DECEMBER 17, 2024: 

 

“So, like, just to be sure: I’m not, like, stealing valor from real trans girls, right?” 

 

“Jenni, honey, weren’t you just telling me the other day that you had gender dysphoria, like, about your chest?”

 

“I—I mean, yeah, I do, but, like, does that count? I mean, I didn’t even realize that I might be you-know-what until I was already over a year into you-know-what-ing!” I whispered back, hoping nobody would hear me outing myself in public.

 

“Do you, like, really think that you’re not you-know-what?” Rach asked back, surprisingly suspicious sounding.

 

“I just—I don’t know? I mean, like, I didn’t know growing up—”

 

“Plenty of you-know-what people don’t know that they, like, have gender dysphoria stuff going on when growing up, hon,” Rach giggled softly, laying her head on my shoulder while we waited in the hospital lobby. 

 

“So, like, wait, if I—er, I mean—if I decide to say…I mean, if I—can I just up and say ‘Upon further review, Jennifer Yoshihara has deemed that she has indeed been The-T-Word her entire life’?”

 

“If you, like, wanna?”

 

“...are you sure?” I countered, unsure.

 

“Yeah, like, who’s going to stop you? The Gender Police? I’ll just kill ‘em for ya!”

 

“...sweetie, please do not say that in public. Actually, don’t even think that at all, omigawd!”

 

Rachel shrugged and spun her little pink fidget spinner, clearly intent on seeing how fast she could push it. She was wearing jeans and a pink sweater today, but she’d quickly abandoned the sweater due to how stuffy it was in the hospital, leaving her melons on display in a tight cami. It was oddly fitting, considering why we were here.

 

“So, then, like…I can just, like…be trans, right?”

 

“I know I have, like, ADHD and stuffs, but I, like, feel like we’ve hady-had-had this conversation before?” Rach asked, clearly growing tired of the topic.

 

“I—er, just want to make sure!”

 

“Sounds trans to me,” she whispered before turning to me and kissing me on my left cheeky-cheek-cheek.

 

Sighing, I replied, “Gawd, I hope so…”

 

With a light snicker, Rach replied: “Gawd, you are such a bimbo.”

 

Resigning myself to defeat, I sighed, “Sounds about right, I guess.”

 

“Jennifer? Jennifer Yoshihara?” a nurse called, appearing from behind the door that led from the lobby to the back rooms.

 

Heartbeat quickening, I stood up and waved that I was on my way. Rach stood, took my hand in hers and crossed our fingers. With a deep breath Rach moved the hair out of her eyes and leaned forward for a kiss, which I returned despite my nerves. Rach wore a watermelon flavored lip balm that day, which was a stark difference from her usual choice of strawberry.

 

Then it occurred to me why she had chosen watermelon on this of all days.

 

Breaking the kiss off, Rachel swiftly whispered in my ear: “I can’t wait to cum all over those new titties of yours, doll,” before gently pushing me towards the nurse.

 

Well, at least I wasn’t nervous anymore.

 

***

 

DECEMBER 24, 2024:    

 

After the incident with Paul in the dressing room Victoria shut down Club Y for the remainder of the year to undergo some renovations—something about fire damage? While the club was being renovated Freddie underwent training to take over the basic managerial duties of running the club. Although not officially becoming an assistant manager, Elle shadowed Freddie during her training to ensure that they could be as much a helping hand to their girlfriend as possible.

 

A week after my surgery, I found myself still adjusting to the new weight on my chest. While I hadn’t ventured further than the penthouse lobby to greet guests—like the aforementioned Freddie and Elle—I found that I was recovering swiftly, all things considered.

 

I also found that I was blissfully feeling the new weight on my chest with—thankfully—little pain and a lot of euphoria. 

 

I had tortured myself a great deal over whether or not to get the size that I wanted. Part of me worried that I was setting a bad example for other women, by placing an importance on size and shape. Another part of me worried that I was just fetishizing womanhood, or worse, fetishizing my own body, like all those transphobic quack doctors talked about. 

 

But…every time I felt the weight of my chest move—through the post-surgery soreness—I felt such an immense weight off my chest. Anytime I looked in the mirror—and saw the way my breasts hung off of my chest or looked in a top—I couldn’t help but smile and get teary-eyed. The way that the curvature of a top felt around my chest and down my torso felt so comfortable, so at-home, that Rachel was becoming afraid that my face was going to be stuck in a permanent smile.

