The Greatest Lie

by Alexandra Rios

 

Chapter 16

Family Values

 

They say that life is about making choices. But we humans don't get to choose the two most important factors in our lives. We don't get to choose our genes, so I got stuck with XY chromosomes. And we don't get to choose our natal families, so I got stuck with my mother and father.

My father, Eduardo Rios, is a handsome, renowned AIDS researcher. My mother, Katrina Eriksson, is a beautiful and vivacious doyenne of talk show pop psychology. I am a child prodigy. I suppose, if you could choose a family, you might mistakenly choose mine. And if parents could pick their babies, I could even suppose two loving parents might mistakenly pick me. "Caveat emptor." You never know what you're getting until it's too late.

When Eduardo and Katrina met, my mom was a Swedish foreign student eager to reject the boring moral certainties of Stockholm. My father was a refugee from Pinochet's right wing purge in Chile. They hooked up as grad students at Berkeley in the late seventies, radical politics blended with wanderlust, spiced with cocaine- and Quaalude-laced Seventies disco fever.

Twenty years and a generation passed. Their baby boomer cohort, once skinny, radical hippies, had evolved, first into the dressed-for-success yuppies of the Eighties and then into conservative, overweight religious stalwarts of the second Bush administration. My father had become a conference and bed-hopping academic research superstar. He had parlayed his role on the UCLA team that had isolated HIV into a sinecure with the permanent perquisite of seducing the prettiest of his graduate students. My mom had traded her Nordic good looks and tenured post in USC's psych department into an afternoon TV talk show on Fox. There, she blathers to menopausal woman about cherishing and nurturing their inner pre-adolescent selves.

They led parallel lives as minor celebrities, and expected their brilliant child to retrace the footsteps of their bourgeois success, but to forego their youthful peregrinations.

It was inevitable that I would disappoint them. As I mentioned, unless you adopt, you don't get to pick your offspring. So my parents got me, and I'm a post-op transsexual. What's more, I'm a girl with an insatiable appetite for danger, bad boys and big dicks.

When I chose to follow the dictates of my female gender, my family exploded. My father's wrath at my experimentation with a female identity pushed forward my tendencies rather than repressing them. His impotent anger turned into blame and then rejection of my mother and hatred of me.

Instead of hating me, he should have thanked me for providing him a convenient excuse for finally rejecting her and hooking up with his most beautiful and wealthy graduate student. But that would only happen in a just world. In reality, my father repudiated me for my decision to pursue my transsexual destiny. I repudiated him for abandoning my mother for his beautiful French grad student. Rather than suffering an academic scandal over what he'd done, he abandoned his academic post—to become a capitalist grandee. My father sold his academic reputation to IDS, a Swiss pharmaceutical giant, which just happened to be chaired by his new girlfriend's father.

My mom reacted to rejection by emulating the lover who had replaced her, and the daughter who had replaced her son. She spent her marital settlement on a plastic surgery binge that restored the beauty of her youth rather convincingly. Then she hooked up a rich, doting real-estate millionaire.

Was the fault mine or theirs? Was it destiny, random recombination of DNA, or were we the playthings of some malevolent deity? This question is more than metaphysics to me. In a fumbling and ultimately futile effort to lay claim to my male identity, I had fathered an illegitimate child. Her mother, Marta, was my beautiful, but very blue-collar high school classmate. Alyssa Rodriguez, as my daughter was now known, had my blue eyes and blonde hair, but she lived in the barrio with Marta and her gangbanger husband, my high school nemesis and porno co-star, Miguel.

My family was an incendiary mix, and I was the spark. Could I avoid repeating the same cycle of alienation and mutual destruction as a parent of my accidental love child, Alyssa? Or was I destined to play the roles of both Antigone and Creon, rebellious daughter and destructive father, in one tragedy?

 

Ambitious endeavors have unintended consequences. I needed to top my parents' academic achievements with my own. As a freshman, I researched and published a scientific paper on the sex practices of transsexuals at the University of Minnesota. I parlayed that success into a grant to continue my research among the katoey, or ladyboy sex workers of Thailand.

Did I forget to mention that I needed a trip to Phuket for me and my girlfriend Tran to complete our sex-reassignment surgeries? We were a little short on cash, but we made up the difference shooting pornos in Los Angeles. I guess I just can't get enough fame.

But my Thai transgender sex worker project collapsed on the diseased and violent streets of Chiang Mai. Our research had uncovered a dirty secret: my research subjects were dying from the malfeasance of a monstrous, greedy corporation, Spartan LLC. Spartan was a Thai-American multinational that promoted nonoxynol 9 (N9) for AIDS prevention for Third World sex workers. Its own research, which I rediscovered, proved that N9 promoted the spread of AIDS, especially when used by transsexuals and gays for anal sex.

The Thai sponsors of Spartan condemned me as a drug trafficker, and it used its connection to the corrupt Thai Army to turn the violence of the Thai drug war against the surviving victims of its first study, my collaborators, Tran and our Thai friend Nancee, and me. We found ourselves on the dreaded drug blacklist: fair game for "ying ting," officially sanctioned murder.

Nancee and I escaped across the wild border of Thailand and Burma and became hostages to outlaws, first to a band of brutal Wa Army drug smugglers, and then to a group of violent Karen rebels. Tran was stranded in the northern mountains of Thailand.

The Karens delivered Nancee and me to a lonely outpost of the "Medicins Sans Frontieres", where I met and seduced a French AIDS doctor, Alain Richard. He arranged for me and Nancee to elude the corrupt Thai police and vicious Burmese war lords by engaging us as nurses to Lizette, a French medical intern who Dr. Richard suspected was stricken with the deadly SARS virus. We risked infection, and faced two weeks of quarantine, but the Thai border police had no desire to examine the exit papers of the two masked, gowned and gloved nurses who were taking the SARS patient to die at her home in Switzerland.

But the infectious disease research community is a small world. Alan Richard's boss was named Dr. Eduardo Rios. We would be quarantined with the patient, Lizette, at his institute. My means of escape from Thailand had placed me back in the custody of my despised father.

 

I looked across the cabin of the corporate Gulfstream IV at my sleeping colleague. We had shed our gowns as soon as we had gotten Lizette settled, and were just wearing our whites. In her spotless nurse's dress and cap Nancee would have looked just the part of the pretty, young Asian nurse, jetting off for a tour of guest work in Europe. Her N-95 mask made a jarring contrast to her picture-book appearance.

Our patient, Lizette, slept fitfully on her sofa bed just ahead of us. She took shallow breaths through her oxygen mask.

"This is the only way to fly. I love 'Gulfstream IV Airlines.'" Nancee looked at her cheap plastic watch. "Time for us to take another ribavirin and prednisone."

"Gulfstream is name of a plane, not an airline, Nancee. I think I'm going to pass on the prednisone, even though it's helped Lizette's breathing. I feel like I've over-amped on amphetamine."

"Good, I'll take another nap. I'll owe you another shift." Nancee stretched back on her oversize recliner. Shortly, her chest rose and settled with Zen breathing.

I picked up the cabin phone and called the pilots. "How much longer until our next stop?"

"Dubai in two hours ten." Although it was luxurious and fast, with a range of only 4,000 miles the Gulfstream IV was not up for a nonstop Bangkok to Lucerne run. But I savored every moment as a deferral of my inevitable confrontation with my father. Prednisone fueled my anxiety—I would do without. I was relieved when Lizette stirred and spoke.

"God, I feel awful. Can you get me a glass of water?"

I handed her a chilled Evian, and she took a sip. Lizette said, "God, I dreamed about this Evian a thousand times. It's so good it makes me forget how bad I feel.

"I wish I had a potion that would make me forget my troubles, too"

Lizette took another swig. "Why are you so glum? At least you are out of Thailand and headed back to civilization."

"I am dreading a most unwelcome family reunion," I said. "My father is the research director at IDS."

"So you are related to the famous Dr. Rios. My sister Sophie never told me I had a sister-in-law. Or are you a niece?"

"It's a long story. My father and I are not close. In fact, we don't speak."

"She mentioned he had an estranged son, but…" Lizette stopped short. "It's you, isn't it?"

"Congratulations, you're the first person ever to clock me."

"It's not the way you look or act: I just reasoned it out. Don't worry. You look, well, better than perfect." She whispered, "sotto voce," "Nancee, too?"

I nodded, as my sleeping friend emitted a most unladylike snore.

"I can't wait to get well, so I can get to know you better. I'd like to know a girl who was once a boy. Do you like girls and boys?"

"I like some girls, and some boys. I think I'll like you when you are healthy and well again."

She clasped my hand in hers and pulled it toward her tiny breasts. "I must be getting better, because for the first time in days, I'm feeling, how do you call it, horny."

"That's no doubt a sign that you are feeling better. But for now, you must rest. When you're well, we can get to know one another better. That'll be your reward for being a good patient." Lizette's eyes sparkled above her oxygen mask.

"I can't wait to see you without your mask, so I can see how pretty you really are," she said.

"'Moi aussi,'" I said.

