Non-Transgender

Chapter 14 - Everything Changes

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That established the pattern. Jack and Erica would go out with me when I had Liberty and I'd trawl for Ms. Right. Never really got anywhere, but the three of us sure had fun trying! We got together with Rich and Heather a few times for dinner, but it was becoming clear that the guys started getting too busy with their own things to spend any real time together.

Jack got a job managing a dry-cleaners in Palo Alto, meanwhile Rich was busy finishing his degree. With Heather and Rich graduating shortly after he and Jack were officially shifted to the Reserves, a full year ahead of Erica's graduation and sixteen months before the end of my cruise, we all knew it meant big changes were coming in our lives. Rich had talked about taking an office job somewhere in LA so he could be close to Jack, Erica, and his parents, but he never got into any details. I guess he was just stalling.

I remember the last dinner we had all together that summer. It was at Heather and Rich's apartment because it was bigger. I'm pretty sure Jack knew what was coming, but it didn't make it any easier to take.

Chapter 13 - The New Normal

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When Rich, Heather, and I drove back to the bay area in his car, mine stayed with Jack and Erica after we three had properly 'decorated' it. By then I was feeling a little better about things, but not much. I think I did a pretty good job of keeping the boys blissfully unaware, but not Heather. She knew I was upset, and why, without me saying a word.

That week was hell for me. Once word got around that Jack and Erica had gotten married, I had every single serviceman at that base 'dropping by' the shop to give their condolences on the breakup of our relationship, and not too casually expressing their interest at taking his fictional place in my bed. I managed to duck out of them all that week by saying how I was still kind of heartbroken over the whole thing and just wanted to take time away from dating anyone, but I knew they'd be back.

I never realized before that week just how much Jack had helped my time in the Corps be as enjoyable as it was. After he got married, it was a chore. Just work... and I had eighteen months left in my cruise.

When Jack finally returned the next weekend, I got to hear all the details of their Honeymoon. Romantic evenings, dinners at the lake, feeding ducks at some park, I wanted to puke it was so sweet! I'll admit it. I was bitter. Bitter, jealous, and angry with Jack for taking away my protective cloak. I think that's why he did what he did.

Chapter 12 - Big Things Come in Small Buildings

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They buried Mary in the plot next to his father Danny there in Pittsburgh the following Saturday. It was just the two of them and Erica's father Frank there to say goodbye. They flew back the next day and Jack went to work on his big plan.

Jack told me about his plan for the weekend of March twenty-third, ninety-six. He'd thought of everything, but needed Heather and me to help pull it off. So we spent four weeks between Jack burying his mom and the weekend of the twenty-third plotting, scheming, and basically having a blast planning the surprise of a lifetime for both Erica and Richard. Rich almost caught us once. He walked into the shop while I had stuff out he shouldn't see, but he could be a bit oblivious at times. He never had a clue!

Rich once told me that he thought Jack didn't know how to plan ahead... that he seemed incapable of thinking more than five minutes into the future. He thought Jack was wasting his time and opportunities by not going to college on the government dime. We'd earned it, so why not take advantage? The truth is Jack did have a plan for what he wanted to do, he just had different priorities than Rich. He thought love and happiness, even in total poverty, were better than living in the lap of luxury...

...but Jack did know how to plan.

Chapter 11 - The Impatience and Patience of Love

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CAUTION - Sex / Sexual Scenes
CAUTION - Highly Emotional Content

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Erica once told me that the night she and Jack talked upstairs was one of the most romantic experiences of her life. Sounds great when you say it, but if you think about it you come to realize that the logical corollary to that is that it must have been all worse after that! Luckily for her, Jack was only getting started. Besides, Erica had a tendency to exaggerate!

Jack told me that they talked, cried, kissed a few times, and professed their love for one another. That and a bunch of stuff about living in contentment with pain and such. Blah, blah, blah. Richard was a wreck. He hid it well, but I knew him better than anyone except Jack, even better than Heather. He was torn between wanting to see Jack happy against his protectiveness of Erica. I guess that means protecting her from ever growing up, having fun, sex, a marriage, children... etc. Men are idiots!