 

Even the simple, very unsexy matter of misjudging how to now move my arms without bumping into my very, very sore boobs, only to do so, brought me euphoria that I had never expected. Each passing day made it so much harder to remember those so, so, so empty days.

 

And so, I did my best to ignore any thoughts of self-doubt, so that I might enjoy my EE-cup breasts…and the look of jealousy that showed up on my wife’s face any time she looked at them for too long. ♥    

 

***

 

December 25, 2024: 

 

With my breasts still healing—to say nothing of still swollen from the surgery—I’d worked with Rachel each morning to don a new bra so that the breasts could settle. It was ironic how last Christmas I’d been having trouble with my swelling breasts and now this year I was having the same trouble with them for a very different reason. The world’s a small place, sometimes.

 

Probably because my big fuckin’ titties were taking up so much space now lol.

 

With the club closed—it would have been closed today, even if it wasn’t being given a ‘refresh’ in time for 2025—Rach and I found it a lot easier to schedule dinner dates with Freddie and Elle, to say nothing of having any sort of life outside of work. I couldn’t move very far from the penthouse right now, but I was still having the time of my life—soreness and swelling aside. The bed provided to us with the penthouse was positively heavenly to lay on, and while I continued to recover from my breast augmentation I had taken to enjoying its plush, cool environment a great deal.

 

A ring of the door bell snapped me from my breast efforts, only for Rach to call to me that she would get the door. Once again left to only me and my breasts, I carefully focused on closing the two cups together on the front clasps of the bra. This was not easy at all, thanks to the sensitivity of the bruised skin, but it would be worth it to keep them safe.

 

Rachel always dissociated when she had to help me with my bra. The discoloration of my breasts—temporary as they might be—left Rach upset. I remember her crying herself to sleep the night after the surgery. As the bruises began to show she panicked, requiring me to remind her that this was foreseen and not the result of some sort of mistake. I think that she was just upset to see me in so much discomfort and not be able to do anything about it, which only calmed my anxieties more. 

 

I hated to think that Rachel was suffering because of something that I knew that I had to do for our future. Or perhaps more selfishly, for the sake of my own dysphoria.

 

While now wasn’t an ideal time to even contemplate what I wanted to do about that…thing down there, I still found myself wanting to help out my wife, especially considering how hard she’d been working to stay up on my needs while I recovered from my breast augmentation. Even just talking to her about options for—I can’t believe I was even going to the words—my bottom dysphoria seemed too daunting at this point. 

 

Stretched for ideas, I inevitably resolved to just keep treating Rachel the same as I always did, so that she would see me in a better mood, which would hopefully ease her suffering.

 

Elle and Freddie poking their heads around and into the master bedroom brightened my mood considerably. Feigning strength, despite struggling greatly with clasping the bra on, I greeted my friends while focusing on my euphoria: “Why, hello you two. Come to see the breast set of breasts you’ve ever seen before?”

 

“That’s terrible, Jenni,” Freddie retorted, laughing nonetheless.   

 

“Did you come up with that, or did one of your two new breast friends help you come up with it?” Elle added, seeing if she would break Freddie further.

 

“It was a collaborative effort,” I giggled. “They’re putting all three of our names under the ‘story by’ credit when the film comes out!” Bra finally secured, I grabbed one of Rachel’s graphic tees from HOT TOPIC and donned it so that Rachel wouldn’t have to see any discoloration by accident. The bruising and soreness typically kept me running pretty warm, but luckily the tee shirt was a loose fitting one. Slipping into an ankle-length skirt I led the others back to the living room as Rach dutifully—if haphazardly—changed the water in a vase full of ‘Get Well Soon flowers’ sent by Miss York. 

 

“I see you two have been redecorating the place?” Elle mused, taking a closer look around the living room. “It certainly looks a lot more—”

 

“—PINK!” Rach shouted, turning to face Elle, “Pink is so cute, and we didn’t, like, really have the money to make our old place look cute, so I’m, like, gonna make it look REAL CUTE, y’know?”

