I still remember my thoughts when I awoke. My first thought, as it had been everyday for the last year and a half, was thankfulness that I was still alive. My second thought–one that had been happening less and less frequently over the last couple of months–was that this was a good day because the pain was not totally debilitating. From then on, things began to get confusing.

Maybe I should explain a bit. For that matter, maybe I should apologize in advance if this narrative seems to jump about. My name is...no, my name was George LaPierre. I was a research scientist with a specialty in genetics and oncology. You see, all four of my grandparents had died of cancer at an early age and so had my parents–heck, I barely got to know my mother; she died when I was just six. I figured that my body was a ticking time bomb, just waiting to go off–and I was damned if I as going to “go quiet into that dark night” or however the quote goes. Selfish? Certainly. In my shoes, I expect you would be too.

It was at my mother’s funeral that I first announced that I was going to cure cancer. As you can guess, my father and my relatives humored me. After all, who takes a six-year-old boy seriously when he says he is going to change the world? Especially when he announces that he is going to cure something as ubiquitous as cancer rather than become a superhero like most kids.

After her funeral I was quieter, less apt to play with my friends and more likely to spend hours on end in my bedroom. It became very common, whenever my father would check in on me, to find me on my stomach with my feet up in the air and my elbows propping up my head as I stared at one of a collection of books about the human body. One of my presents for my seventh birthday was a new children’s book of anatomy. It was to replace the book I had worn out with my constant perusal.

At first, my father was concerned by the abrupt change in me, but one of the psychologists he was required to talk to where he worked–he was a nuclear physicist, and the government wanted to be sure that everyone working around “the project,” as they called it, was as stable as possible–advised him that I was just going through a particularly intense grieving process and that if I didn’t get over it in a while, my father should bring me in to talk to him. Lucky for me, Dad became caught up in his work as his own way of grieving and soon considered my behavior normal.

Do not get me wrong. I still did all–well most–of the things kids do. I played ball, climbed trees, debated the merits of various comic superheroes and went to school. I was a Boy Scout and still am–at least at heart, if you believe my best friend Paul. I developed an interest in girls at an early age–like I had a choice living on an army base–and I went to college, joined a fraternity and graduated summa cum laude. It might have been magnum cum laude were it not for that unfortunate incident at the lab where Professor Carlson was splashed with semi-permanent skin coloring. It had been meant for my lab partner, in response to his attempt to substitute alcohol for water during one of my experiments. Had I not recognized the distinctive aroma of ethanol, I might have blown up a good portion of the college’s Chem. Lab. Paul, yes Paul my lab partner, thought it was hilarious to see Carlson with a bright green face. The unfortunate part was that Carlson–Professor Carlson Waldorf Maldonado, yes that Carlson–did not, and tried to fail me. Luckily, I was good enough that he couldn’t make an “F” stick, but he did only give me a “C”–thus, the summa instead of magna. Oh well, I still ended up getting a better job than the girl who was magna cum laude.

Back to when I woke up. Once the initial joy of surviving to live another day passed, I examined my surroundings; pale green walls, fluorescent lighting and medical equipment everywhere. This was not my bedroom. It was not even Kansas –and if I had a little dog named Toto, the dog would not be around either. If the preceding didn’t make sense, perhaps I should explain that the morphine I’ve been taking makes thinking very difficult. It is like you are wading through a swamp and making the simplest connections is a major effort. That is probably why it took me so long to realize that I was in the same hospital room that I had been in for the last month and a half.

It is also probably why it took me so long to notice that the pain was gone, but then it is always harder to recognize the absence of something. My best friend Paul Goldblum–the same Paul from the Chem. Lab incident–is a trial lawyer and he would always complain that it was harder to defend the innocent ones than the guilty ones. For the guilty ones, Paul invariably found that they were playing pinochle or poker with their best buddies at the time of the crime. For the innocent ones he had to prove that they were at home, in bed, alone, with no witnesses. It must be my Boy Scout training, but I always silently cheered when Paul told me he really had an innocent one.

