Harri: Face the Slut Within Ch. 01

My name is Harriet Tamlin and my life didn't start, not really, until the summer after my eighteenth birthday.

I spent the first seventeen years of my life at death's door. Well, maybe not literally, not every day. I'd take breaks from chemo, sometimes they lined up with breaks from other things, and before you knew it I had burr of hair on my scalp. I'd pick up running - my heart was always in great shape - and notice the sunshine again. Listen to a bird. These vacations from my life never lasted long.

My mom died when I was eight from the same thing I have. Genetic. I never blamed her for it. I never really knew her.

Dad spent those eighteen years stuck between a rock and a hard place. He never had a little girl; he had a twisted crone. He never had to teach me to drive, but he did have to teach me to change a catheter. Instead of clothes he bought me books. And he worked long hours every day trying to keep the ends met over my medical bills. I homeschooled just to pass the time, but we could only stretch that until I was sixteen.

Then, at seventeen: a miracle. Who knows what it was, but somewhere between chemo, radiation, vitamins, hormones, and one last marrow transplant - I got better. You have to understand - I was five-foot-one and weighed eighty-five pounds. I had no hair. I had no fat. It hurt to stand up straight. I was a troll. I had no idea what health even meant. I had no idea what an appetite even meant. In the next year I grew more than four inches and gained twenty-five pounds. I didn't know who I was anymore. I didn't like it.

Dad didn't know what to do with me. He had a daughter! An ordinary, healthy, young daughter. We could go out and public and people wouldn't stare. And we had money - all of the sudden I was cheap. He could buy me anything I wanted - I wanted none of it. We decided I should go to college at the end of the summer.

Truth be told, I couldn't think of any objections. What else was I going to do with my life? How many more works of medieval meditative literature could I contemplate from my windowseat before I went stircrazy? I got in wherever I wanted. The grades were good, but, pff, homeschool. What did it for me was the story, and I'd had a couple of "deep" essays published at that point. While I thought the editors were just suckers for the heartbreak kid, I did fancy myself at least a fair writer.

Dad still caught me by surprise when he sat me down over two glasses of scotch not two weeks before my Harvard matriculation date.

"Harriet," he said, ponderously. "I'm worried about you."

This wasn't a surprise. This is how he started almost every conversation. Harriet, I'm worried about you. You're a healthy young woman, now, but you need to get out into the world, to live. Blah, blah, blah.

"Yeah, Dad?" I took a sip. He'd pulled out the good stuff.

"Harriet, I'm worried about you. You're a healthy young woman, now -"

"but-you-need-to-get-out-into-the-world-to-live. Right, Dad. I know. I'm trying. I really am." I wasn't. I told myself things would change at college.

He frowned. "That's why you're getting on a plane tomorrow to go help Matt and Jess clean out Aunt Cathy's house."

Matt and Jess were fraternal twins about five years older than I. They were practically my only friends in the world, not that it meant much. Our mothers had been best friends since childhood, college roommates even. Our mothers were both dead. They had a younger brother, Jimmy, about my age, but I always hung with the older two. In my early teens, when my health was marginally better than later, we all spent summers together at this aunt's, Cathy's, house. Then she had a stroke. We all drifted apart and I'd last seen the twins at the funeral, right after my miraculous cure.

Matt and Jess both had places in the town close to where Aunt Cathy lived - had lived, years ago. She'd been in long-term care since the strake. The town was where the local college was, where they'd just graduated. Jimmy still lived with their parents, about an hour away.

To say I was stunned was an understatement. "I. Will. Not!"

"You will, Harriet."

We both heard the 'or else' dangle at the end of that sentence and both knew he didn't have it in him. Poor Daddy. He never had to develop an inner disciplinarian - there was no need - and now it was too late. After seventeen years of cajoling me to eat enough to stay alive, he now had a strong-willed, independent woman on his hands. O brave new world!

Just then - a shot in the dark. Well, a knock at the front door, but it might as well have been a bullet for all the change it wrought in my life.

It was Marrie - that exact spelling -, the literal girl next door. She had these doe eyes and big, milquetoast tits. I saw her check me out through the frosted glass before I opened the door. God, I despised her then. "Oooooh, hello, Marrie!"

"Hi, um, Harriet? Some friends and I are heading down to the dock. To listen to some music? I thought you might like to come?" She was always dropping by with invitations to useless shit.

