Gyrations

"Michael!"

"--and I don't want you bangin' mine. Understood, my friend?"

My balls screamed! The pain in my face nor the humiliation mattered. I was one squeeze away from being crippled.

"Understand?" he asked me again.

I croaked out, "Yes! I understand. Now get offa me, you ape!"

He released me and stood up. Near to tears with rage, I couldn't move, much less get up to fight. I made it onto my side where I could ball up into a fetal ball. A crowd had formed, mostly gawk-eyed teenagers and some in their early twenties, nobody that would lend a hand. I watched from my vantage point at tire level as the bastard dragged her away.

"Martin! Martin, I'm so sorry!"

He dragged her along by the elbow. "Come on, girly. We got us a little talking to do." He had on his black leather pants, studded boots and the same black leather jacket. He was greased back, in best Greaser fashion, a ducktail above the collar. I wanted to kill him.

I got onto my duff. My chest ached and my left cheek felt stripped of flesh and by balls felt like a punching bag. I tried getting to my feet but sat back down again. I leaned against the bumper of the car conveniently put there for my use and tried to catch my breath. Three-quarters of the way down the row I saw him drag her between two cars and I heard her yelp, then the sound of an open-palm smack. "The bastard," I muttered.

I could do two things. I could sit there until my testicles stopped throbbing and my chest felt capable of breathing again and I had some strength in my legs. I could sit there and let the smart thing come to pass, namely, going home. Michael obviously knew Karate or Ti Chi or some nonsense like that, and would cripple me for real next time. He obviously could. And what motivation did I have to get up? A cross-dressing queer with fake fingernails, lacquered hair and a set of silicone falsies?

I struggled to my feet. The crowd had thinned and those still present regarded me with pity. I gripped the fender of the car for support and tried to catch sight of them. They were two rows over and he was berating her beside a big silver, nineteen-eighties model Buick or Oldsmobile. That's not your father's Olds, I thought stupidly. He slapped her hard again, banged her against the side of the car, then opened the door and flung her inside. I pushed off the fender of whatever I was leaning against and shambled toward my car. I got there just as the Buick/Olds peeled rubber backward out of its space, then peeled rubber going forward again. I started the CR-V and followed.

A mile down the road, I pulled over and waited while Michael ran into a Seven-Eleven. I was thinking, This would be so simple, Jamie, if you just got out of the car and ran. But that doesn't happen in the real world and it didn't happen here.

When we stopped a block apart at a set of paired traffic signals, I got out of the CR-V, went around to the back and threw open the rear door. The guy behind me grew somewhat alarmed at the tire iron in my hand, but I grinned at him and got back in the car. A mile further on we stopped again at a light, this time with me right behind them. I almost got out, then noticed Jamie's head was missing.

Oh, fuck, I thought. What did he do now? Did she get out? I craned around but didn't see her back along the road. Then I thought, What if he hit her hard enough to knock her out, then I thought, Oh, Jesus, what if he killed her? I was beginning to panic when all of a sudden Jamie's head reappeared, only she was grinning at him and wiping her mouth. Grinning at him and wiping her mouth.

I sat there dumbfounded. Dumbfounded and stunned. The tire-iron slipped from my fingers and thudded on the floor. The point of my chin sagged to my breastbone. What the fuck was this? In the car ahead, she leaned across the open space and put her left arm around Michael's neck and kissed his cheek. I saw her laugh. I saw her right arm move in a way suggestive of stroking. "Oh, no," I muttered. "No way."

When the light changed from red to green, I turned left as they went straight, and drove myself home.

That's what I saw myself doing. What I knew I should be doing. What everyone in the world would be screaming at me to do. Instead, I pressed the gas pedal and followed them down the busy street, following some instinct, some almost forgotten memory, some pivotal moment in a book or a movie or a dream, wanting-praying-hoping that seeing is not always believing.

"Turn around and look at me, baby. Please."

Ahead in the Olds, Jamie sat snuggled up to Michael, head on his shoulder, obviously not belted in. Little by little, ounce by ounce, my resolve slipped away. I watched as her head slowly dipped from sight, groaned as Michael flexed achingly in his seat, wanted to ram the front end of my car into them when her head reappeared again. But this time, without seeming to do it, Jamie glanced back at me through the rear window and nodded. It was enough for me. Whether she could see me or not, I nodded back. At the next red light it happened.

Michael braked the Olds and stopped. Jamie's head was down again and I could see him cajoling her. Then his head tilted back and he went rigid all over, shoulders bunching up and suddenly he was jerking in his seat. I knew what was going on and slammed my fists on the steering wheel and wanted to ram them again. Mr. British Accent might just get his dick bit off. But his actions were suddenly suggestive of something other than ejaculation. Suddenly he was hunched forward and rigid in a grimace; the passenge door banged opened and Jamie flopped out onto the ground.

