not let it bother me, but somehow even just getting to pretend that I was as queer as I have been, like, perceived all these years was exciting. A pang of guilt laid under the surface of my glee, but I didn’t want to think about it. I was pretending to be trans, and attracted to men, so I should actually let myself seem like I was enjoying it, right?

The student parking lot was littered with other students, both exiting their cars and chatting up a storm before the first period of the day.

I honestly loved this time of the year in Washington because the weather was akin to summer still, so despite the calm of the sleepy morning there was a still-rising sun that backlit the world and its inhabitants. The outline of Jae's bangs were painted gold, depending on the angle, and it made me want to watch him as he walked around the front of his Kona to join me by my side. 

"S'not too late to back out, Ri—Rach," he whispered, joining me in leaning against his shitty Kona that were we both much too tall for. I couldn't believe how clear his deep voice could sound, even as a whisper.

I also couldn't believe how sweet he was even after all my teasing.

I was, however, resolved. Placing my studiously manicured hands on his shoulder—I quite enjoyed the alternating purple and black nails I had painted over the weekend—I replied with the vocal version of a spring in my step: "Babe, we're doing this. I'm doing this. You're, like, my bestie-best-best friend—and I've asked you to risk expulsion for me way too many times. The least I can do is pretend to be your girlfriend for a month. Besides, there's a whole fuckin' crowd of horny teenagers staring at me, there's no backing out now."

Jae Jae looked convinced enough with a quick glance at our surroundings. "Oh, jeez…"

"Plant your flag, babe," I whispered.

"Wha—?"

"Kiss me so nobody else tries asking me ou—"

Jae didn't need me to finish the sentence and closed the gap between our bodies without a second thought. As his toothpaste lips melted into mine—I made sure to apply a cute grape-flavored gloss—I could feel his chest flatten my baggy tee-shirt and connect with my decidedly bumpier bust. With great mental fortitude I stopped myself from flinching—this one TikTok vid said that growing breasts were, like, always totes sen-si-tive—and leaned into the kiss. At 6'1'' I was a good inch taller than my pretend-boyfriend but the kiss wasn't too uncomfortable. Really, I just wish he would have wrapped his arms around my back—to stabilize me, of course.

The kiss eventually ended and as we parted I felt a pang in my heart that, like, really sucked! And then, like, eww! Much to my chagrin I heard a whistle coming from some other guy in the parking lot and felt mega embarrassed. I'm, like, totes positive that the blush I applied this morning was, like, super overkill now. Ugh. Fuckin’ transphobic assholes! Or homophobic! I don’t know what the fuck it was! Can't a straight guy just pretend to be a trans girl and kiss his maybe-gay bestie on the lips?

"Sorry, Rach," Jae, his usual sweet self, apologized while scanning the scene with a scowl on his face. His face looked a little pained beneath the scowl, but I wasn’t quite sure why. Maybe Jae really was gay?! That would explain so much about the last twelve years!

Instead of replying I took my pretend-boyfriend's hand in mine, crossed our fingers, and had him walk me to class.

***

September 04, 2023: 

As it was an Orange Day, Jae and I had Miss Queen’s English as our first period of the day, and I had used that to my advantage when planning my Plan of Attack—capital letters!—over the weekend. It had been my ob-er-ser-vation over the past four years that Ms. Queen was not just, like, super-duper hot—okay, maybe I shouldn’t say that about a fellow adult who is, like, my teacher, but whatevs—but was, like, a really good ally. 

What I meant by this is, I’m, like, ninety-nine percent sure that she really, really favored the gay and trans kids in class, because they were always saying nice things about her and stuff. Like, Ms. Queen was so cool when Andi—short for, like, Andrea, I think?—and Claire started dating last year! Or when Isaac and Drake started dating! I didn’t really hang out around them unless I was eavesdropping or we had class projects together, but getting to see real queer peers—oh, that rhymed!—getting to enjoy their lives and having a teacher looking out for them in case someone tried to be homophobic or whatevs to them was, like, so cool. Like, dang, I hoped with every cell in my body that Ms. Queen didn’t realize that I was pretending to be trans and into men, ‘cause then I wouldn’t get to see how it felt to, like, get to be on Ms. Queen’s super-special good side or whatevs.

I wondered sometimes if she, like, graded on a curve if you were LGBTQIA+?!

With only two minutes to spare and a tight squeeze of Jae’s hand I pushed forward and walked through the entrance to Ms. Queen’s class and walked directly up to her desk as she sat typing away at her computer, surrounded by a dozen stacks of paperwork and folders and missle-analy-less stuff, like a cute Purin figure! Purin was, like, totes a cute Pokemon and since it's so PINK I could ab-so-lute-ly see why Ms. Queen loved them so much! Whenever it got mad in the anime it was so funny how cute she looked, and how she drew on the faces of the people she kept ax-a-ma-dently putting to sleep with her singing! Like, fuck those guys , girlie pop, you’re a queen! Omigawd, just like Ms. Queen!!!

While I, like, didn't dress too girly —well, like, I did sometimes —I always really admired how Ms. Queen rocked her semi-professional Barbie look! Pink blouses were so, like, pink ! But! Like, in a casual way! WORK PROFESSIONAL! Or was it called ‘work casual’? Well, whatevs.

It was hard not to be breathless in Ms. Queen’s presence. I always admired the English teacher’s sense of fashion—I might have been a straight guy, but pink was fuckin’ cute!—and I really loved how she managed to do a, like, ‘professional’ looky-look-look while still being colorful. None of that drab shit, Ms. Queen was easily the best-dressed teacher in the school, but, like, hey, what did I know? It’s not like I didn’t have, like, forty-two THOUSAND Insta followers or whatever !

That pink blouse tucked into tan slacks and gray cardigan that Ms. Queen wore often made her look so cool, I was mega kinda jealous—especially with how it showed off her waist and curves OH-EM-GEE. I usually just wore, like, super girly stuff when I crossdressed at school ‘cause I was kinda afraid that people wouldn’t really get the whole “I’m wearing girl clothes” thingy-thing-thing unless I, like, dropped all the subtle-titties—or whatever the word is—of it.

Noticing our presence—I had Jae’s sweaty left palm locked in the death grip to end all death grips—Miss Queen peered up at us just as the clock reached one last cycle before the bell for fifth period would ring. “Why, hello there, Richie,” god, I think I was even jealous of her smile.

Oh god, if this was how it felt to be a fake trans girl getting called her boy name I could only imagine how awful it felt for a REAL trans girl! “Um, like, hi, I’m trans! Please call me Rachel and use she-slash-her pronouns, thanks? Bye!” I blurted out what sounded to me like a slurred word salad before twisting in place so fast that I threatened to dislocate my fake boyfriend’s arm. Immediately after turning around it became extremely clear to me that all eyes in the classroom were on me, and I was freaked-the-fuck out. 

I think I even heard a feather, like, drop on the floor or something, it was so quiet. 

Petrified, I turned back to face Jae—who looked nearly as overwhelmed as I did—and then back to Ms. Queen, who was probably recovering from the t-bomb I had just dropped on her like it was Pride season.

Taking a moment to blink as she stood half out of her seat, Miss Queen eventually stood up straight, walked around her desk, and hugged me tightly. “I’m so proud of you, hon,” the blonde twenty-something whispered down into my ear as she squeezed me tightly. Taken off balance by the sudden physical intimacy, I did my best to distract my mind before my anxiety spiked. I’d always hated being touched and other than Jae I’d had a hard time letting anyone really, like, hug me or whatever, and so the whole display from Miss Queen—as much as I admired her—was making my already overheated nerves work, like, triple time.

She sure was tall for a non-trans girl, though. Even taller than me, and I was one of the tallest girls at Gravelly Lake High!

Err…well, fake trans girls . 

Breaking the hug, Ms. Queen quickly turned to the class and addressed them in her Teacher Voice: “Class, you probably recognize your classmate whose last name is Penn—” the whole fuckin’ class, like, stared into my soul, “— She would like to now be called Rachel, rather than the name you were all using for her the last couple of days, and I expect you all to respect her wishes and her identity. Have I made myself clear?”

The class seemed to nod without any trouble, for which I was eternally grateful. 

Jae, still holding my hand ‘cause he was in THE DEATH GRIP TO END ALL DEATH GRIPS, interjected, “Rachel and I—Rachel is—just, please try to get her name right.”

The classroom was dead silent, so Jae continued, in the tiniest of voices, “Thank you…” It was honestly so, like, mega cutie-cute-cute of him. His future REAL girlfriend—or boyfriend!—was going to be so fuckin’ lucky, omigawd !

Horror set in, like, mega quick when I realized the THIRTY kids in front of me were expecting ME to say something. Digging my hands into the back pockets of my jeans, finding that uncomfortable, and then trying to rest my hands on my hips, I finally crossed my arms under my chest, “Oh, um…yes! Hi! I’m Rachel! The girl! Me!”

I couldn’t read my fellow classmates to save my life.

Sensing that I was, like, y’know, FLOUNDERING, Ms. Queen enter-jected, “Okay then, dear,” oh gawd, she sounded like she thought I was cringe, did she KNOW I was faking it? “Rachel, Jae, if  you don’t mind taking your seats we can start class…”

As Jae and I took our seats in the back right hand corner—me in the row closest to the window and Jae in the row to my right—I was glad that all of the eyes in the classroom wouldn’t be able to bore down on me from behind.

And yet, it felt like everyone in class had eyes on the back of their heads, grown specifically to peer into my very soul. 

***

September 04, 2023: 

Word travels fast in high school, especially when the ‘definitely faggy’— not my words, I swear—straight guy comes to school one day clearly presenting as a girl.

A girl with a boyfriend.

It certainly hadn't occurred to me how embarrassing it would be to hear and see so many people…perceiving me. It was a real drag, really, because I honestly hadn't ever felt so comfortable with how I looked while at school before and the weird stares and…interest in me was honestly just bizarre. I had to wonder if this was how real trans people felt when they first came out?

Luckily, Ms. Queen helped me inform my other teachers and they either responded with indifference or happiness for me after I 'came out' to them before class began. I think they were used to my occasional…crossdressing. Like, it was never major stuff—just a school girl uniform, or skinny jeans and a v-neck—but it was enough to make them used to my behavior. It had honestly made things a lot easier to go along with for me, too. All I had to do was let the teachers come up with their own, like, headcanons or whatevs.

Getting from class to class was such a very, very different story, though. Jae escorted me between classes—we were lucky to have so many together—and I was honestly very grateful. Dozens of students looked at me with a mix of confusion, thinly disguised judgment, and disinterest. A few bright looks from the actual queer kids—Claire! Andi! Isaac! Drake!—lightened our path. 

Walking closely along the wall to our second period of the day—technically Sixth Period!—a familiar voice called out my name over the murmur of the student-filled hallway, “Rachel! Hey!”

Turning around, I found Drake and Isaac following us, “Oh! Hiya?!” 

Isaac—brown locks carefully tied up in a ponytail—smiled widely, “Wow, I’m so glad you finally came out, Rach!”

This was awkward.

“Oh, um, thanks?” How the hell was I supposed to have this conversation when I wasn’t actually trans? “I guess I, uh, didn’t want to miss out on high school as the real me?”

With a sympathetic nod Isaac turned to Drake and smiled, “Yeah, I know the feeling. I’m still trying to work out some stuff, but I’m so much happier as, I guess, a trans girl of some sort instead of just a feminine bisexual guy!” Wrapping an arm around Drake, Isaac chuckled, “I’m also lucky to have this goofball by my side!”

Contrasting the more conservative sundresses that Isaac took to wearing, Drake—Dark Lord of the Cemeteries—caked himself in elaborate Goth makeup and clothes no matter the day of the week or the season of the year—and it was still summer!! Swiftly and dramatically, Drake covered his left eye with his left palm, “Unhand me, foolish wench! The accumulated darkness of all of humanity’s damnabled offenses reside in this mortal coil! Lest you seek to be burned by the eternal black fires raging within this hallowed husk I warn any and all foolish enough to—”

“—God, you’re, like, so cool, Dark Lord Drake!!” I gushed, unable to stop myself from bouncing in place, or stop my voice from turning into a squeak, “Isn’t Drake so fuckin’ cool, Jae?”

Jae looked at a loss for words—probably ‘cause of how fuckin’ COOL Dark Lord Drake is—but managed, “Uh…sure.”

Turning my head back to Isaac, “Hey, Isaac, did you have an idea for a new name yet?”

Isaac’s smile faded a little, “Uh…still working on one. Heck, I don’t even know what pronouns to use yet, either.”

The guilt was, like, mad bad when I realized what I’d said, “Oh, gosh, I’m so sorry, honey! I’m, y’know, kinda—so, like, I didn’t mean to upset you or anything. Shit! Fuck!”

“You’re fine, Rachel,” Isaac grinned back, eyes lifting back up from the floor, “I think…well, I think I know what I want. I just need to think about it a little more, y’know?” 

Ugh, thinking and me were not always on the best of terms, “No, yeah, by all means! Like, I’d be happy to help a real —I’d be happy to help you figure out the real you sometime, y’know?”

Isaac’s smile brightened at my offer and I received a super, mega, ultra tight hug in response, “Thank you so much, Rach,” Isaac whispered into my ear in the middle of the very super, mega, ultra tight hug, “It means a lot coming from another trans girl, especially one so confident like you.”

Blushing, I took a moment to blank out so that I did not think about how much I hated being touched and then finally whispered back, “Says the girl who came out before me!”

Isaac and I shared a giggle as we pulled off from the hug—and the thumping in my head and chest calmed down—but it was quickly drowned out by the sound of the bell for the next class beginning

The sound of the ringing of the bell pierced through my AT Field as it usually did and, like, ‘cause of that I lost my balance before I could finish moving back closer to Jae. 

“Shit,” Jae gasped as he grabbed my body, “Rach, are you okay?!” In his embrace I felt my heart beating faster than before, but without the un-cum-fi-ness part!

“Right, yeah, no!”  I moaned back to Jae before turning my head back to Isaac and Drake as they turned to head to their other classes, “It was nice talking to you, hon!”

Smile wide as ever, Isaac waved back to me before taking the hand of the Dark Lord and jogging to their next class together.

“Ri—Rach, are you okay?” Jae's concern was hardly new, but I could feel like he was even more concerned than usual. 

“Yeah I'm, like, good, Jae Jae,” even I could tell that there was, like, a weakness in my voice that Jae was totes not going to buy. Straightening my posture, I tried pressing my index fingers into my ears as discreetly as possible. “Just a headache, is all.”

Jae did not look convinced. Taking my hand in his and crossing our fingers yet again, Jae used his left hand to lift my cheek and looked me in the eyes, “You know that you don't have to lie to me, right?”

Jae was normally the only person I let touch me, but even this was more intimate than what he normally did. A burning heat swelled into my cheeks as I looked into Jae's dark eyes, and I couldn’t help but feel like I was living out a scene from a—like, a shoujo manga?! Or something?!

Why did I want my childhood friend to lean up and kiss me?!

“O-of course, hon,” I finally managed. My brain felt well and truly fucked now.

Tightening his grip on my palm a little more, Jae smiled, “Good! Come on, we gotta head to class so we can explain what's going on!” I nodded despite the daze I wound myself in, hoping that I hadn't just agreed to, like, burn my manga collection of something!

As Jae and I jogged to our next class, it occurred to me that I always saw my mental image of Jae as being 'fruity aloof elite nerd who is too burned out to try'. Today, I saw a side of Jae that I don't think I've ever really thought about too hard: As Jae gripped my right hand tighter upon noticing it shaking—as we prepared to enter the classroom of our second period for the day—Jae took it again and locked our fingers together, just as I had done on the march to first period. It wasn't any word spoken or any look given…but by the strength, warmth and softness of his left hand I could feel him telling me that it was going to be alright.

He really knew how to make a fake trans girl feel like the luckiest girl in the world.

***

September 04, 2023: 

"Are you okay in there?" Jae asked, whispering into the girl's restroom. I didn't know how to break it to him that the echo made whispering in a public lavatory pointless. He was being such a good fake-boyfriend while his fake-girl girlfriend was touching up her makeup before lunch. 

"Almost finished, hon," I squeaked out. My poker face was a proud attribute of mine but I could tell that my nerves were affecting my pitch control. 

Jae and I had spent the day trying to avoid being mobbed by our classmates and other students. When it finally came time for me to have to use a restroom Jae snuck me over to a part of the school rarely used. I still wasn’t sure if I was being appropriate by using the girls' room—I personally found gendered restrooms to be, like, archaic—but for the time being I was just happy to be getting some peace and quiet.

I did think that it was bullshit that the girls' room got two extra stalls while the boys' room had three fucking urinals instead, though.

With my makeup retouched I took a deep breath, looked at my reflection in the mirror and told my reflection: "You got this, Rachel!"

***

September 04, 2023: 

"Wow, so, like, how long have you known?" Gloria Rembrant asked. I had a hard time understanding the tone of her voice.

Jae and I had planned on just eating lunch alone, like we usually did, but wouldn't you know, I was drawing a crowd.

Well, at least it was good for the cover.

"Uh, like, a couple of years. Sixth grade, really."

"Woooow," Gloria exaggerated, "That must have been, like, soooo hard!"

I could tell what the bitch was doing—trying to mock me in front of her weirdly classist friends—and their played-up reactions were annoying in their own right. 

"So, are you two going to hang out with the other gay kids?" Carson Dallas slipped in, thinly veiled self-satisfied grins forming on the other teens' faces.

"Uh, I'm not gay, Carson," Jae defended, "Rachel’s a woman and I didn't develop any feelings for her until she told me she was a woman." Jae had a nervousness to his facial expression that I couldn’t really read. With how we were both surrounded I could only guess that he was afraid that we would be hate crimed or something.

That would be ironic. 

I figured I had to slip something in before anyone else asked, "I'm not gay, either. Liking my boyfriend is straight." I know I didn’t have to stress the boyfriend part but doing so always made me giggle uncontrollably, which I figured was good for the cover story. I'd have mentioned I was bisexual, too, but I'd never heard of a trans woman being into women before, so I decided to stay mum so as to not break the illusion.

"Aww, how sweet," judging by the tone of her voice, Gloria was probably being sarcastic, if I was to believe how Jae described her voice when she was being sarcastic, but I couldn’t really tell. I also wanted to avoid conflict, so I just wore a soft smile, kept my eyes open wide to show that I was paying attention, and just hoped that I didn’t say anything stupid before this entire conversation was over.

"So, who pitches and who catches?" Lacy Shore snickered.

Moment of truth, "Uh…he does? I really don't like my—"

"That’s none of your business, Lacy," Jae interjected. I don't know why but it was a hell of a relief. "Rachel doesn't go around asking you about what you do with your genitals, so don't ask what she does with hers!" 

I was kind of floored by Jae's obvious irritation with the line of questioning. He normally wasn't the type for confrontations—not that it wasn't making him, like, infinitely cooler in my eyes. The deep range and aggressive edge to his voice really gave it a barking edge to it. I didn't dislike it. It was actually really, really cool. Gawd , he would probably be a great boyfriend for a real girl someday. 

"Jeez, okay, just relax, faggot, I was jus—" before I knew it I was up, forcing my way through the crowd of rich assholes to towards the exit before I slapped her fillings out of her mouth. Jae caught up with me shortly after, as I stood outside his car, trying to calm myself.

His strong embrace made it hard not to break down and cry.

It was getting easier and easier to cry these days.

I decided to do the easy thing and cry.

My boyfriend guided me into his car so I could safely bawl with a little more volume.

***

September 04, 2023: 

Lunch was surely over by now but as I stared at the ceiling of Jae's car from my reclined position I didn't really care.

Finally, I noticed the similarly reclined Jae on his right side, gazing at me like I was a waterfall or something.

"Hey, hon."

"Hey, Rach."

A moment passed before either one of us spoke again, "I'm sorry I'm playing your girlfriend so…contra-versially."

"I like your performance just fine, Rach," Jae reassured, cracking just the faintest of grins. 

I don't know what I did to deserve such a good friend.

It almost made me want him to be my real boyfriend. 

Too bad I wasn't bisexual.

Ugh , it was too bad that I wasn’t a bisexual girl , then I could just keep teasing Jae and shit.

Jae took my left hand with his right and locked fingers with me again. It was kind of becoming our 'thing'.

I liked having a 'thing' with him.

"I'm sorry your tranny girlf— fake -girlfriend—is making you look gay, Jae."

"Glad to see you can still rhyme on a dime, Rach," he mugged.

This fucking dork . Rubbing the tears from my eyes—eyeliner smearing on my cheeks and hands be damned—I sat up, then leaned over and kissed my fake-boyfriend on the lips. This time, he didn't flinch. "Cheeky little brat," I playfully admonished in the huskiest femme voice I could muster—y’know, after crying my eyes out in a shitty Kona .

Well, I did like the Bluetooth and on-screen title display.

"Oh, I'm the cheeky one?" Jae laughed, "If I didn't know better I'd say you are the cheeky one, always trying to get me flustered with how hot you are."

I nearly guffawed, "I? Me?” With a hand against my chest and a faux-look of offense, “Uh…I'm just trying to get you used to having such a sexy-hot girlfriend, Mr. Jeong!!"

I could see the twinkle in his eye and really did want to just push him some more.

"Is that so, bro?" He mocked. Bastard knew what he was doing and I could do nothing to stop him.

Well, women didn't win their right to vote because they let men stop them.

"Yeah, that's right," I giggled, leaning back down for another kiss. It's like Jae said last Friday: it's not gay when I look like a girl!

Jae broke from my lips again after a good eleven seconds of kissing, "Well then," he droned, "I am the man in the relationship. If I'm to be a proper feminist I really should be letting you take the lead when it comes to chaste displays of affection."

Where was this smooth motherfucker coming from? "Oh? Does that mean I should let you take the lead on sexy displays of affection?"

Jae replied by looking down at my breasts dangling over him, loosely visible in my baggy tee-shirt. Then he shot me a cheeky grin, flashing his pearly whites.

Beside myself, I lightly tapped his cheek, "Perv."

His light, hearty giggle was honestly really cute.

"But no, really, thank you so, so much for everything you're doing, Rich."

"Rach."

"I mean, it's only the two—"

"Babe, I don't want to drop character," I huffed. I really didn't, I was feeling more alive pretending to be Jae's girlfriend than I ever did being the loser friend who paid his way through a friendship just to avoid doing his own homework and because it let him have Jae as a friend without truly opening up to him.

"Oh, yeah, no problem…” Jae cleared his throat and looked me straight in the eyes, “Listen, Rach, I mean it: you're the best friend a guy can have."

"And you only had to get called a faggot to get me."

"Come on, Rachel! Fuck those guys. I don't flipping fuck about them at all!"

"They’ll be calling you a faggot for the rest of the school year…"

"People have been calling me a faggot ever since I met you, you bimbo!"

I burst into giggles at my boyfriend’s point. It was sweet, especially knowing that Jae's folks owned a chain of sporting goods stores those rich pricks would still have to use to get their golf shit at, or whatever the fuck sport rich people played. Well, might as well pay him back anyway.

I took Jae's hand and put it on one of my breasts, "Cool, huh? You can thank me after you pick your jaw off the floor," I whispered smugly.

Then Jae squeezed and I flinched.

"Oh shit, babe, are you okay?" Concern permeated through every pore on Jae's face, as if it was rising to the surface from the depths of his body. Jae swiftly retracted his hand but I grabbed him at the wrist.

"It’s okay, Jae Jae," I huffed, catching my breath, "They're just still sensitive. It means they're growing."

"Oh." I couldn't read him. Jae shot his gaze to the side for a brief moment, but I decided to press forward.

"Oh? What, does the idea of me with bigger breasts turn you on, big guy?" Grabbing the swelling force in his slacks seemed a bit too inappropriate, even if we had been doing some pretty weird gay shit—for the cover story. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder how his cock compared to all the cute cocks I'd seen in trans porn.

Not that I was a chaser or anything.

"No, no, I mean…like…if I had a girlfriend—if you had a girlfriend, wouldn't you want her to have big breasts, too?"

I could see his point, but…"I mean, I don’t really dislike small breasts, but I also get what you mean. Like, if you had to have breasts they might as well be, like, big…right? Anyway…” I let my voice trail off for a moment, “Honestly, I just wanted to see you flustered again, which you are , my good sir." It was hard not to just peck him on the lips again, so I did.

"God, you're an amazing girlfriend, Rach."

"And you're an amazing boyfriend, Jae." I don't know why I didn't say add in 'fake' before 'boyfriend', but it felt like it would have just ruined the mood. 

"We should probably get back to class, babe," Jae offered, using his right hand to rub the small of my back. God, that felt good for some reason.

"Oh shit, yeah, for sure. Lemme just fix my makeup real quick!"

I could see Jae's wide grin in his rear mirror as I checked my makeup and I couldn’t help but smile back.

***

September 04, 2023: 

Jae and I slipped into our seventh period class as quietly as possible, even though all eyes were on us as we did so. Thankfully, our calculus—eww—teacher didn't rip us to pieces or threaten to tell our parents we were late to class. As I sat at my desk staring blankly at the white board at the front of class I spent, like, twenty minutes going over in my head how it would play out if we got talked to about being late back from lunch, but then it occurred to me that if he hadn’t yelled at us yet he had probably gotten word about the scene in the cafeteria and was, like, not going to bother ‘cause I was already Hashtag Having A Day!

Murmurs about all the exciting shit happening as a result of me coming to school AS A TRANS GIRL followed Jae and me as we walked from calculus to gym for eighth period. Stares from students and little giggles and shit that I couldn’t make out seemed to bounce all around me.The endless stream of noise made me sick to my stomach.

After finally making it down to the back of the school where the gym was I turned to Jae and squeezed his hand tightly before letting him go to enter into the boy’s locker room. Waving goodbye before Jae disappeared into the room full of rowdy boys, I made my way to the single stall restroom in the gym’s front lobby, where I had been changing alone since freshman year. It was, like, a major pain in the ass to always need to bring my gym clothes home in my backpack, but it was also, like, way better than using the locker rooms and having to be naked around a bunch of other boys. When my breasts began growing near the end of junior year it was also a major help in not having to answer questions about why I was growing, y’know, BREASTS!

Opening the door to the single occu-ma-pen-cy restroom I was overwhelmed with panic as I heard someone running up behind me. Quickly leaping inside the room and locking the door I nearly puked on myself as my heart beat faster than it ever had. Somehow, it had escaped me that this was the first time that I had been alone all fucking day !

Was someone about to attack me? Sure, I knew how to defend myself and have gotten into my share of fights, but something about today just felt so much more—

“—Rach, it’s me!”

Holy shit! Turning around and dropping my bag on the ground I opened the door to find Jae, his bag and everything still in hang, and still in his regular clothes.

“Jae Jae, what the hell?” I wheezed, letting him inside the cramped stall.

Once inside the restroom obviously made for families, Jae dropped his bag and began dogging—or was it ‘doffing’?—his shirt, “I figured there wasn’t any reason for you to have to do this alone, Rach. Like, if everyone thinks you’re trans now—” now shirtless, “—wouldn’t it be best if you had someone around to, y’know, watch your back? Especially if you’re not going to use a locker room and all…”

It had been a while since I last saw Jae shirtless. There was something different about seeing my ‘fake boyfriend’ shirtless, though. Realizing that I was staring at his lightly defined muscles I quickly shot my eyes down at the tile flooring, “Uh…thanks…hon…”

“Oh shit,” I could hear Jae whisper as he realized he had just taken off his shirt in front of me. Quickly bending down, Jae pulled out the shirt he usually wore for gym, “Good thing I remembered to take this thing home and wash it, huh?” Before the poor guy could slip his shirt on I placed my right hand on his chest and pushed him against the stall wall.

Embarrassed and covering my chest as best as I could, I couldn’t help but bite my lip before quickly taking my shirt off, leaving me in nothing but a purple bra.

“Oh shit, shit!” Jae gasped, “I, uh, forgot that—actually, what are yo—”

Before Jae could finish I pinned him against the wall and kissed him directly on the lips, completely out of my mind.

After a moment of confusion, Jae returned my kiss.

Panicking, I pulled back off of Jae and began digging through my bag for my school-issue gym shirt. I normally wore an undershirt with it to help hide my chest, but for some reason I was way too hot to bother with that today. Quickly slipping my shirt on, I turned back to Jae and laughed, “Sorry, I’m such a troll!”

Jae just looked at me with the more torn up expression I had ever seen him with before slipping his shirt on. Once in his GL High shirt Jae just shook his head and continued changing.

“They’re talking about it, y’know? In the locker room—all over the school,” I told Jae who was just listening intently. “They’re gossipping about the scene in the cafeteria and what we were doing afterward. I drowned them out as best I could but it was still a lot of shit, y’know?”

“I’m sorry, Rach,” Jae said, zipping up his backpack. “You don’t deserve that.”

Zipping up my backpack I tied my hair up so that it wouldn’t get in my face. It always felt weird when I could feel the air on the back of my neck, “Thanks, Jae…”

The bell outside of the restroom rung, which meant that it was time to head out for class with Mr. Summers. Shooting Jae a quick glance, I opened the door and headed out to face the music.

***

September 04, 2023: 

Coach Summers was, like, fuckin’ huge, for real.

Returning to school after summer break was always, like, bringing with it somethin’ new and different, but, omigawd, this year just felt way different. Putting aside my, like, titties and clearer-er-er skin and shit, I couldn’t stop taking really quick looks at Coach Summers. Normally, I didn’t like staring at men ‘cause I didn’t want people to think I was, like, GAY or somethin’—’cause then if a gay guy asked me out I’d have to turn them down and that would be so awkward—but it was, like, really awkward.

I think I was into my gym teacher.

Like. Eww. He’s, like, ten years older than me! That’s, like, super problematic! Also! He’s, y’know, datin’ Ms. Queen—and she’s also really hot! What the hell, did they just make hot people in the lab somewhere?

Then again, people always call me hot in my Insta comments, so I guess I was kind of hot or somethin’? Gawd, this is so hard to process ‘cause like, lately I kinda really like how I look, even when I don’t have makeup on? And uh, well, you can’t exactly wear MAKEUP during gym class.

“Hey, Rachel!” Coach Summers called out to me as the class did our warm up stretches. As Coach Summers approached me and Jae—always by my side!—he wore a big grin on his face that left me a little confused, “Congratulations on coming out, Miss Penn!”

“Oh! Gawsh! Wow, you heard?” I squeaked out as the approaching giant filled my vision. “Umm…thanks! For using my name, I mean!”   

“No problem, Rach. Candi—uh, Miss Queen told me this morning, actually. She and I are really proud of you for coming out. I guess your parents took it well?”

I could feel Jae’s eyes burning holes through my back just to see how I was going to reply, “Uh…you could say, yeah. But! I’m out, and I’m not goin’ back in, y’know?” Why are you digging yourself into a deeper hole, Rachel?!

Coach Summers nodded sternly, which seemed a bit odd even for him, “That’s good to know. Remember, if anyone gives you shit you can always come to me or Ms. Queen, or any other faculty member.”

Caught up in the difference that just five inches made between me and the coach, I nodded my head without thinking, “Yeah, of course!” 

“Awesome!”

Yeah, ‘awesome’ was a great word to describe how huge his muscles looked in that polo. I couldn’t help but wonder how he got so…big…

Ugh, “Don’t think about that…” I muttered.

“Huh?”

“Nothin’, Coach!” I shot back, firing off two finger guns, “Just, uh, thinkin’ about boys. My boyfriend. Jae—who is right next to me!! Yeah.”

Coach Summers looked absolutely confused, but scribbled on his clipboard and began walking away, “Don’t forget, lemme know if your leg is good for today, too, yeah?”

Watching Coach Summers walk off, I squinted hard to check what the massive, dark-haired guy had written on the clipboard.

‘RACHEL’ was written next to my last name, while ‘RICHARD’ was scribbled out.

For some reason, I turned to Jae and giggled like a maniac at it all.

***

September 04, 2023: 

I hated running. 

For as long as I could remember I’d never been really good at, like, prolonged running. I could run from one room in my family’s house to another, sure, or even through the halls of school, but I’d never really thought about running when I did that. For gym class, however, the whole point was just running around a track outside! Of course I would just get stuck on thinking about how much I hate running!

So, after a little bit of running, I would usually just stop and start walking so that I wouldn’t pull a muscle or kick something by accident. Jae would usually run ahead of me until he was ready to lap me and then slow down to talk to me for a bit before starting to run again. Sometimes he would tease me into trying to chase after him, but he hadn’t really been doing that since school started back up. Now that I have, like, breasts and all, I think he’s probably worried that they might hurt or something, but! My trusty sports bra meant that I could run a little without worrying about my tiny titty-tit-tits!

What I really had to worry about was, like, my fuckin’ left leg. For some reason my left leg always had this thing about bumping into stuff or not landing right when I took a step, so I usually had to be, like, super careful how I walked. When I wasn’t careful I wound up breaking the toes on my left foot, including my big left toe two times ‘cause I stubbed it against a metal door at school. 

Jae always told me that I should just tell my parents and doctors about my leg being weird, but I was always afraid of—

—I was afraid of being labeled a freak. It’s why I usually put so much effort into changing how I acted around doctors, so that they wouldn’t realize I was a retard or whatever and tell my parents.

They already looked at me weird sometimes, I didn’t want to give them more of a reason to know that I really was—

“You okay, Rachel?” Jae asked, leaning in front of me from my right side.

“Huh?” Taken aback by Jae’s face suddenly appearing from the right I stopped my pitiful jog in its place and watched as Jae walked fully in front of me and began walking backwards, inviting me to follow him. “You haven’t run yet?”

“I figured I’d stay with you today, actually,” there was a faint smile on Jae’s lips, but his eyes looked sad.

“You don’t have to, like, worry about me all day, y’know,” I sighed, slowly walking forward, Jae just out of my reach.

“I know, I just love—I just love hanging out with you, and you’re even more you today than usual, it feels like,” I couldn’t read Jae’s facial expression, but he seemed to be smiling as I slowly chased after him.

“Well, it’s easy to be me when I have you by my side all the time,” I giggled, even just the thought of making him blush made me feel devious on the inside.

Luckily, I was right, “H-hey now, no flirting with your boyfriend during class, missy!” Jae stammered back, stopping in place.

I couldn’t not be even more of a deviant, so I kept walking, until I collided lightly into Jae, then wrapped my arms around him, “Gotcha!”

“H-hey,” Jae’s entire body stiffened as pressed my face up close to his, our lips nearly touching, “Rach, n-not where they can—”

Pulling back from Jae’s face and letting go of him, I frowned and then backed off, “What, don’t want to be seen kissing a tra—”

Jae’s finger pointed at an angle behind me: Gloria and her weird rich asshole friends were watching and snickering at us. Carson Dallas of them even had their phone out to take a picture.

Scowling, I turned to them and flipped them the bird, “Hey, fuck off pervs!”

“Pfft, that’s rich coming from you, RICH!” Gloria snickered.

There wasn’t anything I could do. As much as I wanted to scream and yell and make her stop I knew that if I made a scene Coach Summers would have to call my parents, and then I would have to explain to them that I was HRT and—

“—Fuck it!” Wrapping his arms around me and placing his palm on the small of my back, Jae kissed me on the lips with the same level of vigor that I usually kissed him with. Taking me by surprise, my knees buckled for a moment, but the best part was when—without even meaning to—we both held up our middle fingers in unison.

If we were going to be mocked for being faggots, at least we were going to look good in any photos they took.

“Mr. Dallas!” Coach Summers shouted from the beginning of the track. “If you’re not going to run around the track how about you run over to me so we can have a discussion about appropriate behavior, yeah?”

Gloria and the rest of her cronies “Ooh’d’ and jeered at Carson Dallas, caught red-handed with his phone out. It was like they were, like, little kids or something.

Frustrated by my powerlessness, I returned to jogging to burn off the anger. Jae matched my pace and from the corner of my eye I could see him giving me a shit-eating grin to try and cheer me up.

I decided to let him think that he did the job.

***

September 04, 2023: 

As the bell for the end of school rang I took Jae’s hand in mine and swiftly tugged my lovely, uh, kinda-sorta boyfriend behind me like I was a jetski as we exited the gym lobby’s family restroom. Luckily, the gym lobby rarely had any students exiting through it, so me and the ‘ideal boyfriend’ reached the student parking lot just outside of the gym without any trouble.

As our feet landed just feet on the pavement of the parking lot a cute voice that I recognized called out to us from behind. Before I could even turn around the sound of soft running across the pavement hit my ears from behind. Turning, Jae and I were immediately greeted by the blissfully not Gloria, Zoey.

Zoey—who unlike Gloria didn’t dye her brunette hair blonde like a fake mean girl—was one of our classmates from Miss Queen’s English class, and as she approached us clad in her volleyball uniform I wondered why she was skipping practice between berating myself for glancing down at her mostly exposed legs with feelings I didn’t quite understand. Only, like, an inch shorter than me, it was kinda lit how many tall women were at Gravelly Lake High, but it made me feel more like I fit in, so I really liked it.

“Oh, like, hiya Zoey!” I greeted, doing my best to make sure I was smiling. The last thing I needed was to be, like, some kinda scary trans trope thingy or whatevs.

“Omigawsh, Rachel, I’m, like, sorry I couldn’t say this earlier in class, but congratulations on coming out!” Zoey’s excitement for my coming out was a real relief. The general nods and smiles while passing between classes from other students had been nice, but finally having the time to stand around and talk to ‘another’ queer girl—if I, like, could even be called one—without needing to rush to class or hide out at lunch was nice.

“Oh, um, thank you!” My voice was, like, so super-duper barely not squeaky thanks to how nervous I was, but I was glad that I wasn’t accidentally dropping my register all day—especially now that I was talking to a fellow girl. A girl who’d had, like, all of junior year to get to know me through a couple of classes.

Oh gawd, she’d probably figure out that I was faking the whole Being Trans thing so fast if we talked too much.

“Oh! That’s right, Izzy also said congratulations! She’ll try to say hi tomorrow, she’s busy getting the nets set up for practice.”

Zoey’s girlfriend—Izzy—was the star player and team captain of the Gravelly Lake High girl’s volleyball team. Izzy and Zoey began dating shortly after Zoey moved to the school last year during Junior Year, and quickly became the talk of the school for being the star duo of ‘Talented & Exceedingly Average Lesbians’, although I had been swiftly informed that they were apparently bisexual, rather than lesbians.

Funny how that sort of thing could get swept under the rug.    

“Oh, shoot, um, like, tell Izzy thanks?” I replied, crossing my arms beneath my chest just to hold myself in place. As smooth as I could be with the ladies, now that I was actually trying to live as one, I was soooo fuckin’ scared of what they thought of me.

Or what they would think when I stopped pretending to be trans.

“Of course!” The brunette chirped back as she fiddled with her ponytail. Head tilted down, Zoey’s eyes narrowed as she looked at…my chest.

“Oh wow, you have…” Zoey’s voice fell into a whisper with each passing syllable, “...you have breasts? I guess you’ve been on HRT for a while?”

With a snap of my neck, I turned back to face Jae, who looked as dumbfounded as, like, I probably did or whatevs, “Umm…yeah. Five months.”

“Wow, that’s—I’m happy for you!” Zoey’s expression quickly morphed into a wider smile as the reality of the situation was settling in. 

Tossing caution to the wind I asked a question that was probably a bit weird to ask, “How do you know what HRT is?”

Zoey’s smile quickly faded as the spotlight was suddenly thrusted back on her, “Oh! Umm…so, like, I heard about it from Isaac. I think Isaac is thinking about trying it out?”

Surprised, I raised an eyebrow with some practiced flair, “I didn’t realize Isaac and you were that clo—” 

“—Oh, uh—” bobbing her head, Zoey took a second to swallow, “Well, we’re both in the GSA club together, so we do talk, y’know?!” I wasn’t sure why, but Zoey seemed a bit panicked. Was I being, like, a weirdo aggressive MAN? Was I not acting trans enough?! “Oh! But, um, I just wanted to say, I also really loved your outfit today. Going for something subdued on your first day out, I guess? Or are you also some degree of non-binary?” 

“Oh wow, thanks! I just wanted to, like, not have people staring too much, y’know? Also, I’m, like, just a girl who likes dressing all sorts of ways, y’know?” Arms crossed against my chest, I slowly bobbed my head, hoping to come across as small and positive as possible. I was still not quite sure what ‘non-binary’ meant, though. Although I followed a couple of non-binary cosplayers on Instagram and they all seemed really cool and gender-bendy it felt like the smartest thing for me to do was, like, shut up and nod and not confirm to everyone just how DUMB I really was. 

“Anyway, like…uh…you wanna hang out sometime?” Zoey asked, her voice really choppy.

A terrible feeling churned in my stomach as Zoey’s behavior and voice reminded me yet again that my NATURAL MANNISH-NESS was probably seeping through my act and making her super fucking uncomfortable. I was trying so hard not to seem threatening, but here she was just…kinda, basically , sweating up a storm.

“Oh gawd, yeah, definitely!” I replied, trying to sound as friendly as possible by ticking my pitch up another octave, “Wanna go to the mall this weekend?” Public place, easy to not feel cornered, right? “I’d love to get your opinion on some outfits?”

That seemed to do the trick as Zoey let her shoulders relax and drop, “Oh heck yeah, girl!” Zoey’s voice cracked, “I’ve always loved your sense of fashion! Like, um, I actually follow you on Insta, and your cosplays are so—”

“—holy shit, you do? Omigawd, what’s your handle, Zo?!” A series of non-wordy word sound thingies vomited out of my mouth as Zoey brought up her profile on her phone so I could search her name and follow her back. “Holy shit, thank you for the follow!”

“I believe that’s my line,” Zoey giggled back.

Gawd, if I were a girl for real I’d be so fucking gay for other girls. 

A familiar voice snapped me back from my gushing, “Hey Zoey, practice is starting and Izzy needs her full team for drills!” 

Yet again, the most beloved gym teacher for the past two years, Coach Summers, was on the scene. Coach Summers was so busy all the time that I really wasn’t sure how he managed to not just teach all day—including filling in for the trigonometry teacher on occasion—but also stay in amazing shape, and have a relationship all while coaching the girls’ volleyball team. I can barely pay attention during class, let alone stay past normal school hours to, like, coach a sports team or whatever!

“Sorry Coach!” Zoey shouted back across the student parking lot. Turning back to me and Jae, Zoey smiled, “So, Saturday, right?”

“Yeah, definitely!” I beamed, an odd feeling of pride settling in for whatever reason.

“Awesome!” Zoey’s smile was as amazing as her running in gym class was entrancing, and if she didn’t have a girlfriend and I didn’t have a fake boyfriend, I wondered if we could have worked out.

“Hey, Rachel!” Coach Summers shouted back as Zoey quickly approached him.

I wasn’t quite sure why, but I really liked how Coach Summers said my name—fake name. “Yeah, Coach?”

“Again, congrats, Miss Penn!” The coach boomed while waving his little clipboard around, “Remember, lemme know if anyone gives you shit, yeah?” Considering how Coach Summers looked like he could kick the shit out of Batman it felt like a credible plan to tell him about facing any transphobia if I was, like, facing transphobia even though I wasn’t actually trans.

Gee, that sounds weird to think about.

Still, even just the serious look on Coach Summers’ face was enough to send a bolt of lightning right into my spine as if it was a lightning rod, “Umm?! Yeah?! Right! I will, Coach!” I shouted back, nearly losing control of my pitch, “Thanks!!”

With Zoey now passing him and re-entering the gym, Coach Summers gave a polite salute with the hand holding his clipboard, nearly poked himself in his right eye, recovered just in time and then turned back to follow Zoey inside. 

I normally really hated school, ‘cause, like, even though I loved spending more time with Jae, I kinda wished that I could talk to other people more freely or whatever. In a lot of ways, I kinda felt like I was doing that a lot today, although I wasn’t sure why it felt like that. Still, the coach’s protectiveness wasn’t the drag I expected it to be.

In fact, I really loved how it felt to be seen by him, even if I was just pretending to be somebody that I wasn’t. Today, I wasn’t just the weird crossdressing kid.

Today, I was the weird trans girl, Miss Rachell Penn !

Turning to Jae, I found that my smile was being met with one of his own.

And I think his smile was, like, specifi-ma-lly for me .

***

September 04, 2023: 

Jae drove me home after school, as usual, but this time with our fingers linked once again. Sure, our palms were getting sweaty from holding each others’ hands so much, but it was nice to feel his body. It almost felt like I could feel his blood circulation or his heart beat through the small gesture.  

After we parked in my driveway I gave Jae a glance, “My folks won’t be back from the firm for a few more hours. Wanna come up to my room?”

I knew Jae typically spent any time he wasn’t with me staring at his bedroom ceiling or jacking off, but I kind of got the sense he was feeling very protective, so I invited him to at least do the former with my bedroom ceiling. It would’ve been cuter if I’d been his actual girlfriend. “Yeah, sure.”

Once in my bedroom I’d considered stripping my makeup but I was also kind of afraid of having ‘the boyfriend’ see me without any, so I did a quick touch-up and revised my makeup for a less bold, dark look and then dived into my walk-in closet to get changed. 

Now, I understand that ‘boy shorts’ are often used for girls—it’s a weirdly, like, gendered name to choose for fucking shorts of all things—but I’d always enjoyed how these jean shorts dug just slightly into my thighs. I changed out of my sweaty bra and tee into a more fashionable frilly pink romper I’d picked up over the weekend for some potential cross-dressing for my Instagram. It was kind of funny seeing how well it clung to and around and highlighted my tiny tits but also felt weirdly reassuring. I exited my closet to find Jae on my bed, staring at his phone.

“You like?” I giggled, hoping to wash the day’s anxieties away with some more teasing.

“R-Rach…”

He wasn’t biting. Ugh. “Yeah, babe?”

Gosh, he looked so serious, “Rach, are you sure you aren’t trans?”

This silliness again, “Like, Mr. Jeong. Jae. Fuck, listen, it’s not possible. I like having a big ol’ cock. I literally can’t be trans. And I like girls!”

“...why would you even think trans girls have to be straight?”

“Because! Like, it’s that way in all the TV shows? Like, the ones with real trans women playing trans characters.”

“...h-have you not Googled this before?” Okay, now Jae was beginning to worry me.

“What the heck do you mean?” I plopped down on the bed and leaned against my wall, snug with Jae. The glance he shot me was so cute, like a boy trying not to get horny over his girlfriend’s dress…oh.

Jae handed me his phone. It was a Reddit thread talking about sexuality. 

…so, apparently transbians were a thing.

My heart started racing, my hands started shaking, and suddenly I could feel the warmth of Jae’s body even more as he leaned over to type on his phone while still in my death grip. I knew estrogen would make me feel cold all the time but the proximity to Jae was like sitting next to a furnace. My heart was threatening to punch its way out of my chest. Gawd, that would ruin my breasts, which, I know a cis guy shouldn’t care about but—oh my fucking GAWSH!

Jae opened a thread from several months ago. Girls were asking if it was normal to have a lack of bottom dysphoria. 

Apparently it wasn’t nearly as impossible as I’d thought.

“I don’t really know the ethics of doing this sort of thing, Rach. I…kind of just…wanted to…understand things better.”

It took all my strength to peel my eyes away from the phone screen to look Jae in his eyes, “W-what do you mean?”

“Well, I don’t think I’m into men, Rach. I mean, it’s complicated for me? You know? But, like, that’s besides the point! I could tell you were looking different and…acting different the last few months. I couldn’t figure out why I was so attracted to you. But now…I think I have a better idea. It’s like…you’ve suddenly come to life?”

Tears welled up in my eyes and god, I was kicking myself for ruining my makeup for a second time that day. “Babe—Jae, listen, I…I don’t…I mean…even if… oh fucking hell !” I don’t remember when I did it, but I had retracted my legs up close to my body, so I fed my face to my knees and bawled.

I was having a hell of a day. 

A large, warm right hand began rubbing my back. I might have cried even louder in response, but in a way that felt good to scream out.

After about thirty minutes of silence my dear Mr. Jeong spoke again, “Hey…so…like…Rachel…I…”

God, it felt so good not just to be called Rachel but to not be called that other name.

Yeah, that probably meant something.

“Jae…wait…a sec,” I huffed, hopping off my bed to grab some tissue to clean my face up. I checked my makeup, fixed it up real quick, and crashed back on my bed, laid my head on Jae’s lap so I could stare up at his face. “Hey,” I said, my voice dry.

“Hey,” gosh, I could feel the vibrations from the bass in his voice. He looked so amazing, looking down on me. There was still some concern in his eyes but I still loved his soft, kind smile. God, I wanted to obliterate his concerns. I raised my right hand and touched his cheek. Peering into his deep, dark eyes, I said something I was hoping I would never regret: “Never call me that other name again.”

“Rachel?” he replied flatly.

“No, the other one.”

“You mean ‘Rachel’?” he replied, a hint of glee in his voice.

I couldn’t help but tap his cheek, “Bad boy!” I kind of liked the feel of slight stubble against my hands. I’d never liked it on my face and had been using whatever at-home remedies I could to keep mine from growing for a few years now. Part of the reason I’d started HRT was because I heard it could stop body hair from growing, for which I was eternally thankful. I would have to keep extremely on-top of it until I could get electrolysis. Besides, I much more enjoyed facial hair on a man like Jae.

I couldn’t help but let out a giggle over the thought of men as something separate from myself. 

“I’m sorry I put you through all this, Rach,” he whispered. God, I loved it when he called me by my name. 

“No, babe,” gawsh, I really was treating him like he was my boyfriend or something, “I’m thankful. I don’t think I’ve ever been happier.” It sounds sappy, but I withdrew my right hand from his cheek and linked our hands and fingers again with my right hand, “Kiss me—and don’t worry, it’s—”

“Straight?” he mugged.

“Gosh, you dor—”

Jae cut me off with what was probably the best kiss of my life. I don’t know how he managed it from such an angle but I was so, so grateful. I wanted him so bad, the longer the kiss went on.

Fuck, his back had to have been hurting from bending downward like that.

Holy fuck, was that tongue? Oh fuck , that felt amazing.

Then my cock twitched and a flood of worries ruined the mood. I broke the kiss and rocketed into an upright position, covering my crotch before it made a tent in my romper.

“Oh, yeah,” Jae responded. 

“I—I’m so sorry, Jae, I—”

“Rach, it’s okay. Really. I…would never ask you to be ashamed of your body. Never .”

“B-but…like, you’re not…and…oh God, I just want to be your—but you—” the tears were coming down again. God, I was getting dehydrated.

“Rach. Stop. Please,” why was he so fucking calm? Jae’s soft voice was so reassuring but I still couldn’t help but swell up with anxiety.

“But I—I mean, goddamn it!”

“Rachel!” Jae shouted, snapping me from my downward spiral, “It’s too late to talk like that. I fucking love you. As far as I’m concerned you’re not my ‘ fake ’ girlfriend, you’re my real girlfriend!”

I wasn’t used to so much…adoration? “Gawd Jae, I…I just want you to be my real-boyfriend,” I couldn’t believe this was how I was coming to terms with being bisexual. I hugged my oldest, closest friend tight, making sure not to poke him with my erection.

“I am your boyfriend, silly,” he whispered into my ear. I couldn’t believe how confident he sounded. It was embarrassing to admit but the bass of his low rumble was just turning me on more.

I pulled my head off his shoulder, sniffled, and got a better look at his facial expression with my one not-covered-by-hair eye, “I am?” I asked, unsure. I was so happy my pitch wasn’t dropping amid all the crying.

“Duh, bimbo,” he reassured with a shit-eating grin. 

I laughed, reassured that Jae still saw me as his dear friend with…eccentric tastes, “Thanks, babe. Gawd, like, I really love you.”

“I love you too, Rach,” I don’t think I’d ever noticed how kind Jae’s eyes were before. I couldn’t help but kiss him again.

It was growing harder and harder to avoid the giant erection in my pants. Even though I was on HRT I had done everything that I could to maintain size and function down there—including the use of certain pharmaceuticals. Now a tiny piece of me was beginning to regret it. I never thought I’d be dating a man, let alone a—maybe—straight man. Surely he wouldn’t want to see or touch…that.

Sniffing, I decided not to cry about it again, and turned my attention back to Jae.

“Babe, listen, about my…cock…”

Jae cut me off with another peck, “Rachel, how about I take you on a few dates before we discuss the possibility of me blowing you in the movie theater.”

This fucking dork, “Goddamn it,” I cracked-up. 

“It’s like I said, ma’am” Jae whispered into my ear, knowing exactly how to play me like a fiddle, “I’m never going to let you feel bad about your body ever again.”

Fuck, I wanted him so bad.

“Okay, SIR,” I giggled, “I…I believe you.”

And I did believe him.

A few moments later I found my head back on his lap, looking up at MY BOYFRIEND. Finally, I asked the question I’d been dreading this whole time, “...does this mean I have to start doing my own homework again?”

“Yes.”

“Ugh!” I groaned with as much extra frustration as I could toss in. Maybe he would forget about it if I just stopped mentioning it. After all, it’s not like I needed it done at all so long as he thought that I was doing it!

Looking up at Jae one more time and soaking in his kind eyes, I returned my boyfriend’s smile, bit my lip and then wrapped my arms around him. Worrying about what I was going to do next could wait until tomorrow. Basking in the afterglow of it all, I closed my eyes and hugged Jae as tightly as I could.

“Ouch, my tits!”

TO BE CONTINUED

Chapter Text

I often think back to those halcyon days, when Jae and I were in the eighth grade and I was just beginning to get into makeup and fashion. My otherness—not being like the ‘other boys’—had won me but one friend in elementary school, but still, with Jae by my side I learned to not take the malice of immature children to heart. 

Instead of paying attention in class I would surf the web for makeup and fashion tips. I quickly found myself bored with most ‘mens’ fashion’, preferring to look at cute fashion ‘for women’. I never understood the desire to gatekeep which gender wore what, but the older I’d gotten—passing through middle and then into high school—the more I felt the agonizing pain of realizing a shirt or a dress wouldn’t fit on my body the same as it would those fashion models. Or my female classmates.

I remembered the existential dread I felt the first time I bought makeup in the eighth grade, made a mess of my face, wept it all off, then tried again. Again and again and again. Then, one day, the beast got a morsel of victory and began to crave it all the more.

Ninth grade was the first time I’d managed to pull off a convincing cosplay of a female character. I remembered walking around the empty house for hours, just sitting in any room, in my Shirona cosplay, enjoying being able to do mundane things looking like anyone but him . I did this for weeks on end after school, until one day Jae Jeong, my best friend, discovered my ‘crossdressing’ secret. 

Looking back now, I don’t think he was very surprised.

Which was fine. 

Jae had always been by my side, and always would be. 

***

September 05, 2023: 

“Puru Puru Pururin” by Shinshido Rumi blared from my phone. The light of the lock screen—a selfie taken last night of me and my boyfriend resting on my bed—reflected onto my face. The triumphant theme music was the jolt to the heart I always needed in the morning to get myself up. I knew what time it was without even looking at the lock screen. It was 5AM, which left me with about two hours to shower, shave and do my makeup.

It was, like, normally, the biggest pain in the pooper waking up so early . My op-innie-on the top-ic was such a funny thing ‘cause, like…it had changed after last night. Any time I thought about it I could feel a massive weight now missing from my chest. It felt so oddly refreshing, like buying a new pair of shoes after wearing the same pair for a year until your sock started, like, scraping against the gawsh darn pavement!

Finally, after all the years of weird feelings in muh tummies that I could, like, never put into words…

…they were all just…

…gone…

…all because…

I opened my phone to double check my Discord DMs. My boyfriend had sent me a selfie after I had fallen asleep last night—which was quite late considering the excitement of the previous day—but it had been a good sleep now rewarded with a good awakening. We weren’t at the point in the relationship where we were, like, sending nudes or anything but I definitely enjoyed his dorky attempt at taking a ‘cool’ selfie. 

“You dork lol,” I replied, “I can’t wait to see u in 2 hrs ehehehe ♥♥♥”

With my reply sent I forced myself out of my comfy bed and stumbled my way to my bathroom for a shower. 

***

September 05, 2023: 

At ten-minutes-before 7AM I double checked my hair—a single ponytail with just enough left up front to cover my left eye somewhat mysteriously. Technically, one might say that the choice of hair style clashed with the rest of my look for the day but the hairstyle had become my signature look since I began growing out my hair in eighth grade. I felt a need to maintain the look, because after all: The heroine always looked the part!

Triple-checking my makeup, I heard my boyfriend's car idling in the not-too-far distance. Not wanting to keep the poor, awkward dork waiting too long, I stood back and gave my entire figure one last look over in the full body mirror attached to the sliding door of my closet. It was easy to get lost in the sight of a normal, albeit very wholesomely dressed, girl in the mirror. If I dressed as slutty as I wanted, the school would, like, definitely call my parents, and I just wasn’t ready to have that conversation with them yet.

Surprise, Mom and Dad! I’m a girl and I got TITS!

Since yesterday, I felt lighter on my feet than I had felt since at least elementary school. Over the course of summer I found that I was, like, a lot happier than usual. Like, I had just chalked it up to me being so close to being an adult and able to, like, spend my allowance and Insta sponsorship money on whatever the hell I wanted to look prettier. After learning that I was trans and that estrogen was, like, better for my brain and stuff, it all sort of clicked for me! Yeah, like, duh! Of course I was happier now that I was looking like a cute girl and had BOOBIES and shit. Also, like, I could go to the store and not feel weird when I got called ‘girl’ by the cashier-girl-lady or, like, y’know, DATE MY BESTEST FRIEND ! 

It was, like, mega super-duper hilarious in hindsight—I think that’s the word?—I’d been suffering from gender dysphoria for so long I had just assumed everyone had this weird void in them they were always trying to fill. After yesterday, though…I definitely felt a lot fuller.

It probably helped that my tits were looking awesome that morning, and, like, when you’ve looked at boobies all your life and even touched some of the other cute girls’ boobies, it was so much more fun having your own to touch.

It was so weird realizing that, like, I was a bisexual girl who had made out with and done The Sex with straight girls before. Obviously, a woman of my refined beauty would be attractive to all, but I kinda sorta got a stomach ache just thinking about the fact that those straight girls had unknowingly had sex with a woman. It made me feel like I had somehow taken advantage of them, even though I hadn’t known I could hashtag Just Be a Girl—

—or date Jae Jae.

That was still so insanely cool to me, though. I could just be with Jae now! No more needing to try to date girls to try and fit in!

No more trying to date girls so that Jae wouldn’t be a faggot by association.

As much as I teased Jae for being gay over the years, I really wanted to believe that he liked me and saw me as a woman. Women were amazingly smart and beautiful, but there was something about the idea of dating Jae Jeong that just, like… hit harder.

Was it because of the fact that for, like, twelve years we had been nearly inception-able? In-septra-able? The bond we shared was the realest thing in the world to me.

I couldn’t imagine the rest of my life without him—I never could.

And if I was lucky, now I never would.    

I could only remain lost in thought for so long before the sight of the girl in the mirror flinching at the light honking of a car horn snapped me back to the present. The girl in the mirror was wearing a pink button up beneath a nice green sweater I had picked up from the mall over the weekend when it caught my eye. For bottoms, I’d struggled between a nice, lengthy black skirt and jeans, but ultimately went with the jeans because the mere thought of having to deal with a skirt in a public restroom was too exhausting even just thinking about it. 

I know that I’d sort of planned on crafting ‘Rachel’ as this sort of Goth girlfriend but now that Rachel wasn’t a separate persona—but rather just who the heck I was—I was beginning to realize that I—Rachel Penn—was in fact a woman of many a healthy variation of styles and moods.

Tuesday just felt like a librarian kind of day.

Cracking my fingers, I peered over my desk and shuffled through the minefield of makeup and accessories that it had accumulated over the years and picked out pink framed glasses. While not using proper lenses, the pronouns—pronounced?—cateye frames were totes cute. I loved how they complimented my pink dress shirt and contrasted it with the green sweater a top it. 

It was, like, layers! Like that one ogre movie guy said!

Shooting my reflection double finger guns, I spun around to grab my backpack and wobbled out of my bedroom, taking care—and failing—to not stub my left toes on my computer chair’s legs. Thankfully, my shoes spared me from yelping like Tom from Tom & Jerry .

I carefully stepped down the stairs with the practiced skill of a shounen anime character—careful not to accidentally trip or hit anything like I normally do if I don’t pay attention—and called out with my ‘guy voice’ “I’m leaving” to my parents—who were still very much not in-the-know about my recent transition—and dashed out the back door. It was quickly becoming tradition for my parents to just not see me but I really didn’t want to begin to explain why I was going to school dressed as a girl to them. They’d been called to the school office more than enough times for me getting into fights with other kids calling me ‘faggot’, I wasn’t quite sure how to explain to them now that all those pleas of not being queer were, in fact, not true.

As lawyers who ran their own law firm—Two Cents Law or what the fuck ever—my parents spent most of their time at the firm, for which I was eternally grateful. I just…really, really, really was not ready to, like, explain the whole ‘bisexual tgirl with a boyfriend’ thing to them.They’d ask so many weird questions and I’d have to go through the whole “I’m just happier this way!” spiel to them, and that was so cringe .

Sliding into my boyfriend’s shitty Hyundai Kona, I went to make sure to straighten out my skirt—wait, that’s right, I’d decided to go with jeans. Shaking my head to wake myself up, I leaned to my left to kiss my boyfriend hello.

“Seat Belt, babe—New look?” Jae asked, as he backed out of the driveway.

I clicked it to save my boyfriend a ticket, “Why don’t you just back into my driveway, babe—but yeah, I wanted to try something new,” I hummed.

Striking a dramatic pose—so much so that the back of my hand bumped into the ceiling of the car with a loud thud—and inserting the seatbelt into the seat belt holder thingy, “Hen~SHIN!” I proclaimed with my most dramatic girl voice possible.

I was a little concerned that after using my guy voice a moment earlier I wouldn’t be able to switch back to my regular voice, but luckily shouting in my guy voice still required me to use similar muscles. Switching between voices never used to be something I was anxious about but when I had woken up today I’d woken up in an entirely new world. I could tell my ironic indifference to things was not going to work for me anymore.

“It’s cute,” Jae said with a cheeky hum. “Chaste librarian?”   

“That or an All-American girl, I guess,” I mused with my head turned to Jae so I could watch his face. I could smell his after-shave. It was minty. Gawd, even his resting face made me so…

“Yeah, kinda reminds me of whats-her-face. The girl you ‘dated’ in eighth grade. Chase?”

I couldn’t not groan out loud at the mention of that name, “Oh gosh, Chase Avery Mann? Don’t remind me.”

I could practically hear my boyfriend’s smirk forming, “What, I thought you liked Chase Avery Mann? Didn’t she help you with your makeup?”

“Oh hush, you,” I huffed pointedly, “You know damned well she kept trying to force her way into my life after she caught me browsing makeup styles!” 

“Yeah, on your phone when you should’ve been paying attention to the teacher, right?” Jae mugged—it  was always annoying when he was so self-assured, but, like, it was annoying in a hot way . 

“Hey, it was just third period Social Studies!” I fired back with a little pout, “Gawd, has it really been four years already?”     

“Afraid so, babe,” Jae chuckled mid-turn, “Besides, I think she had a crush on you since seventh grade when she saw you running in PE.”

Throwing the passenger seat back, I groaned, “ Gawd hon, that bitch had to have been a chaser. I run like a retarded girl!”

Out of the corner of my eye I caught Jae wince, “You are a girl,” my boyfriend countered, taking a strained, self-satisfied tone, “You kiss like one, too!”

If the smug bastard hadn’t been driving I’d’ve shoved his shoulder, “Hush, you!”

“If she’s a chaser…” Jae’s deep voice glided out with such self-satisfaction that I felt like I was about to scream from how much I loved it, “...then I guess it’s a good thing she moved away after middle school then, isn’t it?”

“Thank fuck ,” I agreed, pulling the passenger seat back upright. “ Gawd , all I’d need is for her to move back here and get a look at me now !”

Jae put his right hand on my left knee, which caught my eye. It was, like, nuts how it felt having his bigger, warmer hand on my body. I’d noticed how much more comfortable I felt in skinny jeans when I had bought my first pair in freshman year and Jae’s strong grip sort of reminded me of that same feeling of being swaddled.

Jae began casually rubbing my inner thigh, unintentionally eliciting a feeling in my groin I didn’t quite understand. Sexual desire and arousal felt so different on HRT.

I loved it .

Jae rescinded his hand so as to turn into the student parking lot.

I grabbed my knee to try and keep his warmth.

***

September 05, 2023: 

First period drew familiar eyes looking at my unfamiliar sights as my boyfriend and I enter-ed the classroom as nonchalantly as possible. Doing a little more full-on girl and a little less “hiding my body behind baggy clothes while trying to act too cool for school” seemed to be a great way to keep the hype machine going. Unlike yesterday, girls seemed a little more receptive to “Just another one of the gals” Rachel. The boys kept their mix of terrified and horny looks, though, which wasn’t that big a deal since I was already dating the bestest-est guy in school .

Jae ran the baggy t-shirt and baggy, ripped jeans—how 1990s!—look, as per usual. I suppose I looked a lot more innocent to his mildly ‘bad boy’ aesthetic. No matter how many times I tried to dress the poor boy he always defaulted to his usual boring, lifeless, get-ups, and that was always a bit disappointing. Now that we were dating it occurred to me that I could probably arm-twist him a bit more, especially for Homecoming.

The most important part, of course, was that I looked fan-fucking-tastic this morning—which was to be expected of someone of my skill and experience! At the end of the day, all I really cared about was feeling come-fort-able in my own clothes, which I was finally beginning to feel.

Well, whatevs. Jae would look so hot in a suit—ugh, fuck I could see it now. If he got to dress me up then perhaps I could do the same? Something not too hard to, like, rip off of him, though, ‘cause I’m sure I’d wanna push him down and—

A raised, but calm voice snapped me from my fantasies, “Alright class, settle down,” our teacher—who always, like, sounded like he hated his job which, like, same hon—Mister Omar Zaher, droned, “Today we have a returning student that some of you might recognize…”

What little hair left on my body below my eyebrows stood on edge as I remembered the precise, exacting rhythm of the heels entering the classroom from the hall. I could recognize those horrifying steps anywhere . I think Jae might’ve even audibly heard me gulp upon the figure at the front of the class taking her place in front of the whiteboard.

Taking one of the whiteboard dry erase markers in hand the young woman wrote her name in perfectly legible draftsmanship. 

Turning to face the class, I managed to get a better look at my living, breathing, walking nightmare—and her horrifically enhanced chest. “Hello again to many of you and hello for the first time to some of you! My name is Chase Avery Mann, I can’t wait to enjoy the school year with you all.”

My heart sank. Chase Avery Mann wasn’t just back—she had a figure—wrapped in a weirdly pornographic 1950s dress and cardigan combo—to kill for.

I did my best to mentally will my breasts to, like, quintuple—is that a word?—in size so that Chase wouldn’t suspect me of being, like, me .

It didn’t work.

With all of my power I mentally willed the entire class to immediately forget that I existed, so as to not out me. If the creepy, high-ponytailed bitch realized who I was then my ass was cooked. Chase would make the rest of the school year a living nightmare for me. Whether it was trying to push herself into my life, or even just talk to me I knew that her grating voice would ruin my dreams all year long.

Surely Chase could no longer recognize me as the person she knew four years ago. Surely now—in all of my feminine armor—my AT Field was impenetrable?! 

But in my hubris…I had Forgotten.

As the Mann girl walked down the rows to her seat next to Jae my ever-so-beloved—meaning Jae was now sitting between her and I—the greatest corrupted fairy tale character I had ever known turned to Jae and whispered, “Oh hi there Jae, long time no see!”

I kept my eyes laser focused on the white board at the front of the class. If I looked like I was trying to eavesdrop on a conversation that Jae was having I knew that it would only make me suspicious. That’s how it worked in movies, right? 

I was transferring all of my genki to my boyfriend in hopes that he wouldn’t spill the beans, “Oh, hi Chase. How have y—”

“Speaking of which, Jae, where’s Richie?” 

I slipped deeper down my chair—a feat none would have expected possible of a 6’1’’ woman. I was ready to melt into a puddle of pink goo and cease to be a sentient being.

Farewell, my faggy girl life with the perfect faggy boyfriend—your eighteen years were far too short!

But then—the moment of truth arrive-ed. I could tell how Jae was feeling by the bouncing of his legs, “Oh, y’know,” Jae I swear to GAWD if you can read my mind right now I will blow you so hard if you don’t tell her about me. “We, uh, don’t really hang—”

Rising like she was eclipsing a skyscraper, from clear across the classroom the universe’s most devastating cock-blocker interjected, “Oh, Richard Penn? He’s the FINE YOUNG LADY sitting to Jae’s left!”

Gloria Rembrant had just earned herself a permanent spot on my shitlist.

“Ms. Rembrant, must I remind you of the school’s policy against—” The droning voice of Mr. Zaher was immediately cut off by the squealing coming from the mouth of the preening blonde, “OH EMM GEE, RICHIE-POO, IS THAT YOU?” The teacher rolled his eyes in defeat before turning back to the whiteboard to write whatever he had started writing. 

Hearing my deadname gave me the tummy ache to end all tummy aches, so I decided to go on the offensive, “Hiiiiiiiiii Chase,” don’t feel, don’t think, don’t give her an opening, Rach! “Uh…my name’s Rachel now.” End me.

The lust present in the eyes of the horrifying—terrifying!—girl spoke for itself. Even just a glance into their bright, blue abysses made me feel uneasy. “Oh,” her voice was suddenly soft now, almost quiet, “Is that so?” Christ, someone just please take me out back and pull the trigger already. It was like all the air had been let out of a balloon.

Zoey—sitting in the front row with her girlfriend Izzy to her right—swiftly turned to face Gloria, “Hey, what the hell, Gloria? Outing Rachel like that is none of your business!”

It felt like my eyes were about to pop out of my sockets. Shooting a look at Gloria—she was smacking gum—the awful bitch looked super duper smug and flipped Zoey off.

“Ms. Rembrant, please do not use obscenities, however in-character as they may be for you,” Mr. Zaher sighed before turning to Chase, “Ms. Mann, if you would please take your seat…” To be fair, if I got paid as little as this guy I’d sound like I was suicidal, too.

Oh, wait—I was. Turning around, Zoey and Izzy shot both me and Jae faces that were, like, “Yeah, we know she’s a bitch!” faces which I super up-ree-she-ate-ed.

“Oh, yessir!”

Chase Avery Mann took her seat with a graceful slide into the chair and flattened her dress as she did so. Arranging her notebook and any pencils neatly, Chase put on the brightest, most lifeless smile anyone had ever seen.

It would have melted the faces off a thousand students if it had been any stronger.

The lifelessness behind the weird woman’s eyes sent a shiver down my spine that only made the tummy aching worse-er-er-er.

I spent the next hour and a half flinching every time Chase glanced at me. 

***

September 05, 2023: 

Our second period remained mostly uneventful thanks to Chase not sharing class with us. Once seated in our usual seats, I leaned over as much as I could and leaned on Jae’s shoulder even though it was, like, super fucking uncomfy.

Zoey, sliding around on my right, crouched down and asked, “Are you doing okay, Rach?”

Eepy as hell after all the tension had left me I replied with a dreamy voice, “Mmm...not really?” and then opened my eyes to look at Zoey.

Biting her lip, Zoey took my hand—which, well, I decided not to complain about even though I hated being touched by anyone but Jae—and said to Jae, “Hey, take care of her, yeah?”

Jae quickly straightened up in his seat and nodded, “Yeah, of course!”

Squeezing my hand tightly, Zoey nodded and stood back up to get to her seat before class began.

It sure was surreal being one of the girls now.

***

September 05, 2023:

Me and Jae snuck away to his car for lunch, which I really fucking needed. 

“Gawd, why me?” I bemoaned.

“Gloria’s a real bitch for outing you like that,” Jae half-growled, joining me in a reclined position.

The ceiling of his car was becoming a familiar sight.

“I swear to fuckin’ gawd if she tells my parents…”

“Wait, why haven’t you told your folks yet ?” Jae turned his gaze to me as he spoke and I could only remain chained in the chastity belt of his warm, caring eyes.

“Ugh…I’m just not ready yet. Like, they’re always at their firm and I just don’t even have a close relationship with them, anyway. Like, what the fuck am I even going to say? ‘Sorry mom and dad, looks like I’m your daughter now!’”

“I mean…” Jae reached over with his left and cupped my right cheek, “I don’t think it’ll be too big a surprise. They’ve been asked to come to the school to talk about your…bully problems for years, right? And they’ve seen how androgynous even your male cosplay styles look, right?”

Good grief, I hated it when Jae logic-ed me to death like this, “Ugh. Yeah. Still. It’s just…I don’t know.”

Concern washed over Jae’s face as it contorted with a sort of sadness and pain, “Rach, I’m your best friend and your boyfriend. I can’t make you come out to your parents and I would never go behind your back to do so, but…well, you did come out at school. Even though—”

“—Even though I’m eighteen the school can still inform my parents,” I interjected, “I know, I know—fuck!”

Jae’s puppy dog eyes were just too much.

“Shit, if Miss 1950s Housewife—Porno Edition—is back in town she might just come over and talk to my parents to get on their good graces or what the fuck ever. It’ll get back to them eventually…”

Jae slowly guided his hand down to my shoulder—I missed the warmth of his palm on my cheek—and smiled weakly, “I don’t think you would have come out at school if you didn’t want an excuse to tell your parents, either.”

Where the heck was this nugget of wisdom coming from all of the sudden? “Hah,” I laughed, “Maybe you’re right?”

Jae leaned over and kissed me on the lips and I could feel the tension in my body drain like a bathtub unplugged. The heat of the sunlight magnified through the Kona’s windshield felt nice, although I simultaneously worried about how it might damage my skin. “I’ll be there with you, if you want.”

“If— when I tell them?” I asked in a whisper. Jae didn’t even have to open his mouth to confirm. His softened eyes said it all.

Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath and turned back over on the passenger seat and gazed at the soft, cushiony material of the ceiling. “Well, I guess I shouldn’t wait until after my implants after all,” I sighed.

Jae Jae looked like he was constipated or something, “Implants?!”

“Yeah. I’ve been saving up, thanks to all the advertising and sponsors I’ve had,” I smiled softly, anticipating my boyfriend’s sexual interest.

“So, wait a sec. Rach. Rachel. Ma’am. You were going to get implants despite thinking you were a cis man? ”

“Well, I never said I was a particularly thoughtful little girl, my good sir,” I giggled, hoping my cadence would draw out even greater disbelief in his voice.

 “Christ, you really are a bimbo,” Jae groaned, rubbing his eyes as he straightened back on his seat. 

For my part, I giggled in that way that I knew got my widdle boyfriend all flustered. 

Jae calmed down long enough to stretch his arms out, lightly clawing for his just-out-of-reach ceiling. “Sooooo.”

I didn’t like his tone of voice, “Yes, honey?” I laid the ‘Girlfriend Energy’ on thick, hoping to disarm him before he said whatever he knew I wasn’t going to want to hear.

“Like I said, I’m not doing your homework anymore.” I had to commend him for getting it out without a stutter—not that it didn’t elicit a groan from me.

He was right to be apprehensive. “Babe, please. Don’t maaaaaaaaaaaake me,” I whined, with as much syrup in my voice as I could muster.

“Rach, come on , I can’t just do my girlfriend’s homework . Besides, you’re not going to be able to go to college if I do everything for you.”

“Who said I was going to college?” I smirked, hoping to steer the conversation away from any sort of seriousness.

Jae gave an annoyed look that I couldn’t really place, “I guess we never really talked about it before, but don’t you have a dream career or something?”

“Waving my cock on screen for men and women to jack it to?”

“I’m being serious, babe,” Jae stone-faced.

“I’ll suck you off if you keep doing my homework?”

“Rachel.” Jae stonewalled—I could practically hear the ‘period’ at the end of his sentence.

“Okay, okay, come to my place after school and I’ll bottom for you!”

Suddenly I could sense Jae’s immense desire to pull out a giant cartoon mallet and bonk me with it.

“Ugh, babe, come on , I can’t do it. I’m not smart like you!” As the words left my mouth a part of me wondered why I was sounding so panicked. 

Concern washed over Jae’s face as he turned his gaze back toward me, “Rach, are you okay?”

I instantly regretted my reaction, “No, I’m not fucking okay!” Even as I shrieked it was like I was a third party watching myself from the outside. “You keep fuckin’ trying to ruin the happiest mood I’ve been in for years over fucking homework and I’m sick of it!” I could feel a rush of emotions surging from out of nowhere as I sprung up and off of the reclined passenger seat, slammed into and then struggled with my seatbelt through my halted breathing, swearing all the while between quick, sharp breaths and slapping Jae’s hand away when he reached out for me.

Finally, breaking free of the seatbelt, I swung open the passenger side door, scrambled out onto the pavement hands first and then slammed it, cutting my boyfriend’s panicked calls of my name off.

‘Why are you being such bitch to Jae?’ 

Most of my life I could hear my thoughts like separate audio track layers in a video editor. That was really the only way I could explain how my brain worked. I would sometimes think entirely separate and different things at the same time—if I could even get my brain to think clearly at all—and in moments like this it was like a thousand overlapped audio files were playing—screaming—all at once.

‘You shouldn’t have done that!!’

‘He’s right, you know!’

‘So much for finally getting your first boyfriend.’

‘Now he’s just going to think that you’re a crazy tranny like all the others!!’

‘Faggot!’

‘The stupid motherfucker shouldn’t have brought it up!’

‘Retard!!’

‘Why did you slap his hand when you knew he was just trying to help you?’

‘Pervert!’

‘God, I wanna go home.’

‘Just go back and apologize, bitch!’

‘My feet hurt!’

‘Shemale!!’

‘You’re just a man trying to peek at girls in the bathroom!’

‘You’re parents probably think you’re a faggot freak, too!’

‘Only men like using their cocks you clocky—’

‘—Freak!’

‘Just kill yourself!’

I sobbed and screamed into my palms. My feet hurriedly carried me through the student parking—even if my fucked up left foot made me trip a few times—in hopes of reaching a restroom and hopefully cleaning myself up better. Tears blurred my vision and I was so zoned out and overwhelmed by my breakdown that I never even heard or saw whoever I bumped into.I’m not even sure my brain recorded the moment or sensation of my ass falling back onto the pavement.

“Rachel?” I heard a familiar voice call. It wasn’t Jae—too feminine—no, too light.

I worked to stop my sobs but my hyperventilating didn’t make it any easier, “Yes?” My voice was shot, which only compounded my worries. I did not want a cis girl hearing my deadvoice. 

“Rachel, it’s me, Chase!”

Why me? “Oh,” I hiccuped, “Hi…Chase.” I brushed away as many tears and snot as I could with a tissue provided by Chase. Once I was significantly cleared up I accepted a hand from Chase Avery Mann and lifted myself up. “Sorry you had to see that, I was j-just having a moment is all.” She delayed in breaking her stern, cold grasp of my hand.

“Is everything okay?” the soft voiced blonde asked as she took the uninvited initiative to dust off my top vest. I pulled back sharply when her hand brushed against my breasts. Those were not for her, even if I figured she’d only done it pluto-nically. Practically?

My voice was still shot, but I struggled to get it pitched up and with as much clarity as possible, “Uh, yeah, no, I’m fine. I just had a talk with Jae that went, like, shitty-shit-shit.”

“Did he hit you?” Chase asked, a sudden sternness to her voice and a new grip tightening on my shoulder.

“What? Gawd no, Jae would never. He’s an amazing boyfriend,” for how much longer I didn’t know. Goodness knows I haven't been a great girlfriend.  

That annoyingly false, cheery tone abruptly returned to Chase Avery Mann’s voice, “I see. That’s good to know. Come on, girl, we really must get you to the restroom to fix your makeup before the end of lunch.”

***

September 05, 2023: 

Sharing a restroom with a cis woman was so awkward. Like, okay, obvious being trans and all—wow, it’s still so wild thinking that way—it was going to happen eventually. But! Like, still?! It was so-o-o-o weirded out by having Chase invite herself into my personal space to paint my face. 

Leaned back against a sink while Chase painted away, I had no idea what Chase was doing with my face. Each brush stroke felt like a knife cutting into my face, reshaving my, like, very skull or something. 

The tension of being around her was more than a little…off-putting. Surely that was just my own insecurity in being around a cis woman, though, right?

“I must say,” Chase hummed—super off-key, too—while brushing my bang out of my eyes, “You really do have magnificent bone structure, Ri—Rachel.”

I looked like a toucan, “Oh, um…thanks?”

“Of course, dear,” Chase smiled as she… slathered on the eyeliner.

Just what the hell was I going to look like?

Finally, Chase finished her handiwork. Turning around, I was instantly greeted with the image of exaggerated femininity that made me look like…a drag queen.

Worse, she had boldly highlighted all the masculine parts of my face that made me cringe more than anything.

“What do you think?” I know that I’m not always great at picking up what people mean, but something about the sweetness in Chase’s voice felt…egg-ager-ated?

No matter what I said I felt like I was screwed, “Oh, it’s um…real nice? And stuff?”

‘Tell her you hate it, you retard!’

‘Put your foot down already!’

‘The next thing you’ll know she’ll try to—’

“Ri—sorry, Rachel ?” Chase asked, “Are you okay, dear?”

“Chirp?” I asked back, lost in my reflection.

Then I noticed it: a single tear running down my cheek.

***

September 05, 2023: 

Not wanting to deal with upsetting Chase by redoing my makeup myself I sat through the rest of my classes, miserably putting up with the snickering from Gloria and her annoying goons—and not the fun kind of goons!

Hoping to be forgotten, I kept still during the back half of school, making as few movements and noises as possible. If Jae Jae, Gloria, or who-the-fuck-ever couldn’t see me or hear me, maybe they would forget about me? Maybe this awful, awful day would be gone for good? Maybe I wouldn’t have to ever think about any of it again—or anything again? 

But even just three hours without Jae had been torture. As close as we were, it still felt like he was a million miles out of my reach.

No, I was the one who was keeping him out of my reach. I was the one putting up barriers, too fucking retarded and fuckin’ ugly—inside and out—to reach out for him.

I was the problem, not my boyfriend.

‘Talk to him so he doesn’t think you hate him.’

‘Don’t talk to him, he hates you and has always known how much of a freak you are.’

The school rang the shrill, awful tone it always rang when signaling the end of eighth period and the school day. Facing Jae with his puppy dog expression was too hard, so I lifted up my bag—which I had already refilled, zipped up and held onto tightly before the bell rang to prevent any loss of time. I was immediately out the classroom door, speed walking through the halls before Jae could open his mouth.  

The loud footsteps of someone behind me quickly pierced my sen-see-tive sen-ses-ses. In a panic, I spun around to see who was behind me as I made my way from the edge of the pavement onto the strip of lawn across the front of the school. It was Chase Avery Mann, again.

“Rachel, wait up!” she called, running as fast as she could in her heels—what was she, a cyborg?—books in a deathgrip, pressed against her chest.

Hesitation filled me, making me bounce on the balls of my feet in place. The idea of Jae trying to catch up and confront me about my outburst scared me to death. I’d only just faced my gender and sexuality issues, I wasn’t ready to face…whatever the hell else was wrong with me. 

Chase finally caught up with me and—with her usual wide, ‘off’ smile plastered across her face—bumped shoulders with me, “Don’t you know? Girls have to stick together when walking outside, silly!”

Well, if she was going to invite herself along with logic that wasn’t exactly wrong, who was I to complain?

“Oh, um, sure,” this time, Chase wasn’t the only one with  a super fake-ass smile. 

***

September 05, 2023: 

Me and my—uh, icky?—companion made our way through the neighborhood together. Gravelly Lake was a military town, typically known for its large number of retired veterans, so in the past the city had never been particularly cozy-looking. In recent years, though, enough tax-payer money was finally coming through to repair the streets, add in new sidewalks and generally spruce up the main boulevard so that it finally looked, well, like a boulevard. The newly installed roundabouts to where there used to be, like, shitty traffic lights or whatever, were really cool. With the way that our winters were typically just nine months of windstorms, rainstorms, and snowstorms I had always hated how often the traffic lights would go out, even if I didn’t have a driver’s license. Or much reason to get one with how clumsy I could be.

Gawd, though, I really did love the way the leaves turned to oranges and browns this time of year. The way that the autumn colors looked beneath a blue sky were so, like, what’s the word—? 

“—So, how’s it like being a girl now?” Chased asked, rudely cutting me off from my daydreaming.

The clicking of Chase’s heels on the freshly installed sidewalk delayed my response for a moment, “Oh? Yeah, no, it’s been nice. It’s like a weight off my chest, y’know?”

Chase snickered, shooting a glance to my chest, “Looks to me like it’s more of a weight on your chest, Ric—Rachel.”

I couldn’t say I was a fan of how her eyes lingered on my tits, “Oh, well, yeah. Believe it or not the weight on my chest has been making me feel so relieved . It’s like when you thought you lost a precious family jewel or something, but you found it.”

“I don’t think you’ve lost your family jewels yet, Rachel ,” Chase crooned with a stupid—and not in the adorable way—self-satisfied grin. 

I couldn’t believe I’d finally found a terrible pun I hated. Doing my best to play it off—and with an added step to my pace—I merely chuckled lightly, my discomfort thinly veiled. Gawd, maybe I should have just forced myself to make-up with Jae?   

“Sooooo,” Chase Avery Mann lightly droned, “Are you going to, y’know, Get The Sur—”

Nope, nuh-uh, not happening, “Oh, by the way, Chase, why did your family move back to town?”

Startled by my taking the flow of the conversation back, Chase took a moment to reboot. Finally, after a few more clicks against the surface of the sidewalk, she replied with a really even tone: “Oh, well, Daddy was reassigned back to the local base, so…”

The less she had an opportunity to speak, the better. “Aah, so it was an army thing. Gotcha!”

Finally, we arrived at my house, which—sucks to be me—Chase had tried visiting multiple times before back in middle school. “Oh, we’re here, sorry Chase, I gotta run!” I had hardly a moment for a breath of air.

Disappointment painted the face of Chase Avery Mann as much as whatever shitty brand of makeup she was wearing did, “Oh, I was wondering if—”

With great irony, I countered: “Sorry Chase, I gotta do my homework. Bye!” before dashing through around back.

