A Love Story

Can true love conquer all? Even if one of the parties involved is trans?

We met when he responded to the profile I posted on a website for cis guys seeking trans women. Meticulously well-groomed, he stood six feet tall, his body lean and hard from nightly five-mile runs. His skin, a golden caramel, felt smooth and warm beneath my touch, and his hair was raven wings, black and sleek. He favoured crisp white t-shirts pulled taut over his sinewy torso, dark-hued cotton hoodies, and broken-in jeans.

Two weeks shy of his thirty-second birthday, he was still boyishly handsome, though his face showed signs of hardness and wear around the edges, hinting at stormier days from his past — perhaps the result of an army enlistment he preferred not to discuss, except for once mentioning it had rendered him deaf in one ear.

His smile would begin as a mischievous grin—the Cheshire cat contemplating whether to tease or devour its prey. His laughter was explosive. His eyes, black as night, could beckon or distance with equal resolve, depending on his mood.

Like an immodest child, he paraded naked throughout my apartment, sometimes pausing to hoist open a window and drink in a few gulps of fresh air, indifferent to my courtyard neighbours who might happen to see him. While watching hockey on TV, he’d clench his hands in tight fists as the game played on, then roar and lunge at the screen, oblivious to sending the bowl of popcorn perched on his lap into the air. On a rare occasion, while showering or driving absentmindedly, he’d drop his guard and sing an impromptu Spanish serenade or smoky lounge ballad. His voice was buttery and deep.

#

One evening he and I were sitting at the bar of a neighbourhood bistro, having drinks. I was rambling on about work when he reached out his hand and held a lock of my hair. He rubbed the strands gently between his fingers and cradled my eyes with his gaze. This unexpected tenderness stunned me. My words suspended mid-sentence.

“I’m all yours,” he said, piercing the silence. My cheeks tingled. Was this confirmation at long last that he cared?

Then he corrected himself.

“Tonight,” he said, “I’m all yours.” And that familiar sly smile began etching its way across his face.

#

I was ravenous for him. From the bedroom, to parking lots and dark alleys, we were Lewis and Clark, trailblazers on a pheromone-induced expedition, eager to uncover new sensual terrain. Sex infused the air surrounding us. Afterwards, in bed, I’d spoon his warm body from behind, smiling and giddy. He faced away from me, already drifting off to sleep. 

In the morning, half-awake and woozy, he’d pace my bedroom, gathering up his clothes from off the floor, then indulge me one last leisurely kiss before taking off to his own apartment across town to prepare for work. Alone, I’d lounge in bed, drinking in his dark, musty scent that perfumed my pillowcases and sheets, and reminded me of the sweet-bitter aroma of fresh-cut tobacco leaves from the fields of my childhood in Virginia.

“I’m not sure what we’re doing,” I said one night, our bodies side-by-side and overlapping, both of us spent, “but I know I only want to be doing it with you.”

He responded with silence. Then, at long last, he said, “It's important that we’re open and honest with each other.”

“Well then, Mister Stoic, start communicating. What are you thinking?”

“This is new to me,” he said. “But I'm sure you understand that.”

I did. I was the first trans woman he’d ever been with. Having driven down this road before, I knew he’d probably have his own issues to sort out. Still, after four months of dating, fucking, and meeting each other’s friends, I felt entitled to some clarification. I pressed forward. “Can I ask you an uncomfortable question?”

“You can ask me anything,” he said.

“Do you like me—like, really like me?” I sounded like a third grader confronting her first crush.

“Yes,” he said. “I do. A lot.” Then, after a beat, he added, “But there's this one thing: I wish you were a woman.”

The blood drained from my stomach.

“What I mean is,” he said, “I wish you weren’t trans. At first it wasn’t even on my mind. But I think along two paths: one about what’s happening now, and the other about the future. And I like women—cis women—and that’s who I want to be with ultimately. I want my own children too.”

The ambiguity clouding our relationship was made clear.

“Seriously,” he said, “if you weren’t trans, I’d be all in for the long-term.”

“But if I weren’t trans, I wouldn’t even be the person you claim to like so much. It’s part of what makes me who I am.”

“Exactly!” He sounded like he was a game show host and I’d just guessed the winning answer. “That’s the catch-22.”

And just like that, he cracked my heart in two.

#

We probably should’ve parted then, but I didn’t want to. He merely needed more time, I reasoned, to come to terms with dating someone like me. I tried to act as if the conversation had never occurred. Then three months later, it happened.

We had dinner with friends. After, he drove me back to my apartment. But instead of looking for parking, he pulled his pickup truck in front of the building and idled the engine.

“Aren’t you coming in?” I asked.

“I want to be honest with you,” he said. “I’ve met someone.”

Aah, I thought. The fertile-wombed, cis woman from the future had arrived.

“Is it serious?” I asked.

“I want it to be,” he said. And that was the difference.

We hugged goodnight. Then I went inside and bawled.

#

Recently, I looked him up on Facebook. He was as handsome as ever, though his temples were tinged with gray and his stomach, pushing up against his shirt’s buttons, was no longer taunt. He was also married and, from what I could tell, he and his wife had a child.

I thought about sending him a friend request. Then he might see that I’d met someone too. That my husband and I have been married for 15 years. That we have two beautiful sons.

In the end I decided against it. I closed the browser window and moved on.

'A Love Story' © 2024 Leith St. John