Standard warning and disclaimer: All characters are fictional. If you see yourself, buy a new mirror. Contains subjects some people may find offensive. If you are one of them, why are you reading this? Protect your kids. If you are worried about them reading this sort of material, please censor free speech and use a safe surfing program such as net nanny. Or better yet, teach them early and lovingly to understand and accept different lifestyles. Before they learn from bad experiences.

All constructive comments are welcome. Please e-mail to me: Sam@pobox.alaska.net or samanthas_michelle@yahoo.com

Finally, this is a piece of adult fiction. If you are underage, or if you find it offensive, please go elsewhere. Quickly.
A special thanks to Ellen Hayes, Jean Rhea, and of course my SO for their editing and proofing of this story.

This story is dedicated to the many who have given parts of our bodies and souls to keep this country free, and to those who gave their all and died without fanfare or recognition in some god-forsaken country in the hope of bringing our freedoms to others in the world.

 

Nickie's Story                      by: Samantha Michelle                © 2000

 

I was born Nicholas Haamer. My dad was a marine, as was my grandfather, and great-grandfather, and great great-grandfather before him. By the time I was three I wore a buzz-cut, and my dad was teaching me to be a man. And a Marine. See, Marine's don't cry. Or play with dolls, or the little neighbor girls. "Makes you soft. Marines are not soft."

When someone got hurt, there were no hugs. "Marines just kick ass and keep going. Hugs are for sissies." And since he was my dad, he was always right. Even if I felt like giving someone a hug. Or really needed one myself. Dad was a big man, despite the parts he left on Iwo Jima during the war. He played a lot with me. Rough. If I got hurt and cried, he hurt me worse. I grew fast, strong, and tough. Sports were something you played to win. "Give no quarter, and take no prisoners" was his motto. So I wrestled and played football, and Dad taught me to box and shoot.

By twelve I was a real mean SOB. Not a bully, but even the high school kids were afraid of me. Dad was so proud he glowed. He made me take karate, and judo. Friends were screened by Dad for "manliness." Teddy was a musician and actor. Dad threw him out of the house. "Guys who act are fags, and Marines hate fags." Most kids listened to rock and roll. I got the Marine Hymn, and Sousa marches. And listed to rock and roll on headsets.

Soon I started high school. There were two types of girls according to Dad. Nice girls, like Mom. Faithful and obedient. And whores, which comprised most of the girls at school. "Use 'em and lose 'em, just don't get 'em pregnant." I just could not do it his way. So I avoided girls. They made me feel funny. There was something entrancing about their softness and caring. They way they acted and hugged. But I knew it was wrong for me to feel that way. Because I wanted to be soft and caring too.

By my senior year I was captain of the football team. The most feared linebacker in the city. And banned from playing. Not for doing anything illegal. They said I was too dangerous. I hated hurting people. But my job was to do my best to stop the other team. And I put out 110 percent. Which got a lot of opposing players sent to the hospital. The more beat-up I was after a game, the happier Dad was.

I graduated with honors, and the paperwork for entering the Marines. Dad was taking no chances. The Marines were my heritage, and with the Vietnam War over, he was afraid I would not see combat. Just the thing, according to him, I needed to make a real man out of me.

Dad died of his old wounds soon after I left basic training. Mom followed his instructions, and they let our squad do the burial honors. I did not cry. I was a Marine.

Like my dad. I was a scout, long range recon. I got a lot of special training. If I could see it, I could kill it. Several ways. Soon I was a squad leader. I remembered what my dad had taught me. Your troops are your family. Treat them hard, but treat them right. Never demand any more, or accept any less, from your men than you do of yourself. Lead by example.

We saw some police actions, and I got decorations to go with my bullet holes. But my squad did their job, and we all came back. More or less intact. We were good. So we saw lots of action. Dad had gotten tattoos after each battle. I followed his lead. Soon I was covered. But not where they would interfere with my dress uniform. Two years after Dad died, Mom passed on. I learned of her funeral when we were finally flown out after a mission. I didn't cry, no matter how much I needed to.

When we shipped with the early strike contingent for Grenada , I shook with fear inside. For myself, and for my men. But I never let anyone know. It was not the Marine way. We were night-dropped by 'copter, our target a SAM storage and launch facility. Someone in the OpFor must have had a night-vision scope. I was close in when they started walking mortars back from their perimeter towards my squad.