When we landed at Lucerne we got the same perfunctory immigration check as we had in Bangkok. The policeman's innate curiosity was much diminished when the object of his scrutiny was potentially a SARS carrier.

Wordless, fearful ICF personnel met us and whisked us into a negative pressure room, a room kept at lower atmospheric pressure than the surrounding building: the way the air flowed pulled the pathogens we exhaled away from the world, and into an exhaust gas sterilizer.

Nancee, Lizette and I were alone again.

"Nancee, it is good that we are such good friends."

"I agree, Alexandra, but why do you say that?"

"Because now, we will languish here as prisoners for ten days, until SARS has had had its chance to kill us or leave us alone. We will be on constant display for the curious doctors and staff of ICF, who will do their utmost to avoid contact with us."

Nancee smile disappeared into a pout. "We escape Thailand, only to become prisoners here? Why?"

"We are here so we can be isolated from the Swiss, who dread foreigners as a matter of instinct. And we are here to be studied by my father. He heads a team of SARS researchers. He hopes to duplicate his triumph over AIDS with of our presumed SARS cases>"

Nancee looked at me with astonishment. "Your father had AIDS?"

"No, he discovered what caused it, and feels others stole his credit. Now, he wants to be the first to identify the SARS virus."

"I thought we were here to be treated."

"Are you kidding? He is probably hoping that we get it."

"You are being too paranoid. They're really very nice here." Nancee took a third pass at the afternoon snack of tea and pastries.

"I'd go easy on those powdered sugar things. You have no idea how fattening western food is. I pointed to a middle-aged Swiss nurse in the observation area. "Look at that overstuffed Swiss sausage: that butt could be yours if you have one of those a day for a month."

Nancee patted my cheek. "Don't be such a grouch. You're just worried about meeting your father, aren't you?" I nodded, and squeezed my eyelids tight. She hugged me gently, and murmured "You know it's inevitable that he will come. Just adapt. Misery with parents is part of life." Nancee wai-ed and bowed to the small Buddha that she'd put on her bedside table.

She knew better than most the vicissitudes of fate. Her own parents had driven her from her village to Chiang Mai when her own ladyboy side had emerged. She had survived, and prospered as a somsee, or sex worker, for almost ten years. Then, her whoring path had crossed my own, just as I conceived my grandest plan, collecting the sexual history of katoey whores of Thailand. She had returned to school, and had become my trusted associate in my study. Through my miscalculation, the study had turned us into fugitives from Thai injustice. But her karma was good: we escaped a deadly fate, first as captives of either the corrupt Thai police, then as prisoners of the villainous Wa army. Now, Nancee was a heroine to the Swiss doctors who were to treat us.

We only needed to confirm that we were unscathed by our exposure to the deadly SARS virus by enduring a ten-day quarantine here. Then, Nancee could live the Thai whore's dream—to be a Thai sex princess to a wealthy European trannie lover.

"After I marry Dr. Jacques, I will get a Swiss passport as a woman. Then I will return to Thailand and demand that my family address me with Be-chun instead of Pom."

"Dr. Jacques may marry you, and he would be a lucky man if he did. But in Western society a girl has to learn to fend for herself." But my words of caution could not dim the smile of blissful contentment that had graced Nancee's face.

I was happy for my friend's happiness, but I couldn't share it. I was neglecting too many problems of my own during this forced sabbatical. "Don't let me ruin your meal. Enjoy your first days in the West. I suppose we both lost weight on our trek through the Thai mountains," I finished off, by way of conciliation.

Nancee pointed to a slice of butter cream torte that had collapsed to the platter when she her piece. "You must try this. It's the best thing I've ever eaten."

I gave her a skeptical look, and she said "I mean food, not cock. Try it." She licked a stray bit of cream from her exquisitely curved upper lip. "Mmm, better than cum."

I shook my head. "I'm too worried to eat. It's been hours since I called L.A., and I still haven't heard anything." Moments later, a nurse tapped a cell phone on the window and wordlessly put it into the air lock. It was a call from my mother.

"Oh darling, we hadn't heard from you for days, and when we called that horrible school you chose there, they told us that you and Tran had been expelled. What are you doing in Switzerland? Will you visit your father?"

"I'm locked up for ten days of quarantine at his institute here in Lucerne. I got exposed to SARS in Thailand. Actually, I'm expecting him at any minute." I looked up as a masked, white suited figure strode past the glassy walls of the isolation ward

"SARS? Oh dear, that's terrible."

"I'm sure Father won't let me die. He wouldn't want to miss the chance to torment me more."

"Oh, darling, don't be silly. Do try to patch things up with him. You have far more in common with one another than either of you would care to admit."

"I'll quote you on that. How are Alyssa and Marta?"

"Oh dear, that hasn't worked out as well as we had hoped. I mean, Marta and the baby are wonderful, but we've had such a time with the nannies. I think they are stealing," she whispered.

"Who cares, they're poor and you and Cole are rich. I don't know how he can even keep track of all of his loot."

"That's not the point. And I know I'm right, because when I left money in places around the house, it disappeared."

"You mean you set them up? Mother, that's disgusting."

"I'm so glad you agree. Well, I fired the last girl, and Marta needed to be able to go to school, so she is staying at her mother's until we find someone new."

I gasped. "You can't do that! Marta's mom lives in the frigging Crenshaw district, right in the middle of the 16^th Street Gang's turf! She's a sitting duck for Miguel!" I tried not to hyperventilate. I managed to control my breathing enough to hear her answer.

"Well, I really don't see any alternative. I mean, I can't stay in, and Marta needs to finish her education."

"Mom, it's your grandchild you are putting at risk! And I'm stuck here in SARS isolation for another week!"

"I'll do my best. But we are guests here in Cole's home, and I owe it to him to maintain high standards. I hope you agree with me, as the parent of a young child."

"Alyssa needs a safe environment. I'm sure Cole doesn't really care about a few bucks lying around his house. He's probably got a few million more where those came from."

"I haven't even discussed it with him. He's looking at a project in Alaska. I know he would support my decision."

"Well, then, you have plenty of time to look for a new nanny."

"Dear, let's not start comparing schedules. Mine is just impossible for the next week."

"Well, I can't very well interview them from here. Have I gotten any packages from Thailand, or have you been too busy to check the mail?" I asked with faux indulgence.

"Yes dear, the other day, a package arrived from Chiang Mai."

"What is it, can you tell?"

"If I open it I'll ruin my manicure. Wait a minute. It's been opened and resealed by Customs. The Custom's form says it's just a laptop." I pumped my fist and whispered to Nancee, "Tran sent us the laptop."

"What did you say, honey?" my Mom asked. "Do you need me to open it?"

"No, just put it in a safe place. It has some very valuable data on it."

"Now tell me the truth, why were you expelled from that horrid school? They claimed it was for drugs!"

"No, but it wasn't my fault, and I'm sure the University of Minnesota won't care. Some important people didn't appreciate my research, and they claimed we were drug dealers. The research that proves that the drug charges were just retaliation is saved on my computer, so put it someplace safe. We wouldn't want the new nanny to steal it!"

"Now you see my point, darling. It begins with a few dollars, and then it's the family jewels. I'll lock it up and call a new nanny agency just as soon as I have a free moment. Now, I need to meet my girlfriends at Barney Greengrass. And you know the traffic getting into Beverly Hills. Bye, darling."

"Bye, Mom, I love you too." I hung up and joined Nancee for a pastry and a cup of tea.

"I think Tran made it back to the hooch, and managed to get the computer into the U.S."

"I told you that our karma was good. We will get plenty of rest and they will take care of us here, and we will be healthy, you will see. And by the time we are out of here, Tran will be safe too. Eddie can do it. He likes her to much to lose her."

I managed a smile. "Thanks for your calming influence, Nancee."

We heard a tap at the window, and masked nurse said "The director of this institute would like to meet and thank you for helping with the rescue of our ailing backpack nurse. She is doing well, thanks to you, and she is a much beloved friend of our staff. Please wait here."

A masked, silver-haired doctor appeared at the window. I translated his French for Nancee. "Thank you, honored guests of our institute, for your heroism and bravery in the face of a dread disease. My beloved daughter Lizette lives today because of your sacrifices. You have manifested heroism and ingenuity worth of the finest traditions of this Institute. We hope to have the pleasure of your company in happier circumstances than these, and accordingly we invite you to intern with us at your convenience. We have applied for work permits and visas for you."

Nancee smiled and made a wai to honor her benefactor.

I bowed and said "We too are honored by such a treasured opportunity to improve our minds and the world in the company of such brilliant and dedicated scientists. But it was we who were honored, in giving help to one whom, like Lizette, dedicated, and sacrificed herself in service to the oppressed peoples of Burma. We thank you, and our own good fortune, for the honor of allowing us to ally ourselves in your noble cause."

When the director's translator had finished, he made a deep bow, and led his entourage in a round of applause. Then he spoke briefly again, looking me directly in my eyes. "We are also honored to have as a colleague one who speaks and acts as beautifully as she appears. I am sorry that our public obligations necessitate your remaining with us these ten days of quarantine, and I extend to you our hospitality and best wishes for your continued health." With a flash of Gallic passion in his eyes, he bowed again and left, obviously overcome with emotion.

