The Pursuit of Happiness-Chapter 5 : The End

You seeped into my veins very much like you seeped into my earth.

            There was only one place to look. Little Italy. I can hear the sound of Tony Bennett playing from the radio as I took the car back to the old apartment.

                                                She wasn’t there.

                                 I checked the local penitentiaries.

                                                  Still not there.

                                    I finally called the hospital.

                        Sheena was there and she was barely breathing.

I had waited in the waiting room for the longest time and they finally admitted me in because I told them that I was her old family friend. There my Sheena lay. She was in a coma. I had silently started to cry. Over sniffles and sobs, I asked what had happened.

Apparently, Sheena was drunk and was at a party and someone found out that she was a man so he had actually beaten the fuck out of her.

                                                I cried even harder.

The pain was so excruciating that I couldn’t stop crying. For some reason it was because she was badly beaten and for a second, I knew Sheena was going to die alone.

The next morning, she woke up to the sound of my voice.

I could’ve sworn to God that she was going to die on the ventilator.

She had a cut lip, a black and blue eye and bruises.

“Sheena!” I gasped. I got up and called for a nurse.

The nurse took her off the ventilator. I had a small towel ready with hot water, and I dabbed her eyes.

We both cried.

She had to stay in the hospital longer, so I fed her with fork and spoon and let her drink this went on for a couple of weeks and on the last day, she began to talk.

“Maria honey?”

I looked up.

“Yes Sheena?”

“Can you stop babying me?”

I looked at her and glared and she started laughing so I sighed.

“Sheena. You got beaten up.”

She stopped and looked at me.

“I thought you had left.”

She looked at me like a lost child.

“Are you crazy?” I looked doubtful. “Girl?”

I got up and quickly sat down on her bedside to the left.

“Sheena? Who did this to you?”

“Well, outta all the trashy things to ask.”

I could quickly tell that Sheena had not wanted to talk about it to me. I suddenly felt shunned and really bad so I shut my mouth and cleaned up her face.

We were out of the hospital quicker than you can say Ah.

We went back to the pent. Sheena was quieter than usual. I looked like a wreck as I looked into the mirror.

Sheena sat quietly on the bed. I looked into the room.

“Maria, read me more of your poetry.”

“Sure.”

I began to read what I have written.

War and love are a very dangerous combination of instruments if played right and played well. You are like water and I am like soil.

You are a mortal instrument among men and women who can only be touched and played by the Gods.

But it is you I do not touch for you are like glass. You; my silver lining of a harp amongst the clouds.

I love you. I wish to hear your sweet music.

But;

I think they knew that.

But you don’t, do you?

My love,

Maybe when all this white noise is done and gone,

Maybe then we’ll be together,

The new normal, and then maybe after all this love and romance;

The last of the romantics.

My love, you take my heart and I swear that I will have you in my dreams tonight.

Sheena sighed and asked.

“Maria?”

I stood solemnly still.

“Do you believe in true love?”

“Sheena, at this point….”

I looked at her.

“No.”

Sheena and I changed into our PJ’s after a quick shower and slept.

                                                                    ***

I wondered as I awoke to find Sheena sleeping, about what else was going to happen.

The telephone rang twice.

“Sheena! I oughta fuck you dead!”

Once again, a death threat.

The telephone rang again.

“Listen missy, Sheena’s not what you think she is she’s a man and it just doesn’t fit. Perhaps we can convert her to our Christian faith.”

A missionary on a mission to give that phone call. Bleh!

I slammed the phone even harder.

The phone rang again.

“Hey baby!”

I hung up and yawned. I laughed at the thought of Sheena actually having a fan.

The phone rang again. I hung up.

Sheena was still asleep thank God.

Finally, Sheena woke up. When I told her there was a fan of hers who had called, I was very thankful Sheena was not angry. Sheena then said specifically that if you want something you have to prolong their suffering and make them want you more. Sheena was getting better. Her bruises were healing and so was her eye. I leaned against her chest as she kissed my head.

‘Sheena? You’re going to get revenge, right?”

“Absolutely darling.”

“How do you plan to do it?”

I looked up from Sheena’s embrace.

“I’m going to shoot them dear.”

I started to sob. Not only for my friend’s life but for the next time she would leave. Sheena is precious to me. More precious than gold.

“But Sheena.” I sobbed. “You can’t leave! You’re gonna die out there!”

Sheena rolled her eyes.

“Nonsense darling the night is young!”

I sat down as Sheena held my shoulders. “Darling, you know I have business to do. Shoot me. What life is this when the night is young?”

I trembled.

“Darling, don’t you want to be happy? I’m a woman!”

She exclaimed.

“Can’t you see?”

She looked at me with round, brown sad eyes and gently sat me down. She took off her wig as she went silently out of the building and drove off. I cried as I watched her go. I believe she cried too.

                                                                        ***

Sheena had died. It was all over the news.

The headlines wore dead bodies. Sheena being one of them.

Sheena was finally in peace. I tried to make out a smile on my face but that was it. She was gone. I made my way towards the television set and there it was, Sheena’s lifeless face onscreen. I hated what the headlines wrote.

“Mad Transexual Raids A Manhattan Pent.”

I cried and I ripped the paper. Sheena was mad I suppose but a good friend and although I fought my tears back, I visited her grave often knowing she would never come back.

                                                            ***

Five years later….

Age thirty-five and I couldn’t get my life together. I woke up to the sweet smell of Georgia pies and walked from my homestead to the local library where I worked. Ahhh, how I loved the smell. Also, the smell of maple leaves as they lined every bend down the road. I finally saved up enough to move from the pent in New York working as both a singer and a waitress at the clubs and then take the train to Georgia. It had been years since Sheena’s death. After that, the war had followed and accursed industrialism began to take place. It was during World War 2 that I had decided to become a singer singing duets with the military men and then boom! Proposal after proposal.

Dear Sheena,

Nothing is the same without you.

Maria

I was at the local coffee shop and I saw one of my new friends who had married in the military, a marine after he was back from the attack of Pearl Harbor. Some of his shipmates had been stationed on an island called Guam and others at other harbors that were attacked by the Japanese empire. By then I had changed my name to Mary and life was swell. That’s when I met him.

“Yoo-Hoo! Ma-ary! Yoo-Hoo!”

I looked up drowsily form my newspaper.

I found Barbara Donna Wilkis hanging out with our friend Patsy May Clymer with their husbands, Jack Daniel Wilkis and Danny James Clymer. Two of many survivors. With them another man who looked three years older than me. He was the one. His name was George Craig Kramer. One of the renowned generals of a navy ship that sailed across the Atlantic.

“Well Georgie.” Patsy said while chewing her bubblegum. “Tell ‘er about what happened.”

George was a brilliant talker and had a soft, boyish expression about him that mad you think, gee, that boy’s something and he is bound to get married someday.

Sheena would say, “Better grab him before I do darling.”

But who was I kidding? Sheena had gone into a faraway land but hadn’t come back unlike this one did. It was the end for Sheena but a beginning for me.

“Georgie, tell her!” Patsy chided.

Barbara nudged him.

“Miss Mary Marie Angelo….” I tried not to smile. “Will you Miss Angelo, take the honor of being my wife?”

