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.

Maria smacks the alarm clock as it goes off. She shivers just before she goes back to sleep again. It was Saturday, and she was going to sleep in. The past few days have been busy at work. Her tubes finally came in, and she put the old-style radio back together and got it working right.

Then Mr. Cain bought a storage locker full of old-style pinball machines and old arcade video games. She knew they brought in money, so she was given the job to check them and get them working again. Then Gresham brought in several generators for his company to work on. He wanted her to refurbish them. According to him, they weren’t putting out the power they used to.

After she started taking them apart, she found out why they weren’t working right. The insides were eroded and covered in construction rubbish. She spent most of the morning cleaning them and seeing how bad the wiring was.

After the inspection and pricing how much the cost was going to be for her to rebuild them. She gave Gresham the cost. He approved the price and was willing to wait the two weeks to get them back. She knew most of her clients were willing to pay the extra cost and the wait time for her work.

She had a specialized dealership that installed radios and television sets came into the store and asked her to amp up the output on the factory radios he brought. She knew it wouldn’t take her long to increase the output on the radios. She had enough work to keep her busy for a while.

She sleeps for a few more hours. By the time she is ready to get out of bed. She is woken up by someone knocking on her apartment door.
She gets out of bed and slips her slippers on, looks through the peephole, and spots her grandfather. A smile appears on Maria’s face as she opens the door. “Grandpa, what brings you to my neighborhood?”

Ralph smiles when the apartment door opens. He remembers when Maria first moved into this apartment. It was near her work and on the bus line.

“Morning, sweet pea, I hope I didn’t wake you.” Ralph noticed how messy Maria’s gray hair was and the tired look on her face.

“You didn’t, grandpa.” Maria hugs her grandpa after letting him into the apartment.

Ralph hugs Maria back. She was more like his daughter than his granddaughter. He walks with her to the kitchen.

“Would you like a cup of coffee, grandpa?” Maria knew her grandfather was a coffee drinker.

“I’m good, Maria. Do you have anything planned for today?” Ralph watches Maria as she moves about the kitchen.

“Nothing I can’t do tomorrow, why? What’s up?” Maria puts a K-Cup into the coffee maker.

“I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind helping your ole grandpa today?” Ralph knew Maria would do anything for him.

“Of course, grandpa. Did grandma finally get you to do something you have been putting off?” Maria knew her grandma had a list of things she’s been wanting done around the house.

“How did you guess?” A smile appears on Ralph’s face.

“Just a lucky guess, grandpa. So, what does grandma want you to do?” Maria goes about fixing her coffee.

“Do you remember your old playhouse? Well, we need to tear that down and put up a gazebo for your grandmother.” Ralph knew his wife had been wanting one for a while.

“That’s a lot for just two people to do, Grandpa.” Maria wasn’t a builder like her grandpa and uncle Joey.

“Don’t worry, sweetie. Your uncle Joey and his sons are coming over to help build the gazebo.” Ralph knew his grandsons worked with their father doing construction work.

“God, I haven’t seen Terry and Charlie since the three of us turned twenty-one years old. Uncle Eddie took us out to a bar for our first drink.”
Maria had her first beer at a bar called The Neptune. It was owned by a fellow named Barry Marlow, a retired Navy SEAL.

It was located near Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek – Fort Story in Virginia Beach. Her Uncle Eddie was a former Navy personnel, just
like her mother. Unlike her mother, he was a Navy SEAL. He was also a member of SEAL Team Two.

“I did the same thing to him and your mother. Even though she had already enlisted.” Ralph had found out that his daughter had already gone ahead and joined the Navy when she turned eighteen years old.

“Is it a family tradition, grandpa?” Maria heads towards her bedroom to change.

“Yes.” Ralph watches as Maria disappears into her bedroom to change.

A few minutes later, she comes back out dressed in a pink farmer's bib overall. The t-shirt she was wearing under the overalls was light gray with Pepe Lue Pew wearing construction gear. She also had on a pair of worn work boots. Maria had put her hair into a ponytail, which bounced every time she walked.

“Really? A pink pair of overalls?” Ralph looks at his granddaughter.

“Hey! I like pink.” A pouty look appears on Maria’s face.

Ralph knew Maria had been different ever since the doctors discovered she had testicular cancer. He and his wife had been surprised to discover that she was allergic to artificial testosterone. After her doctor put her on estrogen and removed her testicles. She took to femininity like a duck to water.

Ralph just shakes his head, “Come on, sweet pea. Let’s go and get some breakfast.”

The two of them walk out of the apartment and down to his old pickup truck. Maria saw the pickup truck that her grandfather taught her how to drive. It was one of his older trucks that everyone in the family learned to drive. His newer one was his baby, and only he drove that one.

“So, how has work been?” Ralph knew Maria had been with Cain Electronics since high school.

“Steady. Mr. Cain went and bought a storage unit that has a bunch of old video and pinball games in it. I’m also rebuilding two generators for
Mr. Gresham. Plus, several other smaller projects.” Maria was one of a handful of people who worked or could rebuild electronics.

“I have to say, you inherited your mother’s talent.” Ralph knew his daughter was very talented.

They had her tested when she was younger and found out she had a high IQ. As for Maria, they never had her tested. But when Maria was in high school, she had a GPA of 4.5 and had a SAT score of 1540.

“How about my father? What did I inherit from him?” Maria looks towards her grandfather.

“You’ll have to ask your grandfather, Darrel, when you see him for Thanksgiving.” Ralph knew Maria was supposed to drive to Richmond to spend Thanksgiving with her grandparents up there.

“I plumb forgot about that grandpa.” Maria has bounced between seeing her grandparents for the holidays since she was left with her mother’s parents when she was a baby.

They weren’t too happy about the way her parents treated her. Whenever her parents were stateside, they got an earful from her father’s parents. They didn’t approve of how often they were gone and that her parents put their career ahead of their daughter. They were surprised when her grandparents told them about her medical condition.

Her grandfather stops at the Java shop to buy two cups of coffee and two bear claws for them on the way back to the house. When they arrived, Ralph opened the gate and backed his truck into the backyard. He stops and parks the truck, “Alright, sweet pea. Let’s get to work.”

“I haven’t finished my bear claw, grandpa.” Maria bites into her bear claw.

“Well, finish eating and let’s get busy.” Ralph grabs a pair of work gloves for Maria.

Demolishing her old playhouse didn’t take long. Anything of value she had wanted to save had already been taken out of it long ago. Maria did take one more look before picking up her grandfather’s five-pound sledgehammer and started knocking out the walls first. Her first swing went wild, as she spun around in a circle, holding on tight to the sledgehammer.

“You’re supposed to hit the wall, Maria. Not dance with it.” Ralph had an amused look on his face, watching Maria with his sledgehammer.

Maria saw the amused look on her grandfather’s face. She couldn’t believe she did something so amusing. She picks the sledgehammer up again and swings towards the playhouse wall and connects. It takes her three tries to knock down one wall.

She moves over to another wall and slams the sledgehammer towards it. While she was doing that, her grandfather was wheeling over a wheelbarrow to put the debris in. When all the walls and support beams were cut through and broken up. She starts putting the broken pieces of wood and sheetrock in the wheelbarrow.

Around eleven o’clock, as Maria and her grandfather are loading the last pieces into the bed of his truck. Two men around Maria’s age come walking into the backyard. One looked like her grandfather when he was younger. The other one, Maria knew looked like his mother’s younger brother.

“Hey, Grampy, Hey Smurfette.” A playful smile appears on Charlie’s face when he looks towards Maria.

“I’m not a smurf.” Maria hated being shorter than all her family members.

All her aunts and uncles were taller than she, including her cousins. No one knew where she inherited her height from, because even on her father's side of the family, she was shorter than they were. She was also the only one who had gray hair.

“Charlie, stop picking on Peanut. She can’t help, she is so short.” Terry looks over towards Maria when he says that.

“What is it with you two calling me peanut and Smurfette?” Maria looks at both her cousins.

“Because you're short. You should be used to it by now, Maria?” Charlie walks over and ruffles Maria’s hair.

Maria hates it when she is reminded of her height. All through her formal days of schooling, she was the shortest kid in her classes.

“Come on, boys, stop picking on your cousin.” Joey had walked into the backyard and spotted his sons teasing Maria.

“Thanks, Uncle Joey.” Maria walks over and hugs her uncle.

Joey returns the hug and looks down at his niece. He knew his sister hadn’t been treating her daughter right. From everything he knew about his sister. She’s been largely nonexistent in her daughter’s life.

The same could be said about Maria’s father as well. Neither of her parents has been involved with her.

“You’re welcome, peanut.” A smirk appears on his face when he says that.

Maria punches him in his stomach, “You had to go and spoil everything.”

She turns and walks away from her uncle. She finishes loading up the wheelbarrow and takes it to her grandfather’s truck to load. They will take it to the dump.

“Charlie, why don’t you and Maria take the truck to the dump and empty the back of it?” Ralph looks towards Charlie as Maria empties the wheelbarrow into the truck.

“Okay, Grampy.” Charlie looks towards Maria.

“Don’t say it.” Maria already knew what Charlie was thinking.

“What?”

“Just get in the truck.” Maria hops in on the passenger side because she knows her cousin would never let her drive.

Even though the three of them were taught by their grandfather on this truck, the boys never let her drive when they go out anywhere. They always complain about her pulling the bench seat of the truck too close to the dash. Maria notices a smirk appear on Charlie’s face as she gets in.

When they arrived at the transfer station, they were fifth in line to drive up and dump their load. While they are waiting, Charlie looks at his cousin. “So, how have things been with you lately?”

“Busy, my boss bought a storage locker filled with pinball machines and video game machines from the eighties. Plus, I have two generators I’m working on.”

“I’m surprised you’re still working for Mister Cain. I thought by now you would have moved on.” Charlie knew Maria had been working for Mr. Cain for a long time.

“I like what I do for him. You and Terry have been working for your father since you were teenagers. Didn’t you want to move on to something else?” Maria knew Charlie and his brother had worked for their father since middle school.

“Nope, sure the work is dirty, sweaty, and we're outside year-round. But we enjoy it, plus we started at the bottom and worked our way up to where we are now.” Charlie knew his father was harder on him and his brother than he was on any of his employees.

“I started at the bottom at Mr. Cain’s store. I would stock shelves, sweep the floors, and break boxes down, until he decided to take me under his tutelage.” Mr. Cain started Maria off as an intern, and from there.

“How did he feel when you worked for Smith & Keene for two summers?” Charlie knew Maria had worked two summers in a row to get her journeyman electrical license with Smith & Keene.

“He thought it was a good idea. He introduced me to the field coordinator to help me get hired.” Maria was surprised that Mr. Cain was willing to help her.

The line they were in slowly moved forward until they were the next one to go up the hill. Even being down at the foot of the hill, they could smell the stench of the dump. Seagulls and pigeons were everywhere.

“God! How can anyone work around a stench like this?” Maria had her window rolled up, but could still smell the garbage.

“You get used to the smell after a while.” Charlie started moving forward when he was signaled to.

When the truck reaches the top of the hill and park. Charlie and Maria get out of the truck with their gloves on and start pushing all the debris out of the bed of the truck. Maria uses the small broom her grandfather keeps behind the seat to sweep the bed out. She wanted to puke, but she kept it down.

Once they were done, Charlie drove them back down the hill. They leave the place and stop at a a Seven/Eleven to grab a few drinks for everyone.

“I wanted to puke while we were up there.” Maria was standing behind her cousin in line with her fountain drink.

“If we spent any more time up there. You would have gotten used to the smell.”

“I don’t think so.” Maria takes a sip of her drink.

Charlie pays for everything as they walk back outside and get into the truck. He puts his drink in the cup holder that his grandfather uses.

“Thanks for the drink, Charlie.” Maria fastens her seat belt.

“You’re welcome. Let’s get back before everyone thinks we're goofing off.” Charlie starts the truck and drives back to the house.

By the time they arrive, everything has been laid out and placed where their grandmother wanted it. Maria carries the drinks into the backyard and sets them into the cooler someone brought out. She starts helping hold the beams for the sides up as her cousin Terry makes sure they are level. Since they were going to be sitting on foundation blocks, they had to be straight.

Her uncle and Grandfather were using their air guns to attach other boards to the ones they were holding. Everything was already cut and measured twice to make sure the cuts were right. Between her cousins, uncle Joey, and her grandfather. They managed to get the framing done. She works on running the wiring, since she holds a journeyman’s license for electrical, and her uncle has a master’s license. He could check her work and make sure it met the building regulations.

