by Nick Krieger
“You’re so handsome,” she said with a hint of friendly flirtation.
Greg’s cap, cocked to the side, shaded his flushed cheeks. “I think I’m blushing,” he said, trying to keep a straight face as Adina, Julie, and Hillary drowned him in praise. “I can’t believe I’m blushing.”
My excitement had faded to a disappointed detachment. Greg’s redesigned chest, clearly created by a skilled hand, looked just like that, a redesign. The only one in the room who hadn’t spoken, I could only gesture my support with nods.
“So cute,” Julie reiterated, and in a half-joking yet serious manner added, “and so very manly.”
The first time I’d observed this type of gender reinforcement, a few women cooing over someone’s testosterone-fueled mustache growth, I found it forced and childish, almost unbearable, like listening to adults tell a young girl wearing a pink dress, rhinestone necklace, and holding a wand that she is a princess. But Greg had worked hard, fought for his gender and body. With his elbows out, holding his shirt up, he tried to remain still, but his childlike glee lit up his face like fireworks. Delight shot off of him, prying my mouth open to boost his pride. “You look awesome,” I said. The smile on Greg’s face flickered brighter and I felt a rush of pleasure. “Really awesome,” I repeated.
I couldn’t see past the tiny red lines, the threadlike scabs that surrounded his nipple graft, and the obviousness of the reconstruction made an indelible mark in my mind. I found breasts, even my own, more attractive than cuts and scars, and yet it took nothing away from me to support Greg.
Everyone kept telling him how great he looked in a grand chorus, and inspired by the solidarity, I contributed to the encore until Greg couldn’t take it anymore. “Now I just gotta lose this beer gut,” he said, slapping his stomach.
Julie helped wrap the bandage back around his chest. “How tight should this be?” she asked.
“Oww,” Greg groaned, sucking in his stomach in agony. “Just kidding.”
Julie let out a relieved smile. “Jerk,” she said, closing the Velcro and pulling his shirt down.
“High five. High five,” Adina said. She held out her hand, which Greg met in a low handshake.
The only person I barely knew in the room was Hillary. She played flag football with the others, often with her blond hair in pigtails, sporting the ironic phrase “The Butch One” on the back of her uniform. She held her shirt up, her fingers poised underneath her turquoise bikini. “I guess I have to take this off,” she joked.
“How long do you have to wear that?” Greg deadpanned.
Hillary reached around her back and pulled the string. Standing there, her chest on display, unlike Greg, she didn’t blush.
“I think you have the greatest tits I’ve ever seen,” said Adina, sounding sincere. “Really, you do.”
“It’s always nice to see your tits, Hillary,” Greg said. He helped her retie her bikini in the back and turned to Adina. “Your turn.”
Adina had once expressed a desire to be completely flat chested to me, but as it was, I could barely make out bumps through her faded gray T-shirt. I would’ve killed or at least maimed for her small boy boobies. She raised her shirt and lifted her tight Frog Bra. We all nodded in seeming approval, knowing enough to treat her display as a nonevent, as if she’d shown us her feet.
“Next,” Greg said, shifting to Julie.
Julie shook her head sideways. “Nope. I never take off my clothes.”
Greg shrugged and cocked his head at me with a playful grin. “Come on, Nina,” he said. “Last one.”
After Julie, I had an easy out, a pass. But as I looked around at the person with girly breasts, baby-boy breasts, no-more breasts, and no-show breasts, I realized breasts could be what we wanted them to be. Mine didn’t have to be the most revered part of the female form; they could just be hunks of flesh, at least among the people surrounding me. I took a step forward, bringing myself fully into the circle, and lifted my T-shirt and Frog Bra to indifferent nods.
“Next showing will be at three,” Greg said, turning to the door.
I followed the trail out of the room, invigorated by the possibility of reinventing my own body. The meaning was mine, as long as I was with those who had the vision and vocabulary to understand my creation. I closed the door behind me, feeling lighter already.