A timid grin swept over my face.

“Go get ‘im girl!” I could hear Sheena say.

“Yes.” I blurted.

He picked me up from the dining table and carried me to the door. Barbara winked at me and Patsy kissed her husband as they all seemed to hold each other.

Suddenly, I became Mrs. Mary George Craig Kramer and we lived happily ever after.

I was nine months pregnant and I had two loving little boys who loved me as much as my husband. I no longer suffered from loss and I had found love with a man who had belonged to the sea and now belonged to me.

“Georgie!” I called.

“Yeah honey!”

I could hear George’s footsteps falling on the wooden floor boards.

“Is Pierson and Peter goin’ off to school yet?”

“Yes honey!” he peered through the door and came into the kitchen and twirled me around just once and kissed me.

“Mom! Mom!” Pierson ran up to me laughing, “Mom! There’s a giant squid in the yard, he’s comin’ to get me!”

Peter, my youngest was laughing up a fit and spit was gurgling form his mouth as he waved his arms teeter-tottering over the floor.

“Oh Peter!” I laughed aloud. “My little turtle-dove!”

“Oh you two!”

They were still in their pajamas.

“Apparently, someone has to be responsible for them….” I said sarcastically.

George just kissed me and said, “One second.”

“I’ll go upstairs and dress them up.” He added.

I went upstairs to the attic where my stationary set was and wrote.

Dear Sheena,

I have two loving little boys and a wonderful husband. My heart now belongs to somebody and he is a wonderful man. Wherever you are Sheena, I can only hope that you are in a better place. He and my children are everything I wanted. I know that you would be so proud of me because I have achieved what I had set out for. I am proud to be his wife and if you ask me, true love really does exist.

Mary Kramer

I looked up and peered in the window to see my husband and my two beautiful boys walking down the path through the maples where we lived. Past the sycamore tree, the local library, the bakery, past the barber shop and off to school.

I stood up from my chair and went downstairs out of the house passed the maples.

I looked up at the sycamore tree and sometimes I saw Sheena there and as my mind swept back to when I was thirty, I can remember the sweet silent sound of Sheena’s crooning voice over a microphone.

“Sing much?” I asked the sycamore.

I touched its trunk and reminisced.

“It’s a pretty empty street.”

“Yes…. I agree.” I said strangely.

“Do you sing often?” She asked.

I looked down at my feet. “No, Not really.”

“Oh, not really? Not often then.” She said completely ignoring the fact that I was agoraphobic.

“Why?” I had asked.

“You wouldn’t happen to sell your soul for a bit then.” She said.

“Atta girl Sheena, there there.” I said tenderly. “Your soul is finally at rest. Atta girl.”

I looked up and smiled.

Sheena would be looking down proudly and smiling down on me.

I no longer suffered from loss and I had found love with a man who had belonged to the sea and now belonged to me. Maria was no more. I am Mrs. Mary George Craig Kramer and I am happily married with two small young boys who may grow up to be taller than me.

Plus, it was everything Sheena would have wanted. And I loved her. Still; on the pursuit of happiness.

The Pursuit of Happiness-Chapter 4 : The Confession

            I gawked. I was completely not amused. “Oh Sheena.” I muttered to myself. We were in her new pent. Verona Delisle’s pent and I was shocked. It was painful to hear her say that.

“I’ll get your bath ready.” I said quietly as she let her arms collapse around her built, muscular waist.

Sheena looked at me and said “Maria, I’d rather shower. Go write Nikki and Verona a letter for me darling.”

                                                                        ***

            It took me a long time to recover and think about what she did. Sheena had just killed her friend. I loved her and she knew it. She saved me form abduction, she killed Nikki. I wrote a letter to Verona and Nikki that night and saved myself from vomiting.

Dear Nikki,

I am impressed and half awed that Sheena would do such a thing. It took me a while to figure out this riddle. Sheena after all is a professional and it is hard to believe that she is your well…. your sister. You would still use the pronoun brother, but Sheena is like a friend. I feel like nothing really had happened between you and Sheena, but I do feel that you had to have loved her in some ways. Please forgive me for I am writing to a man I do not love. It is you. You would never have the balls to stick up for me, and yet Sheena did. Nikki, I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate your father and your grandfather for everything and I’m sure Sheena would agree with me.

Sincerely I hate you,

Maria

I sighed and put the pen down.

I thought about what was going to happen next. I wrote to Ms. Delisle.

Dear Verona,

I am so sorry that this had to happen. I know you love Sheena but you should understand that Sheena is what she is and I love her for what a strong woman she is. Please forgive me but, as much as I would love Sheena to love me, she never really will. I understand that Sheena can only be my friend and nothing more.

A sniffle came from my nose and an aching pain formed in the back of my throat. “Oh Sheena.” I muttered. “Why couldn’t you leave it alone?” I was so unsure that Sheena had felt bad about it.

                                                                        ***

There was Sheena smiling on the sofa with her robe ten minutes later with her original hair all disarrayed.

As she sat there smiling, I threw up in the bathroom’s toilet. How could she?

“Sheena, I cannot finish the letter.” I said softly.

Sheena looked up after seriously long pause.

“Why not love?” She asked.

She went on. “Write me something. Poetry. Do you write much love?”

“Yes. Yes Sheena.”

“Good.” She said.

“Begin.”

I was very distressed and concerned.

So, I sat down and wrote about Sheena in a villanelle.

After I was done, I crept up to Sheena and put my head on her lap like a child.

“Sheena?” I asked as she looked down and stroked my hair. “Do you ever get tired of killing?

“Of course, not darling. I did this for you and for my own reasons, and the reason is this. She could not grasp me for who I truly am and I know the pain must be unbearable for you but you I can handle. Plus, she totally disgraced you darling dove.\\\”

I looked up at her and saw her staring into the distance. I then nestled my head again on her lap.

“We could almost get caught.” I said breathlessly.

I got up quickly and gave her my poem.

He is the never-ending maze I want to love endlessly.

He is the book I want to read.

The love I’ve searched for secretly.

I watch him breathlessly.

Thinking how the dancing ends without heed.

The road I want to pursue oh so painfully.

I go on about my days uselessly.

But there is a book I wanna read.

I think of you and pick up your maze of a book and die in it delightfully.

I love you madly.

When we meet, I shall plant you my seed like many other men and women before me so take heed.

I love you truly.

As I waltz into your maze silently

As I plant the maze of my seed

With my love I shall leave you easily.

And I shall love you steadfastly.

When she was done reading it. I took off my clothes as she leaned in to kiss me and with that, she quietly fucked me.

            What felt like forever in her arms was totally rendered useless. The next thing you know, she was gone during breakfast time probably going out with another man or a woman. Sometimes she would bring in other men, sometimes she wouldn’t. Sometimes there were women and sometimes there weren’t. Sheena was very picky on who she was going to have sex with because Sheena liked dominating her men when it came to sex roles.

            In other words, she liked hearing them squeal and moan from time to time. When it came to humping someone’s butt it would be Sheena. When it had come to women, she would usually save them for later as a snack.

            Sheena was very clean. OCD if you must. I figured because everything was orderly and clean. Sheena was a neat freak. I would often let her clean on her own as she preferred doing, but sometimes I had helped her out.

