A Learning Experience Ch. 07

When I awoke, she had turned towards me in her sleep. Such a change from the sex crazed maniac I walked into this morning. A perfectly languid and peaceful look graced the face of this young man... who now seemed so very different. I got up and redressed myself, then went downstairs and got two cups of orange juice, and brought his up to him after downing my own. I was feeling terribly feint still, and I caught myself in the shakes several times, something was overtaking me, a bug perhaps.

I gently prodded Miles awake, giving him the juice and then helped him get his uniform and corset off, along with his locking high heels. He finished the rest of his undressing, and took a quick shower while I rested on the bed, he asked if I wished to shower, but I declined, as I really was not feeling well. He came out of the shower looking wonderful and I smiled as he leaned over me, gently placing a kiss on my lips.

"Merci ma Maîtresse,"

"Vous êtes les bienvenus, Miles"

I got up and repacked my little bag, as Miles left and then returned with the small envelope that always contained my remuneration. Just a quick look showed an extra hundred-dollar bill. I gasped now, and was going to protest, when he told me this.

"My Mistress, you have shown me a side to myself I never knew existed, and made me appreciate... so very much... what you have been forced to endure in order to become the gender you were born to be... Thank you,"

After saying this he kissed my hand and repeated the thank you. I simply could not speak, as if someone poured battery acid down my throat, nothing would come other than my tears. I really had made him understand, and for a TG woman, acceptance was everything! I hugged Miles tightly and was finally able to at least utter my own 'you're welcome' as I broke our hug. I picked up my bag and walked over to the front door, before remembering to warn him not to use self-bondage... but the shakes came over me again and I nearly feinted once more. Miles look of concern was palpable, but I waved him off, gave him a brave smile and just told him I needed a couple days to get over this bug, and then left.

***

That afternoon I was sitting with Charlene in the 8th Street diner and I was lost in thought, trying to think of how we would find a source for the drugs we all needed. Most of the wall in the back of the little diner was covered in mirrors, and I'd taken a quick look at myself to check my make-up. But another thought nagged at me after seeing my reflection. I had many times told anyone listening that I didn't do drugs, and all the 'stray cats' admired me for that, but suddenly seeing myself next to Charlene forced me to remember the truth.

A few months after my daughter was born, I became so depressed over it I could barely function. I had only been a member of the Pagans for a year or so, and the only person I knew well within the gang was Tiny. One day I told him I was thinking of committing suicide, I just couldn't stand the thought of my daughter being given away to strangers and that I could never see her. Tiny took me to some home garage lab somewhere, and I had to give them five hundred in cash, and they gave me a bag of specially treated sugar cubes. They would sell me two kinds, the first kind was treated with LSD or Lysergic Acid Diethylamide, and the kind Tiny asked for, was treated and combined with Methamphetamine. Tiny took me back to his house and he said that 'Meth' would help with the 'downs' as he called them. He explained that even mixed into the sugar, it was very bitter tasting, so he made up a couple Jack and Cokes, and showed me how to drop a couple cubes into the drink and let them dissolve, then drink it down.

I had no idea what 'Meth' was, and although I felt I was probably replacing one awful problem with another one, I drank it down quickly, and waited. I expected to be stoned out of my mind or something to that effect, but nothing happened. After 20 minutes or so, I just felt kind of buzzed, like I had just drunk three or four coffees. I still felt very badly about my daughter, but suddenly I could actually function again, I felt like I had the energy to move on with my life. Tiny did one more thing, he took an almost empty box of regular sugar cubes and emptied it into the sugar bowl on his kitchen table, then carefully lined the bottom with uncooked rice grains to keep the cubes from absorbing water vapor and melting, and then filled the box back up with my 'special' cubes. There were a couple dozen extra that didn't fit, and he just said 'this will be for my help... okay?' to which I happily agreed, and he put them into a baggie for himself.

Three years later, I still had that box of sugar cubes, as I found I rarely actually got to the point where I had to have it... but when I did, it was literally a lifesaver. However sometimes, if I had gone longer than a week without taking any, I noticed I would start getting 'the shakes', which Tiny described as withdrawal. Didn't make any sense to me, but he told me to just take one of the cubes, if I got these shakes, and it would go away, and they always did go away. Then it dawned on me, this was what the junkies called the monkey on their back. And I wondered what I would do when I ran out... shit.

