(being a fictional account of the life of a genderfluid person)
Electric tingles reverberate and ripple through his chest as he tenderly caresses his areola. As his nipples begin to stiffen he senses that she is waking up. He loves waking her up in this way. As he pinches his nipple gently, she takes the lead, massaging her breasts, admiring the head start he had given her. As she takes over this self-exploration and pleasuring, he begins to relax and enjoy the ride, half asleep, half-forgotten. With her right hand squeezing and manipulating her left breast, she allows her left hand to wander down the length of her torso. She finds him there, of course, in the coarseness of his hair, he stirs but is not quite present enough to awaken. She wants to really continue this masturbatory dream, but she knows that when she reaches the right spot, they will both be awake and this is her time, not their time, so she relaxes and sighs. “Maybe later darling,” she breathes, mostly to herself, but to him as well.
She takes a long moment to admire the result of The Chemist’s work in the bathroom mirror. The daily cocktail she and he share had been carefully concocted with the right blends of hormones to allow him to keep his facial hair but also allow her to shine through without the need for surgery. As she gazed at the mirror, he awoke enough to smile back at her, through his goatee. But it was her own smile that she focused on, her soft lips, her cheekbones, her eyes. “Yes,” she admitted to herself, “they are his eyes too…but I don’t care. Right now, they’re mine.”
“Time to get dolled up,” she says aloud, but to no one in particular, as she begins to accentuate her looks with lipstick, mascara, eyeshadow, and eyeliner.
“This beard has got to go!” she thinks to herself.
“Oh no you don’t,” he thinks right back.
“That’s done it, we’re awake now, are we?”
“Just leave my beard alone, please?”
“Fine.”
And with that, he was gone again.
***
When he was young, a child, he didn’t know her. She wasn’t awake at all. Maybe she hadn’t moved in yet. Or maybe she didn’t exist yet. Maybe he didn’t exist yet either, maybe they both existed, but in youthful innocence, they existed as one. Neither of them knows when she first started to wake up. They both remember a time when she wasn’t, but he was.
When he was an adolescent, he didn’t know her, but he noticed her for the first time. He spent a year away from family and friends and a friend he’d made in this new place awakened her, just a tiny sliver. Enough to influence his thoughts, enough for them to be her thoughts. But not enough for him to realize what he was witnessing.
He spent most of his adulthood “noticing, but not seeing” her. She pushed and pushed at his existence, trying to be noticed. “Maybe I’m gay or something…Nah, I like girls too much.” … “I’m the straightest gay man you’ve ever met!” … “Oops, I’m letting my gay show again.” … and other similar ideas. “I’m not homophobic, I’m almost gay myself!”
Then he started fighting for “gay rights”.
A whole new world opened his eyes and he saw it. He saw it all. He saw the pain. He saw strength. He saw hatred. He saw bravery. He saw love. He saw death and he saw life. His heart shattered into countless pieces. And he didn’t know how to deal with any of it.
So he fought harder. To try to ease the pain, to add his strength, to combat the hatred, to honor the bravery, to share the love.
He became aware of the existence of genders and sexualities beyond his own, sheltered view that he once thought to be more worldly than so many.
And when he looked at himself through these new eyes, he saw her, for the first time.
“No, no, no…nope nu-uh. I can’t be a girl… I’m a guy. I’m a dude. I like chicks! Well, ok, there are some guys that are hot but I’m straight … and a guy.”
“Well, I can’t REALLY be female or transgender or even genderfluid, because I’ve ALWAYS been a guy. And maybe I’m a little girly sometimes, that’s just my gay showing and it really isn’t all that much.”
“Dude, you ‘really like chicks’ isn’t the same as wishing you had a pussy and tits. That was me. And I like chicks too. But you are right, there are some guys that are just hot! And you’re only ‘mostly straight’ — you’ve said as much yourself many times.”
“Oh. OK. But we can’t tell anyone.”
“No shit, you can’t even tell yourself, loser.”