While all of them were working, Mary Ann, their grandmother, came outside with some ribs and put them on the grill to cook, along with foil-covered corn on the cob. She knew how long both took and figured that by the time her husband and grandkids were stopping for the night. The food would be ready as well.

After she puts the food on to cook, she walks over and watches as her husband, son, and grandkids work on her new gazebo. She spotted Maria easily enough because of her pink overalls. The boys were a little harder because they were hiding behind pieces of lumber.

By the time night fell, everyone was tuckered out. Maria had started getting cold and slipped on her heavy sweatshirt under her overalls. Her cousins teased her about turning blue. They knew she got cold easily.

Maria sat between her grandmother and grandfather to keep warm while she ate her dinner. While she was working, she didn’t feel that cold, but as the temperature dropped and the sunlight disappeared. She started feeling cold.

“I thought by now, you would have outgrown feeling cold like you do.” Joey looks at Maria as she sat between his parents.

“The doctors said I have poor circulation. There’s nothing they can do about it, except tell me to be more active and cover up when I start feeling cold.”

“How can you feel so cold? You were busy helping everyone?” Terry was curious.

“Like I said, poor circulation. When I was inside my mother’s belly, my veins didn’t form fully. My extremities get colder faster than my core/organs.” Maria has had poor circulation all her life, and there wasn’t anything that could be done about it.

Maria rested her head against her grandmother’s arm after she finished eating. She was going to sleep well tonight. She was tired and full.

A smirk appears on Joey’s face when he looks over towards Maria and how tired she looks leaning against his mother. He had to admit that Maria didn’t slack off while she was helping.

“I can take you home, Maria.”

“Thanks, Uncle Joey.”

Maria and her two cousins help take everything into the house. Joey, Ralph, and Mary sit outside and watch them. Mary wasn’t worried about where they put everything. Maria knew what went where.

Joey drops Maria off at her apartment. “Night, peanut.”

Maria doesn’t even argue with her uncle as she waves goodnight to him.

Cain Electronics:
“OWE!” Maria jumps back away from the generator she was working on.

She had taken it all apart and cleaned the inside. She also rebuilt the armature and the field windings. Everything inside was brand new. Mr. Cain was surprised she knew how to rebuild the armature and field winding. The old stuff she removed sat in a green trash can she places old wiring and such to be recycled.

She uses a wooden dowel to turn the generator off. There was a short somewhere near the kill switch. She takes the switch apart and discovers where the short was in the wiring connected to the cutoff switch. She fixes it and starts the generator again.

Maria lets it run for a while before trying to turn it off. She tentatively reaches towards the switch and kills the generator. She was happy that one of the generators was done. She sets it aside and starts taking the second one apart.

She stops and takes her lunch at one in the afternoon. As Maria is walking to clock out. She checks her timecard to make sure her time was right. She grabs her heavy coat and gloves. She couldn’t believe how cold it was outside this morning when she went to catch the bus. She was wearing leg warmers on her legs and a heavy turtleneck sweater.

“Hey guys, I’m going down to Zeno’s for lunch. Do you want me to bring anything back for you?” Maria looks towards Tom and Brad as she walks towards the door.

“We’re good.” Tom knew Brad and he would be taking their lunch break after Maria came back.

“Okay.” Maria steps outside and shivers as the crisp, cold air hits her exposed cheeks.

Maria wraps her scarf around her neck and the lower part of her face. She hated cold weather because it caused her hands and legs to go numb. She walks down Princess Anne Road towards Zeno’s for lunch.

After walking about three blocks, she enters Zeno’s. The place was already busy. She waits in line to place her order. When it is Maria’s turn to order, she orders a footlong Hot Corned Beef and Cheese sub with Russian dressing and an order of homemade onion rings to go with it. She grabs a cold soda from the cooler to go with her order.

Maria pays for her order, and after it is ready, she heads back to Cain Electronics to eat in the break room. Mr. Cain didn’t like it when she ate in her workspace, which was out in the warehouse. The reason her workspace was out there was because of the household appliances she works on.

People brought their appliances to her to repair, because she was cheaper than the appliance repair company in the area. Also, she could rebuild the circuit boards and displays for everything. She sits down in the break room and watches television while she eats.

She only eats half her lunch. She labels the Styrofoam container to let everyone know it was hers. She knew Betty, their cleaning lady, came into the breakroom every Saturday to clean the place. That included the employee’s refrigerator. Anything left in there for two weeks was thrown out.

When Maria was done with her lunch break, she clocked back in and went back to work. The second generator was going to take her more time to fix. It was in worse shape than the first one. While Maria was working, the intercom in her workspace crackled, “Maria, can you come up front, please?”

Maria notices it was Tom’s voice that came over the intercom. Maria takes her work gloves off and wonders what Tom wanted. She walks through the swinging doors that separate the back from the front.

“What’s up, Tom?” Maria looks over towards Tom and notices an older man standing on the other side of the counter.

“This gentleman has a question for you.” Tom motions towards the man standing on the other side of the counter.

Maria walks over and looks at the man. He was old enough to be her father.

“What can I help you with, sir?” Maria looks at the gentleman.

“I was told you are very good at rebuilding electronic things and such. Have you ever recovered information from an external hard drive?”
Stephen has heard from a contact that Maria was good with electronics.

“I have, normally, most people send their external hard drives to the manufacturer to recover the information on the drives.” Maria wonders why this guy didn’t.

“How long would it take you to recover the information?” Stephen watches Maria’s facial expression.

“Depends on whether the information is encrypted or not. If it isn’t, not long at all. But if it is, it will take me a while.” Maria had some experience with cracking codes and such. She had to write a paper when she was in college on encrypting information.

“How long will it take you to retrieve the information?” Stephen wanted to see what was on this hard drive.

“About two weeks. I have several other jobs ahead of you.” Maria still had several jobs for Mr. Cain to do.

“Can you do it any sooner? I need to know what is on this drive.”

“Let me see what I can do. If the information is easy to recover, it shouldn’t take me long, but if it is encrypted, it will take a while.” Maria hopes it will be an easy job.

“Alright.” Stephen hopes this woman is good as he was told.

“I’ll need you to fill this paperwork out and leave a number I can contact you at.” Maria pulls one of the repair work orders out from under the counter and places it on the counter. She pulls a pen from a cup under the counter and hands it to him.

Stephen takes the pen and fills in the requested places on the work order. He notices the bottom had a disclaimer saying that if the item isn’t picked up in thirty days or paid in full. The shop has the right to sell it.

Stephen hands the pen and work order back to Maria. He watches as Maria looks over the form to make sure it was filled out properly. She tears the customer copy off and hands it to Stephen. “I’ll let you know tomorrow if the information can be recovered, sir.” Maria had a lot of work ahead of her.

“Thank you.” Stephen tucks the piece of paper into his pocket and leaves the drive to be worked on.

Maria covers her mouth as she yawns. She wonders what is so important about the hard drive. She takes the paperwork and hard drive back to her workspace. She plugs the drive into a laptop she uses and tries to access the drive.

Her laptop didn’t see the hard drive. She uses some specialized software to access the drive. She manages to gain access and notices that all the folders on the drive were encrypted. She uses another program to break into the folders. The program informs her that it will take six hours to crack the encryption.

Maria leaves the program running while she goes back to work on the generator. By the time Maria got the generator torn down. It was time to go home. She turns the screen off on her laptop and lets the program continue to run while she is gone.

Maria bundles up before she clocks out. She waves goodbye to Tom and Brad as she walks outside and across the street to catch the bus home. She and Vincent went grocery shopping on Sunday, so she had plenty of food for the next two weeks.

The ride home was quiet. When Maria walks into her apartment, she sheds her coat, scarf, beanie hat, and gloves. She tucks her hat and gloves in the pockets of her coat. The food in the crock pot smelled wonderful.

Maria goes into her bedroom and takes her boots off. She puts her insulated socks on because her feet get cold. She scoops up some goulash from the crockpot into a bowl and eats it.

Maria touched the off button on her alarm clock. Normally, she uses her cellphone as her alarm clock but instead started using an alarm clock she bought on eBay instead. It was in the shape of her favorite character, which was Pepé Le Pew. It cost her eighty dollars, plus shipping and handling.

She gets up and stumbles into the bathroom and relieves her bladder. After washing her hands and walking back out of the bathroom and back to her bedroom. She moves the curtain aside and notices it is snowing outside. The ground outside was already covered, and it sucked. “I hate snow.”

Maria hated winter, especially snow. Every time she and her cousins got together at their grandmother’s house. She would get attacked by snowballs from her cousins. They knew she hated the cold, but that never stopped them.

Maria was glad she had her robe and slippers on. She noticed that Vincent hadn’t started the coffee yet. She starts brewing some coffee for herself and Vincent. She grabs a box of blueberry muffin mix and a box of apple cinnamon muffin mix. She makes the blueberry first and the apple cinnamon afterwards.

Once the oven reaches the temperature that she set it for, she puts both muffin trays in the oven. It was a Saturday, so she didn’t have to go to work. Once the coffee was done brewing, Maria fixed herself a cup.

She checked the oven and saw that the muffins were doing well. She noticed Vincent’s bedroom door was shut when she passed it. She sits down at the dining room table and enjoys her coffee. By the time she finished her first cup of coffee, the muffins were ready to come out.

Maria takes the muffins out and lets them cool for a few minutes before grabbing one of each. She loves freshly made muffins. She learned how to cook from her grandmother, but Vincent was a better cook than her. His muffins and cookies tasted far better than anything she had had.

Maria is sitting and enjoying her muffins. A guy she doesn’t recognize comes walking into the dining room in just his boxers.

“Good morning.” Maria looks at the young man with light brown hair. He had a slight athletic build. He had to be at least a few years younger
than Vincent.

Brad turns and notices a young-looking woman looking at him. He notices she was wearing a pink house robe.

“Good morning, do I smell coffee in the air?” Brad came to the kitchen because of the smell of muffins and coffee.

“Help yourself. There are muffins as well.” Maria takes a bite from her muffin.

“Thanks.” Brad walks into the kitchen and looks for a cup/mug.

“The cabinet behind you.” Maria knew she should get up and help this guy, but the kitchen wasn’t very big.

“Thanks.” Brad turns around and opens the cabinet.

Inside, he spots four black coffee mugs and another set that had cartoon characters on them. He noticed that there was one with the skunk from Looney Tunes on it. He noticed that the woman he spoke to was drinking from a pink cup with the skunk on it. He wonders why she liked that cartoon character so much. He grabs a black coffee mug and fills it. He spots the sugar and wonders if they have any milk.

Brad turns to look at the young woman. “Do you have any milk or coffee creamer?”

“In the refrigerator.” Maria had finished eating her muffins and was just enjoying the last of her coffee.

“So, are you and Vincent a thing?” Maria knew Vincent didn’t have a boyfriend.

Brad fixes his coffee and grabs some muffins. He turns and walks towards the dining room. “I hope so. By the way, my name is Brad.” He holds his hand out to shake Maria’s after placing his coffee and muffins on the table.

“Maria, I’m Vincent’s roommate.” Maria shakes Brad’s hand.

“So, how long have the two of you been roommates?” Brad sits down at the dining room table.

“Since I graduated from college. I was looking for a roommate and placed an ad in the local gay paper.”

“I didn’t know we had a newspaper.” This was a first for Brad.

“Yeah, it’s called OutLife757.” Maria has been a subscriber since she was in high school.

Her grandparents didn’t mind her being gay. She didn’t know how her parents felt about it, because they never really spoke to each other. Sure, they called to check up on her with her grandparents, but it was more like an owner calling to check on their favorite pet.

“I didn’t know that. Do they have a website?”

“Yes. So, what is your and Vincent’s plan for today?” Maria gets up and walks into the kitchen to refill her coffee cup.

“Don’t know. If we do go out. I’ll need to go by my place to shower and change.”

“Well, you'd better plan on it snowing, because it is right now.” A slight smile appears on Maria’s face.

“You’re joking, right?” Brad examines Maria’s expression to see if she was joking.

“Nope! It’s snowing outside right now. I’m surprised that you didn’t see it when you woke up in Vincent’s bedroom.” Maria knew Vincent had a window in his bedroom that faced the back of the building where his car was parked.

“I had to use the bathroom.” Brad drinks some of his coffee.

“Well, take a look outside when you're done with your coffee and muffins.” Maria finishes her coffee and gets up from the table.

She walks into the kitchen and rinses her coffee cup out and places it in the dish rack to dry. She turns around and heads towards her bedroom to change out of her night clothes and into something warmer. She shuts her bedroom door to change.

Brad noticed how short Maria was when she stood up. He watches her clean her coffee cup in the sink and put it in the dish rack to dry. He wonders why Vincent was living with a normal woman.

