Works/Doppler

The irony is that we met at all.

I consider this proof of disaster. Proof that the ending was inevitable. After all, it was never supposed to -

No. No, I can't say that. It was supposed to happen, that's why it was such an oddity. It went the way it went because that was the only way it could go.

I hate thinking that.

I don't go to clubs. Or bars, or discos, or any of those places where the idea is to roll smiles like dice and see who gets to pass Go. Sure, I look. Everyone looks. But I hate the auditions.

I met him in a club.

I have a car. In the city it's not very useful. I get groceries in it. But my friends know I have a car. They know I don't go out much. I get phone calls.

Lorraine was drunk three nights out of four and it disgusted me. I don't know why I agreed to go rescue her. Something helpless in her slurred words, barely audible under the noise and music.

It took me twenty minutes to go, ten minutes to park, and fifteen minutes to stand in the line at the door. I looked around the obvious places someone would wait for a ride. She wasn't there. I sighed and started to push my way through the bodies.

I was looking at faces in one direction, scanning the room, while still walking forward in another direction which is how I nearly knocked him over. Or more like I nearly knocked myself over. He caught me.

"I'm sorry," I said. He didn't seem to be paying much attention. Lost in space. He waved it off and I continued on my patrol. Still not watching where I was going.

A complete trip around the club and a hunt across the dance floor I never want to repeat and I was back where I started. He hadn't moved. He turned to me and I realized that it wasn't that he didn't pay attention. He was definitely looking right at me. But his eyes always seemed focused on a point a few inches further away than whatever he was looking at. Like he was always thinking about something else.

"You're looking for someone," he said.

I nodded. "And I don't think she's here." It turned out later that Lorraine had met some friends and, oblivious, gone home with them. "I'm giving up on her. I want to leave."

"Would you like a cup of coffee?"

I would like to say that by now I understand, after the fact, why I said yes. But I can't say that.

"What am I doing here?" is what I actually said, when we had Formica in front of us and my ears had stopped ringing from the club.

"You're having a cup of coffee," he replied. "Would you like to order some food as well?"

His name was Paul. He had hesitated before giving the rest of it. "You forget your last name?" I asked him.

"Did you ever have trouble," he asked, "remembering your phone number because you never call yourself?"

"That's different, though. You can't forget your name. It's like forgetting your birthday."

"I have an even harder time remembering my birthday," he said.

I can't remember his last name anymore.

He had a very slight build, long graceful arms with very light hair. Long fingers that hunted and encountered the coffee cup like he was reaching for it blind. Maybe he really was unable to focus. No, no, he'd had no trouble walking.

"Why did the club upset you?" he asked.

"I don't know," I said.

He just looked at me. Or through me. Blue-gray.

"I guess it's the people," I said. "They're all trying to find something and most of them aren't going to get it. Most of them don't even know what they want. It's a rotten system. You end up in bed with someone for a night and you hate yourself the next day but you liked the feeling, so a couple of nights later you go out and hit yourself with it again. And you wonder why you stay empty. Does that make sense?"

"But some people don't want breakfast," he said.

"What?"

"Not everyone sees it that way," he said. "Some people don't want any sort of entanglement, any sort of romance. They don't want to be served breakfast the next morning."

"They're kidding themselves."

"That's narrow. You've never been with someone just because you needed sex?"

"I think I have the opposite problem."

"I don't understand."

I sipped my coffee instead. But I couldn't stay silent with those eyes on me.

"I'm looking for breakfast," I said. "Lots of breakfasts. I don't care about the sex."

"That's interesting."

"You don't believe me."

"Halfway." He didn't even have the grace to look abashed. "When someone tells me they're not interested in sex, it always means they haven't done it well." No repentance, no apology - but also no accusation. Just a fact. By his rules.

I realized then that I was dealing with one of those people who has never mastered the idea that tact requires lies. And what should I have done? I should have gotten up right then, walked away from the table. Maybe poured coffee in his lap.

But I went home with him. I guess I wanted to prove something.

He proved something to me.

He didn't have an erection when we started. The rest of his skin was as pale as his arms, the hair just as white. I watched his body as he touched me, testing with his long fingers the way he'd searched the air for his coffee cup. Finding what was there without looking. I watched his body. I didn't want to look at his eyes.

