By Lora Guy

Cross dresser is caught up in a sudden, massive group transformation in downtown Boston.

"...for chrissakes, girl, have a little modesty. Don't make it so obvious that you just grew those tits a few days ago."

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I was just looking out the window, watching the city go by, when Kelly broke the comfortable silence. "So tell me, how did the newspaper end up referring to you as Lora?"

"Yesterday, when Brenda and Terry were visiting me, they decided that was going to be my new name. You know how they can be like a pair of dogs with a bone... Anyway, just as I gave in, this reporter walks in. So of course, the girls badger him into calling me Lora, too...."

"Yeah, but who came up with the name?"

"Oh, Jessie suggested it. She said Mom and Dad were going to call me that if I'd been a girl."

"Oh, really." It was just a flash, but she looked like she was about to say something and then changed her mind. She recovered quickly and went on. "Well, how do you feel about that name. Do you want to be a Lora?"

"I guess so. It sounds OK with the last name. What the heck, it's better than Gertrude or Myrtle."

I thought I would have at least gotten a smile with that, but nothing. She just deadpanned, "OK then, Lora it is." She went back to her thoughts for a few moments. "So anyway, where are we going."

"You know, it's funny. An hour ago, all I could think about was getting out of that hospital. But that's as far as it went... I never thought about where I wanted to get out to."

"Sooo... do you want to go home?"

I thought about that for a second. "No, I don't really feel like being alone right now. I left my car behind the restaurant... how about we stop by there?"

"Oh, good. I was hoping you'd say that. Jess asked me to canoodle you into showing up there."

"Aw, you two aren't planning anything embarrassing, are you?"

"No, she was just worried that you were going to go home and lock yourself in. She said the sooner you get back into a routine, the better." She glanced over at me. "And I think she's right."

"Yeah, you're probably right." I was quiet for a minute. "Kelly, do you think there's anything to worry about? I mean, even the Governor is worried people might look at me like I'm some kind of Typhoid Mary."

"Honestly? You're worried about that?" She pulled over, shut off the motor and turned to face me. "First, give your head a shake. No matter what you think about the guy's motivation, the bottom line is that Bingham is just another politician. And every politician is always thinking about the next election. Do the math. Thirty thousand affected people mean that there's at least two hundred thousand people who know and care about them. That's two hundred thousand voters who are going to see that spot you just helped make and think 'That Bingham is a great guy.' You know what I mean?"

I nodded. Yeah, maybe you're right."

"Don't get me wrong... there's nothing wrong with the message he was sending out. Just don't worry that he was reacting to some crisis, because he wasn't. The villagers are not out chasing you with pitchforks and torches, OK?"

That brought a relieved little giggle out of me.

"But, I do think you need to keep few things in mind. This might seem obvious, but I have to say it anyway. Your not a guy any more."

I thought I knew where she was going with this. "Kelly, you really don't have to explain to me what goes through a guy's mind when he's looking at a girl."

She shook her head. "No, it's more than that. It's not just that you're female now. Everybody knows that there are idiots out there who won't take no for an answer. But things might be a little worse for you because now every one of those knuckle-draggers think they have a new category of girls to bother. They might look at you and think 'She used to be a guy, so she wants sex as much as I do.' Am I right?"

I never thought about it that way, but she had a point. "So what do I do... find a hole, crawl into it and hide for the rest of my life?"

"You don't have to hide. Just try to blend in with the rest of us. It shouldn't be that hard; put a little effort into it and you'll be fine."

"What do you suggest? I should twirl my hair and punch buttons on a cell phone all day?"

That got a grin out of her. "Well, for starters, you might want to stop telling people to call you Lenny."

"Oh, yeah. I do do that, don't I?"

"Yeah, you do. I understand where you're coming from with that, but I think you'll regret it if you keep it up. If everyone gets in the habit of looking at your new face and calling it Lenny, you're going to be stuck with that for the rest of your life."

"OK, what else?" She hesitated. "C'mon Kell, I know there's more. It's OK, just throw it out here."

"OK, you asked... here's the biggy... for chrissakes, girl, have a little modesty. Don't make it so obvious that you just grew those tits a few days ago."

I looked down at my chest. "I need a bra?"

