LOOKING AFTER A FRIEND

By Rhayna Tera, copyright 2021

Warning: If you don't like reading transgender or related fiction, then stop reading now.

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Note: I originally wrote this under a different name on a different website when I was doing some quick, just-for-fun, creative writing. It stood out, and I thought it better placed here. So, I revised it a little and tidied it up and — voila — here it is.

RT

A BRIGHT LATE OCTOBER DAY

The city bustled.

Gary sat in the sun on a patio at a café near the Museum. He sipped his latte. One of the nice things about October, he thought, was the prevalence of pumpkin spice lattes. Not that they were impossible to find the rest of the year. Rather, they were almost impossible to NOT find in October. Delicious. He watched people and life go by. The air was chilly, crisp, and clean.

“Gary?” a woman’s voice exclaimed.

He looked up and saw his friend Brandi walk toward the café. They had met in college five years and had hung around with a similar crowd. She was fit and cheery. He smiled and waved. Brandi was accompanied by two other women. He invited the trio to sit with him in the warm, fall sun.

“Gary, this is Helen, and this is Nikki,” Brandi introduced her friends.

“Pleasure,” Gary cheerily answered.

A waiter came and took the women’s orders.

Gary surreptitiously assessed Brandi’s friends. Helen was short and stocky; her face beamed with life and ease. Almost cherubic. Nikki was leaner and sinewy; her face conveyed energy and warmth. Garyboyish. Both were attractive though differently. Brandi was attractive too, but she and Gary were simply never meant to be: they were just friends.

“Let me guess: a cinnamon cappuccino!” Brandi said, breaking the ice.

“Almost! A pumpkin spice latte. You know me well. What brings you three to downtown?”

Helen replied. “Shopping. It’s a shame to be inside a store on a Saturday but when your heart tells you to buy a better blouse for the office, you pay attention to it.”

“And you?” Gary asked of Nikki.

“Strolling with friends. They think I don’t get out enough. I probably don’t,” Nikki said as Brandi and Helen nodded their agreement.

“Well, it’s a beautiful day and I have zero plans. Maybe I can shop with you!” he joked.

The trio laughed. The waiter brought their drinks. The foursome bantered back and forth.

Gary was struck by Helen’s sharp wit and taken by her accent. Welsh or Scots, he thought. Given Brandi’s humorous add-ons to Helen’s several, he figured they knew each other well.

Nikki was a bit more reticent, merely making a cutting comment here and there. Funny but cutting indeed, he determined, after she made a remark about fragile male egos. Gary liked her Lauren Bacall voice and sensed an odd mixture of confidence and vulnerability in her.

“What keeps you two busy during the work week?” he asked of Nikki and Helen. The former worked in a civil engineering firm and the latter in a medical office as an assistant. Gary disclosed that he was a Chinese-English translator and had almost finished his work on a hit novel from Shanghai.

“It’s mentally challenging,” he added and looked at Helen, “and it wards off dementia,” he laughed. The trio laughed. They all laughed.

“So, tell me, how did you three meet?” Gary asked innocently.

Brandi quickly replied before the others. “I’ve known Helen on and off since high school and Nikki is a friend of Helen’s. That’s how we met. Now, Gary, tell us about the novel!”

And he did, with self-deprecating charm and a tinge of absurdity.

Nikki threw her head back and teasingly mocked him. “That’s boring! Peking duck? A novel about a Shanghai restaurant and a Peking duck? It might make a more lecherous read were it about a Peking fuck!”

The women howled with laughter. Gary smiled and looked at his cup. The joke was in fact funny.

Nikki was pretty funny.

He glanced at her.

And pretty.

She noticed his glance, cockily raised an eyebrow at him, and flashed a smile.

A FEW DAYS LATER…

Beep.

“Hi, Brandi. It’s Gary. It was good to see you the other day. I was wondering if you might be able to find out if Nikki would be open to sharing a coffee with me again or getting together for a bit of lunch. No pressure. Give me a ring when you can. 867-5309. Thanks!”

