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 semi-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.

My mother's phone rang, leading her to step away to take the call. Rachel had mentioned earlier that she had come out to my mom when she was searching for me yesterday, and it was a huge sigh of relief that my mother had been respectful and accepting. 

I could probably survive without my father's acceptance, but Mom's disapproval of my relationship with Rachel would have been devastating. 

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 blonde, white 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 that is the ultimate meaning of what it means to be a woman in our fucked up world.

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 was 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 careful steps in those dress heels and that flattering, dark skirt…

 

***

 

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 were a balloon to keep from floating off. For my part, I found myself desperately hoping that 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 he said—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—god knows his hairline had seen better days.

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 Rachel 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 Rachel 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 one of her backpacks 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 shoulders 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.”

Rachel stared dead ahead, her skin a drained paleness that poked at my lingering doubt. Should I just turn around and take her back home?

“My parents will probably be texting you in a minute,” that sweet voice that I loved so much sounded like it was calm for all the wrong reasons, “I advise that you ignore them, Jae Jae. We'll be f—we're fine, baby.”

Notification pings from my phone escaped from my pants pocket, muffled: “Speak of the devil.”

Perhaps not the best turn of phrase. 

“I'm pretty sure I killed her already,” Rachel sniffed, turning her head to look out the window.

“Are you…” my voice failed me for a moment, “I mean, are you sure you want to do this, Rachel?”

The pink wonder declined to turn to face me, “Yes, Jae Jae. I, like, need something normal, you know?”

There was a seriousness—or perhaps just a lack of joy—that permeated Rachel's voice. I hadn’t heard such dullness in her voice since our middle school days: this was the voice of Rachel at her most dysphoric and depressed. My eyes told me that I saw a developing Barbie before me, but my ears—my heart—heard the pain beneath the pink and the glitter.

The worst part was, I wasn't sure how to heal her and that was a feeling of powerlessness I never understood more than I did now.

Rachel and I reached dry land after a quick and otherwise 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 was she was trying to accomplish 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, the girlfriend and I 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 shitty choice of words, 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 of comfort in.

Jane Johns—the first of the girls Rachel had slept with pre-transition—was among the group. She had dark black hair and an affair with denim that she pulled off well.

“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 she was passing me, as if she were telling me, “Wow, this sure is awkward, huh?!” Although, I wasn't sure if it was the feminine trans girl sobbing loudly in a school restroom 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 with a punch. 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 you ever fuckin’ say that shit 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 two very harried parents: “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?”

Ever the restrained one in the relationship, 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, her voice what I imagined it sounded like when she was delivering a closing argument in court.

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, kids—uh, you two,” 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 deadname 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 always figured autistic people were more, well…like, they acted like you saw in movies or whatever? Or the Special Education kids at the school?

“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: said to be the absence of sound.

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.

It was like watching the color-grading of the world around me shift from cold to warm. The backgrounds peeled away, revealing a hidden layer of bright, colorful life that defined the growing warmth in the Penn Family dynamic.

“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 still, “She looks amazing, doesn’t she already? So much happier than she has since we were in law school.”

“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. The 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 for me alone 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, at least.

“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 vividly 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 was not 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 on Monday, 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 masked 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 repayment for 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…