August 31, 2023:

 

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

 

Nevertheless, I persisted—stupidly. 

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Against my better judgment, I readied the dildo that I had purchased last week and slid it inside my asshole. 

 

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

 

***

 

September 01, 2023: 

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Then it hit me.

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

I was so fucked.

 

***

 

September 01, 2023: 

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Not in a gay way, I promise.

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

***

 

September 01, 2023:

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

…oh.

 

***

 

September 01, 2023: 

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

“You want me to do what?”

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

“Shirona?”

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

It was so damned intoxicating.

 

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

 

Besides, it wasn’t like I didn’t like the way he’d look at me so softly whenever I gave in with him. 

 

I liked it a lot, really.

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

That’s when I noticed Rich’s shirt. “Wait, Rich…are you wearing breasts underneath your shirt?”

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

“Like I said, Jae, I’m on HRT.”

 

“Wait, what?”

 

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

 

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

 

“You’re taking estrogen?”

 

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

 

“A-are you transgender?”

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Red began to fill their cheeks, “B-because…like…I…like my…you know.”

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Or a ‘they’?

 

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

 

Pronouns, Jae, pronouns!

 

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

 

“Uh…sorry. I’m not good at handling my folks…” Unsure of what to do with my arms I found them crossing themselves across my chest on their own, but the sensation sent me in a squirm I couldn’t suppress, so I shifted my footing in my place. Rich cracked a devilish grin at my discomfort, which only made me all the more nervous. What the hell were they thinking?

 

“Tell me about it,” Rich retorted. Stepping over to their makeup collection they did a quick assessment of what I assume was what they had to work with. “But no, for real Jeong, you’re refilling my makeup collection. Pronto. We’re damned lucky this is Friday, I’m going to need at least two days to give my girl self a proper design.”

 

A ‘proper design’? Well, Rich had been doing this sort of thing for years, so I guess they would have pretty high standards. Just to be sure, I asked “What do you mean? It’s just for a single night and we have, like, a month until Homecoming…”

 

“Jae, I can’t just show up to the dance as a girl,” Rich really did just gesture like a girl, especially when they were being aggressive “People are going to ask questions!”

 

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

 

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

 

Wait, a few weeks? How the hell was I going to survive that? I could believe Rich pulling it off—they were never really any sort of masculine—but the guilt of basically—what did Rich call it again? ‘Forced Feminizing’?—my best friend just seemed nightmare-inducing. What if our parents found out that my ‘girlfriend’ was actually just Rich? Hell, what if they accepted them as a ‘her’? How would she—they—get out of that?

 

“Come on, Jeong, Daddy needs to buy his little ‘girl’ some makeup. And clothes.”

 

“Wait, wha—?”

 

Rich took my hand, held it, and then led me down stairs and to my car. 

 

The skin of her palm felt so soft…

 

***

 

September 01, 2023: 

 

Rich and I arrived at the mall that we usually visited just to goof off away from our homes, or to buy stuff—mostly Rich. It was no surprise to me when Rich quickly took to restocking their makeup supplies, a ritual that they usually took their time to savor. Today they seemed to be zooming through with unrestrained joy and inspiration, however.

 

Our trip to womens’ clothing stores was also not a surprise. Rich had always eyed—and even tried on—womens’ clothing, before saying it was just a joke, but I’m not sure that I ever really believed them. They always looked so much happier modeling dresses and leggings for me, which made me feel like I was The Boyfriend in our relationship—well, friendship. I wasn’t quite sure that I liked that feeling, but—as I watched Rich gushing over the print designs on leggings—I couldn’t help but feel like I was glad to be there—with them—in that moment.

 

Rich’s voice snapped me from my daydreaming: “Alright champ, what exactly are you looking for?”

 

Adjusting my already soaked KN95 face mask, I took a moment to ponder Rich’s meaning, “Uh…maybe…uh…can I say…uh…you know…like…listen, you really don’t have to—” Rich leaned in, reminding me of their hearing issues—especially in crowded spaces. The closer their clear-skinned face got, the harder it was to resist staring at their glossy lips.

 

“Jae, just fucking come out with it already! You know I can’t, like, hear for shit!” Rich had taken to standing closely to me over the years to hear me when I mumbled—it was probably why a lot of our classmates thought that we were dating.

 

The distraction of the roar of the crowded mall was not making it any easier for me to think of anything to say, so I mumbled the first thing that came to mind: “...do you mind maybe a Victorian look?” 

 

God, I was a fucking moron.

 

“No, you!” She—er, he—no, THEY, damn it—admonished. I couldn’t stop myself from peeking at how they were standing. It was such a cute stance, I was almost jealous that Rich was just able to be so…Rich? At the same time, it was kind of nice seeing them looking so upset. Even when they were fed up with my bullshit, they were still the cutest thing in the world. I couldn’t help but try and push their buttons—to give them a taste of their own medicine: “Uh…maybe a white tras—”

 

“—You like Goth girls, right?” Rich asked, completely cutting me off.

 

“...What…?”

 

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

 

Not sure of how to reply, I found myself fidgeting in place, crossing my arms across my chest, twitching from the sensation, and then nervously bobbing my head in place, hoping it would rattle my brain awake, “Er…uh…I mean, yeah, they are really ho—”

 

“Goth girl it is, then, Mr. Jeong!” Rich practically squealed, “I mean, it wouldn’t be that big an issue. You’re definitely not beating the weeby-simp allegations, though.” I’m sure that my face was definitely telegraphing my annoyance, but Rich did nothing but smile on through it, like a lighthouse in the treacherous night.

 

“Rich—”

 

“—Rach! Like Rachel!”

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

“Chirp!”

 

“Ugh! Fine! Yes! Okay, ‘Rachel’!”

 

I wasn’t sure I understood why Rich had taken up chirping as if it were almost a second language, but it was something they had done for years, and thus I had learned to understand them even when others did not. It didn’t make school easier for Rich, but they had not changed who they were. It was kind of mesmerizing. 

 

It was hard not to remember the time that I had to help Rich fight off a group of kids bullying them for their chirping. God, Richie could kick some ass.

 

At that point, I didn’t care if my exaggerated reaction of facepalming over my masked face let Rich feel like they were ‘winning’, I needed to just hide my face and hope that when I uncovered my eyes I’d be back in a sane world again.

 

“That debit card is going to be melting by the time I’m finished with it, Jae Jae babe,” Uncovering my eyes I looked at Rich and wanted to groan even louder. 

 

Vision blurry, I rubbed my eyes, and replied: “Uh, actually, I just need to sync my phone with the POS' pin pad and…” But Rich was already on the move to the next store.

 

***

 

September 01, 2023:

 

‘Rach’ specifically made me swipe my card even though the salespeople said that my card was the type that needed to be inserted or tapped and would not work otherwise. With clothes purchased, ‘Rach’ decided that I needed to pay for additional-additional makeup for ‘her’ look.

 

With shopping finished we stopped by the food court so that I could buy a pretzel. After a whirlwind few hours of shopping I desperately needed the sweet relief of a hot, salted pretzel to reboot my consciousness.

 

According to Rach, the game plan was: “Alrighty dear, give your gi—er, boy—the rest of the weekend to perfect his look. I promise you’ll enjoy your investment when you see it Monday morning, got it?”

 

Dunking a piece of my hot, salted pretzel into a small container of very hot cheese sauce, I decided to be bold and asked: “So, wait, what are you going to do about pronouns and name stuff on Monday? Are you just…going to pretend to be you but trans at school for a month?” Waiting for my reply, I popped the cheese sauce-soaked piece of pretzel into my mouth, hoping it would calm my nerves some. 

 

Rach looked more than a little annoyed by having to consider the details of her masterplan, “Yeah. Fine. Fuck. I hate disrespecting real trans people like that but I’m just going to have to pretend to want a vadge or something if someone asks. What the fuck are pronouns?”

 

I wasn’t sure I should bother correcting her on her mispronunciation of ‘vag’, what with how strained the situation was just keeping up with the whirlwind of a ‘girl’, “Like, going by she/her and stuff—how do you not know what pronouns are? Anyway, I mean, I don’t think it’s really anyone’s busin—” 

 

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

 

“Maybe something that contrasts with—”

 

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

 

At the end of the day we were just going with whatever name she had come up with on a whim. All that extra stress for nothing! Rich shoved me to get my attention again, “Oh, uh…sorry. Yeah, no. Rachel’s a cool name. It really fits you, Rich—er…Rach?”

 

Rach grinned the goofiest smile I had ever seen seemingly at my mere approval, “Yeeeeeah, dude, Rach is totes a cute name to call your girlfriend—FAKE girlfriend, I mean...”

 

I brushed my damp hair off of my forehead as I got up from our food court table to toss my pretzel’s wrapping in the nearest trash bin. ‘Totes’? What, was Rach that kind of girl? I mean, it definitely fits, but I thought this little persona was meant to be a cool Goth girl? Not that it really mattered, I guess. I know Rich was big on being big and flamboyant with cosplay, but this was kind of confusing. Returning from the trash bin, I put my KN95 back on, “‘Totes’?” my voice muffled through my mask.

 

“Yeah, ‘totes’, like, ‘totally’ but cuter!” she sing-songed, lifting her pitch into the same range she used to troll guys on voice chat. 

 

She was doing ‘the voice’ now, “Oh, yeah, right, gotcha," I took a nervous breath—which had the effect of making me squirm. "Jeez, it’s always insane just how much you sound like a girl when you do that.”

 

Rach turned up the saccharine sweetness: “What, like, this, babe?” poking another index finger onto my chest, likely to just fuck with me again. 

 

Fed up with her shit, I grabbed Rach by the wrist mid-motion and closed the distance between us to bring my mouth close to her left ear. Pushing my voice as deep as it could go I whispered: “Yeah, like that, Rach.” If she wanted to poke the bear then she could deal with the consequences.

 

Instead of feeling like a cool and sexy boyfriend…I just felt so fucking fake.

 

Rachel’s knees buckled for the briefest of seconds but she seemed determined not to show a glass jaw, “Hah, yeah, sure, bro!" Stabilizing her stance, Rach wrapped her arms around my shoulders—which sent me into a slight twitch—and moved her lips closer to mine.

 

Closer.

 

Closer!

 

Closer?!

 

Panicking, I broke off from Rich and quickly turned around to begin walking toward the exit of the mall food court, doing my best not to show quickly my heart was beating. I couldn’t believe what had nearly happened. Rich kept saying that he was straight! Why the fuck did he nearly kiss me, then? Would that be gay? Would I really care? It’s not like I was into anyone else—not that I was into Rich—Rach?

 

Ugh, this shit was complicated.

 

But the more I thought about it…the more I didn’t dislike the idea of kissing him—her? I mean, if ‘Rach’ really was trans—she was on HRT, afterall—maybe this was all just an elaborate ruse to come out to me? To torture me before perhaps telling me that she had romantic feelings for me? Would I reciprocate…?

 

Turning back to Rachel, I decided to do the only thing that I could think of and beat her at her own game: As weird as it felt to do, I gave her my most confident, teasing smile possible.

 

I could practically see Rachel straighten her posture in surprise. Red rushing to her cheeks. A shift in her crotch caught my eyes, but I swiftly turned back before she could notice that I had seen it. 

 

I think that I might just have given my best friend an erection. 

 

And I think I liked that.

 

***

 

September 01, 2023:

 

After dropping Rach off at home to practice applying her makeup I returned home to crash on my bed. 

 

Staring at the ceiling of my bedroom I could only imagine just what ‘Rach’ had planned for the following Monday. It was rare that we spent weekends apart, but she’d specifically asked that I wait until Monday to see her. I only ever wound up doing without her when I was visiting my cousins in Japan.

 

I couldn’t help but smile when I thought about how jealous Rach got when she couldn’t follow me over. What a silly weeb.

 

I guess that’s another sign that maybe things between us aren’t as platonic as I liked to tell myself they were.

 

God, whatever they were, they really were hot.

 

I couldn’t believe I had given my best friend an erection like that. I didn’t want to fetishize a ‘woman with a dick’, but it was hard not to think…what if she and I…

 

Don’t think about it, Jae. You care too much about Richie to think that way.

 

Or maybe you’re just afraid of what it says about you that you want her cock inside of you?

 

Turning over in my bed, I stuffed my face into a pillow and tried to nap away my anxieties. 

 

***

 

September 02:

 

I had gone weekends—weeks even—without hanging out with Rich before. I knew exactly what it was like! And yet, it was only just past noon on the first of two days without Richard Penn going on and on about something I had no real personal stake in and I was already feeling like I was bleeding from my eyes.

 

It didn’t make any sense. Rich was the clingy one! 

 

Was I just nervous about Monday?

 

Surely not just that?

 

Then again, any of those times that I was out of town Rich was usually just a direct message away. Hell, he was always messaging me when I was out of town—it was like he was right there with me. Of course he was the clingy one!

 

And yet, without those haphazard DMs I was utterly lost. When did my sense of self become so intertwined with my relationship with Rich?

 

Even my existential crises were about Rich!

 

“I’ll, like, get back to you on Monday, okay?”

 

Did I really not know who I was outside of my bond with my best friend?

 

Did I not know how to have fun on my own anymore? I had video games to play! Books to read! Places to walk! Why wasn’t I distracting myself with those?

 

Looking at the clock in the corner of my phone screen, I dreaded 12:15PM more at that moment than I ever had in my life.

 

***

 

September 04, 2023:

 

It was ‘coming out’ day for ‘Rachel’, and as such, I was a nervous wreck. Too nervous—in fact—to do anything but shower and dress. I really did need a shave, but it felt like I’d combust if I didn’t get to Rach and try to talk mentally prepare myself for what was likely going to be the day that both of our lives changed forever. 

 

After completing my morning routine I found a text from my mother explaining that she had already left for work, and there were eggs going bad that I needed to eat. Shaking my head, I double checked the time, and decided that with Rach ‘coming out’ today I really didn’t need to be nervously shitting nearly expired eggs out all day.

 

After arriving at the Penn house’s driveway I was shocked to find the transformation that Rach had undergone. She’d taken it upon herself to craft an elaborately painted face that brought out the feminine features her HRT was giving her, while also dressing in such a way that she clearly looked feminine. Tight jeans showed off her long legs beautifully, and even through the looseness of her graphic tee I could see the faint outline of her growing breasts.

 

This was getting intense.

 

“You like?” Rach asked. I wasn’t unaware of how she was gripping her messenger bag for dear life.

 

She needed my support, so I decided to just speak my mind, without the games: “Holy shit, how much makeup did you have to use?” That sounded like I was criticizing her, didn’t it? “I’m so impressed,” I added, desperate not to hurt her.

 

Rach bobbed in her seat as she slapped a tune on the top of her messenger bag, “Like—uh…I spent more on practicing over the weekend than actually doing it this morning.”

 

Trying not to appear perturbed, I backed out of Rach’s driveway as I replied, “God, that cutesy voice is kind of unsettling with that look.”

 

Back on her bullshit, Rachel leaned toward me and whispered into my ear: “That’s the point, honey.”

 

To my horror, I felt a twitch where I wish I had not.

 

“Heeeey, babe, turn this way.”

 

I should have seen it coming, but in my hubris I thought that I had discouraged this kind of behavior. Rach landed a kiss on my lips. It was my first real kiss, and I didn’t know how to react. The warmth and softness of her lips was beyond my expectations. Realizing what I was doing—who I was KISSING—I swung my head back so quickly I hit the handgrip with the back of it, “Fuck!”

 

Rachel broke out in that laugh of hers that I loved so much, even if she feared that it made her sound—as she so eloquently loved to put it—’retarded’, “OH EMM GEE, dude, you should see how stupid you look right now!”

 

My indoor voice was pretty much shot: “Holy SHIT, Rich—I—what the fuck was that?”

 

Rach angled just enough so that I would get a look down her collar at her cleavage. She wore this frilly purple bra that I couldn’t help but stare at. Deviant thoughts of the bra flashed through my mind. Rach and I had always had the same taste in women’s lingerie, so in a way it felt like she was using this knowledge against me…but also, I had to wonder why she was wearing the kind of lingerie she liked to see on women now? Because she was ‘pretending’ to be a woman?

 

“Notice anything you like?” she asked, making sure to move her purple-coated lips as carefully and sensually as possible. She was making a whole new set of facial expressions that I’d never seen her make before, and it was maddening. “Also, like, call me Rach, not Rich, I don’t want anyone thinking I’m pretending to be trans!”

 

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

 

“That’s besides the point, SWEETIE!”

 

Practically exhausted, I returned to backing out of Rach’s driveway, stopped again to let a car pass by, and then continued onto the street. After regaining some shred of calm I added—without even turning toward her— “Nice bra.”

 

Her mischievous giggle nearly made me shriek.

 

***

 

September 04, 2023:

 

The drive to school had been thankfully uneventful, in large part due to my refusal to take my eyes off of the road.

 

As I pulled into student park I felt a pang of guilt over what I was asking of Rich. His life was about to change drastically—and in my own foolish desire to defend a masculinity I didn’t even know if I really cared about—I felt a sense of emptiness I couldn't properly describe.

