Part 4 The Penny Drops

The concert was good, a local band who were just starting to get some attention. What worried me was the attention that the two of us got! We had several guys try it on with Tanya and a couple even tried to chat me up!

This was not the ‘me’ that I knew. That me was the predator, not the prey, and it was a very strange feeling. I tried hard to be graceful in my deflection of their advances and Tanya told me that I was doing well.

Oddly, she also remarked.

I found a jacket that remembers a missing girl, and it’s rewriting my body one day at a time. Now I have to solve that girl's murder before the coat finishes its work and I disappear into someone else’s life.

Once in a Lifetime

You may find yourself
Living in a shotgun shack
And you may find yourself
In another part of the world
And you may find yourself
Behind the wheel of a large automobile
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house
With a beautiful wife
And you may ask yourself
"Well... how did I get here?"

David Byrne and Brian Eno
https://youtu.be/5IsSpAOD6K8?si=Lv15qT47qZL_R7hu

One day my wife Sandra said to me she thought I would
look nice in one of her dresses. I said why do you think that, I
have never thought of my self dressing up in woman's clothes.
She said just to please here would I try it for just one day.

Ed Note: The story veered off in a direction I didn't really plan. It gets dark in this chapter. There is language, and violence. Just a warning. If you haven't' been reading here's a quick catch up. It's 1994, small college town, two 20 year old's went looking in the underground for Magic and found it. ASHTON has spent her life suffering from gender dysphoria without the language to express it. Her new friend Marie has a talent for knowing things that people are trying hide, and a talent for folk magic. Garrett has fell in with the wrong crowd a satanist named Rick.

CHAPTER 16
I looked round the room, remembering Elf’s words.

‘Marlene won’t allow face coverings, after the Admiral Duncan bombing. No furries, no puppy boys, but everyone else, aye? Safe space’

Safe space.

“What can you offer, Lil?”

“Careful who you say that to, woman. What’s your usual poison?”

Two Year Time Jump:

Backstage At AT&T Stadium, Arlington, Texas:

Hard roads and endless lines
Flow through his veins
Cold steel and hot fuel injected
Is the dream that fills his brain

But no, not slow
The speed fever grows
He rides, he sees, he knows
You've got to ride to live
Live to ride

Feel the flames burn inside
And though you know
You ride to hide

You ride to live to ride
Life's short and goes too fast
Most pages burn

The coming-out-at-work theme in Steph C's recent chapter of Perspective got me thinking of this little bit of comedy from back when I was in mid-transition. Couldn't fit it into a haiku, so a tanka it is.

Chapter Three:
Brutal Training

Devyn did not believe in easing Valerie into anything.

Mark Lansing never wanted to stand out. He was perfectly happy disappearing into a football huddle with the rest of the team until one play made him the talk of the town. Thrust into a spotlight he never wanted, every choice can reshape his future, and every decision could transform him in ways he never believed possible. Mark’s destiny will be determined on the field … assuming he can figure out how to dress the part.

“Trust me,” he murmured.

Pete's Vagina
90. In the Pocket
by Erin Halfelven

CHAPTER 58
I hugged him hard, almost bursting in my love of my son. That phrase bubbled up again: ‘This one is mine; I made this’.

“We’ve got a couple of boat rides coming up, son”

“The Reef?”

“Second one, yeah. I want to try a quieter one with LC first, let her get used to stuff before she goes all the way out there. Now, what looked good at this Italian place?”

Next week is orientation for this year's new students, so here's something related.