They say you never hear the one that gets you. I saw it launch, and heard it on the way down. The blast shredded the vegetation in front of me, and I felt an incredible pain in my crotch. I managed to get a dressing from my kit, and force it into my shorts to slow the bleeding. And realized what was mangled. And missing. Marines were men. And I no longer was a man. I grabbed my '16 and grenades, and charged their perimeter. I did not know what happened after that. I didn't ever want to know. Much later I was to learn I had taken out the garrison single-handed. And that all of my squad made it out alive.

I woke up on a stretcher with an IV and a bag of plasma above me, staring at a corpsman with a scared look on his face. Then it started to come back, and when the doctor came by and told me I would live, and what had happened, I tried to get up and knocked loose the IV. A bunch of people landed on me and someone shoved a needle in my leg.

I was evac'd, taped and strapped to a stretcher, dopey from the morphine. Two days later, full of something that made me so relaxed I drooled, I arrived at Bethesda. There they feed me drugs, kept me strapped down, and sewed up my wounds. And what was left of my crotch. A chaplain came by to talk, and left when I told him all I wanted to do was die. The doctors told me I would be discharged from the service as medically disabled when I was healed. So I was not only no longer a man, I could no longer be a Marine.

They found me almost free of the bed, with the tubes and IV's ripped out. But I was too weak to break away from them, and they gave me another shot...

When I woke up again, I was really secured to a different bed. Straps and locking cuffs, this time. And the dammed tubes were all back in place. Sitting next to me was a long-haired guy in a wheelchair, who was studying me intently. "Nick, I'm Lance Corporal Michael Thomas, and the only other Marine on this ward. The sawbones said you needed some company, and since I'm not going anywhere for a while," he pointed at the wheelchair, "they asked me to keep you company."

"I don't want company. I just want to be left alone to die." I wanted to roll over and hide, but all I could do is close my eyes and turn my head away.

"Been there. Marines don't give up like that." I looked at him. "Some of us don't move like we used to, but we're still Marines." "I'm not a Marine any more." My voice was breaking. "Only men can be real Marines, and I'm not even a man any more..." For the first time I could remember, I started to cry. I felt him hold my restrained hand, and it was like someone gave me permission to let go. When I finally cried myself out, he was still holding my hand.

"Being a Marine is inside. The land mine that crippled me didn't make me someone else."

"You don't understand-" He cut me off.

"I understand you got your little head and balls shot off, and, and nine-tenths of your common sense went with them." I glared angrily at him. "But what makes us Marines is up here," he tapped his head, "not in your pecker, not in my legs." He rotated his wheelchair and smiled. "At least you can still run a confidence course. I can't even make it over curbs. But I'm still a Marine. Retired, and disabled, but still a Marine."

I closed my eyes and wished he would go away. I wanted to have an ending, and he was not even letting me enjoy my pain. Much later I looked up, and he was still there. "You can't run away from yourself." A nurse came in and told him visiting time was over. "See you tomorrow. Don't run off." He was chuckling as he wheeled himself out the door. I wanted to heave a grenade at him.

Despite my objections, Michael became a fixture in my room. And out of sheer boredom I started to talk to him. I learned he had triggered a land mine while on a recon mission in one of those places we never were. They saved his legs and feet, as he put it, for decoration. He was in the hospital for his annual metal fragment removal, and so they could try and keep his circulation working. I began to feel bad about how I was acting when he said the hospital was a lot nicer than outside, where he lived in a shelter for homeless veterans.

A week or so later, instead of Michael, I found myself facing another doctor, who introduced himself as a psychiatrist who was going to help me accept what had happened, and get on with my life. "Give me a knife and I will take care of my own problems."

He just smiled. "No."

"Dammit, I don't want a shrink."

"So? I get paid whether or not you do more than lay there and whine or act like a spoiled brat."

"I'm not a spoiled brat!"

"Could've fooled me. They told me you were a Marine. I thought Marines didn't act like four year olds." It went downhill from there. I felt like I was digging a foxhole in quicksand. At the end of an hour, he smiled and said he'd be back in a couple of days. I was almost thrilled when Michael came in after lunch.

