Our Best Sex
My head is a shiny latex balloon. My eyes are swollen. The bruised skin is glossy like a freshly patinated bronze sculpture. I cannot see. Liv takes a polaroid photo of me holding a bouquet—pink anthurium, white delphinium, and yellow carnations. The flowers are a gift. I’m not sure who sent them. There is a card I cannot read yet. Funny. I look exactly like my dad weeks after his own facial reconstruction surgeries in this photo. This is tragic because I went under the knife so that I would no longer resemble a man. And because my dad’s surgeries were unwitting, the result of another driver falling asleep at the wheel and drifting into oncoming traffic, hitting my father’s Jeep head on. Fitting, I suppose, that I will look like him one last time.
I sip the ginger ale the nurse offers me when I wake up from anesthesia. He explains I need to use the bathroom before I can be discharged. His homosexual vocal fry is comforting. He is the same nurse who listed all his favorite musicals during my preoperative prep—Rent, West Side Story, Wicked. He misunderstood me. I work for a performing arts nonprofit but not that kind of performing arts. I was too anxious to explain this difference.
Liv walks me to the bathroom and helps me sit down on the toilet. I am self conscious she will see me naked and that this will change the dynamic of our relationship. My cock looks vulnerable, wrinkly and pink like a featherless baby bird. The nurse helps transfer me to her car in the parking structure. She drives me home during rush hour. Another driver honks and tries to get our attention. He must have noticed my bandaged, swollen head. Naturally, I would be curious, too. My reaction is delayed. I give the middle finger to no one.
Z comes after he finishes work. I eat applesauce. My teeth ache. The compression bandage pushes the swelling and pressure inward making me feel like a pimple being squeezed between an index finger and thumb. I am so nauseous. I don’t want to throw up. My throat is sore from being intubated for eight hours. The thought of stomach acid flowing across my inflamed trachea makes me shiver. I can barely speak above a whisper. Z confesses it’s endearing, my meekness.
Liv empties my surgical drain. I try to send her $100 through Venmo. Z stops me. He reminds me that the nurse told me not to make any major decisions or purchases for 24 hours. I am indignant. It is a gift. She waited in the lobby during the entirety of the procedure. I tell Z that I love him while we hug at the end of my bed. His fleece Patagonia jacket’s texture reminds me of my dad. I start crying. I am unable to distinguish whether these tears are related to my love, the pain, or both. It’s possible I am flooded with emotion and imbuing everyone around me with the personal significance of this moment. They are witnesses of and accomplices in my transformation, making it both possible and tangible.
Someone brings me my phone. I check my text messages and email. There is an email from Howard Brown. It contains the results from my STI panel. Chlamydia: Positive. Ok. I am nonplussed. Maybe because of the opiates. I ask Z if he can pick up the antibiotics. It is the least he can do. He passed the infection to me the first time we had sex. Neither of us were working. He slept over after Dollar Beer Night. He asked me if I wanted to see a video of him fucking another trans girl. I said no and then changed my mind. I felt triumphant. It was December. After six months of courtship, we were finally having sex. We were like an uncorked bottle of Prosecco erupting in a pillar of foam. He didn’t wear a condom. We watched ourselves in my full-length IKEA mirror. He took a photo. Our best sex happened like this, through a screen, as if we only found the image of us fucking stimulating rather than the actuality.
I started my cycle of antibiotics before Z. We weren’t supposed to have sex for a week after we both finished treatment. But we risked it anyway. He wore a condom this time. It didn’t matter I guess. I wonder if I should ask my surgeon if the doxycycline will interfere with my other medications. His office calls me, but I am asleep. I forget. The pharmacist tells Z that I’m not supposed to eat dairy with antibiotics. He relays this to me. I cry again. Sleep is impossible. I have to keep my head elevated. I have feverish nightmares and sweat through my t-shirt. Z leaves in the middle of the night. He has to work in the morning. He brings me a McDonald’s Shamrock Shake the next day.
We celebrate Z’s birthday five days after my surgery. Liv bakes a chocolate whiskey cake and tops it with caramel frosting. I cannot remember if I told her he likes whiskey. Or if she just decided on a masculine flavor palate. I hover and offer to help. She lets me garnish the cake with dried floral from one of my bouquets. Siobhan joins us. She fawns over my face and tells me that I look Eastern European. Liv braided my hair after helping me wash it. Both of us were shocked by the amount of hair I lost, watching it clump around the drain. I am still wearing a nose cast. My eyelids are puffy and purplish. I make Z wear a metallic pink party hat and pose for a polaroid photo. We sing happy birthday to him. I feel guilty. He is spending all his evenings caring for me. I promise him I will do something more extravagant to celebrate his birthday next year. I never imagine we will not be together next winter. I imagine I will change. I do in some ways: I become a girl. I become a girlfriend. I become an ex-girlfriend.
Image: Salman Toor, Boys with Pink Bedsheets and Sock, 2021.
Current obsession: Qiu Miaojin’s Notes of a Crocodile. The novel is set in 1980’s post-martial law Tapei and follows Lazi, a college student who pines after her classmate Shui Ling.