On some occasions she’d kill a person and ask me to help her clean when the sex got rough. Interestingly enough, we’d never really get caught.

I kept writing poetry. One time I caught Sheena sitting outside beneath a full moon and got inspired.

He looked at the moon and looked at her possessing a power so deep that at once, he was in love. He was in love with Selene.

For once in his life, he knew that women could bring down the stars and make hurricanes out of small gusts of wind.

He called to his lover.

As he called to her in the wind, he looked at the moon and thought of the goddess Selene.

Clouds flooded throughout the night cluttered against the moon.

he felt himself disintegrating, flying into the sky.

He had the wings of Icarus.

Only his wings were attached to his body.

He was made of stardust.

Sheena loved my poetry and I didn’t mind sharing it with her. She was like some secret waiting to be held. But she never shared with anyone why she was what she was and I respected her privacy.

One night a drunk businessman came in and paid her to fuck him as usual. He stayed for a couple of nights as I served breakfast until one night, he found Sheena without her wig on and got so fucking pissed that he started Puchong the fuck out of her. I took a knife quickly from the kitchen and stabbed him to death. I didn’t care how many times I stabbed him but Sheena panted really hard.

I was irritated.

“Sheena!” I yelled. “Are you okay? Is this okay?!”

Sheena turned wild at me and I had expected her to hit me but this time I did not care.

“Sheena you fucking idiot! Did you notice how drunk he was! Didn’t you use your pronouns correctly?!”

I then looked down and shook wildly with my bloodstained fingers and my hands covering my face. Sheena looked mortified as I stalked off into the room. Sheena ran after me.

“Maria! Maria! It wasn’t like that!” She yelled.

I locked the door to the room.

“Maria honey! I promise I’ll be more responsible!”

We didn’t have girl’s night tonight and we certainly didn’t share our bed as usual.

The next morning came. I awoke to hear I’ve Got a Crush On You by Frank Sinatra. While Sheena was singing or rather belting it out. I went out of the room to the smell of burning bacon and eggs.

Sheena turned of the stove and turned around.

“Ah! Darling there you are!”

I noticed her wig was off.

“Where’s your hair?”

‘Honey,” she smiled. “no more visitors for now.”

My eyes twitched.

“Sheena?” I asked sternly but quite calm.

“How are you ever going to be a woman when you cannot cook?”

“Well, darling life of the party ja ja.”

We looked at each other across the marble countertop. We both laughed. He went around the countertop and took me in his arms as we began to dance.

                                                            ***

Finally, Sheena told me the whole situation.

Sheena and her friends one night were out drinking and this obese businessman was hitting heavily on her, and that the two were not easily acquainted. He kept yelling loudly over the music that he wanted to get to know her, to know where she had lived. Sheena then told him that she was a man and in one way had a way of tracking her down.

                                                                        ***

Sheena was never into games but she said something about him sparkled in him. I didn’t know what that meant after all that bastard did, but it seemed very genuine for the businessman to have an interest in her. Sheena was a murderer no doubt but she loved people who had this spark.

“So, you did use your pronouns correctly on him but he still said he wanted you?” I asked inquiringly.

“He reminded me of my father. I guess I have a knack for pointing that out in men.’ She just shrugged.

“That is exactly why I get so angry. People who take advantage of you.” I said loosely staring into the distance. I never thought that his father hit home.

“So, you loved your father?” I asked as she went into the kitchen and got a wine bottle out.

“He loved me in some ways.” She said, “You remind me of my mother.” She said as she drank the wine.

I stared off into the distance.

“You know I would never take advantage of you Sheena. I love you as a friend and I would never think of letting you go downhill.”

Sheena suddenly put the wine bottle down.

“You know what? Do you even know what it is like to go fucking downhill?”

“Jesus Sheena. Here we go again.”

“No. All I’m saying is I’m lucky to be alive other than out on the streets! And here you are saying that you would never let me go downhill Maria?”

I stopped looking into the distance.

“Well then what exactly do you mean?”

“Maria love, I have always been downhill. Right from the beginning of the time my father pulled me out of a bar and told me that it was no place to be a woman! Ever since my mother died! You have no idea what it’s like to be alone! All of your life!”

I looked at her.

I got up and took her hands into mine.

“Sheena.” I said weakly. “I understand.”

I sat back down and Sheena followed as she was being held by me. She cried silently and I could tell that this adorable woman in a man’s body was on her own pursuit of happiness. And so, I was on mine.

“I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “I’m trying my best to be strong mom.”

Sheena was hysterical. Sobbing and gently pounding the floor on my lap.

“I am trying to preserve my mother! It’s so hard!” She wailed.

“Sheena it’s alright. Shhhhh.”

            I held her really close to my heart. She was the sweetest transsexual one could ever meet. I finally understood. She had to be strong for her mother, God bless her soul. I had to be strong for Sheena. Sheena’s life was a wreck, and I wanted to fix her. I wanted to cheer her on and be with her. I wanted to explore her mind. To delve deep into the cracks of her soul and create bridges in them.

            I wanted more of her mind in mine. I wanted to be the type of person that she could rely on instead of me having to rely on her all the time. I loved her for who she was as a man and a woman. I wanted to be leveled with her; to fill her void.

            I did not just want her to have me for her sexual entertainment, I wanted to be a mother-like figure for her to be strong for and I also wanted her to be strong for only herself.

For the next few days, it was pretty stagnant. Sheena kept pushing me away, and for some odd reason after she had confessed that I was like her mother she started fighting with me instead. I didn’t care. I now know she didn’t mean it because she had a habit of sleeping in the bed with me and snuggling up to my breasts.

            She was like a kitten. Always combing and braiding my hair. Styling it and applying careful dabs of makeup.

“My mother used to wear makeup you know.”

“Really?”

“Mmm Hmm.”

“Sheena? Do I really remind you of your mother?” I asked carefully.

She looked at me as though she might fall apart.

“I’m sorry.” I said. “I was just wondering.”

Sheena sighed.

“I do wish sometimes to see her again at least.”

She patted my head and went into the bathroom and dabbed her eyes with a towel and came back with eye shadow.

Before I knew it, it was time to go.

                                                                        ***

            It wasn’t really a party. Kind of like a soiree. Sheena this time did not put on her wig and wore men’s clothes instead. When it was time to dance, Sheena stood leaning on the wall.

                                                                        ***

We went back to the pent as soon as we left the party. Sheena was very tired and so was I. Sheena and I lay in bed with our party clothes on and slept.

                                                                        ***

            I was very grateful for Sheena’s hospitality but I just couldn’t stay there forever. Everything seemed like a blur. I awoke and I made coffee for breakfast along with some biscotti. I was hoping Sheena would come back soon. Hopefully she had not been man-scoping again.

                                                Three whole hours.

            I went downstairs hoping that I would find something to distract me from my impatience. I went for a stroll in the car and went into Central Park. The smell of oak and pine was very nice. I savored it wondering what Sheena was up to.

                             Six whole hours plus three and counting.

            It took me six hours to walk around the whole park. Three hours to sleep for a while. It was already nine o’clock in the evening. I had been getting ready to go to sleep.

