by Renee James
As I climb the stairs, I see the rest of the art. My admirer has tried to spell cunt, bitch, and whore beneath the illustration, a caption too ambitious for the amount of space he left himself and his lack of dexterity with a spray can. The words are mostly gibberish, unless you know what to look for.
The objects lying on the porch include an anatomically correct erection mounted on a base that keeps it upright. It is encircled by a round plastic donut-shaped child’s toy, with a large spike through it. This symbolism is by far the artist’s best work. Whereas the spray-paint material suggests immaturity or stupidity, the symbols project a threat.
I’m still contemplating all this when the Hitlers join us. Betsy’s mom takes it all in with saucer eyes. Mr. Hitler’s face reads like an Evangelical stink bomb, a combination of feigned horror and righteous judgement.
“Nice,” he says.
I remain silent. Anything I say will add to the pressure Betsy will now be under to remove her child from the perverted clutches of a Chicago transsexual.
“An admirer of yours, Bob?” He sneers it. This is a great moment for him. I’m completely humiliated.
I shrug, trying not to cry. It’s not working. Tears trickle down my cheeks. Roberta holds my hand and tells me it’s okay. I hug her to me.
“What do the words say?” he asks in a taunting voice. My tears bring out the bully in him. “I can’t make it out after ‘cunt.’” He flashes a mean smile at me. Mrs. Hitler gasps in the background. I’m not sure if it’s hearing the Führer say the “C” word, or finding out the word is on the door that offends her. She’s not the brightest bulb, even in the best of times.
“It says cunt, bitch, whore,” I answer. The good Mr. Hitler has finally rung my bell. Not only have I found the power of speech, I have lost the power of self-censorship.
“The moron who did this is anatomically correct and he got my gender right, which is more than can be said for you, sir,” I say. His face turns scarlet. I enjoy his anger, even as I scold myself for baiting him.
While he stews at my impudence, Mrs. Hitler tries to defuse the situation.
“Robbie, we’re going to have such a good time!” she exclaims.
“My name is ‘Roberta’ now.” She says it with the same solemn dignity she used on me, with the same effect. Grandma Hitler stops short, thinks, nods her head like she’s not going to challenge Roberta’s emancipation, then continues.
“We have a whole weekend together to go see the autumn colors in Wisconsin.” She babbles on about how Wisconsin has the purest air and the brightest autumn colors. The last part is true, though no one would enjoy the colors if they knew the Hitlers lived there.
“Maybe we’ll ask your mom if you can stay longer,” she says to Roberta. “Wouldn’t that be wonderful?”
“No thanks,” says Roberta. “I have school. And I like staying with Aunt Bobbi.”
I don’t get many moments like this. I don’t gloat, but I will play out the scene in my memory a million times before I die. I’ll embellish it sometimes, adding something that completely humiliates Mr. Hitler and makes Mrs. Hitler pee in her pants, but mostly I’ll just bask in the moment my eleven-year-old niece stood up for me.
“Betsy’s going to hear about this, Bob,” says Mr. Hitler. “My granddaughter isn’t safe here.” He says it in a low, threatening voice so Roberta can’t hear, and he emphasizes my former name.
“Go wait in your car, Al,” I say. I emphasize his name, just to piss him off. “I’ll bring Roberta when we’re ready. Be sure to lock your doors. There are brown people and black people and even liberals around here.”
“Scum,” he says. It must be killing him not to be able to swear.
“I prefer cunt,” I say.
Ten minutes later I bring Roberta to the car, her bag packed. I remind Al that they got here early and I’m going along with it for Roberta’s sake.
“You damn well better,” he says.
With all my soul I want to offer the base-mounted, anatomically correct dildo to Mrs. Hitler with the suggestion that it would be a lot more fun than the aging weenie her husband is packing. But I’m in enough trouble already. I kiss and hug Roberta good-bye and wave to her as they drive away.
“You’re out of control, Bobbi.” Cecelia admonishes me the way an elementary school teacher would a petulant student.
“I don’t know which is crazier, screwing every slob you meet or confronting the people most likely to be deranged stalkers,” she says. “Get a grip!”
