Big Bangs, Prohibition, and a Sugar Daddy

Nightmares

"How did you know my Mother?" I asked Rae as we drove home. "Mother never would tell me, you two seemed so different."

"Your Mother did burlesque with me." Rae said. My jaw dropped. "How do you think two such different people were friends?"

"It was before she met your Father. After a show your Father came up to her and propositioned her. She slapped his face." Rae said.

"How did they ever marry?" My Mother, a burlesque dancer, my Father a traveling salesman. It seemed like the start of a trashy novel.

"Your Father, what's his name, just kept coming round the shows. You know he traveled as a salesman. He always ended up in the same town as our burlesque troupe. They dated for a while, he proposed. They were together for a while."

"Until I changed." I said with a sigh. "And you do know his name."

"I know it, I just don't care to repeat it." Rae loved and tolerated everyone, but when she talked of my Father she had nothing but contempt. "As for your change, we all accepted it. We loved you because of who you were, not because of the accident of nature that changed you."

"But, Father didn't. Mother left my Father to protect me from him." I remembered this clearly.

"Oh, your Father was already stepping out on your Mother before that. It wasn't all about you, your Mother had enough of his nonsense. I assure you. When he started to be abusive to you, she put her foot down and made him leave." Rae assured me.

"Was that why it took so long for Mother to have children, because Father was 'stepping out' on her?" I had been born when mother was in her late thirties.

"I don't know why they waited so long to have Carol and you. I think it was a shock when they had Carol to begin with, then two years later you were born." Rae said. "When your Mother left the troupe we lost contact. It wasn't until after your Mother left your Father that she contacted me again."

"If it was a burlesque troupe does that mean Mother---" I started, but couldn't finish.

"Yes, it does." Rae said. "We often danced together. Nothing more inappropriate than taking off our clothes, but yes."

"My Mother?"

"Your Mother didn't have the heart to tell you. She wanted both Carol and you to be proper young ladies. For Carol to marry and give her grandchildren. For you to just be happy, even if you couldn't marry."

"Mother knew about Luke and I. She figured out that the door leading to the bathroom between our rooms was a sign that I was sleeping with Luke. That and other things." I would have cried, if I had any tears left. "She was happy for us, said she approved."

"That was your Mother, never judged people, not even me. I'm glad she knew Luke and you were happy together." Rae looked at me. "You are happy?"

"I was resolved to become an old maid. I thought my condition prevented me from any intimate relationship." I laughed. "I never thought I'd have a homosexual relationship with a man. To be honest I was never that attracted, but I'm happy being with Luke. Even if it is a feminine role."

"I'm glad you didn't let that detail stop you. It doesn't matter about your anatomy, what matters is that you are happy." Rae parked her Model T and patted my hand. "I wonder what your Sister thinks about all of this. Have you told her."

"She's made a few little sly comments. I'm sure she reasoned it out, like Mother did." I said. "Before we go inside. Did you know I had a twin named Ellen?"

"You are Ellen, you died as Allen when you were twelve. I know it is hard on you, but from the time you began to look like a girl, you had to become Ellen." Rae sighed. "Allen has to be that little baby who died at birth. If the world becomes aware of what you are, you will be viewed as a freak. As Ellen you can live your life, love Luke, and no one will know you were ever once a boy. Let go of Allen and embrace your life as Ellen."

Rae got out of the car and sashayed over to Phillip and Carol as their Model T arrived behind us. I decided to forget about my twin. Allen was dead. Rae was right. If he hadn't died, I wouldn't be alive today. I would always remember that sacrifice, but I had to live my own life without him haunting me.

What I needed to do was to give to him what Ellen never had. A tombstone with his name on it. Ellen was buried in an unmarked grave beside Mother's grave, I would put a marker there announcing to the world that Allen had died at birth.

In the next few days I had nightmares about my Father. As I'd gone through puberty he had become violent towards me. He had never been that way with Carol, at the time I was confused as to why. I think I have a better idea why now that I'm mature and am familiar with the world. All the same it was difficult at the time.

"I keep dreaming that Father came at me with a butcher's knife. Threatening to cut off my breasts, because they are an abomination to god." I said to Luke one night, after I had woken up from one of the nightmares. "I don't remember it ever happening, but he had often called me names and threatened once to kill me 'in the name of god.' I remember I was scared of him."

"No wonder your Mother divorced him." Luke said.

All of the nightmares had begun after the funeral. Luke says they were caused by anxiety that originated from Mother's illness and death. I have to agree. I'm sure that Rae explaining that Mother had divorced Father because he'd been so hostile towards me during puberty was another reason that I had nightmares.

"We need to use that birth certificate." I said to Luke. "I think that we should take care of a little problem that we have been having."

That little problem was another cause for my anxiety. There had been too many incidents for us to ignore. JP Morgan Building being bombed when Luke had an appointment. The fire in the theater. The bombing of our house. Someone was trying very hard to kill Luke, possibly me as well, and cover it up as a terrorist act. One such act might be coincidence, three was obvious that these were assassination attempts.

Deciding to do something meant putting a plan in motion. It also helped to know what the enemy is planning. We knew who it was. We needed to wait until he moved again, and we knew what he planned to do. We just didn't know how long it would take him to do it.

My nightmare had revealed to me who the man in the brown suit was at the funeral. If what I suspected was true, then Antonio knew what I was, who I was, and that he could use that against us. Assuming the assassin was Antonio. When John Thane hadn't appeared at the funeral I suspected him too. Thane no longer seemed a friend of Lukes, and betrayal seemed likely.

In fact they both could be in on the plot.