Marley is hurt while Sarah catches up with Sadie.

To his credit, Marley seemed honestly taken aback by last night. He apologized and offered to do anything in order to make it right. I just kept reiterating that I didn’t want to talk further about it. While I appreciated him letting me sleep in, I got him to get the next flight home and even got him to go down to the gift ship and get me a tshirt with ‘LUXOR’ emblazoned on it so that I could cover up my temporary tattoo.

The flight took off at 11 at night but that was fine by me since I was able to take my last dose of relaxation medication and as soon as we were boarded, I got a pillow and a blanket from the stewardess and went to sleep. No drink or extra dose of medication needed.

Departing the plane, getting our luggage, going to the car, and driving us home, were all silent. When I step out and he hands me my bags from the hatch Marley speaks for the first time in hours saying he’ll see me tomorrow for our workout. I start to glance at my watch, knowing that it’s now Friday morning and we’re scheduled to work out in a few hours, but stop when I realize there isn’t any time issue that’s going to stop us from working out. Stopping in my tracks, I turn just enough to say over my shoulder, “I need time away from you Marley. Don’t come tomorrow. Don’t come back here until I’ve contacted you.”

Without any care of how Marley took that, I resumed heading into the house. Inside I set my luggage in my room, change into a soft night dress and lay my Luxor tshirt out next to my computer. After snapping a quick photo, I send it out on social media to let everybody know I’m back home, the caption being a simple “No sleep like home sleep!”

I send a message to Sarah that I’m home and that I’ll be sleeping in, hoping that she doesn’t wake me up. When I finally wake up, it’s almost lunch time. Heading out to the kitchen I work on the most comforty food of comfort food, grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. Sitting down to the meal I barely get a bite of melty, cheesy, toasty bliss in my mouth before Sarah bursts out of her garage studio.

Sarah is clearly in the middle of a stream as she’s in her full DragonGirl069 regalia. She may have been streaming all night and all morning as she’s even more hyper than normal, the polar opposite to my completely down and morose feeling. She welcomes me back, gives me a side hug, and asks me questions like how the trip was, did I see any celebrities, and did I gamble and win anything, all without waiting for an answer. Just as she’s picking up a sandwich and turning to head back to her stream, she stops and pauses for a second. Turning back to face me her smile is still on her face but it’s a good 50% dimmer. “Sadie? You DID have a good trip, right?”

That oldies song gets stuck in my head. ‘Should I stay or should I go’. Should I tell her what happened or should I not. Telling her means re-living it, means dealing with it, means having to face my concerns and fears and emotions. None of which I want to do. But not telling her isn’t only wrong, I’m not sure I could fake that the trip was anything other than wretched and terrible. Even now, just thinking about talking about it, I’m on the verge of tears. HE CAME ON MY MOUTH!!

I look away from Sarah and toward my food, close my eyes, shake my head negatively, and say quietly, “No, it wasn’t good. But I don’t want you to stop your stream. We can talk about it later.”

I don’t move. I don’t open my eyes, I don’t eat, I don’t do anything until I hear Sarah pad off to her studio. She’s clearly not happy, but at least she’s not making me talk about it. At least she’s not making me go over it again. After she’s in her studio I finish up my lunch and put the dishes into the sink for cleaning later. Heading into my room I slip out of my sleep clothes and have to go into the back of my closet to find what I’m looking for. Loose sweatpants and a tshirt two sizes too big. As I lay them out and put on a plan white pair of panties and bra, I wonder if it’s the first time since being ‘Sadie’ that I’ve foregone wearing anything that shows off my body. A glance at the mirror shows that I’m still me, that I’m still attractive and obviously feminine, but at least I’m not flaunting it.

I barely get my first suitcase up and start unpacking it when Sara steps into my room. “Sadie, I ended the stream. I couldn’t keep going knowing that something was wrong. What’s wrong?”

I consider pushing this further off, telling myself that I’m not ready to talk about it. What changes my mind is realizing just how much money Sarah is leaving on the table by ending her stream. I don’t know what she makes on a late week mid-afternoon stream, but it’s not nothing. And she’s doing that without knowing what’s wrong. She’s doing it just from how I looked and acted.

Turning around I sit on my bed and gesture for Sarah to take my computer chair. I’m surprised by exactly how much detail there is, but I don’t leave any of it out. I make sure to leave in all the things I did wrong, how this was mostly my fault. But I also don’t sugar coat how it makes me feel. How it makes me feel used and changed and that I’ll never be able to be a man again. I don’t cry outright, but tears flow down my cheeks, again feeling like they’re being squeezed out of me.

When I finally get to returning home, and cover my time here, Sarah comes over and sits next to me. I’ve been talking nonstop for hours. She doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t tell me I’m right, she doesn’t tell me that I was wronged, she doesn’t tell me that I’m a bad person, she just hugs me. I hug her back and feel better. I solved absolutely nothing, but I still feel better.

Sarah takes care of me for the rest of the night. She helps me unpack. She helps me put out some social media posts that will update my audience and let them know I still won’t be streaming. She makes dinner and cleans up. She puts on some show on TV that we can watch and laugh at, and she hugs me when those damned tears start getting squeezed out of me again.

I’m surprised when we agree it’s getting late and get ready for bed that Sarah is in her room long enough to change into a cami but comes back and not only gets me in bed but climbs in beside me. We’ve slept together before, but it was always in her room. It was always after we’d had sex… or more specifically, after I’d given her orgasms and been denied them myself. This wasn’t that. This was nice and friendly and warm. And it helped me sleep the night through without a single dream that I could remember in the morning.

