Chapter 7: Dangerous

 

TRANS!?

What the fuck!?

WHO IS THIS BITCH!?

"H-Huh? W-What was t-that...um...do I know you?"

"Trans," the strange scary woman said again, lowering her voice a bit while leaning in ever so closer. "You know, like me?"

Sophia couldn't help but catch sight of some shadow on the stranger's upper lip. A couple of stray hairs covered with some cakey foundation, above thickly-applied dark goth lipstick. Sophia had much cleaner, sparser facial hair than she did - doing laser before HRT was a smart decision, she realized.

Now everything made sense. Ah. 'Trans'. Of course.

Suddenly Sophia's brain started functioning again, and just barely squeaked out, "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Alright, well, I won't push ya." 

She said that, but...she didn't leave.

Actually, she just took a seat in front of her, in the little cubicle, as she waited for her order to be called out.

Sophia suddenly became petrified, fearing her roommates were in listening distance, darting side to side like a frightened rodent - forgetting Mark and John were certainly many miles away. Maybe she was worried someone else was listening, watching from over her shoulder, judging her for talking to this...freak.

Hearing the word 'trans' was still something so difficult for her to hear - in real life, in the real world, she could barely even think it. She could only barely write it out sometimes, in online chatrooms and message boards. But it wasn't supposed to manifest in the real world as a real word. Sophia could probably count on one hand how many times she'd even said it out loud before, ever. She almost broke down crying the first time she told her doctor, before being able to crack it out in multiple syllables, slowly, steadily. 

She felt her heartbeat increase, her vision start to blur. She was in danger. This woman was dangerous, being so upfront and forward, speaking so loudly about such dangerous things, in so public a place. She's in danger! Danger! Danger!

Sophia tried to deflect, "S-So are... are you, uh, tr...that...?" She still couldn't say the word.

"Uhhh... buddy. Yeah. Of course I'm trans. I even told you. It's obvious. Look at me. You're kinda funny, aren't ya?"

Sophia was too afraid to actually look straight at this dangerous, terrifying woman. She got enough of a glimpse of her before. She had to figure out some way of getting her to leave. To avoid making eye contact, she'd decided to focus on the woman's voice instead - there was some kind of carefree swagger that just enraptured her eardrums. It was definitely deeper in resonance than Sophia's, less fortunate with the pitch control as well. Voice training before HRT really paid off, she thought to herself. 

"Um, I don't really know anything about that, I'm just waiting for my food...you look pretty good though..."

"Oh? Well thank you for lying. By the way, you were here the other night, weren't ya? I think you were, with those friends of yours. Or boyfriends? I hang around here too much, to be honest. It's a good hotspot, after all."

Sophia was terrified. Someone noticed her. Someone was tracking her. Someone could tell she was trans. She existed as a figment in someone else's memories, a figment she couldn't carefully control and curate the image of. This would ruin everything. Her entire plan of...boymoding forever?... was being threatened by this strange upfront trans woman. Panic. Panic! Panic!!

But for some reason, she couldn't run away. She felt a strange magnetism. She wanted to finally get a good look at this woman's face, but she couldn't dare to make full eye contact just yet. Trying to piece together parts of the peripheral puzzle, like fuzzy crooked jigsaw pieces, was proving difficult. 

Wait a second...did she say BOYFRIENDS?

"W-Wait, t-the...they weren't my...uh," Sophia flustered out incoherent syllables like a machine gun as her face blushed red.

"You're acting like a squirrel or something. I'm not gonna bite, you know," the lady said, just proving how much Sophia was being monitored and perceived by her. "Let me guess, you've never met a trans woman before in the wild, right?"

Sophia took a second to collect her breath and think about it for a second. "N-No, actually..."

"Well, you have actually! Many many times. You might even be friends with one already. They're all around us every day. You just haven't noticed them. You'd notice me though, of course - I'm one of the special ones that are easy to pick out. We're so super special. But girls like us can do things the more fortunate ones can't."

