The Cover Is Not the Story

Warning: There is violence in this chapter. It is not as graphic as most cop shows on TV, but it is violence. If you're not willing to have violence in a story you read, don't read this chapter.

Sunday Morning

Suddenly I was sitting upright in bed, eyes wide open and wide awake. The phone rang. I had no memory of a prior ring, but assumed one had happened and it was what had woke me. I picked up the phone and said, "This is Nick."

"This is Lee. Good Morning!"

"Ok. For the moment I'll take your word for the good part. I've only been awake for ten seconds."

"Did you wake up alone in bed?"

"No. Did you?"

"No. That hasn't happened in over a year. If you wake up in bed with someone you love, doesn't that, by definition, make it a Good Morning?"

"Yes! Good Morning Lee." Up until that moment Sandy had not moved. She tossed back covers, sat up and said, "Tell Lee I love him, please."

"The naked woman next to me says to tell you she loves you."

"Is that Sandy or another of your harem?"

"I do not have a harem. If anyone I know does, it would be you."

"How many women does it take before the term harem applies?" Lee asked.

I heard a female voice at Lee's end of our connection call out, "Whatever the number is, you've got it!" We laughed.

"Ok, we've established it's a Good Morning. To what do I owe the pleasure of talking to you this morning?"

"I'm inviting you to the house. Busy members of my harem who were not here when the rest of us met Sandy would like to meet her. They will be here today and tomorrow and since I assume you both work tomorrow, please come today."

"Shall we stop at Mr. Lee's Chinese Magic factory?"

"No. In about an hour I will be lighting the Weber and have already started a dozen chicken breasts marinating. Megan is chopping veggies and Pam is cleaning the pool."

"A dozen? You, Megan, Pam, Sandy and me. That's five people."

"It's Sunday." Even though I was on the phone, I nodded. Some habits die hard.

"Then is a dozen enough?"

"There are more defrosting in the fridge. If we need them they can be prepped pretty quickly." Lee said.

I held the phone out to Sandy, saying, "Here Honey, talk to Lee about today. I need to pee."

She took the phone and said, "Go for me too, Ok?" Then, into the phone she said, "Hi Honey! Can I be in your harem too?"

When I came back Sandy was off the phone and getting out of bed. She said, "Please tell me more about Pam and who is Corine?"

As we talked we got dressed to go to Lee's. Sandy put on culottes and a tank top with an unbuttoned shirt over the top. No bra and no girdle. She looked in the mirror when she was dressed and asked, "Should I wear more?"

"No. You look great!" I knew the odds were good we'd end up naked before dark and either in the pool or in each other. We stopped at our front door and looked at our apartment. I said, "I really like this apartment, now. You?"

"I will be proud to show it to Momma. I love it!" We kissed and went out the door.

When we parked at Lee's there were two cars parked outside. I figured Lee's van and maybe one or two others were in the garage. No one was in the house. We heard noises from the back yard and followed the noises. We found some family in the pool, some in the hot tub and three sitting at a big round picnic table.

Lee was at the table with Pam and Corine. They motioned to us and we joined them. Introductions were made and Sandy seemed comfortable. Both Pam and Corine spent time really getting to know Sandy. Lee and I listened and participated when appropriate. The energy was accepting and inquisitive so Sandy relaxed more and more and shared with them.

We were visited by others that Sandy had already met as the day progressed. Snacks were brought from the kitchen. The conversation got pretty deep at times since neither Pam or Corine would ever encounter anyone like Sandy in the military. I thought about going swimming or hanging out in the hot tub a couple of times but decided not to. I was learning a lot about the woman I had married.

Her life had been quite sheltered. Her Dad's reaction to her had left scars on her. Not physical but emotional scars. When your own Dad has trouble being around you, refuses to touch you and refers to you as "it", it is going to leave scars.

Momma did her best, but she was freaked too and at a loss as to how to help her daughter. When puberty arrived both Momma and Sandy were terrified. Her penis grew and hard-on's became a problem. As all boys know, they happen without reason and can be quite embarrassing. For a girl it would be a hundred times more embarrassing. Momma's solution was a girdle. It all but solved the problem. Unfortunately, by the time Momma thought of a girdle the secret was out.

