Christmas At The Jones's free porn video

Christmas at the Jones's. By Tanya H. For Lina, Becca and all the women who were strong and brave enough. Christmas Morning. A good family Christmas centres on tradition and hosting hers in her brand new (dream) house made Mum understandably nervous. I didn't help when I'd messaged, a few days earlier, to say I'd be bringing my boyfriend having decided the time was right to disprove the suggestion I'd invented him to try and reassure Mum. She met me on the driveway, as I swapped my driving flats for the heels I thought more in keeping with the occasion. As far back as I could remember Mum had dressed up for Christmas dinner, even though the day was pretty much a working one for her. Obviously if she took the trouble with a dress then Pop had to be prodded into a shirt and tie and if Pop had to look smart, everybody had to look smart. Along with my best, black court shoes - suede with four inch elegantly tapered heels - this was the first outing for a raspberry pink, skater dress, liberated from a pre-Christmas sale, whose hem swirled pleasantly an inch or two over my knee while the snug bodice made the most of my chest and the scoop neckline didn't actually bare it. With cheerful make-up and glossy black nails, to match my tights, and after spending ages sweeping my long, brown hair into symmetrical, double, high buns - each secured with a glittery net - I felt good. Anton said, 'Wow,' when I'd picked him up a couple of hours previously so I'd given him a little twirl, pulled a coquettish pose and fluttered my mascara-heavy lashes. Usually he saw me in jeans, casual tops, comfy tennis shoes, hair in a ponytail and hardly any makeup, so I enjoyed showing him my more creative side, and I enjoyed him liking it. Having had protected her own dress, royal blue and not as fun as mine, with a flour dusted, chequered apron I got mine lightly floured as she dragged me from the car for a hug. Having one foot still in a flat, the other arched by a heel, I returned an unbalanced, wonky embrace. She smelt of CK1 and chopped sprouts - the essence of Christmas - and to be back in her embrace felt like home, even with the new house as a backdrop. "And you must be Anton," she said, sweeping around the front of the car to where he waited nervously, his door still open as though he could dive inside and lock himself in. "I've heard so much about you! Happy Christmas." "Anton, Mum. Mum, Anton," I said, sorting myself some matching shoes. "Nice to meet you, Mrs Jones." "Call me Debbie," she urged and offered a hand; once snared she pulled him in to kiss his cheek. She really had worried about my loneliness since I'd graduated and moved South. Looking Anton up and down. and noticing how much distance separated those two points, Mum smiled winningly and hooked an arm through his so she could lead him inside. Mum became pregnant with Karen at the tender age of sixteen, I came along four years later leaving her with the feeling of having missed out somehow. After we both left home she periodically became some kind of twenty year old trapped in a forty something body. Harmless enough until wine made her giggly. "Shall I bring the bags?" I said to their backs. Anton looked over his shoulder, eyes wide and mouthed, Help! He was quite safe though, she was hopelessly devoted to Pop, even when faced with a good looking lad like Anton. Jasmine ran out next, shouting 'Aunty Claire!' over and over. With both hands full of our bags I couldn't fend her off and her compact, 11 year old body hit me like a truck. An undignified scramble followed by a near catastrophic wobble left me more or less upright with my niece wrapped like an octopus around me. After enthusiastically pointing out the sparkling reindeer and icicle lights Grandad had installed this year, she relieved me of a bag so she could grab my hand and lead me inside to marvel at the tree. "It's giiiiiiigantic!" Lots of people who saw me with Jasmine assumed I was her Mum. Thanks to my profound genital disorder I couldn't have kids, so to be mistaken for a mum, particularly to a joy like Jasmine, brought a warm, bittersweet glow. However, I'd been only 11 when Karen had disclosed her pregnancy, giving Pop his first grey streaks. Jasmine and I got our thick, brown hair from Pop; Karen's finespun blonde came from Mum, though she got Pop's more solid, purposeful build and round face. Mum and I stood, leaner, taller and more feline about the face. More warm feelings came when people saw us together and commented on how alike we were. Having also started her family young, 21 with me and Karen at 17, perhaps Mum and I were closer friends than many mothers and daughters. I'd missed her horribly going up to Newcastle for university and the distance between home and Lincoln, where I worked, yawned horribly some days. I couldn't have stayed at home though, too many people in Driffield and East Yorkshire thought they knew me, or of me. Lincoln was far enough away and big enough to give me a comforting anonymity, nobody beyond my Doctor knew about my condition, but close enough to home for convenient visiting. More importantly, if Siemens hadn't taken a liking to me during a university placement, I wouldn't be one of their Lincoln based design engineers and wouldn't have met Anton there. Inside the house glowed with strings of festive LEDs, tinsel had been wound around every possible structure and hung from picture frames and light fittings. Chris Rhea drove home for Christmas thanks to Alexa's taste in Christmas music; roasting beef and potatoes smelt so good my tummy gurgled enough to make Jasmine giggle. There was Pop, feet up at his end of the new sofa he liked to grumble about, a cat stretched along his legs and another curled up alongside; he made it repeatedly clear how much he hated cats, but they knew who brought the fish home and he knew how Mum loved them. Such compromises were all part of his constant, almost Nirvana-like striving for the zen state of an uncomplicated life. Both Karen and I had done our bit to unsettle him, her with Jasmine and me with... just being me, but he remained committed to the ideal. "Now then, lass," he said in his thick, Yorkshire voice. "I won't get up." He waved helplessly at the cats. Distracted by some chance of chocolate, Jasmine vanished giving me freedom to sit beside Pop and shake his offered hand. One day I planned to properly reinforce who I was by kissing his cheek, but today was