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one kernel at a time with her long, slim fingers.
    I couldn’t help but watch her gigantic Adam’s apple slide up and down as she swallowed. This seemed to me to be a dead giveaway. This, and the fact that she was six-four and balding.
    I started reading every book I could find on the subject. I spent hours at night scrutinizing graphic photographs of postsurgical vaginas. I compared the clitorises created by the various doctors in America, Asia, and Europe. I learned that Amber could have a tracheal shave, where her Adam’s apple would be trimmed and made to appear more feminine. I learned that, indeed, many new women have to go back and have their new vaginas revised. And even if you have to finance it, every clitoris needs a hood.
    I wanted to show Amber the articles I found but felt I better not do this, in case it upset her that she hadn’t “passed.” This is something else I learned about,
passing
. And it’s the goal of every transsexual.
    A transsexual that doesn’t “pass” alarms people. I think this is because as a culture, we are uncomfortable with sex to begin with. So when we see someone who is toying with their own sex, it makes us want to grab our penises and cross our arms in front of our breasts. It threatens us in a deep, primal place in our brain stems.
    One of my favorite transsexuals was named Caroline Cossey, also known as Tula. Unlike many male-to-female transsexuals, Tula didn’t look like a super-tall depressed guy in a matronly floral dress. She looked like Cindy Crawford. With a better body.
    In fact, Tula was a Bond girl and a Seagram’s model before a British tabloid revealed the fact that Tula was once a guy. This horrified people, probably men who had previously engaged inerotic fantasies of the lovely Tula only to learn she had recently been some bloke named Hal or Martin.
    When I turned thirty, I briefly flirted with the notion of undergoing sexual reassignment surgery. Once again, I was ready for a big change in my life. Plus, I was having a really difficult time meeting gay guys who didn’t seem gay yet were still caustic. So I figured, as a woman I would have a whole new pool of men from which to fish.
    I decided that I would probably opt for the self-lubricating vagioplasty option. This was a more expensive vagina, because it was partially constructed from a one-inch band of mucoussecreting small intestine. The plus side of this vagina was that it was, like the name implies, self-lubricating. So I wouldn’t need to give myself away and reach for the K-Y. On the downside, it was always self-lubricating, so you had to wear a maxipad at all times, even at funerals.
    I wouldn’t make the same mistake that Amber had made: I would absolutely have the tracheal shave. I would also have the “facial feminization” option that was offered by a surgeon in San Francisco.
    And even if the hormones made my breasts grow, I would still get saline implants. Because if I was going to be a woman, I was going to be
stacked
.
    The problem was my feet. I wore a size-thirteen shoe, and while I could possibly find a surgeon who would be willing to remove my toes and bring my feet down to a more reasonable ten, I might have trouble walking and would have to sit in a wheelchair.
    And then, of course, there was the fact that in the end, Rogaine really hadn’t worked for me. So I’d be forced to wear wigs. And while there were excellent-quality wigs made from the finest Japanese hair, each wig cost thousands of dollars and New York can be extremely windy in the winter.
    It all seemed like so much unnecessary trouble, and it wasn’t like I was unhappy being a guy. I really liked being a guy. It’s just I was bored with my life and wanted a change.
    So here’s what I did: I went to the AKC Puppy Center on Lexington Avenue and I bought a purebred shiba inu puppy. He was frisky, smart, and adorable. I called him Becky.

M ODEL B EHAVIOR
     
     
     
     
     
T
he most mortifying fact of my life is