A FEW HOURS LATER…

Gary and Brandi and Helen sat at the same café sipping the same drinks. They talked small talk for a few minutes and then Brandi drew her breath and looked Gary square in the eye.

“Gary.”

“Brandi?”

“Gary. Why would you like to have coffee with Nikki again?”

He noticed both Brandi and Helen concentrated their eyes on him.

“Well, she’s funny, knows how to laugh, seems pretty damned smart, has character, and, uh, left a striking impression. That comment she made about Southern politicians? Exactly how I feel too.”

He leaned back in his chair and smirked.

“And she was the only one of you three who also ordered a pumpkin spice latte, not that I hold it against you two though.”

He chuckled.

They didn’t. They exchanged glances. Helen hesitated then spoke:

“Gary, I don’t know you well. Brandi knows you better than I do. But you seem like a nice guy. May I ask you some personal questions? I’m being sincere. Please trust me.”

Gary saw her sincerity on her face. He nodded.

“Let’s suppose you get together with Nikki and find out she’s a right-wing radical. Would you want to go out with her?”

Gary shook his head: no.

“Okay, a communist?”

Gary scoffed and said, “A socialist? No problem. Hell, Medicare and Medicaid are socialist. So are public schools. But communists are so fringe and harmless. I wouldn’t care.” He sipped his latte. “I’m a left-bending centrist of sorts myself, by the way.”

Brandi nodded as he spoke. Helen observed her and nodded too.

“Cool. What about abortion? What if she’s die-hard pro-choice? Bodily autonomy and all that.”

“So am I. As a guy, who am I to claim ownership over a uterus? And I’d never want the state to compel me to get castrated!”

Gary immediately sensed that his joke fell flat. He took refuge in silence for a minute.

“Gun control?”

“My brothers were in the army. They’re good with it. I’m with them. The army’s big on gun control. And I’m sick of school shootings.”

“Climate change?”

“Human caused though tinged by planetary evolution over millennia. It’s a problem and it must be solved. Coal, plastics? Reduce or eliminate.”

“Gay rights?”

“People are people. Dignity. Respect. Texas? Those laws? A bunch of wackos. They don’t recognize that love comes in various forms.”

“Trans rights? You know, bathrooms and all that? Sports?”

“Everyone urinates and defecates. I don’t care. As for sports, why can’t people just go out and have fun?”

“Evangelical movements?”

And Gary answered that question, and the next one on women’s rights, and the subsequent one on immigration, and the ensuing one on corporate texes, and so on and so on.

Both Brandi and Helen leaned back, basking in the late fall sun, satisfied with Gary’s several answers.

Brandi pursed her lips, sipped her coffee, and spoke.

“Gary, please don’t be offended that we’ve sort of interrogated you. Nikki is a friend whom we look out for. She’s been through a lot over the years. Helen has helped a ton, and I do now too, in a lesser way. Nikki’s had a lot of challenges these past few years, got a bit of, um, baggage but she’s working through it. In a good way.

“She could use a good friend. A good male friend. Could you handle that if she were your girlfriend?”

Gary looked at Brandi. Her eyes betrayed her uncertainty of his response. Helen’s? Ditto.

He paused.

“What sort of baggage? No details. Just a general hint.”

Helen looked at Brandi. Brandi nodded to Helen. Helen place her hands on Gary’s.

“I talked to Nikki after the first time the four of us met. She likes you, Gary. For what it’s worth, I think that you’re a really good guy and that the two of you might just hit it off. You know: mental connection and all that. A good fit, maybe even a great one.”

“Like pieces of Lego?” he asked hopefully.

Helen paused.

“Yes, like pieces of Lego. Literally. Like pieces of Lego.”

“And?” he asked.

Helen looked at her coffee.

Brandi looked at Gary and answered him.

“That’s up to you to find out from her, not from us. But I think you’d enjoy her friendship, even if it doesn’t go any further. Just take it slowly.”

ONE DAY LATER…

Beep.

