This is story is sort of a sequel to "Just Another Love Story". It takes place
about ten years after the events of the previous story. It may stand alone,
but probably not. I think it would make a lot more sense if you read JALS
first.
I came very close to abandoning this story. It's taken the best part of a year
to finish, and it was only because I dusted it down and reread it recently
that I decided to have another go at it. I'm still not sure if it works. If
you've got an opinion, I'd love to hear it.
Oh yeah - the references to New Order's song "Temptation" are probably a
bit gratuitous. The simple reason for them being there is that I heard it
again for the first time in years while writing this piece and it seemed to be
saying all the things I was having trouble with. If you have a copy, put it
on while you read. Maybe you'll see what I mean.
If you want to archive or redistribute this story, go ahead. I'm happy for it
to end up where it will. I'd be grateful if you let me know if you put it on a
web site. There are a few conditions though: please don't alter the text or
remove my name from it. Also, if you're archiving it somewhere it would
be a good thing if you put it alongside JALS and the third and final story in
the series, Rosebud (which is nearing completion and should be out in a
week or two).
------------------------------------------------------------------
The usual disclaimer things:
This story deals with transgender themes and contains some bad language,
mild violence and a very oblique sex scene. If any of these things are
likely to offend you or make you squeamish, you don't have to read it. It's
probably a bit more upbeat than most of my work, but that still doesn't
mean that it's going to be all sweetness and light.
Phew.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Everyone Deserves a Happy Ending
By XoYo
"Take my shoes off and throw them in the lake And I'll be two steps on
the water." - Kate Bush, "The Hounds of Love"
To be brutally honest, Bromley doesn't have a lot to recommend it. It's a
dull little suburb, where people still vote Conservative, and not even as a
protest. The closest thing to culture is a small theatre where they have
pantomimes every Christmas. It feels like purgatory, but it has two things
going for it: it's close to London, making it easy for me to commute, and
it's a long way from both Dundee and Manchester. My ghosts don't seem
to be quite as good at travelling as I am.
I let my life become safe after I moved down south. Age does this, I guess.
I was like a stone that had been sitting in a stream for long enough to have
all its sharp edges worn away. The thing is it had all happened before, and
I promised myself I wouldn't let myself get old so quickly this time. Not
everyone gets a chance to go through the best years of their life twice, but
any sense of adventure seemed to have died along with the man I used to
be.
It's just over ten years since I became Samantha Reynolds. If she'd lived,
she'd be twenty-seven now. If I'd lived, I'd be forty-two. As it happened,
she wanted to die and I didn't and through the wonders of modern medicine
my brain was dropped in the body she abandoned. The procedure never
caught on the way people assumed it would. With other transplants you
don't end up looking at a stranger in the mirror every morning. The
incidence of mental illness and suicide amongst the first wave of patients
pretty much stopped any further progress. I have mixed feelings about this.
If it hadn't happened to me, the cancer would have killed me in my early
thirties. That's not much of a life. But the cure brought its own problems
for me. The upside is that any problem is easier to overcome than death.
This thought stopped me from being even more of a miserable bastard than
I already was.
But, sometimes, life can be good. I'd almost forgotten this, but it's
something I should never have let myself forget. My reminder came just
under a year ago, in a somewhat unlikely form.
* * *
"I've been coming here for the best part of a year, and you still haven't
asked me about my mother. I thought that was one of the first things you
were supposed to do. Aren't you breaking some rule? I don't want you to
get in any trouble." I was sitting in a big, overstuffed armchair that made
me feel even smaller than usual. In a way it was comforting, like I was a
child again. That was almost certainly why it was there.
Dr. Rowney smiled politely. Maybe it was a real smile and he was just too
good at hiding his feelings. "I'm more interested in talking about you at the
moment. If your mother has problems she can come and see me herself."
"That would be a good trick. She died about twelve years ago."
"Ah."
"Don't worry. At least she never got to see her only son become another
daughter."
"Would that have upset her?"
"How could it not? No one I knew coped very well with it, and none of
them were as protective of me as her. Most of my friends stopped coming
round. My mother wouldn't have done that, but her politeness would've
been deadly. I could never cope with it when she was polite to me."
"If she had been around and had actually coped with the idea, been
supportive even, would that have made things any easier for you?"
"I don't know." I looked at the scattered papers on his desk, but couldn't
read anything upside down. They probably didn't say anything about me,
anyway. "Maybe."
Dr. Rowney sat and looked at me in silence for a while. I had learned to
recognise this trick: it was his way of drawing me out, making me want to
fill an uncomfortable gap in the conversation. Now I knew about it, I
refused to play along. I don't like being manipulated, even if it's for my
own good. Instead, I looked down and picked my nails.
"All right. Tell me, is there anything new in your life, anything of note
happened since last time we met?"
I thought about this for a moment. "Not really. Nothing interesting has
happened for a while, has it? Maybe I like it that way. I've probably had
enough interesting things happen already for one lifetime, or two for that
matter."
"And you don't worry that playing it safe isn't leading you anywhere?
Every time we meet you complain that you don't feel like you're adapting.
By hiding yourself away from the world you're not really giving yourself a
chance to experience the kinds of events that shape us as people."
"I know. I turned forty a couple of years back, though. Don't you think by
the time you reach that kind of age you're pretty set?"
"No. Not really. Anyway, you're an exceptional case. You've had to build
a new life for yourself as a completely different person. That person has to
develop beyond what you were. You're not letting her live that life."
"I wish it were that easy."
We played the silence game again, and I won, again.
"It's just about time to wrap up for today," said Dr. Rowney. "Before, you
go, however, I have something I'd like to suggest." I sat up in the seat and
tried to maintain eye contact. "It's a bit unorthodox, and maybe even
slightly unprofessional. Are you open to a suggestion?"
"Probably, as long as it isn't an attempt to seduce me."
That earned a slightly more genuine looking smile. "I had something a bit
less intrusive in mind. There's another one of my patients I think you might
like to meet. She reminds me of you, in some ways at least. I believe that
there are things you could teach each other. At the very least you might be
able to offer each other some support."
"Maybe." I shifted awkwardly in the seat, uncomfortable at being put on
the spot. "I mean, we could meet once and see how we get on. If you think
it's important."
"I don't know about important, but it may be beneficial to you both.
Anyway, from what you've told me you haven't made many friends down
here yet. Maybe this is a chance to cultivate a new one. I'll get her to give
you a call, if that's all right."
"Fine." I shrugged. "Whatever."
* * *
As I made my way back to the flat I thought about that last comment. I'd
told myself that the decision to keep a distance from other people was
deliberate, that I didn't have the time or inclination for socialising any
more. Most of the time I didn't let myself feel the loneliness. Anyway, it
wasn't as if there wasn't anyone else in my life: Natalie looked after me.
