Patreon Short 8 - Brady's Conundrum (Part 3/4) (Patreon)

(Part 1) (Part 2) (------) (Part 4) 

Things get very heavy when Brady visits his family. This is part 3 and it's got the feels. Part 4 will have something very fun and I'm starting on it now. We're over $250, so I'm going to put some bigger art options in the Pinup Poll. Tili wants to do the art again, so I'm letting her help me come up with the options. ^_^

Content Warning: Anti-LGBT slurs, religious fundamentalism, depression spike, substance abuse. (I'm thinking of putting these on some of my stories because I do deal with some challenging themes at times.)

Brady's Conundrum (Part 3/4)

by Zmeydros

(Edited by Tiliquain and Journeymanic)

Preparing to see my family was kinda like preparing to be thrown in a dungeon full of dementors. First, Jade and I decided that I needed to do something about my hyperventilating panic attacks, so I went to see a therapist. During the first session, I learned that I'd been having panic attacks all my life and didn't even know it. I'd thought I just suffered from nightmares that made me wake up with my heart racing. Turns out they were nocturnal panic attacks. Then there were times my muscles felt so tense and I was so irritable and restless that I drank to calm myself down. Some of those times were panic attacks as well, and when I wasn't having them, I was having generalized anxiety.

Second, I learned that this stuff called clonazepam works way better on panic attacks than alcohol and quit drinking as much. The first thing I cut out was the stuff that burned when I drank it. I still drank beer, hard lemonade, cider, and wine, but only once a week when other people were around. My days of drinking alone were over.

Third, I learned to take things that stress me out slower. My idea of manning up and getting things "over with" was just a recipe for panic attacks. 

Even with all these improvements, it took three whole months before my therapist and I thought it was safe for me to go see my family in person. By that time, Vixi was getting pretty impatient.

She was odd, once everyone agreed on a decision it seemed she wanted to see it happen and got annoyed at delays. This sort of thing had happened before. Jade thought my method of calming Vixi down was hilarious. Vixi would start talking about how I was doing so well and it was probably time for me to talk to my parents. I'd start flirting with her while finding excuses for her to touch me. Once I got her massaging out a "knot" in my side or elsewhere, it was only a matter of time until her fascination with my horsecock got the best of her and she started rubbing there too. Then we'd fuck and she'd be less pushy for a week or two. Honestly, she could be high maintenance, but if sex was what she needed, Jade and I were happy to provide it.

Jade couldn't get enough of me. We had more porn videos than we had time to post. We'd lost some followers because of my change, but our viewership rebounded about one month later while we were hyping the shit out of my impending augmentation. Vixi was right, people wanted to see another augmented herm so bad that they were acting almost as impatient as her.

In a way, I was relieved I was going to visit my family. I'd had to excuse myself from a couple graduation parties and a wedding. Sometimes I thought my extended family extended way too far. It seemed there was a family event every month of the year.

I tried to call my dad first, but he didn't pick up. Since he'd have to ask my mom about scheduling my visit anyway, I called her next. She picked up on the fourth ring.

"Hey stranger," she said.

Squeezing a tennis ball I was using as a stress ball, I said, "Hi mom."

"If you're calling to cancel on the back-to-school cookout party, you're out of luck. I'm not gonna flip two months ahead in my calendar just to put you down as a no show."

I laughed at her not joke. "I'm actually calling to ask you when a good time for me to visit would be."

"Well, this weekend is kind of a dead weekend for everyone, all I have is a Church cookout after the eleven-o'clock service. We're booked for the next few weeks after that. Go ahead and tell me this weekend doesn't work so we can talk about something else," she sighed.

"I'm free this weekend, actually," I said.

"Well, that's a pleasant surprise." She paused for a moment. "Got you on the calendar. Now, if you're gonna arrive on Friday, make sure you get here after three or there won't be anyone to let you in."

"I'll aim for four, then." I said.

"Perfect."

It was stupid, but I wanted Jade along with me for emotional support and I knew she could free up the weekend for me I needed her to. "Hey mom, you guys haven't met Jade yet and, well, we're getting more serious and I'd like to bring--"

"You absolutely will not," she said. "I don't want that serpent anywhere near this house."

"But--"

"But nothing. She's about as far from God's plan as a person can get. I bet the lord would send me straight to hell for giving her shelter."

Giving the tennis ball a tight squeeze, I said, "Come on mom, you know that's hyperbolic."

"I know bad influences when I see them. Sooner you get over her, the better." The certainty in her voice was nauseating.

The felt on the ball was digging into the space under my fingernails. "Mom! This is the healthiest relationship I've ever had! Can't you just be supportive for once?"

"If I let you bring her, are you two gonna go to Church on Sunday morning and stay for the Church cookout instead of defiling the guest bed while you have the house to yourselves?"

"MOM!" I stood up.

"That's why you like her right? She's a pornstar? I can't imagine she's good for anything else."

"You--you take that back!" I demanded as anger and adrenaline made my body painfully stiff.

She sighed like I was too much a hassle to be worth her time. "Okay, okay, don't get your panties in a bunch. I'm sure she's got some redeeming qualities. I just don't want her anywhere near me. You know, fear of snakes and all."

