The problem with being poor is that is sucks to be poor. Money may not buy happiness but it can rent a whole bunch of shit that makes being unhappy tolerable.
My job at Mariner’s is a godsend. It makes no sense that a person with a law degree and me both make the same pay. Mid thirties per year and Cara is on the hook for tuition loans. We started out with her offering me solace and a place to stay and it turns out that my salary is keeping us afloat, barely. Not that I care about that shit. Simon/Sasha and Leah have dumped the both of us and decamped for LA. No good byes, no I’m sorry, just fucking gone leaving me and Cara alone, broke and struggling to survive.
My friends from high school have moved on and Cara’s friends are scattered all over the place. My parents kicked me out for banging my Aunt Leah and Cara’s family has ghosted her ever since she moved to Fort Lauderdale. It’s a recurring theme for me. Why do some people get nice parents and a good family while mine and Cara’s suck donkey dick?
As usual, we ate dinner on the couch. NBC Nightlty News, Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy, then into bed. At five, I woke up and prepared coffee and breakfast for Cara. I’m not a slave. I want to do this for her. She is selfless and giving of herself. I would do anything to help her succeed.
I’m now totally fem. Onlookers think that Cara and I are lesbians, me cute, blond and skinny. Cara, red curly hair and built like a brick shithouse, but they are wrong. I have a penis. We make love at least twice each day. First thing in the morning and the last thing we do at night.
Cara signed a three year commitment as a prosecutor at a dirt cheap salary. Her pay was shit, but she would get the real deal. Prosecuting felony cases. I sat in on some of her trials dressed in disguise. She was a pitbull. Cara looked straight into the eyes of the jury members defying them to disagree.
Cara got thirty three convictions in a single year with two acquittals and the majority taking a plea bargain to avoid facing her in court.
Then came the realization that I was the wife. Cara went to work in a suit with a briefcase and I had a part time job as a waitress and I shopped, cooked and cleaned to support my husband. I had a penis but was dressed in a sexy little mini dress with not a stitch underneath so that she would be happy to see me when she crossed the threshold into our apartment.
I don’t drink because it makes me depressed, but I took a glass of white wine to the balcony to think. Leah professed to love me until she dumped me for Sasha. Cara tells me she loves me but I am dumping all my money into keeping us above water until something better comes along. Am I being used? Again?
The business card in my wallet. No, I can’t go there. The people at Mariners are like a family now. They know I’m trans, cross, or whatever I am and don’t care. Better than don’t care. They support me. A sissy femboy and not one customer suspects but the staff all know and hover over me, protecting me.
I’m early for my shift and everything is in order so I sit at the far end of the bar and order a water. Buddy slides a club soda with lime to me and takes my hand. “BeanPole is rock solid. Trust him.”
BeanPole is a former tennis photographer with an entire wiki page. He gained the trust of the best of the tennis world for his amazing photography as well as his digression. BeanPole had compromising photos of the elite tennis players on his memory card and he never sold a single one to the tabloids. This got him complimentary first class airfare and VIP passes to all the grand slam tennis events. He shot the calendars for the biggest names in the sport and got paid in the seven figures.
It was easy to see why his nickname was BeanPole. Six foot six, skinny, a neck like a giraffe and shaven head, he was not someone you would likely forget. Except in your nightmares.
When he sits next to me I get very afraid. I’m small. Five Two. Skinny. Girly. I have never punched someone or been in a fight in my entire life. He is huge. Like a monster. My eyes are closed when he speaks.
“Oh, honey. I’m so sorry. I should have called ahead or made some sort of introduction. Can you please forgive me?”
Buddy puts his hand on mine to reassure me. “Bruce is my friend. You can trust him.”
I wipe the tears from my cheeks and look at the big grim reaper in the seat next to me. “Bruce?”
His blush is adorable. “Now you know why I don’t mind beanpole.”
“Hey, let’s get to the chase. I’m done with sports and I want to start into fashion. I’ve seen you here and I want to take your picture. I’m really very good. You have model good looks and with my contacts you could be gracing the runway in less that a year.”
“Bruce? I’m not doing beanpole, you don’t deserve it. I have so much going on right now that I can’t even begin to explain it to you. Me and my girlfriend are struggling to keep our heads above water. It’s all I can to to pay the bills and keep her happy. You seem really sweet but I’m afraid my answer is a hard no.”
Bruce looked off to the side and I took stock in my appearance. I had recently washed my tennis shoes, my uniform shorts and polo shirt were clean and pressed but I didn’t see anything that someone would want to look at. I know I got looks but it was because I was young, blonde and naive.
