Beginning the second book in the saga of Alex as she struggles to adjust to life as a new woman.
The Greatest Lie, Part 2
10 - Beyond Bangkok
11 - A Whole New Me, The Same Old World
by Alexandra Rios

This is a sometimes violent story with very raw sex scenes. If that's not what you want to read, please do not read this story.

The Greatest Lie, Part 2

by Alexandra Rios

Chapter 10

Beyond Bangkok

Don’t you hate commercial air travel? No matter how many drugs I take, when they wear off, I’m disoriented, my legs are twitchy, and there are still three hours (or whatever) to go. Not enough time to take the last of the Sonata I had borrowed from Mom’s medicine cabinet before touchdown (and customs), but a long time to deal with boredom and discomfort. I got up to pee and stretch, but stepping back to my seat over my comatose friend Tran, I kicked and roused her. Her eyes rolled open, and her lips curled into a lascivious smile. "Next stops, Bangkok and Phuket. My favorite phrases," she mused. She giggled, and I joined her in a conspiratorial joke. You see, Tran and I are transsexuals, traveling to Thailand for sex reassignment surgery. But we haven’t let anatomy delay or deter us. Our bodies are playing catch-up with our hearts and our lives, and for the last year or so, my life has been moving fast.

We cleared customs and stopped by Dr. Sanguan’s clinic. His surgical coordinator told us that we were the next two openings on the waiting list for surgery, and that Dr. Sanguan would examine us assess suitability for his procedures after we had filled out our paper work. I mentally calculated our extra cash for living expenses and the remaining days until I was due back at the University of Minnesota, and said "We’re in a hurry. I thought we had our surgical dates set."

"Dr. Sanguan’s waiting list is three months long, and you wrote us only one month ago.

You must wait your turns on his waiting list. But don’t worry, we get a lot of cancellations. We have two girls on Monday and I think they’re not coming. Call me tomorrow. In the meantime, have fun in Thailand."

I struggled to calculate the day of the week. We had left LA on Tuesday night, so it must be... Pim interrupted my jet-lagged reverie. "It’s Friday. So go shopping, get some party clothes, and some Thai noodles, and then...."

"Where do we go to party?" Tran inquired.

"Phuket is not so good for transsexuals, just a couple of so-so clubs, like Andaman Go- Go and Koh Joy. Some of our girls enjoy a side trip to Koh Samui, to the famous katoey cabarets, like Christies, or the Green Mango. Koh Samui is not too far. Just a one-hour plane flight, or twelve hours by bus. The cabarets are the District called Chaweng. By the 7-11 and the Burger King, near the beach. Closes at 3:00." I groaned at the prospect of more travel, but as long as we had to kill a weekend in Thailand, why not.

Dr. Sanguan approved our surgeries, delayed primary colon segment vaginaplasties, with the warning that this was the most invasive and difficult of his procedures. "Really, it’s two major operations, first stage to form the base of the vagina using penile inversion and perform sensate pedicle glans penis clitoroplasty. Then, a final stage to attach the colon segment to provide adequate vaginal length. In between I perform a minor procedure to graft scrotal skin n form exterior and labia. I will perform the first stage and the skin graft, and my colleague Dr. Toreanid the final stage. If all goes well, you will be discharged about a week after the final stage. The completed vagina will be made of two materials: penile skin at the base, attached to a colon segment. These are difficult operations, difficult healing, and very difficult after-care. You must dilate very diligently! And no vaginal sex until you have reached comfortable dilation with the large stent, at least eight weeks from discharge. It is very difficult to dilate this type of vagina adequately. In many cases, ring of scar tissue forms, requiring a further operation. And you want breast augmentation too? You will be very sore, all over."

Almost three weeks in bed, followed by eight weeks of chastity, and maybe no sex until after a further operation. I groaned. Our hockey stick friends, Rick and Randy, would go nuts, if Tran and I didn’t first. "What about, you know, other sex?" I stammered shyly.

"Oral sex, whenever you feel well enough. If you must have anal sex, four weeks, but it is never advisable, especially after a colon segment removal."

"And now?"

"No restrictions until after surgery. But no alcohol, drugs, and no hormones until afterwards." Yeah, right, like I was going sober in Thailand. Like god during the creation, we’d rest on Sunday. Until then, we’d bang cock and fuck it. We rushed to the airport, and caught the last flight to Koh Samui.

I was impressed by Dr. Sanguan’s straightforwardness and candor, but the length of sexual abstinence was upsetting. I commiserated with Tran as we endured yet another plane flight, but she was upbeat, as usual. "Rick and Randy were patient for you after your last surgery, weren’t they? At least until Randy met me." Tran smiled coquettishly, and I gave her a friendly, girlish swat for stealing one of my two boyfriends.

"I think it’s going to be different this time. Just when we finally become complete women, we have to live like nuns. And they’re not exactly a couple of priests."

"You mean they are like a couple of priests: like Boston priests." Tran cracked up at her sacrilegious joke.

My friend Tran is smart, but current events is not her strong suit. I probed a little. "The Boston priests I read about prefer little boys, not girls like us".

"Remember, I used to be a little boy. So did you! You never seduced a priest from confession?"

"Tran, I haven’t been to confession since I was 13. But I have to admit, it’s not a bad idea."

"Me neither. Gone to confession since I was 13, I mean." I was surprised. Vietnamese Catholics are famously devout.

"You mean you actually seduced a priest from confession?"

"My priest was from Boston. After I told him I wanted to be a girl, he said that God would help me, then he helped himself to me every chance he got. I told my mom, and at first she didn’t believe me. But when Father Tom kept on doing it, she figured it out, and then we stopped going to his Church. But I still wanted to be a girl, and I prayed to God every day to make me a girl, but it didn’t work, of course, so I dressed up in my sister’s clothes, and cried all the time. She saw something on Oprah about transsexuals, and then she gave me her birth control pills, told me that god had made a mistake, and had made me boy on outside and girl on inside, that it was not my fault. She said that the pills could make me a girl and fix god’s mistake. But my dad said it was all my fault, that I was a homo and had made the priest turn homo. Then he left me and my mom. He was so ashamed of me. Now I am a girl, no more church, no more god, no more dad, and no more Father Tom.

"Tran, have you or your mom ever told anyone else about this?"

"No, I always try to forget, my mom and I can’t talk about it, it’s embarrassing."

"Tran, you are going to have to talk to my law school friend, Mark about this. I think you are going to be pretty rich some day thanks to Father Tom."

"What do you mean?"

"You’ll sue the Church and get a big settlement. My law school friends will help you."

"Now that I’m TS, people won’t think it’s my fault?"

"Not after my friend Mark and Professor Epstein get done with the case." Visions of another easy independent study class, with possible grant money, filled my head.

"Allie, you’re the best friend. First, you show me how to become woman, now how to become rich bitch."

"We’re not either one yet, but we will be. I know it."

In the meantime, we felt pretty rich. We were in Thailand’s rainy season, so hotel rooms in Koh Samui were cheap and available. Everything is pretty reasonable in Thailand, so we were soon well equipped with skimpy tropical dresses, high-heeled sandals, and had been manicured, pedicured and had our hair blown out. We even scored some crystal meth to chase away the jet lag, and soon we were buzzing with anticipation of our debut as katoeys at Christies. "Tran, it’s not fair. You at least look the part. I’m going to look like a tourist or a spy. The local girls will probably have me arrested or deported for poaching on their turf."

"Are you kidding? They’ll spot me as Vietnamese right away. The Thais think we Vietnamese are all a bunch of losers or Reds. They’ll like you better than me. Thais think white is good, Vietnamese is bad."

"Look, we’re just a couple of girls like them. Let’s make some friends and figure out the rules of the game before we start fishing their pond. We’re going to be fine. But let’s not mention our appointment with Dr. Sanguan."

Of course, the first girl we met at Christies figured what Tran and I were in about in a nanosecond. As soon as we had introduced ourselves as visitors from America, Nancee commented tartly "Oh, passing some time waiting for Dr. Sanguan. He made my breasts for me. She opened her halter and bared her lovely, conical C-cups. "You going to get some like these?" she asked. I nodded enthusiastically. "You want to feel?" She grabbed my wrists and pressed them against the firm but yielding flesh. "Nice and soft, silicone. More natural than hers", she said, pointing to Trans’ chest. "Saline’s not as good." Nancee was dazzling: her long smooth hair framed a beautiful, high-cheekboned, heart shaped face, which featured almond, liquid eyes and soft, pouty lips. Asians make the most beautiful transsexuals, I thought as I looked at Tran and Nancee. Nancee returned my gaze, and said "You very beautiful for white katoey. But you’re little like a Thai. You need bigger boobs." She gently fondled my natural, almost B-cups. "But they feel very nice. What are they?"

"Just me and my hormones." Nancee clucked appreciatively. "Bigger is even nicer."

Nancee prepped us on etiquette at Christies. No sex in the bar, nudity OK, no hands on flesh below the waist. Other than that, anything goes. It made the Town House look like Sunday school. If a girl left the premises with a guy, the guy paid a "bar fine", a fee for taking one of the attractions off-premises, of 125 baht. Off site fees were negotiable, but 500 to 1,500 baht (ridiculously cheap, since the official exchange rate is about 40 baht to the buck) was customary, depending on what was on the menu. Anything higher would be considered greedy. God, no wonder these girls are all hookers or do porno. At Third World prices, even Dr. Sanguan’s reasonable prices were a stretch. I started running Nancee through my Transsexual Sex Worker Survey. "Thai society tolerate katoey, but will let us be women. She pulled out her government ID, showing her in the male gender. "If I want female name in passport, I must go to Sweden."

"Or America. The guys in LA will love you."

"America is impossible. No visas for Thai Katoeys."

I pondered the paradox as Christies filled up. Thailand accommodates its transsexuals, but ghettoizes and channels them into the sex industry. Minnesota, like most of the US, oppresses its transsexuals, unless they can pass, and then it lets them assume most of the attributes of women. I scribbled my school address and handed it to Nancee. "Send me a note in a couple of weeks. Maybe I can help."

She thanked me with a wave as a drunken Aussie wheeled her onto the dance floor.

I sat at the bar for a few minutes, nursing a ginger ale, and soon noticed I was fixed in the laser-like gaze of a handsome, well-muscled Thai. I acknowledge him with a bat of my lashes, and he took a seat next to me. From the dance floor, Nancee gave me thumbs up.

Oh well, I decided, time to sample a little of the local cooking.

"I’m Eddie, and this is my bar stool. Who is sitting in it?"

"Goldilocks, and this seat is not too hard, not too soft. It’s just right."

Mother Goose had apparently not reached Thailand in time for Eddie’s childhood, so he looked at me quizzically. "It’s a children’s story. The little girl ends up in the bear’s bed. Everyone knows it in America."

"You American? What are you doing at Christies?"

"I heard it’s the right place for a girl like me."

"Whose bed are you going to tonight?"

"Don’t know, have you any ideas?"

"Yeah, mine is not too soft." He grabbed my hand and pressed it against his cock. I stroked it through his pants. "It feels just right," I whispered in his ear.

"Let’s go," he said.

"Wait a minute, I haven’t paid for this." I took a dainty sip of ginger ale. "What did you have in mind?"

"I want to fuck your pink little ass."

"Mmm, sound good. How does 1000 baht sound."

"You look like you’re worth it." He handed the bar tender the bar fine and walked out of Christies. I checked my watch and smiled. I had been at the bar for exactly 15 minutes.

He led me to a tiny Suzuki motor cycle, hopped on, and gestured for me to get on. I hiked my dress up to my waist and threw my high heeled leg over, and he steadied my just as I was about to topple over the other side. He kick started, yelled "Hold on tight" over the roar of the engine, and jolted off with reckless abandon through twisting, crowded streets. I held his trim, firm chest as we bounced over potholes and skidded through turns. It was frightening, but it was obvious that Eddie was thoroughly in control. He screeched to a halt in front of a small, vine covered villa on the road to Lamai. I heard surf murmuring in the background, but had no idea where I was.

He beckoned me through the door and flipped on the lights. I stood in the entryway of a lovely, middle class home, with carved furniture, elegant rugs and a big screen TV.

"Make yourself comfortable," he said, leaving me alone to study the paintings, sculptures and other objects that crammed the hall. It was like an art gallery. "Who is the collector?" I called out. Eddie replied nonchalantly "I run an export import business."

Some of this stuff is inventory, some of it is awaiting payment, and some of it I just like and kept."

"Where is it from?"

"Myanmar, mostly." I gave him a startled look. "Americans call it Burma. My family has interests there." Great, I thought bleakly, I am about to go to bed with a warlord’s son. "I thought you were a Thai."

"I am," he said, offering no further explanation. Instead, he ordered me to undress and recline on the luxurious, silk covered couch. He traced the curve of my calves and thighs with a light touch, like a blind man reading an unfamiliar Braille text. He stroked my round, firm buttocks, my slim waist, my dainty upturned breasts, and then back to my soft, nearly hairless cock, which he cradled in his hands. "Tiny, almost like a Thai katoey’s. He traced the smile-like scar on my tummy. "What’s this?"

"I had an operation. " He stroked my empty scotum, and looked at me questioningly.

"They had to remove them, through my tummy. I was sick, but I’m fine now."

"Are you here for another operation?"

"Maybe, I’m getting checked out for it."

"You’ll be perfect. Let me see you again afterwards."

"You’ll still want me?"

"Even more. I love post ops."

Eddie slipped off his silk boxers and sat astride me as I sprawled on the soft cushions and pillows. I squeezed my breasts around his cock, which hardened in their embrace. As he gently fucked my breasts, I took the tip of his uncut cock in my mouth. I prefer circumcised cocks, but his was lovely anyhow. It had a saffron aroma and a nice bulbous top.

He was bigger than I expected: not long, but thick and hard. Soon, he had risen to his knees, grabbed my hair in his hands and was thrusting violently into my mouth. But I wanted to take him deeper, so I slid my back to the seat of the couch and took him from above. I arched my head back and took him deep into my throat, which was soon coated with a tasty film of pre-cum. He didn’t want to suck me, but his fingers found and fondled my hole, which quivered and puckered beneath his expert touch. His massage and the gentle entry of his fingers brought moans of pleasure from my full mouth. I pushed his cock from my lips and gasped, "Eddie, please fuck me," then swallowed his cock again, a slave to insatiable passion.

