by Arin Andrews
I had totally been planning to do it all night, but I lost my nerve at the last second. She was just too pretty. It actually made me feel sick inside, like I had no business even being near someone like her. She had these pillowy lips that absolutely paralyzed me. I’d never felt anything like that before. I was so absorbed by any little thing that came out of her mouth, and the thought of being that close to her sent little ripples of terror through my stomach and legs. Just do it, I was screaming in my head. But my body simply wouldn’t move.
I could sense her disappointment at my lack of nerve. But I wanted our first kiss to be special, and the parking lot of Danco, with its wan fluorescent lighting and the abandoned car wash just across the street, was hardly the place to do it.
I had tickets to an upcoming Black Keys concert and asked her if she wanted to come, not realizing it was the same night as the gala. She’d already invited another friend as her guest, but she told me I should get tickets to the event.
“You could come back to my place afterward,” she said. “My mom won’t mind. We could put on some movies, and then Sunday my little brother has motocross practice we could watch.”
Done.
• • •
On April 26, 2012, at 2:40 p.m., two days before the gala, I got my first testosterone injection. I consider it my second birthday.
The doctor came into the examining room, shuffling through the results of my blood work. I held my breath, praying that nothing was wrong.
“Well,” he said. “Turns out you didn’t even need a letter from your therapist.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“All women have a normal amount of testosterone in their system. You have almost none. You could have been on at least some testosterone ages ago.”
I would have been upset, if I hadn’t already been so excited to start. I even let slide the fact that he had just referred to me as a woman. Still, it was weird. I guess a part of me had wondered if maybe I already had too much testosterone in me, and that was part of what made me trans.
He administered my dosage right there in the office to teach me how to do it at home—a long needle right in my butt cheek. There was a tiny sting, and I felt a rush of strength immediately, but it was probably psychosomatic. He gave Mom a prescription for the next shot. Our insurance had covered all of my blood work, but we had to pay out of pocket for the actual testosterone. Luckily, it isn’t too expensive—my dosage costs sixty dollars for a three-month supply.
The next morning I noticed a definite physical difference. I woke up smelling really sweaty, and when I peed, the scent was thick and heavy. My skin was super-oily, and I was starving. I ate everything I could find in the house—cereal, toast, cookies, chicken cutlets, fruit, spaghetti. Nothing filled me up.
The morning of the gala, Katie and I went out to breakfast together at IHOP before she had to start getting ready.
“So, are YOU excitEEED about . . . ,” I started to ask, but I slapped my hands over my mouth, mortified at the weird goat bleat that had just erupted from me. My voice had suddenly dropped three octaves and then scrambled up another four—it sounded like a record scratching. I froze, eyes wide, with my hands still covering my mouth, but Katie laughed so hard that bits of pancake shot out of her mouth and flew across the table.
“I told you!” she crowed. “Two days, and your voice is already cracking!”
I knew this was the sort of thing that happened to cis guys all the time through puberty. Sure, it’s embarrassing to have your voice crack in the middle of saying something, let alone on a date. But I was suddenly a little thrilled inside. It was all happening—just one more step to becoming the person I was meant to be. And at the same time I was falling in love with someone who could completely understand every single thing I was going through.
Happiness that intense felt foreign to me. It had been gone from my life for so many years, and now that I was experiencing it again, I was feeling it on a level so high that nothing could burst it.
I spent all afternoon getting ready for the gala. I still had only my one black suit, the same one I wore to prom. In fact, I basically wore the entire same outfit as I had worn to prom. I wanted to buy something new and special for the occasion, but I didn’t have the money. Plus, there was something sort of poetic about giving the outfit a second chance—I didn’t want to look at this suit hanging in my closet and have only bad memories associated with it.
Mom was out of town, so Dad came to the gala with me. It was the first time he really got a chance to see what my new life was all about. When he picked me up, I asked if we could stop at a florist so I could get Katie a flower. I didn’t want to overdo it, so I picked out a single pink rose.
When we arrived at the convention center, there was a huge line to get in, and people dressed in suits and gowns swarmed around out front. The night started with pre-party cocktails and a silent art auction, and I spotted Katie across the room as soon as we got in the door. My heart dropped. She was easily the most stunning woman there. Her hair was pulled back, with a few stray tendrils that fell down to her shoulders, and she wore a black spaghetti strap dress with a plunging neckline and a simple silver band that ran underneath her breasts. A silver necklace with a small black stone pendant hung from her neck.
“Whoa, she’s gorgeous,” Dad said.
“I know,” I moaned, then stopped and shot him a look. “Don’t act so surprised. I’ve got good taste.”
He laughed and slapped me on the back. We watched Katie flit from one group of people to the next, clearly the biggest star of the evening. She still hadn’t seen me. I suddenly shoved the flower into my Dad’s hand.
“Here. I can’t do it,” I said, breaking into a sweat. It was like asking for her phone number all over again.
He pushed the flower back into my hand.
“Come on. Yes you can,” he coaxed. “She invited you!”
I took the flower back, sucked in my breath, marched across the room, and tapped her on the back.