The rest of New Years morning was uneventful, unless of course you count Jack's proposal to Erica, but then I'm pretty sure they both knew it was only Jack being Jack. I told you that story already, though. The next few weeks were hard on them. Jack had no Liberty and Erica was swamped with school. Richard and Heather had gotten to the 'comfortable' part of being a couple, so they were used to the separation. Plus, they were sleeping together, which took off a lot of the tension. Jack and Erica... well... Erica told me what they weren't doing.

It got difficult for them to go slowly after only six weeks. Their needs pushed them father and faster than they'd planned to go, but sometimes you realize you gotta to take hold of life fast, and live it while you still have the chance.

Chapter 10 - Revelations

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I spent my next Liberty with Erica. She talked while I listened and messed with her hair. I learned a lot about Jack, things he never told me. I understand why he'd kept it to himself, though. He'd endured so much pain, it's amazing he was only as nuts as he seemed to be! No one want's that to show.

I learned a lot about Rich, too. She didn't talk as animatedly about him as she did Jack, but she knew all his secrets! I don't know what it is about being a beautician, but women will bear their souls to us the way guys do with a bartender. They tell us things they won't even tell their shrink!

For Jack's part, he was just so damnably, blissfully, innocently, ignorant of Erica's feelings toward him it was hard to watch! It wasn't that Jack didn't see her that way because she was younger, but because of something much more basic. She was his best friend's sister, and that made her almost like his own. It's a little creepy if you think too hard about it!

Jack wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth, though. Erica loved him, and had loved him through some of the worst times of his life. He wasn't about to let that get away, no matter who she was.

Chapter 9 - Christmas Gifts

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The next day Rich called Heather and told her that Jack stepped aside, but Heather wouldn't have it. She insisted on a date with Jack and wouldn't take no for an answer. Jack said it was good, friendly and warm, but they quickly learned that he and Heather would never have worked out in the end. She was made for Rich and Jack could already see she was in love with him.

Heather and Rich were inseparable after that. For about six weeks, every minute of Liberty Rich had was spent with her, leaving Jack and I to fumble around on our own. It wasn't until Rich's twenty-fourth birthday that Jack and I got to spend any time with him again, but by then it was a foursome.

Rich was done dating and Jack was stuck as my 'boyfriend' for the interim. We went on a triple date once. Rich and Heather, Jack and... Marie I think her name was... and me and Julie. It was awkward because they were first dates for Jack and me, but Heather and Rich were a permanent couple, so I think it made our dates a little uncomfortable. We never did it again.

By the end of the following year, Jack was in a bit of a depression. He was happy for Rich and Heather, but he'd begun to feel like he was never going to find anyone that would love him. It was shortly before Christmas ninety-five that I found myself in a position to repay all the help Jack had ever given me, plus interest.

Chapter 8 - Fate or Chance

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After that day, Jack, Rich, and I were inseparable. There were rumors that I was dating Jack while sleeping with Rich, but we didn't care. Rich about killed PFC Ricks the one time he called Jack a cuck and wasn't just shitting around. We had lots of fun and I never got caught. Jack made sure of that.

Not that I was sleeping around a lot, mind you, but I went on a few dates, mostly with college girls. I never risked dating a fellow W-M. While Rich and Jack were running cover for me, I couldn't count on any of them having similar arrangements. We also never went anywhere that was near the base.

If I had a date, which was rare, it was always somewhere remote and out of the way... never any of the usual places the Hellcats or anchor-clankers might go. The only times we'd go places like the Warf or any place we could get seen it was the three of us, sometimes with a girl Rich was seeing, but never with a girl Jack was seeing. That wasn't often and never the same girl more than once, for any of us!

By ninety-four, things got easier with 'don't ask, don't tell', but we kept up the pretense of Jack being my boyfriend because it just made things easier. For me, anyway. Most W-Ms got hit on all the time, but once it got around that Jack and I were an item, I was off limits. Grunts had no qualms about hitting on W-Ms if they we're seeing a civi or were even married to one, but they'd rarely turn on a fellow member of the Corps. I felt bad for Jack, though. It made his success rate with the ladies track nearly to zero.

Even when it looked like maybe Jack had a shot at a terrific girl, something would always screw it up.

Chapter 7 - What's a Nice Girl Like You Doing

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I came out of MCRD Paris Island in January of ninety-one, days before the start of Operation Desert Storm. From there I went to Camp Geiger for MCT and Lejeune for MOS. By the time I got my first posting later that year, the war was over and the country had a different attitude toward the military.