"You're not afraid of snakes," I said.

"Oh, you're right, I'm not afraid of all snakes, just the ones that have breasts," she cackled.

I rolled my eyes at my mom. "So, can I bring her or not?"

Her mocking demeanor evaporated, her voice taking on the tone of a command, "No, she is not welcome in this house. Period." 

"I'm hanging up now, see you Friday." It was a habit I'd started just for my mom. I used to hang up on her when I got too angry to do anything other than cuss her out, but she'd call me back thinking we got disconnected. If she knew it was intentional, she left me alone.

* * * * *

Three hours southwest of the big city, surrounded by slightly hilly farmland, was a mid-sized town with a soup factory, a meatpacking plant, and too many Churches. The dusty air smelled of rotting things because of the rending ponds from the meatpacking plant. Growing up here had been so awful that I often wondered if I'd been born in hell. Today, the sky was a painfully bright gray that made it so nothing cast a shadow.

In a way, the whole town was a shadow: a forgotten corner of the world. There was literally nothing to do here. You had to drive an hour to the nearest city to find a comic shop or bookstore. The only type of shop this town had that interested me was a malt shop and those don't even count! I think they used to be places that were part general store, part restaurant, but now they were just restaurants and the "shop" was misleading.

Just past the truck stop, which was the most decent place in town to get breakfast, I turned right onto the frontage road. After two more intersections, I made another right and went five blocks north. There, on the corner, was the large tea green rambler I grew up in. Only reason I knew the name of this greenish off white color was because we all picked it out when it was time to get the wooden siding repainted. People always assumed our house was small since it was only a single story, but they didn't know about the finished basement and the fact that it was longer than it was wide. 

My dad, Clarence, was moving stuff into the loudly-colored van he used for his wedding DJ business. It was black with bright green and yellow text and had a creepy airbrushed picture of his head on the side. I bet the only graphic artist that thought it looked good was the one who designed it.

He tossed a bundled microphone cord into the back and then turned to wave at me. 

Was he going to notice my face the moment he saw me? Was I gonna have to break stuff to my dad to get him to stop asking questions? Did I want to try to get my whole family using "Brandy" and "she" to refer to me? My neck was aching with tension as I parked on the street. Sitting for a moment with my eyes closed, I pictured a calm bubble bath with tons of suds. Then I clenched and unclenched my neck muscles and then my shoulders. My name and pronouns could wait, correcting my mom on them was going to be literally impossible. One step at a time, first I had to get them used to the idea that I was trans.

A knock on my window brought me out of my reverie. My dad's pockmarked face with a greying goatee was smiling at me through the window. I rolled it down and said, "Hi dad!"

"Hey there, champ. Need any help bringing things in?"

"Sure!" I popped the trunk.

He leaned in the window, eyes going straight for my horse ears. "Whoa, son, are those horse ears?"

"Yeah, and I got a horse tail too," I said.

He shook his head, "You city kids always go for the bling, doncha?"

"Yep!" I said not wanting to elaborate.

"Well, at least they look good on ya." He went to the trunk and pulled out my small roller bag as well as my backpack. When I got out and walked toward the trunk, my dad handed me my backpack and pulled out the handle of my roller bag. "You've got good timing, I just got my junk out of your room."

"Oh, so you're using my room for storage now? Way to make me feel welcome," I chided.

"With how long it's been since you came back, you're lucky I didn't put your room up on Airbnb."

"Would you really want to subject strangers to mom?" I laughed.

"Oh hush, she's not that bad," he said as we headed toward the garage, which was open and displaying my dad's sound equipment. It was so nicely organized, people might think he was running a music store on the side.

"She is that bad." I shook my head. "I had friends that did everything they could to avoid coming over."

"Well, if you want to get along with her, you should keep those sorts of jokes to yourself." He opened the door. "You know better, so act better."

I scoffed. "Geez, I'm sorry I said anything."

We exited the garage and went through the the laundry room to the main entrance. There were a couple vases on stands with dusty fake purple and blue flowers stuffed in them and a mirror with a wooden tree overlay hanging on the wall next to the coat closet.

"Brady's home!" my dad announced.

I'd been hoping I could get to my room before I had to meet everyone. But my dad loved pretending we were in a sitcom where everyone had a corny wholesome love for each other and all our problems could be remedied by adding a laugh track.

My sister, Hayley, popped out into the hallway that led to all four bedrooms. She was wearing an orange t-shirt and denim overalls. Her thin face looked nothing like dad's or mom's. Supposedly, she took after the grandfather that died when when I was three. Pictures of him did kinda look like her. 

She walked up to me and hugged me making a show of it for dad. Why she played into his perfect family idea, I had no idea. I hugged her back, but normally, not like I was doing it for a camera.

When she let go, she took a step back and looked me up and down. "Whoa! You got ears and a tail? Awesome!"

"Yep! I figured it was way past time to do so." I flicked my horse ears and then swished my tail, which made her giggle.

Her expression turned serious. "Did you change your face?"

"I got rid of all my facial hair," I shrugged.