Sophia had rarely ever seen another true, legit, verified trans woman up close. She'd read stories online, was friends with them online, was neck deep in online communities with them. But never anything in real life. Every time a therapist would suggest she try visiting a self-help group, she felt a shudder deep within her. Visions of being surrounded by nightmare creatures. Creatures like herself. Monsters from the deep.

Despite her hesitation to continue speaking with this woman, she couldn't help but feel a bit star-struck. Maybe that's why she couldn't quite get her body to escape from her magnetic clutches. It was her first time seeing one in the wild. She might have seen some a few times, while going out shopping somewhere - maybe some strange woman with weird gait, or a boy that seemed a bit too queer and long-haired, breaking one too many stereotypes to blend in properly. She'd try to examine the typical traits - wrists, hands, chest, browbone, midface - but nothing would match 100%. It usually was just a stunningly tall ciswoman, perhaps from Norway or some other distant land. Or just an egregiously gay dude. Or maybe just a tomboy. Besides, isn't trying to "clock" a tranny bad manners? To take that away from her was like stealing someone's soul with a camera. It felt innately immoral, a betrayal of 'sisters'. A passing trans woman should be free to be herself, undetected, unperceived by strange leering trans eyes. Or so was the ideal.

"I'm Ramona, by the way," Ramona finally revealed.

"Uh, Nick, "Sophia said, while starting to fidget with her phone case again. "Um, anyways, uh, about your question, maybe, you know, I'm like, kinda a 'GNC' guy or, uh, something. That t-trans kind of stuff just isn't for me. You know."

By 'GNC' she just meant girly, of course, but that was too direct to say out loud without embarrassing herself. You can't just call yourself girly like that outright. It would be so presumptuous and brazen - fetishistic, even. Other people have to recognize you as feminine for it to be authentic, not yourself.

Sophia continued, "This is how I feel most comfortable, presenting like this. So I don't think I'm like, trans. Like you are."

"Sorry, 'Nick', but you don't look comfortable. You are not what a comfortable person looks like. You are the absolute platonic opposite of comfortable," Ramona remarked. "You look so fragile that you're about to shatter into a million pieces of glass if anyone so much as glanced at you. But you probably wanted someone to look at you, right? Is that why you walked in here like you did?"

Sophia was suddenly overcome with embarrassment at her previous act of impulsive confidence, blurting out "That's not true! That's not true. I'm just a bit anxious sometimes, that's all. It's just an issue I've had forever. It doesn't mean anything. It doesn't have anything to do with my gender shit."

"Well, why are you anxious, right now?"

Her heart started beating again a bit. Breathing quickened. Her sweat started collecting in-between her breasts again, she tried to start fanning herself, saying "I'm just a bit on edge. There's a lotta people here, you know? And, and some strange stranger just came to talk to me, out of nowhere, and keeps saying dangerous things out loud..."

"It's fine you know, I won't hurt you," she said, putting a hand on Sophia's shoulder. This invasive action sent a violent shock through her spine, making her visibly contort away from the enemy palm. Ramona pulled her hand back, "Sorry, sorry, you're a touchy one, aren't you? Or rather, not touchy, I guess. Sorry, kid. I try to take care of people's safe space!"

You're the crazy woman who came up to me in my cubicle! And 'kid'? I'm pretty sure I'm older than you...

As she withdrew her invasion, Sophia couldn't help but catch sight of Ramona's hands. They weren't as big as Mark or John's, but still fairly large - thin in the muscle, thick in the joints. Sophia had smaller hands than her.

"So, Nick, if that is your real name, what's that fit called? Did you pick that outfit yourself? Where'd you find those sneakers?"

"They're..." Sophia started saying, before realizing she was being complimented. "They're just my guy shoes...for work."

"Don't you mean women's?" Ramona said, instantly, as if instinctively expecting her reply, "They're yours. So they're women's shoes now. That's how being trans works, you know. You got a lot to learn, kid."

