1997
"Kiddo, what the fuck are you doing with your life?"
"...What do you mean?"
Our eyes met. "Do you still want to be a boy?"
I nodded. Then I looked down, my face on fire, genuinely worried a lightning bolt was going to come from the sky and strike me right there. "It's a sin against God."
Uncle Anthony facepalmed. Then he reached out and took my hand - a fatherly gesture, innocent. "I can help you. I have a friend who went to Thailand and became a girl. She knew she was a girl when she was a kid, just like you telling me you were a boy. And... Mike wants kids. You don't really want to get pregnant, do you? You don't really want this life, do you?"
I sighed. I thought about telling him I didn't want to go to Hell, but I held back. I already was in Hell.
Anthony pulled out his wallet, and his business card - he used to do hair by appointment at people's houses, and now he had his own salon. I thought about all the times I'd passed by there and not realized that was his shop, and I felt like an idiot.
"Look," he said. "You don't have to decide anything right away. It would take a long time for us to get the funds together and find a doctor who was willing to give you testosterone and maybe a mastectomy, especially if we have to go overseas for you to get the operation. But I'd be willing to help you, and in the meantime... we can catch up. I think you need a friend, yeah?"
I nodded. "I've missed you a lot."
"I've missed you too." Anthony smirked. "I missed you more than I miss your mom."
I started laughing. "She's even worse now."
"I bet."
I took the business card and put it in my jeans pocket and then he gave me a hug. A frisson went down my spine at the feel of his arms around me, his body against mine; my nipples hardened and my cunt twinged. I looked across the yard at Mike, and it was like I was seeing him for the first time - noticing the strong resemblance to his uncle. My stomach turned flip-flops as I pulled back, and it dawned on me that I'd been using Mike as a surrogate for Anthony.
I usually masturbated before bed, and this time it wasn't thinking of Mike. It was thinking of Anthony. I had a wet, messy orgasm, much faster and harder than usual, moaning his name into my pillow as I climaxed.
My face burned as I lay there, coming down from my orgasm. There was no way he would want me. Even if best-case scenario I was able to get testosterone and my tits removed, I wouldn't have a penis, and that was what gay men liked.
But somewhere along the line, my childhood hero-worship had turned into love. I knew that now. And it was enough to be around him even a little bit, even as just a friend.
I broke up with Mike, and started spending time with Anthony. Even though I was seventeen, almost eighteen, I didn't tell my mom what I was doing, because I knew she'd freak out. So I told her I was going to the library or the mall, or to see one of my friends from church, instead of going to Anthony's apartment or getting coffee or going on a drive. He took me to one of the local harvest festivals and won me a giant purple dragon playing a ring toss game, and at night I cuddled with it, wishing I were cuddling with him instead.
Anthony lived alone - his last partner had cheated on him, so it was just him and his cat, a brown tabby named Mozzarella, or Mozzie for short, because she'd been found at Anthony's other brother's restaurant, eating cheese. He sometimes invited me to spend the night, but I declined because I would have to make up some story to my mother.
At the beginning of November, a couple weeks before my eighteenth birthday, my mom and I got into it and she backhanded me. The next day I had a bruise on my face, which I tried to cover up with concealer but it wasn't working so well. On impulse, I went to Anthony's salon. I'd never bothered him at work before but I needed to see him. I needed to feel safe.
While Anthony was happy to see me, he quickly figured out something was wrong, and after he was done with the two clients who were in the shop, he put the CLOSED sign on the door, made me coffee the way I like it, and had me sit down on the couch with him.
"What's going on?" Anthony asked.
"I had a fight with my mom."
"That happens a lot, doesn't it?"
I nodded. Then I started crying, relieved that I could tell someone. Apparently I cried off the concealer because Anthony touched the bruise, his own eyes too bright. "She hit you?"
"...Yeah."
"She's done that before." It was a statement of fact, not a question.
"Yeah."
Anthony's shoulders heaved with a deep sigh and he pursed his lips. He glanced out through the shop windows at the street, then at the clock. He closed the salon at five, and it was just after three now. "What time does your mom get off work?"
"Five. But... please, please don't talk to her, she'll just do it again -"
Anthony put up a hand. "No. That wasn't what I was planning." Anthony squared his jaw and looked into my eyes. "I'm gonna close for the day. We're going to my place to get some... bags and things... and then we're going to your mom's place and I want you to pack your shit, or at least as much of it as you think you'll need, and come stay with me for awhile."
