Car Talk 1/2 -Well, we left Donna's later than I thought we would. She seems quite cheerful. She doesn't miss Bruce at all, or so she says. -No, she doesn't. And he doesn't miss her. Oh, here's the intersection. Just a minute. There. -Why did you turn left here, Margo? I thought we were going home. -Have you forgotten? Oh dear, no, I forgot to tell you, Mel. A phone call just before we left the house. Well, maybe it's better as a surprise. I think you'll love it. I hope so, anyway. They want you for overnight, for tests and things. There's been a cancellation, and you're scheduled for first thing in the morning. So that's where we're going. -Oh. I see. That's a little sudden. I thought it couldn't be for maybe another month, maybe longer. -It'll be good to get it over with, sweetheart. So we can both get on with our lives. -I guess. But .... -Baby, no 'but'. There's no turning back. You know that. You've known it for a long time. -Yes. That's true. But it still seems like such a big step. -After all the little steps we've already taken? It's hardly anything! Honey, we've gone over and over it. There's no reason not to. Cheer up, you'll be well cared for, and all the girls have promised to visit you, and I'll be back from my convention in plenty of time to bring you home. And after that there'll be no need for us ever to be separated, not ever again. We'll go everywhere and do everything together, if that's what you want. That's what we've both wanted, isn't it? -We both once had that, Margo. From when we were first married right up until last year. -That wasn't the same thing, honey. This will be better. -For you maybe. For me I'm still not so sure. -Oh, for you certainly. You'll see. I'll see to it. Trust me on that. -I have to. Do I have a choice? -Not really, baby doll. Not any more. Not since all this began, though it's taken you all year to realize it. You know? -I guess, honey. Maybe. -I really am glad that you've finally accepted everything just the way it is. It'll be fine, don't worry at all about it. -I do worry. -Well, don't. We're still together, and as far as I can see we always will be. We're way better off than Donna. -I suppose so. -You know so. I was noticing tonight, you look far nicer than Donna too. I love that tan velour dress - so clingy, and with that deep neckline so risque, yet so seemimgly modest. I've always loved it. It must feel wonderful on, too. -Thank you. It does. -I might want to borrow it some time. -Any time you want it, honey, it's in the closet. -You know, compared to you Donna dresses like a tramp. -She does! I don't know why, she doesn't need to advertise. The whole town already knows she's available. -Ahhh, Mel honey, not to change the subject, but how did Donna strike you this evening? It's been months and months since you last saw her, hasn't it? I think the last time was before her divorce became final, late last Fall. -Yes. She seems OK. The usual Donna. The last time we visited she acted rather strange, at least toward me. Provocative and contemptuous, both. I didn't know what to make of it. -I remember. She thought you were still a man then, like her husband, and Bruce was really giving her a really hard time over the settlement. She was probably taking it out on you. One way women try to control men or get back at them is by being first alluring and then aloof. Get them stiff, then slap them down. She may have had you confused with Bruce. I did straighten her out about it afterward. I told her you were being altogether cooperative, but you were off limits and mine exclusively. She apologized. She said she was just being bitchy with all men these days. -She took her breakup with Bruce that hard? -You could say. You could call it that. She needed a lot of consolation when the final papers were being drawn up, mostly male. She still resents it though that Bruce wouldn't cooperate. I suppose I'd have felt the same way if you hadn't come through for me. Maybe I'd have behaved the same way. But you did come through for me. You darling! -I guess I did. -Oh, pooh, listen to you! We're so much better off compared with Donna. I'm so eternally grateful to you for going along with me. For everything. Even for tonight. Honey, I know you didn't want to come along, you don't really like Donna, she's had this bad influence on me you used to say, and I'd tell you you were wrong but you'd say it anyhow. But now? There's no reason to resent anything. She's my oldest friend, I've been telling her everything about you, she knows everything. She simply didn't believe it, she wanted finally to see you for herself. And tonight she couldn't stop marvelling. Even to you, you heard her. Because you've been so wonderful about everything, all the while her own husband has been such a shit. You have no idea how proud I am of you. -Thank you, sweetie. -You're always welcome. You know that. I'd kiss you if I weren't driving. -How long has it been now since Donna and Bruce split? -Nearly a year. He didn't take Donna's ultimatum at all the way you did. He raved and ranted around the house for a few weeks, and then one day he just upped and packed and left. Yes, it was exactly one year ago that Donna and I agreed on what we'd do, and she went home and put it to Bruce and I went home and put it to you, so you'd both know how things had to be from then on. -I remember. It was shocking. I mean, I was so utterly unprepared. I couldn't believe you were making so much out of so little. I mean, that was a terrible choice you offered me. I just stared out the window for