You can feel it the moment you see it. Christopher Street of New York City is a special place, not divine exactly, but still sacred in its own secular way. It has to be felt only, because there isn’t much there to actually look at. It is a one-way stretch of unremarkable urban road running between a smattering of small time stores and living spaces with the odd church thrown in, all blended inside identical streets of the city. First going down Christopher Street the road splits itself apart, the two car paths straddling a meager garden. At the north side of the split rests The Stonewall Inn, a tourist trap for visiting liberals due to it’s being the nest that hatched the egg of the ghey liberation movement. Because of its history, foot travel to Stonewall Inn has become a holy pilgrimage for lovers of complete personal freedom or the cursed activity of godless libertines depending on your point of view.

There is, I think, another interesting building on Christopher Street. It is, admittedly, a mere apartment complex. It stands at the very entrance of the famous street like a fat, tall sentry, awkwardly larger than its neighboring buildings, and, in tune with the theme of its location, appearing to be in a mid-transition of its own; its cozy, small house-looking top floors are laid disparate atop of a flat, wide brutalist structure with nothing but a single green awning sticking out over the front door to greet passersby. It’s the first structure everybody can’t help but notice upon entering Christopher Street, but nobody cares to, since it doesn’t have any history behind it like the legendary Stonewall does. The building doesn’t even have a name of its own, identifying only by its physical location: 1 Christopher Street.

I find it personally interesting because, floating up to the eleventh floor of this building, peering inside the window of a room facing the street, you can see a certain transwoman in a bathrobe performing a strange and embarrassing ritual unheard of in any time but our own. Despite his self-identification as a woman, he is tall with wide shoulders and lanky everything else, and still has a perfectly masculine face untouched by surgery or makeup. Only his bright blonde hair, flowing straight down the sides of his head like a gentle waterfall, cut off at the top of his neck in the fashion of a female bob, hinted to strangers at his preferred gender role. The transwoman sits spreadeagle in his comfy, leaned back chair; a chair positioned much like a hospital bed or the kind in a dentists’ office, made to provide extra comfort to a patient offsetting a painful procedure.

The transwoman next held his lubricated, phallic-shaped device called a dilator and inserted it inside a hole in his flesh where his male genitalia used to be.

It’s said that when you get hit by a car and sent flying that your best chance at survival is to completely loosen up your body and let your limbs go with the flow. The natural response to tense up will more likely get you killed by smashing against the countervailing forces rushing through your form. The same kind of lesson applied here. He forces his crotch to relax like the dead as he opens up the dilator using the rear twist dial.

It’s not the pain that bothers the transwoman. It was manageable all things considered, and varied from session to session. No, It’s the invasive, unnatural feelings that he got during the long 15 minutes of doing this, up to three times a day sometimes, that urked him. His body was trying to close up the hole that was made, and his brain was ordering his limbs to keep the hole open, and during this internal tug of war the body was asking questions and demanding the brain to better explain itself for this counterproductive behavior. At every other time, the transwoman was happy with his life, happy damn you, and the decisions he made to arrive there. Only when the dilator entered his body did he question why the hell he was doing this, and the worst thing a transwoman can do to his already brittle self esteem is question himself.

The transwoman made a big sigh and commented to himself, “I hate this shit.”

Another figure in the room, who was not in the room mere seconds before, or anywhere at all for that matter, approaches the transwoman from behind and leans into the transwoman’s ear, “Hey, we both agree on something.”

It came back again. Why won’t it go away? The transwoman pretended not to hear from this figure, and he did his best not to look startled. Whatever-it-was took a position in front of the transwoman into full view and glared at him impatiently, as if expecting some kind of response. Any response at all. But the transwoman remained obstinately silent, because he knew there was nothing there to respond to.

