As La Vista Turns

by Kris Ripper

  “You’ve always said that you couldn’t. But repeating it over and over again doesn’t exactly make it true. We never understood that. Me and Jaq. Why you always said it like it was a sure thing, like it was obvious. We thought maybe you were aromantic, except that wasn’t quite right, either. You liked that side of things. You just . . . never let yourself go too far.”

  “I didn’t want to.” I could sense what he was talking about, even if my mind didn’t really want to turn over all those memories to see what was under them. I’d felt that tug a few times, that pull toward the edge of the cliff. There’d been women who made me want to keep sliding, to fly out into that abyss to see if we could make it safely to the ground together. But I hadn’t wanted it enough to do it. Only enough to look over at the unknown, confirming that there was nothing that intrigued me enough about mystery to tempt me away from certainty. “And it’s not on my list.”

  “Then add it to your damn list.” He paused, and I braced myself for more advice. “Plus, are you saying she’s still good in the sack? Because I know she taught Jaq some things despite her youth—”

  I elbowed him.

  “Oof! You horrible woman.”

  “Don’t talk about Jaq and Dred, oh my god, that was years ago!”

  “I’m just saying, she was apparently quite astute with the lady parts back then, so—”

  “Do not say ‘lady parts,’ it’s transphobic!”

  The bedroom door creaked open. “Zane?”

  I grimaced. “Sorry, Tom! Go back to sleep!”

  “No, I’m . . . I’m up.” He groaned. “Everything okay?”

  “She’s fine. She’s contemplating falling in love and drinking all your coffee.”

  “Falling in love?” Tom, over Carlos’s head, was already making a second pot. “Oh, with Mildred?”

  “I resent the fact that you all seem to think you know my heart before I do.”

  “Please.” Carlos sat to the side so he could watch Tom, too. “Do you remember the denial I was in back in the day? You and Jaq couldn’t stop yourselves from crowing about how interested I was in a certain ideal specimen of masculinity.”

  “Aw!” Tom called. Then: “You should introduce me to him. I have an appreciation for ideal specimens.”

  The expression on Carlos’s face: fondness and love and affection and heat—

  Oh god. What if I was in love with Dred? All these pictures flashed through my head: Dred laughing, holding James up really high so he’d giggle, poking Emerson while he cooked something, threatening Obie with a knitting needle and a glare on her face that promised retribution for a serious wrong.

  The way she’d looked on top of me, touching herself, releasing everything she had.

  I put my head down. “I’m so stupid.”

  “Honey, we could’ve told you that a long time ago.”

  “Carlos.” Tom’s presence was suddenly beside me. “Does Mildred . . . not feel the same?”

  I leaned into him. “I don’t know. I don’t even know if I want to know. Maybe I don’t want to know. Oh shit. I might not be in love with her. We’re friends. Maybe we’re just good friends, and the sex was amazing, and she makes me so happy—” I started crying again, which was stupid, and was probably mostly hormones, but I couldn’t seem to stop.

  Tom stroked my back. “Shouldn’t it be a good thing if Mildred makes you happy?”

  “You fail to understand how much Zane likes her lists. This one night, when we were in high school, Zane decided to learn everything she could about sex.” Carlos cleared his throat. “To be clear, we were all very drunk at the time.”

  “You didn’t.”

  “We may have. Not everything. But.”

  Tom’s laughter settled over me, like a soothing warmth on my skin. “Where’s the sex list? I want to see it.”

  “Burned, I hope.”

  “I remember it,” I mumbled. I could picture it: binder paper, blue pen, my all-caps writing. “We did most of the stuff on the list, but it was a pretty short list.”

  “A list inspired by the lesbian zines of the nineties, with anything dick-related Zane could think of.”

  Tom’s chest rose and fell: a huff of laughter. “And exactly how many dick-related things was that?”

  “Handjob.” Carlos held up one finger. “Blowjob. Vaginal penetration.” Three fingers.

  “That shows a disappointing lack of creativity,” Tom teased.