***

September 05, 2023: 

I did not, in fact, do my homework. Instead, I washed off whatever awful makeup Chase put on me and redid my makeup, like, my way.

My bed was comfortable, so I always enjoyed laying on it when trying to, like, calm down and stuff. Looking up at the ceiling, I counted the number of bumpy-thingies, even though I always lost count around, like, thirteen or whatevs.

What the fuck was the matter with me? Jae totes didn’t deserve me snapping at him like that. I didn’t even—it’s not like I even thought he was wrong. I knew he was right, but I just—

I’d finally (finally?) had a boyfriend after all this time and then I’d gone and ruined it because I couldn’t fucking communicate.I felt like I was stuck on that a lot lately. I couldn’t help but think about how often I would rethink the same thoughts over-and-over. Hell, thinking back on it, I’d done that all of my life. 

I was such a stupid, fucking retarded girl.

‘Well, at least I was a girl’, I could hear a part of my brain thinking.

The doorbell snapped me from my wallowing in self-pity. With my folks still working late at the firm I knew I was going to have to be the one to check the door. I worried, of course, that it was Jae and I was not sure how to approach that talky-talk-talk. Slipping into my parents’ room I peaked through their blinds to check who was outside. That was definitely not Jae’s shitty Kona in the driveway. Actually…oh fuck…

I rushed down to the front door, forgetting how I was dressed or made up, and opened it to face Jae’s mother, Mariko Yoshida. Made up in a lavender button-up dress shirt and tan slacks that gave her a professional but still impressively sexy vibe, my presence interrupted the interpreter’s furious phone scrolling. Her confused expression was actually quite a relief, once I realized she hadn’t actually recognized me.

“I’m…sorry, are you related to the Penns?” she asked, her face contorting into a “Did Peter and Penny Penn have a daughter?” look.

‘Don’t out yourself, Rach,’ I thought. With my right hand holding on to the old door knob for dear life I did what I normally did and shut off my brain, smiled, and replied: “Oh, hi Mrs. Yoshida,” with as deep a voice as I could muster. Yeah, no more of that.

Yeah, I know brain, I’m an idiot.

“Ri—Richie? Is that you?” Mariko asked, shocked by the unexpected revelation.

“Uh…” Moment of truth, dumbass, “Uh…” Just lie and say you’re doing drag or something, “Uh…Rachel. Or Rach, now.” This was turning out totes bad . I was fucked if she told my parents.

The awkward silence was deeply uncomfortable and I found myself jiggling the doorknob back and forth as a result. Making eye contact with Mariko was impossible . Well, that wasn’t a new thing for me, but whatever. 

“My parents don’t know yet,” I mumbled quickly, “Please don’t tell them?” I probably shouldn’t have brought attention to my chest by interlocking my fingers together and holding my palms pressed against my chest, but I’d done it my entire life and—oh wow, I wonder if people—not schoolmates who called me a faggot—thought I was gay before? I always was pretty feminine in my mannerisms. That would be cool. I mean, I’m not gay, but uh…wow, that would be so coo—

“Have you seen Jae?” Mariko asked, a little stilted, breaking me from my thoughts.

The setting sun lit the woman’s face and hair so gorgeously as she stood on our front porch. I couldn’t help but think of how her son took so much after her. If he’d been a girl the two could probably still pass for sisters. Hell, Girl Jae would probably still be such a great kisser, too.

Now that was gay.

“Wait, he isn’t at home?” I asked back, idly pulling out my phone to check if he’d messaged me. He had, in fact, messaged me several generic “Hey, can we talk?” and “Babe, please, I care about you and I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you like that”, only furthering my point that I was a terrible bitch unworthy of existing, of course. I absentmindedly tapped in reply “Hey, your mom is at my place looking for you,” before sliding my phone back in my pocket until my notification dinged.

“Jae didn’t come home after school today, so I’m a little worried. I barely get to see him as it is, so I was hoping to spend some time with him,” the older woman explained, her voice growing quieter and more concerned the closer she got to finishing her sentence. Mrs. Yoshida’s worry was, like, super obvious in how she stood and it was honestly only driving up my own anxiety. 

“Oh, uh, yeah. Being an interpreter for the MLB and helping out at one of the stores can’t be easy,” I mumbled back.

Jae’s mother spent most of her time on the road interpreting for baseball players recruited from Japan. Jae’s father, David Jeong, had been a ‘nothing-special’ pitcher in the minors, which was how the two had crossed paths. After injuring his arm, Mr. Jeong got into business and managed to open his own line of successful sports equipment stores. Any time I’d gone in to visit—because Jae had to help out at one of the locations—I couldn’t help but be stricken by how everything smelled, especially the leather. It was like smelling gasoline or something. 

An idle image of Jae and I making out in the backroom flashed through my head, making me grin. Maybe if I hadn’t fucked up our relationship we could try that out this weekend?

“Any replies yet?” Mariko asked.

I couldn’t remember if I’d heard a notification ping, so I pulled my phone from my pocket and double-checked. The only new notification was from an Instagram mutual—Toxic—asking about a possible collab when she was in town next week.

“Not yet,” I replied passively, breaking the bad news in a way I hoped wouldn’t elicit a stronger display of emotions from Mrs. Yoshida. 

For her part, Mariko Yoshida’s voice was regaining remarkable strength, considering the circumstances, “I’m going to go to the police and see if they can help. Please contact me the moment you learn anything…Rachel?”

“Rachel, chirp!”

“Rachel,” she reconfirmed, a slight smile on her face. “You’re dating Jae, aren’t you?”

What was this bitch—open parenthesis ‘positive’ close parenthesis—a psychic? “Uh…” ‘Uh’ with an ellipsis was quickly becoming my catchphrase.

“You two are always around each other, and neither of you have ever been the most…traditionally masculine. Honestly, I thought you two were just closeted gay boys,” she smiled wider. “Well, whatever, I’m just happy for you two. I was afraid Jae would never find someone, but I think I can rest assured now.”

This was becoming an unexpectedly progressive and wholesome conversation, considering her son was missing. Now I just had to make sure I didn’t ruin it by saying something stupid, like, “I’m the top, actually!”

For some reason Mrs. Yoshida was giving me a flat look.

Wait, I hadn’t said that outloud, had I?

Mrs. Yoshida stepped down from the porch and made her way back to her Renault Alpine A310, “Remember, Rach, call or text me. My husband’s out-of-state on business, so it’s just me!”

I nodded back to Mrs. Yoshida, hoping against all hope I was just imagining that I had, like, accidentally just told my boyfriend’s mother I was going to be dicking her son down. Surely I had not! Also, this was no time for horny thoughts, Rach. Goddamn it.

After Mrs. Yoshida left. I made my way back up to my room, plopped down on my bed, and checked my phone for any new messages from Jae. Still nada.

And then it came. 

A message appeared, from Jae’s phone.  

There was an address. 

“NEED TO SEE YOU”

Don’t fuck this up, Rach. 

***

September 05, 2023: 

After arriving at the address—some house out in the middle of a still developing neighborhood—I opened the door to the home of the address I had been sent. I wasn’t quite sure why Jae wanted to meet here of all places, but it wasn’t like I didn’t trust him to not murder me or something. 

The house, one of the few finished homes in the community, was the centermost home in the cul-de-sac and sported a beige aesthetic that was inoffensive for your average modern homebuyer. The carpeting was soft and plush and as I took a few steps on it into the house I found myself with an odd mix of the pleasurable feeling of a nice carpet beneath my tennis shoes and my growing concern that I was just going to fuck things up with Jae even more.

The actual ‘breaking into a house’ part really wasn’t an issue for me. Putting aside that it was now 11PM and the construction crew had left for the evening, Jae and I had both stolen our ways into plenty of homes like this before just to hang. After brushing off an intrusive thought of me plowing my hopefully-still-boyfriend against the kitchen island I took a deep breath and spoke loud enough to hopefully reach any room in the house: “Jae?”

Nothing, at first.

Then I could hear the sound of someone climbing steps, immediately indicating the existence of a basement to this house. I was surprised, as Jae had told me that he had read somewhere that basements were increasingly unpopular in newer homes, but I suppose this was going to be a pretty—burger noise? Bourgeois? —neighborhood.

A clicking noise—indicating the opening of a door—echoed throughout the house, breaking me from my thoughts. “Jae?” I asked again, but the figure that soon appeared before me was like, definitely not my boyfriend.

It was my vaguely chaser-y ‘ex-girlfriend’, Chase Avery Mann.

“Oh, hello, Richard—I mean, Rachel,” she gushed. She was dressed in a different dress from the one she wore to school earlier, but it still looked very—well, 1950s housewife in a weird fetishy way.

And honestly, I wasn’t sure she meant ‘Rachel’.

Clearing my throat as best as one can clear a dry throat, I asked, “Oh, hi Chase. Uh…I’m here to see Jae. My boyfriend. Are you…er…have you seen him?”

It was so eerie how her face—methodically made up to match her blonde hair tightly tucked into a bun—just…didn’t change. After a moment of silence I noticed where Chase was looking so blankly: she was looking for my bulge through my jeans.

Okay, so maybe Chase Avery Mann wasn’t vaguely a chaser.  

Wait. Chase Avery Mann ?! Her name was literally ‘chase every man’?! Who the hell, like, even names their daugh—

“Rich—Rachel, sweetie,” Chase interrupted, “Jae is waiting for us downstairs!”

Yeah, I didn’t like the sound of that, either.

I hesitated for a moment before stammering out a reply, the blankness on Chase’s face far too much for me to deal with. “C-can’t Jae come up here?” I finally asked, fearing I already knew the answer. 

Chase’s creepy smile only grew worse, “Oh, no, honey, I’m afraid not. Jae Jeong is sleeping!”

Oh fuck , I hope that wasn’t, like, a figure of speech! The tummy ache to top all tummy aches hit me harder than anything else today had.

Chase’s frigid smile combined with a little handwave that seemed far too stiff. Biting my lip, I followed her through the halls to the door down to the basement. Looking down, I realized that past the first few steps it was too hard to make anything out. Seeing in the dark was something that I was always really bad at—Jae Jae kept telling me to tell my parents that I needed glasses, but I’d always shrugged him off! Whatever nightmare awaited me down there seemed a hell of a lot worse than having to, like, take care of my vision issues, though.

Luckily, I had a railing to hold onto, and with both hands, I descended the steps one at a time after Chase.

I was scared as fuck as I tried climbing down the stairs and that only got worse when Chase, like, began to bleed into the pitch black faster than I could keep up, and I quickly lost sight of her.

One might think that a newly constructed house wouldn’t have such noisy, creaky steps. Unfortunately for me, capitalism had won out and the craftsmanship of the home was, like, cringe as fuck. With my sense of vision obscured I could feel my hearing expanding to compensate. The awful noises, combined with the lack of knowledge about what was right the heck in front of me, was overwhelming. I’d faced similar sensory issues my entire life that I didn’t understand, but I’d never actually tried to get a doctor to examine me for them. In light of recent developments, perhaps that was something I was going to now need to change.

Taking another step down the stairwell, my mid-motion body was interrupted by a horrifying shriek, which cut through the darkness and left me disoriented. As my hands shot off the railing to grab ahold of my torso for protection I could feel my body being pulled by the inertia of my forgotten step, and I tumbled down the stairwell.

Further shrieking woke me from slumber. I found myself at the bottom of the stairwell, with Chase’s familiar footsteps quickly making their way over to…not me, actually. A moment later, the creepy girl’s cell phone’s lock screen lit up just enough to cast light on a lantern, which Chase promptly turned on. The basement filled—a little bit—with a bright, white light. As my vision began to clear, it was kinda like I was suddenly in a black-and-white film. The way that the lantern’s light filled the room was, like, just as creepy as Chase was. 

Another shriek snapped me back to attention and I noticed just who was making that noise. It was my boyfriend, Jae, on what looked like a makeshift operating table, pantless. “Oh, gawd,” I gasped, picking myself up off the floor as quickly as possible, only to trip over my own feet again and smack my nose against my right arm, which had apparently known well enough to place itself before me and the concrete floor. The impact on my nose caused me to scream bloody murder, as I surely felt it break or even just fracture. Nevertheless, Jae’s condition spurred me back to my feet—or was I on my knees? Either way, I clawed my way to the makeshift surgical table for a closer look at what I thought I saw.

No, no, no!

My eyes had not played any tricks on me. I shot my panicked eyes up to the eyes of my boyfriend, who was strapped down on the table, squirming both in agony and in terror. Clearing my throat was a struggle, so—hoarse of voice—I called to my boyfriend: “J-Jae! It’s me! It’s Rachel!!” 

My hands were already struggling with the straps binding Jae to the table without me even noticing. 

“Wh-what the FUCK ?!” Jae screamed, his typically deep voice reaching heights I’d never heard from him before. “Wh-why does it hurt down there ?!”

I couldn’t form the words. It was a horrifying crime and a horrifying sight to see my boyfriend so panicked. All I could do was struggle with the buckles on his restraints, until finally I’d freed his left hand. 

With his left hand now freed, Jae joined me in quickly tearing the other restraints off. Remembering just who was in the room with us, I turned back to the pure evil woman as I struggled with the restraint on Jae’s left leg. The awful smile on Chase’s face was shrouded and back lit by the light of the lantern. Chase only stood there at attention, hands behind her back, watching us. What the fuck was the freak getting out of this?

With his right hand freed, Jae shot up in a rush of adrenaline to work on untying his right leg. Unfortunately, in the upright position, the pain in the lower region was only highlighted upon the addition of further pressure. “ FUCK !!!” Jae yelped, like a ten-pound dog whose foot was stepped on by an adult human. As Jae peered—and reached—down, I braced for the impact. Another shriek threatened to march up the basement steps and shatter the windows on each of the two above-ground floors of the newly constructed home.

Finally, I’d noticed that tears had been rolling down my face before noticing the taste of runny makeup on my tongue. The horror on Jae’s face as he’d finally, truly, realized what had happened to him, painted my soul with a hatred I had never before known. Struggling to my feet from my now screaming knees, I supported myself on the operating table long enough to embrace my boyfriend as he mourned his testicles, which now entered my line of sight on a red-stained tray on the other side of the makeshift castration station. 

“Oh dear, Richar—Rachel, sweetie, please, he’ll hurt you,” Chase giggled with an ugly, stilted concern to her voice.

Chase’s words only stoked the fury and hatred war marching in my heart. With a heavy step forward, I fought through my sensory overload and swung an accusational—no, a declaring—finger at the bitch, “You did this because you thought he was going to hurt me?!” my shrieking voice bounced off the walls of the basement and pounded on my ears, but I didn’t give a fuck.   

Chase only smiled brighter, her creepy, lifeless grin its own kind of piercing blade. “Oh, but Richard, sweetie, he—”

“My name is Rachel, you fuckin’ monster!” 

“—had you sobbing, after all,” the bitch finished, as if she hadn’t even heard me call her out on her bullshit.

—If only I had done so sooner—

In the face of a brick wall my emotions could only boil over more, “I love him, Chase! Y-you crazy bitch, he could die from an infection!” Right, an infection. Hospital. Gotta get Jae to a hospital! Fuck, where did I put my cell pho—

As I reached into my back right pants pocket for my phone, the momentary distraction was all the insane woman needed to swing at Jae’s throat with a scalpel—likely the same one she’d used to remove his testicles. Without thinking, I swung my right hand back and grabbed Chase by the wrist, stopping her just short of digging deeply into my boyfriend’s throat.

As he sat upright on the makeshift castration station, propping himself up with his hands to lessen the pressure on his sorry sack, Jae screamed in horror again at nearly dying.

Using as much strength as I could summon, I pulled Chase away from the makeshift castration station. Chase kneed me in my crotch, forcing my grip to weaken as I doubled over in pain. “Oh, poor baby!” Gritting my teeth, I hopped up with all the strength that I could muster and uppercutted Chase, but she slipped backwards with grace that only angered me more.

Turning to Jae, I shouted, “Run!” as I leapt at the horrific bitch in hopes of pinning her to the ground. 

Jae, horrified, eventually broke off from staring in shock, and struggled this way out of bed, despite his lack of strength. 

Chase practically let me tackle her to the ground. 

“Ooh,” Chase Avery Mann cooed, “You’re so strong ~! ♥”

Turning back from watching Jae crawl up the basement stairs to face Chase, I could only imagine the look on my face when I realized what she was doing. Instead of using her hands to fight back, she was grabbing my cock with one hand and rubbing her clit with her other.

I don’t remember what happened after that.

***

April 01, 2023: 

“So, guess what, Jae Jae?”

“What?”

“I totally ate out Amber Dorner yesterday after school,” I couldn’t help but say it in the most bragging way possible. I wanted—needed—to see him turn red and fidget.  

“Jesus, Rach, have some class!”

It was so hard to not try and make Jae groan. I lived for it, really. He was usually so unflappable, so to make him…flap…was just…so intoxicating.

“No, no, hon—dude, I brought her over ‘cause she said that she wanted to see my cosplay collection. Then she asked if I could fuck her as Kirito from SAO—”

“—you know that I have no idea who that is, right?—”

“—Anyway, first I did her and she got off so fuckin’ hard , it was amazing. I didn’t even need to, like, sheath my sword in her, if you know what I me—”

“—Jesus, Rachel!”

“Okay, okay, I get it. Sorry. It was just—well, it was okay. I was just lookin’ forward to seeing your face when I told you!”

Jae’s annoyed faces really were the most fun to see. I always looked forward to seeing how I could, like, get him to react harder.

“...is this an April Fool’s thing, Rach?”

My goodness, he looked so serious, “...I mean, I definitely ate her out, if that’s what you’re askin’? But uh…I’m emball-a-shing my story…”

My best friend could only groan his reply, “The word’s ‘embellishing’, dude.”

“Chirp.”

Jae sighed, put his controller down next to him on my bed and dropped backward to lay down, “You’re something else, you know that Rach?”

It was hard not to giggle.

“Like, come on, did you really—?”

“Yup!”

A moment of silence. I wasn’t really sure what to do—had I ruined the mood by pushing too hard? A nervous energy built up in my legs, so I couldn’t help by bouncing them in place while waiting for Jae to finally say something. I’d definitely gone too far, hadn’t I? Goddamn it, Rachel, you fucking re—!

“...so, you two are going out, then?”

I didn’t know how to read Jae’s tone of voice, so I decided to lay back next to him and just tell the truth: “Naw, I’m not really into her. She’s not really my vibe, y’know? Besides, I think she was kinda…off put by how…me…I was acting afterward…”

“...she heard you laugh, didn’t she?”

“Uh…yeah…not to mention I asked her if it was cool if I wear a girl cosplay…”

Jae’s voice grew a bit quieter,“You probably need to date a queer girl. Or a man.”

I didn’t even need to turn to hear the shit-eating grin on Jae’s face, “You calling me a fag?” I could feel the nervous energy that had been trying so hard to jackhammer its way out of my legs finally fade. 

Sensing my jovial tone, Jae broke into a short snicker, “Do I look like Gloria Rembrant or one of her cronies?”

“Pfft, please, SIR, I think that you’re way cuter than Gloria Rembrant,” it was hard to keep my composure as Jae turned to me making a funny face, “No homo, of course!”

Jae practically cackled at that last bit, “Yeah, that’s the thing: you’re not gay, but you keep getting called a faggot! Wait, I don’t think I’m allowed to say that word?”

I couldn’t help but give my bestie the most deadpan look imaginable, “SIR, if I’m fruity, you are too!”

“Faggot by association?”

“Pfft, honey, have you SEEN the way you move?”

“Ugh, for your information, RACHEL—” he giggled, switching to an impression of my voice “—I’m not the one who crossdresses. Also, I like girls just as much as you do!”

“Y’know,” I said, a silly little idea growing in my head, “I got some skinny jeans that I bet you’d look good in~! ♥”

“Rachel, I am not crossdressing, that’s your thing, dude!”

A wilder idea formed in my head. Like some sort of pervert, I couldn’t keep myself from laughing at my own joke, and leaned up on my bed and shoved my ass at Jae, “Pfft, come on, doesn’t my ass look good in these? I’ve been doin’ squats!!”

Turning away, Jae fell off the end of my bed, “Fuck!” followed his body thudding on my floor. Leaping up to look at me, Jae was faced once again only by my ass. My stray left eye caught his as I looked back for my own self-satisfaction.

“You like?” Against my better judgment I continued to poke the bear, slapping my own ass as if all the rumors about me were true. 

“Go fuck yourself, Rach,” Jae scowled, flipping me the double bird.

Honestly, who could blame me for replying “Ooh, kinky!” 

We both broke into a fit of uncontrolled giggles.

Turning around back onto my ass and propping myself up with my hands, I found it hard not to get lost in Jae’s eyes, even if eye contact made me uncomfortable. He’d always been there for me, any time I was harassed for being too feminine. Or acting like a retard. Or anything, really. Taking a pillow to my face, as the pillow ricocheted off of me and landed on the floor to my left, I found it hard not to bite my lip and smile invitingly.

It was kind of a shame I wasn’t into guys…

***

September 06, 2023: 

“Rachel?! RACHEL?!” Jae’s violent shaking and screaming brought me back to my senses as I woke up, standing under the moonlit sky in front of the house of horrors. “J-Jae?” I rasped, reclaiming my bearings. 

“Rachel, whose blood is that?” Jae pleaded, openly weeping.

Looking down at my hands, I noticed—without any emotion—that they were thickly-painted a bright red. The whole of my form was dyed a brilliant red.

Then…I remembered why.

Fucking brilliant, Rachel.

A single shriek into the night sky dyed it the color of bloody murder.

TO BE CONTINUED

Chapter Text

August 31, 2023:

Sweat stains threatened to bleed through my tee shirt and into my mattress cover as I used my left hand to lightly touch myself beneath my covers. My locked bedroom lit only by the dim light of my smartphone screen, I couldn’t help but remain paranoid of being interrupted—seen for the freak I was.

Nevertheless, I persisted—stupidly.

If my parents had caught me masturbating it would be beyond awkward, especially considering how often my dad would bring up how I didn’t have a girlfriend yet. There was a certain—I don’t know—’emasculating’ effect when he would mention my lack of a girlfriend

Or a perceived lack of masculinity in general. I’d been bullied for being gay for years at this point. ‘Faggot’ was a word I’d long since learned to brace myself for hearing.

Unsatisfied, I sighed heavily and I dropped my phone face down on my flat chest with a dull thud.

I wasn’t gay or anything. I was definitely—probably—into women—I’d done my fair share of masturbating to women—sorta—too—but…there was also something about seeing a twink receiving a big, thick cock that I couldn’t resist.

It was hard not to imagine myself in the place of the twink, taking dick. Shaking back-and-forth violently, my whole body rocking on my hands and knees, by breasts dangling as my boyfriend fucked me from behind.

But surely I would have known that I was bisexual by now?

But then…there was—well, my best friend probably wouldn’t be interested.

Which is a shame. I kind of wanted to try being fucked by someone wearing cosplay at least once.

There was something so very…wholly unsatisfying about touching myself down there. It was like neurons not properly firing off.

Against my better judgment, I readied the now lubricated dildo that I had purchased last week—eighteenth birthday money coming in handy—and slid it inside my asshole.

I persisted through the feelings of shame and guilt, before finally achieving the peace that I could not previously.

***

September 01, 2023:

At 6:00AM my phone alarm blared, waking me from my deep slumber as it did every morning. Thankfully, it was a Friday—the first of the school year—so I dragged myself out of bed and put myself under a warm shower for twenty minutes to wake up.

Dressed in the least offensive combination of tee shirt and jeans I could muster, I grabbed my backpack and departed my room. As I entered the living room to head out the front door I was confronted by a sight I wasn’t expecting: my mother seated in her favorite chair, reading something on her phone. Noticing my appearance, my mother shot me a look without any accompanying words.

Taken aback, I didn’t say anything, but instead gripped onto the strap of the backpack I had slung over my shoulder. I needed something to dig my nails—and pour my anxiety—into.

Taking me for the confused, tight-lipped teen that I was, my mother finally spoke: “The team doesn’t need me until later in the afternoon, so I thought I would actually see my son’s face for the first time in months.”

I was afraid she would say that. “Oh, hi, yeah, sorry,” quick, think of an excuse to leave, “Sorry I—uh—gotta get to school!”

“It doesn’t take you half an hour to drive to school, Jae,” my mother deadpanned. I could just barely make out the faint lines of an amused smile on her face.

She had a point, but frankly, I didn’t want to get asked about my summer by the woman who lived with me but never actually saw me.

She and my dad had that in common with each other, actually

Then it hit me.

“Oh, uh, I gotta pick up my girlfriend on my way to school!”

My mother’s brow took a softly surprised look as they pulled upward, “Oh? You have a girlfriend, Jae? That’s great news. What’s her name?”

My throat became a barren desert, feeling as if a hundred thousand needles had flown into it at superspeed. I didn’t know how to bullshit my way through this at all, and if I couldn’t fake my way through it I wasn’t going to hear the end of this, “Oh, uh, she’s, like, really cool. Does cosplay, likes anime—not really my scene, but she, uh, like, is still really fun to listen to and stuff!” God, I hoped that she wouldn’t notice that I didn’t actually answer her question and give my fake-girlfriend’s name.

Locking her phone, my mother stood and pocketed her phone before crossing the living room to put her hands on my shoulders, “She doesn’t do drugs, right?” I couldn’t read the faint grin on her face.

My brain stumbled around for words before settling on “Nope!”

Body language growing more lax, my mother finally gave a full smile and said “Homecoming will be coming up soon. Think you two will last long enough to go?”

I wasn’t sure what the fuck to say, so I simply nodded up and down.

Letting go of my shoulders, my mother embraced me in a hug, then broke the hug for one last smile: “A piece of advice, Jae?”

Looking up at my mother, I nodded softly, not sure if I was actually processing this conversation at all.

“Keep listening to your girlfriend. Keep talking to her. It’s more important than you might think, Jae.”

Nodding slowly, I stood in place as my mother finally broke off contact and made her way to the kitchen. Stopping just short of both legs over the line into the kitchen, my mother turned back and asked, “Want some eggs?”

I shook my head side-to-side, too nervous to even think about putting food in my stomach.

I was so fucked.

***

September 01, 2023:

Parking in the Penn family’s driveway, I confirmed that my dearest friend had seen my arrival from the second story bedroom window and would be down momentarily to join me in my much too small for two six-foot people car. While waiting, I pressed my face into my steering wheel and seriously considered just bashing it into the wheel so that I wouldn’t have to deal with trying to find someone to pretend to be my girlfriend.

Eventually, Richard ‘Rich’ Penn opened the passenger side door and attempted to effortlessly slide into the passenger seat, but banged his head on the way in. “Ouchy! Fucky!” Rich grabbed where he hit his head and whined loudly.

“You okay?” I asked, trying not to sound alarmed. I had a habit of getting very defensive of Rich, which could sometimes annoy him.

After resting his messenger bag on his lap, Rich turned to me and smiled.

God, I really did love that goofy smile of his.

Not in a gay way, I promise.

Well…not that there was anything wrong with that. If I were gay I would definitely be attracted to Rich.

Who the fuck was I kidding? The whole school thought we were dating, anyway! Rich was fruitier than bat guano, and I ass-fuck myself to gay porn because I could almost never maintain an erection.

Sighing, I put on a faint, disaffected smile in reply to Rich’s and backed my Kona out of his driveway.

***

September 01, 2023:

Watching Rich run in PE always elicited in me a mixture of feelings.

Happiness: because I loved watching him do his best, despite it all.

Laughter: because I loved watching him complain about how much he hated running while flailing around with his feminine mannerisms.

And Dread: because I hated seeing him struggle to run with his slight leg disability that he refused to have recognized.

“I don’t want to, like, not exercise, hon!” he would tell me.

I suppose that I could understand why he was afraid of gaining weight considering how he would often eat, but he was in remarkably good shape—a real twink.

Not that I was attracted to men or anything, but the last few months Rich was really starting to look cute. Like, sometimes I would forget that he was a guy—not that he ever really moved like one. And with that long hair he’d spent so long growing out…

…oh.

***

September 01, 2023:

I knew as I watched Rich brush his long, blonde hair at his vanity, that what I was considering asking him was insane. He’d probably actually think that I was really gay for real, and not just in the way he liked to tease me.

But still, I was kinda fucked either way. Might as well bring ol’ Richie down with me…right? Goddamn, that made me sound like a monster. I didn’t want Rich to suffer—I had seen him suffer too much over the years as it were. What I wanted was…to get past this nonsense about having a girlfriend.

Why was I such a fucking moron? Why couldn’t I just tell my parents I wasn’t interested in having a girlfriend right now?

Rich turned back to me and smiled as he brushed his hair some more, as if to let me know that he’d be finished in a minute. If I was going to do this, I had to make sure that he wasn’t hurt by it. He meant far too much to me to let him get hurt.

Clearing my throat, I stood from Rich’s bed and hoped like hell I wasn’t about to just ruin my things with my best friend.

The words danced out of my mouth easier than I expected them to, to be honest: “Rich, would you be my girlfriend?”

“You want me to do what?”

“Uh…like, I was wondering if maybe you could possibly maybe, like, just for a few wee—days—er, no, like, for Homecoming just, like pretend to be my girlfriend?”

Rich sighed with shockingly clear exasperation for him, “Jae, I pay you to do my homework for me, why would I—I’m not even a girl, Jae!”

With my anxiety flaring up, I crossed my arms against my chest as I had done a million times before and squirmed in place. I really didn’t know how to explain myself. “Rich, I’m sorry! I told my parents I have a girlfriend—I never asked you for money! And that she did cosplay!”

Rich looked like I was speaking Japanese to him, “Yeah? And? I can’t be the only person you know who does cosplay!” Actually, while he was obviously just a dorky weeb who couldn’t be bothered to actually learn the language, he wasn’t always lost when I placated him and spoke my mother’s first language. If it wasn’t so damned embarrassing it would almost be endearing.

Stifling my annoyance at what I thought was a pretty obvious fact, I countered: “I hang around you all the time, Richard. I don't have any other friends. Besides, most people think we're already dating!”

“We’re friends?” Richard Penn learned long ago that the easiest way to get his way with me was to turn on the swagger, and in recent months that had grown to him laying a very well manicured hand on my chest any time he wanted to really corner me. It was hard to hold a poker face with such a cute...twink?

“Rich!” I shouted, digging my nails into my arms and nearly raising my foot to stamp the hardwood floors.

“Okay, okay, calm your tits, bro,” he giggled, clumsily turning his back to me to browse through his closet full of cosplay, “Fuck Jae, the closet thing I have to woman’s clothing is, like, Asuna’s school uniform from SAO or Shirona’s outfit from Pokemon…”

“Shirona?”

“Nevermind! Sheesh, normies…anyway, my good sir,” Rich hummed while removing a piece of lint off of one of his cosplay’s top—I couldn’t tell which piece it was from the angle I was at, and even then I doubt I knew the name of the series it came from—“I fear that I’m going to need some sort of stipend for buying clothes. Assuming I followed through on this silly little farce of yours, that is.”

My lips became a long, flat line so strained I could imagine my cheeks tearing into a Joker-esque smile, “Rich. Richard. Richie. You’re rich, why the hell else would I be taking a hundred bucks off of you to do your homework every week?”

With a hint of sass, "I thought you never asked me to pay you for that?"

A disgruntled, low growl crept out of my mouth and threatened to tear into Rich like a lion hunting a gazelle.

“Nevertheless, honey,” there it was again, that casual, confident feminine swagger that Rich had, “A ‘girl’ has her needs.”

It was so damned intoxicating.

My facade broke, and I showed weakness, “So you’ll do it?” I was letting him see how desperate I was, but I would not have been able to hide it forever, anyway.

Besides, it wasn’t like I didn’t like the way he’d look at me so softly whenever I gave in and played his silly little games.

I liked it a lot, really.

“You said you needed this for Homecoming, right?” Rich asked, the drag in his words showing that he was mulling something over in his head. “Jae, we’ve been flying solo at these school dances for years, my dear, I don’t think your folks are going to be surprised if you just admit that you lied to them about—”

I quickly closed the distance between the two of us and stared up at Rich with as much ‘pleading eye emoji’ energy as I could muster, “Rich, please, it’s senior year! I don’t want them to think I’m some sort of loser.” My mother’s strong words to me—for me to be a good partner to my supposed girlfriend—rang in the back of my mind. I could only imagine how twenty years with my father had led to that sort of advice.

The warmth of my quickening breathing poured over Rich, my nerves leapt up and down through my body, threatening to tear out of my throat at this point. Being so close to Rich—especially with how feminine he looked these days—was really beginning to play tricks on my eyes.

In what seemed to me to be a way to reassert dominance, Rich brought up and twirled his right wrist before laying his index finger on my chest, “Are you sure you’re not just gay?” his cheeky grin was like basking in the sunlight. He used his finger to push me back a step, and I folded.

“No, Richard, I’m…listen, I’ve seen your girl cosplays, it’s not gay to be attracted to…that!”

I hated to admit it, but I loved it when Rich got like this: where he would push my buttons, as if challenging me to not desire him. Sure, we were both straight but I’d known Richard Penn since we were in elementary school. Making me squirm was just something that had become a regular fixture of our friendship.

“Gee, I’m flattered, Mr. Jeong.” Rich quickly bit his lips—did they look fuller?

“O-of course,” I could only stammer, and forced myself to break eye contact to focus on my shoes instead.

That’s when I noticed Rich’s shirt. On the way down to my shoes, my eyes caught a glimpse of something on Richard’s chest beneath his shirt, “Wait, Rich…are you wearing breasts underneath your shirt?”

Lifting his baggy Thunderpussy shirt over my head he revealed my prized acquisitions. “Voila, Jae Jae!”

I was stunned, “Holy shit, Rich. Are those r-real?” As the words left my mouth I felt stupid for even bothering to ask.

“Yup! I’ve been on HRT since last April. I love what it’s doing for my skin and getting to play with tits is kinda cool, too!”

Incredulous, I fell back onto Rich’s bed, still in disbelief. Finally, the shock faded just enough for me to cover my eyes, “Oh my God Rich, I’m sorry, just cover them up, please!”

Rich giggled at me, as if he was in on some joke that I was not to be privy to. With a loud snap of the strap of the cute pink bra he wore, Rich covered himself yet again with his Thunderpussy shirt again, “There, ya happy?”

I slowly poked an eye out through my fingers to confirm that Rich had put his fucking shirt back on, “Oh my God. Holy shit, Richard! What?!?”

“Like I said, Jae, I’m on HRT.”

“Wait, what?”

I knew what words I was hearing, and I knew what those words technically meant, but I was nevertheless still beyond flabbergasted.

“Hormone Replacement Therapy, dear,” Rich giggled, poking another finger into my chest—I couldn’t stop myself from rubbing the spot. After a beat he added: “Estrogen.”

“You’re taking estrogen?”

“Yup-yup! Some guys do it to look cuter, after all.”

“A-are you transgender?”

“Me? Transgender? Like, as in, a girl? I mean…why would I be a girl?”

“Uh…maybe because you’re literally taking estrogen to look cute?”

“Sir,” Rich laughed, waving his arms around with a grandiose flair that would have usually gotten him bullied for being gay, “I cosplay anime characters. Most of them are twinks, of course I want to look the part!”

My mind was fighting a war of attrition, “Yeah. Anime boys tend to look a bit like girls. Girls, Richard!” I couldn’t believe that my best friend was now on estrogen of all things, but the more I thought about it the more it made sense to me. Rich had been becoming increasingly cute lately, and his general moodiness that he’d developed the last few years had faded quite a bit. If Richie was simply happier with how he looked now wouldn’t that mean he was in a better mood?

Rich sighed in the most put-upon manner possible, “Jae, honey, just because I want to look like an anime boy who happens to look a little girly sometimes it doesn’t mean I’m a girl. Come on, don’t be so closed-minded!”

I stood from my perch on the edge of Rich’s bed to close the gap between us once again, “Rich, you’ve been calling me ‘honey’ and ‘dear’ for weeks now.”

“Jae Jae, hon—Sir. Sir. Please, there is no way I of all people could be a girl or transgender or whatever the fuck it’s called.”

“Why’s that, then?” I asked, unconvinced. I wasn’t an expert on trans issues, but Rich being a trans woman definitely would have made a lot of sense. As long as I had known one Richard Penn he’d been without a doubt the most feminine ‘straight guy’ I had ever known. If he was actually a trans woman it would—wait, if he was a trans woman, was I mentally misgendering my best friend?

If Rich was a trans woman, did that mean I maybe had a shot with her? Like, for real? I mean, if ‘she’ wanted to be a woman…wouldn’t that be because she wasn’t into women? That didn’t really add up, though. Sure, Richie always bragged about being popular with female cosplayers on the internet, but I was pretty sure ‘she’ wasn’t faking the part about actually being attracted to women.

Red began to fill their cheeks, “B-because…like…I…like my…my thingy-thing-thing down there and stuffs.”

I remained silent for a good ten seconds before I could audibly gulp as a sign of my own nervousness, “Oh. Yeah. Huh.”

Silence permeated the bedroom, for who knows how long. Rich crashed back onto their bed to stare up at the ceiling, “I feel like too much of a fraud to even say I wish I could be a girl, Jae. I mean, yeah, I know that there are porn actresses who keep their…but isn’t that just because they need to pay the bills until they can get surgery?”

I could see them shoot their eyes over their chest to look at me, as I just stood idly in the middle of my best friend’s bedroom, “I…” the uncertainty in my voice was more than obvious, and I felt completely fucked up for even speaking to them while secretly imagining them in a dress, “I…don’t know, Rich. I’m sorry.”

They had always looked great in their cosplay outfits, especially when they would cosplay as…girls.

It just made so much damned sense that Rich would be a woman! The way they moved, the way they talked, the way they looked me in the eye and—Christ, don’t be a bitch, Jae!

Finally, with my voice hoarse from the stress of the morning, I decided to face the consequences of my insane idea, “Listen, Richie, we don’t—”

Rich cut me off before I could finish my pitiable excuse for an apology, “No, Jae Jae. We’re going to do this. I’m going to do this.”

Panic set in when I realized what I had done. Rich was my best friend, and now I was asking them to lie? To endanger himself? Themselves? Sure, Washington was pretty progressive on queer issues from what I—a straight guy—had heard, but asking Rich to basically pretend to be trans felt like it was crossing not just a line in our friendship, but a line morally. What would real trans people think? We went to school with real trans people, like Isaac! I couldn’t imagine what kind of backlash Rich might face if someone found out they weren’t really…I lo—

“—Jae, what kind of girl have you told your parents I am?”

It felt like my knees were about to go the way of a poorly designed 20th century bridge, “Uh…I just said she was—you were—cute. And that you liked anime and were smart.” Okay, I was exaggerating about the ‘smart’ part, but I really did think that they were my favorite person to listen to talk. We had so little in common, but the way she talked about her special interests really—

—’he’, Jae. Rich is a ‘he’, not a ‘she’! Ugh!!

Or a ‘they’?

Rich looked unimpressed by my description of my fake-girlfriend, “Jeez Jeong, you sure know how to describe a girl.” God, I loved how she looked so pouty with her hands on her hips and—

Pronouns, Jae, pronouns!

Part of me wanted to vomit the stress and guilt away—perhaps I should have had those eggs, afterall.

“Uh…sorry. I’m not good at handling my folks…” Unsure of what to do with my arms I found them crossing themselves across my chest on their own, but the sensation sent me in a squirm I couldn’t suppress, so I shifted my footing in my place. Rich cracked a devilish grin at my discomfort, which only made me all the more nervous. What the hell were they thinking?

“Tell me about it,” Rich retorted. Stepping over to their makeup collection they did a quick assessment of what I assume was what they had to work with. “But no, for real Jeong, you’re refilling my makeup collection. Pronto. We’re damned lucky this is Friday, I’m going to need at least two days to give my girl self a proper design.”

A ‘proper design’? Well, Rich had been doing this sort of thing for years, so I guess they would have pretty high standards. Just to be sure, I asked “What do you mean? It’s just for a single night and we have, like, a month until Homecoming…”

“Jae, I can’t just show up to the dance as a girl,” Rich really did just gesture like a girl, especially when they were being aggressive “People are going to ask questions!”

“Well, actually I don’t think anyone will no—”

“Yes, they will, my good sir. I don’t want to make a scene so I’m going to have to spend the next few weeks going to school as a girl.”

Wait, a few weeks? How the hell was I going to survive that? I could believe Rich pulling it off—they were never really any sort of masculine—but the guilt of basically—what did Rich call it again? ‘Forced Feminizing’?—my best friend just seemed nightmare-inducing. What if our parents found out that my ‘girlfriend’ was actually just Rich? Hell, what if they accepted them as a ‘her’? How would she—they—get out of that?

“Come on, Jeong, Daddy needs to buy his little ‘girl’ some makeup. And clothes.”

“Wait, wha—?”

Rich took my hand, held it, and then led me down stairs and to my car.

The skin of her palm felt so soft…

***

September 01, 2023:

Rich and I arrived at the mall that we usually visited just to goof off away from our homes, or to buy stuff—mostly Rich. It was no surprise to me when Rich quickly took to restocking their makeup supplies, a ritual that they usually took their time to savor. Today they seemed to be zooming through with unrestrained joy and inspiration, however.

Our trip to womens’ clothing stores was also not a surprise. Rich had always eyed—and even tried on—womens’ clothing, before saying it was just a joke, but I’m not sure that I ever really believed them. They always looked so much happier modeling dresses and leggings for me, which made me feel like I was The Boyfriend in our relationship—well, friendship. I wasn’t quite sure that I liked that feeling, but—as I watched Rich gushing over the print designs on leggings—I couldn’t help but feel like I was glad to be there—with them—in that moment.

Rich’s voice snapped me from my daydreaming: “Alright champ, what exactly are you looking for?”

Adjusting my already soaked KN95 face mask, I took a moment to ponder Rich’s meaning, “Uh…maybe…uh…can I say…uh…you know…like…listen, you really don’t have to—” Rich leaned in, reminding me of their hearing issues—especially in crowded spaces. The closer their clear-skinned face got, the harder it was to resist staring at their glossy lips.

“Jae, just fucking come out with it already! You know I can’t, like, hear for shit!” Rich had taken to standing closely to me over the years to hear me when I mumbled—it was probably why a lot of our classmates thought that we were dating.

The distraction of the roar of the crowded mall was not making it any easier for me to think of anything to say, so I mumbled the first thing that came to mind: “...do you mind maybe a Victorian look?”

God, I was a fucking moron.

“No, you!” She—er, he—no, THEY, damn it—admonished. I couldn’t stop myself from peeking at how they were standing. It was such a cute stance, I was almost jealous that Rich was just able to be so…Rich? At the same time, it was kind of nice seeing them looking so upset. Even when they were fed up with my bullshit, they were still the cutest thing in the world. I couldn’t help but try and push their buttons—to give them a taste of their own medicine: “Uh…maybe a white tras—”

“—You like Goth girls, right?” Rich asked, completely cutting me off.

“...What…?”

“Goth girls, Jae. Pale skin, makeup, clothing that miraculously looks ‘cute’ and ‘sexy’ at the same time?”

Not sure of how to reply, I found myself fidgeting in place, crossing my arms across my chest, twitching from the sensation, and then nervously bobbing my head in place, hoping it would rattle my brain awake, “Er…uh…I mean, yeah, they are really ho—”

“Goth girl it is, then, Mr. Jeong!” Rich practically squealed, “I mean, it wouldn’t be that big an issue. You’re definitely not beating the weeby-simp allegations, though.” I’m sure that my face was definitely telegraphing my annoyance, but Rich did nothing but smile on through it, like a lighthouse in the treacherous night.

“Rich—”

“—Rach! Like Rachel!”

“Rach, you know that the only weeb between the two of us is you.”

“Yeah, but I bet you’d still wanna fuck a Big Tiddy Goth E-Girl Weeaboo Girlfriend with huge Mommy Milkers!”

“This behavior is exactly why people think we’re dating, Richard!”

“Chirp!”

“Ugh! Fine! Yes! Okay, ‘Rachel’!”

I wasn’t sure I understood why Rich had taken up chirping as if it were almost a second language, but it was something they had done for years, and thus I had learned to understand them even when others did not. It didn’t make school easier for Rich, but they had not changed who they were. It was kind of mesmerizing.

It was hard not to remember the time that I had to help Rich fight off a group of kids bullying them for their chirping. God, Richie could kick some ass.

At that point, I didn’t care if my exaggerated reaction of facepalming over my masked face let Rich feel like they were ‘winning’, I needed to just hide my face and hope that when I uncovered my eyes I’d be back in a sane world again.

“That debit card is going to be melting by the time I’m finished with it, Jae Jae babe,” Uncovering my eyes I looked at Rich and wanted to groan even louder.

Vision blurry, I rubbed my eyes, and replied: “Uh, actually, I just need to sync my phone with the POS' pin pad and…” But Rich was already on the move to the next store.

***

September 01, 2023:

‘Rach’ specifically made me swipe my card even though the salespeople said that my card was the type that needed to be inserted or tapped and would not work otherwise. With clothes purchased, ‘Rach’ decided that I needed to pay for additional-additional makeup for ‘her’ look.

With shopping finished we stopped by the food court so that I could buy a pretzel. After a whirlwind few hours of shopping I desperately needed the sweet relief of a hot, salted pretzel to reboot my consciousness.

According to Rach, the game plan was: “Alrighty dear, give your gi—er, boy—the rest of the weekend to perfect his look. I promise you’ll enjoy your investment when you see it Monday morning, got it?”

Dunking a piece of my hot, salted pretzel into a small container of very hot cheese sauce, I decided to be bold and asked: “So, wait, what are you going to do about pronouns and name stuff on Monday? Are you just…going to pretend to be you but trans at school for a month?” Waiting for my reply, I popped the cheese sauce-soaked piece of pretzel into my mouth, hoping it would calm my nerves some.

Rach looked more than a little annoyed by having to consider the details of her masterplan, “Yeah. Fine. Fuck. I hate disrespecting real trans people like that but I’m just going to have to pretend to want a vadge or something if someone asks. What the fuck are pronouns?”

I wasn’t sure I should bother correcting her on her mispronunciation of ‘vag’, what with how strained the situation was just keeping up with the whirlwind of a ‘girl’, “Like, going by she/her and stuff—how do you not know what pronouns are? Anyway, I mean, I don’t think it’s really anyone’s busin—”

“As for my name…fuck. Yeah. Any ideas? I guess I’ve got major Raven energy with how I plan on dressing or something but that seems almost too on-the-nose for a trans girl...”

“Maybe something that contrasts with—”

“Maybe we’ll just go with ‘Rachel’ after all? That’s got some ‘tough Goth girlfriend’ vibes, right? Actually, I like that, so let’s go with that. For sure.” God, she was all over the place.

At the end of the day we were just going with whatever name she had come up with on a whim. All that extra stress for nothing! Rich shoved me to get my attention again, “Oh, uh…sorry. Yeah, no. Rachel’s a cool name. It really fits you, Rich—er…Rach?”

Rach grinned the goofiest smile I had ever seen seemingly at my mere approval, “Yeeeeeah, dude, Rach is totes a cute name to call your girlfriend—FAKE girlfriend, I mean...”

I brushed my damp hair off of my forehead as I got up from our food court table to toss my pretzel’s wrapping in the nearest trash bin. ‘Totes’? What, was Rach that kind of girl? I mean, it definitely fits, but I thought this little persona was meant to be a cool Goth girl? Not that it really mattered, I guess. I know Rich was big on being big and flamboyant with cosplay, but this was kind of confusing. Returning from the trash bin, I put my KN95 back on, “‘Totes’?” my voice muffled through my mask.

“Yeah, ‘totes’, like, ‘totally’ but cuter!” she sing-songed, lifting her pitch into the same range she used to troll guys on voice chat.

She was doing ‘the voice’ now, “Oh, yeah, right, gotcha," I took a nervous breath—which had the effect of making me squirm. "Jeez, it’s always insane just how much you sound like a girl when you do that.”

Rach turned up the saccharine sweetness: “What, like, this, babe?” poking another index finger onto my chest, likely to just fuck with me again.

Fed up with her shit, I grabbed Rach by the wrist mid-motion and closed the distance between us to bring my mouth close to her left ear. Pushing my voice as deep as it could go I whispered: “Yeah, like that, Rach.” If she wanted to poke the bear then she could deal with the consequences.

Instead of feeling like a cool and sexy boyfriend…I just felt so fucking fake.

Rachel’s knees buckled for the briefest of seconds but she seemed determined not to show a glass jaw, “Hah, yeah, sure, bro!" Stabilizing her stance, Rach wrapped her arms around my shoulders—which sent me into a slight twitch—and moved her lips closer to mine.

Closer.

Closer!

Closer?!

Panicking, I broke off from Rich and quickly turned around to begin walking toward the exit of the mall food court, doing my best not to show quickly my heart was beating. I couldn’t believe what had nearly happened. Rich kept saying that he was straight! Why the fuck did he nearly kiss me, then? Would that be gay? Would I really care? It’s not like I was into anyone else—not that I was into Rich—Rach?

Ugh, this shit was complicated.

But the more I thought about it…the more I didn’t dislike the idea of kissing him—her? I mean, if ‘Rach’ really was trans—she was on HRT, afterall—maybe this was all just an elaborate ruse to come out to me? To torture me before perhaps telling me that she had romantic feelings for me? Would I reciprocate…?

Turning back to Rachel, I decided to do the only thing that I could think of and beat her at her own game: As weird as it felt to do, I gave her my most confident, teasing smile possible.

I could practically see Rachel straighten her posture in surprise. Red rushing to her cheeks. A shift in her crotch caught my eyes, but I swiftly turned back before she could notice that I had seen it.

I think that I might just have given my best friend an erection.

And I think I liked that.

***

September 01, 2023:

After dropping Rach off at home to practice applying her makeup I returned home to crash on my bed.

Staring at the ceiling of my bedroom I could only imagine just what ‘Rach’ had planned for the following Monday. It was rare that we spent weekends apart, but she’d specifically asked that I wait until Monday to see her. I only ever wound up doing without her when I was visiting my cousins in Japan.

I couldn’t help but smile when I thought about how jealous Rach got when she couldn’t follow me over. What a silly weeb.

I guess that’s another sign that maybe things between us aren’t as platonic as I liked to tell myself they were.

God, whatever they were, they really were hot.

I couldn’t believe I had given my best friend an erection like that. I didn’t want to fetishize a ‘woman with a dick’, but it was hard not to think…what if she and I…

Don’t think about it, Jae. You care too much about Richie to think that way.

Or maybe you’re just afraid of what it says about you that you want her cock inside of you?

Would there really be anything wrong with that? We had trans classmates—heck, we had queer classmates who were cis, so would it really matter if—

—but Rach—Richie was only into girls, wasn’t—weren’t they?

Turning over in my bed, I stuffed my face into a pillow and tried to nap away my anxieties.

***

September 02, 2023:

I had gone weekends—weeks even—without hanging out with Rich before. I knew exactly what it was like! And yet, it was only just past noon on the first of two days without Richard Penn going on and on about something I had no real personal stake in and I was already feeling like I was bleeding from my eyes.

It didn’t make any sense. Rich was the clingy one!

Was I just nervous about Monday?

Surely not just that?

Then again, any of those times that I was out of town Rich was usually just a direct message away. Hell, he was always messaging me when I was out of town—it was like he was right there with me. Of course he was the clingy one!

And yet, without those haphazard DMs I was utterly lost. When did my sense of self become so intertwined with my relationship with Rich?

Even my existential crises were about Rich!

“I’ll, like, get back to you on Monday, okay?”

Did I really not know who I was outside of my bond with my best friend?

Did I not know how to have fun on my own anymore? I had video games to play! Books to read! Places to walk! Why wasn’t I distracting myself with those?

Looking at the clock in the corner of my phone screen, I dreaded 12:15PM more at that moment than I ever had in my life.

***

September 04, 2023:

It was ‘coming out’ day for ‘Rachel’, and as such, I was a nervous wreck. Too nervous—in fact—to do anything but shower and dress. I really did need a shave, but it felt like I’d combust if I didn’t get to Rach and try to mentally prepare myself for what was likely going to be the day that both of our lives changed forever.

After completing my morning routine I found a text from my mother explaining that she had already left for work, and there were eggs going bad that I needed to eat. Shaking my head, I double checked the time, and decided that with Rach ‘coming out’ today I really didn’t need to be nervously shitting nearly expired eggs out all day.

After arriving at the Penn house’s driveway I was shocked to find the transformation that Rach had undergone. She’d taken it upon herself to craft an elaborately painted face that brought out the feminine features that the HRT she was taking was giving her, while also dressing in such a way that she clearly looked feminine. Tight jeans showed off her long legs beautifully, and even through the looseness of her graphic tee I could see the faint outline of her growing breasts.

This was getting intense.

“You like?” Rach asked. I wasn’t unaware of how she was gripping her messenger bag for dear life.

She needed my support, so I decided to just speak my mind, without the games: “Holy shit, how much makeup did you have to use?” That sounded like I was criticizing her, didn’t it? “I’m so impressed,” I added, desperate not to hurt her.

Rach bobbed in her seat as she slapped a tune on the top of her messenger bag, “Like—uh…I spent more on practicing over the weekend than actually doing it this morning.”

Trying not to appear perturbed, I backed out of Rach’s driveway as I replied, “God, that cutesy voice is kind of unsettling with that look.”

Back on her bullshit, Rachel leaned toward me and whispered into my ear: “That’s the point, honey.”

To my horror, I felt a twitch where I wish I had not.

“Heeeey, babe, turn this way.”

I should have seen it coming, but in my hubris I thought that I had discouraged this kind of behavior. Rach landed a kiss on my lips. It was my first real kiss, and I didn’t know how to react. The warmth and softness of her lips was beyond my expectations. Realizing what I was doing—who I was KISSING—I swung my head back so quickly I hit the handgrip with the back of it, “Fuck!”

Rachel broke out in that laugh of hers that I loved so much, even if she feared that it made her sound—as she so eloquently loved to put it—’retarded’, “OH EMM GEE, dude, you should see how stupid you look right now!”

My indoor voice was pretty much shot: “Holy SHIT, Rich—I—what the fuck was that?”

Rach angled just enough so that I would get a look down her collar at her cleavage. She wore this frilly purple bra that I couldn’t help but stare at. Deviant thoughts of the bra flashed through my mind. Rach and I had always had the same taste in women’s lingerie, so in a way it felt like she was using this knowledge against me…but also, I had to wonder why she was wearing the kind of lingerie she liked to see on women now? Because she was ‘pretending’ to be a woman?

“Notice anything you like?” she asked, making sure to move her purple-coated lips as carefully and sensually as possible. She was making a whole new set of facial expressions that I’d never seen her make before, and it was maddening. “Also, like, call me Rach, not Rich, I don’t want anyone thinking I’m pretending to be trans!”

Rubbing the back of my head I countered, “Wait, aren’t you pretending to be trans?”

“That’s besides the point, SWEETIE! GAWD!!”

Practically exhausted, I returned to backing out of Rach’s driveway, stopped again to let a car pass by, and then continued onto the street. After regaining some shred of calm I added—without even turning toward her— “Nice bra.”

Her mischievous giggle nearly made me shriek.

***

September 04, 2023:

The drive to school had been thankfully uneventful, in large part due to my refusal to take my eyes off of the road.

As I pulled into student park I felt a pang of guilt over what I was asking of Rich. His life was about to change drastically—and in my own foolish desire to defend a masculinity I didn’t even know if I really cared about—I felt a sense of emptiness I couldn't properly describe.

I joined Rich in leaning against my Kona and stared at the concrete below in shame. Finally, turning to Rich—to Rach or whoever this incredible person who called me their friend was—I could only get lost in their beauty as the morning sun caught them at just the right angle to make them look like they glowed a gorgeous gold.

"S'not too late to back out, Ri—Rach," I whispered, turning to Rach with a soft smile and hoping she wouldn’t feel panicked or pressured. I couldn't believe how gorgeous her carefree smile looked as she aimlessly stood around doing nothing but waiting for school to start.

I also couldn't believe what I was thinking. About my straight guy friend…as another straight guy.

Rach’s spunkiness broke me from my thoughts: "Babe, we're doing this. I'm doing this. You're, like, my bestie-best-best friend—and I've asked you to risk expulsion for me way too many times. The least I can do is pretend to be your girlfriend for a month. Besides, there's a whole fuckin' crowd of horny teenagers staring at me, there's no backing out now."

"Oh, jeez…" Rach was right: numerous schoolmates and classmates were staring at us now. The size of the crowd—the volume of the crowd—steadily grew. Much to my chagrin, I was now locked into my stupid, stupid plan.

"Plant your flag, babe," Rach whispered into my ear.

"Wha—?"

"Kiss me so nobody else tries asking me ou—"

My body moved before Rach could finish her sentence. Rich, Rachel, whoever—the person who had kissed me just minutes earlier had cast a spell of her charm over me. I was desperate to relive that moment even if only subconsciously. The taste of her grape-covered lips activated the fresh memories of our prior kiss, and suddenly I wasn’t sure if we had ever finished that first kiss. Were we perhaps still parked in my car, in her parents’ driveway?

The flatness of my chest meeting the softness of hers was the only anchor I had to the then-and-there: the student parking lot. Rach leaned down and into the kiss, and I could feel my lower back arch backward just enough not to be uncomfortable. At 6'1'' my pretend-girlfriend was a good inch taller than me but the kiss was anything but awful. It took all of my mental fortitude to not wrap her arms around my torso, hoping for her never to let go. In the briefest moment of insanity, I felt as if I were hers completely, and finally.

The kiss eventually ended and as we parted I felt a pang of disappointment. Much to my chagrin I heard a whistle coming from what direction I knew not. "Sorry, Rach," I whispered just up into her ear. I was turning my best friend—who was maybe, maybe not a trans girl—into an object to protect my own frail, miserable masculinity.

Instead of replying, Rachel took my hand in mine, crossed our fingers, and had me walk her to class.

***

September 04, 2023:

Word travels fast in high school, especially when the ‘definitely faggy’—not my words, I swear—straight guy comes to school one day with his ‘absolutely faggy’ best friend presenting as a girl.

That’s the hole I had dug for Rach now. The hole I had damned her to for the rest of her life, even if she suddenly decided that she was going to ‘detransition’.

The way others were perceiving Rach now scared me to death. I knew what could happen to trans women like—well, ‘real trans women’—and the thought of that happening to her scared me shitless. Watching Rach’s movements shift from the comfort she showed in the car this morning, to the frightened, cute animal before me, scared me in ways I couldn’t have prepared to understand that it would. I had to wonder if this was how real trans people felt when they first came out?

Given that it was an Orange Day, Rach and I carefully stepped up and just outside of Miss Queen’s English class—our first class of the day. Miss Queen had a habit of oscillating between bright, fashionable outfits and casual wear on Fridays, which typically meant seeing the woman shift from skirts and blouses to jeans and a hoodie. It felt awkward being attracted to your own teacher, but there was something about her swagger and her confidence that made it hard not to take her class seriously. In a lot of ways, she reminded me of Richie if she were a—well, she reminded me of Rachel…if she was a mature young woman, I suppose.

The two of them having long, well-groomed blonde hair probably didn’t make it easier, either.

Rachel and I had been students of Miss Queen in our junior year as well. Because of that, we were more than a little familiar with her teaching style—which included—as Rach was fond of saying—a clear favoring of the LGBTQIA+ students in our class. Rach had a habit of getting into silly theorycrafting when it came to people at school, but it was heartening to see that she wasn’t too far off when she theorized that Miss Queen had a soft spot for the queer kids. When Andi and Claire began dating last year, Miss Queen had ‘accidentally’ gone off and spent an entire class talking about the importance of respecting queer identities and how her classroom would always be a safe environment.

I didn’t know if Miss Queen was secretly a lesbian or whatever, though. She was dating Coach Summers and anytime I saw them ‘acting professional’ it still seemed like they had exceptional chemistry together. Did she have a gay sibling or something?

Or was the passionate teacher bisexual? I wasn’t sure how often that was a thing, though.

Still, Rachel’s melodramatic declarations to me that the queer kids probably got graded on a curve was more than a little silly, even if she looked out for them in other ways.

Giving my hand a tight squeeze, Rach entered the classroom and pulled me along with her directly up to the teacher’s desk.

As was usual for Miss Candace Queen, the young woman typed away at her computer—probably checking her emails or something. Looking up at us, Miss Queen’s face was perfectly framed by the stacks of folders and paperwork otherwise laying claim to her desk. I hated myself for it, but I had a hard time not looking down into Miss Queen’s partially—professionally—unbuttoned blouse. She obviously had implants just based on the shape alone, and I’d always felt—

—what did I feel? Why the hell was I perving on my teacher? This was wrong, and yet I couldn’t—I didn’t even want to be with her or anything, so why did I—?

“Why, hello there, Richie,” Miss Queen smiled, snapping me back to reality—particularly the reality of how fast my heart was beating and how slippery my palm felt holding Rachel’s hand for dear life.

Feeling as if her body was about to explode in my hand, I quickly blinked in succession as Rachel blurted out: “Um, like, hi, I’m trans! Please call me Rachel and use she-slash-her pronouns, thanks? Bye!”

Before I could even register what had just happened, Rach twisted around and nearly pulled my arm out of its socket. Pulled forward from an awkward angle to follow Rachel’s lead, I made a quick mid-motion nod at our teacher—who looked like she was still processing what she had just been told—and then turned to face Rachel, only to find her stun locked in place.

The entire class was all eyes on her, and judging by the way her palm was going cold, the poor thing was frozen with fear.

The silence filling the room really did not make the terror any less real.

When Rachel turned back to look me in the eye—a rare occurrence—I could see the desperation plain as day. Worse yet, I felt like I understood my complete uselessness—and hated myself all the more for it.

Finally, Rachel turned back to face our teacher for one last grasp at a lifeline. Fortunately, she found one where I—frustratingly—had none to give.

Miss Queen rose from her seat swiftly, walked around her desk and passed me to tightly hug my best friend and—sinking—fake girlfriend. It was truly something I hadn’t expect, because Rach would have normally never allowed anyone except me to touch her, but here she was, now embraced and accepted as one of the beloved queer kids of Miss Candace Queen.

I had surely noticed it before, but caught up in the moment of it all, even the 6’1’’ Rachel looked like a child being hugged by her mother when held by the 6’3’’ Miss Queen.

‘Mother’ was somehow a fitting description for the charming older woman.

Still awkwardly holding Rachel’s hand, I could just barely hear Ms. Queen whisper to Rachel as she embraced her, “I’m so proud of you, hon.”

It made me wonder if my mother would be proud of me, if I ever came out as trans.

Finally, Ms. Queen broke her hug and turned to face the class without missing a beat—or an ounce of confidence: “Class, you probably recognize your classmate whose last name is Penn—” to me, the majority of the class looked almost like cardboard cutouts, save for the few queer students straining to not make their excited noises too loud, “—She would like to now be called Rachel, rather than the name you were all using for her the last couple of days, and I expect you all to respect her wishes and her identity. Have I made myself clear?”

Rachel’s shoulders dropped a noticeable inch when the class seemed to mostly just give a collective shrug of a nod. There would, seemingly, be no grand execution for the great pretender and the boyfriend who manipulated her into her morally repugnant deception.

It was then that I noticed that the beating in my chest had calmed—just by a little. Rachel’s grip on my hand shook and showed little interest in stopping, but as I stole a glance at her eye from the corner of my own, I knew that she was just barely managing to keep her brain from leaking out of her ears.

So, I decided to take some of the psychic damage for myself: “Rachel and I—Rachel is—just, please try to get her name right.” It was supposed to be a commanding order, but instead it sounded like a weak request from a dying boy. “Umm…thank you…”

Rachel traded looks with me and the expectant class, almost settling into a new panic, before finally sticking her hands in the back pockets of her jeans, then switching them to her hips, and then once and for all settling on crossing them under her chest, “Oh, um…yes! Hi! I’m Rachel! The girl! Me!”

The class stared at Rachel like she was a zoo animal, and I couldn’t help but feel my stomach churn. Rachel was a person, not someone to be used for—for…

…I was no better than them, was I?

For all my posturing, ultimately all I wanted out of Rach—out of Rich was a beard to hide my own insecurities behind. I was disgusting—perhaps even more so than the entirety of the class. They saw my so-called lifelong friend as some kind of sideshow attraction—I saw her as a tool for running away from my parents and the questions they asked of me. The questions that to answer meant accepting irrevocable change.

I deserved only the worst for this betrayal.

“Okay then, dear,” Ms. Queen interjected, saving Rachel from the awkward reintroduction before I could even think to do so myself.

Some friend I was.

Rachel and I took our usual seats in the back right hand corner of the classroom—Rachel in the row closest to the window—ever the daydreamer—and me in the row to her right. It was from here that we would finally be freed from the judging, analyzing eyes of the other students.

Only today, it felt like they had all grown eyes on the back of their heads.

***

September 04, 2023:

Thankfully, the rest of our teachers—with help from Ms. Queen—didn’t seem bothered by Rachel’s sudden ‘coming out’, in large part I think, because she had always been so…well, queer. I was happy for Rach—and a rotten part of me wondered if I was just afraid that I was being selfish by being happy for her. To see Rach’s giddiness—her smile, her little trots in joyful victory towards her desk in our other classes—made me so relieved, and so happy, that I could only rationalize my feelings as a sign of my own deviancy.

The halls and quad were littered with dozens of our fellow students looking at us with a mix of confusion, thinly disguised judgment, and disinterest.

As Rachel and I hugged the walls on our way to sixth period—our second of four classes for the day—a voice I knew well enough called out, “Rachel! Hey!”

Before she had a chance to turn around I was already assessing the situation: Isaac and Drake—Isaac’s boyfriend—were closer behind us than I had anticipated.

Rachel saw no issue and very quickly replied with a cheerful “Oh! Hiya?!”

Isaac—rocking a signature brunette ponytail and a white dress with a brilliant floral pattern—smiled a smile that I didn’t remember being an Isaac kind of smile until last year, when Isaac came out as ‘some flavor of trans’, “Wow, I’m so glad you finally came out, Rach!”

To have the universe throw my machinations back in my face like this was truly poetic. Isaac was actually trans—actually had to struggle with coming to terms with not being a ‘boy’. And here I was, forcing my best friend into pretending to be further along in her transition than Isaac! It was as if the universe—had there truly been a god—was mocking me from far above.

“Oh, um, thanks?” Rachel tittered, shifting back and forth on her feet to find the most balanced position, “I guess I, uh, didn’t want to miss out on high school as the real me?”

The understanding nod that Isaac gave Rachel nearly made me vomit, but I dug my nails into my palm to keep myself in check.

“Yeah, I know the feeling. I’m still trying to work out some stuff, but I’m so much happier as, I guess, a trans girl of some sort instead of just a feminine bisexual guy!” Isaac wrapped an arm jovially around Drake, “I’m also lucky to have this goofball by my side!”

Drake—Dark Lord of the Cemeteries, as he demanded to be referred to—painted himself in elaborate Goth makeup and clothes, whether it be sun or rain. Drake had always been a bit of a weirdo, but he seemed to be a genuinely good boyfriend. As much as I could judge the nerdy weeaboo for being even more of a weirdo than Rach, it was nevertheless embarrassing to admit that Drake was better at being a boyfriend to his trans girlfriend than I was to being a fake boyfriend to my fake trans girlfriend.

With practiced melodrama, Drake covered his left eye with his left hand, “Unhand me, foolish wench! The accumulated darkness of all of humanity’s damnabled offenses reside in this mortal coil! Lest you seek to be burned by the eternal black fires raging within this hallowed husk I warn any and all foolish enough to—”

“—God, you’re, like, so cool, Dark Lord Drake!” Rachel’s fangirling never stopped being any less sincere any time Drake broke out into one of his dramatic monologues. As much as I judged myself ‘normal’, I was ultimately unable to resist Rachel’s goofy charms as it was. “Isn’t Drake so fuckin’ cool, Jae?”

Watching the brilliant, shining of the stars in Rachel’s eyes, I could do little more than reply, “Uh…sure.”

Sometimes Rachel saw more than anyone else, and others she showed just how much she still had to know, “Hey, Isaac, did you have an idea for a new name yet?”

Isaac’s light diminished just a little at that, “Uh…still working on one. Heck, I don’t even know what pronouns to use yet, either.”

Rachel practically tripped over herself trying to apologize, “Oh, gosh, I’m so sorry, honey! I’m, y’know, kinda—so, like, I didn’t mean to upset you or anything. Shit! Fuck!”

“You’re fine, Rachel,” a false grin grew on Isaac’s face, and I immediately understood why. Rachel was the kind of star that you didn’t want to see grow dimmer in the night sky. She was a raging fire that you wanted to watch consume the whole world, even if it meant burning yourself into ash and becoming one with her—forever losing yourself to her eternal flames. “I think…well, I think I know what I want,” Isaac continued, voice almost a whisper among the crowded school hallways, “I just need to think about it a little more, y’know?”

“No, yeah, by all means!” Rachel struggled out, trying to motion with her hands as if it would help the words come to her, “Like, I’d be happy to help a real—I’d be happy to help you figure out the real you sometime, y’know?”

For a second time in the day, Rachel allowed someone other than me to hug her. A bright smile radiated from Isaac’s face as Rachel received a whisper in her ear, “Thank you so much, Rach—it means a lot coming from another trans girl, especially one so confident like you.”

Rachel’s form went slack for a moment, but by the time she recovered a moment later, she had an infectious giddiness to her voice, “Says the girl who came out before me!”

Isaac and Rachel broke from their hug with a giggle, leaving me feeling something terrible: I was jealous of Isaac for the bond between the two. Even if Rachel wasn’t actually truly trans, there was something about her that Isaac no doubt understood in ways I had longed to share with Rachel my entire life.

Terrible as it was, part of me wished that Isaac would never become closer to Rachel. Even if I was ostensibly her best and closest friend, it was impossible to not—

—stop thinking like a fucking jealous asshole, Jae!

The sound of the bell signaling the beginning of Sixth Period brought me back to the moment at hand, as I quickly remembered just what it meant.

“Shit!” leaping into action, I grabbed Rach’s body as she lost her footing. The pitch of the bell usually induced some kind of physical or audible attack in Rachel, and if she wasn’t careful she would lose her breath and her legs would go weak. Propping Rach up I asked her in my softest voice, “Rach, are you okay?!”

“Right, yeah, no!” Rach moaned in reply before turning to Isaac and Drake, “It was nice talk to you, hon!”

A sparkling smile graced Isaac’s lips, followed by a wave. Then, taking the hand of the supposed Dark Lord of the Cemeteries, Isaac and Drake skipped away to the rest of their merry day.

“Ri—Rach, are you okay?” I asked again, still holding her limp body in my arms.

“Yeah,” Rach smiled back weakly, “I’m, like, good, Jae Jae!” Even her voice was weak. Nevertheless, Rach straightened her posture and pressed her index fingers into her ears, “Just a headache, is all.”

I wasn’t convinced—Rachel consistently refused to get a doctor to diagnose her with anything, and it was in moments like these that I wished I knew exactly how I could help her. Taking Rachel’s left hand with my right, I crossed and interlocked our fingers. With my left hand I held Rachel’s head to look her in the eyes, against my better judgment, “You know that you don’t have to lie to me, right?”

Rachel’s cheeks flushed red yet again, leading me to wonder if she was about to have another attack. But, in the back of my mind, I knew what else this could mean.

As I held my lock on her eyes, I could do nothing but desire to lean up and kiss my childhood friend on the lips.

“O-of course, hon,” Rach stumbled.

I needed more, so I tightened my grip on her palm, then put on a smile, “Good! Come on, we gotta head to class so we can explain what’s going on!”

As I tugged Rachel along with me—a rare change of pace—it was hard not to peak back at her brilliant smile as we broke the rules against running in the halls. Rachel had spent her life living on the edge, and I had spent mine following her off of roofs onto trampolines or getting into any other kind of no good behavior.

But today, I wanted to show Rachel that she could follow me, too. This life wasn’t just her adventure, it was our adventure—

—our life!

And she smiled. Even as she tripped and fell face first on the hallway floor, giggling all along.

A few bright looks from actual queer classmates—like Claire, Andi, Isaac and Drake—had lit our path today, and in a way that had only served to remind me of my own fraudulency. I was a false idol. A heretic. An awful, awful cishet man that pressured his best friend into something he should not have.

But goddamn, did I love her smile.

And so, I gripped Rachel’s shaking right hand, locked our fingers together yet again, and walked her the rest of the way to our sixth period.

I needed her to know that it was going to be alright…

…because when she smiled, I felt like it was going to be alright, too.

***

September 04, 2023:

Before lunch, Rach wanted to hit the restroom to touch up her makeup, so I escorted her to the restroom in the part of the school that rarely had any foot traffic. "Are you okay in there?" I asked—arms crossed to hold myself—instantly remembering that echoes made whispering in—and into—a public lavatory pointless. So much for being a good fake-boyfriend.

"Almost finished, hon," my excellent fake-girlfriend squeaked out. Judging by her voice her nerves were finally beginning to get to her. I couldn’t blame Rach, I’d be at my wits end if I was the one who had announced to our entire school that I was transgender. Hell, at least she didn’t have to contend with all this awful stubble, and actually knew how to do makeup to cover up what little she had.

Rach still wasn’t sure if it was appropriate for her to be using the girls' room, but she seemed happy enough to be distracted by actually focusing on her makeup in an empty restroom, and for that I breathed a sigh of relief. I imagined her makeup wasn’t going to be a major change or anything, but the personality she had put into her ‘Goth’ look for the day really struck a chord. I could only imagine what outfit she would have chosen if she wasn’t afraid of exposing her body in such feminine clothing. Not that I could blame her.

Finally finished, I could hear Rach’s voice echo outside of the restroom with confidence: "You got this, Rachel!"

I felt like a fool for being scared that Rach somehow couldn’t pull this off

***

September 04, 2023:

"Wow, so, like, how long have you known?" Gloria Rembrant asked, her voice dripping with smugness. A sixth sense told me that lunch for Rach and I would be extremely rough today…and everyday for the foreseeable future.

Rich and I always ate lunch alone—a perk of not quite fitting in with other social groups—but unfortunately, the ‘coming out’ of Richie Penn as a trans woman was drawing a lot of eyes. Rich could fend himself if need be, but that was in a fist fight. What scared me most was what horrible thing one of these school ghouls would try to inflict on my best friend. Taking Rach’s hand in my own, I crossed our fingers so that she would feel like we were inseparable—exactly how I wanted the both of us to feel.

Well, at least it was good for the cover.

"Uh, like, a couple of years. Sixth grade, really!" That was about the time that Rich started getting a bit gloomier, so that made sense—assuming he—she—really was trans. I broke my heart to think that she had been keeping this to herself the entire time, though. I had been there by her side, watching her back since we were in the first grade. Why hadn’t she—?

"Woooow," Gloria exaggerated, "That must have been, like, soooo hard!"

I could tell what the bitch was doing—trying to mock Rach in front of her weirdly classist friends—and their played-up reactions were annoying in their own right. Shooting a look to Rach, I could see sadness just below the surface. She wasn’t always great at detecting sarcasm, but I think she was definitely suspecting that she was being laughed at.

It was infuriating to watch.

"So, are you two going to hang out with the other gay kids?" Carson Dallas asked with a thinly veiled snicker.The other teens' faces grew with self-satisfied looks that were enough to make wallpaper peel

So much for a nice, quiet day at lunch without us needing to go and hide in my car.

"Uh, I'm not gay, Carson," I interjected, "Rachel’s a woman and I didn't develop any feelings for her until she told me she was." I could feel the anxiety showing on my face, but I was at a loss for what else to say. I wasn’t even sure if what I had said was true, let alone if I should have even said anything. The number of rich pricks surrounding us left me with a nasty pit growing in my stomach. Rach just wanted to live life normally as a girl, but what the fuck was she expecting suddenly coming out of the closet and just trying to act like nothing was different—especially in a fucking high school setting?!

Who was I kidding, I knew exactly what she was thinking: nothing.

Rach hopped back into the discussion immediately after me, her voice barely reaching over the thinly veiled mocking jeers surrounding us, "I'm not gay, either. Liking my boyfriend is straight."

Either one of us referring to ourselves as ‘straight’ was a hell of a weird whiplash considering how I’d taken to getting off lately. It was also ironic hearing this from Richie Penn of all people, considering how long she’d always acted so…well, not-straight.

Wait, that wasn’t me just having some sort of weird internalized homophobia, was it? Could straight people even have that?

But if Rich really, truly was a woman…wouldn’t that mean that this relationship—fake as it might be—actually was straight? Especially if she was actually just a straight girl herself? Then why did she seem to enjoy having sex with other—with women? Or at least, she seemed to when she described it to me after the fact!

"Aww, how sweet," Gloria piped in, her voice thick with sarcasm. It was hard not to twitch with a maddening frustration at that. Here my best friend was going through something huge and this cruel, bored woman was playing on their usual naïveté. Uncharacteristically, Rach looked like she wanted to avoid conflict, so she just wore a soft smile, kept her eyes open wide to show that she was paying attention, and squeezed my hand tightly under the lunch table.

"So, who pitches and who catches?" Lacy Shore snickered.

Eyes wider than ever, Rach replied as forthrightly as ever, "Uh…he does? I really don't like my—"

"That’s none of your business, Lacy," I barked, my patience with our schoolmates now fried. I should have just led Rachel away the second they began circling us at our table. "Rachel doesn't go around asking you about what you do with your genitals, so don't ask what she does with hers!" The disgust in my voice surprised even myself. I wasn’t usually one for boldness, but seeing the usual swagger of my dearest friend dry up, I knew what I had to do.

"Jeez, okay, just relax, faggot, I was jus—" Rach was up off of the lunch table bench and pushing her way through the crowd of onlookers before I could even process any sort of emotion at what I had been called.

Rach raced for the doors that lead to the student parking, stumbling once, and then picking herself up before I could help her. Rach immediately took off yet again, this time barely concealing her sobs.

By the time I’d finally caught up with Rach she was a sobbing mess, leaning against my car with her hands over her face. My desire to plant a fist in every one of those cackling hyenas’ faces was replaced by a desire to hold the sobbing mess of a woman before me.

So I embraced her.

Rachel’s sobbing grew less and less strained.

I felt grateful that she felt comfortable showing me this side of her.

I couldn’t quite put into words how relieving it felt to know that she trusted me that much.

I guided my girlfriend into my too-small Kona so that she could stop concealing those sobs she was just barely holding in.

When she finally let the dam give way I hugged her even tighter.

***

September 04, 2023:

It sounds weird even just thinking about it, but one of my favorite things to do over the years was simply watch Rach. It didn’t matter if she was modeling clothes, or playing a video game, or browsing the manga section at the bookstore and talking about how it was so much better than buying manga at FYE or whatever. Lately, I’d really taken to just watching her zone out. I wondered if it sounded creepy, but just watching her breathing was like watching life itself.

Rach—situated in a reclined position in the passenger seat—stared wordlessly at the ceiling of my car. Laying on my right side so that I could look at her, I could only imagine what was going through her mind at the moment. Was she embarrassed? Angry? Was she even thinking about what those assholes had done? I mean, it was Rach, she wasn’t exactly known for her attention span.

Then a lone tear flooded over the corner of her eye and threatened to fall down into her earlobe and I knew exactly what she was thinking. Before I could reach out to touch her Rach noticed that I was staring.

"Hey, hon."

"Hey, Rach."

A moment passed before either one of us spoke again, "I'm sorry I'm playing your girlfriend so…controversially."

"I like your performance just fine, Rach," I reassured, thinking to crack just the faintest of grins to try and lift her spirits.

I hoped she would smile. I missed her smile.

I didn’t care about anything anymore, so long as I could see her smile and hear her laugh again.

Those were all that mattered now.

Those were what we both needed.

I took Rach’s left hand with my right and locked fingers with her again. I was desperate to make her smile. I was desperate to make her laugh again—and I knew exactly how much this little hand-holding was beginning to mean to her.

I could feel it in how she gripped me back so, so, so lovingly.

"I'm sorry your tranny girlf—fake-girlfriend—is making you look gay, Jae."

"Glad to see you can still rhyme on a dime, Rach," I grinned, hoping to get her to laugh.

A sheepish giggle wormed its way out of Rach, and in a way it felt like I was finally catching my breath for the first time in a week. Rubbing the tears from her eyes—eyeliner smearing all over her cheeks and hands—Rachel finally sat up, then leaned over and kissed me on the lips with unrelenting passion. This time, I didn't flinch. "Cheeky little brat," she playfully admonished in the huskiest femme voice she had in her. It was hard not to giggle myself when she broke off the kiss.

"Oh, I'm the cheeky one?" I giggled, wishing she’d kiss me again, "If I didn't know better I'd say you are the cheeky one, always trying to get me flustered with how hot you are."

Rachel pointedly balked at my accusation, "I? Me? Uh…I'm just trying to get you used to having such a sexy-hot girlfriend, Mr. Jeong!!"

I could always tell when Rach was about to push my buttons again, but every single time I could never defend myself in time.

Hell, maybe I just didn’t want to.

Maybe I wanted to be defenseless with her?

"Is that so, bro?" I teased back, hoping it would spur her on more. I needed more. I needed her to forget all about those assholes—all about the anxiety of having to pretend to be my girlfriend. I needed her to only remember us. Our friendship—our bond—that had begun that sunny, sunny day that we first met.

Life came back to her eyes, her smile brightened the car like a second sun. I couldn’t do anything but smile in return. I didn’t understand why my chest was racing like my life depended on it—but I needed more.

"Yeah, that's right," she giggled, leaning back down to kiss me on the lips yet again. Rich, Rach or whoever—the more I thought about it the less I cared. The less I could see ‘Rich’ as ever having not just been…’Rach’. It was insane of me to say, but it was all I felt when I looked her in the eyes. The lines had been blurred too much, and I couldn’t ever see them the same again.

Rachel was the woman here, "Well then," I could hear my voice drone, "I am the man in the relationship. If I'm to be a proper feminist I really should be letting you take the lead when it comes to chaste displays of affection." Yeah. I was a man. Men usually say that sort of cool thing to their girlfriends, right?

Rachel did a slight rocking motion, giggling with amusement "Oh? Does that mean I should let you take the lead on sexy displays of affection?" Somehow it didn’t feel like she was going to let me take the lead here, for which I felt grateful.

Trepidation ate at the back of my mind at the thought of having to make the first move. At the thought of being the one to…why the hell did I feel this way? I liked women! Hell, I couldn’t keep my eyes off of Rachel’s breasts all day! Just looking at them made me smile, especially when I remembered who they were attached to and how she had grown them.

Rach gave my cheek a light tap, snapping me from my spiral of thoughts, "Perv."

Rach had finally caught me staring at her chest. Nervous and unsure of how to defend myself I let myself giggle lightly. I didn’t want Rach to think I was disrespecting her—especially when I respected whatever the hell she was doing on HRT.

"But no, really, thank you so, so much for everything you're doing…” I hesitated a moment, wondering if this was really happening. Foolishly I added, “...Rich."

"Rach."

"I mean, it's only the two—"

"Babe, I don't want to drop character," the temporary Goth replied, her exasperation a tired sort.

If Rach really was transgender—for real—was I misgendering her? But if she was, why did she keep acting like it was all an act? Was I really that untrustworthy? Had I said something to make her doubt my lov—my loyalty for her over the years? She wasn’t just my best friend, she was like…well, not a sibling—especially if she was a trans woman. If she was a trans woman I was definitely…holy shit, I was definitely going to want her to be my girlfriend for real.

…but Rach wasn’t into men. Like me.

Was she really only kissing me for the sake of appearances? Or to mess with me?

What kind of a cruel joke was the universe trying to play on me this week?

"Oh, yeah, no problem…” I cleared my throat and looked Rach straight in the eyes, “Listen, Rach, I mean it: you're the best friend a guy can have."

"And you only had to get called a faggot to get me."

"Come on, Rachel, fuck those guys. I don't care about them at all."

"They’ll be calling you a faggot for the rest of the school year…"

"People have been calling me a faggot ever since I met you, you bimbo!"

Rach burst into giggles at my counterpoint. Rach had always hated her laugh, but now—seeing her so cute and happy in ways I hadn’t seen in years—it was quickly becoming a sound I never wanted to do without again.

Rach playfully took my hand and put it on one of her breasts, "Cool, huh? You can thank me after you pick your jaw off the floor.” The smugness of her whisper was intoxicating. Rach was a worldly femme fatale guiding me like the inexperienced fool that I was. The sensation of touching her softness was amazing. The jiggle of her flesh—the way it fit in my palm—I had done my best to not pop a boner on the spot. I couldn’t help but flinch. Was this what HRT could do for bodies like ours? It was so surreal, I felt like I wasn’t even in my body as my hand gripped harder just to confirm that I was really there, at that moment.

Rachel flinched, a twinge of pain showing plain as day on her face.

"Oh shit, babe, are you okay?" I could feel the fear of a god I did not even believe existed run up and down my spine. As quickly as I could, I thrust back my hand off of Rach’s breast, horrified at what I had done to her.

Rach caught my hand by the wrist mid-motion.

"It’s okay, Jae Jae," she huffed, catching her breath, "They're just still sensitive. It means they're growing."

"Oh." I felt empty, and I could hear that in the tone of my voice. I couldn’t stand to look at Rach after what I had done, after what I had felt in that moment. Doing my best to not be there at that moment, I stared at my car’s dashboard, hoping against all hope that she would forget about my indecency.

Hoping against all hope that she would not notice the erection in my pants.

"Oh? What, does the idea of me with bigger breasts turn you on, big guy?" Rach mugged, looking at me as if she was trying to make me squirm in my place.

She was successful.

"No, no, I mean…like…if I had a girlfriend—if you had a girlfriend, wouldn't you want her to have big breasts, too?"

Judging by her facial expression, Rach decided to take a moment to consider what I was saying. "I mean, I don’t really dislike small breasts, but I also get what you mean. Like, if you had to have breasts they might as well be, like, big…right? Anyway…” the typically bubbly blonde’s voice trailed off for a moment, “Honestly, I just wanted to see you flustered again, which you are, my good sir." Rach kissed me on the lips, further flustering me.