 

I joined Rich in leaning against my Kona and stared at the concrete below in shame. Finally, turning to Rich—to Rach or whoever this incredible person who called me their friend was—I could only get lost in their beauty as the morning sun caught them at just the right angle to make them look like they glowed a gorgeous gold.

 

"S'not too late to back out, Ri—Rach," I whispered, turning to Rach with a soft smile and hoping she wouldn’t feel panicked or pressured. I couldn't believe how gorgeous her carefree smile looked as she aimlessly stood around doing nothing but waiting for school to start.

 

I also couldn't believe what I was thinking. About my straight guy friend…as another straight guy.

 

Rach’s spunkiness broke me from my thoughts: "Babe, we're doing this. I'm doing this. You're, like, my bestie-best-best friend—and I've asked you to risk expulsion for me way too many times. The least I can do is pretend to be your girlfriend for a month. Besides, there's a whole fuckin' crowd of horny teenagers staring at me, there's no backing out now."

 

"Oh, jeez…" Rach was right: numerous schoolmates and classmates were staring at us now. The size of the crowd—the volume of the crowd—steadily grew. Much to my chagrin, I was now locked into my stupid, stupid plan.

 

"Plant your flag, babe," Rach whispered into my ear.

 

"Wha—?"

 

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

 

My body moved before Rach could finish her sentence. Rich, Rachel, whoever—the person who had kissed me just minutes earlier had cast a spell of her charm over me. I was desperate to relive that moment even if only subconsciously. The taste of her grape-covered lips activated the fresh memories of our prior kiss, and suddenly I wasn’t sure if we had ever finished that first kiss. Were we perhaps still parked in my car, in her parents’ driveway?

 

The flatness of my chest meeting the softness of hers was the only anchor I had to the then-and-there: the student parking lot. Rach leaned down and into the kiss, and I could feel my lower back arch backward just enough not to be uncomfortable. At 6'1'' my pretend-girlfriend was a good inch taller than me but the kiss was anything but awful. It took all of my mental fortitude to not wrap her arms around my torso, hoping for her never to let go. In the briefest moment of insanity, I felt as if I were hers completely, and finally.

 

The kiss eventually ended and as we parted I felt a pang of disappointment. Much to my chagrin I heard a whistle coming from what direction I knew not. "Sorry, Rach," I whispered just up into her ear. I was turning my best friend—who was maybe, maybe not a trans girl—into an object to protect my own frail, miserable masculinity.

 

Instead of replying, Rachel took my hand in mine, crossed our fingers, and had me walk her to class.

 

***

 

September 04, 2023: 

 

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

 

That’s the hole I had dug for Rach now. The hole I had damned her to for the rest of her life, even if she suddenly decided that she was going to ‘detransition’.

 

The way others were perceiving Rach now scared me to death. I knew what could happen to trans women like—well, ‘real trans women’—and the thought of that happening to her scared me shitless. Watching Rach’s movements shift from the comfort she showed in the car this morning, to the frightened, cute animal before me, scared me in ways I couldn’t have prepared to understand that it would. I had to wonder if this was how real trans people felt when they first came out?

 

Thankfully, our teachers didn’t seem bothered by Rachel’s sudden ‘coming out’, in large part I think, because she had always been so…well, queer. I was happy for Rach—in a rotten part of me wondered if I was just afraid that I was being selfish by being happy for her. To see Rach’s giddiness—her smile, her little trots in joyful victory towards her desk—made me so relieved, and so happy, that I could only rationalize my feelings as a sign of my own deviancy. 

 

The halls and quad were littered with dozens of our fellow students looking at us with a mix of confusion, thinly disguised judgment, and disinterest. A few bright looks from actual queer classmates lightened our path, but only served to remind me of my own fraudulency. I was a false idol. A heretic. An awful, awful cishet man that pressured his best friend into something he should not have. 

 

But goddamn, did I love her smile.

 

And so, I took her shaking right hand, locked our fingers together, and walked her to our second period. 

 

I needed her to know that it was going to be alright…

 

…because when she smiled, I felt like it was going to be alright, too.

 

***

 

September 04, 2023: 

 

Before lunch, Rach wanted to hit the restroom to touch up her makeup, so I escorted her to the restroom in the part of the school that rarely had any foot traffic. "Are you okay in there?" I asked—arms crossed to hold myself—instantly remembering that echoes made whispering in—and into—a public lavatory pointless. So much for being a good fake-boyfriend. 

 

"Almost finished, hon," my excellent fake-girlfriend squeaked out. Judging by her voice her nerves were finally beginning to get to her. I couldn’t blame Rach, I’d be at my wits end if I was the one who had announced to our entire school that I was transgender. Hell, at least she didn’t have to contend with all this awful stubble, and actually knew how to do makeup to cover up what little she had. 

 

Rach still wasn’t sure if it was appropriate for her to be using the girls' room, but she seemed happy enough to be distracted by actually focusing on her makeup in an empty restroom, and for that I breathed a sigh of relief. I imagine her makeup wasn’t going to be a major change or anything, but the personality she had put into her ‘Goth’ look for the day really struck a chord. I could only imagine what outfit she would have chosen if she wasn’t afraid of exposing her body in such feminine clothing. Not that I could blame her.

 

Finally finished, I could hear Rach’s voice echo outside of the restroom with confidence: "You got this, Rachel!"

 

I felt like a fool for being scared that Rach somehow couldn’t pull this off

 

***

 

September 04, 2023: 

 

"Wow, so, like, how long have you known?" Gloria Rembrant asked, her voice dripping with smugness. A sixth sense told me that lunch for Rach and I would be extremely rough today…and everyday for the foreseeable future.

 

Rich and I always ate lunch alone—a perk of not quite fitting in with other social groups—but unfortunately, the ‘coming out’ of Richie Penn as a trans woman was drawing a lot of eyes. Rich could fend himself if need be, but that was in a fist fight. What scared me most was what horrible thing one of these school ghouls would try to inflict on my best friend. Taking Rach’s hand in my own, I crossed our fingers so that she would feel like we were inseparable—exactly how I wanted the both of us to feel.

 

Well, at least it was good for the cover.

 

"Uh, like, a couple of years. Sixth grade, really!" That was about the time that Rich started getting a bit gloomier, so that made sense—assuming he—she—really was trans. I broke my heart to think that she had been keeping this to herself the entire time, though. I had been there by her side, watching her back since we were in the first grade. Why hadn’t she—?

 

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

 

I could tell what the bitch was doing—trying to mock Rach in front of her weirdly classist friends—and their played-up reactions were annoying in their own right. Shooting a look to Rach, I could see sadness just below the surface. She wasn’t always great at detecting sarcasm, but I think she was definitely suspecting that she was being laughed at. 

 

It was infuriating to watch.

 

"So, are you two going to hang out with the other gay kids?" Carson Dallas asked with a thinly veiled snicker.The other teens' faces grew with self-satisfied looks that were enough to make wallpaper peel

 

So much for a nice, quiet day at lunch without us needing to go and hide in my car.

 

"Uh, I'm not gay, Carson," I interjected, "Rachel’s a woman and I didn't develop any feelings for her until she told me she was." I could feel the anxiety showing on my face, but I was at a loss for what else to say. I wasn’t even sure if what I had said was true, let alone if I should have even said anything. The number of rich pricks surrounding us left me with a nasty pit growing in my stomach. Rach just wanted to live life normally as a girl, but what the fuck was she expecting suddenly coming out of the closet and just trying to act like nothing was different—especially in a fucking high school setting?!

 

Who was I kidding, I knew exactly what she was thinking: nothing. 

 

Rach hopped back into the discussion immediately after me, her voice barely reaching over the thinly veiled mocking jeers surrounding us, "I'm not gay, either. Liking my boyfriend is straight."

 

Either one of us referring to ourselves as ‘straight’ was a hell of a weird whiplash considering how I’d taken to getting off lately. It was also ironic hearing this from Richie Penn of all people, considering how long she’d always acted so…well, not-straight.

 

Wait, that wasn’t me just having some sort of weird internalized homophobia, was it? Could straight people even have that?

 

But if Rich really, truly was a woman…wouldn’t that mean that this relationship—fake as it might be—actually was straight? Especially if she was actually just a straight girl herself? Then why did she seem to enjoy having sex with other—with women?

 

"Aww, how sweet," Gloria piped in, her voice thick with sarcasm. It was hard not to twitch with anger at that. Here my best friend was going through something huge and this cruel, bored woman was playing on their usual naïveté. Uncharacteristically, Rach looked like she wanted to avoid conflict, so she just wore a soft smile, kept her eyes open wide to show that she was paying attention, and squeezed my hand tightly under the lunch table.

 

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

 

Eyes wider than ever, Rach replied as forthrightly as ever, "Uh…he does? I really don't like my—"

 

"That’s none of your business, Lacy," I barked, my patience with our schoolmates now fried. I should have just led Rachel away the second they began circling us at our table. "Rachel doesn't go around asking you about what you do with your genitals, so don't ask what she does with hers!" The disgust in my voice surprised even myself. I wasn’t usually one for boldness, but seeing the usual swagger of my dearest friend dry up, I knew what I had to do. 

 

"Jeez, okay, just relax, faggot, I was jus—" Rach was up off of the lunch table bench and pushing her way through the crowd of onlookers before I could even process my anger at what I had been called.

 

Rach raced for the doors that lead to the student parking, stumbling once, and then picking herself up before I could help her. Rach immediately took off yet again, this time barely concealing her sobs. 

 

By the time I’d finally caught up with Rach she was a sobbing mess, leaning against my car with her hands over her face. My desire to plant a fist in every one of those cackling hyenas’ faces was replaced by a desire to hold the sobbing mess of a woman before me.

 

So I embraced her.

 

Rachel’s sobbing grew less and less strained.

 

I felt grateful that she felt comfortable showing me this side of her.

 

I couldn’t quite put into words how relieving it felt to know that she trusted me that much.

 

I guided my girlfriend into my too-small Kona so that she could stop concealing those sobs she was just barely holding in.

 

When she finally let the dam give way I hugged her even tighter. 

 

***

 

September 04, 2023: 

 

It sounds weird even just thinking about it, but one of my favorite things to do over the years was simply watch Rach. It didn’t matter if she was modeling clothes, or playing a video game, or browsing the manga section at the bookstore and talking about how it was so much better than buying manga at FYE or whatever. Lately, I’d really taken to just watching her zone out. I wondered if it sounded creepy, but just watching her breath was like watching life itself. 

 

Rach—situated in a reclined position in the passenger seat—stared wordlessly at the ceiling of my car. Laying on my right side so that I could look at her, I could only imagine what was going through her mind at the moment. Was she embarrassed? Angry? Was she even thinking about what those assholes had done? I mean, it was Rach, she wasn’t exactly known for her attention span.

 

Then a lone tear flooded over the corner of her eye and threatened to fall down into her earlobe and I knew exactly what she was thinking. Before I could reach out to touch her Rach noticed that I was staring. 

 

"Hey, hon."

 

"Hey, Rach."

 

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

 

"I like your performance just fine, Rach," I reassured, thinking to crack just the faintest of grins to try and lift her spirits. 

 

I hoped she would smile. I missed her smile.

 

I didn’t care about anything anymore, so long as I could see her smile and hear her laugh again. 

 

Those were all that mattered now.

 

Those were what we both needed.

 

I took Rach’s left hand with my right and locked fingers with her again. I was desperate to make her smile. I was desperate to make her laugh again—and I knew exactly how much this little hand-holding was beginning to mean to her.

 

I could feel it in how she gripped me back so, so, so lovingly.

 

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

 

"Glad to see you can still rhyme on a dime, Rach," I grinned, hoping to get her to laugh.

 

A sheepish giggle wormed its way out of Rach, and in a way it felt like I was finally catching my breath for the first time in a week. Rubbing the tears from her eyes—eyeliner smearing all over her cheeks and hands—Rachel finally sat up, then leaned over and kissed me on the lips with unrelenting passion. This time, I didn't flinch. "Cheeky little brat," she playfully admonished in the huskiest femme voice she had in her. It was hard not to giggle myself when she broke off the kiss.

 

"Oh, I'm the cheeky one?" I giggled, wishing she’d kiss me again, "If I didn't know better I'd say you are the cheeky one, always trying to get me flustered with how hot you are."

 

Rachel pointedly balked at my accusation, "I? Me? Uh…I'm just trying to get you used to having such a sexy-hot girlfriend, Mr. Jeong!!"

 

I could always tell when Rach was about to push my buttons again, but every single time I could never defend myself in time.

 

Hell, maybe I just didn’t want to.

 

Maybe I wanted to be defenseless with her?

 

"Is that so, bro?" I teased back, hoping it would spur her on more. I needed more. I needed her to forget all about those assholes—all about the anxiety of having to pretend to be my girlfriend. I needed her to only remember us. Our friendship—our bond—that had begun that sunny, sunny day that we first met. 

 

Life came back to her eyes, her smile brightened the car like a second sun. I couldn’t do anything but smile in return. I didn’t understand why my chest was racing like my life depended on it—but I needed more.

 

"Yeah, that's right," she giggled, leaning back down to kiss me on the lips yet again. Rich, Rach or whoever—the more I thought about it the less I cared. The less I could see ‘Rich’ as ever having not just been…’Rach’. It was insane of me to say, but it was all I felt when I looked her in the eyes. The lines had been blurred too much, and I couldn’t ever see them the same again.

 

Rachel was the woman here, "Well then," I could hear my voice drone, "I am the man in the relationship. If I'm to be a proper feminist I really should be letting you take the lead when it comes to chaste displays of affection." Yeah. I was a man. Men usually say that sort of cool thing to their girlfriends, right?

 

Rachel did a slight rocking motion, giggling with amusement "Oh? Does that mean I should let you take the lead on sexy displays of affection?" Somehow it didn’t feel like she was going to let me take the lead, for which I felt grateful.

 

Trepidation ate at the back of my mind at the thought of having to make the first move. At the thought of being the one to…why the hell did I feel this way? I liked women! Hell, I couldn’t keep my eyes off of Rachel’s breasts all day! Just looking at them made me smile, especially when I remembered who they were attached to and how she had grown them.

 

Rach gave my cheek a light tap, snapping me from my spiral of thoughts, "Perv."

 

Rach had finally caught me staring at her chest. Nervous and unsure of how to defend myself I let myself giggle lightly. I didn’t want Rach to think I was disrespecting her—especially when I respected whatever the hell she was doing on HRT. 

 

"But no, really, thank you so, so much for everything you're doing…” I hesitated a moment, wondering if this was really happening. Foolishly I added, “...Rich."

 

"Rach."

 

"I mean, it's only the two—"

 

"Babe, I don't want to drop character," she said, exasperated.

 

If Rach really was transgender—for real—was I misgendering her? But if she was, why did she keep acting like it was all an act? Was I really that untrustworthy? Had I said something to make her doubt my lov—my loyalty for her over the years? She wasn’t just my best friend, she was like…well, not a sibling—especially if she was a trans woman. If she was a trans woman I was definitely…holy shit, I was definitely going to want her to be my girlfriend for real.

 

…but Rach wasn’t into men. Like me. 

 

Was she really only kissing me for the sake of appearances? Or to mess with me?

 

What a kind of cruel joke was the universe trying to play on me this week?

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Rach burst into giggles at my counterpoint. Rach had always hated her laugh, but now—seeing her so cute and happy in ways I hadn’t seen in years—it was quickly becoming a sound I never wanted to do without again.

 

Rach playfully took my hand and put it on one of her breasts, "Cool, huh? You can thank me after you pick your jaw off the floor.” The smugness of her whisper was intoxicating. Rach was a worldly femme fatale guiding me like the inexperienced fool that I was. The sensation of touching her softness was amazing. The jiggle of her flesh—the way it fit in my palm—I had done my best to not pop a boner on the spot. I couldn’t help but flinch. Was this what HRT could do for bodies like ours? It was so surreal, I felt like I wasn’t even in my body as my hand gripped harder just to confirm that I was really there, at that moment.

 

Rachel flinched, a twinge of pain showing plain as day on her face.

 

"Oh shit, babe, are you okay?" I could feel the fear of a god I did not even believe existed run up and down my spine. As quickly as I could, I thrust back my hand off of Rach’s breast, horrified at what I had done to her.

 

Rach caught my hand by the wrist mid-motion.

 

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

 

"Oh." I felt empty, and I could hear that in the tone of my voice. I couldn’t stand to look at Rach after what I had done, after what I had felt in that moment. Doing my best to not be there at that moment, I stared at my car’s dashboard, hoping against all hope that she would forget about my indecency.

 

Hoping against all hope that she would not notice the erection in my pants. 

 

"Oh? What, does the idea of me with bigger breasts turn you on, big guy?" Rach mugged, looking at me as if she was trying to make me squirm in my place.

 

She was successful.

 

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

 

Judging by her facial expression, Rach decided to take a moment to consider what I was saying. "I mean, I don’t really dislike small breasts, but I also get what you mean. Like, if you had to have breasts they might as well be, like, big…right? Anyway…” the typically bubbly blonde’s voice trailed off for a moment, “Honestly, I just wanted to see you flustered again, which you are, my good sir." Rach kissed me on the lips, further flustering me.

