Switching Teams

(surprised this little nugget never made an appearance over the year)


As a child I wondered what it would be like to be a girl. My desire was strange because I grew up in a mostly male house. I knew what women looked like naked because I had older brothers who constantly had sex on their minds. If they weren’t picking the lock on our father’s armoire of porno tapes—which included training films such as Deep Throat, Behind the Green Door, and Meatball—they brought me along to pick through the garbage in the dumpsters behind the fire station on Meacham Road. It seemed like every time we would try to find something it was always what they wanted: discarded Playboy, Hustler and Penthouse magazines. The women who pouted their bright red lips at the camera had seductive eyes, telling me that it was nice to be wanted, it was better to be them than me.

The montage of pictures would start with women fully clothed, hair up in a bun, black plastic rimmed glasses: the shy by day slut by night women. As the paper slide show continued, clothing would slowly be removed to reveal curvy, flawless bodies, breasts that were large and seemed to always flop to either side. They were never shaved down there like the women who grace the pages of the magazines today. The magazines were quality teaching of a quality subject.

I pretended to be a woman many times, mostly while I sat on the toilet or in the bathroom before taking a hot bath. I would push my penis between my legs. It was just after I grew hair down there. My balls would fit nicely pressed against my ass. I’d bat my eyes, smile at myself in the mirror trying not to walk or move too quickly for fear that my package would fall apart and I would return to being a nine year-old boy. Dirty, in need of a shower.