South Side Pier:
Maria tosses pebbles out into the ocean as she watches the huge navy vessels sail far out in front of her. Both her parents were career military, which left little time for them to spend with her. Her father was a Marine master gunnery sergeant, and her mother was a nuke tech on one of the largest nuclear aircraft carriers the US Navy owned.

She was born aboard a nuclear aircraft carrier while her mother was out at sea. Her mother hadn’t realized she was pregnant because her mother hadn’t gone through the normal stages of pregnancy with her. Her father had been stationed on the same aircraft carrier as her mother.

Her mother never wanted kids and took precautions to prevent her from getting pregnant. Unfortunately, at a friend’s alcohol filled party, her mother forgot to take her birth control pill. She was the result of that night. Her father couldn't care less if they had kids. Both were set on their respective career and when she finally made her exit from her mother’s womb. Both of her parents were shocked.

Maria watches as the ships sail out of sight. She turns and walks back to the bus stop. Her parents were currently deployed to different areas of the world. Her father was overseas, stationed at the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, and her mother was stationed aboard the largest aircraft carrier the Navy owned. Since her mother was a nuke tech and held degrees in all areas of nuclear technology. Her mother was highly sought after by the captains of these vessels.

As for her, she was left to be raised by her grandparents. They didn’t know about her secret or how she felt. The one secret or medical condition they did know, she was born sterile. Her grandparents figured it was because of the radiation her mother was exposed to from the nuclear reactors on the ships she had been stationed on.

She had been born with testicles like every baby boy, but when she was five years old, she had to have them removed. The navy doctors who had examined her had found out that she had cancer. When they prescribed replacement hormones for her, she developed skin rashes and hives. The doctors determined she was allergic to the artificial male hormones.

Instead, they prescribe low doses of estrogen to her, since males do have estrogen in their system. Her grandparents informed her parents about her condition, but like everything else about her. It went in one ear and out the other ear. Unless it had something to do with their career, they didn’t give it the same concern as their career.

The holidays were the worst for her. Her parents were barely home for any of them, and if they were, it was just another day around the house. Her grandparents tried to make her birthdays and holidays special, but it wasn’t as special as she hoped.

She shivers when the A/C on the bus cuts on. She was already wearing a lightweight sweater, because she was always cold. It was eighty degrees outside, but to her it felt like fifty degrees. The doctors said she had poor circulation and tried to improve it. However, she preferred to wear sweaters or sweat jackets to keep her warm during the spring and summer months.

Winter was the worst for her. She had to bundle up like she was going to the Arctic. Everything contributed to her genes being damaged from her mother being exposed to radiation while pregnant with her. She watches as shops and stores pass by as she rides the bus. She was wearing prescribed mirrored sunglasses. They were the same type that navy pilots wore but were prescribed. She was nearsighted and couldn’t see anything far away unless she had her glasses on. The thing was, she had beautiful ice blue eyes.

No one else in her family had blue eyes or gray hair. She also had breasts thanks to the estrogen she has been taking since she was five years old. Her DNA was messed up thanks to her mother being exposed to radiation. When the bus arrived at the stop she needed to get off at. Maria exists and heads towards the electronics store where she worked.

She has been working at Cain Electronics since she was in high school. She had started as an intern and kept working for Mr. Cain all through high school and college. She went to a local university, instead of out of state.

She was good with electronic devices and could repair anything with a circuit board in it. Her grandmother credits that to her mother’s genes. Her mother was good with electronics at an early age. Her father, on the other hand, was a mechanical genius. He could repair anything mechanical. She inherited her father’s mechanical genius as well.

Maria walks into the store, which rings whenever the front or side door is opened. She waves to Tom and Brad behind the counter.

“Did you see your boyfriend off during your lunch, Maria?” Brad knew Maria had been dating a guy since high school.

“Nope, just watching the ships leaving for eight months.” Maria has made it a practice, when she can, to watch whenever a naval vessel leaves port.

Maria hated the military but respected the people who served in it. She hated it because it took her parents away a lot. She also hated it, because that’s all her parents care about. When all three of them were around each other, her parents didn’t know how to relate to her. Which was the same for her, as well. She had been raised by her grandparents since her birth.

“How do you know they are leaving for eight months?” Tom was curious as he looked towards Maria.

“Because some of my high school friends are stationed abroad on the ships that left.” Maria walks behind the counter and clocks in.

“Has anything new come in for me to fix?” Maria looks towards Tom and Brad when she asks that question.

“Nope, no new deliveries for you today. Have you finished all the projects you have going on?” Brad knew Maria stayed busy fixing broken flat
screen television sets, computers, cellphones, and even appliances.

“Yep, all I am waiting on are some tubes I ordered for the old-fashioned radio in the back.” Maria’s boss, Mr. Cain, taught her how to work on the old tube radios and television sets.