 

I wasn’t sure what she was getting out of this considering she was at best a trans lesbian, but at the same time I wasn’t going to complain. If Rach really was trans then she was without a doubt the most beautiful person in school.

 

Inside and out.

 

A soft smile grew on my lips, in a way that I imagined looked content, "God, you're an amazing girlfriend, Rach."

 

"And you're an amazing boyfriend, Jae."

 

I don’t know why neither of us had called the other ‘fake girlfriend’ or ‘fake boyfriend’, but I was glad that we had decided not to.

 

If it were a dream then I never wanted it to end.

 

Why did dreams have to end?

 

"We should probably get back to class, babe," I offered, using my right hand to rub the small of her back. There I was, once again touching her. I was desperate not to be without her. The idea of it frightened me in ways I never expected to feel about a supposed ‘guy friend’. 

 

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

 

It was impossible not to see Rach’s small, pleased grin in the rearview mirror as she checked her makeup and hair, and not beam back. Watching her in her element, I could not believe that she was supposed to be anything but Rach: weird little gremlin girl who ran every conversation like she knew exactly how she wanted it to go. 

 

She was so damned lucky to be able to be Rach.

 

***

 

September 04, 2023: 

 

The cafeteria episode had undoubtedly gotten back to our third period teacher, but thankfully he looked as disinterested in school gossip as ever and didn’t even bother acknowledging us with more than a blank, split-second stare as Rachel and I slipped into class late. Rach stared blankly forward any time gossip about the scene in the cafeteria picked up, while my own anxiety only festered beneath the surface.

 

Fingers linked with Rach once again I drove her home, as per usual. Sweat coated our palms, but I was desperate not to let go of Rach for fear that she would disappear. That was the kind of girl Rachel had always been: so ethereal that it felt like I could wake up any day and she wouldn’t be there anymore, like an imaginary friend. 

 

The thought of a world without Rachel made no sense to me. I wouldn’t know how to navigate a life where I didn’t have to hear her talk rapidly and endlessly about things I didn’t even care about. 

 

It was beginning to occur to me that that was really all I had in my life. It was a damning indictment of how I had lived my life up until then. Hollow. Aimless. Nothing more than the sidekick in someone else’s life.

 

Pulling into the Penns’ driveway, I couldn’t help but feel overwhelmed by thoughts of the future. We were seniors now—ten short months from graduating high school. I was supposed to be looking up colleges and applying now—even if it was just for the local community college. But to what end? I didn’t have anything I wanted to do, I just did what I’d been told to do up to this point: get good grades, don’t do drugs and stay out of trouble. 

 

Okay, so I’d done the former two—not so much the latter. I’d been dragged along to the principal’s office with Rachel after getting into fights plenty of times over the years. I could still hear my father’s usual “Hey, at least he was being a man” response anytime he and my mother had to discuss me getting in trouble.

 

Was that all I was? A man for having my best friend’s back? A best friend that I knew my father suspected was really just my boyfriend? All because I couldn’t match up to his stereotypical manhood?

 

It was like being in an endless loop: my existence tied back only to what role I played in the life of Rach or my father. I was a side character.

 

I was a miserable excuse for a man! Why did I even have to be a m—? 

 

“My folks won’t be back from the firm for a few more hours. Wanna come up to my room?”

 

Rach’s words broke me from my self-loathing, the surface-layer stare she was giving me having a refreshing lack of ulterior motive. As much as Rach could make me turn and twist, she had these moments of plainly communicating what she meant that were a blessing. Knowing that nothing awaited me at home but my own thoughts of self-loathing I forced myself to smile softly and replied: “Yeah, sure.”

 

Once in Rach’s room I crashed on her bed immediately while she touched up her makeup at her makeshift makeup vanity-thing. The tension from the day flooded into the soft bed below me and as the wide open ceiling filled my vision I could hear Rach slipping into a different outfit in her closet.

 

Pulling my phone out I opened up Google and began searching on the phone. If I didn’t do it now—when we finally had a moment to ourselves—I wasn’t sure I was ever going to do it. Taking a deep breath I searched for information about transgender women.

 

I got a ton of results.

 

Rach exited her walk-in closet clad in a much more decisively feminine outfit than what she had worn to school. A frilly pink romper highlighted by tight boyshorts—weird name—gave her a really cute look that seemed more her than just tossing on jeans and a tee that mostly hid her body. Sure, Rach had dressed that way for a good six or so years now, but it was weirdly more appropriate seeing her in more expressive outfits. It matched that swagger I’d fallen in—oh my god?

 

“You like?” my pinked out friend giggled, her pose very clearly telegraphing that she was trying to make me flustered.

 

“R-Rach…”

 

Concern steadily grew on Rach’s face as she realized I wasn’t going to take her bait, “Yeah, babe?”

 

My voice nearly caught in my throat as I considered the ramifications of what I was about to ask—of the potential destruction of my friendship, “Rach, are you sure you aren’t trans?”

 

Rach squirmed in place, trying hard to look like she wasn’t incredibly uncomfortable, “Like, Mr. Jeong. Jae. Fuck, listen, it’s not possible. I like having a big ol’ cock. I literally can’t be trans. And I like girls!”

 

“...why would you even think trans girls have to be straight?” I asked, repositioning myself up and leaning my back against the wall of the corner that her bed was in.

 

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

 

“...h-have you not Googled this before?” Despite being internet savvy enough to look up all the miscellaneous information she did about her hobbies, Rach sure did dodge obvious questions about why she felt the way she did about herself. Was she afraid that if she learned anything else about the queer community she would be abandoned? By who? Her parents? Me? I didn’t understand why she kept acting like there was nothing more to think about.

 

“What the heck do you mean?” Rach casually dropped down onto her bed and leaned against her wall, snug against my body. There was no hiding what I was thinking anymore, so I gave her a look that—after a moment’s blank stare—finally got her to grow a little red in the face as her eyes widened realization.

 

Hand shaking, I passed Rach my phone, which had an opened Reddit thread that talked about sexuality… 

 

…the sexuality of transbians.

 

I could practically hear Rachel’s heart trying to beat itself out of her chest. Leaning over, I began typing on my phone as she held it in a tight death grip. I could smell the salt of her tears in the air.

 

I brought up a thread from several months ago, where a trans woman was asking if it was normal to not have ‘bottom dysphoria’. 

 

Rach began rubbing the tears from her face, sniffing the loose snot in her nose straight back up. It was such a strange feeling seeing her be both so sad and so relieved at the same time. I couldn’t really understand what I was feeling, but the gasping laughs between her sniffling brought a faint smile to my lips.

 

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

 

It seemed like Rach was just barely able to tear herself away from my phone screen to look at me as she asked, “W-what do you mean?”

 

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

 

Tears continued to well up and over Rachel’s eyelids. Rach bit her lip in anger as she noticed the smeared eyeliner on her hands and fingers. Rach drew her legs up close to her body and held them tightly, “Babe—Jae, listen, I…I don’t…I mean…even if…oh fucking hell!” Finally breaking, Rach pressed her face to her knees and bawled.

 

Suddenly, I didn’t know what to do. Words didn’t seem good enough. So, I placed my right hand on Rach’s back and began rubbing it, hoping that it would work like in the movies. 

 

Rach just cried even louder in response.

 

Neither of us spoke. For thirty minutes. I couldn’t stand it. I needed to be selfish, so I tried to make her talk again.

 

“Hey…so…like…Rachel…I…”

 

“Jae…wait…a sec,” Rach huffed, hopping off her bed to grab some tissue to clean her face up. The blonde checked her makeup, fixed it with expert speed and accuracy, and crashed back on her bed, and laid her head on my lap so that she could stare up at my face. “Hey,” she hoarse, a weak—but promising—smile on her face.

 

“Hey,” I droned, almost flinching at how cold my deep voice sounded. The sound of it still managed to make Rachel’s smile widen, however, so for that I was thankful. I could help but smile back. Rach raised her right hand and touched my cheek with her soft palms. With a look of resolve that I had so dearly missed in her eyes, Rach said: “Never call me that other name again.”

 

“Rachel?” I replied flatly, hiding a mischievous smile.

 

“No, the other one.”

 

“You mean ‘Rachel’?” I replied, adding just enough glee to my voice to hopefully get her annoyed enough to show it. That was how men did the Boyfriend Thing, right?

 

Tapping me on the cheek, “Bad boy!” Rach’s palm held just long enough to remind me that I’d done a poor job shaving that morning. Trying to speed through shaving had done me in yet again, sadly.

 

A giggle from Rach distracted me from my thoughts yet again. 

 

“I’m sorry I put you through all this, Rach,” I whispered, the glee appearing on my best friend’s face at the sound of her name lifting my spirits.

 

I could never think of her by that other name ever again. 

 

To hear it would be torture.

 

To think it would be a nightmare.

 

To say it would be Hell.

 

Rachel was Rachel. She was Rach. She was the woman I loved.

 

“No, babe,” Rachel husked, leaning into me even harder. I don’t think she even meant it to be seductive, but to me it was. She seduced my heart before I had even known it.

 

“I’m thankful. I don’t think I’ve ever been happier.” A slight weepiness crept back into her voice, but as she withdrew her right hand from my cheek and linked our hands and fingers again with her right hand, I knew that I would do anything for her. “Kiss me—and don’t worry, it’s—”

 

“Straight?” I mugged, hoping she wouldn’t see how much I was struggling to be a good boyfriend. A boyfriend worthy of her.

 

“Gosh, you dor—”

 

I couldn’t wait for her to finish her sentence. I needed to feel her euphoria, to forget about all the guilt and the shame. To remember only how I loved her, and hopefully she I. The awkwardness of the angle was murder on my neck and back, but I didn’t care. I leaned down further and further, as if pushing our lips together was the one thing that could awaken Sleeping Beauty. 

 

Even though Sleeping Beauty seemed to already be awake. 

 

Fuck, my back really was hurting, though.

 

It didn’t matter, though. I never wanted this moment to end. Nevertheless, that fear existed. Perversely, selfishly, disgustingly, I slipped in tongue in hopes of keeping her mine.

 

She seemed to like it.

 

And then—in the corner of my eye—I saw a twitch in her crotch.

 

Rachel broke the kiss and rocketed into an upright position, covering her crotch before it made a tent in her romper. The color drained from her face, I felt like I was watching her horrified expression grow in real time.

 

“Oh, yeah,” I whispered, just so neither of us would have to hear the terrifying, rapid beat of her heart. 

 

“I—I’m so sorry, Jae, I—”

 

Before I could even think I wrapped my arms around Rach and pulled her in tightly. Desperation poured out of every pore on my skin. In as soft and reassuring tone as I could steadily keep my voice in I whispered into the poor girl’s ear: “Rach, it’s okay. Really. I…would never ask you to be ashamed of your body. Never.”

 

“B-but…like, you’re not…and…oh God, I just want to be your—but you—” The tears streaking down Rachel’s face threatened to drop into her mouth. The only color returning to her face was the strained pinks and reds.

 

“Rach. Stop. Please,” I begged, my voice not quite soft enough for my tastes. Nevertheless, Rachel’s body seemed to lose tension before swelling back up for a big eruption

 

“But I—I mean, goddamn it!”

 

“Rachel!” I finally snapped, so much so that my voice cracked, “It’s too late to talk like that!” Confusion colored Rachel’s face now, “I fucking love you. As far as I’m concerned you’re not my fake-girlfriend, you’re my real-girlfriend!”

 

I wasn’t expecting to confess, but I nevertheless did with all the anguish and angst in my body boiling over. Turning in her spot, my oldest, truest friend hugged me as tightly as she could while making sure to keep her bottom half as far from me as possible. 

 

“Gawd Jae, I…I just want you to be my real-boyfriend!” 

 

Deepening my voice in the hopes that it would make her feel safer I whispered, “I am your boyfriend, silly,” into her ear. Pulling Rachel’s full body close to mine so that she wouldn’t hurt herself at such an odd angle I re-wrapped my arms around her, as if inviting her to lean against me. Finally, Rachel rested her head on my shoulder. Several minutes of sniffling passed.

 

Rachel eventually pulled her head off my shoulder, sniffled, and surprisingly looked me in the eyes with her single not-covered-by-hair eye, “‘I am’?” Rach asked, as if she was bracing to be told bad news. It was a horrifying feeling to think that she might be afraid of me hurting her.

 

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

 

Rachel’s laugh was like salvation, a rain that restored the crops of the land and gave me relief and rejuvenation that I didn’t know that I needed, “Thanks, babe. Gawd, like, I really love you.”

 

“I love you too, Rach,” her kiss warmed me like an warm house in winter.

 

Rachel’s sniffling continued as a suddenly serious look took over her face yet again.

 

“Babe, listen, about my…cock…”

 

I was having none of that. Quickly, I cut Rach off with another kiss, before sealing the deal with some Ridiculous Boyfriend Humor, “Rachel, how about I take you on a few dates before we discuss the possibility of me blowing you in the movie theater.”

 

Rachel rocked forward, hand over mouth, like she was struggling not to crack up, “Goddamn it,” she finally cracked. 

 

“It’s like I said, ma’am” confidence filled my voice, from where I didn’t know, and suddenly I felt like I knew exactly how to make her mine, “I’m never going to let you feel bad about your body ever again.”

 

A small whimper escaped from Rach.

 

“Okay, SIR,” she added, a giggle underpinning her reviving swagger, “I…I believe you.”

 

I refused to ever fail her.

 

A few moments later Rachel’s head was back on my lap, and I could finally look down on my best friend—now MY GIRLFRIEND. And then, a suddenly grim look grew over Rachel’s face, eliciting a cold sweat on my back, “...does this mean I have to start doing my own homework again?”

 

Warmth returned to my body for the last time that day. Looking Rachel in the eyes, I replied simply: 

 

“Yes.”

 

***

 

September 04, 2023:

 

Laying on my back I stared not at my ceiling, but at my phone. Rachel—MY GIRLFRIEND—was sending me cute pictures of herself in various outfits and poses. It was still surreal to realize that I was actually dating her now, but I was so thankful that I didn’t even consider that I was technically joining Rachel in the closet so long as we weren’t telling our parents about her transition. 

 

It was kind of weird to think about it that way.

 

I was straight, and yet in the closet. 

 

Well, as straight as a guy who likes masturbating to gay porn could be, I guess. 

 

Checking the clock on my phone I noticed that it was now past 10PM. I’d left Rachel’s house two hours ago to make sure that her parents weren’t suspicious about what we—two ‘straight guys’—were doing.

 

And having them catch us making out while she was dressed like a woman would make that a lot harder.

 

It was so weird even just thinking about them seeing her as anything but a woman. Had they not known her all her life? Rachel’s parents surely had to have seen the signs, right? My parents met Rachel plenty of times over the past twelve years. I knew from the way that my mother spoke about us that she probably suspected that we were dating.

 

Well, joke’s on her, we are dating now—and it’s not even gay!

 

I just hoped that she would see it that way, when we eventually did tell her. And my father. Good grief, that was going to be an awkward conversation. I did not necessarily have the impression that he was any sort of bigot, but he’d always seemed so desperate for me to be the type of son he could relate to. I could tell that he was disappointed when I declined to play on a baseball team, but he hadn’t pushed it. Me—the son of a starting pitcher in the minors—not wanting to carry on the family legacy? Heresy! 

 

But still, the lack of anything in common with my father—and his dedication to trying to turn his sporting goods store into a national change—meant that he and I rarely if ever saw one another, let alone spoke, anymore. I didn’t know how to feel about that. As I stared up at the goofy, semi-failed attempts that Rach made at sending sexy—clothed—selfies, I could only look back on my life and realize just how little my own blood felt like my family. 

 

But Rach? She’d always been there. Annoying me with her weebiness, following along with my rants about cinema and theater—Jesus Christ, maybe I was queer? Not that I’d ever date a guy. Rach and I’d basically been together for twelve years now—no wonder everyone thought we were dating, we basically were—and…it was just hard imagining myself as a guy with another guy. Even if some of them were pretty cute.

 

Soreness from holding up my phone finally struck, and I haphazardly dropped my phone square on my face, then groaned a word that you can’t say on network TV (hint: it begins with the letter ‘f’ and ends with the letters ‘uck’).

 

With the last of my strength I snapped the most ‘cool’ looking selfie that I could create and sent it to Rachel, despite thinking that I just looked like an asshole in it.

 

I was never happy with my selfies, but Rachel had always insisted on sharing hers with me, so I felt obligated to send some back to her.

 

It was really awkward, okay?

 

Exhaustion from the day setting in I decided to charge my phone and went to sleep, hoping for only the most pleasant of dreams.

 

***

 

September 05, 2023:

 

My mother once again greeted me with a handwritten note reminding me about the nearly expired eggs and to “have a nice day at school with your new girlfriend.” I’d wondered if she had told dad yet. Those two didn’t really seem to talk to one another—let alone to me—anymore. Whatever their marriage status was, I’d grown accustomed to it. My mother had a very successful career outside the house, which she’d always professed had been her goal when she immigrated to the US from Japan.

