A WOMAN LIKE ME

“Here’s your drink, ma – sorry, sir.”

I look up from my phone where I’d been aimlessly scrolling through instagram posts, because I’d been avoiding making eye contact with other patrons of this Lebanese-owned bar. I had just been misgendered, not surprising to me though. I am wearing conventionally-masculine clothes with trainers, although I am wearing the attire with a feminine flair that is unmistakable.

A pair of muscular arms come into view as I lift my head from my phone screen; they are setting a glass filled with ice cubes and a bottle of coke on my table. The bartender is a young man, at least eighteen with sad eyes and a shy smile. Those very muscular arms attached to his stout body make him look like an action figure in a Dwayne Johnson movie.

“Please get me an ashtray like I asked. Thank you,” I snap in my unmistakably feminine tone, irritated by his misgendering.

He is already leaving when I spoke, and he looks back briefly at me, reacting to the irritation in my voice, nods and walks over to the counter to grab an ashtray. He hurries back to my table and drops it with a rushed apology.

It is at this point that I realise how nervous I make him feel. Another unsurprising fact. I have this effect on most people who meet me for the first time. They either write me off as a tomboy or as a very effeminate man; the latter categorization sometimes attracts violence, mostly in the form of verbal attack. This is clearly a reaction based on the conditioning of society to resent men who do not wear the toga of hyper masculinity, “choosing” instead to assume the physicalness of a woman, who has been relegated to the classification of Weaker Sex for generations. I have since come to the conclusion that humanity still holds primitive views on gender and is way behind many creatures we can find in nature.

I focus my gaze on the retreating action figure and notice he has a bit of judgement in his eyes as he clocks that I am indeed more male than female. And I can tell he doesn’t approve of people like me. To make it worse, I am smoking a cigarette. He must be one of those religious nuts who sees smoking as a sin, because he occasionally glares at the limp-wristed hand holding the cigarette stick.

I pay him no mind. I am here to relax and untuck. I sit with both my legs tucked to the side, my slender fingers holding the cigarette in the air after each sensual drag, holding the air in for a brief moment before blowing out the white cloud of smoke slowly with my eyes closed.

When I open my eyes and glance at the counter, it is to see the bartender still looking at me. I stare back at him, my lightly-mascaraed eyelids narrowing a dare at him. He looks away after fifteen seconds, suddenly overcome by his self-consciousness.

I do not blame the chap. I would be curious about me too, I think as I pour some of my coke into the glass. I think about a conversation with him – someone like him. About explaining to him that I am a woman trapped in a man’s body. I think about the variety of reactions that such a revelation would elicit. An uncomprehending laugh. A mean retort. An indignant reference to the Bible’s Sodom and Gomorrah.

Luckily, I am not at that stage in my life where I feel like I should explain my life to anyone. I light another cigarette and recline properly in my seat.

It would have been nice to have this chill-out with at least one good friend to share my worries with. But I have had too much heartache from people I took as friends to bother making any new ones. Too many superficial and petty people out there, and I have lost the desire to have them simply tolerate me while they spread malicious gossip about me behind my back.

As you must by now know, I am a transgender woman. A closeted trans woman, living as a man in the city of Lagos, Nigeria. I work at a corporate job and the pay is good. But it wasn’t always this cool. I have experienced all kinds of craziness in the past years while trying to survive. These days, work has been so stressful that I had to take a few sick days off to take care of myself. I find it hard to bury past hurts, those days back when I often got bad feedback from my bosses, when some of my homophobic colleagues freely discriminated against me and gossiped furiously about me. That has changed. The things I face these days are minor infractions compared to my reality years ago.

I remember when I was in my early twenties and full of hope for the future. I had just started taking estrogens and I liked how the medication moulded my body into the feminine woman I knew I was inside. I got the pills over the counter without any question from the sales clerks at the pharmacies I visited every other month. I’d done my research and knew the safe dosage and possible side effects to expect. You might wonder why I decided to start with hormone therapy when I was still living in a largely homophobic country; I had plans to travel to Europe and start a new life.

I’d met a man named Bryan through a dating website for trans women. He lived in London and was fascinated by my story. I gained his trust and he began supporting me both emotionally and financially, with the hope that we would settle down together someday. Long conversations on the phone and constant requests for sexual images made me tired of Bryan. I had to call it quits with him because it increasingly became obvious to me that he was just a tranny chaser – men who go after trans women as sexual objects, as play things to obsess over, and not as real human beings.

At this point, I’d already began to develop an A-cup breast size from the hormone therapy. I had to stop and return to my closet again, reverting to my maleness – at least until I could raise enough money to take care of my travel abroad.

I worked in the fashion industry as an intern for a major fashion designer in Lagos, and had to be at a lot of fashion shows. So, I had the option of expressing myself as sensual and as feminine a manner as I could get away with.

My boss didn’t care much about my looks and he often called me female names which made me feel even more like myself. My favourite was Pamela after Pamela Anderson. This was after I confided in him my desire to transition someday and get nice perky breasts like the Playboy icon.

