by Zack Love
A few minutes later, an awkward silence settled in as Evan and Narc looked at each other, each hoping that the other would break the bad news. Trevor realized that something was amiss.
“What? What is it?” he asked, slightly amused by his friends’ strange silence.
“There’s really no good way to say this,” Narc began, a little self-consciously.
“Say what?”
“We think,” he continued, and then paused awkwardly. “We think that Charlene is a man.”
“Or that she used to be a man,” Evan quickly clarified.
Trevor did a double take, and looked at the two friends across from him, trying to perceive whether this was some kind of practical joke. But they appeared unquestionably serious – even concerned.
“Are you bloody barmy?!” he exclaimed.
“What’s that?” Evan asked Narc, who – after spending considerably more time with Trevor – was much more familiar with British slang.
“It means crazy…Trevor, we’re bein’ totally serious. We’ve both been trippin’ on your girl, or your guy, or whatever.”
“This is pure bollocks. Some kind of joke, right?” Trevor replied, in amused disbelief. For someone incapable of openly and unequivocally admitting that he had slept with a woman, nothing could be more inconceivable or disturbing than the possibility that he was dating a man, or a former man.
“I know it’s not easy to think about,” Evan began. “And we really didn’t want to say anything unless we were absolutely sure that you need to look into the matter.”
“And unfortunately, we’re both absolutely sure,” Narc added. “So we felt that it was our duty to tell you. As your friends.”
But Trevor would have none of the idea, no matter how earnestly and seriously his friends repeated their concerns. After Narc tried wrestling in vein with Trevor’s blindly closed-minded denials for another ten minutes, Evan tried a more intellectual approach.
“Trevor, let’s just say that Narc and I have this working hypothesis. And it’s completely contrary to your working hypothesis. And until we assess all of the evidence, we really can’t say who’s right and who’s wrong.”
“But that’s precisely my point,” Trevor retorted. “I have so much more evidence than the two of you have.”
“But did you score?” Narc asked pointedly, as if he were deposing Trevor.
“No comment.”
“Will you at least confirm that you’ve closely inspected her anatomy?” Narc persisted.
“I am definitely more familiar with what she looks like than the two of you are.”
“The trouble is that after transgender operations, it can be very difficult for the untrained eye to notice the traces of the surgery,” Evan added.
“What authority are you on this subject?” Trevor asked, appalled at the suggestion of a sex operation.
“Evan’s our de facto resident expert on transgender operations. He wrote a screenplay on the topic.”
“Actually, I just researched it. I never wrote the script. The topic just freaked me out too much.”
“Listen mates, I really don’t want to talk about this anymore,” Trevor said, somewhat impatiently.
“We don’t really want to talk about it either,” Narc persisted. “But we just thought that – as your friends – we should say something. It’s obviously a ball-breaker of a subject. And it’s not even something you can really discuss with Charlene.”
“Yeah, even if she wouldn’t take offense to the question,” Evan added, “you can’t be sure that she’d give you a straight answer.”
“You have to explore the issue subtly,” Narc added.
“How do you explore that issue subtly?” Trevor asked flippantly, as if to humor their ludicrous assumption.
“See how she reacts to certain things,” Evan suggested. “Like tell her ‘I saw the most disgusting show about transsexuals last night on TV. I can’t think of anything more nauseating and repulsive than a transsexual.’”
“How would that tell me anything?”
“Because you’ll see how she reacts,” Evan explained. “I mean, if she really cares about you and having a relationship with you, it wouldn’t be in her interest to hide such a basic part of who she is from you.”
“Or maybe it would,” Trevor rejoined. “Maybe she’s so in love with me and so determined to stay with me that your strategy would only cause her to be all the more careful about hiding certain facts from me.”