 

I could certainly see why she’d felt the need for that financial and social independence, and I’d never blamed her for it. I’d seen through television, film, and the grapevine at school how ‘traditional’ family structures often left women trapped in loveless marriages for their own financial security, and it had certainly not escaped me that my mother was now in a very similarly loveless marriage. 

 

It was awkward enough not being a part of that relationship, I could only imagine how awkward it was having to be in a relationship like that with someone. I wasn’t entirely sure how I felt about it, but I was glad that Rach and I would never have to worry about staying together in a loveless relationship for the sake of a child. It was suffocating having that pressure placed on you, while having to watch the relationship break down into cold, machine-like pleasantries. 

 

I remembered a warmer Jeong-Yoshida household when I was a small child, but as I’d grown older and more into my own person separate from my parents, I could tell that I had been a lynchpin in what little romance my parents had felt towards one another. Whether it was because their marriage had never meant anything to them in the first place, or that they had simply grown apart over the years, I could tell that at the very least I shouldn’t be surprised if they got a divorce after I left for college. 

 

I had first thought that in the middle of my sixth grade, and it was something that I think helped set the tone for the rest of my teens. Puberty had been…not easy. Even just looking in the mirror or hearing my own voice didn’t quite feel real, it felt performative. It felt like I was so busy juggling other peoples’ feelings that I had never stopped to question what my feelings were. 

 

But miraculously, I had finally realized at least one thing that I wanted for myself: my relationship with Rachel. My love for Rachel.

 

It occurred to me that I didn’t quite know how my mother would feel about my dating a trans woman. She had never given any indication of being against queer people before—certainly not in the films I had watched with her over the years. It left the subject in a bit of a grayzone, which was both frightening and reassuring.

 

But again, my mother stood out in her own ways! Surely the 6’2’’ female Japanese immigrant would in fact not other queer people?

 

Uneventfully, my eyes refocused on the note on the kitchen table below me. My mother could have simply texted me this note, but instead she wrote it down—using physical pen ink and paper from a memo pad. If I had to guess, it was her way of making something real—not just a digital message neither of us could touch.

 

These paper notes were the closest things that we had to a physical bond most of the time. It was poetic, in a way. She wanted these to be something tangible that bound us, which I could understand. I’d always understood my mother more than I had my father, and that had only grown stronger as I’d gotten older. 

 

Dad had never bothered learning any real Japanese, but mother had taught me since I was a baby, in part because it kept her in practice for her work at the time of translating novels, technical manuals, and comics. Sharing dual languages gave us something major in common. My father had never spoken good enough Korean to teach me, and I often wonder if he resented my mother for doing something that would obviously bond us even more.

 

At the end of the day, I just don’t think I could ever understand the man, and with the way he worked now, I’m not sure I would ever have the opportunity to.

 

But what about in the future—when I got married? What the hell would that scene even look like? Hey Dd, my transgender lifelong girlfriend asked me to marry her, hope you’re okay with that!

 

Wait, would Rach being the one to ask me to marry her give her dysphoria? Technically, I was the man in the relationship, so I should be the one to ask, but…god, that just seemed so damned awkward. Why the hell did I have to be ‘the man’ in the relationship? Why did men have to fulfill that role?

 

Ugh. Hopefully when the time comes for getting married we just naturally decide to do it, without any formalities. 

 

I touched the piece of paper, feeling the tactileness of the paper and the long-dried blue ink. One more piece of proof showing the bond between my mother and I. It was hard not to let a faint smile form on my lips.

 

I really should eat those last few eggs before they expire.

 

I quickly scrambled the eggs, ate them, and then rushed out the door to pick up Rachel. 

 

***

 

September 05, 2023: 

 

As Rachel had grown more and more interested in fashion and makeup over the years I had come to notice that she spent more and more time getting ready in the morning. Luckily, we were rarely late to school, but it had happened on more than one occasion—and usually had been on days when Rach was sliding into my too small Kona extra pouty. 

 

Looking back on it, I suppose that that was because of her gender dysphoria. Ever since she had begun hormone replacement therapy I had noticed that those days had disappeared. If Rach and I were late to school she was at least not tortured by her appearance that day like she had been in the past. 

 

I loved that for her so, so fucking much.

 

“Seat Belt, babe—New look?” I asked, as I backed out of the driveway. Rach was decked out in a green sweater vest atop a pink dress shirt and jeans that day. It was a decidedly more ‘wholesome’ look for her than her usual look.

 

In a softer tone than usual, Rach replied, “Why don’t you just back into my driveway, babe—but yeah, I wanted to try something new,” while clicking her seatbelt in place. She was decidedly a bit more timid, although I wasn’t exactly sure if this was a dysphoria issue or just a problem with her parents.

 

“It’s cute,” I hummed, hoping to lift her spirits with a bit of Interested Boyfriend energy. “Chaste librarian?”   

 

“That or an All-American girl, I guess,” Rach said with her head turned to me. Out of the corner of my eye I could tell just how soft her expression was, and I couldn’t help but blush.

 

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

 

I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised to hear Rach groan loudly in protest, “Oh gosh, Chase Avery Mann? Don’t remind me.”

 

It was always cute when Rach would groan like she was basically being tortured, so I couldn’t help but smirk, hoping to twist that knife a little more, “What, I thought you liked Chase Avery Mann? Didn’t she help you with your makeup?”

 

“Oh hush, you. You know damned well she inserted herself into my life after she caught me browsing makeup styles on my phone during third period Social Studies. Gawd, has it really been four years already?”     

 

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

 

“Gawd hon, that bitch had to have been a chaser. I run like a retarded girl!”

 

Hearing the r-word coming from Rach like that always hurt the most, “You are a girl,” I needed her to love herself—it was torture to see her hate herself, “You kiss like one, too!”

 

Rachel’s face took a comically sour tone, which helped ease my nerves, “Hush, you!”

 

“If she’s a chaser then I guess it’s a good thing she moved away after middle school then, isn’t it?”

 

“Thank fuck,” she nodded, her blonde bangs shuffling around in the motions. “Gawd, all I’d need is for her to move back here and get a look at me now!”

 

I placed my right hand on Rachel’s knee, which got her attention. Rachel’s skinny jeans had a soft texture, and it was hard not to get lost in that feeling for a moment. The more I thought about her fashion choices over the years—introducing skinny jeans into her wardrobe during freshman year—it was hard not to see all those little signs in hindsight. It was hard not to see all the little ways she would live her life, even if she couldn’t put it into words. I envied her terribly for that. 

 

I couldn’t stop myself from casually rubbing her inner thigh. Rachel twitched—not in a negative way, but in a way that got my attention nevertheless. I had not even considered what touching her there might do to her. I shouldn’t be turning my girlfriend on right before school, after all. Luckily, I needed both hands to turn into the student parking, so I rescinded my hand, only for Rach to grab the spots where I had touched with her own hand.

 

I was beginning to wish that we had decided to play hooky that day.

 

***

 

September 05, 2023: 

 

Rach and I attended fifth period with as many eyeballs on our every movement as possible. I wasn’t surprised that there would still be some looks from other students, but Rachel’s shift in clothing style had made those stares even more bewildered. Meanwhile, I was wearing the least offensive combination of graphic tee and baggy jeans possible.

 

Putting aside that our classmates were staring at Rach for the wrong reasons, I could certainly see why they would take a glance at her. Her outside highlighted her tall, but charmingly lanky figure. To me, she was simply the woman I loved.

 

I didn’t want to think about what she was to our cis classmates.

 

The raised, dull voice of our teacher snapped me back to reality, “Alright class, settle down,” the teacher droned, “Today we have a returning student that some of you might recognize…”

 

Clicking and clacking echoed from the hallway outside. Out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of Rach instantly stiffening up and turning white. That alone was enough to confirm my worst fears—the loud gulping noise that she made when the figure entered the classroom and took her place in front of the white board was like a final nail in the coffin.

 

Taking one of the whiteboard dry erase markers in hand the newly arrived young woman wrote her name in perfectly legible draftsmanship. Her body language was inorganic and uncanny. If I didn’t know better, she was a machine. 

 

“Hello again to many of you and hello for the first time to some of you! My name is Chase Avery Mann, I can’t wait to enjoy the school year with you all.”

 

A flood of memories of Chase Avery Mann trying to monopolize Rachel’s time returned to me. All those times she tried to comment on what fashion and makeup tutorials that she would watch at lunch, or look when she should have been paying attention in class. Memories of trying to get Rach to go on a date with her, or trying to tag along with us when Rach said that she had had other plans already with me.

 

I had forgotten how suffocating that had been for Rach to try and deal with. It clashed against her desire to not be a nuisance towards cis women.

 

As Chase Avery Mann walked down the rows to the seat next me—which meant that I was now smack dab in the middle of Rach and Chase—Chase Avery Mann turned to me and whispered sweetly—the disgusting sort of ‘sweetly’—“Oh hi there Jae, long time no see!”

 

I could practically feel Rachel attempting something out of an anime to try to get me to remind me to not indicate to Chase where she was, “Oh, hi Chase. How have y—”

 

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

 

It should not have been possible for a 6’1’’ woman to slide down her chair like Rach did, but she managed to pull it off splendidly. I could feel her desperation to not be perceived loudly and clearly. I abhorred having to be her distraction, but I knew for sure that it was better than the alternative.   

 

Chase’s piercing, empty stare was like staring down something even scarier than driving North on I-5 to Seattle, “Oh, y’know,” my body finally kicked into gear and my legs immediately began to hop up and down in place. “We, uh, don’t really hang—”

 

From clear across the classroom the universe’s most boredly hateful cunt interjected, “Oh, Richard Penn? He’s the FINE YOUNG LADY sitting to Jae’s left!”

 

Gloria Rembrant and her lousily dyed blonde hair had always been on my shitlist for years considering how she treated Rachel for her obvious learning disabilities—and to a lesser extent how she had been the ringleader of a group of fellow students that regularly called me and my trans girlfriend faggots. Now Gloria, having just deadnamed and outed Rach, had deserved my ultimate ire of watching her dehydrate to death in a desert should the opportunity ever arise. 

 

“Ms. Rembrant, must I remind you of the school’s policy against—”

 

The droning of our teacher—who very well could have actually been a drone for all we knew—was shrilly cut off by the squealing from the mouth of one Chase Avery Mann, “OH EMM GEE, RICHIE-POO, IS THAT YOU?” Our fifth period teacher looked completely disinterested and turned his back to the whiteboard to write whatever he had started writing. 

 

I made a mental note to write a strongly worded email to the principal.

 

Hearing Rachel’s deadname was surreal. I had said it—even thought it—just barely twenty-four hours ago, but now to hear it said at all was like experiencing vertigo. I knew how painful that name was to Rachel—not simply because she had made me promise to never say it again, but because I had read about how painful it was for most trans people—and to see her experience such powerful pain like that was heartbreaking. We had been called slurs for years, but this was somehow worse.

 

For both of us, as selfish as it felt to say.

 

Stricken pale as a sheet of printer paper, Rach—voice brittle—replied, “Hiiiiiiiiii Chase,” I droned, “Uh…my name’s Rachel now.”

 

My girlfriend looked like she wanted to die, and I wasn’t sure I could blame her.

 

Chase Avery Mann’s demeanor seemed almost to grow sullen. “Oh,” the tall blonde cis woman’s voice was suddenly soft now, almost quiet, “Is that so?” 

 

It was surreal seeing confirmation happening right before my eyes that Chase was somehow turned off by the idea of her ‘ex-boyfriend’ having actually been a woman this whole time, despite the fact that she fetishized her femininity. Did Chase want to be the force that feminized Rachel completely, or did she simply like having a toy caught permanently in the humiliating limbo of an ‘in-between’?

 

It was clear to me, however, that this creep was no trans ally.

 

And yet, at the same time, I could only remember my own selfish desire to make Rachel my girlfriend. Was I really any different—any better—than Chase Avery Mann?

 

“Ms. Mann, if you would please take your seat…” Our teacher sounded like he was huffing dry erase markers before class.

 

Shit, I wish I was, too.

 

“Oh, yessir!”

 

Chase Avery Mann took her seat, made her desk look scarily organized, and put on the brightest, creepiest smile anyone had ever seen.

 

I watched Rachel dodge quick, awful-looking glances from the girl for the rest of the fifth period. 

 

***

 

September 05, 2023: 

 

Sixth Period acted as a grace period for our nerves thanks to Chase not being in our class. As a result, I managed to sneak Rachel out to my car for our lunch period. 

 

“Gawd, why me?” Rachel groaned. If I didn’t know better she was making it sound over-the-top on purpose, to hide how real the emotion actually was. That only made me feel worse, though.

 

“Gloria’s a real bitch for outing you like that,” I spat as I joined Rach in a reclined position.

 

The ceiling of my car was a fuzzy gray material that I wasn’t quite sure of its name. I guess it resembled a cushion? It was soft to the touch, and as I looked up at it I wondered why Rach loved aimlessly rubbing it so much.

 

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

 

“Wait, why haven’t you told your folks yet?” I asked as I turned onto my right side to better look at Rach. The fact that we had agreed not to tell our parents about us aside, I was curious for a proper answer regarding Rachel’s decision not to come out to her parents about being trans yet. Was she really that afraid of them rejecting her? How did that feel for her? She always seemed so unapologetic, and it didn’t seem like her parents had ever given her trouble for wearing feminine clothing before.

 

I wanted to understand it better.

 

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

 

“I mean…” using my left hand, I cupped Rachel’s right cheek to feel the softness and warmth of her cheek, but was immediately reminded of the roughness of my palms, “I don’t think it’ll be too big a surprise. They’ve been asked to come to the school to talk about your…bully problems for years, right? And they’ve seen how androgynous even your male cosplay styles look, right?”

 

Rachel tensed up something terrible, and did a short and sharp huff, “Ugh. Yeah. Still. It’s just…I don’t know.”

 

I couldn’t hide how hurt Rachel’s discomfort made me feel—I feared that it was apparent on my face, “Rach, I’m your best friend and your boyfriend. I can’t make you come out to your parents and I would never go behind your back to do so, but…well, you did come out at school. Even though—”

 

“Even though I’m eighteen the school can still inform my parents,” she interjected, adjusting her hair to get it out of her eyes, “I know, I know. Shit. Hell, if Chase Avery Mann is back in town she might just come over and talk to my parents. It’ll get back to them eventually…”

 

My hand decided to trace down Rachel’s face, through some of her golden locks, and finally settled on her shoulder—I regretted trading the softness of her cheek for the roughness of her sweater vest, “I don’t think you would have come out at school if you didn’t want an excuse to tell your parents, either.”

Rach restrained a look of being impressed “Hah! Maybe you’re right?” Was I, now?

 

Selfishly, I leaned over and kissed Rach on the lips and I watched the tension in my girlfriend’s body slowly but surely drain from her body. She somehow sunk deeper into the passenger seat. I couldn’t help but be enraptured by how the light of the sun shining through the front windshield outlined, highlighted and memorialized Rach’s face. “I’ll be there with you, if you want.”

 

“When I tell them?” she asked in a whisper. I replied with a mere look, hoping that she would understand my heart.

 

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

 

I think I might have guffawed in response, “Implants?”

 

“Yeah. I’ve been saving up, thanks to all the advertising and sponsors I’ve had,” Rach wore a soft smile, coy and mischievous, with a giggle just below the surface, waiting for its opportunity to strike and worm its way into my heart.

 

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

 

“Well, I never said I was a particularly thoughtful little girl, my good sir,” the aforementioned giggle finally slipped out, as if Rach was deploying it strategically. It was the kind of troublemaking that had made me fall in love with her all those years ago.

 

 “Christ, you really are a bimbo,” I groaned, rubbing my eyes as I straightened back on my seat and reached all the way back with my arms to hopefully improve the blood flow in them. 

 

For her part, Rachel simply giggled in response. It was like trying to defeat the heavyweight champion with only a month of training. No matter how much determination you had, you would never be able to topple a queen among queens with the experience she had under her belt.

 

And Rach had over a decade of experience of wrapping me around her finger. In the face of it all, I was beginning to realize that I was never going to be able to fulfil the ‘traditional boyfriend’ role in the relationship. 

 

And yet that was more a relief than anything else. 

 

With my arms stretched, I turned my attention to stretching upward and touching my car’s ceiling, just as Rach had done. I knew what I needed to do next, but I wasn’t quite sure how to even open that can of worms. It was overwhelming, but I knew that it was necessary. 

 

“Sooooo.”

 

Rach’s irises practically shrunk in response to my leading tone, “Yes, honey?” I knew exactly what tone she was going for: aloof, innocent girlfriend. The only problem with her little strategy was that I knew when Rach was actually confused and being aloof. I couldn’t not understand her better than that after having known her for twelve years.

 

“Like I said, I’m not doing your homework anymore.” I nearly bit my tongue trying to get that sentence out. It took everything I had not to close my eyes to brace for the impact sure to come.

 

I was right to be apprehensive. “Babe, please. Don’t maaaaaaaaaaaake me,” her whine was coated with a syrupy quality that was obviously just a ruse to try and get me to back down. Rach had always been a cheeky one.