Dad cleared his throat from the room behind me. This was exactly the thing he always wanted me to do.

"Oooh, I'm sorry, Marrie. I have to pack tonight. I have to go help with, well, my aunt died. Family stuff, you understand?"

"Oh my God, Harriet. I'm so sorry! Let me know if I can -"

I gently shut the door in her face. "Fucking slut bitch," I muttered, then bolted back the rest of my scotch. I hated her. I hated the way I tingled after talking to her.

"I'll get your suitcase!" Dad called.

And that brings me to two important asides:

First is my adult vices - drinking and cursing. Dad introduced me to drinking on the very under-the-table advice from one of my long-term docs. It made swallowing lots of pills easier by numbing the throat. It dampened inhibitions so some of the inequities of my treatments didn't hamper me as much. Who cares about wearing an adult diaper when you're five sheets to the wind, amirite? More importantly, who cares about a sloshed fourteen year old when she probably won't see her next birthday. If she's old enough to die from an adult disease, then she's old enough to drink. If I had the tidal lung capacity growing up, I'd have smoked, too. Thank God for small favors.

The cursing? I don't think Dad even heard it anymore. I'd always been hyperverbal, as if you couldn't tell, and creative cursing was often a way to exactly communicate my feelings on the many unpleasant aspects of my daily life. Because I had a little, tiny little, really, ... issue ... about sluts.

Second aside - I fucking hated fucking sluts. And the bull-cock boys who went along with them. But here's the thing. For me, a slut was anyone with breasts, and a bull-cock was any boy who looked at anyone with breasts.

I think it started when I was twelve. Up until then, while still skinny and hairless, I still kind of looked like a normal girl. Then they all changed on me, left me behind. I remember when I graduated to the adolescent ward at the hospital. The female illustrations in all the pamphlets had tiny tits. They were punches to my chest, telling me I didn't belong. And I'd watch hardcore porn with clinical interest, watch these big-breasted sluts and their bull-cock boys go at it, trying to feel ... anything. I never did. I was chaste, pure, and I came to the conclusion that anyone with breasts wanted to act that way, wanted to suck and fuck any bull-cock she could reach. I came to the conclusion that anyone with breasts was a slut.

Here's where it gets twisted. I had pictures of my mother, from before. She was beautiful, full-figured, gorgeous, the works. And when she had me - ugh, this sounds awful. When she had me, she gave that up so the could be like me, a troll. She stopped being a slut. So she could be like me.

I'd built up this whole fantasy about who I was, this whole mythology. I was consumed with medieval literature, framing my cloistered existence in tales of Saints martyred before the age of twenty. I buried myself in contemplative reflection, in the theory of meditative, prayerful ascent. I wasn't meant for this world. This prison of frail flesh - this wasn't me, not really.

I know, I know, a little bit at odds with the smoking and cursing. What can I say? I was a fucked up kid. But imagine my horror, shame, and revulsion when, on the eve of adulthood, I stopped being me and turned into a slut. Four inches. Twenty-five pounds. It was hips, it was thighs. Trying to run away the weight only gave me a high, tight ass. It was ... breasts. And between my legs? I'd never even had pubic hair until I was almost eighteen. And it wasn't just on the outside - I suddenly had these feelings and ... urges.

I feared - no, knew - it was simply a matter of time before the slut came out. I could feel her, coiled within me, straining. It wasn't just the breasts. It was deeper - like the way I tingled when I talked to Marrie and wanted to make her beg me to go with her. The question was, would I hate myself when it finally happened, or would my entire worldview change? I fought it every step of the way.

My most successful tactic was clothing. I had all this shapeless, tasteless, asexual, ragged clothing. It was all heavy-duty stuff, clothes you could throw in our industrial washer at boiling heat to get the bodily fluids out. It was all too small for me, then, but the tightness just reminded me how much I didn't belong in my new body, how it wasn't me, not really.

So imagine my further surprise when I arrived at my destination airport the next morning to discover Dad had "accidentally" forgotten to check my bag. I screamed at him over the phone, downright hissy, the rat bastard. Right before we landed I'd cajoled a stewardess into giving me a glass of red wine, then promptly spilled it over the front of my clothes, soaked all the way through my lap. Even got some all over my shoes. I needed that luggage to get something to change into. He chuckled and told me to have a good time.