                                                                        ***

The next day, still no Sheena. I couldn’t find her anywhere. I went downstairs into the lobby which was crowded with people. It felt like a dream. I went back upstairs because I found that there was a function going on.

                                                                       ***

I noticed that there was something wrong. Sheena was not there. I burst into her room with her things. Had it all been a dream? I wished that Sheena would have left a note. I missed her at times when it was night. I missed cuddling against her. I missed the smell of her perfume.

                        It just lingered there in the penthouse until it was gone. I kept checking the man at the desk downstairs. No letters; there was nothing.

                                                                        ***

            I picked up cleaning utensils and started cleaning the pent. There was nothing like utter silence to get me through the day. Sheena’s motorcycle was gone. Ere was a letter for me

                                                                        ***

I went downstairs only to find that that there was a letter for me from Sheena.

Dear Maria,

I am sorry but I cannot afford to be playing games with you. After all, I am a woman and I am very sure that you can handle everything on your own since we are both. Understand me when I say I never meant to hurt you or anybody. You may think my actions childish and irresponsible but I left out of the conscience of my heart. I cannot stay here with you knowing that I may love you till I die and that is just not for me.

I cannot stay here anymore with you. I have to be true to myself in my pursuit of happiness.

Love,

Sheena

That was when she broke me, and when she broke my friendship. But she had also broke my heart and had left me to cry.

The Pursuit of Happiness-Chapter 3 : Angelo's Thoughts

            When I was a much younger version of myself, I never thought that I would become a transsexual. In other words, a woman. Everyone who knew me would have thought that I would be happily married with a good wife and astounding children. No one would have thought it. I changed like a fish in the night waiting to swim amongst the other fish. To be…. A woman. It was the hardest thing I have done not knowing what my mother who had died would think. I was very good at singing and the only person I had ever truly cared for besides Maria who was Nikolas, my half-brother’s wife was my own mother who tried her best to raise a good son. Not that I wasn’t a good son, but I had hated my father for every reason that my mother had died.

                                                                        ***

            I clearly had a deep voice and I was able to sing at deep tones although I often wondered what I would look like in a fashion magazine, all buffed up, a sudden thought occurred to me. I could be a body builder and show off how buff I was with my already lithe small and frail body. I was a well-rounded boy becoming a man growing up but I sadly never had any friends to depend upon and share my most beloved secrets with.

                                                                        ***

            It started in elementary school when I found out I was pre-mature but healthy as a boy. No, no. being premature had nothing to do with change of sex or how I dressed but how I had seen the world. I wrote my first poem to a lovely little lady and I had found that I was easily laughed at in elementary.

            I thought she would be sweet about it but, coming to think of my past, I had never been lucky in love. The first thing she had called me was a faggot and so, I got up off my seat and took my poem and crumpled it. I had never wanted to speak since then and as I got up off my seat, I slumped while the other boys trashed my bag.

            Mother who was very sick was fascinated by me. Every birthday on the hour she would give me a book in which I would be delighted and read all day long till I finished it. Every time there was a finished book, another one would reappear and my mother would leave me a note:

My Dearest Angelo,

            You are not like other boys. You have a kind heart and a smart mind. You will grow up to meet someone who loves you all the same. Don’t ever doubt yourself and keep reading. Maybe one day you will find someone who truly loves you for who you are.

                                                                                                            Love, Your Mother

I was always immediately entranced by books. I had loved to read and my only passion was to read and keep on reading. I was already in middle school when I was getting built. My father Richard once stormed into the room and hit my mother across the face and pushed her down so I got up immediately and pushed him out of the room and punched him smack dab across his own face. He got mad every day because we did not have enough money to pay for rent and I had found out after that my mother had bought me books with the money we needed, so I studied hard and on the side during my middle school years I was a local filling station attendant who washed cars and pumped gas. For a while, nearing my high school years, I became a singer for a nearby club and we began to become prosperous. My mother was surprised at all the money I got just by singing and was very proud. So proud, that we finally left Richard and set out to Staten Island, New York and made our new house a home.

            As I got home one day, I happened by coincidence to be reading a circus book when imagine! A real circus came along! I had no reason to think my mother as being sickly that day but as I went up to her bedside, and told her of the wonderful news. She had smiled and patted my head. In between coughs she said, “Angelo, be a good boy and be proud of yourself.” With what little money she had, she sent me five quarters for the show and a half dollar for popcorn. I will never forget this as this would have been my last day seeing her.

            For as stupid as Richard was, I had decided to invite him to mother’s funeral. After, I said goodbye to our home in Staten Island and moved over with my father to Manhattan. It had been a long while since I had last embraced my father. Go figure.

            In high school, I had a lot of offers for marriage despite my damaged past. Easily I could refuse because I did not want to share myself with the rest of the world yet. I needed to belong. I could easily weave my way in and out of the library without being seen and keep reading. I took to books so much that I had time for school, body building and a quiet place to read.

            If I was being cocky, I would have said that even in college I had women gushing over how tall, built and yet how slim I was. My cocoa brown skin also made them blush. I hope I didn’t sound as cocky, but there comes a time in every child’s life where the world lies solemnly still and the world they begin to realize, is full of starlight and their future full of unfulfilled dreams. There comes a time in a young man’s life where the feeling of euphoria and the way of being that becomes a way of life subsides with his thoughts. It’s a transcendental way of daydreaming where a man feels subliminal and doesn’t want to think but not to the point where he becomes experimental. It is to the point where he becomes to an extent, decently, deceptively mad. It is subliminal whether he chooses to stay that way becoming more philosophical and more emotionally inclined to love. There is no feeling but the sound of the chirping of birds, and the way of life in the way that he chooses. There comes a time in every man’s life where ambition becomes replaced with melancholic fear, but little does he know that that is when life happens. 

           Here I was being a little philosopher quoting on life when I had not even been given the chance to collaborate with being. Was I so selfish to become who I had wanted? Of course not! It was by choice!

                                                                        ***

            Nikolas was only my half brother by my father who had sexual intercourse with another woman. He was five years younger than I but still an asshole. I had to endure him during my high school years as a young adult. As much as I would have liked to, I could never change my past. Not even for my mother. My father was a cheat and a hitter. He would hit my mother until she cried and dropped to the floor. My father was not one to hit his other wife and what I could not understand was how he could just hit my mother.

                                                                       ***

            My mother was a sweet woman. Always cleaning, cooking and doing housewife duties. She had never wanted nothing more than a family. The way she thought very much resembled Maria’s way of living which was probably why I was so drawn to her. I could not resist but feel sorry for her for those times Nikki had cheated on her. I just wanted every woman to be happy with their lives but as for Maria, I just couldn’t put my finger on it. I was not in love with her although I knew she was infatuated by me. She loved me but I just couldn’t love her back. I felt that I was not being true to myself however the situation that it was, was for. I could never be true to myself because I kept having sex with her. Who am I to toy with a young girl’s mind? Especially like that. As for Verona, she could give a shit less about life and what it had to offer. I felt drawn to Maria because she was in fact like my mother. A faithful housewife whose heart crumbled under Nikolas.

