The Greatest Lie Part 4

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate being around people. Actually, I hate being alone: it brings out the weird self-critic inside me. But god, do I hate crowds. Fall registration brought mobs to the campus. The half-empty dormitory that I had shared with a few Asian engineering students was now thronged with muscular, masculine and boisterous freshman: ruddy farm boys, small town bourgeoisie, suburban kids and a sprinkling of hip hop urbanites. Almost all were Minnesotans, and as a Californian I was ignored as if I was from a different specie. Trapped, as I was, an impostor in this all-male world, I took comfort in solitude.

My summer school admission had secured me one of the few single rooms in the dorm. I stayed there behind closed doors during those first weeks amidst the rowdy rituals of male bonding that went on around the clock. I had been on estrogen nearly eight months now, now I had a well defined bust, soft slender arms, a slim waist and a rounded bottom. My hairdresser on Hennepin took out my cornrows cut my shoulder length hair into a white blond, new wave mullet. I wore punk clothes and affected an indifferent swagger; I could pull off the role of an effete west coast intellectual, above the rituals of male camaraderie.

I was not only isolated, but vulnerable. Meals were served buffet style in enormous, noisy halls, and I stood out from my tall, beefy classmates. Bathrooms were shared and crowded, and I was terrified that a classmate would catch sight of my nubile breasts as I entered or left a shower. I was not sure whether I would stir lust or revulsion from these unsophisticated but horny freshman, and either had terrifying and potentially dangerous consequences. I lived like a fugitive, brushing my teeth at the, and showering at 4 in the morning when my dorm mates were all passed out from alcoholic bingeing.

Jon was still freaking out about my self-administration of hormones, and admittedly, my intake had exceeded clinical parameters that I had researched.