Losing It (32 page)

“Thank you,” he whispers. He knows better, now, what is happening. That he is becoming you.

“Would you like to put on the top?” you ask, and he nods, just barely. He doesn’t want to admit it, how
much
he wants it. So you pull it out of your bag. Very slowly, there’s no hurry at all, and the blood shoots to his face, he’s so suddenly crimson and near-desperate, but he stays quiet somehow, you love him for that.

It’s one of the hardest things to get used to with this level of clarity: how much you love, how deeply, how you feel like you’d do anything to satisfy and serve.

“Do you want me to put it on you?” you ask. Coyly, just a hint of a smile. His heart is bursting out of his chest, he wants it so much. But he doesn’t want to ask. “Just nod your head a little,” you say, standing so close to him but not touching.

He nods his head, closes his eyes, lifts his arms a little so you can slide the black satin in place. You try not to brush against his nipples but it’s difficult; he shudders once when you do and you want to do it again but your fingers smooth the straps instead, arrange the lace around his flesh. He does have some of the right flesh, and there is padding in the satin.

“How is that?” you breathe, and he moans, a low, weak noise of pleasure.

“You can touch yourself,” you say, because he’s still so shy. “Arrange the fit.” But he doesn’t move. He’s transfixed, floating in a pot of pure honey.

“I’m going to do up the clasp at the back,” you say. “You tell me if it’s all right.” He doesn’t move, doesn’t make a sound, so you fit the hooks in place and he stops breathing. “Is it too tight?”

Not a sign. Then, slowly, a trembling sigh.

“I’m sorry,” you say, still purring. “But I’m going to need some financial assistance for these things I’ve bought for you. Did you bring a chequebook?” He doesn’t move at all, seems locked in a trance, and there is just a moment of uncertainty, a bittersweet reminder of the normal muck and drudgery of existence.

But then he says, “Oh, of course,” and he moves around to the other side of the desk, the professor side, which you are inheriting just as he is sliding past the boundaries into your young skin. You walk around to stand behind him, on the professor side, and you can’t help yourself, you reach down to play with his nipples, like a professor would, pluck the fruit, it’s there for you. He stops what he’s doing so you stop, then he finds his chequebook, has a hard time filling out the date and your name. It’s becoming his name, now, too. He’s sitting in black French satin lace with his shaved legs crossed and a hand on his breast.

You tell him the number and he pauses. He doesn’t understand. “It’s so expensive being a woman,” you say. “But it’s worth it, don’t you think?”

He does, and he writes the number with a flourish, hands over the cheque.

“Do you want to see what else I’ve bought?” you ask, and he does. He can hardly contain himself, but you tell him there are a few things to do first. “I need to anoint you,” you say, “it’s part of being a lady. You’ve done such a lovely job with your body hair. It’s a shame about your eyebrows.” And he stiffens, he’s full of doubt and fear, you can feel the water running out of the moment. So you say, “It’s all right. You mustn’t resist. You will never become a lady if you resist.” And you wheel him around in his professor chair so that he’s facing you. You pull out your tweezers and little scissors and straddle his lap. “You mustn’t
resist,” you say, and it doesn’t take long to arch him properly, to snip and pluck. “No one will notice,” you say. “I’m the only one who’ll know.”

And then you do his face. You kiss him once, for luck, and take away his sideburns, then bring out the foundation and blusher, the liner and mascara, eyeshadow and lip gloss. You straddle his lap and every so often your breast brushes against his bra, you rock against his rigid centre. And you say, “I think you need to tell me your story,” so sweetly, so softly. He doesn’t want to talk, and yet in a way he does want to, you know he does, and you need to hear him. If you’re going to become the professor, you need to know his words and remember them. “Please,” you say, wheedling, rubbing yourself against his satin, just briefly, just the tiniest touch. “Tell me what this is all about. Please tell me so I’ll be the only one who knows.”

So he starts. While you’re working on his face, transforming him, he tells you about the woman who came to visit one summer when he was thirteen. “She was only eighteen, the daughter of my father’s friend from Germany,” he says, his eyes down, manner grave, he is so relieved to be telling this. “Mariana. She came to learn English for the summer, and to look after me when my parents were at work. She had enormous blonde ringlets and a wide, healthy, beautiful face, and big shoulders. She might as well have been thirty, she seemed so beautiful, unattainable. I didn’t have any sisters or brothers. I was fascinated with her. I had no clues about my own body, you see, but I was just beginning to wake up. We did things together. She wanted me to talk to her all the time in English, so I did, I jabbered, and secretly I read books way beyond my years. Henry Miller and
Lady Chatterley
and Simone de Beauvoir. My parents stocked the house with modern literature and I sought out all the dirty bits to learn about life in the adult world.”

