Was Matthew

I was driving home from work on a wet Tuesday night when I passed a large silver sedan with it's orange hazard lights flashing. Standing behind the car, in the pouring rain, were a man and a teenaged girl who looked to be having an argument.

There was no reason to stop, other than my car was unreliable at best and I'd had strangers come to my assistance more than once. I knew how easy it was to get stressed out and angry when you were waiting for RACQ to come and rescue you. I thought I might pull over and see if I could offer any help.

There was nobody behind me and I was travelling under the speed limit anyway, so I flicked on my indicator, hit the brakes, and pulled over about twenty metres in front of them. I reached for my umbrella and clambered awkwardly out of the car, trying my best not to get wet.

As I approached the couple, the man stopped and stared. While his eyes were fixed on me, the girl turned around and stomped off down the road.

'Wait!' the man called, spinning around. 'Angel, stop!'

Angel responded by throwing him the bird. Then she hunched forward and continued walking away from us.

The man shrugged quickly at me, before chasing after her. Angel responded by starting to jog, her big black boots crunching against the wet gravel. She wasn't as fast as her companion, though, and he grabbed her by the arm and pulled her back towards the car.

'Fuck you, let me go you cunt, let me go, let me go, HELP!' Angel screamed, kicking at the man and struggling to pull free. 'I'm going, I'm sick of you, you can't make me stay, I'm sixteen and I can do what I fucking well want.'

I had no idea whether I was watching a domestic violence incident between lovers, or if they were father and daughter. I went to reach into my handbag for my phone, but I had neither phone nor handbag; both were still in my car. Shit. I followed the pair down the road, where Angel was still struggling and the man was still trying to drag her back to the car.

'Angel, for fuck's sake, just get back in the car,' the man angrily informed her. 'A complete fucking stranger has just stopped because of you.' He turned to me. He was in his mid-thirties with short cropped dark hair and a craggy face. 'Go home. There's nothing wrong with my car, if that's what you're thinking. I only stopped because Angel was being stupid yet again.'

Jakob. Oh my God, Jakob. Even after all these years, and even in the poor visibility of a dark and rainy night, I recognised him.

He didn't recognise me. Why would he? Last time we'd seen each other, I went by the name 'Matthew' and I sure as hell didn't have breasts. I stood stock still, dumbstruck that after sixteen years of no contact, we were once again face to face.

'Go,' he repeated.

The Jakob I remembered wasn't a violent person, and I highly doubted that had changed. I grew concerned for both of them, because I sensed this wasn't merely a dispute over some other trivial matter. As I stood in the rain, getting wetter and wetter by the second despite my umbrella, Angel pulled free and ran down the road again.

This time, Jakob didn't chase her. Instead, he reached into his pocket, leant over and handed me something.

Keys. He'd handed me his car keys.

'You take her,' he said, his face showing his frustration. 'If you're that concerned about her, you take her. I've had enough.'

I was so utterly shocked that I just stood stock still, his keys in my hand. Jakob wasn't someone who just threw his hands up and ran away. He wasn't rash or unreasonable, and he didn't give up easy. There had to be some history, some build up of stress that I hadn't been privy to, that had led to this point.

Jakob didn't look at either Angel or I as he hurried across the road. His jeans and button down shirt were soaked through. Where was he going to go? How the hell was he going to get home without his car?

'Come back,' I yelled at him. 'Don't run away. Please. Come back.'

I wanted to shout 'Jakob, don't be stupid', but given he had no idea I'd transitioned and obviously hadn't recognised me, I didn't want to scare the shit out of him by referring to him by name.

Angel heard me yelling and stopped to see what was going on. When she realised Jakob was leaving she had a change of heart, and tried to run across the road towards him. Only, when she darted across the bitumen she hadn't looked to see if there were any cars approaching. The angry sound of a horn mixed with squealing brakes made her freeze. She stood in the middle of the dark road, illuminated by the headlights of a Corolla, her face a mask of fear.

I ran out to grab her, and pulled her to the side of the road. The Corolla driver beeped again, yelled something at us, then accelerated down the road. Jakob was standing on the opposite of the road, but when I met his gaze, he looked away and walked away from us.

'Stop,' I yelled at him.

He ignored me.

