You Are the Reason (8 page)

I jumped up, unsure why she was standing so far away from me, not approaching me and not smiling.

“Is everything okay?” I asked.

She nodded, but it seemed a little sad. This was not the Lee I knew. At the pub, she’d been happy and smiling, laughing and joking, and so self-assured. Now she seemed timid, almost as if I were going to yell at her for something. Yelling at Lee would be like kicking a puppy. It was something that you simply can’t do and still feel like a man.

“Everything’s fine. How about we grab a coffee and we can walk?” she said, nodding to the side.

There was a café across the road, so we headed over and ordered two coffees to go. I smiled at her as we waited. “I didn’t get a chance to ask you last night, what do you do to earn a living? I was going to ring you and see if you wanted to catch a meal or something during the week, but I didn’t know where and when you worked.”

She still wasn’t making proper eye contact, just furtive glances my way every now and then. I wondered if I had done something to offend her? Was she angry at me? Was it the sex thing? Was she pissed off that she’d now provided two unreciprocated blow jobs? Sometimes people kept a tally. I knew one guy who counted in his head and expected a one-to-one reciprocation back. I thought that was stupid and told him so. What if one guy was an early starter and blew before you could get your mouth to his dick?

“I’m a dental assistant,” she said. Still thinking about blow jobs and ejaculation, I had to race to catch up to the conversation. What was the question again? Oh, yeah. Work. “I work office hours Monday to Friday, but with Thursday afternoons off. Plus I work every third Saturday morning,” she told me.

A dental assistant? I clicked my teeth shut with an audible click. Was she going to ask whether I’d flossed today? Would she be commenting on any gum disease she could see in my mouth? Would we discuss cavity protection next? Meeting a dentist outside of their work was like meeting a policeman. Even when they were off duty, they were still watching you. Was she going to comment on the fact that I had fillings?

She saw my reaction and rolled her eyes. “Oh, get lost. I’m not going to look at your teeth. I spend most of my day peering into some God-awful mouths. I don’t even notice teeth when I’m not at work. I think it’s some sort of survivalist technique.”

I laughed. The server behind the counter placed two disposable cups in front of us, and we grabbed them, glad for the warmth as we silently crossed back over the road and headed east along the shoreline. Lee pushed the hood off her head, and I watched the wind ruffle her short red hair.

The road veered off inland, while the path made for a playground and park area. There were trees and cycle paths ahead, mostly empty due to the cold, wet weather.

“So?” I tried to get the conversation going. “You had something you needed to tell me?”

Our teasing about dentistry had worn off, and Lee was back to being melancholy. She sighed, tipped her head back, and stared at the overcast clouds. “I want you to know that I didn’t do it on purpose, okay?”

“Do what?” She was being so hesitant that I began to dread what she had to say. What bad thing could a woman possibly have to say to a man she’d only met twice? Even if she did give him a BJ both times. Not that I remembered the first time. I was too drunk and I only had her word on the events. What if we really did have sex then?
Oh, fuck. What if…?
“Are you pregnant after all?”

She looked up at me startled. “No!”

Phew.
My relief was overpowering. What a lame punchline to a joke—
the gay man who got the girl pregnant.

“Well, that’s pretty much my worst nightmare. So if it isn’t that, then you’re safe,” I teased, trying to lighten the mood, or at least put her at ease enough so she could spit out her worry. I was about to roar in nervousness and frustration.

That at least got a chuckle. “No. Never pregnancy. You’re safe with me. Besides, I told you we didn’t have sex.”

“You could’ve lied.”

“I did. Just not about that.”

I frowned. “You lied? To me?”

She continued to walk, turning up one of the meandering paths that snaked through the trees of the park. “A lie of omission. I didn’t mean to mislead you. It’s just I never expected to meet someone I liked as much as I like you. If I’d known, I would’ve handled it differently.”

Now I was dreading something really bad. Mislead? Omission? Handled differently? Was she an undercover cop, and were our conversations and sexual antics all recorded? Were we on the Internet already? “What?”

We were in the middle of a grove of trees. There was no one else around, but we weren’t exactly hidden. I could see the gray water of the river through the trunks. The towers of river-view units were thirty meters to my left when Lee stopped in the middle of the path and turned to face me.

“I can’t get pregnant Dave. I don’t have a uterus.”

I blinked. Was that all? All this build up to that? I once hooked up with a guy for a while who had only one testicle. It was a little weird, but nothing that would stop our sex life.

“In fact, I don’t even have a vagina.”

Then again, that there could stop our sex life. Lack of sexual genitalia would usually mean no sex. But what did she mean
no vagina
? Did she mean there was nothing there? Like Barbie?
No vagina?

I took a step back at that confession. Now that the words were sinking in, I was surprised and completely confused. “What? What do you mean?”

Lee sighed as if I were being thickheaded. A roll of her eyes and a glance toward heaven confirmed it. Another sigh followed and finally she looked around as if the answer would be there, and threw up her hand in exasperation. “I’m not a girl, Dave. I’m a guy.”

I searched my memory banks, trying to match up this piece of information with anything I’d previously seen or heard. I was coming up blank. “You’re trans?” I queried. Was she like Bobby?

“No.” I watched as she swallowed and glanced to the side. “This is why I wanted to meet you for a walk. I didn’t want to dump this on you in the middle of a restaurant or somewhere where you felt trapped. If this gets too much for you, just walk away. I’m sorry I misled you. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I was meeting Bobby, and then he didn’t show, and you were there, and I liked you, and you were cute, and we got drunk….”

