NOVEL WEB Chapter 2 – Breakfast of Champions
50. Partnership
Partnership is giving, taking,
learning, teaching, offering the
greatest possible benefit while doing
the least possible harm. Partnership
is mutualistic symbiosis. Partnership
is life.
Any entity, any process that
cannot or should not be resisted or
avoided must somehow be
partnered. Partner one another.
Partner diverse communities. Partner
life. Partner any world that is your
home. Partner God. Only in
partnership can we thrive, grow,
Change. Only in partnership can we
live.
-Earthseed; the Book of the Living by Octavia E. Butler
The next morning I woke up gasping for air. Seconds earlier some alien sentient goop had just broken down the garage door to my childhood home and was proceeding to flood its way into every orifice it could find on my body. It may sound odd, but it was warm and even kinda pleasant. Dreams are weird…
The dissonance between how disturbing yet pleasant the dream sensation was still caused me to bolt upright to wakefulness. The screen across from my bed brightened slightly to inform me that my alarm was set to only five minutes in the future. Text on the screen gently inquired if I'd like to cancel the alarm. "Yeah, any sleep I could get after a dream like that wouldn't be worth the five minutes of trying, thank you. Also good morning CutiePie."
A deep feminine voice emanated from the screen. "Good morning Hex. From your watch sensors, it looks like you at least got some good periods of REM sleep, so you've got that goin' for ya which is nice."
The last part was uttered in a distinct drawl, an impression of someone I couldn't place. I had a local instance of QTPI the First installed at home, and in one of our worst and best decisions ever made, this CutiePie was fed decades of pop culture references as part of its model building. Worst, as the poor Cutie had no context for the contemporary relevance of any of the references. Best in that I got to learn some new random piece of media history.
I chuckled. "What was that one from?"
"Bill Murray and his character Carl Spackler from the 1980 comedy film Caddyshack.”
I scoffed at the screen, “Wow, that’s old! Mom was a toddler when that came out.”
A soft synthesized giggle filled the room. “Kurt texted to say he’ll be here to pick you up at 8. You have 23 minutes to get ready.”
“Thank you CutiePie.” That was plenty of time as I had already showered last night. I wandered downstairs to the kitchen to make some coffee that would be greatly appreciated by both of us. While I stood idly waiting for the light on the coffee maker to blink indicating it was done, I noticed several other lights blinking at me. I had set up all my houseplants with soil hydrometers that were set to blink when the plant would be thirsty. I had been tinkering with a system of tubes and electronic valves that would automatically water them all, but I always get too distracted to actually set anything up functionally. Also, I really did kinda enjoy saying hello to all my photosynthesizing friends. I used to forget about them all and let things slowly wither and die, but now they could tell me when they had needs, doing an end run around my occasional lack of object permanence.
I was lost in the ritual of watering when the doorbell went off and my watch flashed with a feed of Kurt smiling for the camera at the front door. He really was a pretty man and that smile never went without eliciting a blush on my part. I pushed the button on my watch to unlock the door and he entered.
“Morning Hex!” Kurt popped out of the entryway with a sleepy grin on his face. “I love you so much for the fact that I can already smell coffee.” He gave me a warm hug and headed to the kitchen for his caffeine fix. I followed shortly after when all the dehydrated plants had ceased their blinking.
“Sleep well?” Kurt already had a mug of coffee ready for me with the proper amount of creamer.
“Yeah mostly. Had a weird dream where some extraterrestrial blob started consuming all life on earth. I was in the house trying to barricade everything up, and it crashed through the door, slammed me into the ground, and… well it got kinda graphic before I jerked awake.”
Kurt raised an eyebrow and smirked. “Whoa, your subconscious trying to tell you about some kink you didn’t know you had?”
I rolled my eyes at him, but rubbed my chin as if seriously considering it.. “Like maybe, one never knows what weirdness truly lurks in one’s subconscious.” I waggled an eyebrow back at him.
He nodded solemnly. “So scandalous, yet so true.”
“But seriously, I kinda remember being oddly calm about the whole thing and it was weirdly nice, and not even in a sexual way.”
Kurt chuckled.
“‘I’m serious, it was like a warm weighted blanket… that also goes inside you.” Kurt looked dubious and I threw my hands up. “Whatever, my brain is weird. You know that.”
“I do and I love you for it.” He slapped me softly on the back and gave my shoulder a squeeze. “Also, I am happy you are finding out you’d enjoy cuddling with monstrous alien slime. Love that for you. You know how many people have been totally thirsty for aliens and speculating what they look like after they found that ship thing floating out behind the moon.”
I laughed out loud. “Yeah, and there’s that NASA mission to go say hi up close in a few months. I’m surprised they’ve managed to beat the private companies to a launch date.”