My boss was gay and had a lot of his gay friends coming around. They all hated me. This wasn’t surprising to me; I had met a number of drama queens in fashion who couldn’t understand why I wanted to erase all masculine traits from my body. But then, they are gay men who are ignorant of what it feels like to be transgender. They were often very petty toward me, but I matched their pettiness, much to the amusement of my boss.

However, life was good for some time, and the fashion business was growing for my boss, which gave me a lot of responsibilities. The money was good as well, which helped me save for my intended sojourn away from Nigeria.

I focused on work and didn’t care much for romance, because the gay men found me too girly for their tastes. I didn’t take any offence. I preferred straight men anyway. I didn’t have a pussy but I wanted one so badly and would often fantasize about the day my dream would come true.

I wanted to be a full-blown woman so much that I started exhibiting signs of a phantom vagina. I would feel my “vagina” throb whenever a guy turned me on. This sensation had nothing to do with my anus. The feeling came from the section between my penis and anus, and it often felt very good, like a gradual swelling with occasional spasms which helped with the pleasures I got from masturbation.

I took my own virginity one boring Sunday afternoon when curiosity got the best of me. I had been watching straight porn; a sexy Italian man was pumping his 12-inch dick into the tight hole of his big-breasted female partner. I imagined it was me on all fours, getting banged, and then I had the bright idea to look for a tool to use in simulating this experience. I could only find a deodorant bottle that wasn’t too large and looked like a penis. I got some Vaseline to lube it up and surprisingly, it slipped right into my anus after some gentle prodding. I closed my eyes and focused on stroking my “clit” while massaging my phantom pussy.

This was a new feeling for me, as I was only used to stroking my “clit” to get relief from sexual tension. I felt the swelling of my phantom vagina and the sweet sensation of a “dick” inside me. I banged myself senseless that day, while squeezing on my very sensitive breasts. The orgasm was deeper and more intense than a jerk-off and it lasted longer. I had tears streaming from my eyes and I knew I wanted to share this experience with a real-life man one day.

Enter Osas.

Back then, I was called a “femme”, as many gay men didn’t believe trans people existed on the continent of Africa. Osas was a bisexual guy I met on Manjam and he lived in Delta State. We got chatting and he eventually paid me a visit in Lagos. He was all kinds of sexy in a rough, manly way, and seemed a bit aloof. But I didn’t care. I was horny.

Sex with Osas was spectacular. My nipples at this point were pleasure points that disarmed my entire body, and when he sucked on them, I couldn’t stay still. My knees would buckle and I would fall, but he would always catch me, holding my body to him while sucking hungrily at my areolas. His dick was eleven inches long and made me a bit nervous at first, but we tried several positions till we got it right. I would ride his dick with my now-experienced anus, till I felt him jutting in close to my navel. I would pull out, but not all the way, then thrust him deep inside me again. This feeling was affirming and made me feel as powerful as only a woman could. I had stronger orgasms because while stroking, I would focus on my phantom vagina which gave me a warm orgasmic glow all over my body. I also learnt how to suck his dick despite the size. I never liked the taste of cum and I spat his jizz out whenever he came inside my mouth.

This was my first sexual experience with a human being, and it made me a size queen. I was so smitten by Osas. He told me that he had both a boyfriend and a girlfriend, and I didn’t want any of that kind of drama. So, I tried to control my feelings for him. We limited activities to sex, food, wine and more sex till he had to return to Delta State after three days with me. He did ask why my body was so soft and feminine, and I told him everything – the hormone therapy and my future plans to transition. That seemed to excite him and he asked me to pay him a visit in Asaba when I had the chance. I told him I would think about it.

I still think of his dick till this day. It is one of the best I have ever had. I think of him too, and how he wasn’t nasty to me at all.

“Hello…” a voice snaps me out of my reverie and I look up to see warm, hazel eyes staring back at me.

It is the Lebanese owner of the establishment I am been chilling in.

“Do you want to try our chicken pizza? It’s really good…” he says to me. He has a strong accent and stares at me with smiling eyes.

I ask to see the menu and he has one brought to me. I settle for the spicy beef suya and make my order. He lingers on, like he wants to say something else, and keeps making eye contact with me. I don’t know what he wants so I simply smiles back. I suppose this gives him some courage because he approaches my table again.

“You look really good, nice shirt,” he compliments. “I haven’t seen you here before…”

I instantly feel my cheeks flame. It is unbelievable to me that this handsome Lebanese man is flirting with me. He is, right? I mean, my shirt is a normal black T-shirt which I paired with black fitted jeans, the way I often do whenever I get really depressed with my body.

“Thank you,” I respond to his compliment. “And no, I don’t come here very often.” My heart skips a beat as I meet his warm gaze.

What’s going on here? I think to myself. Is this guy messing with me?

I have my doubts extinguished however, when I notice a nice bulge between his thighs before he grabbed a seat at my table, all the while not breaking eye contact with me. I can tell when a man desires me, and this is turning into an interesting night.

I put out my cigarette and we start to chitchat, getting to know each other a bit more. My order soon comes, and he still doesn’t leave my table.

I will let you know how this turned out in another post.

Thank you for reading.

XOXO

Naija-T-Girl