
From Tuscan to Tucson
Part 2
By Bethany nee' Cissy
Subscribers can catch up with Part One
Back to the Present...
"Hello, this is Captain Jenks with another progress report for you." The sound of the PA snapped me from my trance. I couldn't believe this captain was talking again. He'd already addressed the passengers 3 times since take off. "... We've climbed to our cruising altitude of 30,000 feet so I'll be turning off the seat belt sign. Hey, you know a funny thing happened to me on the way to airport. You see there was this goat and... ."
This was the most effusive pilot I'd ever heard and he loved to tell pointless stories. All I could figure is that the co-pilot and crew had tired of his ramblings and stopped paying attention to him. In need of attention, he now foist himself upon the innocent passengers. Although, I have to say he had a very expressive voice. Maybe if he was that bored he could to read us...
"Hi this is Captain Jenks and today I'll be reading to you from the collected works of Jackie Collins. Chapter 4... His eyes were dark pools in which she felt herself drowning... how had she become this disrobed this fast she asked herself... and where had she left her gloves?... "
Noise emanated from the first class galley. I interpreted the clanging and banging as an indication that the long overdue breakfast was on its way. As I sat there anticipating delicious stacks of waffles and sausages, eggs benedict and little chocolate eclairs I was transported once again to the dingy smoke filled Graduate...
Back to Last Night...
"Hey, shut up Joe, she looks great and she sure don't look like no Joan Rivers either," defended a voluptuous, slightly intoxicated hispanic woman who seemed to be keeping company with Joe. Even though she was remarkably passable, I instinctively knew she was a male to female Transsexual.
"Thank you," I said even though the damage that he'd done in drunken innocence was not so easily repaired. "I'm Bethany," I yelled over the din.
"Betsy?"she verified.
"Beth-a-ny," I repeated loudly and slowly
"Yolanda," she replied, "I think you're very pretty.."
Before I could thank her again, Joe, who was coming off of another impolite stare, jumped in...
"Hey Betsy or whatever your name is, I like that dress" another long drunken stare, "you're like this blond Jewish girl, huh?" and before I could answer he wandered off to a nearby dance floor to further express himself.
"Sit down, baby," Yolanda said, offering me Joe's bar stool, "You look great don't you listen to him, he's drunk. Are you from around here... I don't think I seen you around here."
Yolanda, had a pretty face, round with an olive complexion. She wore a black tight fitting pants suit and chunky heeled shoes. She was tall and Ruben-esc with sensual curves and large breasts which peaked from her v-cut top.
"I got to tell you, he's so drunk he even I'm embarrassed, cute as I am."
I laughed at her "cute as I am" tag... it was endearing
"So where you from then?" she continued
"Just visiting from Chicago... .say, do you know what time this place closes?
"At about 1am... .pretty soon I think... a couple of hours, huh?"
It was even less than that. As usual, my getting ready process took too long. By trying to make myself perfect I had wasted the night away. I was still disappointed by Joe's remarks. Up until 5 minutes ago I thought I looked really great. I wore a snug velveteen floor length skirt, high heeled boots, a long sleeved shear dance top (to show off my hormone enhanced cleavage) and a hot looking leopard pattern scarf. Yes, I was blond tonight. I thought I looked youngish and hip, if anything I pictured myself closer to Melanie Griffith, ... not in any way like Joan Rivers, Jesus!
Joe returned from dancing mid way through the song. He was having trouble walking in a straight line... his speech was getting worse. He found a seat next to me and then sat there starring again.
"What? Did you quit?" asked Yolanda "Yeah, I got tired," replied Joe with a slurred Hispanic accent. Then he looked at me said... "Hey, you got a car?... .we should go to (a muttered word that sounded like "Gabba Town").
Yolanda seemed to understand, "Yeah, that's a good idea... Can you take us?"
I couldn't tell what the hell they were talking about... though she wasn't as drunk as Joe, Yolanda must have had enough to drink so that whatever Joe said made sense. "Sorry, where do you want to go?"
"Gabba Town!," insisted Joe, it's on 4th street. Having been on 4th street earlier in the day I couldn't recall having seen a bar by the name Gabba Town.
Before I could get further interpretive help with Joe, Yolanda was suddenly drawn away by a song I didn't recognize. As she joined in the dance Joe decided to intimate his deepest thoughts to me.
"See, that bar tender over there?" "Yeah" "Well, he's a fag?" "Oh" I humored him. "Big deal," I thought "Yeah, he's a fag, and I'm a fag and she's (indicating Yolanda) a fag... we're all fags" I shook my head sweetly like what he was saying was actually pithy.
"Hey, we got to get over to Gabba Town before it closes," he said urgently. He stood, sort of, and made his way toward Yolanda. She tried to get him to dance but he just hung on her yelling over the music. After a short "conversation" they came back toward me.