I was elated, but also afraid - my stepfather sometimes got off work early, and I didn't want there to be an altercation. I was also concerned that I'd wear out my welcome with him sooner rather than later. "I don't have a job right now -"
"I'm not worried about that, I can take care of us. If you really want, you could be my receptionist and help me clean up the shop and I'll pay you, but I think you need some time to just rest and recover from living with her abuse, capisce?"
I nodded.
We went to the three-family house where I was living with my mom, up to the second floor. Anthony made a face as he walked in, looking at how my mom decorated the kitchen. "Either that wallpaper goes or I do," Anthony quoted Oscar Wilde, making me laugh out loud. Then he sniffed and scowled harder. "Ugh. Cigarette smoke." Anthony had quit smoking in the early 90s, and he looked good for his age; I realized how much smoking had aged my mom.
Anthony helped me put clothes and personal items into garbage bags and duffel bags, including stuffed animals. "Don't leave anything behind that you want to see again, because she'll probably throw it out," Anthony warned me.
When his car was all loaded up, it was just after four-thirty. I shut off my bedroom light for the last time and put my keys on the kitchen counter. I thought about writing a note, but Anthony shook his head and said, "There isn't time." Once we were in the car and began to pull out onto the street, Anthony said, "I'll call your mom tonight or tomorrow and tell her you're staying with me. The police can't do anything about it because you're almost an adult, and if she becomes a problem I'll either talk to the police or... one of my cousins." He left that hanging, but I knew exactly what he meant. I hoped it wouldn't come to that.
Up in his apartment, once the cat was fed, he took out a camera, had me scrub off what was left of the concealer, and then he took pictures of the bruise on my face as evidence "in case we need to get a restraining order or something." As much as that thought horrified me, I felt myself getting turned on again by his take-charge attitude and his... competency.
That night we got pizza and he let me curl up on him on the couch as we watched Casablanca and I cried off and on, feeling heartbroken that it had come to this - reliving the argument with my mom, the slap... having flashbacks of other times she'd hit me. Anthony rubbed my back and pet my hair and made soothing noises, and at one point he held me and let me sob into his chest as he rocked me. "She will never hurt you again," he said softly. "You're safe with me now."
Anthony lived in a one-bedroom apartment, but his couch folded out into a bed. He offered to take the couch and give me the bed, like a gentleman, but I didn't feel right about doing that. So he took extra care to make the sofa bed comfortable, and when it was ready, he tucked me in. Mozzie snuggled with me, kneading and purring, and I fell asleep to the sound of purrs and rain. Even though I was in a small apartment sleeping on a sofa bed, it felt like a palace.
I felt like I was home. I felt safe and loved for the first time in my life.
The talk with my mom did not go well - she slapped him too, and he told me that after she hit him, he threatened her with "If you ever lay a hand on me again, or your son, there will be consequences, if you catch my drift."
...I was weirdly turned on by that - as well as him calling me her son, which made me feel warm and fuzzy inside.
Anthony was still pissed off, and he needed to get his mind off things. He made a big lasagna, and while it was in the oven, and I was on his dialup Internet building a Geocities shrine to Sailor Mercury, he looked me up and down and said, "You want me to cut your hair?"
I nodded eagerly.
Anthony cut my hair - not a feminine pixie cut, but an actual masculine haircut. At the time having short, spiky platinum hair was in vogue, so he dyed my hair and put some gel in it to make it spike. When I looked at myself in the mirror I started crying, not from sadness but from happiness. I saw a boy staring back at me... except for the tits.
"Here, I have something for you." Anthony went to his bedroom, I heard the closet open, and he came back with something that looked like a spandex tank top. "These are for guys with gynecomastia - the medical term for man boobs - and I decided to buy a few for you, till we can get you a mastectomy."
I went to the bathroom, tried one on, and then put my shirt over it. It didn't completely flatten my chest, my DDs were too big for that, but they were noticeably smaller and now I just looked like a chunky guy with a slight case of moobs. I smiled at myself in the mirror.
When I came back Anthony clapped and cheered.
go to chapter 2 | return to Original Works | return to index