I think the same thing applies to pain. First, you have to realize it has gone–that absence thing. Then, and only then, you can begin to recognize the extent of its absence. Is it just the morphine dulling your senses so you cannot feel it? Are you still dreaming; imagining what it would be like to be pain-free again? Are you dead and feeling no pain at all? Believe me; given the excruciating pain I had been in, I had been wondering about death a lot lately.

It was not until I actually moved that I truly began to appreciate the absence of pain. I had cancer of the bones, one of the rarer forms of cancer, even for my family. Notice I did not say leukemia, which is effectively cancer of the bone marrow. They are both phenomenally painful, but there are treatments for leukemia, treatments to extend your life–sometimes a significant length of time. No such luck for cancer of the bones, especially once it had metastasized and spread throughout my body making surgical removal impossible.

As I said, the movement brought home the absence of pain. My joints did not ache. The muscles did not rub agonizingly against bones warped by the cancer, nor did I feel the sharp pain of snapping bone, weakened as the cancer leeched away the calcium so vital to healthy bones in milk commercials.

If I am depressing you, I apologize. That is not my intent. Did you hear the joke about the lawyer’s opening remarks in behalf of a client accused of breaking a valuable vase from the Ming Dynasty? Remind me at the end of this story and I will tell it–and in case you are wondering, I collect lawyer jokes. It is a defense mechanism, my way of getting back at Paul. As I’ve mentioned, Paul’s a lawyer and he’s always got another mad scientist joke to tease me with so, in self-defense, I “zing” him back with lawyer jokes.

Actually, I think I have it easier. Have you noticed how many lawyer jokes there are out there? If, as many suggest, there is a grain of truth in most humor, it does not speak well of the legal profession; although Paul has never, ever, given me reason to believe he was anything other than a hundred and ten percent honest. Why I remember once he found a satchel filled with money and he...well, that is a different story.

Thinking of Paul reminded me of why I was not in my own bed–or actually, our last talk together as he witnessed me signing the papers that got me here....

“George, are you absolutely certain you want to do this?” Paul asked as he stood looking worriedly down at me from beside this very same bed. “You know that there are always new procedures being developed, procedures that are not as radical as this one. You also know how much can go wrong between animal trials and human trials. I strongly encourage you to think carefully before signing these papers.”

I took the papers from his hand–or at least I tried. It only took me four attempts and I was too weak afterwards to reach for the pen. “Look at me Paul. I am dying–I have days, maybe weeks to live. There’s no time for a new cure.” I stopped to catch my breath. Even breathing was getting to be a strain and I had learned to speak through gritted teeth more than a year ago. “And even if I had the time, I’m not sure how much longer I’m willing to live with this pain.”

Paul nodded sadly. I knew he understood. We had had variations of this conversation for over a year. He was just being a good friend and trying to make certain I was making a considered decision. Rather than make me suffer the agony of further speech, he carefully placed the pen in my hand and guided it to the proper place on the paper. Once I was done signing and initialing, he took it all from me and notarized the document–I was hopeful, but neither one of us knew whether this was really my salvation or just a quicker, and more legal than suicide, way to attain the inevitable. He walked out of the room without another word, but I heard his ragged sobbing before the pneumatic door closer finished its task.

One of the interesting things about cancer cells, and I will try not to lecture here, is that they are really your own cells. Cancer is your own body, your own DNA, turning against you. Sure, there are pre-viral strands of DNA that enter the cell and live on the helix, but they seem to be segments of DNA, in effect part of the human genetic matrix. It is just recently that we discovered that the cell changes result from the waste products of those pre-viral strands interacting with selected segments of our own gene strands on a number of different chromosomes. In effect, the little bastards shit all over us, causing mutation.

The problem has always been that we can’t seem to kill the pre-viral strands without killing, or at least mortally wounding our own cells; and efforts to eliminate just the specific cells using lasers and surgery haven’t always worked because it doesn’t always get all the pre-viral strands. They are still in the body searching for a likely cell to make into home sweet home.

