The Objectively Most Rational Decision

-- Day 174 --

"I just gotta say, you look so good I almost can't tell you're not a real girl," grinned the man - Albert? Alfred? Maybe just Al - as if that were somehow a compliment.

Urk. Yeah, exactly what I wanted to be reminded of, dude. I bit back a grimace, instead smiling as believably as I could.

This dipshit sucked. I knew that going in, though, and romance wasn't the point of this stupid date: I was here to get laid. A few weeks ago, I had decided I was done moping about how much of a mess I had made of my first relationship, and focused on moving on.

To that end, I had created a Grindr account a few weeks ago, and managed to find some loser desperate enough for girldick - but also not too pushy about skipping straight to the sex part - to go out with me.

I bought a new dress, dolled myself up as best as I could with my now several months of practice doing makeup, and he told me I still look a guy. Just what every girl wanted to hear, right?

We were at some stupid bar. I'd never been to a place like this before - the atmosphere was uncomfortable at best, and I felt over-exposed in my cute LBD (little black dress, if you didn't know).

On the plus side, there was alcohol. I liked the rum and coke, because it tasted like coke. I didn't really care for the rum part, but it helped get me drunk enough to care less about this dumbass' brain and more about his dick.

"So... like, do ya still have it?" he asked, eyes gleaming like he was really invested in my answer... unfortunately, I didn't know what he was even talking about.

"Huh?"

"Ya know, like," he mimed a chopping motion, "didja get it snipped?"

"What... you mean my dick...?"

"Yeah!"

Wow, I suddenly got the inexplicable urge to jump off a cliff. That wasn't even how bottom surgery worked, moron. They don't cut it off, they take all the bits out and then turn it inside out. My fake smile grew a little weaker.

"Uh... no, I still have it. Can we- um, how about we talk about, uh, you for a bit?" I needed him to stop talking about my penis. It was not sexy.

Despite making the suggestion, I didn't listen to a single word he had to say about himself. Blah blah blah, I'm so cool, I have a job, blah blah blah - who gives a shit? Instead, I stared a hole in his face. Damn it, he wasn't as cute as Sean - his hair was limp and unkempt, his arm muscles looked disproportionate to the rest of his body, he smelled, and I still couldn't remember his name. Allister? Didn't matter!

I was getting a little dizzy. Maybe I drank too much. More importantly I had to pee, and this dude needed to shut up, already.

Wait... wait... wait... there! He stopped talking for a second, and I jumped in, "Excuse me, but I have to, ah, uh, use the ladies' room."

He shrugged and winked in an exaggerated manner, "Just don't get caught!"

Happy thoughts, happy thoughts, happy- this guy should take a fucking class on how not to say the stupidest shit imaginable. Fuck!

Women's restrooms looked like men's restrooms, but without the urinals. What a shocker. I rushed into a stall and made sure to sit down this time - it still hadn't become a habit, but the last thing I wanted to happen was for someone to hear the sound of me peeing and infer that I wasn't a perfectly normal cis girl.

I looked in the mirror as I was washing my hands after. What did he see? What feature clocked me? Was it my eyebrows? Was I just shitty at makeup still? Oh God, did I have a bit of stubble showing?

The door swung open. I glanced over; some girl I didn't know in a tan trenchcoat, fedora, and sunglasses. Weird outfit, but okay. I was hoping to brush past her and, you know, leave the bathroom, but her hand reached out in front of my abdomen.

"Hello, Eris," she raised her sunglasses. Hey, wait, I did know her: Sean's sister, Quinn Murphy.

"Wh- uh, hi?"

"Nice night, isn't it?" she asked, voice cool and deliberately paced. I had no idea what she was doing.

"Um. Yeah. I guess. What are- what are you doing here?"

"Well... I would say this meeting is a coincidence, but it's not. I need you to fix something."

"...Okay, uh, how did you know where I am...?" was this bitch actually stalking me? I was almost flattered, if I weren't also extremely weirded out.

She paused, eyes staring into the distance like she was witnessing some flashback that I was not privy to. Was she gonna... answer the question?

"Let's cut to the chase, Eris," she dropped whatever bit she was doing - I think? - and started speaking like a normal person - an angry normal person, at least, as she jabbed her finger in my sternum, "I need you to tell Sean that the breakup was not his fault, because-"

I blurted, "Why are you wearing a trench-?"

"-Sean ruined Christmas with his moping, and it's all your fault, and-"

"No, seriously. You don't have to get dressed up in a whole ass costume to stalk someone."