 

Elle turned to Rachel and raised an eyebrow, “With the kind of money you two were making? I’m surprised that you were even living in such a dump in the first place.”

 

“Oh, we had a ton of debt to pay off, so we focused on that,” I interjected, technically lying about the transition stuff we were actually spending the majority of our money on. Rachel returned to fiddling with the flowers, trying not to drop them, while also pouring the old vase water into the sink. 

 

“Oof, yeah, I know that feeling. I was only working there to pay for my ma’s medical bills,” Freddie groaned as she flattened out her dress. I’d noticed that she liked to wear dresses outside of work, “just to betray peoples’ expectations.” It was a nice fit that contrasted her short dark hair and typical butch energy at the club. “Fucking hell, that shit is expensive!”

 

“Tell me about it,” I sympathy groaned, thinking about all of the money that Rachel and I had spent on HRT and electrolysis. If I had been sent the bills for the surgeries I’m sure that I would have died before counting how many zeros were attached. Realizing that Rach was still struggling with the vase and water I walked over to her, took the flowers from her hand and those left in the vase with both of my hands, and made her life a lot easier. She promptly dumped the water and began refilling the vase with water from the sink.

 

“Speaking of expensive, that’s a nice jacket you’re wearing there, Rach,” Elle added with a pointing finger, “I didn’t take you for a leather jacket kind of girl, though.”

 

“Ooh, it's cosplay! I saw this Twitter sketch that Kubo Tite-sensei did after Unohana fights Zaraki in BLEACH and just had to give it a shot!”

 

Neither Elle nor I understood the reference, but Freddie immediately chimed in, “Oh, shit, I remember that sketch. No wonder you’re in a white tee shirt and jeans of all things!”

 

“It’s so hawt though, right? An-and, like, super cool! Her facial expression is so—”

 

“‘I’ll cut you’, right?”

 

“Right! Omigawd, Freddie, I’m so glad to finally have another weeb to talk to!”

 

“I know, right? Hey, I’m actually a mod for a cool anime Discord server, if you wanna join?”

 

Rachel’s excitement died down at the mention of Discord, “Oh, uh, sorry. I don’t have a Discord account.”

 

Truth be told, it wasn’t like Rach and I couldn’t have created new accounts by now, but we’d decided to try and remain anonymous as much as possible, leaving no digital footprints. I know how rough it was on Rachel to give up her cosplay work, but even if she created a new account and new persona, having our new faces on the internet was still too dangerous in case someone recognized her.

 

Then again…a thought did occur to me. Pulling out my phone, I opened up my Instagram dummy account and checked Rachel’s old username. Rachel’s face and figure definitely had changed drastically. Was I being too paranoid by discouraging her from creating a new account and becoming an influencer and cosplay model again? Especially if we were soon going to have new legal identities?

 

Seeing her smile and rave about her cosplay hyper fixations again really would be nice. 

 

“Oh!” Rachel shouted, suddenly remembering something, “I don’t remember if I said this already, but, like: congratulations! On your promotion thingy, I mean!”

 

Freddie smirked and played with her purse nervously, “Oh, you thanked me the other day, but thanks again, Rach.”

 

“Oh, no problem~! It’s just, like, super cool and all. Ooh, does this mean I get paid more?” Rachel asked, raising her hand like she was back in school.

 

“Pfft, I’m pretty sure your base pay is already being raised by Miss York. My job is to make sure the workers don’t get harmed and the club doesn’t burn down. Which—apparently—Paul couldn’t fuckin’ handle doing either.”

 

On a hunch, I asked, “Has anyone seen Paul since then? Or heard anything?”

 

Freddie and Elle shoot their heads. Pulling their smart phone out of their jeans’ back pocket, Elle added, “I’ve even looked online. Nothing.”

 

It was more than a little ominous that our former boss was now MIA, but at the same time I remembered the screams Rachel and I had heard on the way out.

 

How powerful was the York family that they could make a man just up and disappear? Surely people like that would be able to make Rach and I disappear…but then why had Victoria shown so much care towards us? Why pay for surgeries for us? Why pay us under the table? Why give me a fancy new job and create new identities for us?

 

Something was foul…

 

“Hey, so are we going to this place or what? I’m starvin’ here!” Freddie whined in a labored northeast accent. 