After a while, Vincent joins Brad in the dining room. He needed some coffee to wake up.

“Vincent, did you notice it is snowing outside?”

Vincent looks towards Brad, “I’m not functional yet.”

“I can see that.” Brad finishes his coffee.

Maria changes out of her pajamas and into a pair of sweatpants and her favorite oversized t-shirt with Pepé Le Pew on it. He was kissing one of his victims he managed to capture. She walks back out into the living room and sits down on the recliner to read her Kindle.

Bus Stop Outside Maria’s Apartment Complex:
Maria couldn’t believe the bus was running late this morning. Not only was the bus running late, but it was eighteen degrees outside with wind speeds in the high twenties. Even with all the clothes she was wearing to stay warm, the wind seemed to find its way past her clothing.

She shivers as the cold wind hits her face. It went past the surf she was wearing and down inside the ski suit she was wearing. Not even the beanie cap or the hood on her ski suit managed to keep the wind from entering her clothing.

Maria spots the city bus finally coming towards her. She digs her bus pass out of the front pocket of her ski suit and prepares to scan it as she enters the bus. When she looks towards the bus driver, she notices it wasn’t her normal driver, but a substitute. She moves to the nearest seat and sits down.

The ride to her work didn’t take long. She gets out at the corner where the bus stop was and takes her store keys out and unlocks the door. Once she was inside, she locked the door and went to turn the security alarm off. She must take her gloves off, because they were too big to push the buttons.

Once the alarm is deactivated. Maria clips her gloves to her ski suit. She heads towards her workshop and removes all the cold-weather gear she was wearing. She shivers as she feels the cold air in her shop. She turns her heater on in her workshop to warm the area.

Once Maria straightens out her clothes. She exits from her workshop and goes about opening the store. Thanksgiving and Christmas were approaching, and she still didn’t know what she was going to get her grandparents. Her parents were taken care of. She already bought their gifts and wrapped them.

Once the store was opened, she made some coffee and wished she had brought donuts with her. She pulls her cell phone out and orders two dozen donuts on Uber Eats. She wanted donuts from Krispy Kreme and knew there was a donut shop on Hampton Boulevard.

While she waits for the Uber driver to show up. She boots up all the computer systems and runs the reports for Karen to look at. She knew Karen went over the sales report every morning.

While those were going, she checked the Cain Electronics website to see what items were sold and needed to be sent out. She takes the remote out from under the counter and turns the radio on in the store. She starts putting the orders together to be shipped out.

By eight o’clock, the Uber Eats driver shows up with two dozen Krispy Kreme glazed donuts. When she accepts the boxes, she feels that they are still warm. She gives the driver a big tip for delivering them. She sets the donuts up in the employee lounge, with small paper plates and napkins.

Tom shows up first at work. She noticed her was wearing his heavy jacket and gloves. “Cold enough for you?”

“Yeah, do you have the coffee going?” Tom was removing his jacket and hanging it on the chair behind the counter.

“Yep, and there are Krispy Kreme donuts as well.”

“I love their donuts. Did you get them fresh?” Tom knew the store wasn’t too far from them.

“Yep, they are still warm from being glazed.” Maria had already had two donuts.

Maria received a text from Mr. Cain’s wife letting her know they weren’t coming in. That meant Barbara and Tom oversaw the store. She was fourth on the leadership ladder.

When Tom comes walking back up front with his coffee cup and a small plate of donuts. She looks towards him, “You’re in charge today.”

“Mr. Cain isn’t coming in?” Tom had a puzzled look on his face.

“Neither is Mrs. Cain either.” Maria takes a sip from her coffee cup.

“Barbara will love that.” Tom knew Barbara loved being in charge.

The store’s phone rings. Maria reaches over and answers, “Good Morning, Cain Electronics, how can I help you?”

“Maria, I’m not coming in. Let Tom and Mr. Cain know, please.” Brad starts coughing after speaking.

Maria could hear how badly Brad was coughing. “Okay, I hope you feel better, Brad.”

“Thanks, Maria.” Brad ends the call.

Maria turns and looks towards Tom, “You’re flying solo today, Tom. That was Brad on the phone. He’s not coming in, and I can’t say I blame him.”

“I hope he feels better.” Tom knew it took a lot to make Brad stay home from being sick.

“I don’t think we’re going to be busy today, because of the weather.” Maria knew she wouldn’t go out in this weather if she didn’t have to.

“You never know.” Tom has been doing sales for a long time.

“True. Well, I have some things to finish up in my workshop. Call me if you need me.” Maria slides off her stool and heads towards her workshop.

The hard drive that the guy dropped off hasn’t been picked up yet. She called to let him know it was ready, but all she got was the answering service. She calls him one more time and records when she calls. She gets his voicemail again and leaves a message saying this is the second call, letting him know the drive is ready.

After leaving the message. She goes to work on one of the arcade games Mr. Cain bought. She didn’t have anything new to work on. The generators had been repaired and worked like they were brand new. She already sold several of the arcade games that only needed cleaning.

Around lunch time, instead of going out for lunch. She orders from Harry’s up the street from the store. They delivered with a ten-dollar order, and since most of their meals cost around six dollars or more. She just orders two separate meals. She’ll take the second one home and have it for dinner. Because Vincent had to go in early and do the breakfast crowd.

While she sits in the employee lounge, enjoying the chicken soup and BLT sandwich she ordered. She watched the weather channel. The weather report was calling for temps in the low twenties for the next few days. The wind speed wasn’t going to be as bad as it is today.

After lunch, instead of going back to her workshop. She heads up front to relieve Tom so he can go and grab some lunch.

“Alright, Tom, go to lunch.” Maria sits down on her stool and twirls around.

Tom just smirks at Maria's antics and puts his jacket back on. He buttons up and walks out of the store. He noticed Carol as she ran towards
her SUV. He gets into his Dodge Charger and follows her out of the parking lot.

Back inside the store, Barbara comes up front to see if they needed change. She spots Maria twirling around on her stool.

“You know you’re going to make yourself dizzy, doing that.” Barbara checks the register to see how much they had.

“I know, but it's so boring right now.” Maria hated that she didn’t have anything to work on.

“You could dust the shelves and front them.” Barbara figures that since they were slow, Maria could do some fronting out on the floor.

“Already done. I do that every morning before anyone arrives for work.” Maria shows her feather duster.

“Have you done inventory yet?” Barbara figures that since they were slow, it might be a good time to do it.

“Don’t we normally run the daily inventory report at the end of the week?” Maria knew Barbara liked for everyone up manning the store to be busy.

Technically, she was classified as a technician, not as a salesperson. She only did sales when she didn’t have anything else to do or to relieve Tom and Brad so they could get their lunch breaks. She knew more about the electronic parts in the store than even the salespeople.

“Well, since you're not working on anything, why don’t you go ahead and start doing the floor inventory?”

“No problem.” Maria slides off the stool and grabs the inventory scanner and logs onto it.

She heads out onto the floor and starts scanning the inventory out there. By the time Tom came back from lunch, she had the floor done and was working on the items they kept behind the counter.

Tom walks into the store and notices Maria with the scanner. He knew it had to be Barbara’s doing. She didn’t like it when they just sat around doing nothing. He also knew it wasn’t Maria’s job to do inventory either. She was a technician and was only responsible for the inventory she worked on.

“Barbara came out?” Tom puts his jacket on the back of his chair.

“Yep, I don’t think she likes it when I’m just sitting around and goofing off.” Maria moans when she finishes the parts cabinet under the counter.

“You goofing off? Mr. Cain doesn’t care what you do because he knows when there is work to be done. You are already doing it.”

“Well, Barbara is in charge. So, I must do what she says.”

“So, am I. How much have you already done?” Tom was in charge of the store part.

“All the front and part of the back.” Maria was good at doing inventory.

“Here, give me the scanner, and I’ll finish up.” Tom holds his hand out for it.

“I don’t mind. Go ahead and rest.” Maria goes back to work.

“All right.” Tom sits down and goes over the sales they had online.

Maria finished the inventory by the time it was ready to get out. She plugs the scanner into the cradle and uploads all the inventory to their computer system. It would generate a report if she missed anything.

“I’m clocking out, Tom.” Maria walks over to the computer system and clocks out.

“Don’t forget to shut down your workshop.” Tom knew Maria sometimes forgot.

“I won’t.” Maria heads towards her workshop and shuts everything down, including her heater.

Maria puts her cold-weather gear on, grabs her second lunch order, and takes it with her. She shivers when she steps outside and crosses the street to catch the city bus. She was the only one at the bus stop.

As she is waiting for the bus to show up, she is taken by surprise as a car comes speeding by her. It barely misses hitting a truck but jumps the curb where she was standing. The car crashes into the bus stand, sending it and Maria against the building wall behind them.

Maria screams out as the car crashes into the bus stop and pins her behind broken plastic, glass, and steel beams. The front of the car had been stopped by the beams, but she was pinned behind the plexiglass clear walls and steel beams. The front of the car was holding the debris in place. There was no way to get her out without either moving the car or cutting the back wall panel.

The fire department and paramedics show up, along with the police department. She didn’t suffer any injuries, but she was boxed in. It was a good thing she was small, because she jumped up on the bench at the bus stop, so she wouldn’t be hurt.

It takes the fire department a few minutes to figure out the best way to get her out. They cut the plexiglass clear wall panel behind her to get her out. The paramedics check her out, while the police get her version of events that led to the accident.

Maria ends up calling her grandfather to come and pick her up. She waits at the nearest store for him to arrive. She is shaken up, because if the plexiglass walls and the steel beams hadn’t been supporting the bus stop. She would have been hit by the car.

Ralph was surprised when Maria called. He was about to help his wife with dinner when he received her call. When he heard why she was calling him, he grabbed his heavy jacket and truck keys. He was concerned about his granddaughter when she told him she had been in a car accident.

When Ralph arrived at the company, Maria was waiting for him. He pulls into the parking lot and up to her. He watches as the passenger truck door opens.

Maria spots her grandfather’s truck as he pulls into the parking lot and over to her. As soon as the truck stops near her, she walks over and opens the passenger side door.

“How are you feeling, sweetie?” Ralph watches as Maria gets into the truck.

“Shocked, grandpa. I can’t believe how close I came to being hit.” Maria puts the seat belt on.

“Tell me everything that happened, sweetie.” Ralph puts the truck into gear and slowly leaves the parking lot.

Maria looks at her grandfather. “I was standing at the bus stop waiting for the bus to arrive, when a car came speeding down Princess Anne Road. It barely missed a truck turning onto Princess Anne Road. Unfortunately, the car jumped the curb and rammed straight into the bus stop before I could get out of the way. I had to jump up onto the metal bench to avoid being hit by the support beams and plexiglass wall, with the car pressing against them. The firefighters had to cut the plexiglass wall behind me, so I could get out.”

“Boy, you were lucky, sweet pea.” Ralph was glad his granddaughter didn’t get hurt.

After a few minutes of driving, he pulls into the parking lot where Maria lives. He looks at her, “Are you going to be all right, sweetie?”

“I’ll be fine, Grandpa. Thank you for picking me up.” Maria hugged Ralph and felt safe in his arms.

Ralph returns the hug. He holds onto Maria for a little while, not wanting to let her go. He knew she had had a rough life so far. He forces
himself to let go.

“Bye, grandpa, and thanks.” Maria exits from her grandfather’s truck and heads towards the entrance to her apartment building.

Ralph watches until Maria is inside the building before heading back home.

Thanksgiving Day:
On Thanksgiving Day, Maria spent the first part of the day in Mechanicsville, Va., visiting her father’s family. She borrowed her grandmother's car and drove up to Mechanicsville the day before to spend time with them. They normally ate early and spent the rest of the evening watching football or movies.

Her father’s side of the family was huge and lived out in the rural area. They raised horses, chicken, turkeys, and cattle. Plus, they raised crops of summer and winter vegetables. Most of her aunts and uncles in Richmond were either retired military or schoolteachers. Some of her father’s brothers were mechanics and owned their own garages or worked for places like Merchants or Firestone.

It took her father’s side of the family awhile to adjust to the fact she was female. They knew she was born male, but after everything that happened with her. They had to adjust to the fact her body was developing into being a girl.

She had a bunch of cousins on her father’s side of the family and instead of buying gifts for everyone, they did the Pollyanna gift drawing. She drew her uncle George’s name this year. Last year she drew her cousin Kimmy’s name.

She had no idea what he liked, except football, so she’d get him something from his favorite team. Of course, she was regulated to help her aunts and grandmother in the kitchen. They put her on dessert duties. She could cook, but she wasn’t the best cook. She recently learned a few new cooking tricks from her roommate Vincent. She does good on simple desserts and a few fancy ones.