“The other companies did kinda take a nosedive after they blew up a few billionaires on the launchpad last year.”
“And good riddance!” I giggled. "Did you see the pictures of the blob they released last week? More and more it's just this huge, pretty fractal tree. Like if Saturn's rings were made entirely out of foliage."
"Ya, So pretty. You ready for pancakes?"
I set down my coffee. "Yeah, let's go eat!"
“Oh, and I see purple glasses so enby girl adjacent thing and xie, xer pronouns?”
“Bingo!”
“Nice.” Kurt pumped his fist, gave me double finger guns, and started heading for the door.
* * *
The drive to pancakes only took five minutes, and for some reason the email from last night forced itself into my thoughts. Something about the absurdity of the email inviting me to "The G Spot" yet also not being flagged as spam bothered me. That, and despite every email I get still being sent to [email protected], this one bothered me more. In fact, it finally had bothered me enough that I was able to eke out the proper amount of motivation to actually change it.
The drive was only five minutes, but that was all it took to change my first name to Hex and gender marker to X with the University. Wisconsin had somehow maintained most of its trans protections through the ongoing decline into christofascist political fuckery that is the United States. The university was required to make whatever change I put in the system as long as it matched my ID, which I had already updated a few months ago. The ID change was fun as it meant that there were now several states I wouldn’t be allowed into technically as my gender on my state ID didn’t match the one attached to my social security number. Only Florida had actually put in check points on some interstates, but it was fun to say my existence is illegal in many parts of the country. Be gay, do crime!
We made it to our favorite breakfast place and each ordered a stack of pancakes with eggs and bacon as was tradition. As the server left with our orders Kurt got a message. He pulled out his phone to check and his face immediately pulled into the most adorable smile and I needed to know what caused that. "So, what's got you so happy?"
"Look how huge Marley has gotten!" He quickly turned his phone around to present a photo of his seven year old daughter in pajamas getting smacked in the face with a pillow swung by another child. "She had her first slumber party for her birthday last weekend apparently." His smile softened and I could see his eyes getting a bit watery.
I placed my hand on his arm for comfort. "How long has it been since you've seen her?"
"She calls me every night before bed, you know that."
Kurt was being defensive so I gave him a warm yet judgemental stare. "I mean in person, and you know that's what I was asking."
He hung his head down and I felt marginally ashamed, but only a little. "Since the divorce and they moved last summer." Kurt sighed. "I kept telling Marley I have been busy helping you…"
My stare turned less warm and more judgemental.
"I know, I know… I think the real reason is I don't know if I'm ready to see Nivin. In hindsight and interacting with you, I can see so many of the ways I was horrible to him when he came out… and probably still can't even comprehend them all… And now he's been transitioning for almost a year and he feels and looks like an very different person than who I married… and who I still have some level of feelings for." And now Kurt was actually crying. "I don't know how to talk to him for real anymore. Only just the little bits I see of him when Marley calls."
Nivin was Kurt's ex wife, but not really. Neither of them really knew any better when they met and fell in love, but pregnancy and 'motherhood' really drove the point home for Nivin that he never really was a woman. Kurt didn't take Nivin coming out that well.
I got up to sit next to him in the booth and laid a reassuring arm across his back. "Not doing anything isn't going to make this any better. The only way to start healing from that harm is to actually face it… be accountable for it." He sniffled a bit and nodded. "And she's your daughter. I know how much you love her and want her in your life."
Kurt nodded again and even chuckled a bit and gestured at me. "Why am I such a magnet for soon to be uncloseted trans and queer people? It's unreal to me how often this happens. It's like I'm some sorta human egg incubator."
I had to giggle at this. I had my theories on this particular point of course. We all do tend to instinctively flock together without really thinking about it. I'd venture that some part of the not ideal reaction to Nivin coming out was that it was another place where Kurt was forced into a moment of introspection into his own gender and sexuality.
I went easy on him though. "You really are a safe person to talk to about these things." He gave me a very doubtful look. "I'm serious. I had no anxiety talking to you about any time I figured out something new about my identity." So much anxiety about telling him about my feelings for him… but the identity that was chill. "Nivin coming out hit you harder because it also came with changes for what your relationship was."
"Yeah, you're right. It felt like I was suddenly forced to be gay. It would be so much easier if I were just gay.”
He gets so close to it sometimes. I put on my best drag queen attitude. “Honey, everyone’s life would be easier if life was just gay.”
This got him laughing. “I really can see that.” He leaned into my shoulder, finally letting loose some of the tension he’d been picking up. “Thank you Hex.”
I gave him a nice squeeze. “We should probably get to work at some point. I have some things I’d like to try with CutiePie.”
Kurt nodded at me. We quickly finished up breakfast and headed off