CHAPTER V
It was three days later when the military men came back, looking for me. I was ready for them—as ready as I could be, though my heart still pounded like crazy when they pounded bluntly on my apartment door. I looked through the peephole and saw the same three men.
I was wearing a skirt and a light sweater. I had my blonde hair tied into a pair of braids. I’d just shaved my legs that morning, and I was even wearing a bit of perfume. I’d spent over an hour doing my makeup, even though I didn’t plan on leaving the house. I was doing my makeup every morning, spending a long, tedious hour at least in front of that mirror. I was getting better, but as I got better, I found more small details that I could work on, so I wasn’t getting any faster.
I took a long, deep breath before pulling that door open. “Are you looking for Joe?” I asked in my feminine voice—a voice that I hadn’t stopped using since I started being a full-time woman. Even when I was alone, cooking dinner and rambling to myself, I would use that voice, making sure it was rehearsed and flawless. I couldn’t give the soldiers any reason to doubt me.
“Has he come back yet?” asked the soldier before me. He didn’t wait for an answer before letting himself in. His two squad mates followed. This time I followed them around the apartment.
“He hasn’t returned yet. I still haven’t heard from him, but I’m starting to worry about him. Do you think he’s okay?”
The soldier laughed. “I think he’s probably in Mexico by now, living happily on some beach.” He turned and looked me in the eyes. “He abandoned you. You know that, right?” I had to pretend to be stung by the comment. I figured he was trying to emotionally damage me so that I would give up the location of Joe.
“I don’t think he would do that.”
The soldier laughed again, and then he continued searching around the apartment. “Hey sir, come and see this,” said one of the soldiers in my bedroom. All three of them went into the room. I approached slowly. They were all looking at my feminine clothes on the floor: my small piles, next to my two spare wigs. My heart fluttered down into my stomach. “Check the closet,” one of them said. So one of the soldiers went into the closet and started rifling through my male clothes. “Nothing,” he said.
Then the squad leader turned to me. “This is all you’ve got here?” he asked.
“That’s all I brought with me,” I said, trying to force a little smile.
“Three outfits. And you’ve been here for how long?”
I tried to remember the last time the men were at the apartment. “About a week,” I said. “I’ve been using the laundry machine downstairs.”
Now he was staring at me, looking straight into my eyes. “And where do you live?”
“Me?”
“Yes, you,” he said.
“I live across town.”
“Where across town?”
“In a basement suite on Hawthorne Avenue.”
The room became silent. I felt a cold sweat tickling the back of my neck. I bit down on my tongue so that I wouldn’t let the terrified whimper slip out from my lips. I watched as the soldier looked down at my body. Was he onto me? Could he tell that I was in a disguise? I wanted to look down to make sure that my cock wasn’t bulging out against my skirt, but I knew looking down would make me look suspicious, so I kept my gaze up, looking from one man to the next.
“I’m going to need an address,” he said. “We’ll have to check your place for Joe.”
“Okay, sure,” I said as that cold sweat grew damper on the back of my neck. “I just moved in there a few weeks ago—I still don’t even have all my stuff there. I’ll need to double-check the address. Just give me a minute.” I stepped away from the men as my heart pounded ferociously. I wondered if they could see my chest thumping—or maybe they could hear it. I pulled up a map and found Hawthorne Avenue. It was the street one of my old childhood friends lived on. I quickly found a random address and then I went back to the soldiers. “It’s 422 Hawthorne Avenue—the house across from the gas station.”
“And who else lives there?” he asked.
“There’s an older woman upstairs. She lives alone, and I have the basement to myself.” I managed to force my smile until the men were gone. And then I knew I had to leave. My time in that apartment was up. I looked around at all of my stuff. I would have to leave it all behind—everything I couldn’t fit into a backpack. As soon as those soldiers went to that house and found out there was no basement suite and no old lady living upstairs, they would be right back to detain me, and then they would probably throw me into some war prison. I had no idea where I was going to go—I just knew it had to be far away from where I was now.