not that day. Inside I felt pleased to be referred to as 'lass', a huge step when he had never once called me Claire to my face. "Now then, Pop. How's the gourmet catering industry?" His part of that industry was a thriving fish and chip shop in town; it did so well he and Mum had opened a bespoke restaurant and takeaway on the bypass - to cater for day trippers on their way home from Bridlington's beaches. Karen managed the new outlet for them. "Champion." He glanced at me, but kept his eyes on the television, though the sound was down; seeing his junior daughter unsettled him, even now. Usually when I came home I kept myself androgynous without make up and on safe ground with trousers and loose tops, but this was Christmas. "Good to see you," I said brightly: Rule Number 1 of being me - don't let Them piss you off; Rule Number 1A - even if They do, don't let it show. "You too. Brought that lad of yours?" "Mum's got him. Somewhere." "Poor lad. He'll be on grand tour, seeing all bogs. Four bloody toilets has this house! Four! One were good enough when I were a lad." I'd grown up in the house he'd grown up in; Mum had been riding him for a bigger place for decades, especially when the business really took off. I'd driven up to help them move and remembered seeing the sadness in his eyes when we locked that front door for the last time. Another sacrifice made in his quest for the uncomplicated life? No sign of Mum and Anton in the huge, modern kitchen she'd had designed to her own specifications. Karen's back faced me as she hunched on a tall stool by the breakfast bar, face screwed up as her thumbs blurred over her phone's screen. She wore a sparkling pink top and a very long black skirt, her feet were bare and rings glittered around several toes. So intent was she on her phone I was able to tip-toe over the tiles and drop my hands over her eyes. "Guess who?" "Cheap perfume and slutty nails, must be my little brother," she said, pulling my hands away and putting down her phone quickly before I could see the screen. Spinning on her stool, she pulled me in for a tight hug and twanged my bra strap. "How are you, evil sister?" I replied; she'd called me worse. "Men! I've shit 'em." "Niall didn't work out?" "Don't even speak his name again! I'm going to live in a convent. How are you, sis? I glimpsed Mr Perfect, Mum was dragging him off to the cellar." "She hasn't got a cellar." "To the top of her tallest tower then, you won't see him again." "I'm good, thanks. Happy Christmas." "Nothing merry so far." She took one of my hands and, holding to her belly, pulled a sad face. I felt my eyes widen. "Ni... Sorry, Him With No Name?" Karen nodded. "Have you told Pop?" "I daren't! What'll Mum say? She hasn't forgiven me for Jasmine yet!" "She loves Jasmine. Congratulations. It'll be fine." She snorted. "I know. Mum and Pop will take the slack again and I'll feel like a shit mum again. Want to borrow my plumbing for nine months?" "That would proper confuse him! I'll be back in a mo, I promise. Best I find Mum, Anton won't be needing the grand toilet tour." "Love your shoes," she called as I hurried out and headed for the stairs. I found them both in one of the four bedrooms; the second biggest with an ensuite and, to my surprise, a wide double bed well-heaped with colourful bedding, scatter cushions and a bouncing Jasmine. She cuddled the ragged teddy bear I'd had since way back before I could remember, though she put him down quickly on seeing me in the doorway - obviously teddies were no longer cool. Mum chattered happily about the craftsmanship in the fitted wardrobes while Anton nodded wisely, until she saw me and stopped to ask if the room was okay. Anton made his excuses and vanished into the en-suite. "Have you opened your presents yet, Aunty Claire?" "I haven't even seen them yet." "I'll go and make a heap for you, to make it easier," she decided, slid from the ruffled bed and made to leave, then turned and grabbed my teddy before scampering away again. "Mum, the double bed" I whispered while a long, steady splashing from the en-suite meant Anton was fully committed. "I thought you'd be more comfortable..." she started, brightly enough, before clapping a hand over her mouth. "Oh! You aren't...?" "No. We haven't got that far yet. You know... Complicated." Her cheeks flushed. "Oh, honey! I'm really sorry, I thought - you've known him for so long. Oh, bugger, he doesn't know, you haven't told him?" "I can't find the right time! Telling you and Pop was bad enough!" "We weren't that bad!" "I know, you were brilliant - well, you were, but you're obligated to me. Anton, he might just take off!" "When are you going to tell him?" "Tell me what?" Anton asked, putting his angular face around the en- suite's door. "The family secret," I said quickly. "Mum is a direct descendent of the last Russian Tsar. How she came to be running a fish and chip shop in Driffield is a long, very complicated tale best told when drunk." "It's true," Mum agreed. "I'll leave you to it." "Double bed," I said, sitting on the edge and looking up at him. We stood eye to eye when I wore my highest heels, but he was broader than me and always seemed to have much longer arms and legs, his body was only loosely put together of sharp corners and angles. He had the most beautiful hazel eyes and softest, most kissable lips though. Lips I wanted to spend ages and ages exploring; I wanted to come home from work every day and find his kisses waiting for me. And that's why I hadn't told him; the potential of never seeing him again made a coward of me, the nightmare of seeing disgust, contempt, even hatred clouding his lovely eyes made me sick inside. "Indeed it is." "Are you okay with that?" I held his eyes and thought of kissing him, of stretching alongside him in this bed: any bed. Instead I straightened his tie. "Are you?" He became suddenly interested in his interlaced fingers. "Don't want to look like..." "Like?" Reaching across I squeezed his hand. We'd only started holding hands a few weeks ago; a proper pair of nervous teenagers. I knew what scared me, what made him so shy? "Like..." Jasmine rocketed into the room and dived headfirst onto the bed babbling about having to share a room with her mum and presents downstairs and did we want a cup or tea - or something stronger. Then, "Were you about to kiss him, Aunty Claire? Mum says if I kiss any boys she'll cut all my hair off!" "Tell your Grandma I'd love a glass of wine and Anton