After having dinner with them, she doesn’t stick around. She drives back to Norfolk to spend time with her mother’s side of the family. She brings back a few extra pies she made while visiting her father’s side of the family. Her grandparents up in Richmond are nice people and they didn’t like how her father and her mother were choosing their military careers over her.

Of course, her father was going to spend the holidays overseas like always. Maria knew her mother didn’t have a choice, because she was out to sea until March. By the time Maria got back into Norfolk and arrived at her grandparents’ house, she was tired. She was happy that she didn’t have to deal with over forty people at her grandparents’ house.

Her cousin drops her off at her apartment. She knew Vincent wouldn’t be home until late. The restaurant he worked at was open during the holidays and they became extremely busy during the holidays. Maria changes out of the dress and shoes she wore and into her nice comfy pajamas. She curls up on the sofa watching Die Hard and slowly fall asleep.

The weeks afterward Thanksgiving, were busy at the shop. People were coming into the store buying either some of the arcade games Mr. Cain bought or some of the antique radios she refurbished. Two of the four junk boxes they had on display were sold.

As for the portable hard drive that had been brought into the store. It was still in her workspace. She was curious about what was on it and looked at the contents. At first, she didn’t know what she was looking at until it started clicking in her head. Everything on the drive is engineering drawing/drafting.

Maria browses the files and looks at each schematic. She wonders what it went to. She knew she needed to stop before she got into trouble. She closes the file and puts the hard drive in a safe area in her workspace. She tries contacting the person that brought the hard drive in but doesn’t get an answer. She should have told Mr. Cain about this, but he didn’t come in again and she didn’t know about the information until now.

According to Tom and Brad, Mr. Cain was in the hospital from a stroke he had during Thanksgiving. Mrs. Cain had called Tom during the holiday and told him about Mr. Cain’s heart attack and that he would be running the store for a while.

Maria sent flowers to the hospital where Mr. Cain was admitted to. She was going to go and see him on Saturday. She paces back and forth in her workspace and wonders if she should tell Tom instead. She needed to tell someone about what she discovered.

Maria pulls the drive out one more time and takes a screen shot of a single page. She put the drive back into the small safe in her workspace, which was hidden under her work bench. It would be the last place anyone would look.

At the end of her workday, she heads home. She stops at the grocery store to buy a few things. Vincent was working Christmas Eve and Christmas evening. She had to travel to her grandparents’ house on Christmas Eve. She was spending Christmas day with her grandparents down here in Norfolk.

After Maria does her shopping, she heads home. Since the store was only a few blocks from her apartment, she walks back to the apartment. When Maria arrives back to her apartment, she puts the groceries away. She was still thinking about what she should do about that drive. She didn’t want to blow anything out of proportion.

The person could be an engineering student or something. The thing was, when she looked at the schematics, they looked military. Maria walks over to her bookshelf and looks for her old electrical engineering book. She had a few repair manuals for military devices she has worked on. She finds the book she was looking for and opens it. She flips through the book until she finds what she is looking for. A grim look appears on her face as she puts the book away. She picked up her cellphone and closely examined the photo she took. Whatever this drawing was to, it was for the military.

Sunday, January 12
Maria watches as the snowflakes drift down from the sky. They started slow, but were coming down heavier. They have already covered the steps, and now the parking lot was starting to look like an ice rink.

“Vincent, I don’t think you’ll be going to work tomorrow.” Maria turns around to look towards Vincent, who was covered up on his favorite recliner.

Vincent looks towards Maria. He was bundled up in the recliner. He was feeling sick to his stomach. Someone at work gave him a nasty cold.

“I don’t think I could have made it, anyway. I’m feeling like crap.” Vincent blows his nose.

“Well, keep it to yourself. I hate getting sick, and I know the two of us are cranky when we’re sick.” Maria has lived with Vincent long enough to experience all his moods.

“I’m trying.” Vincent sneezes after saying those words.

“If it keeps snowing, I won’t be able to catch the bus tomorrow.” Maria walks away from the living room window and into the kitchen.

She was wearing a Care Bear onesie she found in her size at Dollar General Store. It said Grumpy Bear on it. She wanted to find one on which her favorite cartoon character, Pepe Le Pew, was.

“I could always either order us some food or make spicy egg drop soup for us.” Maria learned how to make egg drop soup from Vincent a few months ago.

“Just don’t burn it.” Vincent knew they had everything they needed to make spicy egg drop soup.

“Okay.” Maria starts grabbing everything she needs to make spicy egg drop soup.

She uses Vincent’s recipe and follows it to the letter. She loved Chinese and Thai food. When the soup is ready, “Do you want noodles with yours, Vincent?”

“Of course, I do, and some hot tea please.” Vincent loved hot tea with his food.

“Do you want me to add honey to it?” Maria knew Vincent drank his tea two ways. Plain or with honey.

“Yes, but use the Sourwood honey, please.” Vincent liked the buttery taste of the honey.

“Okay.” Maria searches for the Sourwood honey.

She adds a little bit to the tea and stirs. She places everything on the serving tray and carries it carefully into the living room. Maria places the tray on the tv tray next to the recliner.

“Be careful with the soup. It’s still hot.” Maria walks back into the kitchen to fix herself some soup.

She carries her tray back into the living room and sets it on the coffee table. She moves the table close to the sofa, so she can eat.

“Are you going to call Tom and tell him you’re not coming in tomorrow?” Vincent sips his soup.

“Yeah, I better, since Mr. Cain isn’t going to be in charge anymore.” Maria couldn’t believe that in the past few months, she had known two people who had heart attacks.

The first person had been the guy who almost killed her at the bus stop. She found out from the police that the driver of the truck that had rammed the bus stop had a heart attack and died. He had just been discharged from Norfolk General Hospital and was on his way home when the attack happened. He was still wearing the medical band from the hospital.

Then, Mr. Cain had one and lost the use of his left side. Since Tom has been working for Mr. Cain for the past twenty years, he was next inline to be the overall manager. Even though he and Barbara shared the manager position, he would have the final say on what went on with the store.

She wouldn’t mind buying Mr. Cain out, but she doesn’t have the money to buy the store, and no bank would give her a loan to buy the store. Maria picks up her cellphone and dials Tom’s number. After a few seconds, Tom’s sleepy voice answers.

“Hello?”

“Tom, this is Maria. Have you seen the snow outside?”

“Yes, and let me guess, you’re not coming in tomorrow?” Tom knew Maria took the bus to get to work.

“How did you guess?”

“Because you hate the cold, and the city buses won’t be running tomorrow.” Tom knew how much Maria hated the cold.

“Are you going to open tomorrow?” Maria knew that when the weather was this bad, Mr. Cain would open late.

“I’m thinking about opening two hours later, tomorrow. With the way the weather is going to be and the streets will be. I don’t think we are going to have much business.”

“Well, you'd better let Barbara know.” Maria knew Barbara would show up, since she owned a four-wheeled drive vehicle.

“I’ll send out a text to everyone, letting them know. But thanks for calling to let me know. Have a safe night.”

“Thanks, Tom.”

Maria puts her cellphone back on the coffee table. She picks up her soup and starts eating it. She goes back for a second helping and refills Vincent’s bowl as well. She also refills Vincent’s teacup as well. The two of them select a movie and watch it.

When Vincent was done eating, Maria took his and her dishes into the kitchen and rinsed them. She puts them into the dishwasher and cleans
the kitchen. She notices Vincent has gotten out of his recliner and gone to the bathroom. Maria grabs another box of tissues and puts it on the end table next to his recliner.

“Hurry up, or you’re going to miss the start of the movie.” Maria had made herself comfortable under the throw blanket.

“I’m coming.” Vincent sneezes as he walks back to his recliner.

Vincent hated being sick and wanted whoever made him sick to suffer. There was no way he could return to work being sick like he was. He wraps his blanket back around him and reclines backwards.

“Alright, start the movie.”

Maria selects the movie from their Netflix account and snuggles down under her throw blanket. She looked like a little kid, peeking out from the throw blanket. She fluffs her pillow and watches the movie they selected.

Sam’s Club, Two Weeks Later:
“Thanks for bring me shopping grandma.” Maria pulls a handkerchief out of her coat pocket and blows her nose.

“You’re welcome, sweetie.” Betty looks at Maria as she walks next to her.

The two of them go through the aisles picking out items that they needed for the house and Maria’s apartment. A few times she has to help her granddaughter because of how short Maria is. By the time they go through the check out, they end up spending two hundred and fifty dollars.

“Boy, grandma, its expensive to buy in there.” Maria was surprised at how much she spent. Normally, she spent about two hundred and thirty dollars a month shopping at Food Loin or a little more at Tinee Giant down the street from her apartment.

“Well, you are buying in bulk, sweetie. I bet you won’t have to run to the store for a while to get any of the items you bought today.” Betty looks at her granddaughter when she says that.

“True.” Maria helps load everything into her grandfather’s new pickup truck. It had the lid on the back bed area so you could put things in the bed and cover them up.

“Grandma, doesn’t this negate the reason to buy a truck?” Maria always believed that you bought a pickup to haul things, not to look cool.

“Your grandfather said the same thing, but he bought the truck any way.” Betty knew Maria was just like her grandfather when it came to vehicles.

“Grandma, can we stop at the Seven/Eleven near your house, please?”

Betty looks at her granddaughter “how come?”

“It’s my turn to buy the lottery tickets. Vincent and I alternate each week on who buys the lottery tickets.” Maria checks her purse to make sure she had the money.

“I can think of better things to do with the money, but yes sweetie.” Betty didn’t mind stopping at Seven/Eleven for her granddaughter.

After twenty minutes of driving, Betty pulls into the parking lot of the Seven/Eleven right around the block from her neighborhood. Maria unbuckles her seat belt and looks at her at her grandma “do you want an iced tea, grandma?”

“Yes.” Betty was feeling a little thirsty.

Maria goes inside the store and grabs a Arizona Iced Tea, Southern style for her grandma. She grabs a Pepsi for herself and waits in line to pay.
She was behind four other people. The guy in front of her stunk to high heaven. She could smell the manure and diesel fuel on him. She tries to not breathe to much.

She was thankful when the other cashier motions for her to come forward. She places the drinks on the counter “can I get one random Powerball and one random Mega Million ticket, please?”

“Do you want the Powerball and multipler?” The cashier looks at Maria.

“Yes, please.”

The cashier prints the tickets out and rings them up. She looks at Maria “that will be ten dollars.”

“Here you go.” Maria hands her ten dollars.

She was surprised that it came out to be so even. She puts the tickets in her back pocket of her blue jeans. She picks up the bag the drinks are in and walks back outside and get into the truck.

“Here you go, grandma.” Maria hands the Arizona Southern Style Tea to her grandma.

“Thanks, sweetie.” Betty accepts the tall can.

Maria watches as her grandma heads to her place first. When her grandma backs the truck into the driveway and parks. She gets out and helps her grandma unload her stuff and carry them into the house.

Maria helps put everything away. She knew her grandmother had a place for everything and never changes it. She wonders where her grandfather.

“Where’s grandpa, grandma?”

“He’s over at Charlie’s place helping him install a new television set.”

“Grandpa was never good with electronics. He always had me do it.” Maria knew her grandfather hated messing with cable and computer stuff.

“He’s just helping Charlie hang the new television set he just bought so they can watch the football games on.” Betty knew how her husband and his friends were when it came to football.

It was the one passion her husband had, besides fishing and boating. She knew he missed being in the military. Although, neither one of them approved of their daughter ignoring Maria.

Betty gives Maria a ride back to her place and helps her unload her stuff. When she walks into the apartment, she could smell something delicious cooking.

“What is that wonderful smell?” Betty follows her nose to the kitchen.

“Korean Barbecue, grandma.” Maria knew Vincent was making it in the crock pot.” Maria and Vincent love cooking in it.

“I’m going to have Vincent make me some.” Betty loved the aroma from it.

“I’ll save you and grandpa some and bring it down to you.” Maria didn’t mind saving some for her grandparents.

“Thanks, sweetie.” Betty hugs Maria before she leaves.

Maria walks her grandmother down to the truck and watches her drive off. Once her grandmother was gone, she heads back up to her apartment. She takes her boots off and removes her cold weather gear. Lately, the weather has been colder than normal. She hated winter,

Maria gathers her dirty clothes together and put them into the washer. She adds the detergent and press start. She was glad her apartment had the hooks for a washer and drier. Sure, she ahd to pay extra, but at least she didn’t have to go to the laundry mat. Not that she would, because her grandparents would let her uses the washer and drier at their house.