My sister's husband left her about five years ago. She still hasn't told me all
the details, but it sounds like it was a simple case of erosion: they wore
each other down until their nerves were exposed. When you get to that
stage you don't need a reason for things to fall apart. Luckily, there weren't
any children, which made things simpler. I had been living in a bedsit in
Croydon for a while, and when Natalie told me she was looking for
somewhere new it seemed logical to move in together. My situation has
stopped being a novelty or a concern to her. I'm just her sister now.
She was already home by the time I got back, sitting in the living room and
watching the tail end of the local news. I sat down on the settee and tucked
my feet under myself. It's one of these habits I developed after my
operation. Maybe there's still something of Samantha hardwired in my
nervous system.
"How did it go today?" she asked, still staring at the screen. There was
some story about customs seizing a tobacco shipment at Dover.
"Usual shit. Do I seem any saner yet?"
"Nope. Still barking."
"Cheers. Something weird happened, though. Dr. Rowney's introducing
me to another one of his patients. Some kind of group therapy, I guess."
"That's nice. Maybe you can weave baskets together."
"Oh, fuck off. I'm not in the mood."
"Sorry." Natalie killed the sound on the TV. "Neil was asking after you
again."
I rolled my eyes. "I take it you reminded him I'm not interested. Even if I
was in the market for a man, which I don't need to remind you I am not,
Neil would come somewhere down the list from Charlie Manson."
"Manson's dead."
"Quite." Neil was a colleague of Natalie's who had met me once when I
joined one of her office outings to a local pub. He was in his early forties,
balding and possessed of the worst breath I've ever smelled on a biped.
Within ten minutes he had asked me out no less that three times. I found
myself getting ruder and ruder to him as the evening went on, but it made
no difference. I almost told him I was a man, just to get him to fuck off, but
decided to play it safe and go home instead. Ever since then he still carried
on chatting me up by proxy, passing messages on via Natalie. I have a
feeling she might have tempered some of my replies a bit.
"I'll tell him the usual." The titles for Eastenders came up and Natalie hit
the off switch. "Still, don't you ever feel like there's something missing in
your life?"
"What, like a penis? Only my own. I'm not looking for a man or a woman
or anything right now. Maybe someday, but I don't feel like I'm ready."
"You're not getting any younger, you know."
I glared at her. I imagine I looked a bit more wounded than I actually felt.
"Shit. Sorry, that wasn't deliberate. You know what I mean, though."
"Yeah. You mean well, and you're my sister and I love you, but I do wish
you'd pack it in sometimes."
"All right." She switched the TV back on and we watched cheerfully
mindless tripe for the rest of the evening.
* * *
When I was a little boy I wanted to be a policeman when I grew up. I think
I saw Hill Street Blues a few too many times, staying up past my bedtime,
and was seduced by the authority and camaraderie. Anything deeper went
over my head. After I outgrew that, I moved on to wanting to be an
astronomer, entomologist and then, when I was old enough to understand
what it meant, biochemist. The biochemistry thing was what stuck. In my
first life I did a BSc. in it, but then moved on to a graduate trainee
programme for a large building society and became a middle manager,
doing nothing of any worth. After my death I couldn't really go back.
Nothing was said, but if I had turned up at work as a teenage girl I doubted
I would have been taken very seriously. I took the redundancy package
offered and used the money to go back to university, with the idea of
getting a doctorate and realising my dream of being a real scientist. Two
things got in the way, though. I hadn't taken into account how much my
brain had changed as I got older. The first time I went to university, my
mind had been like a sponge, soaking up all the information that
surrounded it effortlessly. The second time round, my now adult brain
couldn't absorb what it needed to quite as quickly and I found myself
working flat out, just to keep on top of things. It was painfully obvious to
me that I was never going to make it. Then there was all the
unpleasantness, which just made the decision easier, and I ran away.
Since then I've done temp work in offices, waitressed and generally found
employment that requires as little thought as possible. Natalie tells me I'm
wasting a good mind, but it doesn't really matter to me any more. I don't
need a lot in the way of money and the idea of having to work and progress
through a career all over again fills me with a sense of sick dread I can't
really describe. It's like one of those dreams where you're back in school,
facing being a child all over again, feeling out of place. I know I'm taking
the easy way out, but it's my life and I'll screw it up any way I feel like.
I was at my latest job, doing a short-term contract as a filing clerk for a
facilities management company, when one of my colleagues told me I had
a personal phone call. I took it at a hotdesk.
"Hi, Natalie. What's up?"
"Who's Natalie?" The voice on the other end was deep and husky, almost
like the speaker was short of breath.
"Oh, sorry. I thought you were my sister. No one else ever calls me here.
Who is this?"
"My name's Tina Mallin. Dr. Rowney suggested I gave you a call."
"Oh right, yes, sorry. I'd forgotten all about that. Hi."
"Hi."
We both waited for the other one to say something.
"So what am I calling you about?" she asked.
"You mean you don't know either?" We both laughed, but it felt and
sounded a bit forced. "Don't worry," I said. "If you want we can meet up
for a drink."
"All right. Do you know The Moon Under Water?"
"I've passed it."
"How about seven? Is that OK?"
"Make it a bit later. I've got to pop home first."
"Fine. Eight, then. How will I recognise you?"
I described myself as best I could. It boiled down to small, dark and
nondescript. "How about you?" I asked.
"Oh, you'll know me when you see me," she said, and laughed.
We said goodbye and I went back to work. I wondered if it would have
been impolite if I'd said that, at first, I'd mistaken her for a man.
* * *
After work I went home and changed. The pub Tina had suggested was
only twenty minutes' walk from the house, so I was in no hurry. It didn't
take me long to pick out something to wear. My wardrobe is kind of
limited. For work purposes I have a selection of suits, all in sober colours
and all with trousers. My leisurewear mostly consists of jeans, t-shirts and
sweaters. I've worn dresses a couple of times, on formal occasions, but
they just feel wrong on me. There's too much vulnerability involved in a
dress, and they don't really cover the way clothes should. I don't like the
idea of anyone thinking of me the way they might if they saw me in a dress.
Similarly, I have no real use for skirts. I own one smart one for job
interviews, and that's it. My underwear is all cotton, with sports bras being
my preference. My breasts aren't that large, but I'm still happiest when
they're strapped up tightly. I've tried wearing more feminine underwear, at
Natalie's suggestion, but it made me uncomfortable and almost guilty. She
seemed to believe it would make me feel like a woman, but it just made me
feel like I was in drag. I threw them out without telling her.