"C'mon lets go," insisted Joe. "Yeah, I'm ready. Lets get out of this dump', added Yolanda
Momentarily, I worried about taking these two anywhere. What if I was leaving with the next, soon to be infamous, murder team. The Hispanic Leopold and Loeb? On the other hand, unless they were faking it, my reaction time was far superior to theirs... I figured I could outrun them.
Yolanda leaned over to put on her coat. "Nice ones," commented Joe referring to Yolanda's cleavage.
She squeezed them up with her hands, looked at me and said... "I've been on hormones since I was sixteen... see?"
"Oh yes, they were obviously quite effective?"
"What do you think" she said , gesturing along her voluptuous shape, "pretty good... cute as I am."
Once inside the car, I was able to get a better idea of where we were going... a Gay bar called 'Bout Time (not Gabba Town). I knew of this bar and even it's general location because I spent last night driving around scoping out the bars in town.
As we drove, Joe, demonstrated his "good" judgement by sitting in the back seat offering various vehicle operations suggestions such as "go now!" and "turn left here" and "don't stop!"... .had I obeyed any of these directions, we'd all be lying comatose in intensive care.
"I'm a professional, cute as I am," shared Yolanda "Professional what," I didn't care to speculate. "Legal secretary." "Oh," I said with relief... there were so many other professions, one never knew. Joe had gone silent... possibly falling into a stupor.
"I'm a business consultant," I shared, "I travel around a lot helping people make important business decisions," I gave the extremely simple explanation... the one reserved for drunks and non-corporate types.
"That sounds cool... ever get to LA... it one of my favorite places, cute as I am."
She certainly liked that catch phrase.
"You use hormones or anything... .I've been using hormones since I was 16" "Yes, so you said," she was intoxicated enough to be repeating herself, "I use some herbal hormones, they work slow but sure." "I get mine from Mexico... I inject it myself, since I was 16, cute as I am" "There's Gabba Town," Joe had joined us again.
I found some parking, it was fairly easy to do since it was now 12:30am and everything would be closing soon.
The bar was around the corner from the car. Getting Joe there was an ordeal because he seemed to have lost his ability to walk.
"Hold me up dude!," he said as he grabbed on to my shoulder. I helped him walk the way one helps a wounded soldier leave the battle during the height of a fire fight. "Thanks Dude, nice dress..I Like it"
"Stop calling her Dude," insisted Yolanda, "she's not a dude!"
Listening to the two of them made me realize that you have to be drunk to in order to seriously argue with another drunk... I just gave up. Besides, at this point there was nothing Joe could say to make me feel any less feminine... .I just had to survive the rest of the night, my femme fantasy broken.
'Bout Time was so crowded that a bouncer monitored the door. Like some weird version of a zero population scheme, your party could enter when a party of an equal number left.
Two people left in fairly short order. "Okay... you two!," snapped the bouncer as he ordered Yolanda and I through the door. She took my hand and pulled me toward the entrance...
"What about Joe?, I asked "Oh, don't worry, he lives a block from here." "Yeah, but he really wanted to come here... shouldn't we wait for him?" "They ain't gonna let him in anyway... they know he's too drunk." When it comes to the last hour of the night I guess it becomes every girl for herself.
As we entered, I heard an argument forming behind us...
"Go Home!" yelled the bouncer "But its Gabba Town, dude..I.." "Go Home!," the door slammed and Joe was out... we were in. So much for Gabba Town and the promised land.
"Lets go see if Charlie is here... he's so good looking, cute as I am!" Yolanda, had an iron grip. She locked on to my wrist and pulled me through the remakably dense crowd. In spite of the hormones, she was large and powerful.
As I was transported, I made a lot of eye contact, and was met with a lot of smiles. The crowd was fairly young... very college and very mixed. Given the general demographics, this could easily have been a straight campus bar that was slightly heavy with guy-guy couples. There were quite a few packs of college aged girls streaming through the crowd, very straight looking, who may well have been in the market for cute guys. A great many of the guys looked pretty straight too... certainly not the Gay bar composition I was used to.
We stopped on the dance floor for a few minutes and disco-ed by the cover of psychedelic lighting effects to a few semi-recognizable techno hits before Yolanda's iron grip propelled me forth once again.
She dragged me through a narrow hallway into a bottleneck.
"You get us some drinks," she yelled and motioned me toward a large bar/dance floor area in the back, "I gotta go to the john" and then she disappeared.
Even though I was wearing heels, I seemed to be the shortest person in the room, they make their Gay guys tall in this region of the world. This led to problems with getting the attention of the bartender. I slowly used my feminine wiles to slide forward through the layers of people around the bar. Just as I made eye contact with the bartender, I heard... "Bethany!, I got it... over here! Drinks!"