“Hi, Brandi. It’s Gary again. About Nikki, …

A MID-NOVEMBER LATE AFTERNOON

It happens every now and then:

You’re walking along the street. You see someone on the other side. You recognize them and think to yourself, “Hey! There’s so-and-so!” And, suddenly, you have a bit more energy in your stride, your spirit lifts a bit, and you put a smile on your face. You don’t have to cross the street to see them. Just seeing them, knowing that they are, that there are such good positive people in this world — that’s sufficient to make your day a little bit better.

Gary was one of those people who could do that for you.

He walked along the chilly street toward "La Pâtisserie des Réves." He liked its noontime bistro air and relished its lovely French evening cuisine. He wore casual shoes, casual pants, a casual shirt, and a casual jacket.

His left hand rested in his jacket pocket. His right hand carried a small pink rose.

He looked forward to another evening with Nikki.

Since their accidental meeting at a café a few weeks ago, they had spent several week and weekend nights together, getting to know each other.

Their first get-together (after he had pried Nikki’s number from Brandi) was to an art museum. It had culminated in a shared opinion that Impressionists sucked and that the Old Masters rocked --- and a fleeting kiss and a cheery eagerness to see each other again.

Their second was to an ice hockey game. Nikki requested two tickets from her engineering firm, which held season tickets. Their seats were seventeen rows directly in line with center ice. They booed at the opponent and yelled wildly when the home team scored. Gary stole a kiss before Nikki darted away from him, with a mischievous smile on her face.

A dance club on a Friday night had been their next target: The Prancing Pony. They reveled on the dance floor as the live music played. They slowly swayed together after the music had stopped. He walked her home, hand-in-hand. They babbled back and forth about life in the city, the subway breakdowns, garbage collection, politics. Another fleeting kiss on her doorstep ending with a sweet “I’d love to see you again!” from her lips, and a door firmly closed for the night.

Gary remembered their fourth time vividly. He took her to an indoor parachuting venue. They trained together, giggled at their bodysuits, received instruction, and soon after flew together in the blowing artificial wind: summersaults, twists, spins, and finally let down. She had hugged him as fiercely as he had her when done. Yet again, at the end of their day, he received but a brief kiss and a promise for dinner.

A MID-NOVEMBER EARLY EVENING

And here he now was: walking to “La Pâtisserie des Réves” for dinner with Nikki.

He really liked her --- a lot. And he sensed the feeling was mutual.

He was five minutes early. The hostess asked whether he had a reservation. He answered with Nikki’s last name. “This way, please,” she replied.

He found the warm air of the restaurant comforting. He was surprised to see Brandi and Helen seating a few tables away from Nikki. He re-introduced himself to Helen and cheerily asked Brandi how she came to be here. Brandi smiled and, while answering, touched Helen’s hand.

“Private dinner?” he asked, happy for them. They nodded.

The hostess led him to Nikki’s table. He warmly greeted Nikki and presented the pink rose. She gushed at it.

Nikki explained that she knew that her girlfriends would not be joining them.

“Romance is in the air!” Gary gently joked, jerking his head toward the others.

“Perhaps,” Nikki said cautiously.

They ordered and ate and delighted themselves in conversation. Chef Kriz outdid himself again; the meal was delicious. The table was cleared. The coffees came.

Nikki looked at her cup and up at Gary. He saw a happy/sad smile.

Nikki began: “Gary, let’s have a different conversation. How would you describe your thoughts about gay people?”

Gary glanced over at Helen and Brandi. They flashed a smile at him and winked. “Live and let live,” he answered nonchalantly.

And their conversation meandered in that vein for a few minutes: Nikki asking, Gary describing, Nikki gently pressing, Gary more contemplatively expressing.

Helen and Brandi continually glanced over at the potential couple and suddenly saw the signal: Nikki dropped her napkin; she was now going to tell him.

Neither Brandi nor Helen could hear her words. They were compelled to read from her face her tone and words; she looked composed and steady. Her hands always remained on the edge of the table. Her heels seemed screwed to the floor. Nikki, looking him in the eye, appeared to speak in a calm manner.

Helen and Brandi fixed their gaze on Gary.

