"A better question, young lady, might be what are you doing in my son's apartment?" With my mouth gaping wide, my brain seemed frozen, only able to focus on the minutia of the cataclysm about to unfold. I couldn't believe that he didn't recognize me. Apparently he didn't realize I was Sam. Samantha's Story part 9 By Maid Joy

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I watched Mom's face pale to an ashen hue beneath her makeup, her hands flew to her mouth and I knew she had realized the truth. Her eyes welled full of tears. Finally able to speak, "Stephen, that is Sam. He's in a dress." Her voice was a hollow croak, a cracked broken travesty of her normal voice.

My father looked even closer at me and said with more asperity than I had ever heard, "Shit."

I won't go through the blow by blow of the argument I can’t recount it, my brain just locks up. The gist of his harangue follows:

1. They had their own key to get in. Since he was paying the bills, he had demanded a key and I had complied, never thinking that they would use it to enter uninvited.

2. They had arrived about the time I was sitting down to my lovely dinner. Apparently they were passing through town as they were taking a leisurely drive home from their European trip and thought they would surprise me with a visit.

3. They had been incredibly nosy and gone through everything in my apartment. They found not only all my clothes, but the journals I had been writing. They believed that Samantha was Sam's girlfriend and lived in the apartment with him. It was a logical assumption, two sets of clothes, decor that was male yet there was makeup on the desk, pink razors and “girlie” skincare products in the bathroom. I didn't have any pictures of Samantha around, so they thought it was a short term relationship so far. They were going to grill Sam on the expected wedding date.

4. As the night went on they got more and more worried. They both assumed that Sam was out drinking with friends (which wasn't far from the truth).

5. Upon seeing a strange girl come into their son's apartment, Dad had made the mental leap to "this is Samantha" and was baffled about Sam’s absence.

6. My shocked "Mom, Dad" statement blew by Dad, but Mom caught it.

7. I was a deviant.

8. Because of my cross dressing, I'm a little faggot as well.

9. I'm the worst child that a parent could ever have.

10. They apparently didn't realize the hormones were Sam's when they saw the prescription on the kitchen counter. The prescription was in the name of Samantha. They had quickly made the connection once 'Samantha' was revealed to be Sam. Now it was obvious just how sick, deluded, demented and twisted I really was.

11. Dad couldn't understand where he went wrong with me. Mom just cried.

12. Dad was disgusted and they were both disappointed in me.

13. Dad was furious.

I dissolved into tears at some point in the argument. I couldn't take it. He was so mad and I heard words like "sissy", "pansy", "faggot", "corrupted", "failure" “freak” so often that the words stopped having any meaning, they were just strings of sounds, some foreign language I didn’t understand.

I was ordered out of my dress, which I shed rapidly in the bathroom. I pulled jeans and a t-shirt out of the hamper just so I had something on, but that turned out to be just as bad since the jeans were girl-cut and the T-Shirt said "I'm too SEXAY for you".

Incredibly he started yelling louder. Somewhere around 2:15, the police began pounding on the door. I answered it, still in makeup and very close to a breakdown from crying. They were called by neighbors who heard the fight and thought someone was beating on me. They were also fed up with the noise.

The police finally separated us. Dad could be mad all he wanted as long as he stayed in the hall, Mom had barricaded herself in the bathroom when I left it, and I was on the couch trying to explain what happened. Thankfully the cops were very sympathetic — at least to my parents. The police offered to escort them to their hotel room instead of pressing charges, as long as the fight ended now.

When they left, I fell apart. I admit that it was nice being called "miss" by the cops initially, but I couldn't take their sarcasm after a few moments. I flooded the couch pillows with my tears, unable to stop, I sobbed hysterically for an eternity. My brain going over and over the hateful words my father had called me.

Finally I had no more tears left and I couldn't breathe; my sinuses were totally closed up. My makeup was a wreck, and so was my hair. I had to talk to someone, so I used the business card that Dr. McNair had given me and I called the emergency number.

I could tell that she’d been asleep when the phone rang, I felt guilty about bothering her but I knew that this was definitely an emergency she’d anticipated. I just hoped she could help get my emotions settled so I might be able to sleep for at least a few hours.