You dab and brush and cream him, soothe the spots that have just lately been made naked, and when he pauses you say something small, to keep him going. “And Mariana?” you say, and he starts again.

“We went to the beach one time,” he says. “It was a hot, hot summer day, just the two of us, and she had on a wonderful red one-piece bathing suit with a little skirt at the bottom. It seemed to hide nothing, especially when it was wet. I could see the outline of her rigid nipples, her areolae. I could see the indentation of her belly button and where the fabric stretched between her legs. She didn’t shave her underarms. I was shocked. She looked so manly for that, I thought. But she also had fluffs of black pubic hair showing between her legs, on her swimsuit line. I couldn’t keep from looking. It had never occurred to me that women could have hair there too. All I knew was from the few
Playboy
centrefolds I’d seen, which back then never showed any private hair, it was pink glossy skin all the way up and down. The pubic area was always coyly hidden, but I never knew that. It was a rude awakening. I couldn’t believe it. I thought she must be a mutant or something.”

Brush and daub, careful with the colour. You pull the wig out of your bag, slowly too, so he can see and enjoy every stretch of it, get his mind around it: the long black curls, a little crimped in the pack, but they’ll brush out well. His eyes widen, he can’t find the proper words, but sits still, very ladylike, while you fit him and then brush. “Mariana,” you whisper again, and he doesn’t want to talk any more but he must. It’s part of the package.

“When we got home she hung her bathing suit in the bathroom to dry,” he says. “I took it down off the bar just to examine it more closely. It didn’t look like much. It seemed
small, as if it might fit a child. I made sure the door was locked, and I didn’t know really what I was doing, but for some reason I stepped into it. You see, we were about the same height, although I was much skinnier. I pulled it on and stretched the straps over my shoulders and looked at myself. I was so turned on, I didn’t know what was happening, I just started touching myself, rocking back and forth … and then …”

You brush and wait.

“Then, of course, I came right in Mariana’s swimsuit. I thought somehow I was peeing, but it wasn’t that, it was utterly, utterly sweet, and I was terrified about the mess. I rinsed it out and rinsed, but the semen was so sticky, of course. I tried soap and hot water. I scrubbed. Mariana was asking me through the door if I was all right. I was fine, I was brilliant. I never recovered.” He says it ruefully, a touch of a smile and of sadness, and you can’t help it, you love him for it, and you love Mariana, that’s the clarity working in your mind.

“You look so lovely,” you say, “you need to see yourself.” But there is no mirror in his office; it’s a male professor’s office. “Will you trust me a little more?” you murmur, still brushing his hair out. “I’d like you to be able to see yourself.” Yes, he trusts you, he’s already taken his heart out of his chest and placed it shivering in your hands. So you pull out your camera and he tightens. It’s a terrible, frightening moment, both of you on the verge of shattering right there. “It’s all right,” you say, “don’t worry. It’s digital. There’s no developing. I just want you to see in the viewer.” So you snap, quickly. You’re nervous, despite the clarity. The glassiness of the moment is still sharp in your gut. And you show him. It’s so tiny, the LCD screen, but it’s something. He’s transfixed by his image, like Narcissus. And all of a sudden it’s the perfect thing, the camera, it’s absolutely what’s needed, he can’t get enough of it.

Every new bit of clothing you bring out, he wants to see himself. You pull out the strapless spandex body liner. He squirms into it, can hardly keep his hands from running up and down himself. You almost forget the stockings, he’s so excited, you’re so excited. He wants the red leather dress, my God, he’s paid for it, he wants it, he’s almost drooling in anticipation. He almost skips the stockings but you get him to slow down, not be time’s fool. It will be over in a second anyway, in half a thought; you have to linger, not be taken in by the rush. “A lady is allowed to be late,” you say. And so he stretches out his leg, points his toe, and you roll the stocking up to his thigh, then do the other, and he’s a little disappointed you bought stay-ups, no need for a garter belt. But it isn’t serious. When he’s had more time as a lady he’ll realize the fasteners are tedious, that the thick, lacy elastic hugging your upper thigh is far sexier.