 

…and if I was going to protect Rachel, I was going to have to get to the bottom of it.

 

***

 

DECEMBER 25, 2024:

 

“SO! Like, the proper way to cook a tater tot is that it requires—Jenni, why are you smiling so much at me, omigawd? Anyway! Freddie! Elle! The proper way to cook a tater tot is to make sure that you maintain the crunchiness of the tot, while not making it too crispy or dry! Because, like, then, you can’t even—whatchamacallit—oh, right! You can’t even, like, enjoy the insides, by, like, sucking them out or whatevs, because th-then! Ummm…y’know, it takes bad and stuffs, right Jenni?”

 

“Right,” I backed my wife up, unable to do anything but smile at her with what I assumed was the goofiest smile a woman had ever worn. 

 

“So! Elle! Freddie! You have gots ta try these yummy tots! I mean, ‘tater tots’! They’re not made out of children, I swear, just cajun seasoning on potatoes! Potatoes that were, like, tater tot-erized!!!” 

 

“I’ll consider ordering a side—Jesus Christ, a small side is $8?!” Freddie guffawed, nearly speechless.

 

“It’s okay hon, we can just split a large for $14,” Elle reassured as they doffed their camo beanie and double checked their hair in a compact mirror. They had told me once that their old high school boyfriend had been big into hunting, so they had been given quite a bit of camo gear during their days in high school.

 

“F-fourteen?!” Freddie nearly choked. 

 

“Don’t worry about it,” I chimed in, “We’re paying for tonight.”

 

“Oh shoot, are you sure, girls?” Elle asked, straightening in their seat, “We can p—”

 

“Hon, trust me, we can definitely afford it now,” I laughed, shooting a glance to Rachel as she sat to my left, meticulously unpeeling the little wrap keeping her utensils together. I’d learned from a nasty Doritos experience in the first grade that if my wife didn’t manage to open something without tearing it she would get really bothered.

 

“RIC—eww, er…WEALTHY-WEALTHY!” Rachel shouted, drawing attention from those dining at other tables.

 

“Hon,” I said, gently laying a hand on hers.

 

Rachel grew red in the face with embarrassment and slapped a hand over her mouth and tried to calm her breathing.

 

“You’re fine, Rach,” I whispered, hoping she didn’t think I was criticizing her for being neurodivergent, “I just want to make sure you’re okay, over, y’know, almost saying that.”

 

Rach shook her head broadly, as if she were trying to calm herself down.

 

“Hey Rach, don’t worry about it. My little brother’s ND, too, and he does that sort of thing, too. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”

 

As reassuring as it was to see that Freddie didn’t realize that Rachel was trans and nearly said her deadname, I was afraid that Rachel was actually more embarrassed about shouting—and making a scene—in a higher scale restaurant.

 

“Rach, let go of your mouth so that you can exhale and breathe again,” I whispered, trying not to seem like I was making a big deal out of anything. 

 

Rach finally pulled her hand away from her mouth and began trying to catch her breath, coughing along the way to a calmer state.

 

“Hey Jenni, join me in the restroom?” Freddie asked while Elle got up to rub Rachel on the back. “Rach, Elle, me and Jen are gonna hit the ladies room. Order for us if they come by to take our orders, yeah?”

 

Elle gave a thumbs up without looking, while Rachel shot a red, teary face up at me, straining to smile. I returned her smile, mouthed that I would be back soon, and then followed Freddie to the lavatory. 

 

Once inside, Freddie turned on a faucet and began checking her reflection, “Is Rach on any meds?”

 

Taken aback by the question, I hesitated in my reply: “N-no?”

 

“I’m just worried, you know? Like, she seems to do pretty well, but she’s also really…uh…like, reminds me a lot of my brother.”

 

I swallowed a lump in my throat while checking my reflection, and then turned to Freddie, “I don’t really know if this is an appropriate discussion for us to be having behind Rachel’s back, Freds. I don’t want to betray her privacy, y’know?”

 

“No, no, I get it. I’ve beaten the shit out of plenty of people that have talked shit about Mikey before, I’m just…sorry, maybe I am out of line. I’m just—Rach is a lot like a kid sister to me, y’know? I know that I’m only four years older than you two, but with the way she acts sometimes…”

 

“Rach functions better than I do, most days,” I laughed, thinking back on all the times she had given me strength that I didn’t know that I was capable of having. “She’s very…Rachel, but she’s not a child. She’s got clarity I don’t think that I’ll ever have, to be honest.”

