‘Kate lives near here.’
Augustus tried to push the thought from his head, but the more he attempted to discredit it, the more sense it made. After all, she already knew what he was going through and, up to this point, had been pretty actively involved. With newfound confidence, he made his way to her door and knocked. Just as he was about to turn away, the door swung open, but instead of Kate revealed her husband, Tae, standing in the doorway.
“Is Kate around?” he asked, having somehow not seen this as a possibility when he darkened Kate’s doorstep.
“No, she had some business to take care of down at the docks. Why? I’m not good enough to talk to? I’ll have you know I have good advice; what do you need?” he looked Augustus up and down. “Girl advice? Boy …advice? What have we got going on today, Augustus?” he asked with a cheeky smile, very obviously not expecting him to truly confide in him.
Augustus felt his bottom lip tremble slightly. “I’m scared Tae…I’m scared I won’t be able to keep those I care about safe. I’m scared that just by moving here, I’ve put the people I care about in more danger than I’ll be able to undo. Even if that’s not the case, I feel my most recent actions have burnt bridges that I really hoped to cross.”
Tae’s eyes went wide as Augustus began divulging the issues that had been weighing on him when he had been simply bantering.
“Sounds like you’ve got some real stuff going on. I’ll put on some tea.”
Tae stepped away, leaving the door open for Augustus to walk through. He briefly debated walking away, but being alone with the whirlwind of emotions bubbling up inside him was even less appealing, so in he went. He pulled up a chair at the table where large tins of food had been arranged for a dinner party only a few Sundays prior. He felt slightly wistful remembering when his biggest problem was whether or not the guests at the party would like him. Tae returned with two cups of tea. Augustus wrapped his fingers around his and took a deep breath as Tae took the seat across from him.
“So what do we have going on in the life of Augustus? You’ve been working on fixing up your boats. Have you thought of what you’d like to name them when they’re done?”
“I don’t know if Kate’s mentioned it, but I finished fixing up two of the boats and have been occasionally working on the third. I think I’m going to paint the side of one of them so it says something to the effect of ‘the U.S.S James.’”
Tae smiled, recognizing the first name of the local physician, James Morroe, who he had heard rumors Augustus had been spending time with in increasingly long intervals.
“If you have the hots for the town doctor, you could call it the ‘Dock-tor Morroe,” he said, laughing at his own joke.
Augustus felt himself blushing. “I like him. I don't know if I have the hots for him,” he thought a little more, his blush deepening. Okay…maybe I do.”
Tae gave him an amused look. “So what’s going on here, is he one of the people you’re worried about not being able to keep safe?”
Augustus deflated slightly and took a sip of his tea. He looked down at the cup, then up at Tae, debating whether or not he could spit it out unnoticed. In the end, he swallowed it and pushed the cup away from him on the table. Tae gave him an offended look and took a sip of his own tea, which he promptly spat back into his cup.
“Oh, that’s VILE,” he said, looking down into his cup with a crinkled nose. He seemed to realize something and looked between the pot he used to boil the water and back at his cup before putting his face in his hands in shame. “I thought my loving wife had boiled water for tea and forgotten to dump it out later, so I heated it up again for our tea. But thinking about it now… That’s definitely hot dog water.”
Augustus laughed goodnaturedly at the mix-up, feeling the tension in his body slip away as he did so. Now that he was more relaxed he found himself telling Tae everything, catching him up on details Kate may not have shared with him previously.
Tae let out a long sigh, “I don’t envy you. It seems like there are a lot of moving parts. But it also sounds like those who are going through this with you aren’t being forced. It sounds like they have a stake in it because they care about you. In fact, I can speak on Kate’s behalf and say it’s definitely because she cares.”
“But…what if they’re biting off more than they can chew? What’s going to happen if things escalate. They’re trying to help, but what if they don’t know what they’re getting themselves into?”
Tae leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms.
“What if they don’t know what they’re getting themselves into,” he repeated. “Do you?”
Augustus gave Tae a hopeless look. “ No, I had no idea how bad it was. I still don’t think I fully do.”
“But..Kate did. It sounds like Kate went to you knowing how bad it was and still chose to help.”