My umbrella had been dropped when I ran out to grab Angel, and I heard it bounce away in the wind. My hair and dress were soaked, and my feet were sodden. Angel was no drier; her black and red flannelette shirt was waterlogged and her blonde hair was stuck to her head. She was a pretty girl, but very thin. Painfully thin. I was twenty-four before I started transitioning so I'm used to other women seeming smaller and thinner than me, but Angel was tiny.

As we stood in the rain, she started to sob. Oh no. I knew I had to act. I definitely couldn't just drive off and pretend nothing had happened.

'Don't cry honey, don't cry,' I soothed her. 'We'll figure this out. Tell me where you live. Do you live with...,' I stopped myself just in time. 'Do you live with that man?'

She nodded through her tears.

'Is he your boyfriend?' I asked. I was pretty confident the answer was 'no', but I wanted to make sure.

Angel shook her head vehemently. 'No, I just live with him,' she explained in a choked voice, as she struggled to steam the tears.

'Is he related to you?'

She took a deep breath, closed her eyes and shook her head again. 'No. I didn't even know who he was when I moved in. He was just a weird middle aged guy who lived in the same unit complex as Mum and I.'

Middle-aged? Was thirty-five considered middle aged? What a horrendous thought. I peered at Angel. She was in her mid-teens so maybe thirty-five seemed unfathomably old.

There was no sign that Jakob was about to return, and the rain was starting to come down harder. I realised I still had Jakob's car keys clutched in my left hand.

'Where would you like me to take you?' I asked.

She hesitated. The tears had stopped for now. 'Home,' she eventually said, very quietly. 'I'd like to go home please. To Jakob's house.'

'Okay,' I agreed. 'Do you have a purse in his car?'

'I have my backpack.'

We went over to Jakob's car and unlocked it. It was a silver Commodore perhaps five or ten years old, with lambswool seat covers and a pine tree air freshener which did nothing to hide the fact that he'd been smoking in the car. We'd both been smokers when we last saw each other, but I'd long since kicked the habit. He obviously hadn't.

'Do you know his mobile number?' I asked. 'Would he have his phone with him?'

She nodded, wiping at her eyes. Mascara was smeared on her cheeks. 'Yes to both.'

'Okay. Give me his number when we're in my car and I'll text him to let him know that I'm leaving his keys underneath the car, and that I'm taking you back to his house.'

With no pressing plans of my own to attend to, I took Angel over to my fourteen year old hatchback and told her to take a seat. She sat hunched up in the front passenger seat and stared glumly out the windscreen as I sent Jakob a text.

'Where do you live?' I asked.

'Redbank Plains,' she said. 'Do you know the area?'

'Kind of.'

'Okay, get on the motorway and take the Redbank Plains exit. I'll direct you from there.'

As I drove, I could sense her sneaking glances in my direction. I tried to ignore it, just as I tried to ignore my gender dysphoria for the first twenty-odd years of my life. I tend to 'pass' on first glance, but the more opportunities someone has to look at me, the more they start to sense that I wasn't born in a female body.

'Are you an artist?' she asked.

I laughed, surprised at how incorrectly I'd interpreted her curious stares. 'How did you guess?'

She gestured to the back of the car. 'All of your supplies. Plus, you have an oil pastel tucked behind your ear.'

I did, too. Oops.

Angel gave me a small smile. 'I'd love to do what you do.'

'Struggling to make ends meet working in retail, teaching classes and trying to sell your work?' I asked, a hint of humour in my voice. 'I'd love for you to achieve a bit more success than that.'

I was rewarded with a giggle.

'Are you happy?' she asked.

'Yes.' It was the truth; I was. I wasn't on the bones of my arse. I could support myself and meet my child support commitments. I would have preferred not to be single, but given the option between being partnered and miserable, or single and happy, I'd always choose the latter. 'Are you?'

She shook her head ever-so-slightly and stared out the passenger window. 'No. He hates me. Jakob.'

'Why do you say that?'

'Because he never wanted me. He just got guilted into taking me. My mum and I were getting evicted one afternoon just as he was coming home. Mum begged him to let us live with him. He said 'no', which was pretty smart of him, because my mum screws everyone over. She really does, she's always out partying and taking drugs, and she'll steal from everyone. Anyway, Mum asked Jakob if he could just mind me for one night while she sorted something out, and he agreed.'

