For my eighteenth birthday my mother gave me the best present ever. She went to jail for four years. Sure, she had been arrested before. Prostitution,...drug possession, shoplifting, that kind of thing. But never more than a few days of jail at a time. This time she tried to diversify her revenue streams by selling coke to an undercover vice cop. Nobody knew where my father was. In fact, nobody knew who my father was. I’d gotten used to it. Now that I was on my own, it was time to celebrate. Dear. Denise was a fashion student and needed some pictures of the clothing and designs she was working on. Her usual photographer was out of town and she had heard about how good Gavin was. The two of them met and after seeing some of his work, she agreed to let him take the pictures. Everyone said the results were fabulous and that night, after a party, they became lovers. For the next four years they maintained a ‘friends-with-benefits’ type of relationship but neither talked about a future. He had heard about her from a friend who used to work with her. The friend said she was obsessed with sex, but she didn’t look like it. She looked like she hadn’t had sex since her twenties. She was gruff and forbidding, and yet there was something bleeping silently at him, saying a gate was open and he had better go through it before it closed.Bernie stood up, as if to leave, but Tabitha’s lack of response drew him to her. He stood behind her as she sat, motionless. He put a hand on her. The last few weeks had been a rollercoaster of emotions I was barelyprepared to process now, let alone in those moments then. My mindfluctuated so hard every day between loving my new clothes and wanting tokeep going and accept my feminized persona and be Lily with Erin all thetime, and hating what I had become, wanting it only to be over andregretting that I ever had to be chosen in the first place. I loved mynew clothes and I loved Erin, but I was ashamed to love them like I didand I was.