The goal of my research was to develop a pre-pre-viral strand. In effect, we wanted to build a critter that would attack the pre-viral strand. It is like the limerick–sorry, you would think I would have remembered the exact quote, but things have been a bit difficult lately. The part I can remember goes something like this:

 

 

Well, I accomplished that. I built an even smaller strand of DNA–really just a clump of the four proteins from which DNA is comprised–and designed it to only attack partial strands of DNA. AND IT WORKED! It actually worked. Our protein clumps would only attack partial strands of DNA and destroy them. In the process, it also eliminated the mutagens in the cell nucleus and gradually allowed the body to replace the damaged cells with healthy new ones.

However, that was only half the battle. The other half was to speed the healing and cell replacement process so that the body regenerated itself before it died from the double insult of cancer and the war of viruses as the protein clump, or prion as it’s called, killed the pre-viral strand. For that, we turned to the research of Dr. Chen-Liu and his colleagues. You have probably heard of him, or at least the line of topical skin rejuvenation formulas the cosmetics companies have created based upon his discoveries. Not as well known but, in my opinion, much more important are the injectable “scrubber viruses,” as he calls them, that clean up the waste material in the cell and dispose of it in the kidneys and intestines. For some still unknown reason, it also served to increase the rate of cell regeneration–sometimes logarithmically depending upon the strength and purity of the viruses injected.

We were able use this as part of a one-two punch to cure cancer. The first step was injection of our protein clumps to kill the pre-viral strands and the second step was to flush the clumps, the strands and the damaged cells from the body. We used the completely undiluted version given the tremendous amount of cell repair needed.

That brings me back to waking up pain-free for the first time in recent memory. Paul was there, looking haggard. He had not shaved in several days and given his tendency to forget to eat when he’s concentrating on something, I was betting he hadn’t done much of that either. I stretched and groaned as I used muscles that had been dormant for a while and he was instantly awake and by my bedside.

“How,” I croaked and tried again, “How long?”

“A week and a half. How are you feeling?”

“Probably better than you, if looks can tell anything,” I gave him a wan smile to show that the croak was not a problem. “How long have you been here?”

“Since you were injected. Last night, the doctors said it was too early to tell for sure, but that you seem to be fully recovered. Everything went exactly as predicted. They removed the IVs with the morphine drip late last night.”

“Everything?” It was great news to hear that the cancer was gone, that I would be able to live, and that I would live without excruciating pain, but the procedure had a down side too, one I had been unwilling to consider seriously until now.

“Everything,” Paul answered quietly, searching my face for any indication of how I was going to take the news. He looked strange, almost wistful, which didn’t seem quite the right emotion for a best friend, but I brushed it off as the last traces of the morphine still playing havoc with my thought processes. Besides, I had “more important things to consider.”

With a tentative movement, my right hand–did I tell you I was right handed–moved slowly up my body. I felt it move across my stomach, past my ribs, and finally to rest on my chest. They were small, but they were there. Two of them. Fleshy masses. Breasts.

I did not realize I had been holding my breath until I released it with a hiss. Paul nodded, “That’s correct. Breasts. The doctors tell me that they will grow larger as you regain some of the mass you lost to the cancer. They tell me the rest is anatomically correct too.”

Turning for a moment, he reached to the nightstand and picked something up. The same man who had shouted down prosecutors, who had won our college fraternity’s Dollars for Decibels contest by shouting louder than anyone else, spoke so softly that I could barely hear him. “Would you like to see yourself?”

The answer was a no-brainer, but still I hesitated as all sorts of thoughts ran through my mind. The one side effect of this treatment, the treatment I had helped create, was that it destroyed all partial DNA strands. While this meant that some cells in the process of mitosis were erroneously destroyed, that was a small consideration in my decision to volunteer. After all, the scrubbers used in the second half of the process would just clean them out along with the rest of the waste. The bigger problem was the “Y” chromosome.