She and I talked and I could hear alarm creeping into her voice. She told to me that she was worried that I might think of killing myself, and she wanted me to promise not to do anything rash until she had seen me in her office later today. It took everything in me to promise that, but I did.

She also wanted me to have someone with me for the rest of the night. I didn't know who to ask to come over and stay with me. Tina didn't know about my secret, and the Porters would need their sleep since they had Saturday and Sunday to prepare for. I couldn't think of anyone else to call except Ben and that wasn’t going to happen no matter what! I lied and said I would get someone over and we hung up, 35 minutes after I’d called her.

I looked around my apartment. I could see the open closet and some of my girl clothes showing. At that moment I hated the sight of those clothes. Wildly I thought about cutting them up, but I had promised "nothing rash".

Instead I draped a big blanket over them and closed the closet door. I shoved my beautiful gown that I now despised into the hamper and closed the lid; my father's tirade had insured I could never wear it again. I would always associate it with the horrors of tonight.

Everywhere I looked I saw signs of Samantha. I gathered all of “her” things and shoved them into her side of the closet. Finally I pulled off all my clothes, stripped the makeup and polish on my nails off, and lay down on the couch only to cry myself to sleep.

The next several days were a blur. I didn't go to classes when the week began again, I think I remember that. I didn't go to Church that Sunday, but I kept my promised appointment with Dr. McNair on Saturday, the day after that horrible night. We talked for two hours, and I confessed just how torn up I was. I cried, she comforted, I used an entire box of Kleenex, and finally I went home, just as depressed as when I’d arrived.

I didn't see my parents again. Neither of them came by or called; not anything. I could understand Dad’s silence, but I thought Mom would have tried to say SOMETHING, even if it was how disappointed she was. Yet I heard nothing, from either of them; just nothing but a deafening silence.

I DID hear from my sisters, all three of them. I got emails asking me what in the hell I thought I was doing. Apparently they were against me too. I would read the first line or two, see that it contained "How could you" (sometimes in so many words) and deleted the whole thing. I didn't bother answering. There was no point. Each harangue was sure to have been a repeat of everything my father had already said. They couldn’t and wouldn’t hear anything I had to say and I couldn’t bear any more of the vitriol they kept throwing at me.

I wrote a lot. I wrote about how I felt, what was going on, how miserable I was. I know I left a bunch of tear splotches on each page as I wrote all this down. My pillow got soaked by my tears regularly.

Ben emailed me the next day to thank me for a wonderful date and then he asked me out again sometime. I wrote back and said that a number of family problems had come up and I wouldn't be available for any dates for the foreseeable future. I asked him to understand. He responded that he was saddened, since we had had fun, but he understood and if I wanted to get together just to talk he was ready to listen anytime.

I'm ashamed to say it, but I mostly sat in my apartment and ate ice cream.

Then the real blows started.

First was notice from my landlord that the lease was being terminated by my father, effective as soon as possible. He let me know I had thirty days to vacate the premises before eviction proceedings would be started. Then I discovered the phone had been turned off. The electricity and water were part of the lease and the landlord forgave those debts, so at least I wouldn't be sitting in a dark, cold box for the next month. Apparently my father had to pay the full amount of the remaining lease but refused to allow my stay, even thought he had pay for it. My Internet access had been shut off as well.

The hardest blow was discovering my meal card no longer worked and that the money had been refunded, just as if I had dropped out. I fled the cafeteria in tears. My numb mine repeated again and again, “He wants me to starve; he wants me to die.”

I knew what was going to come next; he would stop paying for school. I freaked out. I didn't know what to do. I tried calling Mom on my cell phone (I had pre-paid for it), but when I connected to her cell phone number I heard "The subscriber you are trying to reach has blocked this number. Thank you for calling." and then the phone disconnected.

I knew that my father would block me, but Mom? Why?

I gathered some things I needed and ran over to the Student Center. They had computers for student use and phones I could call on.

