by Jack Wallen
Lakmé dropped his bag on the floor and flopped onto the couch. The feeling of the cool vinyl ripped through his body. Every nerve was on fire. He was alive again. The sensation would only last for a brief while, but for the time being, every synapse was firing on high. He felt no pain, feared nothing. The “doctor” was on a manic high that felt like it could last forever. He wanted to run to the window, throw it open, and shout to the world that he was the bringer of order to gender. No one had to be a servant to the X or the Y because he could mix and match them at will. He was the weaver of the fabric of gender.
Lakmé’s heart was racing at the possibilities. It felt so good to stand next to God, to know that he could fine-tune the mistakes made by a god too busy for such details. Oh, he hoped this high would last. He had stopped taking the meds long ago. Unfortunately, that meant the lows lasted equally as long, and suicide was just a blade away.
He smiled at the thought. As he was a blade away from death, his patients were just a blade away from life, from womanhood. A blade away. The thought brought a peaceful smile to his lips. How delicate the scalpel was, and how fine a line it traced on the skin.
Once the vinyl had warmed, he realized how thirsty he was. His work drained him of fluids, and he had to refuel. The refrigerator was mostly empty, save for a few cans of soda and some random condiments. He opened a soda and sucked it down. The bubbly liquid made him feel young.
Lakmé stood in the middle of his kitchen and stripped. There were still remnants of blood on his clothes, and he didn’t want to have to think about his work right now. No, now he just wanted to relax.
Back on the couch, he grabbed the remote and turned on the television. The late edition of the news was about to start, and he wanted to see what was happening in the land of Louisville.
“Tonight on WISH-TV Late News: Police have identified yet another victim of the killer they are calling Dr. Lakmé. Tye Siam, a local entertainer made famous by his act at Club Connect, was found dead in his home by his partner….”
He stared at the television in disbelief. Obviously, the newscaster was mistaken. Tye Siam wasn’t dead. Tye Siam had just been brought out of his cocoon. Tye Siam was far from dead. Only his male self was gone.
He grabbed the remote and switched to another news channel. The same story was being reported, only they were showing images, a body being carried out on a gurney. A body carried out of Tye Siam’s house. It had to be some kind of joke. It had to be someone else. Was someone following in his footsteps and ruining his work? Was there a killer destroying everything he had done?
The term ‘killer’ was bouncing around inside of his skull. He knew that he had killed no one. He had only given them what they most deeply desired. He changed them; he didn’t end them.
“I’m not a killer. They’re wrong. I’m a doctor, not a killer.” He repeated the phrase over and over as he rocked on the couch.
“I’m not a killer!” He screamed, as he stood and ran to his bedroom. The escalating fear led him straight to the closet. He stood and stared at the odds and ends hanging in the dirty closet. Inside was comfort. Better than a stiff drink. Better than his tranquilizers. Better than his meds. Clothing. He pulled out a cotton peasant dress and slipped it on. “I save souls. I give life to the dead. I am a messiah. I can not kill.” He went to his dressing table and started applying makeup.
“They’re wrong. They’re lying. The police are lying. Everyone is lying. I’m not a killer.” He slipped on his wig.
“I have to show them. I have to prove to them that I didn’t kill anyone!” He slammed his fists down on the table and stood. He walked over to his smashed full-length mirror. When he saw his broken reflection, he became entranced. He stared deep into the mirror, into the past.
“Now don’t squirm, honey,” his mother said gently, as she worked at the bottom hem of the dress. She often had him wear her dresses while standing on a milk crate so that she could mend the fabric. It was a game they played, and he always enjoyed it. He also enjoyed hearing his mother sing the pretty duet along with the record.
The door slammed open, and Dad stood, baseball bat in hand, breathing like a bull. “How many times do I have to tell you to not put that damn little sissy in your dresses?” He was accenting his words by slamming the tip of the bat into the floor. “You know he’s gonna grow up a cock-suckin’ fag, ya stupid whore!” The bat was brought up to swinging level. Mom stood and held out her hands as if she would ward off the violence. Dad swung hard and connected with her right arm. A crunching sound was followed by screaming. Mom dropped, holding her arm. He ran off, holding up the dress and crying for help.