Jess was willowy, graceful, with sleek dark hair and big inquisitive eyes. I never thought she was a slut, about the highest praise I had for anyone. When she found me she had a loose top on, jeans, and a little bag over her shoulder. She made me wistful for my lost youth. Jess, the not-a-slut, was who I would have been if I'd grown up healthy.

She found me, on the verge of tears in that crappy rural airport, lap still soaking with red wine, found me and hugged me tight. "You're dad called. I think he did it on purpose."

"Of course he did it on purpose, the rat bastard." I wiped my eyes on her shoulder. "Hey," I said. "It's good to see you. I'm sorry about Aunt Cathy."

"Me too. Come on. I've got some clothes, my work clothes for the house. Let's head to the bathroom to get you changed."

Jess stuck her head in the big public restroom next to the entrance - it was empty. I guess everybody waited until after security these days. She dropped her bag on the counter.

She unzipped it and pulled out a tiny bundle of clothes, dark blue, and a pair of those flat slipper shoes, all held to her chest. "I should probably explain. Uh, this is nothing like what I'd normally wear, but Matt told me we might go grab a beer later and, err, you'll see."

"I'll see what?"

At the counter I picked up the thing on top. It looked like a thick, ribbed cotton tank-top but it was four inches wide. "What the hell is this? How am I going to fit into this? How were you going to fit into this?"

"It's girl clothes, Harriet. They stretch. They're supposed to."

She nibbled her lower lip. It was one of those endearing, childish habits I'd've had if I'd've had a real childhood. I was a little jealous.

"The cut-offs and the tank top I think you can handle. Wear the bra you have on, and -"

"I, err, don't have a bra. I don't own any. I never really needed one until ... recently."

"All right, tank top a little harder to handle. Cutoffs still okay, but the panties are a bit, well."

"Well?" I pulled a wisp of a thing from under the shorts. "Tiny!"

"Skimpy!" She snatched them back and folded the shorts over them.

For some reason she was just as mortified about them. The whole situation was mortifying, but she wasn't the one who had anything to be ashamed about. "Why do you have to change underwear to go help your brother?"

"Matt said he might pay me back with a beer, and that means going out in public, and out in the real world your panties have to match your bra or you're a hopelessly socially awkward klutz who nobody ever looks at twice. I love the bra, those came with the bra, I have to bring those. Okay?" She pushed the bundled shorts at me. "Girl clothes, Harriet. Welcome to the real world."

I pushed them back. "I can't wear that. Why can't I wear the ones you've got on now? Why can't I wear the clothes you've got on now. I need to be covered." I was losing control of the situation. "I can't walk around with ... skin ... everywhere."

"You want my dirty underwear, Harriet? Is that really your better solution? You dad said you needed everything. You want your wet panties to stain my cutoffs with red wine?"

My face got hot. I'd always blushed easily. It was cuter when I was four. "Fine, the pants then. At least."

She stepped back. "You'll look better in these shorts than I will any day."

"Who wants to look better than anything? I only want to look like myself!"

"Harriet, you need to get a grip and think about where you'll be for the next few days. All you've got is my clothes. Nobody knows you here. Take it for a ride."

She was right and I retreated. I picked up the clothes and shoes and headed to the big handicapped stall at the end.

It was your standard airport bathroom stall. Concrete floor, white porcelain, chrome bar all the way around. It even had a big mirror set low on the wall. Wheelchair height. I hated mirrors. Sure, I had reason to not look at myself when I was young and sick, but recently? I really hated mirrors.

And in that mirror? There she was. That slut. That blond pixie cut I finally got because it was short and I finally had hair, those grin eyes just like my mother's. I used to look like a troll, but my face had filled in as my body fat inched up from zero. Up-turned nose, bow lips, pointed chin. Slut or not, I did look like a six-year-old in a doctor's costume, the red-wine stains my fake blood. Deep breath. I hated mirrors.

I shucked the shirt over my head and dropped it to the floor. There, in the mirror, were my breasts, perfect pointed mounds that rode high on my chest, topped with thick rosy nipples. I hated them, hated my slut breasts, hated them until they were all I could think about. My nipples tightened, puckered on my chest until I could see them below me without even trying.