The email came up and I didn't see anything from anyone. I wrote a long email to my father begging him to not do this. I was still his child and I was still in college and I wanted desperately to finish my education, and I needed his help. I told him that I wouldn't bother him again after that if he didn't want to talk to or see me I would respect his wishes even if they caused me more pain. I sent it to his work and home email addresses, as well as his PDA and Cell phone, to make sure he got it.

I then called Mom from the campus phones. She actually answered the phone and when I told her it was me, she started crying. She told me my father had blocked my number on all the phones and had decided to stop funding "your perverted lifestyle". I was crying too, and I tried to be reasonable with her, but she was unable to hear anything I said.

At least she didn't browbeat me about everything again. Yet the emotions were far more devastating.

I finally hung up with Mom; she kept saying she couldn't take anymore. She can't take it anymore? What about me? I went to see if my father had answered my emails.

There was an answer, my heart started pounding as I opened it. "I have no son named Samuel. Please do not contact me again whoever you are."

I stared at the message for fifteen minutes. I know it was that long because the computer shut down once the time limit had been reached.

I slunk back to my apartment and made myself a hermit.

The following Wednesday was the first time I ventured out of my apartment and faced the world. I had on jeans and a t-shirt, from my male collection. I was going to work at the Church again. Just as importantly if I didn’t get out of the apartment, I would go crazy. The ache from the rejection hadn't left, but I was no longer weeping hysterically every time I thought about it.

I saw Dr. McNair several times during that week, at her insistence. She was relieved that I wasn’t actively suicidal, but she was worried about how depressed I was. I told her everything as it happened, and she tried to help me with "what to do now" ideas. The truth was, I didn't want to go anyplace or do anything, and I just wanted to withdraw totally. I couldn’t think about finding another place to live getting a full time job and I was stretching the little food I had in my apartment as far as I could. It felt like too much to be bothered with, there just wasn’t any point.

She finally convinced me that human beings were social creatures, and that hiding would only make things worse. She pointed out that I had to find a new place to live; time was flying by and the end of the month would see me and my possessions on the street. The landlord would do nothing. He wanted the money from my father and that was the condition for getting it. I couldn’t manage to feel gratitude that I had a month instead of being thrown out immediately; I couldn’t stand to think anymore.

So on Wednesday I finally started re-entry into society. I didn't feel like dressing up and truth be told, I really didn’t want to go. Finally, I just brushed my hair, pulled on the first clothes that came to hand and left to walk and think for a while.

I might be able sign a new lease with my landlord instead of having to move out if my father didn’t know about it. That way, I reasoned, I will have a renter's credit history and it will make things easier on me later in life. I was going to have to try to continue with my studies and my life somehow, I wasn't going to just be able to isolate myself and wish the world away. No matter how much I wanted that to happen.

My father had disowned me. That meant all the support and all the financial assistance I was getting from him was gone. Since he had such control over my mother, she would probably not talk to me on his orders, except when she could do it without him knowing about it. I still had my email account, but without Internet access, it was going to be increasingly inconvenient to access it.

I could apply for scholarships. I certainly qualified for a hardship scholarship if they had them. But I had no idea how to apply, what to apply for or how long it would take to find out if I was accepted. Then there was the question how long it would take to get the money. I might have to leave school for a semester to get everything in order.

Could I pledge a sorority and see what resources they might have to help me out? It was a real long shot and not one that I was willing to take, since pledge week was long gone. Plus I just couldn’t bring myself to use them like that. It had to be a place I felt comfortable. Even if I did get in, when my birth gender inevitably came out, I would be asked to leave. No matter what the beautiful internet fantasy stories said about sororities, real life was infinitely crueler.

Every option I thought of was bleaker than the last, and I had nearly convinced myself that my life was over by the time I arrived at the church.

Tina had apparently missed me; she squealed when she saw me and ran at me for a tackle-hug, nearly knocking me off my feet. For a few moments I couldn't be depressed I was too busy concentrating on keeping my feet. It was like being greeted by an over exuberant puppy, a BIG over exuberant puppy, Tina was my size.

Once the enthusiastic greeting was over, she stepped back and looked at me. "Sam, you look like shit."

That was so direct it got a tired smile out of me. She continued, "No, really. You look horrible. Have you done anything with your hair or face in the last few days?" She looked closer "You haven't even put on any makeup today." With just a few breaths, she had gone from 'missing you desperately' to 'concerned best friend'.