My dad's eyes stared at my face so intently that I wondered if he was going to pull out a magnifying glass. "Hmm, that's the cleanest shave I've ever seen."

Should I tell them? Did I need the whole family to be present to start telling them? Was there a correct way to break it to your family that you were trans? If I started lying, it was going to get out of hand very fast. "I got augmented so I wouldn't grow facial hair anymore. I can get it back if I want, it's a cheap procedure."

"Your whole face is different, though. You got more done that that," Hayley said.

My chest tightened so fast that I breathed out a puff of air, like I'd been hit. I struggled to keep the conversation going with, "I got sick of having a babyface that made me look like a high school student when I didn't have stubble."

"It looks good, but a bit more feminine?" Hayley tilted her head.

"We'll have none of that, Hayley!" My dad pointed at my sister.

"None of what?" Her expression soured.

"Teasing your brother. He just got home."

If I let my dad defend my masculinity, things were going to be harder later. Even though I was nervously sweating in the small of my back and my chest felt numb, I said, "She's right, though, I thought a more feminine face looked better on me."

Hayley grinned at her victory over dad only to realize what I'd said and stare at my face and then my hips and then my chest. "Your whole body looks more feminine."

My dad was getting ready to try and hush my sister again when he saw it. "What in the world?"

The tension in me was so high that adrenaline was making my whole body tense and my blood was surging in my veins. There was no going back. I'd made the mistake of wearing jeans that cupped my ass. Feelings of desirability from Jade and Vixi being so enthusiastic about my changes had gotten me into the habit of wearing tighter fitting clothes. My family knew about the augment to my junk because it was state-wide news when it happened. So, wearing more baggy pants would have passed right by their notice.

Unable to run because it wouldn't help anything, I said, "I feel better in a more feminine body."

Haley's curiosity got the best of her and she slapped my chest lightly. I'd never seen her eyes go so wide or her jaw drop so far. "Is--is that padding on your chest or do you have breasts?"

"B--" I gulped as I started feeling sick to my stomach. "They're breasts."

My dad grabbed me by the shoulder to turn me toward him and then gripped my upper arms. "Brady!? What the hell?"

With my voice cracking in anxiety, I said,"I--I'm trans, dad."

"What!?" they said in unison.

"You know, I feel better in a more f-feminine body."

Hayley put her head in her hands. "Oh my God, you idiot!"

"Your mother is going to be through the roof!" He looked around the room as if he was trying to plan a heist. "Do you have baggier clothing?"

"Baggy clothing?" Hayley laughed. "Is that the best you got?"

"Shut up!" Dad yelled a bit too loud.

"You think he, she, whatever! You think he came home to not tell her?" Haley asked dad.

My dad let go of me and sighed. "Son, I'm sorry to have to say this, but I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

My hands became fists, my eyes bored into my father like they were armed with lasers. All that nervous energy was now fury. "What the fucking fuck, dad?! You're so afraid of conflict that you're going to kick me out of the house?"

Now that my dad was having the conflict he'd been trying to avoid tossed right into his face, he was angry too. I could tell because his smile had become a crease across his face. "It's your fault for doing something so stupid! You know Loretta doesn't like that kind of stuff, you know she doesn't want it in her house. But you went and did it anyway. You brought it into our home without even asking first."

"So, I need your permission to be trans?" I asked. Now I was biting my lip trying not to cry. I was so angry, so nervous, so tense, I wanted to bawl. That's when I noticed that Hayley had left. Had she been so offended by what I'd done that she couldn't even talk to me?

"What do you know about being trans? You never acted like a girl growing up. You played with trucks, you cut lawns in the summers, you drank beer and watched football...Wait a minute." Suddenly his expression changed and he crossed his arms. "Is this one of your pranks?"

Rolling my eyes, I growled in frustration. "No, it's not a goddamn prank! You guys never let me act like a girl! I never even had a chance to be feminine. All of that guy stuff I did felt empty. It wasn't something I owned, it was something I wore to make everyone else happy," I said this pointing at him accusingly. "But none of that matters. People don't need to like girly things to want to be in a feminine body. Women can like trucks, women can cut grass, drink beer, and watch football, mom does all those things!"

"So, what? Are you saying I'm a fucking queer?" My mom's voice came from behind me. So, that's what Haley had been up to.

I turned to face mom, dread filling me like vomit. "No, I was saying the opposite!"

"You think I like cutting lawns? You think I like beer? I drink beer because it's cheap and I cut lawns because your father is a pussy who complains about headaches whenever I make him do it." Great, my mom was defending her femininity when I hadn't even tried to fire shots at it.

"Women can like mowing the lawn and beer and sports and still be women," I said putting up my hands in front of me and trying to be as non-threatening as possible.

"But I said I don't FUCKING like those things!" she said with clenched fists.

"But, honey, you like watching football with me, don't you?" my dad asked.