"Run!" I yelled at her. She stayed momentarily on her butt, legs flung apart and hands back supporting her, staring into the car. There was a look of dismay on her face and her mouth hung open. Then she was scrambling to her feet and I flung the passenger's side door open. "Come on! Run, God damn it! Run!"

She stumbled backwards against the car door, thrust herself forward just as Michael disappeared from sight. His hand shot out and grabbed the back of her jacket. She twisted in his grip, yanked the coat back over her shoulders and flung it away from her. Then she was running for the car.

"Go!" she screamed. "Get moving!"

Michael half-crawled, half-tumbled out the door and landed on his hands and knees on the pavement. His pants were undone and white from his underwear protruded from his fly. I saw no blood but I also didn't see any ding-a-ling flopping in the breeze. But I could hope.

"Get going!" she screamed at me again.

I put the car in Reverse as Michael struggled to his feet and took a faltering step forward. He was bent at the waist, clutching his balls, mouthing words. She may not have bit it off, but she surely had mangled him. She bounded past my front end and grabbed the open door.

"Get in! Get in!" I urged. Michael was halfway down his car and gathering speed. His face was set in a rictus of pain and hatred, the hatred directed at us. I had no doubt, none whatsoever, that even in his weakened condition he'd kick the shit out of me.

Jamie jumped inside and slammed the car door closed. Her face was chalky but had flaming patches on both cheeks; there was a bruise where he'd hit her. Her chest heaved and her mouth was working. "Please!" she pleaded. "Go!"

I backed within an inch of the car behind me, waved apologetically when the driver laid on the horn, then cut the wheel to the left. Michael was already moving to his right, cutting me off. "Fuck that shit!" I yelled and flung the wheel to the right. I floored the gas and the four-wheel drive cut it, squealing tires both front and back. The CR-V jiggered and shook and jounced up and down on its suspension and then we were into the next lane and then onto the shoulder and cutting across state-owned property to the parking lot of an apartment complex. We jolted across the high curb and I thanked God again for the four-wheel drive and its clearance. Somehow I missed the vehicles either side of the parking space I drove into and the last I saw of Michael as we barreled through the parking lot in search of an exit, was him hunched over with his hands on his knees.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

She had lost her tortoise-shell glasses and all but one of her silver hair clips. Her lipstick was smudged hideously around her mouth and she sported a developing shiner. Her right cheek was swollen. She didn't look okay, but then she grinned at me. "I'm with you and that's more than okay," she said.

I grinned back at her. "Michael seemed a little pissed."

She laughed throatily. "I take no prisoners, Martin. None at all." She belted herself in, and I put my hand on her thigh and squeezed tightly.

"You're not going home tonight."

"Obviously."

"My roommate's a pain in the ass," I said, "but he respects a closed door. Unless Michael has my street address or my telephone number, we should be safe there."

"Well, I didn't leave it tacked to the refrigerator door," she said. She put her hand on mine and then took it into hers. "Thank you for rescuing me, Martin. Thank you for coming after me in the first place. That took a lot of courage. I can't believe Michael. He is such a bastard."

I wanted to say, It was nothing, I always take a beating on my first dates. Instead, I asked, "Is he really your brother?"

"Yes!" she spat in exasperation. "The bastard!"

The next question I couldn't ask and it simply hung there between us, gobbling up time. Precious time. Finally she said, "I grew up in California. My mom and dad died in a car wreck when I was thirteen. Michael was eighteen then, but not old enough to be my guardian. He was already kinky by them, spiked hair and leather clothes and studs and everything. The courts took one look at him and said no. They awarded me to my aunt Sheila and I lived with her for two years, then for a year with my grandmother. I was really mixed up. I got into some trouble, nothing really bad, but enough to make my aunt and uncle very nervous. Besides . . ." She looked out the window. I squeezed her hand and tapped it gently against her thigh.

"Tell me," I said. "You want me to know, don't you?"

She continued looking out the window. "Do you really?" she asked.

"Yes."

"I'm a hermaphrodite," she said calmly. "Half-boy, half-girl. You wanted to know."

* * *

We stopped at McDonald's. We both had cheeseburgers, French-fries and diet-Cokes. She went to the Ladies Room before eating, to clean up. I waited for her.

I had begun to suspect the truth at dinner. Her hair and her Adam's apple--or lack of one--were two big clues. Her hair grew in the classic female pattern, extending inward on her forehead farther than a man's. In the restaurant I had noticed her lack of facial hair, but mistook the fine blonde growth as boyish peach fuzz. Her figure was that of a girl, as were her delicate features, and I had the feeling the small breasts she wore so well beneath her knit top were real girl's breasts.