Five. Packing
Jess entered the frame of the large living room mirror, grabbed her crotch, and readjusted the bulge in her jeans. “What do you think, Roscoe?” she said in the high-pitched voice she reserved for her cat. “Should Papi pack tonight?”
“Yes, Papi should pack,” I squeaked back from behind my book. Jess always greeted Roscoe before me and I rarely missed my chance to ventriloquize a reply.
Aware that drag kings packed for performances, some women might do it to be subversive or ironic—I once saw a girl bunny packing at the annual Hunky Jesus Easter event—and some trans guys did it to physically embody their identities as men, I imagined Jess got her soft silicone packer a couple years before, along with latex gloves and leather cuffs, as part of the queer starter kit—items used to explore aspects of sexuality that often went unacknowledged during adolescence. I must have been on the road when my kit was offered, and I had been satisfying my experimental curiosity by observing Jess, who’d been recently engaging in this mirror routine.
Pivoting on the heels of her sturdy black boots, she held the remnants of a smile on the corners of her lips. “Do I look girly in these jeans?” she asked.
For the past couple months, every time Jess went out with Greg and Bec, she packed. Although she said it was part of being boys together, her question made me think there was more to it. Her baggy, ripped jeans with their round of denim near the fly hinted at guy, and yet they still lacked the hip-slenderizing, thigh-minimizing, ass-shrinking buttons she desired. I pushed hers for her, telling her what I would’ve wanted to hear. “No, not at all.”
“I just started bleeding,” she said. “I feel gross.”
Ever since Jess had told me her hormones didn’t make her a woman, I’d been noticing her avoidance of words like menstruate, period, and PMS, as if she’d specifically chosen the word bleeding to capture her body’s physiology while keeping her distance from women.
“That sucks,” I said. “Bleeding fucks me up too. Makes me feel all voluptuous.” I faked a gag.
“Hey, why don’t you come out with us?” Jess said, as if the idea had just occurred to her.
“I don’t know,” I said. “The Boys” were nice enough to me in my own home, and I enjoyed one-on-one conversations with each, but when I bumped into them out I barely registered on their social radar. They always went to the same dive and turned into just another clique at a bar that reminded me of a high school cafeteria, a place where everyone acted territorial and insecure. “I’m not sure I can handle the scene.”
“We’re taking it easy. It’s Saturday night and aren’t you on winter break?”
With only six weeks of freedom before I’d be forced back to Thoreau, I was ripping through the trans treasure trove. Jess’s eyes settled on the cover of my book. “How Sex Changed: A History of Transsexuality in the United States,” she droned.
“It’s a little dense, but you wouldn’t believe the shit that’s in here. It’s very historical. You’d actually love it.” I told her about Christine Jorgensen, the first transsexual media sensation back in the early 1950s whose publicity opened the floodgates of possibility; after the story of her transition from male to female broke, she received thousands of letters from people who identified with her. Given the media storm surrounding Jorgensen, it was a near conspiracy neither Jess nor I had learned about her before. “We can thank her story for bringing us the term . . .” I threw up some mocking air quotes, “sex-change operation.” Both Jess and I knew there was no one specia
l operation and certainly no dick fairy—bottom surgery for trans guys was rare, expensive, and the results less than ideal.
“Put the book down and come out with us,” Jess said.
Of all The Boys, it was Jess I’d struggled the most with in social settings—she simply ignored me. Or maybe I ignored her, disinterested in her puffed-up public persona. But lately, our conversations about gender were bringing us closer. As part of our ongoing personal investigations, we’d fallen into a knowledge-share. I’d tell her about transgender history, pathology, and theory from my self-assigned reading list; she’d tell me about binding, packing, and gender bending as it was practiced. She readjusted her bulge again. I stared, embarrassed by my transparency, my eagerness to discover what was beyond my books and absorb what Jess must have learned directly from the sources. Though I wasn’t sure the education was worth feeling ignored. “For real?” I said. “You guys are just going to shoot the shit and chill?”
