Transition to Murder

by Renee James

  ***

  TODAY IS MY DAY off, but I have been dreading it for some time. I’m having lunch with my ex-wife, Betsy. We set this up before I decided to begin living full time as a woman. She has a document I have to sign so she can sell the house we bought together. It's hers, but we never got around to finishing all the paper work. We could have done this by mail, but it was important to her to get together in person. We've been divorced for four years, but the truth is, we still love each other, just in a different way. I've tried to keep my distance, especially when I realized I was a transsexual and started hormones. I just didn't want to hurt her again. . It was bad enough when I told her I was gay. At least then I looked like a man and acted like one. That's what she's expecting now.

  I shouldn't have agreed to meet in the first place. Still, I can’t bring myself to cancel because I know it would disappoint her, and I’ve done too much of that already.

  I finally summon the courage to call her cell and give her fair warning. I go directly to voice mail. Of course. She’s at work. I leave a jumbled message, a forewarning that I’m living as a woman and she might want to cancel. I leave my phone number.

  I get caught up in the day and don’t think about it again until I’m fighting mid-day traffic on my way to meet Betsy. I realize she never called back, which probably means she didn’t get my message. Which means she’s going to get the shock of her life when I show up.

  I enter Northtown Deli hoping to slip into the ladies’ room to dry off my perspiration and touch up my makeup before Betsy sees me. But this is not a day for lucky breaks. Or gentle introductions. She spots me immediately and I see her, too. She’s in the back booth—very considerate of her— and even from there, I’m easy to see. I’m taller than most of the customers, even the men.

  Betsy is a slim, graceful woman of thirty-six. She wears a conservative, understated business suit over a white blouse, a modern-art brooch on one lapel. Fine gold chains fall from her neck. Dangling gold earrings swing lightly from her lobes. She wears her hair in a mid-length bob. It’s symmetrical and perfectly graduated. It has been blown-dry with a round brush for fullness.

  She gets more beautiful with maturity, and she was always a looker. She has great, wide eyes with Mediterranean darkness and an almost erotic almond shape. She has full lips with natural color, so perfect it’s a sin to put lip gloss on them. She isn’t wearing any today, perhaps because she knows I like her better without. Her bone structure is the stuff of photographic models—high cheek bones, slight hollows just beneath them, and a chin that manages to be both strong and petite at the same time.

  Her overall appearance speaks of openness and humanity while also communicating that she is a no-nonsense woman of the world. Usually. Not right now, though. Right now, she is staring at what used to be her husband. She is clearly stunned at the sight of me and the harder she tries not to be, the worse it gets. Her mouth is open, her eyes are round and glassy.

  I feel like a bad joke. Even though I don’t want to, I am seeing me through her eyes. The man she once made love to is in heels, an above-the-knee black dress, carrying a purse. My hair is bouncing up and down with each step and my breasts are jiggling. Several heads turn as I walk the aisle to her booth. I pause for a fleeting moment to see if she will stand to exchange hugs. She doesn’t. I slide into the booth opposite her as gracefully as I can. She stares in silence for another several seconds. I use the moment to try to get my heartbeat under control.

  Our waiter appears. “Can I get you something to drink?” he asks. He almost addresses me as “sir” which would have been just perfect. I order water with a slice of lemon. I try to sound feminine but it’s hopeless.

  Betsy is still staring at me, speechless.

  “Bob,” she says finally, “What is going on?”

  “I’m transsexual. I’m becoming a woman. I go by ‘Bobbi’ now.” I try to say it almost automatically, as I have in breaking the news to friends and acquaintances. But this is much harder. The pain on Betsy’s face brings tears to my eyes.

  Betsy is speechless. Her mouth is still open, her lips trying to form a word.