I wasn’t sure what she was getting out of this considering she was at best a trans lesbian, but at the same time I wasn’t going to complain. If Rach really was trans then she was without a doubt the most beautiful person in school.

Inside and out.

A soft smile grew on my lips, in a way that I imagined looked content, "God, you're an amazing girlfriend, Rach."

"And you're an amazing boyfriend, Jae."

I don’t know why neither of us had called the other ‘fake girlfriend’ or ‘fake boyfriend’, but I was glad that we had decided not to.

If it were a dream then I never wanted it to end.

Why did dreams have to end?

"We should probably get back to class, babe," I offered, using my right hand to rub the small of her back. There I was, once again touching her. I was desperate not to be without her. The idea of it frightened me in ways I never expected to feel about a supposed ‘guy friend’.

"Oh shit, yeah, for sure. Lemme just fix my makeup real quick!"

It was impossible not to see Rach’s small, pleased grin in the rearview mirror as she checked her makeup and hair, and not beam back. Watching her in her element, I could not believe that she was supposed to be anything but Rach: weird little gremlin girl who ran every conversation like she knew exactly how she wanted it to go.

She was so damned lucky to be able to be Rach.

***

September 04, 2023:

The cafeteria episode had undoubtedly gotten back to our seventh period teacher, but thankfully he looked as disinterested in school gossip as ever and didn’t even bother acknowledging us with more than a blank, split-second stare as Rachel and I slipped into class late. Rach stared blankly forward any time gossip about the scene in the cafeteria picked up, while my own anxiety only festered beneath the surface.

Our seventh period eventually ended with little fanfare. Rachel and I sped-walked hand-in-hand to the back of the school, where the gym was located, for our final class of the day. The nervousness in her steps were evident enough to me that she was not looking forward to the inevitable separation anxiety. Ever since freshman year my silly blonde friend had found it more comfortable to change in the single stall restroom in the gym’s main lobby, rather than in the boy’s locker room. I didn’t really blame her, though—being stuck in a locker room full of a bunch of teenage boys wasn’t fun. It’s why I usually changed clothes as quickly as possible to join up with her.

I suppose this also explained why I hadn’t noticed my best friend growing breasts until three days ago, either.

Once inside the boy’s locker room, I took one look at the spread of half-changed guys, one of which was that wind-up toy gorilla, Carson Dallas. The expansive locker room showed an equally expansive field of young men staring back awkwardly at me—the fruity trans girl’s fruity boyfriend. Almost ‘bored’ by the mundanity of their queerphobia, I sighed, “What the hell am I doing?” Turning around, I ran straight out of the locker room and after Rachel. Who the fuck needed to change with a bunch of guys like that, anyway?

By the time I had caught up with Rach, she was just barely opening the door to the stall. As I jogged towards the anxious maybe-kinda-sorta trans girl I realized that the heaviness of my steps was probably not going to be in my favor.

Rachel leapt into the bathroom stall in a panic and slammed the door behind her, forcing me to yell at the slab of wood, “Rach, it’s me!”

Rach opened the door wide enough for me to slip in and asked, “Jae Jae, what the hell?”

The stall was not designed for two six foot tall eighteen year olds.

Dropping my bag, I quickly rifled through it and pulled out the gym clothes I kept poorly tucked in. Without thinking, I took off my shirt and finally replied to Rach, “I figured there wasn’t any reason for you to have to do this alone, Rach.” No reply. “Like, if anyone thinks you’re trans now wouldn’t it be best if you had someone around, y’know, watch your back? Especially if you’re not going to use a locker room and all…”

Rachel’s reply came curiously delayed, “Uh…thanks…hon…”

And then I realized why she was speaking so slow: Rachel was staring at my shirtless torso. Rachel was staring at me—eyes wide—and all I could do was blush. I looked like shit—I needed to eat better and exercise more—but here she was, still staring at me and I just…did not know what to think. “Oh, shit!” I whispered before pulling out my gym shirt, “Good thing I remembered to take this thing home and wash it, huh?” Act casual, act casual, act casual…

As I moved to pull my gym shirt down over my head, Rach suddenly placed her right hand on my chest and pushed me into the restroom stall wall. I was stunned—anxiety and something else churned like butter into cream in Rach’s eyes as she bit her lip and pulled her shirt over her head and let it drop to the tiled floor.

The purple bra hugging Rachel’s chest really popped off of her pale skin.

And then it occurred to me what we were both doing—and not currently wearing—in a school restroom, “Oh shit, shit! I, uh, forgot that—actually, what are yo—”

Rachel interrupted me with the best kiss of my life, pinning me against the wall as her black coated lips pressed against mine. A heat spread out from somewhere in my belly, scorching down my legs, up my spine and out through my arms. It was hard not to want to slip my hands around Rachel’s back—pulling her inward—but before I could even move my hands Rachel was pulling off of me.

It was torturous.

With a panic to her pace—and a manic sort of grace—Rach returned to sifting through her bag and pulling out her Gravelly Lake High gym shirt. Slipping her shirt on, Rachel fluffed her hair out of her shirt. With a cutesier voice than normal, Rach giggled, “Sorry, I’m such a troll!”

Yeah, because we were just two straight guys messing around, right? I couldn’t believe this infuriating brat sometimes. She was always, always, always like this. It was as frustrating as it was intoxicating.

Sighing, I slipped my shirt on, shook my head, and continued changing.

After a few seconds of silence, Rach decided to break the awkwardness, “They’re talking about it, y’know? In the locker room—all over the school” I looked at Rach, so that she would know I was paying attention, but I wasn’t sure what she was going on about, “They’re gossipping about the scene in the cafeteria and what we were doing afterward. I drowned them out as best I could but it was still a lot of shit, y’know?”

Zipping up my backpack, I replied softly, “I’m sorry, Rach. You don’t deserve that.”

Rach zipped up her backpack as well before tying up her back-length hair. Rach always looked so different when her hair was tied up to keep out of her face and eyes. Even though I had known her before—when she had had shorter hair in the past—it still seemed like such a weird fit for her.

I felt perverse simply for wanting to compliment the image of a—the?—girl before me. The girl wiggled her hips as if she were dancing in place as she tied up her hair. The way that the girl took such good care of her hair—and the uneasy feelings noticing that brewed in me—left me feeling ill and unsure of myself.

I couldn’t help but wonder what tune she was dancing to just now.

Probably something pink and bubbly.

The ringing of the bell just outside of the restroom broke the mood again. Rach looked at me like she wanted to say something—her eyes were like looking at the clear night sky—but in the end she didn’t. Opening the door, Rach stepped out to face the music.

I wasn’t going to let her face it alone.

***

September 04, 2023:

I think Rachel was into our gym teacher.

Coach Summers was 6’6’’ and had at least a hundred pounds in muscle on the two of us, if not more. Objectively—if Rachel was into guys—I could see why she would be into him. Michael Scott Summers had a nice personality, dedicated to his job as an educator, but also cool. He was not the sort to torture his students with grueling assignments. He was approachable, for a guy of his profession and frame, showing only the more sincere interest in his students’ development despite the thanklessness of life as a public school teacher.

Okay, okay, maybe Golden Retriever Boyfriend was a bit of an overplayed trope, but I could definitely see why an intelligent, beautiful young woman like Ms. Queen would date him. If you had to date a guy, Coach Summers was, like, a step or two above the platonic idea of a good boyfriend.

Which is probably what made it all the more infuriating that my supposed fake girlfriend was stealing glances at the walking, talking, cobbled together pile of muscles as we did our warm-up stretches. I wasn’t necessarily jealous or anything…but also, the entire situation just reminded me of my own inadequacies—I didn’t work out, I kind of skated by on my metabolism, and I didn’t have any particular personality traits that made me likable.

I also, 99.99% of the time, didn’t give a damn about being datable, so why the hell was I suddenly caring now?

Was it all the kissing Rachel and I had been doing all day? Some sort of weird, primal bullshit I’d zoned out while sitting through our freshman health class? Did the stress of the past few days finally bubble up into me just plain snapping?

Perhaps I had ‘faked it until I made it’?

Or, had drinking from the sweetest nectar irrevocably ruined me? Had my palette been cursed never to know satisfaction from any source but that which I could not keep only for myself?

Ugh, I probably just needed to masturbate and get over myself.

Coach Summers scribbled away on his little clipboard with a comically too small pen, intently staring as if something was going to pop up on the piece of paper and tell him he had just won a million dollars. Even watching him from afar, I could see the gears in his mind turning, and as frustrating as he was, I was nevertheless curious as to what the hell he was doing.

Two other girls from class jogged up to Coach Summers to talk to him about something that I couldn’t hear, and watching the man’s face instantly shift back to that engaged golden retriever face irritated me for some reason.

Was I really irritated by Coach Summers, though? Or was I just being an asshole? What had he really done to deserve my ire? Be a decent teacher? Have an intelligent, beautiful, perf—a really cool girlfriend? Be beloved by his students and worthy of their trust?

What the hell did Rachel see in him? She wasn’t even into guys! Hell, was she even a sh—

—Rachel turned back to me, looked me in the eyes—as if for a split second she had forgotten herself—and then smiled that same smile that saved me every time. Another rare treat from my best friend. My fake girlfriend.

The—probable—woman that I was—probably—undoubtedly—in love with.

Her smile made me straighten my posture. Her smile cleansed me of the most awful, base human thoughts of jealousy.

Rachel never smiled at Coach Summers like she smiled at me.

“Hey, Rachel!” Roared the booming voice of the aforementioned pile of muscles as he approached us from the front of the bleachers. As the taller man approached I quickly remembered how even though Rachel was only an inch taller than me, that inch still seemed to stretch forever in her favor, but with Coach Summers? The half a foot of difference between the three of us made me feel like I was a child again.

To have all the intimating muscle piled onto a man who was basically the ultra masculine bodybuilder equivalent of Rach, sent a weird feeling down my spine.

“Congratulations on coming out, Miss Penn!” What the hell? Buff guys like him weren’t supposed to be woke! Well, unless they were gay, I guess?

“Oh! Gawsh! Wow, you heard?” Rachel squeaked, her voice sounding as if her brain was trying to catch up. “Umm…thanks! For using my name, I mean!”

“No problem, Rach. Candi—uh, Miss Queen told me this morning, actually. She and I are really proud of you for coming out,” who the hell says that kind of sappy thing in real life? “I guess your parents took it well?”

Yeah, her parents took it so well that you could say it’s like they don’t even know! Because they don’t even know yet!

Fidgeting in place, Rach smiled through it, “Uh…you could say, yeah. But! I’m out, and I’m not goin’ back in, y’know?” If I didn’t know better, I’d say that Rachel actually meant it. The deeper she dug this hole, the more sour the heartburn in my chest grew. The backlash when her parents inevitably found out was not going to be good.

I swallowed my own acid reflux, taking care not to show it on my face.

Coach Summers gripped his clipboard tightly, his brow furrowed, and his eyes narrowed with a seriousness he didn’t normally show, “That’s good to know. Remember, if anyone gives you shit you can always come to me or Ms. Queen, or any other faculty member.”

Were teachers allowed to say ‘shit’?

Rachel nodded slowly, not because she was choosing her words carefully—she almost never did—but because she looked physically overwhelmed by the size of the big bastard now showing a heck of a lot more teacherly care than usual. “Yeah, of course!”

And in a sudden return to his usual casual friendliness, “Awesome!”

I couldn’t quite make out Rachel’s follow up, but from the way she crossed her arms under her chest and leaned on her right leg a little more, it was obvious that she was trying to be normal about it all. Of course, it was Rachel, so who the hell knew what was going through her bubblegum pop head?

“Huh?”

“Nothin’, Coach!” Rach shot back with a strained giggle and two finger guns, “Just, uh, thinkin’ about boys. My boyfriend. Jae—who is right next to me!! Yeah.”

Unsurprisingly, Coach Summers looked completely lost. Blinking for a moment, the volleyball coach scribbled on his clipboard and then moved on to check in with other students. Following Rachel’s line of sight as she followed the coach’s path, I just barely managed to catch what the coach had just done.

‘RACHEL’ was written next to ‘PENN’ in pen, while ‘RICHARD’ was thoroughly scratched out. Coach Summers had ‘corrected’ Rachel’s name on the class roster.

Okay, fine. That was definitely a cool thing for a teacher to do, especially a male one. Sure, it was the twenty-first century now and we were in Washington, but to have such a…masculine…guy accept Rachel as a woman—a real woman—it was kind of overwhelming. Heck, if I were into guys—well, maybe, other than Richard, assuming this was all still just to make me happy—then I would definitely be into a nice guy like that, too.

Also, it was kinda…cool that he was so jacked, too. Having a jacked boyfriend defending me from bigots or whatever would be awesome, if I were a trans woman.

Ugh, maybe buying that dildo was a sign of things to come, after all?

Turning back to see if Rachel had noticed the clipboard, I was greeted by a maniacal giggle from the chameleon girl. It was odd: seeing Rach without makeup after all this time seemed like it would have radically changed her appearance, but instead of sticking out…Rach just looked like Rach.

Rach wasn’t a creation of a skilled makeup game: Rachel existed beneath it—beyond it, in fact. Rachel was—for all intents and purposes—this being that—perhaps I merely wished—existed outside of fantasy.

Rachel’s giggle collapsed into her usual laugh—the boisterous laugh that she usually hated for making her sound ‘like a retard’, but to me it was like music to my ears.

Well, I had read somewhere once that it was good to listen to music when you exercised.

***

September 04, 2023:

I love running—well, as much as one could when it was a part of their gym class. Running meant that it was just me and the soft bounce of the rubber track—and whatever green goose shit that hadn't been cleared off of it yet. There was a freeing feeling, letting yourself catch in the wind and be carried off. The burn in your legs, the breeze scraping against your face as it off-set the growing dampness on your back. The track was where all the suffocating, dull business from inside the walls of the school could no longer reach us, right?

Well, at least Rachel probably wouldn’t break the toes on her left foot by stubbing it on a metal door—again—when running on the track.

Then again, it was Rachel, so maybe a metal door would fall from the sky, just for old time’s sake?

Leaning forward, I poked my face into Rachel’s line of sight, “You okay, Rachel?”

“Huh?” Rach stopped her light jogging and began to jog in place. Walking in front of her, I began walking backwards so that I could keep talking to the self-proclaimed Number One Enemy of Jogging. With a small peace sign, I asked Rachel to continue after me.

“You haven’t run yet?”

“I figured I’d stay with you today, actually,” even though I was smiling, it was evident that she could see past my ruse.

There was a carefulness to Rach’s steps as she followed me, “You don’t have to, like, worry about me all day, y’know.” I wanted nothing more than to take the poor girl in my arms and hug her. The pout could be not just seen on her lips, but heard in her voice. It was enchanting. She was enchanting. As much as this wonderful person I had known for a dozen years was in some ways still an enigma, there were these moments where I could tell exactly what to do.

They were few and far between, but those moments of confidence made me feel a completeness that was addicting as it was foreign.

“I know, I just love—I just love hanging out with you, and you’re even more you today than usual, it feels like,” nice save, dumbass. You nearly told a straight guy you were in love with him.

Still, just the thought of it brought a smile to my lips.

Was this why I never wanted a real girlfriend? Was I—had I been in love with Rich all this time, and just never realized it?

And yet, it felt somehow defiling to say that name—to even think it. The touch of it on my lips, the feel of it on even the outer reaches of my mind, was like a poisoned well slowly killing off an entire town.

And then she went for the kill: “Well, it’s easy to be me when I have you by my side all the time.” It was such a simple look—the tilt of her head, the purse of her lips, and the shine of her eyes. Just saying what she said while batting her eyes—it made Rach all the more real. Rach was being cheeky—deliberately egging me on, while also wrapping me around her little finger.

I had to fight back, but all I could do was stop in my tracks: “H-hey now, no flirting with your boyfriend during class, missy!” I didn’t sound convincing, even to myself.

Rach decided not to stop with me, and continued to walk with that devious grin of hers, as she collided into me, and then wrapped her arms around me.

Even just one inch could feel like one foot.

“Gotcha!”

“H-hey,” I I gasped, Rach going in for the kill. The closer our lips got, the faster my heart beat, and the fast my heart beat, the faster I felt my entire body transform into a furnace. I wasn’t going to be able to suppress an erection at this point! If I got one while other students were watching—like Gloria and her cronies were doing right now—we’d never hear the end of it! “Rach, n-not where they can—”

Suddenly, Rach pulled off of me, her frown devastating, “What, don’t want to be seen kissing a tra—”

Unable to string a sentence together, I quickly pointed a finger behind Rach, who followed the line of my reach and turned around. Eyes focused, I was able to confirm what I had feared: Carson Dallas was filming us on his phone while Gloria and their other friends laughed.

Indignant in that way that only Rachel could be, my One Day Special girlfriend shot up a middle finger and snapped, “Hey, fuck off pervs!”

It was the kind of fire that Rach normally showed any time we were being mocked or messed with—I had nearly forgotten how much I missed it.

“Pfft,” Gloria spat, “That’s rich coming from you, RICH!”

Busy facing Gloria behind her, Rachel’s shoulders rose and dropped with her ragged breathing. It was hard not to admire the outline of Rachel’s shoulder blades—now exposed with her hair tied up—as they moved with her breathing—they were a petiteness that betrayed her height. I wanted to reach out and touch them, but I knew that that would be somehow more shockingly intimate than the endless number of times we had already kissed today.

All those times, all that intimacy with the most special person in my life, and here I was, afraid of what a few gutless losers thought?

“—Fuck it!” Pulling Rachel back around to face me, I wrapped my arms around the surprised silly goose and placed my right hand on the small of her back. Before I could let myself think twice, I kissed Rachel on the lips with all the crops of passion that she watered in my soul. Rachel’s knees gave out for a moment as I exhaled all of the pent-up heat from my body into her mouth.

I would have the fire she lit in me scorch away the flesh of her insecurities until the very bone itself turned to ash.

Without even meaning to, Rach and I held up our middle fingers in unison as we kissed away: a classic for the senior year book, no doubt.

“Mr. Dallas!” The booming voice of Coach Summers calling out Carson was the only thing that could have peeled my lips from Rachel’s at that moment. “If you’re not going to run around the track how about you run over to me so we can have a discussion about appropriate behavior, yeah?”

Gloria and her cronies paved the way of her boyfriend’s walk of shame to Coach Summers with jeers and snickers. The lack of any support for Carson among the jeers was damning. It brought to light truths that I had never quite realized before: that they were not friends. Rach and I had friendship, but even the title of boyfriend bought Carson no sympathy from his similarly wealthy girlfriend and friend group.

No interest in watching Carson suffer the consequences of his actions—or perhaps frustrated by her inability to effect change in the situation herself—Rachel turned back around and continued jogging. Even just watching her back—a familiar enough sight—I could feel the mounting frustration rising off of her inflamed shoulder blades like a pink-hot steam.

Returning to my own jog, I quickly caught up with Rachel and jogged by her side. Rachel deserved to feel victory, not shame and not powerlessness: the sick pit in my stomach told me as much.

Flashing a shit-eating grin, I hoped to coax a smile out of her—at Carson’s expense.

Rachel let me think I had done the job.

***

September 04, 2023:

At 2PM, the class was dismissed back to the locker rooms to change before the school day ended in ten minutes. Back inside of our cramped little family restroom, Rach and I disrobed—each facing an opposite wall. If I saw Rach in her underwear one more time I wasn’t sure what would happen.

Rach—on the other hand—decided to press her palm on my spine and pushed me up against the wall. Pressing her chest against my back, Rachel leaned forward and whispered into my right ear: “Be a good girl for Mommy and drop your pants.”

Pretried, I felt a terrible discomfort in my crotch before Rachel spun me around, giggled at my look of shock, and then pinned me against the wall for another makeout session.

I wasn’t sure how long it lasted, but by the time I had gotten back into my normal clothes it was already 2:09PM.

I could feel the sweat on my back soaking my shirt, but I could hardly complain while I still felt the taste of Rachel’s tongue on my own.

The school bell rang at 2:10PM to signal the end of school as it always did. Taking my hand in hers, Rachel swiftly tugged me at full speed out of the gym lobby family restroom, through the gym lobby, and then out the main gym entrance’s tall wooden doors.

I nearly tripped on the way out the gym, but as I did so, Rachel caught me mid-fall by my waist and held me up. Looking up into her eyes and at the overtly bright smile, I realized that I couldn’t help but want to laugh. I laughed and laughed and laughed, because Rachel had taken up far too many of the day’s laughs and if I didn’t take some for myself there would soon be no hours of the day left to laugh.

***

September 04, 2023:

As soon as Rachel and I set foot on the pavement of the student parking lot a familiar voice called out to us from behind, “Rachel! Jae! Wait up!” The sound of soft, even steps on pavement approached us from behind, but even before I could finish turning around I knew who was calling out to us: Zoey, a classmate from English.

Zoey—decked out in her volleyball uniform, ready for practice—slowed as she approached us. As expected of an athlete, she had her breathing under control and seemed completely fine despite her quick jog. I wondered how much better shape Zoey was in compared to me. She had a runner’s legs: long, but there was some flex in her thighs that displayed their developed strength and left me almost jealous. Perhaps jogging outside of gym class would be wise, if only to help clear my head?

Then again, Rach would probably complain that she wanted to jog too, even though she absolutely hated doing so.

“Oh, like, hiya Zoey!” Rach beamed, sticking out her chest a little like a dork. She didn’t quite compare to Zoey just yet, but Rach—over all the years that I had known her—had proven the sort to probably feel insecure talking to cis women.

If Rachel was really just a cis guy on HRT, though, I had to wonder, then, if Rachel got jealous over other people’s chest size? When Rach had revealed that she was on HRT on Friday she said that she enjoyed having breasts. Did that mean she had any sort of breast envy for girls with bigger busts? How did any of this even work for so-called cis men, assuming that Rachel was actually a cis man?

“Omigawsh, Rachel, I’m, like, sorry I couldn’t say this earlier in class, but congratulations on coming out!” Zoey exclaimed, a slight hop in place just to show her excitement. It was a relief knowing that Zoey was okay with Rachel being trans—I worried that the reaction from queer kids would be sour, but insofar everyone seemed really accepting.

Then again, everyone thought that we were gay anyway, so I guess it wouldn’t be surprising for Rachel to come out as trans.

It hadn’t occurred to me in the thick of it all, but Rachel—and even I—had received a lot of positive looks amid the sea of confused or jeering looks throughout the day. It was kind of comforting. Isaac, Drake, Zoey—so many of our fellow students were welcoming us into a new community, even though Rachel wasn’t technically trans and I hadn’t even come out as anything.

Did the straight boy friends of trans girls get grandfathered into the LGBTQIA+ community or something?

“Oh, um, thank you!” Rachel squeaked out, nervously stepping in place while rocking her head just slightly. Just from the angle of her head I could tell she was looking just to Zoey’s left to avoid direct eye contact with her.

Zoey effortlessly beamed while adjusting her ponytail, seemingly unblemished by Rachel’s Rachel-ness, “Oh! That’s right, Izzy also said congratulations! She’ll try to say hi tomorrow, she’s busy getting the nets set up for practice!”

Izzy— star player and team captain of the Gravelly Lake High Girl’s Volleyball team—was Zoey’s girlfriend. The two began dating shortly after Zoey transferred to the school during our junior year and soon became known for how—despite both being on the team together and dating—Izzy was the talented player and Zoey the ‘exceedingly average’ player.

I didn’t know jackshit about volleyball, so I just knew them as the nice lesbians from English class, but Rachel was quick to remind me that they were ‘apparently bisexual’.

Apparently it was “Hashtag Problematic, Jae Jae” to call them lesbians, too, so I’d taken to just nodding politely, lest I harm someone I didn’t mean to.

Like me and my unremarkable reputation, for example.

Choosing instead to follow my friend—who had a lot more experience with socializing—I decided to let Rachel and Zoey handle the majority of the talking. When Zoey waved hello to me mid-conversation with Rachel I merely nodded back, hoping not to be too much of a distraction.

“Oh, shoot, um, like, tell Izzy thanks?” Rach tittered, crossing her arms beneath her chest. I wondered if she was just nervous…or if part of her wanted to try to show off? Rach always had a way with the ladies, even if it never materialized beyond some making out or sex. She didn’t really seem all that bothered by that, though. Was she not all that interested in women? Was all her bragging to me about who she had made out with or slept with over the years been all for show?

But if it was, why lie to me? Surely she knew that I wouldn’t judge her for being gay—or straight or what the fuck the proper term here was.

“Of course!” Zoey replied as she yet again fiddled with her ponytail, this time lowering her head a little to get a better reach.

That was when she noticed.

“Oh wow, you have…” Zoey’s voice was but a whisper the longer she spoke, as if something was just now occurring to her, “...you have breasts? I guess you’ve been on HRT for a while?”

As if we were on the same wavelength, Rachel and I shot each other a dumbstruck look. How did Zoey know what the hell HRT was? Surely she wasn’t—

“Umm…yeah. Five months,” Rachel’s reply was cautious in tone, and I could practically hear the gears in her brain assessing the situation.

“Wow, that’s—I’m happy for you!” A bright rainbow of a smile sprung up on Zoey’s face, replacing whatever look she had previously. Whatever it was, a big ol’ smile went a long way toward not making me paranoid as hell that my best friend was about to have her heart broken by a cis woman.

If Rach was trans—heck, if anyone was trans—I could imagine not awkwardly standing out among a cis woman would help with anxiety over potential discrimination.

“How do you know what HRT is?” Rach asked, abandoning all pretense. If there was ever a time to ask, it was probably now.

“Oh! Umm…so, like, I heard about it from Isaac,” the shift in Zoey’s stance seemed suspicious, but I wasn’t sure how to interpret it. Did she feel like she was being transphobic by knowing what HRT is? Or asking Rachel if she had been on HRT? “I think Isaac is thinking about trying it out?”

Rachel—raising an eyebrow like she was Columbo or something—was like a dog on the trail of a scent, though, “I didn’t realize Isaac and you were that clo—”

“—Oh, uh—” Zoey bobbed her head and seemed almost like she was straining to swallow, “Well, we’re both in the GSA club together, so we do talk, y’know?!” Panic began to settle in Zoey’s voice, which led me back to my original theory—but, surely not? Zoey was so—but so was Rachel, so then…would they both be trans?

In fact, Zoey had changed a lot over the past twelve months that I had known her. I just thought it was some weight loss, but now that I think about it—this was a dark path to be going down, though, wasn’t it? Was it really any of my business if Zoey was secretly trans? After all, if she was, it meant that it was the reason she had transferred schools in the first place. Had…had Zoey been bullied for being trans at her last school? Is that why she didn’t want anyone knowing, even Rach—someone she thought was also trans? Or did Isaac know, because they were closer?

Looking down at my right hand, I realized that it was trembling, so with all my strength, I clenched it shut and shoved my hands in my pockets.

Zoey deserved better than some straight cis guy questioning her identity and her past, whether she was cisgender or transgender.

“Oh! But, um, I just wanted to say,” Zoey gesticulated with her hands, taking a moment to calm her breath, “I also really loved your outfit today. Going for something subdued on your first day out, I guess? Or are you some degree of non-binary?”

“Oh wow, thanks!” Rachel giggled nervously, “I just wanted to, like, not have people staring too much, y’know? Also, I’m, like, just a girl who likes dressing all sorts of ways, y’know?” The way Rachel crossed her arms under her chest and hunched forward while nodding her head irritated me in a way. I hated seeing such a big spirit make herself so small. Even if today hadn’t just been some big elaborate ruse for her to have an excuse to come out as trans, Rachel was still an incredibly special person. She deserved to spread her wings, even if it was self-serving of me to say so as her quasi boyfriend thing—hell, as her best friend!

“Anyway, like…” Zoey’s voice took on a slowly charging quality, as if she was building up to asking a question, “...uh…you wanna hang out sometime?”

Oh, that was…mundane.

Although, it made sense. After all, it’s not like Zoey would ask Rach to—

—don’t be a jealous freak, Jeong! Just look at her, she’s just a normal girl currently sweating bullets trying not to freak out your maybe trans, maybe girlfriend!

“Oh gawd, yeah, definitely!” Rach replied, an earnest—if energetic friendliness to her voice as it ticked up an octave, “Wanna go to the mall this weekend? I’d love to get your opinion on some outfits?”

Zoey’s shoulder dropped almost immediately, “Oh heck yeah, girl!” The crack in her voice borne no evil fruit, “I’ve always loved your sense of fashion! Like, um, I actually follow you on Insta, and your cosplays are so—”

“—holy shit, you do? Omigawd, what’s your handle, Zo?!” It was like the dark cloud had been clapped away in an instant. Making a series of noises that seemed less like English and more like a secret language, Rachel typed in Zoey’s profile name on her phone while looking at Zoey’s profile on her phone. From the angle I was standing, I could just barely peek a selfie of Zoey and her girlfriend, Izzy, as her latest upload.

They looked really happy together.

Anytime I let Rach convince me to be in a selfie with her I always looked so awful next to her, I kind of hated how she would post them to her Instagram account. I always looked so fucking weird looking in those selfies.

“Holy shit, thank you for the follow!” Rachel giggled as she straightened up from looking at Zoey’s phone and clicked the ‘Follow Back’ button.

“I believe that’s my line,” Zoey giggled as she swiped away the notification letting her know that Rachel had followed her back.

The camaraderie that Zoey shared with Rachel was maddening in a way. Zoey shared Rachel’s love of fashion and selfies, not to mention anime if the quick glance I had gotten at her Insta and her phone case were any indication. It was a terrible, terrible thing to even think, but if Rach really was trans and Zoey was also trans…what did I have that tied me closer to Rachel as her supposed best friend?

Who the fuck was I supposed to even be?

Sure, we enjoyed video games and watching movies together or whatever, but those things didn’t define me. They were things I did to pass the time, not things I passionately cared about—not like Rachel with her influencer gigs. And that was the gulf between us, wasn’t it? Rachel had an identity and I had…no sense of self.

How could I love Rachel—how could I be loved by Rachel if I was undefinable? A blank canvas still left in its original packaging?

Would Rachel not grow bored of me someday, when the rest of the world inevitably opened up to her bright, shining disposition? Rachel contained galaxies within her—she was destined for greatness, but me? I didn’t even know what I was going to major in in college, let alone where I would be in five, ten or fifteen years! Was I supposed to just abandon the one thing I had now, because that’s what adults did? Stop seeing their friends? Marry someone and have kids, while working a job I didn’t even want just to support them?

Why would I want to live for tha—?

“Hey Zoey, practice is starting and Izzy needs her full team for drills!” called out the egging voice of Coach Summers. The gym teacher and fill-in trigonometry teacher with two years at Gravelly Lake High looked like a bronze statue of some sort no matter where you saw him. I couldn’t help but be impressed by how he cared enough to stay after school to coach the volleyball club. The entire idea of spending extra time at school seemed like a drag. What kind of guy became—hell, enjoyed being a teacher?

Was this something you learned the longer you were an adult? I had already been eighteen for, like, two weeks, and yet turning eighteen had not magically bestowed upon me all the answers of adulthood.

I felt just as lost as ever, really.

“Sorry Coach!” Zoey’s shout back across the student parking lot reached her coach, who waved with the clipboard in his hand. Turning back to us with a smile I could—frustratingly—find no fault with, the girl asked, “So, Saturday, right?”

“Yeah, definitely!”

I was terrible, I was terrible, I was terrible—I couldn't quite silence the voice in my head saying horrible, jealous things. It was as if I could feel the very back tip of my brain stretching and peeling apart in pure anguish. Rachel did not need me to be a jealous freak, she needed me to support her in—in whatever the fuck she was doing!

“Awesome!” Zoey’s jog back towards the gym cleared the slight red tint from my vision. Now that she was gone I could finally stop holding my breath, of which I had not even been aware that I was doing. A horrible, gurgling stew of acid churning in my gut as I realized how awful I was thinking. I should have been happy for Rachel, not jealous of some other girl getting her attention. Instead, all I was filled with now was shame for my weakness.

Shame for a weakness that I wasn’t even sure I understood.

“Hey, Rachel!” Coach Summers’s cheery voice yet again layered itself over the track of self-loathing playing in my mind.

“Yeah, Coach?” Rachel’s voice betrayed any part of her that might have felt weird about showing happiness for being referred to as such.

“Again, contrats, Miss Penn!” This man whom I had shown so much disdain and jealous of was yet again doing that which I could not: unconditionally supporting Rachel. Was that not my job? To play the role of the supportive boyfriend? Was I not supposed to be the one to give her that love and support, first and foremost?! What role was mine, if not something so simple and yet so important?

“Remember, lemme know if anyone gives you shit, yeah?” If Coach Summers would solve Rachel’s problems if she could not solve them herself, what was I to Rachel?

“Umm?! Yeah?! Right! I will, Coach!” As much as I thought of Rachel as an immovable object, I still found myself drawn to her irresistibly in those moments where she showed vulnerability. It made me wish all the more that it was me that she trusted with her protection—with her heart. “Thanks!!”

I couldn’t remove my eyes from Rachel as she watched Zoey and Coach Summers retreat into the gym. The comfort that now seeped into her stance and the smile on her face reminded me that they were things that I could not inspire in her. These were things given to her by other people, people who knew who they were and what they were doing.

Was that a power that I would—could—earn on my own? Would I ever be able to make Rachel smile in those ways?

And yet, had I not before? Were all those little moments—when it was just the two of us—not real? Had the intimacy between us across all of these years existed only in my own mind? Was it that the past twelve years only meant something special to me?

If—when she turned her head back to face me—I should greet her with a smile, would she be just as rejuvenated as what Zoey and Coach Summers had managed to give her just now? Or Isaac and Drake earlier in the day?

On the other side of the parking lot, Zoey and Coach Summers re-entered the gym. Turning to me with her brilliant smile, Rachel looked me in the eyes—something almost always for me and me alone.

Lost as I felt, I resolved to greet her with a smile—a smile made just for her.

Rachel’s smile shifted to one so familiar to me. A smile I had seen a hundred million times over, and—I realized now—I would see a hundred million times more.

It was not a smile for our classmates.

It was not a smile for Ms. Queen, nor was it a smile for Coach Summers.

It was a smile for me.

Rachel, Richard, or whoever they were—it was possible in that briefest of moments to believe that they had a smile reserved only for me.

Even if I didn’t know who I was, I felt like Rachel knew who I was to her—

—and for the time being, that would have to do.

***

September 04, 2023:

Fingers linked with Rach once again, I drove her home, as per usual. Sweat coated our palms, but I was desperate not to let go of Rach for fear that she would disappear. That was the kind of girl Rachel had always been: so ethereal that it felt like I could wake up any day and she wouldn’t be there anymore, like an imaginary friend.

The thought of a world without Rachel made no sense to me. I wouldn’t know how to navigate a life where I didn’t have to hear her talk rapidly and endlessly about things I didn’t even care about.

It was beginning to occur to me that that was really all I had in my life. It was a damning indictment of how I had lived my life up until then. Hollow. Aimless. Nothing more than the sidekick in someone else’s life.

Pulling into the Penns’ driveway, I couldn’t help but feel overwhelmed by thoughts of the future. We were seniors now—ten short months from graduating high school. I was supposed to be looking up colleges and applying now—even if it was just for the local community college. But to what end? I didn’t have anything I wanted to do, I just did what I’d been told to do up to this point: get good grades, don’t do drugs and stay out of trouble.

Okay, so I’d done the former two—not so much the latter. I’d been dragged along to the principal’s office with Rachel after getting into fights plenty of times over the years. I could still hear my father’s usual “Hey, at least he was being a man” response anytime he and my mother had to discuss me getting in trouble.

Was that all I was? A man for having my best friend’s back? A best friend that I knew my father suspected was really just my boyfriend? All because I couldn’t match up to his stereotypical manhood?

It was like being in an endless loop: my existence tied back only to what role I played in the life of Rach or my father. I was a side character.

I was a miserable excuse for a man! Why did I even have to be a m—?

“My folks won’t be back from the firm for a few more hours. Wanna come up to my room?”

Rach’s words broke me from my self-loathing, the surface-layer stare she was giving me having a refreshing lack of ulterior motive. As much as Rach could make me turn and twist, she had these moments of plainly communicating what she meant that were a blessing. Knowing that nothing awaited me at home but my own thoughts of self-loathing I forced myself to smile softly and replied: “Yeah, sure.”

Once in Rach’s room I crashed on her bed immediately—the sheets were lavender—while she touched up her makeup at her makeshift makeup vanity-thing. The tension from the day flooded into the soft bed below me and as the wide open ceiling filled my vision I could hear Rach slipping into a different outfit in her closet.

Pulling my phone out I opened up Google and began searching on the phone. If I didn’t do it now—when we finally had a moment to ourselves—I wasn’t sure I was ever going to figure out what the hell was going on. Taking a deep breath I searched for information about transgender women.

I got a ton of results.

Rach exited her walk-in closet clad in a much more decisively feminine outfit than what she had worn to school. A frilly pink romper highlighted by tight boyshorts—weird name—gave her a really cute look that seemed more her than just tossing on jeans and a tee that mostly hid her body. Sure, Rach had dressed that way for a good six or so years now, but it was weirdly more appropriate seeing her in more expressive outfits. It matched that swagger I’d fallen in—oh my god?

“You like?” my pinked out friend giggled, her pose very clearly telegraphing that she was trying to make me flustered.

“R-Rach…”

Concern steadily grew on Rach’s face as she realized I wasn’t going to take her bait, “Yeah, babe?”

My voice nearly caught in my throat as I considered the ramifications of what I was about to ask—of the potential destruction of my friendship, “Rach, are you sure you aren’t trans?”

Rach squirmed in place, trying hard to look like she wasn’t incredibly uncomfortable, “Like, Mr. Jeong. Jae. Fuck, listen, it’s not possible. I like having a big ol’ cock. I literally can’t be trans. And I like girls!”

“...why would you even think trans girls have to be straight?” I asked, repositioning myself up and leaning my back against the wall of the corner that her bed was in.

“Because! Like, it’s that way in all the TV shows? Like, the ones with real trans women playing trans characters.”

“...h-have you not Googled this before?” Despite being internet savvy enough to look up all the miscellaneous information she did about her hobbies, Rach sure did dodge obvious questions about why she felt the way she did about herself. Was she afraid that if she learned anything else about the queer community she would be abandoned? By who? Her parents? Me? I didn’t understand why she kept acting like there was nothing more to think about.

“What the heck do you mean?” Rach casually dropped down onto her bed and leaned against her wall, snug against my body. There was no hiding what I was thinking anymore, so I gave her a look that—after a moment’s blank stare—finally got her to grow a little red in the face as her eyes widened realization.

Hand shaking, I passed Rach my phone, which had an opened Reddit thread that talked about sexuality…

…the sexuality of transbians.

I could practically hear Rachel’s heart trying to beat itself out of her chest. Leaning over, I began typing on my phone as she held it in a tight death grip. I could smell the salt of her tears in the air.

I brought up a thread from several months ago, where a trans woman was asking if it was normal to not have ‘bottom dysphoria’.

Rach began rubbing the tears from her face, sniffing the loose snot in her nose straight back up. It was such a strange feeling seeing her be both so sad and so relieved at the same time. I couldn’t really understand what I was feeling, but the gasping laughs between her sniffling brought a faint smile to my lips.

“I don’t really know the ethics of doing this sort of thing, Rach. I…kind of just…wanted to…understand things better.”

It seemed like Rach was just barely able to tear herself away from my phone screen to look at me as she asked, “W-what do you mean?”

“Well, I don’t think I’m into men, Rach,” I said, not sure if I was lying or not. “I mean, it’s complicated for me? You know? But, like, that’s besides the point! I could tell you were looking different and…acting different the last few months. I couldn’t figure out why I was so attracted to you. But now…I think I have a better idea. It’s like…you’ve suddenly come to life?”

Tears continued to well up and over Rachel’s eyelids. Rach bit her lip in anger as she noticed the smeared eyeliner on her hands and fingers. Rach drew her legs up close to her body and held them tightly, “Babe—Jae, listen, I…I don’t…I mean…even if…oh fucking hell!” Finally breaking, Rach pressed her face to her knees and bawled.

Suddenly, I didn’t know what to do. Words didn’t seem good enough. So, I placed my right hand on Rach’s back and began rubbing it, hoping that it would work like in the movies.

Rach just cried even louder in response.

Neither of us spoke. For thirty minutes. I couldn’t stand it. I needed to be selfish, so I tried to make her talk again.

“Hey…so…like…Rachel…I…”

“Jae…wait…a sec,” Rach huffed, hopping off her bed to grab some tissue to clean her face up. The blonde checked her makeup, fixed it with expert speed and accuracy, and crashed back on her bed, and laid her head on my lap so that she could stare up at my face. “Hey,” her voice was a hoarse rasp, a weak—but promising—smile on her face.

“Hey,” I droned, almost flinching at how cold my deep voice sounded. The sound of it still managed to make Rachel’s smile widen, however, so for that I was thankful. I could help but smile back. Rach raised her right hand and touched my cheek with her soft palms. With a look of resolve that I had so dearly missed in her eyes, Rach said: “Never call me that other name again.”

“Rachel?” I replied flatly, holding a mischievous smile at bay.

“No, the other one.”

“You mean ‘Rachel’?” I replied, adding just enough glee to my voice to hopefully get her annoyed enough to show it. That was how men did the Boyfriend Thing, right?

Tapping me on the cheek, “Bad boy!” Rach’s palm held just long enough to remind me that I’d done a poor job shaving that morning. Trying to speed through shaving had done me in yet again, sadly.

A giggle from Rach distracted me from my thoughts yet again.

“I’m sorry I put you through all this, Rach,” I whispered, the glee appearing on my best friend’s face at the sound of her name lifting my spirits.

I could never think of her by that other name ever again.

To hear it would be torture.

To think it would be a nightmare.

To say it would be Hell.

Rachel was Rachel. She was Rach. She was the woman I loved.

“No, babe,” Rachel husked, leaning into me even harder. I don’t think she even meant it to be seductive, but to me it was. She seduced my heart before I had even known it.

“I’m thankful. I don’t think I’ve ever been happier.” A slight weepiness crept back into her voice, but as she withdrew her right hand from my cheek and linked our hands and fingers again with her right hand, I knew that I would do anything for her. “Kiss me—and don’t worry, it’s—”

“Straight?” I mugged, hoping she wouldn’t see how much I was struggling to be a good boyfriend. A boyfriend worthy of her.

“Gosh, you dor—”

I couldn’t wait for her to finish her sentence. I needed to feel her euphoria, to forget about all the guilt and the shame. To remember only how I loved her, and hopefully she I. The awkwardness of the angle was murder on my neck and back, but I didn’t care. I leaned down further and further, as if pushing our lips together was the one thing that could awaken Sleeping Beauty.

Even though Sleeping Beauty seemed to already be awake.

Fuck, my back really was hurting, though.

It didn’t matter, though. I never wanted this moment to end. Nevertheless, that fear existed. Perversely, selfishly, disgustingly, I slipped in tongue in hopes of keeping her mine.

She seemed to like it.

And then—in the corner of my eye—I saw a twitch in her crotch.

Rachel broke the kiss and rocketed into an upright position, covering her crotch before it made a tent in her romper. The color drained from her face, I felt like I was watching her horrified expression grow in real time.

“Oh, yeah,” I whispered, just so neither of us would have to hear the terrifying, rapid beat of her heart.

“I—I’m so sorry, Jae, I—”

Before I could even think I wrapped my arms around Rach and pulled her in tightly. Desperation poured out of every pore on my skin. In as soft and reassuring tone as I could steadily keep my voice in, I whispered into the poor girl’s ear: “Rach, it’s okay. Really. I…would never ask you to be ashamed of your body. Never.”

“B-but…like, you’re not…and…oh God, I just want to be your—but you—” The tears streaking down Rachel’s face threatened to drop into her mouth. The only color returning to her face was the strained pinks and reds.

“Rach. Stop. Please,” I begged, my voice not quite soft enough for my tastes. Nevertheless, Rachel’s body seemed to lose tension before swelling back up for a big eruption

“But I—I mean, goddamn it!”

“Rachel!” I finally snapped, so much so that my voice cracked, “It’s too late to talk like that!” Confusion colored Rachel’s face now, “I fucking love you. As far as I’m concerned you’re not my ‘fake’ girlfriend, you’re my real girlfriend!”

I wasn’t expecting to confess, but I nevertheless did with all the anguish and angst in my body boiling over. Turning in her spot, my oldest, truest friend hugged me as tightly as she could while making sure to keep her bottom half as far from me as possible.

“Gawd Jae, I…I just want you to be my real boyfriend!”

Deepening my voice in the hopes that it would make her feel safer I whispered, “I am your boyfriend, silly,” into her ear. Pulling Rachel’s full body close to mine so that she wouldn’t hurt herself at such an odd angle, I re-wrapped my arms around her, as if inviting her to lean against me. Finally, Rachel rested her head on my shoulder. Several minutes of sniffling passed.

Rachel eventually pulled her head off my shoulder, sniffled, and surprisingly looked me in the eyes with her single not-covered-by-hair eye, “‘I am’?” Rach asked, as if she was bracing to be told bad news. It was a horrifying feeling to think that she might be afraid of me hurting her.

“Duh, bimbo,” I reassured with a shit-eating grin. Show her how much of a man you can be, you selfish asshole!

Rachel’s laugh was like salvation, a rain that restored the crops of the land and gave me relief and rejuvenation that I didn’t know that I needed, “Thanks, babe. Gawd, like, I really love you.”

“I love you too, Rach,” her kiss warmed me right down to the tips of my toes, like a warm house in winter.

Rachel’s sniffling continued as a suddenly serious look took over her face yet again.

“Babe, listen, about my…cock…”

I was having none of that. Quickly, I cut Rach off with another kiss, before sealing the deal with some Ridiculous Boyfriend Humor, “Rachel, how about I take you on a few dates before we discuss the possibility of me blowing you in the movie theater.”

Rachel rocked forward, hand over mouth, like she was struggling not to crack up, “Goddamn it,” she finally cracked.

“It’s like I said, ma’am,” confidence filled my voice, from where I didn’t know, and suddenly I felt like I knew exactly how to make her mine, “I’m never going to let you feel bad about your body ever again.”

A small whimper escaped from Rach.

“Okay, SIR,” she added, a giggle underpinning her reviving swagger, “I…I believe you.”

I refused to ever fail her.

A few moments later Rachel’s head was back on my lap, and I could finally look down on my best friend—now MY GIRLFRIEND. And then, a suddenly grim look grew over Rachel’s face, eliciting a cold sweat on my back, “...does this mean I have to start doing my own homework again?”

Warmth returned to my body for the last time that day. Looking Rachel in the eyes, I replied simply:

“Yes.”

“Ugh!” Rach’s groan felt as put-upon as any of her other exaggerated outbursts, but it was hard not to grin widely at her melodramatic frustration. The feelings of wanting to protect Rachel that I had always felt, but never quite understood made so much more sense to me now. As much as it worried me that this was some sort of chauvinist societal programming, I could only brush her hair out of eyes and let myself get lost in her jade-colored eyes. The question of what to do about the holes that my girlfriend kept digging herself into could be solved tomorrow. For now, I just wanted to watch her eyes and see how the gears turned in her amazing mind.

Matching my look, Rachel looked me back in the eyes, bit her lip in that way she did when she was thinking about saying something naughty and cringe to me, and then wrapped her arms around me. Without putting up a struggle, I returned Rachel’s hug and let her work her magic. Precious few hugs were given out by Rachel thanks to how much she hated being touched, and I made sure to never forget how lucky I was to receive the vast majority of them—and that went doubly so now that we were, finally, officially a couple.

“Ouch, my tits!”

What a bimbo.

***

September 04, 2023:

Laying on my back I stared not at my ceiling, but at my phone. Rachel—MY GIRLFRIEND—was sending me cute pictures of herself in various outfits and poses. It was still surreal to realize that I was actually dating her now, but I was so thankful that I didn’t even consider that I was technically joining Rachel in the closet so long as we weren’t telling our parents about her transition.

It was kind of weird to think about it that way.

I was straight, and yet in the closet.

Well, as straight as a guy who likes masturbating to gay porn could be, I guess.

Checking the clock on my phone I noticed that it was now past 10PM. I’d left Rachel’s house two hours ago to make sure that her parents weren’t suspicious about what we—two ‘straight guys’—were doing.

And having them catch us making out while she was dressed like a woman would make that a lot harder.

It was so weird even just thinking about them seeing her as anything but a woman. Had they not known her all her life? Rachel’s parents surely had to have seen the signs, right? My parents met Rachel plenty of times over the past twelve years. I knew from the way that my mother spoke about us that she probably suspected that we were dating.

Well, joke’s on her, we are dating now—and it’s not even gay!

I just hoped that she would see it that way, when we eventually did tell her. And my father. Good grief, that was going to be an awkward conversation. I did not necessarily have the impression that he was any sort of bigot, but he’d always seemed so desperate for me to be the type of son he could relate to. I could tell that he was disappointed when I declined to play on the various school baseball teams over the years, but he hadn’t pushed it. Me—the son of a starting pitcher in the minors—not wanting to carry on the family legacy? Heresy!

But still, the lack of anything in common with my father—and his dedication to trying to turn his sporting goods store into a national change—meant that he and I rarely if ever saw one another, let alone spoke, anymore. I didn’t know how to feel about that. As I stared up at the goofy, semi-failed attempts that Rach made at sending sexy—clothed—selfies, I could only look back on my life and realize just how little my own blood felt like my family.

But Rach? She’d always been there. Annoying me with her weebiness, following along with my rants about cinema and theater—Jesus Christ, maybe I was queer? Not that I’d ever date a guy. Rach and I’d basically been together for twelve years now—no wonder everyone thought we were dating, we basically were—and…it was just hard imagining myself as a guy with another guy. Even if some of them were pretty cute.

Soreness from holding up my phone finally struck, and I haphazardly dropped my phone square on my face, then groaned a word that you can’t say on network TV (hint: it begins with the letter ‘f’ and ends with the letters ‘uck’).

With the last of my strength I snapped the most ‘cool’ looking selfie that I could create and sent it to Rachel, despite thinking that I just looked like an asshole in it.

I was never happy with my selfies, but Rachel had always insisted on sharing hers with me, so I felt obligated to send some back to her.

It was really awkward, okay?

Exhaustion from the day setting in I decided to charge my phone and went to sleep, hoping for only the most pleasant of dreams.

***

September 05, 2023:

My mother once again greeted me with a handwritten note reminding me about the nearly expired eggs and to “have a nice day at school with your new girlfriend.” I’d wondered if she had told Dad yet. Those two didn’t really seem to talk to one another—let alone to me—anymore. Whatever their marriage status was, I’d grown accustomed to it. My mother had a very successful career outside the house, which she’d always professed had been her goal when she immigrated to the US from Japan.

I could certainly see why she’d felt the need for that financial and social independence, and I’d never blamed her for it. I’d seen through television, film, and the grapevine at school how ‘traditional’ family structures often left women trapped in loveless marriages for their own financial security, and it had certainly not escaped me that my mother was now in a very similarly loveless marriage.

It was awkward enough not being a part of my parents’ relationship outside of my role as their now adult child, I could only imagine how awkward it was having to be in a relationship like that with someone. I wasn’t entirely sure how I felt about it, but I was glad that Rach and I would never have to worry about staying together in a loveless relationship for the sake of a child. It was suffocating having that pressure placed on you as a child, while having to watch the relationship break down into cold, machine-like pleasantries.

I remembered a warmer Jeong-Yoshida household when I was a small child, but as I’d grown older and more into my own person separate from my parents, I could tell that I had been a lynchpin in what little romance my parents had felt towards one another. Whether it was because their marriage had never meant anything to them in the first place, or that they had simply grown apart over the years, I could tell that at the very least I shouldn’t be surprised if they got a divorce after I left for college.

I had first thought that in the middle of my sixth grade, and it was something that I think helped set the tone for the rest of my teens. Puberty had been…not easy. Even just looking in the mirror or hearing my own voice didn’t quite feel real, it felt performative. It felt like I was so busy juggling other peoples’ feelings that I had never stopped to question what my feelings were.

But miraculously, I had finally realized at least one thing that I wanted for myself: my relationship with Rachel. My love for Rachel.

It occurred to me that I didn’t quite know how my mother would feel about my dating a trans woman. She had never given any indication of being against queer people before—certainly not in the films I had watched with her over the years. It left the subject in a bit of a grayzone, which was both frightening and reassuring.

But again, my mother stood out in her own ways! Surely the 6’2’’ female Japanese immigrant would in fact not other queer people?

Uneventfully, my eyes refocused on the note on the kitchen table below me. My mother could have simply texted me this note, but instead she wrote it down—using physical pen ink and paper from a memo pad. If I had to guess, it was her way of making something real—not just a digital message neither of us could touch.

These paper notes were the closest things that we had to a physical bond most of the time. It was poetic, in a way. She wanted these to be something tangible that bound us, which I could understand. I’d always understood my mother more than I had my father, and that had only grown stronger as I’d gotten older.

Dad had never bothered learning any real Japanese, but mother had taught me since I was a baby, in part because it kept her in practice for her work at the time of translating novels, technical manuals, and comics. Sharing dual languages gave us something major in common. My father had never spoken good enough Korean to teach me—his father had been too busy working—and I often wondered if he resented my mother for doing something that would obviously bond us even more.

At the end of the day, I just don’t think I could ever understand the man, and with the way he worked now, I’m not sure I would ever have the opportunity to.

But what about in the future—when I got married? What the hell would that scene even look like? Hey Dad, my transgender lifelong girlfriend asked me to marry her, hope you’re okay with that!

Wait, would Rach being the one to ask me to marry her give her dysphoria? Technically, I was the man in the relationship, so I should be the one to ask, but…god, that just seemed so damned awkward. Why the hell did I have to be ‘the man’ in the relationship? Why did men have to fulfill that role?

Ugh. Hopefully when the time comes for getting married we just naturally decide to do it, without any formalities.

I touched the piece of paper, feeling the tactileness of the paper and the long-dried blue ink. One more piece of proof showing the bond between my mother and I. It was hard not to let a faint smile form on my lips.

I really should eat those last few eggs before they expire.

I quickly scrambled the eggs, ate them, and then rushed out the door to pick up Rachel.

***

September 05, 2023:

As Rachel had grown more and more interested in fashion and makeup over the years I had come to notice that she spent more and more time getting ready in the morning. Luckily, we were rarely late to school, but it had happened on more than one occasion—and usually had been on days when Rach was sliding into my too small Kona extra pouty.

Looking back on it, I suppose that that was because of her gender dysphoria. Ever since she had begun hormone replacement therapy I had noticed that those days had disappeared. If Rach and I were late to school she was at least not tortured by her appearance that day like she had been in the past.

I loved that for her so, so fucking much.

“Seat Belt, babe—New look?” I asked, as I backed out of the driveway. Rach was decked out in a green sweater vest atop a pink dress shirt and jeans that day. It was a decidedly more ‘wholesome’ look for her than her usual look.

In a softer tone than usual, Rach replied, “Why don’t you just back into my driveway, babe—but yeah, I wanted to try something new,” while she reached around for her seat belt, tucked firmly behind her. Suddenly, with a dramatic flair, Rach tossed her hand up to the right and slammed the back of her hand into the ceiling before bringing the small metal prong into the seat belt holding, clicking it into place, “Hen~SHIN!”.

“It’s cute,” I hummed, hoping to lift her spirits with a bit of Interested Boyfriend energy. “Chaste librarian?”

“That or an All-American girl, I guess,” Rach said with her head turned to me. Out of the corner of my eye I could tell just how soft her expression was, and I couldn’t help but blush.

“Yeah, kinda reminds me of whats-her-face. The girl you ‘dated’ in eighth grade. Chase?”

I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised to hear Rach groan loudly in protest, “Oh gosh, Chase Avery Mann? Don’t remind me.”

It was always cute when Rach would groan like she was basically being tortured, so I couldn’t help but smirk, hoping to twist that knife a little more, “What, I thought you liked Chase Avery Mann? Didn’t she help you with your makeup?”

“Oh hush, you. You know damned well she kept trying to force her way into my life after she caught me browsing makeup styles!”

“Yeah, on your phone when you should’ve been paying attention to the teacher, right?” I mugged, unable to not to push her buttons. The sound of the pout on her lips was intoxicating. If I kept pushing her…would she push back?

“Hey, it was just third period Social Studies!” Yeah, that’s probably the reason why you always needed my help in high school, girl. “Gawd, has it really been four years already?”

“Afraid so, babe,” I said, turning to the next street over, “Besides, I think she had a crush on you since seventh grade when she saw you running in PE.”

“Gawd hon, that bitch had to have been a chaser. I run like a retarded girl!”

Hearing the r-word coming from Rach like that always hurt the most, “You are a girl,” I needed her to love herself—it was torture to see her hate herself, “You kiss like one, too!”

Rachel’s face took a comically sour expression, which helped ease my nerves, “Hush, you!”

“If she’s a chaser…” I mused, holding my vowels to see if I could bait my girlfriend, “...then I guess it’s a good thing she moved away after middle school then, isn’t it?”

“Thank fuck,” she nodded, her blonde bangs shuffling around in the motions. “Gawd, all I’d need is for her to move back here and get a look at me now!”

I placed my right hand on Rachel’s knee, which got her attention. Rachel’s skinny jeans had a soft texture, and it was hard not to get lost in that feeling for a moment. The more I thought about her fashion choices over the years—introducing skinny jeans into her wardrobe during freshman year—it was hard not to see all those little signs in hindsight. It was hard not to see all the little ways she would live her life, even if she couldn’t put it into words. I envied her terribly for that.

Perverse as it made me feel, I couldn’t stop myself from casually rubbing her inner thigh. Rachel twitched—not in a negative way, but in a way that got my attention nevertheless. I had not even considered what touching her there might do to her. I shouldn’t be turning my girlfriend on right before school, after all. Luckily, I needed both hands to turn into the student parking, so I rescinded my hand, only for Rach to grab the spots where I had touched with her own hand.

I was beginning to wish that we had decided to play hooky that day.

***

September 05, 2023:

Rach and I attended fifth period with as many eyeballs on our every movement as possible. I wasn’t surprised that there would still be some looks from other students, but Rachel’s shift in clothing style had made those stares even more bewildered. Meanwhile, I was wearing the least offensive combination of graphic tee and baggy jeans possible.

Putting aside that our classmates were staring at Rach for the wrong reasons, I could certainly see why they would take a glance at her. Her outside highlighted her tall, but charmingly lanky figure. To me, she was simply the woman I loved.

I didn’t want to think about what she was to our cis classmates.

The raised, dull voice of our teacher—one Mister Omar Zaher—snapped me back to reality, “Alright class, settle down,” the tired, shoulder-length haired man droned, “Today we have a returning student that some of you might recognize…”

Clicking and clacking echoed from the hallway outside. Out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of Rach instantly stiffening up and turning white. That alone was enough to confirm my worst fears—the loud gulping noise that she made when the figure entered the classroom and took her place in front of the white board was like a final nail in the coffin.

Taking one of the whiteboard dry erase markers in hand, the newly arrived young woman wrote her name in perfectly legible draftsmanship. Her body language was inorganic and uncanny. If I didn’t know better, it was as if she were a machine.

“Hello again to many of you and hello for the first time to some of you! My name is Chase Avery Mann, I can’t wait to enjoy the school year with you all.”

A flood of memories of Chase Avery Mann trying to monopolize Rachel’s time returned to me. All those times she tried to comment on what fashion and makeup tutorials that she would watch at lunch, or look when she should have been paying attention in class. Memories of trying to get Rach to go on a date with her, or trying to tag along with us when Rach said that she had had other plans already with me.

I had forgotten how suffocating that had been for Rach to try and deal with. It clashed against her desire to not be a nuisance towards cis women.

As Chase walked down the rows to the seat next me—which meant that I was now smack dab in the middle of Rach and Chase—the woman with her new, pronounced figure draped in some sort of 1950s housewife get-up turned to me and whispered sweetly—the disgusting sort of ‘sweetly’—“Oh hi there Jae, long time no see!”

I could practically feel Rachel attempting something out of an anime to try to get me to remind me to not indicate to Chase where she was, “Oh, hi Chase. How have y—”

“—Speaking of which, Jae, where’s Richie?”

It should not have been possible for a 6’1’’ woman to slide down her chair like Rach did, but she managed to pull it off splendidly. I could feel her desperation to not be perceived loudly and clearly. I abhorred having to be her distraction, but I knew for sure that it was better than the alternative.

Chase’s piercing, empty stare was like staring down something even scarier than driving North on I-5 to Seattle, “Oh, y’know,” my body finally kicked into gear and my legs immediately began to hop up and down in place. “We, uh, don’t really hang—”

From clear across the classroom the universe’s most spiteful, hateful cunt without a real hobby interjected, “Oh, Richard Penn? He’s the FINE YOUNG LADY sitting to Jae’s left!”

Gloria Rembrant and her lousily dyed blonde hair had always been on my shitlist for years considering how she treated Rachel for her obvious learning disabilities—and to a lesser extent how she had been the ringleader of a group of fellow students that regularly called me and my trans girlfriend faggots. Now Gloria, having just deadnamed and outed Rach, had deserved my ultimate ire of watching her dehydrate to death in a desert should the opportunity ever arise.

Mr. Zaher’s reprimand was sorely lacking in spirit, “Ms. Rembrant, must I remind you of the school’s policy against—”

The weak protesting of our teacher—who very well could have actually been a transphobe for all we knew—was shrilly cut off by the squealing from the mouth of one Chase Avery Mann, “OH EMM GEE, RICHIE-POO, IS THAT YOU?” Our first period teacher looked completely disinterested and turned his back to the whiteboard to write whatever he had started writing.

I made a mental note to write a strongly worded email to the principal.

Hearing Rachel’s deadname was surreal. I had said it—even thought it—just barely twenty-four hours ago, but now to hear it said at all was like experiencing vertigo. I knew how painful that name was to Rachel—not simply because she had made me promise to never say it again, but because I had read about how painful it was for most trans people—and to see her experience such powerful pain like that was heartbreaking. We had been called slurs for years, but this was somehow worse.

For both of us, as selfish as it felt to say.

Stricken pale as a sheet of printer paper, Rach—voice brittle—replied, “Hiiiiiiiiii Chase,” I felt sick in sympathy, “Uh…my name’s Rachel now.”

My girlfriend looked like she wanted to die, and I wasn’t sure I could blame her.

Chase’s demeanor seemed almost to grow sullen. “Oh,” the tall blonde cis woman’s voice was suddenly soft now, almost quiet, “Is that so?”

It was surreal seeing confirmation happening right before my eyes that Chase was somehow turned off by the idea of her ‘ex-boyfriend’ having actually been a woman this whole time, despite the fact that she fetishized her femininity. Did Chase want to be the force that feminized Rachel completely, or did she simply like having a toy caught permanently in the humiliating limbo of an ‘in-between’?

It was clear to me, however, that this creep was no trans ally.

And yet, at the same time, I could only remember my own selfish desire to make Rachel my girlfriend. Was I really any different—any better—than Chase Avery Mann?

Zoey and Izzy—sitting up front—looked at us aghast. Turning to face Gloria, Zoey spat, “Hey, what the hell, Gloria? Outing Rachel like that is none of your business!”

Smacking gum, Gloria smugly flipped Zoey the bird. To have one of Rachel’s few allies so smugly disregarded when trying to defend her added a new layer of hate that I didn’t know what to do with. It was as if my scabbed over wounds grew scabs of their own, each layer more terrible than the one below it. Gloria’s behavior wasn’t just some childish nonsense to pass the time, it was actively harmful and hateful now. A terrible pit of tar boiled in the core of my stomach, leaving me worse and worse. The strain traveled up to my face, burned my cheeks, and then left a throbbing pain around my eyes.

“Ms. Rembrandt, please do not use obscenities, however in-character as they may be for you,” Mr. Zaher did little more than callously sigh at Gloria’s shenanigans, which did little to endear him to me. ”“Ms. Mann, if you would please take your seat…” Any respect I could have had for a teacher having to teach in public school went down the toilet the more he spoke.

The powerlessness of being at the mercy of so much injustice surrounding me left me unable to open my mouth. What was Rach even going through right now, anyway? She was the trans one here—she was the one being misgendered and humiliated.

I was just her cis boyfriend.

“Oh, yessir!”

Chase took her seat with a practiced—if robotic—slide. Flattening her desk, Chase kept an eye on Rach, looking straight past me as if I wasn’t even there, being stared at by her out of the corner of her right eye. Making her desk look scarily organized, Chase put on the brightest, creepiest smile anyone had ever seen.

I watched Rachel dodge quick, awful-looking glances from the girl for the rest of our first period.

***

September 05, 2023:

Second Period acted as a grace period for our nerves thanks to Chase not being in our class. After sitting in our seats, Rach leaned over as far as she could and leaned against my shoulder. The strain had to have been uncomfortable at that angle, but I was thankful just to feel the warmth of her body on mine again.

Zoey slid up to and then crouched at Rach’s right, “Are you doing okay, Rach?” The concern in her voice was a decent palette cleanser after the thick miasm of anxiety that permeated throughout the first period.

“Mmm…not really?” There was a softness to Rach that had reminded me of her grip on the way to class: weak, as if she was tired. As much as I couldn’t help but find ‘Eepy Rach’ cute, the day’s threats gnawed at the forefront of my mind and kept me on edge.

Following the strain down from her eyes, I watched as Zoey bit deeply into her lip as she took Rachel’s hand in hers, “Hey, take care of her, yeah?” Zoey’s voice was a measured whisper as she stared me in the eyes.

Sitting up straight in my seat, I took a moment to steady my voice, “Yeah, of course!” Even if Zoey wasn’t secretly trans, there was a quality to her voice and to the look in her eye that said she considered our mutual queer friend one of her own.

It was a bond that I couldn’t know myself, so matter how fascinated I was by it.

Zoey squeezed Rachel’s hand a little tighter before standing up and heading back to her seat. A quick glance back at us once she was settled maintained continuity: we were her people, even if I didn’t feel good enough to be so.

***

September 05, 2023:

Once our second period had ended, I managed to carefully sneak Rachel out to my car for our lunch period.

“Gawd, why me?” Rachel groaned. If I didn’t know better she was making it sound over-the-top on purpose, to hide how real the emotion actually was. That only made me feel worse, though.

“Gloria’s a real bitch for outing you like that,” I spat as I joined Rach in a reclined position.

The ceiling of my car was a fuzzy gray material that I wasn’t quite sure of its name. I guess it resembled a cushion? It was soft to the touch, and as I looked up at it I wondered why Rach loved aimlessly rubbing it so much.

“I swear to fuckin’ gawd if she tells my parents…”

“Wait, why haven’t you told your folks yet?” I asked as I turned onto my right side to better look at Rach. The fact that we had agreed not to tell our parents about us aside, I was curious for a proper answer regarding Rachel’s decision not to come out to her parents about being trans yet. Was she really that afraid of them rejecting her? How did that feel for her? She always seemed so unapologetic, and it didn’t seem like her parents had ever given her trouble for wearing feminine clothing before.

I wanted to understand it better.

“Ugh…I’m just not ready yet. Like, they’re always at their firm and I just don’t even have a close relationship with them, anyway. Like, what the fuck am I even going to say? ‘Sorry Mommy and Daddy, looks like I’m your daughter now!’”

“I mean…” using my left hand, I cupped Rachel’s right cheek to feel the softness and warmth of her cheek, but was immediately reminded of the roughness of my palms, “I don’t think it’ll be too big a surprise. They’ve been asked to come to the school to talk about your…bully problems for years, right? And they’ve seen how androgynous even your male cosplay styles look, right?”

Rachel tensed up something terrible, and did a short and sharp huff, “Ugh. Yeah. Still. It’s just…I don’t know.”

I couldn’t hide how hurt Rachel’s discomfort made me feel—I feared that it was apparent on my face, “Rach, I’m your best friend and your boyfriend. I can’t make you come out to your parents and I would never go behind your back to do so, but…well, you did come out at school. Even though—”

“—Even though I’m eighteen the school can still inform my parents,” she interjected, adjusting her hair to get it out of her eyes, “I know, I know—fuck!.”

The morning’s pent up anxiety was beginning to bubble through now.

“Shit. Hell, if Miss 1950s Housewife—Porno Edition—is back in town she might just come over and talk to my parents to get on their good graces or what the fuck ever. It’ll get back to them eventually…”

My hand decided to trace down Rachel’s face, through some of her golden locks, and finally settled on her shoulder—I regretted trading the softness of her cheek for the roughness of her sweater vest, “I don’t think you would have come out at school if you didn’t want an excuse to tell your parents, either.”

Rach restrained a look of being impressed “Hah! Maybe you’re right?” Was I, now?

Selfishly, I leaned over and kissed Rach on the lips and I watched the tension in my girlfriend’s body slowly but surely drain from her body. She somehow sunk deeper into the passenger seat. I couldn’t help but be enraptured by how the light of the sun shining through the front windshield outlined, highlighted and memorialized Rach’s face. “I’ll be there with you, if you want.”

“If—when I tell them?” she asked in a whisper. I replied with a mere look, hoping that she would understand my heart.

Closing her eyes, Rach took a deep breath and turned back over on the passenger seat and gazed at the soft, cushiony material of the ceiling. “Well, I guess I shouldn’t wait until after my implants after all,” she sighed, reaching up and stroking the ceiling.

I think I might have guffawed in response, “Implants?”

“Yeah. I’ve been saving up, thanks to all the advertising and sponsors I’ve had,” Rach wore a soft smile, coy and mischievous, with a giggle just below the surface, waiting for its opportunity to strike and worm its way into my heart.

“So, wait a sec. Rach. Rachel. Ma’am. You were going to get implants despite thinking you were a cis man?”

“Well, I never said I was a particularly thoughtful little girl, my good sir,” the aforementioned giggle finally slipped out, as if Rach was deploying it strategically. It was the kind of troublemaking that had made me fall in love with her all those years ago.

“Christ, you really are a bimbo,” I groaned, rubbing my eyes as I straightened back on my seat and reached all the way back with my arms to hopefully improve the blood flow in them.

For her part, Rachel simply giggled in response. It was like trying to defeat the heavyweight champion with only a month of training. No matter how much determination you had, you would never be able to topple a queen among queens with the experience she had under her belt.

And Rach had over a decade of experience of wrapping me around her finger. In the face of it all, I was beginning to realize that I was never going to be able to fulfill the ‘traditional boyfriend’ role in the relationship.

And yet that was more a relief than anything else.

With my arms stretched, I turned my attention to stretching upward and touching my car’s ceiling, just as Rach had done. I knew what I needed to do next, but I wasn’t quite sure how to even open that can of worms. It was overwhelming, but I knew that it was necessary.

“Sooooo.”

Rach’s irises practically shrunk in response to my leading tone, “Yes, honey?” I knew exactly what tone she was going for: aloof, innocent girlfriend. The only problem with her little strategy was that I knew when Rach was actually confused and being aloof. I couldn’t not understand her better than that after having known her for twelve years.

“Like I said, I’m not doing your homework anymore.” I nearly bit my tongue trying to get that sentence out. It took everything I had not to close my eyes to brace for the impact sure to come.

I was right to be apprehensive. “Babe, please. Don’t maaaaaaaaaaaake me,” her whine was coated with a syrupy quality that was obviously just a ruse to try and get me to back down. Rach had always been a cheeky one.

I had to steel my resolve: “Rach, come on, I can’t just do my girlfriend’s homework. Besides, you’re not going to be able to go to college if I do everything for you.”

“Who said I was going to college?” she cooed, playfully poking my chest with her right index finger.

I was not a fan of Rachel’s attempts at distracting me, especially after being touched on my chest, “Don’t you have any sort of dreams?”

“Waving my cock on screen for men and women to jack it to?”

“I’m being serious, babe,” I stone-faced, hoping that if I kept looking serious she would finally concede.

“I’ll suck you off if you keep doing my homework?”

“Rachel.” I stonewalled, hoping that lowering my voice would make her understand how serious I was. Nothing I tried worked.

“Okay, okay, come to my place after school and I’ll bottom for you.”

It was in moments like this that I didn’t know how to communicate with Rachel as a man. She was so determined to play off serious topics as being for later—and had been our entire lives. This was precisely why it had taken her so fucking long to come to terms with being bi and trans. If she had just taken this shit more seriously we wouldn’t have pretending to be fucking cishet all this time. It was infuriating to see her treating our future so flippantly.

“Ugh, babe, come on, I can’t do it. I’m not smart like you!” Rachel’s tone began taking on a staccato and crescendoing quality that snapped me from my own frustrations.

I wasn’t used to seeing Rach be so emotionally present as she had been the past two days. Turning my gaze back towards Rachel, I could feel my face flushing with my concern. “Rach, are you okay?”

A dam broke somewhere within Rachel’s soul, “No, I’m not fucking okay! You keep fuckin’ trying to ruin the happiest mood I’ve been in for years over fucking homework and I’m sick of it!” Rachel shrieked as she leaned up from the reclined passenger seat, struggling with the passenger side seatbelt. I was powerless to even move as I watched Rach flail about, swearing between quick, sharp breaths as she struggled with untangling the seat belt around her. Finally, I found the presence of mind to try and reach out to help, but Rach slapped my hand away. Her pink-painted nails cut the palm of my right hand.

Finally, breaking free of the seatbelt, Rach swung open the passenger side door, scrambled out and then slammed it, cutting my panicked calls of “Rachel?!” off.

It was at that moment that I had realized that I might have just hurt Rachel more than anyone else ever had—when all I had ever wanted was to help her.

Why had I done that? Why had I even assumed that Rach and I were in it for the long haul? We’d never discussed our future! Wasn’t I just assuming that we would get married someday and be together forever?

Was I concerned about Rachel’s future, or my own?

Rach had never had problems with charming other women. I, on the other hand, had zero experience at doing anything besides being her boyfriend—and I hadn’t even felt particularly comfortable with my job doing that.

Rach had a life ahead of her, a future and a bright personality that could get her anywhere she wanted to go if she could just apply herself. Her growing success as an Instagram influencer had proven that much.

But what did I have? I did as I was expected and got good grades and stayed out of any real trouble as I was expected to. But that was all there was to me: I lacked any sort of dreams or ambitions for myself.

I was technically an adult now, and yet I felt more like a helpless child than ever before.

My palms felt wet, but when I looked down at them I saw not sweat, but the scarlet shades of blood on them.

The blood seeped out of my palm, but I couldn’t help but feel like it was Rachel’s blood on my hands, not my own.

***

September 05, 2023:

By the time lunch had ended I had vomited the eggs that I had eaten that morning all over the student parking lot. I wasn’t sure if that had been due to the stress of the day, or the simple fact that those eggs had been so near their expiration, but as I stared at the mess I had made, torturing myself with the sight of it, it felt as if they were the perfect metaphor for how my day was going.

How my life was going, really.

Made up in a strange new style of makeup that read more like the exaggerated look of drag, Rachel kept her distance—and I mine—for the rest of the school day. I wasn’t sure that I could face her again, knowing what I knew about my own selfish desires.

Rachel even prepared herself to escape the fourth period on time and rush home by foot by bagging up all of her books and supplies five minutes before the bell rang. I hadn’t bothered to try and compete with her, and waited until I was the last one to leave class to even stand up from my desk.

Following Rachel was pointless—I knew that much. So, ten minutes after the last bell had rang I shuffled through the now mostly cleared halls of the school to my car.

As I passed by the slightly ajar door to Ms. Queen’s classroom a familiar figure caught a glimpse of me passing by and immediately dashed to the door. Poking her head out of the door, I realized that I recognized the girl from Mr. Summers’ phys ed, Claire. Claire wore her brown hair as a shaggy pageboy and took to dress shirts and ties more often than not. Such regular effort placed into presenting well had been above me, and I’d kicked myself for not trying a little harder. Queer fashion was, frankly, really fun to appreciate—even from afar.

“Hey, Jae! Fancy meeting you here! Where’s Rach?” Claire beamed, her excitement clear as day.

I didn’t know how to explain “I accidentally triggered a panic attack in my girlfriend, and now I was driving home alone” to Claire, so I smiled sheepishly and replied “Oh, she’s gone home alone today…”

Blinking, Claire wore a faint frown, “Oh, shoot. I was going to ask if you two wanted to join the GSA! We’re about to have a meeting right now, actually!” Claire shot a thumb back into the classroom without looking back. “I was so glad for y’all when you two finally came out!”

Jeez, even the queer kids thought that we were gay! What the hell kind of vibes was I putting out?

“Aah, well, I mean, technically Rachel is the only one who came out…” I retorted, scratching the back of my head. “I could let her know about your offer, though.”

Yeah, if she ever spoke to me again after how much of a fucking moron I was three hours earlier.

Claire fiddled with one of the cufflinks on her shirt’s sleeve, “Oh, yeah, of course! But still, I could have sworn you two were into each other before she came out. I mean, I guess that she was definitely into you, but you two always seemed a bit—well, whatever.” Claire laughed lightly, wearing a grin that spoke even louder.

I mean, yeah, she always had been really cute, but…okay, maybe I shouldn’t be blaming Rach for refusing to examine herself when I couldn’t even figure out what the fuck I was trying to say about myself.

“Aaah, well, uh…listen, I appreciate the offer and all, but I’ve had a really exhausting day,” that was far from a lie, at least, “...so I think I’ll have to decline—” a shine bouncing off of a small pin on Claire’s sweater vest caught my attention. On the small black pin was written ‘they/he’, and I immediately gagged in terror. Had I been misgendering and deadnaming this person in my head? “Oh, woah, I just noticed your pin! Did you recently come out as non-binary? I’m sorry, I thought you were a lesbian!”

Claire chuckled mischievously, “Oh no, no, bisexual, actually. But yeah, I came out as non-binary over the summer. My folks and friends have been really supportive!”

Fearing that I was still in a grave of my own digging I mustered the courage to ask: “D-did…you have a new name that I should know about?”

Claire shook their head, “Oh, no, no, you’re fine, Jae! I actually like my birth name more now. It’s so gendery to go by ‘Claire’ while using ‘they/he’ pronouns!” Their mischievous giggle only underscored their confidence even more. That certainly made sense to me. Adjusting my backpack shoulder straps to keep my hands busy I nodded to indicate that I understood his meaning. The pep in their voice really did remind me of how much happier Rachel had been sounding since yesterday.

Before I fucked that up.

“I hope you’re feeling better by next meeting, though,” Claire added, “I’m sure that Missy and Isaac would love to have another trans femme join the GSA, and Drake would probably love to not be the only cis queer guy in the club—not that I’m saying that you’re queer or anything! Cishet allies are totally allowed to join too, of course!”

Claire’s small display of nervousness helped ground me in the moment and let me forget my own anxieties, “Uh…yeah, no, like, I’ll think about it. And I’ll definitely let Rachel know about your offer! She’s just got…a lot going on right now.”

“Oh!” Claire said with a fastidious nod, “I can only imagine! I heard about what happened at lunch yesterday—those asshole rich kids can be, well, assholes…”

It was hard not to lightly chuckle at that, “Yeah, definitely—”

“—hey Claire, you joinin’ us or what? You take any longer and I’ll be able to get gender-affirming surgery!” Isaac’s masculine voice called out in a playfully annoyed manner.

Turning around in an exaggerated manner, Claire shot back, “Good, then you can help me recover from the foot surgery I’m going to need after I remove my foot from your butt, you dipstick!” Clearly Ms. Queen—their teacher advisor—was in the room, or else Claire would have employed a more colorful choice of words. A chorus of playful laughs and jeers directed towards Isaac flooded out of the classroom door.

Turning back to me, Claire wore a natural shit-eating grin, “Still sure you don’t want to grace Queen Isaac back there with your presence?

“Pfft. Next week, for sure,” I half-laughed. With a turn and a wave I was off.

Off to beat myself up for being such a damned fool.

***

September 05, 2023:

The roar of the mall was as soft a purr as ever for a Tuesday during the school year. I was concerned about how few people were masking these days, and I had kept up with masking to try and counterbalance that. As stuffy as it could be wearing a KN95 inside of a mall it was still a lot better than getting sick.

And not being sick gave me more time to goof off…with Rach.

In all honesty, I wasn’t sure why I had decided to come to the mall. Oh, I certainly thought that I did. I told myself that if I had just bought Rachel something nice and apologized for earlier she would have welcomed me back with open arms.

But surely Rach wasn’t that shallow—or forgiving.

‘Forgiving’ for what, though? Forgiving for me pointing out the reality of the situation? That her continual avoiding of any of the consequences for her actions were just going to lead to us both suffering through the consequences? And what, did she not feel any guilt for what she was putting me through by making me stay in the closet with her?

How was I—the cis one in the relationship—more in the closet than my trans girlfriend?

Suddenly, I realized that I was in the middle of a Hot Topic, feeling the material of a red checkered skirt that I knew Rach would look good in. The material felt sturdy, but not itchy. Here I was, trying to guilt shop, all while telling myself that I should stick up for myself.

What a joke.

The red and black checkered pattern, contrasted against a pair of smooth, pale thighs permeated through my mind. I couldn’t help but wonder how it felt to wear a skirt. Was the lack of covering weird? I would have to ask Rach, although if I did she would probably just tell me to try on one of her skirts to see for myself.

Would it really be that big of an issue if I did, though? After all, it wasn’t like anyone else would know, and even if they did—

—a sudden image of the cute skirt on my unmistakable masculine form made me lose my grip on the skirt. Stumbling back, I reached for and held my stomach with one hand and my mouth with the other.

I would look hideous in that skirt.

Other customers and even the staff shot glances at me, which made me immediately straighten my stance. Horrified by being perceived, I turned away from the wall of clothes and pretended to continue browsing. Looping around the back of the store, I followed the U-shape around until I was able to casually slip outside of the store undetected.

Embarrassment whispered terrible things in my ears as I sped-walked aimlessly away from the place of my foolish outburst.

The Spencer’s that was around the corner was one that Rach and I had browsed a hundred times before, Rach’s goofy commentary on the various raunchy goods firing off at a thousand words a minute. Any time I visited without Rach was a surreal experience and today was no different. The store still had discounted Pride buttons left over from the summer, so I nabbed a Bi Pride button for Rach from the display bowl.

The bowl full of buttons had a sign reading ‘Buy Two Get One Free’.

There were also Trans Pride buttons in the bowl.

I grabbed a Trans Pride button as well.

All that remained was the third, free button.

I wasn’t trans or bisexual, though, so it wasn’t like I could just—

And yet I still thought about sex with men.

I thought about sex with men a lot for a straight guy.

I fished a backup Bi Pride button from the bowl, just in case Rach lost hers.

She was always losing stuff.

I couldn’t let her lose me, too.

***

September 05, 2023:

After my little shopping trip at the mall I made a quick stop at the food court for a hot pretzel, only to be greeted by an unfortunately familiar voice as I got in line for my prized pretzel.

Chase Avery Mann.

“Oh my gosh Jae, is that you?” Chase asked, her voice a particularly artificial sort of loud. The heightened volume only made the flatness of her voice all the more apparent.

Keeping my flinch as subdued as possible, I turned to face Chase. She looked as if she had bought out several high-end stores with the number of bags she was carrying. Even for a woman of her height, she looked quite weighed down by the number of bags she was carrying. I guess the daughters of high-ranking US generals got a hell of an allowance?

“Oh, hi Chase,” I smiled weakly, “Fancy meeting you here,” came out as a half-grumble.

“Ooooooooooh my goodness, Jae! I'm so, so sorry, but I was wondering if you could, like, give me a ride home? I’m afraid I bought a little too much for the bus!”

I’d say.

“Oh, and, of course, my car hasn’t arrived back to Washington since we moved here again!” I wasn’t sure that I liked how convenient that sounded, but there was something about the odd Daughter of Mann that always kept me on the wrong foot. I had no idea how to politely turn her down, because for whatever reason…I feared her reaction. It was like staring down a predator in the wild—Chase set off every alarm in my senses with that stilted way she spoke and those dull, lifeless eyes.

Clearing my throat—and kicking myself—I nodded as slowly and softly as I could, “Uh, yeah, sure thing.”

So much for wanting something to eat.

***

September 05, 2023:

“You know, Jae, it’s very much quite lovely to be back in Washington. I absolutely adored and missed my poor Richard, just as much as I missed the blue and gray skies up here. Father always spent so much of his time at work, but I was quite happy when he told me that we would be returning to Washington! Oh yes, I much prefer the climate here, as opposed to California with those odd San Fransicans, or the hot, dry air in the midwest. New York was positively dreadful, too! That being said, I was ever so fond of the beautiful weather in Florida—to say nothing of the people down there. I do say, the politicians that I met through my father were simply the most delightful sort!”

Suffice it to say, I did not get in a word edgewise on the drive to the Mann family’s home. I was thankful for that, however.

Chase spent the drive back to her house chatty as can be, but the shrillness of her voice—combined with the robotic quality to her cadence—left me clinging on to my sanity for dear life. To spare my sanity, I remained focused on the road, hoping to whatever god might actually exist that the strange young woman wouldn’t ask me about Rachel or our relationship.

The last thing I needed was the woman who thought that she was my girlfriend’s ex-girlfriend asking me who pitched and who catched.

I was somehow a worse pitcher than my father, and he was the one who blew out his arm in the middle of the Rainiers’ most important game of the decade.

He was definitely not a fan of talking about that game at dinner parties.

Eventually, I pulled into a still-in-development neighborhood, populated by mostly finished houses that simply needed some finishing touches or needed families to move it. The neighborhood was a bit of a drive out of my way, but I figured that if it kept the peace I could just be nice, drop her off, and then get the hell out of there. I wasn’t sure if she knew where I lived, but I definitely didn’t want to give her any reason to look into it, either.

The neighborhood—while gated—was a strange place for a family to move into, but it made sense that a general would be able to afford houses that looked as good as these. Rachel’s father—at least from what I understood—was one of the United States’ highest ranking generals. I couldn’t imagine he had much time for his daughter, and that often made me wonder if that was part of why Chase was so…well, Chase.

It was ironic that we had that in common.

Pulling into the driveway of the home that Chase indicated, I shut off my engine and quickly made for the door, but Chase finally asked what I dreaded she would ask: “How’s Ric—how’s Rachel doing? With her, uh, change stuff?”

‘Change’? Did she not know what a ‘transition’ was? “Uh…Rach is…going along nicely,” I answered as non-committedly as possible.