She took me by the hand and led me into the basement room where we normally worked. She found Mom Porter and said, "Mom, look at her. Something is wrong. I'm going to take her someplace and get the story. I wanted to let you know that we were both here and not think we had abandoned you."

I could see out of the corner of my eye that most everyone was looking in our direction. I stood straighter and tried to bring a smile to my face, but I couldn't maintain it.

Mom Porter looked me up and down and said "Yes, dear, I think you need to get her into the kitchen and start pumping her for information. Unless I miss my guess, she's been crying for days. I'll be there soon."

As Tina dragged me out, I could hear the chatter start to pick up. I knew I was going to be the subject of the next week’s cycle of rumors and gossip. Oh what a week this was turning into.

Great, this is all I needed. Now I'm also going to be the tale du jour for a bunch of people with nothing more to do. Still, I followed Tina into the kitchen area and sat down. Tina started making tea and soon as she had two steaming mugs full of sweet tea, she sat down and started the interrogation.

The first few questions were easy enough. "What happened?" "Why are you so upset?" What I found hard was that I wasn't able to her tell the truth.

Finally I thought You know what, fuck it. I'll be a laughing stock anyhow, I'm going to have to find another place to go to school why shouldn't she know the truth?

So I started over at the beginning and told her everything.

Sometime during my recitation, Mom Porter came in quietly and put her hands on my shoulders. I was in the middle of my recital, and I had run out of tears - again. I was all dry sobs and sup-sups. I had nothing left to cry. I tried really hard not to look at Tina, I couldn’t bear to see the disgust in her eyes.

"That rat bastard," she said when I had finished. I looked up at her because of the venom in her voice. "I can't BELIEVE that your father would do that to you. He's a real fucking bastard. And your bitch SISTERS! Sisters are supposed to stick together no matter what." Her eyes narrowed in anger.

"Well, don't you worry about anything Sam. Tina's here and I'll help you. You can stay with me since your losing your apartment. I have one near campus, and you can sleep in my bed with me if we need to do that to make enough room. We'll try to keep that from happening, keep you in the place you are used to, but if push comes to shove..."

"No," Mom Porter finally spoke up. "Pastor and I have an extra room since our children went off. Samantha can stay there. We've come to think of her as a daughter, so it's only right that she stay in my daughter's room."

I couldn't believe my ears. First Tina offering help and now Mom Porter? They were standing by me? Why? They had nothing to gain for this.

I must have said something out loud because Tina said. "Sam, you are a good person. You are my best friend and you are helpful and kind. You do more for everyone around here than most. Heck, you do more than I do, and that's a lot.

"Now, what do we need to do immediately and what can wait until tomorrow?"

Tina and Mom started deciding the order of precedence without me. Once they started making plans I was as good as moved in to the Porter's house. I couldn't believe it. They made plans for researching available grants and scholarships, completely ignoring my feeble attempts to enter the whirlwind they had become. They seemed to have it all decided without me.

A week later, I was ensconced in the “daughters” bedroom of Pastor and Mom Porter's house. Apparently she had two girls and one son. Daniel was grown and moved out before Pastor got his post here, and the girls slept in the same room -- this room -- my room now. It felt so strange to think that, I had a home, a room of my own, just when I knew I would be on the streets. I could only keep whispering “Thank you God, thank you for all of them.”

I helped as much as possible as Tina and the Porters packed up all of the stuff from their daughters and move it to the attic while packing my things up and getting them to my home. It was hard and took a lot of time. I packed up my life as Samuel choosing to put his belongings in the same place. All I had left was Samantha's and it was all I wanted. Now I had room to put my things out. Tina had bought me a huge stuffed Pikachu, and it sat on the bed in a place of honor.

For reasons unknown to all but God I still had my part-time job at the College library, and I'm not sure why. I had taken nearly two weeks off without telling anyone anything, but it was ignored. I thought for sure that I would be fired. Yet when I signed in, I was told by the head librarian that everything was fine. Then she asked if I was feeling better. When I told her that I was, she smiled, patted my hand and let me get to work.