Gary’s face was saturnine as Nikki spoke. His constant foot tapping was not to be seen. His hands rested on his knees. He straightened his back and held it against the back of the chair. His neck was perfectly straight. He never looked away from Nikki as she spoke.

Helen sat nervously. She knew from long experience that moments like these could produce the most unexpected of reactions, often violent ones. The number of happy endings were few compared to the many instances of ugliness. She watched over her friend Nikki.

As did Brandi. Nikki was a first in Brandi’s world: her first pre-op transwoman friend, and a sweet one at that. That they three of them had chanced upon Gary a couple of weeks ago was at first awkward; Brandi’s unease had dissipated as Gary easily disarmed much of her concerns, and Helen’s too. Brandi knew Gary well but she admitted to herself that she did not know him extremely well.

Brandi’s experiences in high school and university had bitterly taught her that within each and every man on this planet there was some spirit of sorts dedicated to competition and violence --- and that spectre of male-on-female violence was omnipresent in every woman’s life.

Brandi was especially nervous, having introduced them together. As well as she knew Gary, she knew not whether he, a CisHet, would feel threatened somehow by Nikki.

Brandi felt incredibly responsible for the moment unfolding before her.

Gary was inscrutable.

Time paused. Unease grew. Fear blossomed.

Without warning, they saw Gary abruptly stand, place his napkin on the table, take his jacket, picked up the rose, and turn toward the entrance. Brandi and Helen received a look of reproach from him as he silently passed them.

Nikki cried.

Brandi and Helen signaled to the waiter, and the contingency plan extra chair appeared at Nikki’s table as Brandi and Helen joined her.

AN HOUR OR SO LATER

A few (not several, just a few) drinks later, the trio headed home. They shared a cab and stood in the early evening’s chill. They bounced on their heels to warm up.

“Nothing?” Helen asked.

“Nothing,” Nikki replied.

“He said nothing?” Brandi asked; Nikki nodded.

Brandi had listened to Nikki’s recounting of the conversation she and Gary had. She had struck Brandi as being very disappointed but resigned.

“It’s not the first time I’ve told a man and he’s fled. But Gary was different; I really liked him. He seemed to be such a nice guy. I thought he was starting to care about me.” Nikki sniffled in the cold as she spoke.

Helen rubbed Nikki’s back.

A cab arrived and the trio got in. They gave the driver the various addresses. They sat in the back holding hands and chatting about any topic other than Nikki’s date and Gary’s exit.

“I’ll get out here,” Nikki said as the cab turned a corner near Nikki’s apartment building.

“You’re sure you don’t want us to come in?” Helen asked.

“No, I just want to soak in a hot bath and enjoy a small sip of wine by myself, thanks though,” Nikki said. They bade farewell to each other. The can sped down the dark streets.

Nikki walked the several dozen meters to her building.

THIRTY SECONDS LATER

A large figure emerged from a recessed entrance of another building. The figure followed Nikki, caught up to her, grabbed her right arm from behind, and twirled her into a narrow alley.

Her head smashed into a brick wall. She felt a searing pain in her lower back: a punch. She tried to climb the wall to escape --- but it was a useless gesture. Her knees buckled under her. A hand pinned her neck to the wall. Another smashing blow, this one to the side of her head.

Then a punch on her back in the ribs.

Then another.

And another.

She fell.

The kicking began.

Darkness grew.

Nikki realized that she was fading away into oblivion, in a piss-stench back alley.

The last words she heard?

“You fucking tranny shit!”

The beating continued.

She lost track of time.

She could hear nothing.

She felt nothing.

She realized that she was dying and that the last image in her mind would be of…

…a pink rose falling in a muddy puddle.

A MID-NOVEMBER --- MORNING

At 3:00 a.m., Nikki was wheeled from the Emergency Room into the Intensive Care Unit. She was still in a light coma. The doctors expected her to come out of it sooner rather than later. Her injuries were severe, but the doctors were optimistic about her recovery.

At 7:00 a.m., two detectives came on shift and perused their in-baskets. The police officers and paramedics who had attended the scene of the crime had provided their reports. The detectives reviewed them and together planned their day. Their initial instincts were that of a hate crime.