That set the pattern for the next two weeks. I missed Michael when he was stuck in bed for three days after another operation. When he returned, in pain and looking weak, I asked him why he kept on living.

"I used to wonder myself. But when I'm out of this place, I've got friends, mostly other vets. We talk and play chess. I do some counseling for the local chapter of the Disabled American Veterans. And I spend a lot of time looking at the world and trying to figure out some way for people like me to be happy, despite our problems."

I shut up and fought back tears. And swore at myself. And when the shrink came in. I swore at him too. Why couldn't he understand that I was supposed to be a man, and I couldn't be a man without my missing parts? The next week they sent in a new shrink.

He looked like a middle-aged reject from a commune. But he was easy to talk to, and seemed to agree with me. After a week, he started a frontal assault. And caught me with my pants down. "Nickie, you are one confused little girl. You know what you want, and you are afraid to face yourself."

"I'm not a goddam girl! I may not have all my parts, but I'm not a soft spineless girl!."

"Your balls getting shot off has nothing to do with who you are."

"Girls are kind and gentle and..."

"And everything you wanted to be, and your father told you was wrong."

"You leave my father out of this!"

"You worshipped him, didn't you?"

"My father was a hero, a Marine, and now I'm an embarrassment to his name." I paused, looking for ammunition. "I can't even carry on the family name and have a son, which he told me was my duty to our line."

"And what if you'd fathered only girls?"

"I...." I was losing ground steadily.

"Besides, you would much rather be holding and nursing a child than trying to make one into a Marine."

"Nooo....." I started to scream and thrash against the restraints. For he was right, and it was so wrong.... I never felt the shot someone gave me.

I woke up to the nurse getting ready to feed me dinner, and Michael, his tray on his lap, watching me. "'Hear you created quite a ruckus this afternoon." I closed my eyes. "Guess the new shrink must have pushed your buttons." I wanted to scream at him, but the urge was dull.

"Nick, the doctor has you on an anti-anxiety medication." The nurse was smiling. "And it will give you an upset stomach if you don't eat." She was waving a fork full of hospital food in front of me. I didn't have the will to fight her. So I ate. After the trays were hauled off, Michael was still there.

"Care to talk about it?" I shook my head. No one must ever know of my weakness. Not being a man anymore was bad enough. I lay there silently until he departed.

The next day the shrink was back, and smiling. "Go away, I don't want to hear any more of your lies."

"Nickie, when are you going to take the chip off your shoulder and face the little girl inside?"

"My name is Nick, and I'm a man, a Marine." I tried to curl up as the emotions washed over me. "Or I was..." Despite my desperate fight, the tears started to flow.

He came over and hugged me. "It's okay to let it out, Nickie. Whether you're a man, a marine, or a little girl, it's okay to cry."

Men didn't hug other men. But it felt so good and it had been so long... Something let go, and I cried and cried and sobbed and wailed and fought against the restraints to hug him back. When I finally cried myself out, he released his hug, and said he would be back tomorrow. I didn't want him to go. I felt so alone. So afraid...

Michael showed up after lunch. He looked at me. "Okay Nick, what's the problem today?" I shook my head, and closed my eyes.

"Did you ever have the feeling that the only way to end the pain is to stop fighting?" He got a strange look on his face. "And you can't stop 'cause that's how you've been taught to face the world?" He rolled over to me, and held my hand.

"Nick, we can never stop fighting. When we do, we die. But sometimes we need to quit being our own enemies, and fighting against ourselves."

Was he right? Could I stop fighting myself and still face the world? Or myself? For what the shrink was telling me went against everything I had been taught. Yet it was what, in my weaker moments, I had dreamed about and wished for, until I caught myself, and forced the evil thoughts out of my head. We were still silently holding hands when the nurse came in, and chased Michael out while she did my thing with a bedpan. I wondered briefly which was worse, death or bedpans. It was a toss-up.

As the sleeping meds slowly kicked in, I wondered if the shrink and Michael were right, and I was my own enemy in this fight. As I dropped off to sleep, I realized I was a casualty of my own friendly fire.

When my shrink came in the next day, I was determined to end the battle. One way or another. "Morning, Nickie." He was as usual smiling and cheerful.