Finally, I settled for a dark blue sweatshirt and a pair of baggy jeans. It's
almost a uniform for me, but it's what makes me comfortable. I can live
with being predictable.
I was the first to arrive at the pub. I ordered a dry white wine and picked a
table with a view of the door, so I could see my companion coming. The
pub itself wasn't anything special. It was modern and fairly nicely
furnished, with wood panelling and good lighting. It wasn't what I would
choose for my local, but it seemed pleasant enough. I'd almost summoned
up the courage to look at the jukebox and depress myself with how out of
touch I'd become when Tina walked in.
Oh, God, no, I thought. Suddenly everything made sense. Of course she
sounded like a man on the phone. That's because she was a man, or at least
had been one at some point. As she walked in, what little conversation
there was in the pub stopped. People turned to stare at her openly. She was
about six foot two, not heavily built, but still undeniably masculine. She
was dressed in a black cotton blouse, a shortish, puffy black skirt, black
woollen tights and Doc Martens. Just to top things off, her fluffed-up hair
was dyed blue-black. I wanted to crawl under the table and hide before she
saw me, but knew there was no way out. Anyway, I'm not like that, or at
least I don't want to be, which has to count for something.
She looked around and saw me. I waved half-heartedly. She smiled back
and walked over. "Samantha?"
"Uh, yes."
"Cool! What are you drinking?" I looked down at my glass. Hemlock, I
thought. "White wine, thanks. Dry as they're got."
She went over to the bar and ordered a round. At least the landlord didn't
ask her to leave, but his expression was than welcoming. Tina, to her
credit, was completely oblivious. She came back with the drinks, put them
down on the table, and dropped heavily onto the bench beside me.
"So," she said, picking up her pint of bitter, "You'll probably want to ask
lots of questions. Everyone does, but most of the time they're too polite. I
don't mind." She took a couple of big gulps and drained half of the pint.
"Really."
"OK." I had a good, unashamed look at her. She was older than I had
thought at first, certainly older than her dress would suggest. I put her
down as late thirties, but it was difficult to tell. She had one of those faces
that looked like it had been prematurely aged by pain. "Transsexual or
transvestite?"
"Transsexual. Pre-op. That means I've still got a..."
"I know what it means. Don't worry."
"Oh. Aren't I your first tranny?" She grinned.
"It's not that. I, er, looked into the subject a few years back, but from the
other point of view."
"I see. Well, that explains the butch get-up."
"Butch?" I looked down at my clothes and then shrugged. "Maybe. I tend
to think of it as comfortable."
"So what happened?"
"I decided against it. I've been through enough changes in my. I couldn't
face it all. I guess I just don't have the courage it takes."
"But you consider yourself to be a man rather than a woman?"
I pinched the bridge of my nose and laughed quietly. "Oh yes. Definitely."
"Did I say something funny?"
I clenched my mouth to stop myself from collapsing into giggles. "I take
it," I said, once I had recovered, "that the good doctor didn't tell you much
about me."
Tina shook her head and looked puzzled.
"Ah. It's a bit of a long story, I'm afraid." Over the course of another
couple of rounds, I told it. Tina said very little, but just sat there and
listened, wide-eyed.
"Jesus," she said, once I'd finished, "I thought I was fucked up."
I smiled at that. "I don't know you well enough to comment, I'm afraid."
"Well, compared to you, my life story is pretty normal. Normal for a
transsexual, at least. I was just born with the wrong body. I didn't have it
foisted on me."
"So how did you know?"
"I don't remember when exactly I realised, but I must have been about
four."
"Four? You're joking."
"No. I think that's when I tried dressing up in my sister's clothes. I don't
think I even knew why I was doing it. I certainly didn't know enough to
hide it. My parents were upset, to say the least. Not as upset as, when a
couple of years later, I asked them if any boys ever decided they wanted to
be girls and spend all their time dressed up as them. That got me a lot of
stern talks and a visit to a child psychologist."
"If you knew that early, why are you still in transition, or whatever you call
it?"
Tina looked off into space for a moment. A number of wrinkles I hadn't
noticed came into prominence. "You know how, when you're a teenager,
you desperately want to fit in? I was like that, in spades. I guess it was
being so different that made me want to be the same so much. The problem
is it became a habit and I started to believe that's how I really was. It too
years before I realised the whole gender identity thing wasn't a just phase
I'd gone through. Unfortunately by then I'd got married to Susan, and we'd
had the kids, and..." I thought I noticed her eyes getting slightly red round
the rims. "Do you want another drink?" she asked.
"It's all right. I'll get them." Up at the bar, waiting for the drinks, I had
time to think quietly. However much of a freak I felt at times, I could still
blend in. Apart from a fading scar around my head, largely covered by my
hair, there's nothing to suggest I'm anything other than a normal, if plain,
young woman. Watching Tina, and the way people stared at her, with
curiosity, pity or overt hostility, I realised that things could be a hell of a lot
worse.
When I was at primary school, there was a boy in the year above me whose
face had been disfigured by burns. His brother, who was a bit of a head
case, had thought it would be funny to throw a pan of boiling water in his
face. I don't think it occurred to him that there would be any real
consequences. At least, I hope that was the case. Anyway, this lad went
through his school years as a permanent outcast. No one wanted to be seen
to be his friend. The other boys teased him mercilessly. On one occasion I
did as well, but I felt sick with myself afterwards and went back to ignoring
him as best I could. We went to different secondary schools, so I don't
know how the rest of his life turned out, but I can't see any way it could
have got better. Even in my adult life, I still thought about him every now
and then. When I did, it was always with pity. One day I realised that I had
never actually thought of him as a human being. He was always this face
that everyone feared or despised and that I felt sorry for. I wish I'd got to
know him, but childhood doesn't really work like that.
Back then, in The Moon Under Water, I looked at Tina and felt that same
pang of emotion. I had overcome my initial shock on meeting her, but it
had been replaced by pity. That, in a way, just felt worse. Not only was
this a person, but it was one with whom I shared more than I might want to
admit. She deserved a hell of a lot better than pity.
After I put the drinks down on the table, I asked, "How do you cope?"
Tina gave me a wry smile that creased her face. "In general, or with
anything in particular?"
"I hope you don't mind me saying this, but I've watched the way people
have been looking at you since you got here. I probably wasn't any better
at first. Doesn't it get to you?"
"Only when I think about it." She looked around the room, and I followed
her gaze. People looked away as her eyes met theirs. "I could be all
assertive and self-confident and say it doesn't hurt. The truth is it does. It
hurts like hell. The simple answer is, though, that it's still better than the
alternative. If I'd carried on trying to be someone I wasn't I don't think I'd
still be here today."