Angel gave me a rueful smile. 'Well, after two days, Mum hadn't come back for me and Jakob called the police. They said there was nothing they could do. A month later Jakob managed to track down my Dad and told me to go and live with him. I was there two weeks when Dad got fed up with me and bashed me. The neighbours called the police. When the cops came I asked them to take me to Jakob's house. He wasn't very happy -- Jakob, that is -- because when the police that took me to his place they thought he was my boyfriend and gave him a ton of shit because I was only fifteen.'

'I take it Jakob doesn't have a girlfriend or wife?' I asked curiously.

She shook her head. 'No. Mum and I lived next door to him for over a year before we got kicked out, and I never saw a woman go around. We thought he might be gay.'

He's not gay. He's straight as an arrow. Trust me on that point. But when I knew him last, he was very shy around women and completely lacking in confidence. I felt rather sad for him that he hadn't managed to overcome that, because despite his frustration with Angel, he was a beautiful person. Hell, I thought to myself, he obviously still is a beautiful person if he was willing to take in homeless teen.

'I doubt he hates you if he lets you live with him,' I remarked. 'Maybe he's just struggling a bit with the adjustment.'

Angel didn't respond.

'It's probably a bit hard for him to go out with you in public, too,' I added. 'People probably think you're his girlfriend and give him death stares.'

'That's true,' she agreed ruefully. 'Some men congratulate him. Like, they just come up and say 'nice work getting a young one' right while I'm standing next to him. Sometimes he lies and says I'm his daughter, just to get them to fuck off, but I don't think anyone really believes him.'

We were at the Redbank Plains exit, so I made the turn off and let her direct me to their villa. When we arrived, I wasn't quite sure whether I should go inside with her and ensure everything was okay, or just leave.

'Do you want me to stay?' I asked her.

She shook her head. 'No. I'll be alright.'

'I'll give you my number. Call me if he doesn't come home.'

Angel nodded. 'I will. Thank-you.'

Then she hopped out of the car and ran through the rain up to the door of the apartment. I stayed in my car until she'd unlocked the door, then I reversed out and headed back home.

I thought about calling Jakob. I wanted to make sure that he was okay, and that he knew Angel was safe, too. I wanted to tell him I'd recognised him.