Sandy told the story of being in sixth grade, wearing pants to school and made to stand in line to get into the cafeteria. She got an erection and two other girls saw the bulge in her pants. One squealed and made a big deal of pointing at Sandy's bulge. Sandy freaked and ran all the way home.

Calls were made from the school and conferences held about "the problem." The school board got into the problem concerned with putting Sandy in the right place in their system and with protecting themselves from law suits. Sandy never took a gym class, never saw other girls in the locker room or had the conversations with other girls about puberty, growing up, and sex that happen around the locker room. All the information Sandy had was from her Momma, who was pretty ignorant, herself.

I was getting hungry for some real food, not snacks when Pam said, "Sandy, are you comfortable enough with us to let us see?"

"Out here?" Sandy asked, looking around. In the hot tub she saw Megan and one other woman. In the pool Paul was talking with Mike and Mike's wife Carol, both in their thirties. Everyone else who had been there when we arrived had left or was inside the house.

Pam said, "We can go inside, if you'd be more comfortable."

Sandy thought for a few moments and said, "Either this will work or it won't. I can't spend the rest of my life being afraid of everyone." She stood and walked first to the hot tub and then to the edge of the pool. She asked everyone to come to the picnic table. I thought I knew what she was up to and I thought she was incredibly brave, given her history.

When everyone was gathered she said, "I have a secret. I hate my secret and the only thing I can do to stop hating it is for it not to be a secret. Everything I know about this family tells me I'm safe here and I can tell my secret. I can tell my secret and still be safe."

Paul said, "Whatever it is, we love you and you're safe." The others nodded. Megan stood beside Sandy and put her arm around her. I got up and took her other side. Sandy held on to both of us.

"There's a saying that says you can't tell a book by its cover. I think it means that you can't tell what the inside of the book is all about just by looking at the cover. That's me. I look like a girl. I have longer hair than most men, except rock singers and wrestlers. I have tits and they are mine." She got some smiles for that statement. "But, I'm not the kind of girl Megan is, or Corine, Pam, Connie or any of you. The easiest way to tell you what I'm talking about is to show you how I'm different." She lifted her shirt off and set it aside. Her tank top followed. Megan took off her bikini top. I took off my shirt.

Lee stood up and took off his shirt. Pam took of her shirt and bra. Corine followed the lead. Pretty soon all of us were bare to the waist. My arm was around Sandy and I could feel her trembling. She loosened her belt and unbuttoned the button at her waist. Her culottes fell to the ground and she was bare. I unbuttoned my shorts and dropped them too. I was partially erect. Sandy wasn't.

Megan dropped her bikini bottoms to the deck. No one else moved for almost half a minute. Pam was the first to move. She came from behind the picnic table and stripped out of her pants and panties as she came. When she got to us she hugged Sandy in a full body hug. I heard her whisper, "Thank you. Bless you. I love you. You may well be the bravest woman I know."

Sandy was still trembling as the hug with Pam ended. She looked at the faces of those around her, looking for the rejection, fear and judgment she had seen most of her life from those who didn't understand or accept her. Those looks weren't there. There were questions, asked from love and wanting to know her better. There were those who wanted a closer look and after a while people moved back to the things they were doing earlier.

Sandy started to redress and Megan asked, "Have you ever gone skinny-dipping?"

"You mean gone swimming naked? No!"

"It feels so much better than being in the water in wet clothes. Try it!" Megan dove in. When she came up she waved at Sandy to join her. She looked at me and I smiled, then dove in myself.

When I surfaced I felt the splash of Sandy diving in. A few seconds later she joined us in water deep enough that we could stand. She said, "That was incredible! I felt all those little bubbles all over! Why do people ever wear bathing suits?"

"Most people around here don't." Megan answered.

We swam around and visited the others in the pool. When we talked with Paul he said, "I used to dream of what it would be like to have breasts. I thought I'd spend the whole day playing with them. I guess it's a guy thing."

Sandy responded, "It must be the thing about the fascination with what you don't have. My breasts are there twenty-four-seven. Touching them myself isn't as pleasurable as when Nick touches them, or Megan..."

"I get it," Paul said, "I enjoy touching myself, but it's so much better when someone else strokes me."

Lee was out on the deck and caught my eye. He motioned for us to join him. We excused ourselves from Paul and Carol and climbed out of the water. Carol hadn't said a word since the unveiling. Lee gave us towels and led us into the house.