Ben had tried contacting me a few times, but without internet access he couldn't reach me. I had about five emails from him, each getting more worried. I finally was able to answer him from one of the library computers. He answered instantly, relieved to hear that I was okay and that I hadn't started hating him. He was also afraid that I didn’t want to go out with him and this was how I was breaking our friendship off, ignoring his emails.

I was stunned he would think that I could hate him, but apparently some other tramps that had gone out with him then avoided him or flat out ignored him afterwards. I could feel my temper flare as I read his words. How could anyone be that mean to a sweet guy like him? Sure he was a nerd, but then again, so was I.

I finished the semester's classes, but I couldn't sign up for the next semester until I could pay for it. I spent many days not only with my advisor but in the library as well researching grants and scholarships. I discovered something I hadn't known, there seemed to be more private scholarships out there than there were people applying for them. Things like the Pell Grant and various lottery scholarships were well known, but there were private endowments that you could apply for as well. While most were not very large, I hoped they were easier to get since a lot of people didn't know they existed.

I applied for everything and anything we found. I printed labels out at the library so I wasn't typing my name and address over and over again, but each application had to be filled out by hand. That was nearly a full time job in and of itself. I printed out multiple copies of my school transcripts, and sent those along with letters of recommendation from teachers, my advisor and my saviors the Porters.

I was trying for scholarships based on need or academics. Good grades and no money were what I had in spades, but little else. I must have sent off thirty or forty scholarship applications, nearly twice what I actually needed just to be on the safe side. I figured that many of them would be turned down for one reason or another, so I hedged my bets. The fewer things I had to repay, the better my finances would be once I graduated.

Mom and Pastor Porter as well as Tina were gems. They did everything they could to keep me focused on the goal. I would fall into despair and one of the three of them would pull me out. They would talk to me, or take me shopping, or let me meditate wherever, and they gently kept encouraging me to keep going.

I printed up the email from my father, the one that denied my existence. I made sure to print it large and then I framed it. I wanted to remind myself never to be like him, ever.

I cut off all ties to my sisters; they only wanted to keep castigating me. I would get several emails a week from them about how evil I was, how mean I was being to my father how disrespectful by not being the son he wanted, so I stopped reading them. It got to the point where just seeing their name on the email "from" line would put me into tears. I did the only thing I could think of, I sent their emails to trash automatically.

Tina’s reaction actually made me smile when I told her what I’d done. “Good those stuck up bitches belong in the trash! I still wish you’d let ME answer just one of their emails!”

That was the last thing I wanted, I just wanted them to go away and stop hurting me.

I had one huge problem, however. I had no way to continue to pay for my hormones. If I went off them, there could be massive side effects. But the Doctor was able to find some money, some kind of charitable endowment, to allow me to keep seeing her and to keep paying for the hormones. I have no idea where she found it, but if someone was willing to pay to help me out, all I could offer was gratitude and my silent thanks to them.

My other big fear was I would be driven from the Church. I knew that people were people, and would have differing opinions about transsexuals. I was prepared to face a lot of hate and anger from the people in the Church. Surprisingly, the negative voices were a lot quieter than I’d expected. I was sure Pastor and Mom Porter had a lot to do with that. There were a lot of people who were concerned about me, who seemed to want to help, and there were even more who simply offered the support they could. So with surprise and humility I accepted their emotional support whole heartedly.

I asked Tina about it, and she told me that they had a lot of love and compassion for someone going through a tough time. It was hard when parents cut you off, she told me. We kept talking and I discovered that she had not told anyone my secret. It was mine to share, she said, not hers.

The rumor mill simply latched on to "parents cut her off" and didn't ask questions after that. I was so grateful that’s where it stopped.

Every time I thought about what had happened, the insults he hurled at me, and how my mother just sat there and didn't do anything, I got melancholy again and came near to tears. That's when I would grab Pikachu and hold it tight, just letting the tears flow into its fur.

I learned pretty rapidly to wear waterproof makeup, unless I wanted to look like Tammy Fae Baker. I didn't like raccoon eyes that much, however.