  “I’m a transsexual, Betsy,” I say finally. I can anticipate her initial questions. “I always have been. It just took a lot of years to understand it. When I was five I tried to wear my sister’s dresses. I thought they were beautiful and they felt wonderful. My parents screamed at me for it. Told me that wasn’t how a boy should play. My father never looked at me the same again. So I didn’t do it again until after you and I split up and I came out. As gay.” I’m rambling now, trying to fill the dead air as she remains transfixed by the spectacle that I am. “Oh, I had pangs now and then, but I buried them. Never told anyone. Not you, not my parents, not my sister, not my best friend, not even my first boyfriend.”

  I keep babbling, unable to stop. I give her the whole sorry story in obituary-like brevity. Got to know some trans people. Tried it out. Knew it was me from the get-go. Thought I was a cross-dresser, but as time went on I never wanted to cross back to male. “I’m a transsexual,” I say one more time. My lips quiver a little when I say it.

  I wait for her to say something, but she can’t seem to. I can’t stand the silence. I have to fill it. “I’m very sorry this came as such a shock,” I say, my voice husky and cracking. I really want to cry. “I left you a voice mail message this morning to give you a heads up and give you a chance to back out on this, but I guess you didn’t get it.”

  Betsy shakes her head slowly. “No,” she says. “I forgot my cell phone this morning.”

  She stares at me. A river of silence flows between us…

  "I'm sorry, Bob, I can't comprehend this. I don't know what to say. I don't recognize you. I'm not sure who you are any more."

  "I'm the person you knew, Betsy. I just look different now." There's a little edge to my voice. I understand her shock, but this gets old and it's not like I'm a murderer or a troll or something.

  “My god, Bob—Bobbi—are you sure about this?” she asks. “How far along are you?”

  “I’m sure,” I say. It’s a white lie. I may never be sure. But the full truth would get us into a conversation I don’t want to have.

  “I see you have breasts,” Betsy says, nodding at my cleavage. “Have you . . . you know.”

  Many transwomen bristle at such questions, but this woman has a right to ask. I love her and she has always loved me back. I should have told her when I knew I was trans. “No,” I answer. “Next summer.” The polite expression is gender reassignment surgery. Clinicians call it castration. It makes you think. And I’m not sure I’ll ever do it, let alone next summer. But I don’t want her to know my doubts.

  The waiter brings my water. We order light lunches. It gives her a chance to regain her composure.

  “So,” she says, “How do you like it? Being a woman?” She wipes away a tear as she asks.

  “If I was a real woman, I would love it,” I answer honestly. “But I’m a transwoman and just starting out, really, and that’s different. A lot of people will never accept me as a woman. I have to live with that. It can be challenging. The other thing that’s really tough is sitting down to pee. It seems like such a production.”

  She laughs, still dabbing at tears. “You’ll learn to make it quick.”

  She takes a deep breath and exhales, relaxing herself, then asks a series of questions about me, my transition program, the shrink, the hormones, how it makes me feel, am I dating. By the time we finish our lunches, we are chatting almost like old friends. Almost. There is a lull in the conversation.

  “Was it awful for you when we made love?” There’s an edge to her voice. A hurt maybe.

  “No, never.” I answer. “Because I really loved you and because I always thought you were an incredibly sexy woman. I still do. But my true confession is that there were times when I was trying to imagine what it was like to be you, to have me touching you, to have me inside you, to hear me gasping in your ear when I came, to
feel what you feel when you came. It was wildly erotic.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asks.

  “How could you have understood? I didn’t understand it myself until…” My voice trails off. Until when? When did I know?

  “It’s taken forever to figure out who I am, Betsy. I didn’t want this to be the answer.”

  Tears trickle down her face. She reaches across the table to grasp my hands in hers. We exchange teary smiles.

  The one person in the world who has every right to hate me actually loves me.

  We finally get around to the documents then talk about her. She has remarried. Don is his name. She produces the mandatory photo of a nice looking man, middle-aged, fairly trim, nice smile. They hope to one or two children while Betsy still can. They're looking for a house in the suburbs.

  “Do you love him?” I ask. Her recitation of his fine qualities seems just a little mechanical.

