Are You Awake, My Darling?
A Vignette
By Maryanne Peters

He held up a mirror in front of my face and he peered over the top to enjoy my reaction. I was still in my hospital bed wearing a patient’s hospital gown and I was only just recovering consciousness, but I could see that he had been at work, or perhaps had the work done by somebody with skill. My face was as smooth as polished marble and fully made up, and my hair had been extended, colored and styled. It was arranged on the pillow to show every inch of my beauty above the shoulders. I might still have the eyes and the jaw and chin of Greg Mullen, but everything else screamed woman.

“What have you done?” I croaked, but the sound that came out seemed to confirm that there was much more than the face. There was no scar on the throat, but it was not a man’s throat and neither was the voice a man’s voice.

“You are complete my darling … complete in every way,” he said.

I knew what that meant but I could not reach down to confirm it … or did I even want to? Perhaps it was some muscle relaxant which wore off over time, but in that moment, I was helpless, just looking into that mirror with half-closed eyes still clearing and knowing that he had won.

He had seen me perform in a drag show and had asked me for a date, dressed as a woman. It does happen from time to time – that a fan is attracted to the creature on stage, and the response needs to take the opportunity presented, without causing misunderstanding or disappointment. The best way to do that is to claim to be a heterosexual man, even though I wasn’t that. It just makes it easier for him to understand that it will go no further than a few drinks and a meal alongside somebody who appears to be female.

To that end I know how to present as female rather than being in drag. Drag is performance art, whereas presenting needs to be real life, although so as to meet expectations, my female appearance would need to be “fabulous”. Then the conversation would turn to the show with encouragement for him to come again and bring all of his friends, and then perhaps suggest a small gift of cash to help a struggling performer. Almost all drag queens caught in this situation should collect something for their efforts.

He paid, and his gift was generous. But he was not interested in the show. He spent the whole time talking about whether I had consider living as a woman full time and having a sex change. It didn’t matter how many times I told him I was a man and lied to him that I had a girlfriend and had never considered for a moment having sex with a man. He just stared at me as if he was deaf to my words, delivered in as deep a voice as I had.

“I am rich and powerful, and if you were a woman I could give you a life others can only dream of,” he told me. I stayed until the end to collect, but I found myself more troubled as the evening went on. There was something about him that told me he was a man who always got what he wanted.

It was not until afterwards that I discovered who he was. Yes, he was rich and powerful and he had got there through criminal activities, some involving violence. And he wanted to date me again.

I just avoided him. I ignored his cards, flowers and other gifts. When he turned up the show, I would glimpse him and then never look in his direction. I just had to hope that he would go away. He kept pestering me for a date, so I finally accepted, but I turned up at the restaurant dressed as Greg Mullen, which is who I was then. I had not shaved for a few days, and I did my best to look and behave as manly as possible.

“I don’t know you are, and I don’t want to,” he snapped at me. “You are keeping me from the woman I expected here tonight and the woman I want. You should know that people who get in my way have short lives.”

I fled, but I hoped that I had made my point. He had seen the real me. I was no woman and I never would be.

And then I woke up and I was her, and I was beautiful.

But there is no going back, and as a matter of personal safety, no walking away let alone running.

Until my vagina healed, I was forced to take him in my ass, but my guess is that he would have realized that he was not the first. I had been with many men, and they were my preference. But, given his reputation I was expecting a brute – he was surprisingly gentle with me.

And then the moment came for me to receive him as the woman he had made me, into the passage he had constructed among the wreckage of my manhood. It would be face to face without any awkwardness in entering the other way while looking me in the eyes. It was body on body the way nature designed that people should have sex. I told myself that this was my fate, to lie back and take the man who had mutilated me and just accept my agony.

But it was not like that. It was a joy totally unexpected.

When he collapsed beside me, he said the words I had never heard before and somehow doubted I ever would – “I’m hopelessly in love with you, but I guess you know that.”

I do now. Now, it seems for the first time, I am awake.

The End
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© Maryanne Peters 2025