Maria puts the lottery tickets up on the refrigerator. She throws the old ones away. She goes about fixing herself some lunch and sits down to watch some television until Vincent gets home.

Valentine's Day:
Maria didn’t feel like spending Valentine's Day alone again; she did last year. This time around, she was going to go on the single cruise the City of Norfolk was hosting on the Spirit of Norfolk. Vincent was spending Valentine's Day with his boyfriend.

She gets all dolled up and buys tickets for the cruise. The bus she normally catches goes all the way downtown. Maria wears a nice backless dress to show off her sea dragon tattoo. She loved the tattoo and has been covering it up a lot.

She wore her long, luxury faux fox fur coat, which she bought at the local thrift store in downtown Norfolk, when she went thrifting with her grandmother. The coat was in excellent shape, and it fit her like a glove. She was also wearing her black three-inch thigh-high boots and her baby goat handmade gloves. The gloves themselves were made from real young goat skin.

In her ears, she was wearing a set of ruby earrings her grandmother in Richmond gave her for her sweet sixteenth birthday. She had gone and had her hair styled and her fingernails done at Betty’s Salon, down the street from her apartment. She felt like a million bucks and felt warm in her long coat.

The bus ride down to downtown Norfolk was boring. She noticed a bunch of other people were giving her glances, because of how well-dressed she was. She had her clutch hidden inside her coat. She had taken her grandmother’s advice and sewn a hidden pocket inside her coat to hide her small purse and cellphone.

The bus didn’t stop exactly in front of the pier where the Spirit of Norfolk was docked, so she had to walk the rest of the way. She shivers from a cold breeze blowing off the water. Maria looks around as she follows the path from the bus station to the pier where the boat is parked.

When she arrives, she notices everyone is being checked by security. She wonders why everyone was being made to walk through the metal detectors and checked with the wands as well. She has no problem being checked, as she allows the security officers to do their job. When the wand beeps, she informs them it’s her clutch. She allows one female security officer to reach into her coat to check.

Once she is through security, she walks onto the boat and checks her coat in. She’s been given a ticket, so she can get her coat back. She tucks the ticket into her bra and mingles with the crowd. The ticket included a meal, but she wanted to dance for a while before eating.

Maria walks out onto the dance floor and starts dancing by herself, and before she knows it. She is joined by two handsome men. Each man interrupts the other as they cut in to dance with her. Maria thinks it's funny, as she agrees to dance with them.

Robert and William spotted a short, gray-haired woman wearing a backless dress that showed off a beautiful and colorful sea dragon tattoo on her back. Not only was itn’t the dragon, but a whole scene of the dragon rising out of the ocean. They wanted to meet her and see who she was.
Both men walked over to her. “Ma’am, would you mind if we dance with you?”

Maria looks at both men, “not at all.”

Maria starts dancing with Robert first and then switches to William, who asks her to dance, on the second song that plays. She dances several songs with both men before she heads back to her table to sit down to eat. Robert and William ask to join her, and she agrees.

Robert saw how blue Maria’s eyes are. “By the way, my name is Robert Norris, and this here is my younger brother William Norris. We are intrigued by the sea dragon tattoo on your back. Where did you get it done?”

“A good friend of mine did it. He works at a tattoo parlor in Virginia Beach.” Maria knew the tattoo parlor her friend worked at did a lot of work on military people and some law enforcement personnel.

“Well, it must have taken him several days to do that tattoo, because it is very detailed and beautiful on your pale complexion.” William could tell how pale the woman’s skin was.

“Well, since you gentlemen were kind enough to tell me your name. My name is Maria Ann Sheridan. It’s nice to see you two.” Maria holds her hand out to shake their hand.

Robert and William shake Maria’s hand. They noticed she had a light touch, and her hand felt soft. They also noticed the perfume she was wearing.

“Actually, it took him four days to do, and a lot of tequila on my part to overcome the pain. I have a low tolerance to pain.” Maria knew she couldn’t tolerate pain, as her other cousins and most males could. Her biology and neural pathways were more like a natural woman’s.

She underwent a full medical scan when her body started changing when she was eight years old, after being on the hormones for three years. Her body started to develop female secondary sexual characteristics at a young age. Her grandparents and the family doctor she had been seeing since she was born. They felt that the small amount of estrogen shots she had been taking since she was five years old had a lot to do with her development.

When the doctor did a neural scan of her brain, it showed that her brain activity was the same as that of women. Her brain worked just like a woman’s does. Where men use the front and back portions of their brain, she used both sides of her brain hemisphere as a woman does.
A male waiter comes over and takes their order. Maria made sure not to order anything strong to drink.

“Do you still drink?” William was curious when Maria said she had drunk tequila.

“Only once in a while. I’ve learned my lesson about drinking strong liquor.” Maria takes a sip of her sweet tea.

While they were waiting for their meal, they were passing the Navy base. A smile appears on Maria’s face when she spots several of the aircraft carriers in port.

“Do you like the Navy ships?” Robert saw how Maria smiled when they passed the ships.

“I was born on one of them.” Maria wanted to see how these two guys handled that news.

“No way.” William didn’t believe it.

“It’s true. I’m the only American child born to a Navy sailor while at sea.”

“How is that possible?” Robert was curious.

“My mother was pregnant and hadn’t realized it. When she gave birth to me, the ship was in the Indian Ocean. So, I’m the only child born so far on a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier.” Maria has always wondered how her mother didn’t know she was pregnant.

“That is unique.”

Just as Robert says those words. There is a loud explosion that rocks the boat. Alarms start blaring, and people start panicking.

There are secondary explosions, and the ship cracks in half. Maria fell backward and tumbled backward in her chair before she could grab the table she was sitting at. She falls backwards straight into the icy ocean water.

Maria panics as the darkness of the ocean water surrounds her. She tries swimming back towards the surface as her body violently shivers from the icy temperatures of the ocean water. She manages to make it to the surface and start coughing. Her teeth were chattering as she looked around.

There was debris floating in the water all around her. She could hear screaming and calls for help. Pieces of the Norfolk were sinking and burning like candles on the ocean. The waves were a little rough as Maria tried to get her bearings. She spots her coat floating nearby and grabs it. She ties the arms and uses it as a float device as she spots the navy vessels and starts swimming towards them.

She knew she needed to stay moving or she was going to freeze. It was already hard for her to concentrate because of how cold she felt. The distance to the naval vessels was a way away, and she was already freezing.

She could still hear other people from the cruise screaming for help. Maria was getting tired because of the waves and the undercurrent. She was never a strong swimmer, but she wouldn’t give up. She heard several boats pass a few feet from her position.

“HELP!” She watches as the boats speed by her.

Her boots were slowing her down. Her body was freezing, and she was using every bit of energy she had left in her body to fight the current. She fights to stay conscious as she finally reaches the net that surrounds the front of the destroyer; she somehow swam to it.

“HELP! SOMEONE HELP ME!” Maria held onto the net with her cold hands. They had already turned blue.

Maria hears several splashes to her left and then spots several people swimming towards her. As soon as she felt arms wrapped around her, she passed out.

“Achoo! Achoo!” Maria blows her red, running nose.

Her chest felt heavy from the mucus buildup in her lungs. After swimming in the icy cold ocean, while fighting white cap rough waves, a strong undertow, and having to swim a mile, in thirty-two-degree temperatures. She had caught pneumonia, along with several other passengers from the Spirit of Norfolk. Luckily, the cruise ship hadn’t lost any passengers, but several staff members had been seriously injured from the explosions that had gone off inside the ship.

The naval police and the investigators from the city had questioned her about what happened while she waited for her grandparents to show up. She had been taken aboard the USS Kearsarge (LHD 3) to be treated by the medics, along with several other survivors from the Spirit of Norfolk.
The crew aboard the Kearsarge had been very kind and gentle with them.

Military Police escorted her grandfather and several other relatives belonging to the other passengers from the main gate. Cabs took everyone else back to downtown Norfolk to either pick up their cars or transport them home. By the time she got home from the hospital, it was six in the morning, and she had to let Tom know she wasn’t coming into work.

Over the next few days, she started feeling worse and worse. Her grandmother took her to the nearest Patient First and was informed she had pneumonia. The doctor who saw her prescribed some medicine and gave her a shot.

On the way home, her grandmother stopped at the Golden Peacock Chinese Restaurant and bought a quart of egg drop soup and a quart of wonton soup for Maria. Betty knew how much Maria loved those soups when she was sick.

Maria was lying in bed under her Pepé Le Pew sheets, under an electric blanket and a thick homemade quilt she made herself. She learned how to make it from watching a YouTube video. She was holding her Pepe Le Pew plushie close to her with a box of tissues on her nightstand. She was wearing a thick pair of socks that covered her feet.

Her tablet and cell phone were lying on the shelf behind her head. She hated being sick, and she hated feeling cold all the time. Her electric blanket was turned up to eight, and she was still feeling cold.

“Maria, I’m home.” Vincent heard what happened to Maria when he arrived home from his boyfriend’s apartment two days later.

“Okay.” Maria’s voice sounded hoarse and tired. She had been coughing all morning, making her voice sound sore and raw.

Vincent walks over to Maria’s bedroom door and notices she is buried under her blankets with her head covered, but with her face exposed. A smirk appears on his face as he looks at her.

“You look like a mummy.” Vincent knew better than to walk into Maria’s bedroom when she was feeling sick, especially since she had pneumonia.

“I feel like it. I hate being sick.” Maria hated being sick and feeling weak.

“Well, I’m sorry for what happened to you. Did you hear that the winning mega-million ticket from four weeks ago still hasn’t been claimed and that it was bought at the Seven/Eleven near your grandparents’ house?”

A thoughtful look appears on Maria’s face, “You don’t think that the ticket I bought for us is the winning ticket, do you?”

“Have you checked it yet?” Vincent knew Maria normally bought the lottery tickets and placed them on the refrigerator.

“No, I’ve been so busy with work and keeping our apartment clean, and getting ready for the Valentine's Day cruise, I haven’t even bought any
new lottery tickets.” Maria knew she hadn't bought any tickets since the last one she bought with her grandmother.

“Let me go and grab it off the refrigerator so you can check it with the app.” Vincent turns and leaves the doorway.

Maria reaches behind her stack of pillows and grabs her cellphone. It has the official lottery app to check lottery tickets to see if they have won or not. She scrolls through the screens until she finds the app.

“Here you go.” Vincent had grabbed a mask to cover his nose and mouth.

“I’m not that contagious.” Maria accepts the ticket.

“I’m not taking any chances. I have to work tomorrow, and I don’t want to spread your germs.” Vincent knew colds spread fast where he worked.

“Ha, ha.” Maria starts coughing again.

“See.” Vincent watches as Maria coughs up green-looking mucus and spits it into the trash can by her bed.

“Yuck!” Vincent couldn’t stand seeing something so disgusting.

Maria holds her cellphone in front of the lottery ticket and scans it. When the scan was complete, a cash tune started playing, letting them know the ticket was a winning one. Maria looked at the message on her cellphone screen and couldn’t believe it.

Vincent heard the tune and the reaction on Maria’s face.

“Did we just win?” Vincent looks at Maria as she sits up in bed. The PJ’s she was wearing were one of her favorites that had Pepe Le Pew on the
front of it with a giant heart for a background.

Her shoulder-length grey hair was messy from sleeping all day long. She shivers as she hands the ticket back to Vincent. Just before she hands the ticket to Vincent, “We'd better print out the agreement we wrote, so things go smoothly when we cash it in.

Vincent looks at the ticket. “So, are we still going with the lump sum option?”

“Yes, it would be smarter to do it that way, instead of the annuity.” Maria's figure would be better with a lump sum.

“So, how much are we looking at after taxes and such?” Vincent looks at the ticket he is now holding.

“After taxes and everything, it's going to be eighty million dollars. Since we both agreed to split the winnings. That’s forty million apiece.” Maria
already knew what she wanted to do with her half. She wanted to buy Cain Electronics from Mr. Cain. The business meant a lot to her.

“I can finally open my own restaurant.” Vincent has been wanting to open his own restaurant ever since he became a chef.

“You know running a restaurant is going to keep you busy.” Maria shivers and starts coughing.

“I know.” Vincent was thinking about where he wanted to set it up.

Maria coughs up some more greenish-looking phlegm. Her joints hurt when she coughs it up.

“We need to get a lawyer and make arrangements before we go and cash that ticket in.” Maria wanted to call Mr. Cain and make arrangements to buy the store from him. She wanted to do it before someone else did.

“I’ll start making some calls tomorrow, Maria. Just get better so we can cash this ticket in.”