“You’ve got a point,” Evan conceded. “But what about seeing how quickly she’d be willing to have anal sex?” Evan paused for a moment. The Chinese waiter had arrived with their food. The waiter’s rushed movements and indifferent expression confirmed that they had perfect privacy, so Evan continued: “Most real women don’t like receiving anal sex, whereas most gay men do.”
Trevor, who had also noticed how clueless the waiter was about their conversation, launched into his rebuttal: “I would never want to have anal sex with any woman, so that’s a preposterous question.”
The waiter finished transferring the last dishes to their table and left in a flash.
“He just means asking her hypothetically, to see how she reacts,” Narc chimed in. “But you could still get false positives from the few women who like it, and false negatives from the few gay guys who don’t. So it’s not really a good test.”
“I’ve got it!” Evan said. “Go into her bathroom some time and see if she has any tampons or pads anywhere. And if you can’t find them in her apartment or her purse or anywhere else, see how she reacts when you ask her whether she has menstrual cramps and how she deals with them.”
“Word. That’s it! Evan got it,” Narc said, excited about the strategy.
“And I have another one,” Evan said. “At some other time, so she doesn’t get suspicious, ask her whether she wants kids. Most women want kids at some point. Tell her that you can’t get serious about any woman who isn’t open to bearing your children some day, and see how she reacts.”
“I like that one too!” Narc said, high-fiving Evan, who was clearly pleased with his own cleverness.
“You blokes have a very fertile imagination. Or you’ve been watching way too much of that Jerry Springer bollocks. All of this talk is completely barmy.”
But no matter how much Trevor tried to dismiss their suspicions as wild and baseless speculation, a haunting doubt lingered in his mind during the weeks that followed, until he finally gave in and began investigating the matter.
Each time Trevor collected some new piece of data, the results either failed to reassure him or they actually troubled him a bit. Charlene didn’t seem to keep any tampons or pads in her bathroom or purse and claimed not to suffer from menstrual cramps. She didn’t want kids because it would interfere with her artistic ambitions too much, and she was happy to have anal sex any time Trevor felt the urge. Her throat seemed slightly raised, but not enough to qualify as a “smoking gun Adam’s apple” – particularly since Trevor doubted his expertise on such matters (although he did develop a minor fixation with throat shapes).
By the second week following his Chinatown dinner with Narc and Evan, Trevor needed a final and accurate answer to the question. He was too squeamish about the subject and too Puritan to confront her about the issue directly. He was also unsure whether she would tell the truth, and he was afraid of saying something inappropriate, if her answer didn’t fully eliminate his festering suspicion. So he decided that the most natural way to find out the truth was simply to do that which she had been wanting to do since the day they met: get fully naked and have sex.
Trevor purposely planned to see Charlene on a weeknight when he would be working late, so that she would try to convince him to spend the night. Because he had never agreed to her prior attempts to have him stay over, he feigned reluctance initially, so that she wouldn’t suspect his true purpose. After this initial resistance, Trevor agreed to go over to Charlene’s place at around 11 p.m. and spend the night
. She excitedly began preparing her place for Trevor’s visit. Charlene meticulously cleaned her apartment, made a bubble bath, put out wine glasses and candles, and arranged her condoms and sex toys in discreet but easily accessible hiding places.
Immediately upon his arrival at her place, Trevor began imbibing far more wine than he normally consumed in a single night in order to calm his anxious nerves. By 1 a.m., he felt unusually light-headed and giddy. In fact, he was so inebriated and lost in the pleasure of Charlene’s passionate kissing and highly skilled fellatio, that he almost forgot his original purpose for that night. But at one point, after Charlene had swallowed his man-juice and was proudly lying atop him, he let his hands run over her blouse, which she still hadn’t removed for him. He was too drunk and happy to notice her breasts, but Charlene – in a moment of self-conscious insecurity – thought that Trevor had felt their true shape and blurted out a self-deprecating admission: “I know, Baby…They’re really flat…The fillers are just temporary, I promise… I’m getting implants in two weeks…And the rest of the operation a month later…It’ll look so much better, Baby.”