"Sandy, I want to bring you up to speed on something that's happening here. You can decide how you want to play it, but before you can decide you need to know." He sat us in the living room and said, "Because Pam, Corine and Kat are Navy nurses we've gotten to know some of the patients in their care. Being in the hospital all the time isn't the best place for every kind of healing. We have room and we have the pool, hot tub and good food so we invite some of the patients to come and hang out with us from time to time."

"And a new one is coming today." Sandy said.

"Yes. He was injured in the war and was sent to Mugu to heal and do rehab. His body is about as healed as it will ever be, but he has some trouble seeing himself as Ok."

"What happened?" Sandy asked.

"A roadside bomb killed four of his unit and took half his leg off. Some of the bomb also left him with a couple nasty scars on his right side."

"How can we help?" I asked.

"I don't know. I haven't met him yet. Kat is on her way home from the base and she's bringing him with her. What I do know is he's twenty-two and was engaged before the bomb. She ended the engagement when she found out his leg had been amputated."

"Coming here is to give him back some feelings of self worth and maybe even some loving." Sandy said.

"Yes. The feeling of acceptance and affection seem to have great healing power." Lee said.

She looked at me and said, "I don't thing we should be here. Sounds like his head is crazy enough without seeing a girl like me. Maybe in three or four days we can come back and help, but right now I think he doesn't need the added pressure of someone way outside his life experience."

"I think his healing will be helped by you, but not at the beginning. In a few days having a conversation or two with you about being different just may really be helpful to him." I said.

Lee stood and said, "Thank you both for understanding and wanting to help. I expect Kat to be here in about an hour."

We gathered clothes and said our good-byes without hurrying. We dressed inside the house after showering in the big outside shower. Paul, Mike, Carol and Pam joined us in the shower and we all got very clean while we laughed, touched each other and shared lots of kisses. On our way to my car we met Kat and a young man on crutches. I went back and opened the front door for him. Sandy met him and apologized for being on our way out when he arrived. Then she kissed him on the cheek and he blushed. We left.

In the car on the way back down to PCH Sandy said, "Nice looking kid."

"He may be only twenty-two but kid is not a word he'd like."

"Correction: Nice looking man." Sandy said, lowering her voice for the word man.

We were quiet for a few miles and I said, "You were brave today. I felt proud of you."

"I couldn't have been that brave if you weren't there. Having Megan, Pam and Lee be so supportive really helped too." She put her hand on my thigh.

I put my hand on her thigh and slid it up inside the leg of her culottes. When I reached her clit she moaned and shifted just enough to give me more room to play. I stroked her slowly and because there wasn't much room the strokes were short.

"I'll give you three days to stop that."

"And what if I don't?"

"I'll give you three more days. It feels so good!"

"When we get home we can get rid of the culottes and things and get serious."

Sandy was quiet and I assumed she was just enjoying the feeling of being stroked. I was wrong.

"Lee loves us both."

"Yes. Lee loves us both. By extension and for their own reasons, so do all the rest of the family."

"That's a lot for me to wrap my head around."

"You don't need to wrap your head around it. When we get home you can wrap your mouth around my cock instead. You know the people who have physically connected with you have accepted you, just the way you are. Over time, the rest will accept you, too."

"I don't want to go home just yet. I'd like to go for a walk at the beach, have dinner somewhere and then go home." Sandy said, squeezing my thigh.

"I know a nice place to do that." I said. We stopped and parked south of the pier in Santa Monica. We walked, held hands, talked and kissed a few times as we continued south from where we parked. We ended up walking along the boardwalk in Venice Beach where we stopped, had dinner and people watched. A couple of hours passed and Sandy said, "I have an idea. Let's go back home, get naked and do something deep and meaningful to each other."

I parked in our parking place behind Sandy's car and we quickly walked to our front door. A package sat in front of the door. It was addressed to "Nick & the Freak." Before I could move or cover the address label, Sandy saw it.

Tears started flowing and all thoughts of a sexual play-date disappeared. I picked up the box and carried it to a table near the pool. I slit the tape with my Swiss Army knife and carefully opened the flaps. I saw a folded sheet of paper on top, a note from the sender. We read it together: "You and the Freak are not welcome here or anywhere! God does not like freaks and Sandy is a freak! Satan sent you here to draw us away from God. Sandy is not human! You both will die if you stay in town!"