Somehow Yolanda had managed to get to the bathroom and get past the crowd for drinks faster than I could get near the bar... she did have a kind of driven quality, her ability to drag (pardon the phrase) me all over the place was clear indication of that.
"I thought you were going to the bathroom," I said incredoulously "Oh, it was too crowded... 'sides I wanted to see if Charlie is here... cute as he is."
A derivation in the tag... It suddenly dawned on me that it could be used for all variations of pronouns phrases: Cute as He is, She is, We are, They are and the occasional, You are( or Is as the idiom dictates). "Charlie's not here and I still got to go!"... and so I was in tow again, this time to the narrow passageway where a serious line for the single user toilet now formed. "He's so cute too"
I'll never understand the logic behind the placement of toilets in bars. I've been in a lot Gay bars lately and they all seem to have floor space capacity for 600 (there were more than that here tonight) and a single stall for the whole lot. Maybe it's a budgeting flaw... all that money for sound system and kitchy decorations and none left over for the really important things... there ought to be a law..as a matter of fact there is:
Tucson Civil Statute 112:34;87-1 which clearly states that if a Gay bar has capacity for 600+ it must have at least 2 working toilets at all times... boy oh boy, I'm gonna write my congressman!
As we waited along the wall, a steady stream of traffic went by. More packs of college girls, groups of crew cut, goateed, guys wearing tank tops and tight jean shorts ripped in strategic places, and last but not least the occasional classic transvestite with 6 inch heels, little black mini-dress, big hair, heavy duty make up and lots of arm muscle. I kept looking for the matching "Mean People Suck" tattoo to go with those impressive biceps.
Then there was somebody unexpected... .one of the many Rastafarian imitators I'd been seeing out on the street all day. Overly clad in most of his grungy grunge wardrobe, several layers of t-shirts, shorts over pants, beat up fringe jacket and dirty beret over a mass of muddy rasta-rowed hair... once blond hair I think. Considering his appearance, he didn't seem to emanate any unusual smells. He was carrying a couple of very full, "can you tell these are all of my worldly possessions?" type plastic grocery bags.
He walked in a trance, glazed over, either because of too much gonga or not enough food. Suddenly, he moved with great purpose. Starring as though everybody else in the bar had disappeared, he locked on to Yolanda, who was now doing everything she could think of from urinating in the hall, and walked directly over to her.
"Hey," he opened gracefully, "ah look, I can't get the bus to Phoenix," he rasied his voice at the end of the statement making it sound like a question. "..and I was wondering if I could stay at your place... like if you got one... ya know?"
"Oh sorry, honey, I can't put you up tonight I gotta early day tomorrow, gotta work... " She was been impressively civil and kind in spite of the fact that this guy seemed to invite victimization.
"Oh, uh, okay..," and he turned and headed for the door as though speaking to her had been his only reason for walking in.
"You know him?" I asked, wondering why he had picked her out of the whole bar. "No... people ask me things all the time though, I got that kind of face, cute as I am." And then she ran for the door of the so-called ladies room as it began to peak open, "besides I could be that bad someday... I'd want people to treat me like was human, drunk as I am"
Ooooo, another nice variation.
"I'll be right out," and the door slammed shut.
Breakfast, at last...
The plane lurched followed by good ol' Captain Jenks, explaining the science of air turbulence.
In the midst of my daze, a breakfast tray had been set down in front of me. Real china... yes! Now lets see what have we here... a juice glass, coffee cup, roll plate and bowl?... ."Why a bowl?" I wondered, "would there be soup or something... chili for a special southwestern theme brunch, perhaps?"
"Hi,... " , said the flight attendant, his jaunty tie, colorful with the promise of a grand breakfast "Hi... ," I returned slowly... .realizing that I was almost speaking from my femme voice. "... and will you be having breakfast today?"... .as though he had to ask. "I certainly will... and what do we have," I smiled to myself, waiting to hear the litany of scrumptious selections... after all I was in first class! "Well... .(he took his time for a big build up)... .there's Kellogg's Cornflakes or Rice Krispies," he said proudly.
I was overtaken by the "too demolished for words" stutter... I couldn't get off the first syllable, "K-K-K-K... " "Ah, yes... Kellogg's Cornflakes, very good... and you sir?" He spoke to the extermely well dressed guy next to me. "Oh... just coffee, thanks"
"What no Cornflakes for you pal?... too below your tastes?... I suppose you had croissant for tea... you bloody bastard... " and then I realized I had slipped into my John Cleese persona... actually, had Bethany been sitting here she'd have flirted with the guy. He was tall, gracefully middle aged, still had his hair and was obviously rich enough to fly first class just for the seat.
I thought about jumping into the john and making a gun out of soap. Then I would hi-jack the jet, kicking in the pilot's door and forcing him to recite lines from the script of Airplane until we got some real freakin' food.