hours, wondering how to deal with it. The daffodils were up and at peak back then in our garden, same as now. The forsythia too. The whole world was yellow, and our tulips starting to bud, just like now. Like every Spring. Only a year ago? It seems like so much longer. -I suppose for you especially it has been. You've gone through so much and changed so much, honey. Not Bruce, he chickened out, but you've been marvelous. It can't have been easy for you, I suppose, not any of it. Not at first, anyhow. -No. I mean when I first agreed I'd try it, and you brought out that little bra and thong panty set and told me to put them on, that I'd be wearing things like that from then on for the rest of my life, I thought I'd die. -Oh yes, that cute black lace A cup. I remember it. You looked so sexy, sweetheart, even though you had nothing to put in the bra, and your thong had nothing to reveal, your butt was so thin. Remember what your figure was like back then? -And then the next day you had me show myself in public for the first time, in a dress and wearing lipstick? Making sure all the neighbors knew, so I wouldn't feel ashamed and keep trying to hide it? I felt like such a fool! I must have looked like a clown. -A little. But that was your decision. I offered you the option to go to a beauty parlor first and get done up properly. But you had to learn for yourself that half-way measures are always worse than none. When Rosanne took you over, you became a doll. And you've been one ever since. -I felt terribly embarrassed. Just awful. Walking around the neighborhood with my face all lipsticked and the wind blowing my skirt. People chatting with each other and no one talking to me. -I'd warned you. Anyhow, you survived it. And since then you've become a marvelous artist of your own face. Miss Face is what Roseanne calls you. You may complain to me, but she says you confessed to her that you love femininity, the dressing up and making up and everything. -I guess I do, now. The clothes were kind of a challenge. Learning how to wear them, I mean. They all seemed so different, all those straps and snaps and zips and sleeves and necklines and cuts and colors, and different styles for each occasion. And I look so different in each - seductive, shy, brassy, matronly, whatever! The clothes I used to wear made me out the same man no matter what I wore. -That's true. Ours are a lot prettier. Girls like to be eye-catching. -Yes. Though they're a lot harder to put on. I was such a klutz at first. I remember I ruined two pairs of pantyhose before I figured out how women get that second leg in. -I'd forgotten that! You looked so funny, hopping around until finally they tore! I should have started you with thigh-high stockings and panties, so you could get accustomed to the feel, enough so you'd feel a little naked when you weren't wearing them. But once I got you those flirty miniskirts there was nothing for it. It was learn to wear pantyhose or else be arrested for indecent exposure. -I suppose. Bruce never did get that far with women's clothes, did he? -Bruce got nowhere, honey. Donna told him what had to be done that same night I told you, become a woman or the marriage ends. Same as I told you. Neither of you believed we were serious at first, even when we came at you with pots of make-up and insisted you sit still so we could see how you'd look properly done up. But there's the difference. You cared about me, about our marriage, so you were willing to try. You sat still. Bruce didn't care, apparently. Donna says she never got even that first swipe of lipstick onto his mouth. So their marriage is over. -Ours isn't, Margo? I wouldn't say this is what we had before last year, before all this started. -No, sweetheart. Our marriage is not over. Not at all! Different yes, and it will be from now on, I can't deny that. After tomorrow even moreso. But I told you that would happen right off. -I didn't believe you, Margo. Not right off. Not even after you paraded me up and down the neighborhood until I thought I'd die, so I'd agree to see Dr. Miller and Roseanne and not look so ridiculous. Not even when Dr. Miller started me on those pills and gave me all those shots. Ar first I thought it was just a game, that you were bluffing, that you were trying to scare me or something. I mean, when I broke down and finally told you I was willing to try, but only because you wanted it so badly, what happened? You led me straight into our bedroom, and our sex was never better! Incredible! We fucked our hearts out! I thought sex like that would matter so much to you that you'd never risk losing it, risk my not being able to perform it like that with you, I mean. But the next day along came those pills and shots, and ... well, that was the end of it. -That's true, you got pretty floppy almost at once. Your clit wouldn't poke into me any more. The poor thing. But we've had lots of other kinds of sex since, honey. More appropriate kinds, the kinds that women have with each other. Each one wonderful. Even though I can't lick your pussy the way you lick mine. Not yet. -Margo, it's all been so disproportionate, apart from being ... well, just plain weird. What you and Donna wanted. And why. It made no sense! I mean, there was nothing serious ever between me and Penny. Never! And you knew that! There was only that one terrible slip up, that one time only when Bruce and I were both drunk and celebrating that Calkins deal, and Penny saw her chance and rubbed herself up against us both, and ... ahhh....I still don't remember exactly! But