Inside Out (2 page)
Authors: Ashley Ladd
Before Erica could protest, Trey delved under her vehicle and sprang out with her keys. He held them out to her. “Here you go.
Eric
? Or are you Eric’s twin sister?”
“I’m
Erica
.” She emphasised the final ‘a’ on her name. “I was the Eric you knew. My only sister is still Amber.”
Trey’s gaze dissected her, lingering on her breasts then slowly lowered to her flared hips. Finally, it came to rest at the juncture between her legs. His neck and cheeks turned a bright cherry colour and he asked, “Uh, are you, uh…”
Accustomed to the question as her younger bratty siblings and their friends often asked, she nodded.
“Fully female?
Yes.”
“Your, uh,
thing’s
gone? Did it hurt much?” Trey’s stance relaxed and he leant against her vehicle as if they were discussing something as trivial as the game or rush hour traffic.
Her pussy tingled and she shifted her weight to her other foot. “The
vaginoplasty
was a very simple surgery and it didn’t hurt much. I was back to work in three days.” What had hurt like the devil were the facial feminisation and vocal cord surgeries.
Trey glanced south at her groin and shuddered. Shadows flickered in his eyes. “So you had the whole shebang. I don’t even want to think about it.”
Erica’s heart contracted. Her feet ached. Home sounded like a wonderful sanctuary and she couldn’t wait to lock herself in her apartment. Anxious to escape, she stepped closer to her car, jingled her keys in the air and marvelled how the field lights winked off their shiny surfaces. “Then don’t. It was nice seeing you.”
Trey glanced at her then to the pickup and back. His eyes became inscrutable but his lips curved down.
The hair rose on the back of her neck. Her muscles bunched. Remembering the day she’d lost her licence, the many months she’d only been able to ride her bike or take buses to get around town, still rankled. She would never let it happen again. She was a new, improved person. “If you’re wondering whether or not I should be driving, I’ve been sober for more than three years. The state of Florida restored my full driving privileges more than two years ago.”
Heat crept into Trey’s cheeks and he shifted his ball bag to his other shoulder. Then his gaze raked over her umpire uniform. “Do you still play ball, too? Why haven’t I seen you around the field?”
Erica firmed her lips.
If that wasn’t the question of the year.
Uncomfortable, she fidgeted.
“For which league?
Neither the men nor the women want to let me play with them. Besides, the women around here only play slow-pitch.”
Slow-pitch
wasn’t a horrible game, but about as boring as eating plain oatmeal every morning for the rest of one’s life. Plus, it would dull her skills should she ever be allowed to play real ball again. Baseball was her real love, however. She’d play fast-pitch if only there was a local league.
Trey
untucked
his shirt from his pants. It had come partially out anyway, with one tail hanging down. “Maybe the women think you have an advantage over them since you were born a man.”
“Then you’d think the men would let me play, but they say the opposite. They’re afraid of me getting hurt since I’m a woman. They don’t think I can compete anymore, either.
That I’ll be a liability.”
She inhaled deeply and told herself not to get riled up.
As if trying to decide which camp was right, Trey looked her up and down. “So? Do you throw like a girl now?”
Erica resisted the urge to playfully stick out her tongue. She only managed to hold it in because Trey would take it sexually and embarrass her. Instead, she rolled her eyes. “As I said, I’m fully female. I’ve been on the hormone therapy more than three years so my muscles and everything else are feminine.”
“There are co-ed teams.” He smiled as if he’d solved a huge problem and lifted the world off her shoulders.
She kicked up a small cloud of dirt with her toe. “Yeah, but they only play
slow-pitch
.”
Trey smiled in commiseration. He scrunched his nose and scratched his head. Then a slow smile dawned over his lips. “Get a petition together. If enough people sign, they’ll have to let you play.”
She rolled the thought around in her mind wondering how many people would sign and how many would decline because they objected to her
sexuality?
Fort Lauderdale wasn’t as cosmopolitan as it pretended to be. Away from the beach areas, like here, were families and retirement villages. Palm trees and warm weather aside, it wasn’t much different than living in
middle
America.