Before the Gulf, most people looked down on a military career, leftover crap from Vietnam, I guess. After the Gulf though, the country almost seemed to be on overkill trying to apologize to every service member for the treatment of Vets after Vietnam by being overly proud of them. I hadn't even gotten a posting outside the US yet and I had people thanking me for my service! It was bizarre when you think that just a year earlier I had every friend I ever knew telling me what a mistake it was to join up.

I was posted to The Bricks... Marine Barracks, Alameda Naval Air Station as an eleven forty-two, Electrical Equipment Repair Specialist, about July of that year. I met Jack about a week later. At first I thought he was rude, boisterous, pigheaded, and inconsiderate. Later I found out he was all that and so much more!

Chapter 6 - Graduation and Beyond

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Jack told me a story once about things that he said happened later that night, but Rich insisted that he was exaggerating, so I don't know what happened after that, really. Jack says Anne made a scene, trying to tell Jack to leave and quit embarrassing himself by taking his mother to the Prom, but Rich says she only wanted to make peace now that school was ending. I don't know what the truth is, but I suspect Rich was just defending her out of his sense of loyalty. He could be like that sometimes. Besides, he still put almost all the blame on Wendy and his mom. He never said so, but I think he always believed that Wendy broke up he and Anne, not vice versa.

Their graduation was apparently as uneventful as they usually are. There was apparently a party afterwards, but both of them said it was boring and not worthy of a story. Just things that happened, but then I think a lot of life is that way... just things that happen.

In the weeks that followed, Jack was working at his physical therapy. He said he was concerned that the Corps wouldn't take him due to his injury, but in the end, with Rich's help, he passed MEPS and, with his mother's signature, headed off to Paris Island in July while he was still seventeen.

Boot is Boot, so telling you what it would have been like for them isn't really telling you about them. It wasn't until they came home after MCRD and before heading out for SOI that things got interesting.

A Year And A Day - Chapter 1: Rules From Mother

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Chapter 5 - Back to School

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Rich didn't ever tell me much about the time he spent in jail. He just would say, 'It wasn't that bad, really.' and change the subject. When Jack told the police that he hit Rich first and refused to press charges on the assault, the DA dropped the pending charges. Jack told me he was contacted by the DA while in the hospital saying they had filed assault charges against him, but Rich pled the fifth because testifying against Jack would incriminate himself, leaving no witnesses and a really weak case. So in the end, the whole matter was dropped and neither one was convicted of anything.

Jack spent the next three months in physical therapy. The only thing that kept them afloat was the money that Frank Hargrave gave them to help out. Rich said his dad felt responsible for the whole thing because he did nothing to stop Judith from playing matchmaker with the neighborhood floozy, not caring if Jack got hurt in the process.

He took classes between therapy sessions by state appointed tutor until he was able to come back to school, but by then it was early April and there was less than ten weeks of school left. Richard had classes to make up from his jail time, so he had to quit his job and go back home to have any chance of graduating with his class.

Rich told me the most about when Jack finally was able to go back to school. Jack didn't like talking about it, but he had the best stories about the things going on outside of school.

Chapter 4 - How Low Can You Go

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Richard moved out of his parent's house in October of eighty-eight, just a few days after his eighteenth birthday while he still had most of his senior year left. He moved into Jack's house and got a part-time job after school to help with money. Jack used to say that after they moved in together was when their friendship saw its first real test.

It was a really hard time for them. Rich was working, Jack was depressed a lot of the time, and Rich's parents were calling him every day asking him to come home. Rich told me that by Christmas break things had hit their lowest point. Most of the details though I got from Jack and Erica.

High school is supposed to be about learning to deal with real life. Jack and Richard only got three years of that before they had to start living it. That year seemed to be a living hell that nearly ruined their friendship, and more.

Chapter 3 - Bumps and Bruises

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I think Jack was really in love with Wendy. They dated almost four months before she ended it. Rich said that he thought Jack would never recover. It absolutely destroyed him. Jack just never talked about it. I think... I think it just hurt too much, even years later. He never would say her name, even when he would talk about it.