just that one time! -She'd fucked Bruce before, Mel. Often. -Yes, but not me! Not before and not since! And I didn't know it then, about Bruce and Penny I mean! -Honey, Melissa baby, we've been over this and over this. How many times does it take? So you were unfaithful to me only once. But being unfaithful only once is like letting another man make you pregnant only once. And it wasn't only that. It was that you lied to me afterward. Penny asked you and Bruce for the raise in salary she expected for her ... favors, and you refused, so she made good on her threat and came to each of us and told us about that evening's ... entertainments. And you both denied that anything ever happened, because you didn't know she had videotapes of everything that happened and had already shown them to us. I confronted you and Donna confronted Bruce, and you each denied that anything happened. You compounded the betrayal! You lied to us! You even claimed Penny was lying, if I recall right. -She was! She told you I'd forced myself on her. But the tapes show clearly, plainly, I was blind drunk, I could barely walk. That she led me over to her bed and laid herself down and pulled me down on top of her and I just fell on her. I was barely conscious! I still don't remember anything about it! I wasn't lying to you, I honestly didn't know! -I know. I saw those tapes too, Melissa. The fact remains, she stroked you and you got hard enough to enter her, and then she pushed herself onto you and pumped you until you pushed back and came into her. What else does it take for me to decide that you were unfaithful to me? -I never knew it. You saw. I just rolled over and fell asleep after that, and Bruce climbed on her and ... well, he must have banged her for a half-hour or more. He had to wake me up to drive me home, you saw that too. -It doesn't matter. The facts remain. You and Bruce fucked an available secretary from the secretarial pool and she made good her threat if she didn't get a raise, and you both denied that any of it had ever happened, and she proved that it did. End of discussion. Donna and I talked it over like in the old days, when we used to talk about our boyfriends. And we agreed, that was that, our marriages were over. Because if it could happen once it would happen over and over in the future. We could never trust our husbands ever again. Unless.... -Yes. Unless. Whose bright idea was that? -Mine, actually. There was this boy I knew in school, Marty Sloane. Freshman year Marty was a boy named Martin, and then over the summer he turned eighteen and when he came back sophomore year he was a girl named Martha. I dated him once when he was a boy, and there was nothing gay or girlish about him, believe me. But the next year he was dating only boys, and the boys weren't hesitating with him, because he had all the right equipment and he was so eager to use it. He put out with anyone, making up for lost time I suppose. I tried dating him again that year just out of curiosity, but he wasn't in the least interested in girls any more. Except as friends, of course. -And that's what gave you two the idea for Bruce and me? So we'd lose our interest in girls? -Except as friends. Marty took up with a pretty fast crowd, girls who'd hold contests to see who could seduce this football star or that professor. It wasn't till we took a Phys Ed class together Junior year that I saw for myself why the boys all flocked to him. I mean, he was all the girl anyone would ever want! He was gorgeous! Huge, beautiful breasts and the cutest little cunny. Of course it was a terrible waste for him not to use them! -And that's what you wanted for me? -And what I've mostly got. Oh, honey, you already have the breasts, and they're just gorgeous, you know how attractive they are, even to me. And your butt is heart-stopping beautiful! Can you blame me for wanting you to have it all? I still love you! -But .... -I want for you whatever's needed to keep our marriage safe. Better safe than sorry, you know that! Baby, we've talked about this for a year now. You'll do it! You'll love it! You've loved all the rest of it, so far! -Some of it, Margo. Not all of it. A lot of it I just don't know. But every time we've talked it's been the same, repeated over and over. I say I'm not sure, and you say you are, I should trust you, and I hesitate, and then you commit me to something else so there's no going back. -What would you have me do, honey? Tolerate all that shilly-shallying? It's very simple, either you do or you don't. Either you are or you aren't. This whole year you've tried my patience repeatedly. There's been nothing but indecision on your part! From the beginning, I've had to make the decisions for both of us! -Yes. But after I finally did agree to try things your way, just try it, no commitments, just pretend to be a girl and see how it feels, just for a day or two, no more than that, what happened? You took me to your gynecologist friend Dr. Miller and she filled me full of pills and long-term hormone implants, and then before I could turn around you took me to Roseanne's and she changed my appearance so radically that I was committed to look like a girl, 'a darling girl' is what you both called me, for months to come. Both inside and out. -Honey, I had to get you committed! It's no good playing at being a woman! And Roseanne's is the best salon in the city! I had to use all sorts of pull to get you an appointment on next to no notice - I called around to everyone! You remember, that first time you needed