"Cut the crap, doc, and get me out of these restraints. We need to talk." He gave me a concerned, appraising stare. "And no, I won't pound you to a pulp, or run off, or even try to kill myself. But I need to be free of this shit," I tugged against the cuffs "before we start." He looked dubious, and shook his head. The next part came out without my control. "Dammit doc, on my honor as a Marine, I won't do anything like that."

I tried to curl up inside myself again. Yes, Michael was right. I was still a Marine. Inside, where it counted. And he knew. My shrink argued with the nurse, who had to call her supervisor, and I was ready to get violent when someone finally showed up and authorized the nurse to release me. There were three orderlies present when I finally managed a huge stretch, and worked muscles that had been dormant far too long.

"Doc, this is private. Please?" He nodded, and shooed everyone out. When he closed the door, I was sitting up, staring at him. "Can you, or anyone, teach an old Marine how to be the girl he has always wanted to be?" When he came over and hugged me, the flood began. The wailing brought the nurse and orderlies, and my shrink had to scream at them to get out. When I saw Michael at the door, I gave him a "thumbs-up", and he nodded, and smiled before he wheeled away.

When my shrink left, he also left orders that from now on I was to be addressed as Nickie. I was afraid Michael would freak or be disgusted with me. Instead, I got hugs and some of his tears. The next few days were a blur. I was only restrained at night, and with great effort managed to use the washroom myself, threatening to put the next bedpan I saw into orbit. Or where the sun didn't shine.

If it wasn't for Michael's support, the disapproving looks and comments from some of the staff and other patients might have made me turn back. But I was almost like a kid again. Especially when Michael presented me with my first nightgown. And ran over the foot of the orderly than made a rude comment.

Michael cried when I was transferred out of Bethesda to a civilian facility where the bigots were kept outside the walls. When I was again mobile, I tried to locate him, but they refused to say where he was staying.

Thirteen months, and a lot of hormones and therapy later, I officially became Nickie Haamer, female, USMC, Retired. The surgery to complete my change to a woman was described as "cosmetic reconstruction". Which was a fancy way of saying that what was not there was now receptive to other ministrations. Months of working out, a very tight corset, and the hormones had given me a decent, but flat figure. My surgeon listened to my requests, and agreed that I could handle quite a rack. So when I limped out of the hospital, feeling like I had a telephone pole, complete with splinters, shoved where I used to have a different pole attached, I was smiling. And trying to learn to see my feet despite my now formidable chest.

At the shrink's suggestion, I also went back to school, and it was not long until I was hired as the general manager of a large security firm in Wilmington. I guess my combat experience was still an asset. With all the money I hadn't spent while in the hospital, and my disability, I purchased a really nice house, and began to live my new life.

Yes, it was far from fun and games most of the time. I hated the dilator. And despite my efforts, being unable to get my voice to sound better than a hoarse drill sergeant. Strangely, I really didn't want to have sex with anyone. Too many nerve endings were missing, and I was still inhibited. A lot of people made fun of my size, and me. And called me a fag and a drag queen. I even got arrested when several guys decided to try and molest me. Something about unnecessary roughness. But God it felt so good to let out the frustration. My shrink talked to the police, and after they cringed when he told them what had been shot off, and where, they let me go.

I became a member of several transgendered support groups, and finally found some friends in the gay community. Then one day my life took another strange turn. I was at the local VA medical center, getting my hormone prescription refilled, when a familiar voice from below caused me to look down. A moment later I had pulled Michael from his chair, and was trying to hug him to death as I cried on his shoulder. We got a lot of funny looks, but I didn't care.

I waited and we talked until his prescriptions were filled, and I offered him a ride back to his shelter in my van. One look at the run-down place, and I knew he was going home with me. He had helped save my life, and gave me a new chance. It was the least I could do for him. He objected, but I refused to take no for an answer. When we left, everything he owned was in the back of my van. I was determined he was never going back.

Over the years we have never regretted my actions. He is much healthier now, thanks to a lot of mothering. Mine. Michael was much more into the street scene than me, and showed me where to party where no one cared if I was a guy or gal. And I learned a lot about people like me. Not the ones my shrink used as examples. Real people with real problems. And real lives, and loves. And yes, I was no longer a virgin. And I didn't care. I had no desire to marry. In a way, emotionally, I was married to Michael, and he was married to me. Far more than love, we were the deepest of friends.

 

Finis

 

 

© 2000
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