Had he noticed my scars? Had he ever served a trans before? Damn, if only I had that kind of steadfastness, to be thoughtful to someone else without all this accounting. If I were in his place, I’d wonder, Does he want to be disturbed? Does he like grapes? But he was able to execute a simple human action without all the noise.

I walked among the dunes, following crabs in and out of their holes, picking up pink stones and throwing them into the sea—my old gender costume, good riddance!—writing PENFIELD in the sand fifty-five times so someone would notice me. My skin cooked, I ate some grapes, and, once the sky started deepening, I walked back to the summer home and took a nap in R’s bed, my first completely quiet, structurally sound bedroom in ages.

R leaned over me to wake me up, and the smell of synthetic perfume made my dick hard. I wanted to fuck luxuriousness out of her and into myself, getting a temporary bioaffective kick. She wore a drapey silk blouse.

“Beard is downstairs waiting for me. We’re going to a wedding, and then tomorrow we have to go through JFK and LAX together. It’s in our Scroll.”

She whispered this in my ear, and I felt more betrayed than I’d expected. And still horny.

“My driver will take you wherever you need to go. And, Pen?”

“Yeah?”

“I could use a daddy to keep me sane in the city.”

I nodded, having no idea if she was serious or not.

I took the back staircase, like the help that I was, and got into the SUV, with its too-cold air-conditioning.

THE END

“And then you really kept seeing each other in the city?” Aiden asked.

“Yep. About once a fortnight. In her Red Hook guest apartment.”

“That’s a great story, Pen.”

I refused to let myself think he was implying that I’d made it up.

“Yeah, it is.”

For a moment, I saw myself through Aiden’s eyes as a hot dude who had been sleeping with a celebrity.

Ew, I was so much more than that, but in my early days of transitioning, I was clearest to myself in the pleasure I could give to others.

The next day, I took Blithe out with me on my route. The “Emotions” zine article said that movement is vital, even if it’s the last thing the subject wants to do, even if the subject wants to watch TV all day in the bathtub with their computer perched perilously on the toilet seat.

We both wore our SpaceShoes, and I hoped no one thought we were really rich.

On our way to walk Louise, I pointed toward a street of brick fortresses warming in the spring sunlight. The grass patches in front of the apartments were kept trimmed and chemical-green.