“You going to tell your teacher that bully hit you?”
“I wouldn’t do that.” I looked over to see he was scowling. “I know that’s what you’d want me to do, mom, but I already don’t have any friends. If I told a teacher, everyone would think I’m a snitch. I’d be even more of a laughingstock than I am already.”
“I never told you to tell a teacher.” I frowned. “I mean, if you wanted to do that, I think that would be okay. But I get it. There’s a schoolyard code against narking people out. I just want you to stand up for yourself.”
“So, what? You want me to punch him back tomorrow when I see him?”
“Oh, come on, Alan.” I tried not to sound irritated, but I was sure some of my frustration must have come through in my voice. “You know that’s not what I was saying. I know the kind of person you are. You wouldn’t do that. That’s why I’m telling you it’s okay for you to stand up for yourself.
“I know your teachers might have told you over the years that it’s never okay to respond to violence with violence. That it’s somehow more mature and grown-up to talk to an adult when you’re facing a bully. It’s not bad advice, but it’s not right advice, either. Sometimes, the only language bullies get is violence. Unless you respond to them the same way, they’ll just go on doing what they do. And it’s not okay for you to let a bully walk all over you just because you’re not supposed to throw a punch back when they hit you.”
“You mean you wouldn’t be upset with me if I had hit him back?”
“Based on what you’ve told me?” I glanced at him, unsurprised to see he still looked skeptical. “If you had gotten suspended for hitting that bully back, I would have gone to the principal’s office and fought it. You had every right to fight back, especially because you were just defending someone else from this bully.”
“I... didn’t expect you to say that.”
I glanced at him while we were stopped at a traffic light, only to see he was looking down at his hands, lost in thought. I put my hand on his shoulder. “I get that this is all kind of confusing. There’s a fine line between being brave and being chauvinistic, but it’s your job to find that line and walk it. I frankly don’t give a damn what anyone else says. Sometimes, you just have to be a man. That means sometimes being brave and standing up to bullies. And yes, sometimes it means throwing a punch back at someone, because if you don’t, no one else will. That’s part of what being a man means.”
He nodded, a slight frown tugging on the corners of his mouth as he looked back down again. As traffic started up and silence enveloped us, I couldn’t help but think of how Jake would cast around for a change of subject in that moment to avoid the awkwardness. But, Alan was stuck with me for the time being, and I was too tired to try and keep a conversation going when it was clear he didn’t want to talk.
The rest of our journey home passed by without a word between us, but as we pulled into the garage, he spoke up.
“I’ll make sure to stand up to him next time.” He looked back at me as he pulled his door open and got out. “Even if I do end up getting suspended.”
“You never know.” I climbed out of the car as well, then shrugged. “Maybe you just showing him you’re willing to fight back will be enough to scare him into backing off.”
“You think that will happen?”
“Maybe not the first time. After that, though? I’m guessing he’ll have second thoughts about picking another fight with you.”
“Thanks, mom.” He met my gaze and even managed a half-hearted smile. “It’s kind of cool to hear that advice coming from you.”
I laughed. “Don’t mention it. Especially to your father.”
Before he could protest, I pulled him into a one-armed hug, then used my other hand to ruffle his hair.
“Ugh.” He pushed me away. “Mom, you know I hate it when dad does that.”
“Right.” I laughed again and rubbed the back of my neck.
We heard back from Kiara a few days later, but the news was about what Jake had expected. None of the techies on her team had anything they thought would be able to reverse the effects of Doctor Quantum’s device, but she did mention one of them was working on a different tool they thought they could modify to see if it would work on us. It would take a few weeks before it was ready, though. Jake and I decided to just move forward with my training in the meantime.
Jake seemed to adjust well enough to work. To be fair, while I had studied history in college, he had studied physics with an emphasis in subatomic particles. Even though he had no experience whatsoever working in an office, I knew he would pick it up quickly enough. As it turned out, after a disastrous first week, he started to get the hang of his new job. Luckily, I knew the company I had been working for was lenient enough that one week of poor performance wouldn’t hamper his prospects much.
I made steady—if not dramatic—progress with my arbiter training over the next week and a half. I no longer noticed the fatigue and strain from my daily exercise, and after consistent practice, I could reliably tap into my abilities enough to see the spacetime around me. With enough concentration, I could even manage to manipulate gravity for more than a few seconds at a time. It wasn’t anything impressive, but when I told Jake one evening as we were settling down for the night that I had lifted a twenty-five-pound weight for half a minute, he was ecstatic.
“That’s so good, babe!” he said after I told him. Without warning, he grabbed me around the middle, pulling me up into a hug and spinning me around.
“Thank you!” I tried unsuccessfully to suck in a breath. “Can you put me down?”
“Oh, sorry.” He blinked and loosened his grip. “It’s just so easy to forget that things are so different now, you know?”
“Yeah.” I watched as he pulled his pillow and a spare blanket off the bed, a gnawing uncertainty in my gut. “It’s hard to believe it’s already been two weeks, isn’t it?”
He laughed. “It feels like two weeks to me. Anyway, goodnight.”
“Jake,” I said before I could stop myself. He paused half-way out the door. “Not... everything has changed, has it?”
