Any Way Out - 4. Struggle

In the middle of the night, it should have only taken Ashlee half an hour to make it through DC to her place, which was just outside the Beltway in Virginia. She crawled though, dozing off from time to time. She realized she’d been up over 20 hours. She needed to stay awake and fight off the slight buzz the drinks had given her.

She was relieved when she finally maneuvered her car into its spot back in Virginia. It was almost three when she folded up onto her made bed, fully clothed. Ashlee had no thoughts except for her twisted stomach, the taste of acid in her throat, and her throbbing fevered head. Nonetheless, she was unconscious from sheer weariness the second she was fully reclined.

It didn’t last long. She awoke, sprawled and soaked ninety minutes later. Fever dreams evaporated, leaving only their horror. She refused to get up to undress, willing herself to sleep, the only relief she could imagine from the terror she’d brought on herself. She rolled about, curled up, spread eagled, mummified in sheets, the hosiery, blouse, and skirt bunching, pinning, and chafing.

She gave up at 6:30, and discarded the ridiculous wrappings in a heap at her feet. In her closet, the first garments to draw her attention were the collective iridescence of the pony shirts which she thrashed from their places of honor, digging for the white t-shirts beyond. She shouldered off her bra and cast it aside, pulling first a white tee, then an enormous UVA hoodie to mask her swinging breasts. The baggiest jeans she owned hung there, too, which she belted on. The ensemble was topped off with her sparkling clean running shoes.

Ashlee turned the flail on herself. You fucking blew it. You ditched the ladyboy, but you’ve slashed your friend list to the square root of jack shit. You know nobody, you’re a goddamn loner with no friends. Ashlee stomped to the kitchen and devoured ibuprofen. You’re going to look and act shitty all day and no one will give a rat’s red ass.

Not quite true. She would have to swallow what useless, putrid mouthful of pride she had left, and call the one person in town who would listen. Ashlee hunched on the corner of her disaster-zone bed and dialed. Then she dialed again. After the third attempt, a soft, slurring voice registered on the device.

“Hey, queen! Are you calling from breakfast? How did it go?”

“Not good, Sarah. Can we talk?”

“Oh. What? What the fuck time is it? Is it seven? Saturday?” She could almost hear the devil on Sarah’s one shoulder and the slightly lesser devil on the other arguing over the phone. Whatever Sarah was, however, she was loyal. “Okay, yeah, do you wanna talk now, or …”

“Let me come over there. Can we do this in person please?”

“Okay, what does it take, like 15 minutes on Saturday morning? Look, my place is trashed. Come down to the clubhouse at my building. They usually have coffee and stuff.”

“Thanks, Sarah. See you soon.”

***

Twenty-three minutes later, Sarah was not in the clubhouse. From the door of her apartment to Sarah’s parking lot had taken seventeen, more than enough time for Sarah to be there to let her in, but still Ashlee fidgeted outside the locked door. She looked through the window and, seeing a likely looking fellow, she quickly doffed the hoodie and banged for attention. Ashlee convinced him to open the place up for her, but really the sudden chill on her loose chest did most of the talking.

Brushing him off with curt thanks, Ashlee made her way to a seat in the corner to work out what she would tell Sarah. The clubhouse was a largish open space with a wall of windows looking over the covered pool. The other walls contained a vacant concierge desk, a small stage with a cheap sound system atop it and an eight-foot square of maple dance floor in front, a gas fireplace, and what could have been a bar. On this sulked a forlorn coffee urn and a small stack of foam cups. Ashlee's stomach was already turning, and she wasn't about to risk it on whatever vile pond water was simmering in there.

A handful of men and women her age, variously attired for workouts, milled around the tables scattered on the sealed concrete floor. Sarah walked into the clubhouse about five minutes after Ashlee. It was barely 7:30, and Ashlee’s sleep-starved mind wasn’t prepared for the hot pink low-rise sweatpants and the “Little Mermaid” crop-top. Sarah sat at a table with Ashlee and dangled her left slipper off her toe. Sarah folded her gooseflesh arms across each other, and they stared, each waiting for the other to speak first.

Sarah blinked first, and sighing, cut to the chase. “You look like shit, Ash. Did it go bad last night?”