I couldn't, though. It was me that broke contact with him all those years ago. It was me who messed up.

~~~~~~~

The joys of having a dick. It's great fun when it's working as it should, but if you have one, you know that you can't always rely on them to do what you want them to do. You get spontaneous erections at times when they're unwanted, and then you suffer the indignity of not being able to achieve one when you want one. Thankfully I didn't start having issues until I was taking hormones, and I've never had anyone be outright cruel to me over it.

Jakob wasn't as fortunate.

He and I attended the same high school but for most of our years there we'd hung around in different groups. Mine was the artsy, alterative type. We'd spend our lunchtimes either in the art room or library, or over the far side of the oval where we'd smoke stolen cigarettes and overpriced, underwhelming marijuana. On the weekends we'd wear eyeliner and paint our nails, dress in gender neutral clothing, and go to West End or Fortitude Valley, which were very different communities in the late nineties than they are these days.

Jakob was one of our school's best maths brains. He took extension maths, physics and chemistry classes, and had a loose friendship with the other high achievers. He was painfully shy around girls, though, which meant that the popular girls would entertain themselves by flirting with him until he was red with embarrassment.

I think he took up smoking in his senior year to have an excuse to hide out on the far side of the oval at lunchtime. The girls didn't bother to follow him across the field, which gave him a reprieve from the bullying.

The teachers knew we were smoking but they ignored us because as most educators know, the alternative kids aren't the sort to make trouble. We were left in peace to smoke our cigarettes and weed, and slowly but surely, we began to make friends with Jakob.

If you're assuming he was an ugly duckling, you're assuming wrong. He was a good-looking teenager and he grew into a good-looking adult. He was five foot ten by seventeen with a lean build and blue eyes, and although his face is craggy his skin is a nice even colour. He has a strong jawline and after a course of braces, he has nice straight teeth.

I always pined after him. I wasn't half as good-looking as he was; I was scrawny but broad shouldered which made me look unbalanced, my face was spotty and my teeth were terrible. It wasn't until I was an adult and saved the money for dental work that I could afford to have them fixed. I spent most of my time wishing I was a girl. If I was a girl maybe my parents would bother getting my teeth straightened. I'd also have an excuse to wear make-up every day which would hide my craterous complexion. If I was a girl, I might also be able to seduce Jakob.

Unfortunately, I wasn't a girl, at least not in body, so I settled for friendship. After we left school we grew closer, and I began to fall in love with him. I kept my lust a secret because even though I had a lot of alternative friends, my parents were and are doggedly right-wing Pauline Hanson supporter types. Besides, I knew he only liked women. Despite his agonising inability to converse with them, it was pretty clear that they were the only ones he was sexually interested in.

We were extremely close friends at the point when he experienced critical malfunction at a noteworthy point in his life. We were both nineteen years old. I was working in retail, and he had just dropped out of university. We had a lot of time, but not a lot of money. Neither of us cars, although we both could drive, neither of us had a girlfriend, and neither of us had any clue as to what we were going to do with our lives.

We found ourselves sharing a few dollars worth of hot chips outside a takeaway one Thursday morning. We were high as kites because no matter how broke we were, we always managed to find money for marijuana, and were spacing out and enjoying our lunch when Kimberley and Hannah approached.

They were the 'cool girls' from high school and were as pretty as I remembered them to be. A few years ago they would have given me a wide berth, and zeroed in on Jakob to make fun of him, so neither Jakob nor I was initially thrilled to see them.

These days it's easy enough to buy weed on the dark web, but in those days procuring marijuana was a time consuming, often awkward and slightly seedy endeavour. If you were after a few grams, you'd inevitably ring around a few contacts before hearing that somebody might be able to set you up but it still remained something of a crapshoot.

I always had weed because I made it a priority never to run out. Jakob was the same. Adult life was not what either of us had expected and marijuana gave us an escape.

Kimberley and Hannah were casual smokers. They didn't put the effort into maintaining relationships with dealers and nor were they interested in actually handing over their own money for a little grass.

A lot of my classmates had assumed I was gay, which wasn't and never has been correct. These days I'm quite straight, but as a teen and in my early twenties, I had a very clear and definite attraction to both men and women. As such, when Hannah started getting flirty with me, I stopped thinking about what she'd been like in high school, and started thinking how I might be to work her desire for marijuana to my advantage.

I wasn't a virgin at this point. I'd slept with three women and two men (although nobody, not even Jakob, knew about the men), and had mostly enjoyed the experiences. I knew what the girls were doing; flirting with the hope of getting a bit of weed out of us. I also knew that if they really wanted it, they'd probably sleep with us.

My parents were both at work, so I invited the girls back to my house. We could smoke a bit of weed and 'hang out', I suggested. Jakob looked startled at my suggestion. He'd been busy blushing and fumbling and backing away as Kimberley had cruelly giggled and cooed and stroked his arm. I had the feeling that he didn't really want to them to come back with us, but as it was my house and he had no real reason to object, he didn't put up any resistance.

Hannah had a car and she drove us back to my folks' place. We smoked a few cones, listened to some music and, without me needing to do any prompting, Hannah and I began to make out on the lounge. We were young and horny and I soon had Hannah's shirt and bra off. In front of both Jakob and Kimberley I began to suck on her nipples as she moaned and stroked my hard on through my jeans.

'You two, get a room,' Kimberley giggled.

Hannah stopped moaning and regarded her friend with bloodshot, hazel eyes. Her erect nipples, glazed with my saliva, stood proudly at attention. 'Why don't you get a room, Kimberley? Why don't you show Jakob some, um, appreciation?'

We all laughed at that, except for Jakob, who just looked pained. While my friend was awkwardly turning a bright shade of red, Kimberley's face had taken on a thoughtful expression. She was weighing up Hannah's suggestion.

'You heard the girl,' Kimberley said, suddenly and decisively, standing up and taking Jakob's hand. 'Come with me. I'll make you a man before the hour is out.'

The moment we were alone, Hannah and I stripped off. She sucked greedily on my cock, making loud slurping noises, her beautiful lips leaving lipstick marks on the shaft. With no thought as to what Jakob and Kimberley might be doing, I laid her on her back on the couch and began to eat her out. My mouth was dry from the weed but her pussy was wet, and after a while she came, locking her thighs around my neck and grinding into my face.