I stuffed my laptop, clothes, and makeup into my bag. Then, I stuffed the bag with as much food as I could. I figured there would be a few nights spent out on the streets while I tried to find somewhere to live. I left my IDs and credit cards behind. I only took my bankcard with me, and I planned to ditch it as soon as I got the few thousand dollars I had in my bank account out from ATMs.
I slipped out from my apartment’s back door and then I looked up at my window. I never liked that apartment much, but I knew I was going to miss it. I was going to miss the comfort of having a bed to sleep on that was my own more than anything. But I knew I couldn’t stay. So I hip up the nearest ATM, withdrew the maximum amount of $500.00, and then I started towards the edge of town. My plan was to hitchhike over to the next city, where no one would potentially recognize me. But first, I needed to empty my bank account in town, so that there would be no record of me elsewhere.
CHAPTER VI
That first night wasn’t so bad. I stopped at a Wal-Mart and bought myself a sleeping bag and a small foam mat. Then I slipped into the large nature reserve at the edge of town and found myself a nice little den between two large bushes. I didn’t sleep well, constantly worried bugs were crawling into my little nook. I kept springing up every twenty minutes to shake out my sleeping bag. I hated bugs, but I knew I would have to get used to the idea of them if I was going to spend the next little while hiding out in the woods.
As soon as I woke up the next morning, I went straight to the nearest ATM and took out another five hundred bucks. I slipped the money into the front pouch of my backpack. I still had three grand left in my account. Retrieving five hundred bucks each day, it would take another six days before I could toss my card and leave town.
Staying hidden was relatively easy. The real challenge was staying entertained. I brought my laptop to a café and used their Internet, and that was good for a while, but it wasn’t long before my back started to hurt, hunched over a little table, trying to watch Netflix shows with tiny earbud headphones. I couldn’t help but think about being stuck in an airport, with nowhere comfortable to sit, constantly with that feeling of restlessness.
It wasn’t long before I shut down my computer and shoved it back into my bag. I was suddenly paranoid that the army could track it. I didn’t know anything about IP addresses, but I knew the feds could easily trace them. If they really wanted to catch me, I figured they could probably trace my computer’s address and then storm that little café—so I got out of there and tried to think of other ways to pass the time.
But my mind came up blank. I tried to think of what I would have been doing back in my apartment, aside from pacing around nervously. But still, I couldn’t think of anything, aside from mindlessly watching television.
Every time a soldier passed me in the streets, I became tense and cold and strangely breathless. Whenever anyone glanced over at me, I froze up completely, with a lump swelling up in my throat. I would look in every possible reflection, making sure everything was in place—making sure my makeup hadn’t smudged off to reveal my stubble, and making sure my wig hadn’t slipped slightly. And even when I saw that everything was fine, I would still be worried that other people wouldn’t see me the same way. What if I was just deluding myself into thinking that I really looked like a chick?
> Strangely, I got my first moment of relief when a man tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Excuse me. I don’t normally do this, but I really just felt compelled to come over and tell you how beautiful you are.” It took me a moment to realize he wasn’t being sarcastic. His cheeks were red and he was making a big smile.
“Thank you,” I said. He nodded his head and continued on towards wherever he was heading. It was only a few minutes later when I looked back and caught another man checking out my ass. He looked away quickly, and I did the same. I found myself tugging down at my skirt, making sure my tush was covered. And then I felt my cheeks becoming warm. I even caught myself smiling like an idiot at one point, though I really shouldn’t have felt happy about the situation. No man should feel any sort of pride or even amusement when men mistake him for a woman—even if he is wearing women’s clothes and makeup. I knew that I had a small body—I’d had a small body my entire life. But I never thought that I had a woman’s body. Now I knew that I was wrong. And that realization should have filled my stomach with nothing but dread—yet there I was, smirking with red cheeks like a complete lunatic. I tried to convince myself it was just a consequence of lack of quality sleep.