I raised an eyebrow. "Sorry, but that sounds a bit melodramatic."
"Guilty as charged. What can I say? I'm just that kind of girl."
We looked at each other and both started to laugh. It was the kind of
laughter that builds from nothing and then feeds on itself. We started to
recover, but then looked at each other and collapsed helplessly again. By
the time it had worked its way out we both had tears pouring down our
face, Tina's tears taking black trails of mascara with them.
The rest of the evening was uncomplicated and fun. We dispensed with the
heavy sharing and moved onto general chat about life, music, films and
clothes. Well, actually Tina talked about clothes and I sat and listened. It
was exactly the kind of evening I'd missed without realising. Just what the
doctor ordered.
It came around to last orders and we were both pretty drunk. We got up
from the table and weaved to the door arm in arm, neither doing a
desperately good job of steadying the other. As we passed by the bar a
middle-aged man, some kind of manual labourer judging from his
appearance, stepped in front of us. He looked up and down at Tina.
"Excuse me, luv. Can you settle a bet with my friends? You are a man,
aren't you?"
Tina's mouth opened, ready to issue some devastating reply, I imagine, but
I beat her to it. "Sorry," I said, "I think you're a bit confused. I'm the man."
Both of them turned to stare at me. I don't think they had even noticed me
before. I shrugged and carried on walking to the door. As Tina caught me
up I looked back and saw the man, still standing there, looking lost.
"'I'm the man,'" she said, shaking with silent laughter.
"Well, it's true." We looked at each other and giggled like schoolgirls.
Once we had ourselves back under control, Tina said, "We must do this
again sometime."
"Yes. We must," I said, and meant it.
* * *
Despite wearing it all these years, I still get surprised at how badly alcohol
affects this body of mine. The morning after I had a meaty hangover and, if
I had been entitled to paid sick leave, would probably have called in ill. As
it was, I struggled in and made a decent go of a day's work. Even once the
nausea and headache began to lift, I still found it difficult to concentrate. I
kept thinking back to the previous night and smiling. For too long I'd
convinced myself that I could live without friends, that I was somehow
immune to loneliness. Something had clicked the night before and I
realised how wrong I had been. It was like the start of spring after a
particularly grim and dark winter. There was someone who understood
some of the same shit I'd been through and who could make me laugh
about it. It felt like the best thing in the world.
* * *
"A transsexual? Really?" Natalie arched an eyebrow. She was leaning
against the fridge as I did the washing up. "How did you get on?"
"Pretty well. It turns out we have a fair bit in common. She's a nice
person, if a bit weird."
"Reminds me of someone I know. Are you meeting up again?"
"Yeah. We're having dinner together on Friday."
"Hmmm..." Natalie cocked her head and grinned at me. "Is this going
anywhere?"
I stopped scrubbing the saucepan. "What do you mean?"
"What do you think?"
"Oh, don't be silly. I hadn't even thought about it." The truth was that I
had, and it had scared me. My life was confused enough without trying to
complicate things. And Tina, whatever else she was, was certainly a
complication.
* * *
The dinner itself was pretty terrible, but the drink was cheap and the
company was good. Neither Tina nor myself were earning much money, so
we had settled for a branch of one of the big pizza chains. I took a couple
of trips to the salad bar while Tina put away a pizza the size of a hubcap. I
envied her, remembering the days when my metabolism and build would
let me eat stuff like that without putting on weight. At least the salad made
me feel better about all the beer we had with the meal. After about the third
pitcher we decided we'd better go. There was a queue of people waiting for
tables and I didn't think it would be a good idea for me to drink any more.
"How have your kids coped?" I asked as we hit the night air. "I hope you
don't mind me asking, but it must be strange for them having their dad
become another mum."
Tina looked into the darkness of an empty shop window. I couldn't quite
make out her reflection in the glass. "I wish I knew," she said. "Susan
doesn't want me seeing them."
I put a hand on Tina's arm and squeezed gently. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't
have asked."
She turned to face me. There were no tears in her eyes, but her expression
made her look ten years older. "It's OK. It was a question that was bound
to come up at some point. It's as good a time as any."
We stopped walking and stood just outside the protective halo of a
streetlamp. I still held on to Tina's arm.
"I know I could see them. There's nothing legal stopping me doing so. It's
just that she never coped very well with the idea of, well, my changing.
She thinks I'm a freak and hers is the only point of view the kids have
heard. I don't think I can face them. I'm afraid they wouldn't want to see
me. Being their father was almost the only good thing about having been a
man. Now I can't even offer them that."
I tried to hug Tina, but just felt lost in her arms. It's hard to comfort
someone so much larger than yourself. At just over five foot I felt small
enough to be one of her children myself. "It's OK," I said, my words
muffled as I spoke into her chest.
Tina let me go and smiled down at me. "No. No, it's not, but thanks." She
rubbed her eyes quickly.
We linked arms again and started walking. "Where are we going?" I asked.
"Just walking."
"In Bromley? Where is there to walk around here?"
"Nowhere. But that's fine." And we walked.
* * *
It was just before closing time when we headed towards my place. Tina
insisted on walking me home, saying that I shouldn't be out on my own at
that time of night. There's a pub a couple of streets down from my flat that
I've never set foot in. Maybe I'm just irredeemably middle-class, but it's a
bit too down-market for my tastes. The noise coming from it always
sounds like it's thirty seconds away from a brawl, and the people I've seen
coming and going look like knuckle draggers to me. When I think about it
I feel a bit guilty about being so judgmental, but that's still never made me
want to drink there.
We were passing by, happily chatting about nothing, when three drunken
men came piling out. Tina stopped walking and looked at them. For a
moment her face froze, then she carried on, trying to pretend nothing was
wrong. The men just stood there and stared at her. They didn't seem to
notice me at all.
"What the fuck is that?" One of the men stepped out to block our path. He
wasn't particularly tall, but his build was heavy and the look on his face
suggested an easy brutality. He looked up at Tina. "Is it Halloween
already?"
Tina tried to pretend he wasn't there, but when she attempted to walk
around him he stepped back in front of her. "Something wrong with your
hearing?" He shoved the flat of a hand into Tina's chest. She winced.
"Fuck me," the man said, "They feel real."
"What's your problem?" Tina's voice sounded firm and more masculine
than I had ever heard it.
"My problem is that I don't like fucking queers."
"Well, don't fuck them, then."
I put a hand over my eyes. I felt like I was going to vomit. It seemed there
was going to be bloodshed soon and I didn't know how I was going to deal
with it. Back in my last life, I had no real fear of violence. Now, maybe
because of my smaller size, maybe because of what happened to me all
those years ago, I'm terrified even by the thought of it. I knew I should just
run, but I couldn't. I'd like to think at least part of it was because I didn't
want to abandon Tina.
