ALL NOVEL 17. Alone Time (Amy)
After all the nonstop craziness of the weekend, Monday was relatively quiet. So was the first half of Tuesday.
Tess and I woke up with her alarm at eight Monday morning, she had a shower and got ready for work while I pulled on some clean clothes from my backpack. Then I warmed up my left-over left-overs and she made toast and microwaved some bacon and we ate breakfast together. She did her make-up, and at ten o'clock I drove her to the clinic where she worked as an intern and an assistant.
On my way home I stopped at a local mall and picked up a birthday card for Hailey, along with a bottle of her brand of vodka. It was half past eleven when I got home, and happily Mike was out so I had the place to myself.
I had a leisurely shower then spent the day sort of cataloguing all the changes that happened to my life since Friday, including having another look through all my clothes and stuff.
There were no calls or emails from work asking where I was or yelling at me for being late, so I assumed that meant either I didn't have that job anymore, or they didn't care enough to call me up and fire me. Either way it was a bit of a relief, one less thing to worry about.
I was a little anxious when Mike got home Monday evening, but even that turned out to be so normal as to be almost weird. Like he just didn't seem to care about how I changed into a girl. He was annoyingly happy and positive about it though, and he kept bugging me about 'scoring a hot girlfriend' so quickly. Fortunately he didn't ask for any graphic details.
That led to some mixed feelings and the best I could do was tell him I wasn't going to talk about that stuff. I couldn't bring myself to deny any of it, because even if Tess and I weren't actually dating and we weren't really girlfriends, I didn't want to rule that out as a possibility.
Despite how I felt about things at first on Saturday morning, me and Tess spent all weekend together and I knew I liked her. I wasn't so sure if she liked me though, or if she was just doing all this stuff and being so helpful out of a sense of guilt or responsibility.
I figured once we'd sorted everything out, or at least solved as many of those questions on my list as we could, then maybe she and I could work out whether we were going to be friends or maybe even something more.
Tuesday morning I slept in a bit, then after Mike left I decided to spend a little time getting more familiar with my new body. I'd already learned a lot Saturday night with Tess, but now I wanted to figure out how to do some of that stuff myself.
It was even better than I'd imagined, better than all the times I daydreamed about it, and I wound up staying in bed till noon. I might have just spent the whole day doing that in fact, but I had things to do.
On the other hand, I didn't have to be anywhere for a few more hours, so my shower ended up taking about twice as long as normal as I took the opportunity for a little more self-exploration.
It wasn't till about half past two when I was finally dressed. Saturday I was in jeans and a t-shirt, Sunday I tried leggings, yesterday I was back in jeans, but today I wanted to experiment again. And I figured I should dress up slightly, since it was my sister's birthday and all that.
I picked out a cute powder-blue knee-length skirt, and a tight lavender t-shirt. When it came to footwear I was really tempted to try one of the pairs of heels, but I had some practical concerns. Mostly because I'd never worn heels before. In the end I opted for a pair of cute white running shoes with purple accents.
And in the spirit of experimentation, I dug that lipstick out of my purse and very carefully applied it to my lips. I'd seen other girls do that enough to know how it was done, but I was still a bit worried I'd mess it up. I figured Tess would sort me out if I got it badly wrong.
Finally I looked at myself in the mirror on my closet door, and I couldn't not smile. Damn I was cute! The lipstick was a dark red, it was like a serious contrast against my fair skin, the pale lavender of my top, my silver hair, everything.
And wearing a skirt was an amazing new feeling. In a way it felt like I was still half naked, like there was nothing covering my legs, except now and then I felt the skirt swish against them.
With a grin I did a couple twirls, then let out a happy giggle. It was every bit as amazing as the memes said. Skirt really did go spinny!
About the only thing that wasn't perfect was my hair, it was still damp after the shower. I figured it'd be dry on its own by the time we got to my parents place. Or maybe Tess would help out again with that. And I knew I'd have to get a hair dryer sooner rather than later. I wanted to get more make-up too and learn how to do it right. But all that could wait.
I exchanged a few texts with my sister, she confirmed she'd aim to get there just before five. I wanted her there before me, so I didn't have to face my parents without back-up. Hailey reminded me she was bringing a date, she said not to worry though, Alex was cool and wouldn't freak out about me being trans and all that stuff. And I confirmed that I'd have Tess with me.
Then I texted Tess and let her know I was setting out and would be at her place in about an hour. And finally at quarter to three I slipped behind the wheel of my car and hit the road.
Traffic wasn't so bad yet, I was ahead of rush-hour. I got to Tess's place just after three-thirty, and went inside to see her.
"Wow," she grinned as she opened the apartment door. "Look at you!"
Her eyes moved up and down over me as she took in the skirt and the tight little top, and my attempt at lipstick.
I grinned and felt a little blush in my cheeks, but I did a twirl for her. I was still enjoying that spinny skirt thing, and Tess suppressed a giggle.
She obviously knew the meme as she actually said it, "Skirt goes spinny, I see."
I blushed a little brighter but nodded, "It does. And it feels really nice."
Tess looked really good too. She was wearing a cute dark-green sundress, it had short loose frilly sleeves and a deep scoop neck, then the skirt part was loose and ended above her knees. Her make-up was pretty but subtle, and her hair was done up nice.
"How long before we have to set out?" she asked.
We both settled down on her sofa as I replied, "I definitely don't want to get there early, and it's probably only forty-five minutes from here? So let's wait till quarter after four."
