The Greatest Liar Ch. 02: Exposure, Disclosure

"Been there, done that."

"The top bracket goes to elite colleges, where competition triages them into the professional and managerial classes. When you make it through the mill, it's your turn to be boss."

"You sound like my father, defending the status quo."

"All critiques and praise of capitalism converge, because it's both been on a long winning streak and left a lot of wrecked lives behind. Anyhow, you must have been in the top 1%, if you got into Michigan. Pick the right program and you'll be set for life. Have you decided on a major?"

It was premature to tell him about my plans, so I changed the subject.

"I feel like such an egotist, we've only talked about me. What's next after Afghanistan?"

"Can't plan that far ahead. Maybe I'll come back to Michigan for a Masters."

"Or visit now, show me around?"

The plane hit turbulence as we crossed the mountains and began our descent toward Denver. Jake looked at me and clasped my hand.

"I'm under orders to stay put until I ship out. But knowing you're at UM gives me something positive to think about."

"I'll think about you, too."

"Can we stay in touch?"

"I don't even know where I'll have housing."

Jake scribbled his name, unit number, serial number and email on a scrap of paper. "I'll be off the internet mostly, but you can snail-mail me through my unit's home base."

"I'll volunteer and serve with you."

"Girls don't get into combat."

I stared out the window, annoyed that the success of my gender tromp d'oeil was wasted.

Layover

The sound system crackled with the pilot's voice.

"Detroit air traffic control announced an extreme weather closure. Detroit passengers, push your call buttons, the attendants will register you for hotel vouchers."

I feigned a frown.

"Ugh, air travel-"

"Thank you, Mother Nature."

"For stranding me?"

"I've got twenty-four hours' leave."

"Then let's hope the storm lasts."

We held hands at the cab stand and cuddled back seat in the cab, my first romantic kiss as a girl. Our lips met, our tongues fluttered, and his hands were all over my butt and my boobs. When Jake slid his hands between my thighs I resisted.

"Dinner before dessert."

"An offer I can't refuse."

I used my fake ID to check in as Alexandra, felt empowered and emboldened by my first hotel room. My breasts ached and my ass tingled, hungry for rough sex. I knew Jake wanted the girl he saw. I needed him to take the girl I was.

I showered and stared at the nymphet in the foggy mirror. My flea market hormones had nauseated and bloated me but Premarin had induced a growth spurt in my boobs and butt. I rolled my shoulders, and they jiggled. I bent over and peered through my legs. My shrunken balls and cock barely blocked the view of my pear-shaped butt cheeks or the pink star at their center.

I refreshed my make-up, blew out my hair, slipped on a pair of skintight white Capris, a snug black turtleneck and some new pink sneakers. I added a silver necklace with a turquoise pendant that dangled between the subtle mounds of my boobs, accentuated by a padded, push-up bra. I put on a distressed denim jacket that tapered to accentuate my modest curves and decided I looked perfect. Would Jake take the bait and stay on the hook after I revealed my special problem?

I arrived first at the restaurant and selected an outside table to enjoy the sunset. A local loser approached, wobbly after a long happy hour, and pulled up a chair.

"Come here often?"

I affected an indifferent look.

"Meeting my boyfriend."

"What's your sign?"

"No trespassing."

"I'm Cancer."

"Like the disease."

I pointed to his smoldering cigarette.

His leer turned hard.

"Cunt."

He blew smoke in my face and railed to his friends, who ridiculed him and threw me flirtatious glances. I glared back, both to discourage their overtures and to see if anyone had clocked me. But their banter suggested that I was a girl worth hitting on.

Jake arrived wearing camouflage and combat boots.

"The drunk with the cigarette came on."

Jake shot him an ominous look and their table quieted down. I ordered a salad, which I left largely uneaten to keep my ass fresh and clean for our after-dinner feast.

He spoke expansively as he ordered a second, and third beer. He was the first in his family to graduate from college, and third generation military. After 9-11 he had been looking forward to active duty, but now that America was embroiled in a bloody occupation of a hostile land, he'd begun to doubt our leaders.

I encouraged him with positive comments and polite questions. I knew how much guys liked to talk about themselves, since I had been one. And that kept the conversation off the delicate question of my background.

After dinner, we walked in the cool evening holding hands, our fingers interlaced. I worried that my hand would sweat or feel too big. But when we paused, he raised it to his lips and kissed it.