Nancee hugged me. "Does that mean we're invited to stay here? I can't believe what good karma you have brought me. A fantastic lover, and a new home away from that mess in Thailand."

"Both of us just got job offers here, but I can't take mine yet. I've got to get back to my mess in the U.S." I heard the tap at the observation window again. I returned, and instantly recognized the masked visitor who fidgeted alone on the other side of the glass.

"You let down your mask. You can seduce my doctors in Thailand, and the director in his own institute, but to try to do so with me is futile." My father addressed me with a note of low menace in his voice.

I shook my head in disbelief, struck speechless by his wrathful greeting.

"When Dr. Richard told me of his romantic encounter with the transsexual student from Los Angeles, I suspected it was you that had run amok, and now it is obvious."

"Your colleagues all seem to think I have earned high praise, and brought honor to you as well."

"That's always your way, isn't it? Make a chaotic mess of something, pretend you intended it, escape by shifting the consequences to others, and then and claim it as a brilliant invention. Alex, you have no discipline. That is why you will always leave a path of devastation in your wake. In time, your alleged achievements will prove hollow, but you will be off creating a fresh catastrophe."

The blow stung, as I thought of my beloved friend Tran, a fugitive in Thailand, and the poor victims of the Spartan study, spending their dying days in Thai drug prisons, or slaughtered in the streets.

"I should have known better than to expect any gratitude or praise from you." Tears came to my eyes despite my effort to remain dry-eyed and dispassionate.

"Praise for what: getting caught stealing your data from another researcher, fleeing the country as a wanted criminal, and then sleeping your way to freedom with one of my protégés? You continue to find new ways to humiliate me. When your mother told me of your so-called research project, I knew to expect disaster, but you have exceeded my worst fears." My father waved an angry finger at me through the glass of the isolation ward.

"You wish I had been killed by the bandits in Burma, or by the Thai police."

"Alex, you are bent on slow suicide, and destroying in the process everything around you."

"I didn't do anything wrong. Spartan was covering up a pseudoscientific fraud that had ended in disaster, and I exposed their crime. My only mistake was in asking my advisor. I didn't know she was part of the cover-up."

My father eyes were filled with mockery. "I would advise you not to judge others so harshly and prematurely, when you have proven nothing, and all of your work is based on theft. A scientist's data is his, until he publishes it. But I suppose that's only one of many things that I taught you that you have chosen to forget, or ignore. Truly, you are not the child that I fathered, or raised. As I said last fall, you are not my," his voice broke, as he searched for the proper noun, and he choked out "child, anymore."

"Even now, you can't accept me as what, and whom I am?"

"Never! And you would be advised to never try to avail yourself of our director's offer of an internship, although I suppose I cannot hold your sins against your friend. She is as much your victim as everyone else whose lives you disrupt." With those words, Dr Eduardo Rios left me.

When I returned, Nancee noticed that my eyes were red rimmed with tears. She hugged me, and the warmth and calm that emerged from within her gradually stilled my tumultuous emotions. "What hurts, my beautiful child?"

"Nothing, now" I said. "It's just that my father has no son, and his daughter has no father. We are strangers now."

"It is sad, that so many of we ladyboys have no family but one another. But it helps to have one another," Nancee said wistfully. Because her own family had expelled her as a child, elder "aunts," older katoey who helped her in her early transition, had become her "de facto" parents. Most of her katoey "aunts" had perished in the early stages of Thailand's AIDS epidemic, when the government had ignored and suppressed the news about the disease. In me and Tran, she had found a new family to replace that lost generation. She was inoculated against the pain that I was learning to endure.

The recollection that we were alone in the world, bereft of our parental families, reminded me that Tran was separated from us by six thousand miles of airspace and a hostile army of Thai police thugs. Tears began to form in my eyes again.

Nancee hugged me harder in silent recognition, smoothing my hair and gently massaging my temples. My emotions began to settle, and my thoughts became orderly. The pieces of a plan began to assemble. I tried to contain my excitement, and to let my creative process evolve to a solution, and then I worked backward and forward over my plan, as Nancee stroked my burning temples. I opened my eyes to see hers closed in concentration on the exquisite scalp massage that she was giving me.

When she opened her eyes, I said, "Thank you, I have to make a phone call now." I did a mental calculation. It was 10:30 a.m. in Minneapolis: the perfect time to catch Professor Martin Epstein before he began grilling his first year criminal law students.

The ring tone purred fitfully over the tenuous overseas phone connection. A gruff, caffeinated voice answered rudely: "What do you want?"

"Professor Epstein, this is Alexandra Rivers, your student from last spring semester," I said timidly.

His tone changed instantly. "Ms. Rivers, I had feared we had lost you forever to the realm of social science. It's nice to hear from you, though I barely can." He complained still, but sounded happy.

"Sorry for the poor connection. I'm in Switzerland, in health quarantine," I replied.

"Mmmm, I had some recollection about Thailand. Change of plans?"

"That's why I'm calling. In the course of our research, we discovered that a condom maker has been killing its customers with its products, and its owned by a powerful Thai general, so we had to, well, leave via an informal route, and we got out to Switzerland, but we may have been exposed to this horrible new SARS disease, so we're quarantined, except for my friend Tran, and she's trapped in Thailand, and we're all falsely branded as drug criminals by the Thai police, because they're in the pay of Spartan."

"Wait a minute, first tell me about this corporate scandal." I explained how we had discovered the N-9 list, and how its subjects had been shockingly disease-prone even by the standards of third world sex workers. I described how our number-crunching session had led us to Aom's horrifying revelation of the death toll that N-9 had exacted. I tried not sounding sheepish as I told of how I'd foolishly trusted my advisor, and of the pogrom and harassment by Thai police that had ensued.

"I believe what you are telling me, but how can you prove it?" Epstein asked.

"Tran sent my laptop to in L.A., and then there's Aom, the Thai t-girl that ran Spartan's original study—that is, if she's still alive."

"One of my former students, Dan Charleston, is a young partner in plaintiff's firm in Santa Monica. I'll have him take custody of the computer. Then, we've got to extricate Tran and this Aom from Thailand. I have a good friend in the State Department. Perhaps I could get them to issue a visa for your friend Aom."

I could hear in his excited tones that the canny law professor was smitten by the prospect of another battle. "You know this Spartan LLC, it's a joint venture between a Thai consortium and one of our own local corporate pillars. I'd love to pin this tale on that donkey," he cackled. "But we have to build our case, and for that we'll need Tran, to prove the chain of custody on the data in your computer, and your friend Aom. If you could get them to into Malaysia, I have a friend in the embassy there, and we could get them a visa to back to the States. With enough money changing hands in Malaysia, they won't ask too many questions about how our friends got there in the first place."

I calculated that I could extract one more favor from Eddie Liang, our crime lord friend, especially if it brought him more time alone with Tran and the prospect of a further encounter with me.

"Does their arrival in the third country have to be, like, official?"

"It really doesn't matter as far as entry into the U.S. is concerned, as long as they don't get deported or incarcerated before we get them their visas into the US. I'll need your affidavit to obtain the visas, so please start preparing a factual statement right away," he said as he hung up.

I called the duty nurse for the director's number, and had a word with his secretary, who wrote up our conversation into a request to borrow a laptop.

My request to the director was honored later that day. I started working as soon as I had the computer. I wrote my story in neatly numbered paragraphs, starting from our discovery of the HIV pandemic among the subjects the aborted Spartan study, through our innocent disclosure of our discovery to Spartan, by way of Professor Pranatop, and finally of the murderous cover-up that had ensued.

Whenever I took a break, I called Eddie's cell phone number, but to my increasing distress, I only got the faint buzzing of unanswered ring tones. As I worked, I followed the horrifying progress of the Thai drug war on Reuters and the Guardian, and the sugarcoated versions on bangkokpost.com. With each new look at the worsening news from Thailand, I conjectured ever more dire fates for Tran, Aom, and Eddie. On about the hundredth call, Eddie's voice finally materialized, sounding like a ghost in an echo chamber.

"Alexandra, is that you? We thought you were dead, when I got the report that your guides had been killed. Where are you?"

"Switzerland, with Nancee. We got exposed to SARS, and now they've got us in a ten-day SARS quarantine, but I think we're OK. Is Tran OK?"

"She's right here. Hey Tran, take my cock out of your mouth and say hello to your friend."

I heard Tran protest vehemently in the background. When she grabbed the phone from Eddie, her first words were "That Eddie is such a pig! Alexandra, are you OK?"

"I guess we all must be OK, since Eddie has reverted to his usual bad manners. Where are you?"

"We're on his boat off Phuket. Other than the facts that it's monsoon season, I'm seasick, and dying of boredom, everything is great. Thanks for your voicemail; I avoided the police, and went straight to Eddie. I even DHL-ed the computer."

"My mom got it. That was awesome."