She agreed, and we passed the time talking and catching up on the last day and a half. It was kind of funny, we'd literally only been apart for less than thirty hours but to me at least it felt like two or three days.
And neither of us really had anything to report. I told her about Mike's ongoing non-reaction to all this stuff, and mentioned that work never called or emailed to ask why I didn't show up. Things were just as quiet and dull for Tess, except she'd been going over her granny's stuff yet again in hopes of finding some clues. She also did web searches to see if there was anything about the goddess since we'd figured out her name, but that was another dead end.
"It's a total guess," she said with a sigh, "But I have a feeling the Goddess was probably a very localized deity? Maybe she was patron of a small village, or possibly even a single family? Either that or she's been kept secret so well that nobody's ever heard of her. And all we have to go on is the name, and what I know about my gran? So I've been searching for Amethyst, and searching for pre-christian Irish cultural and spiritual stuff. And there's a lot of that, but it's mostly about fairies and fae. There's a few dozen Irish or Gaelic Gods and Goddesses, but none of them were named Amethyst."
I commented, "It doesn't even sound like an Irish name, to be honest."
Tess agreed, "No, it's not. I looked that up too. It comes to English via Old French, Latin, and originally Greek."
"So maybe not an Irish goddess at all?" I asked. "Maybe she's from ancient Rome, or ancient Greece?"
"Maybe," she agreed. "And stuff like that can definitely travel? Like the Romans adopted a lot of Greek Gods, they gave them Roman names but they were more or less the same? And the Romans conquered or occupied like half of Europe, so there was lots of opportunity for that knowledge to travel with them. Anyways, I'm not going to give up on it. But it's definitely not going to be as easy as finding her entry on Wikipedia."
I giggled a little at that, "If we do find these answers we should totally set up an entry for her."
Both Tess and I had a little fun with that idea, and talked some more before it was time to get moving again.
I was already starting to feel the anxiety again as the two of us got into the car, and by the time we were actually on the road I was tense enough that she could see it.
"Try not to get too uptight ok Amy?" she said in a compassionate voice "I know it's scary, and I know it's going to be difficult, but try and remember you've got people on your side, right? I'll be there with you, and Hailey will be there too. We're both going to back you up."
I grimaced, "Thanks Tess. It's just scary. I don't even think it's the trans stuff that's worrying me anymore? It's explaining the magic, the overnight transition. That's what's got me on edge."
Traffic was already getting heavy, with people heading home from work and everything. Luckily we were kind of going against the flow, my parents lived south of Tess's place in a sort of bedroom community just west of the city. We got there just a couple minutes after five. I was relieved to see Hailey's car in the driveway, and I parked across the street on the side of the road.
My phone pinged with a couple texts just before I parked the car, so I dug it out of my purse to check who'd messaged me. Meanwhile Tess was looking around at the houses.
My folks weren't rich, but they were definitely in the upper part of upper middle class. Dad was really successful as a dentist, and my granddad was as well. And my mom's dad had done really well as a lawyer. Basically I was the loser in a family of overachievers.
"They're from Hailey," I announced as I read the texts. "Letting me know she's there and she's already warned my parents that I came out to her on Sunday. She didn't mention the magic at all. She says they're concerned and have questions, but they're not angry, not freaking out."
Tess looked surprised and a little uneasy as she asked, "Are you ok with her telling them that?"
I smiled, "Heck yeah. If they were raging or freaking out then I'd just turn around and leave. It means one less thing I have to deal with myself."
Looking at my phone again I continued, "She also said she's already briefed her date, so Alex won't freak out about any of this stuff and should back us all up as well. And finally, she says mom said not to bother knocking, we should just head straight around the side and let ourselves into the backyard."
"Ok," she replied. After a few moments she asked, "So should we go see them?"
Despite having Tess and Hailey and maybe even Alex all backing me up, I was still nervous as heck.
I gulped, "Ok... Let's go."
We emerged from the car together, I had my purse over my left shoulder and grabbed my sister's gift from the back seat. My heart was racing a little as I led Tess across the street to my parents' house. We went around the side, then I reached up to open the gate. My cheeks went red as I realized I couldn't reach the latch anymore. The fence and gate were both about six feet high, and the latch was just far enough below the top of the gate that I couldn't get to it.
After a few attempts I sighed and looked at Tess, "Um, could you get the gate please? I can't reach the latch anymore."
She smiled slightly but didn't comment. She just reached over and opened it on her first try, then pushed the gate open and stepped back so I could go through first.
"Thanks Tess," I said quietly, but I was still blushing brightly.
We closed the gate again behind us, then after a couple deep breaths I led her around the side of the house and into the backyard. Tess and I both stopped there for a moment as my nerve faltered.
Everyone was on the big wood deck overlooking the pool. Dad was fiddling around with the BBQ, probably just getting it ready since it was too early to start cooking yet. Mom sat on one of the wicker chairs, while Hailey and a tall attractive brunette girl were sitting together on the wicker sofa. When I heard the name Alex I assumed my sister was talking about a guy, but apparently not.
Hailey spotted me first and waved as she called out a little louder than necessary, "Hi Amethyst! Hi Theresa! C'mon, join the party!"
Mom and dad's heads both swung around towards me. Their eyes went wide and their jaws hung slack as they stared, while Hailey added loudly, "Looking good sis, I love that skirt!"