 

“You’re really in love with her, aren’t you?” Freddie smirked, touching up her lipstick. The red really popped well against her pale skin.

 

“She’s…well, let me put it to you this way,” I dug through my purse and pulled out my gift for my wife this year.

 

“Holy shit, is that…?”

 

“Yup,” I giggled, dabbing a tear before it dropped.

 

“Jenni, you are a hell of a woman, you know that?”

 

“...I’m beginning to think that I do,” I said with a smile to my reflection.

 

***

 

DECEMBER 25, 2024: 

 

“HI CAJUN TOTS!!!” Rach cheered as the server laid her plate on the table in front of her. “O-EMM-GEE, I’ve been waiting months to try these again!”

 

“They’re not too bad,” Freddie said, grabbing a tot off of the platter she was sharing with Elle, “For fourteen fucking dollars, I mean.”

 

“Don’t grouch with your mouth open, dear,” Elle scolded playfully. 

 

“GROUCH GROUCH GROUCH!” Freddie grouched, mouth full of partially chewed cajun tot. 

 

“RICA, NO! YOU’RE GOING TO GET—OMIGAWD, YOU’RE GETTING IT ALL OVER ME!”

 

Rach and I bumped shoulders together to keep ourselves from falling over from laughing at the display before us. As I heard her laughter pour directly into my ear, I hoped that I would be the only one who ever heard it so intimately for the rest of our lives.

 

***

 

DECEMBER 25, 2024: 

 

Our early dinner with Freddie and Elle wrapped after about an hour and a half so that they could go to Freddie’s mother’s house for yet another dinner thing with her mom and eight siblings. Elle’s family lived in the south and they hadn’t been back home since coming out to their parents as bisexual two years ago, when they were nineteen and visiting home after a year of working and living in Seattle. When Elle had spoken of their coming out it had been in hushed, wounded tones, which I’d quickly come to understand meant that their parents had rejected them. 

 

Luckily, Freddie’s mother was happy to have a new child in the family. I had a growing suspicion that Freddie would propose within the next twelve months with how good things were going.

 

Oh jeez, I wonder if I would be a bride’s maid? Would I look good in a bride’s maid dress? Shoot, I wanted to try a wedding dress first, though. Ugh, talk about ‘greater than, underscore, less than face’.

 

It was nearing 4:30PM as Rach and I made our way to the Space Needle to finally see what it looked like from the top. When we were on the streets I had promised Rach that one day we would be able to ride to the top and see the City of Seattle from above, and with a little luck that day had finally come.

 

The ride to the top was mostly uneventful, but once we got to the much publicized rotating restaurant with a glass floor Rachel began to feel woozy, and then finally, vomited cajun tots on the nice clean glass floor. It was hard not to smile at Rachel being so…Rachel. 

 

“Omigawd Jenni, I’m so, so, so sorry, but I h-hate this, let’s go back down, holy fuckballs!”

 

Wanting to not see my wife have a panic attack atop the fucking Space Needle, I quickly helped her back to the elevator and down.

 

I had so, so wanted this to be a relaxing and romantic evening, but things were seldom relaxing with Rachel. And yet, as I watched my wife nearly vomit inside of the elevator, I found myself thinking that there could be no memory more romantic than this. 

 

Stumbling outside for some fresh air, Rach began weeping into her hands, “I’m so, so, so sorry for ruining the Space Needle, Jenni!”

 

“Honey, you’re fine. You didn’t ruin anything,” I reassured her, rubbing her back as she lurched over, ready to lurch again. 

 

“B-but all this time!”

 

“Was well damned worth it, Rach,” I replied, my body warm as I reached my right hand into my purse.

 

“Omigawd Jenni, I puked on the GLASS FLOOR!” Rach bemoaned, lifting herself up to turn to me.

 

My hand was already extended outward, the little box open and facing my wife, “And I’d like to hold your hair while you vomit for the rest of our lives, Rachel.”

 

Rachel broke into a much louder sob upon realizing what was inside the box, and it was music to my ears.