He came by the lab one afternoon in January, after he got back into town from winter break. I was about to leave to drop off some film at ZONA, the photo lab near his house, so he offered to walk with me as we took the elevator down the building and into the chilly dusk.

We’d taken this walk many times before, around the building to a paved path facing a green field, except this time I was in heeled leather boots instead of sneakers. Richard offered his arm and gave me support as we walked along. I realized that this physical connection was an extension of what was already a specific intimacy between us, one he didn’t have with other men even before I started wearing women’s clothes. We’d always confided in each other, hung out just the two of us. Without ever having any need for it, I’d always felt his protection, his greater physical strength. It wasn’t just that I felt like a woman with Richard, it was that even before I did anything with my appearance, he treated me more like a woman friend than a male buddy.

Like we’d grown accustomed to, Richard and I stopped at the first bench to sit and talk, on the mouth of the path that led to the photo lab and his apartment. The bench looked out onto a field and then a building made of granite in strict parallel lines, unlike the two denuded oak trees that flanked us, their branches eerie and menacing. I suddenly recalled those trees from Dead Poets Society, the ones that Neil stared at as he contemplated a future he couldn’t have. It was an omen I tried to shut out of my mind.

“How are things?” Richard asked.

“Not too bad,” I replied. I told him the gender experiment was going well, that I was learning a lot about myself, while I wondered what Richard might be thinking as I spoke. Surely he must be aware of his involvement in this experiment, that so much of the reason I started to dress this way was to see how he would respond. But I also supposed that in his mind, I’d already been playing with gender before I started doing it all the time, that unless he was living my life, the distinction between what I was doing before compared to what he saw in front of him wasn’t particularly great.

“It looks like I’ll be dressing as a woman for a while,” I said.

“I’ll be sticking with what I’m doing for a while too.” For a second I thought he meant his relationship with Lenora, before he continued: “I’m staying in science.”

“I’m glad.”