“I will. Don’t tell anyone that we won yet, Vincent. Or we’ll have people bugging us and knocking on our door all the time.”

“Speaking of knocking on our door. Are we going to split, or do you mind if we stay together?” Vincent has been Maria’s roommate for a while.

“I’m staying here. If you want to stay together, that’s fine. Maybe we can buy this building and the other one and lower everyone’s rent.” Maria knew some of the tenants in both buildings had been having problems making rent for some months.

“I think that is a good idea, but we should keep it quiet so no one knows we own the buildings.” Vincent knew it would help the current tenants.

“I agree.”

“Oh, what do you want for dinner tonight?” Vincent knew there was another reason why he was checking on Maria, besides letting her know he was home.

“Can you make some chicken noodle soup, please?” Maria wanted a big bowl of homemade soup.

“No problem. I think we have everything I need to make it. I’ll let you know when it is ready.” Vincent turns and leaves.

“Thanks.” Maria buries herself under her covers.

Two Weeks Later, Lottery Regional Office, Newport News, Va.:
Maria, Vincent, and their attorney Jessica Webb were sitting across from the lottery official at his office. Maria had her face covered because she was still recovering from pneumonia and didn’t want to pass on her cold. It wasn’t as bad as it had been, but she was still feeling some of the effects.

Maria wears latex gloves as a preventive measure. She had layered them on, so she could remove them when one broke. She apologized to the lottery official beforehand and explained why she was wearing her mask and gloves.

By the time the official signing of the winnings was done and the split between her and Vincent was taken care of. Maria, Vincent, and Jessica Webb all walk out and go their separate ways. Maria and Vincent stop at the Golden Peacock and pick up some lunch to take back to their place. Vincent had taken several days off from work and was planning on giving his two weeks’ notice.

Vincent and Maria are eating their lunch, when Vincent looks at Maria.

“Have you informed your grandparents yet?” Vincent knew Maria was close to her grandparents. In the past two weeks they have come by the
apartment and checked up on Maria and brought homemade chicken soup and other items Maria liked.

“Not yet. I want to do it at their house during a fancy dinner. I was thinking about asking you to make or ordering it from Uncle Louie’s and picking it up.” Maria knew Vincent was the better cook among the two of them.

“I don’t mind cooking it for you. What are you going to do while I’m cooking?”

“I’ll take my grandparents out or something. I’m still working on that part. I did talk to Mr. Cain and told him I wanted to buy the store, but I don’t want him to tell Tom or Barbara I own the store. I want them to continue running the store, until I learn everything about it from Mrs. Cain. I’m also thinking about taking a business course online so I’ll know how to run the store more effectively.” Maria takes a bite of her lunch.

“How about your operation? Are you going to have it?” Vincent knew Maria hated her birth defect.

“I’m thinking about doing it next year. I want to go ahead and get everything lined up first.” Maria knew a few changes she was going to make at the store.

Since Mr. Cain wasn’t going to be working there anymore. They were going to be short a full time technician. Also, since she was going to be busy as well, she was going to visit some of the technical schools in the area and hire two part time students.

Also, she and Vincent had spoken about it, and they agreed that rent was too high for most of the tenants in the two apartment buildings and theirs. So, they were going to buy them, but use a management company to handle the day to day operations of the buildings.

They planned on doing some renovations to the empty apartments and for those apartments that still had tenants living in them. They would pay for them to stay at a nearby hotel while work was going on or let them move into the apartments they made renovations too.

That way they remain anonymous and not be bothered by the tenants. However, they wanted to be included in any problems or complaints that crept up. They planned on to keep paying rent as well. It was already setup in a joint account to be paid every month, just like all their combined bills. They contribute money to the account each pay day.

They can put money into the account, but not take any money out. It was used strictly to pay their bills. Both of them add money to the account from their winnings. This way they don’t have to remember about doing it later.

Maria donates money to the local animal shelter to help them out and to several homeless shelters. She knew Vincent was setting up a fund for cooks and restaurant personnel that were having financial problems. She donates money to an organization that helps people with aids and provides counseling services to transgender and gay people.

Maria goes to the store when she is feeling better to buy groceries for the dinner she wants Vincent to cook for her grandparents. She is informed by her grandmother that the aircraft carrier her mother is stationed on will be docking in a few days. She has always been there when her mother came into port. She wonders if her mother is going to ever retire from the Navy or take a shore assignment.

Maria informs her grandmother that she’ll go with her and her grandpa to welcome her mother home. Since things are slow at the moment at the store, Maria planned on taking a few days off. She already used up all her sick leave and a few vacation days.

She lets Tom and Barbara know, just in case something comes in that needs immediate attention. She informs them that she would still be in town. She’ll also will work half a day, on the day the aircraft carrier her mother is stationed on docks.

Trimax Auto Group:
“Grandpa, do I really need my own car?” Maria looked at her grandfather as they drove down Military Hwy.

Ever since Maria told her grandparents about winning the lottery at the surprise dinner Vincent made for them, she informed them that she would split the winnings with Vincent and that she was in the process of buying Cain Electronics from Mr. Cain. Mr. Cain put her in contact with the owner of Priest Electronics, who was willing to sell Priest Electronics to Mr. Cain.

Priest Electronics was a smaller store and catered to the DIY (Do It Yourself) crowd. The owner, Mr. Thomas Green, just wanted to get out of the business. He opened his store around the same time Mr. Cain did. The lawyer she hired to handle all the legal stuff for both stores. She was in contact with the owner of the apartment she and Vincent lived in, offering to sell her the three buildings and the other apartment building with twenty-six units off forty-fifth street.

“Maria, you’re going to need your own vehicle if you’re going to own property. That way, you can go and inspect your properties.” Ralph glances at Maria as she sits next to him.

“If you say so, grandpa.” Maria watches as her grandfather turns off Military Hwy and onto Virginia Beach Blvd.

She hasn’t been this far into Virginia Beach since she was fifteen years old. Her high school had gone on a field trip. She spots the place her grandfather was taking her to look at cars.

Ralph pulls into the car lot and parks. He spots his friend Willie coming out of the building, wearing a nice business shirt, a necktie, and dress pants, with a huge smile on his face. Maria exits the truck on the passenger side.

“Ralph, it’s good to see you.” Willie walks over to shake Ralph’s hand.

Ralph shakes Willie’s hand. “I would like you to meet my granddaughter, Maria. She’s looking to buy her first car.”

Willie looks at Maria and extends his hand to her. “It’s nice to meet you, Maria.”

“And you as well, Willie.” Marie shakes his hand.

“So, tell me. What type of car are you looking for?” Willie watches Maria’s facial expression.

“Well, I would like a car or SUV that gets good gas mileage, and isn’t a pain to maintain.” Maria knew her grandfather would want her to learn to change her own oil and handle her regular maintenance.

“Let me show you around, and see if we can’t find the perfect car for you.” Willie leads Maria and Ralph over to the nearest SUV.

Ralph and Maria follow Willie. She knew that if Willie were a friend of her grandfather, she’d get a good price on a vehicle. For the next hour and a half, and several test drives later.

“This is the one, Grandpa.” Maria liked the black 2024 Honda CR-V Sport-L she just finished test-driving.

Ralph looks at Willie, “How much is it, Willie?”

“Let’s see, are you financing it or buying it outright?” Willie looks at Ralph and Maria.

“Buying outright,” Maria answers Willie's question.

Willie had to think about how much the lot contained and how much his commission would be. “Well, since we are good friends, Ralph. How about thirty thousand dollars?”

Maria looks towards her grandpa to see what he thinks. This was all new to Maria. She had never bought a car before.

Ralph noticed Marie looking at him. They have spent the last hour and a half looking at vehicles and test-driving them.

“Does this vehicle come with a warranty?”

“Yes. Five years or one hundred fifty miles, whichever comes first. Plus, the warranty covers the hybrid battery, free inspections as long as they are done here, and scheduled maintenance is covered.”

“Sounds good.” Ralph looks at Maria.

“Okay, let’s sign all the necessary paperwork.”

An hour later, Maria is sitting in her new SUV, following her grandfather back to his place. She can’t wait to see what her grandmother thinks about her buying the SUV. She has to go check out the apartment building on forty-fifth street tomorrow and decide whether she wants to buy it.

Later in the evening, Maria arrives back home and parks her new SUV in her assigned parking space. She doesn’t spot Vincent’s car anywhere in the lot. She gets out and heads up to her apartment.

She notices she has the apartment to herself. She hopes Vincent is alright. She strips out of her clothes and takes a nice, long, hot shower. She couldn’t believe she just bought her very first car. She has never wanted to own a vehicle before, because her work wasn’t that far away and it was on the bus line.

After Maria finishes her shower, she heads into her bedroom and puts on her favorite nightshirt, but no panties. She looks up the property that the current owner owns and reviews the posted pictures.

After examining it for a while, Maria powers off her computer and lies down on her bed.

Second week of April:
Maria felt a set of slender arms wrap around her wet body as she stood next to her car at the local self-carwash. She felt a set of busty breasts pressed against her back and soft lips kissing her neck.

“You know, you're getting wet, leaning against me, don’t you?” Maria was wet from washing her Honda.

“I don’t mind.” Shelly kisses the other side of Maria’s neck.

A smile appears on Maria’s face as she closes her eyes. She couldn’t believe she met a person like Tian / Shelly when she went to The Oar House for dinner. Vincent was busy setting up his new restaurant, and she completed the purchase of all the apartment complexes, Cain Electronics, and Priest Electronics. She bought the car wash where she was currently washing her Honda.

The owner had listed it for sale, and it was just up the street from where she worked and lived. Her grandpa and uncle thought it was a good buy. Since it was a Saturday, she didn’t have to work. Mr. & Mrs. Cain had hired two part-time students from the local technical school and from Norfolk Technical Institute.

She signed up for a business degree and was taking online courses while still working at Cain Electronics. No one at Cain knew the business had been sold to her. After the part-time workers had been hired and had been working at the store for a month. Mr. Cain sent an email to all employees informing them that, due to health problems, he had sold the business.

The new owner lived out of town and planned on keeping everyone on. Some changes would be in the works, but other than that. He appreciated the loyalty that everyone had shown him and the store. Maria had immediately taken over Mr. Cain’s old work area, while her workspace was split between the two part-time timers. Barbara still ran the office, while Tom ran the front area. They still split the store's operations.

Maria lets go of the trigger on the sprayer and turns around in Shelly’s arms to kiss her. She loved playing with Shelly’s big breasts. Shelly stood taller than Maria by at least a foot, but today, Shelly was wearing low heels.

Shelly was tall for an Asian, born male, but underwent cosmetic surgery to look like the female character from One Piece, Boa Hancock. She was into cosplay and dressed as other characters, but preferred Boa Hancock.

She inherited money from her grandparents and used it to buy storage units for a living. Most of the stuff Shelly found was junk and ended up in the dumpster, but Shelly did find some interesting items. She once found an old safe containing a lot of money dating back to the 1930’s and 50’s.

Maria stands on her tiptoes to kiss Shelly. Shelly only liked looking like a woman and wearing women’s clothes. She didn’t want to be a woman, but liked having her own breasts. She hated wearing the fake boobs and didn't want to get implants. So instead, Shelly took an herbal mixture that made her breasts as big as the cartoon character from One Piece.

Which gave Shelly a body measurement of 43-24-36 and she wore an E cup bra. Maria knew Shelly preferred to look like a woman, instead of being one. Since Boa Hancock was whom she preferred to look like. She had her face, eyes, and body shaped to look like the cartoon woman.

Sure, the mixture affected her testes and her ability to produce sperm. Still, she wasn’t looking to become a father/mother, and even if she was, she could stop taking the mixture for a few months to produce the sperm she needed to help produce children.

Maria feels Shelly returning the kiss and gripping her petite ass. She loved how Shelly held her and the way she made her feel. She leans back to stop kissing Shelly.

“I'd better finish up cleaning my Honda before my time runs out.”

“True, but you are the owner of this place.” Shelly was still holding Maria.

“I know, and I could easily program more time for myself, but someone might see me enter my code.” Maria had replaced the place where you put the money in the machine to wash your car.

This way, customers could use their debit cards instead of cash. She had a special code she could use to extend or get a free wash if she chose to do it.

“Why don’t we go and grab some lunch after we're finished here?” Shelly and Maria were wearing their swimsuit and shorts.

Maria had worn a swimsuit that showed off her back completely, so everyone could see the huge Dragon tattoo. The shorts she was wearing were exercise booty shorts, which showed off her petite trimmed legs. Her feet were covered by a pair of pink jelly web flats. Her hair was in a ponytail, held by a pink hair tie.