"Our hands fit perfectly. Does that mean we are a match?"

We leaned into one another and watched the distant Rockies backlit by the sunset. The sun's rays lit the layered clouds fiery scarlet and fuchsia, then flickered and disappeared, leaving a pink afterglow. He wrapped his arm around my shoulder and drew me close, so his lips brushed mine.

"Heaven's answered," he said

I shivered, as much from anxiety as from the chill of the night air.

"I'll warm you up."

He squeezed me close and massaged the chills from me. I tilted my head, and his lips met mine. I clung to his broad shoulders, yielding to his embrace, and drawing him into me.

He was built like a marble statue. My body molded to his, my nipples tingled as they brushed his pectorals. His tongue penetrated is lips, and I let it tango against mine. After what seemed an eternity, his lips broke contact with my trembling mouth.

"I'll never let you go."

I forced a shiver, so my boobs vibrated against his chest, and nodded my head.

"Cools off fast a mile high."

I pointed my hotel's neon marquee.

"I need a warm bed."

"With me?"

I answered with my smile.

Full Disclosure

The clerk glanced up and smiled as we passed her desk, holding hands. We shared a kiss on the elevator, and he circled his arm around my waste as I led him to my room. He flipped on the TV and I went to the bathroom to freshen up my cologne and tush. I tingled from my self-inspection and trembled with desire. But before I could get the cock that I craved, I had to make the disclosure I dreaded.

Jake sat on the bed, eyeing me expectantly. I sat down beside him, took his hand in mine I stared at my pristine pink sneakers. I couldn't bear to look at him as I spoke what I knew could be my last words to him.

"Remember what you said about earning the right to be different?"

"You'll earn it for sure."

Tears streamed, and emotions choked my throat.

"I'm different from other girls."

"Sure, beautiful but modest, brilliant but humble."

He put his arm around my shoulder and pulled me close. Would the next moments bring revulsion and rage, or compassion and acceptance? I clamped my hands over my face to hide my shame. I spoke in a halting voice.

"I was born with a boy's body."

I convulsed with involuntary sobs. My eyes were blinded by tears, my ears deafened by my pounding pulse.

Would Jake would dash out of the room, beat me senseless, or accept me into his heart? As I surrendered my secret I almost lost consciousness, and hope.

His arm loosened, and dropped away, and I sagged to the floor to crawl away. But he had let go momentarily only to draw me closer. He hugged me and pressed my tear-streaked face to his chest.

"S'OK, baby."

He rocked his body against mine. I lifted my face from his chest and our lips met in a tentative, quivering kiss. My lips parted, and his warm tongue entered and trilled against mine, like the first steps of dancers on a stage. His lips traveled to my neck. I tilted my head back and yielded and melted in his embrace, collapsing to the bed and pulling him atop me. I opened my eyes when his kisses paused.

"You look, feel and kiss like a girl," he said

He unhooked my bra, lifted my sweater and kissed my breasts.

"So hot."

My estrogen-softened body molded against Jake's well-muscled frame.

"OK?"

"We still fit."

I lifted my arms and he pulled my top over my head, tousling my long hair over my face like a gauzy veil. I wriggled out of my Capri's and he tugged them to extract my legs from their tight bottoms. I coyly covered my boobs and panty-clad cock as he stripped naked. He reclined beside me, alternated kisses of my breasts and lips. My nipples hardened into rosebuds, but his hand flinched when he touched my panties.

"Let me pamper you."

I knelt as though in worship, he guided my head lightly, and I let him teach me.

"Your lips flutter like the wings of an angel."

I kissed his bulging knob.

"You taste like the nectar of the gods."

He hooked his thumbs over the waistband of my panties and slid them down, and I wriggled my ass to help him. His eyes momentarily widened when my secret was revealed, then he lofted my panties across the room onto the dresser.

"Two points," he said.

"From here, it's a three."

"Plus, a free throw."

The scrub of his whiskers on my skin and the wet tug of his of his mouth on my flesh me squirm with sensation. His fingers traced the curve of my ass to the crevasse between my cheeks.

"OK?" he asked.

My previous male sex partners had been rough and hasty. I had been used rather than pleased. Jake was making love to me. Waves of exquisite sensation and emotional ecstasy swept through me.