The man leaned in close. His friend watched carefully, waiting for him to
make a move. "What did you say?"
"If you don't back off," Tina said quietly, "I'll tell your friends why it is you
hate queers so much."
A look of confusion crossed the man's face. "What?"
Tina sighed. "Oh fuck it," she said and stamped down on the man's foot
with her heel.
The reaction was spectacular and a joy to behold. The man literally howled
in pain and collapsed to the ground. His friends looked on, puzzled, trying
to work out what had just happened. Tina grabbed my arm and started
running. "Quick, before they decide to follow." We ran until Tina was out
of breath, which only took a few minutes. We overshot my flat in the
panic. Luckily the men didn't follow us.
I put an arm around Tina's shoulder as she gasped and panted. "You were
amazing," I said. "I could never have done that."
"It's just survival. When you look like I do you need to know how to look
after yourself. There's a lot of nutters out there."
"No shit." I leaned back against the wall. "One thing I don't understand,
though: what was all that stuff about telling his friends?"
"Oh, that. It's something I nicked from Quentin Crisp. You know, "The
Naked Civil Servant"? It worked for him, though." Tina grinned at me, her
face red with exertion and alcohol. "Maybe he just met brighter thugs."
I saw the mischief and amusement in Tina's eyes and my heart melted.
* * *
"It's not a date, OK? We're just going out to the cinema. People do this,
you know."
Natalie shook her head. "Whatever you say, kid."
* * *
"That was terrible," I said as we left the cinema.
"Define terrible."
"There was no plot, no originality and nothing close to acting. All we got
was buckets of blood and a body count."
Tina chuckled. "What do you expect from a film called 'Chainsaw
Zombies From Hell'? You can't tell me you were surprised. Anyway, it
was ironic bloodshed. And I caught you laughing at a couple of points."
"Did not," I pouted. We stopped on the pavement outside the cinema and
looked around for a bus stop. "Well, maybe once."
Tina poked my in the arm and I squealed.
"Hi, Samantha." A familiar voice came from behind me. My heart sank. "I
thought that was you I saw coming out."
Fuck off, Neil, I thought, just fuck right off. Please, fuck off. I turned
around. "Hello, Neil."
Tina crossed her arms and leaned back against a lamp post, looking
amused. I guess my face didn't hide my feelings very well.
"Great film, eh?" Neil was wearing a chequered sports jacket, with a
brightly coloured open necked shirt underneath. There were food stains
dotted down the front, which managed to clash with the pattern. I could
smell his breath from four feet away, in the open air. Even if I was still a
man, I would have felt uncomfortable about even being seen with him; the
idea of him trying to chat me up filled me with horror and despair.
"No, Neil, it was shite."
"Oh." He looked hurt, as if he had taken my opinion about the film as a
personal attack. Maybe it had been. He looked down at the ground and
pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose with one finger. I wondered if
he would have to do that as often if he washed his face more.
"Well, we really must be going if we're going to make our bus. Come
along, Tina."
We made it about three steps before Neil spoke again. "Why don't you and
your friend come and join me for a drink. There must be plenty of time
before your last bus."
Shit. I looked at my watch: there was still over an hour and a half before
closing time. I tried to think of a graceful excuse. I looked at Tina. She
looked back with an impish grin. Shit.
I shrugged. "Normally, I'd love to, but I'm afraid we were heading home
for a night of wild and unbridled sex. You know how it is."
Neil stood there with his mouth open. I think if I'd slapped him he wouldn't
even have noticed. After a few moments, though, he broke into a silly
smile. "That's my girl," he said, "Always the joker." He stepped towards
me.
Double shit. I looked up at Tina and batted my eyelids. I think she
understood immediately. I reached up and brought her head down toward
me. Our lips brushed shyly at first and then pushed together with a bit
more force. The roughness of stubble on Tina's cheek surprised me for a
moment, but quickly became unimportant. I closed my eyes. What started
as an act of desperation suddenly took on a life of its own. One of Tina's
hands moved down my body and stroked my bum. The kiss kept going.
There were tongues.
After a length of time that was probably a lot longer than it felt, we came
up for air. Our eyes met for a moment and then I looked away quickly.
How had that happened? I knew that I liked Tina, that maybe there was
some attraction, but the sudden passion had come as a complete surprise.
My heart was pounding so hard that I could feel it in my eyes.
"It's safe now. He's gone."
"Huh? Oh yes, Neil. Thanks."
"Any time."
Do you mean that? I thought. I didn't say it out loud as I was afraid where
it would lead us. We stood in silence for a minute or two. Tina looked at
me like she was waiting for something more to happen.
"Look, I suppose I'd better head off," I said. "Early morning tomorrow and
all that shit. Sorry."
"That's OK." There were more lines than usual around Tina's eyes as she
smiled.
By the time I got home my heart rate was almost back to normal.
* * *
Natalie banged on my bedroom door again. I lay on my bed, with the lights
off. Every now and then I'd remind myself that I was in my forties now
and that behaving like a sulking teenager wasn't fitting, but it didn't help. I
just felt worse.
"She's on the phone again. Are you going to talk to her this time?"
I lifted my arm off my face. "Tell her I'll call her back later."
"I don't think she'll believe that one any more. I sure as hell don't. If you're
going to dump her, do it yourself. I'm not doing it for you."
My eyes hurt with suppressed tears. It was all too complicated. "Please.
Tell her I'll call her back."
There was silence from the other side of the door for a moment, and then
the muffled sound of Natalie talking on the telephone. I couldn't make out
what she was saying, which was probably a good thing.
It had been three days since I had last seen Tina, outside the cinema. She
had called at least a dozen times. I knew I was going to have to speak to
her soon, but I couldn't until I knew what I was going to say. I didn't trust
myself otherwise.
My life, while not exactly perfect, had at least hit some kind of comfortable
rut. I knew in time it would eat me from the inside out, but for now it was
safe. Someone like Tina just didn't feature. No one else featured, really. It
had been nine years since I had last let someone get a hold on my life and it
had taken this long for me to get over the fallout. At least I had been open
with Tina from the start, so there wouldn't be any unpleasant surprises.
Still, giving yourself to someone is the same as giving them free license to
hurt you as they please. Just the thought of it was scaring the shit out of
me.
The idea of the attraction between myself and Tina, with what she was and
what I had become just confused me further. My sexuality had never been
that clear cut before my operation. Now it seemed impossible to untangle
it all. I still found women attractive, but as an abstract I thought I should
fancy men. I never could work it out properly. I wasn't sure if Tina was a
solution to this problem or just another problem to get tangled with it.