                                                                        ***

            I had no choice but to save her. I’ve always been fascinated by how quickly she regenerated a picture of my mother. Was I obsessed? I was confounded that in some ways I had to save her. She is gorgeous; no doubt, but she forgets I have had to save her three times. From my stupid fucking father Richard, and my grandfather. Now I am prepared for consequences that may ruin our lives. Maria is too in love with me to even speak. I never thought that being a muscular transsexual would be so tiring. After all, men were my bread and butter. Just the type I’d want. Maria was a younger version of my mother but I could never partake in her life. So many things were going on that I could not partake in joy with her as a young man, but as a woman. I am not accustomed to taking my body parts off in surgery, but perhaps it would fare well if I wasn’t so frightened of bleeding to death on the table.

                                                                        ***

            I was so afraid of meeting Maria at breakfast because I would never have wanted to get too close to her. But, as we talked, I could feel her pity and her sorrow. She hadn’t had much to say but as we conversed, I could feel myself doubting if I had ever been in love with men and or in love specifically before. But what is love anyway? It shall take me a long time to figure it out.

                                                                        ***

            I never had much respect for Verona Delisle. She was never there for me and I was never there for her. She could not even respect me for what I was. She was in love with my goddamn muscles. Verona and Maria just weren’t my type. Maria had known for years what I was and had respected me for that. It was after college that I had changed my appearance. I would never wish for anything more but only for someone who could respect me like that and still be in love with me.

                                                                        ***

            For one thing, I could never bring myself to blame who I was on either Nikolas, my father or my grandfather. It was because I believed that I am who I am today because of myself. To place blame on them for anything would be disembowelment of the truth. Because the truth is, I felt comfortable being a woman. To blame them for my comfort would be to praise them immediately and don my identity over to them. I couldn’t blame them for this version of myself and neither could I blame them for my wondrous revelation. That I was a woman! As for Maria, I celebrate her because she like my mother is so strong and she endures the most pain given to her from fucking Nikolas and I doubt he has any appreciation for the woman she truly is. I mustn’t always fuss about not having her breasts and her body but I don’t because Maria accepts me for who I am.

            It all started when my mother had died that I wanted to truly become who I am today. I was starting to look at my mother’s things and I found a makeup bag. I kept it to preserve her essence along with some of her other things, much like berets and ribbons made of silk. I also kept her vintage clothing and tried to re-use what had been given me by making her dresses twice as big for my body to fit in. As for her wedding dress, I burned it. I burned it in the hopes that those ashes might bring her spirit back to life. At the same time, I met Maria.

                                                                       ***

            Maria and Nikki had been dating since forever since high school and Maria was insanely gorgeous. Was it the ashes of my mother’s wedding dress that gave her that resemblance? No, I’d think to myself. But I couldn’t help wondering if Nikolas knew that she was the only person in my life to give enough of my respect to.

                                                                     ***

            Nikki was always the favorite. I despised Nikolas because he described Maria as his toy. Something he could blandly sexualize. The sad thing about my half-brother was that he could never read between the lines. I hated the fact that he could just use someone like that and leave her for another woman. He constantly wrote me letters on how she couldn’t fit his demands and although she was gorgeous, he could never keep her in line. It was like he wanted to entrap her into his cock! What a moron! The Maria who was never disobedient only to find out that at one of our family gatherings Richard and Ricardo who was my grandfather had tried to rape her! I knew one day Maria was going to be gang-raped and re-raped by one of them. Oh, the audacity! To make that poor woman become small. Wasn’t she already in shambles!? In shame!? I felt badly and wanted to help her again until the time came.

                                                                   ***

            I had a blurry distortion of how it had happened. I thrust my strength onto Richard and started punching his face. I pushed him down, got up, kicked his stomach in and started punching his face. “Old man! Old man!” I yelled. After I punched his face, I had gotten up and pulled his collar near my chin and spat, “Don’t touch my mother!” I collapsed and almost had a mental breakdown when Maria was raped. I could never bring myself to know why I said that but I did. I had cried myself to sleep just knowing that I could never have her. She resembled my mother and boy, as I went upstairs, I knew Maria had smiled looking delirious. I heard her footsteps up the stairs and I think she heard me sobbing quietly; because she went downstairs again and left me alone.

                                                                        ***

            Outside, the rain was pouring. As I can recall, I pulled the makeup bag out of the secret drawer I had in the room and started wiping my face when I had decided to put on my mother’s makeup. All in the middle of the night.

                                                                       ***

            I started experimenting with my mother’s lipstick, her rouge and her eyeliner. Carefully, very slightly I dabbed on the lipstick onto my lips and there I was. I made a beautiful woman going to makeup salons to do my makeup. I studied how to apply makeup through beauty school. I had quit becoming an English major with a minor in psychology. I dropped out and went strictly to beauty school. My colleagues thought I was perverted and preferred to stay away from me as I lied and told them I wanted to become a beautician when it came to my surprise that they knew already what I was there for. No doubt, it was for my own benefit.

                                                                    ***

            I thought of going into sewing school and I did. I learned also how to sew although it was a woman’s job. I was born on June 1^st 1951 and I knew a lot to know about how to survive the streets without them knowing; without them seeing who I really was and why. I loved the fact that it was my dirty little secret and although I walked like a man, I could feel empowerment with just that secret. Soon there were clubs that represented transsexuals secretly and I went to every pageant until I got into some on my own. I even stripped half naked for a magazine called “Fit-Guys.” Although I was never a stripper, I knew that Maria would see me somewhere on fitness magazines. After all, I was a secretly gay body-builder. I wondered what my mother would think and often thought of Maria who was soon to be Nikolas’s wife. I hadn’t been jealous but when I had received a letter of recommendation to be best man, I simply refused to go because I knew Nikki was playing a trick on me and how much Maria would mean to me in her bridal dress happily smiling next to that stupid idiot Nikolas.

            Some may think I was doing all this to play a trick on Maria, but in fact, it was for my mother. To preserve her essence. I wanted to be a woman. So, I decided to go upstate to find black platform shoes. Something that might back up my newly sequined black dress that I had sewn myself. It was a halter top dress without straps or sleeves and it was my most girly creation yet. So, I stayed uptown with my friends Stacey Kent and Verona Delisle. After I came out, I went clubbing almost every night. My father and I were not getting any closer. He kept ignoring me and praising Nikolas instead of me. I had my mother’s eyes he’d say and then he’d disappear with his new family. Barbara and Nikolas. Barbara and Nikolas.

            Barbara was nothing like my mother. She wore too much makeup and heavy eyeliner. Barbara was only twenty-nine and I couldn’t stand her. I guess it was because she kept all my mother’s things except her clothes and the makeup bag my mother owned. I was never expectant of her to do anything or to find time for me but Nikolas liked torturing me and defending his mother every time she hit on me. The bitch was twice below my mother’s age and my father’s. I guess he had a fetish for young foreign women.

                                    The bitch was beautiful. Without her makeup.

                                                               ***

           Barbara was sadly the first woman I’ve ever fucked. I found her one day coaxing my father to have sex with her. I guess it was on special occasion that she had been asking what she was going to get. After that, the next thing you know, my father found me fucking her in bed as she was moaning. I had never before had this experience and I sadly had given in. I wasn’t highly sexually active and I soon found myself waiting in the night with my things over in duffel bags over my shoulders. My mother’s things, and her picture. All the other shit didn’t matter at all. I had wanted to kill Barbara and as it turns out, I had decided to do it while my father and Nikolas weren’t home.