"Alexandra, how am I supposed to get out of here? We're all still on the drug blacklist."

"I've got an idea. Do you remember that crazy law professor of mine, Epstein? He thinks we can get you a transit visa through a third country through some contacts of his in the State Department. All you have to do is get to a friendly third country. He suggested Malaysia."

Tran said aside to Eddie "Hey, can you take me on a cruise to Malaysia on this boat?"

Eddie grabbed the phone and replied. "Sure, this is our smuggling boat. Faster than anything that the Thai or Malaysian navies have. I'll make some arrangements for a crew and cargo."

"Eddie, you're not going to…"

"I have to make the trip pay for itself. My family business isn't a charity, you know."

I had the uncomfortable feeling that I might be increasing the problem rather than solving it, but I had another favor to ask.

"Speaking of cargo, I have to ask you to bring another passenger."

"Switzerland's landlocked, Alexandra."

"Not me! There is a t-girl named Aom, living in the Rosepaper dorm at Chiang Mai. She was blacklisted too. I need her for a court case in the U.S. Can you retrieve her and bring her with you?"

"Alexandra, you're too much!" Eddie exclaimed. "Anything else?"

"Well, she might want to bring her sister, Chris. And Aom's got AIDS, so she may need some medicine."

"And we'll need plenty of condoms," Eddie laughed.

"Eddie, I'll really owe you for this," I said seductively.

"Do I get a US visa too? I know I'll never collect my reward if I wait for you to return to Thailand."

"I'll write something into my statement that will make the lawyers want your testimony, so they'll get a visa for you, too. But no contraband into the U.S., right?"

"Nothing that you wouldn't be proud to wear around your beautiful throat," Eddie said graciously.

"I'll do my best. Really, I can't wait to see you again. But Nancee and I are stranded here in a SARS quarantine for another week. I'll call you back when Epstein figures out where your friendly port is."

Moments after I hung up, one of the nurses tapped on the isolation ward window again, and told me I had a call on the satellite phone from Camp du Mer. My heart leapt as I dialed into the connection. It was my protector and new lover, Alain Richard.

"Bonjour ma chérie," he whispered. "Merci beaucoup pour prende nôtre amie, Lizette, sur vôtre journee dangereuse." [Thank you very much for taking our friend Lizettte on your dangerous voyage.]

"My only regret our voyage that I had to leave you behind, so far away."

"Moi aussi, [me too.]" Switching to English, he said "You and Nancee are very brave. I understand the medical staff abandoned her to you completely."

"Yes, they and the steward were complete cowards. It was just the three of us, but we had a pretty easy time. The medicine you gave her worked reasonably well. By the time we were on the jet, it was almost like a party. Lizette's hilarious. Not at all what I would expect from the daughter of a corporate plutocrat."

"She's a rebel, like you," he said. "I admire that quality in you. Alas, I am more lover than fighter. I suppose you must have inherited some of your Father's indomitable spirit," Alan said wistfully.

"My Father has spoken of me to you?" I asked apprehensively.

"He objected most vigorously to our relationship and warned me against you. It is natural for parents and children of your age to be at odds, but it doesn't make it any more palatable."

"He doesn't have the right to do or say anything. He cheated on my mother incessantly, and finally dropped her for a slutty French grad student," I said bitterly.

"That's the daughter of your host that you are maligning, Lizette's sister Sophie."

"I know, Lizette told me all about it. She prefers her American step-cousin to her American uncle. But how about you? Does my father command your loyalty and love, or do I.?"

"Alexandra, I cannot presume to interfere in the affairs of your family. You must overcome his objections. I cannot defy him."

"You're just afraid it will hamper your brilliant career at ICF. I can't believe this."

"I will help you in any way to restore yourself in your Father's eyes, but in the meantime, it is best if we put our affaire on hold. I am sorry."

"Alain, if you abandon me now, when I am helpless and alone, you abandon me forever."

"It is your choice to make, Alexandra, not mine."

"You don't care about me. You were just using us, first for sex, and then for slave labor."

"Please don't resent me. I will never forget you. Au revoir."

Nancee heard my sobs and came to comfort me. "That was Alain, wasn't it?"

I nodded weakly, and said "It's over. He used my father as his excuse, but who knows. I guess I looked better while we were in bed than in retrospect."

"That bastard," Nancee said sympathetically. I decided to let her keep her Jacques fantasy alive, although I suspected it was as dead as my love for Alain. The nurse tapped the window, to announce a satellite phone call for Nancee. I decided to let her hear her own fate in solitude, but I was not surprised when I heard her burst into tears and begin cursing Jacque in a mixture of English, Thai, Karen, and the smattering of French Lizette and I had taught her on the plane. Then, it was my turn to smooth her hair and stroke her shoulders.

"Nancee, everything is going to be great. You are in the dreamland of every ladyboy—Western European guys love Thai post-ops.

Nancee cupped her chin her hand. "I just wonder if anyone will ever really love me like they would a birth woman."

"You will find someone to love you as no woman has been loved before, after we get released from this quarantine."

I worked on my affidavit and put Nancee to work on one of her own about her conversations in Thai and Karen with the doomed Spartan study subjects. We had already had several days' exposure to Lizette, so they let her visit us her.

"This quarantine is so boring, I think I shall go mad," Lizette complained. "At least you have your work; I have only my memories and my fingers to occupy me. And of course, since some of our memories are the same, we have much in common."

"Ah, Lizette, let's cut to the chase. Is your memory named Jacques, or Alain?"

"Both, on different occasions, of course, and in fact, on different continents."

"And your father the director, objected, necessitating an end to it?"

"Certainement. They are handsome and good lovers, but they are meaningless. A little absurd, don't you think, grown men playing pioneers in the jungle?" Lizette shrugged her shoulders.

"But Lizette, that begs the question: what were you doing in the jungle?"

"Much as you, Alexandra. I was filling a course requirement at the Sorbonne, and having an adventure. And I had an adventure: a tribe that looked up to me as their goddess; an affair with a Chinese smuggler; and the siege of an incurable disease, over which, thanks to you, I have triumphed."

"You mean, you are cured?"

"It wasn't SARs at all, just a bad flu. My last blood test was perfect. I will be leaving this prison in a few hours."

I hugged her. "Let's have an adventure our own, the. I feel fine, except for the tight, empty feeling between my legs. Let's celebrate with a night of dancing followed by midnight snack of Swiss sausages."

"I am so sorry, Alexandra, but alas, you and Nancee are not yet free to go."

"If you are well, how can we be at risk?"

"You are at risk, but not of illness. As a routine matter, the Institute notified the Thai authorities of your presence. My father tells me that they have asked that you remain here, so they can question you about some data theft, and terrorist activity on the Burmese border."

I sat down, slumped in a chair, stunned by this bad news. "Lizette, we need to get out right away. If we are sent back to Thailand, we'll be framed by the Thai army. They'll throw us in prison with men, because they don't consider us real women. It'll be as good as a death sentence, and with good reason. They want to suppress our knowledge of their crimes against humanity. Did my father send the Thais news about us?"

"The Institute notified ICF and corporate headquarters notified the Thai embassy in Berne. You must understand that ICF has vital corporate interests in Thailand, and ICF controls this Institute. It will cooperate with the Thais because of the corporate interest of ICF. You are not important. Money is indifferent to human suffering."

"That, Lizette, is exactly what my research proves. You have to help us escape, so we can live to tell the truth about the corporate murderers of Spartan LLC."

"I think I have a plan. But you have to play your part, that of the deceitful courtesan."

"Ah, Lizette, that is a part Nancee and I know all too well."

"Here is my plan. You know the security officers, Roger and Guy? They have confided in me about you."

"Please. Tell me, Lizette, that the fatter of them prefers Alexandra."

"Right you are, Nancee. Sorry, Alexandra, you begin with Guy, but they do want an exchange mid-orgy."

"Ugh, men are disgusting, and they are the same everywhere. I am so happy I never had to become one."

"Here is my plan."

Lizette laid out the tactics and the timing like a professional spy. She was a genius worthy of her father's legacy.

A few minutes after Lizette left us, Guy made his rounds. He beckoned me to the window. I could not smell his putrescent pink flesh but the spider web of wrinkles and tiny burst arteries bespoke a lifetime of indolence, carbs and beer. "We will have a little time together this evening, my darling young lady."

"The doctors have pronounced Lizette healthy, and Nancee and I want to celebrate with an evening under the stars with you."

"But we are supposed to keep you in, not let you out."

"The night time sky fuels my passions. Inside here, I feel barely alive, not in the mood for love. And outside, we would still be under your care, and control."

"That's true enough. Do you promise to be good?"

"Better than you have ever had."

"I will find a way, then. Be ready to leave at 2100 hours."

He bowed and blew a kiss.

Nancee giggled. "You made a face like you were going to be sick. He isn't the ugliest trick of your hooking career, is he?"

"Not quite, but close. And we're not getting paid, so he's just a fuck, not a trick."

"Oh, by that measure he does look a lot worse."

"And Nancee, we need to get money to live on, so we're going back into the life, in Italy."

