Legs

by Ian Cooper

  It was just two people having some hotdogs and that bitter, dark coffee and doing more people-watching and talking about baseball than anything else. Kim was a big fan.

  “Well. Not much, as far as I know.” Kim was drop-dead beautiful, too.

  That was the real problem, and why in the hell did Kim ever ask Brandon to dance? That wasn’t exactly unheard-of, but rare—certainly in his experience.

  It really wasn’t in character for an ostensibly-shy girl (or boy) to suddenly walk up to a stranger in a club and ask them to dance. Especially when he wasn’t exactly the most macho, or the best-looking, or what the hell am I telling myself? He wondered at his own thought processes at times. He was reading too much into it and had ridiculous expectations.

  Maybe that was the key—low expectations.

  “We could go out.”

  “Ah—yeah. I would love that.” His mind raced.

  How much money have I got? Not much, he realized.

  “I mean, I’m kind of broke and everything.”

  “Aw, that’s all right. I don’t mind going Dutch.”

  He laughed, surprised by the old-fashioned expression. Better to explain now.

  “No, uh, I don’t think you understand what I mean. I mean, broke—as in dead broke. That’s one reason I’m kind of interested in other forms of employment…”

  “Oh.” He could imagine her thoughts, but then how do you really know?

  And notice I just said her there.

  “Say, Kim,”

  “Yes?” Kim was more doubtful now, and Brandon realized that it sounded like some kind of a brush-off.

  “We don’t have to go anywhere.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, I don’t know. There are parks and things. Trails—you know. There’s supposed to be a waterfall up by Lyndock Hill. Somewhere up there, in a conservation area.”

  “Hmn. I have to admit, I am intrigued.” That seemed bold for Kim.

  Kim really didn’t impress Brandon in terms of coy repartee. You never knew though—as his old man once advised him, ‘nice girls fuck too and they’re a lot less trouble.’

  Kim obviously thought for a moment.

  “Are you working now, Kim?”

  Kim had told him that he, she or it worked as a supply-chain specialist for a prominent stocking manufacturer, in fact a famous brand name.

  “Yes. But I get off at four-thirty, just like every other working slob.”

  His heart stopped—he thought Kim was going to say ‘girl’ there and settle all doubts.

  Damn.

  Kim had called him from work. It had some kind of significance, if only because there were implied alternatives. Kim might have other options. She was lining up her weekend.

  One couldn’t assume anything of course, but hurting Kim’s feelings, male or female, really wasn’t in him.

  So you learn something new about yourself everyday.

  “I’ll tell you what.” Kim didn’t have a car, he knew that. “Why don’t I pick you up at the front door. We’ll grab a six-pack, and some KFC, and we’ll go there up and look for that waterfall.”

  “Sure.” A smile was evident in Kim’s voice. “Pick me up outside the front gate. There’s a guard shack, on Dumb-ass Street, right?”

  He smiled.

  Dundas Street. No-brainer.

  “Right.”

  They rang off and Brandon sat back in his overstuffed rocking armchair, lost in futile speculation.

  If Kim is a man, what in the hell am I going to do?

  Oh, oh—and one more thing.

  How in the hell do I get myself into these situations…?

  Act Three

  Like the total idiot that he was, Brandon had forgotten to ask what Kim was wearing.

  He was relieved to see that Kim had worn, or had somehow changed into, low brown walking shoes, knee-high white socks, a short, pleated grey skirt and a loose white blouse with long sleeves. There was a considerable extent of pale white skin exposed between the socks and the skirt. It was a warm day and there was no black leather jacket in evidence. Cute as a button, and looking like the school-girl from hell.

  The sight ought to have been reassuring. Surely a gender-confused individual would be clad in appropriate attire, at least during working hours. Kim’s boss might be a man, woman, or nut-case. Interesting thought, but irrelevant.

  Usually all caught up on the news, or at least the hot-button memes of the day, Brandon wondered what the corporate policy here was, on cross-dressing in the work-place for example, in these politically-correct times.

  Kim looked fresh and inviting, the hair lower and flatter today, combed out long and straight and looking jet black with stunning highlights in the blazing sun of late afternoon. Ah, mousse, he realized. That’s how she…yes, she did it.

