The Out

Chapter 5

[content warning: mild transphobic language]

The next week, David didn't even need a haircut. He knew it was Lulu's day off, so he called on her directly after his work. She was glad to welcome him, serve him tea, make him her guest.

"So are we going to do this?" he asked. "You know I come with baggage. You might even be considered the other woman."

Lulu nodded. "At least I get to be a woman," she remarked.

David furrowed his brows at her.

"There's something I should have told you earlier. I didn't want to say it at the salon because no one knows there, but you should know this before we go further."

David looked her petite frame up and down. "You have kids, don't you?"

"What?"

"That's what you aren't getting into. They must be really clean because this place doesn't look as horrid as mine, but what else could you be hiding?"

"I don't have kids," Lulu responded.

"Do you have AIDS? I know that's going around."

Lulu shook her head. "I get tested regularly. I'm clean. Are you?"

David laughed. "It's been so long, I'm probably a born again virgin."

"So that's that," Lulu said. "Is there anything else you'd be afraid I'm hiding?"

David thought for a moment. "Kids can drain you, so I'm glad you don't have those. STDs can kill you, so I'm glad you don't have those either. Are you...connected to the Mafia? Recently out of jail? Living under an assumed name in the witness protection program?"

"The last one!" Lulu saw David's eyebrows shoot up and amended it with, "Kind of. This isn't the name I was born with."

"Of course not. You're from Thailand so you've probably got some Thai name, right? But Lulu is what everyone over here can pronounce." David shrugged. "My family's surname was changed at Ellis Island. The clerk didn't even try to get it right. And they accepted it because what are you gonna do, it's your papers."

"It wasn't just a Thai name," Lulu explained. "It was..." she became smaller than David thought possible and said, so slightly that he could barely hear her, "...a male name."

"A male name?" David prompted her, regular volume.

"Yes," Lulu responded.

"But why? You're obviously not..."

"Is it that obvious?"

David was quiet. "Oh. So you're a...dude in a dress?" There was probably some politically correct term for this, but it escaped him. He looked at Lulu as if she'd grown two heads. Yes, she. He couldn't shake that initial impression of her.

"I've been on hormones before puberty, so I'm not that much like a dude," Lulu said. "Though if you took off the dress...yeah, maybe."

David sunk into deeper silence. It was the one fetish he hadn't masturbated to, and his porn stash had gotten enormous since Stacy's neglect. He looked at Lulu again, and tried to imagine her undressed, but she was just so feminine. Stacy looked more masculine than her, more hairy and less groomed. He saw Lulu look at him with...was that fear? What did she fear he would do? He reached out to her, but she edged away. Was she afraid he would hit her? But why would he? He had never felt anything but gentle toward her.

"What is it?" David asked.

"The last time I told a man, he beat me until a neighbor called an ambulance. He told me I was filthy, that he wasn't gay, and that I deserved to die."

"Is that what you think I'll do?"

"Why not? He was gentle until the last moment too."

David looked at Lulu and couldn't believe that she wouldn't inspire gentleness in anyone. That last man must have been a brute. David had never even hit a woman. "Do you think I'm going to hit you?"

"I led you on, letting you think I was real. This must feel like a trap to you, doesn't it?"

"What do want out of me, out of us?" David asked.

"What you wanted out of Stacy and couldn't get," Lulu responded. "I like you. You deserve attention. She doesn't give it to you. I will."

And what else would you give me? David wondered but did not say. How would that even work? Was he the top? Or would he have to -- did he want to? It sounded awkward. But Lulu seemed like the sort of person who had already thought it out, who would make it easy for him, who would make sure he enjoyed himself. It wasn't exactly his kink, but it wasn't a deal breaker either.

He thought of Stacy giving birth, that head coming through an opening that was way too bloody and big. Lulu looked nothing like that and never would. He realized why Lulu's state didn't offend him. It couldn't end as Stacy had. It would always be free of that one string. Did that make it less serious? As briefly acquainted as they were, David knew that if he went along with this, Lulu would treat him like more than a one night stand. She had to. The line between sexless acquaintance and someone who knew her secret was too thick to be dealt with casually. He would have a sex life, but not the one he'd imagined.

He looked around the apartment again. It was clean, with lots of well-maintained plants to freshen the air. Lulu was domestic. If he took her on, she would give him a home like this. She could emotionally support him, not out of gratitude for his acceptance, but because she was on a solid level of success herself and expected others to meet that baseline. She would inspire him to do better, to master whatever he chose to do. While Stacy envied his ability to go to an office, Lulu would dry clean his clothes for it, perhaps adding her own to the stack for a party she was about to host. She could do that. She had that ability, that inclination. This was who David wished he had met three years earlier. They would have a happy life together. This one, despite all else, he could see himself marrying.