"	Gene's Story or How I Gained a Cousin A novel by Karen Lockhart Copyright 2016

CHAPTER 28

I woke up at 5 AM, thanks to that alarm of mine, with no problem. As I headed
for the bathroom, I remembered our house guest. I stopped and grabbed my terrycloth bathrobe from the foot of my bed. It would be just my luck to provide an extra bonus for Kevin by walking nude to the shower.

I got there first, locked the door, peed, wiped myself, and stepped into the shower.
I wasn't in there ten minutes before someone was banging on the door.

“Please let me in, I can't wait, hurry!” said a high voice, “C'mon Ellen, hurry.”

I stepped out, and stretching, reached the door, “Ginny, you can come in, Kevin
will just have to wait.”

She came flying in, “What's the rush?” I asked. “You could have peed in an empty
bottle, you're still plumbed for that, you know.”

Just before I turned the shower back on, I heard “Sure, and let Kevin see me?”

When I stepped out, I had the bathroom to myself. I toweled myself dry, grabbed
my robe and headed for my bedroom. “Next” I yelled over my shoulder, as I closed my door.

I heard what sounded like giggles and two sets of feet heading for the shower.

I guess that means Kevin had no problem with her plumbing last night, and I'm
not going to ask anything about how they managed with his.

Since no work or surveying was to go on today, I wore my cross-country trainers
instead of my boots. Might as well be comfortable; once we got going, it'd be boots and hard hat every day. After doing a make-up job that would make Max Factor jealous, (yeah, right) I headed for coffee.

I used the pot again, figuring we would have a second cup, while they explained how we had a sleep-over last night.

Eventually, Ginny and Kevin came out of her bedroom and sat at the kitchen counter.

“Okay guys, there's fresh coffee in the pot, English muffins in the bread drawer. Kevin, you need to move your truck so one of our cars can get out. Ginny, we leave in fifteen minutes, or we will be late.”

They looked at me in amazement. “Wow, you sound like a drill sergeant. Where did that come from?” Ginny asked. Before I could answer her, Kevin responded,

“Ginny, how do you think she can run a construction project with twenty hard-
arsed construction workers, by batting her eyelashes at them? She's as tough as a bale of barbed wire, kiddo, don't forget it.”

“Kevin, I have no idea where you belong, lock the door when you go please. Ginny, saddle up, we're out of here.”

With that, I spun on my heel, and headed out the door, unlocked the Explorer, and blew the horn. C'mon, Kevin, move that darn truck.

He came running down the stairs barefooted, with his keys in his hand, Ginny right behind him. She got into my car at the same time he got into his. Huh, a new Olympic event, synchronized car entry.

He backed up enough for me to leave. In my rear view mirror, I saw him park in my spot and continue on into the condo.

'Hope he puts the toilet seat down,' I was thinking as we drove down Shore Drive.

“Ginny, were you able to eat something?” I asked.

“Not really, can we stop somewhere to get coffee and doughnuts?”

“Sure, How does Honey Dew sound?”

She looked at me, “Anyplace with coffee and food is great. I didn't get a lot of sleep last night.”

I started laughing “And whose fault is that? You two weren't that quiet, you know,”

Ginny's face reddened, “It started as spooning, but that lead to one thing then it lead to another. Pretty soon we were......”

“Stop!” I yelled, “I don't want to hear anymore, I have a picture in my mind already, that's enough.”

“Hey Ellen, think of it this way, I won't get pregnant.”

“What have I created?” I moaned, “Do I need to buy you a chastity belt?”

It was our turn to order. I asked for two large black coffee with cream and sugar on the side, and a dozen mixed doughnuts. Amazingly, that ate most of a twenty dollar bill.

I merged back out onto the Lynnway, and fought my way to the left lane and the
U-turn traffic lights.

“How did I get stuck with driving again?”

“You wanted to leave so fast, I barely had time to put on lippy this morning.”

“Ginny, when you bring a man to your bed, usually he leaves first. You don't tell him to lock up when he goes. Boy, I didn't think we'd need that discussion so soon.”

She just looked at me and smirked.

I pulled into the future job site, ending that conversation, at least for now.

We settled in at her desk in the bigger of the two rooms. We made our coffees the way we preferred them, and started in on the doughnuts.

“Weren't we going to look at the different places that perform GRS surgery?” Ginny asked.

I could see she really wanted to have my opinion on the options.

“Okay, why don't we do that now. Pull up a couple of sites, and let me read about them. First, if possible, do you want to have it done in the USA, Thailand or in England?”

“Well, here is the Thailand hospital with the most information. It's called the,
Asia Cosmetic Hospital. They list the prices for a lot of different plastic surgeries along with the creation of a vagina and the outer lips, See, here are before after photographs. Can you tell these aren't natural?”

By now, I'm bright red with embarrassment, but hanging in there.

“The price is less, but once you factor in airfare, and hotels back and forth, they're the same as others.”

She clicked on a hospital,in England. Basically they performed the same surgeries for the same prices, but again, factoring in airfare and hotel stays, the price was about $30,000.

“Here is the one that stood out to me,” she said, “ It's in the US, in Trinidad, Colorado. It's called the “Sex Change Capital of the World.” The doctor who is performing the surgery was actually a patient herself. She took over the practice from the doctor who operated on her twenty-five years ago. The price is $18,000 for the GRS surgery and an a-la-carte pricing for the other surgeries.”

“Well Ginny, I would feel more comfortable with going to a hospital in the United States. The biggest reason is the language barrier in Thailand along with the distance factor if you were to go to England or there.”

We sat back thinking. She looked at me, smiled and said “You know, we could
fly out there and take a tour of the facility. Take a four day weekend before this job starts up.”

“You have an appointment with Doctor Singh next week; why don't we ask her what she thinks before making reservations? We also would need to get a hotel room. I'm going back to studying the plans, why don't you check motel availability for the next couple of weeks?”

To be continued.

Many thanks to Bronwen for fixing the typos and grammar.