He examined every inch of me, feeling the soft skin on the side of my neck or the insides of my thighs, the knobby skin on my knees and elbows, the slightly-sticky-sweaty skin between my breasts and under them. Feeling the grooves left by my bra and the tiny bumps in my areolae. And though he had not yet once put even a finger up between my legs, not so much as a touch, I was getting aroused. Excited, I think, by the idea of this focus. The idea that he was concentrating on me and nothing but me, studying me, memorizing me with his fingers.

Then he started using his mouth. Covering the same trails. Brushing his lips against my skin, once in a while darting his tongue out, tasting. Finding out. What I found out was that those small noises were coming from me.

"Mmm," he said, nodding as if this were a signal. Lowering his face below my hips, he moved my legs apart with his hands. He explored for my clit. Sometimes probing around it and tickling it with his tongue. Sometimes squeezing it lightly, experimentally, with his fingers. Watching me for reactions, I was sure. I didn't know. My eyes were closed.

I wouldn't have been able to stand the idea that with all that focus, his eyes were still somewhere else. Somewhere beyond me.

"Please," I said, and it was a gasp.

"Keep going like this? Or -"

"You."

He straddled me, still playing with me with one hand. Didn't move for a little while. I didn't dare open my eyes. Then, as I was about to wonder aloud, I felt his penis enter me. Carefully. Like asking permission to intrude.

He had me so worked up then, that was almost all it took. He put his arms around me. One thrust, two, three - and I don't remember the rest.

I am ashamed to say I don't even remember if he came. I slept then, slept the way men are supposed to sleep after sex. And in the morning, waking up still blissful, I knew I was in trouble.

Not only had he been right, I wanted more - besides breakfast.

I wondered all day - wondered if I was going to be able to forget it. Wondered if I was going to be one of those pathetic lust cases from the clubs, always chasing the next thrill. Wondered if I'd been ruined. Nowhere in the wondering did I consider the idea that I'd see him again. It hadn't been in the deal, it seemed to me. If I had read the conversation correctly.

But as I was getting ready to leave work, he called. "Come after dinner if you like." It was thrown out in such a casual way, it made me want to turn spiteful and reject it. But even then I knew better. I can't sustain my lies to myself.

By the third night, I was ready to ask the questions. Is this all that will happen? Are we becoming something else? Will we?

But it was only the third night. And I didn't want to be the woman who picks out curtains too soon. I didn't want to sound ungrateful. I didn't want it to stop.

It was always after dinner. No excuse for socializing, no conversation really, just his body and mine. We would part in the morning with a kiss, having barely spoken all night. I did listen to the part of my brain that was going unsatisfied. I listened and ignored it.

I knew - I suppose I always knew - it was temporary. I think that kept me from being afraid. One morning while he showered, I went into one of the closets he didn't use, in his way-too-big-for-one-person house. It was full of women's clothes. So maybe I was expecting her to arrive at any moment.

He was soft. On a man with a skinny frame like that you expect to collide with a protruding bone, or run into a mass of muscle, tense and solid. But I never did either. Soft, even on his face. Men's faces are never really soft, there's always a little scratchiness, even just after they've shaved. I never saw him shave.

He got me in the habit of exploring with my fingers, finding his face by Braille, moving along the hollow of his neck. "You're the only man I've ever met with no Adam's apple," I said.

"It happens," was his reply.

Two weeks. I didn't ask what he did during the day, I didn't ask about the woman in the closet, and most of all I didn't ask what he wanted from me.

"Did you always wear your hair long?" I asked him one night, running my fingers through it slowly. I had always thought "cornsilk hair" was a cliché. It was so fine, it felt like it wanted to wrap around my fingers, surround them and entangle them.

"It's simpler that way," he said.

"I don't like keeping up with mine either. That's why I keep it short."

"Do you want me to cut my hair?" he said.

"No. It's wonderful like this," I said, coaxing out another tangle.

I wasn't sure if that had been the right answer. Even though I'd been telling the truth. It was so hard to tell what bothered him, if anything did.

Two nights later, I got to his house and no one answered the door. I figured maybe he had been at work late. If he worked. I waited for a while - half an hour maybe; he didn't show up. I worried, but not for the right reasons. I wasn't scared he'd died in a car crash somewhere. I don't think it would have occurred to me, not for him, but I don't know why.

When I got home, I called the number. I'd never used it. He always called me. I let it ring forty times.

I went back the next night and he wasn't home again. But there were lights on in the house that hadn't been on before, and his car was there. I sat in my car for a long time. I don't know. Hoping he'd see me, maybe, for no useful reason. He knew who'd been knocking.