Have you ever looked at images of the human gene structure? Sure, most people know about the forty-six chromosomes, but fewer people consider how the “Y” chromosome looks like a withered up “X” chromosome with one leg missing. That is right the protein clusters considered the “Y” chromosome a strip of partial DNA and eliminated it. The “scrubbers” got the body to repair each helix, but had no “Y” chromosome to build on, so it duplicated the “X.” In effect, I was now genetically and physically female.

Now the thought of being female did not bother me. That is not why I hesitated. If someone were to ask me which sex was the better one, I would probably just look at them like they were crazy and offer a quasi-witty response like, “The one not paying the restaurant bill.” What bothered me was that I would have two identical “X” chromosomes. Do you have any idea how many “X”-related genetic disorders there are? I will make this easy. We already know of more than two hundred and more are being found every day. I was deathly afraid that I had done little more than exchange my cancer for some genetic death sentence. That is why I hesitated. I was scared, so scared that I just nodded my head rather than speak.

Paul took the hand mirror he had picked up from the nightstand and held it before me. My face was very much like my mother’s, and as my father had reminded me often before his death, it was a beautiful face with gray-blue eyes, a pert nose and eminently kissable lips but that is not what I was looking for. I looked for the telltale signs of genetic disorder. “What about the blood work?”

“Not all back yet, but so far the doctors say there are no signs of any identifiable genetic disorder.”

Not bad for a lawyer, I thought. He had really been listening when I described the risks and benefits of the procedure. Of course, he would have had to since he was the one who would have had to defend my decision in a court of law had anyone challenged it. Thank god that had not happened, or I would have been long dead before it was agreed that I could do what I wanted with my body. Actually, I was lucky. The fact that the research was done on a military base meant that there was sufficient security to prevent too many people from finding out and sticking their fingers into my life–or death.

“So can I get out of bed?”

“I don’t know. Let me ring for the doctor and we’ll see.”

It was seconds after Paul rang that the doctor entered. It was as if they were monitoring the room, just waiting to be called; it made me feel important until I reminded myself that this was not a general hospital. There are reasons for adages like “Don’t volunteer.” At a military base, too much attention is rarely good.

He did the basics, blood pressure, listening to my heart, thumping my back, checking my ears, nose and throat, and incidentally driving me crazy as he refused to answer any of my questions. Finally, he looked at the medical chart, “uh-hummed” a couple of times and looked at me–my eyes not my still growing breasts–at least until he spoke. “Well George. It looks like you may want to start thinking about a new name. Of course, with experimental treatments such as this, we can’t be certain, and you understand that we will not pronounce you cancer-free until you’ve gone at least five years with no new symptoms, but all indications are that the treatment was a complete success.”

“What about the genetic studies? Do I have a clean bill of health there too?”

“The nurse handed me a bunch of results that should include the last of them just before I came in here,” he took several lab slips from the pocket of his hospital greens and sorted through them. “Yes, here it is. Uh-hum. Yes. You test clean for all known, diagnosable genetic conditions.”

“So when can I get out of here? I’d like to walk around a bit.”

“As soon as you’re able. We have nothing to compare your experience to, so we will work at your speed. If you think you can do it, we will try it. Shall I call a nurse to assist you?”

“Yes please.” With that he left, leaving me smiling like an idiot and Paul shuffling his feet uncomfortably.
“What?”

“I um, I guess I should go now,” he stuttered and actually blushed.

It took me a moment to figure out what the problem was–remember I said I was still a bit slowed down by the last vestiges of morphine. When I finally realized, all I could say was, “Oh.” The nurse’s arrival interrupted our mutual discomfort session and Paul slipped out the door without another word.

Do you remember that book, Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus? My training in biology tells me that this is not really true, but in terms of clothes, rituals and general body maintenance, it may well be accurate. Some parts are familiar but other parts are quite different.

For example, pants go on the same way, one leg at a time, regardless of gender, so do tee shirts and robes. The thing about reversed buttons takes all of one trial to figure out. Admittedly, the bra is a bit strange, but mostly because of its novelty–and the fact that it can be a pain to put on. The only other issue is the irregularity of women’s clothes. Much more selection than in clothing for men, women’s clothes seem designed to push the eye in one direction or the other with design features such as sweeping necklines, off the shoulder fashions and slit skirts.