***

               I got scrubs for my feet just in case anyone would like to track my footprints and put them over my shoes. I wore gloves and carried a bottle of Clorox, got my wig in a purse with a new set of clothes and walked to the building. Barbara was sleeping so I took a pocket knife and slit her throat. The wound was deep so I wiped it up and covered her to make it look like she was sleeping. I then kissed her lips and left to the next apartment downstairs only to wake up to hear my father’s petrified screaming and Nikolas’s wailing.

              In my court hearing, my father knew who did it. Me. She, Barbara was my first kill. My father pulled me to the side and told me distinctly that he knew. I looked at him as though he was drunk. And I understood. In some ways he loved me and my mother. But in a very distinctive manner.

             After, I spent my days in the college dorms with the money my father took from Barbara. My father you can say didn’t just not love me. I’m sure the bastard loved me in some ways due to the fact that I got away with it. Although it had taken him about three weeks to figure it out, I was sure I got my shit together for I had been a very good actor.

                                                                        ***

            My father praised me for all the money I made. I took up singing at nightclubs like I used to in high school. One time I dressed in drag and started singing or rather belting out the song “Mambo Italiano” and “Quando, Quando, Quando,” and my father had caught me and threw me to the ground. I could still hear him say “This is no place for dragsters! Be a man!”

            The more he pursued me to dress like a man the more I wore makeup and my mother’s newly sewn large plus dresses. Then Stacey, coming back from Hollywood, California came back and gave me a pageant ticket in New York and asked me to model.

                                                Refusal of that, was not an option.

            I practiced my catwalks and got onstage in different suits until I started wearing my dresses on them. A new life, a new future. Happy to be obliged to be onstage.

            Stacey Kent for as beautiful, funny and fruity as blonde as she was, was married to a war veteran named James. She was secretly a lesbian and soon died all because Verona Delisle told on her so James nearly beat her to death. Her last words as she died were “Don’t be like me Angelo. You are a child of God and deserve happiness. Be yourself.”

                                    I took it to heart and I silently cried.

            I could have killed James but we were never really close. The reason why I never blamed James was because she was caught poisoning him every night to have sex secretly with Verona. She invited me five times for a threesome and I solemnly, plainly looked into her eyes and said vigilantly, “No” may God go with her soul for the umpteenth time. I solemnly swore that I would try to be myself and as I looked into the mirror, I saw a woman. I looked at myself and there was no one left to console me but a phone call from Verona saying, “I want sex and I want it now.”

                                                I rolled my eyes.

                                                    I hung up.

            I did not want to break off to Verona that I didn’t want to ever see her again, but I needed a friend and some whiskey to keep me company until I awoke to find Verona moaning on top of me.

                                                I hated that bitch.

            For some reason she was always wanting sex and my body. If I could stop working out, I’d do it but I guess I kept my parts. I kept my body fit and dressed like a woman to show how true I was to my identity. I decided I will keep my parts and tidbits till the very end.

            Finding an identity for myself was very hard for me. The pain to grasp the essence of a woman; to grasp the essence of my mother. I missed her dearly and I have never told Maria that. Neither Stacey Kent nor Verona Delisle. The mere truth I acted would shatter me. Especially knowing Maria was very much like my mother. It is an egg I cannot crack. A wave that cannot break a wall. What is done is done. I couldn’t fall in love with her.

                                                It was my destiny to be a woman.

                                                            I always was one.

            Although Maria was in love with me, I just could never reciprocate that love back except but feel a pain, a sort of sorrow for her as I had felt for my mother. I had tried my best to understand it but my end product was to become who I really was. A “WOMAN.” I never got hit on because I was one of those women who could hold her own. I was not one to fall to pieces. I was as tough as they come. I would never let down Maria I had decided. Call me evil what you will; I loved her like a sister and a mother. She was something, but not something I had wanted to explore. She was not the love of my life but like a child. She smelled of roses in Spring, she was a woman who was scared and loved me. I was a murderer who smelled of perfume and blood, alas! I could never love her back.

The Pursuit of Happiness-Chapter 2 : Verona Delisle

            Sheena quickly turned to me. “Darling! Maria! Come here! Meet my lover Verona!” I flinched at the sight of Verona Delisle, her other sex partner.  “Come and see her!” Sheena’s voice started swirling in my head. So, they’ve been fucking long before me. I thought as I sipped my margarita. While Sheena was conversing with Verona in her black sequined dress, I had fainted with too many margaritas and the thought that Sheena was fucking her probably while she was out while I was cooking breakfast. Probably fucking her in just those two days.

                                                I fainted.

            I was on the bed of the apartment while I heard Sheena and Verona in the other room. I went over to the other room only to find that Sheena was fucking her. The moaning felt like forever. Sheena was in between her thighs and pounding her with her body; Verona’s legs spread open like a spider’s. Moan after moan and groaning from Sheena. When would this end? She kept moaning screaming the word “harder” at Sheena. It made me begin to wonder if Sheena really was a transsexual.

            I decided I hated her. But no, she was Sheena’s friend. I was thinking of ways to convert Sheena to Angelo; my Angelo. But that could never happen.

            Was I really in love with Sheena? Should I turn back? What’ll happen if I told her to come back to me as Angelo? But no, Sheena was happy as Sheena. I could never make Sheena unhappy.

            I showered, got dressed and took my coat. Still, they were fucking. So I left the building with my heart in my head and my head in my heart cold.

            Little Italy was magical. Above the old buildings in between were electricity lines and some lines that held clothes. I wandered around the slums looking at the different cultures of people in the little town of New York. There was a Chinese man chasing some boys out of his restaurant yelling in Chinese, some Italian pizzerias with some Italian-Americans smoking big cigars. Yellow and black checkered cabs were strolling in-between the buggies that strolled by. I had never seen such liveliness in my life. I bought prosciutto from one Italian restaurant the basil, swiss cheese and pancetta rolling around my tongue. The taste was quality as I sat there eating.

            I closed my eyes and looked for a sign of sky among the electric wires and found myself reminiscing about what had happened with Nikki and Sheena. What was I thinking? Did Sheena do this because she was secretly in love with me? No, she was apparently not. I loved Sheena and everything she did. I loved her at everything. I knew her ever since high school before he was a she. I loved everything about her even as a male transsexual who was a sex hound. I loved her cocoa brown skin and everything in her.

I had decided to get back to the apartment.

Verona had left.

Sheena was cooking.

After seeing Verona having sex with Sheena, I had felt very uncomfortable but I felt ashamed at the same time to tell her how I really felt. How betrayed.

“Sheena?” I called.

“Yes darling.”

“Do you ever think of….?”

I apparently paused for three seconds wondering how she would take it.

“Think of? Do I ever think of what?”

“Do you ever think of going back to just being Angelo since you keep fucking me and Verona?”

She stopped cooking. I had never been so ashamed. Never in my life.

“Darling?” she began. I listened. “Notice that I do not have any sexual intercourse with anyone who is unhappy.”

“Sheena? What do you mean?”