“Bruce? I really think you should leave.”
At seven-thirty I knew Cara was on her way home so I made a romaine salad with all the fixings and some sliced roasted turkey on top. Then I got nervous and warmed up some leftover homemade clam chowder. When nine o’clock came and went and she was not home, I poured myself a glass of merlot knowing that I wouldn’t enjoy it, but I did it anyway.
Cara never came home that night. If you find yourself too tired to drive home and decide to spend the night with a fried, you call home. If you don’t it’s because you are fucking.
Reality check. My parents have disowned me. My ex-lover Leah has moved and ghosted me.
Now the person I have put everything on the line for is sleeping with someone else.
We had five days left on the monthly rent so I logged into my bank account and canceled my autopay.
She used to give me a check every month for her half of the rent but the last two times she made an excuse and left it all to me. Plus the groceries. And the cooking. And cleaning up and making the bed and doing laundry. She went to work and came home to dinner that I cooked and paid for.
I found a room in this cheap and scary hotel. It had been condemned but the owners were in court fighting it and I had no idea why. It was a dump but located in prime real estate. They should have razed it and sold that land. I later found out that they qualified to house section eights and the government tit oozed golden milk. On the ground floor was a hard core alky bar offering 4 for 1 drinks and the place was filled from noon when they opened until 1 am when they closed.
My neighbors didn’t even bother to close their doors since their drinking buddies would show up at all hours of the night with a bottle of booze. The woman across the hall fell asleep regularly totally naked in her easy chair. It was a miracle she never got raped although she may have been and not sober enough to notice. Her name was Diane and when she was sober, she was nice and polite. When she got drunk, she was mean and nasty. She had a killer bod. Jet black hair and bush. Great tits and a banging ass. She had just been fired from her job as a bartender for drinking on the job and was very angry. I tried to come and go in private but seeing her stretched out on her easy chair totally nude with her big tits and hairy black bush made me linger for a minute or two as I unlocked my door and crept inside.
Thank God for my job. I know waitressing at a dive bar in Fort Lauderdale is not the pinnacle of success, but they liked me and treated me well. I got the best shifts and I was always ready to fill in for some one if they were sick or called in with an emergency. Now that I didn’t have to be home to cook dinner for Cara, I got the 4 to midnight shift, full time, and my tips nearly doubled. I was now making two hundred dollars most nights and when I went to lock my purse in the break room I heard one of the waitresses complaining to the manager that she couldn’t live on sixty bucks per night. Sarah was a doof. She would carry one thing to a table then have to run back to the kitchen for something else. She didn’t fill her salt and pepper shakers before her shift and when they ran out, she would snatch mine for her customers. Sarah made a ton of mistakes with orders. Like delivering conch salad instead of conch fritters then forget that 99.999 percent of people who order conch fritters dip them in cocktail sauce necessitating another trip to the kitchen. I kept a bus bin full on condiments on ice under the bar and once she found it she raided it constantly. Her bitch tonight was that it unfair for her to have to live on sixty bucks in tips while I made three times that. Despite the fact that we both worked the same hours and I turned over three times as many tables as she did. I should have walked away but instead I walked in when I heard her say that she wanted all the waitstaff to pool and share tips. We kept our tips, we didn’t have to pool or share them, but when someone left an outrageous tip, like a hundred bucks, we passed a ten to our friends including the buss staff. We were a family. The karma made us great.
“Sarah. The reason you don’t make what I do is because you suck as a waitress. Instead of working harder, smarter and faster, you want to take my money? It’s not going to happen. That twenty dollar tip at lunch was because Wally just sold a yacht and made a nice commission. Would you even know that? I work my ass off for this place and my customers while you just drag your sorry ass in here thinking that the world owes you a living.”
I looked at the manager. “I’m sorry George, but before I share my hard earned tips with this lazy bitch I will quit. No two weeks notice. Nothing.” I turned and walked out knowing that I had just made a huge mistake.
*****
When I found out that I could own a rifle or a shotgun but not a pistol, I bought a pump twelve gauge and waited out the three day period. I kept it under my bed. Sometimes in the night with all the screaming and arguing I pulled it out and waited for someone to bash my door in. I’m eighteen, skinny and blond and for everyone to see, a girl. I’m rape bait and I know it. I have to get out of this place soon. Either I get raped, killed or God knows what, but I have to leave and soon.
I was sorting my tips in the break room when Bruce came in.