 

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

 

“Who said I was going to college?” she cooed, playfully poking my chest with her right index finger.

 

I was not a fan of Rachel’s attempts at distracting me, especially after being touched on my chest, “Don’t you have any sort of dreams?”

 

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

 

“I’m being serious, babe,” I stone-faced, hoping that if I kept looking serious she would finally concede.

 

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

 

“Rachel.” I stonewalled, hoping that lowering my voice would make her understand how serious I was. Nothing I tried worked.

 

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

 

It was in moments like this that I didn’t know how to communicate with Rachel as a man. She was so determined to play off serious topics as being for later—and had been our entire lives. This was precisely why it had taken her so fucking long to come to terms with being bi and trans. If she had just taken this shit more seriously we wouldn’t have pretending to be fucking cishet all this time. It was infuriating to see her treating our future so flippantly. 

 

“Ugh, babe, come on, I can’t do it. I’m not smart like you!” Rachel’s tone began taking on a staccato and crescendoing quality that snapped me from my own frustrations.

 

I wasn’t used to seeing Rach be so emotionally present as she had been the past two days. Turning my gaze back towards Rachel, I could feel my face flushing with my concern. “Rach, are you okay?”

 

A dam broke somewhere within Rachel’s soul, “No, I’m not fucking okay! You keep fuckin’ trying to ruin the happiest mood I’ve been in for years over fucking homework and I’m sick of it!” Rachel shrieked as she leaned up from the reclined passenger seat, struggling with the passenger side seatbelt. I was powerless to even move as I watched Rach flail about, swearing between quick, sharp breaths as she struggled with untangling the seat belt around her. Finally, I found the presence of mind to try and reach out to help, but Rach slapped my hand away. Her pink-painted nails cut the palm of my right hand. 

 

Finally, breaking free of the seatbelt, Rach swung open the passenger side door, scrambled out and then slammed it, cutting my panicked calls of “Rachel?!” off.

 

It was at that moment that I had realized that I might have just hurt Rachel more than anyone else ever had—when all I had ever wanted was to help her.

 

Why had I done that? Why had I even assumed that Rach and I were in it for the long haul? We’d never discussed our future! Wasn’t I just assuming that we would get married someday and be together forever? 

 

Was I concerned about Rachel’s future, or my own?

 

Rach had never had problems with charming other women. I, on the other hand, had zero experience at doing anything besides being her boyfriend—and I hadn’t even felt particularly comfortable with my job doing that.

 

Rach had a life ahead of her, a future and a bright personality that could get her anywhere she wanted to go if she could just apply herself. Her growing success as an Instagram influencer had proven that much.

 

But what did I have? I did as I was expected and got good grades and stayed out of any real trouble as I was expected to. But that was all there was to me: I lacked any sort of dreams or ambitions for myself. 

 

I was technically an adult now, and yet I felt more like a helpless child than ever before.

 

My palms felt wet, but when I looked down at them I saw not sweat, but the scarlet shades of blood on them.

 

The blood seeped out of my palm, but I couldn’t help but feel like it was Rachel’s blood on my hands, not my own.

 

***

 

September 05, 2023: 

 

By the time lunch had ended I had cleared out the eggs I had vomited the eggs that I had even that morning over the student parking. I wasn’t sure if that had been due to the stress of the day, or the simply fact that those eggs had been so near their expiration, but as I stared at the mess I had made, torturing myself with the sight of it, it felt as if they were the perfect metaphor for how my day was going. 

 

How my life was going, really.

 

Rachel kept her distance—and I mine—for the rest of the school day. I wasn’t sure that I could face her again, knowing what I knew about my own selfish desires. 

 

Rachel even prepared herself to escape the eighth period on time and rush home by foot by bagging up all of her books and supplies five minutes before the bell rang. I hadn’t bothered to try and compete with her, and waited until I was the last one to leave class to even stand up from my desk. 

 

Following Rachel was pointless—I  knew that much. So, ten minutes after the last bell had rang I shuffled through the now mostly cleared halls of the school to my car.

 

As I passed by the slightly ajar door to Miss Baker’s classroom a familiar figure caught a glimpse of me passing by and immediately dashed to the door. Poking her head out of the door, I realized that I recognized the girl from phys ed, Claire. Claire wore her brown hair as a shaggy pageboy and took to dress shirts and ties more often than not. Such regular effort placed into presenting well had been above me, and I’d kicked myself for not trying a little harder. Queer fashion was, frankly, really fun to appreciate—even from afar.

 

“Hey, Jae! Fancy meeting you here! Where’s Rach?” Claire beamed, her excitement clear as day.

 

I didn’t know how to explain “I accidentally triggered a panic attack in my girlfriend, and now I was driving home alone” to Claire, so I smiled sheepishly and replied “Oh, she’s gone home alone today…”

 

Blinking, Claire wore a faint frown, “Oh, shoot. I was going to ask if you two wanted to join the GSA! We’re about to have a meeting right now, actually!” Claire shot a thumb back into the classroom without looking back. “I was so glad for y’all when you two finally came out!”

 

Jeez, even the queer kids thought that we were gay! What the hell kind of vibes was I putting out?

 

“Aah, well, I mean, technically Rachel is the only one who came out…” I retorted, scratching the back of my head. “I could let her know about your offer, though.”

 

Yeah, if she ever spoke to me again after my dumbassery three hours earlier.

 

Claire fiddled with one of the cufflinks on her shirt’s sleeve, “Oh, yeah, of course! But still, I could have sworn you two were into each other before she came out. I mean, I guess that she was definitely into you, but you two always seemed a bit—well, whatever.” Claire laughed lightly, wearing a grin that spoke even louder.

 

I mean, yeah, she always had been really cute, but…okay, maybe I shouldn’t be blaming Rach for refusing to examine herself when I couldn’t even figure out what the fuck I was trying to say about myself.

 

“Aaah, well, uh…listen, I appreciate the offer and all, but I’ve had a really exhausting day,” that was far from a lie, at least, “...so I think I’ll have to decline—” a shine bouncing off of a small pin on Claire’s sweater vest caught my attention. On the small black pin was written ‘they/he’, and I immediately gagged in fear. Had I been misgendering and deadnaming this person in my head? “Oh, woah, I just noticed your pin! Did you recently come out as non-binary? I’m sorry, I thought you were a lesbian!”

 

Claire chuckled mischievously, “Oh no, no, bisexual, actually. But yeah, I came out as non-binary over the summer. My folks and friends have been really supportive!”

 

Fearing that I was still in a grave of my own digging I mustered the courage to ask: “D-did…you have a new name that I should know about?”

 

Claire shook their head, “Oh, no, no, you’re fine, Jae! I actually like my birth name more now. It’s so gendery to go by ‘Claire’ while using ‘they/he’ pronouns!” Their mischievous giggle only underscored their confidence even more. That certainly made sense to me. Adjusting my backpack shoulder straps to keep my hands busy I nodded to indicate that I understood his meaning. The pep in their voice really did remind me of how much happier Rachel had been sounding since yesterday.

 

Before I fucked that up.

 

“I hope you’re feeling better by next meeting, though,” Claire added, “I’m sure that Missy and Isaac would love to have another trans femme join the GSA, and Randy would probably love to not be the only cis queer guy in the club—not that I’m saying that you’re queer or anything! Cishet allies are totally allowed to join too, of course!”

 

Claire’s small display of nervousness helped ground me in the moment and let me forget my own anxieties, “Uh…yeah, no, like, I’ll think about it. And I’ll definitely let Rachel know about your offer! She’s just got…a lot going on right now.”     

 

“Oh!” Claire said with a fastidious nod, “I can only imagine! I heard about what happened at lunch yesterday—those asshole rich kids can be, well, assholes…”

 

It was hard not to lightly chuckle at that, “Yeah, definitely—”

 

“—hey Claire, you joinin’ us or what? You take any longer and I’ll be able to get gender-affirming surgery!” Isaac’s masculine voice called out in a playfully annoyed manner. 

 

Turning around in an exaggerated manner, Claire shot back, “Good, then you can help me recover from the foot surgery I’m going to need after I remove my foot from your butt, you dipstick!” Clearly their teacher advisor was in the room, or else Claire would have chosen a more colorful choice of words. A chorus of playful laughs and jeers directed towards Isaac flooded out of the classroom door.

 

Turning back to me, Claire wore a natural shit-eating grin, “Still sure you don’t want to grace their highness back there with your presence?

 

“Pfft. Next week, for sure,” I half-laughed. With a turn and a wave I was off.

 

Off to beat myself up for being such a damned fool.  

 

***

 

September 05, 2023: 

 

The roar of the mall was the same as ever for a Tuesday during the school year. I was concerned about how few people were masking these days, and I had kept up with masking to try and counterbalance that. As stuffy as it could be wearing a KN95 inside of a mall it was still a lot better than getting sick. 

 

And not being sick gave me more time to goof off…with Rach.

 

In all honesty, I wasn’t sure why I had decided to come to the mall. Oh, I certainly thought that I did. I told myself that if I had just bought her something nice and apologized for earlier she would have welcomed me back with open arms.

 

But surely Rach wasn’t that shallow—or forgiving.

 

‘Forgiving’ for what, though? Forgiving for me pointing out the reality of the situation? That her continual avoiding of any of the consequences for her actions were just going to lead to us both suffering through the consequences? And what, did she not feel any guilt for what she was putting me through by making me stay in the closet with her?

 

How was I—the cis one in the relationship—more in the closet than my trans girlfriend?

 

Suddenly, I realized that I was in the middle of a Hot Topic, feeling the material of a red checkered skirt that I knew Rach would look good in. The material felt sturdy, but not itchy. Here I was, trying to guilt shop, all while telling myself that I should stick up for myself.

 

What a joke.

 

Eventually, I abandoned the Hot Topic and tried my luck with the Spencer’s that was around the corner. The store had discounted Pride buttons left over from the summer, so I nabbed a Bi Pride button for Rach from the display bowl. 

 

The bowl full of buttons had a sign reading ‘Buy Two Get One Free’.

 

There were also Trans Pride buttons in the bowl. 

 

I grabbed a Trans Pride button as well.

 

All that remained was the third, free button.

 

I wasn’t trans or bisexual, though, so it wasn’t like I could just—

 

And yet I still thought about sex with men.

 

I thought about sex with men a lot for a straight guy.

 

I fished a spare backup Bi Pride button from the bowl, just in case Rach lost hers.

 

She was always losing stuff.

 

I couldn’t let her lose me, too.

 

***

 

September 05, 2023:

 

After my little shopping trip at the mall I made a quick stop at the food court for a hot pretzel, only to be greeted by an unfortunately familiar sight. 

 

Chase Avery Mann.

 

“Oh my gosh Jae, is that you?” Chase asked in a particularly artificially loud voice.  

 

Flinching as subtle as I could manage, I turned to face Chase. She looked as if she had bought out several high-end stores with the number of bags she was carrying. Even for a woman of her height, she looked quite weighed down by the number of bags she was carrying. I guess the daughters of high-ranking US generals got a hell of an allowance?

 

“Oh, hi Chase,” I smiled weakly, “Fancy meeting you here,” came out as a half-grumble.

 

“Ooooooooooh my goodness, Jae! I'm so, so sorry, but I was wondering if you could, like, give me a ride home? I’m afraid I bought a little too much for the bus!”  

 

I’d say.

 

“Oh, and, of course, my car hasn’t arrived back to Washington since we moved here again!” I wasn’t sure that I liked how convenient that sounded, but there was something about Chase Avery Mann that always kept me on the wrong foot. I had no idea how to politely turn her down, because for whatever reason…I feared her reaction. It was like staring down a predator in the wild—Chase set off every alarm in my senses with that stilted way she spoke and those dull, lifeless eyes.  

 

Clearing my throat—and kicking myself—I nodded as slowly and softly as I could, “Uh, yeah, sure thing.” 

 

So much for wanting something to eat. 

 

***

 

September 05, 2023: 

 

“You know, Jae, it’s very much quite lovely to be back in Washington. I absolutely adored and missed my poor Richard, just as much as I missed the blue and gray skies up here. Father always spent so much of his time at work, but I was quite happy when he told me that were would be returning to Washington! Oh yes, I much prefer the climate here, as opposed to California with those odd San Fransicans or the aired air in the midwest. New York was positively dreadful, too! That being said, I was ever so fond of the beautiful weather in Florida—to say nothing of the people down there. I do say, the politicians that I met through my father were simply the most delightful sort!”

 

Suffice it to say, I did not get in a word edgewise on the drive to the Mann family’s home.

 

Chase spent the drive back to her house chatty as can be, but the shrillness of her voice—combined with the robotic quality to her cadence—left me clinging on to my sanity for dear life. To spare my sanity, I remained focused on the road, hoping to whatever god might actually exist that the strange young woman wouldn’t ask me about Rachel or our relationship.

 

The last thing I needed was the woman who thought that she was my girlfriend’s ex-girlfriend asking me who pitched and who catched.

 

I was somehow a worse pitcher than my father, and he was the one who blew out his arm in the middle of the Rainiers’ most important game of the decade.

 

He was definitely not a fan of talking about that game at dinner parties. 

 

Eventually, I pulled into a still-in-development neighborhood, populated by mostly finished houses that simply needed some finishing touches or needed families to move it. The neighborhood was a bit of a drive out of my way, but I figured that if it kept the peace I could just be nice, drop her off, and then get the hell out of there. I wasn’t sure if she knew where I lived, but I definitely didn’t want to give her any reason to look into it, either.

 

The neighborhood—while gated—was a strange place for a family to move into, but it made sense that a general would be able to afford houses that looked as good as these. Rachel’s father, from what I understood, was one of the United States’ highest ranking generals. I couldn’t imagine he had much time for his daughter, and that often made me wonder if that was part of why Chase was so…well, Chase. 

 

It was ironic that we had that in common. 

 

Pulling into the driveway of the home that Chase indicated, I shut off my engine and quickly made for the door, but Chase finally asked what I dreaded she would ask: “How’s Ric—how’s Rachel doing? With her, uh, change stuff?”

 

‘Change’? Did she not know what a ‘transition’ was? “Uh…Rach is…going along nicely,” I answered as non-committedly as possible.

 

Chase Avery Mann’s odd smile persisted, “Say Jae,” she snickered at her own rhyme, “Why isn’t Richard—Rachel with you?”

 

As little as I wanted to answer that, I took the opportunity to express my annoyance with Chase’s continued deadnaming, “Rachel—her name is Rachel, Chase.”

 

Chase giggled in a way that was definitely fake, “Oh dear me, I do apologize. It’s just that I’ve thought about him—thought about her so much while I was away, I’m afraid that I’m going to need some time to adjust!”

 

Lord, if this half-shat bullshit was what Rachel was afraid of her parents telling her then perhaps I really was getting upset over nothing. 

 

As diplomatically as possible I replied firmly, “I can’t stand for deadnaming and misgendering my girlfriend, Chase. I love her too much to put up with that.”

 

A twisted look took over Chase Avery Mann’s face, “Oh. How sweet. Now if only you had been that good a boyfriend earlier, instead of making my poor Richard cry.”

 

A chill ran down my spine, and I instinctively unlocked the doors with my left hand pressing the button on the driver side door console, “Chase, I think you should get out of my car. Now.”

 

A crooked smile spread across Chase Avery Mann’s face before she pulled a rag out of one of the shopping bags that she had kept up front with her. “I think you might be a bit more agreeable after a nice nap, Jae.”

 

As Chase smashed the rag against my face and held onto my seat belt so that I couldn’t escape her I could think only of “Rachel…”

 

***

 

September 05, 2023: 

 

The sound of someone stepping on a stairwell shook me back to consciousness. In the pitch black of what sounded—judging by the acoustics—like somewhere indoors, I felt my body completely restrained. The sensation of being unable to see, and knowing only from the sensation of feeling that I was lying down, strapped down somewhere, left me terrified. Too terrified, at first, to realize that I also felt a great pain in my body.

 

Where was it? Not my head.

 

Not my chest.

 

Not my arms or stomach.

 

No, lower.

 

Oh God.

 

Oh God, no way?!

 

Finally, I shrieked over the sound of every approaching step. A loud thudding noise layered itself over the echo of my shriek, as if something had fallen down the wooden steps.

 

A woman shrieked in pain, but seemed to be crawling towards me. In my shocked state, I could not process who the disgruntled voice belonged to. Then, a stray grunt sounded very familiar. Thank God.

 

Finally, the strained, but thankfully familiar voice called out to me, somewhere close by: “J-Jae! It’s me! It’s Rachel!!” 

 

It took all my will to not flail around as Rachel struggled with getting the restraints off of me. My brain felt completely fried, with half of it dedicated to managing my pain, and the other half remaining present enough to actually aid in my own rescue. 

 

“Wh-what the FUCK?!” I shrieked, “Wh-why does it hurt down there?!” In the back of my mind, I already knew the answer, but my mouth was decidedly behind the curve.

 

Rachel said nothing, her eyes glossing over as her hands continued violently struggling to remove the restraints around my wrists. Another person’s clicking and clacking steps lightly echoed in where the fuck I was being kept. 