“I’ve been celibate since your last lecture, Mom,” I respond. Giving Cecelia a smart-ass reply is my way of thanking her for caring. It means the world to me.
“That’s only because I shamed you into canceling with Mr. Wonderful.” Cecelia engages in this repartee with a mélange of sarcasm and haughty sophistication that I will never master. She could pass gas at a Presidential Reception and make it seem like the essence of snobbery.
“We’ll see,” I answer. “We’re going out to dinner tonight.”
“No!” Cecelia scolds. “He could be your stalker.”
“That’s what I was thinking,” I say.
“Are you insane? Let the police handle this.” Cecelia’s voice is urgent.
“What do I tell them, Cecelia? It might have been this guy or that guy or three or four other guys? Or somebody I’ve never met who’s just a sick bastard who wants to terrorize someone and he picked me? What are they going to do with that?”
“What are you going to do with it?” Cecelia asks.
“I’m going to deal with it.”
Cecelia groans. “Remember what happened last time you did that?”
As if any of us will ever forget the bloody outcome of my one-woman pursuit of the murderer John Strand.
“I remember,” I say. “We proved that your God works in mysterious ways.”
“Very funny,” says Cecelia. She has been trying to make me religious for years, but I’ve just seen too much evil in this world to believe there is a beneficent interactive deity at work in our lives. “Phil would get those people checked out quietly if you asked him.”
“Phil’s done with me,” I answer. “I think his skin crawls when he sees me. I don’t need favors from anyone. I’ll take care of this myself.”
Cecelia goes into a long riff about how stupid this is. She’s right, but I’m right, too. Sometimes, you just end up in a place where you have to do it yourself. I can try to hide, or I can confront my demons. Me, I’m done hiding. I hid from who I was for thirty-eight years. When I transitioned to Bobbi Logan, I became an ugly woman and the object of disapproval, but I was me, by God. And I’m not going back behind the curtain.
I’ll find the person who’s stalking me. I’ll confront that person. I’ll make him stop. I’ll walk the earth a free woman, or I’ll die.
11
MARK COMES CALLING precisely at seven. When I open the door, his face changes. His eyes get more intense, his lips part, a jolt of tension runs through him. I can’t tell if he’s turned on or grossed out by my appearance. I’m wearing a sleeveless black dress that fits me like a skin. I’m showing cleavage, and the hem stops halfway between my knees and my crotch. I have nice legs and big boobs and this dress makes the most of them. The sleeveless design actually minimizes my shoulders for some reason, and shows off my nicely toned arms, more muscular than the average girl but attractive if I avoid flexing. I wear simple jewelry and two-inch heels. I’d love to wear higher heels with this outfit, but I didn’t want to tower over Mark.
He’s wearing an expensive suit, worsted wool in a patrician color right where blue meets gray. He looks like a rich banker, or a politician who doesn’t have to suck up to donors to get reelected. He’s staring at my chest. I blush. I present as a slut and he was looking for a prom queen.
“Maybe I should change into something more conservative.” I say it apologetically.
He blinks his eyes and moves his gaze from my chest to my face. “Oh God, no,” he
says. “No, this is perfect. Wow.”
My ego soars. I’m tempted to invite him in, but that would ruin everything because we’d be in bed in five minutes, or maybe getting rug burns in the living room in two.
I give him my wrap, and he places it on my shoulders with gentlemanly smoothness.
“I took the liberty of coming by cab tonight,” he says, as we descend the front steps. “I’d like to have an extra glass or two of wine.”
I smile in agreement. Yes, a little extra wine, a lengthy seduction followed by fabulous sex, and in the morning, I can cross a name off my stalker suspect list. I’m a natural born investigator.
We get in the cab and the driver speeds off. Mark smiles and pulls me into an embrace. Slow and soft at first, then hotter. I get into it, snaking my arms around him, breathing heavily. We commence with some sensual groping, which makes my ego swell, but I stop it before we get ahead of ourselves. He needs to take me to his place tonight. I’m interested in him anyway, but I also want to see where he lives. If I can walk around in his place a little, I’ll know whether he’s Prince Charming or the Duke of Darkness.