  “I wanted to add anal, but she wouldn’t let me.”

  I flopped back, as dramatically as I could manage wrapped up in blankets, half-encased in Tom’s arms. “I wasn’t that drunk.”

  “And.” He waggled his eyebrows. “Which of those did you guys do?”

  I opened my mouth, but Carlos got in before I could speak.

  “That’s all we have time for. Tune in next week for another exciting installment of Embarrassing Things We Did as Drunk Teenagers. Cue applause.”

  “That’s Carlos’s way of saying he was too scared of girls to even let us touch him.”

  Tom grinned. “He’s still scared of girls, you know.”

  Carlos’s eyes narrowed. “You should be scared of me right now, husband.”

  “Shaking in my boots.”

  The two of them looking at each other like that was about to give me hives. “So, boys, my uterus is empty. How would you two like to make a human this month?”

  Tom reached for my coffee. “I think we should do it. We read over all the papers, Zane. There’s nothing in there we can’t do, or haven’t already done.”

  “Are you sure? I know it’s a lot, and my midwife’s a teensy bit nuts—”

  “She’s thorough,” Carlos said. “Which is what we’d want. We half-ass drew up a parenting contract. You want to see it?”

  “A nonparenting contract,” Tom corrected. “A ‘we absolutely won’t under any circumstances be parenting’ contract.” He cleared his throat. “And, um, just—just for peace of mind—I was wondering if we could see whatever relevant part of your will refers to who will get custody of the baby if anything ever happened to you?”

  I blinked and pulled out my phone. “I hadn’t even thought about that. Yeah, of course. I can email the draft of it to you right now. I’ll have it notarized and everything the second I get pregnant.”

  “Or send it to us later. No rush.”

  “Uh. Well.” I added both of them to a new email and attached a PDF of my unfinalized postpregnancy will, which I had in cloud storage. “There’s kind of a timeline we’re working on right now. Today’s day one of my cycle, and I usually ovulate right around day twelve or thirteen. If we’re going to try it this cycle . . . we should probably talk inseminations.”

  Tom shook his head. “We have to come up with a better word than that. When I think ‘insemination,’ I think about jerking a stallion off into an artificial vagina.”

  We stared at him.

  He smirked. “I was a farm boy before you city folk corrupted me, you know.”

  Carlos pointed at me. “You. Agreed. Let’s call it internal application of Tom’s magic juice instead.”

  “Veto!”

  He ignored me to point at Tom. “Don’t ever say the phrase ‘artificial vagina’ in my presence again.”

  “What if someone asks me how to breed a horse?”

  “Horses can’t breed like everyone else?”

  “Sometimes you breed them cross-country and have to ship the sperm.”

  I snorted. “I’ve been trying to breed myself cross-country with frozen sperm and no fucking luck. I hope horse breeders have it easier.”

  Carlos’s face twisted. “Seriously, can we not talk about breeding? It’s a little freaky.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Oh, unlike an ‘internal application of Tom’s magic juice’?”

  “I happen to quite enjoy an internal—”

  Tom and I both held up our hands.

  “Stop, stop, god, ew, I don’t want to know.” I shook my head, a lot, in empha
sis. “So anyway, I guess the question is, what’re you doing at the end of next week?”

  Tom, as eager as I was to switch gears, nodded. “I’ve been thinking about that. Is this the kind of thing we can schedule? Or do we wing it? I spent some time looking stuff up on message boards, but I got very confused very fast.”

  “I can tell when I’m ovulating. How about I give you a call and then you, uh, do your thing, and I’ll come pick it up? I asked Dred for some jars, so I’ll give those to you when I have them sterilized.”

  His eyes widened, but he was still smiling. “Right. Jars. Huh.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Carlos advised. “I don’t plan on you having much to do with that part of things.”

  I waved my hands around. “Too much fucking information! I don’t need to know about that part, like you don’t need to know about the needleless syringe and my cervix.”

  “I’m with Zane.” Tom shrugged. “No offense to cervixes, but I’m not really interested.”