"Yes, Lora needs a bra."

The cross dresser in me wasn't upset by that in the least, but the remnants of Mr. Macho Lenny felt a need to put on a show of resistance, if only for appearances. "Hiding in a hole is starting to sound pretty good right about now."

Again, she hesitated, but then went on. "I'm afraid it's a little late for that."

"What do you mean?"

She took a quick look around and seemed to find what she was looking for. "Wait here, I'll be right back." She grabbed a couple of dollars, got out of the car and ran across the street to a convenience store.

The throbbing in my arm reminded me that I was due for a pill. It took me a minute to remember what I'd done with them. Oh yeah... leaving my hospital room this morning, I realized I didn't have any pockets. My wallet, keys, phone and pills were all in Kelly's purse. It took a few seconds of digging around before I found my prescription. I dry-swallowed a pill just as Kelly was getting back in the car.

Putting my pills away, I held up her purse. "I guess I'm going to need one of these."

"They do come in handy. I never could understand why guys don't carry them." She handed me the newspaper she'd just bought. "This is why it's too late to hide in a hole.

It took me a second to realize the face on the front page was me. I looked up at Kelly. She had a smiling, amazed look on her face. I looked back down at the paper. "Holy shit."

She was giddy. "I know."

"That reporter said he was writing an article on the bubble, and that he just wanted to get my perspective on it. I had no idea it would end up like this."

"I guess he thought there was a chance you might clam up if he told you it was going to be all about you."

After a few seconds, it occurred to me that it really wasn't that big of a deal. "Wait, Kell. This is just today's paper. Tomorrow, there'll be something else on the front page, and a couple of days from now, no one is going to remember this."

"I'm not so sure about that. You're in the paper because of that video of you and George. As of this morning, there were more than six million hits on it." That made me look up from the paper. "I took a look at it last night... there are thousands of comments under it. A few of them are from idiots saying it was staged, but most of them are saying really good things. Hell, there must be at least five hundred marriage proposals there."

"Jeez."

"Lenny, you're famous. Shit. No, scratch that... Lora, you're famous."

"Oh, c'mon Kell. No one really pays attention to this kind of stuff. Do they?"

"Didn't you wonder why they asked you to do that TV thing this morning?"

"I was thinking about that. I was just guessing that I was the only affectee in the building when they needed one."

"Oh come on. Do you really think Mister Governor-of-Massachusetts-himself showed up at Mass General because that conference room had good acoustics? No, he scurried across town this morning because 'he' wanted to be seen with 'you'."

I tried to think of some other explanation, of some little piece of logic that she was missing. But there weren't any holes in it.

She went on. "So let's add up what we've got here. One: your name and face are all over the front page, two: a video of you being Super girl is getting, oh, I don't know, about a million hits a minute, and three: you're going to be on the tube with the Governor twice an hour for the next three weeks." She paused to take a breath. "It's going to be a long time before the world stops wanting to know what Lora Williams is doing in her spare time."

"I guess you're right. It's a little too late to try being invisible."

"Yeah, invisible is out. So just try the fade-into-the-background thing. You know, hide in plain sight." Looking directly at me, she seemed to be appraising me. "You already look just like any other woman on the street. Like I said, with a little bit of effort, you should have no problem just blending right in with the rest of us."

"So you're saying you think I should have surgery?"

"What are you talking about?"

"A frontal lobotomy." She didn't get it, so I went on. "If you're serious about me trying to blend in with you and Jess, then I think the best place to start is with having my brains scrambled."

She put a caring look on her face. "Oh honey, don't be silly. You don't need to pay a doctor to do that. Just make another wise-crack like that, and I'll scramble your brains all over the dashboard for free."

She started the car. As she pulled away from the curb, I came back with, "You never talked to Lenny like that."

She didn't miss a beat. "He could run faster than you."

-----

Kelly pulled over in front of the restaurant, but she didn't shut off the car.

"You're not coming in?"

I've got a couple of errands to run. I'll be back in a while."

"OK." I turned to get out of the car, but she reached out and touched my arm.

"Aren't you forgetting something?"

"Like what?"

She started digging around in her purse. "You really are going to have to get yourself one of these."