I knew I had to work it out, if not for me, at least for Tina. She deserved
better. We both did.
Natalie knocked at my door again, more softly this time. "Can I come in?
Please?" I ignored her. "Please, Paul, let me in."
Hearing that name gave me a shock. It had been many years since
someone had called me Paul. I felt sick and dizzy. Natalie must have been
desperate, knowing what reaction that name would trigger. "All right."
The light from the hallway hurt my eyes as Natalie opened the door "Don't
put the overhead light on," I said, reaching over to the sidelight.
"Well, that's an improvement. You look like shit, though, whatever light
we use. When was the last time you washed?"
"I don't know. It's not important."
"I take it from that comment you can't smell yourself." Natalie sat down on
the end of the bed. "Do you want to tell me what happened?"
"Would you go away if I said 'no'?"
"What do you think?"
"Nothing happened. Not really. It's a bit of a long story, but we kissed and
I came home."
"You kissed? That's it? All this post-adolescent bullshit is over a kiss?"
I pushed myself back up the bed so I could sit up a bit and look at Natalie.
"Well, it's a bit more than that."
She crossed her arms and waited expectantly.
"I'm afraid," I said. "That's all it boils down to. There's this solid core of
fear inside and I've let it paralyse me. The longer I leave doing anything,
talking to Tina or facing up to what's happening, the harder it seems to get.
I just want to lie here and let time roll over me. If I do it for long enough, it
feels like nothing will ever matter again."
"Well, leaving aside how stupid most of that sounds, why are you so
afraid? From the way I've heard you talking about Tina it sounds like
there's some kind of spark there. I assume from the fact that she's been
calling up almost hourly that there's some feelings on her side as well. Do
you know what I'd give to have a relationship start off that well? Actually,
do you know what I'd give to have one start at all?" Natalie's expression
was still tinged with concern, but her words stung me.
"I know that, believe me. If I step back from the whole situation I can see
that I'm damned lucky. The problem is I can't really step back. I'm a part of
it and I'm shit scared of the whole thing. It's not her, not really. I must
admit I was a bit taken aback by her at first. You'd know why if you saw
her. There's still a part of me that's a frightened conformist teenager afraid
of having a moose for a girlfriend. But in the end, that's not it. I find her
attractive, funny, kind and exactly the kind of person I could fall in love
with. I don't give a fuck what anyone else says about her, at least not in the
long term. She and I are too much alike for me not to know what she's
going through.
"The problem is me." My voice had been breaking and it finally gave up.
Hot tears poured down my cheeks and I began to sob. "I just can't do this,"
I said, gasping.
Natalie shuffled up the bed and took hold of me. I sat there shaking, glad
of the warmth of her arms around me. I told myself to snap out of it, but it
seemed I just didn't want to listen. I carried on crying until it felt like I'd
drained myself. When I had stopped sobbing, Natalie loosened her arms
and I sat up to look at her. "Sorry," I said.
"I think I can forgive you."
We smiled at each other. A sense of peace and calm filled me. It was one
of those moments you could never force, that only come about of their own
volition. There was a feeling of love in the room that felt almost tangible.
I knew, whatever dark hole I fell into, my sister would always be there to
pull me out, armed with a light, a rope and a sarcastic comment. I nearly
started crying again.
"Are you up to telling me why you're a problem? I mean, apart from the
obvious."
"Well, it probably is the obvious. Since, you know, I haven't had a
boyfriend, girlfriend or anything like that. I haven't been laid this
millennium. Sometimes I feel the loneliness inside me, like some small
animal eating away at my innards. You'd think that would make me ready
for any kind of relationship. The problem is this." I ran my hands down
my torso. "After ten years I've stopped waking up every morning, shocked
at what I've become. It still feels all wrong, though. This isn't me - this is
some girl who killed herself for her own stupid reasons. I'm lying under
six feet of soil in Manchester. How can I share my life, or even my body,
with anyone else when they're not even mine in the first place. How can I
be someone's lover when I don't know if I'm a man, a woman or just a
corpse that never knew when to lie down."
"You're a person."
I probably snorted. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means that the whole man/woman thing is a question of plumbing. What
you are is a person. It doesn't matter what you started out as and what you
are now. You're alive, which is a big improvement on what, by rights, you
should be. Don't you think it's time you stopped acting like you'd died ten
years ago?"
"That's easy for you to say. You haven't had someone change your
plumbing." I thought of a few other bitter retorts, but my heart wasn't in it.
I knew she was right, intellectually at least. Whether or not I'd ever feel it
was another story. "Anyway, I did almost overcome this, once, a long time
ago. You remember what happened?"
Natalie bit her lip and looked down at the bedspread. "Not everyone's like
that. You were unlucky. Anyway, Tina knows what you are."
"I know. And that helps, believe me. Still, it's made it even harder for me
to trust anyone enough to open myself up. Maybe in time, but..."
"Until then, are you going to call her? I'm going to take that sodding phone
of the hook if you don't."
"Tomorrow, I promise."
"You'd better," Natalie said. "I'll break your legs if you don't."
* * *
I can only remember two nights in my adult life that passed more slowly
and painfully: one involved a tab of bad acid and the other a mild case of
food poisoning. At least in each of those I knew that it would all pass by
the morning.
The worst part came with one of the fevered dreams that filled the
occasional snatches of sleep. Most of the dreams had just involved a low
level of stress and dread, but this one started out with Tina, standing before
me, holding out a hand. As I reached out to take it, she started to change.
By the time she had a firm hold of me, I could see she was really Alasdair,
the young man I nearly fell for in Dundee all those years ago. He pulled
me towards him hard. Just before I woke up, I saw his other hand raised
above me in a fist. I didn't dare go back to sleep after that.
Why did you have to do it? Maybe I could have adjusted in time, or at least
learned not to hate what I had become. Would it have been too much to ask
for you just to have treated me like a human being? I knew though,
whatever Alasdair had thought of me, that had driven him to that moment
of madness, I had probably thought worse of myself. I was tired of it all,
tired of all the self-loathing. In a moment of insight I saw how much effort
it all took, the constant tension of muscles and internal dialogue of hatred.
Could I ever just let it go? I wanted to, desperately.
I got out of bed and turned the overhead light on. There was a full-length
mirror on the side of my wardrobe, that I only tended to use for sorting my
hair out, making sure it covered the scar. Without really knowing why, I
took off the flannel pyjamas I was wearing and looked at my reflection. It
wasn't something I had done very often. Even when bathing, I tended to go
for quick showers rather than long soaks in the bath. The sight of myself
naked was still disturbing to me. When I had first learned that my donor
was to be a woman, I had vague fantasies of being my own voyeur, or my
own playmate. The reality had turned out to be far less titillating, or even
comfortable.
