I stood at the top of the escalator and took a deep breath. I allowed the steady stream of passengers to bypass me, for which I got a few strange, and a couple of hostile, looks.

Of course, that could also have been because of my American clothing. There is a distinct difference between clothing purchased in Russia with a foreign style, and clothing purchased in another country.

Wearing a dress didn't help. Sure, it helped me, but not the situation.

I knew this escalator, one might say intimately. In the mid 90s I'd gone down it a number of times. The problem was that I was wearing sensible male shoes and a suit when I did.

That's not the real problem. The real problem was the length of the escalator, and the speed of descent.

I'm not explaining this well.

Russians do not stand on escalators in the metro. There are two reasons for this: They move too slowly for a person to ride their sedate pace and still make their connecting train, and they are as likely not to be moving at all as they are to be moving.

So, you get used to, well, flying down the escalators. Did I mention they are steep?

The one I was looking down right now dropped about a mile in the period that it moved forward a quarter that distance. I may be exaggerating, but only a very little. Exaggerating the length, not the angle.

Why did I have to wear heels today?

I wasn't worried about going down on tiptoe. That was my normal mode of descent when I'd been here before. Sort of a controlled fall down the face of this almost cliff. You hit each step with your toes, just exerting a bit of control as you fly.

Falling with style and grace.

But never in three inch heels. I may have had my heel lifted as I did it in the past, but probably never more than one or two inches.

I'd started the day wanting to emphasize the changes to the friends I would be visiting, and now here I stood in the middle of a transit between the green and brown lines and wondering what I'd gotten myself into.

I took a deep breath. . .and got into the slow lane. I was in the midst of grandmothers and small children.

I took my steps one at a time, and ached to be joining the flow traveling downward faster than thought.

I took a breath, took another, and stepped out into traffic, figuratively. The ground dropped out from under me and I was flying down with the rest of the insane. I was beginning to enjoy myself when my foot slipped on the tread.

I stumbled the last twenty feet, and walked over to the side of the tunnel to avoid foot traffic as I regained my breath. Well, I fell with a little style, but no grace whatsoever.

"Помогите, пожалуиста. Помогите!" Help me, Please. Help me!

I looked a little way ahead and I was a grandmother leaning against the wall. There was a little blood on a spot above her head, and she seemed to be having trouble standing up. The steady stream of people ignored her as they walked past.

I realize something of Russian culture, at least the culture in Moscow, would be good here. There is no separate word for grandmother and old woman. In essence that makes every old woman your grandmother. In practice that makes every grandmother just another old woman.

"I'll help you." Yes, I spoke in Russian, but since this entire story is not written in such, it will probably help to translate.

"Oh, come here, girl." This is not rude in Russian. In fact it started a warm glow in my heart. She'd just accepted me how I was presenting myself.

I walked over and helped her to her feet, and then steadied her as she wobbled a bit.

"Will you be okay, grandmother?"

"Yes, girl, thank you. Are you from the Baltics?" Most Russians either mistake a real American accent for German (we are hitting our consonants too hard) or the Baltics (generally slurring our words and pulling off the consonants too much).

"No, I'm an American." Her look made it feel like I was going down the escalator again, and the blood left my face. Crap, did I make a mistake?

I'd said американец (americanyets) instead of американка (americanka). That was the equivalent of saying. Hi world. I'm really a boy. I am fluent in Russian, or at least I was so in the mid 90s. I'm a little out of practice. Here's the thing. I say certain phrases without thinking. And those phrases refer to me in the masculine.

"I'm sorry, I meant to say I'm an американка."

She looked at me with a knowing smile and patted me on the arm. "It's ok. I couldn't tell until your slip, girl. You are very pretty."

I blushed, but that wasn't to be the end of it. I smelt him even before I felt the tap on my shoulder. People say that vodka is odorless, but that's only before it is processed by the human body. Someone who is a frequent abuser gains a certain scent to himself. I didn't need to see the bloodshot eyes or hear the slurred speech to know I was in trouble.

"Did I hear you say you were an американец?"

"Hey, you leave the girl alone!"

"Thank you, grandmother, but I can handle this. Do I look like an американец? Really?" I flashed my best smile at him, confident in my body and appearance.

We'd begun gathering a crowd and he was getting more belligerent.

"You're the worst kind. An американец and a faggot." Aren't you impressed? I actually understood it when he called me a faggot in Russian.

"You tucked your #### between your legs like a dog." Ok, so I didn't know exactly what he'd said there, but I could assume from the context.

I heard a gasp from the grandmother and he groped me. Between the legs. Before I'd known what was happening he'd flipped his hand under my skirt and slipped his had all the way to my panties

I stood there for a moment frozen, but then I pulled away. How could even he have done such a thing. I felt the anger begin to boil up inside me even as the grandmother began hitting him with her bag.

No, that wasn't something comical like it would be in the states. Most Russian grandmothers I've ever seen are built like linebackers and about that strong. Their bags would put most hiking backpacks to shame. And she was swinging it like it weighted nothing.

I put a hand on the grandmother's arm. "Grandmother, this one is mine."

The bums body was turned away from me, and his arms were up covering his head.

"Ауу." Which is pronounced Ah-oo-oo, I like it a lot better than the English equivalent of 'yoo-hoo' or 'hey, you'.

With it being only three vowels, it was really easy to use my most feminine voice possible.

He turned toward me curiously.

I pulled back and decked him. Three years of hormone replacement may have destroyed a lot of my muscle mass, but not any of my muscle memory.

He went down like a sack.

"Nice right hook, little daughter."

"Thank you, grandmother."

I helped her over to the next escalator, got her situated in the slow lane, and decided to jump down in the fast lane myself. I don't know whether it was simply standing up for myself, or the fact that I still had adrenaline rushing through my body from that feel up, but I hit every step without stumbling.

I didn't have any problems for the rest of my trip, but that scene stuck with me, and I related it to the friends I'd come to see. We all had a laugh about it, and had a couple of drinks in honor of the drunk. It's a Russian thing.

I've made a distinct effort to change my thinking with Russian since then, and haven't ever made that mistake again. My life isn't perfect, nor would I really want it to be. But now when asked, I am sure to answer clearly, "Я aмериканка!"