The odd smile that the young blonde was so persistent on persisted, “Say Jae,” she snickered at her own rhyme, “Why isn’t Richard—Rachel with you?”

As little as I wanted to answer that, I took the opportunity to express my annoyance with Chase’s continued deadnaming, “Rachel—her name is Rachel, Chase.”

Chase giggled in a way that was definitely fake, “Oh dear me, I do apologize. It’s just that I’ve thought about him—thought about her so much while I was away, I’m afraid that I’m going to need some time to adjust!”

Lord, if this half-shat bullshit was what Rachel was afraid of her parents telling her then perhaps I really was getting upset over nothing.

As diplomatically as possible I replied firmly, “I can’t stand for deadnaming and misgendering my girlfriend, Chase. I love her too much to put up with that.”

A twisted look took over Chase’s face, “Oh. How sweet,” a tinge more than a tinge of insincerity dripped off of Chase’s tongue as she sat in her seat, eyes staring me down lifelessly, yet with such great fury. “Now if only you had been that good a boyfriend earlier, instead of making my poor Richard cry.”

A chill ran down my spine, and I instinctively unlocked the doors with my left hand pressing the button on the driver side door console, “Chase, I think you should get out of my car. Now.”

A crooked smile spread across the face of Chase before she pulled a rag out of one of the shopping bags that she had kept up front with her. “I think you might be a bit more agreeable after a nice nap, Jae.”

Chase smashed the rag against my face lightning quick. With a struggle, I reached first for the rag—only to be met with cruel reality: Chase—having leaned her body weight into her attack on my face—was too heavy for my quickly fading strength.

Changing plans, I reached for the seatbelt next. Scrambling and scratching—without being able to look—I could feel only the cold hand of Chase as she held my seat belt clicked firmly in place. I would not be able to escape, no matter how much I struggled.

The panic of the unexpected assault soon gave way to darkness while the name of my love echoed faintly in my mind: “Rachel…”

***

September 05, 2023:

The sound of someone stepping on a stairwell stabbed into my mind and brought me back to consciousness. In the pitch black of what sounded—judging by the acoustics—like somewhere indoors, I felt my body completely restrained. The sensation of being unable to see, and knowing only from the sensation of feeling that I was lying down on my back, strapped down somewhere, left me terrified. Too terrified, in fact, to realize that I also felt a great pain, horrible pain somewhere in my body..

Where was it? Not my head.

Not my chest.

Not my arms or stomach.

No, lower.

Oh God.

Oh God, no way?!

Finally, I shrieked over the sound of every approaching step. A loud thudding noise layered itself over the echo of my shriek, as if something had fallen down the wooden steps.

A woman shrieked in pain, but seemed to be crawling towards me. In my shocked state, I could not process who the disgruntled voice belonged to. Then, a stray grunt sounded very familiar. Thank God.

Finally, the strained, but thankfully familiar voice called out to me, somewhere close by: “J-Jae! It’s me! It’s Rachel!!”

It took all my will to not flail around as Rachel struggled with getting the restraints off of me. My brain felt completely fried, with half of it dedicated to managing my pain, and the other half remaining present enough to actually aid in my own rescue.

“Wh-what the FUCK?!” I shrieked, “Wh-why does it hurt down there?!” In the back of my mind, I already knew the answer, but my mouth was decidedly behind the curve.

Rachel said nothing, her eyes glossing over as her hands continued violently struggling to remove the restraints around my wrists. Another person’s clicking and clacking steps lightly echoed in where the fuck I was being kept.

Finally, Rach undid the restraint around my left hand and I joined her in hastily tearing the other restraints off. Rach was close enough to my face so that even in the dark of the room I could still make out her facial expression, and the horror that struck it when she suddenly remembered something. I followed Rachel’s gaze, only to finally catch sight of the eerie smile of Chase Avery Mann as it was shrouded and illuminated by the light of a lantern. The young woman was at perfect, stiff attention, hands behind her back, watching us.

With my right hand freed, I shot upward on whatever the fuck I was strapped down to and in a rush of adrenaline went to work on untying my right leg. Sitting upright, however, sent a surge of pain from down below straight to my brain. “FUCK!!!” it came out more like a yelp—my voice catching in my throat before it could bloom into a full shriek of pain.

I knew what had happened to me. I knew what awaited me down there—but I reached anyway. I looked down anyway. It was exactly what I had suspected. The awful bitch had surgically removed my testicles. I could feel whatever you called this emotion boiling over, ready to explode out and impress itself upon anyone who was within the neighborhood. In the end, I merely stopped. A soul burned to cinders in its place. I couldn’t do it—couldn’t even let myself feel the emotion that would lead to screaming. It was too fucking much.

Rachel struggled to her feet—her legs had to have been screaming in pain—by supporting herself on the make-shift operating table long enough to embrace me. When my eyes had finally looked to my right and caught sight of the dish containing my testicles I lost track of how long I stared at the dish. A salt tear dropping into my mouth finally snapped me from my timeless torture.

The tear tasted like Rachel.

“Oh dear, Richar—Rachel, sweetie, please, he’ll hurt you,” my insane captor sing-songed with a stilted concern. It was like talking to an alien trying to pretend to be a human being.

I was so detached from the moment, brought sparingly back to the present only by the shrieks and the broad movements Rachel would make, “You did this because you thought he was going to hurt me?!” As my eyes adjusted to the dark, damp room lit so, so poorly by the lantern hanging off of…something, I realized that we were in a basement. A basement was where I had been violated.

There was a conversation going on—

“Oh, but Richard, sweetie, he—”

—that I knew I was hearing—

“My name is Rachel, you fuckin’ monster!”

—but with my nerves such as they were now—

“—had you sobbing, after all.”

—I was feeling awfully calm in between the spikes of emotional terror.

Rachel sounded so present, “I love him, Chase! Y-you crazy bitch, he could die from an infection!” Hell, she even sounded like she still loved me after yesterday. Today? It seemed like it was probably dark out by now—I wonder if it was midnight?

With Rach distracted reaching for her phone—would she even get reception down here?—Chase swiped at my throat with a scalpel already dried with blood. My heart instantly kicked back into overdrive as I swung myself backward on my elbows and Rach swung her right hand back and grabbed the stilted horror show by the wrist, stopping her just short.

With familiar confidence breaking past the frightened jitters, Rachel exercised those years of experience in school yard fights and pulled the madly giggling monster from the makeshift castration station. To my horror, Chase responded by gleefully kneeing Rach in the crotch, forcing her grip to break. With a nearly silent gasp, Rach fell to her knees and used both hands to grab herself.

“Oh, poor baby!” As if she were swinging a large, heavy bag of dog food over her shoulder, Rach uppercutted Chase, but the bitch had no problems smoothly sliding backward.

Rachel didn’t dawdle and leapt onto Chase, pinning her down as best as she could. At full volume, Rach snapped me back to attention by shouting “Run!” with a guttural fervor. Fighting through the pain, I struggled off the table while Rachel pinned our insane classmate to the ground.

Fuck, did it hurt like Hell.

As I struggled up the basement stairs I heard terrifying noises.

“Ooh,” it was like the monster was cooing or something—as if she was being played with during sex, “You’re so strong~! ♥”

Shrieks of fury soon choked out any noise that Chase Avery Mann could make.

***

August 23, 2023:

Today was the day that Rachel finally turned eighteen. It was hard to forget her birthday, after all, since it was only a day before mine. It had always been a funny little coincidence that we were both born only a day apart. When we had been young enough for birthday parties we had simply done them together, but now we were much too old to actually hold birthday parties.

Which honestly wasn’t an issue, because as far as I was concerned, Rachel was the only person I wanted to invite from school, anyway.

Like most days, Rach and I spent them alone in her room—or mine, like today—since both of our parents worked late. It made it a little easier to just relax and have fun, without having to worry about how our parents wanted to interject themselves into our lives.

Well, that and give us the “are you two dating?” looks.

“Birthday cake! Birthday cake! Birthday ca~ke!” Rach clapped as I fiddled with lighting the candle on her cake, “Confetti is, like, THE BESTEST for a birthday cake!”

The part of my brain that considered what other people thought—that Rach was too loud and too annoying for being excited about a mere birthday cake—

“—gonna blow the light out before anything catches on FIRE—”

—but the other part of me—the part that loved to see her happy and carefree—felt most alive when she was being loud and—as the kids at school called her—retarded.

Swooping her long blonde hair together in the back so as to not catch it on fire, Rachel leaned down and blew out the candle on her cake with as loud and exaggerated a blowing noise as she could muster.

A little noise in the back of my head rolled its eyes, but the me in the moment thankfully grinned as I turned my back to her to grab her present.

As she leaned back up, I swore that I saw a bounce in her chest beneath her baggy anime tee shirt, but surely I had only imagined it. After all, why would Rach have breasts when she was so awkwardly rail thin and lanky as she was?

If I brought it up she would probably just reference one of those gender bender manga she was always sending me—it was her MO.

“Yaaaaay! Nothing caught on fire!”

“That’s morbid, don’tcha think?”

“...Rachy-Rach-Rach has Hashbrown Seen Some Shit in YouTube videos, Jae Jae.”

“It’s ‘hashtag’—I’ll take your word for it,” it was hard not to chuckle at her seriousness, presenting the pink wrapping paper-wrapped present to the birthday girl. “Happy birthday, you big weeb.”

Taking a moment to marvel at the bright, clean sheen of the pink wrapping paper, Rach eventually removed the paper voraciously and flipped open the box.

“Holy shit, Jae Jae?” Rach exclaimed, pulling the stack of self-published Japanese—some fan, some original—comics out of the box, “You…bought me hentai?”

“Fuck off Rach, you know damned well those aren’t porn!” I shouted back, a small voice at the back of my mind telling me to laugh.

Rach giggled at her own joke as she sat down in a chair at my desk to carefully and neatly skim through the books. “Omigawd, Jae Jae, these are, like, amazing! All from authors I love, too!”

“I figured you’d love those. I asked Shuu to buy them at the last event he went to.”

“Your cousin, right?” Rach asked, looking up from the book she was skimming through at the moment.

“I had to scour our Discord DMs to get enough author names that were SFW and shippable across from Japan.”

“Oh, I think you could’ve shipped the kind of h-doujin I’m into, you know. Especially since I’m eightee—”

“Enough with the porno talk, ma’am,” I shot back, probably showing the faintest signs of a grin forming.

Rach just giggled triumphantly, in that way she did anytime she got one over on me.

It was always a little thrilling when she did that.

“Thanks a bunch, Jae Jae. I, like, really love these! I really need to—”

“—to learn to read Japanese?” I cut her off.

“Er…yeah. I mean, I’ve already read scanlations of a lot of these, but even just having original copies of indie books is so cool! Who knows if these will ever get printed again?!”

It was hard not to be won over by her enthusiasm for the arts.

“Which haven’t you read yet?” I asked, trying to sound interested for her sake.

Rach took a minute to sort through the stack before answering, “Ooh, this one!” Rach handed a seventy page comic to me, and I read the cover aloud: “My Best Friend Liked Crossdressing, So I gave It a Shot, Too! Then We Had A Girl’s Date!!! Christ, why are these titles so long?!” Admittedly, the cover art of the two crossdressing boys was really cute, though.

Rach giggled at my stupefaction, “Because, that’s, like, the charm of them! Duh!”

Grouched, I took the book and sat on my bed and leaned against the wall, then patted the bed next to me. Catching my drift, Rach excitedly dashed over and hopped on the bed next to me. As she settled next to me—perhaps a bit too intimately close—her left thigh touched my right and the sensation had me instantly straighten up where I sat.

“So, like, omigawd,” Rach gasped, overly excited, “Are ya really gonna—?”

“Yeah, yeah, I am. J-just calm down for a sec, dude!” I grumbled, trying to regain some composure. Rach had gone all out with her makeup today, and being touched by the bare skin of her thighs—tightly packed in denim short-shorts—had thrown me into a real spiral.

She just kept getting cuter and cuter over the years, and I didn’t know why I found her so attractive. I’d only ever felt this way about girls, not—

“Omigawd, Jae Jae, thank you sooooooooooo much, though! I, like, know how much you hate, like, putting up with my weird ‘n dumb re-koo-ests to translate random text for me ‘n stuff—”

Clearing my throat to cut Rach off and refocus myself I corrected the birthday girl, “Listen, Rach, it’s not dumb, it’s just—it’s kinda—and don’t take this the wrong way—a drag to be used as someone’s own personal translator. Like, it’s not like I can just read and then translate off-the-cuff, you know.”

Rach shook her head furiously, her pony tail swinging back and forth and nearly whacking me in the face at one point, “Nonononononononono, I get it Jae Jae, I do! I promise, I’ll really super-duper try and study more! I’m even taking Japanese again this year! I’m just so glad that you’re, like, y’know, doin’ this for me right now and stuffs!”

Looking down at her puppy dog eyes, it was hard not to get caught up in them.

I wasn’t sure when she’d begun resting her head on my shoulder, and I don’t think that she did, either. But I couldn’t disturb her—not when she looked so at ease.

So, I turned back to the book in my hand, and began reading aloud to my best friend.

***

September 06, 2023:

Praying to the many stars lighting the night sky above that I hadn’t torn open my stitches struggling out into the front yard of whatever the fuck horror house I had just been in, I looked back—with great trepidation—at the house. Minutes passed—in ways I could not keep track of—before someone finally emerged from the front door. It was difficult to see at first. Beyond my own comprehension I found that my firsts had raised themselves, like they had done so many times before in fights at school.

Finally, it became clear who had emerged—literally—victorious.

“Rachel?! RACHEL?!” I had not even remembered closing the gap between Rachel and I, only that I was suddenly standing in front of my girlfriend with my hands firmly on her shoulders. I shook—slowly, at first—my catatonic girlfriend as she loomed lifelessly before me. My pace picked up, sloppily turning into a horrible little jerking motion. Stray, intrusive thoughts about how beautiful she looked under the light of the night sky filled my mind. I mentally kicked myself for even thinking about that at such a crucial moment.

Finally, a response came.

“J-Jae?” her voice was a quiet, biting rasp. I had seen Rachel pummel bullies for years—hell, I had known how much blood she could drench her fists in—but the sight of her entire form drenched in blood was a sight that I had never thought that I would see. When I looked down at my hands—the wound from earlier festering—I knew that what I had on them was not the blood of one Rachel Penn.

And yet, still I asked.

“Rachel, whose blood is that?” I could not recall when I had started weeping. The uncontrolled sobs delayed my pleading for her attention. I needed her to wake up. I needed her to smile again—to giggle in the way she always did to make me feel like I was right where I was meant to be.

Looking down—so, so, so calmly—Rachel showed little movement on her face. I saw the red of her palms reflected in her large, glazed over dark eyes.

Then her mouth widened.

The night sky was so, so beautiful tonight.

It wasn’t her laughter that she let out, but even Rachel’s shrieks of bloody murder sounded beautiful to me.

The pervert in me hoped that it was a victory cry.

***

I remember the first day I met her, as she surrounded herself with the other girls during recess. How she commanded their attention with her bold tales of dodgeball conquest, her shining smile magnetizing.

Or how she looked completely at ease the first time I walked in on her in a dress, her embarrassment painting her face redder than her lip-stain upon noticing me. Yes, yes, I remember how she looked in her long, white-haired wig that she wore—repurposed from a Sephiroth cosplay—as she wept in my arms on her bed.

I remembered the swagger in her motion the first time I walked in on her with another girl, owning herself without even realizing it.

Of course, it was a marvel watching her take on five boys by herself the first time she got called a faggot in sixth grade. I just had to join her.

I remember, yes, how drawn to her strength I felt. How I promised myself I’d one day know it, like I would know her.

***

September 06, 2023:

Beep.

Boop.

Beep.

Boop…

They were a chorus, filling the cold hospital room. I opened my eyes to travel from one world of darkness to another. The room was very pre-set, save for the golden-haired woman to my left, her unconscious body slumped into her chair and her hand still tightly crasping my own. As I turned my gaze back to the unfamiliar ceiling above me I wondered…how exactly did I wind up in the hospital?

And then it came back to me.

The realization of what Rachel had done…and to whose daughter she had done it.

The rush to burn our clothes, to eradicate as much evidence as possible.

The rush back to my home, amid the dark veil of night for new clothes, before I passed out again from the pain.

Yes, yes, I remembered: how my stitches came undone on the stumble to my car.

How Rachel, clad in a set of my clothes—a black hoodie and baggy, torn jeans—shout-whispered my name as I collapsed on my driveway.

How my girlfriend—who had no driver’s license—dragged me into my own car, filling me with the grief of worrying about my licenseless girlfriend driving my car.

I remember now: my balls were gone.

A tear dropped down my cheek, even though I felt nothing.

***

September 06, 2023:

I was glad that Rachel was there to listen to the doctor as they informed me of my condition. I don’t know whether I was paying any real attention at the time. All I could think about were the horrific images that played like grainy, black-and-white stills in my mind. The sensations echoed past my painkillers and throughout the chambers of my soul.

That evil, evil monster had taken my balls.

It was an interesting sensation, I thought. Then I realized I was probably only thinking that way because I was in shock. Once everything settled, I realized, I would probably be pissed beyond all comprehension for the violation against my body.

I tried not to recall whatever happened last night, even though I knew there was little running from it.

I came back to the scene at hand just in time to hear the doctor say: “...we’re going to have to get you started on a course of testosterone right away, Mr. Jeong.”

I nodded wordlessly, rationalizing that I should probably want that.

As the doctor nodded, then left to continue his rounds, the nurse placed my chart back in its wall socket, turned to me and said “You’re very lucky to have survived that baseball accident, Jae.”

Baseball? Is that what Rachel had come up with? Jesus Christ, girl!

It quickly became apparent that the nurse was still staring at me, hoping for a verbal response, so I acquiesced: “Uh…yeah. Definitely…lucky.” She smiled and left, pointing to my call button as a reminder as she walked out the door.

A moment of silence between my girlfriend and I filled the room before I finally broke it: “Baseball to the nuts, Rach? Really?”

Playing it off with a laugh Rachel retorted: “I guess they should be signing me up for the Mariners?”

I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of relief, hearing her make such an airheaded joke again, so I played my part and replied as I normally would: “You’re such a bimbo.”

I was thankful that my parents didn’t need to be informed. It scared me to consider how my mother would react upon learning that her chronic failure of a son had gone and lost the family jewels. Still…our parents were going to have to learn about what had happened last night eventually, right? Especially when the body of a United States general was inevitably found in that basement.

Wait…Rachel’s parents are lawyers! “Rach, we should tell your parents!”

My girlfriend only blinked in response. I could read on her face how she was slowly trying to form a verbal response. Finally, she said: “Uh…we can’t.”

I was incredulous. “Rachel Penn, you fucking dingus, your parents are lawyers, they should be able to get you off on self-defense. Christ, babe, I’m living proof that it was self-defense!”

Concern washed over Rachel’s face and her breathing picked up, so she wrapped herself in her own arms, “Jae, like, I still haven’t told my parents that I’m a girl and—”

I couldn’t believe this shit was happening right now, as I laid in a hospital bed, now de-balled by my girlfriend’s fucking chaser ex-girlfriend, “Then fucking tell them, Rachel,” I stressed, “Come on, your fucking life is on the line!”

My tone of voice must’ve been harsher than I’d meant it to be, because Rachel flinched pretty badly, “N-no, yeah, y-you’re right, hon.” Her shivering—either from the cold hospital room or from her own growing anxiety attack—picked up.

I poured my face into my palms, half out of exasperation and half out of self-loathing for triggering Rachel. The past twenty-four hours had to have been the most stressful of my life, especially since my last conversation with my girlfriend had involved me triggering some sort of panic attack and sending her running from my fucking car. I was batting a hundred lately, for sure.

Rubbing the gunk out of my eyes I continued, “Listen, Rachel,” with as much softness as I could muster, given my predicament, “I’m really sorry about yesterday. I’m just…really concerned for you. Lately you’ve just been so…”

“Dodgy?” Rachel finished, a slight bounce in her right leg that seemed only to pump up the squeak in her voice, “Yeah…I know. I’m sorry—I’m so, so, so sorry about blowing up at you yesterday. I just…I don’t know what’s going on with me lately. It’s been getting worse and worse.”

“Those C-pluses I kept getting you…I’m sorry, but it was wrong for me to do that for you, Rach.” Truth be told, Rach wasn’t the only one coming to a reckoning. Now that Rachel had finally turned that subtext into text it was quickly becoming clear to me that we weren’t kids anymore and my decisions were going to hurt her, rather than help her.

Feeling exhausted, I acted on a whim. Reaching leftward, I took Rachel’s right hand in my own and crossed our fingers. The light came back to her eyes and I couldn’t help but smile, basking in their jade glow. Soaked in their light, with Rachel’s eyes on me at all times, I felt like I could fight a thousand wars.

“I love you,” I mouthed, catching her off-guard. Her grip only strengthened and the jade light in her eyes grew no dimmer even as they watered with tears. The quiet sobs of the love of my life broke down like a rickety old house into an unrestrained bawl.

Perhaps life after balls wasn’t going to suck so much after all?

***

September 06, 2023:

Click.

Step.

Click.

Step.

Click.

Rachel and I turned to one another when we suddenly heard the hurried steps of expensive shoes on the hospital hall floors outside. It took little time at all for the two sets of shoes making those steps to enter my hospital room. Two thirty-eight year old lawyers rushed to the left side of my bed and crouched to meet both me and their sitting daughter at something a little closer to eye-level.

“Oh my God, Dicky, are you okay?” Penelope ‘Penny’ Penn asked, crouching her 6’1’’ frame down to grab her daughter's hand. Mrs. Penn kept her hair in a lively, dancing high ponytail this morning, as opposed to her usual golden bun. The ponytail danced with flair that was befitting Rachel’s fiery mother—whom I had once seen arguing to her husband as if she were in the courtroom over how he was cheating at Scrabble. Mrs. Penn stumbled haggardly from her kneeled position back into a half-standing position so as to take in the fuller scope of the two teenagers before her.

We probably looked like shit.

“Christ Jae, are you okay?” Peter Penn asked, crouching down and giving me the age-old shoulder-grab between men. Despite his age he remained starkly fresh-faced, with hair thick and gold still. I certainly hoped that I’d look that good at his age. I wondered if perhaps I should ask him for his skincare routine?

You know, after the whole forced castration story arc wrapped up—fuck, I was dealing with this with a lot of dark humor.

With a slight shake of my head and a quick sip of water from a pink plastic tumbler provided by the hospital, I retrained my eyes on whatever I could see: Mr. Penn and his expensive suit and its beautiful material. I much preferred my father’s tastes in suits, though. Mr. Penn’s gray suit jacket was much too baggy on his 5’7’’ frame.

Remembering to reply to Mr. Penn’s question, I gave my girlfriend’s—typically chill—father a weak smile and nod, trying hard not to think about how I was literally putting on a brave face in the face of my forthcoming first No Nut November.

I wondered if Peter Penn would remain so—thankfully—chill once he found out that I was dating his daughter—and that he had a daughter in the first place?

“How in the world did this even happen?” Mrs. Penn asked, that hypnotizing golden ponytail swinging to-and-fro as she looked back-and-forth between me and the seni-closeted wonder to my left.

“Uh…well, that’s kind of a complicated story,” Rachel revealed, her voice the definitively feminine voice that I had grown to adore so much since this tale began.

Moment of truth, I guess.

The Penns raised an eye-brow at Rachel’s more…melodious voice. Stealing a look at one another, Mrs. Penn turned to face Rach, and I squeezed my nails into my palm to brace myself.

“Dicky, honey…” Mrs. Penn started, before Mr. Penn interjected—

“That’s some pretty fresh-looking makeup, Rich,” I wasn’t sure if I could read the tone of Mr. Penn’s voice, “Why did you apply that out of cosplay?”

Rachel fidgeted familiarly in her seat, crossing-and-uncrossing her legs, the bagginess of my jeans doing no favors to the great pair of legs I knew were underneath. Finally, after much hemming-and-hawing, she spoke: “So, uh…like…could you call me Rachel?”

The Penns were at a little loss for words at that one.

An uncomfortable silence permeated the room for a length of time that I was too fucking fatigued to track. Finally, I broke the silence with as confident a statement as I could make: “Rachel and I are in love. We’d like your understanding.” The jade light burning within the eyes of the woman I loved was the only reward I would ever need.

Finally, Mrs. Penn broke the silence: “I…kind of saw this coming, to be honest.”

I’m pretty sure Rachel and I raised an eyebrow at that reveal in perfect sync.

Rachel cleared her throat while I grabbed her right in mind even tighter, “Wh-what do you mean, Mom?”

Penny Penn smiled softly as she raised her line-of-sight to meet her daughter’s, “Di—Rachel, honey, you’ve always been a little…queer, you know.”

A single drop hit the back of my hand. I only looked to Rachel to confirm what I already knew: tears of joy coursed like a river down her cheeks.

It must be nice to be called a name that meant so much to you.

I let my girlfriend’s hand go so she could dive into her mother’s embrace so as to bawl her little heart out. With a moment to spare, my eyes drifted to Mr. Penn, who was, for his part, looking a little—well, a lot—out of his element. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed Peter Penn’s left hand shaking and, with some sternness, asked a very important question: “Problem, sir?”

Peter’s left hand stopped shaking immediately at my accusation and his dull eyes seemed to gain some sharpness again. “Wha? Oh, no—I mean, yes? Err…no, no. I support my daughter, Jae, don’t worry about me, just tired is all. Late nights at the firm, y’know.” Penny shot her husband a look as her daughter cried into her suit jacket. I could not discern it.

Peter’s excuse seemed bullshit, but if there was one thing that I felt with absolute confidence it was the pride in Mr. Penn’s voice when he referred to his daughter. “Good,” I replied with a coded softness, just to let him know that I was lowering the proverbial knife I was holding to his throat.

The proverbial knife in question was—fittingly—a scalpel.

***

September 06, 2023:

Rachel and I explained our predicament to our parents after my mother finally arrived, including the lie we’d told to the doctors about how I’d lost my testicles. The looks of horror on our parents’ faces were rough to look at, but relief washed over my spine now that we’d finally gotten some allies on our side.

There was a freeing feeling to finally coming out and letting go of some of these secrets that had been ruling our lives since Friday. Even if a damp sweat continued to give sheen to my back I could feel the muscles relax ever so slightly. Finally having a moment to let the tension out only underscored just how hard I was keeping it in. The past two days had truly been emotionally draining in ways I had never felt before—and not just because I was still recovering from my denoted de-nutting. That emotional taxation was now being paid back in cold, hard, physical cash.

A break in talking filled the room with an awkward silence while I sipped my water through the crinkly straw. Finally, I asked the question the others were seemingly too scared to ask: “So…can you get Rachel off on self-defense?”

“Yeah, can you get me off?” a beat, “Goddamn it, Rachel!”

This girl.

Turning back to her parents I found that I didn’t like the look on their faces.

“We’re going to do our best, Jae,” Penny reassured, before turning to her daughter and continuing, “Rachel,” and the wide-eyed girl stared back with great anticipation, “An investigation needs to take place, after all,” Penny explained, “We’re going to have to go to the police.”

It made me disgusted to consider it, but it was also going to be the only way to control the narrative before things got out of hand.

For her part, my mother—whom Rachel had apparently already come out to when the two had met yesterday when my mother had visited the Penn house the day before while looking for me—stepped back for a moment to take a phone call.

Rachel turned a deafening pale, “The pigs? Uh…I don’t know if you’ve heard, but they’re not exactly, y’know, friendly towards people like me!” The rising hint of panic in Rachel’s voice was like a knife turning in my side: feeling helplessness felt inevitable.

“We’re going to be up against one of the most powerful people in the country,” I told Rachel, who looked like she was all kinds of dissociating, “I just want you to know that we’re in this together, babe.” With my left hand I gave Rachel’s right a little squeeze, but she didn’t seem to grow any less pale, despite the weak smile she replied with.

That weak smile on Rachel’s face was little more than a facsimile, ultimately. I could tell that her brain was damned near completely fried from the hyper-focused attention and the trauma of the past few days. I could no longer deny that I needed to feel the full warmth of her body against mine—even if our skin was separated by clothes—so I willed my weakened shell to inch off and out of bed.

Before I could finish moving my legs off of the hospital bed, my mother returned from her phone call, now setting a new world record for paleness.

“Mom?”

“A friend from work called,” my mother’s voice was a dull steadiness, as if she were barely even present, “Said she wanted to ask me if I’d heard.”

“Heard what?” I nearly whispered, the dread drenching my tongue like a sponge taking in poison.

“‘A girl from your son’s school has gone missing’,” she croaked.

“Fuck.”

***

September 06, 2023:

The media loves a good missing white girl story. It practically prints itself, especially if she is publicly cisgender, heterosexual, neurotypical and blonde. They worship on the altar of the All-American girl, their fetish tulpa for them to pour all of our idealized notions of what it means to be ‘normal’ into. On paper, that was Chase Avery Mann: the perfect American girl for all to view as their self-insert—their perfect victim.

To be the daughter of a high-ranking United State general is to be an even better fetish tulpa.

For them, not us.

As the hospital room television bathed the dark room in the light of its LED screen displaying the news coverage of Chase Avery Mann’s disappearance, I couldn’t help but keep my attention on Rachel. This woman I loved was going to be forced to face the entire country, if not the entire world, all because she didn’t do gender the way it expected of her. It was maddening. Rach’s near catatonic stare scared me all the more. “Rach…you okay, babe?”

Rach turned to me and smiled, weakly, “Is it too late to burn her body?” She was brushing her golden hair as some form of coping mechanism. Given the situation we were in she looked almost ridiculous with one eye covered like a chuuni.

Admittedly—with Gen. Eric Wyatt Mann’s image beaming down from the TV onto me—I was beginning to wonder if burning Chase’s body wasn’t a good idea, myself. “Just hold on, babe, we’ll get out of this.” That’s right, just keep reminding her that she isn’t alone.

With what little strength I had recovered, I climbed out of bed and stood up for a full body stretch, immediately triggering an unpleasant sensation in my recovery area. Pulling on those muscles was apparently not a good idea yet. I staggered in place for a moment, inspiring Mr. Penn—sitting next to his daughter—to nearly leap forward to catch me. Luckily, my buckling knees came back to me as quickly as they had left and I was able to give the “I’m okay, really” hand motion. I hugged my dear Rachel—her eyes telling the tale of just how shell-shocked she was—as she sat nearly motionless in her seat, hoping the strength of my hug would seep into her body and lift her spirits.

I wasn’t sure it would make any sense, but in that moment I could only think to say: “I miss you.”

It was beyond reassuring when my girlfriend returned my hug in response. With her face planted into my chest she muffled out “I’m right here, always.”

I hadn’t expected to be the one being reassured.

***

September 06, 2023:

A familiar sight: the ceiling of my bedroom.

A familiar weight: my girlfriend pressed against me, her arms tightly wrapped around my torso.

It was reassuring to be home at last after a long day at the hospital, to no longer have to speak to doctors about my unexpected orchiectomy or about how to treat it. All that mattered now was resting on my own bed.

So, we slept.

And I dreamt of her, in her black suit, with her trimmed, red-painted nails, her narrow shoulders, her large breasts that bounced cheekily so, her long, dark hair tied back in a single tail as it bounced around slightly with each of her long strides…

***

September 07, 2023:

I awoke the next morning to find Rachel’s grasp on my torso significantly lighter, likely so I could squirm around at night. I was glad that we had not been disturbed last night by having Rachel return home with her parents after their impromptu strategy meeting with my mom and—via Zoom—dad. It was nice to just let the adults—well, the ones with significantly more life experience—sort out the situation by themselves, at last we were absolutely needed.

Not to mention, it wasn’t like they had to worry about a girl being knocked up by her boyfriend any time soon. Even if I wasn’t out of bullets for the long run, I had never been very good at shooting my shot. Hell, Rachel was the top in our weird little relationship, anyway. If I were a cis woman, I’d have to worry about her knocking me up.

Slipping out of bed with as much care as possible, I stumbled to my personal bathroom for a shower while Rach continued to sleep. Double-checking to make sure my stitches were still clean I breathed a sigh of relief that I was safe down there—putting aside the nonconsensual de-balling—and slid into my shower for the much anticipated relief of a warm shower after more than forty-eight hours. The warm water washing the last of the testosterone-generated oils from my body felt like a rebirth.

The unexpected click of my bathroom door opening snapped me from my reprieve. Rach’s silhouette was lightly layered behind the steam-soaked room and upon sight of her my hands quickly shot into place over my crotch and chest, “Rach?! What the fu—”

Rach quickly doffed the borrowed clothes that I had lent her and invited herself into the shower with nary a word but plenty of hugs. As her body bathed in the rays of the sun that was my shower head I could feel the coldness of her skin against mine turning to warmth. Her small, soft breasts squished lightly against my hard, flat chest.

It was almost a nice feeling.

***

September 07, 2023:

One o’clock in the afternoon rolled around and I, my mom, and the three Penns found ourselves awkwardly sitting in a salient—and perhaps a somewhat salacious—silence at the police station. Rach, having gone home to change into her own clothes, fiddled with a pink fidget spinner while seated tightly next to me on the deeply uncomfortable wooden bench, as if I was a balloon to keep from floating off. For my part, I found myself desperately hoping I didn’t accidentally touch her bare thigh—with officers walking past—as she rocked her denim short-shorts. They went well with her light pink crop top, the word ‘BARBIE’ embroidered across the front with tacky pink jewels. Desperation to not stare too much as her bust did a little samba up-and-down my spine. The twin-tails were a nice finishing touch.

Then again, did I even have to worry about accidental erections anymore?

Well, perhaps I should worry about her accidental erections?

Finally, our torment was brought to an end as a detective led us into a meeting room. Sitting in a cold, hard chair next to Rach around the large, wooden meeting table, I could feel Rach bouncing her legs up-and-down in place, betraying her broad smile of a poker face. The pink fidget spinner in her right hand continuing to spin its little heart out, Rach turned to me only to smile. In the recesses of my mind I wondered if she regretted the heels.

“So…Mister…Richard Penn, I presume?” the detective—Hatchet, I believe—began, “What brings you in today?”

Rach spun her toy faster at hearing her deadname, “Uh, so, like, uh…I wanna, like, you know, uh…” Rach shot looks around the room, trying desperately to focus on a friendly face.

In my life, I do not know if I’ve ever felt second-hand pain quite as keenly as I had in that moment. Watching Rach flounder bore into my psyche with a breath-stealing discomfort I was unaccustomed to and I could do nothing but fight back against it directly: “Her name is Rachel, Detective Hatchet.”

The detective looked less than impressed by me, “Young man, I’m afraid I have to use his legal name for this. You understand, I’m sure,” the grizzled old man smarmed. He had the perfect image of an asshole hotshot police detective: a too tight black polo with short sleeves that surely threatened to cut off blood circulation to his muscular arms. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he was on steroids for a man of his age.

Nevertheless, the muscles did little to dissuade my face contorting into something nasty. A fury I didn’t know what to do with shot up my spine and into my eyes, rattling around my skull as if my head had suddenly become the top of a high striker set-up. As a dark red began to seep into my vision a blaring ringing faded into my ears. Suddenly, a warm hand grabbed mine, snapping me from my storm of furious thoughts. Peeking down, I found that not only had my hands laid themselves atop my knees and my fingers began to dig deeply into my knee caps, Rach’s left hand—nails freshly re-coated with that sparkly pink polish she so loved—now grasped my right, as if to relax me.

Even in the moments where she was most vulnerable it seemed like my girlfriend was the one saving me.

And saving the detective from a bullet from his own gun in his skull.

“O-of course, sir,” Rach stammered, widening her smile, “So, like, I…uh…like, basically, I need to report a-a…thing?” Rach turned to her parents, prompting her father to interject.

“Speaking as legal counsel for our daughter, Detective, our client would like to make it clear that she is submitting this admission as self-defense.”

Detective Hatchet raised an eyebrow and stiffened his disposition at that.

Rach recounted the events of two nights prior, recorded on both Detective Hatchet’s phone, my phone, her phone, and both of her parents’. A second male detective quickly joined us in the conference room at Hatchet’s insistence and with each passing second I could feel the stares of the police on Rach grow colder.

“So, like, yeah, uh…she…touched me…there…”

“Where?” Detective Hatchet inquired with a tone I don’t think any of us could discern.

“My…genital area,” Rachel’s pupils dilated as the uneasy words uneasily eased their way out of her mouth, “And breasts,” a quick hand to her chest and it seemed as if she were gasping for air, “After she assaulted my boyfriend and I uh…like…you know…blacked out.” Detective Hatchet clicked a pen idly during Rachel’s pauses, “When I came to, I was covered in her blood and then remembered why I was…”

Rachel’s bumpy confession continued on for another ten minutes with the two detectives asking her multiple questions and her parents advising her. I couldn’t help but be mesmerized by Rach’s increasingly confident hand gestures and girl voice the longer she continued babbling on. In a way, Rach’s scatterbrained persona was its own form of strength that I couldn’t help but admire.

When Rach had shown up to the police station in such flagrantly pink attire I had questioned her: why not just boymode—why open herself up to the discrimination of being pink in a world of blue? Her response captivated me.

“I wouldn’t be as strong,” she smiled softly as the September sun beat down on the police parking lot, “I’d feel naked without my armor.”

Thinking back to that confession, and seeing the increasingly confident woman before me, silly as she seemed, I knew at that moment that I would watch her for the rest of my life.

***

September 07, 2023:

The confession and statements provided by Rachel and myself ended with the police sending officers to the house where Chase Avery Mann had held me captive. According to Detective Hatchet, Chase’s corpse was found just as Rachel had described it. Rachel was arrested and let off on bail, thanks to mitigating circumstances and her parents’ lawyering. Rachel had to surrender her passport and not leave town, but it was a godsend in the face of her being forced to be imprisoned with men.

Flashes of the horrible things I would do to anyone who would touch her seared themselves into the inside of my eyelids. I saw them any time I closed my eyes, just as I saw any hypothetical news reports that would dare to misgender and slander her.

I slept with Rachel in her bed that night, holding her as she cried herself to sleep. I was drained, to the point that I could feel the exhaustion in my joints…

…and her tears soaking my skin.

***

September 08, 2023:

A blood curdling shriek tore me from my uneasy sleep. Eyes shooting open, I saw—and felt—Rachel breathing heavily before me, her face level with my own.

“Rach, are you—?”

Sweat thick enough to see even in the unlit bedroom draped in the black of night poured down her face. Reaching around Rach, I tapped my—now only half charged—smartphone screen: it was 3:34AM.

Rolling inward, Rach buried her face somewhere between my chin and chest: “I’m so sorry, Jae Jae!” Her muffled voice was as sweet as ever, but somehow I felt only sickness in the pit of my gut.

“Nightmare?” I asked, rescinding my extended arm to better guard the poor girl’s back.

A muffled, panic stream of “Chirp! Chirp! Chirp!” led into Rachel breaking down and crying yet again.

“It’s not your fault, babe,” I whispered, my embrace tight.

As ill as it all made me feel, I felt a distracting—and disturbing—emptiness ring hollow throughout my bones. The warmth of my girlfriend’s body pressed against mine kept my body almost uncomfortably warm—perhaps under the covers it was even suffocating for fresh air—but yet in my chest I felt nothing but a terrible coldness. Shouldn’t I be crying, along with Rachel? Why was the only moisture on my skin that of Rachel’s tears and sweat?

Was it from the shock? Were the testicles the source of one’s tears? If so, I should have been able to cry easily—and yet it had remained a constant struggle of mine for as long as I could remember. If ever there was a moment to cry, surely it would have been now, of all times?

Surely losing one’s testicles to a mad woman would bother them to the point of tears?

Rachel fell asleep again around 4:11AM. The last time I could remember checking the time on my phone, the bright screen washed me in the light of 4:16AM.

September 08, 2023:

Rachel’s phone alarm went off at 5AM—rudely waking me from my too little slumber—to a lack of one Transgender Girlfriend under my arm. With a panic that got my heart racing, I swung out of Rachel’s bed, only for my brain to catch up with the rest of me by processing the sound of Rachel in the restroom…blow drying her hair.

Rachel emerged from her illuminated bathroom with her hair fully down. “Oh hey, Jae! Hey, that rhy-mayed!” Rachel wore nothing but a brilliant smile and pink panties that poorly contained her womanhood. Jeez, how was that massive monster supposed to fit inside…her jeans?

A frown crawled its way across my lips, “Babe, did you get any sleep last night?”

All I got in response was a blank smile, her eyes telling the story of a soul trying desperately not to think about how she actually felt.

A sigh, “Rach, girl, you need to sleep. Why the heck are you awake and showered already?”

“Oh!” the jittery trans girl replied as she made her way to a rack of newly purchased clothes, “Well, I wanted to make sure I, like, got ready for school, chirp!” Slightly shaking her ass in a taunting manner in my direction, Rachel replied with a literal chirp. Her verbal tick was more pronounced than usual.

“Wait, you want to go to school? With everything going on?” I groaned with full exasperation.

Rachel just smiled back blankly and returned to picking out her outfit and dressing in front of me. Rach went with a rigid pink sweater atop a pink cami and the same denim short-shorts from yesterday. In addition to a matching pink purse—I wasn’t sure where she was getting all this girl stuff—she finished things off with the same pink heels from yesterday.

It was almost like she was just trying to hide her chest.

I suppose that I could understand why. Rather than pay attention during class since Rachel had come out, I had instead been stealthily reading the internet. In my reading, I learned that gender dysphoria wasn’t always consistent. Yesterday she had shown such confidence in her budding figure, but today it seemed like she was feeling…less so inclined.

As I sat on the edge of her bed a lump formed in my throat as I recalled the images of Chase Avery Mann, her soulless face and that goddamned scalpel in her hand. My fingers dug into my knee caps once again. My chest tightened: how was this poor girl managing to even function?

I spent the next hour watching my girlfriend experiment with and apply her makeup as I sat relatively still to nurse the still-recovering site of my violation. Curiosity—more so than boredom—eventually struck and I found my hands rummaging through Rach’s room without any disagreement from her. Eventually, while looking through her drawer for a spare phone charger I stumbled upon her HRT. Rachel’s stock seemed large enough to fund a small gray market internet shop. It was hard to believe that these little blue and white pills—Estradiol and Bicalutamide—could block Rachel’s testosterone and raise her estrogen levels enough to do the incredible things that they were doing to her body. Then again, I had held, kissed and admired the results for the past four days now, so I suppose that was all the proof I needed for my pudding.

It had occurred to me now that I would have to start taking the testosterone shots in five days—ironically, I was assigned my own type of HRT now—although I wasn’t exactly keen on anything that might speed up my hairline receding. When puberty had hit I hadn’t quite managed to ever get used to it, but I dealt with it in what ways I could. The deeper voice was kind of nice, sometimes: it expanded my range of character voices, after all. Otherwise, I just prayed that I wouldn’t wind up bald like my dad.

Well, I suppose taking an inch or two off of my shoulder’s wouldn’t have been bad, either.

Rachel eventually finished applying her ‘face’ for the day—she was honestly beautiful to me, even without the makeup—with an hour to spare. It wasn’t long before we found ourselves lying on her bed, staring at the popcorn ceiling. Turning to face Rachel—just to take in the life she often showed behind those gorgeous green eyes—I wondered if she was perhaps trying to count the number of popcorn bumps on the ceiling. It seemed like the sort of thing she might try, fail and then give up on trying to do.

The thought of her pout at the end of it all made me smile wide.

Rachel eventually noticed me watching her and turned onto her right side to look me in the eyes. “Hey, Jae Jae,” she whispered. Some of that old fashioned Rachel perceptiveness flushed back into the concealed pores of her face.

“Hey, Rach,” I returned.

Rachel interlocked our fingers. It was quickly becoming our thing—I liked having a ‘thing’ with her.

“I’ve missed this,” she said softly. The warmth of her palm was such that I hoped that she would never let go of mine, sweating of the palms be damned.

“Me, too,” I smiled, inching my body as much as I could without triggering a reaction ‘down there’. Leaning my face into hers, I internally cringed as I felt my three-day old stubble rub against her soft, smooth cheeks. In all of the chaos of the last few days it had not occurred to me to shave and for that I regretted deeply touching her face with mine.

Rachel apparently didn’t mind and began kissing me, each kiss longer than the last. Remaining still while she did all of the work was a tad awkward, but I enjoyed becoming lost in her rhapsody. Hell, even the taste of toothpaste in my mouth wasn’t all that bad. It was spearmint!

Then it happened: Rachel sprung an erection and it knocked into where my fruit once hung low, causing momentary discomfort.

“Oh, fuck, Jae, I’m so sorry, baby!” my girlfriend yelled in a whisper, “I—oh, gawd, Jae, are you okay?”

I didn’t want to set Rachel off, so I put on a brave face, “Babe, please, it was only a light touch. You didn’t hurt anything down there!”

Rachel seemed to buy it and fell back onto her back, breathing a sigh of relief. “I’m so, so, so sorry, honey,” her cry was something of a whisper, “If—if it hadn’t been for m—”

“No!” I said sharply, “None of that bullshit, Rachel. You are not to blame for what that bitch did to me!”

The sniffles befell my dear Rachel, “I—I’m just so, so, so sorry, Jae. Now you can’t—gawd, hon…”

Propping myself up with my left elbow I held my face over hers, “It’s fine,” I whispered, “Really. I hadn’t planned on ever—hey, you’ll need to fix your makeup if you keep this up,” I laughed.

Rachel caught the giggles, too, and shot back: “Yeah—yeah, definitely.”

Her smile came back and it was enough for me to release the pressure on my left elbow and drop back onto my backside. “It’s fine, Rachel, really. I…it doesn’t even really bother me.”

Rachel shot me a quizzical look, so I decided to offer her a simple explanation: “I’m mostly just mad that she—that she did that to me without my consent.”

“You’re not—not upset that you’ll never be able to…”

“Not really, no. I don’t think it was ever really in the cards, for me…” my voice was strangely monotone. “Besides, I’d much rather…er…well, you know.”

The reddest part of Rachel’s face quickly stopped being her lips.

***

September 08, 2023:

After a shave and some shenanigans, Rachel and I slipped out of her house and took my car to school, as she so desired. Pings—likely from her parents—erupted on her phone, but Rachel casually ignored them after using talk-to-text to send a curt “I just want to live a normal life.” She advised me that I ignore any text messages I was likely to receive momentarily, so I did.

Rachel and I reached dry land after a quick and quiet five minute drive to our high school. With some assistance from my girlfriend I managed to get out of my car, my legs still weak and recovering. I probably should have told Rach that I needed to stay home and recover more—that would have gotten her to stay home—but I ultimately couldn’t bring myself to stop her. Whatever it is she was doing by going to school, I could tell that she needed to try it.

“Baby, are you, like, sure this was a good idea for you ‘n stuff?”

“Are you sure that this was a good idea for you, Miss Valedictorian?”

“Chirp…”

“C’mon, Val, we got a breakfast line to hit up before class starts.”

***

September 08, 2023:

As I had feared, school was abuzz with the news of the disappearance—and now confirmed death—of its strange—but attractive—new transfer student. The details were being kept under wraps for now, likely as the state built its case against Rachel, but the chatter echoed through the student parking lot and bounced off of the walls inside the school itself. I had known that it would be fruitless from the start, but I had hoped that facing this onslaught of reminders would help Rachel face the reality of the situation she seemed so desperate to run from: that Chase was dead and she was likely going to be witchhunted for the death of the Psychotic Girl Next Door, should she be publicly named as Mann’s manner of death.

But first, we faced our Fifth Period. After missing school on Wednesday, today was our first time back in Miss Queen's English. The queer-friendly atmosphere was a welcome change of pace after all the hours spent either alone at home and the hospital…and the antagonism of an entire Thursday spent at the police station being interrogated.

I could only imagine how much more of a relief it was to Rach, who was the queer one in this queer relationship.

Slipping into the classroom with as little pomp and circumstance as possible, I held onto Rachel’s hand—fingers crossed—even as she slid into her desk and I into mine. Last Friday, I had been debating the ethics of asking Rachel to pretend to be my girlfriend—heck, ‘pretend’ to be a girl—for Homecoming. By this Friday, Rachel had now literally killed a woman to protect us from her fetishistic treatment of her transgender body—and trying to torture me by cutting off my balls.

What had even been the point of that, anyway? Why not just kill me? Did Chase think that by castrating me she was somehow preventing me from ever penetrating that woman she fetishized so much?

A swarm of queers—I’m not sure if I’m allowed to say that, actually—quickly approached Rachel and me. Led by Izzy the volleyball team captain, a hive consisting of Zoey, Isaac, Drake, Claire and Andi huddled around us like bees to honey.

“Omigawd, you two must be so freaked out,” Zoey blurted out before anyone else could speak. Turning to her girlfriend, “Izzy told us that you and Chase used to date, Rachel?”

With a huff, “I said that Chase claimed they used to date, back in eighth grade, yeah,” Izzy Reyes corrected, “I think that was just Chase being…well, Chase.” Izzy’s volleyball team hoodie was a deep, royal blue, still unmarred by stains or grime. At the back of my mind, I couldn’t help but wonder how she kept it so fresh and bright. Not even a single strand of her wavy brown hair seemed to stick on it. “Chase was always kind of a weirdo, but the way she clung to Rach was—well, y’know?”

The rest of the group nodded, their faces showing a clear understanding that they suspected the worst—as they were wise to.

Rachel—for her part—looked positively pale at the recapping going on before her.

Stepping in, I tried to move the conversation along, “That was just Chase being a bit—being a weirdo. Rach put up with her nonsense, but she never actually dated her.”

“I didn’t want to date anyone but Jae Jae, actually,” Rachel blurted out, catching everyone's attention.

I wasn’t sure if Rachel was making that confession up or not for the sake of an alibi, but it was a clever way to shift the subject away from retraumatizing her.

“Damn, ain't that just precious?” Andi laughed, idly fiddling with the space between her left thumb and index finger. Claire reached over and straightened out the left shoulder strap of his girlfriend's overalls, the light blue jean material popping nicely off of their red undershirt. “Thanks, dude!”

“No problem, dear,” Claire replied softly before turning back to Rach, “Hey, I'm sure if we asked Miss Queen if we could use her room for an impromptu GSA club meeting after school she'd be happy to stay and supervise. What do you say, Rach?”

Lost in her own thoughts—probably trying to count the number of threads in Claire's beige sweater vest—Rachel simply stared aimlessly.

With a slight squeeze of her hand, I managed to bring Rachel back.

“Oh! Yes! Umm…that sounds lovely. Sorry I couldn’t make it on Tuesday, everyone.”

“It’s no problem, Rach,” Isaac's voice had a cautious quality to it, which left me wondering if he knew—or at least, suspected—anything. “This past week has probably been insane for you two.”

You could say that again.

“Actually, where were you two the last two days?” Izzy interjected, arms crossed beneath her chest. Was that a volleyball team captain thing, or did Reyes just enjoy striking dramatic poses?

“DIE-UH-RRHE-UH!” Rach shouted quickly, filling the quickly filling classroom with the childish cadence that often got her mocked.

Gloria Rembrant and her posse—landing in their seats—snickered at Rachel's choice of explanation.

Shooting Gloria a raised eyebrow and a false jump, Izzy turned back to Rach, “Both of you?”

“We ate the same thing Tuesday night—horrible shit—”

Rachel almost snorted at my explanation, but the paleness and sweat on her brow made it clear enough she was basically burned out and on the edge of collapsing into tears. No matter what, Rachel was going to react at maximum volume no matter the emotion and no matter the time and place.

My pores seared with flammable oils raging hotter than hell, but in the end, there was nothing that I could do about Rachel's pent-up stress—not with class about to start.

“Yeah, you two do look really pale still,” Zoey added, the concern in her voice irritatingly like that of a mother when her children were ill.

I wasn’t sure why it bothered me, but I imagined the annoyance—like the paleness—came with the whole ‘coming down with a sudden case of the forced castration’ thing.

I was going to have to watch my tongue, lest I let that bitterness out on someone who didn't deserve it.

“Thanks,” I finally replied, struggling to sound polite and chipper.

Zoey's pleasant smile was none-the-wiser.

Miss Queen slid into the class just as the bell rang to signal its start. The queer collective dispersed back to their seats, with Isaac and Zoey giving more obvious looks at Rachel as they shuffled back to their desks.

Miss Queen took no time at all to set up for the day. Swiftly reaching her desk, the blonde bombshell dropped another stack of paper on her already metropolitan desk, took a deep breath, and then addressed the class: “I imagine you've all heard the news, so I won't repeat it.”

If I hadn’t known that the bitch deserved it, I would have been swept up in the graveness of the typically upbeat teacher's voice.

“The school is calling in additional counselors for anyone who might need the additional support—” Miss Queen’s eyes seemed to linger on Rachel and I, “—which I imagine some of you might.”

I wasn’t sure what Miss Queen had heard through the grapevine, but if she knew that Rachel and I both knew Chase relatively…well, not ‘well’, but ‘begrudgingly’, then she would definitely think that we would indeed need counseling.

Well, Miss Queen was right about one thing: Rach and I definitely needed therapy for knowing Chase—just not quite in the way that she was thinking we would.

***

September 08, 2023:

Rachel—somehow—made it through English class without having a complete meltdown. Once class ended, Rachel took me by the hand and rushed for the restroom, where she finally broke down and openly sobbed.

Obviously, as a man, I couldn’t follow my girlfriend into the ladies’ restroom, but hearing her sobs echo from within while I stood just outside filled me with a sense of powerlessness that I cursed to no end. Bitterly, I muttered under my breath, “All because of some stupid little things between my legs.”

Well, thing, now.

Rachel’s sobbing grew sufficiently more pained-sounding, so—gender be damned—I stomped into the ladies’ restroom and found three awkward looking girls with their eyes to the tile floor as they waited for a break in Rachel’s sobbing to try and get a word in.

Jane Johns—the first of the girls Rachel had slept with pre-transition—was among the group.

“I got this, ladies,” I said softly—enough for them to hear but Rachel not to.

“We’ll keep an eye on the door for you two, Jae,” Silika Anders offered with a pained smile. I could only return the favor as the trio of girls made their way outside.

Jane gave me a wide-eyed look, as if she were telling me, “Wow, this sure is awkward!” Although, I wasn't sure if it was the bathroom sobbing that was awkward, or the fact that the straight girl that had slept with a woman was now making eye contact with that woman's boyfriend.

Strange bedfellows, indeed.

With the restroom to ourselves, I turned to the stall that Rachel’s wails were obviously coming from and gave it a measured knock. “Hey, babe.”

A beat. Finally, Rachel replied: “Jae? Honey, is that you?” She sounded like she was talking through a filter of mucus.

“Guilty as charged,” I confirmed, calculatedly deadpan.

“Oh gawd, I didn’t walk into the MEN’S room, did I?” the tiny-titted trans girl tittered.

“No, no, I’m just Revenge of the Nerds-ing this shit.”

“Fuck that movie,” we said in union.

My girlfriend’s giggle graced the thirteen year old school restroom’s walls and stalls. I had missed the sound of her laugh even more than she hated the sound of her laugh.

“I love you,” Rachel sniffled through the stall door.

Well, here was my out: “Mind saying that to my face, babe?” I countered, infusing my voice with as much mugging charm as I could to elicit another giggle from her. Rachel stood and unlocked the stall, revealing her runny makeup-painted face to me.

“Sorry,” she droned, voice destroyed from the aforementioned sobbing. She flinched at the lower pitch of her voice.

“You’re beautiful,” I countered honestly. Even with makeup all over the place, I could still only see the woman of my dreams: her unyielding strength and force-of-will on full display. “God, babe, you really are amazing—now where’s my ‘I love you’?”

“An amazing mess, maybe—I love you so much, Mister Jeong.”

“An amazing woman, silly—Miss Penn.”

“Gawd, babe, you—what are you doing? No, stop, you’ll get makeup all over—”

I don’t think I’d ever kissed my girlfriend with such fervor before. Rachel’s knees buckled after about three seconds and I had to hold her 6’1’’ form up for about two seconds before she regained her footing.

Breaking off for a breath, Rachel said between wheezes: “Sweetie, OH EMM GEE, your face!”

Turning to the long mirror to my six, I observed my face, now covered in running makeup. With a devilish grin, I turned back to Rachel and posited “D’you think it fits me?”

Suffice it to say, I got the giggle I wanted in reply.

After another kiss—prompting further giggles—I turned to look up at my girlfriend in her eyes: “How’re you doing, hon?”

Forcing a smile, my girlfriend leaned forward and rested on my right shoulder before slumping back against the space between lavatory stall doors. “I’m exhausted, hon. I guess you were right.”

Truthfully, “I wish I wasn’t.”

“I…just, like, wanted to have a normal day. I never wanted to…to do what I did, I just wanted to be a normal girl and have a normal romance with her boyfriend.”

I took a moment before replying, “I know, Rach. I’m so, so sorry that she got the jump on me.”

A whisper, “It’s not your fault.”

“Well, if it’s not your fault and it’s not my fault, whose is it?” It felt terribly awkward, but that seemed like the kind of smooth line a guy should say to his girlfriend, right?.

Rachel took a moment to reply before finally replying with what was undeniably an irresistible giggle: “That chaser bitch’s fault.”

I couldn’t help but giggle back in response.

Rachel peeked back up from my place on my right shoulder to look me in the eyes, “Gawd, your makeup is awful, girl!”

A wicked idea struck me, “Mayhaps my girlfriend should try doing it for me, then?”

Thirty minutes later, we proudly walked into Sixth Period—late—with our heads held high. Rachel—with her unfixed makeup—and me with the pristine work of my girlfriend revolutionizing my face.

I could not be more thankful that I had shaved over three hours earlier.

Rachel's painting was perfect.

***

September 08, 2023:

Rachel and I survived the remaining forty-five minutes of Sixth Period with ease, despite the hushed whispers of rumors about what had happened to my kidnapper.

Lunch rolled around and after making a quick pit-stop through the à la carte lines, Rach and I plopped down—well, Rach plopped down, I more or less glided down as smoothly as humanly possible—at a table to satisfy her immediate hunger. It was hard not to get caught up in the way Rachel’s eyes lit up at the taste of the curly fries. I recalled how she had once referred to them as “Better than expected for shitty post-austerity school food, with just enough of a kick to highlight the crunch of a properly cooked fry.”

“No, no, you see,” she would say, “If you don’t cook them just right the mother-mcfuckin’ thingy-thing-things, like, y’know, are all soggy and greasy! And, and! If you’re, like, really lucky, you get the little ones where they’re all, like, coiled up like a Slinky and you can bounce them up-and-down!”

Watching the current Rachel bounce her coiled curly fries up-and-down—one in each hand—it was hard to not smile—to not want to cry—at her cute, innocent playfulness. It was in that moment that I finally understood why she was so desperate to return to school despite the literal shitstorm she would be stepping into should any soul learn of how Chase died.

I swore to myself that I would protect Rach at no matter the cost.

“Ehehehe,” Rach’s mischievous giggle broke me from my own thoughts, “They’re, like, bouncing like tiddies!”

“God, you bimbo,” I giggled, propping my head up on my right fist, “You’re amazing, you know that?”

“Whaf?!” Rach asked, mouth stuffed full of curly fries.

‘Goddamn,’ I thought as a tingle took a liking to my spine, ‘I can’t wait until I have that fat monster in my—”

“Asshole!”

Broken from yet another daydream, I turned to the source of the name-calling. Apparently, Shane ‘Way Lame’ Wayne-Lane had bumped into Carson Dallas and spilled a batch of ketchup and ranch-soaked curly fries all over him.

“Thoth porf curry flies…” Rach pouted through her ill-conceived plan to eat all of her curly fries at once.

Fuck, I really loved her.

***

September 08, 2023:

With lunch ending, Rachel and I dumped our trash and began making our way towards Seventh Period. As we approached the hall that we needed access to, we found our path blocked by a familiar face: Gloria Rembrant. Her smug face was nothing short of disgusting. I had seen cis women hurt my girlfriend too many times this week.

“Nice makeup today, Richard, did you eat the Crayons after you finished scribbling on your face?” Gloria and her posse laughed at her joke, breaking the first rule of comedy.

I stepped between Rach and Gloria before she could reply, “Fuck off Gloria, we have to get to class.”

“I don’t think they allow you to write with Crayons in high school,” Carson Dallas cracked, his shirt still stained with the smell of ketchup and ranch.

“Your parents should’ve used a condom, Condiment Boy,” I snapped back. Carson’s friends did a poor job of stifling their laughs, further adding to his embarrassment.

“Please just let us through, guys, we just wanna, like, go to class,” Rachel pleaded, just loud enough for her voice to carry over the crowd that was slowly growing around us at the quad’s exit. The gentleness to her body language reminded me just how good she could be at presenting herself how she pleased. The way that she crossed her arms to hide them and her chest, while sticking her shoulder so close to mine, made her seem so much smaller than her 6’1’’ height would lead one to believe.

Knowing Rachel as well as I did, I could tell how calculated it was. Still, I could easily see how anyone else would not think that she had the ability to back up her words. Seeing her mind and body brought together in the heat of the moment only made my breathing quicken. This was the Rachel I knew so well.

“Shut it retard, I’m talking to your faggot boyfriend. Speaking of which, who did your makeup this morning, Jae? Your mommy or the retard over th—”

Before I could even react, Rachel had already planted a fist into Gloria’s freshly purchased nose job. My eyes couldn’t help but follow the trail of red as Gloria-Fucking-Rembrant fell flat on her ass. Turning to Rachel I guffawed, “Holy shit?!”

Paler than she’d been since the night she stopped my kidnapper, Rachel stood still in shock. Carson turned his eyes from his now floored prized trophy cunt and rushed at Rachel, “You’re dead, tranny!”

I don’t even remember kicking off of the floor tile, but with the fastest dash of my life I intercepted Carson and tackled him to the ground. While my hands struggled to keep Carson pinned down I turned to catch sight of Rachel elbowing Sycophant #1 in the teeth, likely shattering them, while simultaneously kicking Sycophant #2 in the nuts and dodging a left hook from Sycophant #3.

The crowd erupted in screams and cheers as the brawl broke out. With adrenaline coursing through my body and my brain unable to determine how long it would take for teachers to show up to hopefully stop the fight, I snapped to my feet and kneed Sycophant #3 in the spine, forcing him flat onto his fucking face, before he could finish swinging at my girlfriend a second time. For extra spice, I picked up Sycophant #3’s head by the back of his hair and slammed his face into the tile floor repeatedly.

A scream from Rachel broke me from the spell of my fun. Shooting my eyes up I saw Rachel being attacked by a newly standing Gloria tugging at her hair from behind while Carson tore at her sweater. The shrieks of pain from the woman I loved sent me into a fury I’d never known and, pulling out my ring of keys, I placed my car key between my fingers and jammed it into Carson’s back. The rich prick’s yelp wasn’t enough to stop me from twisting the key with terrible force and then dragging the key downward through his flesh like a knife.

With Carson having let go of Rach after falling to his knees in agony, Rach swiftly lifted her sweater just enough to fuck with Gloria’s grip on her hair and send the bitch tumbling backward.

With her sweater and purse now dislodged and around her wrists in front of her, Rach tossed them at the newly risen Sycophant #2—as a distraction—so as to be able to kick him in the balls yet again.

Sycophant #1, having regained his footing after losing his two front teeth, leapt at Rach from behind. Watching the scene in slow-motion, I saw my girlfriend's body slammed into the tile flooring, screaming in agony. With all my strength, I pulled my car key out of Carson’s back and stumbled forward, tripping on Carson’s body. It occurred to me that once the adrenaline wore off, I would no doubt be feeling the pain from all of this moving around where my testicles once hung.

I just hoped that I hadn’t torn my stitches down there.

Torn stitch work be damned, I picked myself back up off the ground and attempted to leap at Sycophant #1, but was unfortunately tripped yet again—this time by Sycophant #3, whose face was painted in the red of blood.

“Fuck the fuck off of me, fucker!” I shrieked, trying as hard as I could to kick off his grip on my right pant leg.

“I’m gonna fuckin’ kill you, faggot,” was all I got in reply.

Desperate, I turned my attention back to Rach, who was being pummeled from atop by Sycophant #1. Realizing that I still had my keys in my hand I followed my instincts: “Rach, catch!”

I don’t know how the poor bitch did it, but Rach caught my keys bare handed despite taking blows to the face. Rearranging the keys in her hand, Rach stabbed my Kona’s car key straight into the side of Sycophant #1’s left temple, instantly stopping his assault. With a left punch to his chest the poor girl managed to push the shithead back just enough to free herself from his weight and reclaimed her standing, face bruised, bloodied and eyes damned near swollen shut.

“Take that, motherfucker!” Rachel spat in triumph, before remembering the predicament I was in and kicking Sycophant #3 in the face until he rolled off of me and lost his grip on my pants. With earned smugness, Rachel spat blood onto the screaming Sycophant #3 and laughed “Yeah, I guess trannies hit like girls, too, shithead!”

The scream that came from Rachel planting her heel into Sycophant #3’s crotch was music to my ears.

Breathing harder than hell, Rach and I collapsed into each other’s backs. We were barely able to prop ourselves up.

“Fuck me,” I wheezed, wanting to vomit.

“Like, after,” Rach scolded, oblivious.

“You’re such a fuckin’ bimbo,” I retorted, incredulous.

At this point, dozens of students were chanting our names. I was thankful to not hear Rachel’s deadname among the chants.

Our brief reprieve was brought to an end as the Rembrant bitch and Sycophant #2 picked their sorry, bloodied asses off of the ground. At the sight of the sorry sacks of shit having stood once again, my dear girlfriend shot me a look, a look of wild, animalistic bloodlust in her eye. Wild as the look was, I could only describe her in that moment as ‘in her element’. This wasn’t our first schoolyard fight together, watching each other's backs as we fought outnumbered, but I got the sense that it would definitely be the last…

…and the greatest.

Bumping the back of my left fist with the back of her right fist for the millionth time in our eighteen years on this world we call Earth, Rach and I pushed off each other’s backs, took solid footing with strength I don’t know from where, and raised our fists as the asshole rich kids with too much money and too few brains rushed at us with sloppy form.

Breathing calm, Rach and I moved in sync, side-stepping the Queen Bee-yotch and her Sycophant #2, our backs falling into and against the crowd around us. Thrusting off of the side of the crowds, Rach and I moved in sync and sprung forward with added speed behind our fists, as we slammed them into the now off-balance motherfuckers’ faces, sending them careening into the tile floor, unconscious like the other spoiled rich fucks.

The roar of the crowd didn’t stop, although I stopped hearing it as I locked eyes with my girlfriend, huffing-and-a-puffing across from me, but wearing the biggest grin of her life.

There was no doubt in my mind that I was going to marry this bimbo someday.

***

September 08, 2023:

Suffice it to say, Rach and I made a run for it, and drove far, far away from town.

“Oh GAWD, oh FUCK! What did I DO, Jae?”

“You just kicked the shit out of Gloria-Fucking-Rembrant, babe! Holy shit!”

Adrenaline still pumping, I found myself having to hold back from pushing the limits of my shitty little Kona once we got on the South-bound I-5.

“GAWD! FUCK! My parents are going to fuckin’ KILL me, Jae!!”

“Fuck, the cops’ll probably get to us first,” I said unwisely.

“FUCK!” Rachel shrieked.

“Sorry, sorry, ignore that. Fuck, Rach!” The traffic between Exits-123 and down to 118 was especially bad that afternoon, but I did my best to sneak between lanes to avoid losing time.

“Where the fuck are we even going to go?” Rachel shrieked, her breathing ragged.

I spoke without thinking, “Fuck Rach, I think we almost killed those fuckers back there?” Reality was beginning to settle in, “They all got money, we’re fucked, Rach!”

Rachel began sobbing loudly, face in hands. I didn’t know what to do, so I took my right hand off the wheel and patted her back and she leaned forward and wept. “We’re so fucked, Jae. I’m so—fuck, I should just kill myself!!”

I didn’t have a great reaction to that in my state of heightened energy, “Don’t ever fuckin’ say that again, Rachel!” It wasn’t a pleasant scream.

“I—I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please don’t be mad, honey!” Rach sobbed louder, pulling her face out of her hands. The snot look was not her.

“Fuck, I’m sorry Rach, I just—I don’t want to lose you, Rachel, I want us to g-get married someday!”

A light lit up on Rach’s face that I wasn’t expecting.

“Oh shit hon, that’s right! Spouses don’t have to testify against one another!”

That…seemed useful.

***

September 08, 2023:

“You want to get fucking married?!” Penny Penn screamed, her voice filling the Two Cents Law offices, despite her office door being shut.

“Uh…yeah?” Rachel confirmed, her voice pitching up like it so often did when she was confused.

“We won’t have to testify against one another, right?” I interjected, hoping to save the scene.

Peter Penn replied from his place leaning against a side table underneath the window, “Technically, yes, it would be useful in this situation, but you two are still so…uh…young.”

“We’re adults, though, chirp!” Rachel chirped, a nervous energy sending her right leg jackhammering into the floor of her mothers’ office. I often wondered if her parents did not see how…different Rach’s behaviors were compared to other people. Then again, I couldn’t ever really remember them being around much when we were growing up.

“Di—Rachel, stop bouncing your leg like that—also, what in the fuck did you two do to get yourselves wanted by the police again?” Penny demanded.

Scrolling through YouTube, Rachel picked out a video and showed it to her mom and dad: “Looky! We’ve gone, like, viral!”

I nearly leapt out of my seat, having completely blanked on checking for video proof, “Rachel, does that video show who started the fight?”

Going blank-faced, Rachel replied: “Uh…no? The vidy-vid-vid starts from, like, after Carson lun-ged-ged-ged-ged at you~!”

She was using cutesy humor to deflect her fears. Fuck.

“Fuck…” I whispered in a strained moan. On one hand, it was nice knowing that the video didn’t contain Rachel making the first punch. On the other hand, it also didn’t contain us being harassed by those assholes, either. “Mister and Missus Penn…I’m concerned about what’s going to happen to Rach most of all here. Won’t the cops try and arrest her again? Like, isn’t getting into a fight some sort of bail violation?”

Peter poked in before his wife could, “That depends on whether or not someone uploaded a fuller version of the scene that corroborates your side of the story.”

“Uh, like, I dunno, Daddy—yikes, none of that, Rach!” Rachel’s gagged expression could have been sold on a t-shirt, “—I mean that I, like, dunno, Dad, shouldn’t a tranny-tran-tran and her boyfriend getting jumped at school be enough? I mean, like, there were five of them trying to beat us up!”

“Don’t call yourself that!” Peter snapped, his voice strained in a way that was shockingly protective, “Rachel—honey, listen,” Peter shifted his lean into a crouch and met Rachel on her eye-level. Rach immediately broke eye contact, as she often did, but was clearly still paying attention. “Rachel…sweetie, those sorry excuses for afterbirth have money. Big Daddy’s money and—”

Like a reflex, Rach couldn’t help but shout “BURL IVES! CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF OPEN PARENTHESIS NINETEEN FIFTY-EIGHT CLOSE PARENTHESIS!!” like she’d just proudly and smugly shouted the winning answer to a game show. It was hard not to get caught up in her fervor sometimes.

Hell, it was hard not to appreciate how Peter seemed so…accepting of his daughter. There wasn’t an ounce of that ‘losing a son’ bullshit you’d expect from most men. No, no: this guy was ready to go to war for his daughter. It was honestly kinda cool. In another life, if I’d stumbled into a life of being a parent I think I would’ve liked to have his guts.

Peter continued, graver: “They’re going to get their way unless we can prove without a doubt that you were defending yourself. Christ, you knocked out some little shit’s teeth and Jae did God knows what kind of damage to the fuckin’ Dallas boy’s back.”

“He had it coming,” we replied in union.

“Be that as it may kids, you two are still fucked,” Penny interjected.

It was hard to disagree with her.

***

September 08, 2023:

“Are you kids sure you still want to do this?” Peter asked, trepidation beneath his voice.

“Yeth,” Rachel replied with a nasal as she picked bloody snot from her nose.

Luckiest in the world, I know.

“I’d be the luckiest in the world, sir,” I added, trying not to sound sarcastic considering what the soon-to-be-wife was doing.

In Washington State a marriage license typically took three days to be fulfilled. Luckily, with Penny’s connections she was able to get the waiting period waived, while Peter ‘officiated’ the wedding right there in their office, much to our surprise.

“Wow Dad, I didn’t know that you, like, knew how to officiate weddings?” Rachel revealed, sounding almost…well, not ‘normal’, but normal for Rachel. It was reassuring to see her engaged, despite all the trauma of the day.

“Uh…well, one of my old pro bono clients asked me to officiate their wedding to their wife a while back. Besides that, don’t you remember? I officiated Aunt Dolly and Aunt Imani’s wedding when you were ten.”

Rachel’s face turned to that of stone, “Uh…sorry, I don’t remember that day. That was the time Mom made me get that bad haircut, right?”

Everyone turned to Penny, who looked mortified. “Don’t look at me! I thought you looked very handsome, Di—Rachel. Fuck.”

The restrained look of disappointment on Rachel’s face hurt in ways I didn’t know how to express. If we weren’t both locked up in jail that night, I would spend the entire night hugging her.

Awkwardly, Peter decided to break the tension, “Uh…well, listen, I can get this done now, if that’s what you really want. It’ll still take a few days to process, but…you should be good. It’ll look dirty as hell to the courts, but hopefully we can play that off if we go to trial.”

***

September 08, 2023:

Unfortunately, our marriage license had to read Deadname Jeong, but I promised Rachel that we would get it fixed as soon as she could get her name cleared and changed. It was kind of funny to think that, legally-speaking, I had a ‘husband’. Not funny in a bad way or anything—I’d still be attracted to Rachel, even if she detransitioned—but funny in a “I guess I really am a faggot now,” kind of way.

Wait, did I still need to ask for a faggot-pass?

Wait-wait, why did I think that? ‘Still attracted to Rachel if she was a guy’? I mean, sure, I’d always been attracted to Rachel on some level…but it’s because I could tell that she was really a girl, right?

Even during those awkward years of sixth and seventh grade, when she’d started experiencing really bad dysphoria and became detached. To me, Rachel had always just been my—oh, for fuck’s sake! This isn’t the time to examine your fucking sexuality, Jae!

A light knock at the door of Penny’s office interrupted my existential crisis. Slowly, the door opened to reveal Penny and her husband’s shared secretary, followed by two large male police officers.

“These officers said that—” the secretary shot a look between all of us, her face both pale and confused.

Turning to Rachel, I took the opportunity to memorize the fear on her face.

Instead, she showed me only her bravest face.

Rachel turned to face her parents, sticking her hands behind her back as an officer approached her to be cuffed. I felt deep trepidation at the sight of Rachel being handcuffed for the second time this week, but I said nothing as the officer followed up by motioning for me to turn around, too.

His partner read us our rights, while the Penns said something about meeting us down at the station. Mr. Penn might have said, “Don’t worry, girls,” but at that point…it was already too late.

The darkness came back to me, slowly creeping in from the sides of my vision. The tight, leather straps around my wrists, cutting into them—restricting me from moving my arms more than a half inch. I was bound, without determination. I was—

—completely and utterly powerless.

Led outside—with both Penns following us—Rachel and I were loaded together into the back of a dark blue police cruiser. By the time the car was moving, I was finally lucid enough to realize the real bitch of it all: neither Rachel nor I were buckled in.

***

September 08, 2023:

After a rough ride to the station—with the Penns in hot pursuit—we were unloaded with fresh bruises and cuffed to Detective Hatchet’s desk.

Taking his seat, the old man smarmed, “You boys again, I see. Had a rough week, have you?”

It took everything in my body not to spit at the smug bastard, “Your officers forgot to buckle us in, Detective.”

“Oh? The belts must have been broken.”

Pig.

Out of the corner of my eye I could see Rach’s own look of cynicism boiling up. She didn’t always pick up on sarcasm, but this was one of those times that she did and I could tell that she was giving the asshole a look. I found myself smirking with pride, despite how little it would help in this situation.

“Welp, you boys sure have screwed the pooch this time. Those kids you wiped the floor with come from money. Big money.”

I held my tongue, but Rachel didn’t: “They started it, Detective.” No Cat On A Hot Tin Roof (1958) reference this time, either. “We just finished it.”

“I have video evidence that says otherwise, son,” the bastard said, leaning back in his chair.

“Daught—It’s ‘miss’, actually. A-and, like, come on, there were five of them against two of us!”

“It’s no wonder they don’t want trannies like you doin’ womens’ sports,” Detective Hatchet sing-songed as he twisted back-and-forth in his chair, his voice barely raised.

Rachel swiftly dug her claws into my right kneecap, as if preventing both of us from doing anything too risky for a couple of faggots chained to a cop’s desk in a station full of armed pigs. I shot a look into my wife’s—damn, it was kind of wild to be able to say that at my age—eyes and suddenly realized why Hatchet’s eyes had always unsettled me. Rachel’s eyes looked just the same right now: they both had the eyes of killers.

In a way, I felt like I was in a world separate from them both now. Rachel was Rachel and always would be, but Hatchet? In that moment I realized that Hatchet was the kind of guy only someone like Rachel could reason with—or kill.

I didn’t like the feeling of helplessness.

Hurried—but thankfully familiar—steps interrupted my train of thought as Peter and Penny arrived.

“Kids, remember not to say anything,” Penny commanded firmly as her husband unlocked his phone and pressed play on an Instagram video.

“Detective, after a little rudimentary searching, I was able to find this video that clearly shows my clients being cornered by their assailants. Awful taste in suits aside, Rachel’s dad was coming in clutch.

The detective looked unimpressed, even as he watched the fight break out on Peter’s small phone screen.

“Yeah, I’m afraid the self-defense thing doesn’t really matter, Mr. Penn,” Hatchet droned, somewhere between bored, annoyed and amused.

“And why would that be, Detective?” Penny interjected, quite curt.

Detective Hatchet pointed towards a press conference being held on a television mounted to a wall. Everyone in the bullpit was captivated by the sight of Gen. Eric Wyatt Mann.

Fuck.

***

September 08, 2023:

“My beloved daughter, Chase Avery Mann, was discovered dead by officers on the seventh of September. Due to the on-going investigation into her death, the exact details of her death have been something that I am unable to share, until now. According to the coroner’s report, m-my beloved daughter was m-murdered the evening of September fifth. Police suspect this man, Richard Penn, of murdering my daughter…”

***

September 08, 2023:

Rachel, Peter and Penny turned a shade of white I wasn’t sure was possible for a human to turn. “Babe?” I asked, grabbing Rachel by her left wrist. Rach shrank inward and yelped at the unexpected touch, drawing some attention from other pigs in the pigpen. “Rach, look at me, come on!” Panic was bloating into my voice, but I wasn’t sure if it was from the press conference or from Rach’s reaction to it. “Rach!”

Finally, Rach broke her eyes away from the floor and looked at mine, eyes wide and dark. “I’m so fucked,” she barely whispered.

My mind didn’t know what to do, but my hands did. Interlocking the fingers of both of our hands I pressed our palms together as best I could considering the angles that we were cuffed at, “We’ll get through this—no matter what—Rachel.”

Nothing.

“B-besides, we have a honeymoon to plan, don’t we?” I joked, desperate.

A beat.

Nothing.

Another.

Finally, “Akihabara?”

“You know it, Mrs. Jeong,” my relief poured out with a slight laugh.

Raising an eyebrow, Detective Hatchet butted in, “Honeymoon?”

I gripped Rachel’s hands tighter, before turning to the pig, “She’s my wife now. We got married this afternoon.”

“Christ,” Hatchet muttered, “More paperwork for these faggots...”

Rachel broke from my grasp long enough to wipe tears from her face, “Fuck, not my makeup again!”

“You’re perfect,” I smiled, my left thumb caressing her right.

“Save the fag shit for when you’re in prison, boys,” Hatchet interjected, leaning forward in his chair. “Christ, that dumbass military meathead…”

Peter and Penny caught this and shot a look at one another.

“What’s what, Detective?” Penny asked, a degree of sharpness to her voice that betrayed the plan already forming in her mind.

Appearing nonplussed, Hatchet replied, “We haven’t concluded the investigation yet, ma’am. What General Manly Man just did was unauthorized.”

Penny and Peter’s sigh of relief outmatched Detective Hatchet’s sigh of annoyance, which caught my attention. “So, wait, what exactly does that mean?” I asked, “Can the case be tossed out?”

“Not for murder, no,” Peter grimaced, “But it does give us some fuel.”

“We need a fire,” I mumbled, disappointment settling back in.

***

September 08, 2023:

Rachel and I were transferred to the same conference room that we had given our written statements in the day prior. The Penns and my newly arrived mother followed us into the room and gave us both an earful for even going to school that morning in the first place, but I could only pay attention to Rachel as she took the privacy of the room as an opportunity to resume her sobbing. The air was solemn, a dark energy filled the room.

It was also stuffy as shit in the conference room.

Rachel blew her nose while her parents consoled her. Things were looking bad now. The whole world was going to know the names Rachel and Deadname Penn, to say nothing of Jae Jeong. It was infuriating, really. Sitting here and watching my girlfriend suffer, unable to tell her the right thing to make it all go away.

Unable to kill the motherfuckers slandering her name in the news.

Well, at least it was probably her deadname that they were slandering.

Penny Penn broke from her tough demeanor to do something I hadn’t seen her do in a long time, if my memory was correct. With a gentle motion, Penny stroked her daughter’s long, blonde hair. I couldn’t describe the feeling the sight gave me.

“Rachel, this is all my fault,” Penny choked, holding back tears as her daughter sobbed into her suit jacket.

“No more than it is mine, Pen,” Peter added, slumping into a hardwood chair. These things sucked to sit on.

A desperately hopeful Rachel pulled her head up to unmuffle her voice, while keeping her eyes locked on the floor. With a sniffle, she asked, “Y-you didn’t almost dead name me that time?”

Penny stifled a smile, as if she was unsure of the appropriateness of it, “Oh honey—Rachel, please don’t think I don’t support you. It’s just…I…haven’t been able to focus lately. I’ve had so much on my mind, and your…coming out…has given me a lot to think about when it comes to…my past…” Penny gently tried to position Rachel’s head to look her in the eyes, but Rachel still seemed to move her gaze. “Rachel, are you okay?” she asked.

“She doesn’t look people in the eyes most of the time,” I interjected. “You never noticed?”

Penny and Peter both nearly stopped breathing in sync, both of them apparently ashamed.

“I…am afraid that we’ve been…negligent,” Peter admitted. I worked hard not to say something sarcastic in reply. “Between running the firm, our personal caseloads, the pro bono work…and…other things…neither one of us has really given you a lot of attention since you became a teenager, sweetheart. I’m so sorry, Rachel, if I’d been paying better attention I—”

“What?! You would’ve stopped me from being trans?!” Rachel shot back, defensively.

Peter looked almost offended, “No, Rachel, I’d have gotten you on puberty blockers! Or help with being neurodivergent!” There was a panic now, one I wasn’t used to seeing in adults. Now that I was eighteen, it often felt like I was beginning to see adults from a different perspective.

Well, I was technically an adult now, so perhaps it made sense to begin to understand them. There was a terrible surrealness to realize that, yes, things were changing in my world—and changing quickly.

Rachel was taken aback by her father’s confident and clear words, and I could tell Penny wasn’t expecting her husband to say what he did. “H-how do you know what g-gender d-dysphoria is?” Rachel stammered.

‘Neurodivergent’? I reached for my phone before realizing it had been confiscated, so I quickly broke the term down in my mind: ‘neuro’...for ‘neurology’? ‘Divergent’ for…not the ‘usual’, maybe?

Wait. Was Rach autistic? And if she was—actually, it made a lot of sense thinking about it now. My personal knowledge on the subject was threadbare, but the more I thought about it the more I could make out ways in which Rach wasn’t exactly neurotypical. I’d just always considered the speech quirks or the hyperfixations to be charming.

Fuck, I hope I wasn’t romanticizing her for being autistic or whatever. How the fuck does one even begin to untangle that mess? Hell, was I now infantilizing her?

“I know,” Peter began, breaking me from my inner self-torment, “...because most of the pro bono clients that Two Cents Law gets are transgender. A lotta trans people also happen to be neurodivergent too, Rach.”

“Wait, what?” Rachel said, looking incredulous, “How am I only just now hearing about my dad being a fuckin’ big ally?” I had to wonder just how long Rach and her folks had not been communicating.

“The other third are queer cis folks,” Penny slipped in, her smile trying to take a reassuring form. Whatever was eating at her kept the picture from being particularly perfect, though.

“Would you want your lawyer talking to their daughter about their clients?” Peter questioned, his daughter’s body language growing less and less aggressive the more he spoke. “Hon, listen: all I’m trying to say is…your mother and I—we truly regret that we didn’t help you sooner. I get it—really, I do. It’s why I don’t blame you for not telling us about the HRT you’ve clearly been taking.”

I wasn’t sure if the smell in the room was from the room itself or Rachel shitting herself.

“Y-you know?” Rachel whispered, wrapping her arms around herself after breaking away from her mother’s grasp.

The Penns nearly leapt from their places to approach their daughter, but stopped short to respect her obvious need for space, “Rachel, please, it’s okay, your father and I talked it over when we noticed you were on HRT the other night and—we’re not angry, sweetie. There won’t be any yelling, either.”

Something…wasn’t quite adding up for me, so I interjected to get the two lawyers’ attention off of their daughter for a moment, “Why are two successful, workaholic lawyers so invested in the LGBTQIA+ community?”

Peter and Penny turned their attention to me, like I’d hoped that they would, then back to one another, and then finally to the floor. “It’s…complicated…” Peter added.

“...for both of us…” Penny concluded.

An awkward silence filled the room, but the mounting stress of powerlessness made me want to push for answers that probably weren’t mine to demand: “Stop holding out on us, for fuck’s sake. You know all about her, so tell us about you, goddamn it!”

My mother’s voice quickly followed mine, “Jae, show some—”

“It’s fine, Mariko,” Peter said, speaking up. Penny shot her husband a panicked look, as if there was something she was afraid of him saying.

Peter took a moment, before finally conceding. “Rachel…” the ill-suited lawyer turned to his daughter, “...I…oh, jeez. Listen, when your mother and I were in college, we…ugh. This is so awkward. Fuck. Penny, I’m sorry. I can’t do this anymore.”

