THE PROCEDURE

Christian is still angry about having to swallow his nuts in Wes's suite. He wants nothing more to do with that prick-tease. Not that it matters. Wes is keeping exclusive company with her new alter ego (Adolph). They are inseparable. It’s Christian's hurt that makes him do it. Later, when there is time for reflection, Wes is thankful for the Sergeant’s abominable cruelty. Christian broods the morning through, drinking Jack Daniels and waiting for Adolph to arrive at the Song Shop Bar for his regular afternoon constitutional. Adolph has been domiciling with Wes for a couple of weeks now. Like wedded bliss. If only Adolph would've stayed away instead of keeping such a compulsive schedule, Christian would have been denied the opportunity to avenge his bruised ego. He blurts it out from half way across the bar before Adolph can even order a chaser for Christian's harsh gulp of ruthlessness.

"Wes is a man, a faggoty changling, a rotten queer bitch! The bartender at Goy's knows him/her from when he/she danced at the Silver Dollar. Uncle Zap is really its lover. The faggoty old shit! Making it with a boy! Puke! She's an android. Plastic pussy. Titanium tits. An arse of gold. The old bastard (Zap) had her reconstructed out of paperboys. West Miller!" he spits it out.

Adolph shoves Chirstian roughly from the bar stool and stomps out. Wes warned him. There's always talk. Jealousy. The hooker-thing. Her relationship with Zap? This garbled, raunchy accusation must be put to rest. He'll go to her. Why, she's more woman than anyone Adolph has ever known. Wes a man? Naw! Absolutely not.

"It's true!" Wes shrieks impatiently, the expression of exasperation lending weight to her words. "I had the operation three years ago when I was sixteen." "You mean you were m-male, a-a boy?" he stutters. "Yes and no. I never felt male, but I had male characteristics. I was a freak. Zap arranged for the Procedure because I was at the nexus of suicide. As a fem-man, I was a quirk, an oddity without power, but as a woman I am beautiful. Beautiful woman command. Do you understand?" "It's deceitful, " Adolph parries.

"I'm a woman now. There's no deceit in that. Science has corrected an error of nature. What do your senses tell you I am? How does it feel to kiss me? Don't my breasts feel like flesh? You told me only this morning that I am beautiful. Am I less so now that you know what you know? The surgery is one hundred percent. The best money can buy. I'm a woman and a dam fine one! Every part of my anatomy is certifiably feminine. "Sort of bionic." "Only the hearing aide dear," Wes returns glibly. "I love my body. Be happy for me Adolph. I am free from the infernal war between my halves. A man's hard musculature. That was the deceit. Don't you see?"

"I'm trying to picture the boy you were, but I can't." "Don't! That boy is beyond your reach. He was a soulless wanderer before the change. Incompatible with my animating force. No, he's exorcised. I never think of those times. I was born three years ago. Please! Oh Please Adolph. Protect me from this freakish tangle. I was doomed in the beginning. Don't condemn me now."

There it is. Adolph is in love with a bonafide transsexual. Accounts of similar experiences by other men are filled with violent surprise leading usually to shocked disgust and eventually rejection. Is Wes a lie? An appearance without form? Does the knowledge of her past create an impossible lack of authenticity? Adolph is not one to be confused by the efficacy of so-called truth. Leave that self-righteous bunk for the sycophants and societal sin-eaters. There are lies told for no better reason than to square with the world. Then why not a lie to square with the self? Has she betrayed Adolph by keeping him in the dark? Why didn't she tell him? Tell him what? The truth? Or the old truth that is no longer truth, but falsehood Should he too run away in disgust? He's kissed a man. Hasn't he? He's felt the press of her soft lips, cushioned his head against those small, firm breasts. Almost made coital love. Almost. How can a man, even one so deeply buried, make Adolph feel like this? Adolph can't sustain the leap of imagination required to picture the boy whose maleness is now forever hidden in Wes's fragile body. He knows in every cell that Wes is a woman. Point closed, yet a troubling question. What will people say? Will they think Adolph a fag? Maybe he is. Will the world summarily re-define him? Change him in some unforeseeable way? Fuck-um, he thinks, referring to the little mindless keepers of culture's holy rules.

Wes is beautiful as she curls next to him, the tears dripping black semi-circles. She never allowed him to love her wholly. She held back to avoid discovery. For fear of the genital embrace, its newness, Wes always played the tease. Making love (the actual mechanics) wasn't any different. She was afraid. Most of us are, but so artless, so sweet that in their lovemaking the last vestige of Adolph's doubts withered and died.