I Don't Think We're in Kansas Anymore

By Lauren Renee Hotchkiss
© 1996 Transgender Forum and Lauren Renee Hotchkiss

Laurie's breasts burrowed hard into Wendy's back in warm, comfortable vibration. She smiled dreamily, relishing the weight and feel of them. It was so wonderful to have real breasts at last and to have found a lover who didn't care that she used to be a man. The roar of the Harley's engine was loud, as dawn broke across the midwestern countryside.

They were half-way through a trip up the Pacific coast, along the Canadian border, and down through the Dakotas, Nebraska, and Kansas. As soon as they hit the Oklahoma panhandle they would cut west along 105 and start heading back toward California.

They hardly looked the grad students they were, with their leather jackets, levis, motorcycle boots, and their hair tied back with bandannas, but, after all Cal Berkeley had always been a haven for those of alternative lifestyles.

Still half-asleep, and half- hypnotized by the drone of the engine, Laurie fell into a reverie, once more thinking about her family in Ohio, and how, somehow, she could never tell them about what she had done, nor the nature of her relationship with Wendy, afraid they would never understand. As they'd come across the state line into Kansas, and seen the endless miles of farm land that stretched out before them, they began joking.

Wendy had started it:

"No wonder Dorothy left, but why the hell did she ever want to come back."

This began a whole series of jokes, and pretty soon they were pointing out scarecrows in the cornfields to each other and making bets on which ones were alive.

"Auntie Em, Auntie Em, here comes a cyclone"

"I'll Auntie Em you my pretty."

They were laughing so hard that Wendy almost lost control of the bike.

The back tire was starting to sound funny. They knew it didn't have much tread left. They'd stopped at one gas station back somewhere in Nebraska, but the way the mechanic had leered at them, the rude and suggestive remarks he'd made when he'd realized their relationship, made them decide to just keep going and get the hell out of the midwest before they stopped. At least no one threatened them in the Bay Area.

As they crossed into Oklahoma, they began to see a change right away.

Despite their jokes, Kansas, had been beautiful, in its own way, but Oklahoma... Almost immediately the lush cornfields had given way to dry dusty prairie, dust that caught in their throats, ...and their spirits.

The joking had stopped.

A few silent miles later they heard the whine of a siren behind them, and looking back Laurie saw a patrol car coming up over the crest of a hill and bearing down on them.

Wendy pulled over to the side of the highway and stopped; waited as the Sheriff got out of his cruiser and came up beside them.

He wanted trouble. Laurie could feel his animosity as he circled the bike, looking them over. He was trying to find something he could bust them for, but as they hadn't been speeding, and Wendy's license and registration were in order, there was nothing he could hold them on.

"You know this back tire's almost gone. Ya'll'd better get it replaced."

Almost regretfully he began walking back to his car, but just before he got in he called out to them.

"Take my advice, girls"_the way he'd said "girls" grated against both of them but neither of them dared say anything_"get out of Oklahoma quick, 'fore you get hurt. I don't want to see you again."

With that he'd gotten into his cruiser, slammed the door, and pulled back onto the highway.

They stayed there awhile, still shaken, wanting to put some distance between them and the sheriff, but at last Wendy hit the ignition and they headed off again.

They rode for several hours, nervously looking back over their shoulders, peering up the highway in front of them, but they never saw the cop again.

It was near sunset when they heard the roar of a powerful engine behind them. Laurie turned around to see a Ford Ranger coming up fast. It was almost like a scene out of Easy Rider. Two rednecks in cowboy hats, beers in their hands; there was even a gun rack in the back window.

It was almost funny, but the laugh died in Laurie's throat when she saw the one in the passenger seat take down a rifle from that rack and aim it out the window at them.

She heard the crack of the rifle and looked at Wendy's reflection in the rearview mirror. She could tell by the look on her face and the way her body had stiffened that she'd heard it too. "Toto, I don't thing we're in Kansas anymore," said Wendy. "Hang on."

Laurie braced herself, hugged her lover tighter, as Wendy cranked the bike to full throttle, trying to outrun them.

It happened so quick, it was over before she realized it. With a loud bang the rear tire blew and they began to skid out of control, swerving across the highway and onto the shoulder.

As they hit the embankment that separated the highway from the bordering fields, Laurie was thrown from the bike and landed, somehow unhurt, in a thicket of brambles. Ahead of her she heard the roar of the engine change to a shrill whine and suddenly grow still.

Laurie got up quickly and ran to where the sound had come from, to find Wendy pinned beneath the four-hundred- pound motorcycle. Blood trickled from her eyes and her mouth, and her neck was twisted at a horrible angle, but she was still conscious. Laurie knelt down beside her, and taking Wendy's hand, strangely cold, in hers, began to cry. Wendy looked up at her and smiled:

Laurie wished for the hundredth time that she and Wendy could have been married, would have been married if it were not for the repressive laws of a culture that was afraid of those who were in anyway ...different.

"Why can't people just leave us alone," she said, but she didn't get an answer, Wendy had closed her eyes.


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