"Shut it, Clarence!" she glared at my dad and then stepped right up to me, permed curly hair a nest atop her head, white and teal blouse hanging off her thin body. "You think anyone in this town cares about your goddamned queer bullshit?" She spoke next part in a squeaky mockingly flamboyant voice. "Women can like sports, buggery isn't a sin, male or female aren't the only two genders, women can have cocks, men can have breasts. Yeah right! If you wore a dress downtown at midnight, you'd get kneecapped. And you know what? You'd deserve it!"

She was so bad, so awful, that my head was spinning. I'd never confronted her on LGBT stuff, but my body was now a source of confrontation. I was seeing who my mom really was and I was amazed. "You can't mean that!"

Dad tried to speak, but her glaring at him the moment he opened his mouth kept him quiet.

"You know why I never let you act like a girl? To protect your body and soul. And not two years after you leave my house, you get these..." Her hands reached past mine and groped my breasts hard through the binder I'd put on to hide them, it hurt! "You fuckin' faggot!" She let go of them. "You goddamned idiot! God's going to cast you out and I'll be stuck in heaven watching your disgusting abomination of a body burn in hell for all eternity."

I was massaging my chest still wincing in pain. Looking her in the eye, I channeled all my pain and fury. "You know why I don't believe in God? Because I can't believe any being that was made out of love could be so cruel." I grabbed the handle of my roller bag and walked right past her aghast face to my room. My face was twitching, trying to cry, but I held it together until I closed my door.

The moment I hit my bed, I couldn't hold in the emotions anymore. It felt like I was exploding. I shook, I bawled, I nearly threw up. Was I an abomination? My mom didn't even know about my wish to become a horse herm yet. Why did I even care what she thought? Mom had always been mean, but she absolutely hated me now. There was something wrong with me. Something terribly wrong. I'd be lucky if anyone in my family talked to me after I left in the morning. Or maybe I should leave the moment I stopped crying? Just get a hotel, cut them off, and be done with it.

I was grieving for the imminent loss of my family. All those happy memories were now an expanding dark hole inside my mind. I was a fool to think they'd accept me. I was a fool to come home.

Sometime later, Haley's voice came from the other side of the door. "Are you okay?"

"No!" I cried out.

She opened the door and then sat on the bed a couple feet away from me. After a minute, she laid a hand on my thigh. It was the most comfort she'd ever offered. She even patted at me. I don't know whether she was doing it for herself or me. I doubt she'd ever seen anyone cry like I was. She didn't help much, but my body did tire itself out and as a result I cried less and less.

When I quieted down, she got up and came back with a washcloth. Handing it to me, she said, "I'm sorry."

"For what? Mom was going to find out anyway." I wiped off my face and tried to compose myself.

"You know we've got aunts and uncles that are just as bad as her, right? Grandma might understand, but she's always a mixed bag." She sighed. "Are you sure this is a good idea? Are you sure it's worth all the trouble?"

"Wait, I thought you liked drama," I said unable to respond to her question about whether it was all worth it. With how badly things were going with my family, I wasn't sure how I felt.

"I don't like this, Brady. You're scaring me and you're scaring Mom. You didn't see her breakdown after you left."

"Mom is scared?" I blinked.

Making an exasperated expression, she said, "Of course she is! Imagine if you hadn't seen me for months and I showed up looking like a guy."

"I'd be surprised, that's for sure, but I wouldn't yell at you and tell you that you were going to hell." I said.

"But Brady, that's what we believe!" She stood up. "Just because you don't have faith doesn't mean you can just cast aside our concern for your soul."

"Are you really concerned about my soul? Is that really why you're against this?" I set my jaw as I looked at her. "Are you sure you're not just repeating mom's bigotry like a parrot?"

She clenched her fist as her nostrils flared. "I'm not just repeating what mom says. It's in the Bible!"

"Give me the passage in the bible that talks directly about trans people. Show it to me."

"I, uh, fine! I'll go find it." She started exiting the room.

"If you come back with that passage, I want your interpretation, not mom's, not the church's. I want you to point out why you think it says what it says. I want your own opinion. Otherwise, I don't want to hear it."

This only seemed to anger her more. I could tell she wanted to yell at me, but my dad showing up cut her off. 

He came in and closed the door. When he sat down next to me, he spoke quietly. "Why are you doing this?"

"Is there a line outside my door? Is mom going to show up after you're done talking to me?" I flopped onto my back and sighed.

"I don't know, she might...What's going on?" He looked down at me. "Why did you come when you knew how we'd react?"

"Because I'm going to get more changes and I didn't want to just cut all of you out of my life."

"More changes?" My dad's eyes widened.

There was no point in hiding it. They were already all against it and I didn't think I could feel any worse than I already did. "I'm going to become an equine herm augment."

"Jesus!" He put his hand over his mouth.

"I'm gonna leave in the morning and none of you will have to deal with me ever again."

"Is that what you want?"

"No! Of course not!" I said.

"You really want to be a--" He acted as if the word he was going to say tasted bad. "--herm, don't you?

"Yeah, I think that's what best represents my inner self." I was finally feeling a bit more relaxed. My dad was actually asking me how I felt instead of just stuffing his opinions down my throat.

"So, all that time when you were growing up, you were unhappy as a guy?"