She returned and we ate our cheeseburgers and French-fries in silence. It was a comfortable silence, a silence I could enjoy. I extended my diet-coke and she smiled as she sucked the straw. "I could get to like you," she said.

"You already like me, remember?"

"I could like you even more."

"Enough to live with me?" I asked.

The smile faltered, then returned. "Be careful what you wish for. I lived with my brother and look what happened to him."

She explained that Michael had sued for custody when he turned twenty-one. She was only sixteen ten, but desperate to get away from both her aunt and her grandmother; the courts had listened. I had the feeling no one fought too hard against the suit anyway.

"Things were okay for awhile, then he started getting weird. I had been living as a girl until then--I lived as a girl all my life--but he started making me wear guy's clothes and act like a guy. He wasn't queer--he still isn't queer--he just liked the mind-bend. He'd take me out and introduce me as his brother, and slowly but surely, that's what I became.

"In 2000 we moved out here to get away from the family. I had begun to like the masquerade a bit too much--see how fucked up I am?--and the family was making trouble. I was twenty years old, but my aunt and uncle went to the court and the court decided I had an unstable personality and sent me to a physchiatric hospital. Believe me," she said, laughing bitterly. "You don't ever want to go there."

I worked to digest this. "Which sex do you want to be?" I asked.

"I think that's obvious."

I grinned mischievously. "You convinced me as a guy, James."

"I could be a guy," she came right back.

I laughed and shook my head. "I'd like to know about you. Your condition. Are you comfortable talking about that?"

She shifted uncomfortably. She breathed deeply. "I'm what's called an XX/XY hermaphrodite. I have mixed genitalia." She paused to see if I wanted to comment on that, then went on. "I have a very small penis, a vagina, one testicle and an ovary. I ovulate, but not every month. Maybe four or five times a year. I've gone a year without a single one, and sometimes I do it every month. It's always very painful. I have a uterus, but only one fallopian tube. My ovary develops terrible cysts that sometimes have to be surgically removed. My testicle is still inside me and causes no end of problems." She looked sadly out the window. "It gets worse, Martin."

I took her hand and held it. "Go on."

"My vagina is severely underdeveloped. It's too small to take a tampon, which means I can't have intercourse with you, not without surgery. I've never had intercourse. Only anal sex with my brother." The pain in her voice was awful. "You saw what I did in the car?"

"It's fine," I said. "You were forced to."

"I was forced to tonight, but there's been plenty of times I wasn't forced. I've had sex with him since I was eighteen. When I kissed you tonight it was my first time with another guy. I've been a one-person harem as long as I can remember. As both a man and a woman. Try experiencingthat sometime!" she cried, bursting into tears.

I said nothing, just took her in my arms and held her. She wept deep racking sobs. When the sobbing lessened I kissed her gently and wiped away her tears.

"You have a lot of courage," I said. "I can't even imagine what you went through growing up."

She sniffed and wiped her nose on a napkin. "Did I tell you I have breasts?"

"No," I said laughing. "But I'm glad you do." She took my left hand and placed it on her right breast. It was small, soft and very natural feeling. I held it a moment, then went under her top, released the center-snap on her bra, and took her breast in my hand. We French-kissed.

"I have to tell you something," she said softly.

Her wonderful smell, the way she felt beneath my hands, her every movement was driving me nuts. I wanted her--then, there, right in the middle of McDonald's if she'd let me . . . I justwanted her.

"I'm going away tomorrow."

I sat straight up.

"It's okay," she said hurriedly. "I'm coming back."

My heart pounded like King Kong on the island gateway. I wondered if my chest wall could take it. "When?" I demanded, then more gently, "Why? Or shouldn't I ask."

"To a clinic in New York. They specialize in sexual disorders."

"What will you have done?" I asked.

"Have my testicle removed and my vagina measured for reconstructive surgery. I've been there twice before and there's more visits in my future." She breathed deeply, her eyes rimmed with tears. "Many more, if I ever hope to have a baby."

* * *

It was three a.m. and dead quiet. I could hear the breath going in and out of her nostrils and the occasional gurgle of her stomach. Or maybe it was mine. "I'm going to miss you," I said.

"Me too."

"You'll let me take you to the airport?"

"I was hoping you'd ask that."

"What about Michael?"

"I'm not going back to the apartment."

"How about your things? For the trip, I mean."

"They're in my car," she said. She had planned for this, or something like it.

"We'll stop by and get them," I said. "When you get back, we'll borrow the Maryland starting lineup and get your things out of the apartment."

She laughed and rolled over for a hug. I wrapped her in my arms and we made love again in the only way she could. I did something to her that Michael never had and she really enjoyed that. I guess being a girland a boy sometimes has its advantages.

And yes, I intentionally mislead you at the beginning of the story, but aren't you grateful I did?