She furrowed her eyebrows like she was constipated, "I- I thought it'd be- nope, doesn't matter! Sean's miserable because he thinks you're gonna hurt yourself or something, and you're out here going on a date like nothing happened!"

I made the executive decision to drop the trenchcoat thing, once the words she was saying managed to penetrate my bafflement. I frowned, annoyed at her presumptions, and replied, "Well... it's going fucking terribly, does that make you feel better?"

"You're still going on a date, though, so clearly-"

"Ugh!" I groaned, "Don't give me that shit, 'cause that dude fucking sucks. Oh my God, he couldn't stop talking about my dick."

"Um, gross."

I missed Sean. He was way better than Al in every way, and he never talked about my penis. I had hoped that, by breaking up with him, he could move on and find someone way better than me. As usual, I'd made a mess instead. Fuck. He was worried about me? I had screamed in his face!

Before I knew to hold them in, tears began falling down my face. Damn it. Damn it, damn it, damn it! Why did I ruin everything I touched?! I never should have met Sean fucking Murphy, because I just couldn't resist pulling him into my shit!

"Woah, uh, are you okay?" Quinn asked.

"...No."

"I'm sorry for being all accusatory. It's just, the aestheti- agh, nevermind. I shouldn't have been like that. Uh... do you want a hug?"

"...No."

"Okay..."

Another person walked into the bathroom. This time, I actually didn't know them.

"Maybe we should, uh, move somewhere else?" Quinn grimaced.

I nodded.

***

"Okay, uh... that was a lot."

I stared down at the frosty wood chips below, watching as they shrank away from me before I swung back down, kicking them up into the air. The chain creaked under my weight, and I vaguely wondered if the swing was going to collapse. It wasn't designed for adults, after all.

We had egressed the bar about an hour ago, now. On my way out, I made sure to make something clear to my date: "Pro tip, dude. Next time you date a trans girl, don't mention her dick!"

Then we left, and wandered around until finally sitting down to talk at this abandoned playground.

"Sorry. I... I don't know why I said all that," I mumbled. God, my hands were cold. I guessed that was why you shouldn't hold onto freezing metal.

For some stupid reason, the alcohol I drank earlier had broken the dam that was holding all the things I hated about myself safely inside of my head, and I Just confessed my entire pitiable life story to my fucking ex-boyfriend's sister.

"No, it's, uh, it's fine. Can I... can I be blunt?"

"Sure..." my breath condensed in the air as I spoke.

"You, um, I think you should get therapy," Quinn grimaced.

That would probably be a good idea, but... "How could they even help? Diagnose me as AGP, tell me to stop being a weird pervert? Ugh..."

She braked from her swing and pinched the bridge of her nose, "Eris, 'AGP' isn't a real thing. You're just trans."

"That's definitely not true. I've seen plenty of-"

"On 4chan? Hate to break it to you, but the people on there don't know shit about anything."

"Hey, you do realize you're insulting me by saying that, right? Fucking rude."

"Yes."

I scowled. What gave her the right?

"Look, Eris," Quinn sighed, "I get it, kind of. Growing up can be rough when you're not like everyone else, but you need to stop telling these shitty lies to yourself, that you pick up from random assholes on the internet. It's hurting you, and more importantly, it hurt my brother."

Ugh. Ughhhhh. Shut up! It was all just some normie bluepilled bullshit, anyway. Was it? Did that matter? Ugh! I just wanted- I just wanted... I just...

Fuck, I was crying. Again.

We stayed like that for a moment. My quiet sniffles were loud against the barren winter night; neither of us spoke.

"I don't know how to be a girl. What it even means. How could I ever possibly be one?" I finally mumbled.

She shrugged, "I dunno. You just are. It's not like we're born with some innate knowledge of 'how to girl'."

"You don't get it! I- I don't think like a girl. I don't act like a girl. I... I don't even fucking look like a girl!"

"To, ah, respond in reverse order: yes you do, says who, how do you know?"

"What?"

"Like... you can only know how you think, not anybody else-"

I cut her off, "Well, there's the entire field of psychology."

She rolled her eyes, a flash of annoyance crossing her face, "No, listen to me. You can't come up with some... some profile for how women think, that all of us uniformly fit onto. It doesn't exist. Girls think like people, and people think in a lotta different ways."

Her argument made sense. It shouldn't make sense, because I shouldn't be considered a girl. I vainly attempted to find an angle to debunk what she said, but my mind was too frayed from the emotions I let out tonight. Fuck. Maybe I did think like a girl.

"I just... I... I don't deserve this."

"Deserve what?"