“Hey, Katie,” I said, silently begging my voice not to crack. “I got this for you.”
Her whole face lit up, and she leaned in and gave me an enormous hug. She smelled like cherry blossoms, and I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply. When I felt her lips on my neck, I almost swooned. The celebrity of the night likes me, I thought.
“Thank you, sweetie,” she said as she pulled back, still smiling. An older man tapped her on the shoulder to introduce himself.
I backed away. “You do your thing. We’ll talk after,” I said, and she gave me a grateful look before turning to him.
“Nice work,” Dad said when I got back over to him, and he patted me on the shoulder again. I introduced him to a few people I knew from the Equality Center, and soon everyone headed inside the ballroom area for the awards ceremony. I couldn’t concentrate on what anyone up at the podium was saying. I kept my eyes on Katie’s table near the stage, where she sat with her family. When they announced her name, I clapped more loudly than anyone else.
Her speech made people cry. As she talked about her childhood struggles, her family’s acceptance, and her determination to spread awareness about trans youth issues, I kept hearing sniffles from the tables around me.
She was crying too by the time she finished, and the room erupted in applause. I wanted so badly to run up and hug her. I was utterly overwhelmed with my feelings for her, and I needed to get them out. Since I couldn’t actually talk to her just yet, I wrote everything I was thinking in a text. I didn’t have any intention of sending it. I just wanted to record every word of what I was feeling in that exact moment.
I’m watching you with your family right now, and your speech was incredible. It’s such an honor to be here as your friend, and I hope that I might one day be able to call you mine. You’re such a beautiful woman, and your words are so inspiring, and I’m the luckiest guy in the room tonight just to even know you.
It went on and on like that. It was basically a mas
sive paragraph of me vomiting up emotions. I planned to edit it down later so it didn’t sound so stalkerish. But purely out of habit, I hit send.
I sunk my head into my hands in total shame, but only for a moment.
Screw it, I thought. This is how I feel, and it’s better that she knows it.
After the rest of the speeches were over, the tables were cleared away to make room for a live band and dancing. I pushed my way through the crowd and gave Katie a huge hug. She handed her award—a heavy, marble obelisk with her name etched on the base—to her mom, and we started dancing.
“Hey, by the way,” I shouted over the music, “I sent you a text by mistake. Just ignore it.”
“I left my phone at home,” she said, shrugging. Then she reached out and grabbed my tie, pulling me close to her. We danced pressed up against each other, the way I’d always wanted to dance with a girl but had never had the chance. The smell of her perfume overtook me again and made me all woozy.
The rest of the night was a blur of people stopping by to congratulate her, but every time we were interrupted, she kept her hand on my back and rubbed it. I stood there, beaming like an idiot. At one point the band dedicated “Wonderful Tonight” to her, and the eyes of everyone in the room were on us.
As the dance wound down, we made our way outside and took some pictures. Dad walked me over to his car so I could get my overnight bag.
“Have fun, but don’t have too much fun,” he said. “Don’t drink any alcohol. Be cool.”
“Okay, Dad,” I said, and hugged him good-bye. I ran back over to Katie’s family. Her brother had borrowed a huge Hummer from a friend to chauffer her around in, and I climbed into the backseat with her.
When we got to Katie’s house, a sense of déjà vu washed over me. I’d seen photos of this tan, one-story building before, in the Tulsa World article, and I suddenly felt like I’d been transported into a movie. The interior was small but supercozy and inviting. Katie led me into the living room just off their kitchen and proceeded to build a massive bed on the floor out of seven or eight different blankets and pillows that she leaned up against the base of the couch.
“Pick out a movie and make yourself comfortable,” she said. “I’m going to go change out of this dress.”
I wandered over to the stack of DVDs and selected the scariest one I could find, the fourth installment of the Final Destination franchise. I knew it would be full of gory death scenes that would give me an excuse to put my arm around her.
She came back a few minutes later. She still had her makeup on, but she’d changed into a pair of pajama bottoms and a tank top.
“Your turn,” she said. “My room is just down the hall. Oh, and I got your text.” It looked like she was fighting back tears. “Thank you. It means . . . a lot. I still wasn’t sure if you really felt that way about me.”
“You have no idea,” I said, and left to change.
Her bedroom was tiny, with a single twin bed. The walls were painted purple and cream. I unzipped my bag and stripped, laying my suit gently down on her bed, careful not to wrinkle it. I threw on a pair of gym shorts and a T-shirt, and was in the middle of adjusting my binder when I heard her scream from down the hallway.
I ran out of her room, in the direction the sound had come from. The bathroom door was open, and she was sitting on the closed toilet, holding her foot and wincing. There was blood dripping from her big toe. Her award was lying on the floor next to her.
“I dropped it,” she said, looking up at me.
I kneeled in front of her. “Let me see.”
The cut itself wasn’t too bad, but it was bleeding pretty heavily. Jazzlyn, Katie’s mom, appeared in the doorway.
“Oh, honey, hang on. I’ll get the first aid kit.”