"Oooh, to be a Thai whore Italy, it's my lifetime dream."

"Put on your makeup and brush your hair, you slut."

"Don't forget your own, farang Yankee porn girl." Nancee playfully threw a facial cleansing pad at me.

Lizette knocked on the window. "I have what you asked me to bring, negligee and heels, two prepaid cell phones with Italian SIM cards, and a digital camera. And don't forget these, the special dessert for you new lovers." I took two shiny packages from Lizette, and handed one to Nancee."

"We are giving them suppositories?"

Lizette patted Nancee's butt and said "It will be the high point of your evening.

"Pictures first, please."

"Nancee, first look your most innocent, then your most alluring. Lizette, get plenty of décolletage, but nothing more." The flash lit the room as I logged onto http://www.europe-ts.com. I uploaded Nancee's photos, bio, new cell number, and that she would be visiting Milan on August 14-18. Then I put on my own negligee and posed for Lizette.

I had just erased the cookies and web history from the computer's browser when I heard the laundry trolley bump through the door into the isolation ward. I could make out Guy's florid face behind the facemask, and when he gestured, I pulled myself in. Nancee jumped in next to me, and we huddled as the trolley rolled unsteadily to the linen room. Guy piled a mound of fetid, dirty sheets on top of us and pushed us into the elevator. The door closed, and Guy spoke. "Not your first time to roll under the sheets, I suppose."

"We're used to rolling a little faster, though. The motion is making me feel sick. Can we get out?"

"We're here," I heard the clanking of a truck door. "Now get in the back, lie down, and be quiet. We're still inside the Institute."

We climbed into the rear of a van. Guy hurled the load of sheets on top of us and slammed the door shut. We were trapped in complete darkness. The van's engine rumbled, its gears groaned, and it jolted into motion, gathering speed as it cleared the garage and reached the roads of Lucerne. Relatively straight roads gave way to curves; we felt the van start to climb steeply. The van twisted up what must have been a mountainside and finally stopped on a patch of gravel.

The van doors opened to a luminous moon, so bright after the dark of the van that its beams burned my eyes like sunshine. But it was eclipsed with Guy's shadow. He pulled me to my feet and lifted me down from the van.

"The Institute keeps this chalet for the use of the bosses. We have the keys."

But I didn't want to risk being locked up again. I improvised something to keep us outside. "Mmm, I would rather just make love beneath this beautiful sky. It's such a warm night."

"Well then, let's lay out a few of these sheets on the grass." We had two bed-size spots well covered in short order.

I heard moaning sounds from the spot nearby where Nancee was hard at work on Roger. It was time.

I tugged at his belt, and it grudging popped open, His belly shook as I wriggled his pants down around and slipped down his boxer shorts. I slipped his cock, sweaty and faintly mildewed from a long day's manual labor, between my lips. I bobbed my head and he hardened into a modest, uncut cock. It was immersed in a thicket of curly, reddish hair. My nostrils tickled with each lunge, and I paused to stifle a sneeze. Guy pressed my head downward, muttering "Don't stop."

I uplifted my eyes and said, "Don't worry, my love, it is only beginning. Now I have something special for you." I rolled him on his side, and he grunted a protest that quieted as I slid my tongue in tight circles around his ass. There, the hair was even thicker, and the scents more putrescent, but my goal was set. I stroked his cock as my tongue trilled, and then entered his ass. He jolted in protest, but as he became accustomed to my insistent tongues darting and spinning, he reveled in this tiny, sweet intrusion. I worked it in and out, then traced a path over his perineum to his testicles, gobbling first one, then the other, as I gently slid my forefinger into his ass.

"Mon Dieu, that's incredible. More, please, more."

I reached for the shiny package that Lizette had given me, opened it, and slid a suppository into his rectum. He arched his back and cried out as I followed with the full length of my index finger. Now he moaned incoherently, and I sucked him to within a stroke of orgasm, but stopped, for that would have been too soon. He could cum only when the hypnotic that I had just administered had taken effect.

"Guy, you are delicious, but Lizette promised me that we could trade partners. Would you like to sample my friend's Asian pussy now?"

"Not until I've had a taste of yours." I leaned back and felt his stubble and mustache scratch my fresh-shaven pussy. I wondered what he'd had for dinner, as he inexpertly ate me, and I let out theatric cries of ecstasy.

He stopped, straddled me, and said "Now, I must enter you completely."

I got another shiny package and prepared to cover him.

"No, I prefer to make love without condoms."

"Alas, I cannot. I may have been exposed to disease during my time in Asia."

"Your charts say you are HIV negative."

"You checked my results before this rendezvous? How romantic."

"I always check the charts before I sample the Institute's inventory. Yours was perfect, and your friend has a touch of Hep C, but we vaccinated her against A and B. You're both safe enough for us."

"But we were gangbanged by Burmese drug smugglers only days before we arrived at the Institute. Our HIV could still be in latency, but nevertheless contagious."

He paused and scowled. "Well then, perhaps a condom will be necessary."

He complied, and plopped on top of me in a clumsy mish. His flaccid body was like a dead weight, and nearly suffocated me. I thrashed in panic that he mistook as passion as he pushed himself inside me. My neglected, unlubricated pussy cringed at his sudden intrusion, and I cried out with pain as my vaginal walls yielded to the bang of his cock inside me. I thrust back, and searched his face intently for the first signs of the drug.

"That's it. Look into my eyes, my little whore."

"I want to be your teenage whore. Just fuck me and then take me back to my whorehouse for more. I love it."

I felt a thick finger stab into my rectum.

I squeezed my buttocks tight, trying to force his finger out. "Stop that, it hurts."

"It'll hurt even more when I fuck you there."

"I don't do that." He stabbed his finger in and out.

My body ground to a halt.

"That doesn't feel good."

"Feels great to me. I'm fucking you for a hat trick. Mouth, pussy and ass. Now, resume fucking me back or we are going to have a problem."

"Take your finger out of my ass. I'm not into that."

"Quit pretending. I know all about, you, tranny slut. You're a sex change and a prostitute, and I get what I want from whores. What I want is to finish in your bootie where you learned to be a whore."

He'd read my chart. God only knew what privileged information he had gleaned. He probably knew I was one of the boss's kids. Now, I had to play for time, to wait for the drugs to defeat him.

"I need to be fucked more in my pussy first. Then you can have my ass."

"I want to fuck you like a little bitch now." He rolled my leg over his shoulder and flung me to my stomach. Now, I had to crane my neck to observe him. He grabbed my boob and squeezed it roughly.

"Ouch, handle with care, please."

"Whores don't get to complain, do they?"

"Tonight I'm not a whore. I am letting you fuck me for both of our pleasure."

"Once a whore, always a whore. You're our little clinic's whore until the Thai police come for you. But we will have tired of you two by then, won't we?"

"Who is telling you these tales?"

"Why, it's in the reports that we are delivering to Dr. Rios from the Thai embassy. Papa must be very angry with his little whore-son. So I must fuck your ass to avenge his disgrace."

So he knew everything. Now, my only hope of escape from the Thai police was Guy's the dose of hypnotics I had slipped into his own ass.

"Yes, please, fuck my ass for my poppa. But please fuck my pussy more first."

He banged away inside me with a vigor that seemed inconsistent with oncoming sleep. Then he slowed, and stopped. His head drooped against mine.

I raised myself beneath him and felt his body yield, and slump to the side. The drug had hit him like a sledgehammer. I eased him gently to the ground, and peered toward Nancee's encampment. I whispered, "Is your baby sleeping?"

"He is either sleeping or dead, and I don't care which."

"OK, then, pick up everything, used condoms, wrappers, and cover these two up with sheets so they don't catch a chill and wake too soon."

"Where's Lizette?"

"Back in Lucerne. We have to get down the hill."

"Barefoot?"

"Of course. Get in the van."

I climbed into the driver's seat as Nancee climbed in, and she asked "Do you know how to drive this thing."

"I can steer it well enough to coast it downhill." I popped the clutch, slammed the van into neutral, and the gravel began crunching beneath the silently gliding van. I rustled in my handbag and grabbed my new cell phone. Lizette answered on the first ring.

"Is the party over already?"

"The party is just beginning, Lizette."

"I'm on the way up the hill. Flash your lights and we'll rendezvous." Lights flashed two curves ahead, and so I pulled over the van and we abandoned it for the comfort of Lizette's BMW.

I slipped in the passenger seat. "God, leather car seats. I feel like I am back in civilization at last."

Nancee stroked the surfaces of the luxurious interior. "This is so comfortable. Is this what a Swiss car feels like?"

Lizette and I laughed. "The Swiss make chocolate, watches and money. Not cars."

Lizette quickly drove the Landstraße down the mountain and turned past a rectangular white sign with a white "2" in the middle of a red hexagon. Once we were beyond the Autobahn on-ramp, she revved the car until we were at the speed limit: 120 kph, or about 75 miles per hour. We drove in bright moonlight through what was clearly beautiful countryside. As we drove, we climbed and the surrounding hills turned to mountains.