Penny continued her show of more gentle emotions than I’d ever expected from her by walking behind her husband and placing her arms around him. A quick glance at Rachel showed that she was just as confused as I was.

Taking his wife’s hands in his hands and looking back at her to smile, Peter took a deep breath. The display of affection between these two people I felt like I knew—but hardly so—clashed with the lingering miasm of the ordeal their daughter was now facing. It was difficult to understand, to see exactly what they saw.

But then the truth was out.

“I’m trans, too.”

And nothing else mattered.

***

September 08, 2023:

Silence. A silence permeated through the conference room. Before my brain could process the fact that nobody was breathing, my mother's dry cough broke me from my trance. Turning, I saw her readjusting her position in her very uncomfortable hardwood chair. Judging by the look on her face she did not quite get the gravity of the reveal, which was understandable. Hell, I was shocked but I could only imagine how my wife felt.

Damn, it was surreal thinking of Rachel as my wife. Not bad—fuck no—but surreal nonetheless.

“Rach?” I spoke up, hoping she would snap from her stare.

After a beat, Rachel finally spoke: “Wait…you’re a trans girl?”

I could practically hear the ellipsis.

“Uh…Rachel, honey, I—”

“I’m, like, just fuckin’ with you…Mom…” a turn to Penny, “...my?” Rachel asked with a giggle.

I don’t think I’d noticed until just now how long I’d been holding my breath. With just a simple breath my vision cleared and I couldn’t help but giggle, despite it all. “God, you’re such a bimbo! Think about what you just said, Rach!”

Rachel blinked, confused. Then, a sudden realization dawned on her, “Oh shit, mouth in foot!” she yelped. “Maybe, like, Mom…ni? Momnigou? Like Ichimonji-kun!! HEN-SHIN!” Yes, she recently convinced me to go see Shin Kamen Rider with her.

Yes, despite it all, Rachel was still Rachel

“Uh…I’m, er…I guess it’s okay to actually say it, huh?”

Penny squeezed her wife’s hand, as if transferring her strength to her. Penny’s supportiveness seemed genuine enough, which made me wonder just why her wife had stayed closeted all this time. Societal expectations? They had mentioned something about college…that would’ve been in the early 2000s…wait…

“I’m a woman, Rach. I’m like you, just…boy-moding, as the kids say.”

“OH EMM GEE, MOM, STOP SOUNDING SO OLD,” Rach giggled through happy tears before finally crashing into her mom for a giant hug. Rachel’s unnamed mother’s ill-fitting suit jacket bunched up as her daughter squeezed her like toothpaste.

“Ouch! Ouch, Rachel, sweetie, please watch it!” the woman pleaded between groans and chuckles.

Rach broke off her hug, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, no, it’s just…well, my breasts are still growing,” the trans lawyer husked, her voice switching to a more feminine intonation while not shifting too far higher than her deadvoice.

“Oh yeah,” Rachel said, sympathetic, “Mine hurt any time my hubby grabs—wait, what the fuck?”

“Yeah, what the fuck?” I spat out of reflex.

“Emily started HRT about…twelve months ago now?” Penny filled in, somehow finding a way to wrap her hands around her wife and seeped into her form even deeper somehow, “She looks amazing, doesn’t she already? So much happier than usual”

“Oh yeah,” Rachel replied, her voice seemingly casually confident, “I guess you do look great for, like, fifty!”

“We’re thirty-eight,” the two lawyers said in united annoyance.

“When did this become a sitcom?” I mumbled, rubbing my eyes. The day’s stress was really beginning to catch up to me now. It had to be at least 9PM, judging by how little natural light now filled the bullpen outside the conference room. Suddenly, a familiar hand rubbed the back of my neck. I hadn’t even heard my mother standing out her chair, but here she was, her familiar warmth killing some of the tension that I hadn’t even realized had built up in my neck.

It had been a long time since I had felt her touch on my skin.

“Are you okay, Jae?” she asked, her voice clearly holding back the full breadth of her concern. “The Penns will figure something out, I’m sure. What I’m really worried about is you.”

Mom pulled out my painkillers from her purse and handed me some, so I gave her a little smile and nod to show my thanks. The tension between the Penns resolved, I could feel whatever adrenaline that had been pumping through my body all day quickly dissipating. I downed the Vicodin with a bottle of water centered in the middle of the large wooden table. It hadn’t occurred to me until the water was hydrating the inside of my mouth that I hadn’t had anything to drink in hours. It was like a rebirth in a lot of ways. Bottle emptied, I crushed the poorly constructed plastic and tossed it onto the table and took a deep breath.

“Going to school was stupid, you know,” my mom said, the tone of her voice obviously indicating that she was well aware that I was myself well aware of how stupid it was to go to school and that she meant no more than the bare minimum of the expected parental scolding. Truthfully, I couldn’t help but laugh at her statement.

“Yeah, you’re right,” I said flatly as I leaned back in the shitty chair. “Think Dad’s going to be mad?”

Mom took a breath to collect herself, “I think he’ll be glad that you’re alive.”

It was a politically expedient answer, but I couldn’t really blame her, “Yeah, sure—any idea how that business deal is going?”

My mother gave me a rare sarcastic look, “As if you don’t know this little escapade is probably going to set the national deal back.” In a way, I wonder if I was correct to interpret her wry smile as a sign that she wouldn’t mind that.

“Well, I’m sure that if losing my balls couldn’t bring him right home then losing the national deal is definitely going to send him to Vegas for a bender.” There was venom behind my voice that I hadn’t meant to inject, but it nevertheless came out of me.

With the Penns preoccupied with their sitcom life, my mother bent down to match me eye-to-eye, “Your father loves you, Jae. He’s just…a little hapless sometimes.”

“If he isn’t trying to court investors he’s at one of the stores. Which, hey, fine, I’m not a little kid anymore—but shit Mom, shouldn’t he at least be trying to bother me when I’m trying to go out with my friends?”

“‘Friends’? Honey, your wife is your only friend,” Mom couldn’t maintain a straight face and burst into a smile at the ridiculousness of saying such a thing to her eighteen year old. “Hell, you two probably spend more time together than most other married couples, so I guess I shouldn’t complain like you chose a woman that hates you.”

It was hard not to be swept up in the ridiculousness of the situation, so I let myself let out a tension-relieving laugh under my breath. “You’d marry her too, if you sat through her explaining her love for shitty post-austerity school lunch curly fries.” Or saw the look in her eyes when explaining anything, really.

The timeline was a little…sped-up…but the more I thought about it, the more I just couldn’t see a future without her. It was always going to be her and that green light in her eyes. I mean, it wasn’t like she wasn’t cute back when I thought she was—perhaps not the best way to think of one’s trans wife, actually.

“Stand up with me for a sec,” Mom asked, giving me just the excuse I needed to give some relief to my ass—of course the fuckin’ pigs would make their chairs uncomfortable. Grabbing my shoulders, my 6’2’’ mother smiled at me, “I know things look bad now, honey. This nonsense with Rachel and your…father’s difficulties…but I want you to know that I’m proud of you.”

To be fair, I hadn’t quite expected her to say that. “Wait, really?”

At first, she only gave me a smile. “Yes, hon. Jae, you’ve been through a hell of a week. Hell, ever since you met Rachel you’ve had a hell of a week. But you know what? You stood up for someone that the world said wasn’t good enough to be a ‘real woman’ and you never betrayed her. I think that’s worth something.”

I said something that was perhaps unwise, “To be honest Mom, I’m kind of surprised you’re not…uh…you know?”

A soft smile spread across her face, “Honey, my job has me traveling a lot. Rachel isn’t the first transgender woman I’ve ever met—I’ll have to tell you about the Elevator Incident some time.” I was a little confused by that. Did my mother meet a trans woman in an elevator? “Hell, how do you think it was for me growing up being this tall as a Japanese woman? Or when I moved to the US?”

Embarrassed, I shot my eyes to the floor and bit my lip, “Uh…yeah, I guess so…” Mom’s grip tightened on my shoulders. It wasn’t a painful grip, but a reassuring one.

“Did I ever tell you why I fell in love with your father?” Mom asked, softly.

Now that I think about it…”No? I don’t think so?”

“David—your father—was the first man to treat me normally when I began working in the US. Sure, he enjoyed tall women like all the other men who wanted to date me, but when I had resigned myself to my fate of being seen as a fetish object, your father got angry for me. Perhaps that isn’t the best foundation to start a relationship on, but it was nice. I wasn’t just a tall woman for him to fuck, I was a tall woman who enjoyed traveling, seeing the world, bridging the gaps between different people with my interpreting. It made me feel like he saw me as a human, if that makes sense?”

This was beginning to remind me of something, and that filled me up with a dreadful embarrassment.

“Dearest child of mine,” my mother said with a sing-song tone, “Sometimes all you need to do is listen to your partner talk.”

Blush joined dried blood in reddening my face.

“Honey?”

“Yeah, Mom?”

“I think your wife wants you.”

***

September 08, 2023:

The longer I embraced Rachel the stronger her embrace became. The growing strength of her embrace was like watering a plant and seeing it come back to life in real time, really. “I love you so much,” she whispered downward into my ear.

“I love you too, Rach,” I smiled. The distraction from the hell we were about to face was nice, for however much longer it was going to last. Even just hearing her sweet, bubbly voice speak only for me was enough to straighten my posture.

Detective Hatchet practically kicked open the conference room door, his bulky form exuding all the arrogance and assholery of an asshole you’d see in a television show. “Alright then, Mr. Jae Jeong and Mr. Richard Jeong, good news for you boys: as much as it pains me to say this, it would appear that we are letting the two of you go for the day. All charges by the families of the children you may-or-may-not have brutally beaten the shit out of have been dropped.”

Unsurprisingly, Rachel was the first to reply, “Wait, what the fuck?”

“Macht schnell, transvestite,” the crusty old man cracked, motioning us all out of the room. “You’re free to go for now, and we ain’t got any room for you to be taking up space, so make it fast.”

Emily and my mother ushered Rachel and I out of the station as hastily as they could, while Penny clarified the details with the detective. Once inside the backseat of the Penns’ Subaru Crosstrek, my dear wife broke down into what was less ‘tears of joy’ so much as ‘tears of relief’. I immediately pulled her in close so that she could rest her body weight against mine to sob with ease.

“Mariko, meet you at the ER?” Emily asked. My mother nodded in confirmation before both she and Emily got into their respective driver’s seats. Penny took the passenger seat a few minutes later and both cars took to the road in short order.

“They’re tightlipped,” Penny grumbled, “It doesn’t make any sense, but at the very least you’ll be able to sleep in your own bed tonight, dear.”

Rachel hiccuped a reply, so I spoke up instead: “What about the murder charges? Especially since that asshole outed Rach on national television?” I’d have been checking the internet on the car ride back to the Penns’ but unfortunately both Rach and my phones were returned to us completely drained of juice.

There was no suing the piece of shit, either, since he was basically the United States government itself.

“Like I said, it doesn’t make any sense,” I could hear the worry—as much as Penny tried to stifle it—in her voice. “How are you two doing, anyway?”

“I wanna sleep soooooo baaaaad,” Rachel groaned, adjusting her head to try and be more comfortable laying on—against?—my arm and chest. I got the feeling she was even more exhausted than I was, but the adrenaline of the sudden release from police custody was making me feel terribly uneasy, so I remained vigilant.

“We’ll be home soon, honey,” I whispered, petting my wife’s hair.

***

September 08, 2023:

Something that the day had taught me to appreciate about hospital emergency rooms—that I never expected I would even need to appreciate—was the introduction of a phone charging station. Off in the corner of the waiting room was a station with several built-in plugs for charging devices that used USB ports to charge. Rachel—slumped down on an uncomfortably short elongated seat—scrolled through her phone—despite the awkward angle—as it slowly charged. For my part, I merely switched between watching my wife’s micro facial expressions while she checked her social media accounts or stared up at the ceiling of the waiting room.

After the hectic day that was sure to have everyone filling my DMs with messages of worry and desperate cries for updates, I was okay with letting my phone charge untouched for a while.

Our parents—rather, our moms—talked between themselves while Rach and I waited to be seen.

The emergency room was thankfully quiet that night. Peering up at the blissfully busted television hanging off of the wall, I was thankful that hospital staff had one less opportunity to be reminded that they were in the presence of a nationally reviled trans woman. The little ‘sad face’ drawing on the torn piece of paper taped to the television was, admittedly, quite cutely drawn, too.

Shifting my focus from the mostly empty lobby back to my wife—god, it would never get old calling her that—I watched the couch bunny shift around on the uncomfortable elongated seat to relieve pressure on her right arm as she tried to continue scrolling through her phone without unplugging it.

Why bother making seats with cushions if they were still going to be terribly uncomfortable to sit in?

Stretching my legs out to help blood flow, aches and pains tore at places in my body I didn’t even know could get aches and pains. I didn’t even remember which graphic tee I had put on that morning, but whichever it was it had been periodically sticking to my back all day, no matter how many times I peeled it back in hopes of my back skin drying a little.

Rach—clad in the hoodie I had been wearing all day—didn’t seem all too bothered by the blood and sweat stains, though.

“Hey,” I mumbled, “How you doin’?”

Grogginess showed on Rachel’s face for but a split second. After realizing that I was talking to her, Rachel’s facial expression transformed completely, “Oh! I’m good, Hubby!”

Being called a ‘hubby’ felt strangely more surreal than anything else that had transpired this week, but I decided to just roll with it. Checking the charge on my phone—now back up to 54%—I turned back to my wife, “You aren’t doom scrolling, are you?”

Rachel’s lips receded into her mouth as she slowly shook her head from side-to-side, confirming her guilt.

“Girl, you know that you’re just going to make your anxiety worse…” I was too tired to put an exclamation mark to any of my sentences. The more I spoke, the more I sounded like my voice was slowly fading out like the end of a song.

“I’m just, like, checking to see how my subscriber count is growing! I’ve gained, like, sixty-nine thousand subs since this morning alone!” The cheekiness to Rachel’s voice was just as infatuating as ever.

“Nice—actually, no! I know that you’re reading hate comments, Rachel,” I huffed back, as much as one could do when even just the act of breathing felt like having your whole body stretched to death with a machine or something.

Rachel replied with a cutesy groan befitting her usual tantrums. I could hear the pink text from the pitch alone, which both reassured me and concerned me. On one hand, if Rachel had the energy to pout like a brat, she was probably doing better than me.

On the other hand, I worried that my wife wasn’t dealing with the reality of the situation and hiding behind her usual bimbo act—well, bimbo-ness, I suppose—to pretend that she wasn’t in a whole shitload of trouble.

The kind of trouble that meant that if a trans woman killed America's sweetheart, America isn't going to give a shit if it was in self-defense.

Locking her phone, Rachel set her phone down on the edge of the charging station and stood from the couch—or whatever the fuck that kind of seat was called—and then stepped casually over my out-stretched legs to sit on my thighs.

Now faced-to-faced with my wife—separated by only a few inches of space—I asked, “W-what are you—?”

Even if we were technically married now, I still got easily flustered by her nonsense.

“I’m not, like, hurting your sen-see-tive spotty-spot-spot, am I?” Rach asked, her voice a curious mix of concern and bimbo pink.

“N-no, you’re f-fine,” I confirmed, shooting a look out of my right eye at our mothers, still talking away. At least three other patients were scattered throughout the lobby, but they didn’t seem to bother Rachel, either.

“Goody!” Rach giggled, her eyes never leaving mine. Raising her left hand to block my line of sight from our parents, Rachel inched her face forward again, so that it was also covered by her hand, “You’ve been such a good boy, Jae Jae.”

Suddenly, I felt like I was sweating all over anew, “R-Rach, come on, we’re—”

Cutting me off, Rachel connected her lips with mine. Gently pouring her tongue past my lips and teeth, Rachel seemed to intertwine our tongues with a master’s grace, while slipping her right hand around my head and bringing me in for a closer angle.

Resistance felt truly futile, so I followed suit and wrapped my arms around Rachel’s back to pull her closer as the touch of her lips on mine drove me deeper into insanity.

I wondered if Rachel would mind cosplaying Seven of Nine?

Ignoring the aches in my swollen face seemed a fair enough trade-off, too, so I allowed myself to sink deeper into the waters of insanity. Reaching my right, then my left, under the hoodie on her body, I took into the smoothness of Rachel’s warm skin. Each little link in her spine was tightly wrapped with a well waxed sheet of back skin that—as silly as it sounded—was irresistibly sexy. As my fingers traced the back of Rachel’s spine, her teeth dug into my lips until, with a devious giggle, she began biting, harder and harder, playfully trying to draw blood.

I would have given her all the blood in my body, if I could have.

“Jesus Christ,” came the disgusted voice of a man in the distance from my right.

Rachel and I broke from our making out and turned to find a large man, some few inches taller than either of us, entering the emergency room waiting lobby with four similarly large men in tow. Each with their own variety of dark hair—some buzzed shorter than the others—the quintet of men—one of which was propped up on the shoulders of two of the other men—looked with undisguised disgust at the sight of me kissing my transgender wife.

Judging by the fatigues, they were military men stationed at the local base.

Judging by the stench of alcohol, they had just had a wonderful time at a bar.

Judging by their bruises, they had been in a brawl.

With our arms still wrapped around one another, Rachel used her only free hand—her left—to unapologetically flip the gaggle of men the bird.

“Rachel, be nice,” Emily replied, using her deadvoice. It was a surreal experience, hearing it again. Come to think of it, Emily still hadn't socially transitioned yet—nor did Rachel and I know what exactly her deal was. Was she too scared to come out of the closet?

The ringleader of the early twenty-somethings sported a fitting shiner, “Can't even go to a hospital without seeing a tranny no more!” if he was cruising for another bruising, he had picked the right queer to tick off.

“Fuck off, dude,” I groaned, pulling Rachel in for another kiss, just to annoy the prick.

Rachel raised her middle finger back up for good measure.

“Goddamned faggots!” The ringleader shouted back, his posse aiming their sharp stares at me and Rachel.

“Wilkinson, come on, forget about them!” One of the other army guys said, putting a hand on Wilkinson's shoulder.

Wilkinson, none too pleased by the prospect of one of his own trying—however timidly—to ward him off of starting shit in a hospital emergency room, made a disgruntled noise and backed off.

The nurse running the admittance desk looked none-to-entertained by the hotheaded bigot's bullshit, either.

While the army folk got their more roughed-up fellow soldier signed in, Emily—followed by Penny and my mother—scooted closer to our seats.

Reluctantly, Rachel pulled off and away from me back to the two-person couch to my left, so I decided to join her and make room for our mothers to come in closer.

“That was stupid, Rachel,” Emily chastised, “You need to learn to—”

“—I coulda taken them,” Rach scoffed, crossing her arms and looking away from her mother.

“Honey,” Penny interjected, her voice growing more hushed with every syllable, “Those men are soldiers.”

Rachel turned to her other mother, unperturbed, “They're not killers, though.”

I wasn’t sure I would ever forget the look in Rachel's eyes when she said that.

It was a look that those men sure as hell didn't have.

September 08, 2023:

As luck would have it—smiling on us for the first time in who knows how long—Rach and I exited our separate exam rooms at the same time. I was beyond happy that the two of us had been called in to be seen at the same time, as even just the thought of Rachel being left alone in a waiting room with those army assholes left me with a bad acid reflux in my gut that had little trouble traveling up into my throat.

“Nose job?” I asked, the brace over my wife’s nose just as unpleasant as I imagined mine looked.

“No-th job,” Rach confirmed, her sinuses sounding like they were screaming.

“Fuck, I’m sorry,” it was hard not to feel the grimness of the situation pour out of every sentence. Rach and I had been in some scrapes before, but never with a broken nose, of all things.

“It’s, like, whatevs,” Rach shrugged, checking her face in a pink compact mirror, “I was saving up for facial feminization surgery, anyway.”

“In addition to the breast augmentation, Ms. Egg?” I sassed, hoping to hear another of those giggles I loved so much.

It hadn't occurred to me that Rachel was probably not done changing how she looked as part of her transition. Rachel had been my friend for so long, in a lot of ways I hadn’t even noticed her facial features changing over the past five months—saved for more realistic smiles, of course. To think that my Rachel wasn’t done becoming a version of herself that she was comfortable was kind of exciting in a way. It was a reminder that there would always be more to learn and love about her.

“Omigawd, stop bullying your wife,” Rach groaned dramatically, pushing me by my right shoulder, “Or else, I’m going to bully you when I—”

The thought of it—of sex—made me flinch, “I—let’s talk about that later, yeah?”

“Oh, shoot, yeah, right!” Rach slipped her mirror back into her purse and flashed me a peace sign, “How’s your—?”

“—The stitches are fine, thankfully,” I sped out, desperate to get ahead of Rachel’s question. “These,” I added, pointing to my face and forehead, “Will probably hurt like hell whenever these painkillers wear off.”

“Shit, yeah, samesies.”

Reminding us of where we were loitering, a nurse smiled a strained smile as she led the worse-for-wear soldier back to take the exam room that Rachel had previously been seen in. Giving my wife a strained grimace, Rachel took the hint and took my hand.

As she often did, Rachel led me back out front.

Unfortunately, with the army assholes were nowhere to be seen in the waiting room, it only made it all the more obvious that they were probably waiting for us outside in the parking lot. Squeezing my hand, Rach led me over to our mothers.

Our mothers, waiting patiently, stood upon noticing our reappearance and closed the distance with strides longer than normal for their already impressive heights.

“You two okay?” My mother asked, brushing my bangs out of my eyes.

Pouting, Rachel immediately copied my mother, as if she were trying to say, “Hey, that’s my job now!” Turning back to face my mother, Rachel tapped the brace over her nose, “You shoulda, like, seen what I did to those meanies at school!” Rach flashed her winningest smile, accompanied by her signature giggle.

“Docs say we need surgeries on our noses, but otherwise, I got the good shit waiting for me at the pharmacy,” I joked, hoping to ease the tension.

Penny broke from squeezing the life out of her daughter to ask, “Have you two thought better about going to school tomorrow, then?”

The sarcasm was almost charming, “I’m pretty sure that after today we’re either suspended or expelled, Missus…uh…”

Out of the corner of my left eye, I could see Emily doing a poor job of stifling a laugh at my expense, “Jae, you’re our son-in-law now, I think ‘Penny’ and, well, whatever you think is appropriate to call me is just fine, son.”

“Pfft, I wouldn’t dare deadname my transgender wife’s transgender mother, Emily,” I half-laughed, a slight pain in my torso causing me to cough. I took so many blows earlier that day that I wasn’t sure of every place where I was hit.

My body being one giant, throbbing bag of meat all over also made it a hell of a lot easier not to think about whatever the hell was gnawing at the back of my mind about this conversation, too.

“If you four don’t mind,” my mother said with the same candor I usually saw her reserve for the ending conversations, “I think it might be time for us to pick up prescriptions and then head home for some well-deserved sleep.”

Catching Rachel’s uneasy look at the thought of being separated, I blurted out, “I’d like to stay with my wife tonight, if you don’t mind?”

The three older women shot one another a look, followed by a shrug from Emily, “Well, I suppose there’s really no reason to say no to that, right?”

My mother wore her complicated feelings of concern on her face with little desire to hide it, which Penny seemed to catch like a lawyer on the hunt for an opening, “Mariko, we have a lovely guest room, if you’d like to spend the night, too?”

First apprehension, then reassessment: my mother took a moment, but finally nodded her head, “Thank you, Penny. I think I will, if you don’t mind?”

“Not at all,” the Penn women replied in unison.

“YAY, SLEEPOOOOOVERRRR!!” Rachel cheered, jumping on my back for a piggyback ride. Her shrieking laughter caught us stray looks from all over the quiet emergency room lobby, but it would have broken my heart to point that out to her.

Besides, what I really wanted to think about was: was it really a sleepover when we were married, though?

September 08, 2023:

The four remaining soldiers, smoking and—of course—drinking, stood in the parking lot for those visiting the hospital's emergency room. Keeping our eyes down, myself and the four women quietly trekked across to the Penns’ and my mother’s cars.

Unfortunately, the universe had decided that our trek would not be an easy one.

“Hey, faggots!” the slur-slinging soldier named Wilkinson slurred, “Hope you cocksuckers have a fun time tonight!”

The handful of soldiers snickered in their drunken stupor, but Rachel did little more than grip my hand a little tighter in response.

It was better than beating those assholes into the pavement and then having to talk to the cops for a third time this week, after all.

Still, after the week I was having, I couldn’t stop myself from finally poking the bear a little myself, “Kill yourselves, shitheads!”

That, unfortunately, only made matters worse.

“The fuck you say, limp dick?” Wilkinson screamed, slamming a glass bottle of beer on the pavement like a child throwing a tantrum.

“Haha, I bet the tranny fucks the other faggot,” a bald soldier without eyebrows cackled between swigs of his beer.

The more apprehensive of the soldiers—the soldier who had stopped Wilkinson earlier—put his hand on the annoying fucker’s shoulder again, “Come on Wilkinson, just ignore them—”

“—Get your fucking hands off of me, Halberstram!” Wilkinson screamed, his voice raw from the force of it.

“Hey, ain’t that the tranny who killed General Mann’s daughter?” Asked a tall, lean soldier that seemed to have a permanent, untrusting scowl.

“Kids, ladies, get in the cars now,” Emily ordered firmly, opening the driver’s side door to her Subaru Crosstrek. Penny filed in, while my mother safely made her way into her car.

Wilkinson decided not to wait for me or Rachel to get in either vehicle, though. Stomping over slowly, but loudly, Wilkinson shouted what sounded like a string of slurs, although I wasn’t able to make them all out.

“Rach! Come on, get in the car!” I shouted, a panic like no other clawing its way out my throat.

“Fuck!” Rachel swore, turning away from the oncoming threat and reaching for the car door. It was a lot more restraint than I expected from her, but I was glad that she was showing it.

“What, no balls, faggots?”

Well, so much for restraint, I guess.

Letting go of the door handle to the rear driver’s side door, Rachel quickly swung her right hand’s acrylics at the hyped-up army fucker’s throat, drawing blood.

“You fucking fag—!” Before Wilkinson could finish his sentence, Rachel—pulling her right first inward with her left hand—angled her right elbow straight into Wilkinson’s nose, breaking it.

Blood soaked the sleeve of the hoodie that Rachel wore and I wondered if—should she ever give it back—I should just toss the fucking thing at that point.

Wilkinson’s friends stopped their forward march in their tracks as the big bastard fell straight onto his ass.

As Rachel casually turned back to the car and opened the rear driver’s side door to slide in with a giggle, I watched Wilkinson’s petrified friends staring back and forth between the car and the big, sobbing bastard as he rolled around on the concrete in tears.

“Get in, Jae!” Emily repeated, breaking me from my stunned silence. I quickly hopped in the car and buckled up.

Before following suit, Rach lowered her window and stuck her head out, “Unless you wanna tell the piggies you got your ass handed to you by a tranny, I, like, suggesty-gest-gest you don’t say shit, yeah?!”

Even through the tinted rear window, I could see the soldiers nodding—their fear stricken eyes trained on Rachel—as they slowly inched forward to pick their bloodied friend off the ground. Unbuckling as the car drove out of the parking lot, I joined Rachel in sticking my body out my window to catch sight of her doing the most Rachel thing ever.

With double middle fingers raised, Rachel shouted as Emily and my mother drove off into the night, “SUCK MY GIRLDICK, MOTHERFUCKERRRRRRRRRRRRSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!”

September 08, 2023:

The three hour trip to the emergency room finally ended with a mercifully short stop at the pharmacy. The line of the 24/7 pharmacy was blissfully non-existent on this night, which made the experience all the less uncomfortable as I struggled to keep awake long enough to return to the Penn residence for—what I hoped would be—a proper slumber.

“So, like, holy shit—we gotta plan a wedding thingy-thing-thing!” Rachel giggled, leaning on shoulder so heavily that I thought she might melt all over me. “Wait, do we consider our anniversary today, or the day of the thingy-thing-thing?”

“Well, if we consider it today, it would be a hell of a lot of weird memories, right?” I reasoned.

“Yeah!” Rach shouted back, perhaps a bit too loud for the inside of a car, “But! It would be, like, unique!”

“No reason it can’t just be both dates,” Penny proposed, a hint of humor to her weary voice.

“True bien!” Rachel hummed.

“‘Trés bien’,” I corrected, playing with my wife’s hair. Even after a day of blood, sweat and tears—like today—there was still such a nice, silky quality to it.

“Ooh! Ooh!! We can invite everyone from the GSA club, now that we’re friendly-friend-friends with them!” Rachel’s excitement kicked up another notch at that.

“It’s kind of funny to think, actually,” I wondered aloud, “All these years and we’re only just now making real bonds with them, aren’t we?”

“Yeah! Like, omigawd—” Rach sprung up off of me, to better illustrate her excitement, “—Zoey! Izzy! Isaac! Drake! And all the others are like, y’know? We got stuff in comma-mo-nen now, right?”

“Don’t forget Claire and Andi, too,” I added with some amusement at Rachel's enthusiasm.

“Yeah! Claire! Andi!”

“And, I’m pretty sure we did have stuff in common with them before you came out, Rach,” I laughed, “People kept thinking that we were—” And then it occurred to me, two of those people were in the car right now, “—uh, y’know? People kept thinking that you and I were…yeah.”

“I mean,” Rach’s giggle rang something mischievous, “I think that, like, uh, y’know? I wouldn’t mind if you wanted to—”

Before Rachel could finish her thought, the car had stopped, engine off: we were already back at the Penn residence, without me even noticing that we had left the pharmacy.

The day's excitement had finally made it feel fast for once.

Turning around in the passenger front seat, Penny handed me a bag with a familiar rattle to it, “Your prescription, hon.”

“Oh jeez,” my throat was suddenly dry, “I’m sorry, Missus—I’m sorry, Penny, I forgot to even pay.”

“You’re our son-in-law now, Jae,” Penny’s voice had a quiet, almost uncomfortably vulnerable tone to it now, “Covering a few bucks for a prescription is nothing.”

Still, it was hard not to blush. There was a look of motherliness in Penny’s eyes that reminded me a little too much of Rachel when she was focused and attentive.

It brought up a lot of mixed feelings in my chest that I didn’t know how to sort out. It was like being caught in a net and floundering to try and get out.

Meanwhile, propped back up against me again, Rachel eased into an exhausted slumber a few minutes too early.

With a gentle shake, I woke Rach, who did little more than wrap her hands around my arm, desperate not to let go. Opening the car door to execute my plan, I pulled Rachel just enough forward towards the door for her to eventually get the idea and climb out of the backseat. Fingers firmly crossed, I led my trudging wife with me into her house.

As Rach and I climbed the stairs to her bedroom, the poor girl giggled in her tuckered out stupor “I can’t wait to get facial feminization surgery~!”

“Assuming we don’t wind up in jail first, of course,” I mumbled, although Rachel didn't seem all that cognizant to catch my dark humor.

Doffing her bloodied and sweaty clothes, Rach dragged me into yet another shower with her, although this time it was mostly to keep her from passing out and falling over.

Cleaned of the blood of our enemies—and ourselves—my wife and I dried off and moved into her room again to search for cleaner clothes to wear. Equipping boxers and a faded graphic tee, Rach grabbed whatever was closest to her hand, tossed it at me in her half-asleep stupor and then immediately crashed on her bed.

Unfortunately, what she’d tossed me was a black lace asymmetrical cocktail dress. The feeling of the lace was actually not unpleasant, and I could imagine feeling it over Rachel’s slender form…but at the same time…

Looking in the mirror, I immediately regretted what I’d done. My figure was far too…masculine to look as good in the dress as Rach would. I’d have to lose thirty pounds just to be able to pull it off, really. And then there was my face. Maybe if I could get this damned beard shadow to stay gone I wouldn’t look so bad? I guess that’s what makeup was for? Shoot, it wasn’t like I hadn’t let Rach do my makeup before, after all. I bet she’d enjoy it—it’d certainly be nice to get her on some rant about anything other than the nightmare this week had turned into.

After a few more minutes of feeling the dress, posing in the dress, and just enjoying the softness on my shoulders, I doffed it, mumbled “You idiot” to myself for the third time in the past fifteen minutes, and then dug through my wife’s drawer until I found boxers and a graphic tee. Finally—at 12:53AM—I laid in bed next to my wife and felt sweet slumber pull me into the night at last.

***

September 09, 2023:

Suddenly, I realized that I was awake and staring at the light humming glow of glow-in-the-dark stars applied to the walls of my wife's bedroom.

Confirming with my fully charged phone that it was 2AM, I decided to do little more than enjoy the full length of Rachel's warm form as she held onto my right side tightly. My body ached all over—especially where I had been violated on Tuesday—but the mere softness of her estrogenized skin was a godsend…and a curse. The body hair on my arms brushing against her soft skin made me irritated in ways I had never really foreseen, but after sharing a bed with my love a few times now, I knew that I wanted to fix that.

Resting my head back on my pillow, I stared at the ceiling that was quickly growing familiar. It wouldn't be too long now before Rachel and I would need to get our own place for college. Would we be able to afford it, though?

As familiar as the ceiling of her childhood bedroom was, we couldn't both continue living out of one of our parents’ homes now.

Not after everything that had happened this week.

We would need to have a proper wedding ceremony, at least. I owed Rachel that much.

She would probably want to wait until after her facial feminization surgery, though. I could hear her exact cadence in my mind, explaining the importance of looking good for photos, “Especia-muh-lee wedding-ding-ding photos!!”

The thing was, I didn't see how I could ever look good in our photos—especially not next to a naturally gorgeous character like Rachel Jeong.

What sounded like a car driving up outside broke me from my staring contest with the ceiling. Carefully slipping out of bed, I stumbled over to her—our?—bedroom window to check outside to see what the hell was going on.

A black van sat parked in the street in front of the driveway, blocking any cars from being able to leave. Six nasked figures dressed in all black, carrying what looked like military-grade rifles, quickly filed out of the van. Pissing a little in my boxers, I turned back to Rach, jumped on her bed—placing my hand over her mouth so that she wouldn’t scream—and said “Trouble. SWAT!”

Rachel snapped to, thankfully immediately catching my drift—the look in her bulging eyes was a terrible one, indeed.

Fearing the worst, we immediately dressed in her clothes. “You got anything in here to defend yourself with?” I whispered to my wife, but she merely shook her head and pointed to some weakly constructed cosplay weapon props in a corner of the room. Even from up stairs I could hear the front door being subtly meddled with: the armed team was trying to sneak in the house quietly, rather than just knocking the door down.

I did not want the next thing I heard to be the sound of multiple footsteps climbing the stairs.

“Our mommies?” Rach whispered with understandable panic.

Mid-packing while hunched over our bed, I shot a terrible glance of defeat up to my wife. I hated that I had the presence of mind to even think such a thing, but considering who we had made enemies of the past few days, I wasn’t going to take any chances. Not with Rachel's safety—her life.

Rachel sniffed as she nodded, confirming that she understood exactly what I was implying—she was always good about that, when the heat was on. Rachel quickly donned her purse and a spare backpack hastily stuffed with her huge collection of gray market HRT, clothes and phone chargers, and then gently lifted up her bedroom window for our escape.

In years passed, Rachel and I had climbed out this very window to play hooky. This morning, however, we climbed out not to simply goof off without parental overnight, but to especially sure murder.

Rach and I dropped onto the familiar grass of the backyard below and made a run for the fences, checking to make sure that we had not dropped proof of our escape.

With light and silent steps, I led us across Rachel’s neighborhood by hopping the backyard fences.

After clearing the last backyard before reaching the street itself, the sound of rapid machine gun fire caught up to us. Car alarms blared and houses lit up with light as Rachel and I made our way away from the homes and back into the dark.

We did a poor job of quieting our sobs, not that anyone but us could have heard them over the machine gun fire…

***

October 12, 2024:

Sunny days were rarer and rarer in Washington this time of the year. The rain and the gray skies that the state was known for returned, as they always did, but I found myself nostalgic for them. The past summer had been particularly brutal for me, even if I did the majority of my exercise in the early morning. As I worked on my curves and on my legs—specifically—I couldn’t help but enjoy the familiar cool mist around the neighborhood.

It was now just over thirteen months since Rachel and I had escaped the attempted assassination on her life. Tragically, our mothers had been killed during the raid. According to news reports, our mothers had been found filled with bullet holes. The way that their bodies had been found suggested that they had been murdered in their sleep.

Emily—as bitterly expected—was deadnamed in the news.

I was not surprised to learn that Rachel and Jae Jeong had been blamed for their murders. Whoever had ordered the strike was powerful and smart enough to slander our names as hard as they possibly could, making it impossible for us to live in the open. If we turned ourselves in to try to clear our names, we would surely die in lock up the night we were booked.

In the early weeks, through her sobs and snot, Rachel would ask me: “Who the fuck did this?”

I could only think of one person, but I always feared what would become of my wife should she have some target toward whom she could turn her grief and sorrow into malice and hatred.

So I said nothing.

And with the passage of time—save for conservative outlets like DOX News—the names Rachel and Jae Jeong faded into the background of the unrelenting news cycle. As such, we allowed them to fade into the background of our lives, too.

I began my morning as I always did these days. Some stretching before a run around our shitty, price-gouging, under-the-table apartment’s neighborhood. The sidewalks were essentially non-existent in our neighborhood, but a perk of jogging at 5:30AM was a lack of cars on the road.

I read somewhere once that exercising was best done in the morning—something about giving you extra energy for the rest of the day. Admittedly, the way mine and Rachel’s schedules worked out, it simply made more sense for me to go for my run in the morning. It gave me some time to myself to think before becoming spirited away by my wife’s candor for the rest of the day, anyway.

I eventually ended my 45 minute morning run the way I always did, arriving just in time to beat the morning rush at the local café.

After placing my order and sitting down to wait, I pulled out my phone and began doing my habitual anonymous searches for both of our former names.

As was usually the case, there was still no news to indicate that they were on to us. A curious phenomenon, but as the months passed and my body needed care, I found it easier to simply resign myself to our fate.

The barista at our café of choice was—to my great relief—a visibly queer young man around the same age as me. Freed by the openly queer-owned café's lax dress code, the blue-hair twink's typical attire—for as long as I had perused the Gayly Bug Café—was usually a sharp, brightly colored dress shirt left partially unbuttoned and tucked into a nice pair of jeans.

Appropriately garrish necklaces usually adored his neck, while colorful bracelets and bead wristbands would wrap around his wrists.

I could appreciate the style, even if it wasn’t for me.

These days, if I flashed a little chest it would definitely be showing off a lot more than just a flat chest—or even muscular pecs.

My occasional glances at the barista and his colorful style inevitably caught the attention of the side-shave-sporting twink as he turned around with my order and approached the front counter. I was already three-fourths of the way to the counter when he read out my new name: “Order for Jen?”

“Here, thank you,” I replied with a practiced smile and soprano. The barista was all smiles himself—in that way that was, thankfully, not creepy—as he handed the shitty cardboard tray with my two drinks over.

As I accepted the tray, his finger connected with mine, sending a small jolt of static electricity that seemed to travel right up to my brain.

I couldn’t help but blush, although I wasn’t sure if it was from the smile in his voice or the smile on his face. Was it perhaps the way our fingers accidentally touched? Or simply the jolt itself?

Nevertheless, I didn’t need a compact mirror to tell that my cheeks were turning red—or that my heart was beating faster. I wasn’t sure why this guy always made me so flustered, but I didn’t really see the point in just brushing him off, either, when our little interactions were so harmless—cute, even.

“Oh, sorry, ma’am,” the barista smiled, a tail of somewhat embarrassment over the accidental touch. Still, I was practically a master at telling when a man was flirting with me at this point. Taking a moment out of his increasingly busy morning to flirt with me was a tried-and-true move for this guy, anyway.

Well, I guess he wasn’t busy enough to not flirt with who he thought was a cute girl, though.

Still…it was kinda nice. “Ah, no problem, hon,” just a half-giggle, to be polite. Perhaps it was surface-level, but I took a fancy to the way his blue eyes were complimented by his electric-blue dyed hair.

The lip ring wasn’t a bad look, either.

I wasn’t attracted to men, but playing the role of an average, unassuming cishet college-age girl—something that my complicated life had deigned to thrust upon me thirteen months ago—was still quite amusing when I didn't have to worry about a sleazy man making an unwanted pass at me. At the end of the day, even after thirteen months worth of crafting a new body and fashion style, I was still a straight man.

Even if my cheeky wife liked to tell me that I looked like a bisexual girl now.

I had taken to taking my wife’s teasing to mean that I still looked and dressed too masculine—something I would have to work on if I wanted to avoid being recognized for Jae Jeong. Switching over to yoga pants and running shirts and jackets from the women’s section had helped with that for my running outfits as of late, but I was always reappraising my casual wear for whenever Rachel and I went out. What the hell would happen if I wore something vaguely like I used to pre-whatever the hell this new life of mine was?

Drinks accepted, I smiled one last time and nodded a goodbye to the barista, a thought gnawing at the back of my mind that I was being far too polite to some random guy. Doubting myself hardly seemed like a great idea, though, so I committed to the nod, turned, and made my way out of the café for the trek back to the apartment I shared with my wife.

The benefit of a light, short walk back to our apartment was that it gave my legs a chance to readjust to walking, rather than running. Rachel and I had long-since mapped out the surrounding neighborhood in case we ever needed to run from the cops—or secret black ops teams seeking to do to us that which was done to our mothers. The notion seemed almost silly sometimes, but then there were the nights when Rachel would wake up screaming and sobbing from a nightmare, and I felt significantly better about my preparedness.

Entering our apartment, I found my wife still passed out on our air mattress in her proudly-purchased pink pajamas.

“Wake up, sleepy head,” I called from our shitty excuse for a kitchenette, “I got your hot cocoa, Rach!”

A bemoaned “Five more minutes,” became muffled mid-sentence by my wife pulling the comforter over her head, as if it would do her any good. And yet, judging by the empty packaging close to her side of the bed, the girl had already taken her morning HRT.

Leaning forward onto the counter, I took a sip of my tea from its place in the tray—still too hot—then pulled back up to doff my sweat-soaked tee-shirt and bra and tossed them on top of the hamper. “Come on, dearest wife, we have a full day of fun, non-work related activities planned ahead of us.” With a light step from running everyday for six months I sped over to the air mattress faster than I expected and tore the comforter off of Rachel.

“The light!” the mess of blonde hair hammed up, “Not the light!!!”

“Girl, the sun is barely up! It's an October morning in Washington, for crying out loud!” I huffed, bending down to leave her the tray with her hot cocoa.

“I’M MELLLLLLTTINGGGGGGGGGG!!!” the blonde dramatically groaned.

For my part, I simply stood in place, looking down on her without a single word.

“Fuck, yeah, I know, I know.” It sometimes made me feel a bit perverse, but even my wife’s morning ‘tantrums’ were still cute to me. A perfectly manicured hand reached at the oddest of angles and safely grabbed her cocoa. “Dangy, still warmy-warm-warm.” I should ask her to touch up my manicure.

“That guy with the blue hair was working today. I think he knows that I have to walk these home, so he makes them hotter to last longer or something.”

“That guy you have a crush on?” my wife teased, picking herself up to take a proper sip of the chocolate beverage. “Isn’t that, like, dangerous or somethin’?”

“I don’t have a crush on him, Rach—and yes, it is dangerous, you bimbo!” I shot back with a little more fluster than I had intended.

Rach giggled at my retort as she picked herself up and then wrapped her arms around my shoulders from the front, “It’s okay, Jenni, I’m not jealous. I know exactly how to keep my wifey happy~!” Rach reached up and undid my hair scrunchie, letting my shoulder length black hair loose, before leaning even closer for a kiss.

“Don’t,” I blurted out, “I’m all sweaty!”

“It’s a good thing I can just take a shower with you, girly pop~!”

A weird feeling turned over in my stomach, as it always did anytime Rach gendered me as a woman. When we agreed that I would start taking HRT—Estradiol—so that I wouldn’t suffer without any hormones in my body, she and I both knew that at some point I was going to start looking like a woman and needing to socialize outwardly as a woman. That then led to me making the decision for Rach to refer to me as Jennifer—a woman—at all times, even in private. If I was a woman at all times it was a heck of a lot less likely that either of us would make a mistake and—ironically enough—out the both of us. To the world at large not—for however little of it I interacted with on a daily basis—I was but an unassuming cisgender woman now.

Deciding to fight fire with fire, I leaned forward for a kiss, of which Rachel playfully receded back from—pretending suddenly to have an issue with kissing her sweaty wife, “Noooo, you’re all sweaty~!”

Rachel’s body, however, apparently had other ideas, as her hands slid down the small of my back and—mercilessly—squeezed my ass. “F-fuck, Rach,” I couldn’t help but moan in the quietest of whispers. I wasn’t sure how she managed to do it, but Rachel had always found a way to find my weak spots—and then attack them without fear of reprisal.

Wasn’t the cishet husband supposed to be the top in these sort of relationships?

Pressing our still-developing breasts together, Rachel slowly walked us until we tapped against the living room wall. Pinning me between the wall and her body, Rachel slipped her hands away just long enough to doff her pajama top and then press her significantly large breasts into my own. The feeling of her warm, heaving chest on my estrogenized skin was so electric that I couldn’t help but let out a quiet moan. Just as Rachel’s bigger personality stood out against my own, her breasts outshone mine.

Everything about Rachel was louder than anything about me: her hair, her manner of dress, her personality, her voice, her voluptuous body, and her swagger in the bedroom as firmly established Rachel as more than just your average cis-passing trans girl. In just barely a year, my wife had managed to transform herself into the cheery, beautiful bimbo bombshell that she had always admired. Save for more lip fillers, a Brazilian Butt Lift and bigger, faker tits my wife was hardly any different from the girls she had linked me to the Reddit and Twitter profiles of over the years when she was in a horny daze.

With some guided practice from my wife, I had even grown a little more comfortable touching her breasts when we made out. There was an eternal, burning fire to the touch of her breast’s skin anytime I dared to rub them. While the palm of my skin never showed the scars of burns any time I would pull them away from her chest, it still felt like I had placed my hands in a fire ever so capriciously.

That same fire singed the tip of my tongue any time I dared to place them in my mouth, too.

Pressed firmly against the faded white walls of our apartment’s living room, I lost control of my knees as Rachel dug her tongue deeper into my mouth and lifted me by my ass up higher and higher.

“You’re gonna drop me,” I gasped between gasps for air.

“Good girls, like, keep their mouths—mmph—closed!”

Throwing caution to the wind, my wife pulled me all the way up with strength I don’t know where from and I inevitably wrapped my arms and legs around her, desperate not to be dropped—or to stop kissing her back.

Stumbling around the room, Rach and I crashed into bags, folding chairs and whatever cheap shit we had bought to decorate the room and make it half-way livable since moving in six months earlier. Living on the run and working under the table didn’t lead to a glamorous lifestyle, but it was enough for us to have a libido, at least.

Finally, Rach pulled away from my lips with the sort of tantalizing confidence I had had to deal with my entire life, “Come on, Jenni, we got a busy day ahead of us.” Rachel began walking us over to the restroom.

“Wait a sec,” I said, pointing my line of sight over to our HRT stash. Dropping me with a bemused sigh, Rachel slapped my ass to hurry me up.

Jolted by the sudden slap, a quick giggle yelped its way out of my mouth as I trotted over to our stash and placed my morning dose of Estradiol under my tongue to dissolve, “An it’th juth ‘Jen’, Rach!”

The creaky floor of our apartment played a symphony of sounds to accompany my speed walk toward my wife, who eventually reached forward and out to grab me by my right wrist and pull me in again against her.

“Jesus, you’re horny this morning,” I teased, feeling the length of her stiffening cock against my thigh.

Replying with a kiss that turned into a gentle lip bite, Rachel broke just long enough to giggle back, “I got, like, a sweat fetish or somethin’.”

“You fuckin’ bimbo,” I cackled, lightly pushing her back by the shoulders—Rachel hardly budged.

“You~ knowwwww~,” a naughty glint in her eye and an enchanting melody in her voice, “We cooooulllddd just stay in all day and fu—”

“Rachel,” I—poorly—admonished, “We both agreed that we would do more than just work, sleep and makeout, didn’t we?”

Rachel’s whiny bimbo noises of disappointment signaled her acknowledgement of our agreement both perfectly and painfully.

“Good!” I punctuated with as much authority as I could muster while trying not to picture the thick cock rubbing against my thigh pounding my ass.

“Make out with me in the shower, at least!” Rachel beamed, a heartbreakingly hopeful highness to her pitch

It was better than letting her know how badly I wanted more, “Ugh, fine. But just one, okay?”

“YAAAY, MAKEY-MAKE-MAKE!!” Rachel screeched, sweeping me up in a princess carry.

“J-Jesus Christ, Rach!” I laughed, unable to pretend to be tough in the face of such shining purity as she literally swept me off of my feet.

Once inside the lavatory, Rach set me down on the cheap bathroom rug we had purchased to stand on in front of the sink mirror and turned on the shower, in all its lukewarm glory.

“Shower makey, shower outie!” Rachel’s singing was as off-key as ever, but it was hard not to find it charming—even without the erect cock swinging in step with her hips as she excitedly lowered and doffed her pajama pants.

If giving me a wife with a nice rack and a big cock was the universe’s way of apologizing to me for being kidnapped and mutilated, perhaps it was a decent enough repaymentfor all the trauma.

Or perhaps it just meant that having the right person to share your life with meant anywhere could be paradise?

Bending down to take off my leggings while the water heated, Rachel began lightly kissing my breasts and then my taut stomach on the trip down. I was thankful for all the running I had taken up since moving into our apartment. The slimming of my figure down to where it was now had boosted my confidence in ways I had never truly understood until I could stand before my mirror and not feel like a massive, bloated whale for being the 180 pounds I was last year. Not only had it opened up more fashion possibilities, it had given me so much more energy than I had had before.

I was thankful that Rachel was always careful to avoid kissing my crotch area, however. While I had physically recovered from what Chase Avery Mann had done to me, I still felt this gnawing anxiety anytime it came to doing anything too sexual. Making out with my wife had become my way of telling myself that I was still making progress, but there were days where I just couldn’t see myself as doing anymore than lying to myself.

Watching my wife peel my soaking panties down brought to the surface all of those feelings of unease that I had tried so hard to keep bottled up, but I could never share that with the poor girl. Rachel had suffered just as much as me, her empathy damning her to eternally blame herself for my assault, even when I did everything in my power to reassure her that she was not to blame.

The brightness of Rachel’s voice, her smile, and her spirit was my own, and to snuff that out by burdening her with my trauma was a sin I could not bring myself to commit. Rach was not the problem, and to have her ever think that she was was something that I could not stomach.

I fed off of Rachel’s light in ways I was not sure that she would ever truly understand.

My unease around sex was my own, and my alone. It wasn’t as if I didn't love Rachel's titillating and aggressiveness, either. I knew that I was eventually going to have to address whatever it was that was eating away at me, but for now all I wanted was to feel the skin of my wife against my own, before taking her out to explore Seattle a little more.

Finally, I was as naked as my wife. Standing halfway in the tub, Rach held out an inviting hand and giggled.

Yes, the weird feelings could wait for later—all I wanted was to hug my wife beneath the lukewarm water.

PROLOGUE: END
TOP EGG: TO BE CONTINUED…

Chapter Text

December 11, 2024:

I often heard from older folks that Washington was warmer in the winters of their youth, which tracks when you consider climate change and all, but goddamn, 19°F?

Nevertheless, I pushed my body through the cold and dry morning air. Rachel, having joined me on my run, huffed and puffed through the sharp air. As expected, she was decked out in entirely pink attire to contrast my entirely dark look.

“Gah, I fuckin’ hate runnin’ in the cold, Jenni!”

“It’s Jen—but yeah, I get it! We’re almost there!”

“This sucks. This is worse than the Shinra Building steps!”

“The what?”

“Normie!”

“Oh my God, it was your idea to come running with me this morning, hon!”

“I know! But, like, I just wanna spend time with you! And you barely slept last night! Fuck, this fuckin’ sucks!”

It was hard not to want to grin at how pathetic Rachel liked to act. I’d come to expect that she played the part of the over-the-top tortured victim in moments like this, half to keep my attention and half to ignore how much discomfort she was actually in.

After we’d settled down into our new lives at the apartment I’d begun doing research on neurodivergence and found the subject pretty enlightening. Rachel’s hypersensitivity to loud and sudden noises or her avoidance of physical contact for most of our lives, for example, made a lot more sense. Mixing in how her raised estrogen levels and suppressed testosterone likely kept her as cold as me and the combination probably made for an extra unpleasant experience.

Eventually, much to both of our gratefulness, we arrived at the local café near our house—the Gayly Bug—and placed our orders—in cash—with the Blue-Haired Twink that typically ran the front end register. As we made our way to the table we usually sat at to wait for our order, Rachel nudged me with her right elbow, “He’s checking you out again, Jenni.”

Ugh, “It's Jen—so what?”

“‘So what’? You should flirt back!” Rach giggled, hopping onto her chair.

“I’m happily married. Besides, Blue-Haired Twink is a guy,” I countered while doffing my jacket.

“Yeah, so? You still grin like a goof anytime he pays you any attention,” Rachel made a teasing half-sneer, likely hoping to get a rise out of me. I merely replied with an annoyed expression.

“I’m just trying to be polite. I read that the easiest way to pass is to emulate how cis women are raised to always act like they’re in a good mood. Unlike you, my dear, being chipper does not come naturally to me.

“Chirp!” Rachel replied as she watched herself zipping her coat’s zipper up-and-down quickly.

“Exactly. Besides, why do you keep trying to hoist me off on some rando at the coffee shop?” With a devilish grin I added, “Tired of me already, dear?”

A rare frown took shape on Rachel’s face, “It’s not that, Jenni—”

“—Jen.”

“—It’s just that, like, I get guilty sometimes, y’know? Like, I kinda pushed you into this whole marriage thing fast. Heck, we don’t even have rings! I’m just…scared that you’ll never get a chance to explore your identity, y’know?”

My stomach churned with unease, but I kept the feeling at bay long enough to reply, “Explore my identity? Rach, I’m a—” I did a quick cursory glance around to make sure nobody was listening. With a whisper, I continued: “I’m a cishet guy who had to medically and socially transition so as to avoid being witchhunted for being an accomplice to murder! What identity do I have to explore?”

Rachel’s shoulders slumped, hurt, “I’m just…like…getting together with you let me explore who I am and who I like. You helped me feel comfortable sharing something I'd, like, never let myself consider before.I just wanted to make sure you could do the same thing.”

It was hard not to get lost in the kind jade light of Rach’s eyes. Now that she was nearly two years into her transition—and now that the scars of last year were beginning to heal—she was truly taking on a new, fuller persona. I often feared that I was dismissive towards my wife because of her quirks—her autism—but the intent behind her eyes and her voice were impossible to misinterpret. She was a bimbo, but I’d trust nobody else with my backside. Slumping into my chair, I sighed.

Sensing that I wasn’t going to reply immediately, Rach continued: “It’s just…we still haven’t…you know, done any of that, so I was worried that maybe you weren’t…you know…into me now that I’ve started looking more feminine?”

It was honestly pretty surreal being called gay by Rachel again. She used to do it all the time as an egg, but even then she would try to sugarcoat it with an air of jest. This felt like just plain condescension. Shooting her well-on-display chest a sarcastic look and then looking her in the face I stifled any hurt feelings and replied: “Honey, I am, actually, a big fan of what Progesterone is doing to your tits. Please do not go around calling me gay of all things.”

Rach gagged in embarrassment before correcting herself: “No, no, what I mean is…are you sure you aren’t just straight?”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Like, a straight girl?”

“Just because I’m on you-know-what it doesn’t mean I’m not, y’know, like—ugh, come on, girl!”

“It’s just…I’m sorry, but you’re so…how can I say this…like, natural at it?” Rachel’s body language was obviously growing anxious now, so I sat on my hands to try and keep myself from letting my nerves get to me, too.

“I practiced a lot the past fifteen months, Rachel. We both have! And if you wanna talk about ‘natural’, you acted like a girl our whole lives!” It was hard to keep my voice calm and steady, without shouting and outing myself to the café staff and one other guy in the other corner minding his own business.

Rachel’s face made small contortions as she formulated a response. “But, like, you seem so much, like…happier?”

Did I? I mean, Rachel was the last—and only—good thing left in my life, for sure, so it seemed strange to say that I seemed happier. We were on the run from the cops and god knows how many other government agencies.

Okay, sure. Now that I was ‘living as a woman’ thanks to this new voice and figure, it was kind of nice to be treated a certain way by guys. Especially the—objectively-speaking—cuter ones. And yes, I’d already admitted to myself that I would still choose Rach even if she wasn’t a girl. But…what the hell did any of that mean? ‘Explore my identity’? How was I supposed to do that while already married to the only person I would ever want to be with?

“Rach,” I sighed, hoping to cheer her up. She was looking at the lines on the high-standing table, probably trying to count them to avoid focusing on her own anxiety. “Rach, I know it’s uncomfortable, but can I ask you to look me in the eyes for what I’m about to say?”

Rach pouted, made a cutesy moan of discontent, and then forced her vision to match mine.

“Rachel J—er, Yoshihara,” I said, taking her hands in mine and locking our fingers while brightening my voice as much as I could after forty-five minutes in the cold, “I love you. I know it sounds crazy to say this when I’m nineteen, but I’ve known it forever. Even when I—and please don’t take this the wrong way—thought you were a guy. I don’t think I realized it at the time because of bullshit, but you’re the one for me. You always will be.”

Rachel got the sniffles, those sniffles she’d always get when watching a happy or sad movie, and put a well manicured hand up to her mouth sideways to block any wailing from escaping, “Y-you mean it?”

Really, there was no way in the universe I wasn’t going to not crack a smile, “I do. I love you, Rach. Maybe you’re—okay, listen, you're right: I’ve got something to sort out with my sexuality, at the very least. I don’t know how I’m going to do that, but what I do know is that I never want to be with someone other than you. I’m not gay, and I’m not straight—”

“Doesn’t that just make you bisexual, like me?”

Without even thinking, I sighed, “I dunno. Maybe?”

“That or ‘Rachelsexual’?” she giggled, her posture straightening.

“That’s not offensive, is it? To, like, lesser known sexualities?” I’d been doing some reading on the community, since my wife was trans and bi—two of the letters!

“I’unno,” he shrugged, lightly drumming on her side of the table edge with her index fingers, “Should’ve brought my fidget spinner—like, basically, what I mean is, anyone who finds out about my cock is going to call me a faggot anyway, so I figure I can make jokes, right?”

My body took a deep breath on instinct as I shot a look to the tabletop, “I dunno about your point, girl, but I think you're right about the first part.”

Rachel only blinked in response, taking a moment to catch up. “Oh, wait, you mean—”

“Everyone’s going to call me a faggot anyway. I might as well enjoy the perks of being one, then.”

Rachel attached a giggle to her reply, “Gawd girl, you’re so funny!”

Being treated as a girl by a girl wasn’t too shabby, either.

“Order for Jen?” called a familiar voice, prompting us both to look up. It was the Blue-Haired Twink, having taken the time to walk our orders over to us.

‘Cheeky bastard,’ I mentally groaned, ‘I put Rachel’s name on the order.’ Rachel tittered as we accepted our orders, “Hi, Cocoa!” but then a mischievous look appeared on her face.

“Oh look, I have a call. I’ll take this outside, why don’t you two, like, get to know one another? Have fun, Jenni!!” Picking up her hot cocoa and smart phone, Rach quickly stood up and strode out the door.

‘Cheeky bitch,’ I thought.

With Rachel no longer blocking my view of the window, I noticed my reflection: it was that of a very lean and fit college girl with her hair tied up. Gone was the average build I’d somehow maintained on nothing but junk food. Having to be wiser about how I spent money on food had truly done miracles for my figure. My old look of annoyance had been replaced by one far more…cuntier now that it had been feminized by fifteen months of HRT.

I didn’t hate it, either, but I didn’t know why that was. Either way, the Blue-Haired Twink was now standing to my left looking awkwardly, so I decided to just dive in head first and see if Rach was right. “You don’t look too busy this morning. Grab some wood.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Sit down, let’s have a chat,” I giggled, remembering to add a lighter touch to my voice when around a man. No reason to take my frustration out on a perfectly good twink, I supposed.

With a few awkward glances around the café, the blue-haired barista eventually took Rachel’s seat. The wood creaked as he sat and I could only imagine he now realized why I told him to grab wood.

I sure wasn’t going to have any wood for him to grab on me.

“Is your friend always so transparent?” the Blue-Haired Twink asked, bearing a sheepish grin.

I stifled a snicker at his use of the word ‘transparent’, “My ‘friend’ isn’t much one for secrets.” The irony wasn’t lost on me.

For safety purposes—and because we had no legal documents proving that Rachel Queen and Jennifer Yoshihara were actually married—Rachel and I both pretended to be single and unwed in public. It’d make passing a cishet a lot easier for both of us, although I don’t particularly think that Rachel cared if she was seen as queer so long as she was seen as a woman.

Then there was the fact that we’d simply never had the time or money to buy wedding rings, either.

“Soooo…uh…Jenni?”

“You can call me ‘Jen’. She’s the only one who calls me ‘Jenni’. Still trying to train that one out of her, really,” I’d found that men were more susceptible to sarcasm when it was coated with a layer of sincerity and humor. Thankfully, I’d learned to fake sincerity damned well over the past year.

The Blue-Haired Twink chuckled at my joke, “Something-something old dog, new tricks. I’m sure that must be an…interesting challenge.”

“Gosh, is it,” I sassed lightly, “But she’s a good girl. The best friend I could have, really…?” It dawned on me that I could not exactly call the barista by ‘Blue-Haired Twink’. Thankfully, he picked up on my roadblock.

“Oh, shoot, that’s right!” he broke out into a nervous smile, “Danny! Or Daniel, at your service!” Rather than offer a handshake—like a more ‘traditionally masculine’ guy would do—the barista did a cutesy peace sign.

I replied with a peace sign of my own, “Jennifer, or just Jen. Nice to meet you, Danny-or-Daniel.”

The twink couldn’t help himself and laughed at that one, “Pleasure to meet you, Just Jen.”

I was going to regret that one, wasn’t I?

Well, whatever, it made me giggle.

“Soo…uh…sorry, I’m still new to this, y’know?” I said, nerves heightened.

“New to being set up by a friend so the strange guy with blue hair that you get your tea and hot cocoa from can shoot his shot?” Danny joked.

“Yeah, that, exactly, actually.”

“Yeah, I won’t lie, it’s a bit of a funny way for me to start flirting with a cute girl, too,” Danny admitted, letting his fingers lightly play air piano on the surface of the table. Admittedly, I found it to be a cute quirk.

“So, uh, you work here for a long time?” I asked, unsure of what I was doing.

“About two years now, I think? Just something to help with paying the bills while I'm taking classes.”

‘I’d be in college, too, if I didn’t have a warrant out for my arrest,’ I thought. “Must be fun. What’re you majoring in?”

“It’s a stereotype, I know,” Danny braced, “But, performance arts. Specifically, musical theater.”

Stereotype? Musical theater? What, was he gay? Did he clock me somehow?! “Uh…sorry?”

Taking flush, Danny sat back a little, “Oh, I’m sorry, maybe I’m not putting out the right vibes?” The barista adjusted his arm placement and shot a quick glance at his apron. On the left strap was a small pin, bearing three lines of three different colors. I’d recognized the colors from a flag and identical pin that Rachel had gotten at last year’s local Pride event.

“Oh, wow, I’m sorry, I hadn’t even noticed,” I said, sheepishly, before continuing in a whisper “That’s the…Bisexual Pride colors?”

“Yup!” the barista chirped, “Sorry, I just thought that you were…uh…y’know?”

Honestly, I didn’t know, “You know…what? Sorry? I—I’m sorry, I’ve never done this with a guy before,” I said nervously, realizing that I might have just given myself away.

“Oh, yeah, I thought so. Sorry, that sounds rude. What I mean is, like, a lesbian who’s curious about men?”

Wait, he thought I was a lesbian? I mean, I guess it’s not like my speech pattern, pitch and mannerisms were completely feminine in a ‘cishet girl’ kind of way yet, “Oh? Uh, actually…yeah? Like, I’ve only ever…dated women before, you know?”

So much for not drawing attention to yourself, Jen!

Still, it felt…nice…to tell the truth, even if my pitch and voice cadence dropped a little into an androgynous zone.

I’d have to work on that more.

“Aaah, yeah, that happens sometimes,” Danny said, his face scrunching just enough that it looked like he was recalling something, “My uncle didn’t try dating women until he was, like, 35? Said it was a major mindfuck to realize he was bi after identifying and living in the community as gay for so long.”

Hearing that struck me pretty hard—harder than I’d expected it to, actually, “Wait, really?” Danny nodded plainly, “Holy shit…” my voice was a whisper. My mind teetered between being distracted by the scent of coffee, the noise of coffee machines, and the sight of the man before me. Was what Danny saying even possible?

“Hey, like, listen, I didn’t mean to be weird or anything,” Danny added with energy, leaning in closer in a respectful, rather than sleazy, manner, “Please do know, I understand ‘no’ means ‘no’, so I’m sorry if I’d just been, like, completely misreading things.”

Like a lost puppy I replied, “‘Misreading’?”

“Yeah, like, your signals? I just thought you’d been, y’know, flirting with me the last couple of weeks? Oh, shit, Jenni—Jen, I’m so sorry if I’ve overstepped—”

My hearing cut out at some point as the weight of what Danny was saying sunk into the depths of my soul.

Signals? Me? I mean, sure, yeah, he was cu—oh, gawd, was Rach right? Had I really been flirting with this guy and not even noticed?

A torrent of moments over the past handful of weeks flashed through my eyes. Maybe even memories going as far back as earlier in my transition. Just little things, like instinctively returning his smile, making jokes about our orders or the demands of capitalism on the worker’s body. Heck, even complimenting his hair anytime he’d redyed it. The darker blue was definitely an improvement over the ice-esque color from four months ago, that’s for sure.

But…those were all innocuous things, right? Anyone could say or do those things and not mean them in a flirty way!

But is that how I meant them?

Then there was that spark when our fingers touched by accident two months ago. The blush on his face when he realized what he’d done could be interpreted as intentional, even though I thought that it definitely wasn’t.

I blinked my eyes rapidly to clear my vision that had blurred over at some point I couldn’t recall, and eventually saw the man before me a little clearer than before. He had a really good skincare routine for a cis guy. And that lip ring and those earrings were actually pretty hot, too! But also…the way concern showed on his face…was kinda nice? I wonder why he looked so worried, though?

Then, my hearing returned, “Jen, are you okay? Jenni? Did I say something to make you cry? Oh, shit, I’m so sorry, lemme get you some napkins!” Danny nearly lunged out of his chair—oh, Rachel’s jacket was still hanging off the back—but I grabbed his wrist as he tried to dash past the table.

“No, no, you’re f-fine, Danny. Sorry, I must’ve just gotten something in my eye!” I lied, doing my best to sound cheery, just like Rach would have.

“Are you sure?” he asked, cautiously retaking the edge of his seat. The creaking of the seat as Danny sat down again felt louder and clearer than ever before as I felt all of my senses heightened.

“”I’m sure,” I giggled, sniffing any loose mucus back up. My heart was racing so fast I wouldn’t be surprised if it burst out of my chest, surgically reattached my testicles and then cut them right off again. “I, uh, what you said just…I mean…”

It doesn’t matter, I’ll always just be a faggot to someone.

“Actually, yeah,” my breathing quickened just at the thought of what I wanted to try saying, “I have been flirting with you lately,” I laughed at the sensation of just saying it, even if I wasn’t entirely sure of what in the world I was saying, “I hope that’s okay?”

A wry smile crept across Danny’s clear-skinned face, “Oh, of course, Jenni—ah, sorry, Jen.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I giggled, “I hear it all the time from Rachel, Danny-or-Daniel.” It was hard not to just sit up straight now, “You’re a cute guy, and I get that it kinda just…happens, I guess?” I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing, but I kinda liked not overthinking it.

“No, no, trust me, I get it. You’re cute too, by the way, Just Jen,” Danny’s posture relaxed, which in turn made me feel more at-ease with whatever the hell I was feeling. “Listen, uh, I’d love to get to know you more and all but…”

Following Danny’s line of sight, I noticed that customers had begun filing in while I wasn’t paying attention and Danny was now needed back behind the counter to aide his rushing co-workers. “Omigawsh, Danny, I’m sorry—I’m sorry for distracting you!”

Danny smiled and lightly laid his right hand on his chest, “No, no, you’re fine, Jen. I’m actually really glad that we finally spoke-spoke, y’know?” I nodded enthusiastically so as to not cut him off from continuing, “I was wondering, do you have Discord?”

“Oh,” I said, concerned. Logging into my old Discord account was too dangerous and Rach and I mostly used Telegram to contact one another. Still, I didn’t want to disappoint Danny, “Sorry, no, but I do have Telegram?”

Danny’s eyebrows raise, “Oh, no, yeah, me too. Mostly use it for Pride stuff, but I’d be happy to add you!”

Danny and I exchanged contact info and promised to message one another after his shift. With Danny now back to dealing with grouchy morning customers I turned back to the table to grab my tea and noticed, yet again, that Rach’s coat was still on the back of her chair. “Oh, shit!” I swore under my breath. With a few quick steps I opened the door and pulled one shivering blonde wife inside.

“Oh emm fucking gee-awd, I’m f-f-fr-freezing!” Rachel chattered, her teeth clomping together like a pony’s trot as I wrapped her back into her jacket.

“Goddamn it Rach, why didn’t you just come back inside?” I questioned, hugging her tightly to transfer as much body heat as I could. “Danny, another hot chocolate!” I shouted.

“On it!”

“F-f-f-f-first n-n-name b-b-b-basis?” Rach cheekily asked.

“W-what? Yes, that—oh my gawd, girl, worry about yourself, would you!” I couldn’t believe this woman.

“O-o-o-o-k-k-k-ayyyy,” my wife whined, unable to even sit. “M-m-m-m-m-my n-ni-n-nip-nipples a-are s-so-soooooo haaaard, J-Jenni-ni-ni-ni!”

“Gawd, you are, like, such a bimbo!”

***

December 11, 2024:

One hour and one extra hot cocoa later, Rachel and I walked hastily through the 23°F chill of 7:45AM back to our cold apartment, turned on all of the space heaters,and got into bed together.

“You hanging in there, Rach?” I asked, embracing her as tightly as I could while trying not to stab myself with her rock-hard nipples.

“N-nooooo,” she whined, “Hug m-me more harder-er-er!”

What a little liar, “Okay sweetie, hang on!” Readjusting myself, I positioned my torso to meld with hers as much as possible. As a result, our genitals touched. “Oh, whoops, sorry,” I winced, not enjoying a reminder of what had happened Down There.

“N-no problem, hon,” Rach smiled, the chattering of her teeth calming down. “I’m…actually feeling a lot better, but, uh…do you actually, like, mind, uh…touching down there?”

Well, I wasn’t expecting that, “Um…you mean…like…”

“Your hands are w-warm still, y’know?” her sheepish grin was hard to dislike, “Sorry, go ahead and ignore that. It was stupid.”

Even beneath three comforters and all these space heaters I could tell that Rachel’s cool down was going to take a while.

Despite being married we hadn’t actually ‘consummated the marriage’, as they say in the movies. Rach had respected my discomfort with my own genitalia since losing my testicles, so we hadn’t exactly had a sex life. Between that and the whole “being on the run” thing of it all there hadn’t been many moments for sexy time…and now here she was, asking me to warm up her fuckin’ nuts.

Hell, I don’t even think she noticed the potential sexual implications of what she was asking.

And yet, here I was, comfortably able to lay on my side without pain—the sensation of what was once between my thighs forgotten. Here I was, in bed with my gorgeous, silly, brave, smart, kind wife as she warmed up after trying to give me an opportunity to learn about myself. I used to think that it was me who was learning new things about Rachel everyday, but instead, she was the one trying to learn new things about me by watching my journey. It was amazing—she was amazing.

If now wasn’t the time, when would be the time?

With caution and a surprising amount of excitement I cupped my wife’s testicles with my left hand. Rachel winced from the initial contact, but let her breath go once the heat began to transfer.

“Are you okay?” I asked, unsure exactly of what to do or say in such a surreal situation. Rachel smiled her thanks to me, leading me to caress her balls in my hand to see how she’d react. My little bimbo, of course, giggled. I could feel her shriveled shack loosen up at last, so I relented and placed my hand on her still widening left hip to caress it, too. “Did you just ask for that so I’d finally touch your cock?”

“M-m-m-m-maybe?” Rach giggled between fake teeth-chattering.

“Liar,” I countered with a put-upon sternness.

“Ehehehe, sorry, Jenni!”

“Just Je—forget it,” a sigh escaped my mouth as I moved my left hand to her right breast. “Like I was saying earlier, not gay, Rach. These things?” a slight squeeze, “These fat udders are hot, if you must know.”

Rach giggled, the cogs in her might evidently moving, “Oh yeah?” she asked, placing her right hand on my left breast—I winced a little, but grabbed her wrist when she tried to pull back. Amused, Rachel continued: “Maybe you should take P, too, so you can grow your own ‘fat udders’?”

“Pfft!” I booped her nose with mine, thankful that we’d been able to get our noses fixed up through…certain means.

Even if I told them to make it look as feminine as possible.

For the disguise.

“I’m serious, Jenni. That stuff makes orgasms so much better, too!”

Truth be told, I hadn’t had an orgasm in over a year. I suppose I was a little curious about the supposedly amazing orgasms, though. It’s not like I didn’t already have breasts, either. Rachel began necking me, which snapped me from my thoughts. “You take it before bed, right?” I asked.

“Yup-yup,” she squeaked between kisses, “You thinkin’...?”

I took a moment, “Uh…I dunno. Yeah. Maybe? Not like I can’t just get the breasts removed someday, right?”

“If we can afford it, yeah? You sure bigger knockers won’t knock your socks off? Err, like, give you dysphoria?”

“I…I mean…I don’t know? I’ve kinda gotten used to looking like this now.”

Using her left arm, Rachel pushed herself up to look downward at me, the comforters falling to her waist and exposing her chest, “Wait, Jae, are you sure?”

“Jenni—I mean, Jen!” I corrected, “Err…I guess it’ll sound like you’re just saying the letter ‘J’, though, if you say it in public…” I muttered, “Anyway, yeah, sure, I kinda wanna try out these orgasms you keep talking about. Besides, I haven’t gotten off since—fuck!”

Rach raised an eyebrow, “Since when-y, Jenni?” How she could say something so silly with such a girlish voice and serious expression I’ll never know, but I couldn’t help but smile.

I propped myself up on my elbows, “Ugh, don’t be weird about this, but uh…the day you first told me? You flashed me and…they were…really hot, y’know…?”

“Oh my fuckin’ GAWD, you went home and jacked it to me didn’t you, you little perv?” Rach accused, thinly veiled amusement poking through.

A snicker snuck through, “Guilty as charged, ma’am!” Rach didn’t need to know that it was more of an ass-fucking with a dildo.

“Gosh, you naughty, naughty girl,” she sung, repositioning herself atop me, “Clearly you need to pay your debt to socie-titty!” Rach lowered her chest down, just above my mouth, taunting me. My peripheral vision confirmed that I was trapped between both of her arms, the beating of my heart confirmed I was alive, and the pulsating deep in my crotch confirmed that I needed this.

So, I sucked my wife’s right breast. Progesterone had made her torpedoes ripen into even more alluring globes since she started ordering it off the internet and I admired from afar, like a good hus—well, whatever I am.

But now? I felt lighter, happier than I’d been in ages. I traced Rachel's still-hard nipple with my tongue before taking a roughed suck, eliciting a moan that sounded positively unbelievable. As a result, though, I could feel her penis hardening and lengthening on my belly below. “Oh, shit—fuck!” I moaned, dislodging from her nipple. I knew exactly what that meant.

Rach giggled, but I could only catch a glimpse of the lust in her eyes before she leaned forward and whispered into my right ear, “Hey Jenni, can I?” Rachel’s penis lifted off my belly, then dropped back down onto it with a thud, “You up for that, slut?”

A squeak tore out of my mouth unprompted. Rach might’ve been an airhead, but I was under no illusion about the kind of monster that laid behind the innuendo and flirting she always taunted me with. Part of my brain was distracted by how feminine my moans sounded now, while another part of me was relieved that I wouldn’t accidentally break out into my old bass, even if under pressure in public.

Fuck, why was I so stuck in my head while my sexy wife was asking to dick me down? “I-it’s not…clean down there,” I mentioned, strangely deflated.

“Oh? Well, shit,” Rach replied, rather nonchalantly and without the mistress character, “Guess you’ll have to use your other hole, right?”

Precum dragged upward across my belly as Rach slowly moved her hips upward, guiding her cock cockily towards my mouth. The strength left my arms and I dropped onto my back, no longer able to handle the tension of the excitement.

“Ah!” Rach scolded playfully, “You won’t be able to suck from that position!” Like a predator stalking her prey, Rachel gracefully shifted off of the mattress and onto the floor, her shaft at full attention, “I imagine you, like, know what to do, right?”

I know that what I was about to do wasn’t going to make it any easier to catch my breath, but frankly, I didn’t care. Using strength I didn’t know where from, I got off the mattress, leaned against my girlfriend, and rested my head on her shoulder. The heat from a nearby space heater thankfully warmed my ankles.

“C-can I?”

With a giggle, “Like, duh!”

So, I intentionally touched my wife’s cock for the first time. It was warm, long and impressively thick considering the amount of time she’d been on HRT. Breathing heavily onto Rachel’s shoulder, I gave her erect penis a few, delicate jacks.

Rach lightly touched my hips with both of her hands, slowly rubbing up-and-down with the tips of her fingers. Such a minor gesture’s effect was amplified a thousand fold by the softness of our estrogenized skin touching, and I found myself grateful of my predicament in the least expected of ways. Rachel stroked my hips just a little faster and I couldn’t help but whimper as I felt my first orgasm in over a year nearing.

And then, she stopped.

“Keep going, please,” I pleaded, looking up into her eyes.

Rachel didn’t reply, either audibly or with a gesture. Instead, she looked into my eyes, like I knew what I should do.

And I did.

Getting onto my knees—thankful for carpeting—I stared up and, despite myself, smiled as Rachel rested her heavy hammer on my nose. I couldn’t help but gulp loudly, feeling as if her smoldering hot, leaking urethra was branding me.

Branding me as Hers.

Capital ‘H’.

I could see the spelling in my mind, on a dry-erase white board. It then occurred to me that my thighs were moving in-and-out, as if they were trying to beg for something down there.

But I didn’t have a hole to fill…and that made me feel oddly empty.

Precum dripping onto my lips broke me from my trance. It wouldn’t take long before the salty cum would leak into my mouth. All I had to do was wait.

Patiently.

Passively.

But then there were Rachel’s eyes, bearing down on me, boring past my eyes and my skull into my brain. I was lost in their green fire—consumed by it. Warmed by it. Burned by it. Incinerated by it, through skin, flesh, muscle, bone and my very brain itself, until all that was left was ash.

I was Nothing now. Nothing, in the face of Her.

Rachel was All. I was Nothing.

Yes, that was Right.

And so, my orgasm erupted throughout my entire body, tearing apart and rebuilding each cell of my body. Not a single fiber of thread left unstitched and resown.

As darkness encroached on the world around me and all my senses ceased I could hear Her voice faintly in the distance: “Uh…hey, Jenni? Are you going to suck? It kinda, like, hurts and—oh fucky, don’t hit your head!”

***

October 31, 2023

“So, like, place your handy-hand-hand on your chesty-chest-chest and then, like, go ‘aaah’! Like, uh, like, you need to open really wide-wide, yeah?”

Sixty miles from our home town, Rach and I sat at a picnic table made of stone in the middle of an empty public park. The stone bench was cold and hard, but I put up with it, since I didn’t exactly have an alternative. Rach and I had been living in a stolen tent that we had set up somewhere for weeks, anyway. It was hard not to get used to the cold.

Well, it would have been, if I hadn’t started feeling one of the effects of HRT: greater susceptibility to the cold.

Placing my hand on my chest—which had yet to begin showing the effects of HRT—I followed Rachel’s order and said ‘aaah’.

“Do you feel the vibration?”

“Uh…yeah?”

“Then do it louder! You’re not supposed to feel anything!”

Swallowing my pride, I continued to follow Rachel’s drills, each attempt more embarrassing than the last. Rachel and I had both agreed that if I was going to take feminizing HRT in place of the testosterone I wouldn’t be able to get from a doctor then I was going to have to start living as a woman. After all, if I could somehow manage to pass for cis I’d be a lot less likely to be assaulted.

Well, assaulted for being trans, rather than assaulted for being a woman in general. Hell, I wasn’t even trans, but I was quickly gaining a new appreciation for how much my wife had to put up with just to wipe the slate clean of all the bullshit she’d been told to conform to by society growing up.

Finally, I managed to land on the right mouth shape and posture, shooting my voice upward into what was apparently my ‘head voice’. I’d gone from a pretty deep and ‘sexy’—well, Rach called it ‘sexy’—voice to something more androgynous.

“Good, good, like that! Now, try introducing yourself or somethin’,” the side-tailed woman nodded feverishly.

“Aaah…hi, I’m Jae?”

“Longer!”

“Aaa, h-hi m-my name is Jae and I l-love my wife?” Speaking was harder than I’d imagined it would be, especially with such an unfamiliar—but not unpleasant—voice emanating from my mouth, but I was determined to try and perfect it. I was used to collecting all of the achievements in video games, anyway, so this wasn’t all that different.

Rach giggled at my choice of example sentence and replied with her much more refined voice: “Hi Jae, my name is Rachel and I love my husband. No question about it!”

Aah, dang, I guess it did sound like I was asking a question instead of saying something definitively, so I made another go at it: “Hi, my name is Jae and I love my wife.” My delivery was still so damned monotonous—like I did mean what I was saying. This was going to take some time to sound just right, I could tell.

“You’re startin’ to get it, Jae, just keep talking like that. Err…have you thought up a name yet?”

That was hardly the first time Rachel had asked that question this month. Or this week. Or this day. “Aaah…nnnnooo?” I replied, trying to keep my head voice going. “Ssstill thinking it over.” Truth be told, it was a little intimidating. “I dunno, I think I’d like to keep the letter ‘J’? Err…I mean…b-basically, I h-have an idea, I j-just don’t know if it’s cringe or not?”

“Honey, you’re sitting in the middle of a parky-park-park with your wifey-wife-wife while homeless cause you’re on the runny-run-run from the US government for murdering your mommy-mom-mom and your wifey-wife-wife’s mommies-moms-moms all while trying to learn how to do a girl voice so you can passy-pass-pass and live as a girl, right? How much more silly can you get?”

It was a strangely valid argument. Taking a breath to collect myself, I hemmed and hawed some more, “Aaah, I mean, you’ve got a point, but, like…still…”

Rachel rolled her eyes, which she’d bravely not put makeup on this fine morning to avoid wasting what she had left for a casual scene with her husband, “Out with it, hubby, before I send you off to Saints!”

“Huh?”

“Whatevs, movin’ on—like, come on, hon, the sooner you come up with a name the sooner we can, like, start to practice memorizing it.”

In my heart-of-hearts, I knew what Rachel was saying was the right thing to do. Still, I couldn’t help but feel like an imposter. Rachel was the one who was actually a trans woman here. I was just pretending to be trans for my own safety. Err…pretending to be a cis woman? This was confusing. Rubbing the morning out of my eyes yet again, I took a breath and opened my mouth: “Okay, listen—fine. I was thinking maybe…Jen? Like, short for Jennifer? It’s got a nice ring to it, y’know?”

Rachel’s face lit up brilliantly, like a hundred thousand holiday tree lights had been wrapped around it. “Omigawd, ‘Jenni’ is a great name, Jenni!”

I got the feeling that Rachel would have liked any name, to be honest. “Uh…it’s just Jen, Rach,” I corrected, flinching when I partially dropped my head voice.

“But Jenni’s, like, cuter!” she pouted. “With, like, an ‘i’ and not a ‘y’! Then you can make the dotty-dot-dot an heart when you write your name! See? Cute!”

With a grimace, I retorted: “There is nothing cute about me, Rach.” Any time I’d agreed to even try on something feminine from Rachel’s hastily packed stash of girl clothes I felt like an ogre. Then there was that dress I had tried wearing previously, before that kill squad had been deployed. The dress had looked so beautiful, but seeing myself in it had been devastating. Even just the mere curiosity was an insult to Rachel.

“There’s plenty cute to you, Jenni! Like, that all those times you had my back when I’d got called a faggot or gay or whatever! Or, that face you’d make when I beat you in Mario Kart!”

“I swear, you cheated,” I grumbled, casting my vision to the grass on my right.

“See! See! There! That’s the cute face you make when you lose! I love it!!” Rach leaned over the picnic table like a toddler trying to climb onto the table and kissed me on my left cheek. “You’re cute!”

Cheeks reddening, I semi-conceded, “Even when you’re bullying me you’re cute…”

“Aaah!” Rachel shouted, pointing at me.

“What?” I replied, afraid someone had suddenly recognized us.

“Your voice! You’re doing the girl voice, Jenni!!”

“I am? Oh, fuck, I am!” I nearly jumped out of my seat at how…not-masculine my voice sounded. “Aaah, so…uh…hi, my name’s Jennifer, but you can just call me Jen,” and with a wry smile I added, “...and I love my wife, Rachel.”

Too distracted by whatever glee my voice was giving her, Rachel missed my attempt at making her blush, grabbed my left hand and held it up off the table, before locking our fingers, “Hiya Jenni-Jen-Jen, nice to meetcha! I love my cute waifu!!”

Before she knew it my right index finger was firmly planted on her lips, “No. None of that, Rachel.”

A squeak traveled up Rachel’s throat but crashed against the closed inside of her mouth. Rachel nodded, clearly understanding my attention. Releasing my finger, I sighed and wondered what to do next.

With her mouth free, Rachel added, “I’m sorry, that was really stupid of me. I should be more considerant.”

