“Easy, gentlemen,” Drew said, rallying to Robin’s defense at last. “One at a time. The night is young.”
Robin could see the more advanced actors hadn’t left Drew’s side, intent on a more grueling going over, which further infuriated Robin. He had to audition with these posers, find what was wrong with their acts, give them the feedback they needed to take their game to the next level, and score enough points to win his way to the inner circle to stand next to Drew.
It was then Robin realized the true horror lurking beneath the scene that had earlier failed to register on his mind. Drew was so convincing as a man, once her aptitudes for decoding the subtlest nuances of human behavior were applied to herself, that every transsexual for miles wanted to get close to her. Only she could certify them safe to pass in any environment. They were probably flying in from around the world even now for the opportunity to audition before her. The realization robbed Robin of any hope of the experiment failing; he could no longer pretend this was just some passing phenomenon. Drew was already qualified to give Robin tips on how to be manlier.
Dilbert stood before him, slender and beautiful, forever pressing his long straight hair behind his ears. He realized Robin was regarding the tic. “Sorry, I can’t seem to stop myself.”
“Plenty of guys with long hair have the same affectation,” Robin said. “It doesn’t make you less manly. Although looking as beautiful as you do, you’ll get all kinds hitting on you, not just women. Not to worry, plenty of women go for the sensitive types, who they trust to be more in touch with their feminine side.” Dilbert lit up, as if he’d suddenly moved to the head of the class. He realized in that instant he didn’t have to get any more manly than he already was; he’d found a sweet-spot for himself that fit his personality even better than a higher level of “passing” would allow. Robin, for his part, had no idea where the sudden generosity of spirit had come from, unless he was feeling sorry for someone who felt just as out of place as he did.
More worrisome, he was getting a hard-on staring at Dilbert, whose androgyny was sucking him in, as well, making it easy to imagine whatever he wanted beneath the covers. “Maybe you should consider modeling,” Robin said. “Androgyny is probably more bankable. As far as GQ and Vogue are concerned, why seduce one sex when you can seduce both?” Robin realized he had gone too far when Dilbert beamed even brighter and stepped close enough to kiss him. Robin, embarrassed, stepped back. “I didn’t mean that as a come on.”
Dilbert said, “I felt you should be rewarded. That’s my desire to please getting the better of me.”
“So you’re bisexual?” Robin asked, hungry for tips that could help him get past Drew’s morphing physiology. He was hoping the guy would say no, and that he’d hit on some other formula for self-transcendence, perhaps wrapping himself in fantasies so compelling that reality had no way in.
“I don’t really know. Like I said, my desire to please is really strong. I’m twenty five going on ten, still finding my way, on account of it.”
“It’s okay,” Robin found himself saying to his own annoyance. The rescuer in him was being summoned to the surface, overpowering his anger and revulsion at being exposed to a world he had no desire to ever engage. “We’re all retarded developmentally in some areas, and ahead of the pack in others. That unique combination is what makes us so charming.”
It was a little too easy to push Dilbert’s buttons, judging by how quickly he brightened before Robin’s ego-stroking, and he didn’t want his own mixed signals contributing to Dilbert’s confusion over who he was.
Robin surrendered any notion of extracting intel from Dilbert that could help him deal with his own crisis of heart, which felt too mercenary under the circumstances. But one thing came through loud and clear: the rescuer in Robin was smarter and faster on his feet than Robin’s baseline personality. Hell, it even felt more like him. The high-pressure hyperbaric chamber of a social situation was bringing the best, not the worst, out in him, even as he squirmed to get free. Maybe living in Drew’s shadow, amounted to a stultifying form of role-play that blinded him to his more noteworthy facets. He wondered how much living in Manny’s shadow had similarly stunted his growth. He bowed to Dilbert, and made his way to the next guinea pig.
Orion shook Robin’s hand. He struck Robin as more of a steroid-riddled female bodybuilder, than a man. He too may have been suffering from being too attractive to pass without facial remodeling surgery. “You work out?” Robin asked.
“Ms. California, the last two years running. I’m off-season right now, so I can look at an orange without passing out.”
Robin smiled politely, all the while, feeling the noose tightening around his neck, as he eyed Drew in the background. She folded her right leg over her left leg the way a man would, who had a little too much equipment to get around, protecting the crotch by resting the ankle on the knee rather than marrying both knees. She spoke in a pitch-perfect fashion, no easy feat, as a woman’s larynx didn’t afford the kind of vocal range that a man’s did. She rubbed her neck and shoulders absently, as she listened to her guest prattle, finding tension in places men more commonly stored it in their bodies. She was already so into character, she no longer had to act the part.
Orion caught Robin staring at her face. “You think I should get the facial remodeling, don’t you? Everyone does. But it’s expensive. I’m holding out for a doctor who’ll take me on charity, or government funding.”
“What about stopping halfway? There are plenty of lesbian body builders.”
“I’ve been mulling over that option. They usually give me the guy’s role to play, anyway.”