He pulled his cock from my still suctioning face and turned me over. I stretched my ass into the air, and heard the crinkle: the tearing of a condom package. "Cup your hand," as he poured lubricant, which I slathered onto his sheathed cock, and smeared the remains onto my ass. Then, he entered me. "Not so fast," I gasped, as the first three inches seared into me, rekindling embers of recent passion. He retreated, and I pressed back against him, and he pried me open another inch, then another to the hilt. I bit my lips against the inner turmoil, which subsided as he retreated and then renewed with his next lunge. But with each cycle, the pain, the desire to expel the intruder, was displaced by the sensation of warmth, fullness and completeness that only a man inside me can bring.

He lunged and plunged with a controlled energy of a Zen master. He was never rough without a purpose, or out of control. He guided me through all of the classic positions: from behind on my knees, and then on my stomach; on my back, with my legs on his shoulders; in an embrace, with me in his lap; and with me on top, first facing him, and then away. Then, he rose up behind me, pressed my back down, and began thrusting with renewed vigor and mastery, a hundred powerful strokes that culminated in a rush of energy that pulverized my flesh, which seemed to melt into his as his paroxysm subsided.

I must have drifted off to sleep, because he woke me with a gentle nudge. "I’ve called a taxi for you. I am afraid you must leave soon. I looked at my watch. Two hours had passed since I had left Christies. I dressed hurriedly, and slunk off to the entry, humiliated to be dismissed so peremptorily after such exquisite sex. Eddie pressed two thousand baht into my palm and gave me a hug. "You are fabulous, and I must see you again. Until then, here is something to remember me by." He draped a necklace of Burmese emeralds around my neck, and as he fixed the clasp at the nape of my neck, he kissed my lips gently. The taxi honked outside the villa.

"Now go into the night, my angel. But return to me." I said I would, and left, hoping that I would.

The taxi driver gave me a disapproving look when I asked to be taken to Christies, and I made a note to ask for the 7-11 next time. I went straight to the ladies’ room, to repair my disheveled state. Nancee had spotted me and dropped her latest conquest, a balding Italian, to interrogate me. "Don’t worry, he’ll wait for me. I think he’s in love. Now show me what Eddie give you. No, not the money, the jewels." I opened my purse and took out the emeralds. Nancee eyes popped and her face flushed. Eeeeh, Eddie loves you more than me. Go back to America, whore. You ruining everything for Nancee."

Naturally, I took this as a compliment. "What’s Eddie’s story. He pushed me out of there like stale fish, and then he gives me this. Is it valuable?"

"A hundred thousand baht in Bangkok, but it’s a toy for Eddie."

"He’s so rich?"

"No, but his father in law is one of the Burmese generals. He owns half of Burma, and takes what he wants. Eddie is married to his daughter and is the junta’s fence in Thailand. My guess, he was expecting Mrs. Eddie."

"So that explains the fast exit?"

"He was doing you a favor. If you get caught in bed with Eddie, you’re dead. The general has many friends here."

"He was great, and said he wants to see me again."

"It’s your life, spend it wisely," Nancee said. "My advice, don’t let him fall in love with you. There are plenty of other guys in Koh Samui."

She was right. I didn’t need to be entangled with Burmese warlords and mobsters, and their angry wives. I was a tourist, and would take home a valuable bauble and a happy memory. Now, it was time to make more memories. I brushed my tousled hair and smoothed my disheveled clothes. As I applied a fresh coat of makeup, Tran rushed in and blurted out "Alexandra, where have you been, you bad girl? She noticed my necklace, and said "I see you have been mining for jewels, in low places no doubt."

"You’re just jealous. All you got is a purse stuffed with baht."

"I’ve got a house stuffed with horny Japanese business who are taking special sex pills, and want your body."

Nancee overheard and complained "I knew you farang Katoey were going to steal our good clients."

"Come along, there plenty for all of us. They are taking a new drug from America that makes them stay hard all night, and there are eight of them. Maybe nine. I’m not sure.

Hurry up, our driver is waiting for us outside."

"Driver?" Nancee asked, astonished. "What’s the story?"

"I met a guy in the bar, he is junior director of Japanese sex tour. He says he’s got clients that want to meet Katoey, but are too shy and embarrassed to be seen chasing us in Christies. So it’s his job to arrange Katoey to go to meet the tourists. That’s us. He gave me $1,000 up front for the night, more later if the tourists are happy."

Nancee had never made that much in a week. She was delighted to be included in our enterprise. "I am already missing you girls when you leave Christies," she joked as she stepped into the waiting Land Cruiser. "Come visit us in America, and you’ll be showing us new games in a week."

As he looked admiringly at his cargo, Mr. Watanabe, the sex-tour director, smiled at us approvingly. He had arranged a spectacular katoey smorgasbord for his reticent charges, and expected that he, and we, would be well rewarded. "My guests are very important businessmen. They are accustomed to be served by the finest geisha. You know about geisha?"

I’d read a book about it, and had the general idea. "Will we be serving tea?" I asked innocently.

"No. Tea ceremony is reserved for the most senior geisha. You are novices, and will be serving your bodies, silently and submissively. Do you understand?" His voice had taken on a harsh tone in reaction to my jibe. "You mean we are to be like the ‘comfort women’ that the Imperial Army employed in the War?"

"Oh, a student of lies and slanders against our late Emperor. Very well then, if you choose to believe these myths, yes, exactly. You serve as you are ordered." He explained the basic Japanese slang for various sex acts. He explained that his tour had supplied its guests with a new American wonder drug that made even the most broken down old man into a sexual athlete, "So you may wish to energize yourselves with this."

He passed around a mirror with neatly cut lines of white powder. "It’s a mixture of crystal meth and Burmese heroin." My eyes watered as the bitter, acrid crystals blasted my sinuses, but in a few moments I felt a buzz of warm energy permeating my tired body, and felt ready for anything.

We arrived at a pagoda-spired, golf course hideaway, done in the garish Japanese neo- Imperial style. In the darkened interior, we were greeted with the sounds of boisterous karaoke singing and the smells of sushi, tobacco, Sun Tory and sweat. A soft core porn video accompanied a melancholy Japanese ballad, and three of our clients swayed as they massacred the tune and lyrics, to the hilarity of their companions in the audience. We were unnoticed at first, spectators to this strange male bonding spectacle of these blue- suited salary man on stage. They emoted with inebriated, heartfelt conviction, and their eyes moistened as they sang of loved ones far away. Their audience clapped uproariously as they finished with a flourish of tuneless yelps of anguish and the screen images dissolved to soft focus cherry blossoms. Mr. Watanabe flickered the lights to announce our presence, and all eyes turned to us as Mr. Watanabe introduced us in short, staccato bursts of Japanese. At the end of his introduction, we were treated to a polite round of applause, and then Mr. Watanabe ushered us each to a bedroom. He instructed me to shower and put on a kimono, which lay on the bed Mr. Watanabe returned after a few minutes, and confided "Mr. Mori, the most senior of our members, has done you the honor of selecting you. He speaks very little English, so you must follow his gestures intently. He will want you to suck him, then he will want to mount you from behind. Do exactly as he demands, as he is accustomed to obedience."

As I sat in the luxurious room, I mused, these men, maybe all men, follow the same patterns. They travel in packs, select dominant leaders, and enact rituals of subjugation and humiliation of the beautiful and feminine, much like Seth and Jack followed Miguel’s lead on Prom Night, or like the trail of atrocities from Nanking to Manila. I was glad to be leaving the gender that conceives of such atrocities, and joining the community of the victims: of such crimes, it is better for the soul to be the victim than the perpetrator.

Mr. Mori interrupted my reverie as he abruptly opened, and slammed the door behind him.

"Iyae kimono." I froze, uncomprehendingly. "Iyae kimono," he repeated, then advanced menacingly and grabbing me by the shoulders. "Iyae kimono," he shouted as he ripped the kimono from my shoulders. I figured out that blue eyed Gai-jin transsexual in a kimono offended to his cultural senses. Thanks a lot for the fashion tip, Watanabe.

Mori got friendlier now that I was in a satin bra and panties, and he motioned me to sit on the bed. He stripped from his blue suit and folded them neatly on a chair. His boxers were stretched with the head of his modest, but rock hard erection. I beckoned him to come to me. I slid down his boxers and took his uncut cock in his mouth. It was small enough that I could mouth its length without reaching the gag reflex, and his pubic hair was so straight and thin that it never even tickled my nose. It was almost like sucking Tran, except for the roll of belly fat that flopped against my head with every plunge. He grunted and groaned and let me do all of the work, even holding him upright with my hands clasped around his skinny, yet flaccid butt.

I was getting tired when I heard a guttural, but incomprehensible command that took to mean that he was ready to fuck me. I grabbed a condom from the bed stand, and popped it between my lips, to show him a trick that I figured he hadn’t seen on this tour. I expertly rolled the condom onto his cock from between my lips, and he gave an appreciative and admiring grunt of praise. I lubed his cock and rolled onto my hands and knees.

After Eddie’s strong but sensitive touch, Mr. Mori’s small cock should have been a mere tickle, but he rammed me so abruptly and insensitively that I yelped in pain, and this stirred old Mori to even greater chemical charged exertions, as he dug his diminutive but stiff prick into my inner sanctum, which was swollen and tight from Eddie. I tried to put an imaginary Eddie in Mr. Mori’s place, but the slap of his corpulent, corrupt flesh against mine dispelled that fantasy. I was trapped, a white slave to an army of fat, pathetic, petite bourgeoisie Japanese deviants. Why did they even want me, if they were ashamed to be seen courting Katoey. Were they fascinated by transsexuals, like so many others, or were they just jaded with the other attractions of Thailand?

Mr. Mori announce his orgasm with a refrain of Japanese expletives and a paroxysm that seemed close to heart failure, and I responded with staged moans of ecstasy and fulfillment. He lay atop me, gasping for breath, and I tried to remember that CPR class I had had junior year, but he seemed to come out of it and pulled out of me. He scuttled to the bathroom, grabbing his neatly piled clothes on the way. I heard the rattle of pee and a flush, and he emerged, in full salary man finery. He bowed, handed me a pile of yen notes, and rejoined the Karaoke party. Moments later, I heard his hoarse voice join the chorus of "New Yok, New Yok," and Mr. Watanabe poked his head in to order me to shower and get ready for Mr. Kawabe, who, he assured me, liked kimonos.

Mr. Kawabe was followed by Mr. Nakase, Mr. Furimoto, Mr. Ogawa, and Mr. Nakamura, and between each, Mr. Watanabe haranguing me to shower and get ready for my next samurai. Each one slightly younger and less dissolute than the last, and with a slightly more modest stack of yen after he was finished with me. The salary men sorted themselves in hierarchical order to determine their order, much like Miguel and his set.

Mr. Watanabe refreshed my drug buzz with a couple of lines of coke at around two, the karaoke stopped at around four, and then the visits stopped. I took a final shower and lay naked in the wrinkled, sweaty sheets, my head pounding with meth, unable to sleep. I heard the door creak open, and felt a body squeeze against mine. Whiskey infused breath suffocated me: it was Mr. Mori. I resisted his embrace, and he scattered a pile of yen notes around me, and pressed my face to his groin. Science had triumphed over body, and he was hard again. My now exhausted lips circled his cock and sucked it with desperation. I needed this night to end. It was hopeless. He was hard, but even smaller than before, and completely dry. I slid on another condom, the last in my box, and lifted my sore and bruised ass to his pelvis, and he slammed himself in. He bucked and rode me as if he were possessed by demons, yanking at my hair and pinching my flesh as though he, and I, were mere objects. His voice was hoarse and his breathing wheezy, and increasingly labored. Suddenly, he spasmed, uttered a guttural cry, grabbed his head and toppled forward atop me. He was absolutely still, a dead weight on top of me. I tried to move out from beneath him, but his weight was unyielding, and unresponsive. Good god, had Mr. Mori passed out? His cock was still stiff inside me, but when I listened for his breath, I heard nothing. A growing sense of panic took hold of me. I tried to roll him over, but couldn’t move. I called out "Help, I think Mr. Mori is sick." I heard in response the mumbles of hung-over indifference. "Help, Mr. Mori needs your care immediately." Mr. Watanabe entered, grumbling hoarsely. "What’s the matter, whore?"

"Please check on Mr. Mori." Mr. Watanabe grabbed Mr. Mori’s wrist, and uttered an expletive. He tried to lift Mr. Mori, but the unyielding body was too heavy for him. He ran from the room and returned with Mr. Kawabe, and with a mighty heave, and an assist from me, rolled him with a thud off of me, and onto the floor next to the bed. Mr. Watanabe began massaging Mr. Mori’s chest and blowing air down his throat, but it was soon obvious: Mr. Mori was dead.

Tran, Nancee and the salary men all crowded around, drawn by the commotion. Mr. Watanabe gave up his ineffectual CPR and turned on me angrily. "You killed him, whore."

Tran pointed to his still erect penis, and said "It looks like that killed him." Now, panic took hold of Mr. Watanabe. "Get out of here you whores. Get out, go now." He pushed me from the room, as I grabbed my clothes, scattered yen notes and purse stuffed with cash. We threw on our clothes and ran out the door. In the quiet residential neighborhood, three young ladies emerging walking down the street with tousled hair, high-heel sandals and party dresses drew accusatory stares, even from the tolerant Thais.

But we didn’t give a damn, we were so freaked out by this disturbing turn of events.

Only after we began to compare notes did our theory and plan crystallize.

"He was really the most disgusting of all," I commented.

"Which one, they were all repulsive," Tran rejoined.

"Mr. Mori, the dead one, my first and last," I said.

"I agree," said Nancee.

"I thought Mr. Ito was even worse than Mori," Tran said.

In an instant, we all did the math. "You mean the dead guy was with all of us, in one night?" I exclaimed.

"No wonder he died. He was coming back for fourths. Fat fifty year old smokers should know better," Tran commented.

"So he OD-ed on the miracle sex pills. Serves him right," said Nancee.

"Wait a minute. Who was handing out the drugs last night? Watanabe, right?" I inquired.

"Yeah, he was practically forcing the nose candy up my nostrils," Tran recalled. Nancee nodded in agreement.