“I want this to be a Mariana kind of moment,” you say to him. “I want it to reverberate through the rest of your life.” And he smiles, is speechless, but it’s perfect. “I want you to replay every moment, to have this in your mind forever. Is that too much to ask?”

“No,” he says, barely.

“Is this a power thing?” you ask him. “Are you one of those CEO types who gets tired of so much responsibility, you really want to give over power to someone else for a while? It feels so wonderful to sublimate, to hand yourself over?”

It’s as if he hasn’t understood; he is still so soaked, so molten.

“I’ll tell you for myself,” you say, because clarity is for sharing. It isn’t, can’t be, all one-sided. “I love this feeling of power. I love it when you give me control like this. But I want you to tell me, I need you to share: is it the sublimation? Or is it risk-taking, is that what stirs you? Breaking taboos?”

He’s sniffing an interview so you run your hands lightly up
his silken leg, tickle his spandex middle. “You need to tell me,” you whisper. “I need to understand.” Because it’s a sharing. “Please,” and you kiss his lips, lick lightly, to taste him but not disturb the artwork.

“No,” he says, eyes closed, and you wait. His thoughts are moving at a different speed now, are travelling along new corridors. So you must wait.

“It isn’t power,” he says finally. “It isn’t … risk-taking.” His voice candid, calm, subdued. “It isn’t even that I want to become a woman. It’s more this sense …,” and he searches for the word. You know it already, want to say it for him, but wait. You cannot put the words in his mouth.

“…    of transcendence,” he says finally. “That is the most erotic thing for me. To move beyond, completely outside my usual life. To be someone else, in fact, absolutely different. Just for a while.”

And then there are no words. It’s enough, you think. The moment is so full there is no more room for words. You pull out the red leather dress. It’s not so different, in a way, from the red bathing suit of so many years ago. You can feel that, since you are becoming him, he doesn’t have to say it. And he doesn’t need help stepping into it. It’s tight around the hips … but yes, it’s fine. His spirit was already in you when you were shopping, the boundaries had already begun to melt. He smoothes the waist into place, and you help him with the pull-straps in the back. They’re a bit like on the old-fashioned corsets, when ladies would need a maid or a sister to help them tighten the laces. He wants them tight, that’s why you bought it, though you didn’t consciously think of it at the time. His spirit in you recognized what he wanted. So you pull and you pull, you place your foot on his buttocks and you pull harder, and then when he’s perfect you fix the knots so that they won’t slip.

“Oh, my God, you are so lovely,” you say, and out with the camera again. He loves it. This is it, the Mariana moment, it’s going to echo erotically through the rest of his life.

And then, disappointment. There is a smudge in everything, that’s the way of life in this reality. You’ve forgotten the shoes. They were right there in your room by the door. They wouldn’t quite fit in the pack, so you were going to put them in a separate bag. You looked for the bag, and then Ricky needed attention, she was getting brittle. She needed stroking, and time played its tricks, fast-forwarded the hour until you were running out of the residence, praying you wouldn’t miss out completely.

And you left the shoes by the door.

So you say, “I have to go get one more thing. I’m so sorry. I will be back in fifteen minutes. Will you wait? Will you keep the door locked and wait?”

Will he wait? Absolutely. He’ll wait across decades for you. The look on his face says it all.

“I’ll knock three times, and then twice more,” you say. “Don’t open up for anyone else.” And you would kiss him again but you want it all clear, no smudginess, you want everything to stay this exquisite for as long as it can.

You take your pack and the camera, step out and away. The halls are empty. It’s turned into late afternoon already. You’re hungry, suddenly, and so tired, the clarity drains so suddenly, it’s heartbreaking, you can feel it leaving your mind and body as you step away from the professor’s door, like shedding a skin or leaving your coat behind. It’s so cold, you walk faster, but you know it’s no good. Nothing will help. The faster you walk the faster it drains away. Everything’s cold now, your brain is cold, your heart and lungs and legs and toes, cold, cold. There was no transcendence. It was fake, a show, so stupid to take a whole tablet without eating. The inside of your skin feels
scratchy, like thin, dried-out paper. Hurry, hurry, but the faster you go the worse it feels. Your stomach is now roiling and the edges of your vision are blurry, the faster you go the muddier it all seems.