would like a...?" "Cup of tea, please." He waited until she'd scrambled off the bed and thundered down the stairs before he repeated her question. "I was." So I did, but best of all he let me. Christmas Morning 2. Unspoken, unwritten and deeply conservative rules found me and Karen helping Mum in the kitchen, while Anton and Pop got to slouch in the living room. Helping meant I did labouring for Mum's cooking and Karen stayed by the breakfast bar staring into her wine. "I'm really surprised you haven't told him, Claire," Mum said, knuckle deep in stuffing - she made her own from scratch; why I wouldn't be inviting her to mine for Christmas any time soon. "She couldn't wait to tell everyone else," Karen muttered. "Thirteen years is hardly 'she couldn't wait'," I said and flicked bubbles at her from my position at the sink, wrist deep in dirty pots. My elegant stilettos had been ditched for a pair of Mum's cosy slippers; Jasmine had found them, stuck her feet inside and shuffled off, nose in the air like a haughty actress. Karen wiped suds from her skirt and stuck out her tongue at me. "I knew you had something big to say, Claire," said Mum. "You'd set the scene so perfectly." Of course we'd been back in the old place, the terraced house by their fish and chip shop. The front room, overlooking the street, had always been saved for special occasions and for this announcement I'd tidied and cleaned it carefully. For my audience I had provided a glass of Malbec and a bottle of Theakstons. Karen had taken Jasmine for a walk in her pram, it was the last day of the summer term and six weeks of holiday stretched out in front of me. "You did a good job here, Andy. Thanks," Mum had said, nodding to the cleaned and cosy room. I'd lit a scented candle for her, she always appreciated a little candle light. What she actually meant was, 'Come on - what's on your mind?' So I took a deep breath. Then another. I looked from one to the other, then to the floor, then into the steady candle flame. "This is a bit tough," I started. I risked a peep at them both and noticed Pop's knuckles go white around his beer bottle. That almost pushed me to running and firmly screwing down the lid on what I needed to reveal. Maybe if I tried harder, concentrated more on my schoolwork, took up another sport to fill the thinking time then the certainty of needing to do something about my issue would fade. I just needed to manage it better. Actually, I'd been doing that for the last two years - ever since I'd discovered the word that described me. My clock was ticking, I wasn't sure how much more managing I could manage. During many whispered rehearsals of how this would go, I'd settled on two basic options; either the drawn out or the punch. On seeing their faces I couldn't bear to go beating about the bush, so I clenched my fists and went for it. "Okay. Here goes... I'm a girl." The air went from Pop's lungs like he'd really been punched. He put down his beer, stood and walked out. As he went he said, without looking at me, "All I want is an uncomplicated life." "I'm sorry," I said - bristling a little and maybe I was a little sorry, this wouldn't be easy for any of us. Mum's eyes were wet, but she reached over and took my hand. "I wasn't expecting that." Who was? Not me! I'd have enjoyed an uncomplicated life as much as anybody. Several months into my transition when Miss Berrow, the ferocious PE teacher, found me crying in a secluded out of bounds area of school and deliberately misgendered me - part of her robust comforting strategy, it was nothing more than a skirmish in the bloody battle between realising my expectations and conforming to everybody else's. "You'll never be a woman, Andy," she'd said, sitting beside me. Muscular, compact and self assured, Miss Berrow had a pragmatic, Yorkshire approach to frivolity and emotion. "Biology, you're all XY. What's the point in putting yourself through all this shit?" She offered a tissue, which I sniffled into gratefully. "What if somebody told you you had to be a man?" "I'm not a man." "Neither am I." "You literally need to man-up and get on with your life, because all this..." she waved her hands to cover the remainder of the school where my tormentors waited, "Is never going away." It's a difficult thing for any thirteen year old to know how the rest of their life is going to be full of suspicion, mistrust, hatred and abuse - none of it personal. No wonder so many of us chose suicide over that. Karen finally uncurled from her stool, gulping the last of her wine, and started drying some of the pots overflowing on the draining board. For all Mum's state of the art kitchen she'd refused a dishwasher. To see her and Pop going about the cleaning up, when they thought nobody was watching, was like looking through a portal into a parallel universe. That was Pop at his best, moving carefully, gracefully and attentively around Mum as she worked in the sink; they touched, caressed, kissed - always fleetingly, but with such a wonderful, deep intimacy you couldn't help but smile and creep away so they wouldn't know you'd seen. "When are you going to tell him?" Karen asked, flicking bubbles from a bowl onto my dress. "I'll do it if you like." "Oh, yeah, great. How would that go?" "I'd think of something creative. Better than what you did with me. Remember that? 'Oh, by the way, Karen; you're going to have a sister!' I thought Mum had let Pop clamber all over her again-" "Karen! He's not like that, your Dad's a sweet man!" "Mum! Don't cross that line, yuck! Anyway, I thought - Yay! Mum takes one for me, deflects Dad's attention from me while Jasmine gets an Aunt who's younger than she is; a great way of breaking the ice at parties and when they go to school together. Not your little brother is going to be your little sister and make your life even worse." Small town gossips; they'd loved Sean and Debbie Jones's daughter, the shining star of the local school, falling pregnant and refusing to name the father (there were several candidates). On the back of that they positively fell over each other to get stuck into her little brother after he went public about being Claire. People still ask Karen, Mum and Pop, about their Andy - sometimes it's ignorance, often malice. "Sales did drop a bit that year," said Mum softly, pausing from the stuffing. "Wankers," said Karen. "Your fish and chips are wasted on 'em, Mum." Mum moves fast, when she wants to - comes of having to fly around the chip