“Yeah, it was pretty bad, Sarah. Really bad.”

“Jesus, Ashlee. What did she do to you? Do I need to go fuck her up?”

Ashlee might, in other circumstances, have laughed at her friend’s possibly sincere offer. Sarah was fierce when provoked. Knowing what she did now about her date, Ashlee would have recommended against it.

“No, Sarah, nothing like that. We went back to -- their place. We -- we had a fight? I don’t know how to describe it. I was kind of a bitch about it, and I feel bad.”

“Oh, no! What happened?” Sarah purred sympathetically. She chewed all of her right nails at once and stared bug eyed at Ashlee, waiting breathless for more.

“We got back to her place, we started -- oh my God -- we started making out. Second, third base shit.” The memory flamed in her darkened mind. “Felicity is trans, Sarah.”

Sarah extended her right hand inquisitively and tilted her head.

Ashlee spelled it “She transgender, Sarah. It wasn’t till we were about to go all the way before I fucking found out.” Sarah was still blank. “She used to be a boy! Get it? She has a dick!”

The cold, hard furnishings of the room reverberated with that last word, turning heads their way. Ashlee felt their gawks hit the back of her head. Sarah slapped the table with both hands, and this time her chin nearly hit it, too. “Oh. My. Gawd! Did you see it?”

“What? No. Fuck you, Sarah. No, I didn’t see it.”

Sarah was speechless for a solid fifteen seconds, then, “Well, I guess that snapped your clam up tight. What then?”

“Uh, yes, I guess. We argued, and I ran off. I’m not sure I did the right thing. Felicity -- Robert is her -- his, their? -- real name -- whatever -- it was the nicest thing to happen to me in years. But hiding that from me until then? I can't believe it.”

Sarah chewed her nails again. Normally a bottomless well of relationship advice, she seemed to be coming up dry. She started and stopped a few times, then said, faltering, “So, are you going to see -- this person again? I don’t know what I would even do. I’ve never even thought about it.”

“I don’t know what I’m going to do, Sarah. I really feel like I could love Felicity. She’s the one for me, but I ran away from her. I ran away, Sarah! Just fucking bolted when she was begging me to stay. What am I supposed to do?”

Another solid fifteen seconds passed in monstrous silent ticks before Sarah spoke again: “I say forget about it. Walk away. You’ve learned it’s not so bad to talk to people. Hey, maybe you could use a dick, anyway.”

“Excuse me?”

“You know, maybe this is a message from God. Come back to this side of the rainbow for a while. Take a break, play the field. You could get any guy you wanted with those.” Sarah indicated the heaving breasts under the shirt. Ashlee hadn’t replaced the hoodie. She quickly swaddled herself in it, but not for lack of heat. Ashlee was unraveling the layers of Sarah’s bullshit and was seething at the implications.

“What are you saying? I’m hysterical, and all I need is a big ol’ penis inside me? Are you a fucking 1920s gynecologist now? I sure as hell don’t need to ‘make sure I’m gay’, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

Sarah shrugged. “Seems to help a lot of girls.”

The hall’s standees were creeping almost imperceptibly toward their corner. Ashlee tried to ignore them. The familiar mix of anger and embarrassment swirled in her empty stomach. She growled at Sarah, “Gross, okay? Just shut up. Half of me is,like, violated right now, but the other half wants to give it a chance.”

“Where are you right now?"

"Just a little bit on the ‘give it a chance’ side But what damned good is it now? I just ran out. Felicity is probably pissed as hell.”

“I know. Those must have been the bluest balls in town last night.” Sarah’s joke rang noisesome in Ashlee’s deepening scarlet ears. Sarah changed tack. “So you think this is really the one?”

Here come the waterworks, Ashlee thought. “I don’t know.”

“Look at the bright side, Ash."

“And what the hell is that exactly, Sarah?"

“Well,” mused Sarah, “at least you won’t have to worry about your mom if you’re really dating a dude. I mean, what’s the point of being a lesbian?”

