17 Larry by Stephanie Silver
C h a p t er 4
Belinda pulled the covers over her naked body and looked at the clock. It was a little past three-thirty. The afternoon sun through the window gave the room that lazy feel, just right for napping. Larry was asleep. She turned and looked at him. He’d promised her a few minutes. She hadn’t exactly looked at the clock or anything, but she knew it had been well over an hour now. She kissed him softly and smiled. “Men.”
She searched the room quickly and found her bra and panties. Moving carefully so as to avoid disturbing Larry, she got up and put them on. The panties were blue satin and were Larry’s favorites on her. Or off her, as so often was the case. The bra matched her panties. It was an underwire bra, not her favorite, but it matched the panties so it was hard not to wear it too. It had been a gift from Larry on her last birthday. She had expected a gift . She hadn’t expected it to be lingerie. She was even more surprised when it was a perfect match to the panties she already owned. Most men would have had t r o u b l e even coming close.
After dressing she slid back into bed next to Larry. It was okay to be naked during sex, but she felt more confident and feminine wearing pretty underthings.
The first email came... oh, about a week later. Just as Larry was beginning to give up on the idea. I refused to let him contact Belinda hims e l f . “ I wanted it to be her choice,” I insisted. But I a l s o told h i m I would do m y b e s t t o " s e l l " him to her. And I did.
That first email was only four paragraphs long, but Larry ne ver deleted it. Other than m e, it was the first time he'd ever felt like a girl was actually interested in him. Even though all she was doing was introducing herself.
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Dear Larry~
I got your name and contact information from a mutual friend of ours, Chris Thomas. She told me a little bit about you, so I hope you won't mind if I seem to know more than you think.
I know that you live in Lawton, Oklahoma and that you u s e d to be a bank manager, but no w raise horses. I live in Baltimore and work in sales and marketing for a small company here. I'm not too far from the Pimlico race track, where they have the Preakness horse race each year in May.
Chris tells me you are recently into health and fitness. What kind of activities do you enjoy most? She also told me that you are very quiet and shy. I might be a little shy until I get to know someone and feel comfortable with them, but quiet u s u a l l y isn't a word that describes me at all. I love to talk.
Email me back at this address if you're at all interested.
Belinda
Larry wrote back that same night. And he wasn’t a klutz. They started writing back and forth, and the emails gradually grew longer and longer. And more and more frequent. I knew, when a full t wo we eks – a fortnight - went by (how often do you get the chance to use fortnight in a sentence?) without Larry calling or sending me an email, that Belinda had taken my place.
Well, we all knew what was coming. One day Larry asked for a picture. He just wanted to get an idea what she looked like. I’m sure, by that point, he was attracted to the person in the emails and would have been satisfied with almost anything as far as looks. ALMOST anything. “What do I do?” asked Belinda in a panic.
Belinda stalled, buying time while we figured out what to do. At first she claimed that she just didn't have a picture t o s e n d . Later she claimed that she didn’t have one she felt comfortable sending. But Larry’s request was a reasonable one, and we knew
19 that eventually we were going to have to tell him the truth. About both of us.
At about the same time, or maybe a little before the picture became such an issue, Larry as ke d if he could call her on the phone. Again she declined, making up excuses that didn't alwa ys m a k e p e r f e c t sense, but did manage to postpone the issue.
At first Larry figured his new love interest was just shy. H e thought he might coax her out by sending her a picture of himself f i r s t . O r maybe she was careful. W ith caller ID, she might be wary of giving too much information to a virtual stranger, even one she’d been trading emails with for six months. It seemed reasonable. At least for a while.
B u t , eventually even Larry felt he'd proven his ability to be trusted.
“Let’s do it in a conferenc e c a l l , ” I suggested finally. “I tell him my secret, and then you tell him yours.”
And so we arranged this Internet video conference thing, using webcams for everybody. Larry logged in from Oklahoma, Derek and I were in Salt Lake, and Belinda logged in from Baltimore. And somehow all the electrons and bits and bytes managed to keep up, racing from one city to the next.
Belinda dressed up for the occasion, looking as much like a girl as s h e c o u l d . I thought she looked wonderful. She put on her cutest, frilliest blouse, lots of makeup, a red haired wig, and earrings. Once we got everyone there, and exchanged a few pleasantries, Belinda started, "Larry, there's something I need to tell you."