After about an hour, we found ourselves driving in the bottom of a long valley. The road narrowed to two lanes and traffic slowed down. The cars started to space themselves out. Lizette waited until the car ahead seemed to be a ridiculous distance ahead of us, then followed it into what proved to be a very long tunnel.

"What with these Swiss drivers? Everyone's strung out about 500 feet apart and driving so slowly."

Lizette pointed to a green cube with a lens in the middle of its face. "Alex, after the big fire in 2001, the authorities installed so many cameras in the St. Gotthard Tunnel that you don't dare ride closer than 150 meters apart. You'll get a ticket. And when they say 80 kilometers per hour, they don't mean you can get away with 82." Lizette snorted with disgust.

I said, "How Swiss."

Once we were out of the tunnel, we found ourselves back on proper Autobahn. The name "Chiasso" started to appear on the blue signs passing above us, with a white oval on the line below. The white oval had the letter "I" printed in the middle and the words "Nationalgrenze-National Frontier" appeared on the right.

We passed a city, and then went onto a long bridge over what seemed a very beautiful lake in the silvery moonlight.

Lizette gunned the motor and passed a tourist bus just after the bridge over Lake Lugano.

Nancee whistled, appreciating the BMW's speed and power. "Will you come with us to Milan?" she asked, as we approached the Italian border.

"I can take you across the border to Chiasso, which is the first train station on the Italian side. From there, it is only about an hour to Milan. I need to cover your tracks in Lucerne."

"Lizette, you've done so much for us, but could you lend us a few euros?" I felt I was pushing it, but I had to ask.

"There are a couple of thousand on debit cards in the suitcases in the back, along with some clothes. You'll need to slip something on before we cross into Italy. I packed some of my sister's old True Religion jeans, t-shirts and mules. She's slender like you two, and she has so many, she'll never miss them."

I slipped out of my negligee and the hand-me-downs. "It's so nice that my mother-in-law and I can share clothes. Do thank her, won't you?"

"Bien sûr," she said with a sarcastic grin. "And shall I give your thanks to your dear poppa, too, for all his hospitality and care?"

"No, tell him that I'll send him a postcard. As soon as I get to Hell."

At the border Lizette barely slowed down, and with a wave of a bored policeman's hand we were in Italy. A minute later we were past the entry tollbooth to the Autostrada. In twenty minutes more we were in the small Alpine town of Chiasso. Lizette parked at the loading zone of the railway station.

"Lizette, you are an absolute angel to have done this. I think my father was conspiring to detain us for questioning by the Thais on trumped-up charges."

"One great favor deserves another. I could have died in Thailand if it weren't for the two of you. It wasn't SARS, after all, but it was going to kill me anyhow if you hadn't gotten me out."

"I suppose then, we each owe our lives to one another. So we shall be friends for life."

"More than friends, we shall be sisters." We hugged. Lizette's body, curvy but firm, nestled together. Her breasts squeezed against mine.

I whispered in her ear. "And some day, more than sisters."

She kissed me, and my lips danced against hers.

"Much more." Nancee tugged at Lizette's arm.

"If you're her sister, you are my sister too."

"It's my honor to have two such beautiful and brave friends. But I must leave you, and you must get your seats. It's fashion week in Milan. Milan should be lively and full of visitors. I booked you two rooms at the Hotel Principe de Savoia Milano, under the name Gabriella Visconti. Nancee is Annabelle Lee. Those are the names on the debit cards in your bag."

"Lizette, you are too kind. We'll pay you back as soon as we make our first thousand."

"Pay me back out of your first million. The Principe's a pricey hotel and there is only a thousand euro on each card. You'll need to work hard to cover your costs, so happy hunting."

"We will owe you forever, then."

"Don't count on it. The Italians love their 'puttana travesti,' and I think they are going to go simply wild over the two of you." Lizette gave us two quick double kisses by way of parting.

The train's whistle sounded, and the conductor hectored the parting company on the platform. I kissed Lizette on the lips, and she said "Perhaps I will visit you. Text me when you find your way home."

"Come visit us in Milan. We'll take a break from our clients."

"It's too dangerous. You must get false ID and use it wherever you go. Interpol will be looking for you. The Institute has powerful friends, and its connections extend all over the world. You have made a powerful enemy when you escaped its clutches."

She left, and Nancee cried as she boarded the train. "Alexandra, I mean Gabriella, I'm so scared. We are alone, without a home, fugitives traveling under false identities."

"Just as we were in Thailand. Only the accommodations are much improved." We found our way to the first class car, and found a compartment. I dialed the voicemail of the prepaid phone. The recording informed me that I had 37 new messages, callers from the web page I had created on www.europe-ts.com. I smiled at Nancee, but I hesitated before I dialed my first caller. "Don't worry, Nancee. We are going to do just fine here in Italy. But remind me, how do you say blowjob in Italian?"

"'Pompino,'" Nancee said.

"Nancee, you amaze me. How many languages do you know blow job in?"

"I think I have lost track. All of them, I suppose. 'Oralverkehr,' that's German, 'fumer le cigare,' French, 'yak-too,' Cantonese, 'shakuhachi,' that's Japanese, 'kǒu jiāo,' Mandarin, 'uumpu,' Tamil."

"Nancee, get out, you sucked a camel?"

"No, I don't do animals. A Tamil is a kind of Indian."

"Mmm, you are my inspiration, a whore with high standards."

"I try to set a good example for my young sisters like you."

She put her hand in mine, and I squeezed it back gently, and let it drift across her smooth, flat abs to her breasts. She quivered, her back arched, and her nipple thrust toward me. But she gently removed my hand from her breast.

"Not now, we need to save ourselves for our thirty-seven lovers."

"You're right. Let's start returning phone calls." I dialed the first number.

I had returned thirty-seven calls and scheduled eighteen encounters by the time the train rolled in to the northern suburbs of Milan. I looked at my watch, and calculated the time difference, and decided I should call my mother, to tell her I was still alive, and to find out about Marta and Alyssa. It was late, but she was a night owl.

"Alex, darling, I called the Institute and your father told me you had run away."

"Not for the first time. He's thinks I am insane, because I can't be like him. But how could I?"

"You have to learn to take responsibility. You children are all the same. I am afraid that your friend Marta is proving to be unreliable. She was supposed to bring Alyssa here for a play date with my friend Trudy Schindler's granddaughter, and she didn't show up or even call. I was so embarrassed."

My heart pounded, and I flushed with anxiety. "Have you called her?"

"She doesn't pick up, and didn't answer my voice mails."

"Have you gone by her family's place, or checked out her school?"

"I would dare go into that neighborhood. It's not so safe there."

"Well, duh, Mom. So it's not safe enough for your Mercedes, but safe enough for your granddaughter. Mom, I am in, ah, Europe, and broke. I really need you to look into this, unless you want to wire me funds to come home."

"Well, darling, I would, but since you are in trouble now, with the Swiss and the Thais, and who knows who else, I really don't think I should. I think you should go to the nearest American consulate and clear things up. Your father says you could be in real trouble. You know, the police came here and took away that laptop."

"You gave them the laptop? Mom, you promised you would keep it safe! You promised to take care of Marta and Alyssa! Can't you do anything you promise?"

"Alex, I am sorry that things didn't work out for Marta and Alyssa here. They come from a different way of life."

"Yes, and now, so do I. I'll find my own way home, and not to live with you."

"Alex, perhaps that's for the best too. You are so far removed from your inner child. Until you can make that connection, across the gender line, I am afraid that you will remain a fugitive from your own self."

"Cut the psychobabble, Madame Freud. It won't protect the only grandchild you will ever have from the consequences of your negligence and egotistical self-absorption!" I hung up and threw the phone down.

My sharp words had roused Nancee. "That's no way to treat a new client."

"That was my mother. What a useless dimwit! She has proven to have a real talent for screwing the pooch with a jackhammer. I am now really and truly worried."

"Your worries cannot make anything better. You should calm yourself, and think about the actions you can take to make things better."

"You're right. And that would be to suck and get fucked by as much Milanese cock as I can."

"That's my plan too."

The train jolted to a halt at Cadorna station. We left our cozy compartment and hailed a cab to the Hotel Principe.

The streets were jammed with crowds of elegantly dressed pedestrians, and lined with sumptuous stores displaying the wealth of the West. Not unsurprisingly for Milan, we found ourselves in such a snarl of traffic that Nancee could window-shop at leisure from the taxi. Nancee read the names of the stores we passed as we made our way slowly towards our hotel. "Zenga, Armani, Dior, Coach, Burberry, Yves St. Laurent. Alexandria, we are in shopping paradise. Are these real, or knock-offs?" she asked, wide-eyed.

"Real, and really, really expensive. You can't shop there until you find yourself a rich Italian boyfriend to take you, and pay for you out of his pocket."

"That's what I'm hoping for. Do they like Thai sex-changes in Milan?" A passing businessman smiled at us, and Nancee rolled down her window and blew him a kiss. He bowed graciously, and proffered a business card. Nancee accepted it, and put it in her purse.