It was not real. The transwoman knew this to be true with absolute certainty. It didn’t matter that there wasn’t any perceivable difference between the apparition before him and a physically solid, flesh-and-blood person. How could it possibly be real when it pops in and out of existence, as it did many times before, and improbably looks like an exact copy of himself? Well, facially at least. The rest of its appearance took on the extreme opposite of the transwoman: it had a boring conservative haircut and nondescript shirt and pants, along with some chewed up, coming-apart black shoes, as if worn out from overwork at some hard walking job. It also carried itself like a heteronormative, traditionally masculine man, somewhat defiantly so in the transwoman’s vicinity, as though straining to symbolize “Hey! Look what you’re supposed to be!”

The apparition sarcastically holds a hand up to its own ear, “Huh? What did you say? ‘It’s nice of us to finally talk together’?” knowing it was getting no response. It probes further by pressing its finger into the forehead of the transwoman, “Hello? Is anybody alive in there? You know, besides me of course.”

Alarmingly, the transwoman can feel the fleshy press of the imaginary finger and pulls back, still looking away and silently shunning the figure. “Still nothing? Wonderful.” it throws its hands up in exasperation and paces about the room, sometimes picking up and examining objects aimlessly.

It was getting to be too much, but the transwoman refuses to close the mental distance and acknowledge whatever this thing is before him. He couldn’t explain why or how, but he sensed there was some kind of psychic link between them that only gets stronger the more he engages with it.

‘Just block it out. Focus all on the dilator. I can’t risk going along. They’ll put me in the psych ward. My poor mom was. Is this what crazy people have been going through all this time when they start losing their minds? I always thought crazy people were just stubborn at heart. Mom was only stubborn. Remember seeing mom in the psych ward after dad committed her? He never should have done that. It wasn’t necessary. She said one time the devil is coming for me in front of family and it was weird, but the psych ward made her so much worse. Remember visiting her at that place after I came back home? And she smiled at me, happy to see her long lost child, but I was horrified how her face changed. She looked almost cross-eyed and her speech was difficult, like she had to trudge through mud to connect her thoughts. Why was there bite marks on the side of her mouth? I should have asked the orderly about it. I had the right to demand an answer. Why didn’t I say anything to them? How do you forget that? Don’t matter, my parents are both dead. I’ll never go there. Never never. I’m not stubborn. I can stop and act normal, like them, whatever the world thinks is normal. Ow, I need more lub.’

The transwoman calmly pulls out the dilator in order to squeeze a tube of lubricant over it and reinserts the device, doing his best to mind his own business. The strange figure spun around and continued talking regardless, “Oh, and happy anniversary by the way. It’s already been a whole year, can you believe it? We made so many memories. Oh wait, nevermind, we don’t make any memories. You keep ignoring me the whole damn time! Sorry, sorry. I’m irritable because of how mean you are, but that’s okay. See, I’ve been maturing since then. I don’t just appear in the background for a brief cameo every couple of weeks. I’m up walking and talking now. You should be proud of my progress.” The figure suddenly kneels down and puts its hands on the transwoman’s shoulders. “Just say one word to me please? Please?” Still no answer.

The figure gets up in a huff and paces some more. Then its eyes light up with a new idea. “Aha! You know what I’ve been doing wrong this entire time? I haven’t formally introduced myself yet. Of course! How rude of me. Maybe if I shout my name over and over it can break the ice. Let’s see, how does that name go again? It was written on your birth certificate…”

At this the transwoman jolts to life and points his finger at the deadnamer, finally responding in kind. “No! Don’t you dare say that name. I forbid you! That name is dead to me.”

The figure, despite getting what it wanted, takes offense at the transwoman’s reaction and prances about with a scathingly sarcastic female tone. “Oh, that’s right. You call yourself Mandy now. Mandy Boutique.” The figure suddenly leans in with an icy stare and harsh voice. “What a stupid name.”

Mandy tries to return to what he was doing like nothing changed, but his face was obviously fuming. The figure continues, “Well, you have no choice but to call me the forbidden name you hate because it’s my name. It’s who I am. In fact, it’s who you are. Why are you lying to yourself about being a woman. You’re not a she/her. You are a he/him just like I am.” It said.