Oh god, she's one of those types, huh...

Sophia's well acquainted with this type of trans woman - from her many years of living most of her life in front of a screen, it's unavoidable. Everyone's aware of some hyper-validating queen tranny who spends all her life online, praising every rando's selfies to make sure they don't kill themselves from dysphoria. Sophia always wondered whether it even achieves anything in the end - who even follows up with half of the random 'transition timeline' posters online?

Sophia still somehow couldn't help but feel her face contort into a smile at the cringy gesture of calling them women's shoes. She didn't deserve it. The smile made her feel even more guilty and humiliated. Why was she smiling? Would a real woman smile at simply being called a woman in the slightest way? If anything, her stupid smile proved she was a fake, beyond a doubt. She learned growing up that real trannies instinctively believed they were women inside ever since they're toddlers, and only gradually realize their bodies don't match up to that belief as they get a bit older. So smiling and feeling some sort of childish giddy hopping in her heart at being called a woman, wouldn't happen to a real transwoman. It must be downstream of her secret illicit desire. The fetish worming through her brain like a parasite. All happiness is essentially tainted and sinful through this filter. Happiness is sexual pleasure. Happiness is a sin. 

"Do you wanna take a little walk out in them? Back to my place. This place is a shithole after all."

Sophia stared with wide open eyes. Sex!? SEX!?

"No no!", Ramona said, reading her mind yet again through the window of her eyes. "I meant like, you can walk me home. I'm not trying to pick you up, okay? Even though you're such a cutie."

⁠—

Crisp spring air. The shallow puddles formed on the ground rippled with the affection of rain, but the actual droplets were nowhere to be seen or felt. Invisible wisps in the wind. Cool and fresh and damp. Smelled real nice. 

Something in Sophia's mind felt the need to break the silence. She needed to explain herself, somehow. She needed to represent herself fairly to Ramona. This strange woman might have the wrong opinion of her. Sophia needed to correct the record. She needed to properly mold the Sophia in Ramona's mind.

"Just so you know, I'm not trans. I was a pretty normal kid, just kind of a loser, you know. But a normal loser. Not like, you know, serious shit. I never went to therapy or anything like that growing up. I never had medication either, not even Ritalin. I don't have any real mental illnesses either. I might have some anxiety, but not like, a real clinical capital-D 'Disorder', you know. You know? I have friends so I know what it's really like to be mentally ill. I just have, like, just like, nervousness sometimes, you know. You know? I stutter sometimes, but that's just from when I was a kid. It's not, like, psychological. There's nothing wrong with me. Seriously. I'm not what you probably think I am."

Her family couldn't afford therapy growing up. Therapy was for rich people or characters on TV. Therapy was fiction, fantasy. Nobody ever solved their problems by spilling their guts out to some stranger. Life doesn't change by talking.

"So, to think about someone like me being t...t-trans, is...a bit crazy to me."

"Because it's shameful, right?"

Sophia stopped in her throat. It was shameful. Yes. Of course it fucking is. How the fuck couldn't it be. Does that mean she was ashamed of Ramona, though? Should she be ashamed of her? Isn't that basically insulting her? What should she reply with? 

Ramona stopped in her tracks and leaned forwards to look up to Sophia's downcast gaze, "It's okay if you're ashamed, you know."

She's reading my mind. I am Nick's weakening sense of security.

Turning towards her for a split second, Sophia finally caught sight of Ramona's eyes. They were a crisp striking indigo. If she looked any longer, she feared she would eventually reach her soul and drown in her deep ocean blue. Ramona had much prettier eyes than Sophia. There's no way those are real, they have to be contacts or something. 

Pulling herself upright again and continuing the stroll onwards, she said "I mean, it's not okay, I meant like, it's understandable. For a baby like you."

"I'm pretty sure I'm older than you..." Sophia muttered passive-aggressively under her breath. She wasn't sure she could hear her.