“I think you’ll like this place,” he says as we reposition ourselves like normal fares. One hand stays on my thigh. This produces a flashback of high school, making out in the backseat. I was the boy then. This is so much better.
“I’m sure I will,” I say.
He smiles. “This is going to be a great night,” he murmurs, and kisses me softly on the lips.
“Oh God, I hope so.” As I say it, I catch the driver’s eyes in the rear-view mirror. He’s staring at us. “The road?” I say to him, a little suggestion that he watch where we’re going. His eyes snap back to the front.
“I’m looking forward to getting to know each other over dinner,” says Mark. “Then maybe we can go to my place for . . .” The sentence lapses and he kisses me, a deep, hot kiss.
“Dessert,” I say, when we break the clinch.
When we get to the restaurant, Mark asks if we can pause outside for a minute to cool down. He has a noticeable erection. I smile and comply. I vaguely remember what that’s like.
The restaurant is like dining in Shangri La. It has a South Pacific theme, with dishes from Hawaii and Tahiti and places I’ve never heard of. It’s so beautiful I feel like a princess. The palm trees and flowers aren’t real, but the décor is lush and colorful, and there are little white lights everywhere, like twinkling stars. The floor show has half-naked girls and hunky guys doing ethnic dances that involve a lot of writhing and graceful movement that seems a lot like musical sex, but then, that’s me.
We manage to turn off the sex for the whole dinner and have an adult conversation. Mark talks about his ad agency. Lots of ups and downs, he says, but it pays the bills. He had a brief marriage that ended in divorce a few years ago. He’s been dating, but hasn’t met anyone interesting yet.
I ask him what his ex-wife was like.
“She’s nice,” he says. “We had an amicable divorce. She’s a freelance illustrator and designer, and I see her now and then. We chat. No hard feelings.”
“Is she pretty?” I ask.
“Yes.”
He doesn’t offer anything more. I go silent for a moment, trying to imagine why a marriage between a pretty woman, who’s nice, and a man who’s attractive and polite and smart and hot-blooded would fail. Mark reads my mind.
“You’re wondering what went wrong,” he says, breaking the silence.
I have the decency to blush. “It’s not my business. Sorry.”
“No problem,” he says. “The polite explanation is, there was no chemistry between us.”
“You say that like there’s a better explanation that isn’t polite.”
“She wasn’t very enthusiastic about sex,” he says. He drops his gaze to the table and shrugs a little. “And pretty soon, I wasn’t either. At least, not with her.”
I nod my understanding. The universal challenge. Keeping sex fun in a relationship that gets beyond the first level, to the stages that involve familiarity and worldly worries and personal frustrations and all the other corrosive workings of normal life. I’ve heard the same confessions from hetero friends and gay and lesbian friends. All races and religions. It seems to hit everyone, at least for a while.
Mark changes the subject to me. “Ever been married?” he asks.
This is not an easy question to answer. Bobbi has never been married, but Bob was. I’d rather get to know the guy before I open up this chapter of my life, especially Mark, because I want to see his place to see if he’s my stalker. But I will not lie about who I am. Not so much out of consideration for others, though there’s that, too, but because if I lie about my past, I denigrate who I really am. I’m a person who has lived in both genders. I can’t be a whole person if that fact embarrasses me.
“Yes,” I say. I take a deep breath and lean forward, my elbows on the small table between us. “I was going to save this for later, but since you ask . . .” He leans forward, too. I take another deep breath.
“I’m transsexual.” I say it calmly, even though my heart is pounding. In my world, the stories told about male reactions to this piece of information range from humiliating rejections to lurid fascination, with a heavy emphasis on rejection.
“I married as a man. It lasted five years. We’re still friends. I transitioned twelve years ago.” I just rattle off the basic facts and stop. I don’t think he’s the kind who would just walk out and leave me. It might turn him off, but he’d be polite about it. We’d finish dinner, he’d ask polite questions, and he’d take me home, maybe even give me a sister-kiss at my door.