“Yep. Boys’ night out. Get ready. We’re leaving in five minutes.”
Enticed by the inclusion and convinced there’d be little boozing and posturing, I tossed aside my book, jumped off the couch, and threw on jeans and a hoodie.
We arrived at the only legit all-day, everyday “dyke bar” in the city, or a bar that once seemed like it was strictly for lesbians. Seven years ago, there were no men inside, assuming my memory served me correctly, and perhaps it didn’t. I’d just moved to San Francisco from Philadelphia after graduating college a semester early, and as a twenty-one-year-old baby dyke, I needed to pound a few vodka tonics before I could even approach the alley with the neon sign and open those castle doors. By now, I’d convinced myself I belonged. We all did. We all had to when there was only one bar like this in the whole city.
Inside, a handful of men were scattered about—I had no idea whether they were trans or not. I could sometimes feel the undercurrent of tension between the girls and guys over whether the latter were welcome here, but I knew full well I was on the stomping grounds of The Boys, regulars at the place long before they knew trans existed. Tonight, I was afraid I’d have nothing to contribute to their boy banter, be the boring lump on the far side of the gender spectrum where Jess had once placed me, and even the familiar smell of stale beer and sweat socks failed to make me feel at home.
Greg waited for us at a small table near the pinball machine, underneath a provocative photo exhibit. With his black turtleneck sweater and scarf, he had that affected air—European or gay. I figured he was aiming for the second with his fashion when he showed Jess his new gray bandana, decorated with an orgy of uncountable men in unmentionable acts, before returning it to his back left pocket.
A few minutes later, Bec arrived in a dashing white tie and black button-down shirt combo. He had recently shaved his head, as had Jess and Greg. They all looked ready to ship out to boot camp. I wondered if this was intentional, a joint brotherhood thing. Barbershops and military cuts weren’t my style. I liked the shaggy skater look, and had let my hair grow into waves that hung down over my eyes and ears.
Jess placed a hand on Bec’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “You’re looking handsome, young man,” Jess said.
“Why thank you, sir,” Bec replied. He greeted the rest of us before turning to the bar to grab us all drinks. A red hanky stuck out of his back left pocket. The only one with a wallet instead of my color-coded sexual desire sticking out of jeans, I had little interest in their uniform accessory or conforming to the dress code of another group.
Bec returned with two Bud Lights in each hand, gripped by their necks, and doled them out before slumping into a seat. I could tell he was tipsy even before his mouth spilled open to pour out brokenhearted anguish. The last to hear about his breakup with Erin, I leaned back in my chair, picking at the label on my beer as the others consoled him.
“You can totally crash at my house. We can cuddle.” Greg huddled forward, carelessly blocking me out. He stroked Bec’s leg with mock sensuality and said, “If you need me to suck your dick, buddy, I will.”
I let out a snort and the front legs of my chair crashed back to the ground with a smack.
“Oh, you think that’s funny?” Bec grabbed my hand and placed it on his bulge. He’d said he liked how it looked, but he also liked to gyrate around with it, swiveling his pelvis like a go-go dancer when he broke into his captivating spontaneous dances. “You like?” he said, pressing my hand into his crotch.
Even when Bec teased, he charmed. “Don’t you know it,” I said, pleased to be involved.
He stared at me from behind glazed eyes, and I held on to see the gears spin, sputter, and stop. “I bet you’re the kinkiest one here,” he said.
With the right time, place, and girl this might be true, I thought. I tossed him a cocky half smile of acknowledgement and he grabbed his clunky silver belt buckle. In one quick motion, he unlatched it, undid his jeans, and spread his legs. From inside his briefs, he whipped out a realistic looking penis, wiping the smirk off my face. I let out a nervous laugh. I didn’t know if he was showing me up, expected me to play with it, or if, in his post breakup haze of pain, he was grasping on to it like a security blanket.