The biggest difference in terms of rituals is the fine art of applying war paint, as I like to call it. There are just so many different options in terms of color, style and purpose, so many ways to apply it. I have often wondered if it was not some sort of defense mechanism. You know, smaller creature uses larger creature to protect it, much like those birds that perch, safe from predators, atop hippopotami and peck the bugs out of the skins of the hippos before they can cause the huge beasts irritation or even infection. If it is, I can tell you that it is a damn shame that any woman would feel so weak or in need of protection that she would feel the need to seek a protector.

Even bodily maintenance is similar, albeit more intense. Hair washing remains the same, there is just more to wash. Soaping down a body is soaping down a body, regardless of gender. It is just a bit different the way the nooks–I did NOT say nookie–and crannies are laid out. Then there is hair care, where things begin to get really different again.

Luckily, the nurse understood those differences even better than I after my weeks of intensive study as I prepared for this necessary transition. Patrice–that was her name, Patrice DeJesus–did not try to make me over into a woman right then and there. Instead, once she had done a bed bath, she gave me clothes I could handle, panties, jeans, a tee shirt, socks and sneakers. No bra, but then again, I did not really need one yet. She brushed my hair with a part down the middle to make it look a bit more feminine. Luckily, it was still a bit too short for any special treatment, not even a scrunchie to make a ponytail. We did not even talk about makeup that first day.

Finally, I was ready to stand up, but before she would let me, she called in an aide to help me in case I fell–and I almost did. It wasn’t that anything was wrong, I just hadn’t walked on my own for several weeks and physical therapy can only do so much, especially on an unconscious patient. No resistance, no muscle growth.

There I was. I was alive. I was walking. I was dressed. Life was great.

Wasn't it?

 

 

I had the freedom of the base. Actually, I had the freedom to go wherever I wanted, but I felt comfortable on the base, which is why I used one of the perks of my research position and rented quarters there where the brass could feel more secure about me as well as my research. With the PX for groceries and household supplies, the NCO club for the occasional libation, the base hospital to make sure I stayed healthy and work to fill any other voids left in my waking hours, my life was complete. Of course, now that I had survived, albeit with a change of gender, I threw myself into my research in hopes of solving the gender problem. I had actually convinced myself that gender was not an issue and that life would continue as before with minimal modifications such as a change of name from George to Kirsten, the name my mother had once told me I would have gotten had I been born female. Did I ever tell you about this bridge I keep in my back pocket? It is for sale–cheap.

There was no single event that brought reality crashing to the fore prior to that Thursday. Even that day had started off as a remarkably average day, two days shy of three months after I had awakened free of cancer–and a few other pieces of anatomy.

It started at the lab at around eleven o’clock in the morning. Felix Agutter and José Guttman were sitting by the electron microscope, taking turns examining a slide and arguing –again. That they were arguing was nothing new, they argued over everything from breakfast to bedding, girls to gametes. My role was to keep them on target. I remember once accusing them of arguing over so many things; all they had left to debate was how many angels could dance on the top of a pin, only to have them begin to debate exactly that. This time it was over the meaning of the latest test results showing that the protein clusters were remaining in my body long after we expected them to be gone. “The clusters cannot survive this long. In all our animal subjects they were expelled from the body within a couple of weeks,” Felix insisted. “They are regenerating somehow.”

“They can’t regenerate,” was José’s heated response. There is nothing to regenerate them. Somehow they are being reintroduced into her body.”

“Not possible,” Felix grabbed some papers off a nearby countertop and waved them at José. “This is a clean environment or we too would have them and our tests come back clean. Could it be that they are being reintroduced from some outside source?”

“No way José,” Felix responded, getting the desired scowl from his fellow researcher in response to the stereotypical statement. “No one else on this planet has these protein clusters. They do not appear naturally. Either her body is regenerating them or one of us is reintroducing them into her body.”