Treading on sensitive waters, I took a moment to consider how to phrase what I wanted to say: “I’m glad that you understand why you shouldn’t be calling your Asian American…spouse a ‘waifu’. Please just make sure that you remember to think before you speak next time.”

Rachel mimicked a saluting soldier.

As embarrassed and frustrated this whole situation was making me, I decided to swallow my pride for a moment and took my wife by her hands, crossing our fingers: “Thank you, for everything you’re doing. I don’t know if I can pull it off, but I’m going to try. Also, the word’s ‘considering’, not ‘considerant’.”

“Wait, really?”

“Yeah. ‘Considerant’ is a French utopian socialist philosopher and economist from the 19th century.”

“I mean, we are queer,” Rachel mugged, putting on an air of cockiness.

“You’re queer, I’m just a cishet guy. Being married to you is straight,” I corrected.

“What, are you transitioning to be a straight girl?” Rachel retorted, her tone increasingly mocking as she used her right thumb to caress my left palm. It felt nice.

“Oh…well, huh,” I admitted, stumped. “I mean…uh…no, definitely not becoming a straight girl. Promise! But…uh…like, looking like this,” I waved my right hand in front of my face, chest and torso to illustrate my point, “And calling myself a lesbian? That’s really…I don’t know. It doesn’t fit.”

“I mean, yeah, I’ve seen how you look at guys in movies and TV shows before,” Rachel snickered, her self-satisfied comment, “You were practically drooling when we went to that screening of Predator!”

A sour frown spread across my face, “Christ, a guy watches Predator for the meme scene one time and suddenly he’s gay!”

“Straight.”

“I’m neither! Argh! Goddamn it, you’re driving me crazy, Rach!”

“Hey, didn’t Lee Sun-kyun sound soooo fuckin’ sexy in, like, Parasite (2019)?”

“You don’t need to say the year it was released, Rach—and yeah, his voice was incredible, I was so engrossed whenever he was on scree—omigawd, Rachel!”

Rachel broke into a fit of giggles at my realization of what she was doing and I couldn’t help but smile at her joy, despite myself. She’d been working so hard on making sure her laugh was more feminine. I remembered all the times she’d been made fun of and called a retard for how she laughed growing up with great bitterness.

“You bitch,” I mumbled.

“Aah! You can’t say that unless you’re a girl, Jenni!”

Shit, she had a point, “Fine, then I’m a girl any time I call you a ‘bitch’!” I stuck my tongue out.

Giggling in reply, Rach held up her two middle fingers to flip me the bird, “Nice girl voice, girly! Did your mommy buy it for you at the girl store?”

A strange feeling bubbling up in my stomach, I felt my face grow even flusher at Rachel’s matter-of-fact statement. I hadn’t switched back to my guy voice by accident despite talking as much as we were and it felt so…surreal? Not bad, persé, but…I don’t know?

“You got this, girl,” Rachel said softly, gently taking my hands in hers again. Her smile shined brightly and for the first time since we hatched this crazy experiment it actually seemed like we were going to be able to make an omelet out of it.

Well, I had told myself that I wouldn’t be one of those husbands that didn’t respect what their wives thought.

***

December 11, 2024:

I woke up around 11AM, safely tucked into the mattress I shared with my wife. Staring at the ceiling, I felt that it was still unrecognizable, despite the many months since we had moved in. Still, the mold stains were quickly becoming a sore reminder of where I was sleeping now. With a slight moan from weakness I managed to sit myself up, much to Rach’s relief.

“Omigawd, hon, I thought you were sick or something!” the messy-haired blonde squeaked at lightspeed.

My entire body felt an uncanny mix of light and achy, “No, no, I’m fine...just…wow. That was intense.”

“Well, I’m glad one of us got off,” Rach half-giggled, half-sassed.

“Oh shoot, you didn’t?”

My wife pouted.

“Damn, Rach, I’m sorry, do you need me to…y’know?”

“No, I’m fine. Maybe just join me for a shower?” she asked, tapping her feelings of disappointment on the floor idly.

“Shoot, you haven’t taken one yet?”

“‘Thought I’d wait for you, Jen,” Rach seemed more sullen than usual, which concerned me.

“Hey, are you okay, Rachy-Rach?” I sing-songed, hoping to get her to crack a smile.

Staring at the ground, Rachel replied quietly, “No, no, yeah, I am. I’m just a bit tired, is all. Like, I dunno.”

I picked myself out of bed, wrapped my mostly naked self in a comforter and shuffled to my wife’s side. Bending down, I took her hand in mine and locked our fingers. “Tell me what’s bothering you, babe. Please, I’m your—we’re married, you can tell me. In sickness and health, right?”

Rachel’s expression took a slight pout, “I mean—uh…Jenni, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to sound selfish or anything, but… I think…”

“Go ahead, Rach. Please.” I strengthened my hold on her hand,feeling our palms press together even harder than before.

With some struggle, Rach lifted her eyes up a little and managed to look just beneath my eyelids, “It’s just…I was hoping our first time would be a little more magical, I guess?”

Oh.

“And, like, I’m glad we finally did it, y’know? But it was over so fast and I don’t feel like we really—I mean, like, communicated? Err, well, no, I mean that I feel like I’d only just gotten started, y’know? And like, I just wanted to feel you more-more, right? Err…how do I put this, y’know, like, ‘feel’ how you feel? ‘Know’ how you feel? Words are hard.”

I couldn’t help but smile softly. This woman, who’d always been so BIG of a force of nature in my life and in my eyes, was now showing me a new side of her that I couldn’t help but be more amazed by. Beyond the quirky sayings and the wildly vibrant fashion style, Rach had so many feelings within her. I just had to see them all, someday.

Lifting her chin up, I leaned in and kissed Rachel on the lips, making sure not to make direct eye contact. Parting, with Rach snapped from her thoughts, I smiled and spilled my guts: “Rachel, that was the best orgasm of my life. You literally had me convinced of things I’d never even considered doing before. It was amazing, thank you.”

Rachel’s lips threatened to turn into a sheepish grin, “Was it, like, really that good?”

“You’re the one who had to pick me off the floor, girl, what do you think?” I laid the wide smile on thicker, “You’d’ve probably had me, like, start to lose brain cells or somethin’ if we’d actually done anal.”

After a beat, Rachel and I broke into a fit of giggles together.

Cupping my cheek in my right palm, Rachel drew me back in for another kiss. The taste of my wife’s unstained lips was distinctly her, somehow still tasting of bubblegum and strawberries. “Thank you, Jenni. For everything you’ve done for me,” she whispered between kisses.

With my mind threatening to blank itself with each passing second I took a quick breath between kisses to reply: “No, thank you Rach, for—”

Rachel pushed me back onto the now disheveled air mattress and began to plant kisses on my tummy.

“Rachel, Rachel—omigawd, that tickles!”

“Good,” she giggled back between kisses, “Lemme hear those cute giggles some more!”

Rachel always knew how to make all the bullshit seem worth it. I wasn’t sure how she stayed so mentally strong, but the more I felt the result of her strength, the more I craved to be just as strong as her.

After all, the saying went “in sickness and health.”

***

September 11, 2023:

Adrenaline coursed through my veins as I walked up-and-down the aisles of a certain big box grocery store, backpack slung over one shoulder, hoodie hood up. I hadn’t done this sort of thing before—I hadn’t needed to. As much as I hated how my parents had increasingly become more devoted to their careers, they had at least kept food on the table with ease. Now, here I was, about to shoplift some shit so my wife and I could eat while we hid on the streets from the police, miles away from our home.

I stifled a cough—the fifth of the morning—and silently prayed that neither Rach nor I had gotten colds from two days living on the streets. Hell, now that I thought about it, it probably wouldn’t hurt to steal some medicine, too. Just lovely, Jae, stealing $20 bottles of DayQuil? Talk about moving up in the world, kid.

Taking four packages of apple slice snack trays off the wet wall, I slid Rachel’s backpack off of my shoulder and stuffed them into the bag. Walking as quickly—and as naturally—as possible, I grabbed two containers of some sort of meat product off of the deli wall and assigned them to their new temporary housing.

The speed-walk to the otherside of the story for the pharmaceuticals was positively dreadful. Nevertheless, I grabbed what I needed—even throwing some Vitamin C gummies in for good measure—and then made my way toward the exit, praying to whatever god that might have existed that I made it out unnoticed.

Passing through the sliding glass doors labeled ‘exit’, I was immediately cornered from both the front and back by plain-clothes asset protection.

“Son, can you come with us?” the man to my fore asked, hands by his side but actively ready to grab me if I made any first contact with his body. He was about two inches taller than me and thirty years older. His graying hair, dreadfully receded, reminded me a little too much of my father. Or worse, me at that age.

Aww, shit.

“Uh…excuse me? Can you please move? I need to head to school.” It was an awful bluff—Rachel had always been the better liar between the two of us.

“Sir, please come with us,” the man behind me, a younger man no more than five years my senior and maybe six or seven inches shorter than me’, positioned himself to my south east and slowly crept forward to try and encourage me to inch leftward into whatever broom closet of a door was immediately outside of the glass sliding doors that led into the vestibules.

Gripping onto the backpack on my back—and trying to hold in my bladder—I pressed forward, “Sorry, gotta run!” and made a dash to my right and straight past the middle-aged asset protection guy. A sudden tug pulled me backward and nearly off my feet.

“Let go of the bag, son!” the middle-aged man said, more sternly this time.

I knew that this wasn’t going to end well if I tried to play nicely—and I couldn’t have Rachel upset over her new pink backpack getting torn, either. Taking a risk, I let go of the bag just as the big bastard pulled with all of his body weight backward. Now flat on his ass atop his cohort, I stomped down on the hand holding the backpack, elicited a scream of “FUCK!” and then grabbed the bag and made an immediate dash through the entrance to the vestibules into the parking lot.

By the time my brain caught up with the rest of me I was already at the back of the parking lot and running across the mostly empty morning road to put more distance between me and the store. “FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!” I internally screamed, making extra sure not to trip as I stepped up onto the sidewalk and ran back to where I’d left Rachel.

Ten minutes of full-speed sprinting later, I arrived back at the alley behind some older buildings where I’d left Rachel earlier that morning. Breath visible to the naked eye, I shot my panicked eyes around for Rachel, but didn’t find her. “Fuck! Rachel?!”

Rachel poked her head out from the corner on the far corner of the building to my left, “Jae?” she coughed, arms held across her torso to keep herself warm, despite wearing her “I LOVE DILFS” hoody, “That you?”

I dashed down the alley and collided into my girlfriend for a hug, sending us both down to the hard concrete, “FUCK! Babe, holy fucking SHIT!”

I wept in her arms for five minutes.

***

December 11, 2024:

Struggling to stand beneath the lukewarm shower water—through the shakiness of my still-recovering post-orgasm legs—was made worth it by the way Rachel scrubbed my back from behind with her soapy exfoliating brush. The sensation of a good scrub was honestly underrated, in my opinion.

“Fronty-fronts!”

Rachel leaned forward to reach around and scrub my breasts. The sensation made me flinch at first—not only because they were still growing—but also because I still wasn’t used to having breasts for someone else to touch yet. Leaning forward also pressed Rachel’s DD-cup breasts—fuck, Progesterone was the real shit, apparently—into my newly sensitive backside, causing some discomfort, but I bit my tongue. Heaven forbid I interrupt my chipper wife from her smash hit shower-singing performance of whatever anime the song she was singing was from. What a weeb.

But she was my weeb. Weeb Wife? Weeby Wifey? Whatever.

Rachel continued her sensual scrubbing, making her way down my tummy and then down…there. As Rachel’s hands approached my penis my chest tightened and a lump formed in my throat. Finally, on the cusp of moving past my navel, I took Rachel’s hands with my own and guided them down my thighs, away from my penis. As Rachel began to crouch in the tub I looked down to find her anticipating my look and returning it in a rare instance of eye-contact: “I love you,” she mouthed, apparently having never planned to touch my penis.

I didn’t expect to release such a loud exhale, but the echo of the tub likely made it carry more. As my legs began to shake from the sensation of being touched I grabbed onto the wet tub wall for some support. Finally, Rach finished her scrubbing at my ankles before standing back up and turning me around in the cramped tub to face her.

“Did it feel good?” she asked with a whisper, wrapping her hands around my neck.

Leaning inward, I wrapped my arms around Rachel’s body and rested my head on her shoulder. Holding me in place, Rachel patted my back, and whispered into my ear: “It’ll be alright.”

The lukewarm water continued to pour down on us as I contemplated just when I would get used to having my penis touched in any sort of way. I’d honestly never been a fan of acknowledging it before, but I’d played along with what was expected of a horny teenage boy…until now I simply didn’t have to. Putting aside the fact that I was nineteen now, putting aside the fact that I had a wife, and putting aside the fact that we were both now independent—if massively struggling—there was the question of just what the hell was going on with my sexuality.

When Rachel and I had first started dating I’d told her that I’d wanted her to…do…that to me…

…even though I was a cishet guy.

But…was I het? I mean, I wanted her cock in my ass. Sure, she’s a girl, so it’s technically straight, but whenever I’d thought about Rachel in those months before she came out to herself, as she was growing increasingly cuter and happier in ways I’d not seen her since before our teens, I…had feelings I’d never considered before.

Hell, even looking back on all those years that I had known her…had I really been keeping myself from making a move, simply because that was what was expected of me?

I’d toyed with accepting ideas about myself that I’d always told myself weren’t real.

But then, it turned out that she was a girl! Nope! Still straight, clearly!!

Of course, there was also Danny-or-Daniel, that cute twink from the Gayly Bug Café. The way he looked at me, the way he spoke to me, the way he paid attention when I told a lame joke mid-order pickup.

It was electrifying. Not, like, marry and spend the rest of my life with him kind of electrifying. But, like, ‘hit up a club together for fun’ electrifying. ‘Kick his ass in Mario Kart’ kind of electrifying. ‘Rest my head on his shoulder because we’d been up too late watching movies on the couch’ kind of electrifying. ‘Kiss him on his lips after a day of walking the streets of Seattle and checking out architecture’ kind of electrifying. Fuck, how would it feel to feel his lip ring between our lips? Would it be cold or does his body heat keep it warm?

Why the hell was I thinking about all that? I had Rachel—my wife, the love of my fuckin’ life!

My grip on Rachel tightened out of sheer panic. Try as I might I couldn’t stifle a whimper, my humidified sinuses growing no less loose now that I was actively fighting back tears.

“I’ll never betray you, Rach.”

“I know, baby. I know.”

She was just so goddamned strong.

***

September 15, 2023:

I had told Rachel that, “No, my cough isn't all that bad, babe. I’m just trying to get some excess mucus out!” for about three days now, but that was becoming increasingly hard to lie to her about. If I had had anything in my stomach to vomit I imagine I would have vomited it out after that last coughing fit.

Living on the streets of Seattle was not fun—I would not recommend it, in fact. Between a fear of strangers assaulting us, animals crawling all over us, the pigs harassing us or our shit getting stolen, I found myself remaining hyper-vigilant at all times.

Rachel had a non-verbal day the previous day, which scared me, but she’d finally spoken again this morning, telling me she never understood why she had a habit of just…not speaking. I remembered one time in fourth grade, she didn’t speak for a week. I thought she was just doing a bit, but looking back in hindsight I could tell that she wasn’t quite like the other kids in class. Those days came more and more during middle school and high school, thinking back on it.

As we packed up what gear we had to find someplace considerably less likely to get us arrested for loitering or looking suspicious, I noticed that I felt warmer than I should be. Coming by food was difficult and I was trying to save what cash Rachel and I had left on hand after buying a tent and sleeping bags.

If I’d been smart I would have just snuck into my dad’s Seattle store and stolen the camping gear, but unfortunately my desire to protect my father from legal implications had bitten me in the ass. Speaking of which, I wondered now if that national investment deal had gone through or not. Probably not. It’s kind of hard to secure national investors when your kid was nationally wanted for murdering his mother and wife’s moms.

God, we were fucked.

“Hey Jae, are you okay? You’re looking a little…hot?” Rach asked as she hoisted her backpack over her shoulder. She’d stuffed her woefully unwashed hair under a beanie. How? I don’t know.

“Oh, do I? I don’t think a makeout sesh is wise in this alley, babe,” I sassed, doing my best to play her concerns off. “But if you want, I’m sure we can have a little fun before we lea—”

Rachel’s unusually serious face caught me off guard, “Jae, is it your stitches? Do you think you have an infection?”

My false swagger slowly faded into the background, “I, uh, was supposed to take a T-shot on Wednesday. It’s fine, really, I’ll live.”

“Jae,” Rachel said, stepping towards me and taking my right hand, “You’ll get sick without hormones in your body. Jesus, is this why, like, you’re sweating so much? You might have an infection, too!”

I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing and stared at the ground.

“Can we sneak—”

“Too dangerous. The cops likely have the place being watched, even if my dad has come home.”

“How about the hospital?”

“Too dangerous. Besides, buying prescription testosterone without insurance would be insanely expensive and we barely have any cash as it is now,” I buried my face in my palms to shoot some incomprehensible words.

“Honey, listen, just…turn yourself in and say it was all on me! There’s no reason that you have to suffer through this!”

Withdrawing my face from my palms I grimaced at my wife, “Whoever the fuck is setting us up was smart enough to blame us both for what happened. There’s no way in hell I’m getting off scot-free here. We’re in this together, babe.” I slumped against a garbage dumpster and took a deep breath to try and collect myself, “Rachel, does that website sell testosterone, too?”

Rach’s look grew even graver. After taking a moment, she finally replied, “I’m sorry, hon. T’s a controlled thingy, you need, like, a prescription.”

A solemn mood fell over the scene. Rach and I laid down to rest, huddled together against the smelly dumpster to review our options.

Rachel pulled out the packet of Estradiol she kept in her purse for her morning dose and slipped it under her tongue.

A thought occurred to me, but I wasn’t sure if it was insane or not. I mean, surely she’d never agree to it, either? It was insane to even think about, right?

But at the same time…I needed to get hormones in me somehow and change how I looked to avoid being picked up by the cops. It was insane—completely and utterly insane.

“Hey Rach…can I try one of those?”

***

December 11, 2024:

Rach and I finished our shower and then immediately proceeded to work on our skincare routine. Having to have my wife teach me how to take care of my skin—”If you wanna look cute like me you’ve gotta do this, and this, and this!” ad nauseum—was disorienting at first. Being forced to undergo a medical and social transition to avoid The Man, had meant that I had to strip away a lot of the baggage that cishet men tended to have about what is-or-isn’t masculine or appropriate for men to do.

Shit, who was I to have ever bought into that bullshit, anyway? Putting aside the fact that I needed to do this for the safety of me and my wife, I’d suffered a lot more indignities across the dozen years that I had known Rachel and still managed to find myself with a wife I wouldn’t sacrifice for anything.

Besides, cis guy or not, I looked way cuter now. Even cuter than Rach was the summer before last. Even in baggy graphic tees she still looked amazing. Even as a silly, lovable, dense egg who wore cute women’s clothing and accessories while we hung out on her birthday the week before senior year.

Christ, she was a dense egg. The top of the densest eggs, really.

Rach finished her routine before me, as was becoming the norm lately. I had been getting into the habit of staring at my reflection in the mirror for extended periods of time lately to better scrutinize if I passed or not. Thanks to our jobs paying what they did we were able to at least afford electrolysis now and I was increasingly taken with how great my skin looked.

Not having to fucking shave all the time was nice, too.

Besides, it was less of a pain if only one set of hands at a time were flailing around in our tiny bathroom. Once sufficiently pleased that I had stared at my reflection just enough to temporarily assuage my anxieties, I joined Rach in our bedroom to dress for work.

***

March 16, 2024

Seven months on HRT and not a whole lot to eat had led to me dropping a significant amount of weight. Combined with the lack of testosterone in my body and a significant weight drop, my body was not acclimating well to the weather. It didn’t matter to my slender frame how close spring was. I had spent much of the last half year coughing up a lung, all while trying to perfect my new voice.

Shuffling through the double doors of a convenience store in our No Steal Zone, the clerk gave me a lingering stare.

That was beginning to happen a lot more lately, unfortunately. I wasn’t sure if it was the longer hair—just a little past my shoulders now—or the way my widening hips had changed how I walked. Well, that and the way I’d started practicing to walk and gesture more feminine. I had spent a lifetime watching how Rachel walked or used her hands in conversation, so it wasn’t exactly difficult to mimic.

Well, not when you practiced as much as I did, I guess.

Hell, Rachel said I basically walked like a woman before, anyway. Pfft.

Face masks had also helped with hiding any beard shadow, but combined with everything else they were also beginning to help make me look even more like a tomboy wearing her boyfriend’s hoodie to pick up something at the convenience store. Even though the hoodie was to cover my developing breasts I was starting to read to men either as a woman or a tranny—their words, not mine—and that always made for a wild game of Russian Roulette. Getting sexually harassed because some asshole saw me as a cute tomboy or getting sexually harassed and even physically assaulted because I looked like a tranny or made them feel gay? Not fun.

Without that old muscle mass my body’s days of winning a fist fight were probably over now, too.

I grabbed the sweaty, crumpled $5 I kept in my back pocket and one of the plastic jewels embroidered onto the back pants pocket fell off at the motion of my hand sliding into the pocket. It was the fourth piece of the embroidered flower to fall off in the past half year and when Rachel noticed she would inevitably pout.

Money locked-and-load in my clenched fist, I slid through the aisles to the cold wall and grabbed a water bottle to replace the one I’d tossed earlier that day. It smelled like rat piss and we had both agreed that we did not care for that one bit.

Rachel wouldn’t tell me where she got the five. She was doing that a lot these days.

Reaching the counter before the only other customer in the store I presented the clerk with the water bottle, waited for it to be scanned, and then handed over the five. The cost of water bottles in Seattle was a fucking crime against humanity, but Rach and I needed a new one and didn’t have the time or cash to spare to travel to Redmond, which had quickly become our biggest zone for shoplifting and then returning items for cash.

With two of us now taking HRT, Rachel’s stash was beginning to run dry. Neither one of us wanted to do without hormones—or specifically, the right hormones in Rachel’s case—in our bodies. Earning cash while on the run wasn’t exactly easy, either. I’d been wracking my brain, trying to think up a way for us to have a way to receive packages. I refused to let Rach go without her HRT for even a day.

The man behind me—dressed ‘nice for a schmuck’ nice—whistled, “Damn girl, nice ass!”

The little hairs on the back of my neck rose, as they’d been well-trained to do now. I ignored the man, took my change and water bottle, and made a beeline for the exit. Moments after my exit the same schmuck followed after me, calling for my attention. I checked the streets immediately, trying to think up the best way to ditch the loser before making my way to East Madison Street to meet up with Rach.

“Come on, sweetcheeks,” I nearly vomited in my mouth, but managed to safely rush across traffic to reach the other side of the street and then down an alleyway to escape.

Once reasonably removed from the threat of immediate dangers, I let myself sob.

***

DECEMBER 11, 2024:

Rach and I got off the bus at our stop around 5PM and walked a short way to our place of work, Club Y. An ostensibly forgettable-looking location in uptown Seattle, Club Y was an exclusive host club for high-rollers to purchase mostly harmless ‘company’ from good-looking hosts and hostesses. Employees entered through the back entrance, which led directly to the changing room. Rachel and I kept work outfits—purchased on the club credit card—in our lockers so that we wouldn’t need to travel the city in such expensive clothes.

Still, I kind of envied anyone that could afford a suit as nice as the one I wore for work just to wear casually. It was a gorgeous all-black ZEGNA suit, although I’d taken to substituting a turtle neck for a white dress shirt underneath. When I first began wearing the suits paid for by the club I had been worried that my breasts would look awkward, but thankfully the suit had been properly tailored and allowed me to play the character I had agreed to play.

In my everyday life I lived my life as a cross between a high-femme woman that had trace remains of a tomboy personality behind a polite veneer. At Club Y, however, I played the role of Jen: a ‘female prince’. That none of the middle-aged women I was expected to charm and delight with my detached, cool persona seemed to notice that I was trans—well, had transitioned—came as a sigh of relief to me. I was, effectively, a 'cis guy pretending to be a gender non-conforming cis woman'. It was a hell of a headache to keep straight sometimes.

I snickered at the thought. ‘Straight’, yeah. That’s me, right?

Having finished dressing, I turned and walked closer to the full-length mirror on the wall to make sure I looked proper. Up through the early months of the year I’d found myself still wishing that I could return to my more masculine presentation, but now that I had an opportunity to present and socialize as anything but a feminine woman, it was becoming increasingly clear to me that wearing suits and de-emphasizing my feminine mannerisms was…distressing.

As damned good as I looked, the entire thing felt so…decidedly un-me? Thrust upon me by my circumstances? Well hell, socially transitioning in the first place had been thrust upon me, but at least then I got to choose what kind of girl I would present myself to the world as, right? Jen was ultimately a person that I got to build.

I had wanted to go back. In a way, I could now go back. And yet…it was the feeling of going backwards that was what was so…distressing?

An unfortunately familiar man entered the women's locker room, breaking me from my thoughts, “Alright ladies, game time in two! Rachel, nice work keeping your cut so low tonight, babe!”

“Of course, Mr. Paul, sir!” Rachel chirped, clearly forcing a smile.

Ugh, never enough time to think about this shit.

Rachel, on the other hand, got to play the role of a glam model, pouring rich middle-age men more alcohol and laughing at their awful jokes, all while strategically dodging being felt up too much. It disgusted me as her spouse, but I’d learned to manage the anger. I’d promised myself that I’d kill Paul someday, anyway.

Paul was the sleazebag that managed Club Y. I wasn’t entirely sure who owned the club. Beyond being told that the owner was apparently a wealthy coffee importer—as a side gig, apparently—and that he did business with the government I knew very little. Whoever the owner was, he hadn’t visited the club since before Rachel and I had started working there.

Suited up—with Rachel appropriately decked out in a gorgeous sleeveless black turtle dress with a generous boob window—I imitated the role of a man that I’d long since abandoned and guided her out to the club floor by the small of her back. We sat in separate booths across the club floor, waiting for the club to open.

***

NOVEMBER 03, 2023:

Volunteer Park was situated near a body of water and had been designed by some genius to be on an incline. As a result the surprisingly-still-popular park grass itself was a pain to walk on, so with Rach’s occasional depth-perception issues we made sure to stick to the pavement. Still, the park looked gorgeous, even if the gray clouds signaled rain at some point today.

Rachel was having another bad couple of days, having not spoken for nearly three days this time. She’d woken up screaming from a nightmare at 4:36AM on the first of the month and remained silent since, communicating only with her physicality. Part of me wondered if she was feeling voice dysphoria, too, or if it was just a PTSD response or a neurodivergent thing.

I was having a terrific time feeling terribly incapable as a husband and hungry as hell, but I'd found the best way to both distract myself and get any sort of acknowledgement from Rach was to just do all the talking for us. So, I guided her somewhere close by that I thought could qualify as beautiful to look at, sat her down, and just talked. It was a hell of a way to practice my new voice, too.

"So, like, uh…remember that one movie you liked back in middle school?"

No response.

"The one with the girl who woke up a successful 30 year old fashion designer one day? Thinking about it, it sure does make a lot more sense now why you loved it so much. Like, shoot, she had the same sort of insecurities about her breasts you hav—actually, maybe I shouldn't be saying that. Uh…shit, what else? Oh! You're both into fashion! Is that why you got into cosplay in middle school?"

Rachel leaned to her left and rested her head on my right shoulder. Good enough for me.

"Oh! And I guess you were probably into Mark Ruffalo in that movie, he was pretty cu—I mean, I could certainly see you being into him. After all, you wound up with a dork like me who didn't have any other friends—"

Rachel placed her left hand on my right and squeezed, likely her way of telling me not to speak ill of myself. My throat got lumpy, especially as I turned to look at her staring off into the architecture off in the distance, beyond the park.

Just watching her, seeing how her face didn't move and her eyes looked so tired, I couldn't help but feel like I wanted to hold her tightly. So, I did. The odd angle meant my sensitive breasts being pressed against her arm, but I stifled the aches and whispered into her ear: "and Jennifer Garner's character had that sort of haphazard, feminine energy you always had. Honestly, I'm surprised you didn't pick whatever her character's name was. It would’ve been fit—"

Rachel suddenly adjusted her head, then whispered into my ear with a giggle: "Happy first No Nut November, hubby."

"God, you are such a bimbo," I muttered back.

***

DECEMBER 11, 2024:

“Like, he really hit his horsey-horse with his croquet mallet? Omigawd, so like, that’s so funny, y’know?”

Working the same shifts as Rachel for nine months had mostly led to me overhearing her boisterous fake-laughing at the insipid tales of conquest of the wealthy—and mostly white—men that she played hostess to. I could tell Rach was forcing the laugh—she’d never actually laugh at animal cruelty.

Something that I had always admired, but never quite fully understood, about my wife was her ability to play a role with the utmost dedication. At the tail-end of our high school careers Rachel had been so plagued by a lack of ability to focus, but with her mind and body soaked in estrogen even longer, it seemed as if she was more focused than ever before.

Work for me, however, was a tad more…difficult to navigate. I often found myself surrounded by, frankly, wealthy cougars on all sides, always overhearing their gossip, being asked to give my opinion—which really just meant saying something aloof and cool—and then refilling some vapid bitch’s champagne or wine glass while giving them seemingly soulful, direct eye-contact.

I’d come to find myself having to think each action through at work, which was always mentally taxing. By the end of each night—come 2AM—I’d always found myself obsessively checking in the locker room mirror to make sure my body language had switched back to high-feminine, just so I wouldn’t be clocked.

Miss York—the least vapid of the bunch—was a vibrant young soul of 43 years who sported an unforgettable set of legs and a dark red crown of hair that she typically wore in waves. “You don’t mind if I vape, do you darling?” she’d often asked, vape-in-hand and already mid-way to her mouth. I’d learned early on in the job that Miss York quite often did and spoke as she pleased, so appeasing—perhaps sometimes ‘humoring’—her was more often than not the best course of action.

And, to be honest, a slightly high Miss York was still much more comfortable to wine-and-dine with than any of the other girls from whatever hellscape of a country club that they’d met at. The vivacious vixen could at least hold a conversation about politics, so I’d learned to not flinch when she’d cup my cheek or fix my tie and suit jacket.

Still, I’d come to realize that the role of a charming ‘female host’—as good as I was at it—was still exceedingly uncomfortable to play.

***

April 04, 2024:

“Girl, I hate this host club shit,” I groaned, sitting on our toilet while she brushed her hair. My new phone read 8AM on the dot, meaning Rachel and I’d only been home from our first day at work for six hours. “God, I’m exhausted. I’m going to have to start running in the morning or something to build my strength back up.”

A gleeful look had been plastered on Rachel’s face ever since we’d moved into our apartment the previous week, and this morning was no exception: “Hey, at least you get to wear masculine clothes and act sort of boyish again, right? You’re so sexy when you do that, by the way. It’s kinda like, whatchamacallit…the Takarazuka Revue!”

“Are you calling me the otokoyaku of the club?” I asked, slightly annoyed. “Ugh, gosh, now I have to practice speaking Japanese with my new voice.”

“You know, it’s, like, a real shame that you aren’t a weeaboo like me. I’m sure all the ladies at cons would love to have a boyfriend who spoke Japanese…and looked like a lesbian,” Rachel said with a tease as she put down her brush and stood on her tippy-toes to stretch. The nimble blonde held onto the top of the bathroom door frame to balance herself. She exaggerated her moan of pleasure, likely to tease me even further.

“Babe—ugh, no—hon, I get the shit kicked out of me enough for plenty of other reasons—one of which has been picking a fight with anyone that’s called my girlfriend a faggot our entire lives—I really don’t need to add ‘Generic Anime Guy’ to my resumé. Besides,” I stood up, set my phone on the sink, then wrapped my arms around the waist of my silly blonde love. “I have you to drag me to Fathom Events screenings, girlie.” Rach turned around just enough for a kiss; she’d already applied strawberry-flavored lip balm that morning.

Since beginning to look, well, ‘not like a cis guy’, I’d worked hard not only to maintain a ‘girl voice’ all the time, but also a more…’not cishet guy’ vocabulary, for lack of a better term. Calling Rachel ‘babe’ had felt too much like something I’d have done pre-transition, and now that I was in the thick of clearly not looking or moving like a cishet guy, I feared that not changing my vocabulary would make me more clockable.

Besides, I’d had enough men on the streets call me ‘babe’ and ‘sweetcheeks’ to never want to hear or say the word ever again. I was determined to work the word out of my vocabulary as I was to stop feeling like I moved like a gay stereotype, rather than a woman.

Getting clocked as ‘a tranny’ and having to hastily pick up our shit and run in the middle of the night was bad enough the few times it had happened, I really didn’t need it continuing to happen now that we’d finally turned a new leaf in our crazy lives.

“Hey, Jenni,” Rach cooed, leading me by hand to the air mattress, “Now that we’ve got some privacy…you wanna…?”

Perhaps ill-advisedly, I sighed without thinking, “Jeez girl, we’ve been off the streets for a week and you want to plow my ass already?”

“I mean…like, you said it, not me!” she giggled, trying to salvage the discussion with some humor.

Following Rach’s guide, I gently sat down onto our air mattress and laid against her in her embrace. “Do you mind if we just…stay like this?” I whispered, closing my eyes and gently digging my nose into her chest.

“Of course, silly,” my wife replied, pulling me in for a snugger hold.

I always felt safest when she did that.

***

DECEMBER 11, 2024:

For the longest time I’ve felt uneasy about seeing Rachel subject herself to working at Club Y. It hurt to see her in the position of having to subject herself to a job like this under the threat of starvation and dying on the streets from the cold, or worse. The happiness she exuded simply being able to take care of her appearance and wear dresses again was the only thing that kept me from burning the whole place down. Having to watch from a distance as perverted old men tried to—and successfully—felt up my wife, all while that sleaze Paul refused to protect her as the manager of the club, left me with no shortage of ill-will.

But we wouldn’t have survived or come this far if I hadn’t learned—in moments of powerlessness—to just take in my wife. Take in her elegance when turning on the charm, the way she looked in a dress, and the sound of her beautiful voice.

If I couldn’t stop this terrible situation then I would enjoy and loathe her torment the most, topped only by Rachel herself. I wouldn’t let those old motherfuckers have any more of her than me.

The cut of her cleavage really was to die for tonight, though. I was barely even a B-cup myself, but if I had breasts like hers I’d—

“You’ve seemed quiet tonight, Jen. Do tell me why,” Miss York asked, snapping me from my thoughts. The older woman rested her champagne on the table coaster closest to her on the coffee table in front of the wrap-around booth seating.

Snapped back to the scene I was supposed to be charming, I turned to Miss York and put on a mischievous grin, “Oh yes, do forgive me, Miss York. Just a little distracted, is all.” I supposed telling her that it wasn’t all that weird to glance at my secret wife in such a tight dress was out of the question.

Taking my chin in her hand, Miss York guided my face until our eyes met. Our gazes uncomfortably met for what felt like hours, before she grinned wryly, then turned my face until my eyes were focused on Rachel again. “See something you want?” she whispered into my right ear.

A chill ran up my spine, “Sorry?” I asked, feigning ignorance.

A plain—yet knowing—smile crept across Miss York’s face, “Come, Jennifer. Shall we get a…more private room to talk?”

Miss York’s wealthy friends broke into a fit of giggles and murmurs as she led me by hand past Paul and towards one of the VIP rooms.

VIP rooms cost on average $250 an hour, while hosts and hostesses arranged their own rates separately. Rachel and I had never discussed how much we charged for VIP room services before, but I knew that on at least one occasion she had returned from four hours in a room with over four grand in tow.

I was loath to ask her how she got that much.

Once situated in Room #4 Miss York pressed the lock on the door handle, took her place on an elaborately crafted maroon couch and beckoned me to join her. It was a mechanical affair, but I’d managed to mentally stop myself from walking overtly feminine. It was rare that I let a client see me take more than a few steps, but this was inevitable. I had to remain in character, lest Paul lose his precious ‘female prince’ wind-up toy that he so desperately relied on to keep his clientele’s money flowing.

Reaching the couch, I sat down with my usual bravado, relaxed, back against the backing of the couch, arms riding the top so clients could come in close and feel like they were being wooed by a confident, handsome young suitor. It was all an act, one I should’ve had no problem playing, considering I was a cis man, but the entire situation had never quite felt like a choice I’d made for any reason other than survival and to placate.

Having to mentally coach myself to spread my legs had been a hell of an experience the first time I’d begun developing the character I was expected to play. After my orchiectomy I’d thankfully adjusted to being able to hold my thighs together—without having to think about why I had had the orchiectomy—and that had only grown more natural after I began wearing skirts and dresses on my days off from work. The entire experience of ‘partially detransitioning’—not that I was actually trans—or even just ‘butching it up’, was a headfuck I consistently struggled with.

I promised myself that I’d hug Rach for at least half an hour after our shift tonight. ‘Tonight’? Shoot, it wasn’t even 8PM yet. I still had six hours of this anxiety-inducing nightmare to survive.

“Everything alright, madame,” I asked, turning to give Miss York a devilish grin. Play the part, Jen. That’s how you go home and be…well, whoever the hell you are outside of this hellhole.

Miss York took on the look of a woman trying to find something as she looked into my eyes. Taking hold of my chin once more, the wealthy woman grinned, as if she’d gotten an idea, and stood to walk over towards the alcohol cart situated against the wall to our right.

I’d attempted to stand, of course, and pour her drink for her as was expected of me, but Miss York shushed me and told me to sit, so I reluctantly complied.

“Tell me, Jennifer,” Miss York began, placing an ice cube into her beverage. I think it was a scotch? I’d rarely ever drank anything, for fear of outing myself as a man in a drunken stupor. I’d entertained plenty of people in these rooms over the last nine months, ranging from all genders and closeted sexualities, but I still feared what would become of me in this isolated space were I ever to be found out. “Why do you wear suits?”

My shoulders instantly twitched in fear, so I pulled my hands off of the couch’s backing and let my hands rest on the seating itself, “I’m sorry Miss York, what do you mean?”

“Call me Victoria, dear,” she corrected, her tone and body language growing more intentional and ‘present’ than I was used to seeing from the woman. She’d always had a way with being the smartest mind in the room, but hiding it until she felt that she actually wanted to use it for her own amusement. It often ate away at the back of my mind that, yes, as casual and forgiving as she could be on most occasions, she was still capable of lording her power over me at any given moment’s notice, “Like I was saying, why is a beautiful young thing like you playing a role she so obviously doesn’t fit?”

Unease crawled up and down my skin, like a stray yellowjacket you knew was buzzing around you but you couldn’t lay eyes on had finally landed on your bare leg, “W-well, Victoria,” remember Jen, keep that voice low, but not too low to sound like a man. Fuck, that’s hard to do. I accepted a glass from Miss York, took a small sip, then realized it was thankfully only club soda, “Paul thought I’d appeal to a certain portion of his clientele’s tastes, and I needed the work.” That’s right, sound as smooth and confident as possible, Jen.

Miss York gave me a look I could only describe as unconvinced, but took a sip from her glass before replying, “Well, they’re hardly ‘Paul’s clientele’, now are they?”

I chewed on that for a moment as she rejoined me on the couch, but still couldn’t figure out exactly what Miss York meant. Catching onto my confusion, despite how cool I was playing it, she smiled.

“Paul is only the club’s manager, is he not?” the wryly grinning woman pointed out, eliciting a nod from me as I wet my drying mouth with more club soba. “Paul’s adequate at his job, of course, but the club is ultimately not his and ultimately exists only to make money, by entertaining wealthy men and women looking to have their egos—and something else, I’m sure—stroked by beautiful-looking people.”

I found myself frozen in place, but just barely aware enough to wonder if I was going to pass out from not breathing. Finally, my breathing started up again, and I forced a smile. It must not have been a particularly convincing one, considering what Miss York said next.

“Come now, Jennifer,” she couldn’t resist adding a little amusement to her voice, “You and I are well aware that I’m not as insipid as the other girls out there—lovely little souls as they may be. I’m well aware of why I come here, as I’d hope you’d be.”

A split second passed and I found myself readjusting myself in my place on the couch, if only to feel like I was trying to regain my cool.

“You needn’t be worried, my dear. I understand you probably aren’t very used to having a client speak so frankly to you, but I’d very much rather we get to the core of the issue here.

“W-well, Victoria,” I squeaked, trying to keep my cool and my voice, “What would that be?”

Smiling, Miss York stirred her drink until one partially melted ice cube slipped off another and readjusted itself, with the bottom tip now touching the bottom of the glass. After a quick sip, the woman placed her glass on a coaster on the side table to her left, stood, and presented herself in front of me with a model runway-esque spin.

It was a beautiful green gown that exposed her shoulders, but coyly keeping her legs hidden behind a long skirt that offered only the briefest of glances through a slit on the left side. Not exactly my style, of course—Rachel had encouraged me to wear shorter skirts to show off the legs and ass all of my running had built up—but I nevertheless admired the vibe Miss York had going for her.

“See anything you like, Jennifer?”

“Huh? Oh, I think your dress looks really good on you, Miss Y—Victoria.”

The wealthy woman smiled, genuinely, before reinitiating eye-contact with me, “We’re often told who to be as women, aren’t we dear”

I hesitated for a moment, trying to parse where exactly she was going with this talk of womanhood.

“Whether it’s by society, a parental figure with authority over us,” Miss York retook her place to my left on the couch, “A husband…” she slid her right hand across my left, still propping me up on the couch, “...or even a silly host club manager…”

I think I got where she was going with this now.

“Our womanhood is rarely ever ours to claim for our own sakes, isn’t it, Jennifer?”

I could feel the back of my dress shirt soaked with sweat now, as the nervous tension I felt being lectured on womanhood by a woman who thought of me as a cis woman. If I laid back now I knew my shirt would adhere to me, so I kept myself on the couch’s edge, hoping that at any second now it would be closing time and I could escape this bizarre scene with my—I don’t even know what—intact.

Displaying that ever-present wry grin, Miss York finished her drink, sat the glass down, grabbed me by the hand and led me towards the entrance of the room, “Come dear, we have much to do tonight.”

“Huh?”

Before I knew it we were back on the floor, all eyes on us as Miss York hastily dragged me across towards the front entrance of the club.

“I’m borrowing Jennifer for a few hours, Paul. I’ll bring her back in one piece, don’t worry!”

As I passed by Rachel’s booth our eyes locked, our shared anxieties over what Miss York had planned communicated without even a single word.

***

SEPTEMBER 10, 2024:

Over the summer I had gotten myself into the—perhaps paranoid—habit of checking my makeup regularly to make sure it hadn’t melted in the dreadful Washington heat. HOT TOPIC was hardly my scene—lest I wanted a new band tee shirt for casual wear—so the prolonged reprieve from torturing myself over what jeans or activewear I wanted to add to my fast-growing collection gave me just enough time to scrutinize my face in my compact and do any necessary makeup touch-ups. Much to my bewilderment, I was now stuffing my purse with just as much stuff as my dear pink wife, only mine was significantly less cute and covered in buttons.

Rach had made a point of getting as much Pride merchandise as she could over the summer, where we visited as many of the many Pride events across Washington as possible.

My wife proudly displayed no less than five Bisexual Pride pins on her purse, “Just in case you missed the first one, the second one, the third one, and the number four one!!!”

“Might as well make it a full 69,” I deadpanned at her methodology.

“Don’t be silly, Jenni! I can’t fit that many on my pursey-purse-purse!”

I don’t remember when I had started smiling at her—I could remember only looking at her and smiling, much to her pronounced bewilderment. Rach cocked her head to the left, but eventually gave up trying to process why I was smiling and returned to espousing the practical applications of cute licensed accessories.

I had been worried about us returning to leisurely strolling around at first, but the effects of HRT and the Facial Feminization Surgery paid for by Club Y had given Rachel and I a greater sense of safety than we’d known since a year ago. With our faces and bodies still changing I was beginning to feel relatively sure that we would not be discovered, and with my anxiety quelled, I had begun to find myself having fun in my new life.

Well, except for the prior day. I’d known that it was going to be a rough one, considering that it was the anniversary of the day our parents had been murdered, so I’d made arrangements to make sure that Rachel had the entire day to sit around in pajamas and weep.

Admittedly, I needed the day to cry, too.

And then here we were, at the mall the very next day, doing retail therapy. As many cute outfits as I’d managed to purchase, it was nice to just watch my vibrant, eye-catching wife finally be able to return to her routine of regularly gushing over trinkets or poorly-designed anime graphic tees.

“Omigawd Rach, this Broli shirt is so fuckin’ hot! Just, like, look at how the definition of his muscles are drawn!! Ooh, ooh, and his hair, too! It’s all detailed but the linework is so, like, not blocky-block-block or whatevs!!”

Rachel’s little giddy art gush drew as many eyes to her as her explosion-of-pink fashion sense did. In spite of my honed instinct to make us appear invisible, I just stood there, watching Rachel explain to me the artistic merits of stuff I didn’t really care about while other customers stole glances at her.

They’d never see as much of her squeal over her hyperfixations as much as I would, and for that I found solace.

Sensing someone behind us, I turned to find a pair of young teen girls waiting to get our attention. After a beat, I’d noticed the buttons on their bag strap and held my breath: they were trans girls.

“Umm…hi, excuse me,” the girl with the brown hair asked, arms defensively crossed over her chest, “I j-just w-wanted to say that I really liked your outfit.” She immediately shot her line of sight down to the ground.

“O-oh, hi, sorry, my girlfriend’s just r-really shy,” the other one replied, “We, uh, saw your Bi Pride buttons and j-just wanted to say hi!” She made a not-so-subtle gesture to lead our vision to the Bi Pride button beneath her Trans Pride button. It was hard not to smile at the two girls.

“Omigawd!” Rachel squealed, bending down to meet the two at eye-level, “You two are so precious! Your outfits are, like, so cutie-cute-cute, too! I wish I’d worn something like th—”

I slightly bumped Rach with my right hip, which reminded her of why she wasn’t wearing any Trans Pride merch herself. Rach stopped herself, smiled sadly, then continued with a more measured tone: “I’m so happy to see two bi girlies your age getting to be your true selves together. You’re really awesome, you know?”

The first girl spoke up again, still obviously pensive: “W-we are? T-this is my first time—girl-moding, I mean.”

“Yeah, you are. It takes so much courage to do what you’re doing, hon. I respect girls like you so much!”

The two girls became a fit of giggles and blushing, enough to lean against one another for momentary support. I’d seen a meme before that compliments were the easiest way to make a trans girl short circuit, and it certainly seemed to be true in practice.

The first girl, recollecting herself, motioned toward me and asked Rachel: “So, like, is she your…y’know…”

Well, shoot. This was awkward. Taking a slight breath, I answered for Rach, who looked as conflicted as I felt, “Uh…that’s…we’re just friends. Best friends. She’s been there for me since I was, like, five?” I turned to Rach, hoping she’d be able to back me up.

Clearly forcing a fake smile and bright voice, Rach added: “Jenni’s been there for me all my life. I couldn’t have realized I liked boys without her,” Rach said, before realizing what she’d just said.

“Oh, wow,” the second girl said, “You used to think you only liked girls? I think I’ve heard about that before, even for cis girls like you two…”

Rachel and I smiled through gritted teeth, silently praying the girls wouldn’t clock us. If an actual trans girl couldn’t tell I was a guy then some pig wouldn’t be able to, either. Hopefully.

Still, it was heartwarming to see Rachel interacting with other trans girls, especially girls who were out at an age that she’d never got to be out at. Rachel never really spoke about middle school, or why she’d internalized so many transphobic ideas about herself, but watching her being gushed over by these kids was enough to make so much of the last year of hell seem worth it. Watching Rachel rejoice in the presence of other trans girls—even from stealth—was worth it.

I just hoped the day would come when she could choose if she wanted to be stealth or not.

Fucking pigs.

***

DECEMBER 11, 2024:

“Jennifer, be a dear and try this on,” came Miss York’s voice from behind.

Accepting whatever was being handed to me, I stared petrified into the full-length body mirror before me, in only my panties and bra, as Miss York went about assembling a ‘wardrobe’ of outfits she approved of.

It had to have been past 9PM at this point. After we’d left Club Y Miss York had called her driver and had him drive us to a high-end fashion boutique. Although I had humored Rachel over the past nine months with window shopping and the like, neither of us had actually purchased anything from a store such as this, and summarily I felt, well, out of place.

Exhausted from the anxiety of it all, I hadn’t even noticed my body doing the work of actually trying on the dress. Vision blocked by Miss York as she worked with my hair and makeup, I was unable to tell exactly how I looked, although with my anxiety at being outed being what it was, I wasn’t sure I’d even recognize that I was looking at my own reflection, anyway.

“Hmm…you do look lovely, if I do say myself, Jennifer. Still, I think extensions would compliment the look a lot more, don’t you think, Charles?”

Charles—the manager of the store—had sounded grouchy when he’d answered the phone call from Miss York on the ride over, but was quite gleeful upon learning just who was asking him to keep the store open late tonight. Smile wide-as-can-be, “Oh, yes, Miss York. I must say, your taste is impeccable, as always.”

“Now Charles, what have I told you about being a sycophant?”

“Only when your husband is visiting?” Charles broke out into a nervous smile, his shoulders dropping just a little to rest.

“Precisely, darling,” Miss York mugged before turning back to me, “How would you feel about that, Jennifer my dear?”

After a moment of realizing that I’d been staring blankly at the older woman, I snapped back to reality and said the only thing I could think of: “Hair extensions?”

“Of course, dear. Your hair is long enough to attach some, if you’d like. I could have an appointment set up for you first thing in the morning at the finest salon in Seattle, if you like. Or perhaps noon?”

The generosity of wealthy, middle-age white women was not something I was accustomed to, “Oh—uh, I mean, you really don—”

“Jennifer, my dear, please stop it with that dull, monotone voice,” the woman semi-scolded, something of a half-laugh buried in there somewhere.

Swallowing the lump in my throat, I stopped using my club voice, “Uh…sorry, Miss York. I, uh, like, do it so I can play—”

“—the part that Paul and the clients expect of you, I know, I know,” Miss York said, almost dismissively. “Well, luckily for you, there will be no more of that, my dear.” Miss York stepped aside, allowing me to finally see my reflection with the dress on.

A red dress clung just right to my curves. Coming down somewhere halfway above my knees, my eyes followed the dress up as it curved over my still developing hips, around my torso, and then up past my chest before wrapping around my neck like a collar—not too tight, either. The back was largely exposed—hence the practicality of getting hair extensions—but windows for my breasts and navel—diamond shaped, even—also graced the front side.

It occurred to me then, that Miss York had likely picked the dress precisely because of how much it resembled the skirt-length and breast window of the dress that I had been staring at Rachel wearing.

Only, Rachel’s dress had more to show off.

Placing my hand on my chest, I wondered why I felt so disappointed by that. Why did it feel so wrong to see only B-cup breasts in my reflection? Why did it feel so light to feel only B-cup breasts on my chest? Why did it feel so wrong in my field of vision to only see B-cup breasts any time I looked down?

“Well? What do you think, Jennifer?”

Watching the girl in the reflection stand less-and-less stiffly with each passing second, I noticed tears begin to run down her cheeks as she slowly crouched downward, grabbing hold of her knees.

“Don’t worry, dear,” Miss York whispered into the ear of the girl in the mirror, “I’ll make sure that Paul understands that there is to be no more of that suit business.”

Oddly enough, despite the sobbing that she broke into upon hearing that, the girl in the mirror didn’t look sad to me.

***

OCTOBER 13, 2024:

The leaves had already turned mostly orange, gold and brown for the year, but any tree that had them hanging from them—rather than on the pavement—was still a sight to see. Having spent so many months homeless, and then spending so much time in our shitty little apartment just to try and—poorly—warm away the memories of a half year on the frigid Seattle streets, it had begun to be nice to see nature again. It almost didn’t remind me of the worst months of my life.

Rachel, for her part, just loved trying to find which leaves she could hop on and make go ‘crunch’! Each hop was—unsurprisingly—followed by a ‘chirp’.

I envied Rachel. Her ability to smile and giggle so freely despite the hellish nightmare that she’d experienced—even worse than it was for me, I’d venture—made me restless. She was so brave and so strong and—I was repeating the same thoughts I always had when melancholic.

Damn Jennifer, get a grip.

Rachel and I had a few hours until work, so we decided to go for a stroll to a place she’d been wanting to visit since even before we got off the streets: a sex shop.

I understood Rachel’s needs, so it certainly didn’t bother me that she wanted to browse the toys. Since my recovery from my orchiectomy and all the shit we’d faced in an endless stream of bullshit I’d felt a great deal of sexual repression, which I knew that Rachel would be understanding towards.

Now that I had a more private space to examine my, well, privates, I’d tried re-establishing some sort of relationship with them. Saving for tucking, I’d taken to touching or thinking about my penis as little as possible for fear that it would remind me of something I very much did not want to confront yet. Hell, I don’t think I ever could confront it—what was I going to do, find a therapist who would see me without proper legal identification or who paid in cash?

Or was wanted for a triple homicide that she didn’t commit?

The entire saga was exhausting, to say the least. The past year aged me in ways I had never expected to age at a mere nineteen years old. But here I was now, watching my wife hop between leaves on our way to a sex shop, hoping to find that one leaf dry enough to satisfy her craving for a ‘crunch’ noise, and I was envious.

She really was like a goddess or something.

Finally, we arrived at our destination: a small, ill-kept, perhaps even illegally so, building in the middle of downtown Redmond.

“Sh-should we go inside, chirp?” Rachel asked, nervously. We’d been standing just outside the entrance like two schmucks for three or four minutes at this point.

“Probably, yeah,” I replied nonchalantly, checking my phone for the time before sliding it back into my purse. “Let’s hurry up; I wanna try this restaurant in town before we have to go back home and get ready for work.”

Rachel’s anxiety just grew even worse at that. “Chirp!”

“Omigawd, Rach. You’re, like—and don’t take this the wrong way—the horniest girl I know, why are you the one who’s nervous about going inside?”

Rachel pulled out her fidget spinner and began fooling around with it to calm her nerves, “B-because! You know, I’ve never actually been inside of one before! They’re special! A-a-and I’m, like, the only girl you know!”

“It’s a porno store, hon. It’s not like you’re going to someplace you’ve always wanted to go, like Hawaii or Akiba.”

“ALOHA!” the blonde shouted with a giggle.

Sighing, I took my wife’s hand in my own, crossed and locked our fingers, and walked inside the shop, with her in tow.

The shop was, as one might expect from such an obviously mom-and-pop style outside appearance, crowded with shelves of magazines, DVDs, Blu-rays, something called a VHS (?) and toys. Rows-upon-rows of gear and personal pleasure items crammed together and even hanging from walls. Not only did the building look forty years old on the outside, it looked like nobody had been in to shop in 40 years, either.

The checkout counter was seated close to the entrance and manned by an older gentleman of indeterminable age, gray sideburns and a suspect dye job on his crew cut and mustache. If I had to guess, I don’t doubt he’d been dying the majority of his hair since the Bush years—which Bush, I couldn’t tell you.

“Welcome on in, ladies,” he guffawed, likely repeating behavior he reserved for any young woman that came into his shop. “Now, I won’t card ya,” he laughed at this, “But I bet you two would just barely pass!”

Rachel blinked, missing the obvious sleaze, while I did my best to offer a polite smile to avoid trouble. Letting go of my wife’s hand on the off-chance the weird old man behind the counter decided to be weird about that, I grabbed Rachel by the wrist and led her down the aisles—which had to have violated the fire code with how they were positioned so close to one another—to hopefully put some distance between us and the sustache.

Once at the back of the store I let Rach go and she nearly fell over from the sudden release. Steadying herself, Rach turned to me and said, “Uh…this doesn’t look like the dildos?”

It was, in fact, a wall of home-recorded VHS—what a strange-looking video format. I managed to avoid reading any of the titles. Turning away from one section just led to another wall, full of uncovered DVD and Blu-ray covers depicting a concerningly similar theme. Looking up, I found the homemade sign denoting exactly what I had suspected the shelf was for and shook my head in contempt.

“Yeah, that tracks for this Boomer creep,” I sighed, turning to find Rachel, only to find myself faced with a shelf labeled ‘SISSY/CROSSDRESSERS’ in an elaborately illustrated pink marker text. I said something unprintable under my breath, finally spotted my wife and walked over to her.

As I approached my wife I could hear her singing some sort of tune under her breath. “DODODODODO DIL~!!” Somehow aware that she shouldn’t be singing such a song here of all places, but not aware enough to stop herself from singing it anyway. It was hard not to wonder if she was a fool or brave. Perhaps there was no difference.

“This place gives me the creeps, girl. Let’s grab what you need and get the hell out of here before our clothes transform into 1980s porno outfits.”

“That’d be so hawt, though?” Rach blinked.

“Just hurry the hell up,” I grouched, pressing a finger against my wife’s forehead and lightly pushing her off. For her part, she pretended I had just sent her flying through a mountain.

Rach found the dildo section in record time and began sorting through them to find the best fit. With Rach down the aisle, closer to the front of the store, I attempted to distract myself with whatever was near me to look at.

Shuffling through the crowded—and dusty—shelves I eventually came across a misplaced pile of Blu-rays, each labeled at $40USD and listed with anywhere from half to a full hour of content. “Omigawsh, no wonder someone put them back,” I muttered under my breath so as not to catch unwanted attention. Reading one of the titles I almost laughed, “Kentucky Fucked Chrissy?” The girl on the cover looked pretty cute in her daisy dukes, but the guy…was not cute at all. “Gah, do they just…never hire good-looking men for these things?” I wondered aloud.

“Naw, they hire uggos so the cishet guys who watch ‘em don’t, like, feel gay for fappin’ to porn with a hottie on the screen,” Rachel added, her chosen dildo held against her chest like a stuffed animal or something. A brief feeling of nostalgia came to me upon sight of the dildo. Ass-fucking myself over the last week of summer hadn’t seemed like such a scary, uncontrollable urge now.

“...y’know, maybe calling them ‘uggos’ is a bit much, Rach,” I countered. “Got what you need?”

“Chirp!”

“Then let’s get out of here,” I said, dropping the stack onto the shelf and then turning to follow Rach up front.

Then, from out of nowhere, something swung down and hit me in the face. With a yelp I fell backward, but caught myself on the shelving just in time to stabilize myself. The close proximity of the shelves had been a strange blessing in this case. Rach immediately turned around and, dildo in hand, rushed to my side.

“Omigawd honey, are you okay?!” she asked, panicked.

“Yes!” I said in a hushed tone, hoping I hadn’t drawn the attention of the creepy guy up front. Rach helped me steady myself and as I attempted to get the dust—and something sticky, hopefully glue—off of my palms, Rachel picked up what had apparently smacked me in the face.

“A collar?” I asked, perplexed.

“And chainy-chain-chain!”

“Huh. Hot,” I admitted.

“Wait, hon, are you into…?”

Perhaps I had said too much, “Oh? Uh…I mean, I guess? I mean, I don’t kink shame, of course!”

My wife seemed unconvinced, “Wanna try it on?” she giggled.

“Here? With…company?” I countered, concerned by the warm feeling in my lower region.

“Like, yeah? I mean, I just think you’d be cutie-cute-cute in it, y’know?” Her devilish body expressions were beginning to scare me.

“F-fuck, Rach, not in public!” Hell, saying that alone was enough to turn me on more. ‘Focus, Jen, focus!’ Finally, taking a breath, I put the collar back onto the shelf, turned my wife around to face the front of the store, and pushed her to the checkout.

It really was a nice collar, though…

The checkout clerk was browsing something on his computer when Rach and I reached the counter. The big box monitor looked—screen mercifully just out of view—ancient, like it was as old as at least 1998. This clashed with the mouse, which itself looked like a recent model—although still weirdly enough it was on a cord. The Boomer-of-undeterminable-age turned to face us and broke into another skin-crawling creepy smile, “Find what you came for, ladies?”

I made a mental note to avoid him at all costs if I ever saw him out in the wild.

“Chirp!” Rachel replied, placing her beginner’s dildo on the counter.

The porn shop clerk raised an eye at Rachel’s tick, but picked up the dildo to read off whatever the hell he needed to read off to…hand-key the fucking item? What year was this asshole from? Is that a fucking calculator?

“Weeelllll, you ladies are in for a treat. It’s your lucky day, because you’ll be getting a dick-count—I mean, discount today for being so gosh darn cute! Your total today is $35!”

Rachel seemed preoccupied with the flavored condoms on display at the register, so I nearly puked in my mouth a little for the both of us at the blatant sexual harassment. Deciding to pay the bill myself so that we could leave as quickly as possible I handed over two $20 bills. While waiting for the receipt I whispered to Rach, “Grab your toy, hon.”

Snapped from her condom counting, Rach realized that she’d missed on paying for the dildo herself, but gleefully grabbed her now-bagged prize and hugged it tightly against her chest, yet again. “Chirp!” Rachel said, thanking me.

“Come again, dear?” the old man asked, looking more than a little weirded out.

“Chirp!” Rachel replied, not thinking about what she was getting herself into.

“Rach, let’s go,” I stressed, trying not to sound upset with her.

“Chirp!” Rach took my hand and followed me as I tried to escape.

“She some kinda retard?” the clerk asked before we could move even a foot away.

I froze in place, seething.

“Hurty, chirp!” Rachel whispered to me.

I’d been squeezing her hand too hard.

Taking a deep breath, I exhaled and loosened my grip on my wife’s hand, and then continued walking.

I made sure to knock over a display of overstock magazines on our way out the door.

***

December 12, 2024:

“Holy shit, like, how much did she spend on you, Jen?” Rachel exclaimed, peaking through the dozen or so bags I’d come home with.

Still beaming—especially since I’d ultimately decided to put that red dress back on before leaving the boutique—I modeled any cute pose I could think of in the mirror while idly listening to my bestie ruffle through the paper bags and boxes that I had come home with. “Like, I dunno, Rachy-Rach. A couple thou, maybe?”

“Uh…”

Rachel seemed a bit hesitant, which was new for her, so I did my best to peel myself away from my own reflection to pay her my full attention. “What’s up?”

Examining a pair of lace red panties in her hands Rachel shot me a look, “She’s not going to try and fuck you, is she?”

For a moment, I was taken aback, then I remembered why that would worry my wife whom I was on the run with from the authorities: “Oh, jeez, uh, yeah, I guess it would be a problem if she found out that I have a…” My voice caught in my mouth at the thought of finishing that sentence. “Hahaha…oh, jeez. Sorry, Rach, I, uh…just got carried away, is all.”

An obvious concern for my well-being marked her face. My wife summoned up a smile somehow and said, “I’m glad you had a good night, Jen. Work is typically miserable for you.”

And then I said something I wasn’t expecting to say, “Jenni.”

“Huh?”

“I…listen, it’s okay. Just, like, call me Jenni. I know you’re trying to be, like, super-duper serial mode Rach right now, but, like, I miss my wifey being herself.” I must have still been riding the high from whatever wild night this had turned into, because I was talking faster and higher-pitched than I normally did.

Taking a moment to collect herself, Rach dropped the red panties back into a bag and crossed our living room over to me. Bodies—and busts—now touching, Rachel leaned down and planted a kiss on my lips that I happily leaned into. It was nice to be home again.

After a minute or three of kissing, Rachel broke off, placed her high index finger over my lips to prevent me from inviting more, and then smiled. “I got you a little something when I went out this afternoon,” she giggled.

Distracted by Rach’s brilliant smile, I let her take my hand and lead me back into our bedroom. Digging through the closet, Rachel eventually pulled out a very familiar sight:

The collar from the sex shop. And the chain that went with it.

“I was, like, thinkin’, y’know, that after this morning maybe you wanted to, like…uh…try this out?”

A pulsating sensation steadily grew in my belly, like a drum being beaten louder-and-louder with each beat. “O-oh,” I replied, breathing quickening. “I…uh…holy fuck, Rachy?”

“Yessy, Jenni?” my wife giggled back.

“Uh…umm…” my head was on fire—I couldn’t form a coherent thought in my mind. Just…images. Black-and-white snapshots of what Rachel would do to me, and each of my three holes.

“Sorry Jenni, whatcha tryna say?” Rach asked in as fake a sweet voice as possible.

Arms crossed, I felt myself bouncing in place with a nervous energy that I did not know how else to burn off, “I…uh…like, y’know, right?” I was panicking even worse now.

Tilting her head in a way that looked authentic, but was most certainly not, Rachel asked: “Like, know what?”

“Th-that!” I almost screamed, legs beginning to buckle.

“Like, sorry baby. You’ve gotsta be more specifrical! Use your wordsies!”” she teased.

The last park broke me. Falling to my knees I begged in the most agonized voice I’ve ever heard from my mouth, “P-please, put it on me!”

“Oh, this ol’ thing?” my wife cooed, waving the collar in her hand, “Is this what you want?”

“YES!” I shouted.

“Where?” she giggled, her stance becoming strained.

“Around my neck, fucking gawd, Rach!”

“Around your neck? Like, why there?” For a second I almost bought it—almost bought that she was genuinely confused, like the little fucking bimbo she always acted like. Tears were welling-up in my eyes and I could barely make out her beautiful, airheaded expression.

“B-because! Th-that’s—”

“That’s what?”

The dam broke: “That’s where it fucking belongs!”

Rachel stepped closer, bent down, and then pulled the collar of the dress I wore off and around from my neck. Dress having fallen forward, my bra’d breasts were now exposed. My breathing grew heavier and heavier, hotter and hotter. Rachel then moved to place the collar around my bare neck. As she strapped it in she leaned forward and over my head to see what she was doing. While in this position—with her massive breasts now millimeters from touching my face—she whispered into my ear, “That’s a good girl.”

As the leather of the collar touched against my bare skin the memory of the restraints holding me to the make-shift operating table struck out from the depth of my mind. Before I knew it my hands shot around my neck as I screamed something even I could not make out, tore the collar out of Rachel’s hands, pulled it off from around my neck and threw it at the wall.

I sobbed in my wife’s arms, on the floor, for an hour that night.

***

March 28, 2024:

Seven months ago, I confessed to my best friend in the world and became her boyfriend. It was an amazing, whirlwind of experiences that had finally broken the unspoken dam that had been overcomplicating our relationship for years at that point. I’d always loved her, and for once in my life I hadn’t been afraid to say that.

Now, as I watched her in her element, mixing and matching new clothes at one of the few local big box stores that we hadn’t stolen from yet, I was able to relive those halcyon days once again. Only now, of course, our positions were a little reversed.

“Ooh, ooh, this pink one would look amaze-balls on you, Jenni!” my wife gushed, pulling a pink cocktail dress out of the racks she was finger surfing through. The shopping cart that I had wisely elected to get was filling at an alarming rate.

“Rach, dear, I know that Paul told us to buy clothes and all, but don’t you think this is a bit…much?”

“Pfft,” Rachel nearly gagged, “We haven’t even cracked a thousand yet!”

“I mean, yeah, but, like…uh…he only gave us $5,000. I’d like to try and save some in case this whole thing doesn’t work out, y’know?”

Rachel rolled her eyes, “You’re such a worrier. Like, I know that Paul’s a skeevy guy, but worrying about what he might do is just going to stop us from having any control over, like, what we want to do now, right?”

Leaning over against the handle of the cart I motioned to rub my eyes, before realizing I was wearing eyeliner that Rachel had instructed me on how to apply. “I’m just…I mean, yeah, you’re right, Rachel. I guess…I’m just afraid of what’s going to happen. We just moved into that new place yesterday, and, like, I don’t exactly think it’s all that safe, y’know? And that landlord…”

“Here, try this on!”

Rachel handed me that same pink dress again, her body language and facial expression adamant. After staring at the dress for a moment I sighed, and accepted the dress. “You know Rach, I have plenty of casual clothes for outside of work already,” I said, hoping she would accept defeat.

“Yeah, but none of them you can, like, take to the club!” She grinned, almost as if she was convinced of her argument.

Flabbergasted, I countered, “Rach…we’re eighteen, we can’t go to clubs.”

“Uh, that’s what blowjobs are for, Jenni. Gawd, you are such a bim—”

“—I am not sucking some guy off so I can sneak into a club, Rachel. Jesus Christ, I haven’t even sucked your dick yet!”

Rachel grew suspiciously silent at that. Afraid that I’d said something hurtful, I immediately walked to her side and tried to hold her, “Oh shoot, hon, I’m sorry, you’re not mad that I—”

Rach shook her head quickly, clearly having difficulty speaking, “I’m sorry, like, it’s just—could you not call it that?”

Confusion struck, “I…I’m sorry? Not call wha—wait, you mean your" and then I mouthed the word "…penis?”

Rachel nodded in the affirmative, clearing her throat, “You’re going to think this is crazy of me, but, like…I don’t like calling it that. It just…reminds me too much of my deadname, you know?”

Oh, fuck.

Rachel sniffed, wiping faint tears from her eyes, “It’s stupid, I know, but—”

Before I knew it my head was already shaking back and forth furiously, “No, it’s not! I get it, I really do! Holy shit, I can’t believe—fuck, sweetie, I never meant to make you dysphoric!” I embraced Rachel and she began to melt into my frontside.

Other women stayed cleared of us as we had our little moment.

After a few minutes Rachel pulled her face off of my shoulder, hung the dress on the handle of the shopping cart and began checking her makeup, likely to give herself something to preoccupy herself.

Determined to right my mistake anyway I could I grabbed the dress off of the cart’s handle and marched into the fitting room. I didn’t want to wear the dress. I knew it would look terrible on me. I knew that I’d just look like a man in a fucking dress, but if it made Rachel happy, then that was worth it.

Once inside the dress and looking at the smiling woman in the wall-length mirror I couldn’t help but wonder why she was smiling so much.

I couldn’t help but wonder why she was rubbing the slight curves on her body that clung so snuggly to the dress.

Nor could I help but wonder just why her vision began to blur the longer she looked in the mirror. After all, she was wearing her glasses!

Glasses that seemed so boyish for such a cute girl.

I just had to take a closer look at her, bending closer towards the mirror, avoiding the bench that prevented her from walking closer to the mirror.

Then she saw the faint shadow beneath her concealer, and she stumbled back, feeling sick. Feeling like she was never, ever be feminine enough.

Feeling like she would never be a real woman. Not like the woman she looked up to so much.

Her vision just got blurrier and blurrier, no matter how hard she tried to clear its path with her hands.

Her vision got blurrier and blurrier, even while she tried to answer the knock at her changing room door.

Even as the concerned voice of her best friend faded into the background as she haphazardly scrambled for the right doorknob out of a thousand.

Even as she pulled her best friend into the changing room, shut the door behind her, locked it, and sobbed with her in their shared embrace.

***

December 12, 2024:

I had woken before Rachel later that morning to go for a run by myself. Anxiety gnawed at me, mostly that Rachel would blame herself for my trauma response to her gesture, and I needed some time alone to try and figure out how the hell I was going to apologize to her for my outburst and communicate clearly to her that I really did love her gift, and that she wasn’t to blame for what happened to me.

I think I could recall scratching at her hands in my rush to remove the collar before it was buckled, which only made me feel all the more guilty.

Finishing my run I made my usual stop at the Gayly Bug for our morning drinks.

Goodness knows I was going to need it. My insomnia has been getting worse lately and last night had not helped. I kept trying to run early in the morning, hoping that it would let me fix my sleeping schedule for the next day, but things were turning out to be a lot more complex than that.

Danny greeted me with a brighter than usual smile, which I just couldn’t say no to, so I returned it. “Name?” He asked, clearly playing into the idea that we weren’t at all now on flirting terms. I decided to be devious.

“Jenni.”

“Oh?” he chuckled, humoring me by writing the name on the order.

“Yeah, like, whatevs. I’ll be Jenni,” I giggled.

“Okay then, Jenni. The usual, coming right up!”

Taking the excuse of a slow morning to his advantage yet again, Danny brought me my order himself and slid into the chair opposite me for a quick chat.

“Rough night?” he asked, laying on the charm in just enough to be charming, but also sympathetic.

“Uh...you can say that again,” I groaned, hoping that I wasn’t just making things worse by inviting his curiosity.

“You didn’t…have food poisoning, did you?” Danny asked, suddenly taking on a grave tone.

Straightening up immediately, “What?! No, absolutely not!” I corrected, almost cracking a smile.

Danny just smiled, “Okay, good. I’m sorry if that offended you, I just wanted to make sure. You look, frankly, like you’ve been up puking and crying all night, so I was afraid that…y’know?”

I probably had been up crying all night, though, “No, I get it, but please…actually, let’s just drop it. It’s not important, I promise.”

And yet, I still needed to hold myself back from cracking that smile.

“So, tell me then, ‘Jenni’—if that is your real name—how was your day?” His goofy character voice stole a snicker out of me.

“It—was a lot, actually. Work stuff, Rach stuff, sleep stuff, y’know?” I couldn’t believe it, but that stupid little performance had cheered me up quite a bit.

That brilliant smile helped a lot, too.

“Well, I’m glad it’s the start of a new day, then!” Danny said, boisterously, “I bet you'll have a lot of fun today to make up for it!”

I took a sip from my tea to coyly hide my softening expression. After the whirlwind of the previous day it was nice to just sit back and reboot with someone who hadn’t been there. Who didn’t have preconceived notions or any idea about me, and treated me only as any other cute girl they were trying to…flirt with…

And there it was again. Was I flirting with Danny? Was I attracted to Danny? Why did he make me feel so…free? Refreshed? Special?

Like the only girl in the world who mattered?

But…I wasn’t actually a girl, I was just living as one.

Was there really any difference?

I mean, no—that’s not it. Rachel was forced to live as a boy, but that didn’t mean that she wasn’t still a girl. Society had just failed to educate her about herself, her body and her gender. Rachel was always Rachel, even when she looked so sad trying to fit in with boys because the other kids in class would expect it of us. Rachel was still a girl then, and that was never more clear now that she just got to be herself and enjoy it. Me? I mean…

“Hey Jen, you there?” Danny asked, snapping me back to reality.

He really did make great ‘concerned’ faces.

Remembering to put a smile back on, I replied: “Yeah, I’m fine, Danny-or-Daniel,” I added a goofy grin, trying to see if I could break him. “Just thinking about…girl stuff!”

Returning my smile, Danny looked up just in time to greet three new customers. Turning back to me as he got out of his chair he smiled and asked: “Hey before I get back to work, just a quick question…”

“Shoot,” I replied, not even considering what he could be asking.

“So, like, there’s this band playing’ this weekend and I was wondering if maybe you’d like to, uh—So! Like, I have an extra ticket and I was just wondering’ if—”

I locked up immediately upon realizing what Danny was trying to ask me. My heart felt like it was about to explode out of my chest and slap me across the face. Realizing that Danny was waiting on some sort of vocalization from me I quickly blurted out the first thing that came to mind: “Uh, I gotta check with Rach, first!”

Danny raised an eyebrow, “Your blonde friend? Did you two have something else planned for Saturday night? I’m sure we could, uh, y’know, get her anoth—”

“Aah, no, I mean, like,” I giggled nervously, hoping it would diffuse the situation, “So! Like! Ummm…” I’d been spending too much time around Rach if this was how I was starting to sound nervous, “Er…wait, that’s right! I’m, like, really sorry, but we had a thing. To go…see about checking out a different apartment?”

“At eight at night?” Danny asked, confused.

“Err…like, oh, jeez. Listen, Danny, I, like, really like you. Like, really-really. I just…I promise, I’ll text you. I just need to make sure I—” I picked up the tray with our drinks in a hurry, my fight-or-flight instinct kicking in, “—I promise that I’ll get back to you. Okay?”

Danny nodded, mildly concerned by my behavior. I couldn’t blame him.

And with that ridiculous performance, I was out the door and speed walking back to the apartment like I was about to die of embarrassment.

***

June 10, 2024:

Laundry day was a hell of an experience as a girl. Well, when you were living as one…with your wife. It was like, one girl and twice the laundry, but it was actually, like ten-times the laundry, because girls got so many cute clothes to wear, so naturally we’d begun restocking our collection of clothes as best we could now that we had our own place. Unfortunately, laundry day also meant that the two of us were stuck in nothing but our underwear.

Laundry day was a lot less fun in April than it was in June.

We’d been living in the apartment for about two months now, only to discover ultimately, the apartment handled the summer as swimmingly as it did the winter. Shuffling around the creaky piece of shit—I don’t know what that smell was, but I could hardly complain about it considering the landlord agreed to house us without legal proof of who we were—I grabbed our various cheap space heaters to finally move them into a closet until we inevitably needed them again. Turning to Rach, who was goofing off on her new phone, I noticed that she was crying. “Rachel sweetie, are you…okay?”

Rachel sniffled, ‘Y-yeah, I am, Jenni, j-just…checking out socials.”

I wanted to frown at my wife’s digital self-harm, but I also honestly couldn’t blame her: if I had remembered what time of the year it was I would have probably done the same.

I abandoned my plan to pick clothes up off the floor and joined my wife by her side in the other camping chair. I didn’t know for sure, but I had my suspicions for what exactly she was looking at, so I took a peak and she angled her phone to make it easier for me to check: Senior Prom had been three days ago. Socials of all of our old classmates—even if we hadn’t been close to them—were blowing up with photos of the event.

Rachel should have been able to go to Senior Prom. She should have been able to go dress shopping, and she should have been able to dance her silly little heart out on the dance floor, not giving a damn what anyone else thought of her dancing.

A teardrop hit the screen of Rach’s phone, and I wasn’t sure if it was hers or mine.

I had had that night stolen from me, just as much as Rachel had. I was always so wrapped up in Rachel and protecting her, I think I’d forgotten to cry for myself.

So I cried for myself.

Despite myself and my silly male pride, I let myself cry and make embarrassing noises in front of my wife, only for her to console me.

Her hugs were always the best.

And not just because of how big her boobs were getting, either.

“Hey, Jenni…?” Rachel whispered, her arms wrapped around me tightly. I don’t remember at what point we’d stood up to hug.

I gave her a groan of acknowledgement.

Rachel picked her phone back up, made a few taps while still holding me tight with her left arm, then set her phone down on the IKEA side table we’d assembled the other day. Suddenly, “Dancing Queen” by ABBA began blaring.

“...May I have this dance?”

And I got my Senior Prom, with the love of my life.

***

December 12, 2024:

I let myself into our apartment, taking care not to make any sudden noises should I wake Rach up. I hoped desperately that she was still getting some sleep so that I could figure out what the hell I was going to say to her, but to my surprise she was already awake.

And, oddly enough, making breakfast.

“Oh, hey,” I said softly, watching her scramble eggs. Truthfully, the eggs from the supermarket had tasted pretty bad lately, but I was just impressed to see Rach fighting through her executive dysfunction so early in the morning.

“Hey Jen,” Rach said with a smile before turning back to focus on the stove before her. Normally she’d have sung her hello to me.

“Are you okay?” I asked, “I-I’m sorry about last night, Rach.”

Rachel turned back to me and smiled softly again, “No, I get it, hon. I know exactly why you…why you did what you did. It’s fine, sweetie.”

“Rach, please, lis—”

“Like, I’d have done the same thing if my retarded tranny wife’s chaser bitch monster kidnapped me and castrated me in a fuckin’ unfinished house’s dark and creepy basement,” Rachel’s voice grew faster and higher-pitched with every syllable. She shrieked the last four words.

I just barely made it in time to catch her before she hit the ground, sobbing.

“Rach—Rachel, honey, please! Listen to me!”

She was sobbing pretty loudly, but at least she wasn’t trying to break free of my grasp.

“I-I’m so, so, so, so sorry, Jae! I-it’s all my fault!”

“Ra—”

“JAE,” she sobbed, looking me in the eyes, “I’m—I RUINED your life, Jae!”

I couldn’t slow my breathing, blood was rushing to my head. The more she spoke, the more it hurt. The more she spoke, the more I had to think.

I needed to stop Rach.

I needed to stop Rach from hurting herself like this.

I needed to stop Rach from saying that fucking name.

I needed Rach to know how happy I was, for the first time in my life.

I needed Rach to know how much she meant to me.

I needed Rach to know that I was attracted to Danny.

I needed Rach to know, “I want to stay a woman!”

That did the trick.

***

March 16, 2024:

Half an hour after dodging a walking case of sexual harassment in a suit I met up with Rachel at a gay bar that didn’t charge cover or check IDs at the door. The bar was designed as something between an Elk Lodge and a sports bar, so the general clientele were usually cis gay men of the more masculine variety, but Rach and I were thankfully not the only women or femme-presenting people there this time. Rachel yet again had her hair skillfully tucked into a beanie to keep it looking nice. Rach was sensitive about her appearance, and while I found myself sharing her anxieties about my own, I’d grown to just keep those to myself so that Rachel could have some sort of rock in her life.

It also just seemed silly for a cisgender man to complain to his transgender wife who actually had gender dysphoria that he was afraid that he didn’t look feminine and pretty enough to pass as a girl.

And I knew how hard it was on Rachel not being able to regularly take care of her appearance. She’d learned to put on a brave face, but I could see how frustrated she was taking care of her prized hair without the ability to get a regular wash and conditioning. We had to start making more money and find a way off of the streets somehow.

Spotting me from her table in the middle of the bar, Rachel invited me to join her by patting a seat next to her. I’d learned—then later explained to Rachel—that being a single woman in the corner of a bar was a terrible idea for avoiding unsolicited horny men. It was not a fun experience to have first-hand. In fact, it was awful and fucking violating.

Joining Rach, I took her hand and gave it a “I missed you” squeeze.

Over the past seven months we’d spent nearly every waking—and sleeping—moment together and I’d come to find that we both developed a separation anxiety—in our own ways—when apart. Unfortunately, it made sense for us to separate at times, so we did, but only in the most careful of ways. Sometimes it was nice to get a little space away, to not always be up in each other’s business.

And then, there were times that those feelings just seemed so stupid.

“How did it go?” Rachel asked, resting her head on her hand as she looked me in the eyes. The look in her eyes and the smile on her face was so content—it was hard not to think that Rachel was probably wanting to kiss me right about now, so I leaned forward and she took what she wanted.

“Fine,” I said after we broke off. The sour memories of my earlier encounter were now sugarcoated by Rachel’s strawberry lip balm, stolen from some big box retailer. “A creep followed after me, but I managed to ditch him.” Rachel squeezed my hand, which contrasted with that same blissed-out look on her face. She was concerned for me, obviously, but didn’t want to make it seem like she was panicking. Sharp girl. “How about you?”

“Well, nobody’s tried to offer anything I didn’t want today, if that’s what you’re asking,” Rach chuckled darkly. “Managed to win a few bucks in billy-ards while I was waiting for you, though.”

“You know, you can just say ‘pool’, right?” I giggled. It was always amusing when Rach tried to sound smooth and cool, just to charm me.

“But then you wouldn’t, like, know how hashtag-cool I am, sweetie,” she whispered into my left ear, her voice almost cracking like she was laughing at her own joke.

“Nobody ‘cool’ says ‘hashtag-cool’, sweetie,” my straight face crumbling immediately as my response dissolved into a giggle half-way through.

Rachel pouted, finally breaking character, and I couldn’t help but let myself lean to my left to bury my face into her right shoulder. “You’re such a bimbo!” my muffled voice said, close enough to carry just to her ear.

Playing up her pouting, Rach replied: “Hmph, takes one to, like, know one!”

Pulling my head up to try and look at Rach’s eyes as directly as I could without making her uncomfortable I countered: “Okay, fine. I’m a bimbo, too, just like, like, my big silly wifey!”

“Hey! Like, don’t, like, make fun of my ‘likes’!” Rach said, pulling back in faux-insult. “I happen to, like, be very inta-luh-lec-umal!”

I couldn’t help myself and grabbed Rachel’s head on both sides to pull her in for a deep kiss, “I know, Rachy-Rach, I know.”

Rachel broke into a smile, opened her mouth to say something else, then was cut off by an unpleasantly familiar voice.

“Well, looky what we have here! My two newest favorite gals! Come to the ol’ gay bar so men won’t hit on ya, I see?”

Turning, a chill ran down my spine: it was the same creep from the convenience store. Had he followed me here somehow?

“Oh, hey Paul!” Rachel replied.

I immediately snapped back to look at Rachel in disbelief. She knew this creep? On a first name basis?

“Jenni, this is Paul. Paul, this is my friend I told you about, Jenni!” Rachel said, introducing us.

Paul extended a hand for a shake, accompanied by a creepy grin. Not wanting to alarm Rachel I reluctantly returned Paul’s gesture, as much as I hated it.

“You’ve already met Paul?” Rach asked, confused.

It was hard to speak with so many thousands of thoughts rushing through my head, so Paul spoke before I could even register what Rachel had even asked: “Oh my, yes. I met Jenni at the convenience store today, actually. I was in line behind her and couldn’t help but admire her wonderful figure. She reminds me a lot of you, my dear.”

I wanted to vomit, but Rach seemed to be buying the smooth guy act.

“Oh my goodness, I’m, like, so glad! This should be easier to explain, then!” Rachel gushed, immediately setting off new alarms in my mind.

“What do you mean, Rach?” I asked, trepidation in my voice apparent only to me.

Sitting up straight, happier than can be, Rach clapped her hands excitedly, “Paul wants us to work for his club!”

Wait, what? “I’m sorry…what do you mean?” I asked, cautiously.

“He knows about us,” Rach said, cautiously speaking in a quieter voice, “Like, he knows that we’re looking for off the books employment! And, like, yeah!”

“One moment, please,” I said, hurriedly grabbing my wife’s hand and dragging her to the women’s restroom for privacy. Once inside, I continued with as much quiet panic as I could manage: “Rachel! Is this guy some sort of pimp?!”

Taken aback, Rachel retorted, “What?! No, he said we’re not going to be, like, explicit hookers—”

“—sex workers—”

“—er, sex workers—or something, just that we need to look pretty and be charming!”

“What the fuck kind of club is that?” I asked, stunned by the sudden surreal turn that my life was taking.

“I think, like, he called it a ‘hostess club’ or something? I’unno, I think I’ve see stuff like that before in, like, anime or something?”

“Rachel, I seriously doubt it’s just like it is an anime or what-the-fuck-ever. Fuck, Rachel! This guy just exudes creeper energy!”

“Yeah, I know, but, like, we need to get off the streets, hon. I don’t want to see you go through another winter again! Who the hell knows how bad summer will get this year, too!”

