Mermaid, Me

Chapter 1: You Say You Love Me. I Want to Know Why?

Memoirs of a Tgirl: Chapter 1

This was not my intention: to become a freak. All I wanted was what any girl wants: to grow into as normal and natural (not to mention beautiful) woman as possible. But something happened — or didn't happen — along the way, to make my coming of age story have anything but a fairy tale ending. Not that I don't have plenty of adoring Prince Charmings (maybe too many, moralists might say). It's just that the girl of their dreams is not exactly what I had in mind for my body.

Most girls, I know, would love to be loved for their imperfect selves. No need to worry about making yourself over according to some impossibly high, unachievable beauty ideals. Plump or skinny, naturally blonde or happily highlighted, short legs or tiny breasts, you are accepted (wouldn't it be wonderful?), indeed even loved, warts and all.

But, you see, I'm not like most girls, for my wart is a penis. Once, like any normal male-to-female transsexual, all I wanted was wart-removal surgery. That's why I took up escorting — simply to pay my bills for the never-ending electrolysis, collagen injections, and estrogen therapies, not to mention breast augmentation and browbone reduction and Adam's apple shave, plus save enough for the cash-upfront sex-change operation itself. But now that I've got the money, I'm no longer sure I want a facsimile cunt. I'm afraid I would lose all my clients. They wouldn't love me; they've told me as much. Right now, I'm special.

"A chick with a dick? an incredibly sexy babe with that something extra...38C-28-38, plus 6 inches, cut...." That's the way my escort service Web page advertises, quantifies, and objectifies me. I have to turn away clients, I'm so overbooked. Most of my business is repeat. One even sends me flowers and pretends he'll leave his wife for me if I'll forsake escorting and promise to love only him.

Could any girl, even a genetic girl, ask for anything more?

I tell my psychiatrist this when I have to explain why I keep postponing my final surgery.

"Don't worry," he says, "you'll make a very desirable woman."

"Will you promise to fuck me, then, after I have the operation?"

He stammers. I make him blush.

"See, no one will want me! I'll just be another aging cunt."

His blush gets more crimson, and I can tell that psychology, in the final analysis, is no help. For my fundamental question is perhaps too grandly philosophical: what is the nature of desire, the pull of Beauty and Truth? When I'm layered in makeup and clad in fashionably sexy thigh-high boots, macro-minis, and cleavage-revealing, nipple-protruding camisoles, I seem to have the seductive Beauty part figured out. As for Truth, maybe being transmogrified into some kind of mythological creature — half-boy, half-girl were-woman — provides a sufficiently perverse angle of vision to understand finally and fully the meaning of life?

Angle. What angle? Atrophied to the point of permanent limpness after years of hormone therapy system shock, what remains of my penis is not worthy of the name. It's good for nothing but peeing. When it stirs at all, it acts like a clit. That's the idea, of course, and I practice with a vibrator. And when I finally do come, there is no come. My shrink applauds me: I am the best candidate for genital conversion surgery he's ever had, since I've already figured out how to achieve a female orgasm. Even for many of the most expertly carved post-ops, it remains forever elusive.

My escort service owner tells me just the opposite. Like most pimps, he's not into positive reinforcement. Instead, he gruffly tells me what I must do:

"Look, honey, you've gotta be fully functional. Even supposed straight clients demand it."

"But I don't want to be a genderfuck. I just want to be fucked like a girl." I almost cry.

He ignores what I say and hands me a bottle of Viagra. He's not kidding. "Take one pill fifteen minutes before each appointment. You'll surprise yourself."

So much for my dream of being a real woman. And so much for philosophical Truth. It all comes down to physiology in the end. In my case, physiopathology, which the dictionary defines as "the study of bodily dysfunction caused by disease." If my addiction to castrating, penis-shriveling estrogen leads to dysfunction and my gender dysphoria is some kind of disease, or sickness surely, do men love me simply for being a medical marvel? What other conclusion can I draw?

By the same logic, you, too, must be sick — to be interested enough to be reading this essay. Oh, you're just curious, you say? That's what all my first-time customers say.

So you tell me: Why in the world are we she-males, or T-girls, such a turn on? Why? I want to know. Like you, I'm curious. Go ahead and use me. I just want to know. It's research for my book deal. Once I'm a celebrity, "fully functional" will be needed no longer. People will love me for the real-life, anatomically correct doll I was meant to be.