"Apparently. You have even more appointments than I do. And you seem to have just landed another."

"Maybe he is my boyfriend-in-waiting."

I tapped the shoulder of the driver. "Excuse me, senor, we're late. Can you go faster?"

He shrugged his shoulders, but responded by blaring his horn, stirring a chorus of horns in response. The traffic remained stuck. "I don't think I'll have time to shower before my first client."

The cab driver turned into a drive that brought us to the front door of the Principe. We checked in and went to our rooms. Mine was small, but well furnished, with a double bed, a sitting table, and two chairs. The cost, posted on the door, varied by season, and we were in the most expensive category, €420 per night.

I hopped into the shower, scrubbing the stench of the Institute, the train, and the filthy encounter of the previous night with the loathsome Guy. I tried to calm myself, pressing my breasts together in the dancing spray, stroking my pussy with a finger coated in bath gel, finger my ass as steam warmed my flesh. But I was full of fear. I feared for myself, for Nancee, whom I had catapulted into this inferno, for Tran, who I had abandoned in Thailand, and for Marta and Alyssa, who were outcasts in the mean streets of Los Angeles.

I emerged, and moisturized my body with trembling fingers. It had become all that I had ever dreamed of, slim but curvy, smooth and fresh. But every glimpse in the mirror reminded me that perfecting my body had imperiled my soul. I was addicted to adulation, and that habit drove me in directions whose unintended consequences brought as much ruin as glory.

I hastily moisturized my face, applied eye cream to smooth the puffiness of the nearly sleepless night before, and patted on concealer. I smoothed liquid translucent powder across my cheek bones with gentle strokes of my fingertips.

My skin looked clear and vibrant.

I spread taupe shadow on my eyelids, and then highlighted them with a silvery vanilla, accented with a trace of dark brown liner. I brushed a thin patina of mascara on my upper lids, and studied myself.

The eyes looked perfect, innocent but inviting, ingenuous but wise. But I thought them too narrow and deep set, making my face look too narrow. So I applied a thin band of blush from the top of my cheekbones to my ear, and dabbed it until it almost disappeared. My face and eyes broadened and rounded.

I applied a thin coating of lip gloss and let down my hair. I put on a lacy lavender underwire bra and matching panties, a pair of pink stiletto pumps, laced to my upper ankle, and brushed back my hair. I was about to sit down and relax when my cell phone rang. I checked the number on the display against my schedule, and answered.

"Is this Gabriella?" I had scheduled my clients using the name that Lizette had given me.

"Yes, who is this?"

"It's Silvio. We spoke last night." The voice was hesitant, almost scared."

"Why did we speak? I don't remember. I get a lot of callers." I was scared too. Whoring, in a new language, in a foreign land, over an unknown website, had unnerved me. Standing on street corners, on at least could look the johns over before going off with them. This was a total leap into the unknown. Silvio could be a cop, a freak, or an axe murderer.

"I saw you on the internet. You said that we could meet. I am in the lobby of the Principe, as you told me." His voice sounded tense, but earnest and kind.

"What color are the orchids in the floral arrangement by the front desk?" I wanted to make sure he was for real.

"Mostly yellow. A few are white with pink spots."

"Come to room 6012 and knock twice, tap-slap."

"I am on my way."

I sat in my chair, yoga breathing to calm my rattled nerves, listening to my inner voices. But they were chiding, not comforting. I had betrayed my friends, my ambitions were in tatters, I was a fugitive whore, running from my past, and from myself. They cacophony of self-criticism was deafening, so I was relieved when interrupted by the tap-slap. I rose and said through the closed door, "Who is it?" I peered through the peephole, at a well-dressed, tall, slender man.

"Silvio." I opened the door and motioned him to come in. He paused for a moment, allowing me to regard him, as he nervously looked me over. He was not movie star, square-jawed handsome, but cute and appealing. His finger had the shadowy tan of recently removed wedding ring.

"Come in, hurry, I don't need to attract any unnecessary attention."

Silvio strode in and stood by the window, looking out at the busy street below. He looked to be just as nervous as I was, and somehow, I found this calming.

"Did you come here to look at the sights of Milan, or at me?"

"I am sorry, that is rude of me. At you, of course, but you are so radiantly beautiful, I am overwhelmed."

"Well then, sit on the bed, and close your eyes. I pulled off his Armani suit jacket, and rubbed his shoulders through the fabric of his stylish, Egyptian cotton shirt.

"You have dressed well for your visit to me. Are you here for fashion week."

"Yes, I am here buying for, well, I shouldn't say."

"That's fine. You may have your secrets, or confide them to me. I am discreet. I, too, am here on business. Can we take care of mine?"

"Sorry, I forgot to give it to you. Your donation is in my left jacket pocket."

I felt a wad of bills, and rose from the bed. "I'll be back in a minute. Would you like to get undressed now?" I counted out three green hundred euro notes as I walked to the bathroom, which I stashed in the tissue box. When I returned, Silvio had stripped to his under shorts, silk boxers. His stylish suit had hidden his thick, well-toned legs and arms, a bowling ball butt, and hard, flat stomach. He was an athlete.

"How do you stay in such amazing shape."

"I pick my hotels based on the athletic facilities. Here, they are average. The Ritz is much better."

The muscles were awesome, but the hair was a little too much. I considered asking him to shower, but I checked my timing and decided to forge ahead.

He sat on the side of the bed and I pulled down his shorts, revealing a nine inch, uncut cock ensconced in tangle of thick, wiry pubic hair. I pushed his knees aside and kissed the tip, and inhaled. He had showered recently, and his cock was sweaty with the muggy heat of the Milan summer, but clean. I sucked the head, licked it full length, to his scrotum, and playfully mouthed on of his balls.

I began pistoning my lips over his shaft, testing my gag reflex as I pressed him deeper into my throat. His pubes tickled my nose, and I paused.

"Oh, you are so hairy, I am afraid you will make me sneeze."

"Just don't bite me."

"Just a little bite. There will be plenty left."

He flinched, and I looked up and smiled.

He smiled back and laughed, "Oh, you are joking."

I resumed fellating, and looked up at him with adoring, upturned eyes. I gazed back into mine, and I saw a look of happiness, relief, and release that gladdened me, and made me feel less miserable and alone.

"That's a very good beginning, but I don't want to cum yet. Slow down a bit. Let me see you."

I stood and unhooked my bra, wriggled out of my thong, and kicked off the pumps. He stared at me, transfixed.

"You are perfect. If you had not advertised you were trans, no one would know." He traced his finger along the transverse scar across my stomach. "Look, it appears that you had a caesarean section."

"It's from one of my many surgeries. You sought me out knowing that I am a sex change. Why?"

"I wanted to see what was possible. I wanted to see how much a person can change, to experience how much change is possible, when one goes to extremes."

"I too, wanted to change, but I think we can only change our bodies, not our souls. In my soul, I am what I have always been." But as I spoke it, I doubted my words. I wondered whether in some dark corner, a bad boy lurked, making the beautiful girl I had become enact his fantasies. Was this one of them?

From a dark corner of my soul, I wanted to dominate Silvio as much as to submit to him. "I want you to go down on me now."

He complied, and his slightly grizzled cheeks pressed between my smooth inner thighs. His tongue slipped between my labia and into my vagina, warm and wet. In and out, around and back, his tongue circled and darted. I felt a tingle emanate from my vulva, through my core, up my spine, and the pleasure fledged the hair at the back of my neck. I felt warm, but I wanted to be hot. I flung my hair over my breasts. "Now, with one hand, rub my nipples with my hair, and with the other, finger my ass. His left hand gently cupped my right breast, covered with a blanket of my hair, and his pinky pressed against, and then entered my rectum. With each touch of his tongue, he pressed it in another millimeter. I was getting painfully horny.

"Now, I want to ride you like a cowgirl." I arranged a towel beneath him, and motioned him to lie on it. I rolled a condom onto his upright cock, and applied a film of lubricant to my pussy. I stacked the pillows under his head, and kneeled astride him, guiding his cockhead between the labia as I parted them with my fingers. It pressed against the threshold of my vagina. I breathed deep, and thrust my hips down gently. He bucked up against me, and my breath escaped with a cry.

"Slowly, I am very tight inside."

"I can't help myself. You feel fantastic."

"Let me slide down on you at first. Play with my hair and boobs, like before." He twirled the wavy ends of my hair over my areoles, and my nerves again incandesced with pleasure. My taut vagina was distracted, and relaxed, and his cock entered me with a welcome rush of lubricity.

I leaned forward, and fed my left breast to him. He twirled his tongue concentrically around my nipples, pausing only to flick the tip of his tongue over the tip my breast. I switched to the right breast and rubbed my left nipple, and fondled his firm pectorals. My fingers tangled in his copious chest hair. I was enjoying this too much.

I wondered, did I like this Silvio, did I like sex, or was it that I enjoyed being a whore? I rose and fell, my soft and tender thighs battered down on his unyielding muscles. I ground my fingers into his pectorals, clinging to his flesh as my own melted and flowed over him. I felt a fire within me alight, and flicker, but the flame needed more oxygen, more fuel than I could give it. I staggered to the side, rolled over and he slid out of me.

