You're gonna want to make sure you're comfortable with ALL the letters in the rainbow for this one, Folks. This is a BLGTQIAP+ content story and we'll hopefully be touching on most, if not all, of those letters. So any haters are gonna want to refrain from raining on our parade, thanks!
Also, I moved the B to the front because Bisexuals, like moi, make up the largest percentage of the community by far. And for those who don't already know...bisexuality is NOT a stopover on the way to something else.
It DOES NOT mean we are 'going through a phase', 'looking for attention', 'trying to get access to a larger dating pool' or are 'just too indecisive' to 'pick a side'.
For clarification: a Bisexual (as is commonly considered) is anyone who is capable of sexual attraction to both male and female, based, at least partially, on the sexual characteristics of those genders. In other words, if you notice a woman's breasts and a man's muscles, for example, and are aroused by those things, you ARE bisexual.
Whereas, if you don't give a rats ass what a person looks like and your sexual attractions are based solely on personality etc. then congrats on being an enlightened Pansexual. Some of us are somewhat more shallow than that ;-*
Okay, I'm getting off my soapbox now, don't worry! Any more necessary rants, I will leave to the characters in the story to tackle :D
Chapter One: Love, Lies and Video Calls
"How was school, Big Brother?" Peter asks, his voice coming through my cellphone earbuds. I roll my eyes, which he can see because we are video chatting.
"You know I wish you wouldn't call me that. It makes it weirder than it has to be." I frown.
"All the Cullens are siblings, it isn't too weird for them." Pete presses. "Rose and Emmett...Edward and Alice."
I growl lightly. "Alice is my wife."
"Is that what you tell yourself while she's fuckin' Edward?" Pete grins.
"How would you feel? If Char had a mate who lived with you." I suggest, trying to make him understand this is a sensitive subject.
"If Char had a mate, any mate, I would shrug my shoulders, get in my Bronco, and start driving North to you. When the jig is up...the jig is up, Babe." He smirks.
I frown. "Don't call me that either. And I'm calling bullshit on this whole claim that you'd rush right up here. The last time I asked to stay one extra day in Denver, you told me it was 'too suspicious'."
"Yeah well, Denver's not as progressive as fuckin' Seattle, now is it?" He replies, getting those little lines on his forehead where his brow furrows. I always want to smooth them out with kisses.
"I've offered that you could come here, " I remind him with a slight pout.
"Yeah, well...the entire population of Colorado combined is more liberal than one Edward Cullen, so I don't see that happening. Hell, the man lets you stay married to his own mate, just so no one will start thinking his brother is a 'Sodomite'." Pete growls.
"Yeah, well, he's been a little...distracted lately." I frown.
"Huh? Why, what's going on?" Peter worries.
"He met his singer a couple of weeks ago. Managed not to drain her. Now he and Alice have started hanging out with her. Remember on Tuesday, when I told you there was an accident at school and he saved a stupid human girl and she'd been asking questions after that and I thought we should stage another accident? Yeah, that was her, " I explain.
"Holy shit! But she was bleeding you said? His own singer bled in front of him and he didn't attack her? Now that is some staunch self-control, " Pete admires.
I look at him in silence for a moment. "Who do you think has been absorbing all his bloodlust for him? I can tell you it ain't the tooth fairy."
"Shit! Jasper, you shouldn't do that! That's too much for you to take on, " he insists gently, sounding very worried.
"I'm okay, Peter. I hunt twice as much now as I did before she got here and Edward makes sure he hunts right before he sees her, every time. So it isn't too bad. Besides, he'll probably lose interest in her soon, or even just do the smart thing and stop hanging out with her once he realizes she asks too many damn questions." I shrug. The added bloodlust is a burden, yes, but for the safety of my family, it's a burden I will gladly bear.
Besides...I owe Edward for him letting me play pretend with Alice.
"I wanna come up there to see for myself that you're okay. Please?" Peter insists.
"You really think you want to deal with the scrutiny that is Edward and his judgemental outlook?" I caution.
I would love nothing more than to have him here with me, but every time we try to get together here instead of at his place, Edward makes some sort of snide and hurtful remark.
Alice has tried talking to him for us, but then they just end up getting into an argument. And I don't really want to cause any more trouble for her, considering she already graciously endures our sham marriage and all it entails.
You'd think Edward would start to come around, given that this is the twenty-first century and there are plenty of gay kids at school who are "out" nowadays. I even see them kissing in the hallways and I get so envious, I just wanna rip their cute little gay heads off.
But no, he still has no capacity for tolerance, at least where we're concerned anyway. I think it's because he spends all his tolerance on Alice.
And I'm not just talking about the sham marriage thing, no. Alice is an extraordinary person. She happens to have what Edward and the medical world would unfairly refer to as a birth defect.
Alice is a member of the Intersex community. A group of marginalized, belittled, often abused individuals, who are treated as less than, because the biology of their bodies doesn't quite fit with the expected norm.
And yet, sadly, in some ways I envy them. In a world where people are not all accepting of others' differences, it is a little harder to hide who you love than it is to hide what you have between your legs.
And then you have people like Edward, who find it much easier to believe that God made Alice just the way she is, but yet have a huge problem with my "unnatural lifestyle".