In the mirror I saw a young woman, in her late twenties. She had an
unremarkable face, with an untidy shock of dark hair. Her build was slight,
but made more curvaceous than it used to be by lack of exercise and the
gentle decline of age. Gravity was beginning to win the battle over her
breasts and her backside was beginning to spread in a way that would
become less appealing in time. It was a face and body I knew well, but felt
no attachment to. I stepped up to the mirror and looked into my eyes.
That's you in there, I thought. It's the you that you always were and always
will be. It doesn't matter whose flesh you wear. If I had lived, if I were
forty-two year old Paul, I would have been a very different person to the
Paul who had gone under the neurosurgeon's knife. Would he have seen
himself as a stranger in the mirror? We all change, moulded by the hands
of time. It's just a question of degree.
I ran a finger along the surface of the mirror, tracing the outline of my face.
You could do worse, I decided. You could be dead. Maybe the person I
had become was all right. So I was neither man nor woman - other people
put up with far worse burdens or uncertainties without being destroyed by
them. The person I had become couldn't be all bad; Tina had found
something in me that was worth holding on to. Maybe I was someone she
deserved after all.
When I checked the clock it was about four in the morning. I supposed it
would be another day of calling in sick. Something told me they weren't
going to renew my contract. I lay back on the bed and sighed. Well, at least
it gave me a day to try to put things right with Tina.
* * *
It was gone noon by the time I hauled my weary body out of bed. I
showered and washed my hair, before making myself some beans on toast.
The afternoon was swallowed by television. I knew that I would go and
see Tina that evening, to try to apologise for being such an arsehole. Until
then I just needed to try to get some strength back.
As I watched the usual array of cookery programmes, quiz shows and
Australian soaps my mind was ticking over. It didn't seem enough just to
turn up on Tina's doorstep and tell her that, while I hadn't exactly sorted my
head out, I had got a grip enough to try to make a go of things. Some kind
of gesture seemed necessary. The more I thought about it, the more I
realised only one thing felt right.
I waited for Natalie to come home.
* * *
"No, too tarty."
Natalie was holding up one of her dresses for inspection. It had quite a low
cut front and not much in the way of a skirt. It wasn't that bad, really, but it
was still further than I wanted to go.
"Fair enough. Are you sure this is what you want to do, though?"
I stopped to think about it. "No, I'm not sure. It just seems like the time,
though. Maybe it'll help me feel more like a woman. At the very least it
might help Tina think of me as one."
"Well, it's weirding me out a bit. Still, I think it's a great idea."
I nodded absently. "How about that long skirt of yours? You know, the
flowery one."
"Yeah. We'll have to see if you're tall enough to make it work. Maybe if
you borrow some heels."
"No chance. I want to be able to walk tonight."
I tried the skirt and a plain cotton blouse to go with it. They fitted, even if
they were a bit large for me. Natalie is a good three inches taller than me,
and a bit more curvy. I was going to have that problem whatever I
borrowed. Still, they looked good on me. It was a surprise when I looked
at myself in the mirror. I still wasn't exactly pretty, but I realised I could be
attractive if I wanted to be. And for the first time in years I did want to be.
Natalie was patient with me when it came to the makeup. I fidgeted and
fiddled as she applied lipstick and eyeliner and stuff. I was going to try to
do all this stuff myself, but Natalie talked me out of it, saying that this
wasn't really the best time to learn.
The final effect, while not stunning, was good. I decided, seeing my
reflection dressed like this and made up so well, that if I were a man I
might have asked me out, although probably not as a first choice. It was
strange, as I'd never really thought of myself like that. It made me feel
uncomfortable, but a bit excited at the same time.
I turned away from the mirror and faced Natalie. "Thanks."
"That's OK. If it'll stop that bloody girlfriend of your calling at all hours,
it's worth it."
I smiled and turned to go.
"Should I expect you back tonight, or are you expecting to get lucky?"
Natalie asked as I opened her bedroom door.
"You never know," I said and headed out.
* * *
It was dusk, so I took the bus. I was feeling vulnerable enough, dressed as
I was, without worrying about walking around in the dark. I found an
empty bank of seats and made myself comfortable. There wasn't really
anything to see out the window, but I looked all the same. People and
places passed by in a meaningless blur. I saw couples walking arm in arm,
sharing smiles and conversations. Had I really shut myself off from this for
so long? How had I survived? I had clothed myself in armour so effective
I had forgotten I was wearing it. I let it become my skin. Now it was time
to try to shed it and it terrified me.
Slowly, I became aware of someone looking at me, their gaze reflected in
the glass of the window. I looked back and saw a young man, maybe
twenty. He was sitting on his own, dressed in an old pair of jeans and an
unfashionable waterproof jacket. His face was unlovely, but kindly, topped
with a mop of greasy blonde hair. The expression in his eyes reminded me
of a hungry dog, waiting for a tin to be opened. With a start I realised the
expression was for me. As I met his eyes, he looked away, embarrassed.
As the journey went on, I noticed him sneaking glances, but always
quickly, afraid of being caught again. Is this all it takes? I thought. Just a
skirt and a bit of makeup? My discomfort passed and I felt a quiet urge to
talk to him, to tell him a bit about myself. The bus was approaching my
stop, though, and there was no time. As I started to leave I paused in front
of him. I leaned over and ran my hand across his cheek lightly. "Don't
give up," I said. "You'll meet her someday." I turned to go. He was still
staring at me in open-mouthed amazement when the bus pulled out.
* * *
I stood on the doorstep of the building that held Tina's bedsit for almost five
minutes, trying to find the courage to push the buzzer. What if I'd judged it
all wrong? Maybe I'd imagined the spark from her. Maybe she was just
concerned when she'd called all those times. I forced myself to press the
button in the end, simply tired of all the agonising.
I heard heavy footsteps coming down the stairs and then the door opened.
Tina froze when she saw me, her expression shifting from surprise to
delight. "Samantha? Wow! Look at you!"
I blushed and shuffled my feet.
"Come in," she said. I stepped into the hallway.
Tina was dressed in a loose knit black sweater and black jeans. Her hair
was unbrushed and she wore no makeup. If it hadn't have been for the
swell of her small breasts under the sweater she might have looked
completely masculine. "Do you want to come upstairs?" she asked.
I grinned at her. "Do you think I came all this way to stand on your
doorstep?"
She indicated the stairs with a flick of her head. "Let's go." I followed her
up to her room.
Tina's room was small, furnished with only a bed, a chair, and a small table.