When she first started, she was just an intern and cleaned the shop. Mr. Cain let her work on minor things. When she saw Mr. Cain working on an old tube radio. She watched with fascination as he worked. After watching Mr. Cain work and asking questions about what he was doing. He took her under his wing and started teaching her how to fix them.

Mr. Cain was older than her grandparents and had arthritis in his hands. So, she took on some of his projects and gave them back to him when she was done. If there was a project that couldn’t be saved, she scraped the guts of it and put modern items inside. The case still looked old, but had modern circuit boards and such inside it. She even included a Bluetooth receiver inside the radio.

Maria could turn it on and off with her cellphone. She leaves the front counter and heads back to her workroom. She had all sorts of bits and pieces cluttering her workroom. She even had an electronic drum set to bang on when she was stuck with a problem.

She used to play the drums when she was in middle school and high school. She was even in the marching band in middle and high school. She earned a marching band scholarship, along with several other scholarships. Mr. Cain even helped pay her way through college. She holds a bachelor’s degree in music and a master’s degree in electronic engineering.

She sometimes got invited to play with the local orchestra, especially around the holidays. Some kids in her high school tried to form a band, but it didn’t go anywhere. She had been a member of it.

For the rest of the afternoon, Maria tinkers with a laptop that someone brought in for her to repair or retrieve information from. She managed to fix the damage done to the motherboard with parts from an identical board and got the laptop up and running. Just in case the repair doesn’t hold. Maria backs up the hard drive to an old server she rebuilt and keeps in her workroom.

Most people don’t pay any attention to it when they walk into her workroom. It was kept hidden under her workbench and could only be accessed from an old green screen monitor and keyboard on her workbench. It had all top-of-the-line components inside the case. The case itself was thirty years old and looked out of place.

After work, Maria powers down everything in her workroom and locks the door. She walks up front with her purse and waves goodbye as she leaves the store. She knew Brad and Tom would be at the store for another two hours. She works from seven in the morning to five in the afternoon. Tom and Brad were there until seven at night.

Maria catches the bus again to go back to her place. When she walks into the apartment, she shares with a gay guy named Vincent, and she smells a delicious aroma floating in the air. She takes her purse to her bedroom and changes clothes. She managed to hide that she wore girl panties when she was in high school. Since she had a small chest size, she could get away with wearing no bra. Not that anyone would know, because depending on how cold she felt, she normally wore a light sweat jacket or the old-style sweaters the girls in the fifties wore.

She even owns a few torpedo bras that she sometimes wears under her sweaters only. She had a huge sea dragon tattooed on her porcelain skin. She let a friend tattoo her back, and it took up the whole entirety of her back. He used her back like a canvas, so it not only had the dragon, but the ocean and scenery as well.

The friend who did her tattoo was also the same friend with whom she had gay sex with. She spent the night over at his house, and they played truth or dare. He dared her to wear his older sister's sexy lingerie that he had stolen. She did it and slept in it as well. During the night, she felt him move behind her and start moving the thong underwear aside and enter her. It hurt, but the two of them found a rhythm, and they made love to each other.

She even learned how to give him a blow job. That’s when she realized that she wanted to be a girl. They continued to make each other happy throughout middle school and high school. A few times, they almost got caught doing it in the locker room at school and outside in the woods.
It would have continued until her friend got arrested and went to jail for a few years. Jail was where he learned about doing tattoos. Since she still cared about him, she let him do her whole back and down to her ass.

She had a feminine body shape thanks to the estrogen she was given. Maria comes walking out of her bedroom in a loose pair of sweatpants, socks, and a heavy t-shirt with a picture of Pepe Lue Pew with a giant heart behind him and his latest catch lying on the ground, exhausted from the chase. She loved Pepe Lue Pew, and anything that had his picture on it she had in her collection.

Maria walks into the kitchen and spots Vincent with his chef hat on and wearing his favorite apron. She sits down at the counter and looks at his back.

“So, what are we having tonight, chef?” Maria knew Vincent loved cooking.

“We are having fried pork chops, with mashed potatoes, and Brussel sprouts, my dear sea shrimp.” Vincent loved reminding Maria about how short she was.

“Hey! I can’t control how tall I am. I blame my mother and the radiation she was exposed to.” Maria hated the fact that she was only four feet ten inches tall and looked like she belonged in middle school.

Vincent spins around and smiles at Maria, “You know I still love you.” He leans forward and places a kiss on Maria’s nose.

“Yuck!” Maria wipes her nose with a napkin.

Most people who encountered Maria always thought she was younger than she was. She got carded all the time and was ignored by other people because of how young she looked. However, when people saw her icy blue eyes and her long, gray hair. They stopped and paid a little bit more attention to her. She had porcelain skin, and whenever she wore makeup, you could tell she was wearing it. It was hard for her to find makeup that blended with her skin.

She and Vincent had an unusual type of relationship. Neither one of them was interested in the other sexually. She looked too much like a genetic girl, and he preferred big, hairy men. She had a few relationships when she went to college, but nothing too serious. She had a few lesbian friends who liked her, but they didn’t want a relationship with her. She still had her little birth defect that looked like a small worm that she had to deal with.