"Not all the time, but I found out recently I was having panic attacks in my sleep. My therapist thinks it was all the stress from me putting up an act day in and day out. I didn't feel male, I just acted male, and it was putting tons of stress on me."

"Is that why you would always just kind of hide in a corner when we had a bunch of guys over to watch the Super Bowl?" he asked.

I nodded. "I hate the sorts of things guys do when they're excited: punching shoulders, slapping thighs, pushing, yelling really loud. All of it just didn't feel right. I didn't care about the game enough to do any of it but I felt like I'd be ostracized for not participating in it. It was what people expected of me, so I did it anyway."

"You should've told me. I would've found excuses for you to not be at the Super Bowl parties." He shook his head. "Were there other things I forced you to do that you didn't like?"

"Get my hair cut short. Every time you took me to the barber and I told you I wanted to keep my hair long, you made me get it cut short." This was the sort of conversation I'd been hoping for.

"I'm sorry. Your mother was so against it that I didn't know what to do."

"Dad, you can't always make everyone happy, especially now." I put my hand on his. "No matter what mom says, I want you to be a part of my life."

His eyes moistened. "I just don't know. You're going to go through such drastic changes. It's overwhelming to think about."

"I'll still be me, dad. In fact, I'll be more myself after I've gotten fully augmented."

He put his other hand atop mine. "Well, if that's what you need to feel happy, I can work to accept it. You're going to have to be patient with me because all my memories up until now are of you as a boy."

"I don't mind being patient one bit." I let go of his hand. "But I'm gonna need some help in the near term. If mom starts verbally abusing me again, could you please help me stand up to her? I can't do it alone."

Dad's face got pale. He'd been battered by her more than any of us. "If she starts yelling and cussing at you again, I'll try to calm things down. And I'm sorry for asking you to leave, I was worried about her doing, well, exactly what she did."

"Apology accepted. It really hurt to hear you say that, but I understand." I smiled.

"Dinner's going to be in about an hour. Do you want to go get a malt or something? Get out of the house for a bit?" He hopped off the bed.

I got up and stretched. "Yeah, that would be nice."

As we crossed in front of the dining room, mom commanded, "Brady, come here." She was at the table playing solitaire.

The table looked like it would be more at home in a fifties diner than in our home. It had metal around the side of the sea-green top. I sat across from mom.

My sister leaned against the wall looking very curious about this conversation. Without looking up, mom said, "Clarence and Hayley, find something else to do, please."

"Could you wait for ten minutes or so? We were going to go out for malts," my dad protested.

"No. Now let me talk to my son," she said the word "son" with so much emphasis that I cringed.

Hayley left the room along with my dad. They were talking about something, I hoped it wasn't me. I had enough to worry about, I didn't need my family strategizing.

After laying down a card, my mom said, "How much would it cost to undo your augments?"

"A couple thousand." I already wanted to leave this conversation.

"I'll pay for you to get changed back." She said this as if it was going to happen.

"But I don't want to be changed back," I replied.

"I'm sorry for my outburst earlier. But I'm not sorry for my opinion. If you think my reaction was strong, imagine what others in town are gonna think. Your cousins are gonna miss you at family picnics, mom is gonna miss her grandson, and your friends from high school are gonna miss you too. That family picnic you didn't go to, I had to beg my sister to invite you because she caught her husband watching you fuck that...snake. It makes me sick to know that people I spend time with daily have seen you fornicating with her. And now you're going to up the ante? Do you think about anyone other than yourself? Can you understand how hard this is on me?" She said all this still playing her game, looking at the tabletop.

That's when I realized my inner voice, the inner voice that had tortured me my whole life, sounded exactly like my mom. Unfortunately, that didn't help me shut it up. It was like she'd turned the emotions inside me into a black hole. I tried to act upbeat. "I'm not meaning to hurt you, mom. I don't want to hurt anyone. All I want is to be happy in my body."

"Is that happiness worth tearing the family apart? I'll be the one arguing with my sisters to allow you to come to family picnics. And if you look like a herm horse, I doubt I'd win."

My mouth fell open. "Y-you heard that?"

"My sewing room is right next to your bedroom, dear." She sighed. "Look, I understand you wanting to be unique and all. But have you thought about the cost of it? How you're going to force all of us to defend you to people who think what you're doing is a sin? Have you thought about the questions I'll get asked daily about my weird son?"

Was I a terrible person for putting all this on my family's back? Did I really need to be augmented that much? Putting those thoughts away, I leaned back in my chair and tried to act tough."You don't have to defend me. You can tell them you disagree with it, but you still love me because I'm your daughter-- I mean son." I put my hands over my mouth. Crap! I'd actually said "daughter" referring to myself in front of her. That wasn't going to win me this fight, it would only anger her more.

"This is all that serpent's doing, isn't it? You didn't want any of this before she came into your life, did you? It's no wonder that you want this considering how much she's been whispering in your ear."

Taking a deep breath and centering myself, I managed not to swear. I couldn't directly deny what she was saying because I never really thought about any of this before Jade and I were an item. "My therapist and I have been able to track a history of dysphoria throughout my life."