“Fuck you, Sarah.” Ashlee’s tears were replaced by pure, fiery, unbridled rage. “Don’t bring my mom into this, you shit-eating bitch! That’s a red line and you fucking know it! Just fuck you. You don’t tell me how to run my goddamn life!” She crescendoed, loud enough so no one there could ignore her. “I came all the way over here for help and you want to act like this is a joke? Like this is some kind of game? Go find some other bitch to play dyke dolls with! You know what, Sarah? We’re fucking through. Never talk to me again!”

Ashlee shoved the table into Sarah’s lap when she got up. Sarah’s jaw was drooping silently like a fish getting a taste of fresh air. The morning people had ceased their own chatter, focused on her now, and Ashlee had indeed given them the performance of a lifetime. For the first time, Ashlee wasn’t crying. Sarah probably wouldn't be able to show her face in here for a week. She felt like she had taken Sarah’s crown, shoved it down her throat, pulled it out the other end, and kicked it right up her cooch.

Ashlee wheeled and nearly ran back the way she’d come, She crashed out through the door and collapsed into her car. She grabbed the wheel in fistfuls of fury. Soon, too soon, her fists relented. Her brow leant on the wheel. She wept.

***

Ashlee steered her car in aimless circles, looping first into Arlington, then across the Potomac. She intended to drive a couple of laps around the Mall, but missing a turn and ending up on Ohio Drive, she came across a miraculously empty parking spot.

Plenty of tourists were coming out, so she felt safe enough walking up to the Reflecting Pool. The clouds had broken, and the morning sun was lighting up the Lincoln Memorial. She looked down into the dark water to see her wavering image staring back. What happened last night? she asked herself. If she had only told me from the start …

We wouldn't have gone out, she answered herself. We wouldn't have talked, and I would never have known she was so wonderful. But she pulled a dick on me; she might as well have pulled a gun. But how are there breasts? Are they fake? They sure seemed real. Doesn’t Felicity talk, feel, behave, connect, love, in every way, like your dream woman? But, and it was a pretty big but -- well, not a butt, she corrected herself.

The sun went in, and a cool breeze whipped down the Mall, cutting straight through her hoodie. She hunched and walked briskly back to her car. Felicity at least deserved an apology and a last goodbye, right? Maybe a chance to explain herself? She flipped through her phone contacts and stopped at her number. Ashee paused in her indecision, and took a moment to put the last name — Davis, wasn't it? — in Felicity's information, since it bugged her if her contacts didn't all match. You know what? She asked herself. I’m not doing this over the phone. Ashlee called the address back up in her maps, and she pulled out and pointed her car toward Maryland.

***

“Hey Niko. This is Felicity … Not too good. Could you tell Dennis that I’m calling in sick? Thanks, you’re the best!” Felicity hung up and looked at the time again. 8:30. She had been waiting for five hours to make that call.

Second date. Should have waited for two dates. Or at least said something before the making out and crotch-grabbing started. But, no, I had to let my clit do the thinking. Did I have to bring up Robert? I must have sounded insane. Everything had moved so fast. All those hours of her opening up to me, and then Ashlee had just taken charge. In the end, Ashlee had been repulsed by her shape, but at least this one was over quickly. Ashlee wasn't going to drag it out over months.

Over the next hour, Felicity rolled from one side to the other in her bed, the blanket wadded up in her arms, eyes focused a thousand yards ahead of wherever her head was pointed. She was trying to choke down the experience. That’s what your 20’s are for, right? Make all your mistakes now, and have everything figured out when you're 30. That's the way it's supposed to be. Take your lumps, eat your broccoli. Suck it up. Harden your heart. Swallow your tears.

It was getting close to 9:30, and Felicity was still lying in bed, Googling different ways of saying “get on with your life”. She was trying out “roll with the punches” when she froze with the sound of tapping on the door.

***

The house seemed empty, and the car was absent. Ashlee parked in the same place as last night, and stepped nervously to the side of the garage. She had boiled down the first question to four words. She breathed deeply and knocked. She counted out thirty seconds by singing the ABCs to herself twice to measure thirty seconds, and breathed again. Her freezing hand was poised for another rap, when the curtain in the door's window shifted. The glare made it impossible to see through the glass clearly, but those bright hazel eyes were unmistakable. They stared, unmoving, for about twenty-five of Ashlee's deafening heartbeats.