But no help came.
“Get back here, ya little queer! I’m gonna show you what it’s like to be a real man!” his father bellowed.
He managed to silence himself and dive into the pile of dirty clothes that lived in the hall closet. His father never looked for him there, wasn’t smart enough to find him there. As he sank deeper into the pile of silks and cottons, he heard his drunken father clumsily walking down the hallway. He would open every door, eventually opening the door to the laundry room. But the clothing was security and would hide him every time. Eventually, the man grew frustrated with his own ignorance and left, screaming that he would rip him apart when he found him.
The door slammed, signaling safety. He leaped out of the closet and ran to his mother. She had passed out and was lying in a heap on the floor. Blood had pooled around her and her arm looked really bad. He would have to go find help, but for the moment, he couldn’t peel himself away from the crumpled woman.
He stroked her hair and tried his best to sing the duet to ease her pain away. He didn’t know the right words, but he knew the melody. His little hand disappeared within her soft hair with each stroke. His voice grew heavy with tears. The lump in his throat finally stopped him from singing.
When he came to, he was lying on the floor in front of the mirror. He looked up and saw that the mirror had been shattered. He reached up to his forehead and felt the sticky warmth of blood. Once again, pain had brought him back. The silence had returned. The pounding in his head was subsiding.
Standing up on shaky legs, he walked over to the broken mirror to see his reflection revealing him in a dress. He couldn’t remember putting on the dress. A feeling of revulsion overtook him, causing him to tear at the clothing. He dug his nails into his face to rid himself of the mask he was wearing. Makeup and blood smeared his fingernails. He was shaking. He knew what he had to do. Lakmé had to rid his patients of the same nightmares, of the same haunting images of man and woman, blended and confused.
Although he couldn’t remember how he had found his way into the dress, the memory of what had brought him to the state was clear – the news of the death of Tye Siam. The lying SOBs had wrongly accused Lakmé of being a killer. Tomorrow night, he would prove that all he was doing was making dreams come true.
He looked back into the cracked mirror. Replacing the weak sissy was a powerful man who would bring peace to so many. He had the steady hands and vision of a surgeon and the heart and soul of a saint.
He left the bedroom to begin preparing for tomorrow’s work.
TWENTY-ONE
I needed a break. It had been two very long days, and I felt exhausted and dirty. The clock told me it was okay to pack it in for the day, so I left the precinct, hopped in my car, and headed home. On my dance card tonight was a bubble bath and a little mindless television. Sometimes, it was the only way I could get my mind off a case.
The minute I stepped through the doorway, I went through the ritual of kicking off my shoes, messing up my hair, taking off my gun, and letting Raja rub her head against my leg to purr a nice ‘welcome home.’
“Well hello, little kitten, how was your day?” Hearing her purr was the only relaxing moment I had experienced all day. I scooped her up and walked into the kitchen to make her dinner.
Inside my home, I lived in my own world. It was like crawl
ing into a warm bed in winter, and no one could bother me.
Ring.
Unless they knew how to dial a phone.
“Hello?” On the other end was my best friend Shannon. It was always uplifting to hear her voice.
“Hi, hon. I haven’t heard from you in days, so I thought I’d call you up and see how you were doing, maybe get together for a late dinner or something.” My eyelids slowly closed.
“Oh babe, it’s been such a long day and…” I could hear her sigh on the other end. It had been a long time, too long. “I know, why don’t you come over? We’ll get some pizza and watch a movie and just catch up!” The thought of spending the evening gossiping and giggling with Shannon brought me to life. I hadn’t even realized just how dead I had been feeling.
“Are you inviting me to a slumber party?” Shannon joked.
“Why, I think I am!” I laughed.