When she does deal with it, she wants to do the whole operation at once. Get an artificial vagina and all. As it is, she needs to sit down to pee. Even if she was outside in the woods and needed to pee, she had to squat like a girl or end up peeing on herself.

Maria watched as Vincent cooked. She knew he went to culinary school to learn how to cook and worked at Bell’s Tavern as a line cook. The tavern specialized in Southern-style comfort food, but Vincent could cook anything.

He was famous for his ribs and brisket. Vincent has won several awards for his ribs and brisket at cooking competitions. No one could touch his ribs and brisket, or brunt ends.

After dinner, Maria helps put away any leftovers. Sometimes she takes a plate of leftovers to work to have for lunch. For lunch today, she had two quarter-pound hot dogs from 7-Eleven and a bag of chips. It only cost her five dollars, and she got to make the hot dogs the way she liked.

She curls up on the sectional watching a movie, while Vincent relaxes with his Kindle. He enjoyed reading over watching television. It was rare for Vincent to have a weeknight off from work.

Around midnight, Maria cuts the television off, “night, Vincent.”

“Night sea shrimp.” A smirk appears on Vincent’s face.

“I’m not a shrimp.” Maria heads towards her bedroom and crawls under her blankets.

Vincent just smirks as he watches Maria walk into her bedroom. He loved teasing her about her height.

“Sweet dreams, sea shrimp.”

Maria walks into her bedroom and crawls into bed. She snuggles under her covers and falls asleep. She felt warm and comfortable under the two blankets covering her.

When morning arrived, she didn’t want to get up. She wasn’t a morning person, and it took a lot of energy for her to get out of bed. She has always been like that. Her grandparents always had to wake her up thirty minutes early for elementary school, middle school, and high school. She slips her feet into her skunk-shaped slippers and slowly walks towards the kitchen.

Maria knew Vincent wasn’t up yet. She walks into the kitchen and fixes herself a cup of strong coffee. The caffeine in the coffee would wake her up. She grabs a blueberry Pop-Tarts from the box in the cabinet. She doesn’t bother to heat it. She walks into her bedroom and gets ready for work. Today, she decides to wear one of her sexy bras and the matching panties. Instead of wearing pants, she puts on a full-length dress. She makes sure she has hand warmers in her purse, just in case she gets cold.

She wears her ankle heel boots. She checks her appearance in the full-length mirror before she leaves. She takes one of her favorite sweaters with her, just in case she starts feeling cold. The dress she was wearing covered up the tattoo on her back. She doesn’t regret getting it. After all, she was born on an American aircraft carrier while it was in the Indian Ocean.

Maria rushes out to the bus stop and waits a few minutes for it to arrive. Her grandmother had asked her mother how she didn’t know she was pregnant. Her mother just never realized she was pregnant. Her mother was naturally skinny, and when she started gaining weight, she figured she was eating too much food. Since Maria’s mother always ate navy food, she figured the food was putting on the weight for her.

When she was in elementary school, she had fun when teachers asked where she was born. She was the only student in the school whose state of birth was an aircraft carrier. Even when she filled out paperwork for her driver's license and voter registration card, she had to explain her birth.

Most of the time, people didn’t believe her until she showed a special card the US Navy made for her to prove she was born on the carrier. Telling the story about how her mother never realized she was pregnant was the most interesting part of the story. A lot of her friends’ parents couldn’t understand how her mother had realized she was carrying a child. Even her grandmother had been confused about that.

Maria watches as the bus arrives and stops right in front of her. She waits for the door to open before getting on board. She scans her bus ticket as she looks at Jake. “Morning, Jake.”

Jake looks at Maria, “Morning, Maria.”

Jake couldn’t believe Maria didn’t own a car. He has known her for years, and she has always caught his bus to work and to the grocery store just up the street from her apartment building. He knew she had a roommate and had seen some of the tattoos that covered her entire back.

Maria smiles at Jake as she sits down behind his seat. She loved sitting up front and watching where Jake was driving. She opens her Pop-Tarts and bites into it.

By the time the bus arrived at the bus stop near Cain Electronics, Maria had devoured the Pop-Tarts. Her coffee cup was halfway empty. Maria waves to Jake as she walks off the bus.

“Have a good day, Maria.” Jake closes the bus doors and drives off.

Maria walks towards the store and pulls her keys out. She unlocks the door and locks it behind her as she goes about disarming the security alarm. She goes about opening the store and making sure everything boots up and that the music is playing.

They had a custom music reel they played while the store was open. All the employees and Mr. Cain made the reel. It took four days to do, but it was worth all the time they put into it. Maria checks the clock and unlocks the doors for customers.

She took care of the normal morning rush of customers that came in. She also answered the phone and took care of orders that needed to be mailed or delivered. By the time Tom and Brad arrived for work. Maria was enjoying her second cup of coffee and spinning around on the stool behind the counter.