The Greatest Lie Part 3

He was going home on break the next evening. "Gotta check in with the rents’", he joked. "Where are you going?" Mom and dad were going to a conference in Egypt and had half-heartedly invited me, but I wasn’t to thrilled about touring a country were my gender status was capital offense. I wasn’t too thrilled about taking the bus back LA to dodge the motorheads in my neighborhood either. Unfortunately, the dorms were closed, so I couldn’t stay there either. I was temporarily homeless. "Stay here," he offered, giving me a key.

He promised that when he got back he would try to set things in motion for my transition to a female identity when he got back for Fall Semester. I spent the night with him and made him come in my mouth the next morning. He was delicious. He kissed me goodbye, took off to drop off my exam at the English Department and then left for Chicago in his Miata. I was delighted to have not only a new lover, but an advisor and protector. I was even more delighted when I swung by the English Department to check the grades in "Gender Roles." I had a 97.

There is nothing so sad and depressing as a college campus between terms. The place was empty except for a few foreign students and people like me, stranded by circumstances, in the unfamiliar situation of having nothing to do. After a couple of days of catching up on sleep and doing some research on hormone treatments of transsexuals at the medical library, I ran out of things to do, and started to feel bored and useless. So I decided to explore Minneapolis. It was then I stumbled on Hennepin Avenue, a downtown street lined with flop houses, arcades, bars, and late at night, whores. They beckoned passing cars with gestures that ran from the seductive to the outrageous, and they drew traffic jams of onlookers and customers, and only sporadic attention from the indifferent police.

I was fascinated. I spent an evening studying them while nursing cups of cheap coffee at a greasy spoon cafe. The technique looked simple enough: stand by the curbside, baring a stiletto-heeled leg, until a car stopped. Poke a head in the window, negotiate, and if a deal was struck, enter and drive off, to the envious cluck-clucking of the competition. A quarter hour later, the car would return, and the lucky lady would resume her post.