"So, when did you start realizing you were you know, 'different'?"

This was an easy question, "I was never different. I was always normal."

"Oh really? Let me guess, you were a bookworm? A big nerd? Played by yourself a lot? Didn't know how to make friends?"

She's a fucking telepath...it's like she has a key that can just...

"Ha! Well... I mean I don't read anymore now. I'm not smart or anything anymore. H-How did you know that?"

"It's obvious, sweetie. You probably consider yourself pretty weird but you're honestly really, really, really normal. Painfully normal. There's so many just like you, who ended up as happy beautiful women. It's normal. Well, I mean, normal for people like us."

Happy beautiful women... 

"And what's 'people like us'?"

"Gender people. If you don't like the 'T' word."

While her being 'normal' was a nice sentiment, Sophia couldn't accept such a delusion. She's considered it herself before and had successfully debunked it inside her head countless times. She's an expert debater, after all.

"It's just not true, though. I never really thought about gender much growing up like real trans kids. I don't have any classic childhood stories of dysphoria. I don't have any memories at all of anything trans when I was little. I was just a kid. Just a normal kid. A little autistic. I just played with my toys and read books a lot, like lots of normal lonely kids do. Like you said. God, life was so boring before computers. When my family finally got one I just stayed on it all day, all day long... I didn't think I was a girl or anything like that. Like, ever. I was too pre-occupied with bullying stuff to think about gender shit. Once kids started, like... dating and stuff, in middle school, that's when I started to...that's when I started being confused. Somehow the other kids kept growing up past me, but I seemed to just stay the same, some little runty kid, stuck behind. Boys started talking about, like, gross stuff, so I googled stuff online, and found some stuff, about gender stuff. But I couldn't really 'start' anything until last year, I guess. But even now I barely think about gender, it's just sort of on the backburner, like background radiation..."

It's crazy how I'm just revealing so much to this fucking woman...she could use this all against me somehow, someway...I have to be more careful.

"So you DID think about gender. You're such a bad liar."

Sophia winced. Ramona simply didn't understand the complex workings of her mind. She was too obsessed with selfishly validating whatever baby trans was around her to understand. She knew the type all too well.

Ramona continued, "And seriously? Only a year!? Is that when you started hormones!?"

"I know, it's pretty late. I should've started earlier. I remember it's like, all I could think about in college. Surprised I made it out of there with decent grades. Not like it was worth anything though. I was too afraid of my parents finding out to do anything. I was always terrified, every day, every day..."

"No, no, I meant like, when did you start hormones, for real?"

Sophia smiled a bit. Was this a sort of compliment between trans girls? She figured it wouldn't hurt to at least say this much - "Uh, just um, 9 months ago? 10? I think. It's been a bit rough, I'm still kind of nervous. I don't know if I can do this still. Nobody knows yet. It's all a secret. I haven't told anyone...well, except you."

You, the creepy stranger who won't get the message and leave. You, the creepy stranger I keep talking to. Somehow, it feels a bit relieving...

Ramona just gawked, "Holy shit girl. I'm on my 5th year. Injections. Or 6th year. Honestly it blurs together. But wow, that's impressive." 

Injections were, like, the big kahuna. The real deal. The syringe showed to the world that you meant business. No liver filtering shit here, honey. All straight to the bloodstream, pure and refined tit juice. She was a real tranny. The real deal. She even had the look and everything, with what glimpses she could catch of her. Behind the tears in her jeans, she wondered if she'd see some tacky black and purple thigh-high socks. Nah, it's too hot for that right now.

“So, has anyone ever told you how feminine you are?”

Sophia glared at her. Wha...is she flirting with me? No, no...

“Uh, I mean...I get called miss sometimes at work...but um, no, nothing like that! Ha! I'm not, I'm not that kind of person, I don't know what femininity is supposed to fucking be...It's totally a world apart from me.”

Jennifer. Brooke. ... 