"But you two were looking for a history of dysphoria. It's no surprise you found it. Confirmation bias, son." She sighed. "I should have worked harder to warn you about Jade. I know her type. She helped you decide you needed therapy, didn't she? I wouldn't be surprised if she was the one who convinced Eve to eat the apple."

Why she could talk about things like confirmation bias and still have the crazy religious beliefs she did, I would never understand. "Jade's type? You mean someone who I have to remind to not always put my needs above her own? Someone gets me like no one else? The best relationship I've ever had? You mean that type?"

"I mean the type that is too good to be true. The type that comes into your life with the goal of changing you. It's no wonder you want to be a horse herm. That's probably exactly what she wants you to be. Think about all the trouble you're going through. Were you actually unhappy as a guy or was she manipulating you to see things that way?" My mom looked into my eyes, concern on her face. "I don't want you to wake up one day feeling trapped in a body that is so expensive to undo that you're unable to change back. Are you really sure enough to risk that?"

I'd often wondered why Jade would pick me as her mate. There wasn't anything special about me. Sometimes I'd wondered if she only liked me for my horsecock. If my mom was right, those feelings had been right on the money. But those were the feelings I'd been working through in therapy. All the same, I didn't feel like I meant it when I said, "I think I'm plenty sure enough."

"Are you really, though? If I was going to have something like that done, I'd need to think about it for a year or more. It's such a big change, such a personal change, that I wouldn't want anyone pressuring me to do it." She smiled. "Just promise me you'll give it more thought, okay?"

Why was she being so nice? She was only this nice when she was sure she was right. Jade wasn't the manipulative type. Was she? My mom was definitely manipulative. Could it be that everyone in my life was manipulating me all at the same time? Did I even know what I wanted? Why did I accidentally say, "daughter?" Was that a sign that I really did see myself as a feminine herm? "I promise."

That was it, I got up from the table not knowing what else to say. My dad and I went to get malts. I just got key lime pie malt that they had on the specials board, which was pretty good. When we got back, we had a normal family dinner. The baked ham and mashed potatoes tasted great, my mom told funny stories about animals she'd seen on the way to work, my sister talked about her eccentric graphic design professors at the community college. We were a family. It was wonderful. The best part was when my mom stopped my sister from teasing me about how much mashed potatoes I was eating.

My mom's mashed potatoes were the creamiest I'd ever had and she wasn't afraid of garlic. One scoop probably had more calories than a scoop of ice cream. But that's exactly how mashed potatoes were supposed to be.

Somehow, I managed not to overeat. After we made plans to visit downtown together on Saturday afternoon, I retreated to my room to have some alone time. Laying on my bed, reading One Punch Man, something awful happened: I started to think.

Jade and Vixi both really wanted me to change. Was that really what I wanted? It was true that I hadn't thought about my gender until Jade got augmented. There was no way she could have manipulated me, was there? Sure she helped me pick my therapist, sure she talked very positively about being a herm, but she loved it, so of course she'd talk positively about it. But why did she keep me around? I still had no idea what was special about me. Why she and Vixi liked me so much.

Would they still want me to change if they knew the damage it would do to my family? Did I still want to change and hurt my family? My dad seemed worried, my sister was scared, my mom was in such disbelief that she didn't seem to think it was my own idea, and my extended family would be horrified. Maybe I was just being selfish?

Maybe I should just get changed back. Vixi and Jade liked me just fine as a horsecocked guy, didn't they? I'd been happy as a guy most of my life already, hadn't I? A stab in my chest hit me, it was a knife of pain so sharp I yelped.

Revulsion. Anguish. Despair. Being a guy for the rest of my life? No! No! I couldn't do it! But what about my family? I'd lose them. In the last couple years my sister and I had been patching things up between us. A couple years ago, we would have started yelling at each other the moment she entered my room. My dad and I often talked for hours about music. During family reunions, my cousins and I had the most epic flashlight tag. And then there was my grandma who remembered being in a one room schoolhouse in Maine and had the most amazing stories.

Losing all of that, it was too much to bear. But the price of it was too high! I couldn't go back to the way I used to look. I'd be miserable and start having panic attacks when I was sleeping again. The tightness in my chest was getting worse as I got a pounding headache. I couldn't breathe! 

I was having a panic attack! I jumped out of bed and rifled through my backpack to get my clonazepam. After popping the lid, I did the stupid thing and shook the bottle into my mouth thinking I'd get one pill really fast that way. Two pills fell in and started dissolving. It tasted so foul that I washed both of them down with water from my water bottle. My eyes went wide. Two? Was that too many?

Then I remembered my psychiatrist saying he could double my dose if needed. That would have gotten me to relax, but the panic attack was still raging. I felt like I was having a heart attack.

How was I so mentally fragile? It was just a choice I had to make. Here I was panicking over it. Maybe my mom was right. Maybe I'd just gotten all this in my head and was torturing myself over nothing. Maybe I wasn't trans at all. My giant balls just giving me hormones my body didn't know what to do with. Jade didn't need to manipulate me, all that herm porn I looked at and participated in, it was putting ideas in my head.