She trailed off, gesturing with her hand and becoming animated as she tried to act out the words she couldn’t voice. In comparison, I was a frozen block of ice, completely motionless as I tried to comprehend.

Lee stopped and gathered herself, much like she did at the pub when she advised me about the correct pronouns to use with Bobby. I saw the tip of her tongue dart out and moisten her lips before she tried to explain.

“I’m a guy, Dave. I’m a gay guy. I’m twenty-one years old. I have a cock. I like other guys. I work as a dental assistant and drive a WRX. I go for the Sydney Swans. I like to bake, but I don’t like cooking much. I read a lot of historical fiction, and I like listening to the rock ’n’ roll music of the ’60s. I have a brother and sister, both older than me. I own two cats. I’m allergic to shellfish. I’m a volunteer counselor and youth worker for a gay, lesbian, and trans support group. I hate winter and I love summer. I’m afraid of heights.”

He paused and drew a breath. “And I like to dress in women’s clothing sometimes.”

A
ND
I
like to dress in women’s clothing sometimes.

I was still stuck on the
I’m a guy, Dave
and then she—
he
—goes and hits me with
And I like to dress in women’s clothing sometimes.

Lee was a guy?

He had a cock?

I tried to imagine it, but I kept coming up with dresses and pretty red bows in cherry red hair. I kept seeing bright red nail polish on dainty toenails peeping through toe holes on little shoes.

“You’re a guy?” There was someone in the room who had been taken for a ride, and it appeared to be me.

“Yes.”

Lee was a guy? The thought kept going around my head like it was a blowfly caught in a glass jar. It circled around and around, buzzing loudly and becoming more frantic with each pass.

He was a guy? I looked him up and down. Today he looked like a guy. Kind of. A small, pretty guy. He was wearing all gray, and there was no makeup or earrings. Could I be sure he was telling the truth? I looked at his face again and saw the earnest pleading there. Pleading to be listened to and believed.

He was a guy? He was a guy, and he wore dresses for fun? Why would a guy do that? Guys were guys for a reason. We left the froufrou stuff for the girls. We played football and punched each other to show affection. We threw our ponies in the rubbish bin, and all their accessories, including their combs, shoes and pretty saddles.

“You’re a guy?”

“Yes. I’m sorry I didn’t say it earlier.”

He was a guy? So why
didn’t
he say something earlier? Did he purposely go out of his way to lead people on? Did he enjoy the sexual hijinks of fooling people? I obviously fell for the well-presented façade. I had no idea that he was a guy. He was way too pretty to be a guy, anyway.

But did that give him the right to lie?

I tried to understand. “Why would you do that? Do you get your kicks by tricking people?”

“No,” he cried and stepped closer to me, his hand outstretched. But I wasn’t sure of him anymore. He was a liar, one small baby step away from being a con artist. All he needed to do was to produce the blackmail photos of us together, and he would be the scum of the earth. Was this all an elaborate setup? What did he think I had? What did he think I was afraid of?

I stepped back again as the enormity of the lie began to hit, and he froze where he was. His hand dropped as he slumped a bit. “I didn’t do it on purpose, Dave. You have to believe me. I… I like to put a dress on sometimes. Women wear pants, why can’t men wear dresses?”

“Because we’re men,” I shouted.

“So? What’s your point?”

I couldn’t believe he could be so casual about it all. Men did not simply wake up and wear dresses. It wasn’t done.

“So are you transgender like Bobby? But in reverse?” I still couldn’t see him as a guy. This person in front of me was Lee. A sweet, adorable little pixie. I couldn’t see it, but if he needed me to, I could pretend.

“No. Bobby’s trans, but I’m not. The easiest definition of a transgender person is one whose self-identity doesn’t correlate with their external body. They feel male, but have female genitalia or vice versa. That’s not me. I identify as a man, and I have male genitals. I just like to dress in women’s clothing sometimes. I guess you could call me a cross-dresser.”

I took another step back. A cross-dresser brought to mind pictures of older, ugly men with beards, in cheap wigs and bright red lipstick.

“Why did you lie?”

The blowfly was still circling around and around. It was loud and irritating, but its message was finally starting to sink in.

The woman I liked was actually a man.

On the surface, this seemed like an ideal situation. But it was followed closely by the biggest hurdle.

He lied to me about it.

Lee sighed and cradled his coffee to his chest. “It’s complicated.”

That sounded like an avoidance of the subject. Perhaps he was really a she and now
she
was lying to me to get rid of me.

“I don’t believe you.”

Lee looked up, startled. “What do you mean?”

“You,” I clarified. “I don’t believe you. You say you’re a guy, but you look like a girl. You go out at night dressed as a girl. You speak to people dressed as a girl. Are you delusional? Are you telling me now that you’re a guy because you know I’m gay and you think that’s what I want to hear?”

Lee was shaking his head. “No. Of course not. I’m a guy—I really am. I piss standing up and I shave. I don’t really grow a lot of facial hair, but it’s there. That’s why I disappeared on you both times when I slept with you. I didn’t want you to wake up in the morning with the bearded lady and freak.”

The proof is in the pudding.

“Prove it.”

I really didn’t know what I expected him to do, to prove it to me. Pull out his driver’s license or something that showed his gender as male. But what he did do surprised the heck out of me. One arm came up and he threw his white paper cup across the lawn. I automatically turned my head and watched its graceful arc, flying through the air and landing at the base of a tree. And while I was distracted, Lee stepped forward, put one hand on my hip and one hand behind my head, and pulled me down so our lips pressed together.