Trevor tried to shake his intoxicated lightness enough to inquire further, but Charlene saw his questions coming and effectively stopped them by starting to kiss and arouse him again. During the renewed fondling, Trevor did manage to get his hand down towards Charlene’s groin, and she finally let him explore the area. There was no hiding that Charlene was aroused.
Because there was no hiding that Charlene was, in fact, a man.
“No…Please, Baby,” Charlene protested feebly, “just give me a few more months…”
But Trevor now felt inevitably propelled down a course from which there was no returning, and he needed to confront the full reality of the situation, no matter how shocking it turned out to be. Charlene soon recognized a somewhat familiar look of anxious curiosity and discovery in Trevor’s eyes, and let him finish coming to terms with the situation.
Trevor’s hands continued exploring every inch of Charlene’s body, and the two eventually resumed their kissing.
One hour later, they were asleep in Charlene’s bed.
*****
The next morning, Charlene messengered to Trevor’s office a black envelope wrapped in a pink ribbon. Afraid that his officemate might catch some glimpse of the contents or his reaction to them, Trevor took the sealed envelope with him to the bathroom. He locked himself behind a stall, sat down on the toilet seat with his pants on, and nervously opened the envelope, realizing that this might be the single most memorable and momentous package that he had ever opened.
In the envelope there were playbills featuring Charlene, old photographs, a photocopy from a high school yearbook, and other assorted memorabilia, along with a handwritten note. For a moment, it was all a blurry set of disjointed pieces, until Trevor finally focused on a few key details that he had initially glossed over in denial. Charlene’s original legal name, as it was listed below the Texas high school yearbook picture, was “Charles Smith.”
He then read the hand-written note that Charlene had included: “Trevor, dear, you were delicious last night…I hope this isn’t too strange for you…I’ve never felt so attracted or so close to someone before…So I wanted to share some of my past with you, in the hope that you might understand where I’ve been and where I’m going…And embrace my future with me…As you can see from the photos, I look so much better as a woman…And I’ve never really felt right as a man…I’d really love to see you again and I just hope that – ”
Trevor stopped reading, as a feeling of nausea suddenly overcame him. The envelope, note, and photos fell to the bathroom floor as Trevor’s hands went limp from shocked disgust. With only a slight hangover pounding away at his otherwise sober head, Trevor now had to acknowledge unequivocally that he had engaged in sexual relations with a man – and enjoyed it.
The queasiness in Trevor’s gut became overwhelming. He dropped to his knees, turned around to face the toilet, and vomited.
Chapter 13
Narc and Evan Fall Out
Trevor quit his job that day. He knew that it would be weeks, maybe months, before he would be able to concentrate again on any kind of work, much less painfully tedious legal work. He felt unshakable embarrassment and lingering disgust.
Trevor’s conservative upbringing involved virtually no reference to the existence of homosexuals and made it far too difficult for Trevor to recognize his own attraction to men. Thus, he had always pursued androgynous women as the next best alternative. Being away from home, of course, made it easier for Trevor to entertain homosexual ideas, but because he had no gay friends and had never quite felt free enough to “come out,” the Charlene incident surprised and unsettled him profoundly. An overpowering need to cleanse his body and his mind settled into his conscience. He had become increasingly interested in yoga during the last few years and now felt the impulse to explore Eastern religion more seriously.
Trevor felt deeply embarrassed about misidentifying Charlene’s gender and about the resulting confusion surrounding his sexual identity. He was too mortified to say anything to Narc, Evan, or any of his other male friends, all of whom were unquestionably heterosexual. Instead, he abruptly and quietly left the city for an ascetic ashram in upstate New York. Trevor took a vow of celibacy, ate only two vegetarian meals per day, and practiced meditation every day.