I think Edward must read a very different Bible than I do. Because his copy seems to be missing the Gospels.
"There is no hell I wouldn't endure to make sure my mate is safe, Jasper. You know that. And I know you feel the same. It's one of the reasons we live the way we do," Peter insists.
That is certainly the truth. Edward Cullen isn't the only archaic vampire remnant of less tolerant times. There are many vampires who feel even more strongly about same-sex mates than he does. It's why we started hiding our relationship in the first place.
When I was a soldier in Maria's army, before I found Peter, I took a lover from among the newborns. His name was Clark and he was a blonde Adonis. We were always very discreet, of course, as was the necessity of the time. But somehow, the other soldiers found out. Or maybe they just guessed. I'll never know for sure.
Anyway, they waited until I was away on a reconnaissance mission to attack him. They ripped his limbs off and they beat him. For a long time. Then, just as they heard me returning, they torched him in front of me and I was too late to stop it. Of course, I slaughtered them all and Maria put me on probation. But that beautiful man lost his life because of me, and I damn sure wasn't going to allow that to happen to my mate once I found him.
Peter and I kept our distance from each other, from the very beginning, because I told him what had happened and that it was too hard to keep a relationship like ours secret while living among so many other vampires with perfect hearing. We never even dared to consummate our bond back then out of fear.
When Charlotte showed up, she was a Godsend. We figured out pretty quickly that she was harboring her own secret when I caught her making love with one of the other female newborns. Once we knew she could be trusted, we told her our predicament and she offered to help us escape.
I knew that we'd never be safe if I tried to leave because Maria felt she needed my gift and would have hunted us to the ends of the earth. So I made Peter leave with Charlotte, and I promised I would join them, once it was safe to do so.
I had finally found my opportunity by the time Peter and Charlotte came back to check on me. Maria had found another vampire whose gift she liked slightly better than mine, and I'd been working on pissing him off, hoping he'd give her an ultimatum and she'd send me away. It probably would have worked but when Pete came back and I finally saw him again, I couldn't wait any longer. I needed to be with him, so I left, in spite of my fear that she would come after us.
She never did though, and we lived as nomads for a while, using Charlotte as our cover story whenever we would encounter other vampires. She would pretend to be Peter's wife and we manufactured paperwork accordingly.
We weren't as careful around the humans though, because we didn't care what they thought since we were stronger and faster and they were our prey.
That worked fine for a while, until a human who had seen us kissing in town one day, ended up getting turned into a vampire by another nomad. He told his sire about us, and they waited for an opportunity to catch one of us alone.
One beautiful, rainy day, Charlotte and I went into town to buy some things for the house, but Pete didn't come because he was practicing his guitar.
We got home just as they were dismembering him. Thankfully there was no pyre lit yet or I would have lost my mate that day. We torched them, but I was so shook, I knew that just being with me was putting Peter in danger. So a few weeks later, I had Char take him into town for the day and I left. I wrote him a note explaining and then I ran straight to the ocean and dove into the water so he couldn't follow my scent.
After that, I never stayed in one place for more than a day or two at a time, in case he ever tried to use the mating pull to find me. It was a few years into that solitary, miserable life that I met Alice. She led me to the Cullens, knowing that her mate was there, and that there was safety in numbers, and also that the animal diet would be of benefit to me because of my gift.
Then, once Edward found out about my "sickness" as he was calling it at the time...he offered to let me pretend that Alice was my wife, just as Pete had done with Charlotte.
And once we had the safety of the Cullen coven and Alice's visions, it wasn't long before I went crawling back to Peter and begged his forgiveness. He was furious, of course, but still head-over-heels for me, just as I was for him. I gradually was able to earn back his trust but we decided it was still too dangerous for us to live together.
Eventually, we established a routine. We'd see one another every Saturday and talk on the phone every day. Then when computers became popular, we would email. And then thankfully, the webcam was invented. And I'd never had to go more than a couple of days without seeing my mate's beautiful face ever since. It wasn't perfect, but it worked and I was terrified of rocking the boat.
And now, here was my mate, asking me to rock the boat. "Okay, but as soon as Edward says one single stupid thing, I'm sending you home."
"He won't. I'll bring Charlotte. Edward knows better than to talk like that in front of her because of that one time when she ripped his ear off for it." Pete promises.
"Okay, fine. Come and see me. I miss you like hell anyway, " I admit, giving in reluctantly.
"Thank you!" He beams. "We'll go hunt now and throw a few things into backpacks and then be on our way."
"Okay, but just so you know, that human girl might be here when you get here. She's supposed to be coming over to do homework with Alice, " I caution.
"Don't worry. I have our cover story very well memorize," he smirks.
"Just remember, she thinks Edward is single. I think she has a crush on him." I laugh.
"Wow, okay, we won't say anything to the contrary then. I'll see you soon, Lover," Pete states, knowing how much I abhor pet names.
"Bye Peter. See you soon." I sigh, wishing he was in my arms already.
AN: Shout Out to Zikare whose story, Kuiper Belt Object Reclassification gave me a pretty thorough education of all things Intersex, much better than any textbook ever could!
It will be explained in later chapters as to what Alice's specific intersex traits are, but just know, every Intersex person is different. There is no one size fits all.