Shelly had tied her long black hair into a ponytail, too. The oriental style thong swimsuit she was wearing supported her huge breasts. Her shorts were longer than the ones Maria was wearing, and you couldn’t tell by looking at Shelly’s groin area that she was male. Nothing about Shelly gave off any indication that she wasn’t a genetic female.

“Sounds good to me. Where should we go?” Maria pulls the trigger on the sprayer and starts spraying her Honda again.

“Since it is a nice day. How about Doumar’s? We can eat outside in your Honda as they did back in the car hop days?” Shelly liked the old style
of Doumar’s and how they still did things that same way.

“Okay. I haven’t been there since I was fourteen years old.” Maria continues to spray off her Honda. She uses a leather rag to get all the water off.

Shelly steps back and watches as Maria dries her Honda. She knows Maria will put wax on her car the next time she washes her Honda. A smile appears on her face as she watches her lover. She loved the huge Sea Dragon tattoo on Maria’s back. She wonders why she had that put there instead of Pepé Le Pew?

She has seen inside Maria’s bedroom and knew for a fact that Maria loved the cartoon character, just as she loved Boa Hancock. She loved the whole anime series. She has dressed up as some of the characters for the comic con in Richmond and the one down at the Ocean Front.

“Okay, I’m done.” Maria turns around and looks at Shelly.

“Good.” Shelly empties the yellow bucket Maria brought with her and wrings out the leather rag Maria used.

Maria puts the sprayer away and dries her shoes off with a towel she started keeping in the Honda. She tosses the towel back into the bin under the driver's seat. She gets in on the driver's side, and Shelly gets in on the passenger's side.

“Fasten your seat belt.” Maria pulls out of the car wash stall and onto Princess Anne Road.

Shelly reaches over and connects her cell phone to the radio. She plays her favorite list, which she knows has music Maria likes as well. A smile appears on Maria’s face when certain songs start playing on the stereo. She sings along with them, with Shelly.

It only takes ten minutes of driving to reach Doumar’s. They park at one of the old-style stalls, and a carhop wearing skates, skates over. Maria orders for the two of them. She has gotten to know what Shelly likes and doesn’t like.

After they enjoy their lunch, they grab a homemade ice cream cone. Maria drives them to the Ocean Front and parks her Honda at one of the parking lots.

“I thought we could walk the boardwalk.” Maria looks at Shelly when she says that.

“Sounds good to me.” A smile appears on Shelly’s face.

The two of them hold hands as they walk towards the boardwalk. Once there, they walk down the boardwalk still holding hands and making small talk. Maria couldn’t believe how she had fallen head over heels for Shelly. She has never fallen this hard for someone. She always thought she would grow old without someone to love.

They go all the way down to the end of the boardwalk and turn around. They stop and have dinner at one of the outside restaurants at the hotels that face the ocean. After dinner, the two of them enjoy the sunset and notices it was starting to get cooler.

Shelly knew Maria gets cold easily, and stands behind her. She wraps her arms around Maria's body and holds her against her body.

"Feel better?" Shelly squeezes Maria's small breasts.

"Yes." Maria leans a little more back against Shelly's body, enjoying the feel of Shelly's ample breasts pressing against her back.

They make their way back to the Honda and drive to Shelly’s place. Maria knew that where Shelly lived, rent was higher than at her place.

“Want to come in and stay the night?” Shelly looks at Maria when she asks.

“Sure. I think Vincent is having his boyfriend over for some fun.” Maria parks the Honda in visitor parking and walks back to Shelly’s apartment.

When they enter the apartment, Shelly pulls Maria into her arms and starts kissing her. She feels Maria not resisting as she kisses her. She feels Maria wrap her arms around her.

Maria returns Shelly’s kiss with passion. She wraps her arms around Shelly and moves closer, without pushing Shelly backward. She loosens her arms and slides Shelly’s swimsuit strap aside. She does the same thing to Shelly’s other arm, exposing her breasts.

The two of them manage to undress each other and fall onto Shelly’s bed. In no time, the two of them are wrestling around on the bed, sucking and exploring each other’s bodies. Maria concentrates her attention on Shelly’s breasts because of how big they are. She likes how bigger they are compared to her own.

She also tries to excite Shelly’s manhood, but it doesn’t respond. She figures that all the estrogen Shelly was putting into her body caused her testes not to work anymore. Still, Shelly’s manhood worked better than hers. Hers didn’t even work.

They slowly fall asleep, snuggling against each other. Maria had her face buried between Shelly’s breasts.

“OWE!” Maria gets knocked backward off her mechanics' stool and lands on her back with her legs resting on her mechanics’ stool. She was staring up at the ceiling in her new workspace.

The tattoo she recently got on the side of her neck of Pepe Le Pew was exposed. Her hair was long enough to keep it covered while she was at work. It wasn’t because she was ashamed of it, but because some clients the store had didn’t like women who had tattoos.

She wanted to rub the side of her leg, where the other tattoo she was having work done, hurt from her falling backward. She had a sea dragon like the one on her back, only on her right leg. It started down at her right foot and wrapped itself around her leg and up towards her breasts.

It was something she had been wanting done ever since her friend did one on her back. However, since he was no longer around, she had no idea where he had gone. She has found another artist who could copy the sea dragon’s face and body.

Maria was wearing one of her torpedo bras under her work shirt. She liked the silhouette it gave her chest. She stands up and brushes off the dust on her pants. She really needs to sweep the workspace.

She looks at the juke box in front of her. Her eyes immediately go to the spot that shocked her, and she notices the wiring is brittle and exposed.
“You’re getting replaced, asshole.”

Her fingers were still tingling from touching the wire. Maria disconnects the portable power supply and starts working on replacing a bunch of exposed, frail wires and components. She was going to restore these two juke boxes and the other two juke boxes that Shelly found in a storage unit in Chesapeake.

Shelly already had a buyer for them. One of the buyers owned a fifties-style restaurant and wanted everything in it to be authentic. The other buyer was a biker bar, and they loved the old-style jukeboxes but also wanted to add a storage compartment where music could be uploaded and played.

The third one was to a collector, and he wanted everything to be as authentic as possible. So, Shelly hired Maria to restore all three juke boxes, since she had experience restoring old ones.

“Maria, you have a visitor.” Tom’s voice comes over the intercom in Maria’s workroom.

Maria looks at the time and realizes it's lunchtime. She grabs her purse and washes her hands on the way towards the front of the store. She had no idea where she wanted to go to lunch.

When Maria walks through the double doors from behind the counter, she spots Shelly, dressed casually, standing on the other side. The blouse Shelly was wearing barely contained her enlarged breasts. She could spot Shelly's nipples poking against the blouse, even with Shelly wearing a bra.

Her own work shirt was sticking out because of the bra she was wearing. The work pants she was wearing showed off her tiny waist and cute ass. A smile appears on Maria’s face when she sees Shelly.

“Hey, beautiful, sorry for keeping you waiting.” Maria watches Tom and Brad’s reaction when she addresses Shelly.

She knew they thought Shelly was a genetic woman. They didn’t know Shelly was a man who loved looking like a woman.

“I wasn’t waiting long. Tom and Brad were keeping me company.” Shelly kisses Maria on the lips. She knew Tom and Brad were watching her and drooling over her appearance.

Maria returns the kiss. She knew Tom and Brad were a little puzzled and jealous of her relationship. She waves towards the guys as she walks out of the store with Shelly and over to Shelly’s BMW.

When Shelly wasn’t buying and selling items from the storage units, she normally drove her BMW. Today, Maria took the bus to work instead of her Honda. She saw no need to drive it a short distance.

“So, where are we going for lunch?” Maria looks towards Shelly for an answer.

“I was thinking Plaza Azteca for lunch.” Shelly glances towards Maria when she mentions the Mexican restaurant.

“Sounds good to me. I love their margaritas.” Maria loved their jumbo margarita.

“Take it easy, sweetie. You still have to work. Oh, Doctor Junas said that she has July clear if you want to go ahead and get your surgery.” Shelly was a good friend of Dr. Junas.

“Is she willing to do the surgery here in Norfolk, at Eastern Virginia Medical School?” Maria wanted to have her bottom surgery done locally rather than travel to Taiwan or California.

“Why don’t you call her and ask?” Shelly hands her cell phone to Maria.

“Okay, I will.” Maria scrolls through Shelly’s contacts and locates Dr. Junas Juno’s number.

She presses the number under the contact listing and watches the road as Shelly drives. After a few minutes, “Dr. Junas’s office, how can I help you?”

“Hi, I’m trying to get in touch with Dr. Junas about doing my surgery here in Norfolk in July.”

“Your name, ma’am?” Rosa wonders who she was talking to.

“Oh, sorry. My name is Maria Sheridan. I’ve been wanting to see if Dr. Janus is willing to do my surgery here in Norfolk, VA.”

“Hold one minute, Mrs. Sheridan.” Rosa puts Maria on hold.

A few seconds later, “Hello, this is Dr. Junas. How can I help you, Mrs. Sheridan?”

“Hi, Dr. Junas. I was contacting you to see if you were available to do my SRS surgery here in Norfolk, VA, at Eastern Virginia Medical School in July?”

“Yes, I have you scheduled for July 15, at Eastern Virginia Medical School. Are you sure you want to do the surgery there?”

“Yes, ma’am, I’m sure. My family will be available to look after me, and I live nearby.” Maria knew her grandmother would want to be by her side when she had the surgery.

“Okay, I just need your current medical report sent to my office. Is there anything else you would like me to do during the surgery?”

“No ma’am.” A smile appears on Maria’s face.

“Well, just have your doctor send me your medical file so I can see what work I will need to prepare for.”

“Will do, Mrs. Junas,” Maria says her goodbyes and hangs up.

“Why July 15th?” Shelly was curious about that day.

“I try always to take my vacation around then to spend time with my grandparents up in Richmond. I know the store can handle my absence for two weeks.”

“You do know you’ll need more time to recover, and I’ll be by your side as well.” Shelly knew that Maria wanted to be a girl, and she didn’t mind.

“Thanks, sweetie.” Maria leans over and kisses Shelly’s cheek.

They arrived at Plaza Azteca and parked the car. Shelly gets out and waits for Maria to join her. She noticed Maria had worn one of her torpedo bras to work. The two of them go inside and are escorted to a table.

During lunch, Maria orders one of the jumbo margaritas and steak Azteca. She looks at Shelly as she orders a fajita lunch and a sweet iced tea.

“You’re going to be tipsy by the time you arrive at work.” Shelly knew Maria was a lightweight when it came to rum.

“True, I won’t dispute that. But I’m not driving, and I have my beautiful girlfriend to look after me.” Maria smiles sweetly at Shelly.

“Come on Shelly, I want you to meet my aunts and uncles on my father side of the family.” Maria looks in her mirror at Shelly as she stands by Maria’s bed.

“How are they going to accept you having a female girlfriend?” Shelly watches as Maria does her makeup in the mirror.

“They won’t care. They already know I’m weird and having a girlfriend instead of a boyfriend will be nothing new to them. Besides, they don’t need to know you’re not one hundred percent girl any ways.” Maria knew Shelly’s appearance will cause several of her uncles and male cousins to drool.

Maria knew Shelly only liked looking like a woman with big boobs like those on the anime character Boa Hancock from the One Piece anime. Shelly also had her facial features and body done to resemble the cartoon character as well. She was also a little jealous that Shelly had tits bigger than her own.

“What are they going to say about your new tattoos?” Shelly walks over to Maria and pulls her hair back and braids it.

“Nothing, I have a cousin who has more tattoos than I do. He works at a motorcycle dealership.” Maria finishes putting on her makeup and earrings.

“There, all done.” Maria looks at her reflection in the mirror. She makes sure everything is done properly.

“You look beautiful, you know that?” Shelly leans down and kisses Maria on her cheek. She makes sure not to leave any of her lipstick behind.

“Thanks, but next to you, I’m chop liver. Where you’re the main course.” Maria knew Shelly could have any man she wanted too, if she was into men.

“You’re beautiful in my eyes and that should be the only assurance you need. Now, come on and let’s get on the road. You said the ride is about two hours or so.”

Shelly walks over to Maria’s bed where they spent the night last night and picks up the birthday gift Maria bought for her uncle Jacob. The gift cost Maria a pretty penny and was hard to find. Luckily, there had been a pawn shop in Portsmouth that had it. Someone had pawned it and never picked it up.

After Maria bought the watch, she took it to a person who specialized in watch repairs to have it cleaned and overhauled. It was a Rolex Submariner that Maria’s uncle had been wanting for a very long time but couldn’t afford one.