Rich told me what happened though. Wendy dated Jack through the rest of May and June and into July. Then her parents took her on a month-long trip to Florida. When she got back, right before school started, she told him that she'd found someone else and broke up with him. Rich said she was cruel about it, telling him that he was too much of a wimp for her and she needed a strong man. I don't know if it's true or not. Rich hated her for hurting him, so he might have just been bitter and wanted to say mean things about her. I guess now only one person knows the truth... and she'll never tell.

So Jack and Rich started their senior year of high school on a bad note, and it just kept getting worse from there.

Chapter 2 - The Dance

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When Jack used to talk about high school, it was always on the same subject. Girls! Jack would say he took a different girl to every school dance or party, but then Rich would point out that it was because he could never get a girl to say yes twice! Poor Jack! He tried so hard to fit in with the popular kids that Rich hung out with, and Rich would always make sure that Jack was included.

See, pretty soon, the other kids figured out that if you wanted Rich to come to your party, Jack had to be invited, too. Rich would say Jack never held him back though... he still was invited to all the parties and dances and they still hung out with his regular crowd, so you can't say Jack hurt Rich's social life, but Rich's friendship almost certainly helped Jack's, immensely.

I remember this story that Jack used to tell about their Junior Prom. Rich denied parts of it, but I think Jack was telling the truth. I could always tell when Jack was BSing his way through a story. Erica told me a lot of things about that night that tell me it was Jack that was being honest. It started a chain of events that would have life-changing effects, but then Jack would say that was true about everything that happens to a person.

Chapter 1 - Where It All Began

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I met Jack and Rich when we were all three posted at Alameda Naval Air Station just across the bay from San Francisco. Jack was a total clown who hit on everything with breasts! We called him Corporal Strikeout because he couldn't get a date to save his life, but just kept right on swinging! From what everyone told me, it'd always been that way, too. Rich, on the other hand, was attractive, smooth, and never lacked for female attention. I would have hated him, except he was just so nice!

They both grew up in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which is funny when you consider that later Rich would move into a house near Pittsberg, New Hampshire, but I'm getting ahead of myself! Rich used to tell this funny story about how he met Jack. Of course, Jack being Jack, he had to add his own twist to it every time Rich would tell it. Rich's story would always be the same, but Jack added bits that were always different. Not that he would change his story mind you, but it was like each time Rich told it, Jack would remember some new little tidbit to add to it.

So this is how it all began.

A Grumpy Old Man’s Tale 33 Shopping

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‘Use the best techniques and materials, Son. Old or new, it makes no odds, just stick with the best, but don’t take anyone’s word for anything; try them all for yourself. Smithcraft is the same as everything else, it’s full of charlatans. Make your own mind up.’

Debriefings 25

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Debriefings 25

Debriefings
by
Anam Chara

Along life’s journey we each encounter those events where all that we know, all that we do, and all that we are may change. But even as we approach such events, we don’t always notice their markers until we look behind us and see them for what they were.

One boy is about to learn that he has already passed such an event, and nothing will ever be quite the same…

Starlight to Twilight Chapter 1

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Today

The last time I saw my daughter was on June 6th, 1996; that was two years ago, three months and six days. Her mother took her and moved to another state because, as it was put by some fat-assed lawyer, I was in a toxic environment, living with my parents and still not graduated from high school by, pretty much, dropping out and going to work as a mechanic in Airway Heights.

The Girls' Changing Room - Chapter 14 - Out Of the Frying Pan

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Chapter 14 – Out of the frying pan
by Maeryn Lamonte – Copyright © 2021
Hogwarts thumbnail.png I rewrote the end of the conversation between Lori and Neville in chapter 12. I’d already rewritten the encounter with McGonagall where she mentioned evidence of a house elf from outside Hogwarts being involved, but I didn’t do the same for the Longbottom conversation and it didn’t fit quite right.

The Writing on the Wall Chapter 1

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“Rebekah, I have something I have to tell you.”
“What is it?”
“I’m bad at relationships. I don’t really know what to do.”
“I thought it was just me,” she replied as she laid her head my shoulder.
“I’m going to make mistakes.”
“I hope so.”
“I’m going to disappoint you.”
“I know.”

Southern Justice.

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I'm going through some of my old stories I wrote when I was younger. Some are short some are long but ive been bitten by the creative bug and decided to go through and refresh and finish them. So since we are getting close to spooky month here's a short little story from the dusty old box in the back of the closet.