 

Finally, Rach undid the restraint around my left hand and I joined her in hastily tearing the other restraints off. Rach was close enough to my face so that even in the dark of the room I could still make out her facial expression, and the horror that struck it when she suddenly remembered something. I follow Rachel’s gaze, only to finally catch sight of the eerie smile of Chase Avery Mann as it was shrouded and illuminated by the light of a lantern. Chase Avery Mann at perfect, stiff attention, hands behind her back, watching us.

 

With my right hand freed, I shot upward on whatever the fuck I was strapped down to and in a rush of adrenaline went to work on untying my right leg. Sitting upright, however, sent a surge of pain from down below straight to my brain. “FUCK!!!” it came out more like a yelp—my voice catching in my throat before it could bloom into a full shriek of pain.

 

I knew what had happened to me. I knew what awaited me down there—but I reached anyway. I looked down anyway. It was exactly what I had suspected. Chase Avery Mann had surgically removed my testicles. I could feel whatever you called this emotion boiling over, ready to explode out and impress itself upon anyone who was within the neighborhood. In the end, I merely stopped. A soul burned to cinders in its place. I couldn’t do it—couldn’t even let myself feel the emotion that would lead to screaming. It was too fucking much. 

 

Rachel struggled to her feet—her legs had to have been screaming in pain—by supporting herself on the make-shift operating table long enough to embrace me. When my eyes had finally looked to my right and caught sight of the dish containing my testicles I lost track of how long I stared at the dish. A salt tear dropping into my mouth finally snapped me from my timeless torture. 

 

The tear tasted like Rachel. 

 

“Oh dear, Richar—Rachel, sweetie, please, he’ll hurt you,” Chase Avery Mann said with a stilted concern. It was like talking to an alien trying to pretend to be a human being.

 

I felt so detached from the moment, brought sparingly back to the present only by the shrieks and the broad movements Rachel would makes, “You did this because you thought he was going to hurt me?!” As my eyes adjusted to the dark, damp room lid so, so poorly by the lantern hanging off of…something, I realized that we were in a basement. A basement was where I had been violated.   

 

There was a conversation going on— 

 

“Oh, but Richard, sweetie, he—”

 

—that I knew I was hearing— 

 

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

 

—but with my nerves such as they were now—

 

“—had you sobbing, after all.”

 

—I was feeling awfully calm in between the spikes of emotional terror.

 

Rachel sounded so present, “I love him, Chase! Y-you crazy bitch, he could die from an infection!” Hell, she even sounded like she still loved me after yesterday. Today? It seemed like it was probably dark out by now—I wonder if it was midnight?

 

With Rach distracted reaching for her phone—I wonder if she would get reception down here?—Chase swiped at my throat with a scalpel already dried with blood. My heart instantly kicked back into overdrive as I swung myself backward on my elbows and Rach swung her right hand back and grabbed Chase Avery Mann by the wrist, stopping her just short. 

 

Rachel exercised those years of experience in school yard fights and pulled Chase Avery Mann from the makeshift castration station. Chase kneed Rach in the crotch, forcing her grip to break and she fell to her knees and used both hands to grab herself.

 

“Oh, poor baby!” As if she were swinging a large, heavy bag of dog food over her shoulder, Rach uppercutted Chase, but the bitch had no problems smoothly sliding backward.

 

Rachel didn’t dawdle and leapt onto Chase, and her shouting of “Run!” snapped me straight to attention. Fighting through the pain, I struggled off the table while Rachel pinned our insane classmate to the ground. 

 

Fuck, did it hurt like Hell. 

 

As I struggled up the basement stairs I heard terrifying noises. 

 

“Ooh,” it was like the monster was cooing or something—as if she was being played with during sex, “You’re so strong~! ♥”

 

Shrieks of fury soon choked out any noise that Chase Avery Mann could make.

 

***

 

August 23, 2023: 

 

Today was the day that Rachel finally turned eighteen. It was hard to forget her birthday, after all, since it was only a day before mine. It had always been a funny little coincidence that we were both born only a day apart. When we had been young enough for birthday parties we had simply done them together, but now we were much too old to actually hold birthday parties.

 

Which honestly wasn’t an issue, because as far as I was concerned, Rachel was the only person I wanted to invite from school, anyway. 

 

Like most days, Rach and I spent them alone in her room—or mine, like today—since both of our parents worked late. It made it a little easier to just relax and have fun, without having to worry about how our parents wanted to interject themselves into our lives. 

 

Well, that and give us the “are you two dating?” looks. 

 

“Birthday cake! Birthday cake! Birthday ca~ke!” Rach clapped as I fiddled with lighting the candle on her cake, “Confetti is, like, THE BESTEST for a birthday cake!”

 

The part of my brain that considered what other people thought—that Rach was too loud and too annoying for being excited about a mere birthday cake—

 

“—gonna the light out before anything catches on FIRE—”

 

—but the other part of me—the part that loved to see her happy and carefree—felt most alive when she was being loud and—as the kids at school called her—retarded. 

 

Swooping her long blonde hair together in the back so as to not catch it on fire, Rachel leaned down and blew out the candle on her cake with as loud and exaggerated a blowing noise as she could muster. 

 

A little noise in the back of my head rolled its eyes, but the me in the moment thankfully grinned as I turned my back to her to grab her present.

 

As she leaned back up, I swore that I saw a bounce in her chest beneath her baggy anime tee shirt, but surely I had only imagined it. After all, why would Rach have breasts when she was so awkwardly rail thin and lanky as she was?

 

If I brought it up she would probably just reference one of those gender bender manga she was always sending me—it was her MO.

 

“Yaaaaay! Nothing caught on fire!”

 

“That’s morbid, don’tcha think?”

 

“...Rachy-Rach-Rach has Seen Some Shit in YouTube videos, Jae Jae.”

 

“I’ll take your word for it,” I chucked, presenting the pink wrapping paper-wrapped present to the birthday girl. “Happy birthday, you big weeb.”

 

Taking a moment to marvel at the bright, clean sheen of the pink wrapping paper, Rach eventually removed the paper voraciously and flipped open the box. 

 

“Holy shit, Jae Jae?” Rach exclaimed, pulling the stack of self-published Japanese fan comics out of the box, “You…bought me hentai?”

 

“Fuck off Rach, you know damned well those aren’t porn!” I shouted back, a small voice at the back of my mind telling me to laugh.

 

Rach giggled at her own joke as she sat down in a chair at my desk to carefully and neatly skim through the books. “Omigawd, Jae Jae, these are, like, amazing! All from authors I love, too!”   

 

“I figured you’d love those. I asked Shuu to buy them at the last event he went to.”

 

“Your cousin, right?” Rach asked, looking up from the book she was skimming through at the moment.

 

“I had to scour our Discord DMs to get enough author names that were SFW and shippable across from Japan.” 

 

“Oh, I think you could’ve shipped the kind of h-doujin I’m into, you know. Especially since I’m eightee—”

 

“Enough with the porno talk, ma’am,” I shot back, probably showing the faintest signs of a grin forming.

 

Rach just giggled triumphantly, in that way she did anytime she got one over on me. 

 

It was always a little thrilling when she did that.

 

“Thanks a bunch, Jae Jae. I, like, really love these! I really need to—”

 

“—to learn to read Japanese?” I cut her off.

 

“Er…yeah. I mean, I’ve already read scanlations of a lot of these, but even just having original copies of indie books is so cool! Who knows if these will ever get printed again?!”

 

It was hard not to be won over by her enthusiasm for the arts.

 

“Which haven’t you read yet?” I asked, trying to sound interested for her sake.

 

Rach took a minute to sort through the stack before answering, “Ooh, this one!” Rach handed a seventy page comic to me, and I read the cover aloud: “My Best Friend Liked Crossdressing, So I gave It a Shot, Too! Then We Had A Girl’s Date!!! Christ, why are these titles so long?!” Admittedly, the cover art of the two crossdressing boys was really cute, though.

 

Rach giggled at my stupefaction, “Because, that’s, like, the charm of them! Duh!”

 

Grouched, I took the book and sat on my bed and leaned against the wall, then patted the bed next to me. Catching my drift, Rach excitedly dashed over and hopped on the bed next to me. As she settled next to me—perhaps a bit too intimately close—her left thigh touched my right and the sensation had me instantly straighten up where I sat. 

 

“So, like, omigawd,” Rach gasped, overly excited, “Are ya really gonna—?”

 

“Yeah, yeah, I am. J-just calm down for a sec, dude!” I grumbled, trying to regain some composure. Rach had gone all out with her makeup today, and being touched by the bare skin of her thighs in denim short-shorts had thrown me into a real spiral. 

 

She just kept getting cuter and cuter over the years, and I didn’t know why I found her so attractive. I’d only ever felt this way about girls, not—

 

“Omigawd, Jae Jae, thank you sooooooooooo much, though! I, like, know how much you hate, like, putting up with my weird ‘n dumb re-koo-ests to translate random text for me ‘n stuff—”

 

Clearing my throat to cut Rach off and refocus myself I corrected the birthday girl, “Listen, Rach, it’s not dumb, it’s just—it’s kinda—and don’t take this the wrong way—a drag to be used as someone’s own personal translator. Like, it’s not like I can just read and then translate off-the-cuff, you know.”

 

Rach shook her head furiously, her pony tail swinging back and forth and nearly whacking me in the face at one point, “Nonononononononono, I get it Jae Jae, I do! I promise, I’ll really super-duper try and study more! I’m even taking Japanese again this year! I’m just so glad that you’re, like, y’know, doin’ this for me right now and stuffs!”

 

Looking down at her puppy dog eyes, it was hard not to get caught up in them.

 

I wasn’t sure when she’d begun resting her head on my shoulder, and I don’t think that she did, either. But I couldn’t disturb her—not when she looked so at ease. 

 

So, I turned back to the book in my hand, and began reading aloud to my best friend.   

 

***

 

September 06, 2023: 

 

Praying to the many stars lighting the night sky above that I hadn’t torn open my stitches struggling out into the front yard of whatever the fuck horror house I had just been in, I looked back—with great trepidation—at the house. Minutes passed in ways I could not keep track of before someone finally emerged from the front door. It was difficult to see at first. Beyond my own comprehension I found that my firsts had raised themselves, like they had done so many times before in fights at school. 

 

Finally, it became clear who had emerged—literally—victorious.

 

“Rachel?! RACHEL?!” I had not even remembered closing the gap between Rachel and I, only that I was suddenly standing in front of my girlfriend with my hands firmly on her shoulders. I began shaking my catatonic girlfriend as she loomed lifelessly before me. Stray, intrusive thoughts about how beautiful she looked under the light of the night sky filled my mind. I mentally kicked myself for even thinking about that at such a crucial moment.

 

Finally, a response came.

 

“J-Jae?” her voice was a quiet, biting rasp. I had seen Rachel pummel bullies for years—hell, I had known how much blood she could drench her fists in—but the sight of her entire form drenched in blood was a sight that I had never thought that I would see. When I looked down at my hands—the wound from earlier festering—I knew that what I had on them was not the blood of one Rachel Penn. 

 

And yet, still I asked.

 

“Rachel, whose blood is that?” I could not recall when I had started weeping. The uncontrolled sobs delayed my pleading for her attention. I needed her to wake up. I needed her to smile again—to giggle in the way she always did to make me feel like I was right where I was meant to be.

 

Looking down—so, so, so calmly—Rachel showed little movement on her face. I saw the red of her palms reflected in her large, glazed over dark eyes.

 

Then her mouth widened.

 

The night sky was so, so beautiful tonight.

 

It wasn’t her laughter that she let out, but even Rachel’s shrieks of bloody murder sounded beautiful to me.

 

The pervert in me hoped that it was a victory cry.

***

 

I remember the first day I met her, as she surrounded herself with the other girls during recess. How she commanded their attention with her bold tales of dodgeball conquest, her shining smile magnetizing. 

 

Or how she looked completely at ease the first time I walked in on her in a dress, her embarrassment painting her face redder than her lip-stain upon noticing me. Yes, yes, I remember how she looked in her long, white-haired wig that she wore—repurposed from a Sephiroth cosplay—as she wept in my arms on her bed.

 

I remembered the swagger in her motion the first time I walked in on her with another girl, owning herself without even realizing it.

 

Of course, it was a marvel watching her take on five boys by herself the first time she got called a faggot in sixth grade. I just had to join her. 

 

I remember, yes, how drawn to her strength I felt. How I promised myself I’d one day know it, like I would know her.

 

***

 

September 06, 2023:

 

Beep.

 

Boop.

 

Beep.

 

Boop…

 

They were a chorus, filling the cold hospital room. I opened my eyes to travel from one world of darkness to another. The room was very pre-set, save for the golden-haired woman to my left, her unconscious body slumped into her chair and her hand still tightly crasping my own. As I turned my gaze back to the unfamiliar ceiling above me I wondered…how exactly did I wind up in the hospital?

 

And then it came back to me.

 

The realization of what Rachel had done…and to whose daughter she had done it.

 

The rush to burn our clothes, to eradicate as much evidence as possible.

 

The rush back to my home, amid the dark veil of night for new clothes, before I passed out again from the pain.

 

Yes, yes, I remembered: how my stitches came undone on the stumble to my car.

 

How Rachel, clad in a set of my clothes, 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 Chase Avery Mann’s body is 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 lay 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 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, “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. 

 

Perhaps life after balls wasn’t going to suck so much after all?

 

***

 

September 06, 2023:

 

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 38 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. A tight golden bun sat atop her head and I could only idly think about how Rach would probably never be the type to rock such a hairstyle.

 

“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 much preferred my father’s tastes in suits, though. Peter Penn’s gray suit jacket was much too baggy on his 5’7’’ frame.

 

I gave Mister Penn 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.

 

“How in the world did this even happen?” Mrs. Penn asked, her golden ponytail swinging to-and-fro as she looked back-and-forth between me and her daughter.

 

“Uh…well, that’s kind of a complicated story,” Rachel revealed, not changing back to a guy voice. Moment of truth, I guess.

 

The Penns raised an eye-brow at Rachel’s more…melodious voice. 

 

“Dicky, honey…” Mrs. Penn started, before Mr. Penn interjected, “That’s some pretty fresh-looking makeup, Rich. Why did you apply that out of cosplay?”

 

Rachel fidgeted 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 couldn’t quite recall. 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-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 means so much to you.

 

I let my girlfriend’s hand go so she could dive into her mother’s embrace as she bawled 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 that let him know I was lowering the proverbial knife to his throat. 

 

***

 

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. The past two days had been emotionally draining in ways I’d never felt before, and not just because I was still recovering from my denoted de-nutting.

 

A break in talking filled the room with an awkward silence while I sipped my water. Finally, I spoke up: “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. An investigation needs to take place, after all,” Penny explained, “We’re going to have to go to the police.”

 

It made me disgusted to consider it, but it was also going to be the only way to control the narrative before things got out of hand.

 

For her part, my mother—whom Rachel had apparently already come out to when my mother had gone to the Penn house the day before while looking for me—stepped back for a moment to take a phone call. 

 

Rachel turned a deafening pale, “The pigs? Uh…I don’t know if you’ve heard, but they’re not exactly, y’know, friendly towards people like me!” The rising hint of panic in Rachel’s voice was like a knife turning in my side: feeling helplessness felt inevitable.

 

“We’re going to be up against one of the most powerful people in the country,” I told Rachel, who looked like she was all kinds of dissociating, “I just want you to know that we’re in this together, babe.”

 

Rachel formed a small smile in response, but I could tell her brain was fried from the attention and the past few days of trauma. Before I could get out of bed to give my girlfriend a hug my mother returned from her phone call, now setting a new world record for paleness.

 

“Mom?”

 

“A friend from work called. Said she wanted to ask me if I’d heard.”

 

“Heard what?” I nearly whispered.

 

“‘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. 

 

That she is the daughter of a high-ranking United State general is even better.

 

For them, not us.

 

As the hospital room television bathed the dark room in the light of its LED screen displaying the news coverage of Chase Avery Mann’s disappearance I couldn’t help but keep my attention on Rachel. This woman I loved was going to be forced to face the entire country, if not the entire world, all because she didn’t do gender the way it expected of her. It was maddening. Rach’s near catatonic stare scared me all the more. “Rach…you okay, babe?”

 

Rach turned to me and smiled, weakly, “Is it too late to burn her body?” She was brushing her golden hair as some form of coping mechanism. Given the situation we were in she looked almost ridiculous with one eye covered like a chuuni.

 

Admittedly—with Gen. Eric Wyatt Mann’s image beaming down from the TV onto me—I was beginning to wonder if burning Chase’s body wasn’t a good idea, myself. “Just hold on, babe, we’ll get out of this.” That’s right, just keep reminding her that she isn’t alone. 