No, never a good sign. Larry didn’t have had a lot of experience dating, but even he kne w that any conversation that starts off that way is the start of something you don't want to hear. His first guess was that she was m a r r i e d
In my mind, I was supposed to go first. I suppose it didn’t really matter, but it just felt like I should go first, and then Belinda. Well, I’d known him longer. So, I interrupted before she could say anything e lse . “Larry, be fore she says anything , let me go first.”
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Larry didn't know what to think of that. Of course, why we were having this conversation in a four-way conference to begin with was already a question to which he needed an answer. I could see him getting confused-er and confused-er.
And then, and then! Derek, in this voice of amazing calm, interrupted both of us saying that maybe he should be the one to go first. Derek? What did he have to say? He was the only one of the three of us who didn’t have a secret. Well, unless you counted my secret as being partly his.
Derek starte d o f f by telling Larry that he really, truly loved m e, Chris, a n d that he was confident Larry knew t h a t . Larry nodded a n d w e n t, “Yeah.” Larry was always a man of few words.
Em p h a s i zing his point, Derek paused, givi n g m e that look like I wa s the most special thing he 'd e ver known. I love that look. But, u m , w e l l , w e ’ r e g e t t i n g off track here. This is Larry’s story, not mine.
So then Derek started telling Larry how he never thought of himself as gay, and still didn ' t . G a y ? The confused look on Larry’s f a c e t u r ned itself up another notch. I could see him thinking, “U h , o k a y . W h a t does that have to do with...” And then it’s like you could literally see the light bulb come on over his head.
Then it was my turn to t a k e o v e r . Belinda was sitting with her eyes c l o s e d . I t h ink she might have been praying, although... Belinda’s never mentioned anything to me about being the kind of person who prays a lot. But, sometimes... Well, it can’t hurt. I kind of felt bad right then. If she had had her way, she would have told him right from the beginning. So it was my fault. I made her promise not to tell him until things got serious. And now things were serious, and... I could see it was the kind of thing that should have been said much earlier.
So, um... to Belinda... I’m really sorry about tha t . O k a y ?
She said... Well, I won’t tell you what she said. It would give away the story. Maybe. Yeah. And now I see all these little light bulbs
21 appearing over all my readers’ heads right now because I’ve already said too much. It’s like those little four-watt nightlight bulbs, ‘cause this isn’t like a big ruin-the-story kind of thing. I mean, I think most of you probably guessed where the story was going pretty much from the beginning. Oops! And now a few more light bulbs come on. Okay, I’ll shut up now and get back to the story.
“Larry, I need to tell you something,” I s a i d . “ And I think I can trust you that this ne ver , e ve r goes be yond the four of us.”
I paused, giving Larry this extremely solemn look. W hich, in hindsight kind of makes me laugh, because... being solemn isn’t the kind of thing I do very well. But at that moment, it seemed like a solemn look was a good idea.
I waited for Larry to nod his understanding. I kind of expected him to say something, but, knowing Larry, I wouldn’t have gotten anything more than “okay” anyway, so once I got the nod, I figured that was enough. “I'm not a real girl. I'm a transvestite.”
Larry didn’t groan. At least not out loud. But his body slumped visibly in his chair. A transvestite? He looked like he w a n t e d t o t hrow up.
I kept going. Knowing when to shut up has never been one of my best qualities. “Larry, don't be mad. I live full-t i m e a s a w o m a n now, and the only ones who know are us, our families, and a few very close friends. So in a way, this is a compliment, because it means you're now one of our very closest friends.”
I was trying to put a good spin on it. It wasn’t working. He still looked sick. He was thinking back to that night on the cruise when I’d asked him to dance, and thinking, “So I was dancing with a man?”
Well, then it was Belinda's turn. She didn’t have much to say. “I’m a transvestite, too, Larry.”
Poor Larry. In all his life he'd been in love, really in love , wit h e xa ct ly t wo wo me n, and it turns out they w er e b o t h “m e n”. At
22 least that’s how he saw it. There wasn’t much point in trying to explain the difference between a man and a transvestite to him at that point. He was sick. Literally. He felt like his whole life was a joke. He went to bed without eating, and even skipped work the next day. I don't think he considered suicide. At least not s e r i o u s l y . B u t , y e a h , his will to live was pretty low.
Thanks Chris.
Okay, I said I was sorry. Next time I’ll know better. Give me a break. Besides, what am I supposed to do? Start going around introducing myself like this: Hi, I’m Chris Thomas and I’m not really a girl?
To be continued....
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