“Felicity! I’m sorry! Please come out. We have to talk.” Ashlee imagined her muffled voice on the other side of the glass. She was blowing her lines now. “I was scared last night, and it was a total dick move -- I mean, oh God, no -- it was just awful of me. Please, Felicity!”

The eyes betrayed nothing. Suddenly, the curtain dropped. So that's it. Ashlee stood and shivered for a long moment. Sarah was right. Just forget about it. Ashlee's left foot turned back to the street, but then there came the faintest of clicks. The door was half open, Felicity guarding the opening with her body. She was still dressed from last night, and looked like she'd slept about as much as Ashlee.The world shrank to the space between their eyes: Felicity's shining vividly, Ashlee's flooded and burning red.

Ashlee spoke her four words with a quivering but resolute voice: “Tell me about Robert.”

***

Ten years earlier

“Ricky?”

Rick Davis was scanning bills and contracts strewn across the kitchen table. The season was still months away, but there was plenty to do. Buying out the management contracts of the Chincoteague vacation rentals was only the first milestone. It was only half past March, but many were already booked for the summer. He and his wife Marisol were busy securing the old maintenance teams. Marisol was indispensable in organizing Honduran and Guatemalan laborers, making phone calls to her networks back home, getting visas for those who could qualify for them, and settling those who couldn’t.

“Ricky.”

Marisol was looking in from the living room of their new home. Rick had come across the house, a two story white clapboard place with a metal roof, when he was sniffing out properties. It might be old and on the less fashionable southern end of Chincoteague, but he could work from here and be home every night for his young family.

“Ricky!”

Marisol was aiming an insistent stage whisper across the sea of moving boxes.

“Ricky, come look at the kids.”

Rick dropped his work at once. Family beckoned. Whatever Marisol wanted him to observe might never be seen again. Eleven-year-old Robert and his sister Yaidali, four years younger, were inseparable, and the constant joy of his life. After picking their way through the boxes, Marisol motioned him up the stairs.

She stole silently up the flights, barefoot as usual. Rick stopped to watch her dancing form sweep away upstairs. He never tired of staring at her, and still couldn't believe how lucky this lanky son-of-a-bitch was to land such a beauty. She turned and mouthed Come! again. Rick slipped off his shoes and tiptoed clumsily up.

Marisol led him to Yaidali’s cracked bedroom door. The children’s indistinct burbles drifted out into the hall. Breath abated, Rick peered in. The children were unpacking a box of dress up clothes, less efficiently than he might hope, but more adorably than he thought possible. They were beautiful, each child a copy of Marisol, with creamy coffee skin and thick, jet black hair. Yaidali was pulling one thing out at a time, modeling it, twirling once or twice, then flinging it into a corner.

Robert was laughing along with her, reclining on the floor by the box. A sparkly tiara came out next. Two twirls, but no fling. Yaidali solemnly approached her brother and staged an impromptu coronation, crowning him with great dignity.

Her little voice piped, “All hail, Queen Felicity!” Yaidali shifted her feet awkwardly for a deep curtsey, then toppled into Robert, who fell theatrically underneath her.

“Are you okay, Queen Felicity?” Yaidali asked. Robert nodded, smiling, and straightened his tiara. Yaidali dived back into the box.

Marisol was giddy with silent delight. Rick’s eyes teared just a little. Robert was such a great brother, putting up with this. I wonder where she got that name from?

***

That’s how it was in the very beginning.

Felicity was about ten years old, as far as she knew, but she could be as old as Robert. She knew everything he had, and certainly felt 21, so she might have been there the whole time. She lived in peace with Robert until he went off to middle school and imprisoned her deep in his heart, terrified to let her out. How she’d cried. She desperately missed Yaidali, and Robert was growing distant from her.

As they grew through the terrible time between 12 and 13 during which their body grew a foot, Robert and Felicity agreed on one thing: girls were the best. They were both incredibly horny. They disagreed on approaches, though. Robert was a boy, spurred on by his fellows to indulge in dominating, violative fantasies that Felicity wanted no part of. Masturbation was hideous, too. Felicity convinced Robert to get his hands on a vibrator and jack off like a civilized person, but she was left frustrated and unfulfilled when it just wouldn’t work.