I did my best to pay everyone back for their concern and consideration. I worked extra hard at church, pitching in to help wherever I could. I spent an entire day putting decorations around the Church for Christmas, and I did what I could to sew costumes for the Christmas Pageant and play. I can sew a straight seam; I just can't make clothes come out right if there are curves and angles involved.

Keeping busy did help me forget my troubles; immersing myself in helping others was like a soothing balm for my soul. I couldn't be sad when I saw how people's faces lit up with the work I did.

I had to miss the Winter Semester. I hadn't heard back from most of the scholarships I had applied for. The three I did hear back from had accepted me, and I had enough money to pay for food for the upcoming year. I got applications in the acceptance packages so I knew I would have to re-apply when the Spring Semester was over. I filled the forms out in anticipation of sending them in immediately.

On the 21st of December, Tina grabbed me after the Pageant had finished. She pulled me along and asked Mom Porter for someplace private to talk to me. Mom Porter gave her the key to one of the activity rooms, now locked up for the night. We got to the room and went in.

"Sam, get the lights while I make sure that we aren't disturbed." I was a bit confused as to what she wanted, but I complied with her wishes.

When we were done, she pulled a chair out from one of the tables and shoved it toward me, and then pulled another out and which she sat upon. I took the offered chair, feeling ridiculous since it was a child's chair, no more than a foot off the ground. Tina grinned and dug into her bag. She pulled out a huge folder of papers.

I was being eaten alive with curiosity. I knew that it would do no good to rush her she would reveal everything her in her own time. Finally she seemed to be ready.

"Sam, I've been looking around for stuff to help you. I don't know if you know about the resources that are available, but I found a TON of information that will help." She shoved the stack of papers at me.

On top was a list of websites, the URLs in plain text so I could see where they were going. If the URL was too long, she had used a shortening service called cli.gs. It would be easy to follow those links from the printed page. The heading on the page caught my eye.

"Transgender Resources"

I looked at Tina. She was grinning like a fiend. "I started researching transgenderism and I found a TON of stuff. All these links lead to scholarship programs for transgender applicants. Some pay for school, some for housing, some for supplies, and some for counseling and medicine. Almost all of them are grants, but some require you to be actively undergoing 'transition' into the opposite sex. I guess, from the fact that you stated your father expected you to be a boy, that’s what you’re doing.

"The next page is a list of organizations that support transgender people, students and more. They fight for their rights and if you have problems with discrimination, they are the people you want to go to.

"The last page I think is the most important. It's information about Gamma Rho Lambda Sorority. It's a sorority that actively supports Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender ladies. Their membership is made up of those groups, and while it's a small sorority now, it's growing fast. There seems to be more and more GLBT students than ever.

"I looked it up and they don't have a chapter anywhere near us right now, but that doesn't mean that we can't start one."

I looked sharply at Tina. "We?"

She nodded. "They don't discriminate against straight women, so there's nothing stopping me from being part of that sorority. In fact, I want to help you set it up here on campus. It would give you a group of women who know what it's like to go through what you are going through and a better support structure than you have now."

"But I have a wonderful support structure," I protested.

"Not really. You have me, the Porters, and that's about it. You have sympathy from the Church, but there's a couple things hindering their full acceptance of you. You aren't a member yet, and they don't know about your secret."

I thought about that one. It was true I had kept that from them. I didn't want there to be misunderstandings and I didn't want anyone to hate me. If I didn’t tell the Church I couldn’t ask for their help and support. The problem? I wasn't ready to "come out" yet to them.

I looked at Tina. "Why did you do all this?"

She looked at me, incredulous. "Because I'm your friend dummy. You and I are a lot alike, and I don't care that you have a penis; you are as much girl as me or Mom Porter. I can't imagine you as anyone else. I saw how much you were hurting, how much this affected you, and now you need help. Getting grants and scholarships are one thing, but you also need support from others who have similar experiences. You need to be able to talk to them and to be able to vent with them as well. They may know about more things you can do. I mean I can tell you about make up, but I can't really help you with putting your John Thomas away. I don't have one."

What she said made sense. I couldn't think of anything to say, so I just stood up and hugged her. I couldn't see because of the tears in my eyes.