I spent all night thinking about Elmer’s hand. Even when we were
hanging out in the art club, I’d noticed the soft, delicateness of his skin. But
this was the first occasion that I got to touch him for a prolonged period of
time. I remembered every time I’d touched Elmer. The ways our elbows
sometimes brushed against each other than lingered, using the fact that he
was leaning over to read one of my poems as an excuse to get closer. I could
never tell who was initiating the contact. Him or me?
I sunk into my leather couch with my orange cat, Myers, on my lap and
located the few pictures I had of us back in those days. There was one with
both of us smearing purple paint on each other’s faces, and I saw the tears
leaking out from my eyes as I laughed. I was staring up, but Elmer was
gazing right at me with a boyish grin. There was something different
between us.
I had loved Tank. I mourned him daily as I paced up and down the
empty house where he and his mother once indulged in my culinary
masterpieces. Tank let me be myself. But there was a small part of me that
wondered if I’d fallen in love with Tank out of convenience. Yearning for
someone was new to me. To be so enamored that the thought of someone
penetrated my entire being. Infatuation, they call it.
Why had he come to the restaurant? Why had he stayed? Why had he
apologized?
Being transgender and asexual, I surrendered hope easily when it
came to dating. No matter how attractive I was or how much scrumptious
food I cooked, the sex and the genital issue always hovered over me like a
dark cloud even though I was quite satisfied in my own body. After Tank
died, I stared at the life insurance money for months. We had purchased a
two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar policy, not to mention the left-over
funds from when his mother passed.
I’d considered bottom surgery. I had all the money needed to pay a
good surgeon top-price for a pristine phalloplasty, including travel and hotel
stay and paying for a home healthcare worker to help me. In the end, I had
decided against it.
After the top surgery and the continued progress with testosterone, I
finally felt congruent in my own body. My relationship with my vagina had
changed. The clit had doubled or even tripled in size within the initial month
of hormones, leaving me with uncontrollable erections and intensified
orgasms for a while. I had never been shy about masturbating, and of
course, Tank hadn’t complained about my genitals. About a year after he
died, I realized that I didn’t identify fully with cisgender men. I stared in the
mirror and learned to love my masculine figure but feminine vagina. For the
first time, I loved my physique for its unique blend of feminine and
masculine. Bottom surgery was no longer a goal.
I didn’t feel the way that others felt about sex. As a child, I’d watched
movies with sex scenes, assuming that people who cared for each other did
it. Then I entered high school where it seemed like everyone raved about it. I
had planned to lose my virginity in ninth grade to join in the fun. I wasn’t
impressed with the first time, so I found three more partners and tried it
again, just in case the initial one didn’t do it right. Then I’d thought sex must
be good when people were in a committed relationship and knew each other
well. But that didn’t work, either.
I had orgasms. But mostly, I wanted it all to end as soon as possible.
When I dated, I’d spend hours dreading it, knowing that there would be this
expectation for sex hovering over me the entire evening. I tried dodging it by
not being in the mood, having a cold, or being on my period. That only
worsened things because the more time that passed, the more aware I was—
and my partners—that we hadn’t had sex in so long, which made me hate it
more. I’d longed to escape to the bathroom, jerk one out, and be on with my
day if the urge came. Libido wasn’t the issue.
Tank had been a blessing in that sense. His unfortunate medical
condition that had made erections difficult to hold or even painful had
relieved me from that burden. I masturbated in front of him to give him
pleasure and didn’t mind finishing him off with a good hand job or through
the help of a proper sex toy. There had been no pressure.
As I continued to examine the old picture of Elmer and me,
apprehension hung on my shoulders. Until now, dating again hadn’t entered
my thoughts. I’d noticed Elmer from the moment he arrived at the restaurant
because I’d seen his blue SUV parked outside of it for weeks. Like every
other time I was ever in the room with him, I caught him staring at me. Now,
there was no Tank or Luna. I had this urge to touch Elmer’s body with my
hands and search all the delicate crevices, but I didn’t want it to be sexual.
