Free The Illusionist by Dinitia Smith

you don’t feel it as much the next time. Makes it like scar tissue.”
    I inhaled again, and this time the smoke went right down into my lungs. I could feel the stuff begin to permeate my body, softening my limbs, and I let out a little laugh. I wasn’t really high, but just the gesture of inhaling had giving me a new license.
    â€œI want to see you naked,” I told him.
    The smile disappeared from his face. He took another puff on the blunt. “Can’t,” he said, avoiding my eyes.
    â€œC’mon!”
    â€œSorry.”
    â€œBut why? You see me! I’m not afraid. It’s not fair.”
    I giggled, and I leaned over and pulled down at the top of his jeans, but he jerked his body away from me, as if he were irritated.
    â€œI want to,” I said.
    â€œPlease,” he said. “Stop.”
    â€œJust tell me why. I love everything about you.”
    He hesitated, composing his words. He opened his mouth to speak, then seemed to think better of it.
    â€œI want to understand,” I said. Besides, there might be something even better, sexually, something we hadn’t done that we could do now. And now, because of the dope, I could ask him.
    â€œPlease,” I begged. “You can tell me.”
    He paused, studied me a moment as if planning how he wouldput it. “See,” he said, “I wasn’t born like other people.” He stopped. “I was born different.”
    â€œYou told me that. It doesn’t matter. It just doesn’t matter to me.”
    He sighed, and suddenly he looked tired. “It’s more complicated,” he said.
    â€œSo. Tell me.”
    â€œHard to explain.”
    â€œTry me.” I stood up from the table, walked over to his side, knelt down on my knees in front of him, and took his hand in mine. “Nothing’ll make me stop loving you,” I whispered.
    He hesitated. “I was born with both things,” he said. “As a man and a woman. On the outside, I did look like a girl, but inside I’ve got male organs. I don’t have a uterus or a cervix—or whatever . . .”
    He looked away, as if embarrassed for the first time. But he had nothing to be embarrassed about around me.
    â€œDon’t be afraid,” I said.
    â€œMy grandparents, they gave me money to have an operation.”
    â€œAn operation?”
    â€œYeah.” He wouldn’t meet my eyes. “They take your thing and they make a—” He didn’t finish describing it.
    The thought of what they had done to him made me dig my knuckles into my eyesockets. “It hurts me to think about it!” I cried. I looked up at him again, seeing white, blind from the pressure on my eyeballs. “It’s all done?” I asked him.
    â€œYeah, sort of.” Still not looking at me.
    â€œSo, why can’t you—I mean—why can’t I see you now?”
    â€œThey don’t do it all at once. It isn’t finished yet. I gotta save up money for the second half. They still have to do one more operation. I got the hormones now. That helps.”
    â€œHormones?”
    â€œI take pills.”
    The ones with the name of the drug blacked out, thepharmacist’s error, the name back to front. “I don’t mind seeing you, whichever way it looks.”
    He shook his head.
    â€œI told you,” I said, “nothing about you can upset me.”
    His face was drawn, shadows etched under his eyes, around his mouth. “But you’re happy?” he asked, as if for reassurance. “This is the happiest you’ve ever been—right?” He was eager for me to say yes.
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œSo—why change things?” he asked.
    â€œBut you don’t get any pleasure?”
    â€œI do,” he said. “I get off watching you.”

C HAPTER 10
TERRY
    Dec. 1. Sometimes it is as if all the cells in my body are singing, I am all cleaned out. . . . I