shop dealing with a Saturday lunchtime rush I suppose - but I found myself squashed against the sink in a tight, unconventional hug with Karen pressed into my side and Mum wrapping us all together. "We got through it though, didn't we? The four Jones Girls, all together. I'm proud of you all." The fourth Jones Girl very infrequently gets teased at school about her Aunty Claire. How many generations down before I'm forgotten here? "I'm going to have to tell him, aren't I?" I said, laying my head back on Karen. "I'm making it worse leaving it." "Why?" said Karen, belligerently. "How will he know? Nobody can tell; you're pretty, feminine, confident, funny. Jeez, you do woman better than me!" Trying not to get my wet hands on her I twisted and kissed her cheek. After the initial shock when I revealed my true gender, she actually guffawed in my face, she'd been mostly, solidly by my side. "Thanks, sis. But he'll find out somehow, or he'll bump into somebody I knew, or some malignant bastard from here, like Cole Pinkney -" "He's in prison." "Some other dick then, they'll get pissed off with Mum and Pop over something and make it their business to out me - for the sport of it. Or he'll find my dilator in the bathroom, or he'll start wondering why my ladygarden doesn't work like the other girls he's been with and do some research, or -" "Ladygarden?" Mum asked, stepping away from our embrace and looking wonderfully incredulous. "Bejingo?" Karen offered, squeezing my hand. "Tuppence?" I tried. She shook her head and started spooning stuffing mix into a dish. Then a nightmare scenario, worse than anything I had just described to them played out rapidly through my imagination. I froze for a moment, then grabbed the teatowel from Karen and dried my hands. "What if Pop tells him!" He'd do it by accident, maybe in some ham-fisted attempt at showing a shared experience with Anton. I could almost hear him say it -'Great you're so, you know, okay with her - the lass. What with her being, you know. Not many lads would be so okay with it.' Poor Anton wouldn't have a clue so Pop would try and back out, or clumsily explain, or just walk out leaving me to deal with the fallout. Hampered by steering Mum's slippers, I dashed into the living room like it had caught fire and found Pop snoring gently under a blanket of cats while the TV played on soundlessly. Anton looked up from where he'd folded himself onto the floor beside the coffee table so he could play Kerplunk with Jasmine (still doggedly wearing my heels). "Everything okay?" he asked, seeing the emergency in my expression before I could calm it. "Anton says my hands are so steady I could be a surgeon," Jasmine announced. "She's thrashing me," he admitted. "Sausage fingers! Wouldn't Grandad play, Jaz?" "Said he didn't want to bother the moggies." Anton smiled, he looked so comfortable down there playing that kids' game with my cute niece I had to stoop and kiss him. He must have been encouraged by the public touch of my lips to his, for I felt his fingers tentatively brush my ankle. So I kissed him a little more imagining his hand running higher up my leg, under my dress and - "Do you mind!" Jasmine said, sounding very much like my own imperious, and long dead, Grandma. Christmas Dinner. Dinner was served, drinks poured, crackers pulled. We balanced fragile tissue paper hats over our hair and laughed at the awful jokes - mine was, 'What's brown and creeps about in the kitchen? Mince spies!' Encouraged by the earlier contact, I used the large table cloth as cover opportunities to rest my hand on Anton's thigh. I could have sung with happiness when he did the same to me, lightly at first and just above my knee; his fingertips made small circles there, intimate through my smooth tights. Then I despaired, for the warmth spreading between my thighs and growing in my breasts just fuelled the certainty that all this was for nothing. I shouldn't have asked him to come, shouldn't have said yes when he first asked me out. Shouldn't have led him on without first making it clear exactly what I wasn't. "So, how did you two meet?" Pop asked conversationally. He'd got a ruddy glow and a contented air by this point, only slightly dented when he'd caught me refreshing my lipstick just before we'd sat down for dinner. That look of bemusement! He'd taught me so many things; wiring plugs, putting up shelves, drilling into walls and the like - life skills he called them, but he'd never imagined his son would be there in front of him wearing lipstick and a dress. And why would he? He'd made an effort though, stuck placidly by me just as he'd made space in his life for Jasmine; maybe he still didn't get my gender, but he'd never abused his paternal authority to forbid me ever following my dreams. "How did we meet?" I repeated, looking from him to Anton. "It's a bit unconventional," said Anton. He'd got a loose, relaxed look about him, more relaxed than I'd ever seen him in new company. Jasmine had been placed on his opposite side from me and I think that helped, he'd warmed to her in the short time since they'd met. "I think we'll be the judge of that," said Karen. "And we have a high threshold for the unconventional, don't we, Claire?" "It was a model railway exhibition," I said, ignoring her. Pop and I had made model railways together - before. He'd stopped after I came out, as though he couldn't go back to that shared experience. One weekend, just after I'd gone to uni, I'd come home with a new locomotive for him, one I knew he'd like; I'd been pleased when he'd picked up the hobby again. "Anton was driving a train set I liked -" "Layout: a crafted, precision engineered model railway layout." He squeezed my leg gently as he corrected me, the terms were a standing joke between us. "Train set," I said firmly. "We got chatting, I said I'd quite like to get back into model railways which flustered him, girls are unusual in the dusty railway modelling circles." "Boring, that's why," said Jasmine. "One of his less flustered colleagues on the train set suggested I come to the club, when he found out I was local. And I thought, why not. When I decided to build a train set of my own, Anton became a bit of a mentor - we share a liking for the Network Southeast livery -" "I like the locomotives, Claire likes the red, white and blue branding," said Anton and I enjoyed the casual, misguided assumption a girl would go for the bright colours. "Is this going to be a long story?" Karen