After 14, Robert was fading. Felicity was taking over regularly, and more than once she caused Robert trouble as she explored women’s clothing and spaces. Pervert and faggot were hurled at them continually. She was nailed once at school in the girl’s locker room when she thought she was alone, then again at a public pool.

That’s when the therapy started. Dr. Vine was the first to meet Felicity, and he urged her to introduce herself to her parents. There was no screaming, no fighting, just kisses and “Honey, we’ve known for a while now.” “Robert” and “he” persisted for some time, and she was still forced to drive lawnmowers, but she knew she was loved.

The next three years were full of trips to gender dysphoria specialists in Salisbury. Robert saw the end was near, and fell silent, near-comatose on his deathbed. There were months and months of therapy and endocrinology appointments, then more months of trips to the Accomack County courthouse, until finally Felicity was a legal female citizen of Virginia. By now, Robert was long gone, as dead as his name.

The funeral had been Dad’s idea. Robert’s birth certificate, his Social Security card, driver’s license, and a few treasured belongings were stuffed in a number ten tin can from a hotel kitchen. The whole family, Dad, Mom, Yaidali, and Felicity, drove out one evening to his favorite stretch of Assateague beach. There, with a match and a splash of lighter fluid. Robert’s earthly remains were committed to the sand and sea.

***

“That’s the saddest thing I ever heard.”

Ashlee was in a lawn chair, seated across from the bed where Felicity was hunched, closing a photo album. Show and tell was in full swing. The next exhibit was a cube-shaped box, covered with tiny print. Felicity plucked a tiny glass vial from within it.

“This is estrogen,” Felicity said. “I give this to myself on Wednesday nights. That’s the day I met you, by the way. I’ve been on it for almost three years. It’s actually not that expensive. The doctor in Salisbury renews it over the phone, and only charges my parents forty dollars a call. She knows it’s tough for transgender folks”

“You have breasts, kind of,” said Ashlee feeling strangely curious. “Does that cause it?”

Felicity nodded with a frown. “Hormones kind of move the fat around. We had already gone through puberty, so it was too late to stop all that. We were pretty skinny and twinky to begin with, which was useful, and the hormones eventually built up fat in my breasts and hips. I won’t be completely comfortable till I can get surgery, but that’s really expensive.” She grinned and looked up. “But I’m still looking pretty good, right?”

Ashlee had to agree. “You have pretty much everyone fooled.” Felicity’s grin turned to a wince. Ashlee buried her face in her hands. “That’s the wrong thing to say, isn’t it?”

“It really is,” Felicity said coolly. “How can you be gay and not know about this kind of thing?”

“I’m telling you,” Ashley wailed, beginning to cry, “I have no one! No one to share with, no to confide in. Felicity, that’s why I came back. I’ve never felt like someone who deserved love, not until you came along. I mean that, and I can’t tell you enough. I want to love you, but your body . . . I just don't know if I can.”

“You have to realize, I’m a woman, like you. I remember how Robert wanted women. He was lewd and grasping. We women love each other purely, for ourselves. No man will ever understand it.”

“Felicity," said Ashlee, “I'm sorry I acted so shitty last night. I was scared. I thought you were hiding it to take advantage of me.”

“I can understand that. I'm really sorry about hiding it, Ashlee. You had every right to be mad. I was just so excited to be accepted as a woman, and you were so great, I didn't want to ruin it. You know, until I did ruin it. If you’re freaked out about the penis, it doesn't really work like that on the hormones. It’s actually very interesting, because the shaft acts more like …”

“I really don’t want to hear about it right now,” interrupted Ashlee, her curiosity suddenly exhausted. “Can we make a deal?”

“What kind of deal?”

“I really need some time to think this over. Process it. It’s about eleven, right?”

Felicity looked at her phone. “Yeah.”

“Are you going to be here at twelve tomorrow?”

“No, I’ll be at work”

“I’ll get through to you somehow. Give me until tomorrow. That’s Sunday. If you don’t hear from me by noon tomorrow, forget about me. Forever.” Ashley choked this out, as if saying goodbye to a dying grandmother.

“That’ll be tough. I think I love you, too.”

“Noon tomorrow, understand?” At that, Ashlee rose, and sniffling, walked out.