“What do you mean?” He turned around, a frown fixed on his face.
“I mean, yes. A lot has changed. Our whole lives have changed. But we haven’t changed, have we?”
“I’m afraid I still don’t understand.” The door clicked shut behind him as he took a step closer. The frown was still there.
“We’re still married to each other, right? Even if we’re in different bodies, we still love each other?”
“I still love you,” he whispered as he leaned close and wrapped me in a hug.
“And I still love you.” A shiver ran up my spine at his warm breath in my ear. “Even if things are different now.”
I closed my eyes as he kissed my neck. My body, acting out of reflex, came alive at his touch, flushing with excitement. It wanted, needed his touch, more than it needed air.
“Jake.” I took a deep breath and pulled away.
“I know it’s strange,” he breathed, “but I want you, babe.”
“Yeah.” I nodded, my eyes still closed. “I want you too. This body definitely wants you. But...”
“You’re not ready yet?”
“I don’t know if I am,” I admitted, leaning my head against his chest. “Are you?”
“I... think I am.” He ran his fingers through my hair absently. I suppressed another shiver at the intoxication of his touch. “I mean, I think I was ready the first day. But I can’t tell if it’s me, or this body.”
“Isn’t it weird to you that you’re attracted to a woman now, when your whole life you’ve been attracted to men?”
“Yeah.” He laughed. “Even weirder that the woman I can’t get out of my head used to be me.”
“I can’t get past it,” I said. “Every time I think about you, my body definitely reacts. I know I’m attracted to you. But I used to be you. And, if we had sex, I’d be having sex with a m
an. And, not just a man, but with myself. I just don’t know if I’m ready for that. But then, I think about how you’re still you in there, and I’m still me in here, so it wouldn’t really be different, would it? Not in any way that mattered, anyway. I mean, these are just bodies. It’s just skin. Who we are hasn’t changed, has it? But... still. This is just so confusing.”
He looked at me sideways. “You know, the thought of being with a woman was weird for me at first too, but then I spent too much time around you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I guess I’ve come to the same conclusion you have. Even though you look different now, I still see the same person I fell in love with and married behind those eyes. We’re still the same people that forged a life together, and nothing could ever change that. Plus...” He glanced around theatrically before leaning closer. “I don’t know if you’ve realized this, but you’re smoking hot.”
“Hey!” I blushed despite myself at the compliment. “First off, that’s all thanks to you, not me. Second, you’re not exactly hard on the eyes yourself.”
Before I knew what was happening, we were kissing each other again. By the time I came back to myself enough to form a coherent thought, I realized our clothes were in a pile on the floor. As my mind raced through what was about to happen, I knew my mental resistance had been shattered. I broke away from kissing him for only a moment, leaning back to get a better look at him. As our eyes met, a thrill tingled down my spine, and I knew I couldn’t fight my aching desire anymore. More importantly, I didn’t want to fight it anymore. What I wanted was Jake. That was all that mattered. Everything else faded away as our lips met once again.
The next morning it took some courage to look Jake in the eye. It had been different from what I had expected, but not in a bad way. To be honest, I was more surprised that, on the whole, most of it kind of felt... the same. For his part, Jake looked like the cat that had caught the canary. I wondered, though, how much of that was just due to him finally being able to sleep in his bed again.
I had been given a short deadline to prepare for the certification test I had to pass to become an arbiter. As I learned from Jake, the ordinary process to become an arbiter involved a minimum of three years of training, followed by an internship that usually lasted another year. Because much of the three years was physical conditioning, and my body was already well adjusted to the demands of being an arbiter, they had only given me four weeks to prepare for my certification. After that, I’d need to find a way to complete an internship, but it likewise would be shortened to only a few months. I wasn’t sure how I’d find someone willing to have me intern under them once I passed my exam, but Jake and I had decided to handle one problem at a time.
I spent almost all the free time I had practicing with my powers, even when I wasn’t at the hub. Another week of practice allowed me to almost effortlessly tap into the well of power that rested on the edge of my consciousness, regardless of the mental or physical fatigue I was under. I found that, not only could I focus on altering gravity for specific objects, but I could also create entire fields of little to no gravity, or gravity that moved in different directions. Jake had been surprised one night to walk into the bedroom only to find everything in the room, including me, floating in a field of microgravity. After that showing, he thought I was ready to try my hand at flight.
“No way am I wearing that.”
“What?” He looked up from the duffle bag he had tossed up onto our bed, and from which he had just pulled out the main body glove of Gravita’s distinctive arbiter suit. “The suit?”
“Hell yes, the suit.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “You know, I think half my shock at finding out you were Gravita was realizing my wife had been going out in public for the past fifteen years wearing something that looked like it had come from a dominatrix catalogue.”
“It is a little... revealing.” He winced as he looked back at the suit, and I was relieved, for some reason, to see his ears turn red in embarrassment. “But you’ll need to wear this once you start going out in public as Gravita. If you’re going to try flying tomorrow, you’ll need to suit up. And as far as arbiter suits go, this doesn’t even come close to as bad as it gets.”