"Wait here while I freshen up."

Virtual Virginity

I cleansed, lubed, brushed my hair, glossed my lips, and grabbed a condom, but then put it away, deciding that Jake posed a negligible risk.

"I'm ready, take me."

He looked nervous.

"Never done this, have you?"

Guys love to think they're number one. I was virtually virginal, this was my first sex untainted by coercion or commerce. I nodded.

"Waiting for the perfect man."

"Don't want to hurt you."

"Start slow, see if I can handle it."

"I'll try."

I closed my eyes and controlled my breath.

"OK, go."

I blinked away blinding pain, breathed rhythmically, then a napalm blast erupted and engulfed me, incinerating my masculinity, scorching away the ghosts of my past and my fears for my future. He hammered and kneaded me like a sculptor shaping rough stone into a statue of a goddess. My eyes signaled him onward, and to transport me with him.

I'm Jake's maiden bride; my agony the pangs of my broken hymen. I summoned a tear, and Jake kissed it away like a caring husband sharing conjugal bliss on a honeymoon, not a quickie on an accidental layover.

I channeled pain into performance and conjured responses that he would never forget. I cried out for mercy to gods that I didn't believe in. I begged him to stop and then demanded more. I wept and whooped with pleasure in the same breath, he thrusted and parried like a swordsman in a duel until I was gasping for breath and spattered with his sweat.

I pursed my lips, and he leaned forward kiss me.

"Hurt?"

"So good."

New vistas of pain opened and transformed into avenues to greater pleasure. When he surged forward, I opened my inner spaces to him. My slender body shook like a rag doll as my torso absorbed shockwaves.

"So good, so tired."

"Combat training got me in good shape."

"I should work out more."

Our flesh slapped like waves of applause in a theater in which we were both the stars and the audience. I turned my face to meet his kisses, helpless and vulnerable, and for the first time, completely happy, frolicking in his arms like a wanton wood nymph.

The symphony of slapping flesh, cries, moans, grunts heaving breath reached a crescendo. Uncontrollable forces conquered both of our bodies. I heard my voice rise involuntarily from within me in a wordless language that only he could answer, with deep throated growls of his own as we simultaneously climaxed. Every neuron of my body electrified in response, then he slowed, sailing like a ship through the stormy sea that roiled inside me.

"I need to freshen up again."

Amy Vanderbilt hadn't recommended an open or closed door for a T-girl's toilette, so I compromised and left it ajar, and my butt sputtered. I laughed, embarrassed at my faux pas.

"I'll turn on the fan."

"No worries, natural to release gas after that. What's so funny?"

"The bigoted Republican senator who's the namesake of that cocktail."

"It's our toast to him."

"Alexandra, you're incredible."

"You bring out the best in me. Or is it the worst?"

"Whatever, you're superlative."

"You're great too."

"I think this bad boy needs a nap."

"A well-deserved rest."

Jake yawned, pulled a pillow over his head and soon was snoring. I was too preoccupied to sleep. I sleeplessly stared at the bad hotel art and the curdled asbestos ceiling. I imagined my future as an Air Force wife, moving every six months, living in crowded base housing and organizing bake sales for the benefit of war widows and orphans. During his deployments I would have to warehouse my sexual impulses, and afterwards subordinate my ambitions to the dictates of military orders. Was he worth it, or should I enter Jake in my back-catalog?

I slept in his arms until a text alert roused me.

"Detroit Airport reopened. Alexander Rios is confirmed on flight 563 at 8:00 a.m. Be ready in the lobby of your hotel at 5:00 a.m."

I had to fly to Detroit as Alex, and I didn't want him to see me that way, so I dressed in the dark and left without saying goodbye. I left a note with my cell phone number and email address encircled in a heart. In the crowded airport shuttle my night in Denver scrolled through my memory like a romantic fantasy. My future loomed like a blank page.

I phoned him from the gate and got his voicemail.

"Hi, it's Alexandra, boarding. Wish we'd had more time, maybe someday. Happy memories, though."

I couldn't call it love, for had I loved him, or the experience? He could be mutilated in an Afghan ambush, or the camaraderie of combat and the transphobia endemic in the military could change his mind. Love would burden both of us. We needed to be free.

"OK, that's all for now. Bye."

I wiped away a tear. I had been lucky to find Jake. Would I ever be so lucky again?