Before she realised she was going to do it, she heard herself pop out with, “Would you sign the petition? Be the first name on my list?”
He blinked as if she’d challenged him to have the sexual reassignment surgery. He looked from her to one of his passing teammates as if he was trying to compare them. “Well, I don’t know much about transgender stuff. If you’re sure you wouldn’t have an unfair advantage over the other women…”
Hadn’t he heard her? The women only played slow-pitch. Besides, they weren’t talking pro, just rec. When she shook her head, her silky ponytail slapped her neck and tickled her cheeks. “I want to play on your league.
With you and the guys.”
Trey’s jaw clenched and his Adam’s apple protruded further.
“For real?
I thought you said you’re completely feminine. You’re too soft now. You’d get hurt.”
Her skin crawled and she wanted to bury him in mountains of petitions. “I haven’t forgotten how to play or how to catch a ball. I’m still a better batter than you.”
He glared at her then raked his fingers through his hair. “I don’t know.”
“You’re as prejudiced as everybody else, Kincaid. Why even suggest it if you aren’t willing to sign?” Disappointed but not surprised at his statement, she plunged her hands into her pockets. This was exactly why Eric hadn’t confided in Trey.
A hard light glinted in Trey’s narrowing eyes. “I’m not prejudiced. I just don’t think it’s a good idea.”
The more she thought about a petition, the more she liked the idea. Wasn’t that how the girls had convinced the city to build their fields? “Thank you, anyway. I’m going to use your idea. And I’m going to get enough names on my petition so that the men will have to let me play with them. Watch me. You’ll be seeing me on your fields soon and not as an umpire!”
With that, she wrenched open her door and climbed inside. Her blood boiling, her stomach a black cauldron of anger, she revved her engines and screeched out of the lot. She wasn’t sure if she was sad or happy that she’d left Kincaid eating her dust.
Chapter Two
After a couple of days of feeling as if aliens had abducted him and dropped him on a hostile, upside down planet, Trey was still racking his brain. How could he not have known Eric longed to be Erica? They’d lived together more than two years. He’d thought they’d shared their deepest secrets and most heartfelt desires. He thought he’d known the man inside and out.
He snarled as he thought about his conversation with Erica.
Obviously not!
This stung. The deceit pissed him off almost as much as the drunkenness. And now she was mad at him for not wanting to sign her petition? He hadn’t been able to live with her. Why would he want to play with her again? If being totally pissed off wasn’t bad enough, his heart splintered anew as if they’d broken up again. He wanted to punch something.
Anything.
Why hadn’t Eric come to him with his problems?
The only thing he’d noted at the time was that Eric dressed as a dame every Halloween.
Hell!
He’d found that skimpy little cowgirl outfit pretty sexy and ravaged the little tramp all night.
His gut twisted. Eric had lied to him throughout their relationship. Could he believe anything out of the guy’s—woman’s—mouth?
Trey shook his head. This was making him nuts. Was it still weird for Erica, too?
He pondered their conversation. How many times had he passed Erica on the road and not noticed?
On the way to work?
In the supermarket?
Any number of places?
His heart twisted. His head ached.
Who am I kidding?
A couple of days later still, he cursed aloud when he couldn’t get the crazy woman off his mind. He couldn’t sleep and since his curiosity wouldn’t stop bothering him, he
surfed
the Internet for anything and everything about transgender women and sexual reassignment surgery. First and foremost, he tried to figure out why someone would feel the need to change himself so drastically. Secondly, he wanted to learn if it was safe for Erica to play hardball with the bunch of ruffians he loosely referred to as his team if she convinced the league’s board to her way of thinking. He was curious, too, if it would be fair for her to play against genetically born women, or if she’d have an unfair advantage.
An hour into his research, he understood what drove people like Erica was more than wanting to dress up, wear makeup and look like a woman, or even to act like one. Most purported to feel like one inside all the time. They wanted to be themselves and they hated playing roles merely to make others happy. Playing sports complicated the issue even more.
