Mad Dog - First Strie

9 - Killing Me Softly:

It's the wee small hours. The gloom of my room is illuminated by the glow from my iPod and a scented candle. The candle is, obviously, Mack's idea.

We are cuddled together enjoying the forced intimacy of my single bed, basking in a warm post-coital glow. The Fugees Killing Me Softly is playing. Mack plants the lightest of kisses on my cheek and sighs contentedly.

"You sound happy," I state the patently obvious.

"I am..." she paused and searched for the right word, "I am...contented."

I sensed that there was something she wasn't saying. Maybe she hadn't been contented before. It was something I'd picked up on several times and wanted to ask her about, but to be honest, I lacked the guts.

"You know what," I murmur, "lying here in your arms, its the happiest I've been in a very long time love."

"I get such a buzz when y'all call me that," she sighs.

"What?"

"Love," she whispers.

We lapse into happy silence. It seems to last forever, but in reality it spans the time it takes for the song to play out.

"How come you've never asked me," Mack whispers.

"Hmm?" I'm confused. "Asked you about what?"

"Why I haven't had gender realignment surgery," she said. "I mean, don't get me wrong, I totally appreciate that you accept me as I am and for who I am, but don't you ever get curious?"

"I do, obviously, but I sort of reckon that if its important for to you to tell me then you will. Eventually, when you're ready." I reply. OK so it's a bit of a cop out, but not a huge one, I don't intend to probe a sensitive subject which might cause her pain.

"It is," she says softly. "Can I tell you now?"

"Of course."

Mack snuggled into my shoulder. She used her fingernails to trace lazy doodles on my chest.

"You know I've got a trust fund?" she asked.

"I guessed you had some sort of private income, just judging by where you live in

London," I tell her. "The thing is, being a Brit, well, we really don't like to talk about money."

Well yeah, I am, how y' might say, well off," she whispered. "But there's a reason for this, and it's tied in to my being transgender."

"OK," I nuzzled into her hair, she murmured appreciatively. "So, how come?"

"My father is, well..." she paused for a moment, "...he's a very conservative guy.

More than that he's a born again Christian. Dealing with his eldest daughter being transgender, I guess he just couldn't hack it, y' know. He reckoned that it went against God's will"

I let out a low gasp.

"But I thought you were born intersex," I said, then paused, "though if I'm honest I've no idea what that means."

"I was born with a penis and testicles, however, I was found to produce double X chromosomes," she said. "As I reached puberty I began to produce breasts."

"And a magnificent pair they are too," I told her, and then became all British and self-conscious, "if you don't mind me saying so."

Mack laughed.

"Hell no darlin'," she chuckled, "to be honest, that first time you met me back in Houston, I saw where you were looking shug, and it wasn't into my big blue eyes."

"Guilty as charged," I admitted.

"So, as a little kid I was kinda androgynous, you know, I coulda been a tall tomboy girl or an effeminate boy," she said. "But as I became a teen and started to develop... well, let's just say nobody was going to confuse me with a boy."

"Nope, you're not wrong," I said. "Did being transgender cause problems when you were a kid?"

"Yeah, I got bullied at school. Dad had made me take martial arts classes when I was small. I guess he wanted to try and make me more manly," she said, "and I did them coz I liked them but also because I wanted daddy's approval, yeah."

"Yeah, I get it," I whispered, "so what happened at school."

"Well, because I was transgender, when I was at high school the boys didn't know whether they wanted to pick a fight or fuck me," she paused and took a deep breath. "Well, this one asshole tried to do both, and I used my martial arts training to put him in hospital."

"Bloody brilliant!" I grinned, "that's striking a blow for sexual equality. Literally."

"Wasn't so bloody brilliant so far as dad was concerned," she said sadly. "When I was eighteen he made me an offer I wasn't allowed to refuse, either I had gender realignment surgery, female to male, or I was out of the family."

"What a bastard. What a grade A, thoroughgoing fucking bastard," I stopped myself when I remembered that I was talking about Mack's father. She may not like his treatment of her, but he was still her dad. "I'm sorry love, I know he's your family but..."

"It's OK sweetheart," she kissed me, "he kinda pissed me off too."

"So if he chucked you out of the family how come he set up a trust fund?"

"That was down to my mom. She kinda threatened to divorce my dad unless he took care of me financially. She didn't tell him not to throw me out. Truth is I doubt he'd have worn that," she said sadly. "The trust fund came with strings attached. He went to his lawyers and got a legal contract drawn up. If I wanted the money I can't have any contact with the family."

"What a bastard, sorry, but he is," I grunted angrily. "You don't turn your back on family."

We were silent for a while just cuddling. My fingertips had moved on to my nipples.

"Y'all never talk about you wife, how come?" she asked.

I shrugged. Difficult to do when you're lying down at the best of times, almost impossible when your girlfriend has you in a killer cuddle.

The reason I don't talk about Rachel is, even now, it still hurts. But Mack's special. I'd realised long ago that she had a right to know about my late wife, I'd just never found an opportunity to raise the subject before. Well, not 'till now.

"She died..." Mack began.

"She was killed," I corrected her. "A fatal Road Traffic Collision."

"She's the reason you left Special Forces isn't she?"

"Yeah, well by the time Rachel died I'd already left the Regiment. You see we were trying for a family, and even in the reserves the army kept sending me to places where the chances of surviving to become a dad were slim, to say the least," I explained. "As it was we were closer to having a child than either of us realised at the time of her death."

"How come?"

"At the coroners inquest they revealed that she was three weeks pregnant."

"My God!" Mack gasped.

"Yeah, I don't think that Rachel realised she was pregnant herself," I whispered. "So I didn't just lose my wife, I lost a baby as well."

"Goddamn!" she cursed, "oh hell darlin' how did that leave y'all?"

"Well, I thought I was this big tough, ex-SAS bloke, I could hack it," I said softly, "but as it turns out, I couldn't."

"What happened?"

"Oh this is really hard to admit to," I said, "I went to pieces. Just stopped going in to work. I was working for this small IT security firm. In the end they took the hint and let me go. With no money coming in I stopped paying the rent so I got evicted."

"There's nothing to be ashamed about shug, different things get to people," she said. "I had this one tour in the sandbox, Fallujah, Iraq. Just one time there. but man, it was bad. My sergeant though, he took it all in his stride. Nothing seemed to bother him. Except dentists. He was terrified of 'em. He just wouldn't go see a dentist. He'd sooner be in agony with toothache than get it fixed."

I laughed. Mack gave me another soft kiss on the cheek.

"So is that how come you're living back home with your mom?" she asked.

"Yeah, well, I was sofa surfing. Mum turned up at my Mate Adrian's place out of the blue. She told me to get my stuff I was moving back home. She wasn't going to brook an argument," I told her. "She'd just taken early retirement and I think she was bored, so I became her project. Mum pretty much made me pull myself together, she helped me get a job with the MoD. If it wasn't for her, I reckon I'd be homeless and living on the streets now."

"I'm glad she did hun." Mack kissed me again. "Real glad she helped you get your shit together, coz otherwise I'd never have met you."

She rolled over and held my face between her hands and kissed me slow and deep. I felt like I was in heaven.