Transition to Murder

by Renee James

  That's a lot to ask of someone in your first conversation. I have to think before I answer. I don't want to get into a discussion about whether my boobs are real or if I have a vagina.

  “Okay,” I say, finally. “But I’d like to know a little about you, first. Starting with, why are we meeting? You can’t possibly find me attractive”—he starts to correct me but I wave him silent—“no, no, don’t object, I’ll lose respect for you. And you don’t need me to introduce you to people. Half the men in this bar would trade State secrets for a chance to go out with you. So what’s the deal?”

  Officer Phil gives me an amused smile. “The backslapping and joke stuff only gets you so far. You don't really learn about people that way. I need to know some of the people in this community deep down inside if I’m going to do my job right. I have to know what it’s like to live here, what it’s like to be gay or transgender, what kind of obstacles you face, what kind of dreams you have, what kind of trouble you have. You personally and you collectively.”

  “Why?” I ask.

  “Because I can’t be a good cop if I don’t understand the culture. That’s why we have black cops and Latino cops and Asian cops as well as us Anglos. I’m not gay or trans, but I think I’ll do better if I know more about what it’s like to be gay or trans. And, frankly, I’m hoping that the people I get to know will be my friends and help me understand things that happen that I don’t understand.”

  “Like what?” I wrinkle my nose as I ask.

  “Well, let’s say a transgender woman gets rolled. What do you know about her that might help us find the perp and make a case? What kind of kind of person are we looking for? Did you see anything suspicious at that time? What are you hearing on the street? Like that…”

  “If I can help, I will,” I say. “One thing you should know up-front is that a lot of the crimes against transwomen involve a john and a trans hooker, but that doesn’t mean the girl isn’t human. Our girls, especially the young ones, do what they have to do to survive. It’s not like they can buy a seat at the Board of Trade or something.”

  He nods and waits for me to talk some more. I take the bait.

  “But it’s not all hookers and johns,” I say. “Violent breakups aren’t unusual in the trans world. Emotions run really high. You have transwomen themselves on hormones, going from birth to puberty to womanhood in a matter of months.” I think of my sobbing spree in the salon earlier as a case in point. “And the men who are attracted to transwomen often have some major issues themselves.”

  “Such as?” he asks.

  “I think some of them are having sexual orientation issues. Some are closeted gays and can’t deal with it, so they try to satisfy their lust with someone in between genders. I think a lot of them are straight but they’re bored by their sex lives and they’re looking for an exotic high. And some just like the power they have over a transwoman.”

  Officer Phil arches his eyebrows, asking for an explanation.

  “They are control freaks. There are movies about them taking over the lives of genetic women. Certain types of women are vulnerable to people like that—low self-esteem is a big theme. And if you think genetic women have self-esteem issues, you can multiply that by a hundred for transwomen. So yeah, some of the guys that seek out transwomen have a creepy dominance thing going on.”

  Officer Phil ponders this for a moment.

  “How common are these types?” he asks.

  “Truthfully, I don’t know. I’ve heard a story or two, but I don’t have any experience with them. In fact, I haven’t actually dated as a transwoman.”

  He gets that questioning look on his face again. “Any reason?”

  I sip my wine. “Lots of them. But let’s face it, a girl like me doesn’t exactly have to fight off suitors.”

  “I’m not buying that for a minute,” says Officer Phil.

  I smile. Gosh. A compliment. He has brown eyes and a nice smile. I tell him it’s part of my transition strategy. We get into a question and answer session about transsexual motivations.

  He asks about my history. I give him the Cliff’s Notes version.

  We talk for about an hour. As we stand to leave, I ask, “So, do you have any suspects in Mandy Marvin’s murder?”

  Officer Phil blinks. He wasn't expecting the question. He has a lot to learn about the trans community. The investigation of Mandy's murder will be the main topic of conversation among us for months, and until it is solved, we will wonder if the cops are really trying. We're used to being marginalized. Officer Phil shakes his head. “I can’t talk about an on-going investigation. I wish I could. I hope you understand.” But his tone of voice doesn’t match his words. He doesn’t wish he could. He isn’t hoping I understand. He’s telling me this is none of my business and he’s not going to talk about it.