Or I was just Jade's project. Why was she interested in me anyway? I was just a useless guy who panicked over stupid shit. Why couldn't I just think about this stuff without losing it? I was so high maintenance. And I was still in so much pain! The pills were doing nothing!

I opened my room door and went to the cabinet in the kitchen where the hard liquor was kept. Grabbing the first bottle I found, I popped the lid and took a nice long swig. The burning in my throat was a nice counter to the pain in my chest. Hopefully the liquor would stop my thoughts like it used to. Hopefully I'd be able to calm down. I was so silly getting this worked up. I took another long pull. Oh how I missed being drunk, not caring about anything. I lost track of time.

The bottle fell out of my hand and my arm felt so heavy I could barely hold it up. Something other than drunkenness was taking hold. As the bottle glugged and made a puddle on the floor, I tried to grab paper towels to clean it up, but ended up knocking the paper towel holder onto the floor too. When I tried to kick it toward the puddle, hoping that would start sopping up the booze, I slid backwards. My body was so loose that I fell on my ass and then my back. It didn't feel like anything was happening, I was so damn numb it almost hurt. 

My sister showed up and started screaming, "Mom! Dad! Call 911!"

A fluid was leaking out of my calf and the liquor bottle was in pieces. Had I fallen on it? My pants were wet in my crotch too. What was up with that?

When my mom showed up, she yelled, "You fucking wet yourself? You come home and get piss drunk on my cognac? What the hell is wrong--"

Hayley's hand interrupted my mother by hitting her cheek so hard that her head jolted sideways. "Goddamnit mom, shut up and call 911!" She got on her hands and knees and started wrapping my leg in paper towel. Blood was soaking through it. 

It didn't even seem like it was happening to me. The last thing I heard was my sister saying, "Hey! Stay with me!" while shaking me by the shoulders.

* * * * *

When I awoke, my body weighed four thousand pounds. Moving my eyes was a challenge. A doctor was saying, "I can't rule out a coma, beonzodiazapines and that much alcohol is a nasty combination. We pumped his stomach as soon as we could, but he still had a lot of alcohol in his blood."

"Whaz goin' awn?" I asked.

Haley grabbed me from the side. "Oh thank God! Thank God!"

Mom just looked at me with exhausted eyes that registered only a tiny amount of relief.

Grabbing my hand, my dad said, "You gave us quite a scare, champ."

"Sowwey, I bidn't kow wat I wuz doing." My mouth was so hard to operate. I think I fell back asleep as I was talking.

An hour later, I was woken up by a fight between my mom and dad. I don't know how it started, but my mom was saying, "It's because you're always encouraging him! He can't deal with reality! He can't be a member of the family if he's a herm. No one will put up with it!"

"Is that what you said to him? No wonder he hit the liquor so hard! Did you even read the pamphlet you gave us? Did know that trans people commit suicide at a higher rate than any other subset of the LGBT population? Wanna guess why? It's because people don't accept them for who they are! I'm terrified by what he wants to do, but I'm going to try to accept him." My dad pointed at her and said, "Have you thought about him at all? Have you thought about what he must be going through?"

"What he wants isn't realistic! Thinking the world won't grind him to pieces is fantasy. We are born men or women, nothing in between, and trying to change body God gave you is like a big middle finger right in his face. You think God would make it easy to defy him like that?"

"You know what our piece of shit church says about a wife's place in the household? Remember what pastor Bill said two Sundays ago?"

"What the fuck are you going on about?"

"Of course you don't remember, because you cherry pick whatever fits your worldview. Bill said that a wife should be devoted to her husband and, basically, that the husband should wear the pants in the household. I think that's misogynistic, but he said it was God's will. And he's said stuff like that so many times! But you don't follow that at all. You've never let me wear the pants. You never take my side. Whatever the problems were in Brady's upbringing, you're the one that had final say. So, if you have to blame someone for his being trans, blame your goddamn self!"

My mom took her pointer finger and jabbed it right in my father's face. "You take that back! I'm the one that was protecting him from all that queer bullshit! You're the one that brought it into our house. You're the one who tried to normalize gay people. We're lucky Hayley didn't turn out to be a faggot just like Brady."

Hayley stood up. How long she'd been hugging me, I had no idea. "Mom, would you treat me this way if I was gay? Would you call me a faggot while I was lying on a hospital bed? An hour ago, the doctor didn't seem sure whether Brady was going to live or die. And still you..." My sister's voice cracked. "You're calling her names and yelling like a lunatic!"

Had my sister slipped up or had she actually, consciously, made the choice to use female pronouns? If that was the case, would she have done so if I hadn't ended up in a hospital bed?

"Can't you see? It's all these trans ideas he's got in his head that's messing him up. If he wasn't exposed to that serpent he's dating and that big city college he's going to, he wouldn't be in here." Mom crossed her arms and enunciated every 'he' she said.

That was when dad let loose. "That's enough! Honey, I hate to break it to you, but the reason I started dating you was because you weren't a typical woman. You were more aggressive, dominant, liked sports and beer, could joke around like one of the guys, and knew how to throw a football. I respect that you identify as a woman, but those are not traditional womanly traits. And, if I hadn't married you, I might have ended up with a guy."