“Well, it’s hard to top Scarlett Fever,” I snorted. “But, that’s not really much of a comparison, is it?”
“There’s a reason for it being form-fitting, though.” He spread the suit out on the bed, though I just scrunched the side of my face up as I looked at it. “As Gravita, there’s not a fabric or material out there that can top your powers in terms of providing protection, and if your fighting style is anything like mine, your greatest asset is going to be speed and agility. You can’t manage that as well with anything less than this.”
“And the sexy pink lines?”
“I seem to remember you saying you didn’t notice Gravita was a woman, right? That day I rescued you?”
“Well... I mean, I did... But, that’s not...”
“And there’s my old husband.” He grinned deviously as he leaned over to give me a kiss. I slapped his hand away as he wrapped it around me and grabbed my butt.
“Just answer the question.”
“Fine.” He rolled his eyes. “The lines are meant to be seductive, okay? Everything about the suit is meant to draw your attention. That’s kind of the point of being an arbiter. You want everyone looking at you. And the lines work on roughly fifty percent of the population, assuming they aren’t blind. That’s their point. The multi-colored galaxy insignia on your chest might as well be a bull’s-eye. It’s meant to be. I decided it was better to have rogues targeting me rather than any innocent bystanders, okay?”
“And there’s my wife.” I smiled softly, then leaned against his chest and gave him a slow kiss of my own.
The next day, I woke up with my stomach in knots. At first, I thought it was just my nerves at what I would attempt later in the day, but after spending most of the morning in the bathroom, Jake seemed to have a different idea.
“I’ve got to run to work, hon.” He came into the bedroom while adjusting a boring blue tie around his neck. “But I wanted to ask you before I left. Have you had your monthly visitor yet?”
My head snapped toward him, even as my mind ground to a halt. “Wait. My... what?!”
“Well.” He sighed and sat down on the bed next to me. He winced when he met my gaze. “You are a woman now, and having a period sort of just comes with the territory. When I was in that body, I was fairly regular with my cycle, and that would put it starting at about today. I thought I would bring it up last night, actually, since...”
“Hang on a second.” I held up a hand, even as my face flushed in indignation. I knew I was going to hear about that, sooner or later. I just hadn’t expected it to be only hours later. “Let me get this straight. For the first time in the past week, I’m not feeling up for sex, and your immediate thought is that I must be PMSing? I would think that you, of all people, would get that, sometimes—”
“That’s not what I was saying.” He raised an eyebrow. “Last night it seemed like you were a bit more sensitive in your...” He gestured toward my chest, and I blinked. “I always got way more sensitive there a day or so before my period. Plus, you spending most of the morning in the Oval Office was another big clue-in.”
“And I just bit your head off for nothing.” I crossed my arms over my chest, but unfolded them almost immediately at the racing pain that shot across my chest. I took in a sharp breath and tenderly cupped my breasts. “Is it supposed to feel like they’re on fire?”
“It usually did.” He gave me a sympathetic look. “But that should go away by the time your flow starts, which I’m guessing will be later today.
“I took the liberty of getting pads and tampons from the store a few days ago. I’ll let you choose whichever one you’re more comfortable with, though I will say I preferred tampons when I was... Well, I left them on the bathroom sink for you.”
“I don’t think I can do this.”
“You’re preparing to wear a cape and go out on the street to fight crime.” He sounded exasperated. “I don’t think having a period is going to do you in.”
“Easy for you to say,” I growled, my chagrin replaced by frustration in what had to be record time.
“Come on, Amber. I’ve been there, remember? Trust me, most women would kill to have a husband that actually understood what they went through each month. It’s not as bad as you think.”
I didn’t answer, mostly because there wasn’t really anything to say. I knew I was being melodramatic, but I couldn’t help it.
“Midol’s behind the mirror, if you need it. And you probably will.” He stood up and gave me one more look. His brief façade of indifference broke as our eyes met, and a moment later, he stooped down and kissed me on the forehead.
“I’m sorry,” I said as he straightened up. “I know it’s not really that bad.”
“Oh, it’s worse than you think.” He laughed and pulled his suit jacket on. “I also kept tabs on Nicole and Sam, and right now, they’re both set to have their periods in a day or two as well. You’d better buckle up. The next few days are going to be hell. Love you.”
“I love you too.”
I waited until he and the kids had left the house before retreating back into the bathroom. I spent longer than I care to admit staring between the two little boxes on the sink in front of me. It was strange. Nothing I had gone through up to that point, not even having sex as a woman, had felt so final as realizing I was a fully biological woman, with everything that came with it. The crushing weight of that discovery threatened to overcome me.
“Damn hormones.”
I furiously wiped away a tear before fumbling with one of the boxes to snatch out a tampon.
5
THE FIRST DAY WAS, without question, the worst. When Jake came home from work that afternoon to find Nicole, Sam, and me huddled on the couch around a shared quart of ice cream, he had been possessed of the good sense to grab Alan and retreat to the safety of the backyard without a moment’s hesitation. Alan, who didn’t seem to understand the danger he was in, looked indignant at his rough handling, though it only took one withering glare from Nicole for his anger to be replaced by understanding.
Prime Identity Page 5
