It's been a week since I last checked in, which is an eternity compared to how much posting I was doing here after my transformation. There's something to that -- for a long while, I was considering myself Tom, just in the form of Kiara. So I looked different to the world, which reacted to me a certain way, but all my actions were my own, in pursuit of my own agenda.
Almost the second I set foot in North Carolina, that changed. Here I'm not a reporter, here I'm not a man, here I'm not even an adult in the eyes of the law. Here I'm exactly what I appear to be on the outside... as far as anyone is concerned.
I arrived "home" unceremoniously after splurging on a lyft to take me the final leg. Nondescript little house on a nondescript little block with overgrown grass and weeds and dated walkway stones and a chainlink fence. I entered, toting my luggage, armpits (and underboobs) pooled with sweat to the sound of dogs barking, which made me tense. Rottweiller-German Shepherd and Pitbull-Lab mixes came through the house to enthusiastically greet me. Friendly... they certainly like this body and took it on themselves to jam their noses in an area I am, personally, not yet on a first-name basis with. I was never a dog person, they were too disorderly for my mom so I convinced myself I didn't like them either. I pushed past the pooches into the cluttery, dimly-lit living room area, with oversized recliner-based furniture.
I called out feebly, "I'm home!" and a woman's voice called back, "I know!" This is Kiara's mom, Jen. She's only a couple of years older than my natural age, but looks older than it because, as you can imagine, she started young and time took its toll. She emerged from the back kitchen area holding the baby -- little Sienna.
"About time," she huffed.
Straight away, she handed me the kid. I hesitated but I read the confusion on her face and realized, this is my lot now. I held the girl up to get a good look at her -- I'd seen pictures but nothing compares to real life. Little black dot eyes. Chubby cheeks. Round head, chubby little limbs. I held her up like Simba.
"What are you looking at?" Jen asked in her husky southern accent.
"I... haven't seen her, in a while." I moved to a more natural holding position. I had been googling "how to hold baby" and "what to do with baby" and all sorts of tips in my spare time, but it all flew out of my head the second she was actually in front of me and I was convinced I was going to hold her wrong and her little head was going to roll off her shoulders. I also felt strange about lying, about playing as Kiara... sure I had done it for the lunkhead beach partiers in Maine but this was different.
Taking no note of my disorientation, Jen sighed, "You could have called to say you were close."
"I was pretty overwhelmed," I said. I'd had a busy morning, returning my rental at the DC chapter and then getting a bus to Raleigh. Noticing the soreness welling up in my boob again, I said, "I think I need to go pump."
"Why the heck would you do that?" Jen narrowed her eyes at me. "She's right here."
I looked at the baby. The baby looked at me.
"I... guess it's feeding time... isn't it," I said with dread.
"She'll be happy," Jen said as she took a seat and put her feet up, then grunted about her back.
I excused myself to go up to where I thought my bedroom was, opening several wrong doors in the process before I decided this was it -- the room of a 17-year-old girl, with country music posters on the wall, and even an acoustic guitar, along with other ephemera: a few trophies, lots of hair brushes and other cosmetic products, some of which I even know what to do with.
I sat on the bed and set the baby on my lap. It was kind of a struggle to manage her and disrobe but I made it work. "Boy this feels weird," I said when my boobs were out, in a spectacular understatement.
Then I pressed the baby's lips to my nipple and just like that, she latched on and started to suck. Like it was the most natural thing in the world (which I suppose it literally is.)
I just watched her go to town on my boob and got lost in thought. How on Earth did I get here. How is this my life. What do I do now. I felt myself getting overwhelmed at the moment. I got sniffly thinking about how this little baby's mother was gone and I was all that was left. Poor kid.
"Fuck... fuck..." I murmured through tears. I didn't think I would get emotional. But it all felt extremely heavy in that moment. The responsibility. The hormones racing through me. The undeniably personal, delicate and intimate feeling of a life depending on your body. I have to get this person back into her proper life, for Sienna's sake.
Once I figured she had had her fill, I burped her, which was a much more difficult matter than inducing her to feed, then lay with her on my bare chest a while, just contemplating the moment.
In some ways, this felt like the end of Tom Nishimura, at least as he was. Even if I get my own body back, I can never not be the guy who did this. I'll be responsible for myself and for Sienna for the time being. Effectively, I am Kiara.
Don't get me wrong, I'm still me, I'll still be signing my name here as such, but... it was a heavy realization that what it meant to be Tom, up until a few weeks ago, is no more. How do I link that with what I have to do and be as Kiara? And one day, when I'm not her anymore, I will always have been her.
That's what I've been struggling with so far. I wanted to give you all my first impressions the moment I walked in the door, and explain everything else I've learned about being this person, but personal time is hard to come by right now, so I'm just processing.
-Tom/Kiara
No comments:
Post a Comment