The sun was still up when I found myself in a bar. I had nowhere else to go, unless I wanted to settle into my potentially bug-infested den for the night. At least I could stay at the bar until late, watching sports on the televisions, drinking away my nerves. But it wasn’t long before I could feel the gazes of all of the single men veering towards me. I tried to sit out of the way, at the end of the bar, where the light was a little bit dimmer, but that didn’t seem to stop men from staring at me. I suppose it was strange in their eyes: a young woman alone at a bar on a weekday night.
The men were all older—too old to be drafted. But that didn’t make them any less intimidating. One of the men who was staring directly at me without any hesitation was easily 6’5” and two hundred and fifty pounds. His hair was grey but his muscles were bulging out from his tight shirt regardless. He made me wonder if there really was a point to the draft age limit. He was far more qualified to fight than me, yet I was the one expected at basic training. He winked at me with a grin before I looked away from him.
I sipped my first beer slowly. I knew I would be in that bar for at least a few hours, so I had to take things slow. I was tired and liquor always hit me hard when I was tired. The bartender thought it was strange that I was drinking a light beer. He didn’t say anything, but I could tell by the crooked look on his face. He was the first man to talk to me at the bar that night. “What brings a girl like you to a place like this?” he asked. He was an old-timey accent away from sounding just like a stereotypical character in a western movie.
“Just trying to kill time,” I said with a smile and a nod.
“Well, I hope you’re looking for attention. Because you’re going to get it, looking like that.”
He walked away, leaving a chill lingering in my spine. He wasn’t wrong. Every time I looked up, I caught at least a few men looking at me. Some of them were too drunk to look away. And it seemed like they were inching closer and closer each time I looked up from my drink.
The sun still wasn’t down when the first man took a seat right next to me, despite the many open seats in the bar. He didn’t say anything at first. He didn’t even look over at me, keeping his gaze glued to the television screen as if he was waiting for a commercial break. Though I knew he came to talk to me. I knew he was just building up the courage to say those first words—or maybe he was trying to figure out what those first words would be. Funny enough, it was a commercial when he finally looked over and said, “Are you a Dolphins fan?”
It was a strange question. There was no football game on the television. It was the middle of May. I nearly laughed at the insanity of the question, and then I remembered that I was still playing a woman. Looking and sounding like a woman were important—but acting like a woman was even more important if I was going to remain undetected. “The Dolphins?” I asked in my best oblivious tone. “Is that a hockey team?”
He laughed. “No. It’s a football team. The Miami Dolphins. I’m from Miami. Have you ever been?” He was smiling big. His cheeks were red and I noticed his hands were trembling down at his lap. Was I making a man nervous? Was I making his squirm? I knew that I looked convincing, but was I also hot? I looked around and saw a number of men at different tables looking towards us. Were they all hoping the man would strike out so they could swoop in for a chance of their own?
“I haven’t ever been,” I said. I looked back towards the televisions.
The man waved over the bartender. “Excuse me. Could we get two more over here?” he shouted, as if he wanted the whole bar to hear. I found myself sinking down low on my barstool. Now everyone was looking over at us, thinking we were hooking up.
“I’m actually okay. I sill have most of this beer,” I said.
“You’ll be done soon,” he said with a big red-cheeked grin. He was just happy that he was the first to build up the confidence to talk to me. And I still couldn’t believe he wanted to talk to me. I couldn’t believe any of the men in that bar, or the men out on the street, had any interest in me at all. It seemed completely ludicrous. I stood up. “Excuse me while I use the bathroom,” I said, and then I scurried away quickly. I even thought about leaving, but I didn’t want to leave my bar tab unpaid—even though it was just a single half finished beer.
I slipped into the bathroom and locked the door, even though it was a bathroom with multiple stalls. I needed a minute to myself. I needed to feel comfortable and alone for just a moment so I could gather my mind. I looked in the mirror and found it hard to recognize myself. There wasn’t much there to recognize. Over the past few days, I’d learned a few makeup tricks to make myself unrecognizable. I contoured my nose, making it look a bit smaller, and I used some highlight on my cheekbones, which made the shape of my face look completely different. I still couldn’t believe how a few little makeup products could make such drastic changes.