  Officer Phil didn’t just say no, he said hell no. And it makes me wonder why.

  ***

  “Hey, Tiger,” she says. “Nice ride!”

  They are lying side by side on the bed in her hotel room. She has put her panties back on but remains bare-chested.

  Her breasts are firm for a mature woman. She’s had some work done on her body, he realizes. No problem here, he thinks. She’s the hottest real woman he’s known since his teen years. A type-A businesswoman. Knows what she wants and gets it. Amen. A-fucking-men. He likes that she just wants to get laid. Talks dirty. No romantic games, no flowers, no deeper meaning, no probing each other’s psyche.

  Still, she reads him like a book. Putting on the panties after sex. How did she know he doesn’t like to see it or touch it? How did she know he likes seeing tits?

  For that matter, how did she get him to make love twice? Once is a minor miracle most nights with a regular woman, even women twenty years younger than her.

  “What are you thinking, Tiger-man?” she asks.

  “I’m thinking that you are the greatest fuck of all time,” he says. It’s a compliment and she takes it as one, beaming. “I haven’t had a double orgasm in years. How do you do it?”

  Her eyes twinkle. “It’s just like business. You decide what you want, then you figure out how to get it.”

  He cocks his head at her quizzically.

  “Honey, when we get older our bodies sometimes need some help. Me, I have a surgeon.” She touches a breast, runs her fingers along her jawline. “You? You just needed some pixie dust.”

  He still doesn’t follow.

  “Remember the cheese and crackers?” she asks.

  He nods. He had a half dozen of them when he got there. They were all made up.

  “Remember the sprinkles on top?”

  He nods his head yes, understanding where this was going.

  “Well, sweetie pie, I took the liberty of drugging you and you’re going to be getting boners for hours. And if one pops up before you leave, you don’t have to ask where to park it. Just pop it in. No questions asked.”

  He smiles, even chuckles. But inside he’s thinking how he never needed chemical help when his boy bitch was around. He can feel the fire rising in his head. He’s getting very, very needy and no mere woman, not even this one, will be able to satisfy his hunger.

  ***

  THE AIR IS THICK in my tiny bathroom from the steam coming off my bath water. I can feel beads of water running down my face and neck. My hair is soaking wet, clinging to my skin. I'm dreamily relaxed. I have cleaned off all my makeup, flossed and brushed, taken my meds, and generally fulfilled all my obligations for the day. It is a relaxing thought. The hot water is relaxing, too. The smallness of the room is relaxing. The privacy…

  My mind wanders. I contemplate my male organ and try, for the millionth time, to imagine what it will look like to see nothing there someday. I wonder what it will feel like. I know I will be much more comfortable crossing my legs, though the shrinking that the hormones have caused already makes that easier. My doctor tells me that eventually my testicles will be the size of peas. I wonder if that makes castrat
ion easier. I wonder if there will be enough skin from the scrotum to make a vagina. I wonder if I will ever make love to a man as a woman. I wonder what that would be like. My experiences as a gay lover were sometimes exciting, but never really tender or intimate.

  As I wander through this now-familiar maze of thoughts, I have been subconsciously rubbing my breasts. They are tender and will remain tender until they quit growing. I rub them lightly to relieve the tenderness, but it’s also arousing. I don’t get erections anymore but I feel erotic sensations in my crotch. My body tingles. My nipples harden. My mind becomes a kaleidoscope of faces and forms. Nice smiles. Pretty eyes. Beautiful hair. Officer Phil leaning over the table to talk to me, his face so sincere and warm, his light brown eyes…

  I cut it off. I am aroused. Really aroused. By a straight man. I wonder, does this mean I really am a woman in waiting, or is this just what happens when you put a gay man on hormones and deny him sex for a year or two? Is this how women masturbate? I am intrigued and frightened at the same time.