Whether Dad meant that last part or not, mom broke. She growled in anger and punched Dad right in the eye while a nurse was watching. The nurse caught my dad as he started to fall and stood him back up. Then she grabbed the phone on the wall and said, "Security to room three-oh-one."

Haley and I stared at mom mouths agape in awe. We'd never seen mom hit anyone. Neither of us was able to believe it happened. 

When the officer got to our room, dad said, "I'm not going to press charges."

The cop was a slender dark-skinned man with a pointy chin and unamused expression. "Domestic violence is considered a crime by the state. The state applies charges, not the victim. I'm going to need to question each of you and file a report."

Mom asked, "What? I'm going to be charged with a crime?"

"Yes m'am." He proceeded to go over the law and basically tell my mom that she could get anything from a fine to jail time depending on what the judge decided. A nurse helped address my dad's quickly swelling black eye as the officer questioned him. After questioning each of us, and the nurse, he explained my dad should seek legal advice about what he could do during the trial and any possible civil case he'd want to bring against my mom.

At the end, the officer asked dad, "Do you feel safe going home tonight?"

"Yeah, I'll be fine," he said.

* * * * *

By the time we got home from the emergency room, all of us were exhausted. Mom's silence was the most noticeable. It seemed a combination of what dad said and her hitting him had kinda turned her off. She seemed like she was sleepwalking, in a constant state of disbelief.

After I settled into my bed, my sister came in. I hadn't turned the light off and she was staring at my "Super Mario Bros." movie poster. It was a trash movie, but I loved it when I was young. She was fidgeting while she stared at it and her eyes were darting to me every so often. 

I asked, "Are you okay?"

"Do you want to kill yourself?" she blurted out.

"What? No!" I sat up in bed.

"It's okay if you do." She perched her butt on the edge of my bed.

"Were you reading the pamphlet on suicide?"

She nodded. "The doctor handed that out with the one about trans people after dad explained how you ended up in the emergency room."

"Ahh, well, I haven't thought about suicide in years. You don't need to worry," I said.

"You thought about suicide? When?"

"After I broke up with Rebecca. It was my first good relationship and finding out she was cheating on me with a guy that bullied me was just too much." I laughed. "It was stupid."

"No, it wasn't." She spoke very quietly when she said, "I thought about it when we were with Jobe and Mary."

Of course it would have been when we were with the only people on the planet worse than my mother. How those two became foster parents, I'd never know. "You were only thirteen and you were thinking about that?" I hugged her from the side. She'd always been better at receiving hugs than giving them.

She nodded. 

"Was it when they started homeschooling us?"

She nodded again. "I missed all my friends so much."

"Me too." I gave her a squeeze.

"Will you come visit after you get augmented?"

"Sure, but I won't visit mom. That ship has sailed." 

She sighed. "Yeah, I'm gonna move out. I'm done."

"Why don't you move to the city? I could help you find a job," I said. It was time to try and put away all that baggage I had with my sister. Compared to my mom, she was a kitten. And she stood up for me when I was too out of it to do it for myself.

"That's where half my friends from high school went...I'll think about it." She squeezed my arm.

"Hey, back in the hospital, why did you call me 'she?'"

"Was I right? Do you want me to talk about you as if you're female? I know you're going to be a herm, so I wasn't sure."

"Yeah, I think female feels best, but why did you do that?" One of my horse ears raised in question.

"I couldn't find it."

"Couldn't find what?" I asked.

"A passage that said being trans was wrong. I don't think the people who wrote the Bible knew about trans people." She looked into my eyes.

"You think people wrote the Bible?" I blinked. "Mom would say God wrote it."

She shrugged. "If God wrote it, it wouldn't be so hard to understand. I think the people who wrote the Bible were trying to listen to God, but sometimes they got confused and didn't understand what he was saying."

I raised an eyebrow. "How long have you thought this?"

"Ever since Jobe and Mary tried to teach us stuff. I started thinking about how each apostle told the story of Jesus differently with conflicting facts." She looked at the floor. "I'm a bad Christian--I just can't see how all of the stories in the Bible can be true at the same time." 

"No, you're the best kind of Christian! You probably know more about the Bible than mom does."

"Mom and I had a big fight right after you left for college where she told me that my interpretation of the Bible was sacrilege." She scoffed. "I don't know why I listened to her so much in the first place. She quotes it wrong sometimes."

I laughed. "I'll take your word for it. I couldn't hold any of it in my head. Probably why I stopped going to Church the moment I left for college."

"So all that got me thinking while you were unconscious in the hospital. If God is good, he'd want you to be happy. Maybe God is glad you're fixing his mistake."

"You think God makes mistakes?"

"We were made in his image and we make mistakes, doesn't that mean he should be capable of making them too? Like he made a big mistake with the people he asked to write down the Bible. They couldn't keep his stories straight."

"Wow, I've never thought about the Bible that way. It's really neat." I was grinning from ear to ear.

She smirked. "Does that mean you'll go to church with me if I move near you?"

I grimaced and shook my head. "Hell no!"

(Part 1) (Part 2) (------) (Part 4)