I let myself call in sick for a day. Then I clenched my teeth, put concealer on the circles under my eyes, and went back to the world. I lasted another three days.

The fourth day I watched his house. Concealed on the opposite side of the street. Telling myself the whole time how psychotic this was. But I knew he was there. I waited until three o'clock, when he opened the door to get the mail. After he'd gone back inside, I came out, shaking a little, and crossed the street and knocked on his door.

It took him a long time to answer it. His face was just as unreadable as always. "I thought it might be you," he said.

"You owe me a rejection." What was different about him?

"I suppose I do," he said, and gestured to me to follow him inside.

I had to see him from behind, the shape, to really get it. It doesn't take long to get in the habit, you know, of seeing people a certain way and just throwing out any new information that doesn't fit. That's why we have so many conversations that start, "Something about you has changed." We should know automatically when someone has cut their hair or gotten a new pair of glasses. But our brain takes shortcuts.

"Take off your shirt," I said. I was a little surprised that he actually did it. He turned around.

The startling thing was that they didn't look out of place. I suppose if they had, I'd have known what was wrong right away. But they were exactly the kind of breasts you'd expect to find on that body. Small, soft, but definitely there. His nipples were bigger, of course, but still the palest red they could be. The same pale red as his lips. As the tip of his penis.

I wanted to touch them.

"What you really owe me," I said, "is an explanation."

"I don't have one."

"But you knew it would happen."

He nodded.

Should I have screamed? Should I have tackled him, pounded my fists against him until I'd gotten the frustration out? Slapped him across the face? I sat on his sofa and crumbled. Just let it all pour out of me, hot water into my hands.

I wiped my eyes and looked up at him.

"You wouldn't have believed me," he said.

"Strip." I wished so badly that I could make my eyes as unreadable as his.

He undressed, matter-of-fact, no attempt to be sexy about it. He stood in front of me, hands on his hips. His much more prominent hips, prominent enough that it was his penis that looked out of place. It was the part that didn't belong now.

"What are you?"

"I'm myself. I'm never anything else."

"And these are just special effects." I walked over and squeezed one of his breasts gently. It was as I had expected it to be. Definitely real. I felt the nipple with the tip of my index finger, over it and around it.

He shrugged.

I grabbed him by the shoulders and pushed him, shoved him like a bulldozer all the way into the bedroom and backwards onto the bed. I sat astride him, holding him down, his legs dangling off the side. "You are," I said, unbuttoning my blouse, "the most frustrating man - the most frustrating person - I have ever met."

That was when those blue-gray eyes showed the only obvious emotion I ever saw in them. "You still want me," he said. Nothing in his tone of voice told me he was surprised. It was the one and only time his eyes ever gave him away.

I lowered my mouth and licked one of his nipples. I felt it stiffen on my tongue and I smiled.

I wasn't about to tell him that I had surprised myself. He didn't deserve to know.

His skin felt the same. His penis felt the same. And he didn't make any more noise than he ever had. But the thought occurred to me - "It doesn't stop there, does it?" I asked, as we lay beside each other, cooling down.

"No."

"How long does it take?"

"Maybe another week. Maybe two."

"I'll be back tomorrow night," I said.

"I know."

When I knocked on the door the next night, he was wearing a dress. Loose, with a long hem and no sleeves and a cheerful print. He was barefoot, and his hair wasn't tied back.

"I'm not sure if I can think of you as a 'he' anymore," I said.

"Then don't," she replied.

Her voice hadn't changed. But, like so many things, it hadn't been so masculine before. She still had pale hair on her arms. How far into this process had I arrived? Had the hair been dark once? Had her voice been deeper?

Part of me insisted I should react more, that I should be more surprised or frightened. But the touch of her skin was still the same, and her fingertips along my skin still made my head tingle. I ignored that voice in my head. She wouldn't have answered my questions if I'd asked them.

Now that I was watching for changes, they were easier to see. Her testicles vanished very fast - the way I remember it now, one day they were there and one day they weren't. But I'm sure I must be remembering it wrong. Her penis, on the other hand, got shorter very slowly. I knew she knew, and she knew I knew. But I didn't say anything. You don't say things like that. Men get very unhappy. Of course, she wasn't a man.

"I'm sorry," she said, when I lay beside her one day and saw that there really wasn't much more than the tip, just a red nub with maybe a tiny amount of shaft.