With his hand gripped around his packer, he pointed it around, moving with so much control and ease, it seemed attached to his body, remarkably so. He gave it a stroke toward Greg. “It’s perfect for that blow job. . . .” he teased.
“Or fucking a girl,” Jess said, interrupting their ribbing with a tone too aggressive for the lighthearted mood. But it wasn’t a conversation about sex until Jess made me want out of the men’s locker room.
“Nah. It’s a little too soft.” Bec razzed Greg with his drunken eyes. “Blow job?”
The idea of a synthetic suck off had sounded ridiculous when Jess had first mentioned it to me, but there was something both erotic and personal about the way Bec clutched his dick, as if he had a relationship to it, as if it were really truly his. I stared in awe.
“Will you put it away already,” Greg demanded.
As Bec effortlessly tucked himself back into his jeans, my shock stayed with me. Where had he learned to wear such a thing, use it, move it, adhere himself to it? With one quick flash, Bec had brought a packer, an inanimate showpiece, to life.
Technically speaking, I had all the working female parts, even knew how to use them to get off. Alone. I obeyed an “If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it does it make a sound?” philosophy regarding both this individual activity and private area. With my smattering of one- and two-night stands, I’d treated my downstairs as closed for business, unless I’d been slipped enough drinks to let someone sneak in. Lately, I’d been thinking of myself as having a doll crotch, neutered in its construction. Now I wondered if outfitting it with a packer could do more than create a doll with a bulge.
“I think it’s that time, gentlemen,” Jess said, changing the subject. She brought out the red and yellow cards she’d purchased earlier at a soccer store. “Sorry,” she said to me. “I don’t have a set for you.”
I shrugged my shoulders, not really caring about joining their clubhouse games. I felt like I’d discovered a new toy, a kaleidoscope, endlessly enraptured by the ways The Boys blended, blurred, and reformed the boxes of gender and sexuality, tugging the colored edges into shapes and shades that would never fit onto some linear spectrum.
Used by referees to denote penalties—red for expulsion, yellow for warning—these cards were to be used by this crew as a code to protect against flirting with, dating, or going home with a “crazy” girl. To calibrate their cards, they raised reds and yellows, but mostly reds, to the names of people from their histories. A crazy girl turned out to be someone who stalked your house, sent you to the STD clinic on a false alarm, lived in a shit-hole among mice, or would generally make an awful girlfriend.
“Red flag means step away from the gi
rl,” Jess said.
“You can’t use a card when you’re lonely and want attention.”
“You can’t use it to cock-block.”
“And you need something to back up your call. Concrete information, like she’s keyed the car door of an ex.”
“Or she’s humped someone horrible.” Bec flicked his tongue against his red card.
I waited with my hands in my lap, only half listening to their stories about exes and flings and lessons learned. If only someone had saved me, throwing up a red card for Trisha while we slow danced to Prince in the corner of this very bar. A beautiful femme, she spoke about some “friend” all night, which I thought nothing of until she took me home, seduced me, and, about to come, began to scream this “friend’s” name. A card protecting me from Sally would’ve been nice too. During our one sleepover she picked up the phone when her ex-girlfriend called and chatted with her while I lay in her bed—rather harmless but pretty bad form.
As they reminisced, uttering names I barely recognized, I came up with my own matching list to go with theirs—Samantha, Hallie, Kate, Carolyn. I could’ve come up with something crazy about at least half of them, but as I flashbacked to each experience, there was a unifying theme, one thing they could’ve thrown at me in the tally, red flagged me right back for: I kept all of my clothes on, I was incapable of physical intimacy, I fucked and fled.
“Can you believe it, guys?” Greg said eventually. “We’re all single.”
“When was the last time that happened?” Jess asked.
“It’s been a long time,” Bec acknowledged.
Greg made a fist and held it up over the table. The two others brought their knuckles up to kiss his. “You too, Nina,” Bec said, stirring me from my journey though the ghosts of girls past.