Rachel was technically right. The weather was killing the both of us, even if we still put on strong fronts. How much longer would we be able to do that, though?

“Like, listen, Jenni—he’s offering us a place to stay and a way to make money, too!”

“Wait a sec,” I said, my eyes snapping wide, “A place to stay?”

“Yeah, he said he knows a guy who, like, turns eyes blind or somethin’?”

Despite my instincts, I mulled the deal over. It was so damned risky, but on the other hand, surely we could just quit if the club didn’t work out?

But…be hostesses? Rach and I were beginning to pass, yeah, but with our noses having never properly healed I couldn’t imagine how either of us would pass ourselves off as attractive-to-strangers unless we used a ton of makeup at all times. We’d have to get facial feminization surgery—which Rachel already wanted, anyway.

“Rach, I’ll go along with it, but only if he agrees to one more condition…”

***

DECEMBER 12, 2024:

“You…want to stay a woman?” Rachel asked, brow furrowed.

The shock of what I had told Rachel was beginning to settle in now and I found it difficult to answer her question. Hell, what had I even meant by what I had said. Grabbing an unopened water bottle out of the refrigerator I downed it quickly—perhaps not the wisest decision—and got a brain freeze.

“Ouch, fucking hell!” I shouted, grabbing my head. Rach steadied herself and immediately grabbed me to hug me.

“Are you okay, Jae?” she asked, whimpering still in her voice.

“Y-yeah, like, jus—just call me Jenni,” I said as the pressure began to wane.

“Jae, come on, you don’t have to keep—listen, I’m sorry—”

“I’m literally telling you to, like, just keep calling me Jenni, Rach! Fuck, that hurts!” Hearing my previous name was just giving me anxiety, but I didn’t know why.

“O-okay, Jenni,” Rach replied, looking down at her feet.

Letting go of my head, I closed the gap between Rach and I and took her by the shoulders, “Listen, I’m…I’m sorry, please don’t feel bad. I didn’t mean to hurt you or scream, I just—I don’t want to go back.”

Rach couldn’t look up, but asked: “Why? Don’t you ever, like, get gender dysphoria?”

I forced a giggle, hoping it would brighten her mood: “Weren’t you the one implying that I might be a straight trans woman yesterday?” I asked.

Still looking down, Rachel countered: “Well, yeah, but I’m just tryna respect your gender identity. You said you’re a cis man yesterday, right?”

I hesitated for a moment before replying, wracking my brain to figure out how to respond to that little kernel of truth. Finally, with a deep breath, I replied: “I…did say that, yeah. Like, listen, I don’t—I know what you went through to get here, Rach. I watched you every single day for thirteen years. You’ve always been a woman, Rach. But me? I don’t know what I am. I never have. I just did what—” my voice caught; for some reason my eyes were welling up with tears. “—I’ve just done what people expected from me. You stopped giving a shit about that in middle school. That’s the Rachel I know and admire.”

Rachel looked up a little, trepidation in her body language. “You admire me?”

I couldn’t help but smile through the tears, “Of course I do!” A giggle that I felt a little guilty for letting out followed.

“Why?” Despite how hard she was trying not to return my giggle with one of her own Rachel’s body betrayed her mood and she giggled right back, with a simultaneous smile.

Taking my wife by her hands and crossing her fingers with my own, I brought our two hands up, leaned forward, and kissed my wife, our tears likely mixing on our faces. Breaking from the passionate moment, I kept my eyes closed so that they wouldn’t look at Rachel’s and rested my forehead on hers. “Because you’re my hero, Rach. You’ve always been so strong, known what you wanted so clearly, even if you didn’t have the words for it. You fought so hard to get where you are now, leading the way for anyone that would follow you…”

Rachel began sobbing again, this time for a much better reason.

“...I’d follow you into Hell, Rachel,” I announced, not quite a yell but louder than a conversation.

“You, like, did follow me into Hell, Jenni,” Rach countered playfully, snot-smeared face be damned.

“No wonder it’s always so fucking hot in this apartment,” I cracked.

My wife and I returned to our bed where we embraced each other for a little over an hour.

***

OCTOBER 31, 2018:

“Rach, you’ve been acting…kind of weird, lately. Well, okay, not weird for Rach Penn, just…I’m worried for you, y’know? You already get bullied enough as it is for saying weird stuff in class, or laughing like a ret—a person with a mental handicap? Well, either way, just…why the hell did you come to school like that?”

She stared at me, blankly, as she ate her austerity school lunch in silence. Not a thought was apparent on her face as she chewed on the rectangular slice (?) of pizza in her hand. She took exacting nibbles, obsessively trying to bite off cleanly cut pieces of her rectangle, as if an apparent bite would have been the worst thing possible. Finally, life came back to her eyes and she adjusted her field of vision to look at my mouth, instead of through me—or into my eyes.

“Huh?”

“What’s with the school girl uniform, Rach?”

“Oh, it was cute, so I decided to try it out, that's all.”

“Rach, I know you’re tall and all—”

“SIX FEET!” she shouted, like she was announcing the winning answer to a game show.

“Yeah, so, like, what I’m trying to say is: I know you’re tall, but people might still…you know…?”

All she did was stare at me blankly.

“People might still try to bully you, I mean.”

“Well, hey, they call me faggot anyway, might as well call me a tranny—not that I’m trans, of course. Wait, is that stolen valor?” She concluded with the same laugh that got her called a different kind of slur.

“Pfft, yeah, I’m sure you’re just a regular straight guy,” I laughed, trying not to sound disappointed.

“Of course, dude!” She laughed again. As scared as I was for her, it was still an infectious laugh.

“Ugh,” she grunted, “I hate laughing like a retard.”

Instinctively, I grabbed her hand as it laid flat over the table, “Please don’t call yourself that, Rach.” It worried me when she sounded so depressed and self-loathing.

“I mean, it’s like they always say, I’m a re—” I squeezed her hand before she could finish saying the word, causing her to look down at just where all that pain was coming from. “Ouch, shit, Jenni, why’re you—?!”

“Stop being mean to my best friend,” I said with a mischievous grin.

“Ouch! B-but—?!”

“Stop, Rach!” I’d pulled her so much closer across the lunch table as I’d leaned in. A few more inches and we could ki—

“Hey, look at the retard and the faggot about to kiss,” Larry Crocker laughed from a few tables down. Noticing the entire lunch room staring at us I immediately withdrew my hand and shrank back into my chair, hiding my hands while my legs danced in embarrassment. I glued my eyes to the lunch table in embarrassment and tried to pretend that hadn’t just happened.

“Hey,” she shouted, stepping away from our table, “Who’re you calling a faggot, you crock of shit?!”

Panic settled in. She was doing that thing again, where she’d stand up for me any time I was implicated in the things that set her apart from any of the other kids.

“I said your boyfriend over there’s a fuckin’ faggot, retard. What, can’t understand Engli—”

Thanks to her long legs Rach was at Larry Crocker’s friend group immediately, taking the entire group’s expensive home-made lunches and pouring them all over him.

“Suck my dick, asshole!”

I didn’t understand what I was feeling at that moment. I could only remember thinking ‘She’s so cool’, as I jumped up to prevent a boy from hitting her from the back.

Being the two tallest kids in the eighth grade had their advantages.

Being able to watch Rachel’s back as she cut bullies down was the best one.

***

DECEMBER 12, 2024:

“Omigawsh Rach, are you sure about this?”

“Hell yeah, girl! Just go with the flow, you won’t regret it!”

“You promise you won’t be jealous?

“Jennifer Yoshihara, I promise that I won’t, like, be jealous. Besides,” she took my wrist and laid my right palm on her right breast, “There is no way in hell you’d give up these mommy milkers!”

“Rachel Yoshihara!” I shouted, shocked by her public display of breast-ffection. Quickly withdrawing my hand after a reflexive squeeze, I hid the hand under my left arm, as if doing so would absolve it of its crimes against the pact. “We can’t do that in public, honey!”

“Pfft, like anyone’s around,” Rach husked, laying the top swagger on thick.

“Omigawd, Rach, wait until we—fuck, girl!” When Rachel was on she was on and now I was finding it hard to focus. Suddenly, I found myself being spun around to face the entrance of the Gayly Bug.

“Now, go inside…” Rach giggled, “...and have some fun, y’hear? Oh, and get me one of those scones!”

Pushed through the doors I found myself back inside of the Gayly Bug for the second time that day. With no customers to preoccupy him, Danny was idly checking his phone. Wanting to get this over with as quickly as possible, I stiffly sped walked to the counter, my mere presence getting the shorter man’s attention.

“Oh! Hey, Jenni…” he welcomed, his voice soft. “Can I do anythi—”

“I’m available,” I said quickly, cutting the poor man off by accident. “Omigawd, Danny, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to cut you off!!”

A brightness warmed over Danny’s face as he took a more amused stance, “Oh? No, no, please, by all means, cut me off some more!”

“Omigawd, please!” I blushed, getting caught up in Danny’s flow before I could even calm down myself, “Daniel, please!”

“Please what?” the twink with blue hair asked, tapping away at his phone.

“Omigawd, listen, just, like send—”

“—you the ticket? Yeah, I sent it to you over Telegram just now.”

Pulling my phone out of my woefully plain purse I checked Telegram, saw the ticket screen shot, then downloaded it in case my phone was in a spot with bad service. “Omigawsh Danny, thank you so much!” I gushed, having a hard time peeling my eyes away from his sheepish smile. He could pretend to play a cool game at first, but it was reassuring to know that he wasn’t above sincerely gushing over the girl he had just asked out in front of her.

Girl…

“I’ll…uh…meet you there?” I asked, unsure of what I was doing.

“Yeah!” Danny smiled, “Ten ‘til, or is that too close to the start…?”

“No, no! Ten ‘til sounds fine!” Holy shit, why could I not stop giggling?

“Perfect! It’s a date?”

I heard the question mark at the end of his sentence and let it hang for a moment, scared of what I wanted to say. Suddenly, a hopping up-and-down Rachel caught my eye from outside, her face painted with excitement. Smiling, I turned back to Danny and said: “It’s a date!”

“Great!, see ya then!” he returned, before turning his attention back to a customer.

I exited the store excitedly and crashed into my wife for a hug, “Holy shit, Rach!” I squealed downward into her chest, “Thank you so fucking much!”

“No probably, honey,” Rach whispered, petting the back of my head. “Hey, where’s my scone?”

“Fuck the scone! We’re going home and you’re banging my butt now!”

“BUT SCONE?!”

***

APRIL 03, 2024:

“Wait…you want me to wear suits?”

“Of course, Jen, babygirl, you nail that androgynous look,” Paul’s revolting smile did not make this any easier to parse.

It was silly—I’m sure—for a cishet guy forced into transitioning to save his and his wife’s lives to actively feel weirded out by being asked to essentially be more masculine, but here I was now, being asked to perform a masculine role—albeit, as a supposed ‘cis woman’—and feeling weird about it. “A-are you sure?”

“I’m positive, babe. You’ll nail it—and I know a great group of cougars with plenty of cash to drop who will just love a tomboy like you in a nice suit and tie!”

I should have wanted this. I should have been celebrating a chance to deepen my voice, to stand and move like a man again, and to stretch my long-atrophied masculinity.

And yet…I was not looking forward to it.

My eyes shot back and forth between the floor, Paul and my locker space, filled with the attire I was expected to wear. Sure, the suits looked nice on the hangers, but would they look nice on? Would they just make it apparent that I was not a cis woman? What would Paul do if he found out I was a man? What would he do to me if he found out that I had a—

—I wanted to vomit.

“Omigawd, Jenni! Looky at all these cute dresses I get to wear?”

My blurring vision corrected itself at the sound of Rachel as she trotted gayfully to where Paul and I were standing. My voice caught in my throat and I was unable to reply immediately.

“Like, holy shit, thank you, Mr. Paul, sir!” The entirety of her tall, blonde frame bounced up-and-down in place excitedly as she laid a dress over her form and modeled it for me. If I didn’t know better, I’d think that she wasn’t aware that Paul was probably just trying to get us to let our guards down.

Fortunately, I’d made damned sure that she knew not to trust Paul back when we first accepted this job. If he—or any of our clients—ever found out about our…basically, we’d be fucked. Probably?

I guess I shouldn’t put it past them to fetishize us instead.

What the fuck were we getting ourselves into?

***

DECEMBER 12, 2024:

“A-are you sure about this?”

“Less talk, more cock!” I giggled between the kisses I was planting between her neck and face. I half-expected her to say “That tickles!” with the way she was giggling..

“F-fuck, Jenni!” Rach gasped as I pushed her onto her back on the air mattress, its sustainability be damned.

I could feel Rachel slide her hands down towards her cock, which was straining against her jeans. Suddenly, an idea popped into my head, and I reached for her cock and touched it first. Rachel gasped, making me break into a fit of giggles, barely able to press against the base of her cock to keep it down while I unzipped her jeans, pulled down her pink panties and watched as her long, thick monster rise out like a long ladder being risen against the walls of Helm’s Deep.

“Jenni?” Rach gasped, hands instantly jumping to my hips to support them.

I had thankfully long since abandoned my jeans at the entrance to the door and now raised my hips to position my asshole over the giant monolith that was my wife’s cock. That same pulsating from before spreading throughout and warmed my crotch, telling me to stick something in down there. “Fuck, Rachel! I need this so, so, so bad!”

“Yeah I bet, slut,” my wife giggled, using both of her thumbs to massage whatever the fuck those muscles were called.

Pulling my panties aside, my useless cock fell out of its tuck, and reminded me of its unfortunate existence. Ugh, I was so fucking tired of that thing. All it ever did was remind me of how much I never wanted to use it, of how much I couldn’t even use it, even if I’d suddenly wanted to penetrate. “Fuck, I should just get rid of—”

Rachel pressed her rod through the opening of my cheeks, sending a signal right up the full length of my spine and into my brain. “Oh, fuck?” W-was that an orgasm? Wait, “R-Rach, lube up first!” I shouted, nearly not caring if the fucking neighbors heard me.

“Oh shit, right, right,” she giggled, maneuvering me until I was on my knees and could move off of her completely. Rach scrambled to her feet and dug through our stuff until she pulled out her lube, nearly fumbled the damned canister like a receiver in American football might have fumbled a catch, then finally got back to the mattress and began pouring the liquid out.

Without thinking, I pushed my hand in the way so that it would catch the lube and began applying it to the proper places myself.

“Wow, you like, are horny, aren’tcha?” Rach giggled, getting into position behind me. I could feel the rock of the mattress and her hips as she prepared herself to thrust at me from behind.

“J-just do it?!” I begged.

“Like, do what?” the pink princess giggled, her desire to see me suffer apparent on her face. Fuck, she was hot when she got like this.

“F-fuck me in the ass, you dumb bimbo!” I shouted back, determined not to lose ground.

“Good girl!” my wife cooed, sliding the tip of her cock between my great divide.

The ways HRT had changed how my body perceived pleasure were on no better display than now. Rachel slid her cock carefully between my cheeks, each passing inch sending shockwaves through my body. It felt as if an eternity had passed before her tip even reached the outer rim of my hole. I couldn’t believe how completely and utterly weak my body felt.

“Should I keep going, girlie?” Rach asked, slowly and deliberately.

“Y-yes, please,” I managed to huff out, no louder than a whisper.

“Okie-dokie!” my wife sing-songed before thrusting her stormbreaker into my vortex and obliterating whatever sanity I had left.

Each thrust of my wife’s drill bore through the entirety of my body, digging closer-and-closer to my soft, pitiable mind. Pleasure wiped away the soldiers defending any-and-all doubt in my mind like an overwhelming enemy force. It was as if the age of horseman was watching the tank wipe it clean off the battlefield.

Each thrust a fire of an entire fleet’s main cannon.

The literal canon of my mind now overridden.

History, written by the victor.

I’d lost. The battle was over. The war was over. I didn’t even know what war I had lost, only that I had indeed lost it.

I was Rachel’s good girl, and as I passed out, face-first into the sinking battleship that was our mattress—to drown in the seas of pleasure—I could just barely make out my silly wife yelling:

“Oh shit, I think we, like, popped the mattress! Jenni? Jenni, are you awake? Fuck, I haven’t cum yet! Jenni!! JENNI WAKE UP I WANNA CUMMY IN YOUR TUMMY!!!”

***

DECEMBER 12, 2024:

“Rach, are you actually upset with me that you didn’t cum, or are you just doing a bit?” I asked as I tweaked my hair in the mirror. It was nearing 11AM now, which meant we only had half an hour to get to the salon appointment Miss York had made for me. I’d considered canceling the appointment after last night, but my morning had been so chaotic at this point that there wasn’t any point. Things were actually on the up-and-up for me after a rough night and while emotionally I was drained beyond comprehension I really didn’t want to turn Miss York down, since I knew that she would be making a surprise second visit to the club for the week tonight.

Rachel made some sort of pouting noise as she slipped her tennis shoes on and double checked to make sure her ass still looked good through the pink skirt layered over leggings. It was surprisingly ankle-length, a rarity for Miss Mini-Skirt Seattle. “Chirp!”

“Rach you are adorable, you know that?”

“I love you too, girlie. Chirp!”

Rach and I caught the bus into the city and arrived at the salon just in time. The process of getting hair extensions was actually pretty interesting to experience, but what caught my attention the most was the finished work. I hadn’t had such relatively long hair—now riding down to the small of my back—since I was a twelve year old child. Being able to see myself in the mirror with so much hair threw me for a loop at first. I thought that I had grown accustomed to seeing a woman in the mirror, but in many ways actually having long hair was even more breath-taking than I’d imagined it could be.

“Oh, wow!” Rach exclaimed, “You look amazing, Jenni!”

A weird feeling that I couldn’t describe washed over my shoulders. Standing up from the salon chair to test how the hair moved with my body, I was surprised how much heavier my head now felt. Still, it was a nice feeling, so I turned to the mirror and did a cute peace sign pose. Rach slipped up to my left, phone in hand, and positioned her hand up for a selfie. As the phone counted down from three I watched the two girls on screen posing as cute-sexy as possible and realized that they were, in fact, actually me and my best friend, now completely unrecognizable to anyone that would have known us a year ago.

And it was pretty fuckin’ awesome.

Hair installed, Rach and I took another bus to a café near the club to chill before having to walk back into Hell. We sat in the back of the café for some privacy. Rach picked at a scone, criticizing the scone’s inferior taste to ‘the gay ones from the gay place’. As I idly listened to my goober of a wife go on about the proper taste for a scone I idly tossed-and-turned over the word ‘gay’ in my mind.

Was I gay? I mean…I’d pretty much accepted that I was a girl at present—or at least, did not want to stop pretending to be a girl—and I didn’t want to medically or socially detransition, either. I’d never felt anything regarding how I used to look, just over a year ago.

But now…I was cute? Hot? Sexy? Women looked at me with either envy or thinly veiled interest. Men…well, some men…typically looked at me with lust. For being a woman. The thing I enjoyed being. So…did that make me trans? But…I hadn’t even known that I was trans beforehand. Sure, it took Rachel eighteen years to figure it out, too, but for as long as I had known her, in all the smallest and biggest of ways, Rachel had also clearly been trying to rebel against the gender she had been so mistakenly assigned at birth.

Me? I just went with the flow, and never felt any worse for it.

Actually, I never felt anything. That was the problem: if I’d felt gender dysphoria I’d at least know. It’d at least have something to explain to people. Instead, all I had was…gender euphoria?

Hurriedly, I pulled out my phone and began searching the internet. The world around me might as well have been a black void. All that mattered now was—

A soft hand laid atop my left hand as I scrolled through search results with my right. Looking up, I saw the concerned look of my wife. “Oh, sorry, did you say something?”

“Jenni, honey…why are you looking up ‘gender euphoria’?” she asked with a calm and understanding that I wasn’t used to her having. She was acting that way a lot more lately. I hope she wasn’t feeling unwell.

“Wh-what?” I asked, disoriented. My phone was flat on the surface of the table, meaning she could see what I was looking at, even from her position on the opposite side of the table. Oh, that’s how she knew I was looking up—

“Sweetie, it’s okay to talk to me, y’know. It’s not a bother to me at all,” she half-whispered.

It was so damned unsettling seeing Rach be so…I don’t know, wise? Present? I tried to open my mouth to tell her that there was nothing wrong, but for some reason my throat was dry. It was like all the moisture had traveled up to my eyes, which were getting suspiciously wet. Tears began running down my cheeks, like my eyes had overflown from all the moisture. “Oh, weird,” I laughed nervously, “I’m crying?”

“Hon, listen,” Rachel said with an unfamiliar sternness, “I know that this really isn’t my place to be doing this, but I’m worried that you’re just not ever going to talk to me. Like, I know I’m kind of a re—I know that I’m neurodivergent, so maybe I don’t come across as, like, a thinky-think kinda girl, but I do pay attention and thinky-think about you, y’know?”

Why the hell was I still crying?

“So, like, I just want you to know, like, that if you’re trans, it’s okay to just, like, say it. Like, come on, you helped me out so much when I first hatched.”

That was right. All those sites I’d read, about how gender dysphoria didn’t make you trans, gender eu—

Rachel slipped around into my side of the booth and wrapped her arms around me so that my wailing would be absorbed by her chest instead of drawing attention from the entire café.

“It’s okay, Jenni,” Rach whispered as she rocked my limp form in her embrace. “Just take your time.”

***

SEPTEMBER 7, 2016:

“Jeez Jenni, what the heck happened to your hair?” She always had a frank way about her, saying the first thing that came to mind.

“My dad said that I’d get made fun of for looking like a girl,” Honestly, I was trying not to think about it.

“Yeah, my mom keeps saying the same thing. Why would anyone even want to do that?” I loved how she’d cross her arms and pout, as if she had the clearest vision of us all. Ironically, she probably needed glasses.

“Fuck if I know. Maybe kids are meaner in middle school?” It was easier not to think about these things. I’d often get so upset if I did, so I typically just did what I was told, even if I knew it hurt to do so deep down.

I didn’t feel that way so much, with her.

“Joy.”

“Ugh, I hate having short hair…”

***

DECEMBER 12, 2024:

At some point I found myself still crammed into our booth, laying atop Rachel as she was pressed against the wall. The close-quarters and the prolonged physical contact had to have been hell for her, but she didn’t complain. Instead, all I felt was the calm rising and falling of her chest, which I laid on. Rach was right: I’d never give up these ‘mommy milkers’, as she so eloquently put it.

Stroking my hair, Rach spoke in a soft tone: “We’ll need to get going soon.”

The sensation of my wife’s soft hand against my hair was so relaxing that I struggled not to fall back asleep. Still, a thought did persist: “I hope this isn’t going to mess up my hair.”

“Don’t worry, sweetie. I’ll help you fix it up when we get to work.”

“Mmm, thanks,” I whispered back. I was glad that we were in the back corner of the café, it was a hell of a lot less embarrassing than having an identity crisis up front or surrounded by a ton of random people.

Well, better random people than people you know, I suppose.

“Hey, Jen?” Rach asked, inhaling as if she was trying to summon forth her strength.

“Jenni—yeah, Rach?”

“Remember how you said earlier that you, like, just did what people expected of you?”

“Yeah…it’s what got me through life, basically.”

“Y’know, like, it wasn’t easy, right?”

“Huh?”

“For me, I mean. Always having to fight-’n-stuff. I barely got through it,” her voice was getting emotional now.

I reached up and took her by one of the arms that she had wrapped around me and gave it a tight squeeze, “Rach, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“—No, no, please, what I mean is, like, I only got through it b-because I had you there. You were always watching my back,” Rach’s voice trailed off into a soft giggle.

“In more ways than one,” I offered, looking up at my wife as best as I could at such an awkward angle.

“Omigawd, you little slut!” Even when she was pretending to be insulted, Rach was the cutest. “But, like, for real! You got me through the worst years of my life. That’s who you are, even if you don’t think you were ever anyone. You were—you are the best friend a girl can have, Jen.”

“Jenni—goddamn it bitch, you’re doing that on purpose now, aren’t you?” We broke into simultaneous giggles. “B-but really, Rach—I-it’s surreal having my life framed like that. I was just doing what I wanted to do. I was just being selfish, hoping that you would keep me around.”

With an amused hum, Rachel retorted, “Okay then. Keep being selfish. Tell me, like, what does Jenni want right now?”

I hated to say it—to even think about it—but I knew exactly what Rach meant. Looking up into her eyes, I knew exactly what she expected me to say. It was almost like she knew…or she wanted me to know that it was okay to say what she figured I wanted to say. It was maddening, but no matter how much I thought I was the only one looking after our backs, she was also looking after mine. Like wives ought to, I suppose. “You promise it’s not, like, stolen valor or something?”

“Promise.” It could be so damn frustrating how confident and wise this woman could be sometimes.

Taking a deep breath, I decided to say something that made me feel entirely too guilty to want, let alone tell someone: “I want to be trans. Like, okay, basically, I want to be a woman, y’know? Actually, wait. No, no, like—okay. Here I go: I’m a woman, Rach.”

Massaging the back of my neck casually, Rachel giggled so that—rather, as if—only I could hear here: “Gawd, you are such a bimbo.”

***

MARCH 27, 2024:

“Omigawd Jenni, this phone’s camera is only 1080p!” My wife groaned loudly as she fiddled with her new phone. “What the hell? There’s no HDR! All of my photos are coming out as, like, fucking bland as shit looking! I’ll need to color correct these things, like, so much!!”

“Are you really surprised that the sketchy guy who wants us to work for his night club thing is cheap as hell?” I countered, casually flipping through my phone settings to set my phone settings to my usual preferences. “Why do you think this apartment is so awful?”

“Uh…shoot, I dunno? I guess—fine, you’re right!” Rachel sent me a test text message to confirm that she indeed had the right phone number for me. “But, like, STILL! All our photos are going to look like dogshit!”

“Just be glad that we can browse the internet and call one another again, hon,” I offered, hoping to steer Rachel down a more positive mindset.

“Gawd, I miss Insta,” Rach pouted, slouching against a wall, “This sucks so much, I just wanna be a influencer again and, like, upload all day. Ooh, wouldn’t it be fun to do those YouTube reactions where we watch videos or TV shows and movies and react to them or something?”

“Sounds boring to me, hon,” I said, scanning the living room with my eyes again. No wonder the apartment was sketchy: it came barebones. Shoot, my feet and back were beginning to kill me. Walking over to Rachel, I sat down on the floor next to her by slowly letting my back drift against the wall.

We were going to need to buy some furniture. I wasn’t sure that I trusted him—okay, I definitely did not trust him—but Paul had given us $5,000 to ‘get our lives situated’ before we started working at the club on the third, as well as phones so he could keep in contact with us. Truth be told, I half-expected the phones to be bugged somehow, but then I remembered that it wasn’t like those sort of options didn’t come directly from the carrier, either.

If I wanted to keep us off the streets, I was going to have to deal with a little potential spying from a perverted creep. At least, until we could figure what in the hell to do next.

The police and the government were likely to hunt us until the end of time. Even a quick anonymous search was pulling up that the government was still searching for us as last month. Gen. Eric Wyatt Mann was still pledging to bring his daughter’s murderer to justice, and that included charging us for the death of our moms.

My father had, unsurprisingly, kept off of social media since September, and the three stores had been shut down. As I had feared, the old man was bankrupt and ruined.

I had…difficult feelings about David Jeong, but I don’t think that I would have wished even that sort of humiliation upon him. Certainly not to think that his own son had murdered his wife, his son’s mother.

The entire scenario just…stunk to me. Who sent that hit squad to the house? The only person that I could think of with that kind of power would be Gen. Eric Wyatt Mann, but even then, would he have been so sloppy? Had we truly evaded arrest for all of this time? None of it made any sort of sense to me.

“Jenni, look!” Rachel shoved her phone in my face hurriedly, “My Insta grew to sixty-nine million followers! Holy shit!”

“Nice!” I cleared my throat, embarrassed that that had been my first reaction. “Dear, I don’t think that’s a good thing. You do recall, right, that we’re wanted for murder? Of course people would follow your Insta!”

Now that I thought about it, it wouldn’t even be safe to log in to delete the account. Damn, I just hope that nobody who recognizes her based off of her cosplay photos realizes that she’s the girl that allegedly murdered her parents.

Hell, how the hell did they expect Rachel and I to have murdered them with military grade weapons, anyway? How fake was the investigation into our moms’ deaths, if such a simple detail wasn’t being brought up in the media? None of it was adding up.

“Yeah, but, like, if I could monetize this many people we’d be so rich!”

“That assumes that you’re ever allowed to go back to being Rachel J—wait, you literally put our marriage certificate as your last post?”

“Oh, well, like, yeah? I was excited, so I announced that I’d gotten married! Don’t worry, my deadname isn’t showing!”

A sour feeling stuck in my stomach, “Yeah? Well, mine is…”

“I mean, you plan on detransitioning when we go back home, right Jae?”

‘When’, she said. This girl still thinks that there’s a path forward for that? God, I wish I had her optimism, “Just Jen.”

“Okay? Like, I’m just saying, Jenni, that I don’t see the issue.”

I wasn’t entirely sure I could explain it to her. I didn’t know why it irked me so much.

Maybe I truly have given up on ever returning home.

Especially now that I looked like…this…

…and kinda…prefer it…

Turning on my phone’s camera and switching it to selfie mode, I looked at my reflection. My hair had just gotten down onto my shoulders, but it was in such a worrisome state that I knew that it was going to need a trim. I hadn’t had hair this long since I was a child, and I was beginning to remember why I had missed it so much when my dad had taken me to get it cut. It was nice having slightly long hair again, but I still missed how I had had really long hair that touched down on my back. I could not help but wonder if I could ever go back to that length again, someday. I wasn’t looking forward to the catcalling or the creepy stares from men, but to be allowed even just a modicum of self-control over how I looked would have been nice.

I’d probably look even girlier with long hair. I didn’t like how clockable I looked right now. Even though a girl stared back at me in the mirror I couldn’t help but fear that the world would see a man in a dress any time that I left the house.

And then call me one.

***

DECEMBER 12, 2024:

Rachel and I arrived at work and swiftly armored up for the evening. Paul poked his head into the ladies’ dressing room, as he always did, and made a sour face when he saw me with my longer hair and modeling the dress I wanted to wear for the evening. Miss York had made it very clear to me that if she was going to be ‘paying for my services’ then I was to be me, in every way I so decided I was me, so against the common sense of working at a club where all the girls wore short skirts and showed off cleavage, I slipped into a navy blue piece that ran just below my knees, displayed my modest bust modestly, and showed plenty of arm.

My body was mine, to show as much or as little as I liked, and I liked that.

Still, I’d made a mental note to wear something that would show off my legs next time. They really were toned as fuck.

Between four and six other girls typically worked with Rachel and I on any given night. We’d remained friendly with them, even going out for dinner on more than one occasion, but Rach and I’d worked hard to keep them at arm’s length should they get wind of our pasts, or even that we were anything more than friends. It was in moments like those when Freddie and Elle began to grow closer and finally become something of an open-secret couple that I found myself wishing Rachel and I had never made that stupid pact to pretend to be straight. Really, so long as we passed for cis—hell, didn’t look like we did last year—who the hell cares if we were openly bisexual? It’s not like that would lead back to us being the Jeongs, now living new lives as Yoshihara and Queen.

Christ, we couldn’t even share the same last name because of this fucking world. It was infuriating! When the fuck would I finally be able to scream to the world that Rachel was my wife and I hers?

…So much for being a cishet guy, I guess.

The other girls were quite taken aback by my breaking character—not in a bad way, of course. I’d gotten plenty of compliments and praise for ignoring Paul’s whims so thoroughly. It was quite refreshing, in fact, to enjoy being ‘one of the girls’ around someone other than my wife. Perhaps the most dark comedy of them all, my mother was right: my wife was my only friend.

And a damned good one, at that.

Armored up, Rach and I held hands as we waited for the beginning of our shift. “You okay?” I asked, motioning to our hands.

Rachel smiled back, giving me a quick glance before returning her vision to the floor. “Yeah, no, I’m good. Probably. Like, I just gotta turn on the charm once we’re out there and I’ll be fine,” Rach kept up the smile, although I could tell she was still feeling the pressure of it all. “Actually,” she continued, “Shouldn’t I be asking you that? It’s your first time not going out there in a suit! Aren’t you, like, worried?!”

It was hard not to crack a smile at how cute Rach looked, even when worried for my own wellbeing, “Oh, I am, of course,” I whispered back, “But…I think I’ll be fine? Like, I just have to be myself, right? No more of the pseudo-guy I was pretending to—” For some reason I couldn’t finish the sentence and couldn’t stop myself from breaking out into a fit of giggles. It was beginning to occur to me now why I’d felt so uncomfortable in that role that Paul expected me to play.

It was beginning to occur to me now why I’d felt so non-existent before transitioning: I didn’t exist.

Instead of asking myself what I wanted for me, and for my life, I’d just followed others because it was easier than facing life on my own.

But now…I wasn’t alone.

In so many ways, I hadn’t been alone since the day I met that amazing girl in the first grade.

Our phones vibrated, signaling the time. Standing up, still hand-in-hand with Rach, I pulled her up and beckoned her to follow me.

***

DECEMBER 12, 2024:

I had been surprised to find that Miss York was alone tonight, her usual posse of fellow high-rollers off doing whatever they normally did when they weren’t here. Part of me felt bad that Miss York had interrupted any of her other plans for me of all people, but I reminded myself that it had been her idea to spend so much money on me in the first place, so it simply made sense for her to come for a consecutive night a week to entertain herself with me.

Perhaps perceiving myself as something of an object for Victoria York was a poor decision on my part, but I was in such a…euphoric mood that I’d ultimately decided not to overthink things. With any luck the night would simply move faster now than it did on most nights and before I knew it I would be back in bed with my wife, ready to start a new day as myself.

“Tell me Jennifer, how are you liking the clothes?” Miss York asked, wearing a face that seemed quite confident of my answer.

“They’re lovely, Victoria,” I’d grinned between sips of a Coke I’d been working on. With the greater space available on the booth couch than normal I’d been adventurous enough to pull my legs up to rest with the rest of my body and propped my body against the backing of the couch to match Miss York. “I suspected you could tell as much, though.”

The 43 year old woman smiled coyly, took a moment to appreciate my relaxed form, then replied, “No issues with Paul, I trust?”

“No, no, not at all. Besides the usual, of course,” it was nice to not have to pretend to be aloof about what that creep usually did.

“Oh?” Miss York mused, “I’ve heard…murmurs about the kind of way he treats women, my dear. Would you say it’s unacceptable?”

“I would certainly say that it’s not acceptable for a man to walk in on naked and half-dressed women, and make lewd comments while staring at them, all under the guise of business,” I was beginning to be concerned that I’d perhaps spiked my Coke by accident with how freely I was speaking to a client about the club’s managerial-style, but at the same time I was so damned relaxed—while on the clock, even—for once that I almost didn’t care. The calm alone was just so damned nice!

“I’m curious, Jennifer,” Miss York began, straightening herself up on the couch to take a more serious tone. “Do you believe that you could do a better job? Of managing Club Y, I mean.”

I couldn’t help but giggle at the prospect, really, “Pfft, I could certainly learn to manage the business-side of a club faster than Paul could ever learn not to be a ‘walking talking stranger danger’ case!”

Despite still being on the floor, Miss York and I shared a laugh at my jab. Out of the corner of my eye I caught Rach shooting me a look to make sure everything was fine. I couldn’t not reply with a quick smile, just to reassure her.

“Still missing something?” Miss York asked, snapping me back to attention.

Hiding my embarrassment as best I could, I stammered, “Wh-what? N-no, ma’am, I’m actually—”

“Now Jennifer,” Miss York scolded, “What have I told you about being formal with me?”

“Not unless your husband’s around?” I joked, recalling what I’d heard at the boutique the other day.

Miss York couldn’t stifle her impressed smirk, “Oh, dear! You’re a clever one, Jennifer, I do say.”

“Thank you, Victoria,” it was wishy-washy of me—and I was clearly brown nosing—but I couldn’t not go with the flow. Miss York had a way of taking ownership of any conversation she wanted, and at this point I frankly didn’t care so long as I was simply being myself, and not some creep’s vision for me.

The more I thought about it, the more I’d begun to realize that I was still discovering just who the fuck Jennifer Yoshihara even was. Even before this crazy year had made it impossible for me to think about what I wanted to do with my life I was beginning to realize that I’d still not quite realized what I wanted to do. What could I even do? Look cute? Hold the camera for my wife while she jerked off for thousands of subscribers?

For the first time in my life, I was beginning to realize that I was actually ready to begin searching for an answer to those questions. It wouldn’t be easy—especially since I was now out of the closet and stuck living under a table—but it was a start.

I wanted to fan these flames until they burned up the whole world.

Miss York placed a hand on shoulder, bringing me back to the scene at hand. She had terribly well-manicured hands with acrylic nails shining a bright red, even under the moodier lighting of the club floor. I looked the older woman in the eyes and saw just how amused she was. I hadn’t been trying particularly hard to be attractive to her, but the lack of understanding almost made the entire affair exciting to navigate. “Tell me, Jennifer—and forgive me for being so forward—would you like breast implants?”

My composure almost immediately collapsed at the question. I had to imagine that I was staring at the poor woman like a dumbass. At one point I’d caught my mouth ajar—it really was quite hard to think over the sound of my own beating hard.

At my silence, Miss York immediately changed her body language and slid her feet off of the couch so as to stand. “Oh dear, Jennifer, please don’t short-circuit on me,” she offered me a hand, and I instinctively took it so that she might guide me to my feet, “I was merely curious if you might perhaps enjoy a larger bust, is all. You seem quite fond of that other girl’s bust over there. What was her name again? Raven? Raquel?”

“Rachel,” I corrected, still trying to reboot after the offer. “But, like, omigawsh Miss York, I couldn’t possibly—”

“Tut-tut, dear. I said to call me Victoria, did I not?”

“Omigawd, yes, yes, please, I’m sorry, Victoria, I just—”

“Had bigger breasts on the mind?” Miss York laughed.

I feared that my face was turning as red as Miss York’s nails, or perhaps as dark red as her hair with the way I was now holding my breath. Why would a wealthy—and drop-dead gorgeous—woman even bother asking me that? Unless…

…I mean, she’d already bought me so many outfits, paid for hair extensions, even! Now she wanted to…

It was hard to think straight. Surely there was an ulterior motive? But even then, if there was, wouldn’t I still be getting what I wanted? Or…what I thought I wanted? I’d never quite thought about it directly, to be fair. Yeah, I loved Rachel’s larger breasts. I’d even considered trying Progesterone. But did I actually want to go through with getting implants of all things? Would I get them for my own sake, or to pass better, or to compete with Rachel or to please some bored, horny, wealthy benefactor?

I had felt so much euphoria with just the breasts that I had been growing for over a year, would having large breasts increase that feeling even more?

Would it feel as relieving to fill a top even more than I did now as I dreamed it would?

Finally, I heard my voice again: “Um…I mean, I’ve thought about it?” Yeah, for all of fifteen seconds, Jenni!

For her part, Miss York smiled and looked down into her champagne, “I see…” I couldn’t read her reaction.

Afraid of what exactly her reaction meant, I hastily replied: “I mean, yeah, it would be nice—really nice, actually. But also…like, M—Victoria, I’d feel so guilty putting you out like that!”

Miss York shot her eyes up almost immediately, their fire burning brighter than ever, “Oh, no! Jennifer, my dear, please think nothing of it! It would be money well spent and money I wouldn’t ever notice was missing from my accounts.”

“B-but, still—and I’m not sure if I can afford to take the time off to recover from a surgery right now. I—I’m trying to save up enough money for—”

“Oh dear, is that so?”

“Uh…yeah?”

A wry smile crept across Miss York’s face, “Perhaps come and work for me and my husband directly, then?”

I wasn’t sure what to make of Miss York’s offer. Work for her directly? But…that wasn’t going to be possible, unless I explained that I could only work under the table. “Victoria, that really is a lovely offer, but I’m afraid that I—”

“Can’t go about giving out your Social Security Number?” the older woman laughed, more amused than surprised.

Taken aback by her predictive answer, I hesitated for a moment before answering, “Er…yes?” I watched her body movement for any sudden movements, afraid of what she might do.

Oh fuck, was she an undercover Fed? Was she working me for details about my mother’s death and the death of Rachel’s moms?

Slowly, the woman placed her right hand on the inside of my left thigh. It wasn’t the first time, but in this dress I’d suddenly felt so much more vulnerable.

“My dear,” Miss York whispered into my left ear, a soft giggle tossed in there somewhere, “Why do you think that it’s called ‘Club Y’?”

“Oh.”

***

DECEMBER 13, 2024:

“She wants to pay for bigger bazongas for you?!” my wife shouted back, flabbergasted.

“Ummm…yeah?” It sounded as ridiculous as ever coming from Rachel’s mouth, but it was technically quite true, airhead verbiage aside.

“Holy poop, girl! Are you going to say yes?”

“Uh…you don’t…sound like…you’re trying to discourage me?” I asked back, a little confused by my wife’s response.

“Girl, like, you’re always staring at my booba, I know you’re jealous of them.”

“Hey now, I am attracted to women, you know!”

“Me too, which is why I know a horny stare from a, like, not-horny stare, omigawd!”

“Okay, okay—listen, even if I said yes—”

“You said that she was, like, offering you $40,000 to take time off and recover, baby. Like, holy shit, we could finish getting electrolysis and tons-’n-tons of clothes for that!”

“Well, yeah, I know that,” hesitation crawled back into my voice, “B-but…what if she’s, like, expecting…y’know?”

“What?” the teed-up bimbo asked, completely oblivious.

“What if she asks for, y’know…‘sexual favors’?”

Rachel stared back at me, blankly, for a moment, “...I mean, you’ve done some before already, haven’t you?”

“I—wait, what are you implying?”

“Like, Jenni, we’re hawt as fuck girls and we work at a, like, rich person club! Are you seriously telling me that you haven’t sucked a few cocks, too?”

“‘Too’?! ‘Too’?!! Jesus fucking CHRIST, Rachel!! You’ve been sucking cock?”

Tears of horror began to well-up in my wife’s eyes, but the anger, the humiliation and the sense of failure was too much for me to think rationally.

“I—I, like, come on, Jenni, all of this costs so much money, how else was I going to make sure we didn’t wind back up on the streets?”

“By fucking talking to me about it first, Rachel! For fuck’s sake, my wife’s been sucking dick behind my back to pay for my fucking electrolysis and she didn’t even think to consult me about it?”

I shouldn’t have said the d-word. Fuck.

“What the fuck does it even matter?” Rach shouted back, suddenly sounding even more hurt than before. “You, like, won’t even call me your fucking wife in public?! How the fuck do you think that makes me feel, Jennifer?”

With just a single line I felt like I was suddenly on my back foot. Defensively, I retorted: “If people knew we weren’t strai—”

“Oh for fuck’s sake, Jennifer, I hardly hide that I’m bisexual. You’re the one who doesn’t ever want to—goddamn it, I don’t even give a fuck all about that bullshit, I just want to be able to tell the world I love my wife, but you won’t even—” Rach cut herself off and sat back down in her camping chair to sob into her hands in the middle of our inconsistently decored living room.

And suddenly, I felt like the most thick-headed bitch on the planet.

***

March 30, 2023:

It was the oddest thing in the world being able to afford to buy food now. Okay, to be more specific, it was the oddest thing in the world to—after a little over seven months on the streets after living the life of your average teenager—to now have to go to the grocery store to fill a pantry. But here we were, walking down the aisles of a certain brick-and-mortar store that we had kept in our safe zone of stores that we wouldn’t steal from, with a shopping cart littered with both food and—my goodness, at last—toilet paper.

And I was doing it in a dress.

That was not something I could have foreseen a year ago.

Then again, I don’t think I had foreseen actually confessing to Rachel, but I’d somehow had the balls to do just that.

The day before losing my balls.

Great choice of words there, Jennifer.

As Rachel and I made our way down the baking aisle idly, just to get some exercise in to wake ourselves up, I noticed her staring intently at a box of pancake mix.

“Feel like pancakes?” I asked, positioning our cart as close to the shelf as possible to avoid being one of those people that just left it in the middle of the fucking aisle to block traffic while they looked at the shelves.

“Ugh, I hate pancakes,” Rach replied, her face contorting with conflicting displeasure and interest.

“Then…why look at it?”

“So…” her voice trailed for a moment as she kept looking at the box of pancake mix, “...basically, it’s too flat. And the syrup is always, like, really stuck in your mouth with an aftertasty-taste-taste, y’know?”

“I mean, I guess, yeah?” I wasn’t sure what she was getting at, though.

“So, basically, like…I like eating the taste of the pancake…but not the taste of the syrup.”

“Then eat it without syrup?”

“You can’t!” My wife shouted, turning to look me in the eye against her usual instinct, “It’s pancakes! You don’t eat those without, like, syrup! Everyone knows that! An-and, like, the syrup doesn’t always taste bad at first, ‘cause like, it’s sweet! And sweet things are sweet!”

Rachel was taking this very seriously.

“Okay, so? Be your own woman, then.”

“No, no, no, you—omigawd, Jenni, the feel of the thingy is so…ugh!” Rachel contorted her face into more disgustingly disgusted shapes than I figured that she could. Just remembering the texture of a pancake was sending the rest of her body language into a frenzy.

“But…you still eat them?” I asked, trying to push the conversation along so that Rach would get over it sooner.

“Yes! They taste good!” Rach sighed, dropping her shoulders.

An idea popped into my head, “So, basically, you just need a pancake that has a sweet flavor without being too flat?”

Rachel nodded, seemingly overwhelmed.

“O…kay, then why not just mix chocolate chips or blueberries in, that should make the pancakes less smooth and not leave as bad an aftertaste as syrup, while also making them sweet.”

Rachel brightened at my strategy, before dropping her shoulders yet again, “Ugh…that seems like so much work, though…”

I hated seeing Rachel suffer like this. Whatever prevented her from just doing things the way that she wanted tore at my heart. I’d seen it grow worse-and-worse for her over the years, and while she had managed to push through it a lot recently, she still had moments when she would shut down and simply do without, rather than get the wherewithal together to do what she wanted.

Watching her suffer was torture, even if I just loved hearing her talk to me.

I just wanted to hear her voice again, so I asked, “Does this dress really look good on me?”

“Of course it does!” Rachel said, bringing her line of sight up off of the ground slightly, “I’m glad you bought it!”

“Well, you did say that I looked good in it,” I laughed, motioning us along by pushing the cart forward and then around the corner to the next aisle. We’d begun shopping at the back of the store, since the perishable food was up front, so as to preserve our food from going bad. It kind of boggled my mind that so few people did this. “It’s still scary, though. Y’know, wearing uh…dresses out.”

Honestly, I was still acclimating to the fact that it fit me. That I didn’t see a man in a dress when I looked into the mirror anymore.

“Honey,” Rachel said, her mood improving, “As your wifey-wife-wife and a former Instagram influencer, I’m insulted that you would think me a bad choice of taste.” Rachel ended her little self-appraisal with a silly ‘ohohoho’ laugh that she’d picked up from watching too much anime. Normally, I would have found it cringe, but the more time I spent with Rachel and the more I learned to see my feelings for her across our entire lives, the more I’d realized that I loved every part of her, the silliness included.

Even if it meant my attractive blonde girlfriend squeezing herself into a hot pink tube dress just to grocery shop drew even more eyes to her by having such a loud voice.

Then it occurred to me: it meant less eyes on me.

What an incredible woman.

Finally, Rachel and I arrived at the frozen food section and I set my plan in motion, “What do you think about these?” I pulled a yellow box out of the cooler.

Rachel marveled, “Frozen pancakes with blueberries?!” My wife snatched the box out of my hand and stared at it intently.

“The texture shouldn’t be as, uh, ‘flat’? These should be easier to make. Probably not as healthy, I guess, but everything only ever seems to go to your boobs and ass, anyway.”

“Hippy-hip-hips, too!” Rachel cackled triumphantly, shaking the box of pancakes in her hand. I’d seen her do that with stuff before, and I could only imagine that she liked listening to the different kinds of sounds.

“Pancake, pancake, pan~cake!” Rachel buzzed with a sing-songy intonation, “Everybody loves pan~cakes!” Then, suddenly, Rachel’s eyes shot open wider and she turned to face me directly. “We gotta go get syrup!!”

“B-but you hate syrup?” I returned, stunned.

“Argh, I know, but—oh, wait, that’s what the blueberries are for! Ooh, you said they do chocolate, too, right?!”

Rach shoved her head inside the freezer and stood there, ass-out, for several minutes trying to decide what boxes of pancakes she wanted.

At that point, I was just happy to listen to her muffled voice as she talked herself into buying whichever box looked prettiest.

Listening to my wife was the best part of the day, really.

***

DECEMBER 13, 2024:

“Rachel, I’m sorry for yelling,” I whispered. She’d set up one of our spare air mattresses to sleep by herself in the living room for the night. I was completely wiped out from the lack of sleep and the exhausting set of days I had been going through, but I still didn’t want to leave things with Rachel off like that, so I dragged myself out of the surprisingly empty-feeling mattress that we usually shared together and walked to the living room to confront the woman I loved.

Rachel didn’t reply, although I could still tell that she was awake given the quiet whimpers she was trying—and failing—to stifle.

“Rach, I—you’re right.”

Still nothing.

“I’ve been really insecure about myself and my body for a long time—especially after what happened…down there. And I’ve been insecure about—Jesus Christ, you’ve been trying so hard to make me feel comfortable being me, but I’ve just—okay! Listen! Thank you. Thank you for giving me the time and space and opportunities to figure out whatever you must have seen was going on with me. But please, for the love of fuck, tell me when my wife is going to do sex work so that I know to look out for you. Do you even—it scares the fuck out of me what might happen to you, Rach. I don’t even know if I have the right to feel that way or not, but I do and I just—I don’t want to lose you.”

“Do you trust me?” Rach finally asked, back still turned to me.

“I—of course I do?!”

“I know, y’know,” she whispered. “I know that you think you have to always, like, watch out for me like I’m your retarded daughter or something.”

“Rach, I—omigawd, please don’t think that I—I’d never—”

“Never resent me for it?” she asked back.

My throat was dry, “R-Rach, honey, listen, I just—”

“We’re partners, Jennifer,” Rach repositioned herself so as to face me. “I get it, you’re worried about me. I know that I…like—what’s the word—dissociate and other stuff around you lots. But, like, it’s because it’s you that I feel safe doing that.”

“Wait…what?”

“What, do you, like, think I’m bimbo-moding all the time now?” she giggled, the light coming back to her eyes a little. Seeing her like this was like an oasis in the middle of a desert.

“Rach, you don’t have to call it—”

“Let me be goofy about it, Jenni,” Rachel whispered, suddenly serious again.

I paused to let the moment settle.

“Anyway, like, Jenni—actually, get under here, first!”

Following my wife’s invitation, I joined her under the covers. Gawd, I missed the warmth of her body.

“Like, so, uh…basically, I’m jus’ tryna say that I, like, er…I just want you to understand! Y’know?”

And I think I did, “You…you really are amazing, you know that?”

With a quick kiss on the lips, “Like, duh!”

I broke into a fit of giggles as I laid against my wife, arms wrapped around her to pull her closer. Her larger breasts pressed against mine, and I suddenly understood why the differences in our sizes always bothered me. Even before I was on HRT. Even before I had been given a forced orchiectomy.

I had gender dysphoria.

About my chest.

About how I related to women.

Other women.

And about…that.

I laughed to myself, even as a look of confusion drew itself on Rachel’s face.

“Hey,” I opened, readying myself to ask a pretty big question: “Do you—would you be okay with me accepting Miss York’s offer?”

Taking a moment for her brain to process what I had just asked, my wife finally caught up with the question and grew a big ol’ grin: “Can we go shopping some place high-end?”

“Fuck no, we’re getting a real bed, first!”

***

DECEMBER 14, 2024:

“You’re sure that you’re, like, okay with me, like, doing this, right?” I asked, adjusting my beanie and gloves nervously. With the sun having set already I was beginning to feel the evening chill of a Washington winter and felt like there was rarely ever enough clothes in the world to keep the shivvers at bay.

Rachel, for her part, was once again decked out in her trademark pink beanie, jacket and gloves, “Yeah, no, like, duh?! Just, like, have a great time! I’ll be nearby in case he’s, like, an ax murder-er-er-er or whatevs!” She has broken character to wear jeans, for practicality’s sake.

“Well, if he’s an ax murder-er-er-er I sure as shit hope—fuck, it’s cold tonight—that you’re, like, a stitcher-er-er-er back-er-er-er or whatevs!”

“It’s Washington, it’s, like, always cold—chirp!”

“I love you, too, honey—wait, fuck, are you really sure? Like, I think—I think I’m okay with, like, y’know, just identifying—okay. You’re not going to feel weird or jealous, right?”

Rachel just giggled at my nervousness as we stood across the street from the concert venue. It wasn’t exactly a stadium or anything, but it was a large enough venue to look like it cost whoever owned it a shiny enough penny to purchase, since the outside of the building still looked like it hadn’t been touched up since it was built in the 1970s.

Taking me by my collar, Rach pulled me in for a passionate kiss. Her warmth poured through her lips and down my body, like taking a shower in the sun. Breaking from the kiss, she smiled, “I’ve had the boyfriend experience before, it’s okay if you want to try it, too. I’m not afraid that you are going to leave me, Jenni.”

Still buzzing from the kiss, I blustered my way through a reply: “I…mean…yes? No? Er, like, no, never leaving you, but, like, omigawd, he is cute-‘n-stuff ‘n, like, er—holy shit, that felt good—but, uh…he’s amazingly sweet?”

“I’m, like, sure he is,” Rach giggled, cupping my hand, “Now hurry up and get over there before he thinks you’ve, like, been abducted by aliens or something.”

It was hard to let go of my wife, but I reluctantly backed away from her, holding on to her as long as I could. Then, a sudden thought struck: “W-wait, oh shit, this isn’t, like, lying to him, is it? About me, like, not telling him that I’m married?”

Rachel blinked at me several times quickly, her mascara really accentuating the jade color of her eyes tonight: “Do you wanna explain to him how you’re wanted for murdering your mommy-mom-mom and wifey-wife-wife’s mommies-mom-moms?”

“Good point—wait, do I have to tell him I have a cock?”

“What, are you going to fuck him?”

“Er…probably not? I don’t know, you…wait, what are you even encouraging me to fuck Danny?”

“Pfft, I already fucked your ass and mouth, honey. If you wanna try a man in the bedroom I’m, like, totes cool with that.” Rach let go of my grasp, letting me back step safely onto the street from the sidewalk.

“Jesus Christ, Rachel?! Also, like, I don’t know if that means that you’ve ever—actually, fuck, I—okay, Rach?”

“Yeah?”

“I…don’t think you’ve ever—”

“—Just go out—er, like, in—there and have a great night, Jenni-Jen-Jen!”

“Omigawd, gurl!”

With multiple glances back at my wife, I sped walked into the club, stifling nervous and excited giggles along the way.

***

DECEMBER 14, 2024:

“I gotta say, I wasn’t expecting a pop-metal hybrid cover of Smells Like Teen Spirit, but it was a hell of a cover,” I laughed.

Danny and I hit up a café that remained open late somewhere on 10th Avenue to grab a bite to eat after the concert. The fries were too salty, but I was happy to find that they were at least able to maintain a constitution despite the amount of grease and oil they were likely cooked in. Rachel would often say that there was a precise science to making a good fry: “You gotta, like, make sure that it’s, like, not too soggy-sog-sog, y’know? That’s the difference between, like, regular fries and curly fries, y’know? And then, like, the outside has to be crunchy-crunch-crunch, y’know? Otherwise, like, what’s the point of the french fries? Ooh, but it’s also kind of fun to be able to suck the guts out of them, too, sometimes…”

“Yeah, I think they’re trying to appeal to a wider audience by combining more up-beat styles with pop culture songs, which I suppose makes sense if you’re looking to make your band a full-time gig. The costumes were a bit much, though. Nirvana’s too heavy for that, right?” Danny chuckled.

“I’unno, I thought that they were, like, pretty cute,” I countered, thinking back to how well the bright and colorful leather shined beneath the lights.

With a laugh, Danny conceded, “Y’know, I’m probably too young to be acting like I hate change.”

With a soft smile and stirring the water in my glass with my straw, I mused, “I don’t think there’s an age limit on learning something new, especially about yourself.”

“Y’know what? You’re right about that, Jen.”

“Jenni—actually, it’s actually kind of funny to think about it in hindsight.”

Danny raised an eyebrow, mouth preoccupied with sucking up his Sprite.

“I mean, like, I was so…afraid of choosing someone to be for my own sake that I think I ignored trying to be who I wanted to be for the ones I loved, because I love them.”

Swallowing, Danny asked, “So, whatcha think that means for ya?” He sat his glass on the table, but hesitated to reach for his food.

“Danny, I…” I was probably shooting myself in the foot by doing this, but I didn’t care. “Danny…I’m in love with Rachel.”

“Yeah, I kinda figured.” The theater major looked like he was trying to maintain a calm, collected facial expression, but a deep sadness rang through his eyes.

“Wait, what?” A trepidation filled my heart, beating it irregularly. If the beat that Rachel made in my heart was one of warmth and strength, this one was—

“I’ve seen the way you look at her, Jenni,” he smiled, suddenly more relaxed. “And I know the way you look at me. They’re not the same—I’d be a lucky bastard if they were, really.”

I was almost speechless, but I struggled to force out at least a “Danny, I—”

“Can I kiss you?”

“W-wait, what?”

“I think you’ll understand if I do, I mean.”

I hesitated for a moment, but I also knew what Rach would be okay with, so I nodded. Danny slid across the half-circle booth’s couch to get up and close to me. There was hardly anyone else in the restaurant, so it wasn’t like there was going to be a big crowd perceiving me kissing someone other than my wife.

Danny made contact first, cupping my right cheek with his left hand. It was a passionate kiss…that reminded me of the way that Rachel would kiss me.

Oh, that’s what he meant.

It was a great kiss—extremely hot in the heat of the moment, but as our lips parted I’d realized why he said what he said.

Kissing Rachel fed my soul. Kissing Rachel made me feel unstoppable.

Kissing Danny was like only eating candy for every meal. Kissing Danny was like checking off a list that I don’t think I’d realized how much undue importance I had been giving it.

Maybe?

No, no. I was attracted to Danny, but that’s all it was. I wasn’t capable of loving him, while also loving someone else.

I had so many different conflicting emotions now, but as I watched Danny lean back from our kiss, just the faintest hint of disappointment in his eyes, I realized what I’d done.

“D-Danny, I’m so sorry, I—I used you!”

“No more than I did you, Jenni. I was infatuated and I wanted to see if maybe I could steal your attention away and keep it all for myself. I knew what I was getting into, Jenni.”

I wished that I could make all the hurt that I heard in his voice just drown out with the sound of happiness. I wish that I could make all of the hurt that I saw on his face wash away.

But, no matter how hard I tried, I knew that I could not.

I wasn’t very hungry after that.

***

DECEMBER 14, 2024:

It was nearing midnight as Danny and I walked back to my apartment from where our rideshare had dropped us off at. The night was cold, but the skies were oddly clear for this time of year. Looking up at the stars shining brilliantly above I wondered just what the hell I was going to do now. Was I going to have to switch coffee places? There was a Starbucks not too far from the Gayly Bug, but Rach and I preferred some place that was actually, y’know, queer-friendly.

As awkward as it might be to continue going there…I really would miss seeing Danny. He was a great guy, and my selfish little experiment to express my sexuality—my bisexuality—had no doubt hurt him, even if he’d sensed what I’d been doing the entire time.

I was just…such a fucking fool.

An insult to all those capable of ethical non-monogamy.

“I guess we’re here?”

Somehow, without even noticing, my body had led us to my apartment that I shared with my wife despite my mind being lost in thought. Turning to look down at Danny in his eyes I smiled weakly, and whispered, “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I actually had a really good time, Jenni.”

“Me, too,” I returned, hoping to focus on the positives of the night.

Like the way Danny had looked so excited while explaining the band’s history to me, or looked like a goof while air-guitaring on our way to the café. Or how he looked now, through the weather and the pain of realizing that I was not going to be his girlfriend. That I couldn’t.

Danny was going to make someone extremely happy someday, but that someone wasn’t going to be me.

I already had someone for that.

Resolving to leave no regrets—for both of our sakes—I learned down and gave Danny one last, final kiss. All the cards on the table.

It was a proper supper kiss.

***

DECEMBER 15, 2024:

After bidding Danny a fond farewell I slipped into the apartment, hoping not to make any noise should Rach be asleep.

Instead, appropriately enough for my wife, I found Rachel sitting in her camping chair, completely nude and jerking herself off while scrolling through something on her phone.

“Oh! Hiya, Jenni!” Rachel gushed, zero self-awareness about her. “I found this really hot orc NTR doujinshi! How did your date go?”

“Lemme help you with that first, sweetie.”

Doffing my jacket, top and shoes at the door, I carefully walked over to my wife, kneeled before her, and kissed my second favorite part of her body to kiss.

As the hot ropes of her cummy-cum-cums splashed onto my face it dawned on me that I had forgotten to take off my glasses.

***

DECEMBER 25, 2023:

Our first Christmas as a married couple: how romantic!

Too bad we were having it on the cold streets of Seattle.

While wanted for triple homicide.

I don’t suppose they would consider charging us each for one-and-a-half-homicide?

Probably not.

“JINGLE BELLS, JINGLE BELLS, BATMAN SMELLS, ROBIN LAID AN EGG, SOMETHING-SOMETHING AND THE JOKER GOT AWAAA~Y!!”

“I’m not sure that’s how the song goes, Rach,” I offered, adjusting my bra beneath one of Rachel’s old hoodies. The fit wasn’t quite right, since I’d had to hastily steal the damned thing, and my breasts were still developing. It was an uncomfortable situation, especially because I wasn’t sure I was even ready to start socializing as ‘Jen’. Like, is that what I’d tell any random stranger my name was, if I needed to tell them one at all? I still…looked like a man, after all.

I guess ‘Jen’ sounded close to the Korean or even Japanese ‘Jin’, so I could pass it off as a mispronunciation of those…but that just seemed…I don’t know.

“O’ HOLY NIGHT, THE STARS ARE SHINING BRIGHTLY, BLAH-BLAH-BLAH,” Rach continued.

“Wonderful singing voice, babe,” I cracked, not sure if I meant that sincerely or sarcastically.

“MERRY CHRISTMAS!” She shouted, pulling a fresh brush and hair ties out of her hoodie pocket. “Chirp!”

My hair was beginning to get kind of long now.

“When did you steal these?” I asked, accepting my gifts. “Jeez Rach, I…I didn’t really get you anything.”

“Chirp!”

“Uh…you mean, like, ‘don’t worry about it’?”

“Chirp!” she nodded before letting her face dive into my chest.

“Ouch! Fuck, Rach, it’s sore there!”

“Chirpf,” came my wife’s muffled voice.

“God, you silly thing,” I laughed, trying to drown out the soreness. As I petted the back of Rachel’s head I wondered if my hair would grow to be as long as hers someday. That would be a lot to manage, even if we weren’t stuck on the streets. Still, I admired how hard Rach tried to take care of her hair, despite the extra difficulties. She’d grown to be a pro at shoplifting the beauty products sections of any store we hit up. I guess it only made sense that she could shoplift a simple brush without me noticing.

Rachel and I continued to sit on the park bench, admiring the International Fountain as it sprayed water. There wasn’t much else to do on Christmas when you were houseless and broke as hell. Everything we owned, now in four bags, two of which were stolen. Too early in the day to go off and find some place warm to make camp, too.

So sat there, staring, trying to look as inconspicuous—as if we weren’t desperate for a warm place to sleep and warm food in our stomachs.

It was dehumanizing, but I’d suffer anything for Rachel.

It was better than seeing all of the horrible shit that would be done to her in prison.

***

DECEMBER 15, 2024:

“Are ya, like, sure about this?”

“Honey, I’m sure, it won’t hurty-hurt-hurt a bit!”

“Fuck, Rach, it better n-OUGHT SHIT! OH SHIT, NOT THE OTHER ONE?!”

“See, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” chuckled the artist as they cleaned their piercing tools. They had their dark hair up in a bunch reminiscent of the 1950s, but their plethora of tattoos and piercings gave them a distinctively Goth look. Personally, I thought that they rocked the fusion of styles very well. I was especially fond of their nose piercing.

“Fuck, that hurt,” I groaned, resisting the urge to touch my ears.

“Hey, you wanted to, like, get your ears pierced. Actually, like, why did you wanna do that, anyway?” Rach mused, offering me a hand up from the chair.

“I just wanted to, uh…okay, promise you won’t, like, laugh?”

“Chirp!”

“I…wanted to try those earrings you bought at Pride last summer. Basically.”

“Ah! The Bi Pride colored ones? They’re so cute!”

“Exactly. Yeah. Besides, you never wear them!”

“True, yeah, I think I don’t really care for the dangling ones, chirp~”

“Then you won’t mind if I take them off your hands?” I asked, adding a degree of humor to try and command the flow of the conversation.

Rachel, of course, missed this and didn’t quite reply, “Ooh, if you’re, like, off-iss-e-ally coming out~” Rach began fiddling with something on her purse. Finally, Rachel unbuttoned one of her five Bi Pride buttons and handed it to me.

“‘The number four one’?” I asked, confused.

“If I gave you the first one, then, like, I’d be giving you THE FIRST ONE, so then the rest wouldn’t have, like, a leader! Every leader needs a number two, so I can’t give you the Commander Riker—”

“—Wouldn’t Commander Riker be the first one, then?”

“—then if I give you, like, the third one it would be, like, too easy for you to forget! Nobody wants to be in third place! So, like, it had to be the number four one, ‘cause, like, nobody even knows that you ranked!”

I couldn’t help but laugh at her logic. It was so hard not to just love this poor woman in her tight little sweater dress in the middle of winter. “Will you marry me?”

“But, like, Jenni, we’re already married!” Rachel replied, slipping into a sob like she was being proposed to for the first time.

“Jesus Christ, you two need to get a room,” the tattoo artist droned as they loaded up the Square app on their phone.

***

DECEMBER 16, 2024:

“Oh shit, Jenni, are you officially coming out?” Frederica asked as I adjusted my hair, making sure it looked just right.

Turning away from the mirror, I found myself making the biggest smile as I faced Freddie in her tux, “Huh? Oh, yeah, I guess so? I mean…yeah, I—uh, I’m bi,” it was still so surreal saying it out loud, especially to someone other than Rachel.

“See, I knew you were living with Rachel, but I should’ve guessed you were bi, considering how you let those cougars feel you up,” Freddie’s laugh was jovial, but I didn’t quite care for how she could be so dark in her humor.

“Come on, Rica, leave the poor girl be,” Elle said as they came up behind their partner, wrapped their arms around them, and propped their chin atop Freddie’s right shoulder. “Congrats, Jen—sorry, Jenni now, right?”

“Yeah, thanks—and thank you for the congratulations, Elle,” I couldn’t help but return their smiles. They were always flirting so much, Rachel and I were so glad when they finally got together. Learning that Elle also used they/them pronouns outside of work had definitely been eye-opening, too.

Socializing had been difficult for Rachel and I when we were on the streets, but now that we had co-workers I found it to definitely be an adjustment that I wanted to make. As kids and teens neither one of us really did much socializing outside of each other—Rach making out with all the girls she would show her cosplay collection to notwithstanding.

Damn, she really could be smooth when she wanted to, couldn’t she?

“But, come on Jenni-girl, I thought that we were the Suit Sisters? What gives?” Freddie laughed, wrapping an arm around my shoulder.

Smiling softly, before breaking out into a bolder, wider grin, I admitted, “Sorry Freds, not my scene. I was only doing it because Paul told me to, and I needed the cash. Besides, I’m sure you’ll be getting plenty more clients now that I’m in dresses!”

“You look a lot more relaxed,” Elle half-whispered, “You’re smiling so much more, too, Jenni. I bet Rach has noticed.”

Pfft, going right for the relationship gossip, were they?

I…really shouldn’t say it. I mean…there was no way to actually prove it, legally speaking. Fine. Fuck.

“Haha, she’s definitely noticed,” be non-committal about it. They’ll probably pick up the signals eventually, anyway.

“Oh, hiya girls,” Rachel said, walking over to our little congregation, “And Elle! Omigawd, I love your dress, it’s so, like, Velma Kelly Chicago!”

“I don’t think they understand internet lingo, sweetie,” I interjected.

“Oh, no, no, you’re fine, Jenni. I’m something of an internet user, myself,” Elle corrected, morphing their gorgeous face into something approximating one of Willem Dafoe’s facial expressions.

“HI GREEN GOBLIN!!!” Rach shouted, like she’d just won about a game show. When Elle’s face returned to normal she added, “BYE GREEN GOBLIN!!!”

“That’s a good girl,” Elle whispered, tapping my wife on her nose with her index finger. Rach began panting like a dog—not for comedic effect, but sincerely, of course.

“They called me a good girl, Jenni!” Rach bragged as she turned to me, the world’s proudest expression on her face.

“Well, you are a good girl, dear,” I smiled, pulling my wife into the frame of the full length mirror. Taking in the sight of us side-by-side, I couldn’t help but say, “Damn, we look good!”

“GOOD GIRL LOOKS GOOD!” Rach giggled, her intonation all over the place. It was charming, as it always was when she did that. She’d been bullied for it for so long that now that I was older and wiser, I’d sworn to never let her feel ashamed of it again.

“So, tell us, Rachel, have you and your roommate ever done…roommate stuff together?” Freddie asked, scandalously. Elle gave their girlfriend a frown, but Freddie did an exaggerated “I’m just asking” motion.

Rach just stared blankly, not processing the question at first. I gave her a moment, because reminding her: “‘And they were roommates’, Rach.”

Then, suddenly, “Oh! Uh…” Rach shot me a look, looking for guidance. Raising my eyebrow in a “you wanna do this?” kind of way, Rach broke into a smile and nodded her head-up-and-down like she was seven years old.

With a deep breath, I turned back to Elle and Freddie and put on a nervous smile, “Well, uh, you two already know that we’ve been friends since we were kids. I guess if you two are going to be explicitly a couple in the dressing room we might as well be, too.” I took Rach’s hand in mine, locked our fingers, and gave a small squeeze to let Rach know to say something.

“U-HAUL!” she shouted, bursting into another fit of giggles. Freddie, Elle and I joined Rach in her rejoicement.

“I’m happy for you two, really,” Elle said as their laughter died down. “You two…just have this energy to you, you know?”

“You can say that again,” Freddie added, “The way I’ve seen you look at each other, even on the floor—hot damn!”

“Oh, jeez, thanks, you two are amazing, too!”

Unfortunately, an unpleasant and undignified voice chimed in, “You ladies are absolutely amazing, too, I do say!” It was Paul, of course, dressed up in one of his usual cheap-looking suits that distinctly passed more for a user car salesman’s cartoonishly slimeball aesthetic in a movie or something.

It was hard not to be bothered when he would use such gendered language to group in Elle with us. Technically, Elle hadn’t told Paul—he was hardly the type to respect pronouns, anyway—but it still just felt like an extra layer of insult, even if Elle preferred to present in a feminine way. I’d figured them to be cishet until it became clear that they and Freddie were getting closer, and then to learn that they were non-binary was even more eye-opening.

The more I looked back on it, the more I realized that I had learned from Elle that if they didn’t owe anyone androgyny, I didn’t owe anyone anything, either. I owed myself a presentation that fit me best.

That just so happened to be something approximately feminine. Well, when I felt like it. Rach was quite fond of calling me a gremlin anytime I wasn’t dressed to the nines like she was any time we went out.

“Cool it, hot shot,” Freddie interjected, obviously annoyed with Paul’s usual bullshit. Freddie checked her phone and made a clicking noise with her tongue, “Shit, game time already, y’all.”

The others and I made our way towards the dressing room entrance when suddenly Paul grabbed me by my wrist. “Jenni,” he stressed, “A word?”

I looked back to Rach, who looked concerned, but gave her a nod to go on ahead. Rach reluctantly nodded back in confirmation and left the room with the others.

“Mind letting go?” I asked, my voice stern. Paul eventually acquiesced, but I could tell that he was still in a foul mood.

Paul had been avoiding me ever since Miss York had told him that I was to be allowed to dress and act how I pleased. I could tell that the man was upset by the look of his eyes through his tinted sunglasses—who the hell wore sunglasses indoors, anyway? “You must think that you’re real smooth, Jen,” Paul opened, bile in his voice.

“What do you want, Paul?” I asked, no longer hiding my annoyance with the man.

“We had a real good thing going on here, y’know?”

“I—what? You mean you got to fetishize how I looked in a suit because I looked a little androgynous? Jesus, I got that work done on my face for a reason, you know.”

“Hey, hey,” the ugly soul replied, shifting into a seemingly defensive body language, “That just made it hotter, y’know?”

Disgust ran up-and-down my spine, so I turned back to the entrance to try and go to the floor and remove myself from this asshole’s presence. Frankly, I didn’t want to know what else the creep fetishized me for.

“We’re not done talkin’, you little bitch!” Paul shouted, grabbing my right wrist.

Reflectively, I used my free hand to slap at Paul, but despite his gangly appearance he had no issues taking my slap, and then tugging harder on the wrist he still held. The force of the despicable bastard’s grip and pull on my wrist tightened so much I couldn’t help but scream, “F-fuck!”

Before I could shake my right wrist free and shout “Let go of me, asshole!” a third voice echoed throughout the room: “Yes you are, Paul!”

It was Miss York, wearing the scariest face that I’d ever seen her wear.

With Paul distracted I managed to tear out of his grasp and make my way over and behind Miss York. I had to rub my wrist, which was quickly turning purple.

“Are you okay, dear?” Miss York asked, her voice taking on a more tender tone.

“Y-yes, Ma’am,” I replied, perhaps too unconvincingly.

Inspecting my right wrist, Miss York shook her head, “You’re going to the hospital, that’s the end of it.”

“B-but Miss, I—”

As if remembering something, Miss York stopped herself as she stopped tapping on her phone. After a beat, Miss York began tapping away again, then finally made a phone call: “Jerry? Be a dear and bring the car around back and have Remmy meet me inside. Ms. Yoshihara and Ms. Queen will be out soon. I'd like for you to take them to Penthouse B, Doctor April should be there within the hour to meet them. Thank you, Jerry.”

“M-Miss York, please, this is just a misund—”

Turning sharply to face Paul again, Miss York took on her most fierce face again, “The only ‘misunderstanding’ here Paul is that I left one of my girls in your charge and you failed to understand what that meant!”

I had no idea what in the world was going on now, but as Rachel rushed back into the dressing room—now accompanied by a very large, very irate-looking man, do doubt covered in muscles beneath that lovely, very well-fitting suit.

“Girls,” Miss York began, a strained cheeriness to her voice, “Please be dears and meet Jerome out back. You can’t miss the car.”

Not wanting to see any of that wealthy woman's fury directed our way, I grabbed my wife by the hand and led her out of the dressing room and down the hall to the back entrance. The echoes of Paul’s screams followed us throughout the long corridor.

***

DECEMBER 16, 2024:

“Welcome in, ladies,” a proportionately jovial and large man gleamed, holding open the door to the backseat of a lovingly waxed limousine. As Rach and I got into the backseat of Miss York’s limousine I was instantly stricken by the fresh vanilla scent, despite the chaos of the night splitting my attention ten thousand ways. “Remember to buckle up!” It was as if someone had taken a 6’4’’ man and stuffed him with as much good-spirit and jolly disposition as was humanly possible. It’s no surprise that even from the quick glance we got of the giant that he looked like he was about four feet of muscle wide, too.

Judging by his voice he had a lovely tenor singing voice, too.

Shutting the door carefully, the behemoth of a man somehow made his smile even wider and brighter, “I’m Jerome! Or Jerry! My mama’s really the only one to call me ‘Jerome’, though! Call me whatever you like, really.” He had a hell of a hearty laugh that, frankly, just made the entire situation seem all that more surreal.

Once inside the vehicle—the limousine even rocked as he got inside—Jerry rolled down the privacy window and looked back as best as his large form would allow him, “There’s water, ice and a special little something back there, in case you need something to take the edge off! There should also be a clean towel or two back there, in case you need to make a makeshift ice pack! Don’t mind the mess, Miss York won’t, I’m sure! Ooh, that’s right—you girls like ABBA?”

Stunned, we nodded in union.

A few seconds of The Winner Takes It All began playing over the Bluetooth—

“—I’ve played all my cards—”

—before Jerry skipped to the next track: Mamma Mia.

The entire affair just seemed to grow even more surreal by the second.

Jerry took off, carefully maneuvering us through the back allies until we were on the main road. I couldn’t possibly imagine how big of a pain it was driving in Seattle. It seemed like a nightmare with how the streets were designed.

“I should’ve fuckin’ killed him myself,” Rach whispered. It had been a long time since I’d seen her with that scowl on her face. Hell, I’d never even seen it on this face: it looked even scarier now. And hotter.

“The last thing we need is ‘Rachel Queen’ being wanted for murder, sweetie,” I said, using my left arm—my good arm—to bring her closer to my body. “I’m just grateful to have you with me, Rachy-Rach.” To be fair, we don’t know what happened to Paul, and the less we knew, the better.

Making herself comfortable, Rach wrapped her left arm around me and continued to lay on me for the rest of the car ride. I decided not to say anything about the awkwardness of the angle our bodies laid in.

“—how can I resist you?”

***

DECEMBER 16, 2024:

With my wrist twinging in pain as much as it was, I was eager to distract myself as much as possible. Taking in the sights of the skyscrapers and the busy night streets of Seattle was an excellent way to do so as Jerry opened the front door to the building he was escorting us into. The elevator ride to the penthouse was perhaps the smoothest running elevator I’d ever been on. It was almost unsettling how difficult it was to tell that we were moving upward.

Finally, our trio arrived on a floor with a short hallway with flowers on side tables on each side of a door. Appropriately, the door was equipped with a peephole, and what looked like a scanner for scanning key cards.

I could not help but wonder if the card scanner lock was a bad sign or not.

Holding the penthouse door open, Jerry let me and Rach enter first. The living room alone was larger than either mine or Rachel’s old houses were. When we still lived with our parents.

When we were still children.

“The place is all yours, ladies,” Jerry grinned excitedly, “Doctor April should be here in twenty—I’ll give you ladies some privacy, but here’s my number. I’ll be goofing off in the lobby downstairs, so just let me know if you need anything! Ooh, that’s right, the cabinets and refrigerator should be fully-stocked!”

Jerry handed us a business card that read ‘Jerome Smiley, personal security & driver’ as well as his phone number. I could only imagine the horrifying things Patrick Bateman would imagine doing to Jerry should he ever see his immaculate card.

Honestly, I was horrified to even consider how Jerry looked when he had to put on his ‘personal security’ face. That just seemed like inviting the devil into your home.

Well, not that any theoretical god had shown me any love by giving me a penis.

Better the devil you know, than the devil you don’t, I suppose.

“Thanks, Jerbear!” Rachel giggled as she waved to the departing Jerry. Jerry made comically bear-esque movements and growling noises as he closed the door to the penthouse.

Yeah, it’d make sense that those two would get along.

“How’s your wristy-wrist-wrist, Jenni?” Rach asked as we sat down on the couch to cuddle.

“Hurts.”

“Hurty-hurt-hurt?”

“Hurts.”

“Hurty-hurt-hurt?”

“Hurty-hurt-hurt.”

I shut my eyes, hoping that even if it was just for twenty minutes, I’d be able to forget about the stress of it all and just relax in an apartment with proper heating for once.

***

DECEMBER 16, 2024:

“Ooh, you should, like, pick the pink one, Jenni! The pink one!!” Rach giggled, marveling over the various wrapping on display.

“Pink’s your color, dear. I’m a red kind of girl, I think. Maybe. I dunno. It’s hard to pick.”

“Pink is good! Pink is, like, always good! It’s a saying! Pink goes best with everything!”

“No, you’re thinking of black, sweetie,” I corrected, inspecting the pink wrap with my hands.

“Chirp!” Rach accepted.

“Well, not like it looks…terrible on me, or anything,” I mused. The part of me wanting to focus on anything but the pain wondered if Rach would get turned on by me in some sort of matching pink outfit.

“Ooh, ooh, can I get a pink one for me, then?”

“You—honey, your wrist isn’t even sprained!”

“B-bu-but it’s such a cute shade of pink! Can I?”

“Rachel, Doctor April needs these for—”

“Hey, I don’t kink-shame,” Doctor April interjected, looking completely disinterested as she pulled out a spare roll of pink cast gauze and tossed it to Rachel, “Go to town, kiddo.”

“Omigawd, thank you Doctor June!” Rachel shouted, breaking out into a loud laugh that filled the penthouse living room.

“Rachel, you’ll wake the neighbors!” I whisper-shouted.

“Oh, nobody else is on this floor, hon,” Doctor April corrected.

Turning to the doctor I replied, “I’d prefer you not refer to my—to Rachel like she’s a child.”

“What, like you don’t do it?” the sexy doctor countered, taking a hit of her vape pen. Apparently, she was not one for worrying about decorum.

“That’s—I know Rachel, and I know that she’s perfectly capable of acting like an adult. Just…don’t talk to her like that again, please.” It had begun to dawn on me that I was not dealing with an ordinary doctor, if she was on the beck-and-call of Miss York and whatever the fuck Remmy and Jerry did as her ‘personal security’. A little bit of caution toward the carefree, sexily dressed, curvaceous doctor was probably warranted, in hindsight.

“Whatever you say, girly. Like I said, though,” the brunette began, taking the leftover roll of pink gauze in my hand and beginning to apply it to my cast, “Remember to keep the cast on at all times and take the painkillers I gave you. I’ll be back to check up on you in a couple of weeks, capisce?” The doctor’s large breasts breasted breastedly as she leaned back after applying the gauze.

“Right,” I replied, looking to say as little as necessary at this point.

“I gotta say, you two came out looking amazing,” the doctor smirked, her boobs bouncing boobily as she reached into her white lab coat’s pen pocket to retrieve her vape pen again, “Some of my best work, if I don’t say so myself,” Doctor April smiled, as if she were looking at a manuscript that she had written to her high-standards in under two weeks.

“Uh…” I wasn’t sure how to reply.

“Thank you for fixing my nosey-nose-nose, Doctor June!” Rachel giggled, her bare left arm now tightly wrapped in pink gauze.

“Pleasure’s all mine, Pinky!” the doctor mugged, picking her pen out of her impressive cleavage to take another puff. Turning back to me the doctor added, “So, Vicky’s said that you’re thinking about a boob job? I can give you a killer pair of tits, if ya want.”

A glance at the big naturals the unprofessional doctor was sporting made me wonder if she was using herself as a barometer in her definition of ‘killer pair of tits’. Reluctantly, I replied, “Like…big-big? Round-round?”

Leaning forward to the edge of the sofa chair, Doctor April gave a wicked grin and replied, “Girly, there’s a reason why I’m one of the personal doctors of the York Family. You should’ve seen the pair I gave Vicky’s kid for the Big One-Six. Or was it the Big One-Eight? Well, whatever. Some of my finest work, if I do say so myself.”

The way the doctor was potentially speaking about a sixteen year old’s breasts didn’t sit well with me, but I was slowly beginning to realize that families with money attracted the least moral of people. Leaning back against the couch I looked up at the ceiling and sighed. It was just one thing after another with us.

“I mean, hey, I got nothin’ better going on tomorrow,” she paused to yawn, which caused her massive melons to maneuver up and down in her tight, low-cut top, “If you want the surgery then, I mean. We might even have you healed up enough to show you off for Christmas, lulz!” She literally spoke the word ‘lulz’. It was surreal.

“Ooh, ooh, you should do it! Like, MERRY CHRISTMAS! You get big, fat titties, Jenni!” Rach interjected cheerfully, contrasting with how hard her right hand was trying—and failing—to peel the too-tight pink gauze off.

It was a lot to consider, especially considering how the night had been panning out. Still, the idea of just…getting it all over with was enticing. And, it wasn’t like the doctor was going to have to look down there and find out that I had a penis or anything. Thankfully. Rubbing my face, I decided to make a rash decision. “Fine, yeah, we can do it tomorrow. I already have my size picked out.”

Doctor April almost snickered, “Oh, I’m sure that you do, girly.”

I wasn’t sure how to take that, but with midnight fast approaching I decided just not to feed the witty comeback beast, lest it mutate into a Graboid or however that Furby film went.

“Well then, if that’ll be all, I have a date with a Hitachi tonight!” I couldn’t believe that she said something like that to her patients so casually, “Goodnight, ladies. I’ll make the arrangements with Jerry and Vicky. I should have an available OR around 10AM tomorrow, so rest up!”

As Doctor April opened the door to the outer hallway she did so Victoria York was mid-motion to knock. “Jennifer dear, are you alright?” The older woman invited herself in, her voice heavy with concern.

“Welp, this saves me some trouble. Vicky, I’ve got Jenni scheduled for a 10AM at the usual OR. Just make sure that Jerry has her there by, like, 8AM?”

Victoria York’s expression brightened at the news, “Oh, wonderful news, June. I’ll be sure to have her there on time!”

Turning to Rachel, Doctor April grinned and said, “Remember to mind your mending Brain, Pinky!”

“NARF!” Rachel screech-giggled, hugging me tightly.

Doctor April left, shutting the door behind her, which prompted Miss York to take the doctor’s previous seat on the sofa chair and lean in towards me. “Tell me dear, how are you?”

“On the mend,” I offered with a wave of my pink-encased wrist.

Placing her hand on my left knee, Miss York leaned in further, “I just want you to know, dear, that there has been a de—parting with Paul. Departure. You won’t be having to worry about him anymore, I assure you.”

“A ‘departure’?” I asked, cautiously watching my tone.

“Oh, yes, yes,” Miss York assured, sitting upright, “Paul has been paid his severance and let go from the employ of the York family. I wished him well—I do hope that he can get help with that nasty temperature problem he has.”

I hoped that she meant ‘temperament’.

“But, rest assured, dear. I can’t have my star employees suffering like that at all, so I would like to offer both of you this penthouse, so long as you are in my employ.”

“I’m sorry Miss York, you wh—”

“YAY, PENTHOUSE!!!” Rachel shouted, still trying to disentangle herself from the mess of pink gauze.