I had the shakes last night, and when I got out the box, there were only three left along with all the old rice. I was also feeling the 'downs' now this afternoon as well, and I knew I was in some deep trouble. As my thoughts returned to me in that little diner, I knew I would have to reveal my addiction to my friends. So I would be shown as nothing more than another drug-addicted whore wandering the streets keeping the pushers in business. But at least Simone was insisting she had a lead over in Chinatown that might help, and was there now trying to contact some kind of gang member for me to make a deal with, and I was half listening to Charlene tell me how she had found the best new nail polish remover.

Suddenly the sound of a plate cracking against the counter woke me from my thoughts to herald the entrance of a Pimp that called himself 'Bigg Maxx'. I paid a couple of the wait staff in this diner to let me know if anyone like Maxx came in without me noticing, and in this case they dropped a plate onto the stainless steel countertop. Charlene immediately knew to disappear out the back, while I gave her time and distracted him if possible. Unfortunately I was already his target, as he strutted over and took the stool that Charlene had vacated right next to me. Maxx, or Maxy as his girls knew him, was obviously African-American in his genetic background, bald-headed and possibly between 25 and 30 years old.

The talk on the street was he had been involved with pro wrestling, and whether that had a shred of truth in it or not, he was a huge man. Standing at six feet and a super tall eleven inches, he was one of the largest humans I'd ever seen. As he sat down on the little diner stool, it creaked from his well-apportioned 300+ pounds. He softly placed his walking stick down on the counter and moved Charlene's dishes aside. Then he snapped his fingers for service and a cup of coffee was brought to him. The cup filled with good strong diner coffee was absolutely diminutive in his hand, and the finger hole that most people would pick it up by, was ridiculously small for his use. He raised it to his lips with just two massive digits that were so huge they could only belong to the largest hands I'd ever seen. Whenever the police ended up arresting this giant, I could seriously feel their pain, and these hands had probably produced their share of pain in this city.

Whatever cologne he wore was nearly enough to knock you out all by itself, and his outward appearance was so typically 'city punk' as to be cartoonish. Purple bellbottom jeans with Nike sneakers, kept together with a two inch wide tooled leather belt. A red and white striped shirt with white frilled front and sleeve ends, which looked so very much like the barber pole he kept in the office where he did his 'business'. Chains... gold chains... just... everywhere. Around his neck, in his ear - attached to earrings, around wrists, draped across his chest, even around his ankles... and they had various trinkets attached, interconnected, and cross-connected... hell, you could end up absolutely fascinated by the ton of gold that was festooned all over this urban moron.

I was watching everything he was doing incredibly carefully, along with the clock on the wall. It was only a few more minutes before several Philly cops would take their afternoon break here. But he knew this every bit as well as I did. He cleared his throat, and I paused to listen to whatever he had spent so much time and effort to say to me.

"Hey buddy," he snickered, not surprisingly he knew I had been male, "don't look now, but you been peeled sweets. If you wanna talk 'bout it... you know where I am".

He winked at me, but before I could say a word, he was on his way out the back, the same way Charlene had left. Then just as I was shaking my head trying to understand any of this, Charlene came screaming back into the diner.

"Josie!" she was absolutely shrieking and it took precious seconds to calm her so that I might begin to understand what had happened, "they've trunked her! Maxy trunked her, oh my god, oh my god, oh..."

I had managed to digest some of what Maxy was saying, the term 'peeled' usually meant a rival Pimp had taken or stolen one your girls. After grabbing Charlene and holding her in a strong hug, I could get some of her story to make sense as well. She had been intercepted by some of Maxy's minions as she left the back door of the diner. She was then lead over to a car in the parking lot where she could hear Simone screaming from inside the trunk. As soon as I understood what she was saying, I ran for the back door, carefully looking around the parking lot, but the car Charlene had described was no longer there. Typically, a disobedient prostitute might be "trunked", where the pimp locks the prostitute in the trunk of a car. Obviously here, Maxy was making another of his brutal points, because, according to Charlene, Maxy either wanted Simone to be, or was under the impression she would be, one his girls, and felt I had stolen her from him, so she needed to be taught a lesson.

