RANSVESTIA

like I want you, I'll change my sex for you. I really will. I'll become a real woman for you."

Now the tears were coming so fast that "she" had to break off. I sat up quickly on the edge of the bed, releasing her so that she could reach for a tissue and wipe off her face. Her trembling alone told me what an effort this was for her, particularly with her already stated views that the operation she had said would have constituted a "mutilation."

"You'll do no such thing," I said at last when the sobs had stopped.

"What?" It was just a querulous whisper from the shadowed figure beside me.

"You'll do no such thing," I repeated. "You won't change your sex, Romy. I love you just the way you are.”

There was silence for a moment, a stunned, shocked silence. "She" seemed to edge away from me.

"You like me as I am?" there was disbelief in her question. "You want me as a man?" A note of disgust had crept into the voice.

"Don't you want me the way I am?" I asked "her." "Don't you love me as I am?"

Her body twisted and some of the dim light fell on her face, so delicately feminine. Shame twisted the features and her eyes were a mess as tears brimmed over the mascara. "Yes," she said huskily. Then she pulled her legs and her longs skirts up to her, retreating away from me into the far comer of the bed. "But you can't want me like this, Al," there was fright in her voice and on her face, as she stared wildly at me. "I really am a man, fully functioning, just like you."

I shook my head. "Not like me," I said savagely as I'd said it once before. "No, never like me."

"What...?" she began, but I reached over and pulled her to me quite roughly. I realize now that I should have been more gentle, but I was under pressure, too. I'd never told anyone else what I was about to tell her.

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