Despite this, it still managed to be incredibly untidy. There were clothes
strewn all over the place, forming small, black piles, like molehills on the
carpet. A few dirty plates sat on the floor, baked bean juice on them
hardened to scabs. Tina looked embarrassed by the mess, but I couldn't
help grinning at her. It showed a weakness made my heart twinge with
affection.
"Hang on," she said, "I'll clear a seat for you."
"Don't worry. I sat most of the way over here."
"I'll get us some tea at least. I don't have any coffee."
"Tea's great." I looked out the window at the view of a little garden,
overgrown with brambles and bindweed, picked out by the light coming
from a downstairs window.
Tina picked up a couple of cups from the floor and sniffed them
suspiciously. "I'd better go and wash these. Put some music on, if you
want. There's not much there, but Susan let me keep all the CDs she didn't
like."
I started to pick through the precarious stack of CDs balanced on one of the
speakers of the little black midi system. There was lots of goth-type stuff I
remembered from my youth - The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Cure, Fields
of the Nephilm. I guessed we were probably around the same age, or at
least I wasn't much older than her. One case stood out from the others, as it
was a double, with a white cover. I picked it up and felt a thrill of
recognition. New Order's Substance. I used to have a copy, many years
back. At some point I played it until I got sick of every track, even the B-
sides, but enough time had passed for me to want to hear it again. I put the
first disc on and flipped through to track three. "Temptation" started up,
with its ludicrously simple vocal hook and boppy baseline. I stood there
with my eyes closed, listening, feeling a warm chill running down my
spine. How had I ever forgotten this? The words came back to me and I
started singing along with the chorus. "Up, down, turn around, please don't
let me hit the ground."
"Nice one." I almost jumped as Tina spoke. "Hey, you were somewhere
else, weren't you?"
"Sorry." I took the mug she offered and held it up to my mouth, letting the
steam caress my face.
"I prefer "Bizarre Love Triangle", but this one's nice and catchy too."
"I haven't listened to this for years. It never really made sense before, but
now I feel like it could have been written for me. All that stuff about trying
to break the circle placed around me. I know just how that feels."
"What circle's that supposed to be?"
"Oh, shit, I don't think I can explain it. It's why I'm here tonight. It's what
all this is about." I plucked my skirt for emphasis.
Tina stood in the middle of the room and just looked at me. Her face
looked like it was on the verge of an expression that she was afraid to
commit to. I don't think she knew what to say.
"Look," I said, "We've both been around long enough to get beyond
playing games. I know I feel something towards you, even if I'm not sure
what. I think you feel something too. Are we ever going to do anything
about it?"
I waited for Tina to say something. She didn't. She took the mug out of my
hand and placed it on the window ledge. Taking the two steps towards me,
she bent down and kissed me softly. I was ready for the stubble this time. I
put my arms around her neck and held on as I returned the kiss with
interest. Our lips locked and we lost ourselves in the twilight between
affection and foreplay.
We broke off eventually. "Is that what you meant?"
"Well, it's a start."
* * *
Looking back on it now, it seems strange that I'd never had sex as a woman
until that night. When the idea that my gender had changed had first sunk
in, all those years ago, the novelty of it all carried an almost illicit thrill.
The problem was that once I was out of the hospital and trying to slip back
into my life that everything had started feeling terribly wrong. I tried
masturbating, but orgasms were intermittent and largely elusive. I simply
couldn't relax into enjoying it and I kept snapping back to the reality of
fumbling with this alien anatomy. The idea of jumping into bed with a man
appealed to me no more than it had when I was a man myself. The
prospect of sex with a woman felt a bit better, but even then I couldn't get
past the feeling of wrongness in myself. How could I be intimate with
someone else when I could hardly stand being in bed with myself?
With Tina, though, the barriers were already falling down. Without
meaning to, I'd let her in. In comparison to what I'd already been through
to get there that night, the sex almost seemed trivial.
We took our time. Neither of us was exactly young, and while there was
passion it fell into place behind a simple sharing of closeness. We fondled
and sucked and rolled around in awkward permutations of elbows and
knees. We laughed a lot and I may have cried quietly in the first quiet post-
coital interlude. We even managed a kind of penetration. I was a bit
shocked when I saw Tina's penis for the first time, not because it was there,
but simply because it was so small. I mean, I wasn't exactly well hung
myself, before, but this was almost negligible. She explained that it was an
effect of the hormones. I didn't really complain. If she'd whipped out a
throbbing eight-inch trouser snake I think I would have bolted.
Her erection came with difficulty and a lot of effort on both of our parts. I
didn't take it personally. Even with the diminished size, it was still a shock
when she slid into me. I'd tried a vibrator on myself a few times before and
had certainly explored my vagina with my fingers, but it felt so different
when it was someone else doing it and it was all outside my control. I
won't pretend I collapsed into raptures of sexual ecstasy, but it was a lot
better than I thought it would be. Tina even managed to come inside me,
although only after a lot of false starts. I don't know why, but it felt
important that she should. Orgasm eluded me, but I didn't mind. It was
enough that I was there at all.
* * *
We spent most of the next day in bed together. There wasn't much sex, but
it was nice just to lie there and be held. I'd forgotten the simple animal
comfort of curling around a warm body. The bed was too small for both of
us, but that just made things better. If we'd had more room we probably
would have felt like less of a unit.
After a long, comfortable silence in which I may have started to drift off,
Tina blew in my ear. "Sam?"
I flinched, involuntarily. "Please don't call me that."
"Uh, sorry. What's wrong with it?"
"Nothing I suppose. It's just that it's the one concession I made to
reminding myself who I'd become. If I let people call me Sam, it would be
too easy to pretend. Also, Samantha's what she called herself. It only
seemed fair."
"OK. Samantha's a pretty good name." Tina tightened her grip around me
in a way that made me feel safe and weak at the same time.
"Sorry. You were going to say something. I interrupted."
"Oh yeah. Silly question: do you ever think about what kind of story your
life would be if you wrote it down? I think mine would be a farce, except
for all the horrific bits. Overall it would probably be pretty funny.
Ridiculous, at least."
I nuzzled her belly button. "I'm not sure about a farce. Comedy, maybe."
"No. Technically, a comedy is anything with a happy ending. I don't think
I qualify for that."
"How do you know? You're not anywhere near the end yet. Maybe we all
get a happy ending. I don't know about you, but I think I've earned one."
"Maybe. I'd like to think that's true."
"I guess that's halfway to making it true. It gives us something to work on,
at least."
"Yeah. Maybe it does."
* * *
I don't know if I expected my last defences to crumble of their own accord.
Suddenly I had opened myself to feelings that terrified and delighted me,
but keeping the way clear for them was a lot more difficult than I had
thought. As soon as I had time to pause, fear came stealing back.
Whatev