Robin laughed. Great. He was finding every kind of interim solution than the extreme other end of the pendulum’s swing that Drew had chosen. Just his luck, his life-partner was less enthused with halfway measures. He eyed Drew, who Darnell had taken by the waist as she stood the way he would escort a woman. Drew threw her arm around his shoulder and squeezed, leading him off the way a man would in reality, thus correcting him without having to say a word. Darnell adjusted his hand positioning. God, Robin hated this. He felt, being actively recruited into their induction to manhood, as if he was betraying his own heart.
As the night wore on, Robin continued to rack up numbers with his pointers for the posers. But he never received enough to enter Drew’s winner’s circle, which just riled him more. Their guests responded to her masculine behavior better than they did his. Robin himself was starting to emulate her in order to blend with the boys. Male bonding had never been one of his strong-suits, not the way it was for Manny. He just wasn’t stereotypical enough in his mannerisms. He never learned the kind of subtle cues men picked up from one another over years on the athletic field, hanging around drinking and talking about chicks, all rites of passage Robin had missed out on.
That led him to horror number three for the evening, undigested at the time: the realization that he had effeminate qualities long denied, too subtle to arouse suspicions perhaps, or for anyone to think him queer, just enough to make him look as if he didn’t secrete as much testosterone. He wasn’t one of those guys who found it easy to bond because they could smell high enough amounts of it on one another. Berkeley had lent additional cover, causing him to never have to question himself, as he was surrounded by every kind of male imaginable, and some, many would have deemed unimaginable. It was no wonder Drew was pushing buttons Robin didn’t even know he had.
Drew served so well in the high priestess role, Robin felt the distinct sensation of participating in a Druid-like sect, worshipping a false god and practicing a religion he found offensively pagan. He joined the many followers keying off her from a distance across the room, able to synchronize with her even though not being granted the proximity of the inner circle. The air was growing suffocating. As the pressure of the hyperbaric chamber dialed up, Robin found himself thrust back into Hartman’s world, Winona’s hands on him, shaking him.
***
“I’m glad
you found a safe space to retreat to in your mind, sweetie,” Winona said. “But it’s not real. The only safe space is well outside of these locked doors.”
Robin nodded meekly, not all the way back in the moment. His mind was still connecting the ideas in his head, the memories, images, and sensations, according to which ones had the most electrical charge and were the most traumatic. Pending Hartman putting his hands around Robin’s neck, strangely, this place in the here-and-now remained far away. Hartman had simply dialed up the pressure of the hyperbaric chamber around him to the point at which he had easy access to every trauma in his life, now seeking integration, clamoring for attention and healing he could only provide by paying attention to them.
He was growingly convinced it was only by retrieving these shattered pieces of his psyche left lying around in the past that he was going to have the mental presence and resources necessary to deal with his current life-and-death situation.
Winona seemed to sense he needed a project to focus on with sufficient gravity to keep him from drifting off again. “Why don’t you train your detective’s senses on the subtle audio cues you can pick up listening through the door?” she whispered. “So you know when you have to burst in there to shock everyone into desisting. No more dead bodies, please.”
Robin nodded shakily, not entirely convinced he could do that. Winona settled for his offer of appeasement. “Hang in there. I’m going to try and not circle back here if I can avoid it, but these passageways are convoluted.” She crawled off.
Even before she was out of sight, Robin had drifted off again.
FORTY-EIGHT
Robin and Drew wended their way up the fire trail that ran near their house into Tilden park, two females in tow. The women were transsexuals. And the men weren’t real men, either. Drew certainly wasn’t, and Robin, as he was increasingly coming to realize, was only male by Berkeley standards.
Hence the exercise in play acting. Robin had agreed to the outing only because crashing the all-bro party at his house, with transsexuals all smoking cigars, had proven curiously informative as to the subtleties and nuances of human behavior related to gender. That, in turn, opened doors into still further insights into people. He was dealing with this as the latest chapter in Drew’s training him to be a better detective. And he was trying to overlook the irony that she was also training him how to be a better man, and a more attentive lover all at the same time. Robin hoped these were unwitting artifacts of the exercise as opposed to any running commentary on their relationship together, as in, maybe if he had been better at being both a man and a lover, she wouldn’t be currently morphing into a male. But he forbade his mind running along these tracks. Too late to cry over spilled Berkeley co-op goat-milk, in any case.
Alexia Frietes, formerly Alex, a Cal Berkeley student, set the pace for their posse. Sensing the group wearying and falling further behind, she stopped midstride and plopped herself down on the rakish earth, filled with rocks and pebbles and about as inviting as a cactus brush.
Alexia leaned back against a boulder and tilted a canteen to her lips. She didn’t wince in the slightest at the rough treatment she was receiving from the hard ground. Her comfort level with grueling trail hikes suggested to Robin she had been a tomboy all her life. Her outfit and mannerisms did nothing to deter from this impression. She sought rigorous physical exertion as a release. But from what? Robin kept looking, finding the gender-specific actions revealing in more ways than one. It would never have occurred to him before to seek out identity markers in how a person managed their masculine or feminine persona before the world.