A week later, Narc tried to call Trevor at his office but was informed that Mr. Bediako no longer worked at Bartles, Arp & Polka and that he had left no forwarding information. Narc tried calling Trevor’s home and cell phone numbers but they were all disconnected. The next day, he got out of work early at 10 p.m. and took a cab to Trevor’s one-bedroom apartment in Gramercy, where he learned from the new tenant that Trevor had sublet his place for six months. To Narc’s relief, the new tenant had a phone number for Trevor.
Trevor’s ashram had one public phone for three hundred disciples. After twenty-three rings, someone finally picked up. Yes, he would look for Trevor and tell him that Narc was on the phone, but it could take a few minutes to find him. About ten minutes later, the same voice came back to the receiver and informed Narc that Trevor didn’t want to receive any phone calls or visitors for at least a few months and asked that his friends respect his wishes. The man apologized and Narc thanked him for his help.
The following Sunday, Narc had lunch with Evan in Chinatown. They talked for a while about Trevor and whether they should visit him or try to bring him back. Narc was concerned that Trevor might be getting involved in some strange cult, but Evan finally persuaded him that they should respect Trevor’s personal decision – at least for the time being – and check up on him in a few months. They discussed competing theories about what might have prompted him to make so many radical changes in his life, and Narc concluded the cause was probably discovering that Charlene was a man or an ex-man.
“But you don’t know that for a fact,” Evan replied. “We never found out what he learned about Charlene…I really think he was just fed up with the corporate life that you complain about all of the time.” And with that remark, the focus of the conversation changed, both because they had exhausted the Trevor topic for the moment, and because Evan had touched upon a raw nerve.
“I don’t complain about it all of the time,” Narc objected, reflexively.
Narc’s favorite gripe about life was his job. He hated his job with a boiling passion. He hated it more frequently and more vocally than he hated anything else. Every morning – without fail – he woke up at 7:30 a.m. almost cheerful to be alive another day, and by around 11 p.m. that night, when he typically left his office, his throat was stiff with frustrated fury at the world and his particular place in it.
The waiter took away their empty dishes and left them the check.
“All right, I do complain,” he conceded. “Because I fuckin’ hate every minute of it.”
“Sounds like you need to vent again, Narc.”
“Yeah. J
ust last night my parents asked me, for the 429th time, what’s so bad about being a corporate lawyer. They’re calling me at 11 p.m. at the office on a Saturday night, as if that fact alone wasn’t enough to answer their question. But then again, they’re workaholic immigrants who don’t know anything but working hard seven days a week, so what can I tell them? So for the 429th time I lied to them and just said that sometimes the high-pressured responsibility gets stressful and that that’s the only thing that I’m really complaining about. But the fuckin’ truth of the matter is that everything’s wrong with being a lawyer!”
“Everything?” Evan repeated.
“Yes, everything. The question is, what’s good about being a corporate lawyer? Besides the pay, of course. The work itself sucks ass, because – like city sanitation – it’s the shit work that no one else wants to do, so the poor bastards doing it need to be paid well enough to ensure that they keep doing it.”
“But lawyers make four times as much as garbage men,” Evan replied.
“That’s because lawyers work four times as many hours. Why the fuck do you think that for the last four years I’ve barely had the time to have a meal with you, much less play basketball, or go out and meet women? If you had those sanitation guys taking away the trash three thousand hours a year, you better believe you’d have to pay them a six figure salary.”
“Yeah. And imagine how clean the city would be.”
“Seriously.”
“But how can you compare what you do to what a garbage man does?”
“It’s the intellectual equivalent. It’s shit work for the brain. It’s the most friggin’ tedious, comma-chasing, minutiae-oriented shit work you can possibly imagine. It’s all that damn fine print in our society that nobody wants to read, but some poor soul has to draft or dissect.”
“Give me an example,” Evan said as he started to look at the bill. Narc snatched it from him, put his credit card on top, and called the waiter over in Cantonese. The server, who was taking an order nearby, signaled that he would come over in a bit.