We finalized the plans, and I took a quick shower. The shower was not quite the bath I was planning, but Shannon would serve to take my mind off work far beyond what a bath could do. As soon as the shower was done, I ordered the pizza, put on my ratty old University of Louisville sweats, and answered the door with perfect timing.
The hug Shannon gave me melted away the day. She and I had known each other longer than we hadn’t, and we had that connection so rarely found between two people.
She came in and went straight to the fridge. She pulled out a soda and flopped on the couch. She opened her mouth to speak, but before she could utter a word, I pointed at her watch. She nodded and took it off. We had an understanding between us that when the watches were off, we were off the clock, and shop talk was taboo. Now I knew for sure it would be an enjoyable evening.
“You look good, sweetie!” My voice had lost the tinge of exhaustion from earlier. And she did look good. Her hair had a new burgundy tint and she was sporting a very feminine cut. Shannon was usually a bit more on the tomboy side of things, but it seemed that time and womanhood were catching up to her. I almost felt jealous of her beauty, which came so naturally.
“I bet you say that to all the girls.” Unused to compliments, Shannon blushed. “So, what movie are you subjecting me to this time?”
I had pulled out my favorite movie of all time. I couldn’t remember the last time she and I had watched Valley Girl together, but I knew it was our favorite, and sometimes the affirmation of the familiar was the best feeling. When I hit play and the opening credits began to roll, Shannon nearly peed herself with glee.
We turned out the lights, cuddled up on the couch together with pizza in hand, and began to enjoy the movie.
Once the movie and the chow had vanished, we managed to catch each other up on our personal lives—no men for either of us. Suddenly, I realized that it was already three in the morning. I convinced Shannon to spend the night instead of driving home dead tired. It would be nice to have another warm body in bed with me, besides Raja kitty, of course. She definitely had no business driving with her eyes half-open.
After we both lay down in my bed, I felt more warmth and peace than I had in a long, long time. Raja was purring near my head, Shannon’s bare leg was resting gently against my own, and for the moment, all was right in the world.
But as I drifted off to sleep, the world turned into a much darker place. I was stretched out on an operating-room table. It was cold, and the sounds of screams were echoing off the walls. I couldn’t move my arms or legs. I couldn’t even turn my head. My breathing was ragged, my eyes burned, and my vision was blurred. I blinked again and again, hoping the stinging would go away and my vision would return.
A specter of a man appeared above me. He spoke not in one voice, but in two, one masculine and one feminine. “I will answer your prayers, Jamie Davenport.”
I begged to be released. But no release came. I begged for answers. No answers came.
The specter retrieved a scalpel from a nearby table and began cutting away at my breasts. He was ripping away the flesh and pulling out handfuls of tissue, saying, “I guess you won’t need that now!” with a strange, melodic laugh.
Then the nightmare got worse when the maniac began to fashion a long tube-like object from the meat he had sliced from my breasts.
Once the tube was complete, he began working on my groin area. He spoke again, this time the male and female voices mixing together: “With your new genitals in place, you will then be complete, Jamie Davenport.”
There was laughter and blood and flesh and a chorus of voices I couldn’t attach genders to.
I awoke, shivering in a pool of my own sweat. I was so frightened. I pulled Shannon close to me. She woke up enough to ask me if I was okay. I begged her to hold me.
I fell back to sleep in her arms. I had never felt such tenderness and such love. The nightmares would not return that night. I hoped they would never return.
Shannon and I awoke together. I was still locked in her embrace. Somehow, we had managed to maneuver into a perfect spoon position with my back to her front. I had to admit it was heavenly. Even though I have always considered myself heterosexual, there was something so much more peaceful about waking up in the arms of another woman, her smell, her gentle touch, and her love. I guess that if I were to ever go gay, it would have to be with Shannon.
I turned over and looked into her eyes. I immediately realized that she was more than likely thinking and feeling the exact same things. We stared into each other’s eyes for a long while. We didn’t move. We didn’t need to move. There was zero desire to lose the moment.
Then the alarm went off, telling us it was time to join the real world again.