"To... to go to places and act like I'm just some average girl. To date guys and act like I could ever be their girlfriend. To be... happy. It's unfair. I broke up with Sean 'cause he didn't deserve me impeding on his chances to find someone who's actually worthy of him, not some weirdo acting like they're someone they're not. And I fucked that up! He's just worrying about me instead of getting over it like he's supposed to! God damn it!"

Quinn nodded slowly, like she was now sure of something, "Yup. Eris?"

"What?"

"The two of you need to talk."

"I... you're right." I needed to explain to him how he had to find someone better than me, how I wasn't worth his time.

"Good! Will you text him?"

I frowned. This wasn't the kind of thing I could just text him about. It'd be too... too... damn it, I just wanted to see his face. I replied, "No, I... I want to talk in person."

She nodded, "I get it. I'll arrange a meeting for you, then, don't worry about it. In the meantime..." she side-eyed me, "accept that you're trans!"

This again?! Despite my intentions of simply pretending to be trans until it became true in any way that mattered, I couldn't resist the urge to debunk her claim, "I'm not. Objectively not. Trans people experience gender dysphoria, and they transition to alleviate the symptoms of that. I'm just transitioning because... because I'm a fucking failure."

"...Eris, I'm pretty sure cis guys don't transition for, like, any reason. How do you feel about being a girl?"

I paused. How did I feel about being a girl? Sure, I wasn't one in actuality, but I presented to the world and engaged socially as one, so that was more a matter of pedantry than practicality. It felt... freeing, for lack of a better word. I no longer had to conform to the expectations of masculinity. I didn't have to be strong. I didn't have to be loud, or bold, or attracted to girls. I didn't have to meet the standards I had so often fallen short of. In essence: exactly my prior statement!

"It's great. I don't have to be a failure of a guy anymore."

"That's... literally one of the transest things I've ever heard. You're saying you hated being a guy?"

"Because I was bad at it. It doesn't suit my physical characteristics, or my personality."

"Okay, so, if you could just be, like, the perfect guy instead, would you prefer that?"

I imagined that: myself, tall and muscular, with sharp features and hair everywhere. Confident, charismatic, overwhelmingly masculine. The complete opposite of the real me. This impossible, imaginary version of myself made me feel...

Like throwing up. Immediately. I hated that.

Quinn clearly noticed my reaction. She smirked, "Didn't like it, huh? Looks like that's the dysphoria you definitely don't have!"

Was she right? Was it gender dysphoria that made me so disgusted at the mere idea? It couldn't be. I hated it because... because...

"Well, what do you know?" I scowled, "You're cis. You don't have any personal experience with being trans, so how would you be able to say what dysphoria is?"

"You see..." she looked directly into my eyes, "I'm trans."

"What?!" I had seen no prior indication of this. Sean had never mentioned it. Huh?!

She chuckled, suddenly, then shook her head, "No, um, I lied, sorry. Actually, my ex is trans. Neither of us knew when we started dating, though."

"Oh." I replied. That was a bit rude. Was it a joke, or something?

Regardless, I failed to see her point. "So you don't know, then." I stated.

"I mean, not firsthand, but she had a lot of brainworms like yours. I researched a lot to help her. D'you think it'd help to talk to her directly?"

Maybe it would be a good idea to do that, to compare and contrast my experiences with someone who's definitely trans - if she was, anyway - but I was strongly averse to talking to strangers.

"Um... maybe another time."

Quinn shrugged, "Cool. Um... think about it, yeah? I'll text you when and where to meet up with Sean."

"Um... okay." I replied, the conversation trailing off. It was at that moment I noticed my first incontrovertible downside of HRT was taking effect: thinner skin.

I was so fucking cold! Ow!

***

"How was your date?" asked my mom as I entered the apartment, my frozen ears hurting from the thawing warmth indoors.

It took me a few seconds to understand what she was talking about, that disaster so far removed from the forefront of my mind. I formulated a reply, "Oh, it was, uh... fine..."

"Not great?" Mom grimaced sympathetically.

That wasn't what I said, but I supposed she could read it from my tone and expression, "It's... whatever. I don't care to talk about it."

"I get it." she offered a hug, which I stiffly accepted - I had been working on that, getting more comfortable with physical contact.

"I just-" I began, but my sentence was soon interrupted by an insistent little meow. I looked down at the source of the sound, a grin unwittingly forming on my face.

Ah, yes. My cat.

***
-- Day 116 --

I was walking home from the pharmacy a week after my disastrous breakup with Sean fucking Murphy, annoyed that I had to pick up my prescription at a different time than usual to avoid encountering him.