I smiled at the mirror. I have a cute smile—I’ll give myself that. And I really did like the way my braids looked, resting gently over my shoulders. I wondered if I would approach a girl who looked like me in a bar. Would I have the courage to talk to her? I’d always been shy around blondes.
I did a little spin, watching myself in the mirror. So maybe I did look kind of sexy. Maybe I was going to pass as a woman as long as I could handle it. And maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. I was already getting a free beer, and there was a line-up of men waiting to pay for my next one as well. So I took a deep breath and then I went back out to finish my beers with the stranger next to me. He sat up straight as I came around the corner. He fixed the collar of his shirt and then he said, “I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but I really love the way you’ve done your hair.”
I smiled and had a sip from my beer. “Thank you,” I said. I noticed that his hands were still awkwardly trembling on his lap. I caught a glimmer of gold around his finger: a wedding ring. Was he trying to cheat on his wife? Was I really sexy enough to make a man consider infidelity? It was only a moment later when he took a sip from his beer that I noticed that ring was missing. Either he’d slipped it off and put it in his pocket, or I was crazy when I thought I saw it in the first place.
A shot was placed down in front of me. I looked up at the bartender as he said, “Courtesy of the gentleman in the booth over there.” I looked over and saw an older man waving at me with a smile. Now the men were competing. And surely they knew that the country was currently filled with women who had no men. The men were all gone—I was just one girl in a nation loaded with girls. And I wasn’t even the real deal—yet still, these guys were still placing their bets on me. I wasn’t even the only girl in that bar. As I looked around, I noticed at least a dozen other girls—girls who had showed up since I’d taken my seat. So why was I the target and not them? Was I really that pretty?
I felt my cheek
s becoming warm. I knew that I would end up drunk if I took the shot and finished both of my beers, but I didn’t want to be rude. I didn’t want to start any drama while I was trying to fly under the radar. Maybe the blonde wig was a mistake. Maybe it was drawing too much male attention my way. Or maybe it was the red lipstick I put on that morning. Maybe red was a bad idea. Maybe red was too luring, giving these men the wrong idea.
Or maybe I just needed to relax and enjoy the attention. I never got attention like this as a man. I couldn’t even remember the last time someone bought me a drink—maybe my dad on my twenty-first birthday. Does that even count?
Another shot came my way a little while later. It was dark out now and the bar was busy, mostly with women. Some of the men had gone over to try their luck with other girls, but I was still getting more than my share of the ogling. I was still feeling good, so I took the shot. I chased it with a long sip of beer. Then I jumped as the men behind me cheered. Three guys were standing behind me as if I was suddenly a bar attraction. One of the men patted me on the shoulder. “She drinks like a real woman,” he said.
“And she’s beautiful too—she’ll make a man very happy one day.”
“No offense, but I think you’re too old for her.”
“Did I say me?”
The men started laughing. They clinked their drinks and then they started chatting me up. “So is your husband over in China? I don’t see a ring on that pretty finger.”
I couldn’t stop myself from blushing. I was having fun. The men weren’t being creepy or awkward—they were just including me in their nightly festivities. Sure, they were drunk, but they were harmless. And in a weird way, I felt safe with them around me, knowing they would protect me if anything bad happened.
Then, the front door of the bar flew open and six armed soldiers walked in. The bar suddenly became silent as the soldiers scanned the place. They had everyone’s attention without having to ask for it. “Listen up, everybody,” said one of the soldiers. “I’m going to go through a few names. If you know the names or recognize the pictures, speak up. The victory of your people depends on it.” He held up a picture of a man with brown skin. “Leandro Michaels,” he said, showing the picture to everyone in the bar. “Suspected of conspiring against the state. Look familiar to anyone?”
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