***
“HEY, DUDE! YOU LOOK LIKE A FUCKING GIRL!”
“YOU QUEER, GAYBOY?!?”
“SOME KIND OF TRANNY OR SOMETHING?”
She has to hear this every time she goes out in public, just because HE won’t shave the damn beard. She could pass if he’d just shave the fucking beard. “No, we couldn’t. There isn’t enough concealer in the world to cover my stubble when I shave. And I hate the way I look when we shave. You do too.”
Their internal dialog always left him feeling like he was repressing her, trying to keep her hidden away from the world. He felt guilty, he felt horrible. Meanwhile, she ended up just wishing she was alone and that he didn’t even exist. He felt that way too sometimes when they would argue.
Sometimes she’d yell back, “That’s because I AM a girl, you fuckwad!” (or, more often, he would yell it for her, because she would be too scared.)
Or maybe one of them would faux-flirt with the cretin that was spewing the hatred, “Yes, I am. Why? You want my number?” she or he would say with a wink.
But mostly, she’d get pissed off at him, he’d feel guilty, and they would try to vanish from sight and run away back home.
***
Most of the time there is only him. She sleeps a lot. It’s her escape from a world that hates her. She also doesn’t really want to share this body with him, so she’d rather just stay asleep whenever possible. In contrast, he loves her very much and wishes she could enjoy the world with him. He wishes that she could enjoy the world that he lives in. He wishes they could be together. He knows she’d rather have her time awake alone and so he tries to sleep when she wakes up. But it’s so hard for him to sleep when she sees him in the mirror, and when the world around her continually reminds her that he is right there. He misses her when she’s asleep. He wants so badly for her to wake up and he wants to feel pretty and beautiful. But he knows that as long as he is still there, with his ugly face peeking out at her that she never will. That’s why they hired The Chemist and worked with them to get the cocktail just right. He wanted it to be her face that he looked at in the mirror, not his. But he was right, they both thought they looked ridiculous without the beard.
Sometimes, while she sleeps, he thinks about surgery. He wonders if he gave her breasts, would that make her happy? He could be happy if only she was happy. But she could only be happy if he was gone. That was the one thing he couldn’t give her, not ever. He is as real as she is. MORE real, if you believe the rest of the world. He doesn’t believe them though. But sometimes those hateful, hurtful thoughts come, unbidden, to his mind. And she hears them. Even when she is fast asleep. Invariably, these thoughts cause her to stir, ever so slightly, just enough to remind him how real she is.
He hates himself, but he loves her. She loves herself, but not really. She hates him too much to love herself properly because he is a part of her and she is a part of him. They cannot be separated. They would die without each other. He knows this and is part of why he can’t just let go. They are both real. They both deserve to live and enjoy life. She knows this too. She knows this too, and when pressed to truthfulness, she loves him almost as much as she hates him. She doesn’t really want to be alone.
***
She wants surgery; top and bottom. He’s not so certain. He’s still afraid. Afraid of the looks, the comments, the insults. Afraid of the legal system, afraid of neighbors, afraid for his and her life. It’s scary enough to let her out on her own without having her boobs announce it to the world. As far as bottom surgery goes, “No way, you can have my penis when you pry it from my cold, dead, hands.”
She decides to ask The Chemist if they know any doctors that could help her, “Similar to the way you are helping us now, with the cocktail. Yanno, ‘Best of Both Worlds’?”
The Chemist gives her the name of a “Good Doctor. Works with your brains and your pants. A Good Doctor indeed.”
***
Good Doctor isn’t cheap, but they are effective. After discussing the situation with each of them Good Doctor arranges for a few more follow-up visits. “The Law says you have to wait for this kind of thing, I am sorry.”
Author’s Notes:
This is a Work in Progress. I don’t know where the story is going yet.
It was originally supposed to be Cyberpunk erotica, but the story that started spilling out was certainly neither. In many ways, the story of this person’s history is my own struggle with being genderfluid. And their story is a fantasy of where I kinda wish current technology was.