He smiles. He’s trying to be nonchalant. “Okay,” he says. For just a moment, I see a glint in his eyes. Like, maybe it’s a turn-on. He blinks and it’s gone. I wait a few beats. Usually, they want to know if I’m all girl or if I still have the male appendage. He just smiles at me.
“I’m a woman,” I say, breaking the silence.
“I can see that,” he says. His smile widens a little as he pointedly surveys my chest.
Another awkward silence ensues.
“Feel free to ask questions.”
“Like what?” he asks.
“Any questions you have. About me. Being trans.”
“Does that happen a lot?” he asks. I give him a questioning look. “That people ask you a lot of questions about being trans?” He seems comfortable with the word and the concept.
“All the time,” I answer. “People want to know if I have female genitalia, if my boobs are real, if I have orgasms, all that stuff.”
“What do you say?”
“Depends on who they are.” I take a breath. “If it’s someone I want to have sex with, I answer every question. If it’s just someone being curious, I tell them they’re being rude.”
I wait for him to ask the next question. I’m thinking he’s smooth enough to ask if I want to have sex with him, even though the answer is obvious. He says nothing.
“So,” I say with feigned casualness. “How about those Cubs?”
“I’m still on the sex thing,” he says. “Are you interested?”
A thousand ribald responses flash through my mind in a nanosecond, all of them graphic, most of them wildly indecent. “Yes,” I say.
“Good,” Mark says. “Me, too.”
“Any questions you want me to answer?” I ask.
“No.” He shrugs and smiles as he says it.
“Aren’t you worried you’re going to reach down there and find a penis?” I tease.
“I’m in the mood for an adventure.” He laughs.
As we’ve gotten into this part of the conversation, neither of us has eaten very much. My appetite for food is completely gone, replaced by baser urges.
“I’m ready for the adventure whenever you are.” I smile.
The cab ride to Mark’s place is a blur. We grope and try to stop, try to save the good stuff for his place. To break the tension, he holds my han
d against his own, measuring one against the other. I wince a little. Our hands are the same size, and with my nail extensions, mine actually look a little bigger.
“I like your nails,” he whispers.
It’s the perfect way to reaffirm my femininity. Instead of being self-conscious of my man hands, I glow at the perfect scarlet finish on my nails, and let myself think the rings that adorn my fingers are feminine and sexy. It doesn’t matter if they are or not, it’s the feeling of completeness that’s important.
The world outside passes by like a dream etched in fuzzy colors, warm and indistinct. I catch a street sign when we stop at a light. Division Street. We seem to be heading east. The Gold Coast, or maybe Streeterville. The high-rent districts. Safer than a Disney movie. Easy to get a cab if things go to hell suddenly. Then Mark embraces me and rubs the nipple of one breast, which makes me crazy.
The next thing I know, we’re stopped in front of a high-rise apartment building where an indoor parking space costs more than a three-bedroom flat in my neighborhood. The cabbie stops the meter and looks back, faster than he needs to. He gets some of what he’s after. My dress is pushed up from all our writhing and wiggling, exposing my scarlet panties. He stares. Instead of blushing and playing the helpless femme, I pause and put the nails of one hand against the undergarment. “They match,” I say. Maybe I’m doing this because I’ve never before tried to coordinate my nails and panties. In fact, I’ve never heard anyone claim to do it. Or maybe I’m just giddy from a little too much wine and a lot of anticipation about what comes next. Either way, Mark laughs and hands the cabbie some bills, telling him to keep the change and remember the moment.
I laugh, too, and don’t pull down my dress until we get out of the cab.
The doorman inside greets Mark by name and smiles at me, appraising me physically. I have a feeling Mark’s women are always of interest to the doorman. Mark’s attractive and rich. He must do well.
When we get in the elevator, he pushes a button for the thirtieth floor. As the doors close, he embraces me again, and rubs my breasts. His hands are eager, rough. I’m fine with that. I’m ready to be taken. “There’s a camera in here,” he whispers, a mischievous smile playing at his lips. “Shall we give the security guy a thrill?”