We got on the alternative floor, and the familiar strains of New Order came on. In that black box populated by people and lights, I suddenly remembered what I thought I would never forget, that on a November night almost five years before, this was the place where Ralph and I met, him under a rose light and me a different person. I tried to dance to the words I serenaded him with long ago—“Every time I see you falling / I get down on my knees and pray”—but as I listened to the lyrics more carefully, I realized this was a song not of hope but of loss. “Why can’t we be ourselves like we were yesterday?” the singer asked. “I don’t think you’re what you seem.” As I glanced at the corner where Ralph and I first danced and spied the same flashing light without him under it, I found myself clamoring for something else to remember.

“I’m going to the other dance floor!” I shouted to Lenora, who waved me along as she closed her eyes to face the lights above her. There was a lounge area between the two floors, and after I swayed and bobbed to get there, I felt like I was in a sort of gender purgatory. Many of the regulars on the floor I came from knew me by sight, had seen the shifts in my appearance. Because of this, I could tell they still saw me as a cross-dressing man because their perception had been shaped by their memory. But among the familiar faces in the lounge were the occasionals who weren’t part of this queer alternative scene, the kind who treated Liquid as a temporary stop on their tour of Boston nightlife. I could tell them apart as I ambled to the long bar along one side of the room, based simply on how they eyed me, looks of appraisal from women, smiles of appreciation from men as they reminded me of the paradox residing in my body. In less than a year, I had transformed from a short, ordinary man to an attractive, slim woman with light blond hair and unusual features. Yet the more beautiful I was perceived, the greater the danger if the wrong person were to find out I was trans.

“What are you having?” a voice behind me with a foreign accent asked, after his hand rested on the small of my back for an almost indiscernible moment.

“Fuzzy Navel,” I replied, quickly shifting my plan to just grab water. I only ordered alcohol when men offered to buy me a drink, so I wouldn’t seem like a prude.