Helen had just gotten out of the shower when her doorbell rang. She shouted a quick “Coming!”, put on a robe, turbaned her hair, and checked the peephole. She opened the door.

“Good morning. I’m Detective Emily Carr and this is Detective Louise Breslau. Are you Helen Jones? May we come in please?”

Helen invited them in. They sat at the small table in the eating area of the condo.

“We’re investigating an assault that took place last night. We’d appreciate your assistance. Could you tell us what you were doing last night?”

Helen told them about the dinner and Gary’s leaving. She feared the worst: her voice conveyed that.

“Who was assaulted?” she asked.

“One Nikki Simkins. It seems she was walking home when someone took her into a dark alley a few meters away from her apartment building and beat her up.” The detectives described in general terms Nikki’s injuries.

Helen was horrified. She told the detectives about Gary’s relationship with Nikki in greater detail, insofar as she knew of it. Coffee at a café. A couple of dates. Dinner last night. The rejection. Gary’s silence and grim face as he left the restaurant.

“So, he stormed out in anger?” one detective asked.

“I didn’t say that,” Helen answered. “I said he left and said nothing. Deep thought. He had a grim look on his face. That’s what I said.”

The detectives made notes.

“What can you tell us of Nikki’s daily life, her employment, her hobbies?”

Helen described the same to the best of her ability. She sat wet at the table, stunned.

“How did you find me?”

The plumper detective replied, “Nikki didn’t lock her phone. It was examined. We saw the dinner on her calendar and found your name and Brandi Langley’s in her contacts. Miss Jones, we would be appreciative were you not to contact your friend Brandi until we speak to you again. And please don’t discuss this with anyone, including your colleagues at your workplace.”

Helen showed the detectives out and sat on her couch. Shock.

An hour later, the detectives appeared at Brandi’s workplace and interviewed her in a conference room. She related much the same to them as Helen had.

“How long have you known Gary Tern?”

She related to them everything she knew of and thought of Gary. “I just can’t believe he would do such a thing!”

The detectives faintly smiled at her. “Do you know where Mr. Hughes lives and works?”

Brandi told them. They left soon after with the same warning to Brandi as they had delivered to Helen: don’t talk about this until permitted.

Despite the detectives’ warning, Brandi called Helen.

“Helen, I feel horrible. I introduced him to her and gave her some assurances that he was an okay guy. I just can’t believe he assaulted her!” Brandi cried.

“I feel the same way. I don’t know what to do. There’s a part of me that wants to get to the hospital and another part that wants to hunt and kill Gary.”

“Should we have told him earlier that she was transitioning?” Regret tinged Brandi’s voice.

“Well, this has shaken my belief that we should’ve --- that anyone should’ve --- left telling him to her. We could’ve prevented this by telling him that she was. Oh, Brandi, I feel so terribly guilty.”

They continued their prohibited conversation for several more minutes. Having agreed to go to the hospital after work, both left for their respective workplaces shortly after hanging up.

LATER THAT MORNING

The beeping on the machine accelerated. The nurse standing two beds down heard it and walked to Nikki’s bed.

“She’s coming out of it. Call the doctor.”

A few minutes later, a doctor stood by Nikki’s side and asked her some cognitive test questions. He seemed pleased with her progress.

“How bad?” she croaked.

The doctor paused before answering. “You suffered some significant injuries. A few of your ribs are broken, as is your nose. There’s bruising. And you have lots of scratches. We can talk about these in more detail as you get better.”

He was deliberately economical with the truth. Nikki’s testicles had been pulverized by repeated kicks. The Emergency Room staff had to remove them.

“Nikki, there are some people who want to talk to you. Police officers. You can help yourself by helping them. I think that you can speak to them for a few minutes. Not much more than that. Nurse Betty will be in the room with you in case you need anything. Would you like to talk to them now? I think you can.” His voice was upbeat.

“Sure,” Nikki whispered.

He left.

The detectives entered. They stood next to Nikki’s bed. Louise took Nikki’s hand. They introduced themselves.