wondered. "Only my eyes are glazing over." "I had noticed. And about six weeks ago Anton asked me out." "I'm very lucky, from all the guys at the club, Claire picked me." "All the guys at the model railway club!" Karen pressed her hands to her chest. "Be still my beating heart! Tough call, sis. Did you go trainspotting together on your first date? Do they have trains in Lincoln, Pop?" "Very handsome station has Lincoln," Pop said, wisely. "A very nice Chinese meal, then a night at the comedy club. As first dates go, it ranked highly. Thank you!" I said. (As first dates go, it had been my first date.) Karen and I made bitchy faces at each other, then laughed. To be honest, going along to the model railway club had been a big step for me. By then I'd spent so long cloaking myself in a new life that acknowledging I could carry over more typically male interests felt like treason. I had to have (another) long hard look at myself then concluding I wasn't trying to be a stereotype or somebody else's idea of what a woman should be, I just wanted to be me, my way. Besides, women were getting more involved in model railways; women flew jet fighters and Captained warships! "Are you pleased you came?" I asked him, later on when the dinner was done and cleared, when we'd seen the Queen's Speech and finished unwrapping gifts. He'd bought me a new model engine, some very delicate snowflake styled earrings and a gorgeous, pastel pink and very feminine, satin nightie. Night had fallen and the whole lot of us had donned thick coats and sensible shoes to take a stroll around the estate, then up a cycle path towards the old airfield. We'd exhausted the constellations we knew, at Jasmine's insistence, then filled gaps by making up our own; school bus, octopus, mouse (electrical) to name a few. Our breath steamed in the chill, we laughed a lot and wished a very merry christmas to everybody we met. "They're good people," he said. "You're lucky." Mum called out another 'merry christmas' just ahead and I looked from Anton to see a pair of dog walkers, one fat and one not, well wrapped against the chill and their ornamental pooch straining at its lead - no doubt eager to be away into the fields after a day cooped up with its family. "Oh, Debbie, hi," said one of them, a woman. "How are you? Had a good day?" She stepped forward into a bright pool made by a streetlamp and for all her fur lined hood and extra weight she'd added around her face I recognised Shannon Davey, a cruel, school contemporary. I suppose she'd become as much the local businesswoman as Mum, with a very well turned out salon close to the town centre. We couldn't just walk past could we? Instead we formed a little cluster of small talk I refused to take part in, turning away slightly and giving Jasmine my interest; she grew bored of grown up talk very quickly. But as Shannon and Mum started manoeuvring the small-talk towards going their separate ways I found myself facing Shannon. Her eyes, which had barely seen me at first, filled with recognition. "Oh my God! Claire!" She drew out my name sceptically. "God, look at you. You look so different." "Hi, Shannon," I said, cooly - to hide the fear bubbling up inside, anticipating her bile surfacing again. She glanced from me to Mum, then Karen. Pop scratched the dog's head and said something to the lad with Shannon, Anton held my hand. This would be worse than Pop telling Anton about me. "Good to see you again," I said quickly. "Bye." She actually reached out and caught my sleeve as I turned! For a moment she threw me back in time to school, seeing her face contort as she pushed me bodily into the boys' toilets, twisting my arm so its tendons howled, screaming that a dirty fucking freak like me wasn't going to perv at her and her mates in the girls' toilets. I hadn't been inside the girls' as it happened, the agreement Mum and I had made with the headteacher was that I would use the disabled toilets to avoid hurting sensibilities (like I really was disabled), but Shannon's clique hadn't worried about detail like that. "Claire. Back then... Sorry. Bitch wasn't I? Nothing personal." She laughed, dismissively like it really didn't matter and it really hadn't been personal. "Not a problem, I'm over it," I muttered through clenched teeth, but Shannon Davey was as incapable of reading between the lines now as she had been then. "Oh, brilliant. That's great, you look great. Listen, come by the salon while you're up here. I'll do your nails, on the house - old time's sake. Okay?" She patted my arm, like that really was okay and followed her dog, leaving me in her wake, bristling and light on my feet. "Old times?" Anton wondered mildly and I could have screamed. Shannon Davey would waddle home as fast as she could to tell her jagged circle of mates how Andy Jones, remember that freak, was in town. Telling them how she'd seen me, spoken to me - offered to do his nails, for free - make sure you book in at the same time Melody, Gemma, Heather and all the rest of them - come and see! I took a deep breath. Pops and Mum, Jasmine and Karen, and worse of all, Anton stared at me. What would any of those bitches see if I decided to swallow my pride and get my nails done there? Me, that's what - they'd see me. "Wouldn't be seen dead in the place," Karen said, with a superior sniff. "Katy Jenson on Station Road is much better," Mum agreed. "She does mine." "Do I know Katy Jenson?" I said. "Moved up from Hull, awful accent, but great with highlights." When we'd got moving again, as I tried to work the angry stiffness from my steps, Anton surprised me by easing his arm around my shoulders and pulling me close. Our hips bumped close together and I thanked the darkness for hiding the stupid, angry tears I couldn't stop running over my cheeks. I wanted to feel his lips on my breasts, his hands pushing my thighs apart - I needed him inside me - but tonight I'd have to let him in on the secret and I couldn't bear the thought of breaking both our hearts. Christmas Night. I delayed bedtime as long as I could, but Jasmine started the crumble when she stumbled, reluctantly upstairs. Pop apologised and, yawning widely, excused himself. Mum followed, a glint in her eye and Karen suggested another bottle of wine. She patted her tummy and made a comment about her last night on the booze. Anton declined, Karen took that well and decided to head up for bed. It was practically Boxing Day. "Good to meet you, Anton," she said, pausing