“I have made it a business my love. Verona practically owes me.”

I shuddered and remembered she had killed Nikki.

“Does this mean you are planning to kill her?” I asked shrilly.

“Darling!” It was almost a gasp.

“Do you not think I want Verona to be happy? Of course I want her to be happy! That is why I have sex. It is not love darling, it is sexual intercourse in return or you’ll never hear from me again. Why, I’d make drama.”

“Sheena. Do you think you’re being too loose?”

“Darling, have you ever watched the film Risky Business with Tom Cruise in it?”

I was in shock.

“Sheena! You’re not living your life based on a movie are you?! That’s an outrage!”

“Pulls forth to my inspiration. Business is pleasure darling.”

“The difference is that you are transexual.”

“Yes darling. Ja Ja.\\\”

She walked across the room over to the bedroom and slammed the door leaving me speechless.

                                                            ***

New York’s Times Square was a very big place. I found myself hanging out with Sheena and Verona more often. The city lights glared down at us as the billboards were changed every now and then with famous singers and actors and actresses. I was immersed with Verona and Sheena in their light.

I noticed Sheena was looking intensely at me as I looked up at some of those billboards. I guess Verona had noticed too because in an instant she had pulled me aside.

“Sheena honey! I’m going to have a private chat with Maria!”

“Verona! Sweetie don’t be a bitch and be nice!”

Verona looked back and just rolled her eyes.

She pulled my arm and after what she had said, my body almost went limp.

“Maria!” She hissed. “How did you come to know Sheena?”

I looked down at my feet. She was obviously jealous.

“I knew her because I was married to her brother, Nikolas.”

I did not want to say more for fear sprang in my throat. Did she know something about Sheena that I had not?

“You know Sheena is my lover although she is transexual right?”

A sudden pang in my chest. My heart nearly palpitated a beat.

“No. I did not and do not know that.”

“Then you wouldn’t mind him sleeping around, would you?”

“No.”

“Is it because your pussy’s a little too small for his dick?”

I stammered.

“I-I don’t know.”

“Then you wouldn’t mind me being his little cunt-rag after he’s done fucking you right? I mean we all know who his main bitch is…..”

I could feel the heat rising up to my face.

“Aaaaand, you do know Sheena is a he pretending to be a she. Am I correct?

“Sheena is a she. I’ve known her since high school.”

Verona held my arm tighter, tightly. A manly grip.

“I believe I am in love with everything she is despite her sequined dresses and her wigs. I love her. She was looking at me and she is beautiful.”

My voice trailed off.

Verona laughed like a hyaena. Then cackled.

“Sheena? Angelo darling?!” She cooed.

I could to grasp the fact that this bitch was hanging on my arm laughing at what I had failed to tell Sheena form the beginning. Even as Angelo himself.

“Sheena! Sheena, come here! This little louse says she’s in love with you. What a wimp for a friend. We have a traitor in our midst!”

Sheena looked at me and I was looking down at my feet while she dragged me towards her.

“Verona, sweet, that’s enough!”

Sheena told her.

“But she doesn’t respect you darling. She’s a raggedy-ann cunt doll aren’t you sweetie?”

“No.”

I felt my voice crack in the middle of the “o” after the “n.” My fists were flexed and curled into a ball.

“Verona! What is the matter with you? Here, let’s have some fun.”

Sheena was being a mediator but I wouldn’t have it. In the middle of pushing Verona away, tears came down my eyes as she said it.

“Well darling, she can’t stand me fucking you! She’s nothing but a toy to you. Why her and not me?”

            Finally, I cried out with tears rolling down my eyes and I ran. I ran because I could not bear it. My feet fell on the pavement of the sidewalk as I ran sobbing. I was in love. What could I do? I couldn’t tell Sheena to change into something she was not. Not a man and not a woman although she preferred her pronouns as a “she.”

                                                            ***

            Do you ever get the feeling of a raw aching and longing commingled with disappointment in your life? As for me got that all the time, being in love my whole life and then a few years after high school almost getting raped by an asshole family like Nikolas’ and Sheena’s. Sheena is beautiful. Don’t forget that. I loved her and I knew I would be shooting at the moon if I ever loved her, but I didn’t mind shooting at the moon as long as I was with her. I loved her since high school. Admiration whenever she flexed her muscles topless with her jeans on. Cocoa brown skin, sometimes snazzy with sometimes elegant clothing. She was gorgeous and everyone loved her. Nikolas was short. As short as I and a little blunt about cussing out Sheena for being who she loved to be in true colors that shined like the glint of diamonds. She murdered Nikki, her family for me and I gave a shit about her and her feelings wondering everyday what this eccentric woman in the body of a man must be thinking. Was I crazy to love her? No, I guess not. I would endure it till the end that maybe someday, Sheena would love me the way I loved her.

            No matter. I ran. Tears kept rolling down my face. I stopped to a halt and grabbed a taxi to the apartment in little Italy and I packed my things I screamed and pulled at my hair and suddenly I took out what I was only good at doing at this moment. Writing. Writing to a dead man who had no respect for me and did not love me. To the man who soiled my bed with another woman, his boss it seemed; don’t get me wrong, it was.

Dear Nikki,

I’ve met so many people but not as blunt as Verona. I have been tested, teased and I have been drunk for the first time in my life. I have been raped, almost raped by the horrible people you respect and call your family. Alas, you are now a dead man. I’m afraid that I will never love you the same way. I am in love with Sheena; and if she ever changed her mind about being a woman, I would say to her, I do. I do. But I know she cannot change because I need her this way. I respect everything she does despite her decisions. I know she will not be my Angelo, but my beloved Sheena.

Maria

            I gasped and cried as I held my fist to my chest. Partially, what Verona Delisle said had been true. I was infatuated with Angelo’s Sheena and I could never change her. My life had always been devoted to Nikki. Eating with him, sleeping with him, talking about having babies, being an adult and a beloved wife. No longer in high school with Sheena as a man. No longer a beauty but some raped bitch. I hated myself. I also hated myself because Sheena was strong and I, I was not. Not ever. How could I have not known how incompetent I was. Feeling sorry for myself, I took my bags and called another taxi beginning to wonder at life as I was only a backseat passenger in a stranger’s cab.

            I thought to myself, I would have given Sheena the world if only she was not a she trapped in some man’s body. I loved her, and I guess that was enough for me. I pondered again. Was it my happiness that I was trying to pursue or was it Sheena’s? The answers to my questions I couldn’t tell. So, I fell asleep in the back of the cab, unknown to the danger that lay ahead.

                                                            ***

            When I awoke my head was dizzy; spinning. Was I in some cellar? I looked around and everything swirled around me into some swirl of grey and some distortion of bright light. I was so drugged up I guess that I could barely speak and see. My tied legs dangled from some chair; numb. My head was not clear. Above me some kind of noise. Music. Club music. I was under some club I guessed. I couldn’t grasp what was going on but my hands were tied behind my back with thick cords. I couldn’t tell how long I had been there but the cab driver I guess abducted me. I was saying something and an image which was the shape of a person swelled itself into view until large pounding noises abruptly filled my head as I closed my eyes. Sheena, save me. I thought in some garbled language.