After a quick breakfast, we promised to be together as often as possible, and we both left at the same time. She was my own personal salvation, and I loved her like I had never loved another human being. What we had shared that night would stay with me forever. I could feel her against me as I was driving to the station. I could still smell her skin and hear her breathing.
TWENTY-TWO
When I arrived at the station, I went straight to my office and checked my email. There was an urgent message from the Medical Examiner’s office to call regarding what they were calling ‘tranny man.’ I hated dealing with those idiots.
Tasha Dearing, was a young, hippie girl who every guy in the precinct would rather bone than phone. Fortunately, I didn’t fall in that category, so it was pretty easy for me to get information from that office. One call to Tasha was all I needed. The rest of the ME office was nothing but Animal House types.
“Hello medical examiner Dearing speaking.” Fortunately the better half of the ME office answered the phone.
“Hi, Tasha. It’s Jamie Davenport. You sent me an email this morning?” I knew I sounded anxious.
“Oh yes, Officer Davenport. I was examining the Siam victim last night when I came across something I think you should probably see.” There was no pride in her voice, just a matter-of-fact tone. “Meet me in the lab.”
“I’ll be there in two minutes.” I nearly hung up before I could finish the sentence. I took off at a sprinter’s pace.
It did take me about two minutes to reach the ME’s lab. When I arrived, Tasha was dressed in her white lab coat with mask and gloves. She was digging into a body that looked like it had been drawn and quartered. That was odd because she was typically an anal-retentive examiner. Her overhead mike had been pulled down, and she looked very tired.
I stopped and caught my breath. I didn’t speak so as not to interrupt her train of thought. I stood waiting until she turned to me and pulled up her mask. There was no greeting, no idle chitchat, and no innocuous banter. She shot straight to the point as she walked over to a table across the room. On the table was the body of Tye Siam. I hated seeing the victims like that, torn from humanity and turned into specimens. It wasn’t that their insides were open for all to see. I had become numb to the effect of gore. It was more than that. It was the idea that a life was gone that shouldn’t be. I wasn’t into the spiritu
al aspect of dying, but there was some intangible presence within a human’s existence that could only be extinguished with death. Call it the soul, call it what you will, but once the body lay cooling on the table, it was no longer there. That was hard to swallow.
“I was examining the genital area last night trying to figure out if the killer actually knew what he was doing. Well, it turned out that he seems to have a grasp on the fundamentals of surgery but not the details. It’s like he took a crash course on cutting, suturing, and anatomy, but it ended there. Whoever is doing this can enter the human cavity, but once he’s there, he’s lost. Take a look at the chest area. He cut away the flap of skin and inserted a bra to form breasts.”
It was a fair but clinical description. What I saw, however, was horrific. It looked as if Dr. Frankenstein was alive and well and doing his best anti-breast-augmentation campaign. The incisions were far from clean; had the man not died of internal bleeding and shock, he would have died from infection.
That didn’t even scratch the surface of the cruel waters the man had swum. It was almost farcical. The dead man had the strap of a bra sticking out of a cut in his chest. Had I been of a morbid ilk, I’d probably be rolling around on the floor holding my sides from laughing so hard. But without that sick sense of morbidity, I was appalled. Then a strange tinge of irony smacked me upside the face. For men, women are always searching for the perfect bra to shape their sagging breasts into the perfect shape. Yet here was a man who found only tragedy from that perfect bra. Lift and separate life from death.
Tasha continued, “Also, as you can see, the genitals were cleanly removed but with no concern for the major arteries, which is why the victim died. What should have been major external bleeding turned internal because the wound was tightly sutured. It’s very clear that the victim died of blood loss and shock.” The report was almost too cold and clinical.
Even though I had already experienced the horror between the legs of Tye Siam, the sight still made me want to turn away and run. But I stood my ground. I had long ago promised myself I would never let a fellow officer see a sign of weakness. I had taken it upon myself to represent my sex in the force and would do it justice in every way I could.