Dennys

It's 3 am in Miami again and awake this time with a touch of anxiety over freight sitting in Frankfort, Germany cargo terminal with the importer playing a little fast and a little loose with the import regulations.  And if his eco-boost engine get's seized by German Customs, who will he blame.  Yeah.  Potentially there are some uncomfortable conversations this weekend and disputes over charges.  I should have tapped the GABA before going to bed to make sure I slept though the night on this, rather than waking up and tossing it over and over.

But gratitude for the gentle breathing of someone next to me numbs the anxiety.  Three weeks earlier there were no sounds of that sort, only sounds of nearby trucks, overhead planes and far away trains, so I found myself getting up and looking for the anxiety relief of human contact at the only reputable place open at that hour - Denny's.

The parking lot was empty as was the dinning area save for one moustached Latino propped back and snoring in a booth.   I couldn't tell if he was patron or part of the night crew.  But then I head rattling in the kitchen area and me Akim.  

Akim was was the shift manager.  Before he could get around telling me that the dinning area was closed, as he did with others who would walk in the next hour, I started a conversation and said I was just there for coffee for a couple of hours.   Akim was affable, black and gay (yes I could tell) so I figured I'd go right to a subject he would find interesting, "Hey - my girlfriend tells me that the first time she met me, she thought I was gay.  Do you think anything about me looks gay."

That really got Akim smiling, "Well" he said with a laugh and smile, "If you can't tell, I'm gay, and I can tell you are NOT gay."

"Thank you!  I though you might be more qualified than she.  I don't know what is wrong with her.  Must be the way Latino men come on to Latina women."

"It's not just to Latina women."

I replied with a coquettish, "Do tell?"  As a non-bent male, I've learned that if you give a gay man the time of day and mildly parrot some of their effeminate mannerisms you will have them eating out of your hand and as in this case, probably not even bring you a check for the coffee.  

So Akim elaborated, "...well, actually I consider myself trans."

"My!....which way....like...." and I gave him my smile with raised eyebrows.

Over the next hour Akim briefed me on his life story.  He never right with "the appendage".  At five he was dry humping his playmates with neither of them knowing what it meant.  But as the youngest and only boy in a family with 6 older sisters and a grandmother that insisted on them all being Pentecostal for  three hours on Wednesday night and four hours on Sunday, aside from a single incident of oral copulation at the age of twelve, Akim walked the straight and narrow closet until he reached nineteen and then came out as gay or really as trans, due to his desire for disassociation from his male member.

Ouch.  Yes.  But Akim was currently working the graveyard shift at Denny's and not appearing to be "trans"issioning in any form.  It turned out he had previously dipped toe and more into that pool of hormonal transitioning but found that while on female hormones it was impossible for him to complete a shift a Denny's - the hormones made him too emotional and he would start crying whenever the crowd got tough.  He explained that the late night, after the bars close crowd in Doral could be pretty demanding.  But proudly he showed me photos of "Zoriah" during his time on hormones.  

Zoriah was feminine and frankly, astonishingly attractive black woman with a feminine face, full breasts and hips, with a nice hair, smile, makeup and cocktail dress.  Frankly I could not believe the person in the photos he showed me was the same person standing in front of me in the Denny's uniform.  Akim was very proud of his work as Zoriah and went into detail on the hair/wig, the artistry of the makeup and how the hormones really did plump him out in all the right places.    He proceeded to show me a photo of his best friend, also trans, who was even an even more stunning looking "woman".

So I had to ask him where he or she or they went dressed like that.  Drag shows and even the regular clubs.   

"So what was that like for Zoriah?  Did you get hit on by regular guys who were pissed when they found out?"  I explained that when I was in the Marine Corps our commander in Thailand advised us to always check the package before purchasing the merchandise, but most of us knew to note the height and check for a thicker Adam's apple and larger hands on anyone offering the Bangkok Girlfriend Experience.  The concern was that a drunk Marine would not play close attention and after getting blown by a local trans who assumed that he was into that sort of thing, upon discovering a previously tucked away package, the Marine would flip and go full Devil Dog on an ill prepared Ladyboy.  You can imagine the rolling eyes of base commanders and local law enforcement every time this happens.  Yes - it absolutely happens.  But men trained to kill, alcohol and a penis popping up where it is least expected has a kinetic energy that can impact with deadly consequences.  

"Oh, you have no idea.  Zoriah would get hit on at the clubs and after a while I would just want to be left alone."

"Straight clubs?"

"Of course."

"Really?  So were you getting off on just teasing them?"

Batting his eyes, "Sort of but at some point I just tell them, 'Look I'm trans.  I'm a gay man'"

"And then they go like WOW! and leave you alone."

"No. Usually they will come even stronger."

"What?!"

"Yep.   Especially the Latin men."

"Huh?  The Machismo Latin men. They want to fuck a Trans?  Are you kidding me?"

"No.  But just to be clear, what they are really wanting is to be fucked by a Trans."

Gulp, "You mean......"

"Yes.   That's their fantasy."

"OMG.  OMG.  OMG.