Tina's Secret

She read my poem and I read hers. Then she read my story and I read hers.
The subject matter was shocking, but something I knew a lot about. It was
about a girl whose dating a boy but feels unable to express her desire for
him because she knows that they can't have sex without her revealing her
darkest secret - she's a pre-op transsexual.

The gears in my mind started to turn and I began to look at Tina in a new
way. Sure it was possible that the story was truly just a piece of fiction
or perhaps even intended as symbolic metaphor. That's probably what she
expected me to think. But was it possible that her story was based on a
true experience? Was it possible that Tina had her own secret as well? I
looked at her closely. She had a feminine face and body, but she was tall
for a girl, nearly six feet. Not only that, the way she wrote about the
transsexual lifestyle was so accurate, even down to the subtleties of
emotion, which I had picked up on from Rebecca.

I knew there was only one way to proceed. I would tell her the truth about
myself and see if she responded in kind. I wasn't ashamed of Rebecca, but
it wasn't something I wanted to broadcast to the world, either. Tina,
however, I felt I could trust.

"This is a very realistic story," I told her. "You really captured what
it's like to be a transsexual."

"I did?" she asked hesistantly.

"Yeah," I told her. "If I tell you a secret, will you keep it?"

"Of course."

"You know my girlfriend Rebecca that I've mentioned to you a few times?"

"Yeah . . ."

"She's a transsexual. She was born male but now lives as a woman."

"Is she a post-op?"

"No. Pre-op. She's still got all her parts."

"Have you two . . . had sex?"

"Many times," I said, grinning a little despite myself. "I didn't know she
was a transsexual when we started dating. She only told me later. I was a
little weirded out at first, but it didn't last long. The way I figured -
just because she had been born a man didn't mean she was any less of a woman
now. At first, I thought the whole penis thing would be too much, but I
actually liked . . . I'm probably getting too graphic."