“Well, it’s not me and she has no reason to reinfect herself. You must be injecting her while she sleeps, José.”

“You could at least laugh when you say that. I guess we assume she’s regenerating them herself, Felix old boy.” He paused for effect. “Unless she’s reinfecting herself.”

“But she has nothing to gain from such an action and could actually be injured should it be determined that she is contagious.”

“Well, we’ve already ruled out contagion,” José tapped the papers again. “Could she be reinfecting just herself?”

At this point, I could see they needed some redirection. “Gentlemen?”

“Then maybe we’ve missed something and they really are regenerating themselves,” Felix grudgingly allowed. “Did her last MRI show anything unusual?”

“Gentlemen!” I tried again, louder.

“I don’t know,” he started flipping through files. “Give me a moment.”

“GENTLEMEN!”

“No coffee now. We’re trying to work here,” Felix grumpily waved me away without even looking up from his papers.

I gaped at him a moment, shocked at his boorish behavior before I laid into him. “How dare you? Where the hell do you get off making a comment like that, especially to the man who pays your salary? I ought to fire you on the spot and I guarantee you that it is not your personality that is the reason I am holding back. Now get out of here. Take an early lunch or something–and when you get back here I expect you to behave in a totally, you hear me, totally, professional manner.”

“Bye Felix,” José called out cheerfully as Felix stormed out of the lab. Apparently, he thought that meant he had won their debate. It was time to clear up that misconception also.

“And you,” I railed on him. “You’re not much better or have you forgotten the sound of my voice too? Until now, I’ve never stopped your incessant arguments, but I have expected to be able to be included in them and to be able to steer them in functional directions, at least while you’re in the lab.”

He hung his head, but didn’t quite wipe the smile off his face as he responded, “Yes, Ma’am.”

I think it was the “ma’am” that stopped me in my tracks. It was not wrong, but it just caught in my brain and seemed to jam the gears. Instead of standing there with my lips moving but no words coming out, I too stormed out the door.

When I returned from an extended lunch, Felix and José were back at work–silent. I got a polite nod when I entered and that was it. Every time I attempted to initiate a conversation, to loosen the tension, they responded with “Yes Ma’am.” or “No Ma’am.” and nothing else. Even my best lawyer jokes fell flat. I mean who does not laugh at jokes like “Why won’t a shark bit a lawyer? Professional courtesy.” or “What are 3000 lawyers at the bottom of the sea? A good start.” Even my very best, the vase joke I mentioned earlier, fell totally flat.

I did not have to be hit on the head with an anvil to realize what was happening; they were punishing me for being their boss. By the end of the day I was in a foul mood and happy to be leaving the lab for the first time in years. In hindsight, this probably set me up for the next blow. Paul came by to visit.

We usually managed to get together at least once a week, but I hadn’t seen or heard much from Paul in the last few months, just the occasional brief telephone call. Apparently, he had been tied up with an extremely complex case in another part of the state that had just been settled and he wanted to celebrate. We were to meet at the NCO Club and move on from there, so when I got back to my quarters I cleaned up and put on one of the two suit dresses I had bought in case I needed to present to some bigwigs. It was a simple navy blue and gray pinstripe that the saleslady had said looked “divine” on me. I also added the matching smoke gray pantyhose, navy patent leather shoes with the one-inch heels–she had pushed me to get three-inchers, but there was no way I was going to give up comfort for the sake of some saleslady’s image of the perfect female–and a simple white silk blouse.

Oh yeah, and a brassiere as I was now a 36C, whatever that meant. I cannot say that it was more comfortable to wear one, but it seemed less annoying than not wearing it, between leering enlisted men and unwanted movement as I bent over an electron microscope or reached into a specimen freezer. Finally, out came the scrunchie that had become a permanent feature of my attire and I ran my comb through my now shoulder length hair, then I grabbed my small, black, over the shoulder, utility purse. Sadly, I’d given up the wallet I usually kept in my back pants pocket prior to the change as I found it hard to put anything into the back pockets of women’s clothes, even baggy pants, assuming they even had pockets, which my skirt did not.