Alexia flapped her legs, bent at the knee at forty five degree angles, while keeping the feet of her sneakers on the ground. The gesture was so sexually provocative, and yet so unintended to be.
“So what is Alexia trying to get her mind off of?” Drew said, as if reading Alexia’s mind and Robin’s, and tailoring her question to suit the needs of both.
“Did I tell you I joined BAMN ,” Alexia said, “The Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration, and Immigrants Rights And Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary? It advertises itself to students who want – and I quote – ‘to increase underrepresented minority enrollment, restore affirmative action, and overturn Prop. 209.’”
“The University of California, Berkeley is offering students college credit to work for an expressly activist organization,” Drew explained for the politically tone-deaf, currently all giving Alexia a what-the-hell look. Suddenly they understood what Alexia herself found so remarkable.
“I remember, when you wanted an easy-A, you took a class like underwater needlepoint,” Elissia chided.
“This from a Rent Stabilization Board member,” Alexia countered, “whose sole function in life is to ensure rents don’t go through the ceiling and make Berkeley unaffordable in ways that cut into its ethnic and cultural diversity. You wouldn’t know easy if it hit you in the face.”
Elissia held up her canteen in a “touché” gesture. Not able to contain himself any longer, he blurted, “Are you two lovers?”
Alexia and Elissia both spit water from their canteens in tandem as if tasting sour wine. Drew was already on damage control. “Robin, that’s enough. Forgive him, he’s trying to show off his detective’s prowess, which he’s been working on.”
After a tense moment of silence, both Elissia and Alexia erupted in laughter.
“Well, that’s one for two. You taught him something,” Elissia said.
“Sorry for coming off like such an ass,” Robin said.
“Don’t worry about it.” Alexia closed the cap on the canteen.
“So are you two going to stay together as two women?” Robin asked, realizing he was being nearly as clumsy as before.
“We’re both bisexual,” Alexia confessed, “and have an open-ended relationship that involves cheating on one another with both sexes and then telling each other everything about it.” She laughed. “We just decided that, politically speaking, being female was more expedient with respect to our life goals. Elissia wants to go into the publishing world as an editor, and ninety percent of those are female. I’ve my sights set on CEO of a global telcom, for which being a woman is seen as advantageous for all sorts of reasons.”
Continuing to finish one another’s thoughts, Elissia said, “We excel in customer care positions. It’s more reverse-prejudice bullshit, but it serves our purposes, so, what the hell? This is our nod to capitalistic exploitation.” This time when Elissia held up her canteen, Alexia returned the gesture, knocked canteens with her in a toast.
The horror of the situation penetrated Robin’s thick head. Elissia and Alexia had absolutely no hang-ups or second thoughts over what they were doing. Changing sexes was a sensible, strategic move, end of story. No guilt. No lingering unresolved issues. No layers of psychology to peel back that would reveal truths denied, issues left unexamined or glossed over. They were annoyingly well-adjusted with a capital-A. And it left Robin feeling like little more than a petty sexual bigot, hung up on plumbing. It made him feel shackled to the past. Robin, who identified himself with the most progressive and liberal populace in the world, and as on the cutting edge of that group. Now he felt like a dinosaur. Attached to things that didn’t matter, and hemmed in by prescribed genetic behavior like an alcoholic who refused to give up drinking for the same reasons; it was just easier to give in to defective biology. Bisexuality was without question the Darwinian response to a society in which connecting meaningfully with another human being was now sufficiently trying that, if you added sexual bigotry to the mix, you may as well hang it up.
Drew had, of course, elected to undergo gender reassignment surgery for related reasons. In her case, she wanted to be one of the few men who would have the women eating out of her hands as well as the men, sensitive enough to act as a bridge for both sexes. Going against type, she was bucking the trend, because she had the political finesse to do it and make what was an increasingly untenable
position for others, her gateway to the Promised Land.
Despite how formidably Drew had argued her position, Robin had dismissed it as a cheap veneer of a rationalization she was using to cover over an abiding lesbianism. Now it was clear the only abiding thing in their relationship was his sexual bigotry. Scratch too any idea that she was succumbing to the desperation of the times, turning herself inside out, simply to find upward mobility in a stratified ninety-nine percent versus one-percent economy, where upward mobility was just another fiction the ruling class sold the servant class to keep them hanging in there for another century of oppression.
With all the eccentricities allowed us by a mature democracy, with all the tangents people were allowed to evolve down, which now included freedom from sexual identity, there were mountains separating them from one another, making any similarities seem tenuous at best. What was one to do upon discovering that one shared a common interest in the TV series Dexter with one’s love interest, when one’s field was astrobiology and the other’s was archeology, when one was a vegan who ate only raw foods and the other was a confirmed meat eater, on and on in an odd-coupling that extended into n-dimensions that only worked in the movies? Being a colorful, unique, richly nuanced, in-depth human being was paradoxically an invitation to do little but admire one another as completely alien, interesting and scintillating, possibly, but ultimately foreign, no less so than if we’d chanced upon a lifeform on another planet while there collecting rock samples.
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