I grabbed the lube and applied some to his on his rubber, and then to my ass. He pulled my ankles to his shoulders and entered me again, drilling deep within me as he clutched my breasts. The flame flickered, stoked by the relentless thrusts of his cock, billows to my fire, but his cock could not quite reach deep enough to spark the fusion that I craved.

My libido was a cripple, shorn of the cock and balls that had defined it. The surgeons had preserved the nerves but had removed the structure, all except the prostate, which lay dormant, deep within me, comatose in a well filled with estrogen and progesterone. Alas, Silvio could not reach it, the angle of his attack, the passage of my neo-vagina was wrong. It was externally perfect, but inside, it missed the mark. It aimed too high, into my belly. I needed Silvio deeper within me, in my ass. I was obsessed with having him fuck my ass, as if Guy's malicious fantasy had entered me, metastasized, and become part of me.

"Silvio will you sodomize me?"

He stopped, looked puzzled.

I pressed his hand fiercely on my breast, until it hurt. "I want you to fuck me like I was still a queen, in the ass. Please, don't make me beg."

"I'd love to. I just thought, since you have made yourself a woman that you would want to be loved as a woman."

"I want to be fucked in the ass like a trannie slut. Fuck me slowly at first, then when I tell you I am ready, as hard as you can. But only when I am ready, OK."

"I'll gladly fuck you wherever, and whenever you desire. But you are not a trannie slut. You are a lovely girl struggling to reach orgasm, and I will do whatever it takes to help you get there."

I nodded, and rose up, extracting his cock from my pussy and guiding his cock to my ass. He pressed against the pin-hole of my rectum. I pressed outward, and grimaced.

"Careful, slowly, I said, as he eased in through the taut exterior of my ass.

A searing fireball shot through me, obliterating the reverberating tingles of sensation. Pain, I needed pain, I deserved pain. I wanted to suffer, so I forced Silvio's cock in deeper, and my rectum screamed a protest that drowned out the cacophony of guilt and shame, Father, Mother, Alyssa, Marta, Tran, Aom. Their chorus was deafening, but drowned out by the pulsating waves of agony as I forced Silvio's dick deeper into my butt. I deserved all of it, to be a whore paid in wages of pain and rage. I thrust myself downward again, and Silvio's face, enraptured by his own ecstasies, disappeared into a black pool of unconsciousness, a little death.

I awoke, wanting more life, and more death. My ass was full of Silvio's cock, my body burned with the unending conflict of rejection and submission, the desire to be free, and the need to submit.

"That was incredible." Silvio again pulled a lock of my hair over my breast and twirled it over my nipple. I lunged it forward and fed it to him, and he flicked his tongue over, it, circled the nipple. The fullness in my ass spread fire through me, and I felt a path open within me. I rose from him, turned around, back to him, felt the cock twirl, its head twisting at the folds of my delicate colon. His hands kneaded my shoulders, cascaded my hair over my back. I turned, and smiled, he smiled back. From behind, his cock dug deeper, opening me, releasing fresh waves of fire that scorched and shook through me.

Finally his cock head bumped into my prostate, left behind by the surgeons who had remade me, fusing a pussy from the remnants of my cock and scrotum and four inches of my lower intestine. My prostate and seminal vesicle, shorn from the vas deferens, and starved of testosterone, had lain dormant, hidden deep in pocket. I needed to reawaken it. It had been lost, left behind in the forgotten patch of flesh between my pussy and my anus. With Silvio's cock deep in my ass I had rediscovered it, and I aimed the downward thrusts of my hips so that he grazed it with every rise and fall. The prostate was atrophied and felt hard, like a dried bean, and but the insistent massaging of his cock against prostate made it swollen, and melty. I imagined that the frozen core of the prostate turning to hot, liquid cum. The fire in my ass diffused to a pleasant warmth.

Silvio stroked my cheek. "Are you OK?" I opened my eyes.

I nodded, and said "I think I can cum if you fuck me harder, just like this." I rolled forward, pulling him on top of me. I felt him follow, lying atop me, crushing my petite body into the sheets. I tilted my pelvis upward against his penis, searching for the angle where it would connect with my new-found TG-spot. I rubbed his cockhead against my prostate. "Can you feel that?"

"Yes, I feel a firm place there, like a little balloon."

"That's the target. Fuck me there, fuck me 'til I'm dead."

"I'll stop just before I kill you, OK?"

I nodded again, and ground my fingers into his chest. He thrust with inhuman power, each lunge took my breath.

Silvio was a disciplined athlete, in total control of his body. I let myself go now, thrashing, back arched, rising and falling like a ship adrift in a hurricane-lashed ocean. My guilt and shame were shattered, blown from my memory by the force of his assault. I was not a guilty, scared child.

I had become a beautiful woman, a sought after beauty, and through my beauty and sensuality I can create, and satisfy, desire, in myself and in men. I had returned to whoring, and I realized, I had never really left it. I loved being the perfect whore, and with, paid to give, and be sexually pleasured. It was all I had ever wanted. I looked back at Silvio, his face contorted with exertion and ecstasy, and imagined the countless others who would follow him inside me, wanting me, more than any other, and paying for the privilege of first fucking my pussy, and then fucking my ass.

The moribund flesh within me spasmed, and the reservoir within me churned. The prostate shook, the seminal vesicle exploded and stream of liquid blasted through the ejaculatory duct. Now my body shook with as much intensity as Silvio's. I vibrated with pleasure, and that trembling of my body beneath him signaled him to finish with a bone-thudding crescendo of power and prowess. I drifted into a momentary bliss of forgetfulness. When I awoke, he was on top of me, and his cock was softening and slipping out of my butt.

He rolled to my side, keeping him inside me, and we spooned. One of his big hands cupped my breast, and the explored my tummy. When his fingers reached my vulva, the hand stopped, and he pawed like an excited animal.

"Oh my God, did you cum?"

"I think so." I reached down, pushed his hand aside and ran a finger between my labia. It was moist. I pulled his fingers to probe where mine had found the secret well. "Feel down there, I'm wet."

I touched my finger to my nose and inhaled, and slipped it between my lips. It was not thick and sticky like male cum. It was acidic, and herbal. Silvio's finger probed and sampled the dampness, and he drew it to his lips.

"Delicious. Like a fine Pinot Grigio."

"A costly one?"

"Ridiculously so."

"Worth it, though?"

"A fine wine, or a fine woman, can command any price."

"Perhaps I should raise mine."

"I would gladly pay more."

I slipped the condom from his cock, and went to the bathroom to pee and shower the residues of our adventure from my pussy, ass, thighs and buttocks, and then returned to him with a warm, damp wash cloth and cleaned his penis and balls. Then, I kissed the tip of his penis and sucked gently on each of his testes.

He stroked my cheek. "I mean it. I would pay, or give anything for you."

"I don't do this for everyone, you know. This was a special day for me."

"For me also. Would you like to have lunch with me? I know a great trattoria nearby."

I looked at the clock. My next appointment was due in twenty minutes. I had barely time to wash up, much less to eat a leisurely lunch. "Alas, I have to say goodbye for now."

"When can I see you again?"

I rose and went to my day planner. I had nonstop appointments until midnight tonight. "I had set aside two hours to shop tomorrow afternoon. I could see you then."

"I will see you then, for both hours. Why don't you cancel your appointments and come with me?"

"That's very sweet, but I really need to do this."

"Why does a beautiful and special girl like you forced to do this?"

"I'll tell you tomorrow. Now please, I need to get ready." I went to the bathroom and started fixing my makeup. I observed Silvio dressing in sullen silence. When I came out, he embraced me, and I let myself hug him back. I was violating the basic rule of whoring, by falling for, and letting a trick fall in love with me. But I couldn't help it.

"I will think of you every minute until I see you again."

"I can't wait."

"Goodbye, Gabriella."

I closed the door, and as returned to bathroom, I saw a note on the bedside table. It read, "You don't have to sell yourself to others." Beneath the note were two purple €500 notes.

I called Nancee's cell phone. It rang into her voicemail, and I left her a message to call me. Then, my own cell phone alerted me to a voicemail.

It was my mother, crying.

"Oh darling, I am so sorry, you were right. It was too dangerous for poor Marta, and now she's dead, shot dead after someone carjacked her, and dumped in the street in front of her mother's house. And little Alyssa is missing. Call me as soon as you can."

My trick would be at my door in five minutes, and I needed him, and all of the others, to get enough money for transportation. I was trapped in Milan, and my child was kidnapped half way around the world.

The room phone rang and a man's voice asked for Gabriella.

The non-stop hours and days of sexual adventure that I had plotted with such greed and glee now loomed before me like a dangerous ordeal. I would endure it so I could return home, to search for my missing child and mourn her dead mother. Was my father right that I was a curse to all who I cared for? I answered, "Yes, this is Gabriella. Come to room 6102."

 

TBC

  

  

  

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