“I hear you are living at Pirates.” Seriously. The name of the place is Pirate’s Inn. On the corner of US1 and Dania Beach Boulevard and as decrepit and scary as it gets. I guess I took a room there because I was so beat down after scoring a total zero on my only two relationships that I was punishing myself.
That stung. The place was as far down as one could get. I could not respond.
“Sling your bag. You are coming home with me.”
Bruce had a cute house in Dania. A three two with a two car garage and a very hot Ukrainan wife. I had seriously under judged him.
Then his teen age kids came out. Petra was his wife and he had two kids in high school. You could have knocked me over with a feather. Daughters, eighteen and fifteen. That would put Bruce at perhaps thirty-seven. I had pegged him at twenty-nine.
“This is Jodi. Her girlfriend bailed on her and she was shacking up at Pirates. I couldn’t let her stay there so I hope it’s okay if she can stay here until we get her a better place to live.”
Petra wrapped me in her arms. “Of course, she can stay with us. Kids, take her bags to the guest bedroom.”
The bags I didn’t have. I only had a few changes of clothes and they were all back at the shit hole hotel. Petra realized her mistake and corrected herself. “Nevermind. Katrina, show Jodi to the bathroom. I’m sure she would love a nice hot shower after work.”
After a hot shower and getting dressed in Katrina’s flannel pajamas I fell into the bed and was out like a light. The blinds had been pulled and when I saw the clock I was amazed that it was eight thirty in the morning. I usually woke at dawn.
Everyone was at the table sharing breakfast and I was the last person out of bed. When I pulled my hair from my face I remembered that Katrina had got me dressed last night in her flannel pajamas. I was so worn out that I didn’t think to hide myself from her and I wasn’t sure if she looked at me close enough to realize that I had junk down there.
Petra handed me a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich on a whole wheat English muffin. With a cup of coffee and a glass of water, I was in heaven. Skreech to a halt. I’m at my workmates house. With his adorable family. Having breakfast. Talk about uncomfortable.
Petra’s first language was Ukrainian, then Russian, then English. So when she asked me “Jodi, darling, are you trans or whatever?” I almost didn’t understand her with her accent.
We were at the table with Bruce, Petra and their two daughters Katrina and Chloe so I didn’t have any way to deflect. It was time to come clean.
“My name is Jodi. I was born a boy but I choose to live as a girl. I’m not gay. I am only attracted to women but my last two and only relationships have turned out badly. My parents don’t understand and I don’t have any friends to fall back on. Your husband has been my rock. I’m so happy for you. He is a truly amazing person.”
Bruce, aka Bean Pole, drove me to work. I had never worked the morning shift and was surprised at how many people came in. The place was packed and we had a tiny break before the lunch bunch and then the afternooners came in and then the dinner crowd.
I had never worked fifteen hours straight at anything and when I pulled out the wads of cash from my apron I was astonished. The bills just kept spilling out. Spreading them out on the formica table I tried to stack them but there were too many to count.
Bruce, beanpole, came into the break room. “Put that shit away. It’s time to go home.”
He shook my shoulder. We were at his place and I had been sound asleep. “Wake up buttercup.”
I managed to shower and fall into bed. When I felt someone slide into bed with me I barely woke up. Who could it be? Bruce? Not likely. He was in love with his wife Petra. Who else was left? When I smelled her coconut and pineapple conditioner I knew it was Katrina.
Katrina in my bed. This could not happen. Her father and mother had taken me in to protect me and the last thing I wanted to do was have sex with their daughter. Does Katrina even know that I have boy stuff down there? If she is gay this is going to be a big letdown for her.
At two AM I was not ready to get out of bed so I turned toward Katrina and put my arm over her and our faces came together. I smelled her breath and she smelled mine. She draped her arm over me in her sleep and my face ended up in her armpit. It was a little stinky but in a nice way. At this point I did something that I really regret. Since she was so deeply asleep I slipped my hand into her panties and felt her thick bush. Gently, I rubbed my hand over it trying not to wake her up. I shot my load as I molested her under the covers. I was so ashamed that I slid out of bed and spent the rest of the night on the carpet beside the bed.
In the morning I was so deeply ashamed that I could not meet anyone’s eyes. I had violated their daughter and exceeded the limits of decency. I was a piece of shit. Dressed in Bruce and Petras daughters hand me downs I had done something so despicable that I wanted to die.
Katrina came in and kissed her mom and dad and dragged me out onto the deck in the back yard. “Don’t be such a dork. I was awake. I wanted you to touch me. It took everything for me to not jump on you. Jodi, if you want a girlfriend, I’m ready and waiting. But, the next time you jack off, I want to be there, not pretending to be asleep.”