I was just 16 when I had my baby. Let me tell you—as a strategy for life and success? It's not a great idea! It's not a great idea at all.
My parents found out I was pregnant, subsequently throwing me out on my ass. I hit the ground, hard.
I spent time in women's shelters, I spent some time in homeless shelters, I had nothing. I could barely afford my prenatals, I could barely make the appointments. My OB/GYN was an old guy whose operation worked for a church, and honestly, I could've done worse. I could've done more, sure.
Finding out that I was having a son was actually comforting. I was the only daughter my family had ever had.
Of course, when the baby was born we discovered that it was, genetically, a girl? Yeah, that was a shock. Still. She was my baby. Rose.
My baby was a legitimate hermaphrodite with what seemed to the doctors like two fully functioning sets of reproductive organs. They told me that I would never have grandbabies, but honestly? I was fine with that.
The doctors and nurses in the hospital were so freaked out—all the time! They didn't want to let me change her diapers. They didn't want to let me hold her either. Fortunately for me, I discovered later, I didn't let them take her anywhere. There were so many things wrong with how doctors and nurses handled my pregnancy. I nearly hemorrhaged, nurses just told me to "Walk it off," before it became obvious that something was wrong.
They brought me back to maternity and they didn't want to hear word one about how I wanted my baby girl back with me.
I rose enough of a stink that I had her in arms the entire time though—except when I went back for surgery. They fixed what they broke and I finally got discharged.
And once again, I had no idea what I was doing. I was shocked that they let me take her out of the hospital since, you know, I was homeless at the time.
Something in me changed when I was holding my baby, wandering down the street, wondering where we'd be warm. Something broke. I was going to make a change.
That week, I found a Methodist church who had a daycare and I put in over seven hundred work applications. I got a bunch of responses, but I eventually found a job as a secretary of all things! I was salaried right out of the gate!
Of course, I was still a minor. I fudged some details. Their HR didn't look too deeply into it, so I was able to stay.
I put some change together, went to a thrift store, and found the sharpest outfit I could. I showed up on a Monday, and got fired in almost a week.
That was a hit to the ego, but I couldn't let it slow me down. I'd worked as a waitress, as a store attendant, as a mega-shopping center associate, you name it. Eventually, I find managerial work. I was 19.
For the first time, I was really fiscally solvent. I got an apartment for me and my (now) toddler. Little Rosie and me, against the world, it felt like.
I rode the high as hard as I could. I kept applying to places, networking and, though it hurts my pride to say it, I even dealt under the table in more than one way. I watched Rosie grow as my career took off. She went into school, but there were always problems. I got her a tutor and we made problems melt away.
She was getting picked on in school? I enrolled her in karate. She stopped getting picked on real quick.
The years flew by and, with them, came uncomfortable questions that only had uncomfortable answers.
"Mommy?" she'd ask, "Where are my grandpa and grandma?"
I answered, brutally honest, "They wanted to teach me a lesson, so they kicked me out. They don't know what they're missing out on, though," I grinned and squeezed her cheek.
"Mommy?" she'd ask, "Where's my daddy?"
I sighed hard at that one and answered, "He was just a boy I met. I don't know where he's at, baby. But it's okay. We've got each other, right?"
"Mommy?" she'd ask, "Why am I different?"
Ah. That question. I'd been preparing for that question since she was born. Eight years at the time. I sighed, sat her down, and told her all about herself. That she's a hermaphrodite, what it meant, and how... other people might get upset if they knew that. It was scary, having to tell her those things.
But, as it turns out, she meant "different," as in, "a girl who liked football."
Whoops.
As I watched her grow, I grew more and more fearful. There'd be a day that boys would take interest in her, and her in them. If I was lucky, she'd go after girls, but I never saw any signs of it. She wanted to know more about her reproductive organs when the damn school board pulled the rug out from under me and gave her Sex Ed. Turns out she told her whole classroom that she had both.
They didn't believe her. Some girls laughed at her. She was red-cheeked and embarrassed.
Me? I was pissed.
So I filed a lawsuit against the school board and enrolled her into a private school. The lawsuit was settled out of court, and I signed a confidentiality agreement.
All in all, it worked out pretty well.
But soon enough, she was a grown teen, sulky and distant, all before I knew it. And me? Well... I had some problems too. For one, I hadn't gotten laid in over a decade and a half.
And for two... well.
I have a pent up libido. And I think I might be bi. Okay, there's no 'might be.' I brought a colleague—another regional management candidate—home one night. She was a beautiful woman, a bit older than me, and she made the dumb mistake of flirting with me at a party without really having any idea what it would cause.
I wound up finger-fucking her aggressively in the back seat of her Rolls-Royce and rode her face into daybreak once we got to my bed.
It was something I'd desperately desired, though her body didn't do much for me. She was, like I said, a bit older, and lately... I've had a fixation with taut, nubile bodies, with muscular definition and strength. She was plenty strong, but it wasn't the same. I was able to overpower her, and I'm not an amazon or anything. Of the women around me... well, there was one... but I shouldn't think of that.
Anyway, those are hardly problems. Not like what I just stumbled upon. Earlier today, while Rose was at track practice, I was picking some things up, doing laundry, when I found a pair of my underwear in her room, under her bed.
I was shocked, but it was folded in and stuck together with semen. I just stared at it for a while, then quickly stashed it in with the rest of the wash before starting a load.
My heart's been pounding in my ears ever since, but I just... keep trying to dally about, doing chores and... stuff. I don't really know what to think of it. I shouldn't jump to conclusions but, 'my kid jerked off in my underwear,' seems like a pretty serious... concern.
I don't really know what to do about it, but I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since, even while I'm making dinner. Even while I'm washing dishes, or taking out the trash—both of which are her chores! She's lucky I'm so fucking off-kilter from having found that!
Damn it!
I'm so distracted, just working almost senselessly, that I nearly scream when I hear the door open.
"Mom! I'm home!" I hear her call from downstairs.
Something inspires me to hustle down the stairs, "Welcome home!" I say, in a saccharine bravado that I've never really taken with her before.
She gives me a wide-eyed look of concern. "Uh... You okay?" she asks, standing tall in front of the living room door, kicking off her shoes. Her track uniform is soaked in sweat, and I can see it rolling off of her well defined musculature.
I try to hide my nervousness. "Yeah, yeah. Just a little... stressed. I'll get dinner started."
She looks confused, but she doesn't press it.