I cleaned the wound and kept pressure on it to try to stop the bleeding. Jazzlyn returned with the kit, and we took turns fussing over Katie, putting antiseptic on her toe and wrapping it up in a bandage.
Katie kept making self-deprecating comments about how she was so clumsy and such an idiot. It killed me to hear her talk about herself that way.
“Come on. Stop it,” I said. “It’s kind of funny. I mean, why do they make these things so heavy?” I picked the award up off the floor. It must have weighed about seven pounds. “It’s not your fault—you could actually kill someone with this thing.”
I helped her into the living room and was showing her the movie I had picked out, just as her mom appeared. “I made pizza rolls!” Jazzlyn announced. She set down a plate of those little frozen pepperoni things and went back into the kitchen.
I had a two-second silent debate with myself. I try to never eat processed foods, but I wasn’t about to be rude. Before I could even reach for one myself, though, Katie stuck one into my mouth. I started to gag but tried not to show it. I mean, when a girl feeds you something, you eat it.
“Mmmmm,” I managed to mumble halfheartedly as I tried to swallow it.
Jazzlyn came back into the room with two glasses of root beer, and set them down on the coffee table. I was desperate for something to wash the taste of the appetizer out of my mouth, and I reached a little too fast for the glass and knocked it over. The soda fizzed and hissed all over the surface, and raced to the edge of the table and dripped onto the floor. Nice one, I thought. I turned to Katie with a helpless look on my face, still choking on the pizza roll. Jazzlyn ran into the kitchen for some paper towels, and they couldn’t stop laughing at me.
I hadn’t even been there for thirty minutes, and already everything was a disaster. I kept apologizing as I followed her mom into the kitchen to wash the sticky soda off my arm and hands.
We finally got settled on the blankets, and her mom flicked off the lights and left us alone as the movie started. The opening scene is a massive orgy of death as teenagers are impaled and crushed left and right during a NASCAR-style speedway race accident. People get sliced in half, crushed by flying motors, burned up in flames. It was perfect. We had started out leaning against the sofa but slid down onto the blankets as the screams on the TV got louder. I gathered up all my courage. Screw it. I’m going for it, I thought as I slid my arm around her back. I braced myself for her reaction.
I didn’t need to worry. She immediately turned and curled her entire body against me, throwing one leg over my stomach and resting a hand on my chest, over my binder. All the tension that had been building between us eased up but was suddenly replaced by a whole new fear: How far can I take this?
I knew she could probably feel the edge of my binder underneath my shirt, and I worried for a second that it would be a turnoff. But then I felt her bulge against my leg and knew I had nothing to worry about. We were both dealing with equipment issues, and her issue canceled out any concern I had about mine. We knew who we were—a boy and a girl, cuddling together, watching a scary movie. Even through all the fear and anticipation of what might come next, it was the most normal I’d ever felt in my life.
She suddenly sat up a little and looked down at me. I stared up at her. She moved her face really close to mine, like an inch away, and held it there for about thirty seconds, but it felt like forever. I could feel her breath on my lips, and I knew she had to feel my heart pounding in my chest. It was so intimate, and I didn’t want the moment to end. The screams of the dying people on the television faded away, and she broke that last distance between us and kissed me.
It wasn’t a heavy kiss; it was very soft and sweet. Small, gentle kisses at first, for probably ten full minutes. And then it was on. At some point I paused and asked, “Will you be my girlfriend?”
She kissed me again and said yes.
I kept my underwear and binder on all night like I always had with Darian, even though I felt so much safer about my body with Katie. I didn’t have to feel self-conscious about my need for those barriers, because she understood why I had them. Hours after our first kiss, I looked up and saw the sky turning blue out the window. I held her tight, and we finally passed out. We got
only about two hours of sleep before it was time to get up and go to her brother’s motocross practice. We each ran to the bathroom to wipe ourselves down with a washcloth, and then jumped into the car with her mom and brother. We made out in the backseat the whole way there while they politely pretended not to notice. Now that the physical barrier had been broken between us, we couldn’t keep our hands off each other.
Once we got to the track, we just kept making out. No one around us batted an eye—we were just two horny straight kids going at it.
After the race was over, we went back to her house and collapsed into a hammock in her backyard, talking and kissing. I’d never taken any drugs but figured that must have been what it felt like to be high on ecstasy or something. It was pure euphoria, and she told me she felt the same way.
She slipped her hand under my shirt, and then under my binder. “You’re, what, a B cup?” she asked.
“Don’t remind me,” I said, squirming away and pulling her hand out. All of the old shame and embarrassment about my body came creeping back for a moment.
“That’s just the size I want. Wouldn’t it be perfect if we could just swap everything?”
“I’d do anything to have your dick,” I said, totally serious. “It’s the perfect size.”
“You can have it,” she said.
• • •
From that day forward we were together every chance we got. Mom seemed to really like Katie, and let her stay over at our house a lot.
“Did you get rid of all your girl clothes?” Katie asked me one day.
“I put them all in garbage bags. I think Mom took them to the Goodwill.”