everything! Waxing, styling, nails, your first perm, coloring, highlights, piercing, a complete makeover. And you've got to agree, Roseanne's beauticians do marvelous work! Why else would you still be going back to them every few weeks! Looking forward to their pampering, I've seen your expression when you've picked up your purse and headed out for your appointment. Even that first time they performed miracles. -Margo, I'd only told you I was willing to try. I thought that when you calmed down and we could both rethink things, talk about them sensibly, we'd reach more rational decisions. -Yes, I knew that's what you thought. That's why I did what I did. -It wasn't very fair of you. -Maybe not. But Dr. Miller and Roseanne did nothing I didn't tell you they'd do. I suppose it was the cumulative effect that shocked you. I remember. It was so funny! Five hours later you looked into the mirror and there was no trace of Melvin anywhere, only Melissa, a drop-dead gorgeous beauty, and you nearly did drop dead. Practically fainted. -That's what I mean. Because there was no way I could undo any of it. Not without shaving my head bald and getting a dermabrasion on my face to remove that "everlasting" make-up she used. I mean, I couldn't go to work as Melvin any more, only a curly-headed, rosy-cheeked, dark-eyed, red-lipped Melissa, who'd then somehow have to explain how come Melvin had become Melissa. Explain that my wife wanted to keep me away from all other women, and that's how come. I mean, even on the face of it .... -Maybe you didn't know, baby, I made it easy for you. I called your boss before you arrived and told him it was because you've always felt inside that you were Melissa. And that activiated the State's anti-discrimination laws, because transgenders are fully protected. So no one mocked you when you got there, did they? -No one. I wondered why. The girls complimented me on my new hairdo, and one of the bookkeepers told me she loved that Hermes scarf you loaned me. It wasn't a problem at all. And it hasn't been. But did you have to tell Roseanne to go all out? Commit me to looking female for months and months when I'd barely agreed to try it at all, and then for only a short time? -Would you rather I'd asked Roseanne to go only half way? Would you rather have turned up at the office looking effeminate, looking like a man who'd spent the weekend dressed as a girl and hadn't quite gotten over it, neither a man nor a woman but a self-deluded sissy? Think of the jokes they'd be making at your expense if you'd done that! All the guys contemptuous because you were betraying your manhood, and all the girls mocking you because they think you're mocking them. Everyone smirking. And rightly so. -There was plenty of both anyhow. -But not to your face. And not from anyone in your firm who matters. I mean, here it is a year later, and you've been promoted twice, and everyone respects both you and your work. Law or no law, decent people respect other decent people who seem to know what they are, who make clear sex and gender choices. It's the wishy-washy in betweens that become the butt of jokes. You were spared all that. People saw Mel on Friday and Melissa on Monday, and at first they were were shocked into silence - she was so unexpected. And so stunning. You still do reduce people to silence when you're dolled up, you know?. -I think they're embarrassed for me. -No, they don't know you weren't born that way. It's that truly beautiful women are rare. And you're truly beautiful now. Your face was always wasted on a man. I told you that long before I married you. I've always wanted to play dressup with you, to see how you'd come out. And during this past year I've had my chance. -Hmmp. -Say thank you, Melissa. You've just been extravagantly complimented. -Thank you. -There were repercussions. Maybe you remember that Bruce was out of town on a buying trip all that week, so he didn't see what had happened to you until the following weekend, when I took you to Donna's house so I could show you off. He just flipped out. The next day they quit arguing about it and he packed and left the house. And you remember, he got himself a job in Cleveland two weeks later. And gave Donna everything in an uncontested divorce by decree. Do you ever hear from him any more? -It's funny, in a way. I think maybe I threaten his masculinity. Or maybe he's attracted to me and he thinks it's perverse. I saw him a month or so ago at a trade show, and he saw me, and then when I looked him up soon after at his hotel just to talk over old times, I found he'd checked out. He couldn't handle it. -His firm does business with mine, I've kept in touch. He still can't handle his need to get his hands and his pecker into the panties of every good looking woman he's ever seen. But I suppose not when he knows that the woman was once a man. Now that's perverse, I think, worrying about who was once something else. Donna's better off without him. -He was terrific at negotiating contracts when we were working together, I'll say that for him. Talk about cunning? That Calkins deal was brilliant. The man doing his job now isn't nearly as good. -Melissa, he told Donna that the Calkins deal was a month old when he invited you and Penny to celebrate it together. Bruce was just fucking you over, is all. So he could get at me. Among other reasons. I knew it even at the time. -How? -I told you. Donna's my best friend. We tell each other everything. -You never told me. -I tell you what's good for us as I see it, when I see it. Well, look where we are now!