  Hold the illusion for as long as you can, for surely it is a good one.

  Why not?

  What the hell.

  The closer she gets, the taller she is. Holy.

  Kim’s stride was long, powerful, and damn it all, Brandon was going to call Kim a she until otherwise informed.

  The hips went back and forth, left and right, and those incredible eyes were locked right on his.

  Okay, the Mustang, silver with a black hood stripe, was unmistakable—but his guts flipped over when he saw her smile and wave. Holy crap, he had to restrain his glee—it was like he wanted to rub his hands together and cackle like a mad scientist.

  Hold that thought.

  “Hey.” Kim’s door thudded into place and he repressed a wince. “Oh, sorry. I guess I didn’t need to slam it that hard. So, where is this place?’

  Brandon pulled it into drive and checked over his shoulder carefully, as there were buses and jay-walkers all over the place now that the day was over. He pulled into the lane. He gave Kim a sidelong glance.

  There were those legs. Oh! My God. No razor burn…no suspicious-looking black specks all over the upper legs. Her face was smooth, relatively makeup-free today, and in this light it was definitive. He gave the throttle a little squirt, burning a bit of rubber at the intersection, giving Kim a look of pure, masculine masterfulness.

  “Nice.” She was checking out the dashboard and the interior.

  He nodded with a wink, settling down again for the drive.

  Hopefully his faith would be justified.

  “Yeah, it’s not too far. Out on the outskirts, up in the Pines area.” This was an upper-class enclave, with hills, a few babbling brooks coming down out of the highlands and a string of nature trails and small public parks. “But first, what do you want to eat?”

  “Oh, God. I don’t care. I am famished, though.” Kim gave him a famished look and a squeeze of his right knee.

  Brandon said a silent little prayer and headed for the nearest commercial strip, sure that they would find something in the way of fast food that they could both agree on.

  He already had four cans of beer and a small bottle of a fairly dry white wine in the plastic cooler that was supposed to be for work, but lately he’d just been eating off the gut-wagon.

  Stuck for small talk, he joked around with Kim and told her all about it.

  A highly-polished contraption on the back of a flat-bed pickup truck, they served sandwiches wrapped in cellophane, big hunks of heavy cake with even heavier icing, presented the same way, even little paper bowls of Jello. Then there was the half-pints of chocolate milk on machine-made ice chips, sitting right on the end in a big steel tub.

  They didn’t even have a cash register. The attendant had a pen and paper and was good at adding figures in their head, and everything was rounded-off to the nearest dollar.

  ***

  Brandon and Kim sat in the still evening air, not much bothered by flies and mosquitoes. The picnic table was thirty yards from his car and other people, a family of five, couples, a few single folks, came and went.

  A popular trail for walking dogs, it was also a fairly busy place, as these pla
ces tended to be in good weather. Brandon loved the escarpment in all seasons, and had spent some time on lonelier days hiking good sections of the trail system. There was a nice casual air to what they were doing, unforced.

  It was a natural act, and a good thing to do.

  They were eating KFC, greasy but also strangely intimate. You sort of had to let your hair down—and eat the stuff with your fingers.

  Kim’s wonderful eyes took in the surroundings, tall trees and lush green grass neatly-tended, hills and dales, with the roar of the cataracts off behind her in the distance.

  “This is really beautiful.”

  Brandon nodded.

  “Yeah. I’m looking forward to it.”

  Kim’s collar was buttoned up to the top, but it ended well below where the Adam’s apple should have been, or would be in a male. The scent had impressed him at first as a feminine one…and of course then the doubts crept in as anyone could wear a scent.

  Either way, that lack of a bump in the throat didn’t prove anything, although Brandon couldn’t immediately recall the name of the procedure. He knew they had one, and so the doubts and questions continued. It was expensive, elective surgery he thought, and not everyone could afford it or would even do it if they could. It was maddening not to be able to focus.

  All of this is madness—Slam’s kind of madness, the kind of madness the modern world puts into our brains…every stinking day.

  The inkling of an actual idea began to eat at the tissues on the verge of Brandon’s brain stem.

  At least that’s how it felt at first

  What if the most simple, and most obvious answer was the correct one.

  What if Kim was really a girl, and just a bit androgynous in appearance, and nothing more?