As she handed me my things, I let out a sheepish little giggle. "Oh, yeah, thanks." I reached to open the car door when she stopped me again.

"I'm really glad you're OK. I just want to say that if there's one person I know who can get through something like this without losing their marbles, it's you." I opened my mouth to say something, but she stopped me. "Wait, I'm not finished. It's going to be tough just making myself call you Lora, but that's about the hardest part of all this for me... learning to use a new name. For you, everything is different. I really need you to understand that I'm here for you, I want to do whatever I can to help. Something like this could drive a person off the deep end, and it would kill me to lose you. So if you ever feel like it's all getting too heavy for you, promise me you won't just try and do "the guy thing" and suck it up on your own."

"Kelly, I...

She turned to look at me. "Please, Lenny, I'm really scared about this. You gotta promise."

I could see how serious this was for her. I looked straight in her eyes. "Kelly, right now, I think I'm OK. But if I ever start feeling like I'm not, then I'll find whatever help I need. I promise."

Letting out a deep breath, she smiled at me. "Thanks. I really, really needed to hear you say that."

I smiled back. "Wow, I think we just had our first sister talk."

That broke the tension. "Yeah, well get used to it, sis."

-----

It was the middle of the afternoon, so there were only a couple of customers in the place.

Jessie was in the kitchen, cleaning up from lunch when I walked in. She looked up and beamed at me. "Well, if it isn't the most famous burger flipper in the world!" She dried her hands, came up to me and gave me a light hug. Looking down at my cast, she asked, "Did anyone give you any idea how long you're going to have that?"

"I have to go back next week to make sure it's healing right. They said if everything goes like normal, it'll take about a month and a half before it comes off for good." I decided to clear the air about something. "Kelly just asked me where the name Lora came from. When I told her that you suggested it, she got all mysterious." Jessie just looked at me. "Mom never came up with that, did she?"

She looked like she was making a decision. "OK, no, she didn't."

I could feel the hairs standing up on the back of my neck, but I had to know. "So what made you suggest Lora?"

She pulled her mouth to one side for a second, then blurted out, "You did."

She stared at me for a reaction. My knees felt weak, but I asked for this. "You know?" She just nodded. "I've gotta sit down."

She followed me into the office. "Who knows?"

"Me and Kelly."

I could feel beads of sweat forming on my forehead. "How did you... ?"

"Last summer, before Ben, me and the girls went away, I googled Niagara Falls. One of the things that came up was a video called Transvestite Tourist."

I didn't say a word, so she went on. "It had that French music that you always listen to, but while I was watching it, I had no idea. When it was over, though, a bunch of related videos came up and one of them looked like your living room."

I rolled my head back and looked at the ceiling. "So you called Kelly and told her."

"Not for a few days. But I just couldn't stop thinking about it. I had to talk to someone."

"You could have talked to me."

"We both know that's not true." I lowered my gaze from the ceiling. She went on. "If you wanted me to know, you would have told me about it."

"You're right, I'm sorry."

"If this bubble shit never happened, neither me or Kelly would've ever said a word to you about this. Never."

"So I still don't know why you made up that stuff about Mom picking the name."

"I wanted to talk to you about this, but couldn't think of a way to bring it up. I didn't plan that, it just kind of popped out."

"Why now?"

"Because I worry." She took a deep breath. "You joke around about all this and try to make it look like it's easy for you, but it's got to be a lot harder than you're letting on. With all the stress you've got going on, I figured it would be a little easier if you didn't have to hide the fact that you know how to do your nails." There was a please-tell-me-I'm-right expression on her face.

I let out a breath that I didn't even know I was holding.

Carla came into the kitchen and sang out, "Jessie, we've got an order up."

"Be right there." She lowered her voice. "Do you want to talk about this?"

"I will, but not right now. I need to get used to the idea." As we stood, I asked, "Just you and Kelly?"

"Just me and Kelly."

"Can we keep it that way."

She smiled. "It'll be one of our sister things, Lora. I promise."

=====================

Hi everyone.

If you're interested, my video Transvestite Tourist actually exists.
You can watch it by clicking on the name.

Don't you wish we lived in a universe where
stuff like the bubble was possible?