Y's Revenge. Lou Bihl

preferred flats or sneakers. Her new layered hairstyle made her face appear softer, and the concealer she recently had pilfered from me in mutual agreement covered her periorbital dark circles.

      “You’re looking gorgeous tonight,” I said. “I feel we should have sex once more, before I become impotent.”

      Alex grinned. “I’m flattered, and, besides, I would love to see your consternation if I did accept your offer.”

      “How about doing it soon, on my road trip?” I asked. “I’ll dress in my sexiest girls’ outfit, and we’ll go rambling through the trans bars.

      Though Alex had been my confidante in trans matters, she had never accompanied me to my “trans woman escapes.” Now, my trip presented an opportunity for us.

      “Trans bars sounds fine,” she said, but in an airy tone that hinted that she was either not serious or not excluding anything. Her elfish grin made her look decades younger and reminded me of the time of our love as students, when I had confessed to her what she then called my “trans tendencies.” Alex had found them exciting, without reserve, and had encouraged me to live accordingly. The total naturalness of her acceptance made me even hope she might be familiar with such a predisposition from her own biography. When I asked her whether she had ever wanted to be male, she shook her head, laughing. No, at best, she had fantasized about becoming the first female chief of a wild Indian tribe or the first captain of the male national football team.

      Now, 30 years later, I had not gained any ground—persisting in a sporadic dual life, at times unable to tell whether my trans dreams had degenerated into a flirt with the option, an option I was no longer seriously striving for. But, at least it had been a possibility I was free to decide upon and that I did not want to let go. That is, until cancer had intruded my leeway of decision, thus destroying the convenience of a life that—even though lacking fulfillment— had not been unhappy as long as I indulged in my regular escapes.

      Chatting cheerfully, we enjoyed the appetizers, swiping foie gras and frog legs from each other’s plates. Then she wanted to know whether I had decided on surgery or radiotherapy as my cancer treatment, and if the road trip was going to be my reward.

      “Probably my preference will be radiotherapy,” I said. “Trip first, hormone treatment simultaneously.”

      She raised an eyebrow. “That isn’t what Wolff recommended, is it?”

      “As you learned from the guidelines, both options have valid arguments.”

      Before Alex had a chance to comment, we were served the blood sausage and veal’s cheek, requiring our undivided attention.

      After some minutes of comfortable silence, Alex broke in. “What we were talking about lately—about giving up secrecy concerning your trans tendencies. Did anything change in the course of your cancer diagnosis?”

      I jabbed my fork into the veal’s cheek. On the one hand, it was now or never. Facing the fear of dying should evaporate all other anxieties. Alas, in theory only.

      Alex nodded contemplatively.

      “Do you think one must get cancer to become mature?”

      “Maturity is not accomplished until you’ve surpassed yourself,” she replied. “That’s a quotation I recently found in my proverb calendar.”

      I choked on my veal’s cheek. “Surpassing myself? That is indeed a consoling prospect.”

      Shaking her head, she replied, “Surpassing oneself does not mean you’re dying! You can easily pass away without ever having reached a state of maturity. Instead, surpassing yourself could imply you’re no longer concerned about what people may think of you—or Kristina.”

      “Right you are, once again,” I said. “All I need is a prescription for how to implement such insights.”

      We continued to enjoy our meal. After a while, Alex resumed. “The prescription could suggest starting with the test outing of your trip, with everyone involved living far enough away. And when will you introduce Kristina to your family?”

      I took my time to answer, remembering Maren at the Klopse dinner. I was not as brave as the protagonist of the dramedy series Transparent, where Mort Pfefferman’s decision to live as Maura at the age of seventy is nonchalantly accepted by his self-centered children, who from then on just call him “Mapa.” But he had no granddaughter who was growing up as a fatherless child and who loved her grandfather. I doubted whether Micky would appreciate another grandma instead. Her mother might even restrict our contact.

      Alex held on, asserting that I had procrastinated on the trans problem and let professional strain diverge me. Now, after being diagnosed with cancer, I should mainly focus on cure; however, she did understand that I was running out of time, if I wanted to spend the rest of my life as a woman. Especially as the course of the disease was not predictable. Breaking away, she took my hand and we sat in silence.

      “You hit the point,” I said. “Right now, I’m totally clueless. Maybe the trip will provide new insights.”

      Alex sipped her Bordeaux. “So, it will be your Zarathustra trip.”

      I did not get her immediately.

      “Philistine! Nietzsche! Thus Spoke Zarathustra. ‘Become who you are’.”

      Though her philosophy citations were sometimes a bit unnerving, this one was a perfect motto for my trip.

      Alex won our usual competition about the check by cunningly excusing herself for the bathroom and paying on her way there. She accepted my ritual rebuke afterward. Hungry for fresh air, we made our way to the next taxi stand by foot, hand in hand, each of us silently absorbed in thoughts and memories. Once again, I asked myself why we had not become a twosome for life. We shared an understanding of the essentialities of life and an agreement on most issues we regarded as priorities—unchanged for more than thirty years since the amicable failure of our student love affair.

      We had both recognized the long-term incompatibility of our erotic preferences. Alex was turned on by machos—guys who were utterly unsuitable for a relationship outside the bedroom. I preferred women with androgynous behavior—tough broads who were submissive to their men by subduing them. Irrespective of these discrepancies,we had shared several episodes of seeking comfort in bed in the further course of our life, mostly after wrecking one of our relationships. Each time, we reconsidered whether our friendship might not turn out to be an ultimate emotional homeland after all. But we never did, as we felt that our almost fraternal familiarity was permitting no passion—which we still regarded as precondition for a relationship. Once, after several drinks, we had agreed to reevaluate the issue at the age of seventy.

      Our farewell embrace was deep and heartfelt.

      I saw her at the total abdominal trainer, one of the club’s recent acquisitions that supported six-pack shaping as well as modeling of the flexors of the hip. Since Irmgard’s newly purchased segmental body composition scale had revealed an unfavorable ratio of fat to muscle, she now attended the fitness club two or three times a week. I had long ago thought about changing my gym.

      I interpreted her glance as a sign of the torture being inflicted on her abdominal muscles.

      “Good afternoon, Kris,” she greeted me, and I immediately understood that my interpretation had been wrong. When Irmgard said anything other than “Hi,” she was definitely upset. Even though I was not aware of any misconduct, my reflex was to switch to appeasement mode by innocently asking how she was doing.

      “I’m only your ex-wife and your family doctor,” she said, unclasping the handles of the abdominal trainer and letting them jerk upward. She was quite touchy about the issue of being a general practitioner. After all, she had dreamed of a career as a medical specialist, but then she had gotten pregnant. Maren had not only been an interruption of her medical career but she had terminated