“P-please, Miss York, we couldn’t possibly—”

“Sure you could, Jennifer. It’s come to my attention that you two have been living in dreadful conditions at that rickety old apartment building. My best girls deserve the best, and I intend to leave them in the best hands. Which is precisely why I’ll be leaving Club Y in the hands of Freddie. I really should have chosen a woman to oversee the club in the first place, but I’m afraid that Paul was an old associate of my husband’s, so I felt obligated to allow him the managerial position, at my husband’s behest. Do forgive me, ladies. I shall not make the same mistake of trusting the wrong man in the future.”

I was at a bit of a loss for words after Miss York’s display, but I managed to form something resembling a sentence after a drink of water from a bottle in the middle of the coffee table before us. “Miss—Victoria, I don’t know what to say.”

The 43 year old woman handed me two key cards, “Say ‘yes’, darling.” She couldn’t help but laugh in that haughty way that she did when she thought something was a particularly obvious sort of funny.

Rachel nimbly grabbed one of the cards out of Miss York’s hands and promptly began sliding it up and down her cleavage, making unlocking noises with her mouth, leaving me to have to take the other. “I…thank you, Victoria.”

“Not at all, Jennifer. Once the new year rolls around I have big plans for you, my dear.”

“I’m sorry Victoria, what do you mean?” Caution underscored my voice, but at that moment I didn’t care if it showed.

“Oh, my dear Jennifer. I have a far more important job for you, with a far better pay that I would like to offer you.”

“Victoria, I don’t know how much you know about me and Rach, but Paul’s been paying us under the table for a reason.”

“Oh yes, worry not my dear! I’m well aware of the abuse you two escaped from your homes, and I want you to know that I have nothing but the deepest sympathy for a fellow survivor of abuse…” Victoria’s voice trailed off for a moment, which left me to wonder exactly what she meant by all of that, “...but please, I’m sure you understand that my husband is quite, how should we say, influential. He’ll be able to set you two up with new identities without an issue. That way you’ll be able to actually have ID cards, and—thankfully—bank accounts. A debit card is much easier to carry around than $150,000, don’t you agree?”

This all seemed a little too good to be true. Had I really charmed Victoria to the point that she would create solid, ‘real’ identities for Rachel and I? That seemed like a lot of illegal activity for two women that you wanted to keep in your employ. If the York Family was ever able to link Rachel and I back to our deadnames then how we currently looked would be exposed to the media and authorities, and worse: we would be potentially arrested before we even knew that we had been made. I was not keen on the entire world knowing that ‘Deadname Jeong’ had transitioned and was now living as a woman. I just wanted to be Jennifer in peace and quiet, without any of that senseless bullshit from our youth coming back to haunt us for our adulthood. Rachel especially didn’t deserve that.

Clearing my throat, I turned to Rachel—furiously trying to get the gauze to stop sticking to her—and asked: “Rachel, have you been paying attention?”

“CHIRP!”

Swallowing the lump in my throat, I turned to Victoria, “Are you sure this is safe? For us, I mean. We…don’t want to be found. If our families ever found us, we’d likely be murdered.”

“Homophobia is a dreadful sin, my dear,” Victoria said, getting up to pour herself a drink behind the kitchen counter.

I suppose that technically it was ‘biphobia’ in this case, but the less information we gave out willy-nilly about ourselves the better. Well, that and telling her that we were trans, too.

The open floor plan really did make the penthouse seem more luxurious. The sight of a woman who was practically a modern take on the old starlets of Hollywood old casually preparing drinks left me a little disoriented.

“I just want the two of you to know that I appreciate your contributions to Club Y,” Victoria fiddled with the cabinet doors, peeking around for something. “Ah, there!” Standing up on her tip-toes, Victoria reached up and brought down three wine glasses.

“When my husband opened the club, I was—of course—delighted to be given primary oversight. Of course, with the needs of my role as my husband’s wife, I’m far too busy to ever actually oversee the club personally, so I left Paul in charge—per my husband’s strong recommendation—and while that man certainly had a good taste for finding charming young women to grow Club Y’s popularity he clearly lacked the leadership necessary to bond a team together.” Victoria continued her multitasking by giving the glasses a rinse and wipe, which I could only assume was due to them having some dust on them that I couldn’t see from the couch.

“That reminds me, Victoria. If I might ask,” my voice trailed for a moment. I wanted to make sure even just asking a question wouldn’t set her off, “How does your husband know Paul?”

Browsing through something beneath the counter, Victoria looked up at me with a smile, “Oh, yes, of course. They were old army buddies back in the 1990s and early 2000s. I couldn’t tell you anything more, I typically blanked out when the subject of Paul came up. He was a dreadful bore, if you’ll forgive the bluntness—ah! There we go!” Victoria pulled up a bottle of wine from beneath the counter, took the three wine glasses in another hand, and walked over to the sofa chair again.

“Where was I now? Ah, yes, the two of you? Well, your arrival—and your popularity—has helped the club grow in precisely the ways that I had imagined!” Victoria picked the bottle of wine back up from the coffee table and began screwing the corkscrew into the top. With a firm touch, the fiery spirit tore the cork out and placed the screw onto the coffee table.

Even from my place on the couch I could smell the sweetness of the wine. Rachel began to buzz in her place, excited to try something so fruity-smelling.

Pfft, queers drinking fruity fluids.

Pouring the wine into each glass, Victoria motioned with her eyebrows that she was expecting us to drink with her. Raising a glass, she asked: “So, what do you say? To a better future?”

Rachel and I looked at one another, then back to the red head. Picking up a glass each, we raised them to touch glass with Victoria.

Well, sort of. In her haste to raise her glass, Rachel’s glass became stuck on the pink gauze still entangling her, was pulled from her hand, and fell on the low cut of her very large, very soft, breasts.

“Oh no, not my dressy-dress-dress!”

Gawd, I loved her.

***

DECEMBER 17, 2024:

“So, like, just to be sure: I’m not, like, stealing valor from real trans girls, right?”

“Jenni, honey, weren’t you just telling me the other day that you had gender dysphoria, like, about your chest?”

“I—I mean, yeah, I do, but, like, does that count? I mean, I didn’t even realize that I might be you-know-what until I was already over a year into you-know-what-ing!” I whispered back, hoping nobody would hear me outing myself in public.

“Do you, like, really think that you’re not you-know-what?” Rach asked back, surprisingly suspicious sounding.

“I just—I don’t know? I mean, like, I didn’t know growing up—”

“Plenty of you-know-what people don’t know that they, like, have gender dysphoria stuff going on when growing up, hon,” Rach giggled softly, laying her head on my shoulder while we waited in the hospital lobby.

“So, like, wait, if I—er, I mean—if I decide to say…I mean, if I—can I just up and say ‘Upon further review, Jennifer Yoshihara has deemed that she has indeed been The-T-Word her entire life’?”

“If you, like, wanna?”

“...are you sure?” I countered, unsure.

“Yeah, like, who’s going to stop you? The Gender Police? I’ll just kill ‘em for ya!”

“...sweetie, please do not say that in public. Actually, don’t even think that at all, omigawd!”

Rachel shrugged and spun her little pink fidget spinner, clearly intent on seeing how fast she could push it. She was wearing jeans and a pink sweater today, but she’d quickly abandoned the sweater due to how stuffy it was in the hospital, leaving her melons on display in a tight cami. It was oddly fitting, considering why we were here.

“So, then, like…I can just, like…be trans, right?”

“I know I have, like, ADHD and stuffs, but I, like, feel like we’ve hady-had-had this conversation before?” Rach asked, clearly growing tired of the topic.

“I—er, just want to make sure!”

“Sounds trans to me,” she whispered before turning to me and kissing me on my left cheeky-cheek-cheek.

Sighing, I replied, “Gawd, I hope so…”

With a light snicker, Rach replied: “Gawd, you are such a bimbo.”

Resigning myself to defeat, I sighed, “Sounds about right, I guess.”

“Jennifer? Jennifer Yoshihara?” a nurse called, appearing from behind the door that led from the lobby to the back rooms.

Heartbeat quickening, I stood up and waved that I was on my way. Rach stood, took my hand in hers and crossed our fingers. With a deep breath Rach moved the hair out of her eyes and leaned forward for a kiss, which I returned despite my nerves. Rach wore a watermelon flavored lip balm that day, which was a stark difference from her usual choice of strawberry.

Then it occurred to me why she had chosen watermelon on this of all days.

Breaking the kiss off, Rachel swiftly whispered in my ear: “I can’t wait to cum all over those new titties of yours, doll,” before gently pushing me towards the nurse.

Well, at least I wasn’t nervous anymore.

***

DECEMBER 24, 2024:

After the incident with Paul in the dressing room Victoria shut down Club Y for the remainder of the year to undergo some renovations—something about fire damage? While the club was being renovated Freddie underwent training to take over the basic managerial duties of running the club. Although not officially becoming an assistant manager, Elle shadowed Freddie during her training to ensure that they could be as much a helping hand to their girlfriend as possible.

A week after my surgery, I found myself still adjusting to the new weight on my chest. While I hadn’t ventured further than the penthouse lobby to greet guests—like the aforementioned Freddie and Elle—I found that I was recovering swiftly, all things considered.

I also found that I was blissfully feeling the new weight on my chest with—thankfully—little pain and a lot of euphoria.

I had tortured myself a great deal over whether or not to get the size that I wanted. Part of me worried that I was setting a bad example for other women, by placing an importance on size and shape. Another part of me worried that I was just fetishizing womanhood, or worse, fetishizing my own body, like all those transphobic quack doctors talked about.

But…every time I felt the weight of my chest move—through the post-surgery soreness—I felt such an immense weight off my chest. Anytime I looked in the mirror—and saw the way my breasts hung off of my chest or looked in a top—I couldn’t help but smile and get teary-eyed. The way that the curvature of a top felt around my chest and down my torso felt so comfortable, so at-home, that Rachel was becoming afraid that my face was going to be stuck in a permanent smile.

Even the simple, very unsexy matter of misjudging how to now move my arms without bumping into my very, very sore boobs, only to do so, brought me euphoria that I had never expected. Each passing day made it so much harder to remember those so, so, so empty days.

And so, I did my best to ignore any thoughts of self-doubt, so that I might enjoy my EE-cup breasts…and the look of jealousy that showed up on my wife’s face any time she looked at them for too long. ♥

***

December 25, 2024:

With my breasts still healing—to say nothing of still swollen from the surgery—I’d worked with Rachel each morning to don a new bra so that the breasts could settle. It was ironic how last Christmas I’d been having trouble with my swelling breasts and now this year I was having the same trouble with them for a very different reason. The world’s a small place, sometimes.

Probably because my big fuckin’ titties were taking up so much space now lol.

With the club closed—it would have been closed today, even if it wasn’t being given a ‘refresh’ in time for 2025—Rach and I found it a lot easier to schedule dinner dates with Freddie and Elle, to say nothing of having any sort of life outside of work. I couldn’t move very far from the penthouse right now, but I was still having the time of my life—soreness and swelling aside. The bed provided to us with the penthouse was positively heavenly to lay on, and while I continued to recover from my breast augmentation I had taken to enjoying its plush, cool environment a great deal.

A ring of the door bell snapped me from my breast efforts, only for Rach to call to me that she would get the door. Once again left to only me and my breasts, I carefully focused on closing the two cups together on the front clasps of the bra. This was not easy at all, thanks to the sensitivity of the bruised skin, but it would be worth it to keep them safe.

Rachel always dissociated when she had to help me with my bra. The discoloration of my breasts—temporary as they might be—left Rach upset. I remember her crying herself to sleep the night after the surgery. As the bruises began to show she panicked, requiring me to remind her that this was foreseen and not the result of some sort of mistake. I think that she was just upset to see me in so much discomfort and not be able to do anything about it, which only calmed my anxieties more.

I hated to think that Rachel was suffering because of something that I knew that I had to do for our future. Or perhaps more selfishly, for the sake of my own dysphoria.

While now wasn’t an ideal time to even contemplate what I wanted to do about that…thing down there, I still found myself wanting to help out my wife, especially considering how hard she’d been working to stay up on my needs while I recovered from my breast augmentation. Even just talking to her about options for—I can’t believe I was even going to the words—my bottom dysphoria seemed too daunting at this point.

Stretched for ideas, I inevitably resolved to just keep treating Rachel the same as I always did, so that she would see me in a better mood, which would hopefully ease her suffering.

Elle and Freddie poking their heads around and into the master bedroom brightened my mood considerably. Feigning strength, despite struggling greatly with clasping the bra on, I greeted my friends while focusing on my euphoria: “Why, hello you two. Come to see the breast set of breasts you’ve ever seen before?”

“That’s terrible, Jenni,” Freddie retorted, laughing nonetheless.

“Did you come up with that, or did one of your two new breast friends help you come up with it?” Elle added, seeing if she would break Freddie further.

“It was a collaborative effort,” I giggled. “They’re putting all three of our names under the ‘story by’ credit when the film comes out!” Bra finally secured, I grabbed one of Rachel’s graphic tees from HOT TOPIC and donned it so that Rachel wouldn’t have to see any discoloration by accident. The bruising and soreness typically kept me running pretty warm, but luckily the tee shirt was a loose fitting one. Slipping into an ankle-length skirt I led the others back to the living room as Rach dutifully—if haphazardly—changed the water in a vase full of ‘Get Well Soon flowers’ sent by Miss York.

“I see you two have been redecorating the place?” Elle mused, taking a closer look around the living room. “It certainly looks a lot more—”

“—PINK!” Rach shouted, turning to face Elle, “Pink is so cute, and we didn’t, like, really have the money to make our old place look cute, so I’m, like, gonna make it look REAL CUTE, y’know?”

Elle turned to Rachel and raised an eyebrow, “With the kind of money you two were making? I’m surprised that you were even living in such a dump in the first place.”

“Oh, we had a ton of debt to pay off, so we focused on that,” I interjected, technically lying about the transition stuff we were actually spending the majority of our money on. Rachel returned to fiddling with the flowers, trying not to drop them, while also pouring the old vase water into the sink.

“Oof, yeah, I know that feeling. I was only working there to pay for my ma’s medical bills,” Freddie groaned as she flattened out her dress. I’d noticed that she liked to wear dresses outside of work, “just to betray peoples’ expectations.” It was a nice fit that contrasted her short dark hair and typical butch energy at the club. “Fucking hell, that shit is expensive!”

“Tell me about it,” I sympathy groaned, thinking about all of the money that Rachel and I had spent on HRT and electrolysis. If I had been sent the bills for the surgeries I’m sure that I would have died before counting how many zeros were attached. Realizing that Rach was still struggling with the vase and water I walked over to her, took the flowers from her hand and those left in the vase with both of my hands, and made her life a lot easier. She promptly dumped the water and began refilling the vase with water from the sink.

“Speaking of expensive, that’s a nice jacket you’re wearing there, Rach,” Elle added with a pointing finger, “I didn’t take you for a leather jacket kind of girl, though.”

“Ooh, it's cosplay! I saw this Twitter sketch that Kubo Tite-sensei did after Unohana fights Zaraki in BLEACH and just had to give it a shot!”

Neither Elle nor I understood the reference, but Freddie immediately chimed in, “Oh, shit, I remember that sketch. No wonder you’re in a white tee shirt and jeans of all things!”

“It’s so hawt though, right? An-and, like, super cool! Her facial expression is so—”

“‘I’ll cut you’, right?”

“Right! Omigawd, Freddie, I’m so glad to finally have another weeb to talk to!”

“I know, right? Hey, I’m actually a mod for a cool anime Discord server, if you wanna join?”

Rachel’s excitement died down at the mention of Discord, “Oh, uh, sorry. I don’t have a Discord account.”

Truth be told, it wasn’t like Rach and I couldn’t have created new accounts by now, but we’d decided to try and remain anonymous as much as possible, leaving no digital footprints. I know how rough it was on Rachel to give up her cosplay work, but even if she created a new account and new persona, having our new faces on the internet was still too dangerous in case someone recognized her.

Then again…a thought did occur to me. Pulling out my phone, I opened up my Instagram dummy account and checked Rachel’s old username. Rachel’s face and figure definitely had changed drastically. Was I being too paranoid by discouraging her from creating a new account and becoming an influencer and cosplay model again? Especially if we were soon going to have new legal identities?

Seeing her smile and rave about her cosplay hyper fixations again really would be nice.

“Oh!” Rachel shouted, suddenly remembering something, “I don’t remember if I said this already, but, like: congratulations! On your promotion thingy, I mean!”

Freddie smirked and played with her purse nervously, “Oh, you thanked me the other day, but thanks again, Rach.”

“Oh, no problem~! It’s just, like, super cool and all. Ooh, does this mean I get paid more?” Rachel asked, raising her hand like she was back in school.

“Pfft, I’m pretty sure your base pay is already being raised by Miss York. My job is to make sure the workers don’t get harmed and the club doesn’t burn down. Which—apparently—Paul couldn’t fuckin’ handle doing either.”

On a hunch, I asked, “Has anyone seen Paul since then? Or heard anything?”

Freddie and Elle shoot their heads. Pulling their smart phone out of their jeans’ back pocket, Elle added, “I’ve even looked online. Nothing.”

It was more than a little ominous that our former boss was now MIA, but at the same time I remembered the screams Rachel and I had heard on the way out.

How powerful was the York family that they could make a man just up and disappear? Surely people like that would be able to make Rach and I disappear…but then why had Victoria shown so much care towards us? Why pay for surgeries for us? Why pay us under the table? Why give me a fancy new job and create new identities for us?

Something was foul…

“Hey, so are we going to this place or what? I’m starvin’ here!” Freddie whined in a labored northeast accent.

…and if I was going to protect Rachel, I was going to have to get to the bottom of it.

***

DECEMBER 25, 2024:

“SO! Like, the proper way to cook a tater tot is that it requires—Jenni, why are you smiling so much at me, omigawd? Anyway! Freddie! Elle! The proper way to cook a tater tot is to make sure that you maintain the crunchiness of the tot, while not making it too crispy or dry! Because, like, then, you can’t even—whatchamacallit—oh, right! You can’t even, like, enjoy the insides, by, like, sucking them out or whatevs, because th-then! Ummm…y’know, it tastes bad and stuffs, right Jenni?”

“Right,” I backed my wife up, unable to do anything but smile at her with what I assumed was the goofiest smile a woman had ever worn.

“So! Elle! Freddie! You have gots ta try these yummy tots! I mean, ‘tater tots’! They’re not made out of children, I swear, just cajun seasoning on potatoes! Potatoes that were, like, tater tot-erized!!!”

“I’ll consider ordering a side—Jesus Christ, a small side is $8?!” Freddie guffawed, nearly speechless.

“It’s okay hon, we can just split a large for $17.50,” Elle reassured as they doffed their camo beanie and double checked their hair in a compact mirror. They had told me once that their old high school boyfriend had been big into hunting, so they had been given quite a bit of camo gear during their days in high school.

“F-fourteen?!” Freddie nearly choked.

“Don’t worry about it,” I chimed in, “We’re paying for tonight.”

“Oh shoot, are you sure, girls?” Elle asked, straightening in their seat, “We can p—”

“Hon, trust me, we can definitely afford it now,” I laughed, shooting a glance to Rachel as she sat to my left, meticulously unpeeling the little wrap keeping her utensils together. I’d learned from a nasty Doritos experience in the first grade that if my wife didn’t manage to open something without tearing it she would get really bothered.

“RIC—eww, er…WEALTHY-WEALTHY!” Rachel shouted, drawing attention from those dining at other tables.

“Hon,” I said, gently laying a hand on hers.

Rachel grew red in the face with embarrassment and slapped a hand over her mouth and tried to calm her breathing.

“You’re fine, Rach,” I whispered, hoping she didn’t think I was criticizing her for being neurodivergent, “I just want to make sure you’re okay, over, y’know, almost saying that.”

Rach shook her head broadly, as if she were trying to calm herself down.

“Hey Rach, don’t worry about it. My little brother’s ND, too, and he does that sort of thing, too. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”

As reassuring as it was to see that Freddie didn’t realize that Rachel was trans and nearly said her deadname, I was afraid that Rachel was actually more embarrassed about shouting—and making a scene—in a higher scale restaurant.

“Rach, let go of your mouth so that you can exhale and breathe again,” I whispered, trying not to seem like I was making a big deal out of anything.

Rach finally pulled her hand away from her mouth and began trying to catch her breath, coughing along the way to a calmer state.

“Hey Jenni, join me in the restroom?” Freddie asked while Elle got up to rub Rachel on the back. “Rach, Elle, me and Jen are gonna hit the ladies room. Order for us if they come by to take our orders, yeah?”

Elle gave a thumbs up without looking, while Rachel shot a red, teary face up at me, straining to smile. I returned her smile, mouthed that I would be back soon, and then followed Freddie to the lavatory.

Once inside, Freddie turned on a faucet and began checking her reflection, “Is Rach on any meds?”

Taken aback by the question, I hesitated in my reply: “N-no?”

“I’m just worried, you know? Like, she seems to do pretty well, but she’s also really…uh…like, reminds me a lot of my brother.”

I swallowed a lump in my throat while checking my reflection, and then turned to Freddie, “I don’t really know if this is an appropriate discussion for us to be having behind Rachel’s back, Freds. I don’t want to betray her privacy, y’know?”

“No, no, I get it. I’ve beaten the shit out of plenty of people that have talked shit about Mikey before, I’m just…sorry, maybe I am out of line. I’m just—Rach is a lot like a kid sister to me, y’know? I know that I’m only four years older than you two, but with the way she acts sometimes…”

“Rach functions better than I do, most days,” I laughed, thinking back on all the times she had given me strength that I didn’t know that I was capable of having. “She’s very…Rachel, but she’s not a child. She’s got clarity I don’t think that I’ll ever have, to be honest.”

“You’re really in love with her, aren’t you?” Freddie smirked, touching up her lipstick. The red really popped well against her pale skin.

“She’s…well, let me put it to you this way,” I dug through my purse and pulled out my gift for my wife this year.

“Holy shit, is that…?”

“Yup,” I giggled, dabbing a tear before it dropped.

“Jenni, you are a hell of a woman, you know that?”

“...I’m beginning to think that I do,” I said with a smile to my reflection.

***

DECEMBER 25, 2024:

“HI CAJUN TOTS!!!” Rach cheered as the server laid her plate on the table in front of her. “O-EMM-GEE, I’ve been waiting months to try these again!”

“They’re not too bad,” Freddie said, grabbing a tot off of the platter she was sharing with Elle, “For fourteen fucking dollars, I mean.”

“Don’t grouch with your mouth open, dear,” Elle scolded playfully.

“GROUCH GROUCH GROUCH!” Freddie grouched, mouth full of partially chewed cajun tot.

“RICA, NO! YOU’RE GOING TO GET—OMIGAWD, YOU’RE GETTING IT ALL OVER ME!”

Rach and I bumped shoulders together to keep ourselves from falling over from laughing at the display before us. As I heard her laughter pour directly into my ear, I hoped that I would be the only one who ever heard it so intimately for the rest of our lives.

***

DECEMBER 25, 2024:

Our early dinner with Freddie and Elle wrapped after about an hour and a half so that they could go to Freddie’s mother’s house for yet another dinner thing with her mom and eight siblings. Elle’s family lived in the south and they hadn’t been back home since coming out to their parents as bisexual two years ago, when they were nineteen and visiting home after a year of working and living in Seattle. When Elle had spoken of their coming out it had been in hushed, wounded tones, which I’d quickly come to understand meant that their parents had rejected them.

Luckily, Freddie’s mother was happy to have a new child in the family. I had a growing suspicion that Freddie would propose within the next twelve months with how good things were going.

Oh jeez, I wonder if I would be a bride’s maid? Would I look good in a bride’s maid dress? Shoot, I wanted to try a wedding dress first, though. Ugh, talk about ‘greater than, underscore, less than face’.

The time was nearing 4:30PM as Rach and I made our way to the Space Needle to finally see what it looked like from the top. When we were on the streets I had promised Rach that one day we would be able to ride to the top and see the City of Seattle from above, and with a little luck that day had finally come.

The ride to the top was mostly uneventful, but once we got to the much publicized rotating restaurant with a glass floor Rachel began to feel woozy, and then finally, vomited cajun tots on the nice clean glass floor. It was hard not to smile at Rachel being so…Rachel.

“Omigawd Jenni, I’m so, so, so sorry, but I h-hate this, let’s go back down, holy fuckballs!”

Wanting to not see my wife have a panic attack atop the fucking Space Needle, I quickly helped her back to the elevator and down.

I had so, so wanted this to be a relaxing and romantic evening, but things were seldom relaxing with Rachel. And yet, as I watched my wife nearly vomit inside of the elevator, I found myself thinking that there could be no memory more romantic than this.

Stumbling outside for some fresh air, Rach began weeping into her hands, “I’m so, so, so sorry for ruining the Space Needle, Jenni!”

“Honey, you’re fine. You didn’t ruin anything,” I reassured her, rubbing her back as she lurched over, ready to lurch again.

“B-but all this time!”

“Was well damned worth it, Rach,” I replied, my body warm as I reached my right hand into my purse.

“Omigawd Jenni, I puked on the GLASS FLOOR!” Rach bemoaned, lifting herself up to turn to me.

My hand was already extended outward, the little box open and facing my wife, “And I’d like to hold your hair while you vomit for the rest of our lives, Rachel.”

Rachel broke into a much louder sob upon realizing what was inside the box, and it was music to my ears.

***

December 26, 2024:

I had been such a stupid fool, thinking that I needed to hide so much of myself from those around me. As Rach and I made out under our morning shower’s proper, warm water, I felt the year-plus worries and self-torment wash away, right down the drain. I had Rach, I had a body that I could finally feel any sort of emotion about, and I had a life—a personality that I felt like I was living, not just following along for the ride.

I had asked Rachel to marry me again, even though we were legally married. I had asked her to marry me not just because we had the proverbial gun to our heads, like we did last year, but because when we left the house, had friends over, or even just went to work, I wanted the world to know that Rachel and I were married.

The universe be damned.

After our shower, Rach and I dried off. We had nothing planned for the rest of the day, but after the excitement of yesterday, I couldn’t hold back. I wanted to spend the entire day with my wife, doing what wives do when they are alone and horny.

A ring of the doorbell, unfortunately, cut those plans short.

“Oh, hiya, Jenni!” Jerry smiled, greeting me. “Missus York asked me to hand-deliver this for you two!”

Jerry handed me a very thick manila envelope, prompting me to take a peek inside. It was our official paperwork, proving that I was Jennifer Yoshihara and Rach was Rachel Queen, as well as a thick stack of cash. I mouthed “holy shit” and then looked up to Jerry, “Uh…”

“Missus York would have been here to deliver it herself, but she was needed for some sort of thing with Mister York today! Ooh, but she said that I’m all yours today, so if you need to go to a bank to do anything, just let me know! Or really, go anywhere!”

I was stunned, having answered the door in a hastily cobbled together array of clothes. “Uh…lemme just…go and…get put together for the day?”

“Sure! No problem! I’ll be down in the lobby, just call or text if you need anything!” The bear of a man turned and bid me farewell as he re-entered the elevator.

I wasn’t sure what the hell was going on, but I knew that when I started my new job, I was going to have to be extremely cautious not to blow it.

With Jerry gone I sped walked to our bedroom to find Rach trying to pick out what she wanted to wear for the day. Noticing me in the mirror as she modeled a soft-Goth style similar to the one she had worn on that first day out at school, Rach turned to ask me what was wrong with me in a suitably detached character voice.

I took a second to consider how I was going to phrase it, “Jerry’s downstairs waiting for us. Our new documents are here,” I waved the manila envelope, “Looks like we’re officially real people…again.”

Rach shuffled over and took her new State ID from the manila envelope and inspected it, “Woah, these are, like, so real? It’s not just me?”

“No, no, you’re right. That’s the scary part. There’s even birth certificates and other documents in here,” I revealed, unsheathing my ‘new’ birth certificate.

“Freaky-freak-freak,” Rach mused, casually sticking her new ID into her mouth like a doggie chew toy so as to check out her other documents. Spitting her ID onto the bed, the blonde in all of her twin-tails glory asked, “Why’s Jerbear waiting for us?”

“So we can register new bank accounts, I guess.”

“Oh thank Jeebus’ bussy, I miss paying by debit or with, like, a phone app,” Rach laughed, her voice oddly sardonic.

“What’s with the voice?” I asked.

“What, you don’t remember how I was the first time I became me?” The woman asked, raised her eyebrow. She booped me on the nose with her right index finger.

Rubbing my post-boop nose gently, almost timidly, I replied, “I mean, yeah, but you were playing a character then, right? Like, the kind of girl you thought I wanted to date?”

“Well, more like the girl I wanted to date you as, I guess. That being said, missy,” Rach took a deep breath, then placed her right hand on one of my breasts.

I twinged from the remaining soreness, saw the concern in Rachel’s eyes, asking me if she should continue, and replied, “Go on…”

“That being said, missy,” Rachel gently caressed my right breast, “Do you, like, wanna know what a girl like this does to a girl like you?”

Her devilish smile felt like an ax chopping at my knees. I buckled in my place, and nearly whimpered, “I—”

Rachel’s lips connected with mine before I could even form a cohesive thought. As my eyes closed, I felt her right hand cup my left cheek, and I could only lean in further, melting into her embrace.

Parting but momentarily, Rachel’s voice dripped as sweetly as the devil’s wine, “That’s a good girl,” she whispered, “Now, how about you be a good girl and take that shirt off?”

My crotch twitched at that, but luckily I didn’t have to feel my penis move. Whatever feeling I felt down there was entirely removed from my appendage. Breath ragged, I used what little strength I had left and lifted whatever stupid shirt I was wearing over my shoulders and tossed it aside. At that moment I realized that some discoloration was probably still visible on my breasts, but I didn’t care. Rachel didn’t look like she even noticed.

“Much, much better, don’t you agree, Jenni?”

“Y-yes, Rach,” I stammered, increasingly aware of just how much closer she was inching toward me.

“Mmm,” Rach mused, cocking her head to the right. Her smirk frightened me in ways I never knew that I would experience fear, “That doesn’t quite sound right, does it?”

I couldn’t formulate a response. Hell, I wasn’t even sure that I had heard her correctly. All I could do was stare into those piercing, fiery green eyes looking down at me.

Here and now, that single inch of difference in our heights might as well have been a mile. Were my knees really so weak that I was crouching before Rachel?

“Try again, Jenni,” said, as if she were giving me an order.

Oh.

Oh, fuck.

I thought that I was going to have a heart attack. It felt like my vagina was dripping down my right thigh. I had a vagina, right? Fuck, fuck, fuck—

“Try again, slut,” Rach said, a little harder, a little angrier.

“Oh fuck me,” I yelped, falling to my knees, “Mistress, yes, Mistress!”

I honestly didn’t know what the hell I was doing, but whatever I was doing, it sure as fuck felt good. It was so easy to forget that Mistress was a top—The Top. I was no stranger to femdom—wow, talk about missing signs, Jenni—but to finally experience it at the hands of the woman I had always loved was a feeling I had no idea how to put into words.

I don’t think I had been seeing Mistress entirely until now. I had been so wrapped up in my own bullshit, so resistant to exploring my sexuality, that I don’t think that I had seen what was right there, waiting for me to be okay with myself.

And now, I was more ready than I had ever been in my life, and would only ever get more ready from here on out.

Mistress’ erect cock flung into my field of vision like a beast stalking me from the shadows and then finally mounting me. As Mistress steadily rested the thick stick of meat on my face—right of my nose—she stared at me with those terrible, violently fiery green eyes again.

I knew what to do.

I knew what I wanted to do…

…and that was exactly what Mistress wanted me to do.

So, I did it.

Sliding my head back—allowing her cock and precum to dribble down my face until it caught on my bottom lip. With the heavy, hot cock resting on my bottom lip I opened my mouth as far as I could and slid it forward, sheathing my wife’s sword.

“That’s my good little sheath,” Mistress mocked.

That only made my groin twitch more.

More and more and more and more, the place where my vagina should have been—where my womb should have been—twitched and ached and screamed at me for one thing and one thing only.

But if I let those words form in my mind now it would ruin the moment.

And so, with all of my strength, I began bobbing my head back and forth, stifling the ache in my heart.

Harder

Faster.

Harder!

Faster!

I wanted—needed her to pour it all down my throat.

And when she finally did—when I’d finally made my wife cum—I came exactly as she did.

The hot cream coating my throat, pouring with such pressure I feared that I would choke, was salty and sour. I could only describe it as both disgusting, and wonderfully hot.

“Don’t worry, slut,” Mistress mugged, “You’ll get used to it soon enough.”

I intended to.

***

DECEMBER 26, 2024:

“Are you, like, sure that you’re fine wearing that, Jenni?” Rach asked, miraculously keeping up with me in her pink high heels. She’d switched back to her usual pink self to leave the penthouse. Her concern for my well-being was obvious from the tone of her voice, but I was not able to process it entirely.

“What? Uh, yeah, no, like, I’m fine, hon,” adrenaline ran through my body as I held the collar of my jacket up as much as I could. I couldn’t believe what I was doing, but gawd, did it feel great.

“Like, you’re not goin’ to, like, have another episode, right?” Rachel whispered, trying not to elicit attention from the grand total of zero people on the block we were walking down.

“No, no, I’m good—I’m fine. Happy, even!” Admittedly, I was lying to Rachel with that one. Sort of. As much anxiety as was riding up-and-down my spine and washing over my shoulders, I also felt a suspicious amount of relaxation. The conflicting emotions were exhausting to process as I opened the double doors of our bank of choice, and pulled on the leather collar around my neck and covered by my jacket.

It felt so fucking relieving.

And hot.

Gawd, I wanted to hurry this shit up and go home to get fucked as quickly as possible.

***

DECEMBER 26, 2024:

“So, like, are you going to tug on that all day?” Rachel asked, smirking at me as she stirred her hot chocolate.

It was hard not to. It just…felt so good. “Maybe? Is that a problem?”

“Well, it is if you don’t want people to notice it, Jenni-Jen-Jen,” Rachel giggled. Christ, her dress had a low cut.

“How are you not freezing in that dress? It’s, like 40°F right now!”

“Leggings,” Rach shot back.

“Well, yeah, sure, but, like, omigawd girl! You need to wear more than that!” I countered, flabbergasted.

“I mean, like, sure, maybe, but also, it’s not that cold in this café. Besides, this way I can show off my girls! Like, show and tell”

“I think you mean ‘look, don’t touch’, dear,” I corrected.

“Oh, like, yeah, I guess? I really like it when guys look, though!”

“...y’know Rach, I’m kinda sorry.”

“What for?”

“Well, you never actually got to, like, date a guy.”

“Oooh, so, like, I guess you’re right? Well, whatever.”

“Are you sure that you don’t, like, want to try—”

“Naw, I’m good. I knew that I was bisexual for sure when we started dating, ‘cause, like, I started thinking about how all of the hot anime boys I would cosplay as were just men I wanted to fuck, not be,” Rach burst into a string of giggles at her own bluntness.”And stuffs! Ooh, and Ichimonji from Shin Kamen Rider was so hot in, like, retroscope!”

“Retrospect,” I corrected.

“Chirp!”

“So, like, umm…uh…” Girls typically talked about this sort of thing, right? I wasn’t weird for being curious, right? “What kind of real guys do you like?”

Rachel bounced in her seat, sending her long twin-tail drills hopping, “Hot ones!”

“That…doesn’t really say anything!”

“Ooh, so, like, I like twinks like you do, but also, like, omigawd, I saw this jacked guy in our building’s gym the other day. Fuck me, I nearly went to the bathroom and—”

“—Point taken, Rachel,” I quickly interjected.

“Chirp! Like, so, uh…do you like guys besides twinks? I guess I was kinda, like, a girltwink when we started dating?”

“Uh, so, like, I dunno? Bears are pretty hawt, too. And guys with big muscles, too, but also, like, omigawd, when they’re, like, so polite and kind and cute and funny and omigawd, Rachel!”

“Damn girl, you’re boybrained!” Rach giggled, drumming her index fingers on the edge of the table aimlessly “Wanna see if we can get the jacked guy to go for a threesome?”

“Sweetie,” I paused to consider what my wife was asking, “I…am happy just being with you.”

“Yeah, I kinda figured,” a giggle accompanied my wife’s reply, “I’d rather nobody else fuck you, either.”

Sometimes, I just couldn’t believe how good this woman was at making me feel so darned light.

While Rachel returned to stirring her hot chocolate I took a moment to look out of the café’s front window, watching the world pass us by. So many people, all with their own lives and families and stories to tell.

I wondered how my father was doing. It couldn’t be easy, living through a second holiday season without mom.

Without me.

Gawd, what would he even say if I showed up looking like this? A collar around my neck to mark me as my wife’s pet, jeans from the women's section, a tight-fitting THUNDERPUSSY graphic tee, and the strap of my purse placed firmly between the cleavage of my EE-cup breasts.

He’d probably die of a heart attack, assuming the stress of the past year hadn’t done it already.

Still…part of me wondered…

***

DECEMBER 27, 2024:

“So, like, are you sure that you wanna, like, do this?” Rachel asked, grabbing hold of my hand as we walked down a familiar old street. I loved being able to feel the ring I had bought her around her finger.

“Yeah, I am—wow, are you wearing tennis shoes?” I asked, suddenly distracted.

“Oh, like, yeah, y’know, in case we gotsta, like make a runny-run-run for it?” Rach replied, nodding studiously.

“Wow, that’s, like, a cute shade of pink, though?!” I mused, doing a terrible job of moving my eyes from my wife’s shoes. They really did pop well against her black leggings.

“I know, right?” Rach replied, lifting her right foot to better model it, “It’s also totes comfy, unlike a lot of other cutie-cute-cute shoes!”

“Omigawd, that’s awesome!” I gushed, not so fond memories of the struggles of learning to walk in heels washing over my mind. “I think I’m gonna need to buy a pair at this point!” Plain white was so boring.

“Ooh, yeah! You should!” Rachel said, lighting up, “I think there’s a version in red?”

“Hey now, pink’s not too bad, y’know!” I preened, hoping to get a rise out of my wife.

“Omigawd Jenni,” Rach replied with a sharp twist of her body to face me, “Matchy-match-match?”

“Matchy-match-match,” I assured, realizing that my sarcasm had gone undetected.

Rach added an excited hop to her stride, which pulled me along for the ride. The heightened motion irritated my still-recovering breasts, so I used my hand to hold them down in place. Rach eventually noticed what I was doing and stopped bouncing and then leaned slightly against me to whisper, “My bad.”

“You fine, dear,” I whispered back, squeezing her hand a little to let her know I was fine.

“Sometimes I just—oh!”

“What?”

“We’re here!!”

And that we were.

Before us stood the house I had grown up in. The house that Rach had spent many a sleepover in. The house where I had first daydreamed about kissing Rachel, even when I thought we were both cishet guys.

Life could be funny sometimes.

Much to my surprise, the front yard looked as if it had been maintained. From what little research I was able to do online, Dad had never sold the place, and unless he was renting the place out I wasn’t sure he would be taking such good care of the yard. He was usually too busy at the store to ever take care of the thing himself.

Nevertheless, hand-in-hand with my wife, I walked up the driveway and over to the front door, took a deep breath, and then knocked.

A woman—about early-thirties—answered the door. With her short hair dyed an impressively bright green I realized that I recognized the six-foot tall woman: she was an assistant manager at one of my father’s stores. “Uh…excuse me, can I help you?”

Now that I was actually there, in-person, I didn’t know what to say. My mind was blank and any leftover words in my throat were caught up there.

“Oh! Like, hiya!” Rachel said, stepping in for me, “So, like, uh, we’re looking for Mr. David Jeong! We’re, like, uh, people he knows?!”

The woman, Alice—if I remembered correctly—looked a little skeptical, but turned her head back into the house and shouted, “Hey David, you’ve got visitors!”

My anxiety ballooned as I waited for my dad to appear at the front door. I didn’t know what to even say. Hell, even if I did, what if he turned me over to the authorities? What if he blamed me for—but, like, I didn’t—I just—wanted him to know that I was—”

I quickly turned to run, but tripped on the welcome mat and fell forward towards the cement. Two hands from two different people grabbed me with blinding speed before I fell and pulled me back up onto my feet.

I nearly fell on my brand new, expensive, and still sore tits. Yikes.

Turning around, I saw who had helped Rach catch me: it was my dad, who looked thinner than I’d ever see him before, and aged considerably.

“Are you okay, miss?” he asked, looking like he’d just narrowly avoided seeing a young woman slam face-first into his cement walkway.

“Oh?” I replied, still trying to reboot, “Oh, yeah, no, like, I’m fine. Sorry! Just clumsy!” I fixed my hair, then stood up straight to look my dad in the eyes. He was crying.

“M-Mariko?” he asked, as if he were seeing a ghost. “B-but how? You’re alive? And s-so young?”

I froze in place: did I really look that much like my mother? Struggling to form words, I managed just barely to shoot a glance at Rachel, who snapped into action.

“Oh, uh, so, like, Mr. Jeong, we should have this conversation inside!” Rachel took my hand and inched us forward, which led my father and Alice to automatically move backward and invite us into the house.

The living room hadn’t changed much at all since I’d last been back home. A few new pictures of my dad with Alice adorned the wall, though. What looked like freshly opened Command Strips sat atop the coffee table.

Well, that suddenly made a lot more sense.

“Mariko, how are you—” my father’s words caught in his mouth as tears welled up in his eyes. This was getting awkward, fast.

“I—” this was about to be the most insane thing I’d ever said, “I’m not Mom, Dad,” I corrected, automatically dropping onto the couch next to Rachel.

My father and Alice just stared at me, puzzled beyond all hope.

“D-Dad, it’s me. It’s—” the name caught in my throat. I really didn’t want to say it. I really, really did not want to say it. “Listen, like, okay, look—I transitioned. I’m a woman, Dad!”

My father stumbled back into Alice before regaining his footing. Exasperated, he finally asked: “The cops said you—but, why would you come back here if—and as a woman?!”

I had to do this. I had to do this to move the fuck on with my life. Summoning what strength I could, I answered: “The cops are wrong, Dad. Rachel and I didn’t kill our moms! We barely escaped the Penns’ house that night!”

“Rachel?” Alice asked, her eyes shooting to the woman beside me.

Rach waved a hand furiously, appearing as chipper as can be, “Like, hi! That’s me! I’m Jenni’s wife, Rachel!”

“Jenni? Wife? Wait—” my father rubbed his eyes, his mind soaring, “You’re the Penn boy that Jae used to always—oh my lord…”

I nearly screamed at hearing my deadname again, “Dad, please don’t misgender us or use our deadnames. She’s Rachel, and I’m Jenni—or Jen or Jennifer, if you want! I know it’s a lot to process right now, but I just—I just wanted to see you again! I wanted you to know that I—that we didn’t do any of the horrible shit we’re accused of!”

“Jesus Christ, J-Jen, you look so—you look just like your mother!” Dad’s breath grew short, but Alice led him to a sofa chair to sit.

I had nearly gotten out of my seat on the couch to help, but ultimately stayed, legs weak.

“D-do I really look that much like Mom?” I asked, unsure.

“I mean, sometimes it’s a little weird for me when we’re fu—”

“Rachel Yoshihara!” I scolded.

“Sorry, sorry! Don’t worry Mr. Jeong, I’m totes not fucking your daughter! Oh, fuck!!”

I wanted to die then and there, but I settled for burying my face in my hands.

“You two look so…different,” Alice interjected, hoping to break the ice, “HRT really is a miracle drug, isn’t it?”

That comment made me raise my eyebrow, “How do you know that?”

Alice took a deep breath, “Well, I’ve been on it for over fifteen years, Jen, so I ought to know a thing or two about it.”

Rachel and I snapped to attention, “Wait, what?!”

“Hey, why are you hanging around Mr. Jeong so much, anyway?”

“They’re dating, Rach.”

“What?!” Rachel spat, looking back and forth between everyone in the room. “Holy shit, what?!”

“Alice has…been an incredible help over the past year, girls,” my father finally spoke, “A-after what happened…and then the stores were falling apart…Alice stuck by me as the best friend a guy could have. I don’t know what I would have done if—”

“Well, considering how big of a pigsty this place became before I started coming around to bother you, I’d say I saved your ass,” she laughed.

And then something I could not recall seeing before happened: my father smiled genuinely. At the sound of his girlfriend’s laugh he could only brighten up.

“Holy shit, you can smile!” Rachel interjected, completely misreading the room.

Well, that’s why I loved her, to be honest.

My father recomposed himself and then turned to face me, “Jen, I’m—oh god, this makes so much sense in hindsight. Why you hated when you got a haircut—”

I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks, “It’s a long story, Dad,” I said with a weak smile, “I’m just glad that you haven’t called the cops on us.”

“PIGS SUCK!” Rachel chimed in.

“O-of course!” the retired pitcher said, leaning forward, “I—I know that I was a terrible father and husband, Jennifer, but I’d—I’ve learned so much in the past year! And just seeing the two of you now, before me I just—how do you two even look so good? So healthy? So—Jesus Christ, Jennifer! Are those implants?!”

This was going to be a fun conversation.

***

December 27, 2024:

My childhood bedroom looked—well, not as I had left it. It was in a neater order, and the more steps I took into it the more I realized that my father must have had to put it back together after a police search.

Omigawd, did they find my sex toys?

Did Dad find my sex toys?

Trailing just a few steps behind me, my dad eventually broke off and sat down on my bed. From the corner of my eye I could see him reaching for a weathered baseball that I did not remember leaving there, but rather in the depths of my closet. The baseball in question was one we had had for years, yet had not used for nearly half as long. The old man had quit trying to get me to play after I had awkwardly declined to try out for my school team in high school. I hadn’t wanted to be stuck around a bunch of boys I didn’t fit in with, anyway.

As I stood near my desk, silently watching the old man fumble the ball around in his hands it had occurred to me that I harbored a terrible amount of guilt about my refusal to be the ace baseball pitcher son he wanted. At the end of the day, I’m not sure if it was also the baseball part or just the ‘son’ part I could not fulfill.

Even now, out on my own and married, I was still as directionless as I was all those years ago.

“I guess there’s a lot more that is starting to make sense now, huh?” my father said, his eyes never leaving the ball in his hands. At some point he had stopped shuffling the ball around in them, and now grasped it tightly. “I’m so sorry, Jennifer.”

With a familiar muscle memory I withdrew the computer chair from beneath my desk and sat in it, legs together and hands folded on my lap. It was hard to keep my voice steady, and I feared that if I didn’t then the dream would all end in that moment: my father would go back to misgendering and deadnaming me, and this brief chance at a little more happiness would slip through my fingers. Still, I couldn’t stop myself from replying:

“Women play baseball, too, Dad,” I said, in just a half step above a whisper.

The old man chuckled lightly to himself, eyes still not betraying the off-white colored ball in his hands. I could see his thumbs tracing over the loosening stitches, as if they were remembering some long-ingrained memory. It was at that moment that a stray memory of when I was a toddler returned to me: my father stoically standing atop the mound, completely unaware that he was about to throw the last pitch of his minor league career.

I remembered the sweltering of the Washington summer air, even under the shade of the stadium overhang above us. I recalled the sound of the deep, thick Boston accent calling out “hotdogs here, beer here!” Fuck, I could even recall the tight grasp of my mother’s soft hands as she held me on her lap so I could see my father on the field below.

And I did see: I saw the moment the pain traveled up my father’s arm, into his shoulder, and then slapped him in the face with it’s cruel unjust. I saw the moment the confident man I first met the day I was born was broken irreparably.

A lifelong dream shattered before my eyes, with no fanfare, just the low hum of an uneven crowd turning into a sudden, hopeless gasp.

I hadn’t thought of that day in years, and yet…I could remember it so clearly now as the mournful face the old man wore remembered fonder times.

Suddenly, the resentment I felt for his half-hearted, awkward attempts at sharing baseball with me seemed small and petty.

Or perhaps I only felt that way now that I had started transitioning? By understanding what I needed for my body and my womanhood allow me to understand this pitiful man’s manhood better? Did having some better semblance of who I was now make me a more forgiving daughter than I had even been a forgiving son?

It made me nauseous to think of myself as ever having been that word. In so little time the word had become foreign to me. A ‘son’ was not something I was—if anything, it was something I would—

“—yes, I suppose you’re right, Jennifer,” my father replied, “Alice is part of an amateur softball team, after all...I guess it’s just an individual thing?”

It was surreal to hear the name of a woman other than my mother spoken so softly and warmly by my father. He had long since stopped giving such warmth to my mother, and it only underscored to me how much I wish they had simply gotten a divorce years ago. If this was how happy my dad was now, I could only imagine how happy my mother would now be—

—if she were still alive.

A period of silence filled the room, because I finally got the nerve to stand up and sit next to my father on my old bed.

My father’s eyes finally left the baseball in his hands and shot mine a quick look. The broken man looked less weak and more weathered than I had remembered him, but I felt it was a far more agreeable character for my father to play than the quiet man afraid of his own shadow that I had seen him play nearly my entire life.

Betraying my own sense of comfort, I laid my head on my father’s right shoulder to rest it, “I’m sorry that I hated playing with you so much…it just reminded me too much of…my body.”

A single chuckle escaped my father’s mouth as he wrapped his right arm around me and drew me in, “Honestly, it reminded me of my broken down arm, anyway.”

I had to giggle at the shared trauma.

The weathered ball slipped out of my dad’s left hand and dropped onto the floor. Picking the baseball up myself, and remembering the feel of a baseball in my hands, I realized that the feel of a ball in my now softened hands was very much still instantly recognizable. While the touch of the leather and stitching around my palm had been easy to recognize, the feeling of nostalgia and desire was fresh and new. Turning to my father, I asked a question that I’m sure he would have never expected me to ask, “You still got that old mitt lying around here somewhere?”

***

December 27, 2024:

Like the front yard, the backyard now looked suspiciously well-kept. Long abandoned shed projects had been finished, potholes filled, and grass made kept properly trimmed, save for the allowance of leeway on account of it being the middle of winter. The yards had always been the domain of one David Jeong, while my mother had taken to claiming the interior of the house for herself, but in the past few years before my untimely run on the lamb, the yards had fallen into disrepair. Now, they returned to a shining new glory, now kept dry only by the weak rays of the sun through the traditional gray skies of Washington.

A small garden now sat in the northwestern corner of the yard, filled with campanulas: mom’s favorite.

Slipping back into an old pair of sneakers had been surreal, but at the same time it transported me back to a period in my life where I had worn nothing but so-called mens’ clothing. The texture and feel of the sneakers felt almost foreign to me, and served only to highlight just how much HRT had helped shrink my feet. Even an inch’s breadth was enough to feel like a mile.

Using the ball in my right hand, I pounded the inside of my mitt so as to remind my body of all the little things it had been taught when pitching. At the other end of the yard my father seemed to be trying to find his footing, as if he hadn’t taken a catcher’s form in eons.

I could tell by the slowly-building aches in all the muscles of my body that I wasn’t used to using anymore that I was going to be sore tomorrow morning—and I hadn’t even thrown a single pitch yet. Finally, my body settled and I slid my right leg back, the feel of the grip of the ball in my right hand beckoning me to throw with reckless abandon.

The motion of throwing a baseball felt like a distant echo to my body. As my form came undone mid-throw I realized that the weight and size of my breasts were something I had not had to contend with five years ago. My father caught my pitch as it took a nosedive short of reaching him, and then rebounded back to his spot.

“Rusty, I see,” the retired pro chuckled, a hint of an unfamiliar edge to his voice, “Well, I’m nobody to talk,” my father laughed as he lightly tossed the ball back to me.

Luckily, my catching skills weren’t as rusty. The smack of the ball hitting just right in my mitt left me with a pleasant satisfaction. I could even smell the leather of my mitt, only briefly used after being purchased five years ago. It was practically still brand new.

I kind of wanted to break it in some more.

Withdrawing the ball from my mitt, I put my body through the motions yet again, hoping to knock the cobwebs off more. There was a strange satisfaction to just letting a pitch rip, even if my body was screaming at me not to.

The distant echoes of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake flickered in my mind as my body woke up from its slumber. Years of throwing a ball at a net while listening to the piece had been burned into my body. It was the only way I could get my mind off of the irritating gnawing of my gender dysphoria.

After three more pitches my throws were beginning to stabilize, and required my father to make no extra steps forward to catch them. On my fifth pitch, I felt an itch that seemed both familiar and foreign. Gripping the ball tightly—and with all the joints in my hand and fingers sufficiently stretched and loosened up—I took a deep breath, focused on my dad’s open mitt, and threw the fastest, nastiest fast ball that I could.

My pitch flew at my father faster than either of us expected, and nearly caught him off guard. Dad quickly side stepped to make up for lost time being stunned by the speed of my pitch, and just barely saved the wood fence from a nasty beating.

“H-holy shit, Jen? Still got that fast ball, I see!” Dad chuckled, doffing his glove to rub his palm and wrist.

“Wow, son, with a fast ball like that you could go pro! You should join your high school’s team!”

The memory was a rude one, bubbling up at the worst possible time. I didn’t want to play baseball, and I didn’t want to be a man. Being a ‘man’ had always meant following in Dad’s footsteps, I did not—could not—do that.

“S-sorry,” I replied in a small voice while doffing my glove, “Is your wrist okay, Dad?”

Dad just laughed before adding, “Definitely! Actually, can I throw one more? I just gotta see if I can beat that last one!”

I hadn’t seen Dad that happy in…how long had it been since he’d retired? Fifteen years? Was he planning on trying to throw a fastball like he used to? But he’d spent years just trying to get back everyday use of his throwing arm again, it was dangerous to—

“—Jen?”

“O-oh,” I replied, snapping back to reality, “Y-yeah, I guess? Are you sure? Your arm is…I mean, the doctors all said—”

“—I think I got one left in me, Jen,” Dad laughed, bobbing slightly in his place. It was just like he was back on the pitcher’s mound again. He had the eyes of a king of lions waiting to pounce on its prey.

I couldn’t say no to him. Not now. Even if it destroyed his arm.

I wasn’t facing down my father anymore, I was facing down David Jeong, the minor league pitcher.

The sound of Tchaikovsky was suddenly and without warning beaten out of my ears by the stomping of Queen’s We Will Rock You. Memories of the piece used as a transitional cue at games flooded back to me. Even after Dad had retired he would drag me along to games. It was like a ghost haunted him, and the only way to quiet it was to go to games. I could remember the pounding of the piece upsetting Rachel, anytime I had managed to get her to come along with us so I wouldn’t be bored out of my mind.

If the game was my father’s ghost, then the stomping of hundreds of pairs of feet was mine. Whether it was at a game, or overhearing my father’s earphones loudly blaring the song, or now in the recesses of my mind, I heard the song, and was drowned out by it.

Crouching down, I re-donned my mitt and held it up, bracing for impact. My father—returning to the other side of the backyard—breathed out calmly. It was impressive watching his figure relax and the expression on his face grow even bolder. Before I knew it, my father’s right arm snapped forward—I hadn’t even seen him pull back—and when I finally caught what felt like a fucking cannonball I fell backward on my ass from the speed and power behind the pitch.

“You okay?” My dad asked, lightly jogging over to me and helping me up with a hand, “Sorry, those can take some getting used to, Jen.”

“H-how’s your arm?” I asked as I regained my footing.

“I’m definitely not going to be able to do that again for a month,” Dad laughed, doffing his old cap and then donning it again to air-out his sweat-soaked hair.

It was surreal seeing him so happy again. It was a good thing that I didn’t necessarily need to use my left wrist for anything, though, because I could tell that it was going to be sore for a day or two after taking a 100MPH fastball.

“Hey, Jenni-Jen-Jen?!” Called out Rachel, the perfect image of a disembodied head sticking out of the back screen door, “Dinner-din-din is ready!”

“So, that’s what Rachel’s been doing with Alice,” I giggled softly, “I hope she didn’t burn or cut her fingers again.”

“I’m sure Alice kept a good eye on her—she almost never lets anyone join her in the kitchen because she has a very specific way of doing things,” Dad chuckled, stretching his arm as we made our way back to the back porch door.

“Really? Like what?”

“Oh, dearest daughter!” the middle-aged man laughed, “Half the reason I started eating again was because Alice’s family owned a restaurant in New Orleans. Cooking is in her blood!”

It was weird to think of my dad actually being excited about anything other than baseball or the stores, but I supposed that our family had changed a lot in the last fifteen months.

***

December 27, 2024:

It was hard not to ruminate on the surrealness of the Jeong family dining room being used for the first time since I was a young girl. As my parents learned to hide from their failing marriage in their careers, I had learned to hide from them—and myself—in my time with Rachel. Countless hours spent in my room, forgetting about my own problems, because it was easier to get lost in hers, or to get lost in her laugh. The way she took charge of her life allowed me to tag along, like that one cousin of the Pevensie, if they had been a girl.

Rachel, situated to my right, turned her food around on her plate aimlessly, trying not to draw too much attention to the fact that she was not jiving with the foot before her. Rachel was deeply embarrassed about how she did not—could not—eat certain foods, and I’d learned long ago how to take the heat off of her.

It really hadn’t helped that since transitioning I had stopped eating nearly as much as I used to to keep a smaller, feminine look. In the back of my mind I wondered if I had developed an eating disorder, but anytime I looked in the mirror and saw less of how I once looked, it only encouraged me to eat less.

“So! Jennifer,” Dad spoke up between swallows, “What are you two doing for work?”

The subtext of the question was obvious, but I wasn’t sure how quite to answer without bringing up the concept of survival sex work to my father, and then having to explain to him that no, I had not sucked any dicks for money—but my wife apparently had. Clearing my throat, I was cut-off by Rachel before I could speak:

“Oh! We, like, do under-the-table waiting at a nice little diner that’s trans-friendly! It’s, like, probably best we don’t say where, right Jenni?”

Startled by the precision in my wife’s voice and eyes I nodded in agreement, “Yeah, we’re getting by, Dad, you don’t have to worry.”

To nobody’s surprise—and all of our disappointment—my father looked unconvinced, “Jennifer, you two have clearly had…work…done.”

Staring my father in the eyes I could tell just how hard he was trying not to talk about my implants. Taking a deep breath and putting on the best smile I could, I retorted, “I can assure you, Dad, that we’re not—we’re in a good place now, Dad. Better than we have been all year, really. It’s why we felt safe coming back down here to try and…let you know we were okay.”

While the sternness remained on my father’s face I could tell his desire to ask for specifics waned at my answer, choosing instead to respect my answer. Relaxing his posture with a deep breath, my father switched gears, “I’m happy to see you’re so much more…happy now. It was so hard to get you to talk before.”

Probably because I loathed the sound of my own voice, and talking to you, “I guess so? I don’t really have to be anyone but myself now that it’s just me and Rachel.”

With a giggle Rach added, “Oh, Jenni get’s super-duper-mega happy now, especially after I—ouchies!”

A quick kick to Rachel’s shin to remind her not to talk about our sex life to my fucking father, “—especially after you brush my hair!” Honestly, that sounded nearly as embarrassing, but it was the only thing I could think of in the heat of the moment.

Dad grimaced, likely knowing exactly what Rachel was originally going to say. “So…” Dad’s voice trailed off for a moment, “...you two are legally married, I’ve heard.”

I nodded a little, letting my father’s words settle for a moment, “Yeah, under our deadnames. Sorry we didn’t invite you to the reception, you were out of town, and there wasn’t a reception to invite you to.”

My father didn’t take the joke nearly as well as I was hoping, “To avoid having to testify against one another. I hope you don’t, uh, mind?” I wasn’t really sure what business of his it was, but it seemed like the thing to say.

A grave expression etched its way across my father’s face before he finally spoke, “I’m…I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you, Jennifer.”

I wasn’t quite expecting that, nor did I have a shortage of shock when I found myself putting my left hand on my father’s right arm, “It’s okay Dad, I wasn’t—it’s in the past now, okay?”

Dad cried a little at my touch, and we all sat there in silence for his sake.

***

December 27, 2024:

With darkness having settled in, Rachel and I decided to take our leave, so as to keep my father and Alice as safe from prosecution as possible. A swift bus ride to the station, and then another bus back to Seattle would follow.

The old man gave me a hug for the first time in over ten years, which left a bittersweet taste in my mouth. Would we have gone so long without such a thing if I had been a cis woman? Would I have felt more comfortable with baseball being part of our bond—or even a career for myself—if I didn’t have to face the constant battle of defending my own womanhood as a trans woman?

Life was full of bitter, ugly questions.

“Try and visit again soon?” Dad asked, a hopeful look on his face.

“If we do…I can’t say when…”

“Of course, no planning dates,” the old man smiled weakly.

It was just so, so hard not to take pity on my father. He’d lost his wife, his business, his arm, and now his daughter. Hell, with the way I had had to hastily choose a new name, he’d even lost me in one extra way. As ‘Jennifer Yoshihara’ it was like I wasn’t even his daughter anymore.

As much as I had wanted to escape my past, I kind of hated having his name stripped of me by circumstance.

“Bye-bye Alice, bye-bye Mr. Jeong! Oh, wait, you’re my father-in-law now, does that mean I call you Dad? Bye, Daddy!”

I couldn’t be bothered to even flinch at that one.

We hugged my father and Alice goodbye, and then braved the dark world waiting outside for us.

***

DECEMBER 27, 2024:

The bus ride back to Seattle was a quiet one. After several emotionally taxing hours with my father we bid him farewell, for the sake of protecting him from being incriminated or branded an accomplice.

Rachel and I explained a non-incriminating version of the past fifteen months of our lives to Alice and my father. Without letting them know exactly where we were staying or what we did for money—that would have been very awkward—Rach and I managed to get my father caught up.

From there, we learned that the investigation had laid inactive for nearly a year at this point. While Dad was now working for a shipping company, he’d been mostly left alone by the police since the second quarter of the year. He and Alice had officially started dating in June, when she invited him to join her at a Pride event.

Mom was dead, but in a lot of ways, so was the workaholic man she had married.

We promised to come back to visit someday, but we couldn’t make any concrete plans. It simply was not safe.

Rachel and I arrived back at the Penthouse around 7PM and immediately crashed in our bed. I hadn’t realized just how tense every muscle in my body had been throughout the entire visit, but now that I was back in such a high-quality, premium bed—laying next to the woman I loved—I felt like I wouldn’t be able to move for a year.
With some struggle, I managed to turn to my wife as she laid on her side, watching me, and said: “I’m sorry we couldn’t do that for your moms.”

Rach smiled softly and countered, “I’m sorry we couldn’t do that for, like, your mom.”

She always knew just how to make me feel amazing.

Rach and I cried in each other's embrace for the next hour.

***

DECEMBER 28, 2024:

“Eating cereal is, like, a race, y’know?”

“No, I don’t know. Please, explain,” I told my wife, propping myself off of the dining table as I watched her swing her milk-covered spoon. Droplets flew everywhere, including my glasses.

My wife getting her white stuff on my glasses was quickly becoming a running theme with us.

“BASICALLY,” Rachel explained, “If you don’t eat the Cinnamon Toast Crunch fast enough it, like, gets really soggy! And the milk becomes cinnamony!”

“Shouldn’t cinnamony milk taste great?” I retorted, seeing how far I could push her.

“I mean—okay, yes, it does kinda taste great and all, BUT! LIKE! Ugh! Yes, the cereal is in milk, but if it’s in the milk too long it loses the crunchiness! So, like, it’s a race because you gotta finish it before it gets TOO soggy, y’know?!”

“Makes perfect sense to me, dear,” I hummed, giving her my goofiest smile possible.

“See! I knew that you’d, like, get it!”

“Great bimbos think alike, I guess!”

I always felt the need to have my wife in me when she went on rants like these.

“OH NOOOO!!! I WAITED TOO LONG!!!”

Deeply inside of me.

***

DECEMBER 31, 2024:

Our second New Year’s Eve together. It was significantly more pleasant than our first. I remembered just how powerless I felt—how much of a failure of a man and husband I had told myself to feel—but as I laid in bed with my wife, embracing her as she dealt with the panic attacks that were brought on by the sound of fireworks, I felt—

“Fuck, I hate this!” Rachel sobbed into my chest.

Ear-plugs triggered her touch issues.

I don’t know why fireworks were legal to sell and set off, but whoever decided doing either of those things was a wise decision should be murdered.

“Jenni?”

“Yes, sweetie?”

“I love y—”

Another blast echoed through the skyscrapers that surrounded our city. Rachel flinched, whimpering from the panic caused by each blast.

“I love you, Rachel,” I whispered between blasts.

My wife held me tighter as she hid herself beneath the covers.

There were no covers to hide beneath last New Year’s Eve.

Another explosion.

Another jolt against my body.

“We’ll get through this, Rachel,” I whispered.

It had been just as bad as July 4th.

“I know, Jenni,” my wife replied through sobs and our comforter.

Another explosion.

“Thank you for everything you’ve done for me, Jenni,” Rachel unearthed herself from the covers to look me in the eyes. Her eyes beamed of confidence I hadn’t expected, “I know that I’ll—that we’ll make it through—”

Another explosion.

Rachel kept looking me in the eyes.

—that I was a success as a woman and a wife, for however long it would last.

***

January 01, 2025:

"Rach, why do you act like…uh…a bimbo?” I asked my wife while stirring eggs on the stove. Rachel, propping herself against the kitchen island at an angle, did push ups. Turning around to glance at my wife while she pushed away from the island, I caught the jiggle of her chest, felt envy, then remembered that I now had an even larger bust than her. It was wild having completely forgotten about my new chest, especially given that I was still experiencing soreness.

I was just that used to the emptiness.

Continuing her push ups, Rachel replied between breaths, “I, like, uh…it’s funner to not, like, think much. Also, like, I dunno, too much sissy hypno?”

“I don’t think it works that way, dear,” I giggled, eyes back on the eggs before me. In light of recent personal revelations the choice of breakfast item was quite on point.

“Er…uh…so, like, umm…head empty, no thoughts! Ooh, but I’m, like, a thot!” Rachel finished her push ups and began stretching her arms casually.

“You’re my thot!” I double-checked to make sure I hadn’t accidentally gotten any shell in the eggs as I continued to stir and scramble. “Still, that doesn’t really answer my question. Why act like a bimbo? I know that you’re smart, Rach.”

“Hey! We bimbos can, like, be smart, too!” Rach countered, hugging me from behind. I was not unaware of her strategically placed crotch against my cheeks.

Biting my lip to hide my fluster, I tried to angle my face so that Rach couldn’t see my cheeks growing redder from her head’s perch on my right shoulder. “D-doesn’t that, like, defeat the purpose?” I asked, voice unsteady.

“Nopey-nope-nope! Like, you wanna, like, uh…basic-alley, being a bimbo is freedom! From, like, stress and stuff! And, like, the patriarchy-arch-arch!”

That seemed a little far-fetched, but I couldn’t help but probe further—as my wife’s erection probed me, “Whatcha mean, exactly?”

“So! Like! Umm…basic-alley, I mean, like, I got, like, super-duper tired of thinkin’ all the time and stuff, so I stopped thinkin’ and gettin’ stressed. Okay, no, like, uh…so, like, I got tired of caring about what people would say or think! Like, Jenni—” Rach examined my handiwork as I passed her a plate of eggs, “Ooh, goodie, it’s not runny!”

“Yeah, I remember what you said back in the old apartment,” I giggled, leaning against the counter while eating from the pan directly. The eggs were hot.

“So! Like, Jenni! I don’t, like, let things bother me no more. LIVE IN THE MOMENT!” Rach shouted, flicking a piece of scrambled egg at me with her fork. Her egg landed on my chest, which I had hidden behind a once-baggy tee shirt. I was going to need to buy a bigger size.. “Besides! It’s, like funner-fun-fun!”

Chewing over the explanation from my girlfriend, I idly picked the piece of yellow egg off of my shirt and prepared to toss it, “I’m not sure I really get that.”

A bright look filled my wife’s eyes, “Okay! Wait a sec! Don’t toss that!”

I looked at the piece of egg in my hands more than a little confused. “What do you mean?”

Rach closed the distance between us and then said with a smile: “Eat it.”

Without thinking, I raised an eyebrow, “What? It’s been on my shirt, I’d rather not.”

“Don’t think, just do,” Rach commanded, poking my still sore chest with hers, “Eat it, girlie.”

With a frown and a sigh I tossed the piece of egg into my mouth, trying not to think about the fuzz that was likely on it. After a quick chew and swallow it was gone.

“Good girl!” Rach giggled, her grin self-satisfied.

It was always its own unique brand of silly to hear Rachel—with her high-pitched, girly tone—saying something usually so reserved for a more…dominating-looking woman. It was hard not to smile at how much Rachel seemed to be falling increasingly in love with life since we went on the run. In a way, I was jealous.

“What’s so, like, funny-fun-fun?” Rach asked, expression blank.

“Oh, like, nothin’,” I giggled, caught red-handed of sorts, “I just think it’s, like, great how you just seem so…happy? Content?”

Rach giggled and put her right index finger up to her head to point at her skull, “That’s ‘cause I’m, like, not listenin’ to this thingy! Most of the time now I don’t even, like, hear it!”

“Pfft,” I cracked, taking my wife into a hug, “Sheesh I’m, like, quite jealous, Mrs. Yoshihara.”

Squeezing me back—fuck, my tits hurt, Rach replied, “Then, like, don’t listen to it!”

With a giggle planted into her ear, “That’s easier said than done, Rachy-Rach-Rach!”

With a devious grin, Rach leaned forward, “...should I train you like a good little slut, then?” my wife whispered into my ear.

I couldn’t help but feel a pulse down there. “Rachel!” I pushed back from my wife with a giggle, “C’mon! You can’t, like—it’s the firsty-first-first thing in the morning!”

Not even waiting for me to finish my sentence, Rach was already shucking her pajama pants, “When has that ever, like, stopped us from fuckin’? Sorry—stopped you from passing out like a little subby-sub-sub slut the second you see my cock?”

I couldn’t stifle my snort as my wife’s wurst sprung into plain view in our kitchen area, “Jesus—fuck, girl! How is that thing still so—omigawd, Rachy!” My hands shot up to my mouth to cover it—I knew that if she saw my unabashed smile it would only encourage her.

“Wut?” Her voice was almost flat, as if she was trying to tease me with some sort of performative aloofness. It had the jarring effect of sounding nothing like her usually bubbly voice.

“I—Rachy! C’mon!”

Shrugging her shoulders, “Sorry, like, you gotsta use your words, Jenni. I’m too dumb-dumb to under-saturate.”

I nearly burst into a shout-laugh at that, “Bullshit, Rachy-Rach-Rach! You, like, fuckin’ know exactly what the fuck I mean!” The tension was leaving my body weak, and I couldn’t help but hunch forward as I tried to keep the laughter in. In the back of my mind I still thought that I sounded like a complete dork with the kinds of stifled noises I was making.

“Uh…like, am I leaking onto my pants?” Rach shot a look of genuine confusion down to the violet pajama pants around her ankles, but had to bend forward to see past her breasts, which only made me shout and laugh again.

“Rachel! Omigawd, that’s not—”

“Not what, then?” Rach asked, semi-frowning and crossing her arms beneath her chest.

I couldn’t tell if she was fucking with me or not anymore. At this point, it didn’t matter. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, I give up! Let’s go to the bedroom!”

“Nope.”

“I—what? Why? I thought you wanted to—huh?!”

“Not me, Jenni. You. What do you want?” Rachel’s expression was so hard to read now. There was a seriousness that betrayed her usual demeanor so much that I couldn’t tell exactly what was going on through her mind.

I mean, more than usual, that is.

“I…I mean, we might as well—”

“Nopey-nope-nope, Jenni!” Rach said sternly, lifting her legs out of her pants and stepping toward me, pointing her index finger just before my nose, “What does Jenni want?”

My legs began to grow leadened at the proximity of my wife’s right index finger to my nose, so I leaned back on the kitchen counter behind me. “Uh…I mean…like, c’mon, you know what you’ve done to—”

“No I don’t. Tell me.”

I couldn’t read her—or maybe I was just trying not to say exactly what she knew I wanted to say. But did I even know what I wanted to say?

Rachel casually bumped her chest into mine, teasingly—not that anyone could have read that based on her serious facial expression. As her face grew closer to mine, I felt an almost cold sweat on my lower back. Her face was so serious, and even without makeup to smooth out the rough edges that came straight out of bed, I was entranced by her beauty.

“I…want you to fuck me,” I finally relented, the pulsing feeling down there growing stronger. “C’mon, let’s go to the bedroom and—”

“Nope,” Rach retorted, “If you want to get fucked then you’re going to turn around and stick out your ass.”

“I—Rachel, c’mon!”

“Get the collar, Jenni,” my wife deadpanned, slowly jacking herself just inches from me.

I couldn’t take it anymore. What the fuck was I even trying to defend? Why was I showing shame? I was with my wife, for fuck’s sake! I quickly retrieved the collar that Rachel had bought me and returned to the kitchen, readying to put it back on.

After my panic attack the night that Rachel had given me the collar I had shown my determination to not put the gift to waste and had been putting it on myself any time I wanted to feel its embrace around my neck. It reminded me…less of that terrible night.

Still, there was just something so wrong about what I was doing…

…because I was the one doing it.

Looking down at the leather strap in my hand I took a deep breath and handed it to Rachel, “Please?”

Looking up pensively into my wife’s eyes I could see the concern in her eyes. I had sensed her guilt and unease in the days after my panic attack, and it worried me that I was only inviting that to happen again.

And yet…

…I still…

…wanted…

“Tell me what you want me to do,” Rachel commanded, her voice a soft whisper soaked in concern for me.

I didn’t want to think about that night with Chase Avery Mann. I didn’t want to think about hurting Rachel. I didn’t want to think. I just wanted…

“...collar me, Mistress?”

My voice was a trembling mess of a whisper. My shakes shook and my eyes threatened to boil over with tears. I didn’t want to think about anything, I wanted only to become one with the woman before me.

Delicately, Rachel reached forward and took the collar from my grasp, and then motioned for me to turn around and face the sink before me, still full of warm and soapy water. Looking down at the icebergs of dish soap down in the sink a flash series of images of Rach tugging on my collar flew before my eyes. My breath quickened as I felt my wifey-wife-wife reach around and tenderly apply the collar around my neck.

Don’t think about that night.

Don’t think about the feeling of immobility as Chase Avery Mann threatened your life and Rachel’s life.

Don’t think about panicking and hurting Rachel.

Don’t think.

It’s what Rachel would do, after all.

As I felt the cold leather fully wrap around my neck I gasped, but kept my grip firmly on the edge of the kitchen counter preceding the sink. As Rach buckled the collar in I focused only on the pulsating waves of pleasure down before.

I focused only on how the muscles of my crotch clenched to-and-fro, as if my vagina was excited to receive its beloved cock.

Too bad I didn’t have a vagina.

I needed bottom surgery. I needed a vagina. I didn’t want a penis. My lifelong feelings of apathy had only grown into feelings of dread, resentment, and now just plain wrong. It felt wrong having a penis. It felt wrong not being able to take my wife into my vag—

Rachel’s erect pillar poked at my ass cheeks through my panties, snapping me from my thoughts. I couldn’t help but yelp at the idle, soft prodding, like the slowest woodpecker in the world.

Pfft, pecker.

“You like?” Rach asked in a whisper, resting her chin onto my right shoulder. Her fingertips were already rubbing my hips and thighs in that way that always made me lose my breath.

My voice came out as a sharp squeak as I felt my panties dampening up front, “Y-yes! Omigawd, Rach, please jus—”

Rach stopped gliding her fingertips with her right hand and swiftly reached for our kitchen scissors. Before I knew it I felt the cold steel sliding across the surface of my ass cheeks and beneath the cover of my panties. Angling the steel upward, the covered blade breached the band of my panties and touched the small of my back. The cold of the steel sent a shiver up my spine.

“Oh fuck! Rachel, like, please, I like this pair—”

“—More than you like my cock?” My wife whispered into my ear, taking advantage of my tied up hair to lick the inside of my right ear. I couldn’t help but yelp—it was like taking a well-timed counter to the brain from a boxing champion.

“I—Rach, c’monnnnnnnnnnn?!!! Theeeeeeeeeyyyy’reeee so cute and frilly and—”

Rachel began to retract her cock from beneath my cheeks.

“Ffffffffuck!” I couldn’t help but scream, “Fuck the fucking panties and fuck me!”

SNIP!

With a single squeeze of the scissor handles my panties slipped off of me and landed on my left foot. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Rach swiftly toss the scissors in her hand across the kitchen, grab onto my hips firmly with both hands and shove her monster cock in. Before I knew it her cock was firmly thrust up past my defenses and straight into my asshole.

It was pure bliss.

I couldn’t make any noises with my mouth.

All I could do—

“Do you like that, good girl?”

—was hold my breath and wait for the inevitable.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” my wife said with a giggle, unsheathing and then re-sheathing with a plap that threatened to shatter windows.

Instinct took over as my wife’s peckering grew faster and faster yet. The sensation of her pounding weakened my legs more and more. My mind idly thought that it was not a great idea that my shirt-covered breasts were now beginning to dip into the sink water, but as I took each thunderous bombshell into my ass I found myself caring less-and-less for silly things such as shirts.

I bet Rach would love it if I just stopped wearing clothes in the house.

Fuck, that would be hot.

Ooh, ooh, right, yeah—gotta keep the collar on.

As Rach tried to retract from my ass I found myself clenching down on her cock mid-retraction, not wanting to give it up. Rachel tugged out of my grasp, anyway.

“Horny slut,” the blonde giggled, fully retracting from my asshole.

The details of the morning were blurring together, but I knew that neither of us had cum yet, “W-what? Rachy, keep g-going!”

“Get me my scissors, Jenni,” Rach commanded. I looked back just enough to see my wife’s red hot cock twitching madly.

“What the fuck?”

“Walk over there and get my scissors!” Rach explained, thrusting her right index finger to the right. The scissors she had discarded were on the ground now beneath the overhang of a cabinet built into the kitchen counter. “Gawd, you are such a bimbo!”

I didn’t know what the fuck was going on anymore, but at this point I wasn’t willing to argue against the woman withholding her cock as a form of mid-sex dominance. Gingerly, I took my hands off of the counter and began walking towards the scissors, only to falter after a few steps, catch myself on the counter, and slowly lower myself onto my knees.

My legs were completely shot now.

Looking back up at Rach—an unforgiving face holding firm—I turned back to the scissors and began to crawl over to them. The cold wood paneling hurt my knees, and the chest area of my shirt that was now soaked with soapy water pulled my weakened body forward as I trudged to my goal—but I didn’t care.

Scissors finally in hand I crawled back to Rach and barely managed to pull myself back up on the counter.

Accepting the scissors, Rachel motioned me to turn back to face the sink again, “W-what are you—?”

Once again, I felt the cold steel of the scissors riding up my back beneath my shirt.

Rachel’s voice held the barest hint of smug amusement to it, “What do you want, Jenni?”

Imagines of what I suspected Rachel wanted to do flashed through my mind. As my breathing quickened again my lower half began sticking itself out for attention again, “R-Rachy, in! In!”

Caressing the surface of my left ass cheek with her left hand Rach replied with a sing-songy voice, “You know what that means, right?”

It didn’t matter to me anymore. Nothing mattered at that moment. Only my feelings. And my feelings told me to say it. My feelings told me to say whatever I needed to get that cock back in my ass: “DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT FUCK THE SHIRT, RACHY OMIGAWD!”

And just like that the cold steel of our kitchen scissors softly skated up my spine as Rachel cut the back of my shirt open, slid underneath my bra and then cut that, too. With just a few more snips my shirt and bra fell into our kitchen sink, leaving my breasts completely exposed.

Gawd, it would’ve been so hawt if my bare breasts dipped into the warm sink water. All I needed to do was wait for Rachel to start thrusting again and I could just sink them down in and—

Rach softly removed my hair tie, letting my hair unravel across my now bare back, startling me. Bringing her arms around so that I could see her hands, Rach cut the hair tie and then dropped it down into the sink before me.

Now I was completely naked, except for the collar.

It was like I wasn’t even human anymore.

Droplets of precum rode down my left thigh at the thought.

Rachel tossed the scissors on the island behind her and reinserted her cock in me and wasted no time in plowing away again.

The best part of being the only person on the floor was that I could just moan as loudly as I wanted whenever my girlfriend fucked my ass.

So I moaned. Loudly.

Especially as my already hot nipples entered the warm sink water.

The harder Rachel thrust, the deeper I sank.

“This thing’s the only thing you need to wear, isn’t it?” Rachel asked, tugging the collar around my neck.

I half-choked as the collar dug into my throat and I could do nothing but squeeze down on her cock harder in bliss.

“What was that, slut?” Rach demanded, tugging my collar so hard that I made a gagging noise, “Much better!”

“B-b-b-bed?” I struggled out between the plapping sounds my wife’s thrust’s filled the room with.

“Not yet, slut,” Rach half-giggled, unable to keep up the tough girl act, “You know what you need to do first!”

Rachel was right: I did know what I needed to do first.

“P-please cum in my ass, Mistress!” I shouted, banging my right fist on the kitchen counter.

Rachel acquiesced, and came an assault of warm cream so steadily into my ass that my face and hair dropped into the sink water.

“Oh fuck, Jenni?!” I could hear Rach shout from beneath the water.

Gawd, I hope this didn’t, like, give me a drowning kink or whatevs.

Rach pulled my soaked head out of the sink and followed me to the floor to let my exhausted body rest against her as she sat cross-legged. “Omigawsh, my shirt’s going to be soaked!”

“You’re joking, right?” I asked sarcastically between gasps, my hand flailing around until I could find one of Rachel’s and move it to wrap around my waist. “Omigawd, that was, like, amazing!”

“...I hope you have a cleaning-the-floor kink,” Rachel giggled, her breathing slowly calming down, too.

“Oh hush, you!” I giggled, poorly feigning annoyance. As exhausted as I felt…I was still riding the post-orgasm high “...wanna makeout in the shower?” It wasn’t like we had anywhere else to be for the next five days, anyway.

So that is why they call it ‘fuck you money’.

“Gawd, you are such a bimbo!”

***

JANUARY 06, 2025:

“You want me to…be your husband’s personal assistant?” I asked, taken aback.

Victoria had picked me up for my first day of my ‘new job’ bright and early—8AM compared to working 5:30PM to 2AM. Not that there was much difference besides the amount of traffic on the street. This time of the year the sun didn’t rise until what felt like 11AM, before setting back down anywhere between 3-4PM. It was hell, to be honest.

“That’s right, Jennifer. You’re the only one that I can trust for this important task, I’m afraid,” there was an off-putting combination of seriousness and listlessness to her voice this morning. Judging by how her makeup was applied I had half a mind to suspect that she had not slept the prior night.

I supposed that whatever was inspiring the graveness to her voice was why she had elected to accompany Jerry in picking me up for my first day. My first day on a job that I didn’t even know I would be doing until an hour before I was scheduled to start.

“Those new licenses I gave you and Rachel are airtight, by the way,” the pseudo-starlet added with a hit of her vape pen. “You two could even get married, if you so pleased.”

Oh, if only she knew.

“Thank you, Victoria,” I replied, keeping my energy low so as to not upset the balance of the mood. “If I might ask, why are you doing this, really?” I took a pause to underscore my seriousness. “Please, just tell me the truth.”

Victoria took a moment, lost in thought—somewhere else, perhaps. Against my better judgment, I slipped a hand atop hers as it rested lifelessly on the seat cushion and asked again: “Please Victoria, I know that there’s something going on here that’s more than meets the eye.”

Life came back to her eyes, Victoria turned and looked me directly in the eyes: “Jennifer…would you please destroy my husband?”

Why is it never easy?

***

SEPTEMBER 15, 2023:

“Uh…honey, you know what Estradiol does, right?” Rach asked, giving me a concerned look.

“Yeah, I do. It feminizes bodies like mine, right?” I replied, one half of my brain screaming at the other not to go there.

“Like, Jae, if…if you do this…you’ll look like a girl eventually. You’re still young, you haven’t had as much time for first puberty to masculinize your body.”

“Yeah, I’m aware—fuck, I am definitely aware that my first puberty is far from finished,” not that the goddamned thing hadn’t given me so much facial hair already, of course.

“Jesus Christ, Jae, you…you’ll have to socially transition if we’re stuck on the streets for a long time, you know that right? You can’t—honey, people will get violent if you come across as—fucking hell, how do I say this?” It was so strange seeing Rach look and sound so collected. She must have been in a trauma response thing or something.

That or I was just going insane right now. Considering all the sweating and aching, I kind of assumed that it was probably that, but who the fuck knows?

Then I said something that I probably should not have said: “Fine, look, I’d rather be a girl than dead.”

“I mean, same, but sheesh, sweetie, it’s going to, like, be hell on you. You’ll get gender dysphoria, and once the physical changes start…well, you’ll probably be harassed. At best.”

I couldn’t help but crack a witty one-liner, “Dying knowing that I left you on the streets—their own kind of Hell—would be like Hell for me, anyway. I love you, Rachel, I can put up with this weird case of forced feminization if it means protecting you.”

“...I can protect you, too, y’know,” Rachel whispered as she slipped her sheet of Estradiol into her hoodie pocket and embraced me.

The pace of my heart quickened as things grew increasingly more real. Returning Rachel’s embrace, I held her as tightly as I could, “I’m going to be relying on you a lot, Rach. I have a bit of an idea of what I’m going to need to do to look like a woman, but…well, I’ll still need an actual woman, like you, to help me out.”

Rachel giggled, “I’m a pretty strict teacher, y’know?”

Feeling her soft chests touch my hard and flat chest through our hoodies, it occurred to me that in a few months, my chest would be soft.

Soft and touching her soft chest any time we hugged.

Reaching down to her hoodie pocket, I pulled out the sheet of Estradiol. Rachel broke her hold on me to give me more room to maneuver. Popping one of the spare tablets out, I looked at the small blue pill in my right palm.

This was it.

This was what was going to make me look like a girl, if I kept taking it daily.

For however the fuck long we would be on the run.

Looking up at my wife, her increasingly soft and feminine face now wearing a smile that was conflicted, but supportive, I couldn’t help but feel like I was making the right choice.

I popped the tablet into my mouth, then moved it under my tongue, waiting for it to dissolve…

…and for a sign that it was working.

TO BE CONTINUED…