  To keep from driving myself crazy, I focus my concentration on what I learned after Officer Phil and I went our separate ways.

  I went to the LGBT Center, the focal point of queer life in the city. Word had already spread about Mandy’s murder and community mourning was in progress. A wall with a large bulletin board had been set aside for the purpose. People were leaving notes, teddy bears, dolls, and flowers.

  The notes told an interesting story about Mandy. People remembered her beauty, her vivacity, her party-girl spirit. People loved things about her, but somehow, I had the feeling that no one knew the real, deep-down-inside her. Even me. Maybe that’s the ultimate challenge of being pretty, finding a way to get people to notice the rest of you.

  Against my better judgment, I accepted an invitation to join Cecelia and her friends for dinner. I felt bad about how I had left things with her, otherwise I would have given her an excuse and been on my way. Dining with Cecilia in a public place is one of the most painful experiences I’ve ever had. In addition to being loud, she is calculatingly audacious. She calls frequently and loudly for waiters, broadcasts her table conversation to the tables around her, and complains non-stop about the service and the food.

  For all that, she’s tapped into everything.

  We went to an informal diner near the Center. I asked if anyone has heard about any progress in the investigation of Mandy’s murder. Rebecca, sitting to Cecelia's right, scoffed. She is a squat, mean-spirited toady who clings to Cecelia like a pilot fish to a shark. Her reaction was supposed to show her deep knowledge and educated cynicism all at the same time. She blows it by looking to Cecelia for approval. Cecelia ignores her and puts on her own sour face.

  I ask if the others have talked to Officer Phil yet. Cecelia smirks. The other girl, Tina, tries to do the same. Rebecca emits a falsetto chuckle.

  “I doubt if Officer Phil could find a Catholic in the Vatican,” she says.

  Cecelia waits for the chatter to die down then issues one of her queenly proclamations. “It doesn’t matter how good he is,” she says. “This one’s not going to get solved.” She says it in a low voice, which is very unlike her.

  We all look at her, waiting for an explanation. Cecilia has an endless list of personal shortcomings, but falsifying information isn’t one of them.

  “Why?” I ask.

  Cecelia gets this priggish look on her face. “The fix is in. That’s all I can say.”

  “You mean they don’t care about a T-girl getting murdered?” asks Tina.

  “Probably more like they don’t want to find out Mandy was balling some city hall big shot—or two or three,” says Cecelia. “That kind of thing can ruin careers. For the big shot and the cops who out him.”

  “You make it sound like she was a hooker with a big database,” I say. I’m wondering if it was possible that Mandy was doing some johns on the side without her friends’ knowledge.

  “She was a party girl. She liked to have a good time. People liked to have her at parties. From what I hear, she got invited to parties that big names in politics and business went to, and she was known to go home with a big shot on occasion.” Cecilia smiles slightly.

  Mandy had never mentioned such things to me, but she wouldn’t have. I knew she partied a lot, and even as a pre-op she dated straight men. It wouldn’t be a stretch to think of her going home with a department chief or an executive. In fact, as I thought about it, it seemed likely she did, especially back when she was tricking. I couldn’t help wondering if her Mr. Wonderful was a city higher-up. On the other hand, our community goes overboard with conspiracy theories sometimes and Cecelia's proposition sounds a little farfetched.

  “How would they keep the investigator from pursuing the case?” I ask.

  “It’s easy. They only assign one detective to the case and they load him up with other cases and pressure him to focus on them. Bingo, no detective.”

  “What about Officer Phil?” I ask.

  “He’s a beat cop. He spends his time in the neighborhood, doing police relations and dealing with street crime. He doesn’t have the time or the training to investigate a murder.”

  I ask how Cecelia knows this. She smiles. “Don’t ask, don’t tell.” She must have a cop friend. I look at her. No, not a lover. Not even the most desperate tranny chaser would pursue a night with Cecelia. Not so much because of her looks, but more her persona. She is a cross between a professional wrestler and a drag queen.