He found so many arguments, pro and con, regarding whether transgender women should play sports they made his head spin. Many of the articles said transgender women who’d been on hormone therapy at least two years had lost the masculine strength that would give them an advantage over other women. Yet, some sports associations had recently banned transgender women from playing on their leagues because they believed it was unfair to genetically born women.
Not one of the sites said transgender women had lost too much strength so that it would be dangerous for them to play with men. He couldn’t miss, however, that many people still thought it dangerous for women to play in Major League Baseball.
After a few hours’ study, he had the start of a major headache. The only real conclusion he’d gleaned was that there was no official conclusion by the medical field as a whole. Too few transgender women existed to conduct a decent study. It seemed the decision whether or not to sign the petition would be based on gut instinct or his personal feelings.
He didn’t want to examine his feelings too closely. He still harboured a lot of hurt and resentment and he had a sneaking suspicion he was still raw. After four years, he’d hoped he’d echo Rhett Butler and not give a damn.
So why did he?
He caught himself rubbing his forehead and growled. It was a sure sign of his agitation, one he didn’t like. Since he was alone in his bedroom with his laptop on his mattress, he massaged harder. No one would see. No one would care.
Tired but agitated and still unable to go to sleep, he stayed up and greeted the dawn. Fingers of sunlight reached into his room and grabbed at him, demanding he get up and get ready for a new day. Angry at Eric and Erica, annoyed at the situation and irritated that he had to go to work despite his fitful night, he slammed the computer lid.
Realising too late he’d been too
rough,
he petted his computer and murmured, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. Be okay.” But after rebooting, the screen was wavy and flickering. He rebooted three more times, hoping the first time was a fluke. Unfortunately, the problem only worsened.
“Shit!” He needed his computer fast as he did lots of work at home and couldn’t afford to be without it too long. He wasn’t an electronic genius and barely knew a motherboard from a keyboard. He didn’t fancy fighting for an hour of public computer time at the library. Nor did he want to pay the outrageous prices most computer techs charged nowadays. Even if he could justify buying a new computer before seeing if the problem was fixable or not, he had important files he needed that were on this computer.
Then Erica’s name flashed in his mind. She was a computer genius. At age three, she started tearing apart anything and everything electronic. By age ten, she was fixing computers. By age thirteen, she was building them from scratch. Although several things had been problematic when they’d tried to live together, he’d had free and fast computer repair service around the clock. He missed that almost as much as he missed the man Erica had been.
As much as he needed his computer fast, he couldn’t ask Erica to help him. Or could he? If she laughed in his face, he couldn’t blame her. They never seemed to leave each other on good terms.
He ambled to the shower and tried to sluice off his black mood with cold water. He couldn’t even call in sick and go back to bed as he had an important meeting at work. So he sprayed the water in his face to wake himself up, to drill some sense into him, and had a brainstorm.
Excited, he yelled in the shower, “I’ll sign her petition and get the ball rolling.”
Happy with himself, he pushed aside his misgiving that she was now too weak to play with the men
,
rinsed
off and dressed in a shirt and tie for work.
He wasn’t her husband or even her boyfriend. She was a free soul who could decide what was best for her. Who was he to get in her way?
A couple of hours later during his morning break, he called her.
“Trey here.
I have a favour to ask. Do you still fix computers?”
There was a slight pause then she asked in a chilly voice, “Why do you ask?”
He crossed his fingers and shifted positions in his chair. He moved papers to the side and leant forward on his desk. “Could you look at mine and fix it right away? It’s not working right and I have a big assignment I have to work on. I’ll pay your going rate. I’m not asking for a freebie.”
“All right.
Drop it off at my office and I’ll take a look at it when I can. I won’t be able to get to it right away as several clients are in front of you.”
Swearing softly under his breath, he closed his eyes. He couldn’t wait that long. From experience, he knew
when I can
usually meant weeks. And he wasn’t her favourite person any more so it might mean
months.
He took a deep breath and added, “I’ll sign your petition.”