  “Oh yes,” she says, smiling. “I didn’t want to dwell too much on that since we were once …you know…”

  We both laugh a little. It can be awkward talking to a girlfriend who used to be your husband. She gets a wistful look on her face. “Yes, I love him,” she says. “Very much. But I’ll always love you too, Bobbi. And Bob. I’ll always love Bob. You were my first and you’ll always be there in my heart.”

  I can no longer hold back my tears. We touch hands in the middle of the table and hold each other in silence for a long moment. It has been years since anyone but Marilee made me feel loved like this. I can hardly bear it.

  It's funny how life works sometimes. When I courted Betsy I was a hotshot up-and-comer being groomed for the executive suite at a huge ad agency. I was in my twenties and closing in on a six-figure salary and women thought I was handsome and I thought I was a red-hot Lothario. I kept that other person in a far corner of my mind, the one that wanted to wear dresses and makeup and have my hair done. I married Betsy because she was beautiful and fun and it was time to get married and she'd make me look good at company functions with the brass. I think she married me because I cut a somewhat dashing figure, had a good sense of humor, and had decent human values. And she loved me.

  I didn't know I didn't love her until I actually did fall in love with her. It sort of snuck up on me. I didn't realize how much her goodness and compassion meant to me until I started realizing how rare those qualities are in this world.

  Of course, that just added to my guilt when I realized I had married her under false pretenses. I felt like I had wasted years of her life by masquerading as a hetero male. She never complained, which was nice, but it also added to my sense of guilt. I wouldn't feel nearly so bad if she were a shrew.

  “I want you to come out for dinner when we get settled,” Betsy says when the moment passes.

  I smile politely. That isn’t going to happen. Think of what the neighbors would say! But it is a nice gesture, and I reciprocate with an open invitation for a cut and color. Lunch ends happily. We hug. Hard. There is still love between us. And I still think she’s hot.

  As I stroll home I think how close we came to me fathering Betsy’s child. She was just starting to talk about a baby when we split up. I had become a less motivated lover. I realize now that my Bobbi persona was starting to force its way out of the dark place I put it in so many years ago.

  By then I had quit my marketing job. Partly because I was sick of the infighting in the company and the breathtaking stupidity of some of our executives. But partly because I wanted to go to beauty school. I had always been interested in doing hair, but I had kept it a secret because it wasn’t a masculine ambition. What brought me out in the open was meeting a hairdresser at a party one night. I was still in denial about my inner femininity when I met Ronald. He had longish, wavy hair, perfectly plucked eyebrows, a white smile. He smelled good and wore a lot of jewelry. He was slightly effeminate, but he was very masculine in his overtures to me.

  To my shock and horror, he fascinated me. I was entranced as he talked about hairdos and clients, and before long I was imagining what it would be like to make love with him. I managed to control myself, but I had erotic dreams about Ronald for weeks. Somewhere in there, I told Betsy I’d like to go to beauty school. I had always had a secret desire to do hair, even as a child, and Ronald re-awakened that in me. Betsy was surprised, but okay with the idea.

  I flew through cosmetology school. It was like a dream. I loved every minute of it and worked like a demon to learn everything. My instructors told me I was one of the most work-ready graduates the school ever produced. I got a salon job right away and I loved that even more than school. Working as a hairdresser let me express myself in ways I never could before. I went with tight-fitting shirts and slacks, pierced ears, colored hair. I developed a soft, slightly effeminate lisp, especially at work. Little by little, Bob was becoming Bobbi. I would look at hairdo books and picture the styles on my customers and on me, too. I would meet gay hairdressers and the occasional gay customer and start to evaluate them as lovers. My interest in lovemaking with Betsy ebbed and eventually died.