  As I recall this conversation, one other remarkable thing occurs to me: Cecelia spoke in a conversational voice almost the whole time and didn’t heckle the waiter once. And she treated me like her best friend.

  What is the world coming to?

  June

  WHEN TRANSSEXUALS COME OUT, the ground shakes, the heavens cloud and the throats of the faithful erupt in screeches and screams.

  Parents are repulsed, then guilt-ridden, then angry that their child is no longer “normal.”

  Wives think their partner is gay, then wonder if they themselves are too butch, then come to realize that it’s not them, it’s that their partner is a degenerate and they want a divorce before the stigma attaches to them the way a skunk odor clings to its victims.

  Employers show their surprise but usually don’t panic; they control their disgust, make all the right noises, and find a reason to get rid of the embarrassment in a few weeks or months.

  And that’s when the transwoman does it the right way. When you do it the wrong way, like me, the same things happen, but faster.

  I have nothing to complain about. My boss didn’t fire me on the spot, and I got the family rejection crap over with long ago. After I was caught wearing my sister’s clothes at age five, dear old dad never wanted anything to do with me. I never repeated the sin, and he never mentioned the original transgression, but I think deep down inside he knew I was a fairy. He never went to my Little League games, or my high school football games, or the plays I was in, or anything else. He went to my high school graduation ceremony because Mom insisted, and Mom insisted because it would have looked just awful if they didn’t. He put up most of the money for college on three conditions. I had to maintain a 3-point-something grade point average, I had to major in business (no commie pinko liberal arts majors in this family!), and I had to promise to not come home when I graduated. I didn’t, and he didn’t bother coming to my college graduation, which was fine with me.

  As for my mother, she was on this earth to do whatever my father said, to think what he wanted her to think, and to say whatever made him happy. Her life was a job and she accepted it with quiet resignation. She had kids because she was supposed to. She kept house, made dinner, sat mutely through PTA meetings. She wasn’t mean, but she wasn’t warm, either. She never tucked me in at night. We didn’t do prayers or hugs or bedtime stories.

  My parents were there to set rules for performance and behavior, and make me pay the consequences if I failed to comply. It wasn’t a bad set
up. They weren’t cruel or abusive, they just didn’t like me much. And as time went on, I didn’t think much of them, either. But we got along fine and I learned to stand on my own two feet early.

  My family life was a good preparation for coming out at work. In the two weeks since I went fully femme in the salon, the other stylists mostly relate to me like a leper who insists she’s still human. Only a couple of them give me outright hateful stares, but everyone else goes through their days trying not to acknowledge my presence.

  Yes, it hurts. I’ve thought about trying to hire on at a younger, hipper salon where a trans stylist would be no big deal, but I’m not a tattoos and piercings kind of hairdresser. And let’s face it: I’m no kid, either. I’m too old for those places.

  My clients receive the news of my transition with varied responses. Some take it in stride, some are shocked. Some are just surprised. Mild revulsion is a recurring theme. One lady was outright hostile. She grimaced when I came to get her in the waiting area then shrunk back in horror when we got to my chair and I explained about my transition. She shook her head emotionally, as if I were a demon from hell, and said she couldn’t have me touch her. She cancelled her service on the spot. She stopped at the front desk on her way out just to tell the receptionist in a loud voice that she was never coming back as long as they would let a “thing” like me work here. She said “thing” like I was something that stank and was ugly to look at.

  In my dictionary of life, that scene will always define humiliation. Any sense of human spirit I brought to work that day was crushed. She was shrill and demonstrative. Every eye in the salon was on us. I could feel them, the clients and the hairdressers. They all felt what my client felt. Communal disgust. As the woman left the shop I was left standing alone in the middle of the floor, holding a cape, a shocked, blank look on my face. Tears of frustration and hurt welled up. When I could finally will myself to move, I put the cape on my chair and walked silently to the ladies room, tears streaming down my cheeks.