The Hole Within

CHAPTER 49

Mel beat me with her words at home. At work and in public the Mel I loved appeared. Everyone liked Mel, she would give you the shirt off her back if you wanted it. At home Mel raged. If she could not find what she was looking for in the kitchen, it was my fault and she would slam the cupboard hard enough to crack the door. I do not remember how many times I had to re-glue the fronts of the kitchen drawers back on, after first cleaning up their ejected contents off the floor. Mel broke and I fixed. Mel screamed and I cowered. Mel raged and I disappeared.

Mel's capacity for rage was equaled only to her capacity for passion and possessiveness. She was fiercely jealous. If she saw me looking at someone, men especially, she would fly into a jealous rage, "Why don't you just go fuck him?" She knew that I had never been with a woman but that I had been with men.

I would realize later that Mel was a man trapped in a woman's body. She hated her body and what it represented. That is why she would not allow me to touch her sexually. She was jealous of men because they had what she wanted and what she assumed I wanted. She feared that I would grow tired of our love making, that I would want to be fucked by a real man. (Little did she know.) I was confused by my own sexuality. I finally decided that I must be bi-sexual. I was not ready to label myself a lesbian. Throughout our relationship with Mel, we both considered me heterosexual, odd I know, since I had a woman for a lover. I never saw Mel nude. She would not allow me to shower with her. Mel bound her breasts with a sports bra that was purposely two sizes too small. She wore her hair short and wore androgynous clothes. There were many times when some sales person called her "sir." I began to think of Mel as a man, she preferred it that way. Neither one of us realized then that Mel's anger and biting tongue came from her own self-loathing and rage at being trapped in a body that she hated. Back then neither of us had even heard the word transgender.

Mel did not want to hear about my past boyfriends, yet she went on and on about her past girlfriends. Especially Janelle. Janelle was the love of Mel's life. Mel even showed me pictures of her. We would lie in bed and Mel would talk about Jenny and about Janelle. I hated when she started reminiscing. I could not hold a candle to Janelle. I always felt second best. Like I was Janelle's placeholder. I tried to explain how it made me feel to have her daydream about the past but Mel would brush it off. Several times, to make a point, I would talk about my past lovers. This only served to make Mel mad at me and I would do whatever I had to in order to stay in Mel's good graces. Her anger frightened me. It was always just beneath the surface, ready, like a waiting lion to pounce on me. So, I endured and listened while I drew into myself. I would always be second best in Mel's eyes. The booby prize.