Wrapped in bubble wrap beneath the note was a crucifix. Neither of us touched anything inside the box except the note. We talked about calling the police. The threat was serious and even though we had no way of knowing how serious, it was serious enough to warrant our being careful.

Sandy cried and I held her. I wanted to hurt whoever had planted the package and threat. When we both had calmed down some, I called the police. I said, "My lady and I have received a death threat. I think the threat is serious."

I was transferred to a detective and half an hour later four officers were in our apartment. Two detectives in suits and two others with CSI kits and plenty of bags. The detectives interviewed us and the CSI people examined the note, the box and the bubble wrapped crucifix. They found prints on the note and the crucifix.

In the questioning the detectives, Martin Wallace and Bethany Carter, wanted to know why the sender would think Sandy was a freak. Sandy answered, "I have an abnormally large clitoris."

Detective Wallace asked, "So large that someone may have seen it?" It was clear he thought abnormally large meant less than an inch.

Sandy answered, "Someone may have seen it. It is that big. Other than that I have no features that are different from Detective Carter or any other woman. She's a woman and so am I."

"Ok. If the prints are in the system we will find the person who sent the threat." Detective Wallace said. Detective Carter asked if we had a firearm. I told her I had a Glock 9mm and a permit. She said, "If it were me, I'd clean it and have it nearby, but don't say I told you to do that."

Wallace asked if we were willing to go to court to help prosecute whoever sent the threat. Sandy said, "Let's catch them first, then see how things play out."

The planned evening festivities were no longer possible. Something altered the mood. We closed all the curtains and drapes. Sandy locked our doors. We talked softly and called Lee to let him know what was up. At about eleven we went to bed, wearing clothes. Neither of us felt like getting naked was a good idea. Sandy wore shorts and a t-shirt. I wore boxers and a t-shirt. The Glock went on the shelf just under the top of my nightstand, loaded and ready. My training and experience in the military had honed my skills at weapon care. I had been on a base pistol team and had been in combat in the Middle East and was not afraid to use the weapon. Sandy saw it and asked about my background and skill when I tucked the Glock in the nightstand.

Our lights were off and we were in bed. We were both wide awake. Something was telling me that the threat was about to be more than a threat. I realized that anyone coming to do us harm would see all the lights off and think we were in bed. I whispered, "Sandy, as quietly as you can, pull on some long pants and meet me in the living room."

She started moving. When she was up I stuffed a few things under the covers to make it look like two people were in the bed. I dressed too and we made our way into the living room. Before I left the bedroom I unscrewed the bulb in the ceiling fixture and unplugged the three lamps. I put a hard backed chair in a corner of the living room where we could sit and not be seen by someone coming into the apartment. Sandy took three pillows and put them beside the chair and sat on them wrapped in a blanket. It made her a very small target.

With the curtains drawn almost no light came in from the outside. I lowered one blind, allowing the top of one window to be exposed and light from a street light to slightly illuminate the wall where the door to our bedroom stood. I joined Sandy in the corner where she held my hand and we waited. I sat in the chair with a chambered round in the Glock resting on a pillow on my lap. My hand gripped the Glock, ready for an intruder.

I was starting to think we were wasting our time when I heard someone or something moving outside. I heard scratching at the doorknob on our front door. Sandy squeezed my hand tighter. I moved her hand to my ankle. I was likely to need my hand.

The door latch clicked and I knew the lock had been picked. I could see the door opening very slowly. A head poked through when the door was open about a foot and the dark figure never looked in our direction. He entered wearing all black including a baseball cap and holding a revolver in his left hand. He stepped carefully, focused on each footfall and headed for the doorway to our bedroom.

I slowly put my hand over Sandy's mouth, signaling her that she must stay quiet. When I took my hand away I glanced at her face and saw her put both hands over her mouth. My eyes quickly refocused on the intruder. In the doorway to our bedroom he stopped, facing into our bedroom. I saw his arm come up and we saw and heard the flash of four shots fired into our bed. Sandy saw and heard the shots. I only heard. I knew the flash would hurt my night vision so I closed my eyes after the first shot. I waited an extra couple of seconds after the forth shot before I opened my eyes. I could see the intruder.