It was obvious now that Maxy considered me competition, and must think I was building my own little prostitution ring... from my perspective this was ridiculous, and silly, I was barely maintaining myself. But I suppose from his viewpoint, it seemed logical with myself being seen as a Dom on the street now, he simply made the leap to female madam. All I was trying to do was take care of my friends and myself... but as usual, it seemed I still had a lot to learn about the street, and staying alive here.

But I knew plenty about violence and pain, and under my present mindset and physical condition, I now had every intention of doing some serious teaching... and thanks to Maxy, my classroom... was now officially in session.

***

Philly... Center City... First Saturday in August. It was the dead heat of the afternoon, still relatively early at 3:05pm. But the temperature was already nearing 98 degrees and humidity soaring to 90%. I knew Simone would only have limited time in an exposed car trunk, between the temperature of the exhaust and the outside air, I would need to seriously book it. I told Charlene to find Kelsey, and gave her two phone numbers. The first, who else? If I was to ever need help and protecting this was it... and Smitty was all I could think of. The second was Mel, and mostly that was for picking up whatever pieces were left over and getting them buried properly.

I ran out the front door of the diner, past the policemen and women filing in for their afternoon donut and coffee. By the time I got any of them to care enough to actually do anything for either Simone or myself, it would be too late, and with Maxx's connections I also knew I'd run the risk of being arrested on the spot for god-knows-what... no, I was on my own here, welcome to hell, remember?

I got a number of strange glances, mixed in with a couple of smirks as I made it past them all, so I knew I was right. I saw a yellow cab coming down Sansom Street and gave my best 'concierge' whistle to get him to pull over enough that he could look for the source. Before the logic kicked in that he wasn't anywhere near a major hotel entrance, I was in his back seat.

According to the license posted on the back of his cab's front seat, he appeared to be a Croatian national and a wiry young guy named Marko that had obviously been through a lot driving a cab in Philly, he was nobody's fool and started to protest... he really wanted me out of that cab. But then he'd never run into anything like the long tall woman in a black dress and platinum hair, that reached into her black patent clutch and slapped five 'Benjies' into his hand.

Because I was about to meet with Simone's drug contact, I was flush with cash and after the past several weeks of street work, far less ignorant than when I first wandered out onto the street. I now knew cash currency by heart, well enough to know a 'Benji' meant Benjamin Franklin and that meant a hundred dollar bill. I told Marko there would be five more Benjies IF he got me to the 30th street station in less than ten minutes. Only on a Saturday would this have ever been possible and Simone would need every second I could buy for her, suffering in that stinking trunk.

The most exciting cab ride I ever had, began as he gave me a simple double take, glancing at the money, then back to me, back to the cash. Then back to me just long enough tell me to buckle my seat belt, which I'd already done, and was glad I had. We just missed becoming yellow canned humans by millimeters several times before his tires screeched up and onto the curb of 30th street station. He never had a chance to ask for his second five hundred as I'd already thrown it down next to him and was running up the 30th street station's front steps two seconds after he stopped. All he could hear was the clicking of my stilettos as I ran up to the front doors and I barely heard his cry of joy as he counted out his first, and without a doubt last, thousand dollar, eight minute fare.

As I walked by a bench seat inside, I quickly sat down and crossed my legs. Across the aisle was a young female Catholic novitiate that was watching me very carefully, probably because of my current attire. I was dressed much as she was, a good deal sultrier perhaps, but it was close. One part not at all close were my heels that I was currently trying so desperately to remove just as quickly as I could.

It seemed like she had smiled at me as I was thinking just how similar our roles were in society, in one way or another. Of course she immediately dropped her eyes and tried to keep looking down as I took my high heels off. I was so flustered I couldn't recall which shoe I had drilled the little storage hole in... was it the left or right? As luck would have it, it was the first one I tried, my right shoe. I pulled the cylindrical key out of it's hiding place and put my shoes back on, sneaking one more glance across the aisle for my doppelganger.