  “Thank you very much. Back to the point. How many times do you want to, uh, contribute?”

  “Oh. I don’t know. How many times do you want me to contribute?”

  “Well.” Was it greedy to ask for three? I’d never tried with more than one vial because they were so damn expensive, but three offered maximum coverage. I couldn’t time this like I would frozen vials I was trying at home, with perfect intervals. Right. The real deal. I had to plan for when both of us were awake and Tom wasn’t working.

  Complications.

  I pictured my calendar. “You still off on Sundays and Mondays?”

  He nodded.

  “Okay, that means we’ll probably have to do it before you go to work.”

  “Actually, I sort of talked to Fredi about it. Because when I was doing research I thought about what would happen if you were ovulating when I was at work.”

  “You talked to Fredi about giving me sperm?” Fredi, quintessential butch, who thought I was a nuisance. “Oh my god.”

  “Sorry. I forgot you think she hates you. Anyway, she said it wouldn’t be the first time someone came in her office, if I needed to use it on a break or something, so let me know if you need me to, you know, during my shift.”

  “Holy crap. The kid could have a Club Fred’s origin story.”

  Carlos poked my arm. “Your eyes are glazing over in ridiculousness right now. Listen, honey, we want you to get knocked up so our lives can go back to normal. I can milk him as many times as you need, so you give us a number, and we’ll do it.”

  I swallowed. He was making it kind of a joke, but it wasn’t. And both of them knew it. “Three would be my ideal. I know that’s a lot.”

  Tom laughed and handed me back my coffee. “Carlos is just going to treat it as a challenge. I’ll be lucky if I don’t have blue balls for days before.”

  “We’re supercharging your sperm, baby.”

  “Oh sure.” He leaned in to kiss my cheek. “Maybe it won’t even work, but I’m glad we’re going to try it. I don’t want a kid or anything, but I really want you to have one, Zane. You’ll be a great mom.”

  Which is when I dissolved into tears again.

  Someday I’d be a great mom. God, that was such a powerful, terrifying thought.

  I texted back and forth with Dred for the rest of Sunday with totally invented questions about what I should do for the wake. She texted back with answers and suggestions. I finally got my shit together by the time I was going to bed to apologize for running out like a jerk.

  Her answer? That’s most people’s reaction to getting close to me. No worries.

  This was troubling on two levels. One: Mildred wasn’t the type of person who said “no worries.” I’d triggered some weird pop culture defense mechanism, leaving me feeling cold and somewhat bereft. Where was the derision that made me laugh? Where was the unrelenting accountability? I’d expected a threat to my life, or a barrage of insults. Not “No worries.” What did that even mean in this context?

  And second: did I really want her to lump me in with “most people”? I lay in my bed, considering the whole thing. Yeah, I’d been emotionally isolated from lovers, and maybe it was by choice like Carlos had said, but in panicking and dodging out, I’d completely ignored Dred. She hadn’t had sex with anyone in almost a year, hadn’t had sex since giving birth, finally did it (maybe on a whim, maybe after careful planning; with Dred I could never be sure), and the jerk she fucked ran out the next morning like it was the worst thing that had ever happened to her.

  Basically I was a fucking monster.

  I wasn’t used to being a monster. Usually I was the nurturing type. I might not fall in love, but I always thought I had some depths worth plumbing, if you will. I’d held my friends while they cried. I’d helped with moving, and wedding planning, and finding houses for the people I cared about.

  Now I was “most people,” running out on Dred. But no worries.

  The worst part was that I couldn’t think of a damn thing to say. I wanted to assure her I was over myself. But was I? I was damn tempted to blame hormones, except that was a shitty cop-out, and while hormones and yet another disappointing BFN definitely played a role in the massive amounts of crying I’d done all day, they weren’t responsible for me wigging at the kitchen table while feeding James and talking shit with Emerson.

  I finally sent back, I’m prepared to beg your forgiveness in any way necessary. I’m sorry. Then I pointedly did not stare at my phone, waiting for it to light up with a new message. Maybe she’d forgive me. Maybe she’d laugh. Maybe she’d tell me to fuck off.