On the upside, my estrogen dose had been increased to two milligrams sublingually twice daily, and I was given a testosterone blocker - cyproterone acetate - which I was supposed to take a quarter tablet of every other day.

A weird noise startled me out of my blank stare into the distance - sort of a pitiful squeak, but a lot louder than a mouse. I looked around for the source, but I couldn't see anything out of the ordinary. What the hell?

The squeak squeaked again, and this time I could determine the direction it came from: my right, and way down. I looked at the bush - nothing could be seen through the foliage. Crouching down, unsure why I cared enough to figure out what this is, I moved some leaves out of the way with my hand.

Cat. Kitten. It was just a little kitty - maybe two months old.

It wasn't a happy kitten, however, as it rose its hackles and started hissing as soon as I revealed it to the outside world. Despite clearly being afraid of me, the kitten wasn't making any effort to move away from me; it just sat there and continued hissing at me.

I pulled my hand back, the leaves returning to their original position. Okay. Uh. What was I supposed to do about that? I looked around again, trying to find any sign of its mother.

No dice. Shit. Uh. Um. Fuck.

There was a kitten all alone in a bush, and it didn't look like it was doing too good. I began to panic, but a plan soon began brewing in my brain. It was probably a really bad idea, but I couldn't just leave it here.

"Stay right here, little kitty!" I half-whispered, before breaking into a sprint.

My apartment was only a few minutes away. Already sweating by the time I got inside, I grabbed a decently sized, empty cardboard box from the storage room, ignoring my mom's questioning as to what I was doing.

The kitten was still there when I got back - I realized at that moment that I should've brought gloves. Could I just... grab it? I considered my options for about half a second, before shrugging and deciding to go for it.

I placed the box on the ground, and carefully pushed the leaves out of the way again - he (she?) revved up the hissing engine as soon as I did so. Alright then. Couldn't you grab a cat by the nape of the neck, or something? I tried reaching around the head, dodging the angry little teeth, before quickly scooping it up by the torso. Not exactly what I was going for, but okay.

It got a heck of a lot more scared once I did that, thrashing and trying to bite my hand. Quickly, like I was holding a hot potato, or maybe a grenade, I rushed to place her (him?) in the box. Having placed him at the bottom as gently as I could, I figured I was in the clear. Unfortunately - as I was pulling my hand back - he got a good bite in on my pointer finger.

Ow! I took a good look at it: yup, that's blood. I couldn't do anything about it here, so I did my best to pick up the box - careful not to touch it with my bitten finger - and rushed back to my apartment.

God, I was getting exhausted. I needed to exercise more.

Mom, of course, was surprised and concerned when I brought home a feral kitten while nursing a bloody finger. I managed to convince her, however, to let me keep the kitten; so long as I kept it in my room until it was comfortable around humans.

I quickly realized that my room wasn't immediately suitable for a cat to live in it. It was way too dirty!

After apologizing to the cat (I needed to figure out what to name it soon - for now I'd go with the provisional name 'Spicy') for having to be in the box longer, I grabbed a piece of ham from the fridge and broke it into little pieces, which I then scattered into the box.

With the cat satisfied for the moment, I cleaned my room as thoroughly as I could. I even swept and mopped the floor. Finally, I released Spicy.

I laid back on my bed, exhausted. There were the immediate problems dealt with. Wasn't there something I was forgetting?

Oh yeah. Litterbox.

***
-- Day 122 --

He only peed on the floor one time before I got a makeshift litterbox set up in his - also my - room. I was worried that he wouldn't know to use, and instead pee and poo all over the floor some more, but he seemed to take to it like a fish to water, or a cat to burying its bodily wastes.

I had figured out his sex, by the way. I crouched down when he was facing away from me, and noticed what looked like a pair of cat balls. Despite my best efforts, though, I couldn't yet think of a name.

It was kind of a strange thing - if you really thought about it - how we refer to our pets as 'he' or 'she' instead of 'it', based on what we've determined to be their sex. I mean, it wasn't like cats knew the difference between pronouns, or what pronouns were. They didn't have a concept of gender.

I wondered if a cat could even have an identity. Sure, they had personalities, but did they have a concept of who or what they were, as an individual? It wasn't like you could just ask them. Maybe we'd never know.

Unconcerned with my philosophizing, Spicy munched on some tuna on my outstretched hand. This was the only time he would go near me, cautiously stepping out from the safety beneath my bed for the chance to receive food, fleeing as soon as he finished, still terrified of the big, scary human around.

