I went back to the mirror and began to take off my makeup, at first slowly and then faster and faster, taking hard, scratching swipes, only vaguely aware that I was hurting myself, the pain in my eye as I gouged against its socket a relief compared to the much greater pain, from somewhere much deeper than my skin. I didn’t notice I was sobbing, almost moaning, until Ralph came into the bathroom and took the wipe away from my hand, hugged me close, and didn’t let go until my sobs diminished, then stopped.

“I won’t ask you to take off your makeup again,” he said.

I loved him then more than ever, more than I was capable of loving anyone, but I couldn’t be the man he needed me to be.

16.

Ralph’s words stayed with me, that whatever I was going through was a curse. Certainly, I didn’t always feel that the woman’s voice inside of me was benevolent. Released after a lifetime of hibernation, she could be selfish and rapacious, able to justify any action through the sheer enormity of her desires. I often felt as if I was in a trance, heeding no call except that beguiling woman who stared at me from the other side of the mirror whenever I put on makeup, my transformation something out of alchemy, the stuff of myth. Maybe she was a siren, yet I was afraid to think of her that way because I knew that sirens led seafarers astray. Or maybe she was a goddess, because it did seem as if she demanded daily offerings in the form of cosmetic ornamentation, the glint of jewelry, the luster and color of clothes, amassed through the generous resources of a partner who despised her. She also required constant confirmation of her beauty, through the parade of men she dallied with online and the ones she enticed at clubs but never went home with, so they wouldn’t know that this spirit did not entirely match the earthly body she inhabited.

Whatever was left of me who was not her found myself helpless to counter her demands, as I continued to ignore Ralph’s feelings—despite my love for him—just to heed her.

Ralph was not the only person whose emotions I cast aside. Once I started dressing as a woman, and as I confirmed my beauty through my encounters with men, I developed a plan to take Richard away from Lenora and make him mine. I convinced myself that Richard and I would make the better couple, because we had so much more in common, as logically driven spirits who yearned for creativity. I convinced myself that while Richard became attracted to Lenora because of her emotionally driven nature, there was no way their relationship could sustain itself in the long run. And besides, I reasoned, while I pored through images of myself, I was more beautiful than she would ever be.