Dmitrianakova the Player

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It took even longer for it to be accepted that those rights did not give adults the ownership of their children, for they too had rights. That took away the right of parents to facilitate the practice of genital mutilation in the name of religion, and thankfully involuntary clitoridectomy, circumcision, and ‘correction’ of intersex conditions shortly after birth are now part of a barbaric past that makes all shudder in horror.

Omnipotence Paradox

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Omnipotence Paradox
Copyright 2021 by Heather Rose Brown

This is my response to a paradox I heard a long time ago. It may not be a great answer, or even a good one, but it was fun to think up, so I thought I'd share. Enjoy! :)

=-=-=

“Searching for John Louis” Final “Quiet Desperation ”

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“I don’t know, I replied as I walked several steps away from the two men who seemed to know too much for my liking. Maybe I had been given more than just booze and my senses—and emotions—were just on high.
“I wished you had left him earlier,” John said a bit of sadness in his eye.
“How do you know about my life?”
“It’s on your face. It’s all around you in this place.”
“I’ve never been here before in my life!” I yelled.
The bartender shrugged his shoulders
“He’s just trying to make you feel calm.”

Bad

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Posting this story is ... an act of defiance. It's a refusal to hide what I've hidden from others, as well as myself. But it's a dark story. So please, please, be careful. If you think reading about bad things happening to someone might hurt or harm you in any way, the please don't read this.

=-=-=

The Fate of the USS FTL0476

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The Fate of the USS FTL0476

By Daphne Xu

            The USS FTL0476

The USS FTL0476 flew out to 100 million miles beyond the orbit of Jupiter, making sure to remain well away from Jupiter and its moons and Lagrange points.

The long road home chapter one: Three Suit Cases

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The long road home
Chapter one, three suit cases.

That day was like any other really. I woke up, got dressed, ate breakfast, said goodbye to mom and I was out the door and on my way to school.

The Road to Hell

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Josh Ryan was not normal. He talked different, walked different, laughed different... and everyone knew it. He had two very close friends who always wanted to help him; in fact, throughout his young life, he always had people around who wanted to help him... usually to fend off his parents who seemed like they would do anything for him. Their desire to help however, often made his own life take a back seat to their ideas of why he was so different and who he should become as a result... "for his own good." Determined to raise Josh 'their way' and according to their own ideas of who he is, it would take extreme circumstances and more pain than Josh ever thought a person could endure for anyone to even begin to see the damage his parents were doing to his childhood, his future, and in the end, his very life... all "with the best of intentions."

Every Day is Your Last

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Jack Dunning was just a poor kid from Pittsburgh, no better or worse than any other. When he met Richard, it seemed to be a one-sided friendship; Jack needing Richard much more than the other way around. As the years passed however, it became clear to them both just how important their friendship was, eventually culminating in both learning the hardest lesson in life; that every day is a gift and you should treat each one as though it were your last.

Scald-Crow 2: Chapter 6 - Life's Strange

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The Heaviness Of The Badge

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“Bye, kids!” Julia watches as her children exit from her patrol vehicle and heads towards their friends.

“Bye, mom.” Haylee waves goodbye to Julia.

Chayton waves goodbye to Julia as well. He spotted the other members of the school’s basketball team standing around. He recently joined the basketball team and was one of their star players. His grandfather had turned the tennis court into a basketball court for him to practice.
When he was having problems with his shots, Julia came out and practice with him. She uses to play when she went to school.

Consequences Of Ego

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COE.jpeg
The story is about Rahul and how because of his Ego he has to deal with obstacles in his school life.

D&D: Portal Problems chapter 1

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Dungeons and Dragons: Portal Problems: Chapter 1

Although my pathfinder adventures are on pause, I’ve joined a group of 5th edition D&D players, which led me to buy the books, create some characters, and finally make an adventure of my own. We’ll just have to see how it goes ...

Making one's way as a man in the Feminist Queendom of Atlantica.

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I was inspired to write this by Torrey Grover and there is an acknowledgement in the title page.
We have discussed creating another 'Universe' based upon the topic of female societal domination. It's a bit of a long story over 40,000 words and it's still not quite finished. Suggestions about ways of ending it are invited please.

Beverly Taff

Life-Changing Moments 5 (END)

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Skyler has now to return home and face his parents let's see how he faces them in the final chapter of Life-Changing Moments...

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