"Remember what Watanabe said about a bonus if they were happy? Well, Mori looked like he died happy. I think we should get our bonus, say, another thousand each. That way we don’t tell the police. That way, poor Mr. Mori gets to die in bed and rest in peace, no scandal for his family, no trouble for Watanabe’s tour business."

"That sounds like blackmail. Could be dangerous," I said.

"Let me handle it," Nancee said. You got his cell number still, Tran?"

"Here, but as long as you’re doing it, ask for two thousand each."

"Good idea."

We got a taxi and left Nancee at her home, a tawdry shack in an alley off Sui Green Mango. God, no wonder she’s so desperate for money, I thought. This Third World lifestyle was horrible, and yet Nancee seemed bright and ambitious, to the point of recklessness. Tran and I went to our hotel where jet lag and sexual fatigue caught up with a vengeance. I was still asleep when Nancee called from the lobby. "Tell them to let me come up, I have a surprise." She had dinner, Thai coffee, and three envelopes stuffed with cash, 20,000 yen each. "He bitched and threatened, but Mr. Watanabe agreed that everyone had to be happy. Beside, with Mori dead, his expenses will be less.

He probably made money on the deal."

"I hope you’re right, he looked like Yakusa to me," I said.

"In Thailand, all the guys are Yakusa, even your Eddie. Watanabe won’t mess with us, he’s not in Japan now."

We smoked some pot, ate Thai food and gossiped about our adventures, past and future.

Nancee envied our surgical date. Thanks to Watanabe’s generosity, she had almost enough money (Sanguan gives Thai girls discounted fees) and told us she would accompany us Monday to schedule a date, and pay her deposit. In the meantime, she regaled me with tales of Eddie. His wife and children live in Rangoon, where his father ran his "trading company", and Eddie represented the family’s interests. This consisted of selling smuggled goods, contraband, and laundering money from the general’s Burmese fiefdom. Burmese "freedom fighters" played a constant game of cat and mouse with Eddie, and their struggles contributed heavily to the body count in Koh Samui, Phuket, Pattaya and Bangkok. Eddie didn’t care if his katoey of the moment sold herself on the side; he liked his katoey to be the most popular, and expensive, in Christies or Green Mango: but no other boyfriends.

"God, he sounds like the perfect boyfriend. Too bad I don’t live here," I joked.

"You have to come back. I’ll miss you too much." Nancee hugged us and then said "Let’s go to Christies. Saturday night, should be hot there. The Sydney plane came this morning. Nice new Aussies for us. Much better than Japanese. In fact, they’re the best, but unfortunately, not the richest.

"Not me," said Tran. "I’ve got some numbers to call from last night." She waved us goodbye. Nancee and I felt like splurging, and it was still early, so we walked among the street vendors and shops of Green Mango Street. It was like street party, as merchants tugged at our arms and beckoned down ramshackle alleys. Even in December, the nights were long and the air warm and muggy, and the streets were mobbed.

Suddenly, Nancee stopped me. "That’s one of Eddie’s father in law’s shops. Look, Burmese emeralds, just like yours." We brushed aside the bamboo entry curtain and entered. The shopkeeper noticed my new necklace immediately, and fingered its familiar stones appreciatively. I asked if she had another, wanting to price it. She turned to open a cabinet, and I heard the roar of a motorcycle, followed by a popping noise and a blast of heat. The shopkeeper’s head exploded in a crimson cloud of blood as Nancee and I sprawled on the floor of the shop in a shower of shards of glass. We cowered, expecting another fusillade, and when none came we lifted our heads and peered at the now silent street outside. The gunman was gone. Suddenly, the street came back to life and surged into the shop, to loot it. We milled through the crowd to the exit. "What was that, one of Eddie’s freedom fighter friends."

"No," said Nancee. "I think that was a postcard from Mr. Watanabe. He must have decided that 20,000 yen wasn’t enough to keep us silent. For a tenth that, he can get you killed. But he shouldn’t have killed Mama Thong, Eddie’s favorite shopkeeper, and he shouldn’t have missed us, since we are Eddie’s two favorite katoey. Quick, let’s get to Christie’s and find him."

Eddie was on his cell phone at the bar and waved us over. "Did you hear what happened at my shop near the Regent Hotel?"

"Are you kidding, we were there, we were the targets. I am so sorry about Mama Thong and the shop," Nancee said.

"You OK?" Both of our faces were freckled with poor Mama Thongs blood and brains, but we were not hurt. Eddie hugged us and muttered "That bastard Jimmy Liang. One of his boys did the job. I am going to fuck him up bad."

"What about the Jap bastard that hired him?"

"What do you mean?"

"Watanabe, he runs a Japanese sex tour that’s here now. We had a problem with him last night."

"You bad girls," Eddie grinned. "Couldn’t get enough?" He spanked my bottom playfully.

"No, I’m serious," Nancee said. "I think he arranged this. Get rid of him."

I was astonished by Nancee’s ruthlessness. The Thais seemed so friendly and accommodating. Yet the arranged contract killings with the same lack of seriousness as their sexual assignations.

"Don’t worry, I’ll take care of him too." Eddie got back on his cell phone. I hoped he got the right Watanabe, at least.

"OK, gotta go," Eddie said. "Take care of yourselves."

"What did he mean by that," I asked, "I mean there are assassins looking for us and Tran...Oh my god, where is she, I mean, she doesn’t even know what’s happening, and who knows where she is."

"She said she was going to call some guys she met at Christies last night."

"Yeah, maybe more clients of Watanabe. " "That would be bad for her."

"We need to find her."

"A lot of hotel rooms in Koh Samui."

"Let’s start with ours."

"We walked through the thronged streets, ever expecting to encounter one of Jimmy Liang’s killers. Our suite was empty, but Tran’s loopy handwriting covered sheets of hotel stationery. I looked at the top sheet of the pad for the impression of her last note. It was useless, a trick that only works in Bogart films. Then the phone rang, and I answered it with mixed feelings of hope and dread. I could hear nothing over the cacophony of noise. "I can’t hear a thing. Call back." The phone rang again, and it was Tran. "Are you OK?" I screamed with joy.

"Hell no, I have got the Italian soccer team here, and they’re getting ready to take penalty shots on my goal. Help!"

"Stay where you are, we’ll come to you."

"And soon. Write down this address."

"OK, got it, but we need to change."

"Already?"

"It’s a long story, but here’s the short version." I told her about the ambush at the shop near the Regent, and she let out a low whistle. "And I thought I was having an exciting night!" she exclaimed.

"Never mind," I replied, just stay where you are!"

"OK, but hurry up."

I hung up and asked "Nancee, how many guys on a soccer team?"

"I dunno, how many?"

"Get changed, because we’re gonna find out. Tran’s taking on an Italian soccer team.

We have to help her defend goal."

"Oh, goody. Soccer players are the most handsome."

"Not in the U.S., hockey’s the best there."

"Never heard of it, but I’ll trust your opinion."

I had practically no clothes left, and we had to change, so we ended up wearing workout clothes. Short shorts, sneakers, and tight camisoles. It actually seemed appropriate, although it was a little late on a Saturday night for a couple of babes like Nancee and me to be going to a gym. But we were certainly going to have a workout.

The Italians were staying at the best hotel in Koh Samui, the manager actually directed us to the floor where the gym was, although he informed us we would have to pay for a membership. We told him we needed to meet some friends at their room, and we took the elevator to the floor. The Italians had the whole floor, and it was a non-stop party: it was thronged with G-girl hookers and soccer players and fans, and music pulsated from several rooms. "Where’s the soccer team?" I asked a harried looking waiter. He pointed all over.

Then, over the bedlam, I heard Tran’s comic voice, and I ducked into the room where she was holding court, standing on a table and telling an erotic story as she stood, high heeled but naked to her panties, on a table, surrounded by a guffawing clutch of soccer studs.

Tran declaim "and then my friend Alexandra said "Hey, this guy fucked me 'til he died, and he still wanted more. Look, he’s still hard!" They convulsed with hilarity, and then she saw us and announced "And here she is now, fresh from the gym, and ready to fuck the rest of you to death. Alexandra, the killer katoey!" I burst into laughter, and curtsied to my new fans. Tran could make anything funny.

I doubt if any of the Italians believed Trans story, if they even understood it, and I wasn’t even sure if I believed it anymore either. Koh Samui had been so unreal. We had gone from tourists, to principals in a murderous gang war, without having had a real night of sleep. Melodrama, to tragedy, to bedroom farce. Ronaldo, the team’s center, proclaimed his undying love for me. When I responded in my schoolgirl Italian, he nearly burst into tears of joy. He gathered me in his arms and carried me off, as I waved goodbye to Tran and Nancee, who smiled approving. I heard Tran complain to Nancee, "She’s sweet, but she always gets the best looking one." I had barely noticed, and looked up at Ronaldo.

He was a square jawed, rough-hewn jock, but with the sensitive soul of a soul who loved to love.

Ronaldo must have taken the workout clothes at face value, because he began by taking off my shoes and sock and massaging my feet. Fortunately, they looked great, and his powerful hands sent surges of ecstasy from my soles to my earlobes. God, those high- heeled sandals I had been wearing since I arrived are murder on the soles, especially when you are running through the streets in fear of your life. Then, he proceeded to my slender calves, still knotted from the long air flight, but which now melted into putty in his hands. Then, my thighs and buttocks, first through the rayon shorts, but then, as I wriggled out of them, through my panties. Then, my back, shoulders and arms. The knots of tension that fear had built in me were torn down and scattered in Ronaldo’s strong hands. Then, ever so gently, he massaged my scalp, forehead and cheeks, which had been so cruelly used the night before. The memories faded as my muscles melted.

God, I was so ready for this man.

I said, "My turn, and guided him onto his back. I glided my hands over his rippling, marble like flesh. His legs were like the pillars of a massive cathedral, his stomach was like a chiseled bed of granite, his arms were like the coils of taught springs. He was a rock. I made my head comfortable on his stomach, curled my ass toward his arms to give him whatever access to me he desired, and began sucking his cock. It was a lovely, manly, meaty mouthful, and I was rewarded instantly with a lubricating mist of precum.

Its minty flavor suffused my senses, and brought a grateful moan to my lips. He pumped my face carefully, his hand on my head was a caress rather than a push, and his thrusts brought pleasure to my yielding lips and throat. He was a balm for the rough treatment that I had received the night before, and each stroke brought healing and relief to my injuries.

I could barely wait to have his therapy in my tummy, but he was still building energy, so I sucked and licked and flicked until he could take no more, and said he wanted to fuck me. "I’m ready," I replied, sliding a condom onto his glorious, 7 inch cock, with my famous lip roll. "Just a minute," I said, grabbing a tube of lubricant from my bag, and he waited patiently as I oiled his cock and my ass. "Now fuck me, gently at first, then as hard as you want." He hoisted his athletic frame behind me, and my ass tingled with anticipation, but would it be pain or pleasure? He was an expert, entering me gently, for an inch until my body winced, and then withdrawing momentarily, and re-entering, deeper this time, at the perfect moment, and then again withdrawing, until he was in me completely, without ever crossing the threshold were pain becomes more than an antidote to desire. "You’re so tight," he said. "You’re so big, and wonderful," I responded. "Do whatever you want." And he did.

I had never really appreciated soccer. My dad had dragged me to a few games as a teen, as he was a "futball" aficionado from his boyhood in Chile, but I hated the game, almost as much as we had hated one another. To me, it’s like watching grass grow, but then I hate all sports, except basketball, and of course, hockey. I had always been impressed with the athleticism of soccer players, but how stupid it is that they can’t use their hands, the appendage that sets us apart from the lower primates. In Ronaldo, I became a fan.

His stamina, fueled by a hundred downfield charges in every game, was incredible, and his hands: well, unbound by the rules of his sport, they were extraordinary. When I watch a soccer match now, I am overcome with Proustian memories of endless energy suffusing me within, while adept and energetic hand gently squeezed me from without, until my body and his were united into a single, explosion of energy within me, as he came in a torrent of energy, praise, and endearment. The last words I heard were "Te amore", and I nodded in sleepy agreement. When I awoke, sharp spikes of dawn were piercing the half-opened curtains of his room, and I rose silently to shower and dress. I heard Tran and Nancee chattering outside in the hallway, and poked my head out. "Less talk and more sleep," I complained.

"Time to move on, Madame Butterfly," Nancee retorted. "Our work here is done."

"Just a minute," and I returned to Ronaldo to kiss him goodbye. He was awake, his sleep interrupted by my absence. "Don’t go yet," he said pulling me back into bead. I was tempted, but resisted girlishly. "I must go, and so must you." I remembered Nancee’s words about Eddie’s jealousy fearfully, and did not want to be so conspicuous while Watanabe’s killers might be on the loose. He scribbled an address on a piece of paper, and made me promise to write him at his home. "You must visit me in Roma," he begged. "I’ll try. Come see me in America," I replied. "I will," he promised. And with a lingering kiss, we exchanged "arrivedercis."

As Tran, Nancee and I squeezed into the back seat of a waiting taxi I remembered practicalities. "Not that I didn’t enjoy myself last night, but did anyone pay us?" "Of course, I handled everything with the team manager, not that you deserve anything for spending the whole night with the cutest guy."

"Yeah, you Anglos are such a bunch of romantics. No business sense." I blushed and said I was sorry. "That’s OK, you more than held up your end the night before," Tran consoled me jokingly. "If it wasn’t for you, we wouldn’t have had our Mori bonus."

"Yeah, and Mama Thong wouldn’t be dead," I replied glumly.

"Oh, who knows why she got shot. Maybe Eddie’s enemies were aiming for her, not us," Nancee chirped.

"You mean you’re not sure. Nancee, we’ve touched off a street war, and you’re not even sure?"

"You never know for sure in Thailand."

I fretted the rest of the day over the misfortunes that my rashness had spread over this town, until Nancee got the report. The tragedy had ended as a comic opera. True, Liang’s gunman had been blown away, but then Liang and Eddie talked and worked things out. Liang was outraged that Watanabe had contracted for our killings after he had agreed to "silence money" with us, and apologized to Eddie profusely. He offered to compensate Eddie for the damage to the shop and for the loss of the indispensable Mama Thong, and Eddie accepted. Of course, Liang in turn demanded compensation from Watanabe for his expenses, losses and embarrassment. Mr. Mori’s death was officially ruled from natural causes, and Watanabe escaped with intact face, although now he had had to pay much more to Liang and Eddie for the same promise of silence that Nancee had made the day before. But now it was an agreement between Yakuza: between men, and was more valuable to Watanabe than the word of a Katoey whore, even one as beautiful, clever and well connected as we were.