 

With what little strength I had recovered, I climbed out of bed and stood up for a full body stretch, immediately triggering an unpleasant sensation in my recovery area. Pulling on those muscles was apparently not a good idea yet. I staggered in place for a moment, inspiring Mr. Penn—sitting next to his daughter—to nearly leap forward to catch me. Luckily, my buckling knees came back to me as quickly as they had left and I was able to give the “I’m okay, really” hand motion. I hugged a shell-shocked-eyed Rach 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, black-painted nails, her narrow shoulders, her large bouncing breasts, her long, dark hair tied back in a single tail as it bounced around slightly with each of her long strides…

 

***

 

September 07, 2023:

 

I awoke the next morning to find Rachel’s grasp on my torso significantly lighter, likely so I could squirm around at night. I was glad our parents hadn’t tried to disturb us last night by having Rachel return home with her parents after their impromptu strategy meeting with my mom and dad (via Zoom). It was nice to just let the situation take care of itself, at last.

 

Not to mention, it wasn’t like I was going to be knocking her up any time soon.

 

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 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 in the afternoon rolled around and I, my mom, and the three Penns found ourselves awkwardly sitting in a salacious silence at the police station. Rach, having gone home to change into her own clothes, fiddled with a fidget spinner while seated tightly next to me on the bench, as if I was a balloon to keep from floating off. For my part, I found myself desperately hoping I didn’t accidentally touch her bare thigh—with officers walking past—as she rocked her denim short-shorts. They went well with her light pink crop top, the word ‘BARBIE’ embroidered across the front with tacky pink jewels. Desperation to not stare too much as her bust samba’d up-and-down my spine. The twin-tails were a nice finishing touch.

 

Finally, our torment was brought to an end as a detective led us into a meeting room. Sitting in a cold, hard chair next to Rach around the large, wooden meeting table, I could feel Rach bouncing her legs up-and-down in place, betraying her broad smile of a poker face. The pink fidget spinner in her right hand continuing to spin its little heart out, Rach turned to me only to smile. In the recesses of my mind I wondered if she regretted the heels.

 

“So…Mister…Richard Penn, I presume?” the detective—Hatchet, I believe—began, “What brings you in today?”

 

Rach spun her toy faster at hearing her deadname, “Uh, so, like, uh…I wanna, like, you know, uh…” Rach shot looks around the room, trying desperately to focus on a friendly face.

 

In my life I do not know if I’ve ever felt second-hand pain quite as keenly as I had in that moment. Watching Rach flounder bore into my psyche with a breath-stealing discomfort I was unaccustomed to and I could do nothing but fight back against it directly: “Her name is Rachel, Detective Hatchet.”

 

The detective looked less than impressed by me, “Young man, I’m afraid I have to use his legal name for this. You understand, I’m sure,” the grizzled old man smarmed.

 

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 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, my 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 and ours. A second male detective quickly joined us in the conference room at Hatchet’s insistence and with each passing second I could feel the stares of the police on Rach grow colder.

 

“So, like, yeah, uh…she…touched me…there…”

 

“Where?” Detective Hatchet inquired with a tone I don’t think any of us could discern.

 

“My…genital area. And breasts. After assaulting my boyfriend and I uh…like…you know…blacked out. When I came to, I was covered in her blood and remembered why I was…”

 

Rachel’s bumpy confession continued on for another ten minutes with the two detectives asking her multiple questions and her parents advising her. I couldn’t help but be mesmerized by Rach’s increasingly confident hand gestures and girl voice the longer she continued babbling on. In a way, Rach’s scatterbrained persona was its own form of strength that I couldn’t help but admire. 

 

When Rach had shown up to the police station in such flagrantly pink attire I’d 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 captured and finding her corpse. 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:

 

At 3:34AM Rachel awoke from a nightmare that I couldn’t get her to describe to me and wept. As Rachel wept into my shirt I wondered to myself why I couldn’t shed any tears for her. The emptiness that I felt in my heart scared me. Was it because I was still in shock from losing my testicles? That wasn’t bothering me nearly as much as I would have expected it to.

 

Rachel fell asleep again around 4:11AM with myself not too long after. 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!” my girlfriend replied with a literal chirp.

 

“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 my still-recovering genitals. Curiosity—more so than boredom—eventually struck and I found my hands rummaging through Rach’s room without any disagreement from her. Eventually, while looking through her draw 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 held, kissed and admired the results for the past four days now, so I suppose that was all the proof I needed for my pudding.

 

It had occurred to me now that I would have to start taking the testosterone shots in five days—ironically, I was assigned my own type of HRT now—although I wasn’t exactly keen on anything that might speed up my hairline receding. When puberty had hit I hadn’t quite managed to ever get used to it, but I dealt with it in what ways I could. The deeper voice was kind of nice, sometimes: it expanded my range of character voices, after all. Otherwise, I just prayed that I wouldn’t wind up bald like my dad.

 

Well, I suppose taking an inch or two off of my shoulder’s wouldn’t have been bad, either.

 

Rachel eventually finished applying her ‘face’ for the day—she was honestly beautiful to me, even without the makeup—with an hour to spare. It wasn’t long before we found ourselves lying on her bed, staring at the popcorn ceiling. Turning to face Rachel—just to take in the life she often showed behind those gorgeous green eyes—I wondered if she was perhaps trying to count the number of popcorn bumps on the ceiling. It seemed like the sort of thing she might try, fail and then give up on trying to do. 

 

The thought of her pout at the end of it all made me smile wide.

 

Rachel eventually noticed me watching her and turned onto her right side to look me in the eyes. “Hey, Jae Jae,” she whispered. Some of that old fashioned Rachel perceptiveness flushed back into the concealed pores of her face.

 

“Hey, Rach,” I returned.

 

Rachel interlocked our fingers. It was quickly becoming our thing—I liked having a ‘thing’ with her.

 

“I’ve missed this,” she said softly. The warmth of her palm was such that I hoped that she would never let go of mine, sweating of the palms be damned.

 

“Me, too,” I smiled, inching my body as much as I could without triggering a reaction ‘down there’. Leaning my face into hers I internally cringed as I felt my three-day old stubble rub against her soft, smooth cheeks. In all of the chaos of the last few days it had not occurred to me to shave and for that I regretted deeply touching her face with mine.

 

Rachel apparently didn’t mind and began kissing me, each kiss longer than the last. Remaining still while she did all of the work was a tad awkward, but I enjoyed becoming lost in her rhapsody. Hell, even the taste of toothpaste in my mouth wasn’t all that bad. It was spearmint!

 

Then it happened: Rachel sprung an erection and it knocked into where my fruit once hung low, causing momentary discomfort.

 

“Oh, fuck, Jae, I’m so sorry, baby!” my girlfriend yelled in a whisper, “I—oh, gawd, Jae, are you okay?”

 

I didn’t want to set Rachel off, so I put on a brave face, “Babe, please, it was only a light touch. You didn’t hurt anything down there!”

 

Rachel seemed to buy it and fell back onto her back, breathing a sigh of relief. “I’m so, so, so sorry, honey,” she nearly cry whispered, “If—if it hadn’t been for m—”

 

“No!” I said sharply, “None of that bullshit, Rachel. You are not to blame for what that bitch did to me!”

 

The sniffles befell my dear Rachel, “I—I’m just so, so, so sorry, Jae. Now you can’t—gawd, hon…”

 

Propping myself up with my left elbow I held my face over hers, “It’s fine,” I whispered, “Really. I hadn’t planned on ever—hey, you’ll need to fix your makeup if you keep this up,” I laughed.

 

Rachel caught the giggles, too, and shot back: “Yeah—yeah, definitely.”

 

Her smile came back and it was enough for me to release the pressure on my left elbow and drop back onto my backside. “It’s fine, Rachel, really. I…it doesn’t even really bother me.”

 

Rachel shot me a quizzical look, so I decided to offer her a simple explanation: “I’m mostly just mad that she—that she did that to me without my consent.”

 

“You’re not—not upset that you’ll never be able to…”

 

“Not really, no. I don’t think it was ever really in the cards, for me…” my voice was strangely monotone. “Besides, I’d much rather…er…well, you know.”

 

The reddest part of Rachel’s face quickly stopped being her lips.

 

***

 

September 08, 2023:

 

After a shave and some shenanigans Rachel and I slipped out of her house and took my car to school, as she so desired. Pings—likely from her parents—erupted on her phone, but Rachel casually ignored them after using talk-to-text to send a curt “I just want to live a normal life.” She advised me that I ignore any text messages I was likely to receive momentarily, so I did.

 

Rachel and I reached dry land after a quick and quiet five minute drive to our high school. With some assistance from my girlfriend I managed to get out of my car, my legs still weak and recovering. I probably should have told Rach that I needed to stay home and recover more—that would have gotten her to stay home—but I ultimately couldn’t bring myself to stop her. Whatever it is she was doing by going to school, I could tell that she needed to try it.

 

“Are you sure this was a good idea for you?”

 

“Are you sure that this was a good idea for you, Miss Valedictorian?”

 

“Touché.” 

 

“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 Chase Avery Mann’s disappearance—and now confirmed death. The details were being kept under wraps for now, likely as the state built its case against Rachel. 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 it, should she be publicly named as Mann’s manner of death.

 

Rachel somehow made it through Fifth Period—our first for the day—before finally needing to break down in the restroom. Obviously, as a man, I couldn’t follow my girlfriend into the ladies’ restroom, but hearing her sobs echo from within just outside filled me with a sense of powerlessness that I cursed to no end. “All because of some stupid little things between my legs,” I muttered under my breath.

 

Rachel’s sobbing grew sufficiently more pained-sounding, so—gender be damned—I stomped into the ladies’ restroom and found three awkward looking girls with their eyes to the tile floor as they waited for a break in Rachel’s sobbing to try and get a word in.

 

“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. 

 

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?”

 

“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 it.

 

“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 display. “God, babe, you really are amazing—now where’s my ‘I love you’?”

 

“An amazing mess, maybe—I love you so much, Mr. 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?” I smoothed.

 

Rachel took a moment to reply before finally replying with an undeniable 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 on the face I had thankfully shaved over three hours earlier.

 

***

 

September 08, 2023:

 

Rachel and I survived 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 goddamned 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 cunty.

 

“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. Knowing Rachel as well as I did, I could tell how calculated it was, but I could easily see how anyone else wouldn’t think she had the ability to back up her words. Seeing her mind and body brought together in the heat of the moment only made my breathing quicken. This was the Rachel I knew so well.

 

“Shut it retard, I’m talking to your faggot boyfriend. Speaking of which, who did your makeup this morning, Jae? Your mommy or the retard over th—”

 

Before I could even react Rachel had already planted a fist into Gloria’s freshly purchased nose job. My eyes couldn’t help but follow the trail of red as Gloria-Fucking-Rembrant fell flat on her ass. Turning to Rachel I guffawed, “Holy shit?!”

 

Paler than she’d been since the night she stopped my kidnapper, Rachel stood still in shock. Carson turned his eyes from his now floored prized trophy cunt and rushed at Rachel, “You’re dead, tranny!”

 

I don’t even remember kicking off of the floor tile, but with the fastest dash of my life I intercepted Carson and tackled him to the ground. While my hands struggled to keep Carson pinned down I turned to catch sight of Rachel elbowing Sycophant #1 in the teeth, likely shattering them, while simultaneously kicking Sycophant #2 in the nuts and dodging a left hook from Sycophant #3. 

 

The crowd erupted in screams and cheers as the brawl broke out. With adrenaline coursing through my body and my brain unable to determine how long it would take for teachers to show up to hopefully stop the fight, I snapped to my feet and kneed Sycophant #3 in the spine, forcing him flat onto his fucking face, before he could finish swinging at my girlfriend a second time. For extra spice, I picked up Sycophant #3’s head by the back of his hair and slammed his face into the tile floor repeatedly.

 

A scream from Rachel broke me from the spell of my fun. Shooting my eyes up I saw Rachel being attacked by a newly standing Gloria tugging at her hair from behind while Carson tore at her sweater. The shrieks of pain from the woman I loved sent me into a fury I’d never known and, pulling out my ring of keys, I placed my car key between my fingers and jammed it into Carson’s back. The rich prick’s yelp wasn’t enough to stop me from twisting the key with terrible force and then dragging the key downward through his flesh like a knife. 

 

With Carson having let go of Rach after falling to his knees in agony, Rach swiftly lifted her sweater just enough to fuck with Gloria’s grip on her hair and send the bitch tumblring backward. With her sweater and purse now dislodged and around his 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 probably be feeling the pain from all of this moving around where my testicles once hung like fruit: ripe for the kicking. Nevertheless, 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, his face 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 and barely propped 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 entered 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 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 our foes 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 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? They all got money, we’re fucked, Rach!”

 

Rachel began sobbing loudly, face in hands. I didn’t know what to do, so I took my right hand off the wheel and patted her back and she leaned forward and wept. “We’re so fucked, Jae. I’m so—fuck, I should just kill myself!!”

 

I didn’t have a great reaction to that in my state of heightened energy, “Don’t ever fuckin’ say that again, Rachel!” It wasn’t a pleasant scream.

 

“I—I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please don’t be mad, honey!” Rach sobbed louder, pulling her face out of her hands. The snot look was not her.

 

“Fuck, I’m sorry Rach, I just—I don’t want to lose you, Rachel, I want us to g-get married someday!”

 

A light lit up on Rach’s face that I wasn’t expecting. 

 

“Oh shit hon, that’s right! Spouses don’t have to testify against one another!”

 

That…seemed useful. 

 

***

 

September 08, 2023:

 

“You want to get fucking married?!” Penny Penn screamed, her voice filling the Two Cents Law offices, despite her office door being shut. 

 

“Uh…yeah?” Rachel confirmed, her voice pitching up like it so often did when she was confused. 

 

“We won’t have to testify against one another, right?” I interjected, hoping to save the scene.

 

Peter Penn replied from his place leaning against a side table underneath the window, “Technically, yes, it would be useful in this situation, but you two are still so…uh…young.”

 

“We’re adults, though, chirp!” Rachel chirped, a nervous energy sending her right leg jackhammering into the floor of her mothers’ office. I often wondered if her parents did not see how…different Rach’s behaviors were compared to other people. Then again, I couldn’t ever really remember them being around much when we were growing up.

 

“Di—Rachel, stop bouncing your leg like that—also, what in the fuck did you two do to get yourselves wanted by the police again?” Penny demanded.

 

Scrolling through YouTube, Rachel picked out a video and showed it to her mom and dad: “Looky! We’ve gone, like, viral!”

 

I nearly leapt out of my seat, having completely blanked on checking for video proof, “Rachel, does that video show who started the fight?”

 

Going blank-faced, Rachel replied: “Uh…no? The vidy-vid-vid starts from, like, after Carson lun-ged-ged-ged-ged at you~!”

 

She was using cutesy humor to deflect her fears. Fuck.

 

“Fuck…” I mumbled. On one hand, it was nice knowing that the video didn’t contain Rachel making the first punch. On the other hand, it also didn’t contain us being harassed by those assholes, either. “Mister and Missus Penn…I’m concerned about what’s going to happen to Rach most of all here. Won’t the cops try and arrest her again? Like, isn’t getting into a fight some sort of bail violation?”

 

Peter poked in before his wife could, “That depends on whether or not someone uploaded a fuller version of the scene that corroborates your side of the story.”

 

“Uh, like, I dunno, Dadd—yikes, none of that, Rach. 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—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 (1958)!!” like she’d just proudly and smugly shouted the winning answer to a game show. It was hard not to get caught up in her fervor sometimes. Hell, it was hard not to appreciate how Peter seemed so…accepting of his daughter. There wasn’t an ounce of that ‘losing a son’ bullshit you’d expect from most men. No, no: this guy was ready to go to war for his daughter. It was honestly kinda cool. In another life, if I’d stumbled into a life of being a parent I think I would’ve liked to have his guts. 

 

Peter continued, graver: “They’re going to get their way unless we can prove without a doubt that you were defending yourself. Christ, you knocked out some little shit’s teeth and Jae did God knows what kind of damage to the fuckin’ Dallas boy’s back.”

 

“He had it coming,” we replied in union.

 

“Be that as it may kids, you two are still fucked,” Penny interjected.

 

It was hard to disagree with her.

 

***

 

September 08, 2023:

 

“Are you kids sure you still want to do this?” Peter asked, trepidation beneath his voice.

 

“Yeth,” Rachel replied with a nasal as she picked bloody snot from her nose. 

 

Luckiest in the world, I know.

 

“I’d be the luckiest in the world, sir,” I added, trying not to sound sarcastic considering what the soon-to-be-wife was doing.

 

In Washington State a marriage license typically took three days to be fulfilled. Luckily, with Penny’s connections she was able to get the waiting period waived, while Peter ‘officiated’ the wedding right there in their office, much to our surprise.

 

“Wow Dad, I didn’t know that you, like, knew how to officiate weddings?” Rachel revealed, sounding almost…well, not ‘normal’, but normal for Rachel. It was reassuring to see her engaged, despite all the trauma of the day.

 

“Uh…well, one of my old pro bono clients asked me to officiate their wedding to their wife a while back. Besides that, don’t you remember? I officiated Aunt Dolly and Aunt Imani’s wedding when you were ten.”

 

Rachel’s face turned to that of stone, “Uh…sorry, I don’t remember that day. That was the time mom made me get that bad haircut, right?”

 

Everyone turned to Penny, who looked mortified. “Don’t look at me! I thought you looked very handsome, Di—Rachel. Fuck.”