  One night Betsy demanded to know why I wasn’t interested in her any more. She thought I was having an affair. I told her I was gay. I told her about being attracted to Ronald. She went through all kinds of emotions. Heartbreak. Guilt, like it was her fault. Compassion for me; I didn't want to be gay, I just was. Or so I thought. We did counseling, separately and together, and then we started planning our divorce. We were both humiliated and embarrassed by my new reality, but we were considerate of each other and there were no hard feelings at the end.

  Since then, we communicate occasionally—a Christmas card, a phone call. Betsy pushes for a lunch every year. I knew when she got engaged. She knew about my fling with Ronald, and my move to Boystown.

  The torrid affair I dreamed about with Ronald didn’t really happen. After my divorce, we groped for a few weeks, and then Ronald went on to other lovers, a whole string of them. .

  Ronald was a much better mentor than lover. He took an interest in my hairdressing career and gave me great advice. He steered me to the best teaching seminars and introduced me to Roger, a brilliant hairdresser opening an upscale salon in a trendy near-north neighborhood. That was seven, almost eight years ago. I’ve been with Roger’s salon ever since. And I’ve never stopped loving what I do.

  I’m glad Betsy and I didn’t have children. It wouldn’t have been fair to her or the child. I don’t suppose I’ll ever see her again. But if she ever did invite me to dinner at their new place, I think I’d go. I love her. I would love her as a sister. And I think she could love me as a sister.

  July

  YOU’D THINK SOMEONE whose life is going up in flames would stick to solving their own problems, but I just can’t let this thing with Mandy go. There’s absolutely no indication that the police are conducting a serious investigation and it’s driving everyone to distraction. My trans sisters protest loudly to one another, but that just frustrates me more. I need to do something.

  I’m in the Michigan Avenue cosmetics store where Mandy worked, waiting for a sales girl named Annie to go on break so she can talk to me. I ponder the miracle skin remedies that sell for prices that make cocaine and heroin look cheap, then the foundations, powders and blushes. I’m serious about my cosmetics, but not this serious.

  At last Annie takes her break. We move briskly down the street to a coffee shop, making small talk as we go. Annie says the store’s products are okay but way overpriced, the customers can be a royal pain, and the pay is not bad for retail. She is a pretty girl. More than pretty, really. Early twenties. Dark mid-length hair framing a pixie face, soft, sexy eyes, dusky skin without a single flaw. Full lips, beautifully tinted in a sheer lip gloss that adds a touch of pink and a hint of red. Her eye liner is especially elegant, a strong line with perfect symmetry on top; a finer line under the lower lash; both meeting in an upward arc at the far corner of each eye to give her an even more exotic look.

  We
both order coffees, Annie adds a croissant with butter and jam. Her food choice calls attention to the fact that she is a little pudgy. A product of her gene pool, perhaps, but especially eating a fatty fast-food diet, I suspect. At her age, her slight pudginess is cute, cuddly. In ten years, she will probably look matronly, or worse.

  Inwardly, I sigh. I would make any sacrifice in diet and gym work to keep that body together if it were mine. Of course, I’m sure there are people who would have loved to have my male body, too. Such is life.

  “So, how well did you know Mandy?” I ask when we get settled.

  Annie averts her gaze from me as she answers. “I knew she was transsexual. I knew her parents disowned her. I know she did some hustling. She knew a lot about me, too. We were friends.”

  “Do you have any idea why someone would want to kill her?” I ask.

  Annie is looking down at the table now. A tear trickles down her cheek. She dabs at it with her napkin. “Not any good reason.”

  I consider this answer for a moment. Annie is telling me to ask my question in a different way.

  “Do you know a bad reason to hurt her?”

  Annie looks up at me. “Because she was, you know…”

  “Transgender?” I finish for her.

  “Yes.” She nods and sobs slightly. "And she was involved with a weird guy."

  I arch my eyebrows in question.

  “He bought her stuff, lots of things, even her operation. But he was using her. I don't think he ever treated her right. If he did, she never talked about it. She told me a couple times he brought home friends and had her fuck them.

  Annie looks up again. “She never talked about him taking her somewhere nice. Not even a movie.”