We showered and rested at our suite until the beach began to fill, and then we lolled on the hot, white sands in skimpy bikinis, drawing the appreciative stares of the local boys.

I was too tired to even think about any more sex. I let the tropical sun heal my tired flesh.

After our brains fried, we showered again, and Nancee took us shopping. The deals were irresistible, and Nancee was a ruthless, foul mouthed bargainer, who never left one baht extra on the table. Our arms were filled with sexy Thai sundresses, knock offs of Versace and Dolce and Gabbana tops, and even silk scarves for our moms and dragon shirts for Rick and Randy. We returned to the hotel, and could barely fit the loot into our bags. At the front desk was welcome news from Dr. Sanguan’s: both of the Doctor’s procedures for Monday had canceled, and we were to report to his clinic immediately for preoperative procedures. We squealed with delight and sped off to the airport, just in time for the last flight to Phuket. Nancee said goodbye and promised to visit as soon as she was allowed.

I will spare you the details of my procedure. If you are really curious about Dr. Sanguan’s unique approach to SRS, I suggest you visit his website (http://www.phuket- plasticsurgery.com), or Anne Lawrence’s (http://www.annelawrence.com/srsindex.html), who features both Dr. Sanguan and many other Thai and Western doctors. You can even view pictures of the operation itself, in progress and in its aftermath, although, I can assure none of the graphics depict Tran or me.

For me, the surprise was that, although everything hurt, my boob job hurt the worst. And in the immediate aftermath, you can’t see any results: just gauze, and a lot of tubes. At least they put Tran and me in a room together, so that we could bitch to each other instead of suffering in the company of a stranger. They didn’t let Nancee visit until the day before we left for home. I still hadn’t seen anything, and my morale was in the pits.

She brought me a jade ring from Eddie, and presented me and Tran with two wrapped boxes. We still had IV’s in our wrists and couldn’t open the boxes, so she tore off the tissue and held up cotton panties. Across the bottom was emblazoned the warning: "Sorry, Closed for Repairs." We laughed until we hurt, and laughed again every time we thought about them.

The boredom and suffering were worth it, though, after the pumps, the tubes, the catheters, and the dressings were removed. The surgical sites were bruised and lurid, and shiny orange with Betadine, but through the cantilevered arch of my shapely new breasts I beheld the most beautiful, strange and delightful sight I had ever seen: an empty, open space between my thighs. Disbelieving my eyes, I touched the gap between my legs. It was no mirage. I was a woman.

The day after Nancee’s arrival, with my semester looming in the immediate future, we got travel clearance from a reluctant Dr. Sanguan and his wonderful staff. Nancee took us to the airport, and we cried as we left. "I know I’m coming back soon, and I know I can get you a visa to visit the U.S." She smiled, her face a pained mixture of hope and doubt. She had her date for her operation, and needed only a little more cash to pay for it.

She was leaving Koh Samui to return to her home city of Chiang Mai, where living was cheaper, and living as a katoey was less hazardous. They even encouraged katoey to go to the University, and she planned to take some classes while she waited her turn for Dr.Sanguan. "English Thai translation," I recommended. "I have a job in mind, but I have to write a grant for it." She nodded agreement. But who knew what would happen to this poor girl in this strange land, where katoey live freely and without social hatred, but in isolation from the rest of Thai society, in a sexual netherworld they share with their admirers.

My mom met us at the airport, her eyes still blackened from her own procedure. After expressing delight that her two girls were back home at last, she drove us straight to her plastic surgeon to have him evaluate us. Dr. Leibovitz expressed admiration for Dr.Sanguan’s work. "Amazing what he does with that scrotal skin. My practice has been to discard it. I may need to reconsider. Perhaps I should pay his clinic a visit and observe."

We hit him up for a load of estrogen and painkillers, and though I was happy with his opinion, I was again reminded of my mother’s unbelievable selfishness. She had let me travel to the Third World, to get a surgery that I could have gotten two miles from her front door without going over her Visa limit. What a bitch! I’ll never be like her, I swore.

But in a way I was happy. You may not agree with all of our methods (I’m not sure I do), but Tran and I had achieved what we had set out to. We had truly remade ourselves, by ourselves. And we had done it without help from anyone but one another.

---

The Greatest Lie, Chapter 11

A Whole New Me, The Same Old World.

By Alexandra Rios

"En Francais", they say "plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose:" the more things change, the more they stay the same. When Tran and I got back to Minneapolis from our trip to Thailand for our sex change operations, it was every bit as dark, frigid and depressing as it had been when we left. I returned to the same tiny, dreary apartment in a drug infested, sleazy stretch of Hennepin where the rents, and life were both cheap.

It hadn’t changed, but only felt worse after our balmy, thrilling, and successful trip to my home town, "LaLa Land", and the "Land of Smiles."

The shock of returning from balmy Thailand to the dark and cold of Minneapolis so shocked weakened body that I considered blowing off school entirely. But that would have been stupid, since I have a full scholarship and I had greased the rails for a really easy semester. I had it so easy that even if I weren't an academic genius, it would have been difficult to screw up. But it was so cold, and I was so weak, I couldn't stand going outside. So I just skipped another week of classes instead.

Tran had given up her place and moved in with me. I love her like a sister (okay, even more than that), and after all we had been through couldn't think of living without her. But after three consecutive days of being house bound by below-zero weather, and eating only delivered food, I was going crazy. "Tran, I have keep at this homework.

Can't you please go out and get us some real food: broccoli and brown rice or something.

We can't live on kung pao and pizza indefinitely. That's hard enough on anyone's colon, not to mention ours," which had been sectioned to lengthen our neo-vaginas.

"You go, I don't want to freeze my boobs off."

"Tran, they're saline. Like the ocean. They won't freeze."

"I can't go. I'm Vietnamese. We don't like the cold."

"Tran, you grew up a hundred miles from here. You must be used to it by now."

"I got used to being warm. I think I'm going back to LA, make more pornos with Pavel."

That, I had to admit, did sound attractive. I had had good reasons for leaving LA, but they were less compelling than ever, as the frosty windows rattled with another blast of arctic wind.

Tran brightened. "Maybe we should call somebody. Tell them we are starving, and get them to bring us food."

"Who do you have in mind?"

Tran threw out a few suggestions: my law school friend, Mark, my advisor, Professor Finch, our hockey star boyfriend, Rick a Randy. Since Tran and I had left for Winter break, we had shared a fantasy about the delirious welcome they would have prepared for us on our return: flowers, gifts, lingerie, and passionate kisses and embraces.

Now, even though we had been back for three whole days, we hadn't even heard from them. We were wondering if they had forgotten us.

"Do you think we should call them?" Tran asked.

"We can't. They'll totally get the wrong idea, that we're, like desperate or something."

"You're right," she said unhappily. She was reclining on a triangle pillow, her thighs parted, preparing to dilate her neo-vagina with a one-inch stent. She covered it in KY Jelly, then grimaced as she penetrated herself. "You know you should be doing this too," she reminded me through clenched teeth. "It's- so o- o-o, hard, O-o-o." She groaned, as the nylon stent stopped less than half way in. "It's stuck again, ouch. God, what's going to happen if I get a cock stuck in there?"

"It'll be the happiest day of your life," I joked.

"No way, who would want the same old cock all of the time!" Tran replied mischievously.

I took a break from my translation of the Knights Tale to hip hop lyrics, and took my place on the floor next to Tran, a xeroxed law case in one hand, and my own stent in the other. We had started dilating a few days earlier, with the narrowest, one-inch stents.

It was gonna be a hard row to hoe. Our penile skin had been too skimpy to fashion an adequately deep vagina, and so our Thai surgeon, Dr. Sanguan, had lengthened it with a section of colon that he had sutured to the end of the inverted penile skin. He had used grafts of scrotal skin to form labia and the glans of the penis to form a clit.

Now that the sutures had dissolved, and the scars and bruises were fading, we could see he had performed miraculous work. We had lovely, though tiny, female genitalia, where our cockettes had been. But these delicious, tempting treats were forbidden for at least two months, and even longer, until we had successfully dilated with the massive 1 1/2 inch stents. These forbidding tools lay unused, until we had successfully mastered their one inch and 1 1/4 inch mates. And the one incher had me stymied. I could not force it past the juncture where the penile and colon tissues were joined. I removed it, re-lubricated it, and re-entered. "Just keep it moving, Tran," I advised. "Just like you know what."

Tran giggled. "Just think what Rick and Randy would do if they saw playing with ourselves like this."

"I think I know what they would do, and we're not ready for it."

"Sh-sh, I'm going to close my eyes and imagine it's Randy." I heard Tran begin to breath harder and moan sensually. "It's not working, it's not helping. I've had enough!"

She pulled out her stent and threw it across the room in disgust.

She got up and dialed a phone number impatiently. "You're not calling them," I implored.

"No, I'm not. Yeah, hello, beef and broccoli, extra broccoli, please, no beef, and brown rice. Yeah, for Tran again, on 1385 Hennepin, Unit 22. Yeah, call from security.

Make sure it's hot. And bring chopsticks. Bye. OK, Alexandra, I got your broccoli.

Call me when it arrives. I'm taking a bath." I continued with my dilation, and my reading for another half-hour, until the phone rang. "Tran, I'm running down to get dinner," I yelled. I had made little progress on the dilation or the case. A chill of cold and fear shook me as I entered the stairwell: had I gotten in over my head with this operation?

And what was I supposed to be getting out of these Court decisions? When I returned, greasy bags of Chinese in hand, I phoned my mentor, Mark Whitman. "Alex, it's good to hear your voice. You're back? I didn't see you first day. Not that it mattered" "My trip got kind of messy at the end. But everything is fine now."

"Don't worry, because Epstein didn't show either. He's on another honeymoon."

"I didn't know he was getting married."

"He didn't."

"M-m-m."

"Don't even think about it, Alex."

"All I'm thinking about are these law cases. I mean, what am I supposed to be getting out of them? I mean, am I supposed to be memorizing them or something?

They're so long and boring, and there are so many." I was panicking.

"I always forget that you're a baby. Here's what you do. You read the facts really fast, then get to the holding, which is what the court decides. Then you figure out what the facts and law they used to get to the holding: that's the rationale. Then you figure out what's wrong with rationale, like which important facts they left out or what law they ignored. Then compare the holding to the earlier cases and figure out how they fudged the outcome: that's what's wrong with the holding. Then go onto the next case, do the same thing, and figure out what this bunch did different than the last. That's it: law school in a nutshell. Epstein loves to hear what's wrong with judges. He thinks they're all idiots."

"So you're really not learning anything from the cases."

"Well, actually, you have to memorize all of the holdings for the final. But what you are really trying to learn is how to show all other lawyers and judges (except you, Epstein and me) are a bunch of idiots. You're learning how to criticize others."

"Oh, I can get into that."

"Wait'll you read the assignment for this week. You'll find something to hate in the Gardiner case. We're meeting at Epstein's house next Saturday. See ya then."

The siege of unspeakable weather gave me an excuse to ditch classes for another week, and regain my strength. When the below zero days finally ended in a glorious January thaw, the students had tee-shirted snowball fights in the quads, and I emerged to go to my first classes. As I strode, tight-sweatered an open-jacketed across campus to catch he bus to the suburbs, I realized that my new profile was attracting appreciative looks and smiles from nearly every guy who saw me. As I ran to catch the departing bus, boobs bouncing painfully, a stranger interceded, yelling to the driver to stop, and held the door for me gallantly as I boarded. I rewarded him with a "thank you" and a demure smile, and got a "Wish I were going your way" from the handsome stranger. Another guy offered me his seat, and then chatted me up the rest of the ride. God, this is great, I thought. Every guy who saw me, noticed me, feasted his eyes, and then wanted to please me. Life is going to be a party.

Avoiding the foul weather to which Tran and I had returned, Epstein had stayed late in Acapulco, and had assigned a thousand pages of legal cases: we would have a triple session at his house in Edina to make up the lost class time. His girlfriend Lynn, a third year student, participated as a student. What a class! It was an upper level seminar, so everyone wanted to be there and had an opinion. Let me tell you, Minnesota, hell, America, is a pretty weird place, if you grew up in West LA. I mean, it was a strange brew.

On one had, you'd find hipsters from Madison, Ann Arbor, even Berkeley; on the other hand, you found the bright but naíve hicks: strict Lutherans from Duluth or wherever that had been brought up to believe dancing to be sinful and that gays had been sent by the devil to pervert the innocent. I mean, in LA, you'd have to go to West Covina or someplace to find such rustics. And there we were, in Epstein's breakfast room, me and Lars from Fargo, head to head on the Kansas Supreme Court's decision In the Matter of The Estate of Marshall G. Gardiner.

I had been up half the night, reading, and then having nightmares about the case.

J'Noel, a forty year old post op had made good, become a professor, and then married Marshall, an eighty-something millionaire: like Anna Nicole Smith, but trans. Good 'ole Marsh had promptly left us for that great board of directors in the sky, leaving behind no will. His son wanted the money, and went after J'Noelle. Epstein turned to me. "Ms.

Rivers, please state the facts and holding of the Gardiner case."

I smiled, pleased that he had remembered to use my new name, and stated the case: "The case involves J'Noel Gardiner's claim to the estate of Marshall G. Gardiner. J'Noel was born male, had sex reassignment surgery and had an amended Wisconsin birth certificate showing her gender as "assigned female." Marshall, an elderly widower, was a donor to the college where J'Noel was a professor. He fell in love and married her with knowledge of her past. Gardiner died without leaving a will the following summer.

Gardiner's estranged son sought to claim the entire estate, arguing that the marriage was invalid. Kansas had passed a version of the Defense of Marriage Act, by which the state forbids recognition of same-sex marriages. Joe argued that as a matter of law J'Noel, as a genetic male, was incapable of legally marrying his late father.

The trial court agreed with Joe, ruling that under Kansas law, anyone born male remains male, and ignored the Wisconsin birth certificate.

The Kansas court of appeals reversed, finding that the district court had improperly determined as a matter of law that J'Noel remained a man. The lower court needed to conduct a trial about whether J’Noel was male or female, based on the scientific and medical factors relevant to determination of gender.

