..I had just pulled into my driveway after a long, miserable day at work, when Kevin walked out of the garage and made eye contact with me. I got out ...f the car and his gaze never faltered; this would be more than a simple hello, I thought.“Hey neighbor, sorry to bother you,” he began, “but I’m trying to replace a switch on our freezer and the lid won’t stay up. Could you hold it up for me while I get the damn thing replaced?”Could I? Heck yeah I could. Anything to get closer to this dream of. The sharp points slammed into the rose quartz. Cracks snapped through my nonliving form. Bursts of sparkling chips exploded from where the attacks landed. I felt a shock through my soul, a tearing of the power animating the statue.“Ava!” Sven shouted.I hit the ground. The cracks spread. The impact twisted my body. The damaged crystals tried to move like a real body, twisting and bending like flexible skin. But where the statue was hit had reverted to hard unyielding quartz.The cracks spread. I. “No,” Rachel said, “you’re dressed like a second and you should be acting like one even as we speak. Understand?”“Ma’am, yes ma’am,” Jason said with a grin. “I’ll salute if you want.”Suppressing a smile, she said, “You shouldn’t salute, but you should stand up straight and listen to orders.” Jason threw back his shoulders, lifted his chin and looked attentive.“Good,” she said. “Remember, when we walk, you stay one step behind. Don’t speak to anyone unless I give you leave. If you have to get my. The only times I would brave it were at events like the Pride Parade, where I felt protected by a huge buffer zone of people like me. She was the one who convinced me that crossdressing and passing was a sliding scale, and wherever your God given looks placed you on that scale, you needed to own it, and do the best you can with what you've got. I gradually accepted that the men who wanted me would want me not because they could fool themselves into pretending I was really a woman, but because I.