“Nikki, we know you’re recovering but have a few questions for you. If at anytime you find it hard to answer, then just tell us; you can answer them later. We want you to get better. Please don’t push too hard right now. Okay?” Both detectives smiled at her. Nikki tried to smile back.

“At the restaurant last night, you dropped your napkin to signal your friends that you were about to tell Gary Hughes about yourself, about your being transsexual. Are you able to remember what you said?” The question was asked softly.

Nikki answered as best she could. She had told Gary who she was and where her body was going. He had sat, distant and silent. When she had finished, he left. She didn’t recall any outburst or anger nor any fist-making or table pounding. He had seemed stoic yet disappointed. Her memory was not great, yet she hadn’t sensed, she told the detectives, anything but withdrawal on his part.

And, yes, she was very disappointed that he had left.

“I liked him.” She wept.

AFTER WORK

Brandi and Helen met in the main foyer of the hospital. They inquired with reception and headed to the fifth floor and Nikki’s room.

The two detectives were just leaving the room as they arrived.

Detective Emily greeted them with a smile.

“Ms. Jones, Ms. Langley, good afternoon. You’ve come to visit Nikki, yes?”

Brandi answered: “Yes. Have you caught Gary yet?”

Detective Louise answered her. “We have caught Nikki’s assailant, thanks to your statements and those of some other witnesses. He’s down on the second floor under lock and key. His injuries were rather severe.”

“I hope that bastard never recovers!” Helen shouted. “He deserves everything you can throw at him!” She was near tears. Brandi nodded vigorously her agreement.

Emily waved her hands down to calm them.

“Not everything is always as it seems. Our investigation is concluded. The perp will, I mean, the perpetrator will be charged. He will be prosecuted. We can’t promise anything, but we are optimistic about a conviction.”

“Can we see her?” Brandi asked.

The detectives exchanged bright glances.

“Yes. She’s asleep right now. And she’s got a visitor. Now remember what we said: the suspect is downstairs, not in her room. The doctors say she’ll make a good recovery. So, be happy when you go in and see her and her visitor!”

The two detectives left.

Brandi and Helen walked into Nikki’s room. The bed was slightly inclined. The windows were open letting the sub shine in. Antiseptic hung in the air.

Nikki’s eyes were closed. There was a faint smile on her face.

There was a man seating next to her bed. He held her hand.

“Gary?” Brandi whispered.

Helen’s mouth dropped.

Gary turned his head and weakly smiled at his friends. He turned back to look at Nikki.

“What? How? I thought you were… I thought you were arrested!” Helen almost shouted but stifled her voice.

He didn’t look at her.

“She told me who she was. What she was. I couldn’t process it there. I had to leave the restaurant.”

He sniffled.

“I walked for a bit and did some thinking. As a guy, I admit that I can’t fathom why any other guy would not want to be a man. She was a first for me, I guess. I had never met one like... I had never met a person like her before. I didn’t know what to do. I liked her but had no way of knowing how to respond when she told me that she was transitioning from male to female.

“So, I just left. And I walked around but soon found myself gravitating toward her apartment building. As I waited, I did some thinking. Eventually, I saw her walk up to her place. I started toward her when I saw a man come up from behind her and throw her into an alley. I froze for a second, trying to understand what I was seeing.

“And then I moved in. He was beating the crap out of her. I stopped him. Those two detectives tell me that he has a broken back and two broken arms. His face is a mess.”

He looked at Helen and then Brandi.

“I really stopped him.”

He turned back to Nikki.

The two women saw that he continued to hold Nikki’s hand.

“Brandi,” he began again, “I remember your telling me that Nikki could use a good friend, a good male friend. Last night, I had to ask myself whether I was man enough --- strong enough --- to be a friend for someone like her. A friend for her.”

He paused.

“I don’t know where this will go. I don’t know if I can have or even want to have Nikki as a girlfriend.”

He rubbed Nikki’s hand.

“But I can at least be a good friend.”

The petals of the fresh pink rose in the small vase on the bedside table opened.

END