 

The restrained look of disappointment on Rachel’s face hurt in ways I didn’t know how to express. If we weren’t both locked up in jail that night I would spend the entire night hugging her.

 

Awkwardly, Peter decided to break the tension, “Uh…well, listen, I can get this done now, if that’s what you really want. It’ll still take a few days to process, but…you should be good. It’ll look dirty as hell to the courts, but hopefully we can play that off if we go to trial.”  

 

***

 

September 08, 2023:

 

Unfortunately, our marriage license had to read Deadname Jeong, but I promised Rachel that we would get it fixed as soon as she could get her name cleared and changed. It was kind of funny to think that, legally-speaking, I had a ‘husband’. Not funny in a bad way or anything—I’d still be attracted to Rachel, even if she detransitioned—but funny in a “I guess I really am a faggot now,” kind of way.

 

Wait, did I still need to ask for a faggot-pass?

 

Wait-wait, why did I think that? ‘Still attracted to Rachel if she was a guy’? I mean, sure, I’d always been attracted to Rachel on some level…but it’s because I could tell that she was really a girl, right? 

 

Even during those awkward years of sixth and seventh grade, when she’d started experiencing really bad dysphoria and became detached.

 

Oh, jeez. This isn’t the time to examine your fucking sexuality, Jae!

 

Eventually, the police showed up to Two Cents Law to arrest us for the fight at school. I felt deep trepidation at the sight of Rachel being handcuffed for the second time this week. What’s worse, we were both placed in the back of the squad car without seatbelts on. 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 kids 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.”

 

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 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. 

 

Peter and Penny arrived with hurried steps and reminded us to not speak. Peter, having scoured social media and YouTube for other angles of the fight during the car ride over, pulled up a video of Gloria harassing his clients and showed it to Detective Hatchet.

 

“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.

 

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.

 

Penny Penn broke from her tough demeanor to do something I hadn’t seen her do in a long time, if my memory was correct. With a gentle motion, Penny stroked her daughter’s long, blonde hair. I couldn’t describe the feeling the sight gave me.

 

“Rachel, this is all my fault,” Penny choked, holding back tears as her daughter sobbed into her suit jacket.

 

“No more than it is mine, Pen,” Peter added, slumping into a hardwood chair. These things sucked to sit on.     

 

A desperately hopeful Rachel pulled her head up to unmuffle her voice, while keeping her eyes locked on the floor. With a sniffle, she asked, “Y-you didn’t almost dead name me that time?”

 

Penny stifled a smile, as if she was unsure of the appropriateness of it, “Oh honey—Rachel, please don’t think I don’t support you. It’s just…I…haven’t been able to focus lately. I’ve had so much on my mind, and your…coming out…has given me a lot to think about when it comes to…my past…” Penny gently tried to position Rachel’s head to look her in the eyes, but Rachel still seemed to move her gaze. “Rachel, are you okay?” she asked.

 

“She doesn’t look people in the eyes most of the time,” I interjected. “You never noticed?”

 

Penny and Peter both nearly stopped breathing in sync, both of them apparently ashamed.

 

“I…am afraid that we’ve been…negligent,” Peter admitted. I worked hard not to say something sarcastic in reply. “Between running the firm, our personal caseloads, the pro bono work…and…other things…neither one of us has really given you a lot of attention since you became a teenager, sweetheart. I’m so sorry, Rachel, if I’d been paying better attention I—”

 

“What?! 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 am technically an adult now. It sure as hell felt weird to realize that.

 

Rachel was taken aback, 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. How the fuck does one even begin to untangle that mess? Hell, was I now infantilizing her? 

 

“I know,” Peter began, breaking me from my inner self-torment, “...because most of the pro bono clients that Two Cents Law gets are transgender. A lotta trans people 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, earning withdrawal of aggression from Rachel’s body language. “Hon, listen: all I’m trying to say is…your mother and I am absolutely sorry 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 going to be angry at you or anything.”

 

Something…wasn’t quite adding up for me, so I interjected to get their attention off of their daughter for a moment, “Why are two successful, workaholic lawyers so invested in the LGBTQIA+ community?”

 

Peter and Penny turned their attention to me, like I’d hoped that they would, then back to one another, and then finally to the floor. “It’s…complicated…” Peter added.

 

“...for both of us…” Penny concluded.

 

An awkward silence filled the room, but the mounting stress of powerlessness made me want to push for answers that probably weren’t mine to demand: “Stop holding out on us, for fuck’s sake. You know all about her, so tell us about you, goddamn it!”

 

My mother’s voice quickly followed mine, “Jae, show some—”

 

“It’s fine, Mariko,” Peter said, speaking up. Penny shot her husband a panicked look, as if there was something she was afraid of him saying.

 

Peter took a moment, before finally conceding. “Rachel…” the ill-suited lawyer turned to his daughter, “...I…oh, jeez. Listen, when your mother and I were in college, we…ugh. This is so awkward. Fuck. Penny, I’m sorry. I can’t do this anymore.”

 

Penny continued her show of more gentle emotions than I’d ever expected from her by walking behind her husband and placing her arms around him. A quick glance at Rachel showed that she was just as confused as I was.

 

Taking his wife’s hands in his hands and looking back at her to smile, Peter took a deep breath. The display of affection between these two people I felt like I knew—but hardly so—clashed with the lingering miasm of the ordeal their daughter was now facing. It was difficult to understand, to see exactly what they saw. 

 

But then the truth was out.

 

“I’m trans, too.”

 

And nothing else mattered.

 

***

 

September 08, 2023:

 

Silence. A silence permeated through the conference room. Before my brain could process the fact that nobody was breathing, my mother's dry cough broke me from my trance. Turning, I saw her readjusting her position in her very uncomfortable hardwood chair. Judging by the look on her face she did not quite get the gravity of the reveal, which was understandable. Hell, I was shocked but I could only imagine how my wife felt.

 

Damn, it was surreal thinking of her as my wife. Not bad—fuck no—but surreal nonetheless. 

 

“Rach?” I spoke up, hoping she would snap from her stare.

 

After a beat, Rachel finally spoke: “Wait…you’re a trans girl?”

 

I could practically hear the ellipsis. 

 

“Uh…Rachel, honey, I—”

 

“I’m, like, just fuckin’ with you…Mom…” a turn to Penny, “...my?” Rachel asked with a giggle.

 

I don’t think I’d noticed until just now how long I’d been holding my breath. With just a simple breath my vision cleared and I couldn’t help but giggle, despite it all. “God, you’re such a bimbo! Think about what you just said, Rach!”

 

Rachel blinked, confused. Then, a sudden realization dawned on her, “Oh shit, mouth in foot!” she yelped. “Maybe, like, Mom…ni? Momnigou? Like Ichimonji-kun!! HEN-SHIN!” Yes, she recently convinced me to go see Shin Kamen Rider with her.

 

Yes, despite it all, Rachel was still Rachel

 

“Uh…I’m, er…I guess it’s okay to actually say it, huh?”

 

Penny squeezed her wife’s hand, as if transferring her strength to her. Penny’s supportiveness seemed genuine enough, which made me wonder just why her wife had stayed closeted all this time. Societal expectations? They had mentioned something about college…that would’ve been in the early 2000s…wait…

 

“I’m a woman, Rach. I’m like you, just…boy-moding, as the kids say.” 

 

“OH EMM GEE, MOM, STOP SOUNDING SO OLD,” Rach giggled through happy tears before finally crashing into her mom for a giant hug. Rachel’s unnamed mother’s ill-fitting suit jacket bunched up as her daughter squeezed her like toothpaste.

 

“Ouch! Ouch, Rachel, sweetie, please watch it!” the woman pleaded between groans and chuckles.

 

Rach broke off her hug, “Are you okay?”

 

“Yeah, yeah, no, it’s just…well, my breasts are still growing,” the trans lawyer husked, her voice switching to a more feminine intonation while not shifting too far higher than her deadvoice.

 

“Oh yeah,” Rachel said, sympathetic, “Mine hurt any time my hubby grabs—wait, what the fuck?” 

 

“Yeah, what the fuck?” I spat out of reflex.

 

“Emily started HRT about…twelve months ago now?” Penny filled in, somehow finding a way to wrap her hands around her wife and seeped into her form even deeper somehow, “She looks amazing, doesn’t she already? So much happier than usual”

 

“Oh yeah,” Rachel replied, her voice seemingly casually confident, “I guess you do look great for, like, fifty!”

 

“We’re thirty-eight,” the two lawyers said in united annoyance.

 

“When did this become a sitcom?” I mumbled, rubbing my eyes. The day’s stress was really beginning to catch up to me now. It had to be at least 9PM, judging by the dimming natural light that I could determine was filling 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.

 

“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, which I was grateful for. The tension between the Penns resolved I could feel whatever adrenaline that had been pumping through my body all day absolutely dissipate. I downed the Vicodin with a bottle of water centered in the middle of the large wooden table. It hadn’t occurred to me until the water was hydrating the inside of my mouth that I hadn’t had anything to drink in hours. It was like a rebirth in a lot of ways. Bottle emptied, I crushed the poorly constructed plastic and tossed it onto the table and took a deep breath.

 

“Going to school was stupid, you know,” my mom said, the tone of her voice obviously indicating that she was well aware that I was myself well aware of how stupid it was to go to school and that she meant no more than the bare minimum of the expected parental scolding. Truthfully, I couldn’t help but laugh at her statement.

 

“Yeah, you’re right,” I said flatly as I leaned back in the shitty chair. “Think Dad’s going to be mad?”

 

Mom took a breath to collect herself, “I think he’ll be glad that you’re alive.”

 

It was a politically expedient answer, but I couldn’t really blame her, “Yeah, sure—any idea how that business deal is going?”

 

My mother gave me a rare sarcastic look, “As if you don’t know this little escapade is probably going to set the national deal back.” In a way, I wonder if I was correct to interpret her wry smile as a sign that she wouldn’t mind that.

 

“Well, I’m sure that if losing my balls couldn’t bring him right home then losing the national deal is definitely going to send him to Vegas for a bender.” There was venom behind my voice that I hadn’t meant to inject, but it nevertheless came out of me.

 

With the Penns preoccupied with their sitcom life my mother bent down to match me eye-to-eye, “You’re 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. 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. It was like watering a plant and seeing it come back to life in real time, really. “I love you so much,” she whispered downward into my ear.

 

“I love you too, Rach,” I smiled. The distraction from the hell we were about to face was nice, for however much longer it was going to last. Even just hearing her sweet, bubbly voice speak only for me was enough to straighten my posture. 

 

Detective Hatchet practically kicked open the conference room door, his bulky form exuding all the arrogance and assholery of an asshole you’d see in a television show. “Alright then, Mr. Jae Jeong and Mr. Richard Jeong, good news for you boys: as much as it pains me to say this, it would appear that we are letting the two of you go for the day. All charges by the families of the children you may-or-may-not have brutally beaten the shit out of have been dropped.”

 

Unsurprisingly, Rachel was the first to reply, “Wait, what the fuck?”

 

“Macht schnell, transvestite,” the crusty old man cracked, motioning us all out of the room. “You’re free to go for now, and we ain’t got any room for you to be taking up space, so make it fast.”

 

Emily and my mother ushered Rachel and I out of the station as hastily as they could, while Penny clarified the details with the detective. Once inside the backseat of the Penns’ Subaru Crosstrek my dear wife broke down into what was less ‘tears of joy’ so much as ‘tears of relief’. I immediately pulled her in close so that she could rest her body weight against mine to sob with ease. 

 

“Mariko, meet you at the ER?” Emily asked. My mother nodded in confirmation before both she and Emily got into their respective driver’s seats. Penny took the passenger seat a few minutes later and both cars took to the road in short order.

 

“They’re tightlipped,” Penny grumbled, “It doesn’t make any sense, but at the very least you’ll be able to sleep in your own bed tonight, dear.”

 

Rachel hiccuped a reply, so I spoke up instead: “What about the murder charges? Especially since that asshole outed Rach on national television?” I’d have been checking the internet on the car ride back to the Penns’ but unfortunately both Rach and my phones were returned to us completely drained of juice. 

 

There was no suing the piece of shit, either, since he was basically the United States government itself.

 

“Like I said, it doesn’t make any sense,” I could hear the worry—as much as she 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 was making me feel terribly uneasy, so I remained vigilant.

 

“Soon Rachel, honey, soon.”

 

***

 

September 08, 2023:

 

After about three hours in the emergency room waiting to be seen for our injuries from the fight earlier in the day Rachel and I were both sent home with stitches and painkillers, as well as a warning that we would probably both need surgeries to fix our noses. Rachel slept on the car ride back to her place, but as we climbed the stairs to her bedroom she giggled that she now had one more reason to get facial feminization surgery.

 

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.

 

Rach dragged me into yet another shower with her, although this time it was mostly to keep her from falling over from passing out. Cleaned of the blood of our enemies and ourselves,  we 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 and then promptly fell asleep next to her at nearly 1AM.

 

***

 

September 09, 2023:

 

It was 2AM and I realized I was awake and staring at the ceiling of Rachel’s room while the full length of her warm form held onto my right side tightly. My body ached all over—especially where my bells once rang—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.

 

What sounded like a car driving up outside broke me from my staring. Carefully slipping out of bed, I stumbled over to her window to check outside her window. A black van parked in her driveway, blocking any cars from being able to leave. Six figures dressed in all black, carrying what looked like military-grade rifles, hup-to’d out of the van. 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.

 

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. The sound of multiple footsteps climbing the stairs shook my grogginess away.

 

“Our parents?” Rach whispered with understandable panic.

 

Mid-packing, 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. Rachel sniffed, nodded to confirm her understanding, and donned her purse and a spare backpack she’d hastily shoved her huge collection of gray market HRT, clothes and phone chargers into.

 

Climbing out her window to escape her house as we had done in our younger days, Rach and I dropped to the grass of her backyard below and made a run for it.

 

By the time Rachel and I—donning both purse and backpack hastily shoved full of the essentials—were hopping backyard fences to take cover in the neighbors’ backyards the sound of rapid machine gun fire was emanating from her house and echoed across the entire neighborhood.

 

***

 

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, anyway, as I worked on my figure and on my legs—literally.

 

It was just over thirteen months now since Rachel and I’d escaped the attempted assassination on her life. Unfortunately, my mother and her parents had apparently not survived and worse yet—Rachel and Jae Jeong had been blamed for their murders. Whoever had ordered the strike was powerful and smart enough to slander our names even harder, making it impossible for us to live in the open.

 

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 to 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. 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.

 

My occasional glances at the barista inevitably caught the side-shave-sporting twink turning around with my order and approaching the front counter. I was already three-fourths of the way to the counter when he read my new name: “Order for Jen?”

 

“Here, thank you,” I replied with a practiced smile and soprano. As he handed the shitty cardboard tray with my two drinks over his finger connected with mine and I couldn’t help but blush from the small jolt of static electricity.

 

“Oh, sorry, ma’am,” he smiled, taking a moment out of his increasingly busy morning to flirt. Not busy enough to not flirt with me, apparently. 

 

Still…it was kinda nice. “Ah, no problem, hon,” I half-giggled, to be polite. Admittedly, I like the way his blue eyes complimented his electric-blue dyed hair. The lip ring wasn’t a bad look, either. Not that I was interested in men, of course. Beneath thirteen months worth of crafting a new body and fashion style I was still a straight man, after all.

 

Even if Rach liked to say I looked like a bisexual girl. 

 

I took that to mean that I still looked and dressed to masculine—something I would have to work on if I wanted to avoid being recognized for Jae Jeong.

 

The light, short walk back to our apartment gave my legs a chance to readjust to walking, rather than running. 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 kitchenette…thing, “I got your hot cocoa, Rach!”

 

A bemoaned “Five more minutes,” became muffled mid-sentence by my wife donning a face-mask made of a pre-used comforter. 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, babe, we got work in a few hours.” 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!” she hammed, “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. 

 

“Fuck, yeah, I know, I know.” Admittedly, even her 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, girl~!”

 

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 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 the decision for Rach to refer to me as Jennifer, a woman, at all times, even in private, so that neither of us would make a mistake. Afterall, I was living in the world as a cis woman now.

 

Deciding to shut her up, I leaned forward for a kiss. Our still-developing breasts touched and the feeling on my estrogenized skin was so electric that I couldn’t help but let out a quiet moan. Finally, Rach pulled away, “Come on, Jenni, we got a busy day ahead of us.”

 

“Wait a sec,” I said, walking over to our HRT stash and placing 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, her voice carrying down the short hallway to our bathroom.

 

Once inside Rach turned on the shower and bent down to take off my leggings while the water heated. Watching my wife peel my soaking panties down left me with a feeling of trepidation, but I didn’t say anything. I didn't want her to assume that she was the problem. My unease was my own, and it wasn’t as if I didn't love Rachel's aggressiveness. Finally, I was as naked as my wife. Standing halfway in the tub, Rach held out an inviting hand and giggled.

 

The weird feeling could wait, I wanted to hug my wife beneath lukewarm water.           

 

PROLOGUE: END

TOP EGG: TO BE CONTINUED…