Hopefully, my hand-feeding would eventually make him less scared of me - you know, getting him used to my scent and all that. I felt really bad for him, being all trapped and alone in a bedroom with a creature hundreds of times bigger than you, intentions unknown. I couldn't just leave him on the street, though.

He had to like me eventually, right? I could only hope.

***
-- Day 130 --

It was happening! Holy crap, it was happening!

After two weeks of warming him up to me, Spicy had finally approached me of his own volition, without any food in my hand.

Cautiously, I reached out the palm of my hand. A moment passed, then he sniffed. Still, he didn't retreat.

Too anxious to breathe - for fear that I'd startle him - I grazed my hand against the top of his head. He thrust his head into it, my hand trailing over his ears and across his back.

Oh my God!

There was something beautiful about this moment. Here he was, finally opening up to me: no more hissing, or bitten fingers. Hell, I could even hear a quiet little purr! I began tearing up.

He let me pet him for a dozen more strokes, before finally returning to his home under my bed. This was so cool. So awesome. Oh my God, he was actually starting to like me!

I began to panic. Sure, I'd mostly gotten over this initial hurdle of familiarizing this feral kitten to humans, but there was so much more I had to do to properly care for him! I had done a lot of research on raising kittens in the past couple weeks, and quickly became overwhelmed by all the... everything. He needed to be vaccinated, and neutered, and kept healthy, and a billion other things. Fuck. I was in way over my head.

I really had no idea how to be a mom, to a cat or otherwise!

Above all else, he definitely needed a proper name. I'd been thinking about it for a while, and the name I ultimately kept coming back to was... Ares. Ari for short. You know, like the god of war, because of how much he tried to bite me. It was a perfectly fine name!

"Hi, Ares!" I smiled.

He didn't respond. Silly cat.

***
-- Day 174 --

Cut from my reverie by another, louder meow from Ares, I remarked to my mom, "Heh. Somebody's hungry."

It was the perfect change of subject. I grabbed a can of tuna and spooned half its contents into his bowl. He started chowing away. It was so cute! Well, everything he did was cute. Still.

"How's he doing?" asked my mom, "is he recovering from the- you know, getting fixed?"

I had taken Ari to the vet last week to care of the treatments he needed, including being neutered. I supposed, in a twisted sense, that we were kindred spirits now. At least, maybe after (or if) I got an orchiectomy... or a vagina...? Nope, that was too much to think about - for this year at least. Dealing with balls in panties, anyway, was really more trouble than they were worth.

The vet trip had cost a decent chunk of money that my mom had to pay, and I had been feeling really guilty about that. I needed to get an income of my own, so I could stop mooching off of my own mother. Jobs still scared me; they terrified me, even. Perhaps I could get on disability for my fucked up brain? That sounded like a stretch.

Ugh.

I lost interest in watching Ari eat his dinner, so I escaped to my bedroom. I was really freaking tired, for some reason, as I realized when I slumped into my computer chair and was already about to fall asleep. Not yet, though: I needed a bit of rest and relaxation, before taking on the monumental task of snoozing.

My life was so hard. Really!

I wasted my time watching videos that I couldn't pay attention to. My mind kept returning to my earlier conversation with Quinn. She pissed me off, but some of the things she told me kept kicking around in my brain, like she had planted the seeds of some noxious weeds inside of it.

It was too much. I didn't wanna think about it. Thinking about things was the worst.

Ari meowed. I looked down at him, and he stared back at my face. I knew what he wanted. I reached my arm down and picked him up, placing him on my computer desk. He curled up beside my mouse pad and purred loudly as I pet him, slowly drifting off.

This was something he did often; I figured it was his favourite place to nap. Was it because he got to be near me? It made me feel really good, the idea that my cat could like me enough to wanna sleep next to me.

Did I deserve that affection, though? Was I caring for him well enough? I didn't have the money for this, and I didn't want him to have to live off of my mom's income. I needed money. Money, money, money.

I required money, money required a job, a job required me to be mentally well enough to keep it - being mentally well required mental help.

Fuck. I should just get therapy. If not for my sake, then for Ares'. There was nothing that motivated me quite like the desire I had to keep my cat safe and happy. It was almost, like, motherly instincts. Maybe it was that. There weren't any genes that women had and men didn't, and I had a lot of estrogen in my system. Maybe my brain really thought that kitten was my baby.

Regardless, I would do anything for him. Including contacting a therapist, apparently. I sighed, half in resignation, and half in a hope that it would actually make things tangibly better for me. A small hope. It was unlikely.

Opening a new tab, I began researching local therapists.