The airport's air-conditioner kicked on, a vent right above me. I almost arched my back at the first breeze across my chest. This was getting out of hand. It's just a chest. It didn't make me slut. I looked down at myself and they were just fleshy bags - intellectually I knew it was a twisted perception of my body. It was the image that did me in, the image I associated with those activities. They're just nipples and I had them before. Sure they were bigger now, puffier. But I'd had them before.

I slid the tank top over me, feeling every soft inch slide over my skin. I never wore fabric like this. It didn't help with the ... excitement, but at least I didn't have to see them. The tank top barely came past my belly button and the close-fitting fabric accentuated my narrow waist. I grimaced in the mirror. My nipples still made quite an impression, almost casting shadows in the direct overhead light. I was starting to see the point of a bra - two points, as the case may be.

As for the next part - I turned around. I knew that lesson. Ah, hell. I peeked anyway - pajama bottom pants baggy everywhere except right where they cupped across the top of a firm, tight ass. I steeled myself. This was always the worst part.

I hooked my thumbs into the waistband and had to shimmy my hips to get past the widest part, then slid the pants down my smooth thighs. Then kept going. One thing I reveled in about health was my new-found flexibility. I kept bending until my fingertips brushed the floor, then kept going until I had my palms pressed flat. I'd never been this flexible in my life.

I grabbed the panties from behind me and caught a glimpse of that perfect ass in the mirror. The panties - no, call it what it is. Jess's black, slutty, stripper thong that, an hour ago, would've damned her to a fiery hell in my imagination, was little more than strings of nylon. I had to look closer than I ever wanted to just figure out which way was front and in which holes my legs went. Only the flimsiest double layer of a lining told me which part was the bottom. I looked down to step into them and - fucking stubble.

I fucking hated my pubic hair, the final nail in my coffin, but a nail I could keep prying out. I hated even looking there - which was pretty easy to avoid when you had a tube taking care of business half the time. I hated shaving there, having to ... touch ... my, my, I still didn't know what to call myself. Pu - no. Cun - no. Twat - definitely not. I'd reluctantly settled on vulva, taking refuge in the medical term. To make matters worse, other than the dirty hair, it hadn't changed a bit. I still had a peach of a mound bisected by the tiniest slivers of labia. That it hadn't changed, that, when hairless, I still looked like me down there, made things a little easier. But the stubble? And I didn't even have a razor. Rat bastard Dad. Not that he would've known what I needed a razor for.

I pulled the panties up without a second thought until I got to the top. The back didn't fit. I glanced in the mirror, no, it was just twisted and cutting into my left ass cheek. Almost automatically, I plucked it into place, nylon disappeared yet somehow framing the globes of my ass. I could feel it nestle against my anus. The panties tingled. The image made me tingle, front and back and all over. Don't think about it, Harriet. This isn't you. You're still in there somewhere.

I couldn't believe women wore these all the time. They were tiny, barely covering what they needed to cover, yet the shorts barely covered any more than that. I had to yank them over my hips, suck in to get them buttoned, and I suspected if I bent over in the mirror I'd see cheek. I slipped the shoes on and was out the stall.

Jess hunched over the sink, picking an eyelash out of her eye.

"I can't believe you were going to wear these shorts anywhere in public."

"I wouldn't wear them outside - they're just for working in. I had them forever." She turned around. "Shit. You look -."

She'd never cursed in front of me before. "Like a girl," I said. "Like you." I could feel her eyes tracing along every surface of my body. Is this what it was like? To be a woman? I knew she could see my nipples jabbing through the tank top. That didn't help.

"No. Well, yes in the obvious ways. You're ... hot, I guess is the obvious word, but something's not right. I'm fairly tomboy, but you don't even have that. It looks like you're ... wearing yourself? You aren't in you? Walk for me?"

I walked up to her side.

"Yeah, that's gotta change if you're going out in public. Make up, too. You just look wrong. Woman up here."

I hadn't even thought about going out in public. I could last for a couple of days, maybe a week, in slut clothes, if I didn't go outside, but ... "You think people can tell?"

"Growing up with a twin, even a fraternal twin, probably gives me an edge. You don't look like you spent your life in a hospital, but I think people will know something's a little off."

I shook my head. That was a problem for later. "What's the word on this house project. Tell me at least that's for real."