I moved down by her hips. "Is it still sensitive?" I asked. I put my lips over it, tasted it. She wriggled a little.

I smiled and teased her with my tongue. I would have put my hands on it, but there was nothing to grab. So I put my hands on her hips, steadied myself, and lay there, licking and sucking pleasantly. Never so pleasant to do before. And when she tensed, and a very small amount of warm salty taste landed on my tongue, I felt a weird satisfaction. Like: See, I knew I could make you do that.

I lay beside her, the taste still in my mouth. She rolled onto her side, sat up, moved down between my legs, and without a word began exploring with her tongue.

Maybe I should have told her that she didn't have to reciprocate, that there was no obligation. But I just closed my eyes and smiled.

By the next night, the red bump had receded further, continuing to retreat inside her - and the furrow below it was getting deeper, its folds more complex. My tongue was fascinated. Every night there was something new to explore. She didn't really ejaculate anymore, I noticed; on the other hand, she had started to make lubrication when she got aroused. It was the best science experiment I'd ever seen. I didn't tell her that, though. I wasn't sure she'd take it the right way.

"How do they handle this at your job?" I couldn't resist asking one night.

"I don't have that kind of job," she said.

"But you do go out of the house?"

"Most days."

"Do you notice people react to you differently now?"

"Of course," she said.

"Which is better?"

"That's not the right question," she said. "There isn't a 'better.' It's just different. To them."

"But what about -"

"Sex is different, yes. Orgasm is different. But not better. Not worse, either."

"I'm sorry. But you know, so many people wonder what it's like on the other side -"

"That's the problem. Not the wondering. The idea that it's the other side."

It didn't seem like there was a response for that.

Gradually she changed, and one night with my fingers inside her, I realized that her visible parts, at least, were as female as they'd ever be.

"You're sad," she said.

"Just a weird thought," I replied. She waited. "Well," I said finally, "I think I was wishing that I could have changed too. To play with this properly." I wiggled a finger.

"Don't wish that," she said. Very seriously.

"Sorry."

She looked like she was about to say something else. But she kept it back, and then I started licking her clitoris and that ended the idea. Whatever it had been.

Two nights later, I arrived at her door and she was more dressed than I'd ever seen her. Oh, her dress wasn't evening wear or anything, and her shoes were completely ordinary sandals. But she was wearing a bra, for one thing, and her hair was pinned up, and her face made up very subtly.

"How many times have you done this?" I asked.

"Have you eaten?"

I nodded.

"Then let me take you for coffee."

We sat facing each other across the Formica. One of her hands rested gently over mine, long fingers touching the beginning of my arm. "Did you ever have trouble," she asked, "remembering your phone number because you never call yourself?"

I smiled, with difficulty. "I think you've asked me that one before."

"Did you have any problem with my name, the last few weeks?"

I shook my head. "But I hardly ever use it, I guess."

She nodded. "It's not important. You don't always see what's important, but you do better than most."

"Are you telling me goodbye?"

She looked through me. "I have never actually changed, you know. It's a perception. 'Only visible to the stationary observer.'"

"But are you telling me goodbye? Because that's what this feels like."

"Is that an important question to you?"

I nodded.

She considered for a while, sipped her coffee. "Not yet," she said.

"What do you do here?" I asked.

"Not much," she said. "Look. Watch. I'm really just passing through."

"I don't want you to go."

"I know," she said.

Sex that night was especially frenzied. I think I was trying to make her scream. I know I was ashamed of myself when she finally did make a noise, as she arched her back from the climax.

The next night she was gone.

The house was empty, the front door unlocked. Completely empty. No clothes, no furniture. No note. Nothing.

"Not yet," she had said. Not yet - but just barely.

I didn't go to work for three days.

I don't always see what's important. I may do better than most, but in this case I missed the most important thing. Gender wasn't it; that was just a perception. A perception of a stationary observer. Watching a moving object. That was the most important thing.

She couldn't have stayed. I think she wanted to.

When a car passes you, the noise of the engine changes. It doesn't really change, it just sounds like that to you. She was always the same gender really. I don't know what gender that was. Maybe one we don't have.

And by the time I knew that, she was already gone and the universe had removed her. She'd been moving the whole time. I just didn't know what to look for.

It was supposed to happen, I tell myself again, that's why it was such an oddity. It went the way it went because that was the only way it could go.

And I still hate thinking that.

Copyright © September 2000. Do not distribute or reproduce.