inside the living room door. "Thanks, for making my little sister happy." She hiccupped and apologised, happily drunk and swaying gracefully so her long skirt moved around her legs. "If you hurt her I'll skin you. G'night." "She's pissed." "Why does she think I'm going to hurt you?" "She's just over-protective." "I'd never hurt you, Claire." "What if I hurt you?" "Is this about that fat woman with the nail bar?" I snorted, I didn't want Shannon Davey's memories crowding just now. "No and yes and no again." "It sounds very complicated." "Come upstairs." "Are you okay with the bed, I could sleep down here?" "You lovely great lump, I do love you." I hadn't meant to say it, the words just slipped out as a natural progression. His eyes widened and a smile touched the corners of his mouth. "Really?" "I love you." It felt as good to say the second time around. "I love you too. I have for ages. And ages." "Come upstairs." "Why are you crying." "It's complicated." "But?" "Hush!" I pressed a finger to his lips, then kissed him. Then sobbed. Grabbing one of his hands I couldn't bear to look at him right then, I just towed him upstairs into our room, pushed the door closed, turned off the lights and sat him on the bed's edge. Punch or slow build up? "What is it? Claire, what's the matter?" I shouldn't have to feel like this, I shouldn't have to make him feel like this. I could have undressed and done with him all the things I'd ever fantasised I could do for a man. Except I hadn't bought any lube and I'd need that and I hadn't bought any with me because I couldn't have imagined a scenario where my first time would be on Christmas night in my Mum's spare bedroom. And because he deserved my honesty. "I'm not like most girls." "I know that, you're amazing, the most amazing girl I've ever known." Which only made it harder. "I'm... I was born... Oh, god - this is really hard. I have a genetic problem, I was born without a womb, a vagina, ovaries, any of that." That silenced him. The quiet pressed down on me and I knew I couldn't leave it there. "That's not so bad," he spoke before I could. "I mean, it's not like that's all of you there is. Like when I saw you that first time I didn't think, I bet she's got a good pair of ovaries. It's not like I'd have fallopian tubes at the top of my 'essential criteria' for a good girlfriend." Despite everything churning me up at that moment I laughed, then pressed a hand over my mouth in case I'd upset him. But he smiled slowly and bent to kiss me. "I don't care, Claire. I love you for you. Understand? You." I pushed him away, a little. "There's more." "More?" "Don't you want to know why I haven't got those bits?" He shook his head and tried to kiss me some more. "Anton, you've got to listen. I have to tell you this." "Okay." He stroked my cheek. "I'm listening." "When I was born." Taking a deep breath, I squeezed my eyes shut because I couldn't look at his eyes when I told him. "They thought I was male. I had to live as a boy at first, even though I knew it was all wrong." His body stiffened - I felt it distinctly and knew I'd lost him; creation's last joke on me. One of the nurses had warned me of this in hospital after a surgeon had created a vagina inside me; she'd told me what fantastically fragile creatures men were and I'd just broken mine. "Male?" his voice sounded tight - like he was about to repeat the accusation again and again and again, louder and louder until the whole house heard, the whole street - the whole world. The layers I'd created around me would be stripped away; the distance between my childhood and my work, the people I knew and liked there, all my new friends in Lincoln who only knew me as Claire - I'd laid an Andy filter over their perception of me. "I'm transgendered. I hate that fucking word." Anton stood up, looked sideways at me. Would he get violent? Trans-panic was a legal defence to assaulting women like me in some parts of the Western world. "Male?" Quiet still. Frowning. I dropped my hands to my lap, squirmed them together; they looked so pale against my dress. "Sorry," I whispered. "I don't get it." I shrugged. "Sorry. I shouldn't have brought you here for this." I ground my teeth together, clenched my fists until I thought my nails must puncture my palms. Why should I have to be sorry? Sorry for being me? For the accident of my brain's hardwiring and conflict with my genes? Sorry because nobody who hasn't looked in the mirror and sees how wrong they are has the first clue what this feels like! Sorry because I have dared to be even a little bit happy and content being a woman? "I don't see it." "What don't you see? Your girlfriend?" He faced me now, back to the door like he was about to slip through it and out of my life. "I never expected anything like this, I've never had to think about this... issue. But I think you're being over hard on yourself, and me. I've never seen you angry like this." "You have no idea." "You've lived this your whole life, haven't you? Me, I've only lived it the last couple of minutes, you'll have to give me a moment." He sounded too calm, too measured and I realised I'd never seen him angry either. So I wouldn't have to endure his fists, maybe he'd let me down gently - 'It's not you, Claire. It's me.' Cruelly twisting my hands together I tried to think of a way out of this when his weight settled on the bed beside me. "Who do you think you are, Claire?" The question startled me. "Claire, just Claire - that's all I want." "Claire's all I see. Nothing else fits you." "That's now though, like you said - you need some time to think and then, the seed's sown, isn't it? You'll be looking, wondering..." "Probably. Maybe, maybe not. We'll work it out. Don't assume I'm going to be like that woman, whoever she was with the nail bar, or anybody else who's treated you like shit. They don't know you." I looked up, but stopped short of his eyes in case they laughed at me. He smiled, the same big smile I'd enjoyed since I'd first met him. "Thank you for telling me." "Really?" "Would you feel better if I told you how much I loved you?" "Yes, Lots." "I love you. Lots." "Really?" "Really. You are quite lovable you know." "But I'm tra-" "I hate that word too. You're Claire." "If only it were that easy!" "I think you've done the hard work already." "You have no idea!" "Why don't you tell me?" At that moment I couldn't have read out a nursery rhyme. Feeling like I'd just sprinted for the last stage of a 10k run the