  Or none of the above.

  Her eventual message had nothing to do with us at all. Get your flyers out this week. It’s time to get people talking. Let me know if you need help with anything.

  That was it. A last piece of advice for the wake, full stop.

  I had another good cry, checked my phone just in case she sent anything else, and went to bed.

  Dred wasn’t the only one who was getting antsy about promotion. Keith left me a message mid-Monday-morning telling me he had some flyer ideas if I wanted to stop by the center. Steph had been out at meetings all day, so I left early and picked up donuts on my way to QYP.

  Keith’s eyes went big and round like a little kid’s when he saw the Krispy Kreme box. “You are a god among humans, Zane. Merin! Josh! Brunch!”

  Merin, face shrouded in his hood as usual, didn’t look over from where he was painting one of the walls. “I’m not done with the—”

  “Stop.” Josh pulled the brush out of his hand. “Go eat something. Start with a banana.”

  “You’re not my father.”

  Keith tensed, lips going white as he watched them.

  “If I had a son, he’d probably be a stubborn jackass just like you. Go eat, Merin. I need a cup of coffee. We’ll pick this up after a break.”

  Merin grumbled, but walked away. Toward the bathroom. Not to the kitchen.

  Josh kissed my cheek in greeting and took Keith’s hand. “It’s impossible.” His voice was low.

  “I know.”

  I raised my eyebrows, and Josh glanced apologetically at me. “He keeps showing up within five minutes of us opening the door, on school days, saying he needs to wash up. Today we found him asleep on the floor of the bathroom with his hands still wet.”

  “There are just no resources for homeless trans youth,” Keith murmured. “We can talk to him again about staying with us, but he’ll say no.”

  “Maybe he will. But all we risk is rejection, and even rejecting us might still be better for him than if we let it go.”

  “True.”

  “Plus,” Josh added, “I think once he graduates, it will be different. As long as he’s in school he feels like a child. When he feels like a man, he might be more willing to accept our help.”

  Keith frowned. “How . . . does that even make sense?”

  But I thought I might understand it a little. “Well, right now it’s grown-u
ps trying to help a kid they feel sorry for. If he graduates and you offer him a place to live, and charge him rent, then that’s a more equal thing.”

  “That’s what I hope, anyway.” Josh looked like he was about to say something else, but the door at the other end of the room opened, and we arranged ourselves casually in the kitchen, as if we hadn’t been talking about Merin the whole time he was gone.

  The guarded, dark look in his eyes made it clear he was under no illusions.

  “Dred says it’s time to paper La Vista with wake stuff.” I shoved the box of donuts across the counter toward Merin. Subtly. Kind of.

  Keith nodded. “Definitely. I have a few different types for you to look at, including one that I think would go well in places like the Rhein. Inconspicuous, not blasting a message. Just enough to get people interested. Are you putting a contact name and number down there? I took the liberty of setting you up an email address—hope that’s okay.”

  “I hadn’t even thought of all that. Yeah, that’s perfect. And no, let’s keep names off it. I want this to belong to everyone, if it can.”

  Merin grunted. “It can’t.”

  “Well, yeah, but as much as possible—”

  “No, I mean, you want people to get out of it exactly what you put into it. But they won’t. People see what they want to see. Some of them are gonna go because they think it’s sensational, or whatever. That they’ll find out about this murderer. Some people will go for free food, or for drinks, or because they’re bored. Most people won’t be there because they wanna”—he waved an arm—“heal the community or whatever the hell.”

  “That’s probably true. But maybe a few people will get something out of it.”

  “So all this trouble is worth it for like . . . a few people?” He shook his head. “That seems like a lot of shit to put up with for no return.”

  I thought about that and took another donut. Because it was definitely a two-donut day. “I guess that’s not how I measure success, by how many people get something out of the wake. If the only person who feels better afterward is me, and no one feels worse, then I think I’d consider that successful.”