In the morning Sarah keeps me to my regular weekend routine. I get up and shower, dress in some comfy basic clothes, and come out to some toast and coffee. Reaching out, Sarah takes my hand before speaking. “Look, Sadie, I get that you feel bad. Hurt. That you look at this as your fault and that you see it as ruining your life. But let’s look at this piece by piece. I don’t want to take anything away from your emotions, as they’re yours and no one can say that they’re wrong but let’s look at this without the emotions.”

“You said that you should have known what was going to happen. What Marley was going to do. I think you’re close, but a little off. I think you DID know. I don’t care how drunk you were, those were well beyond hints and double entendres. Chocolate in your mouth? He’s going to take good care of you? You’re his special girl and he wants to be the type of man that… something? He’s got you and is gonna take good care of his girl?”

Sarah makes a face of disbelief at me. “A girl that’s used to being hit on, a girl that’s been hit on for years and years and is used to boys boasting and saying things that they aren’t taking seriously, might have misinterpreted all of that. Especially when she’s drunk. But you’re not used to that type of talk. It might have bypassed your conscious mind, but what he said would have registered. Registered in your basic lizard brain. And that part of you not only heard it and understood it… it liked it.”

Sarah keeps talking, running right over my feeble attempts to protest what she’s saying. “Look, inebriation reduces your inhibitions. But it doesn’t change them. It made you open to the possibility of being romantically involved, or at least physically, sexually, involved with Marley. Only when it started to actually happen did you freak out. And even then, you didn’t really freak out. You didn’t scream or flail or run. You tried to get up and step away. You were concerned about how HE felt, over how you felt being in a sexual situation as a girl.”

Sarah’s explanation is like a lot of her psychological speak. I don’t agree with it, but I also can’t find any fault in it. Nodding slowly, I voice my opinion, “I don’t like what that means. What it boils down to. But I can’t argue against that explanation sounding… right? A part of me knew what Marley was saying and doing but didn’t do anything about it. That part of me was, at the very least, curious.”

We continue talking about it, Sarah keeping the discussion in the realm of psychology and objective facts and leaving out any emotional responses on my part. When I focus on hot it made me feel, she acknowledges my feelings, but says we want to look at it with clear eyes and pushes past my feelings. Her final suggestion is an experiment of sorts.

While we’re washing the dishes Sarah lays out her experiment. “I think you should be open to thinking of yourself as a girl. As a woman. Of having sex with a man. Not with ANOTHER man, because you won’t be a man in this situation. You’ll be a girl having sex with a boy. We haven’t played with that in our sex. When we have sex, you’re you. A mix of Nick and Sadie. And you’re having sex with me, a sexy girl. ANOTHER girl. This isn’t something that we can exactly simulate with your devotionals either, although they can put you through your paces so that these scenarios aren’t new in your head.”

We go back and forth for a while on what exactly her experiment means, and it becomes clear that Sarah is working off of a new script. This isn’t something she’s planned or intended for me. She doesn’t know exactly how to proceed. When I finally chime in, realizing that my mind hasn’t absolutely tanked the idea on any pre-existing principal, I do so hesitantly and quietly, “I… I think I could try that. I mean, I agree with everything you’re saying in theory and believe we should experiment with it in practice. But until I get my head around this, about how I feel, I can’t do that with Marley. Even thinking about him makes me shake and feel violated. And I don’t know anybody else that we could experiment with. I’m including Louis in that as I’m already experimenting with him on the emotional side.”

We agree to think about it more but more than anything else, to give me time and space to process everything that’s happened.

The weekend goes by normally and I finally get some streams going. I make them simple gaming streams, not really wanting to interact with the audience but feeling it’s necessary that I get myself out there and show them that I’m not gone. The financials of the streams are pathetic, even though they’re way more than I’d ever thought possible as ‘Nicholas the Great’. But then again, I can’t seem to dress up as sexily as Princess BabyDoll has recently and without the interaction, I’m not encouraging them or teasing my audience, both of which would have gotten the whirlwind of tips up.

Sunday night, Sarah tells me that she tried a couple more times to talk to Dr. Lacy but without giving any information about me, the patient, her office wouldn’t give her any information about Dr. Lacy. Just that they’d take a message. Monday morning, I use the time allocated for my exercise to do some stretches and cardio, not nearly as effectively without Marley to help guide me, and then call into Dr. Lacy’s office. I don’t beat around the bush this time and give them my name and tell them that I’m a patient of Dr. Lacy’s. I tell them that I have some questions for her regarding the procedure but don’t mention anything about hormones or what I think may be going on as that’s something I want to talk to her in person about.

When I end the call, I’m shaking and angry and end up throwing my phone across the kitchen. Sarah comes out, picks up my phone, and sits down next to me with her eyebrows raised. I honestly feel better that she’s simply giving me space and not immediately demanding that I open up to her. If she did that, I probably would have choked up, but by giving me space I felt okay letting her know that I learned Dr. Lacy is on sabbatical leave to Thailand for a research project and won’t be back until January. I was offered the possibility of sitting with one of her colleagues who has done the fat grafting procedure themselves.

We chat about it and go through our new set of options. I still insist that we can’t just stop the hormones. The more I read about it, the more I read the importance of maintaining doses with a doctor’s input. That leave paying the exorbitant fee and seeing Dr. Stevenson again, seeing my hometown doctor, or waiting for Dr. Lacy. We quickly eliminate Dr. Stevenson as we both doubt we’ll get earnest help when we believe he may be the one that screwed up. We reluctantly eliminate my hometown doctor as I’m just too afraid of this getting to Dad and Dallas.

That leaves waiting until January. Over a month and a half of continued possible hormonal changes.