bone ran from my spine and I flopped backwards onto the bed. His weight shifted until he'd stretched out alongside me, close enough to roll slightly and touch, but not actually in contact. The hours between my early morning run and now, with all the ups and downs in between, pressed me down; my breasts were fed up with their bra and the seductive notion of swapping tights for a new, satin nightie sang softly. First I'd have to get the make up scrubbed away and let my hair down. I rolled towards him, found his hand, watched his eyes and touched the tip of his nose with mine. "I will tell you. But not tonight." "Whenever you're ready." "Thank you." "What for?" "Everything. You, my presents, you again." Drawing on the remnants of my courage I squirmed a little closer to him - our knees made contact and he didn't pull back or even flinch, so I reached to rest a hand on his shoulder. That didn't make him leap from the bed either. Could this really be okay? "You are really surrounded by people who love you, Claire." A warm, large hand rested briefly on my hip, until we both realised how my dress had ridden up so only sheer nylon separated his skin from mine and he pulled away. I caught that hand before it could go too far and firmly replaced it, holding it tight to me. I could hardly believe it when he kissed me, and not just a kiss either - a Kiss; long and slow and steady while my heart raced and my breath rushed and I tasted his tongue. Somehow our bodies drew together, the hand I'd caught circled over my hip and thigh, tentatively at first, but with increasing confidence and even sending shivers through me as he explored my more intimate curves. "Are you reassured now?" he whispered when we parted for air. "I feel like I'm dreaming." "You have got the loveliest bum." A gentle squeeze strengthened his words. "Still dreaming." "I've always loved seeing your bum in tight jeans." The room's light levels increased and I froze, realising the door had been pushed open. The dream vanished, hands were removed guiltily and I pushed down my hem, horrified at being caught by whoever might me roaming the house at this unearthly hour. But the doorway stood empty, the landing beyond faintly lit by the nightlight they put out for Jasmine when she stayed. "I thought I'd shut it," I whispered. "Ghosts?" With a chirp a dark shape landed on the bed near my head and I squealed. One of Mum's striped cats looked down its nose at me then curled up by the pillows, laid its tail over its nose and closed its eyes. Anton stifled a laugh. "I don't know why you're laughing, it's on your side of the bed." "Had we decided on that?" "The cat decided." Making my dress fall decently over me, I rose and picked up the cat, put it out onto the landing and closed the door. Leaning back on the door, like the cat was going to go horror-movie crazy to get back in, I regarded Anton levelly, conscious of how my nipples stood out through the dress and firmly refusing permission for my arms to lift and fold over them. "Too fast?" he asked, eyebrows arched with concern. I shook my head, biting my lip, knowing what I wanted, but unsure of how to get there. I trembled, though the room felt warm to my skin. Almost on their own my hands found the dress's back zip and eased it down; it fell loose about my chest so I trapped it there a moment, silently daring him to look away. When he didn't I let it whisper down my body to pool at my feet; again I had to force my arms not to cover my chest, wishing I'd chosen hold-ups instead of tights this morning - but who could have predicted this? His lips parted; was he about to speak? I shushed him with a finger to my lips, then reached behind my back to find my bra's clasp. With the strap undone I held the bra against me, eyes locked on his for a long series of deep breaths; then it joined the dress at my feet. Anton watched me still, his eyes flickered to my bare breasts - perfectly natural and well shaped by the years of female hormones I'd enjoyed. I'd never have become a stocky person, even had I not followed my heart and transitioned, so my smallish breasts looked prominent and proportionate on me. I'd loved those long months watching and feeling them grow. Finding a smile for him, I hooked thumbs into my tights's waistband and raised my eyebrows. He nodded slightly so I pushed them smoothly down and pulled them clear, leaving me bare but for a slight, lace pair of black panties - flat fronted and highlighting my smooth hips. The same hormones that had grown my lovely breasts had caught my teenage body before it fully turned male and encouraged my pelvis to spread slightly so I had a more womanly curve through waist, hips and thighs. All that horrible, wonderful surgery, paid for by Pop and Mum, meant I had nothing to tuck anymore - a lifetime of regular dilator use more than worth it. "You're so beautiful," he murmured, voice thickened as he looked me over - just as I needed him to. As he rose and opened his arms to embrace me, everything I had gone through, every barbed comment, all the misgendering, the pain, abuse, tears, anguish and doubt ghosted away before the wonderful feeling of my stiff, bare nipples pressing into his chest. His hands caressed my nakedness, his lips found mine again. Nine years after I'd told Mum and Pop I was a girl, I became the happiest woman in the whole world. Boxing Day. You've had one of those lovely dreams, the kind where you wake from it slowly so by the time you're awake you're experiencing such a profound sense of loss you wish you could fall asleep again to pick up where you left off. I woke from one of those dreams to find it going on, snoring gently and warm alongside me. Winter morning dark filled the room, but I could sense him, naked like me, and I drank in the warm, male scent he gave off like he'd become the most perfect rose. He lay on his back, head tilted, arms across the pillows, lanky legs sprawled so I'd been edged almost out of the bed. Not that I cared, nor did I care that he snored on, deep in his own dreams while I boldly ran a hand along his thigh until I found something much more interesting - soft now, but it hadn't been last night. My nipples crinkled happily to recall how hard it had become - how hard I'd made it. Should I wake him now, I wondered. Maybe I could have woken him with my fingers teasing and caressing, or I could sneak under the quilt and kiss it awake. Could I do that? Feel his erection swelling against my lips, inside