The Kansas Supreme Court reversed the appellate court. Even though the terms "sex," "male" and "female" were not defined in the Kansas "protection of marriage" statute, the held that J’Noel’s sex was male, based on definitions taken from an old edition of Webster's Dictionary, which looked to genetic and biological factors only.

I read the holding: "'A male-to-female post-operative transsexual does not fit the definition of a female. The male organs have been removed, but the ability to 'produce ova and bear offspring' does not and never did exist. There is no womb, cervix, or ovaries, nor is there any change in his chromosomes. As Texas supreme court had held in the earlier Littleton case, the transsexual still 'inhabits... a male body in all aspects other than what the physicians have supplied.' J'Noel does not fit the common meaning of female. If the legislature intended to include transsexuals, it could have been a simple matter to have done so."

I concluded "So the Court held the marriage was invalid and awarded the entire estate to Joe, and nothing to J'Noel."

Epstein asked " Ms. Rivers, do you see anything wrong in the reasoning of the Kansas Supreme Court?"

"It's a terrible decision by a weak and lazy judges, or maybe they are pretending to be ignorant and are really biased. Why should they assume that the Kansas legislature had in mind an outdated dictionary definition of sex, male and female? Given the attention paid to transsexuals in the media, why not assume that the Kansas Legislature was aware of transsexuals and intended that the courts categorize them based on gender identity rather than genes, particularly where Wisconsin had officially recognized the sex change? These judges were relying on their own limitations and preconceptions, where they admitted they had no evidence of legislative intent. I think it's a terrible decision."

Peter Swenson, a Young Republican type, replied hotly "Aren't you doing just what you are accusing the court of? Where there is no contrary intent, shouldn't we let the plain meaning of the statute speak for itself. Last time I looked, this was still a republic, where elected legislators make the laws, not the judges."

Epstein took my part, and responded "So what they are saying is that the Kansas legislature must have ignored all of the science and publicity about transsexuals in defining gender. Of course they knew about transsexuals. The statue is an abomination, but it was only aimed at prohibiting gay marriage. Why interpret such a statute broadly?

I think Rivers has a point. Should one infer a deprivation of rights based on silence?"

Alec Olsen, another Heritage Foundation type, interjected "Why should we assume Kansas legislators were ill informed. Why not assume the obvious, that they were relying on common understandings of these terms. After all, they were enacting the "Preservation of Marriage Act", not the "Protection of Transvestites Act. " Mark Whitman replied "Point taken, but no one anticipates that Legislatures are enacting laws to fit eternity. Isn't the role of Courts to interpret?"

I added "Science, medicine, and society change far faster than Legislatures can enact laws. When this 'Protection of Marriage Act' was enacted, eight, nine years ago, look what's happened in that time."

Alec rejoined "Yeah, I'm looking. What difference does that make? That there are more unwed mothers, gay couples having kids? Are courts supposed to reshape laws to fit fads, and facilitate social extremism? If Marshall had had a young child, are you going to give J'Noel custody? Are we seriously considering honoring transsexuals on Mothers Day?"

I exploded: "OK, you won't let J'Noel be a mother. You won't let her sue for her husband's death or inherit from him. You say she's still a male. Will you let her be a Scout Master?"

Alec sneered "No, but that's because society has an interest in protecting children from exposure to aberrant behavior."

Epstein replied "OK, she can't be a Girl Scout or a Boy Scout. Fine: if she can't marry a male and adopt his child, can she marry a female, and adopt a woman's child?"

Alec answered "Same issue. If the law gives the privilege of marriage to males and females, then no, she can't marry either a woman or a man, because she has the outward appearance of a woman in the chromosomes of a man. And she can't adopt as a matter of child protection."

I countered "I don't get it. A transsexual can't marry a male and can't marry a female. Who are they supposed to marry, another transsexual coming from the opposite direction? What if that person has a kid?"

Peter interrupted "Absolutely not. They can't marry at all, under Kansas law."

Mark said, "You've got to be kidding me, what about Equal Protection."

Peter responded "It doesn't apply to protect a transsexuals."

Epstein was apoplectic: "It protects everyone: even non-citizens. Are you saying J'Noel has no Equal Protection rights at all. That we can deprive her of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?"

Alec retorted "No, but we can restrict her from exercising privileges that are specific to gender. At this point, she doesn't have a gender in the eyes of the law."

Epstein said "Reminds of that story, 'Man Without a Country.' 'Woman without a Gender': pretty barbaric for Twenty-First Century jurisprudence. Is that where we're going? To paraphrase my favorite movie, ‘Toto, I think we must be in Kansas.’" Mark rejoined "It's ridiculous and cruel to deny J'Noel any legal rights dependent on gender. Gender is her precious possession. Even the Kansas Court acknowledged her sacrifices. Can they really mean that in claiming her gender, she relinquished it?"

Peter retorted, "But the Court said it was up to the Kansas Legislature, not the Courts applying the Equal Protection, to defend her. And it hasn't, and shouldn't."

I argued "But you're argument goes far beyond that. You think that she shouldn't have a protected right to claim her gender. Why not?"

Alec answered "Because Equal Protection prevents discrimination based on attributes that the individual can't change. J'Noel chose to change her body and sexual identity. Therefore, she doesn't deserve to be protected."

Epstein summarized "So you can deny J'Noel all Equal Protection right: the right to work, to vote, to petition the government?"

Peter polished his glasses. "I don't propose to suspend all rights, I suppose, but certainly the privilege to assert legal entitlement where gender is an issue."

I dissected this position. "You believe the state can deny her the rights to assert, as a male or as a female, any legal right that's dependent on gender?"

Peter responded "Yes, because J'Noel really possesses neither the gender of a male or a female."

Epstein posited. "So you are saying that transsexuals are neither legally male nor female, that they belong, if you will, to a third gender?"

"I'm not a social scientist, but I guess you could say that."

Epstein continued "And obviously, this minority is a tiny minority?"

Peter admitted, "Yes, I guess so."

Epstein pounced: "But we reserve the greatest degree of Equal Protection scrutiny for small, unpopular minorities. How can we tell transsexuals that their recourse is in the legislature, not the Courts? I doubt the transsexual lobby throws a lot of weight in the Kansas Legislature" Peter backpedaled "People like J'Noel are different from other minorities."

Mark pursued "Because they are sexual minorities, and we have special rules for sex? Sounds pretty Victorian to be a basis for Constitutional Law."

Alec attempted to lead an escape: "No, because they choose to be what they become. We protect only those who have immutable characteristics. J'Noel is different because she voluntarily undertook to become what she became."

I sprung the trap: "You assert that she volunteered to be transsexual?"

"No, but she chose to take the hormones, have the tracheal shave, and to have the other surgery."

I went on "So you are saying these procedures should be punished, even where they are medically recommended."

Alec asserted "No, but when J'Noel had them, she forfeited the rights to full citizenship, either as a male, or as a female."

Epstein questioned "And what compelling state interest compels such an extraordinary deprivation?"

Peter argued "Doing otherwise brings chaos to society, the family, to the expectation of normality. We must, I suppose, tolerate everyone, even the criminally insane, but we don't have to accord them full status as citizens. J'Noel, like a schizophrenic, is simply too destructive of the social order to be given free rein. The state must be empowered to limit her freedom to protect the rest of us."

Epstein pronounced "Gender apartheid, for a tiny and powerless minority?"

Alec begged off "Unless the legislature decides otherwise."

Epstein questioned "That does appear to be what Texas and Kansas have decided.

Is it right? Is there a role for the Federal Court here?" Epstein's eyes scanned the classroom, meeting mine only for the same moment as the others.

I had the last word. "Absolutely, you cannot deny equal protection based one's outward aspect, as long as it reflects and immutable internal trait." Half the group nodded in agreement, the others vehemently disagreed.

Epstein concluded "Fascinating. I think we mined all of the ore out of that vein.

Next case, Olsen."

We worked through a dozen cases that way, working until lunch. Then we broke, and Epstein invited us to stay for sandwiches. I grabbed Whitman. "I can't believe Epstein did that to me. Was he trying to 'out' me?"

"No, that's what Epstein does! He puts you under the microscope and lets the rest of the class dissect you. Welcome to law school, little sister. But you were sensational.

You made those two look like a couple of idiots. And they're third year. Don't say anything. Here they come."

Alec smiled and said "No hard feelings, OK?"

"None here," I responded with a smile and a flutter of my lashes. "Comes with the territory, doesn't it?"

"Wow, you were really great. How did you learn so much law?" Alec asked.

"I'm a quick study."

"But you're new, aren't you."

"Actually, I'm an undergrad. A Freshman."

"No wonder you're still a liberal. Get a little closer to real life, and things start looking different. Unless you become a weirdoes' rights type like Whitman here. How did you end up in this circus?" Peter nodded toward Epstein.

"I wrote something for one of what you called Mark's weirdoes' rights projects, and Epstein liked it. So he invited me."

"We won't hold that against you. Will we, Alec?"

"No way. Where do you live? Are you in a sorority?" Alec inquired.

As we talked, I noticed that each time I switched eye contact to one, the other transferred his gaze to my breasts. Should I be flattered, or worried? Was I too big, or not natural? "No, I'm way too busy for all the socializing. I'm all work and no play. In fact, I have to do some work-study tutoring in a few minutes."

"Underprivileged, undernourished urban youth?" Peter asked sarcastically.

"No, over-privileged, oversexed hockey players." I tossed my hair carelessly.

"Can you get tickets?" Alec demanded.

"I've never had the occasion to ask," I purred demurely.

"Cool, good to meet you. Ask for four tickets for Wisconsin," Alec replied with a breezy wave. "And bring a friend," he added arrogantly.

"Oh, shurr!" I replied, adding a Fargo-ese umlaut to my vowels.

"See you next week," Peter chirped.

When they were out of hearing, I whispered to Mark "Do you think they have any ideas, you know, about me?"

"I think they've got lots of ideas about you. But I don't think they related you to the Gardiner case, if that's what you mean."

"What do you mean?"

"Just the usual ideas guys have about fantastically beautiful girls."

I blushed. "Do you mean me? Do you like the new me better than the old?"

"It's the same you. And the same me. And though you're ever more beautiful, and I'm just as square. How's Tran, er, Teri?"

"She's great, you know, we're both, ah recovering still."

"Ahem, and how's that going?"

"Want to see for yourself?"

"No, ah, not really." He was blushing.

"Sorry, I know, I was only kidding." I looked at my watch. "Gotta go. So I did all right?"

"Better than that. You were born to be a lawyer."

I walked off smiling inwardly, musing "Born to be lawyer, or a hooker?" God, this life kind of sucked. For every real person like Mark, there would be a thousand powerful, bigoted poseurs like Alec and Peter. I would have to be on guard every moment in the company of such affable haters.

My work study advisor had assigned me to a tutoring group for "Special Needs" students. Of course, the special need of this group was their need to retain athletic eligibility without letting studying interfere with the rigors of training, traveling and playing for Minnesota's championship hockey squad. My assignments were Math and English. I met my first students, Mike and Karl, in an assistant coach's office. Karl eyed me hungrily and asked "Hey, Teach, how do we get detention?"

"Yeah, we want to stay after class," Mike quipped.

"Hmm, I usually give detention to bad boys. You're not nearly bad enough for that."

"We'll work on it," Karl promised.

I worked them through some "practice exams" in trigonometry. They were clueless, until I analogized the sine, chord and tangent concepts to the ricochets of hockey pucks off sticks, boards and helmets. Then it began to click, and they got the practice test on the third try. They were drunk with success and ready for relaxation, and demanded that I join them for a happy hour at the Sigma Chi house. I was struggling to extricate myself from their advances when I heard the welcome sound of a familiar voice. "Alex, is that you?" Rick bounded into the room, and lifted me in a joyful embrace."

My lips dodged his and I whispered in his ear "It's about time, I mean, the nick of time."

"Oh, sorry Rick dude, we didn't mean to skate on your ice, OK, dude," Karl apologized.

"Hey, that's cool man, how were you to know this babe was my good friend."

"She's a great teacher. You're a lucky dude," Mike added, shuffling away and saying "Next week, right here, right."

"Good luck on your exams, guys!"

As soon as they left, Rick closed the door and said "Wow, I like what Santa brought."

"If you had waited much longer, it could have been the Easter Bunny. What's the matter with you?"

"You know, we were like, busy, getting back into it and all."

"Too busy to call? Gimmee a break."

"You didn't call me. I dunno, I wasn't sure, you know, how I would feel. I mean, we're so, you know, different."

"You mean I'm so different?"

"You sure are different now. You look, like, awesome." He reached for me, and I did not object as he fondled my still tender breasts.

"Careful, I'm still very sensitive." He slipped his hands under my sweater and gently caressed the silky lace of my underwire bra, and tilted my head back in a passionate, breathy kiss. My anxiety and pique subsided, and I succumbed to Rick's firm but fond embraces. His hands eagerly explored my new contours, then impatiently fumbled at the clasp of my bra. I guided his clumsy fingers to help him free my breasts from their lacy confinement. He stroked my still scarred nipples impetuously, and I gasped "Be gentle!" He pulled my sweater up and over my head, and I twisted my neck from the turtle neck, hair tousled and face flushed with the effort and passion.

Rick stared, goggle eyed, and gently cupped my perfect, conical boobs in his large, strong hands. "Alexandra, they're, I mean you're, fabulous."

And this was the moment I had longed for, and dreamed of, since those sweaty, opiated, painful days on my bed-sore ass in Phuket. All that I had been through was requited in that one phrase, from a guy who'd ignored me until he practically tripped over me on his way to the shower. What was I thinking? What kind of passive, chick thing had I lapsed into? Fuck, what did I care? He wanted me. I wanted him. Then a shiver of paranoia ran through me. If he was so transfixed by my boobs, if he saw my pussy, he would fuck me until I hemorrhaged and bled out on the floor.

My passion quickly found common cause with self-preservation, and I tugged at his shorts. His manhood was nestled in the shell of a jockstrap and cup, unfamiliar and unhappy memories of my own pathetic athletic experience. His sweaty meat bounded from the confines of his gear.

He was tangy with the sweat of a hard practice, and I gagged with the first lunges into my throat: had it been so long I had forgotten this art? Soon, my muscle memory reasserted itself and I reacquainted my lips, tongue and tonsils to the rhythms of his groin. He grappled for my breasts and pussy, but the wet suction of my lips and cheeks on his cock distracted him and brought forth an instant anointment of precum to my glistening lips.