"Say it!," I'd insist and jab the soap gun into his ribs "B-But I don't... " "Say it dammit... or get me some Canadian Bacon up here! " Jab-jab, "SAY IT!" "Oh, alright... .(clears his throat)... "So, Tommy... ever see any Steve Reeves movies... ever see a grown man naked?" "You like this?" jab-jab "No, you're humiliating me" "Then make me a fuckin Belgium Waffle ... right now!" "With or without jelly," he'd acquiesce.
Yeah right... .Alas, I gave in. All of my hopes dashed, and down $100.00 for cornflakes, I started picking at the warm sweet roll they'd brought... at least it was warm. I stared off into space.
Last Call...
"Last Call!!" announced the blaring PA system... it amazed me that it could be that loud and still be understandable over the crowd noise... I guess they really did spend all of their money on the sound system. I couldn't believe that they were really serious about closing at 1am... apparently people in Tucson stopped having fun early on a Saturday night. I mean, what the fuck? Wasn't Tucson part of the Old West? Did they kick rip roarin cowboys out of the bars at 1am... "put down yur cards fellas... time to go home... go back to your cattle now.." Shit... I was just waking up.
"Let's just sit here till they kick us out... It's too bad Charlie isn't here, he's so cute." "Do you date him?" "No, I'd like to... but I just like to look at him, cute as I am." "So you prefer men?" I tested, thinking that it might be fun to "Play" with Yolanda tonight. "Yeah, I was married once... I had the operation you know... " "I kinda thought that might be the case, you seem perfectly female to me... .," the only reason I suspected that she wasn't a GG was mostly because of finding her in the Gay context combined with potentially masculine traits like height, voice, strength.
"Thanks, cute as I am, my husband died... .killed himself." She said this kind of off handedly... like she was working extra hard to be casual about something painful.
"I'm sorry, that sounds very tragic... it must not be easy for you... "
"Oh, well... you just got to keep moving. My life has been so weird, cute as I am." Then she seemed to drift off... "you know we should go," the sound of weariness crept in, "gotta work tomorrow"
As we headed toward the door, the little end of the night dramas were coming to a close. A lovely college age girl and two of the TV's seemed to be having some sort of argument... she suddenly ran out of the bar and exploded down the street.
"That's a little tramp right there," expounded Yolanda "Really, what makes you think that? You know her?" "No she just looks that way"
The girl overheard her and flipped her the proverbial "bird" as she turned and switched direction.
"See... ," Yolanda took her poor response as proof.
"Before you take me home, can we go to Whataburger?"
I guess I assumed I'd be driving her home... apparently, so did she. Obviously her desire for sleep and a juicy Whataburger meant that she probably wasn't gonna be interested in any kind of sex play... so I set my sites on getting back to the hotel and getting packed.
As we drove, silence set in. We were both pretty tired... god knows I'd been up since very early.
"I'll have two Whataburgers, some fries and two chocolate shakes..," I told the drive thru lady
"I just love these Whataburgers... .much better than Burger King or anybody, cute as I am" "Uh Huh" I said as I tried to drive and eat. A little bit of bad balancing with the drink and I managed to pour about 5 ounces of milk shake into the storage compartment on the tranmission console... that'll be nice for the trusting Avis clean up crew.
"I'm sorry we didn't meet until late tonight," she said, "I really enjoyed being with you... you gonna come back soon?"
"No, but then you never know... we should find a way to keep in touch," I really did regret that we didn't meet until the end of the trip... Yolanda, wild as she was, would have been great fun and great company.
There was a lot more to Yolanda than her boysterous side. Anybody who decided to push back against nature and go through with a full gender change, keep going after the suicide of her husband, and still pursue a career, had remarkable strength and the courage of convictions that I wondered I would ever have.
"I hope I see you again, cute as you are... ," we kissed and hugged, traded internet addresses and then she headed off toward the apartment building where she lived.
"Damn it. Why does all the good stuff happen at the end of the night... it never fails"
I drove back through the mysterious dessert, playing the radio loudly, trying to keep myself awake. I thought of Yolanda, Joe, my clients and strangely enough about how the guys from Avis were going to get the milk shake out of the storage bin after it spent a few hours aging in the dessert heat.
Final Approach...
The flight attendant took away the remains of my sorry breakfast. The guy next to me dozed, in spite of the coffee he'd been drinking. The Captain was talking about the various land masses and how glaciers had formed the Colorado River. And me, I wondered if I would ever come back to Tucson, it certainly had the promise of being a fun little experience if I did right.
I closed my eyes and let Bethany wash over me. I wished I was wearing my new cow-girl wear, maybe some new western boots, my silky red hair. I peaked out of the corner of my eye at the guy next to me... through Bethany's eyes he was gorgeous... gee I wonder if he could go for a girl like me... it could be a good time and I'm sure I could help him find ways to spend his money. After all, I might be really good for him,
Cute as I am...
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