my mouth? How would that feel for him, waking to find me happily sucking him? I'd wanted to last night, I'd fantasised about doing that for a man often enough, but as passionate as we'd been, last night had felt like a taster; some kind of gentle introduction into each other's bodies. I'd politely, but firmly kept him away from the top of my thighs - I'd been hot for him, but dry. In some future time, I could hardly wait, when he finally touched me there, and entered me, I wanted to be hot and slippery. But last night I'd made him cum with my hands, I'd almost laughed with delight to feel his body go rigid, to feel him gulping deep panting breaths in the moments before he'd orgasmed. I did that for him, I thought as I cleaned his skin afterwards; and I will do so much more for him. Should I tell you how he made my breasts feel? I've always loved them, since the day I felt them budding, saw the changes to my nipples and the aureoles growing around them. I charted every stage through the Tanner Scale, found a childish excitement as they started to show, when I could feel their movement with every step I took. I still have my first training bra at the back of my lingerie drawer and I loved having to wear one. The sensations my fingers woke in my growing breasts made me gasp with pleasure, but that was nothing compared to the way Anton made them feel. Not just from his teasing, gentle nipple pinches, fingertip presses and squeezes either; he sucked, nibbled, kissed and blew across them. As I lay there watching him sleep I lifted a hand to my breasts, already warming as I remembered last night, teased my stiffening nipples while I thought of his cock nestled in my cleavage. Though I wanted him, right then, I decided to let him sleep, ran my fingers along his sleepy cock and then slipped from the bed. Stepping into my new nightie (still with labels attached) I added his pullover for warmth, and because it smelt deliciously of him, then practically skipped downstairs. Nothing would go wrong this day; Boxing Day would be perfect. Pop was another early bird, staring at his own reflection in the kitchen window as he waited for the kettle to boil; his big, favourite tea pot stood ready for the first brew of the day. His perfect solitude shattered as I bundled in behind him, flung my arms around him and, surprising us both, kissed his stubbly cheek as though I'd done it every morning since I could walk. "Happy boxing day, Pop!" He lurched away with the kind of wide-eyed look I might have provoked had I lifted my pyjama top and showed him a tattoo of the horned god across my boobs. I'd too much cheer for an apology; if a girl couldn't kiss her pop on Boxing Day morning the world would be a chillier place. "You know I've always hated being called that," he said carefully, pouring boiling water into the teapot. That revelation dented my happiness, but only a little. "Oh no! You never said, I thought... " When had we started calling him that? I thought it might have been Karen who'd started it, but I'd blamed her for everything, almost everything, in my childhood. "Aye, well, you know me; anything for the uncomplicated life." Pulling a rueful face he opened the huge fridge and found some milk. "You know, Dad, maybe this is as simple as it ever gets." He acknowledged that insight with a tilt of his head. "You know your sister's pregnant again?" "She told me last night." "Uncomplicated?" he snorted. "I have to find some way of telling your Mum, she daren't. We'll all be alright though, won't we?" "Of course we will. We always are." "True enough. Listen, that new engine of yours, from your lad; want to give a test run?" (My lad! So much more than that now.) "Right now?" "No time like the present." "I would." "Come on then, come and see what I've built in garage since you moved us in." Before he could change his mind, or the morning's magic could fade, I hurried to the living room and grabbed the new engine. For want of anything closer to hand to protect my feet from the garage's cold, concrete floor, I pushed my feet into yesterday's stilettos - which had spent the night in the kitchen after Jasmine had been refused permission to go up to bed in them. Dad looked me over in my outfit and rolled his eyes, but I'd kissed him and called him Dad so the magic held. The double garage smelt of sawn wood and glue, half workshop with the carefully organised tools, sorted jars of nails and screws, and the other half given over to the long, beautifully built baseboards of his new railway. He'd only got the tracks down and I took a moment to admire the long, sweeping lines of track he'd laid and I could visualise what he'd got in mind, even before he'd described where the station platforms would go, the signals and buildings, how the hills and roads would flow around the railway. "Will you take it out to exhibitions when it's done?" "I reckon I had that in back of me mind when I built the boards, maybe." "It looks brilliant, can I come and drive it with you when you do?" That stopped him, lifted his attention from the track and the points, the sidings and loops he'd made. He looked at me, right at me and frowned slightly, as though the idea of father and daughter being out in public driving this layout at some busy, local exhibition had never occurred to him. I held my breath, stopping short of pleading with him to say yes. If he'd have me there with him I'd face all the haters and the curious. When he spoke, after an agonising silence, I hardly recognised his voice, it came so thick with emotion, but I remember every word as if it were yesterday. "You know, I can't pretend I understand you, but I've never stopped loving you; I've always loved you and I always will. Claire. There, that's your name; I've said it, always knew I would. Are we good?" "Oh, Dad. We've always been good." Mum wandered in while I wept into his shoulder and his arms held me tight. I didn't hear her come, my attention had closed down to the moment, to the warmth of my Dad. I didn't know Mum had joined us until I felt her touch, light on my shoulder. "Sean, you okay?" she wondered, like my weeping proximity to him could be causing some terrible emotional complication. "Claire's agreed she'll come and' help me exhibit layout when it's built," he said evenly, as though that could be the most ordinary thing in the world. That set Mum off too. "Women!" he said, but he kept us close. New Year's Day. Happy New Year. I hope you have a good one too.