He seized my bobbing pony tail and soon was straining and spasming, as the sensations of my lips and tongue on his cock and my breasts pressing on his thighs brought him under my control. My breasts massaged his muscular thighs with each lunge of my lips down his shaft to his lap, and he murmured "I wanna fuck you," and began to roll me off his lap, but I shook my head and resisted, and he surrendered to my insistent blow job. He let out a guttural moan, and banged my head savagely onto his cock as he orgasmed wildly, down my parched throat into my hungry tummy. He popped out with his last thrust. I firmly squeezed his balls, sending a squirt sprayed into my eyes and hair, before the last droplets oozed onto my breasts.

As he relaxed on the coach's couch, I wiped his spilled seed from my neck and reapplied my gloss and mascara. He looked up and smiled and said "That was great, worth the wait. What a great surprise, ah, surprises."

Now that I had momentarily unmanned him, I felt safe to disclose the whole truth.

"I'm full of surprises. Are you ready for more."

"Oh, there's more. Like what, a tattoo?"

"Close your eyes, and no peeking." I wriggled out of my jeans and let them plop to the floor. I stepped to within reach. He squinted at my panty clad form, and I warned "I said no peeking," and he obediently closed his eyes. "Now, slide down my panties, and open your eyes."

His eyes practically popped out of his head, and I noticed the coiled snake between his legs sprang to life. "Whooo, Alex, you got a pussy." He rose and grabbed me from front and behind and reached his hands through my vacant crotch, and then fingered and pried open my tiny labia.

I winced and said "Careful, I'm not nearly ready," he was already pulling me onto his lap and pressing his re-hardened cock head against the narrow opening. "Really, I can't and you can't, it's too new." He had gone deaf and was trying, futilely, to enter me with his drained penis.

"I can't believe it, it's so perfect, you're like a real girl. Just like I'd always dreamed."

"This is how you wanted me in your dreams?" I felt a warm glow light me from within.

"Exactly," he replied, and rolled me onto my back and grabbed and pulled my ankles over his shoulders. He pressed against me again, but his cock lacked the energy to do any damage, and I covered my vulnerable vagina. I lectured him sternly. "None of that yet. You could ruin it or hurt me." He nodded but ignored me and I warned him sternly "I mean really injure me if you do it before I'm ready. It's not big enough or strong enough inside yet."

"How long do I have to wait?" he complained.

"At least another month."

"No way. Well, how about the old way?" He reached beneath me and began fingering my ass.

"Not there either, they had to operate there too. Please, don't, it could be really dangerous. You could rip my insides and I could bleed to death. You wouldn't want that, would you?"

He shook his head vigorously. "Wait for me until I'm ready, and I promise I'll save myself for you, even though you are too big. And in the meantime, we can do this."

I licked his balls playfully, and then took him back into my mouth. To my amazement, he was hard again, but my renewed blow job would not bring him back to climax. He shook his head in frustration, and said "It's not enough."

"Wait there, I have an idea." I grabbed a tube of lubricant from the bottom of my purse and spread it between my breasts. I lay down on the floor and beckoned, and said, "Sit on my tummy." I gasped as he crushed my rib cage, but wrapped my tender breasts, nipple to nipple, around his cock. "Now rub it there," and he began plunging into the tunnel of my tender breasts. It was a glorious sight to see his cock head bounding and receding through the circle that my boobs made around him. I was thankful that I had prevailed on Dr. Sanguan to use the 350 cc implants, which had given me the very generous C Cups which now sheltered and surrounded Rick's insatiable cock. Soon, he was pounding away, and though my breasts ached from the relentless pressure, they were sufficiently healed to endure the thrusts. After a few minutes he came, and my collarbones were adorned with another necklace of molten pearls. Rick collapsed to the floor next to me, breathing hard.

"I guess you must approve."

"God, I'm sorry I had trouble controlling myself, I was just so overwhelmed. It's so incredible. You're irresistible."

"Thank you. But you have to promise me, no trying to fuck me until I say.

Otherwise, you shouldn't see me. The doctor really warned us, nothing for another month at least, and maybe not until after another operation."

He thought for a minute. "What do you mean, us? Tran had an operation too?"

"Yeah, and don't you dare tell Randy. Let her surprise him."

"So she's not ready either?" I hit him playfully. "No she's not, and don't even think about it."

"Yeah, right," he muttered. Of course I knew I could never trust him, but with Tran, I could at least keep an eye on him. And I wasn't so trustworthy myself. "Really though, you have to let Tran surprise Randy. Don't spoil the surprise for them." Besides, I had to remind Tran to unman Randy with a blow job before she let the cat out of the bag, or pussy would get its tail pulled. Randy was even more uncontrollably libidinous than Rick.

Suddenly, I heard the sound of an opening door and footsteps. "Someone's coming," I said, and Rick replied "Holy Shit." We quickly pulled on our clothes straightened the disheveled cushions on the couch, and were seated books in hands at the desk when Assistant Coach Barnes entered his office.

"Getting in a little extra credit with the tutor, Rick?" he snarled sarcastically.

"Yeah coach, Alexandra here is really helpful."

"I'm sure she is," he said, sniffing the air ostentatiously. "What subject are you working on, French?"

"Math, actually. But I'm fluent in French, if anyone needs it."

"They all need it. They're just not studying it, huh Rick?"

"Right, coach," he said with a masculine guffaw.

"Listen here," he said wagging his stubby finger at me. "Do what you want, with whoever, but no French tutoring in my office, if you catch my drift. Now pack up and go. No, just you, Mademoiselle Tutor. Rick, I want another hour on the ice from you."

I packed up and left, my face burning with embarrassment. I called Tran, and warned her that Randy would soon know our secret. "So if you want it to be a surprise, call him now."

"Alexandra, did you already do him first?"

"No, but if you insist, I will. Rick will get over it, if you do." I was warming up to the concept.

"I have an idea. Let's both surprise him."

"Tran, you are such a bad influence."

I took a quick shower and was doing my make up when Randy called on the intercom. Tran let Randy in, and after a brief murmured conversation I heard the familiar sound of squeaking bedsprings. As I applied fresh make up, I eavesdropped on my best friend, and my former lover. They began with polite, slightly stiff greetings, and progressed to giggly, breathy kissing, and then to fierce, athletic passion. I listened to sounds of lips sucking, cheeks popping against a lunging penis, the slight chokes and gags that occur in a really determined blow jobs, and in brief interludes, a few lovers’ words, between their gasps and groans.

As I applied my gloss, I recalled vividly how Randy's wild cock had rammed down my throat and into my ass. His groans become grunts, the squeaking of the bed become deafening. I remembered the exquisite rush of energy that his orgasms brought, and I envied my friend. I heard their breathing gradually subside, and their murmurs rise, as I brushed my hair to smooth, silky perfection.

I chose the perfect moment, just before Randy took his post-orgasmic piss. I emerged from my hideout, wrapped at the bodice with a towel, and said "Randy, shame on you. Too busy to say hello to an old friend?" Randy looked over his shoulder and said "Whoa, Alex, I, I-ah" and then I plopped on the bed next to him, opposite Tran, and let my boobs escape from the unraveling towel and slid under the sheets by his side. He was immediately transfixed.

"Wow, they, ah, you look, like, great. What a great surprise!"

"Go ahead, you can touch me," and he began fondling me. I murmured gratefully in response, and Tran propped herself on Randy's shoulder to observe approvingly. She commented "I like hers better than mine, too. It's OK, admit it, they're softer."

"I love yours too," Randy said politically, rolling onto his back to observe, and fondle us, in stereo. He did look really happy, relaxing between two beautiful girls, each hand on a breast. "I really got a handful here," he joked.

"I gotta surprise for you too," Tran said.

"What's that," Randy asked. "I like these surprises so far." As her answer, Tran took his hand from her breast and pulled it down her tummy. Guessing her intent, I slid his other hand toward my new pussy. Tran won this erotic race, and Randy said "Whoa, what's that, I mean," and with that he reached my vagina and said "Wow, this is unbelievable, you're like, regular girls, lemmee see." He rose to his knees, threw back the sheets, and said "Wow, this is like a dream. You're incredible. I wish I had two cocks," and I noticed his cock was stiffening again. "Like, I don't know where to start."

"Start here," I said, and wrapped my lips around his member, which was still salty with his last orgasm, and Tran's saliva. "Or here," Tran said, gently nudging me away and taking her turn.

He reflexively and relentlessly tried to escape our lips and mount Tran. "No way, our Doctor says we must stay virgins for at least, ah, six more weeks. Maybe more."

He tried to mount me. "Really Randy, it's not safe for us to have sex yet. We're not healed inside."

"Oh, shit, it's just irresistible. I got to have you, now."

"No, not yet, let me give you another blow job."

"Both of us," I offered.

"OK, but let me at least touch you, let me see."

We squiggled our pussies down toward his astonished face, and began giving him a double blow job, occasionally warning him not to push his fingers into our still healing vaginas, and occasionally soothing our cock-sore lips with a kiss of the others swollen mouth. Nineteen year old guys are one of God's gifts: after about twenty minutes of this divine revelation, he came again in a fountain of cream that oozed gently from the purple hood of his cock.

He dozed as we showered together. I remarked admiringly to Tran "Too bad these pussies don't work as good as they look."

"I'd be a happy girl then," Tran replied.

"And he'd be a happy guy, too. Keeping him on the outside is going to be impossible, and Rick is no better."

"Well, what is it, another week and we can do it the old way."

"You think? But will they want to?" I asked.

"I think they won't know the difference."

"You're so bad! How will we know it's safe? I don't think Sanguan makes house calls to Minneapolis."

"We had the same operation at the same time. After your big operation last year, Student Health has to give you a free examination. That's how I'll know. If you're ready, I'm ready. And I'd better be ready soon, because I'm s-s-s-o horny. And s-s-s-s-o broke."

Mr. Watanabe's hush money was running out, and my scholarship and grant money barely covered the room. I was sick of being a starving student, and Tran and I were sexual entrepreneurs by nature. Not only did Rick and Randy need to be satisfied, but so did our own financial needs.

The next morning, I called Student Health and asked for an appointment with Dr. Peter Prince. His assistant had me come in for blood tests, and Dr. Prince made room on his schedule the morning that the lab work was done. I made a point of blowing my hair and dressing to the max. It was still freezing by my standards, but a tight ribbed turtleneck, under an open pea jacket, over my new body warmed me and the atmosphere all around me. Dr. Prince wandered absently into the waiting room, looking about absently and called out "Alexandra Rivers," and gazed around vacantly, his gaze passing over me and returning only after he had searched the room. With a startled nod of recognition, he exclaimed "O my god, that's you, Alex!"

"You didn't recognize me?"

"Well, now I do, but you look...fantastic" "Do you like my new look?"

"You look lovely. Come with me," he said, recovering his professionalism. "I gather your overseas trip was successful?"

"So far, so good. I'd like your opinion as to how successful."

"Perfect, I've arranged gynecological consult. And I think we better take a peek at your colon." He led me to a waiting room and I was both alarmed and pleased that the gurney was equipped with stirrups.

"Put on this robe, and lie down," he said, handing me a pink paper gown. I'll be back."

"No med students, OK?" He nodded.

I lay on my back, and slid my feet into the stirrups at the end of the gurney. They swung open, and I was naked and open. I loved the feeling of vulnerability this contraption gave me. But how would I look? I had peeked with a mirror, and Rick and Randy had stolen glimpses as they pried apart my squeezed thighs, but this was my public debut. I pulled the edge of the gown to cover myself, and rested my hands on my breasts, like a prone Botticelli Venus. Dr. Prince knocked and entered with two colleagues, and mumbled introductions.

"Tell us about your procedure." I described it and they nodded, mumbled, and conferred as they peered, palpated and prodded me. "This is going to feel a little cold," the GYN warned as he slid an icy object into my vagina. "Tell me if it hurts."

"No, it feels like a Popscicle, but it doesn't hurt. Uff, that hurt."

"You've got some blockage at 5 cm. How is the dilation going."

"Better than at first, but I can't get anything bigger than the 1" stent past that part."

"Scar tissue at the junction of the penile inversion and the colon tissue."

"Oh, no, Dr. Sanguan warned me. I didn't dilate hard enough."

"It was inevitable. It's like grafting a apple branch to a pear tree. You can do it, but the tree forms a knot."

"Can you fix it?"

"I don't think anyone but the original surgeon should operate. I wouldn't know where to begin."

"He's in Thailand. I can't go there for months."

"That's OK, it shouldn't be done for a couple of months, unless you want to do it more than once."

I was crestfallen as they completed their exam. With that exception, I was perfect. The colon re-section had healed perfectly, my hormones were perfect, my breasts were perfectly centered and positioned, as were my vulva and labia, which were small, but even and parallel. Even my vagina was perfect, except for a single cincture, which rendered it useless for sex. After the GYN and the proctologist left, Prince and I talked.

"You're disappointed?"

"Of course, I mean, I knew it could happen, but I tried so hard. And my boyfriend is going to be so bummed."

"Well, if he cares about you, he'll wait."

"I don't know, you know how boys are."

He wrapped his arm around my shoulder. "Alexandra, I'm confident that you'll figure out how to keep the boys coming." I smiled at this double entendre, and glanced up at Prince. Had he intended it? Was he coming on? He had a perfect, professional poker face.

"So other than that one little problem, all systems go?"

"You're perfect. My hat's off to you and your surgeon. He's an artist, and you're a masterpiece." I glowed with pleasure from his compliments all the way home.

Tran was, as usual, dilating and watching an Asian video when I got home.

"Shit, I can never get the larger stent in," she cried in frustration.

"Forget it, you probably got it too, the ring. We gotta get back to Phuket."

"Let's go now! I'm bored and sick of cold."

"Tran, we don't have the cash for the tickets, much less the surgery. And Dr. Prince recommends we wait two months anyhow."

"You got any good news?"

"Well, sort of, my colon is completely healed."

"Oh great, we can start getting fucked in the ass again? I was just getting used to not getting it there," she said bitterly. It had been about six weeks, our longest abstinence ever. "What was it like starting again?" she asked.

"I got back into it after the first few times. But we're different now, so I don't know. And Rick definitely wants my pussy?"