Ah... but she had disappeared, and I suppose I couldn't really blame her... nothing here the Angels of Heaven would be involved with... no... it was time for the Angels of Hell to reap what had been sown here this day.

I approached the anonymous storage locker and inserted my key, then carefully placed each of the contents into my handbag. Then I removed a small backpack, and slipped it over my shoulder. It contained a couple changes of woman's clothing and toiletries. After re-locking it and paying for another storage session, I put the key back in my clutch. Running quickly for the ladies room, I took one of the cubicles for privacy.

Sitting down on the lid, I began to calm myself using the breathing exercises Smitty taught me back when we first started training together. Once I had my breathing under control, I began to plan how I would proceed from here. I would need to be dressed more appropriately for exercise in summer heat getting out the items I thought would help. I undressed down to my underwear, leaving behind my dress, garter belt and stockings, then grabbed my soap, a cloth, and a towel and went out to the sinks.

I soaped up the cloth and cleaned as much of my sweat off as I could, toweling myself dry, and went back to the cubicle to dress in private. I put on some pink lace top ankle socks and running shoes, a white leather mini skirt, barely getting it over my backside as I'd actually gained a little weight. Once on, I zipped it up the side and threaded a half-inch pink patent leather belt through the skirts belt loops. Then I put on my pink side-tie peasant-top blouse, leaving on my black silk gaff panties and black half-shell bra underneath. The bag contained a couple rolls of surgical tape, along with a roll of black electrical tape. I first used the surgical tape to provide good anchor points, it kept perspiration away from any knife handles or ammunition, and helped keep the electrical tape attached. The combination allowed knives to be pulled out and thrown easily. The knives went across my abdomen where my peasant-top blouse could hide them. Two throwing spikes went behind my thighs, right where a stocking seam would be. Two magazines went between my legs... well, let's just say it wasn't comfortable, but it worked, and one more at the base of my bra cups, along with two more throwing spikes.

Once I felt comfortable, I left the toilet cubicle and walked back up to where the sinks and mirrors were, pretending to adjust my skirt, blouse, and make-up. As I was finishing this, the thought ran through my head that Smitty had taught me so much more than anyone really needed for self-protection. I couldn't help but wonder what, just exactly, he was teaching me... or training me... FOR and why was my gender change such a minor issue for him when it seemed to bring out emotions of some kind or another in all of my other friends. Smitty not only accepted it... he relished it... almost as if it had given him another challenge of some kind. He explained it all naturally enough, his experience with the transgendered in Southeast Asia, his 'ladyboys' as he called them.

Well, probably my own paranoia, god knows I had enough to go 'round. Here I was needing all the training I could remember from our many sessions, and I certainly hoped that I'd learned it well. Why was I worrying about Smitty, he had passed my tests time after time, if anyone was on my side... I knew he was. For now I would have to put those worries aside, and just concentrate on the task at hand. A task that, because of Smitty, I might actually have half a chance of coming out alive from. These bastards had kidnapped one of my best, and only, friends... I slowly looked up into the bathroom's mirror and realized I was all Simone had, as she was all I had. And now it was time to prove myself, just as I said I would when I first came here.

As another woman entered the bathroom, I popped my cosmetics back in my purse, next to my Beretta and quickly walked out the door. Its hard for me to explain what I was feeling because it was all happening so fast. And if Simone was still in that damned trunk I was going to have to start making things happen faster than any of these idiots could possibly imagine.

I began my fast walk 'home' to the garage where I lived as an incognito male, running quickly through a playground, and then crossing two main streets that separated me from getting my car, and then I planned on driving over to where Maxy had his office and 'crib' as he called it. As I rounded the last corner before the back door of the garage came into view, I suddenly realized something was different and jumped behind a Charles' Chips delivery van stopped in the middle of the road. Peering around its open back door, I saw the car that Charlene had described from the diner, a couple dozen yards from the garage entrance I used. Two men were sitting back just far enough in the shade so they could barely be seen, waiting... watching... for me? ...Shit!