  She was a tall, skinny girl with a certain fashion sense. He’d never met anyone quite like her.

  It certainly bore some thinking about.

  ***

  Brandon and Kim gathered up the remains of the meal, and put it in the trunk of the Mustang. He put two cans of Bud Light in his jacket pockets and they followed the trail markers. The shadows were deeper down in the gorge, and they held hands, picking their way carefully around boulders, fallen logs and muddy spots. The beer was a bad idea. There were people around and the cans kept threatening to fall out of his pockets.

  “Careful…careful.” She made it across a slick flat rock, with a little help from him.

  He could feel cold wet mist on his face. He grinned, alive with the moment. Still it was out of sight, but just around the corner. A vertical wall bulged out, and the stream fell in from the right bank somewhere up ahead. They could see white spray and splashes on the rocks and foam floating on a green pool. They picked their way carefully.

  “Oh!” Kim stopped, and they looked up at the falls, coming down from a good forty feet up.

  They edged up closer, and then Brandon looked around and stood on a flat rock about four inches higher than the surrounding gravel.

  He pulled Kim’s hand. She came and stood in front of him, looking at the falls, the cliffs, and he wrapped his arms around her from behind. Brandon just stood there marveling at his own fortune, and perhaps, nerve.

  She didn’t seem to mind, and she had come along in the first place.

  “It really is nice. You never really quite know what to expect, although almost any waterfall has something going for it.”

  Kim swayed in his grasp, her hands coming up and holding onto his wrists.

  “There’s a trail and some stairs that go up, if you want to.”

  “No, that’s all right. Let’s just look at it for a while.”

  Brandon buried his face in the hair.

  Birds flitted around in the small underbrush growing in the boulder garden at the base of the falls, just down from a deeper pool. They were soundless in the roar of the water, a unique effect, as their beaks opened and closed and they looked at the pair of humans just standing there.

  “Hey.”

  Kim turned her head and looked inquiringly, and Brandon, heart surging, as it had been doing quite a bit of late, spun her a little further.

  He pulled her in close, and Kim’s hands went around him again. They held each other.

  “So...what’s up?” She had an impish look about her just then and if he didn’t do this, why then—he might just as well go home and slash up.

  That’s what he was thinking right about then all right.

  Do it or slash up, Buddy. Those are your options.

  “Nothing.” It might not have been impish, but Brandon had a weird smile on his face when his hand slid up to the back of Kim’s neck and he pulled her in for his first kiss in two and a half fucking years.

  Her mouth was moist and warm and the kiss, which went on for some while, was all it should be.

  Finally they pulled away, and just looked into each other’s soul for a while as white mist fell all over them but no one cared about that anyways.

  Least of all them.

  And like a brilliant bolt out of the blue, it struck someone who was admittedly among the most stupid of men, that there really was a way to ask the question.

  If only he had thought of it before.

  “Ah, Kim. Do you have a boyfriend?”

  Kim smiled a little, not looking away or anything.

  “Nope.”

  “Uh…would you like one?” He waited, cold water trickling down his neck.

  She just smiled.

  “Yep.”

  He sagged in a kind of relief and her face came and snuggled into his shoulder.

  “Oh, well. So that’s all right then.”

  “Come on, silly.”

  She plucked at his jacket buttons.

  “What?”

  “Let’s get out of here.”

  He could take a hint.

  They turned to go.

  “So, uh, Kim. That’s short for Kimberly, right?”

  “Uh-huh.” She clung to his hand on the slippery trail.

  She smiled nervously, eyes a bit frightened, as one kiss must lead to another and that was when his heart well and truly melted.

  Shut up, Brandon. Shut up now and just get on with the moment.

  And as for the little voice in my head: get lost.

  End

  About the Author

  Ian Cooper has written fiction, non-fiction and worked for newspapers and magazines. He likes to make people laugh as well as think. His writing has a strong sense of the dramatic. Out of work and recovering from a life-threatening illness, someone suggested writing his sexual memoirs, which he initially rejected for the amount of research involved. He didn’t want to have to make it all up from scratch. A single dad and semi-retired from the construction industry, Ian squeezes a little writing time in between raising a daughter and building a home-based business.