"He won't even know. If it's tight and wet, he'll fuck it without noticing or caring.

I fooled lots of guys before," Tran predicted confidently.

The weather had improved, so Tran went out canvassing for my T-Girl Sex Worker Study, and I had an interview with Lulu, an almost passable, homeless transsexual. Lulu was sullen and uncommunicative, and refused to take the intelligence evaluation test. She asked, "So why's a high class bitch like you axin about my life?"

"What makes you think we're so different?"

"Shit, look at you, look at me."

"We've got more in common than you think. I'm trans too."

"Well fuck me! Aren't you a peach? But you're all ladylike, and you can pass, and you're ejjakated. They kicked me out in eighth grade, been livin’ on the street since.

Whattaya know 'bout my life, and why do you care?"

"I'm trying to help the world understand us and see us as people, not freaks."

She reluctantly complied with my questionnaire. She took meth every day and she believed that she was Princess Diana, hiding from the killers who had tried and failed to kill her, then faked her death in Paris. Her chest, butt and face were distended with pumped silicone. She never used condoms, even for passive anal sex. She was troubled by the fact that almost half of her tricks wanted to be fucked by her, as she preferred the passive role and despised the fairies that wanted her to fuck them. She'd been dressing and streetwalking for three years, and didn't know her HIV status. She lived in an abandoned furniture store with three other Trannies. She worked alone and met her clients on a couch under a railroad underpass. She'd been busted for solicitation three times, but had never been convicted, though she had charges pending from a bust last week. That was why she had come to me. She'd gone down on a guy before she realized he was a cop, and couldn't afford a lawyer. I was patiently recording her tragic, bleak story, when the phone rang, and kept on ringing. I picked it up and before I could say anything Rick reminded me that he was coming over for a "study hall" in a half-hour.

"Make it an hour, I'm with a client."

"What do you mean?" he asked jealously.

"I mean I'm busy," and I hung up and continued with Lulu.

"Have you ever had a job?"

"Washing dishes at a pizza place, but they fired me. Said I was a faggot."

"Ever try to get a job as a woman?"

"Get lots of jobs as a woman. I mean, blow jobs," she said, dead-pan. I burst into laughter, and as she laughed at her own jest, we made eye contact for the first time. She searched my eyes, I knew, and realized that she saw she and I were sisters of the spirit and flesh. After that, an hour was hardly enough for me to record her secrets. But Lulu and I both had assignations, and as I gave her a hug goodbye, I wondered whether the fates of that doomed soul and my own would differ.

A minute after Lulu left, Rick buzzed and I let him up. He was visibly agitated and smelled like he'd had a few beers. "Let's get high," he said, producing a bong.

"I can't, I have some work to do later" I said, as he lit up and the bong gurgled ferociously. "Wanta hit?" he gasped, puffing acrid fumes.

"Not yet, it's too early. And we're supposed to be studying."

"It's only the fourth week of classes."

"Actually, the fifth, and only two weeks until mid terms."

"Oh, fuck it, I haven't even bought all of the books yet," he said, finishing the bong and throwing himself on my bed. "C'mere," he drawled through his emerging buzz, sliding down his jeans. I slipped my fingers over the waist band and worked them down his massive, bulging thighs, then pulled down his boxers. I slipped his thick, hardening cock between my lips and began sucking. The usual baptism of precum was skimpy, and he was unenthusiastic in his response. "I need to be inside you," he announced. "I really want to fuck you."

"I don't think I can, you're too big, and I'm not ready."

"Oh c'mon, can't we just try it. I really want to try it."

"No, just blow jobs for now," and I resumed sucking, but he was unresponsive.

"Please, if you can't handle it, I'll stop, I promise."

As if, I thought. "You won't be able to stop yourself. You're like an animal when you're aroused."

"Yeah, and an unsatisfied animal now. I just can't stand it. You're, like, turning into some kind of cock teaser. I might as well be with one of those sorority cunts. I thought you'd be different."

Well, I was, but that was the point, wasn't it. I had to succumb, or lose him. "Get comfortable, I'll be back." I went to my tiny bathroom, stripped to my bra and panties, freshened my hair and makeup, and then lubed my anus. My sphincters rebelled at the intrusion of my finger. God, I thought, what agony his penis would inflict on that disused passageway.

I snuggled into bed next to him, and he smothered me with wet and wild kisses to my lips, neck, hair, and then progressed to my breasts. He freed them from the enclosure of the lacy, lavender bra, then cupping them in his hands, licked, kissed and nibbled each nipple. The incisions around my aereoles had healed, and full sensation had returned, and ripples of pleasure flowed from them over my entire nervous system. I moaned "Don't stop," as his tongue left them and began tracing a path to my navel, then down my linea negra, across the fading but still visible smile-like incision at my bikini line, to my tiny, little girl-like labia.

I had kept shaving my rather flat mons, and Sanguan had warned me that a second operation was required to construct truly passable labia majora. The delicate lips that he had constructed were those of a pubescent girl, rather than a woman, but that only heightened Rick's interest, and he pressed his tongue through them as deep as he could into my tender, narrow vagina, then flicked my clitoris. My nervous system had only begun to reoccupy this region, so these sensations were faint and distant, but exquisitely subtle.

But his mouth tired of this effort, and of the massage my foot and ankle gave his cock. He rose above me, and gave me a wet, delicious kiss, and pressed my thighs open.

He pried open my labia and tried to enter me, and the sensations of pressure and strain were immediate and alarming. If he could get it inside me, that club would surely shred my still healing vagina. Visions of a painful, bloody death filled my imagination, but there was no stopping this rampaging libido now. I broke free from his lips and said, "No, not that way, let me get on top, it'll be easier for me." Easier to deceive him! I sat astride his flat, steely abdomen and grabbed my lube, as he fingered my quivering vulva. I applied lube to my rectum, rose up, and as I descended I pointed his erect cock away from my vagina, and into my ass. "Go slowly, so you don't hurt me," I reminded him, and he nodded, and then thrust upward as if his body was indifferent to his brain's promises.

He slid up my lubricious anus, and muttered, "Oh, that feels good, you're so tight," as my body convulsed at this sudden intrusion. A white-hot sheet of pain seared me, but I froze my scream into a silent grimace, and averted my eyes from his gaze, as he lunged his thighs upward and pressed down on my hips, to further his penetration.

"Is that too much?" he asked, and I nodded through pinched and tear filled eyes: I could not speak, without crying out in agony. He backed out a bit, and my contorted, rigid body collapsed with relief, and he fucked me from beneath as I lay in a swoon, my soft breasts massaging his washboard chest, and his heaving breath tickling the hair behind my ears.

Post op, anal sex was more painful, and less pleasurable than I had remembered it.

The removal of the masculine tissues during the sex reassignment surgery had removed the fulcrum that had previously made the levering of large cock in my ass enjoyable.

Instead of friction of the cock engorged colon against prostate and meatus, now felt it like he was banging away into a void, jostling and threatening the precious, fragile structures that Dr. Sanguan had painstakingly constructed. I recoiled from, rather than reveled in this invasion, and when Rick rose to a sweaty, grunting climax, I felt only relief. I extruded him swiftly and removed and disposed of his condom, and, before he could guess at his cock's recent destination, I had bounded to the bathroom quickly to cleanse myself of all evidence.

"That was fantastic," he exuded. "I can't believe how tight you are."

"It's not just how tight I am, it's how huge you are. You should register that thing as a dangerous weapon." I gave him a playful squeeze. "It's not natural: it's like, a big mushroom or something."

"No wonder it loves to hide in your little cave," he replied. "You know, you're much better than a regular girl. No fishy pussy smells, no PMS, no periods, no babies, no bitchiness," he recited.

"No commitment, no marriage plans, either, right?" Or no waiting around for female orgasms, I thought silently.

"Well, that's not what you want either, is it? I mean, I really like you and everything, but who needs all that structure and pressure? I think you're perfect."

I looked down at my arrogant, athletic god. He was perfect: handsome, rough hewn, and horny. He began to harden again as I lowered my lips to his groin, and tickled my nipples on the sinewy surface of his thighs. God, I hope the next time is easier. And it was a little easier: that night and each time that he came to me in the weeks that followed.

Tran had "lost her virginity" to Randy a couple of days later. We compared notes as we dilated on a dismal winter afternoon.

"Do you think that Randy knows that you're having anal sex?"

"I don't think so. When guys are horny they are so stupid. They don't notice anything but their cocks, and don't remember anything afterwards. I used to fool guys all the time, even before I had the operation."

"I'm not sure whether or not Rick knows he’s still sodomizing me, but I doubt if he would really care. I mean, he probably would like to be the one who broke in my pussy, but he just wants to bury his cock in and cum into a tight wet hole. I mean, I know he likes me as a friend, and needs me as his personal tutor, but he really values me most as his boy toy: the beautiful object he can touch, or fuck, whenever he wants."

And though I never regained my desire for anal penetration, I loved being the object of his attentions, and willingly endured this now self-sacrificial sex. His wandering hands and throbbing, insatiable cock reminded me of how beautiful and sexy I had become, and I liked being his sex object on that level. Dr. Prince’s hormonal wizardry, and the continued absence of testosterone from my system rounded and softened and softened me, and as my natural breast development continued, it made my new breasts an even more idyllic cynosure for men’s eyes, and Rick’s kisses and caresses. As the scars faded and the surgical sites, and my nipples and clitoris re- enervated, the pleasure of his ministrations increased, though on a subtle and almost spiritual plane. I didn’t even mind when he suggested a swap with Randy for Tran, for a beautiful as my friend, too, had become, I was confident that he would want me back.

And since they had emerged as two rising stars on Minnesota’s hot hockey team, other guys, even law students lick Alec and Peter, were constrained to keep at a respectful distance, though our association with these celebrities only enhanced our mystique.

I enjoyed being the brilliant and beautiful mystery woman at this hockey star’s side, and being part of the cult of envy and adulation that Rick attracted around campus, as he and Randy emerged as surprise stars on the defensive line of a championship team. And Rick delighted in being seen with a beautiful genius who was too busy with her independent studies and research to socialize with the run of the mill jock and frat crowd with whom he hung out. Thus, he had the best of both worlds: freedom to play the field at frat parties, and knowledge that he had a sure thing waiting for him at the end of the party.

And I even came to look forward to watching them play hockey, though the brutality and violence worried me for their safety.

Still, it was a turn-on to watch them help the team to a victorious season, with thunderous, crushing body checks to their opponents and murderous slap shots on hapless goalies. After all, the same body that left opponents gasping or inert on the ice was slamming into my vulnerable flesh in bed. Minnesota hockey’s triumphal advance to the NCAA tournament was like my own life that semester: an unexpectedly easy and thrilling campaign. And though he took me completely for granted, Rick was sweet to me, calling me every day to be stroked and bolstered: despite his success, he was barely more than a boy and needed emotional comfort and praise, with which I was only too happy to provide him.

So it came as a complete surprise when he called me and said in a cold and angry voice "Alexandra, we’re through. It’s over."

"What do you mean, why?" I replied, though I immediately suspected the cause.

"Transsexual Hookers? How could you do such a thing? A gay porno flick? I’m so humiliated and disgusted. I can’t believe I’m sharing you with scum like that guy in the movie."

"I’m sorry. I needed the money, you know, for Thailand. I’ll never do it again. But I just had to then."

"That movie’s gonna be around for ever. You’ve been scanned, spammed and jpeg-ed all over the Internet."

"No one needs to know. I mean, I really don’t even look the same now, do I?"

"Randy and I recognized you right away."

"But you knew me then. No one else has to know."

"We know. And what about all your law school friend. He knows."

"He’s been trained to keep secrets. Please don’t do this to me."

"It’s done. Just forget it. We’re through, got it?"

He hung up as I held the receiver in stunned silence, and I remained there motionless, barely able to breath, until I began shaking uncontrollably and dissolved into sobs and hot bitter tears. Like the tentacles of some alien monster, the residues of my past had emerged to strangle and submerge me in misery.

Randy had given the same brutal brush off to Tran, so at least we could suffer this sorrow and humiliation together. She was more experienced and had lower expectations, so she was more resilient and less bitter than I. "They were OK, but too much work, too much sex, for not much in return: just some hockey tickets and pizza dinners. We need to meet some richer guys." I agreed, as our funds were dwindling alarmingly. We had scalped most of the remaining hockey tickets, and Tran was doing outcalls from her little black book to supplement our funds. "Only fetish and blowjobs," she informed the tricks over the phone. "No sex." Most of her old clients were not interested in her as a post op.

Guys are so weird.

I was busy wrapping up the Transsexual Sex Workers interviews, writing up the findings, completing "Hip-Hop to Canterbury" and tutoring the rest of the hockey team.

Mike and Karl started taking greater interest in me after word spread that Rick and I were history, but Coach Barnes warned me away with angry stares. I was so bored and horny I considered taking on part of Tran’s workload, but instead I concentrated on finishing my research, and on writing a new grant proposal: to elaborate the work in Minneapolis with a cross cultural study of Thai Katoey, to be conducted through Chiang Mai University. Finch loved the idea, and, in a stroke of genius, I included funding for an assistant and a translator: Tran and Nancee, of course.

But my favorite class was Epstein’s Minority and Majority Rights Seminar. I was the class pet, the brilliant ingenue from whom everyone wanted to hear. I especially enjoyed sparring with the right wing, who always seemed surprised a well dressed, pretty young thing like me wouldn’t support their conservative views. And sometimes the issues, or at least my feelings about the issues, got muddled. Both Epstein and the liberal wing of the class praised Reno v. ACLU, in which the Supreme Court struck down the Communications Decency Act, by which Congress had tried to regulate the publication of indecent materials over the Internet by forcing the content poster to identify the recipients of their downloads. As a recent victim of unauthorized posts to Internet newsgroups, I was personally ambivalent. But that expression of my sexuality, while hurtful when I was copied and broadcast to the world through alt.sex.trans., had been the means by which I had financed my sex change. For me, the First Amendment had been necessary for my survival. Peter and Alec squared off against me and Epstein again. "So you think we should let school kids visit porn sites from library computers. I’m sure even Thomas Jefferson and James Madison would have disapproved."

" I think the Internet is like the public squares of Ancient Greece. The standards that we set now will guide the freedom of human discourse for years to come."

"Great, our descendants will be reading about ‘Girls Who Dig Animals,’ and remembering us as champions of freedom of deviance."