Maria was lucky she found one in a pawn store. The manager on duty didn’t think she could afford it but sold it to her in the long run. She had wrapped the gift for Maria, since Maria was lousy at wrapping.

The two women walk out of the apartment and head towards Maria’s Honda. This was the first time Maria was driving her Honda long distance. Shelly links her cell phone to the radio and play the music list that Maria liked to listen to while she drove.

Both women were wearing dresses and nice heels. Neither of them was wearing stockings and you could see the sea serpent that started at Maria’s foot and twisted its way up her leg and disappeared under her dress.

Def Leopard started playing Pour Some Sugar On Me as Maria drove. Shelly watches as Maria taps the song on the steering wheel. She learned that Maria was a drummer in school and was in a band for a short time before the band broke up.

Shelly relaxes as Maria drove them towards Richmond. She’s been to Richmond a few times to handle some business and to bid on some lockers.

“So, your father’s side of the family doesn’t have a problem with you being trans and getting the operation to become a girl?” Shelly watches Maria’s facial reaction.

“Nope, considering I’ve been living like a girl ever since I was five years old.”

“You were that young, when you started?” Shelly was surprised by that statement.

“I was diagnosed with testicular cancer when I was five years old and had to have them completely removed. When the navy doctors prescribed testosterone for me to take. They learned I was allergic to it and broke out hives and welts.”

“That must had sucked. How did your mother handle everything?”

“She didn’t know until my grandmother told her. She was out at sea and my father was overseas. Neither one of them gave a damn about what happened to me. I was a mistake they never wanted.”

“That can’t be true.” Shelly couldn’t believe any parents would feel that way.

“It’s true. As far as they are concerned. I’m my mother’s little sister, since my grandparents in Norfolk raised me my whole life.”

“It’s hard to believe both of your parents feel like that.”

“Nope, it’s very easy to believe. My parents cared more about their careers in the military than me. It’s caused some fraction between my parents, and their parents on both sides of the family. Both sets of my grandparents feel that my parents should have taken responsibility for me, instead of pushing me off to them. My grandparents, up here in Richmond, couldn’t believe my father would do what he did to me. That wasn’t the way they raised him to be. Family means a lot to them.”

“So, how did you end up with your grandparents down in Norfolk? Not that I’m complaining.” A playful smile appears on Shelly’s face.

“Easy, whenever my parents are in town, they are required to spend time with me. Both of my grandparents have told them they can’t ignore me.
That requirement didn’t last long. Once I turned eight years old, they found reasons not to come to Norfolk.”

Maria didn’t cry over it and just concentrated on driving. She had gotten used to how her parents saw and ignored her.

“Man, that is rough. I thought my parents flipping out over me doing this to myself was rough.” Shelly knew her parents didn’t approve of her lifestyle.

“The only time my grandparents flipped out was when I got the tattoo on my back and when they discovered I was gay. They suspected that me and best friend were having gay sex, but I never got caught by them. It wasn’t until my best friend’s mother caught us having sex out back near her garden shed, that she learned the truth.”

“I bet that was embarrassing for the two of you. What were you doing?” Shelly was curious.

“I was wearing a garter belt and stocking with a thong panty under a summer dress I had on. I was on all fours with the dress lifted onto my back and he had just come inside of me.”

Shelly starts laughing, “I can’t believe your grandmother allowed you to leave the house like that.”

“She didn’t. I had put them on over at his house while his mother was gone. They happened to be hers.” A smile appears on Maria’s face.

Shelly laughs even louder at that statement. She couldn’t believe Maria would do something like that.

“It’s not the first time we did it outside where we could had been caught. We came close several times of being caught when we went to the city park.” Maria had fond memories of the things they did and where they did it.

“Why did you stop? Also, what type of things are you into?” Shelly wanted to know how kinky Maria was.

“The reason we stopped, is because my friend got sent to jail and I was scared to open myself up to anyone else. I don’t know if you realized it or not. But I like being the woman in our relationship. I want you to make love to me and treat me like a woman.”

“Well, you know I can’t exactly get my manhood up because of the hormones I have been taking to grow my own boobs. I like having a female body, but I don’t want to be a woman like you do. I love having my penis.” Shelly knew she didn’t want to have surgery to change her gender.

“Which I don’t mind. I love your big boobs and your body. Plus, I get the best of two worlds. The only thing I dislike is you can’t get big and hard enough to penetrate me. However, I’ve been thinking and I think I have a solution.” Maria has been putting some thought into their sex life.

“What is that?” Shelly was curious about whatever Maria had come up with.

“Well, since the both of us like being penetrated by a thick solid cock. How about if we do what most lesbians do?” Maria looks at Shelly when she turns her head.

“What? Uses sex toys like dildos and strapon’s?” Shelly knew most lesbians uses toys to have fun.

“Yep, exactly. That way when you want me to penetrate you, I can and when I want you to fuck my brains out.”

“I can deal with that. It’ll be like we are a lesbian couple to everyone who don’t us.” Shelly liked that idea.

“Yep, plus since I revealed what I like to do. I would love to see what you would want me to do.” Maria smiles at Shelly.

“Oh, I think I can come up with some perverted things for us to do.” An evil smile appears on Shelly’s face.

Maria shivers just thinking about what she would like Shelly to do to her. She almost missed her exit to her grandmother’s place. She takes it and follows the road to a private driveway and turns right onto the driveway. There was white picket fence on either side of the entrance of the driveway.

“Man, your grandmother lives way out here?” Shelly couldn’t believe how big the place was.

“Yep, it’s been in my father’s family since the civil war.”

“What side was your father’s family on?” Shelly looks at Maria when she asks.

“The losing side. Richmond, Virginia was the capital of the confederate government after they moved it from Montgomery, Alabama.”

“Your father’s family were in the confederate army?” Shelly couldn’t believe that.

“Yep, so were my mother’s side of the family. I had great uncles who served in the confederate army. Some of them are buried in the graveyards between Virginia Beach Blvd and Princess Anne Road. My mom’s family came over as indentured servants and managed to work off their debt.
My father’s side of the family is related to some of the original colonists who came over. They were soldiers, trappers, woodsmen, and traders. I have some Native American blood in my family, because of how horny some of my ancestors were.”

“What, they married Native American women?” Shelly wonders what Maria meant.

“The opposite, they raped and kidnapped Native American and Black women. They couldn’t keep their penis in their trousers.” Maria was shocked when she learned about her ancestors when she researched them.

“Oh!” Maria drives up to a nice house and parks her car next to a brand-new pickup truck.

When Shelly exited Maria’s Honda, she spotted a gun rack inside the cab of the truck holding three rifles. She shuts the door and looks over towards Maria “someone likes to hunt.”

“Yeah, all the men and some of the women in my family. Some of them could teach professional snipers how to track and shoot people.”

The two women start walking towards the huge house. Maria was holding Shelly’s hand as they walked.

Maria adjusts her posture as she works on a circuit board on her workbench. Since taking over Mr. Cain’s workspace, she was still getting used to its arrangement. She could feel the cum Shelly managed to deposit into her rectum this morning before coming to work.

She had been woken up by Shelly penetrating her. Since they returned from her uncle’s birthday party, they went out to some of the local sex toy shops. They bought some sex toys to play with and some restraints.

Shelly had asked her doctor if taking Viagra would do any harm to her, since she was taking a strong estrogen herbal medicine. Her doctor had recommended she could, but only once in a twenty-four-hour period. Since her doctor wrote her a prescription for the drug, they have been enjoying it.

Normally, she doesn’t dress up for work, but she had time this morning. She decided to dress up a bit. She had put on a T-shirt dress, with the brand-new garter belt, holding the new stocking she bought. She decided to wear thong panties, since Shelly had cum in her ass.

She had worn an old pair of ankle boots she kept in the closet that matched the dress she was wearing. She had her hair styled before she went to celebrate her uncle’s birthday. On top of how she looked, she started taking some of the herbal pills to see if they could make her breasts bigger.

Lately, her chest has been hurting her, like it did when her breasts first started coming. Which, to Maria, was a good sign that the herbal medicine was working. She finishes the circuit board she was working on and installs it back into the old-style stereo system belonging to a customer.

The client wanted her to restore it and make it operational. On top of that, the customer had heard she could make it Bluetooth-capable and had asked her to do that as well. Maria checks the connections and adjusts a few things.

She turns the stereo system on to make sure everything is working. The speakers had been replaced with new ones, and a custom amplifier had been installed. The new system sounded clean and crisp.

She links her cellphone to the Bluetooth and tests it. Maria watches as her cellphone connects and the music starts playing. After testing the linkup. Maria starts closing everything up and rolls the stereo out for pickup. She makes sure the work order and what she did to it are attached to the stereo, with the cost.

Once that is done, Maria goes back to her work area and cleans up a bit. The two part-timers they hired had the day off. Once her work area is cleaned. Maria goes through the work orders and selects another project to work on.

She assigns some of the other projects to the part-timers, like Mr. Cain used to do with her. She knew what each person was capable of, so the
projects they would be working on played to their strengths.

Once that was done, she went up front and waved to the guys as she clocked out. She was going to have Chinese food for lunch and check on the other businesses she had bought. Maria buys lunch for herself and Shelly because she knows what Shelly likes at the Chinese restaurant they go to.

Maria heads towards Shelly’s store. She knew Shelly would be in the store today. She spots Shelly’s car parked in the parking lot and parks next to it. She grabs the bag with their lunch and walks into the store.

Maria smiles at Shelly’s assistant as she walks up to the counter. She spots Shelly sitting down at the end of the counter doing paperwork.

“Hey, sweetie, I brought lunch.” Marie sets the bag on the other side of the counter.

Shelly looks up and spots Maria standing on the other side of the sales counter with a white plastic bag from their favorite food place. She could smell the aroma of her favorite food coming from the bag. “What brings you here, besides lunch?”

“Can’t a girl visit her beautiful girlfriend?” Maria walks over to the used furniture section in the thrift store and grabs a bar stool to sit on.

Shelly watches as Maria walks over to the area where she displays the different bar stools that she finds in storage lockers. A smile appears on Shelly’s face as Maria carries the stool over to the counter. The thing was as tall as Maria.

Maria looks at Shelly. “I’m buying this one.”

“Where are you going to put it? Your place has enough furniture in it, and I don’t have space at my place for it.”

“Don’t worry about where I’m going to put it. I’m buying it.” Maria sits down and hands Shelly her meal, while placing her own in front of her.

The two of them start eating their lunch. Maria had gotten Szechuan Chicken for herself and Pepper Steak with plain white rice for Shelly. She got pork fried rice for herself and two egg rolls for both of them. Shelly didn’t like certain fried rice, so she always got plain white rice with her meal.

“Do you want to go out anywhere after work or stay home tonight?” Shelly looked at Maria as she ate her food.

“Let’s stay home tonight. I can stop and grab us something on the way to your place.” Maria liked staying at Shelly’s place. She kept some clean clothes over at her place.

“All right.” A smirk spreads across Shelly’s face because whenever Maria stayed with her, they ended up making love for a few hours.

“Your father’s folks were nice. I enjoyed meeting them.” Shelly liked meeting Maria’s aunts, uncles, and grandparents on her father's side of the family.

“I’ve always liked visiting them. I used to spend my summers with them when I was going to school. I would have three weeks of rest before one of my uncles would drag me off to a work site or to one of their garages to help out.” Maria remembers spending the summers up in Richmond and the surrounding area with her grandparents and relatives when she was younger.

“What did you use to do during summertime and such?” Maria looks at Shelly as she bites into her egg roll.

“I used to hang with my friends collecting comic books, or go to some of the nearby Comic Cons. I wanted to draw comics for a living, but my artwork was never good enough. I could draw scenery or backgrounds, but never human figures.” Shelly wonders whether, had she stuck with it, she might have become an artist.

“How did you get into buying storage lockers and such?” Maria wanted to know more about her girlfriend.

“By watching Storage Wars. I used to love watching that show. I know the lockers were salted, but sometimes they aren’t. One lady who went to a storage locker auction bought one that had a safe in it, and there was over a million dollars in it.” Shelly remembers reading an article about that happening to a lucky person.

“Man, I would love to be that lucky.” Maria had wanted to experience something like that.

“Sweetie, do I have to remind you that you won the lottery? Do you know how many people would love to be in your shoes right now?”

“I know. I shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.” Maria takes a sip of her green tea.

The two of them eat their lunch, and afterward, Maria has to leave to return to work. Shelly helps Maria with the stool and gives her a kiss before Maria drives off.

“I’ll see you at my place, sweetie.” Shelly steps back and watches as Maria drives off. She went back into the store and resumed what she had been doing before being interrupted by Maria.