            There was some kick at the door where a door was supposed to be. An angry voice that had sounded like Sheena’s sounded over me like a boombox. Two gunshots. I was saved as I felt the cords loosen and my hands dangle while my tied, dangling legs were also set free. I felt someone carry me as Sheena’s face concernedly looked into mine.

                                                            ***

            The shower was on when I had fully awakened. I was placed in it with my dress on. I was very drenched with cold water from head to toe. This was not the type of thing I was expecting. To be grabbed. Was I that good looking enough for someone to grab me? I steadied myself in the tub. This time we were in a wealthy penthouse. I looked around. The bathroom was legit fancier than the one in little Italy.

            I heard honking cars as I took off my wet clothes and disposed of them. I never wanted to remember that night again. You do not want to know how lucky I was to be found. I went out of the bathroom and found Sheena wearing a vest, no shirt and khakis with her wig off over a balcony.

“You’ve been missing for two and a half weeks.” Sheena looked more sad than solemn. “Do you want to go home?”

I took Sheena’s face in my hands.

“No. You are great Sheena. You’re a good friend.” Tiptoeing, I kissed her cheek. Then I kissed her lips.

“You know I don’t love you like that.” I said as I pulled my face back.

Sheena had chuckled.

“But dear,” her face turned solemn, “I know that.”

Sheena then smiled saying, “I’m used to it.”

“I’m sorry.” I chided.

Sheena looked at me and sighed.

“Darling, do you know how hard it is for a transexual on the streets not to be harassed for being a woman in a man’s body? Why, I get the trouble every day of my life walking around with my clothes all a five x too large with a bulge portion of my tidbits showing; and I’ll tell you something, Maria, I almost got beaten and raped on the streets of this very place of New York. Everywhere I go I am constantly reminded of how ugly this world is. Do you know that love?”

I flinched.

“These people did that?”

“Yes darling.”

I felt even more closer to Sheena than I had ever felt before as I wrapped my towel around my body.

                                                            ***

            After I put on my clothes, I saw Sheena reading a Cosmopolitan magazine. Sheena was complex. Remembering her in high school, I remembered that Sheena was a dork. Sheena was always at the library with her glasses on. A good student too. Nikolas was very popular even though he was really short. I could never grasp how much I wanted to point that out that Sheena would have been the most wanted woman in the history of mankind. Sheena was irresistible to women. Maybe that was why it was so hard for her to find a man. Instead of thinking about why Sheena never had a boyfriend, we had pillow or girl’s talk instead.

            Sheena called me to her room. We had a pillow fight after our talk about good men versus bad men, our horoscopes and especially music and its different genres. I wished our talk would never end. We were looking up at the ceiling.

“Sheena?”

“Yes dear.”

“How did you get this penthouse and manage to get it to the top room of the top floor? These are very expensive.”

Sheena shuffled her feet and even squirmed a little.

“I sued Verona.”

“Wow.” I said.

I proceeded to ask. “Why?”

“For many things.”

I eyed Sheena.

“What kind of things?”

We had a long talk about why she wanted Sheena to be the same Angelo until it came down to me.

“And now you know.” Sheena said bitterly.

I recognized how bitter she was and said nothing more.

I turned to her on the massively huge bed.

“You know I wouldn’t change you for anybody else right?”

Sheena looked at me with intensity.

“Girl, are you serious?”

“Yes. I’m fascinated by you. After all Nikki’s put you through? I’m fascinated.”

She shuffled her feet again.

“Sheena, I’m also very Goddamn proud.”

Sheena smiled looking up at the ceiling.

“God bless you child.”

I cuddled up to her.

“Thank you for giving me your patience and for putting up with my bullshit.”

Sheena yawned.

“Ja Ja darling, it’s time for bed.”

As I slept, I could feel the brush of her lips on my forehead.

“Goodnight dear.”

                                                                        ***

            The night had gone too fast. First, I needed to ask Sheena where Verona was so I could tell her off. I needed to tell her that frankly, Sheena and I would never intend to make love to each other as we did in the previous past few days. I had decided that I would un-make myself victim of utter shock and confusion. As long as I had Sheena and she was my friend. Sheena was all I had actually. Not that it would’ve mattered to Sheena, but I think she knows how much she alone means to me. I thought of being gay for her but why should she want a woman right after she herself became one? I loved everything about her. From her kinky haired wig to her sequined black dress which was seemingly her favorite, and her gigantic platform shoes and make-up.

                                                                        ***

            I looked around the pent for Sheena. Sheena had always had the habit of disappearing whenever I cooked so I found a letter from Sheena at the secretary downstairs in the lobby and went ahead and took the elevator back up.

                                                                        ***

Dear Maria,

I know you had wanted to try to make amends with Verona but she simply disappeared at the club today while we were out. Haha. Don’t worry darling it was late in the daytime when she tragically disappeared. She seemed very blunt and said she was indeed without a doubt very sorry. I cannot explain what happened but we had found her body in the back of a cab which had been parked at the club essentially and sadly her body was mutilated. Think of that dear! I feel so sorry for her. The cab seemed empty and desolate but I have already notified the police. No, it is not your cooking that I am afraid of. You’re a smart girl so you must have known that I myself would write. I’m sure you didn’t lock yourself out did you darling? No matter. This issue will soon have been resolved.

Mwah! Love you at that!

P.S. I should be home shortly…. The keys to the car outside are at your leisure Love.

                                                            ***

            I went shopping with what little money I had. I explored New York around Little Italy, Chinatown and even New York, New York. I looked at the tall skyscrapers and even the twin towers of Manhattan. I searched for little grocery stores but had found that I must have missed them because I ended up buying Chinese takeout instead. The only thing good about New York I felt that was closer to nature was Central Park. I passed times square and looked up at its billboards and lights. I had decided not to take a stroll when I set out only to come back home due to my experience the first time with the lousy cab driver who had abducted me. I went into the vast lobby with the secretary and chandeliers hanging above our heads with their banquet tables underneath them to the left and right and sighed. New York is beautiful. Sheena is beautiful. I went up the elevator to the top floor of our brand-new pent. I turned the keys to our and found Sheena talking to a policeman. Only Sheena this time was dressed like one with her short hair and utterly shocked face. It was like going into the movie theaters naked without any thought to it. I kept my mouth shut and my shoes on ready to help answer any questions or anything until Sheena finally bid goodbye to the officer and closed the door. Suddenly, silence as Sheena went to the balcony.

“He has a nice bum.” She said. “Perfect for fucking.”

I stared at her.

“Did they find Verona’s murderer?” I asked without thinking.

“No and Yes.”

I felt so bad for Sheena that I came up to her and hugged her, burying my head into her chest as her muscular arms embraced me. I looked up and she just gazed at me still in her embrace. She looked grim. I stopped as clearly, I was shocked to have her look at me like that. Then something dawned on me as I started to remember what she just said.

She just kept staring at me grimly. Then her face went solemn.

“Sheena.” I said shortly. “Yes and no. What does that mean?”

“Maria, girl, they’ve seen the murderer but have not found him yet.”

I stood there like a statue and felt my heart leap.

“What do you mean?”

Sheena embraced me harder this time.

“Maria.” She sighed. “I killed her.”