I was expecting him to be late and had planned accordingly, heading out a full fifteen minutes after the time he was supposed to meet me. If he was actually there on time, I was betting he would insist that I was early rather than admit to timeliness. His mother once told me he was even late coming out of the womb, which he claimed had set the tone for the rest of his life.

I once tried to pull his leg by telling him I expected him to be late for his own funeral but he just smiled knowingly and said, “I have every intention of doing exactly that.” It took the wind out of my sails and I had had to scrounge around for another way to tease him that night. If memory serves I ended up picking on his tie, one of those gag ties from the Warner Brothers Store with Taz ® dressed in a judge’s robe and one of those white powdered wigs, leaning over the bench to pound Elmer Fudd ® with his gavel while Bugs Bunny ® looks on laughing. As I recall, I kept asking him which one he was supposed to be and looking askance at him whenever he said he was Bugs. That tie saved the night and I hoped Phil would be as obliging again soon.

When I got to the NCO Club, I checked the bar and dining room to see if he had showed up on time for the first time ever. Once I had confirmed his ability to maintain tradition, I grabbed a stool at the bar and ordered a 7&7, laying out a twenty to cover the cost of drinks and tips for myself –and for Paul when he finally arrived. After taking a long, cool, refreshing swig, I set the plastic glass down and sighed. That is when I noticed the twenty was laying on the bar untouched.

“Hey Joe.” All bartenders are called Joe, are they not? Someone once told me it was part of the labor-management agreement. “You forgot your money.”

He looked up from the drink he was preparing and raised a finger to tell me he’d be with me in a moment, but before he could get back to me, an innocent-faced kid in fatigues tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to a nearby table with three buddy-clones grinning hard enough to be just short of drooling. “My buddies and I paid for your drink. Would you care to show your appreciation by joining us?”

Now I remembered why I did not go to the NCO Club as often as I used to. It was nearly impossible to avoid the frequent pickup attempts by flocks of sex-starved teenagers. In memory of my own clumsy attempts at his age, I decided to be gentle, “Thanks for the offer, but I’m waiting for someone.”

“We don’t mind. Come sit with us until he arrives. That way there won’t be any more pickup attempts.” He waited expectantly, but I had heard that one before.

“Good try, but no thank you. Next you’ll be telling me that you have a bet with one of your buddies that you can get me to kiss you or something before the end of the night.” I still felt a responsibility to be gentle with him in memory of my own experiences so I waved to Joe and told him to buy a round for “Innocent-Face” and his buddies.

Turning back to my drink, I was surprised to find a hand on my arm gently trying to pull me from my stool. “Aw please Miss. We’re awfully lonely. Why don’t you try to be a bit more friendly?”

My mellow mood was gone and all the grief I had received from José and Felix came crashing back. How dare he try to tell me what to do! Smoldering, I slowly removed my arm from his grasp and whispered through clenched teeth. “Soldier, I strongly suggest you slink back to your friends right now and find some other way to occupy yourselves. You do not want to get into a brawl here. All the MPs will do to me is ask me to leave, but you could find yourselves doing KP, or worse, for the next month.”

He finally returned to his table and I turned back to my now unwanted drink. Pushing it aside, I turned my seat towards the Club entrance waiting impatiently for Paul to get his butt over here. My ears burned as I heard muttering from my erstwhile suitor and his friends, especially when I heard one phrase clearly, “Pukin’ Lesbian.”

I actually started to get up and stalk towards them, intent on the idea of cortical stimulation via sensitization of the pain receptors when I saw Paul standing by the entrance and squinting into the dimly light bar. Still angry, I considered inviting Paul to share the fun, but my self-control won the coin toss and I just stormed off to join him. When I reached him, I just kept walking, grabbing his arm and twirling him around so that I could pull him back outside while muttering angrily.

“Miss?” he sputtered from behind me. “Miss, do I know you?”