“No, you really are though. Seriously. The way you talk and move your body. I’m not one to gender stereotype but it’s really uncanny. I thought you must've started years ago."

Sophia was crimson. She felt so euphoric at these statements she felt like she was going to die from heart palpitations. Her head felt lighter as she felt a gluttonous desire to soak in more compliments, to fill the empty hole inside her. Sophia truly hated this disgustingly greedy part of herself the most. Every compliment taken in just makes her weaker. Ramona really was dangerous. She needed to resist. She needed to rebel. She needed to...

...Do her mannerisms really read as feminine that much? She wasn’t even conscious of them. Was she truly unconsciously feminine, as a natural part of her behavior? She had walked into that restaurant deliberately, but she'd since turned that 'off', hasn't she? When she got harassed in the bathroom. Yeah. Yeah. Or... Have Mark and John noticed her femininity coming out unconsciously around the house, but have simply not said anything yet? If she came out to them, would they not even be surprised because she was obviously girly to them already? Wouldn’t that be so validating? Wouldn't that be so nice?

“I’m not even, you know, I’m not like you or anything...”

“Yeah, I know. I’m like a butch to your femme.”

Is...Is this flirting!? Again!?

"And your hoodie, girl, it doesn't hide anything. It's like a tent, everyone can tell where it's pitched if you drape a curtain over it like that. You just see your little mounds. You're an A cup now right?"

Sophia's face reddened as she looked down at her chest. This was the first time anyone had ever explicitly acknowledged her explicit breasts. Her breasts. My breasts...My chest...Mine mine mine...

"...AA..."

"So you've been measuring them! And you say you aren't trans! You're probably so excited to be growing into a girl, aren't you? Didn't you always dream of this growing up? Probably all secretly in your room, right?"

"Shh! You can't keep saying that word! Please, keep your voice down..."

"There's no one here who would hurt you. This is my neighborhood. If anything, you're safer here than out there," Ramona said, pointing across the bridge they've finally reached. Sophia's apartment laid somewhere on the other side. The moon was still shining overhead through thin clouds, dissipating after a light shower 

Ramona suddenly cupped her hands to each side of her mouth, and bellowed "Hey! Hey everyone, there's a TRANS here! LIKE ON TV! A REAL LIVE TRANS!"

Her voice echoed out to nowhere and no one, reverberating through abandoned fountain drink cups and damp sewer holes. 

"See? Nobody cares. Do you?"

Sophia couldn't help but notice that Ramona's yelling voice was considerably lower in pitch then her speaking voice, which was already quite low.

"This is a special place, right by the bridge, and right by my room up there across the street, too. The river water drowns out everyone's voice here. Just soaks it all in, and carries it away downstream to god knows where. You can do or say anything you want here and nobody will hear you. I've tested it. So, what do ya wanna say?"

⁠—

"Excuse me? Order 985? For a Double Cheeseburger 'Like A Mac'? Jesus fucking..."

 

---

 

She was terrified of monsters in her closet. 

She was terrified of aliens coming through the window.

She was terrified of the ghostly shadows on the wall. 

She would roll up her blankets to create a wall on either side of her head - to protect her, and deafen her, and blind her from the source of danger. 

Danger. Danger. Nightmares. Nightmares. Terrors. Terrors. Heartbeat. Increasing heartbeat. 

Constant vigilance. Constant vigilance. She couldn't sleep. She couldn't sleep. Something was going to attack her. Something was going to hurt her.

She was terrified of the other kids at school.

She was terrified of other people's judging gazes.

She was afraid at the words and meanings she couldn't understand.

She would abandon herself alone in the corner - to protect her, and deafen her, and blind her from the source of danger. 

Danger. Danger. Nightmares. Nightmares. Terrors. Terrors. Heartbeat. Increasing heartbeat.  

Constant vigilance. Constant vigilance. She couldn't sleep. She couldn't sleep. Someone was going to attack her. Someone was going to hurt her.