"Hey, the first photographs were porn. No one remembers the 19th Century as the age of sexual liberty."

"And photography flourished, even as indecency was suppressed."

"The rules you make here will be copied in the Peoples’ Republic to ban the Dali Lama, or even the Bible. Can you live with that?"

"Can you really compare porno to the Bible?"

"No, but the Chinese will, and they’ll ban both. You won’t have a principled basis for opposition."

After class, Alec cornered me. "Still sticking to the left, sure way to get an "A" in here."

"Thanks, I need it. Remember, I’m not admitted to law school yet."

He wrung his hands in mock embarrassment. "It’s so humiliating to be intellectually crushed by a Freshman. Thank god, I’m almost done. In a few short months, I’ll be getting paid a buck twenty-five a year for this. Hey, did you ever get those Wisconsin hockey tickets."

"Thanks for reminding me. I’ve got four seats for tonight’s game." Wisconsin was playing Minnesota for the Big 10 Championship.

"How much?"

I hated to be greedy, but we were so broke. "I think they’re worth about a couple hundred bucks. I was going over there to sell them."

"Wow, the birth of a capitalist. Very good! OK, I’ll take them, on one condition."

"What’s that?"

"That you and a friend be Peter’s and my guests."

"Let me make a call." I borrowed Peter’s cell and slipped into the bathroom.

Tran was skeptical about going with a couple of law students, and I was especially nervous about these two sleek young right-wingers. "But it’ll be perfect. The seats are right behind the Visitor’s bench. You know who will see us and go nuts."

Tran had to agree, it was perfect revenge on Rick and Randy. Of course, our secrets were their secrets too, but they had rejected us, and deserved payback. If it had to be in the middle of a hockey game, so much the better.

"OK," I told Peter, "my friend Teri is willing to go, but we really weren’t aren’t into hockey anymore. I mean, after tutoring those guys them all year, I am tired of them.

And my friend Tran is Vietnamese. She’s more into soccer, but what she really likes is dancing."

"I know a great club," Alec said. I’ll call the doorman and get us on the list."

Karl was the only one who showed up for tutoring that day. He had gotten hurt in during the season and had been dropped from the starting lines. He was the only player studying because there was no way a backup was going get playing time in the game tonight.

"I hear you’re not seeing Rick anymore, izzat right?"

"We were just good friends. It’s no big deal."

"He acts like it’s a big deal. He told me he’d kick my ass if I asked you out. What gives?"

"I guess he’s just jealous. But Coach Barnes put the whole team off limits anyway.

Sorry. I need this job."

"Well I think Rick’s nuts. I think you’re the cutest girl around. And the smartest too."

I gave him a peck on the cheek, and a gentle brush of my breast against his forearm.

"You’re so sweet to say so. Good luck tonight." I filed Karl away for future reference.

Peter and Alex showed up with a bottle of Crystal. I answered the door while Tran kept primping. They had never seen me in full make up, high heels and a black strapless party dress, and they were momentarily, and for them, uncharacteristically speechless. "Ah- uh, a high fashion radical, huh?"

"I’m like, a fashionista. Like, y’know, I’m from LA," I mimicked in Valley Girl talk.

"All of the Hollywood Democrats dress like this for parties. You weren’t expecting Golden Gopher Sweatshirts, were you?"

"I should have known better. Where’s your friend?"

"Tran’s in there. Don’t rush her. It’ll be worth your wait."

They popped the champagne, and I produced our best coffee cups. "Sorry to do this, but this is all we have. I’m on scholarship, and Tran’s, well, unemployed at the moment."

At that moment, Tran emerged, looking stunning. Her body had become even more voluptuous since the surgery, and her face softer and more feminine. "Hi, she always calls me Tran, but I like my American name better. You can call me Teri."

"Uh, OK, they’re, I mean, you’re beautiful," Peter stuttered, visibly transfixed by her spectacular breasts. We clinked a clunky coffee cup toast to one another, and downed the heavenly bubbles of Roderer. Then Tran and I did what we did best: let guys talk about themselves. Peter and Alec had such highly developed egos this was easy. They had developed their easy, country club conservatism the old fashion way: they inherited it from prosperous merchant forebears, whose properties and assets promised them easy, comfortable lives. Of course, their Daddies demanded college and law degrees to validate their possession of their superior, Protestant genes, and that they put in a couple of years at big law firms before taking over a directorship at the family business. They were middle of the class, but the top firms had snapped them up in the hope of establishing a relationship that would produce income for some lucky lawyer for life.

They only had to survive third year, the bar exam, and a couple of hellish years as associates, and they were set for life. They had the smug self-confidence of boys who had never had to struggle for anything. We chatted past game time, and drove to the stadium in Alec’s late model BMW. I listened attentively for Tran’s opening moves in the back seat, but she bided her time.

The champagne hit me hard on an empty stomach, and I was swaying on my heels as we walked through the freezing, wind swept parking lost to the arena. Roars echoed from within, and as we entered they reached a deafening pitch even as we walked to our seats.

We squeezed past frenzied fans to our seats, the only vacant ones in the place. On the blindingly bright ice, players wheeled, charged, and crashed as they flailed at each other and the skittering puck. It was half way through the second period, and Minnesota led, 3- 2. As my eyes adjusted, I recognized first Rick, and then Randy and pointed them out to Tran. On the next icing the puck call, Tran, who was clueless about the sport, leapt to her feet and gave a high pitched but pointless hurrah, which caught Randy’s attention. He glared at us, and Tran reflexively put her arm around, and nuzzled her boobs against a very pleased Peter. A moment later, Rick looked up to see me whispering ostentatiously into Alec’s ear. "I think my old boyfriend saw us." Rick grimaced, then looked down at the ice and skated in a tense circle until the face off.

They never looked up at us again, but they thereafter played with unbridled viciousness.

Rick and Randy threw crushing body checks, slapped shots and slammed opponents into the glass in an extraordinary display of defensive aggression, and each drew several penalties in the see-saw match. Peter and Alec were rabid fans, and Alec hugged and kissed me each time Minnesota scored, and I hugged and comforted him when Wisconsin replied. The score was tied as the clock ran down, and then disaster struck. As Rick raced down the ice on a breakaway, a Wisconsin defender got slashed at and tripped him, and they toppled to the ice. The referee belatedly called a penalty on the Wisconsin player, but by then Rick already had his stick above his head and slashed the Badger in retaliation, who crumpled to the ice under the blow. Randy joined the affray, kicking at and pummeling the hapless victim. As Rick, Randy and the bleeding Badger were all ejected, I was consumed with guilt, as I felt this outburst of rage must have been partly meant for Tran and me. They glared at us angrily as they skated off the ice, as we stared in silent disbelief.

The Gophers were depleted and outnumbered as the match went into overtime, but I saw to my delight that Rick and Randy’s disgraceful exit had given poor Karl a chance at redemption. I let out a yell when the substitution was announced, and he saw me and waved. Alec frowned jealously: "You’ve got another hockey player in reserve?" I swatted him playfully and said "He’s just one of my students." Karl played with artistry and energy, and soon the sullen arena had revived. Then, in an instant, Karl took a pass at the blue line and fired a rocket that rose off the ice, threaded through a crisscrossing array of players, and bounced off the helmet of the blinded Wisconsin goalie for a score.

Trig problem solved, Karl’s smile seemed to convey, as he flashed a thumbs up in my direction.

We escaped the celebratory tumult to Alec’s now frosty Beamer. Despite the painfully frigid night air, Alec draped his camel hair coat over my freezing arms, he shivered visibly as we drove back into town. "Don’t worry, it’s always hot at the Quest."

Tran broke free of an extended embrace of Peter. "We’re going to Quest? That’s so cool. Will Prince be there?" Peter silenced her with another breathy kiss.

"That place is impossible to get into," I remarked.

Alec announced proudly, "My dad’s company owns the building. Of course we can get in."

O my god! A rich kid, I mused. No wonder he’s a Republican. Oh well, it was my duty to convert him.

The bouncers at Quest waved us past the knot of supplicants waiting at the door, and didn’t bother checking our ID, even though it was Saturday, 25 and over night at Quest.

Alec led us past the deafening dance floor and the mobbed bar, both milling with dazzling beautiful people, up a staircase to the relative tranquillity of the Galaxy Balcony.

We sat in a secluded booth in the corner that had been marked reserved.

A waitress appeared with four frosty, beautiful martini glasses brimming with Alec’s usual, a green apple martini. I had thought of martinis as a drink for my dad’s generation, but Alec’s clique had adopted it as their own, and Tran and I were enthusiastic converts.

The tart, cold drink hit me instantly, and charged me with manic, intoxicated energy. It was too loud to talk, so after we finished our second round, I dragged Alec to the dance floor, where I lost myself in the throb of deafening techno. The wallop of vodka had completely dashed my inhibitions, so I really let go with my dancing, and Alec was utterly smitten by my sinuous moves.

When the DJ put on a slow number, his hands impatiently traced the curves of bottom and breasts, and he ground his groin into my privates. I didn’t really care what people thought, but I whispered "Let’s get some privacy," and we retreated to our booth, where he explored my silky skin, and invited me to explore his. He pulled my hands inside his pants, and I only half resisted. I mean, I was kind of worried about doing this on a first date with a classmate I barely knew, but I was half drunk and really bummed out about Rick’s atrocious behavior toward me, and at the hockey game. What better revenge than to go down on some rich guy I didn’t really like. But it was weird: it was like, I couldn’t find his cock. When I did, I had to suppress a giggle. His cock was barely bigger than mine had been. No wonder he was so pompous and full of himself: he had a major shortcoming to compensate for. Then, a flash of brilliant insight emerged from my drunken state. He was perfect: no thicker, and not as long as, my one-inch stent. I gave him a passionate kiss, then broke off and said, "I need to go to the ladies room. Don’t go away!" I tapped Tran’s shoulder signaled her to come with, and she broke off from her grappling with Peter. "We’ll be right back," I promised.

I put on more gloss and mascara, and when we were alone, I confided to Tran "It’s so perfect. Alec must have the littlest cock in the western world."

"I don’t think so. Peter’s is well, like this." She circled her forefinger and thumb in a tight circle. "Lots of fun, but not enough for my taste."

"Are you kidding, they’re both Mr. Right for us."

Tran started to disagree, and I said "Think dilation," and then it hit her too.

"You’re a genius. He’s perfect. But you told me no sex on this date."

"Call it a change of circumstances. Let’s roll."

They had yet another round of martinis waiting for us when we returned, and I can’t remember if that was it or whether we had still another. I vaguely remember Alec half carrying me to his car, and helping me up the stairs to his condo. "Where’s Tran?" I asked groggily.

"I dropped her and Peter at his place. Are you OK?"

"I’m feeling better now," I lied. I actually felt like throwing up, but I was determined to test drive my new equipment. I went to the bathroom, and lubed my vagina thoroughly.

"May I just lie down for a minute?"

"Sure he said, fluffing a pillow for me. I took off my pumps and lay down, striking a vulnerable pose. He excused himself and hit the head, and when he returned he said "Don’t mind if I do so myself," and lay down beside me, naked to his boxers. "I guess you’re staying over," he said gleefully. He began fondling my breasts, saying "God, you are so beautiful," and smothering me with kisses.

"We can’t do this," I said coyly. "I mean, we’re in that class together, and I’m always arguing with you and Peter. Won’t it be awkward?"

"I’ll never disagree with another word you say," he promised.

"No, I want you to be the same in class."

"OK, I promise that. Whatever you want. I have to have you." He pulled my dress up over my head, and I limply acquiesced. He unclasped my bra, and marveled at my exposed breasts. "Wow, you are even more beautiful than I imagined." He kissed each of my nipples worshipfully, and I cradled his head as he suckled me. Full sensation had returned there, and pleasure rippled through me body. He rubbed my mons and clitoris through my panties, and the waves of sensation roiled together, and almost involuntarily my thighs parted invitingly. "OK," I sighed, and he slid off his boxers, as I wriggled out of my panties.

He studied me momentarily, and then pronounced "You are absolutely exquisite."

"Thank you," I whispered sweetly. He pressed his cock against me, and I guided the tip between my labia to the moist entrance of my vagina. I bit my lip as he entered me. I was expecting something like the smooth finish of my stent, but the warmth and textures of his penis made the feeling utterly different. Rather than smooth, frictionless pressure, Alec’s cock pushed and pulled roughly against the delicate walls that Sanguan had built inside me. Forgotten, unused neurons fired off alarms, which I did not know how to respond to. It was all so unfamiliar, to feel a cock exploring a totally new place. But when he reached the point where penile and colon skin were clashing and forming a ring of scar tissue, these distant and confusing signals were replaced with a clear message of sharp pain. I squeezed my thighs together to try to prevent him from probing beyond that barrier, but it was too late. He gasped, "Wow, you are so tight, it feels so good," and rammed through it. A fiery blast of pain wracked my body and ricocheted through my nervous system. The passage of the penis through the ring was even more painful than the initial penetration of the sphincters in anal sex. As pain thrashed through me, he began pumping faster and faster. Each time his cock passed through that gateway of scar tissue, I winced and moaned as a searing fire of agony engulfed me, but he interpreted these cries as evidence of my ecstasy, and he kissed my face and neck, and massaged my luxuriant breasts. Suddenly, he cried out "I’m gonna cum," and he throbbed spasmodically, and then collapsed on top of me.

"Did you cum too?" he asked hopefully. As my breath heaved from this ordeal, I murmured and nodded a false confirmation, and felt his handhold on my breasts gradually soften as he drifted off to sleep. This exertion and the martinis had left me drained and exhausted, but I felt too stressed to sleep, and I stifled sobs as my eyes stung with tears of frustration and disappointment. After all pain, danger, expense, and difficult recovery from my surgery, I was still sexually dysfunctional. I needed another operation, but Sanguan’s brilliant but esoteric techniques intimidated my US doctors, and I had no money for the operation or the travel. Besides, I needed to finish the semester, so I had no way to get to Thailand for at least two months. Alec was rich, and I thought he was crazy about me, and but now he would expect to make love to me, and through the agony I would have to learn to fake orgasms. If I confided my problem, he’d probably go totally postal and dump me just as heartlessly as Rick had. Despite all of my efforts to remake myself, nothing had changed. I was still the same old me: living lies, beautiful to behold, but impossible to possess.