“James only knows a little bit about what’s going on. He’s been so sweet. I wanted to exist in that space with him, but I realized he's been put in danger just by being around me. What if I can’t keep him safe?”
“What if you can? What if things stay as they are and nothing more happens?” He sighed, rotating his cup in a circular motion on the table. He smiled fondly, lost briefly in a memory. “Kate used to say this thing when we were younger, it used to drive me crazy because I didn’t understand it for the longest time. But, I think it may be useful for you to hear now. ‘Kindness doesn’t require omniscience.’ I’ve come to understand it as you can give and receive kindness without knowing how things will turn out. They might go poorly, that’s true, but they might also go better than you’d expect. Regardless, kindness is always a good place to start. It sounds like you could use a lot right about now.”
Augustus took a moment to process what Tae had said, but found himself getting stuck in loops of guilt and regret. Which directly went against what Tae had told him. Tae was right, he didn’t know how things would end, but accepting help and possibly having people get hurt for it still didn’t sit right with him. He turned his attention back to Tae as he cleared his throat and began talking again.
“I have a question. Dr.Morroe is gay, but this works because you are a man now?”
Augustus smiled at the bluntness and pure curiosity that Tae approached the subject with.
“Yeah, I’ve been taking testosterone for a while.”
Tae seemed to be mulling over how to ask his next question.
“I’ve wondered but haven’t had someone to ask. Believe it or not, transgender folks are hard to run into in the fishing trade. How...Do you get to choose how big it is, or does the surgeon decide for you?”
Augustus raised his eyebrows and stifled a laugh.
“My penis?”
Tae nodded as if it weren’t an invasive or off-the-wall question to ask.
“Tae, I think you’re charming, but you’re a married man. What would Kate think about you asking about what’s below others belts.”
Tae laughed, holding up his hands in surrender as he tried to defend himself.
“I’m messing with you.” Augustus said before shooting Tae a serious look. “But don’t go asking willy-nilly should you meet other trans people.”
“I’m not asking willy nilly, I’m asking about your willy,” he said, pointing at Augustus, clearly rather proud of his pun.
“I don’t have one”
Tae gave a look of genuine surprise.
“You are a man,” Augustus nodded, agreeing so far. “ have you…you have had other surgeries. Is it one that’s in the future?”
Augustus shook his head. “No, what you see now is it, I don’t plan to do anything more beyond this. I am happy with where I am now. But to answer your question, it’s called Phalloplasty, the size of those who do get it is usually based on how much skin they take from your thigh or forearm for the skin graft.”
Tae still seemed slightly confused. “You want to be a man, but you don’t want” he gestured generally to his lower region.
“I mean if I could have one right now as though I had been born with it. I think I’d take it. But personally, I don’t think the surgeries offered are up to snuff. Don’t get me wrong, there are workarounds, but none I’m particularly interested in.”
Tae ran his fingers through his hair and then held up a finger, letting Augustus know he would be only a moment as he went back into his kitchen. He returned a moment later with what Augustus assumed was a bottle of some kind of alcohol and two little cups.
He made quick work of opening the bottle and pouring its contents into the glasses he set out for them.
“This is sake, straight from Korea. I’d like to propose a toast - to being men and everything that comes with it.”
Augustus clinked his glass against Tae's before drinking. He braced himself, expecting the usual bitterness he was accustomed to with alcohol, but found himself pleasantly surprised at how easily it went down. It was almost sweet.
“I thought sake was Japanese?” he asked, turning over the cup in his hand.
Tae laughed at this. “You’d be right. It was a gift from my Japanese clients. They said it was something about bringing our cultures together in business.” He leaned in conspiratorially, “I’ll have to return the favor and bring them some Japanese soju; I get the feeling they wouldn’t like that, though, which makes me think this may have been a discreet insult on their part.” He held up his cup as if the answers to his theory would be printed on the bottom of it. When he found nothing, he put it back on the table and looked back at Augustus. “ No point in letting it go to waste, though.”
He poured them both another shot as if they were old friends. Augustus hoped with enough time, they could be.
By Omnipotent
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