Once outside I stopped and turned back to him. Releasing his arm, I put y hands on my hips and growled, “What’s the problem Paul? Has it been that long since you saw me last?”

“George? I mean Kirsten?” His eyes widened almost enough to be mistaken for an anime character. “Is that you Kirsten?”

“Of course it’s me, and you’re late again, as usual. Now let’s get out of here before I drag you back in there and start a brawl with some snot-nosed kids.”

“Well okay, but wait just a minute while I get a good look at you.” He moved me under the entrance light, positioning me with his hands on my upper arms. Then he stepped back and just stared at me for a long while, long enough to make me uncomfortable.

“Enough already!” I brushed his hand off my arms and stepped back to let some other folks get by us and enter the Club. “So what do you want to do tonight?”

Paul claims that being a trial lawyer has honed his wit razor sharp, although I usually claim he is only half right, but he actually paused before answering. “I…I’m not sure. I was happy to get this latest case resolved and I just wanted to see my old friend and celebrate. I guess I didn’t plan beyond that.”

The corner of his mouth turned up just a bit and I knew he was about to offer a zinger. I was sure of it when he sounded "oh so pitiful" as he continued, “But here you are, and you’re not even dressed for dancing.”

Phil could instantly see he had made a mistake, as my face turned stormy and my fists clenched. He tried to backpedal. “Joking. I was joking. I sure got you this time, didn’t I?”

“Please tell me you didn’t just try to ask your best friend for a date,” I asked through teeth that were getting tired of being clenched so often.

“You know, until today I didn’t thing there were any major differences between men and women. I figured I was alive and that was all that mattered. Boy was I wrong.

“So far today, I’ve had intelligent researchers, people I’ve worked with for almost five years, exclude me from a discussion in my own lab and then have the audacity to ask me to get them some coffee. I’ve had the joy of being reminded that I need to wear different clothes than I’ve worn for thirty plus years, just to fit in enough to avoid a scene. I have had a group of fresh from the tailors non-comms try to pick me up and then publicly claim I was a lesbian because I said no. Now, my best friend, the guy I grew up with, who got mumps with me, who helped me with the knot tying merit badge in Boy Scouts, wants to date me. Since when am I your type, I thought you like the long legged, svelte bimbos with long wavy blonde hair and big tits….”

That was when I doubled over in pain and slowly collapsed into his arms. The damn fool was so surprised by my outburst he almost did not move in time to catch me. My last thought before everything went black was, “I bet he wishes he was holding one of those blonde bimbos instead of me.”

I woke up because sunlight was flashing over my eyes as a gentle breeze made the curtains in Paul’s bedroom flutter–and I was ravenous. If Paul walked in just then, I was going to start gnawing on his leg. Tossing the covers aside, I stood up and stalked toward the kitchenette, absently noting that I was wearing nothing but my briefs and an oversized tee shirt that must have belonged to Paul and that Paul was racked out on the couch in his living room.

Once upon a time, there was a television commercial. It was for an indigestion medication and the catch phrase was, “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing.” As I sat there looking at the remains of Paul’s kitchenette, I couldn’t believe I’d eaten everything in it, probably a week’s worth of food for an adult male like Paul, and I’d eaten it all.

About half way through, Paul staggered in, saw what I was doing and gaped for a while before heading off to his bedroom to shower and dress. I think he left for a fast food breakfast because I could see the edge of a nearly empty cup of coffee with the logo for Dunkin Donuts on it on the end table by his hand as he sat in the living room watching television and waiting for me to finish.

Rubbing my pleasantly full belly and wondering where everything I had eaten had gone, I joined him, dropping down on the other side of the couch and comfortably crossing my legs on top of his coffee table. Paul just sat there watching me as I licked some icing off my fingers and watched CNN, something about a sudden, nationwide flare-up of criminal activity. Finally, I asked, “So what the hell happened and how did I end up here? The last thing I remember is doubling over in pain just outside the NCO Club.”

 

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End -- Part One of Three