Mandy snaps back, “I’m just going to call you ‘No Name’.”

No Name openly scowls at its insulting new moniker. In spite of its independent and condescending attitude towards Mandy, Its peculiar nature gave it no option but unwilling compliance towards its host’s harsher demands.

Mandy continued after a pause, “I’m not talking to you anymore. Go away.”

“Why not?” No Name asked.

“Because I don’t want people to think I’m crazy.” Mandy said sternly.

No Name wanted to laugh in Mandy’s face, “Ha! You-you don’t want people to think you’re crazy? You?! All right then, let’s see what we got here. Hmm.” No Name sarcastically held its chin as if inspecting the transwoman intensely. “Number one, you’re clearly a homo instead of normal. Number two, you call yourself a woman despite basic biology. And number three, you think that gashing wound between your legs is a vagina. Uh...Yep, you’re batshit!”

Mandy had to wonder why his brain gifted such an unwanted companion. “Fine, so why are you even bugging me then? What’s your reason for being here? Why do you exist?”

Mandy saw No Name hesitant with its response to the sudden inquiry as if applying caution to what it said next, “Okay, so I’ll admit that’s a hard question for me to answer, but I have an interesting theory about it. Question: what is your forbidden fruit? What is the one thing you must never do but secretly desire because you can’t have it? For example, for Christian conservatives we know it’s lust, right? Your side is allowed to lust in the open so you don’t have the same hangups. But you’ll see a right-winger put on a public show like, ‘I believe in traditional marriage. I’m better than all those ghey sex perverts,’ and then later he’ll get caught in some crazy bathroom orgy that would gross out even all those perverts he defamed. Because that was his forbidden fruit, the vice that his side claims to have complete mastery over. So what is the inverse of him? What would be the forbidden fruit of the left? What is the one vice that is beneath all good little liberals like you who maintain the reputation of being open-minded and fair to everybody?”

No Name leans in and deepens his voice for emphasis, “It’s Hate! Bigoted, prejudiced, humanity stripping hate. Conservatives are allow to hate in the open so they don’t have the same hangups as you, but your side has to always pretend to be empathetic, even to criminals who don’t deserve any. And so over the years all of that suppressed judgmentalism just builds up inside of you, desperate for some kind of release. That’s why when your party gives you an excuse to hate somebody, you all pounce on it like a pack of starving wolves on a steak. Just open mouthed, eyes bulging. ‘Oh yes! This raw hatred, this unfeeling bigotry towards my enemies, I love it, its so juicy. Give me more.’ And the conservatives are watching this feeding frenzy like, ‘Are these people psycho, or what?

No Name steps back, concluding his presentation with arms wide, “And that is what I propose I am. I’m the manifestation of your forbidden fruit. I’m the angry judgemental bigot that you secretly are but pretend not to be.”

Mandy sensed a wide disconnect with No Name’s explanation and whatever the truth is, but he had no more confirmation than another vague theory of his own. “No, that doesn’t sound right. It doesn’t even make any sense...I think I know what you are, you’re my punching bag. You say all the stupid things I don’t believe in and then I easily destroy you with my own words. You’re like my court jester.”

No Name crossed his arm unhappily and rolled his eyes, “Okay, that’s not what court jesters do, but fine, I guess we’ll go with that then.”

The door to the apartment opened. In walked David, Mandy’s husband. David is an unfairly handsome guy, as tall as Mandy but with a smooth face and satisfyingly muscular build. Being the only one who worked, David would be considered the ‘man’ in the relationship and indeed looked the part of a fine traditional husband, were he with a woman. People saw his handsomeness as unfair because when they saw the couple together they thought his wonderful charisma was a total mismatch and frankly a waste to be spent on a homely, weird, and terminally shy transexual. Mandy humbly agreed about the mismatch himself. It made him subservient to David in all things to make up for his inadequacies. That’s also why the apartment was spotless and David’s food was already prepared in the refrigerator.

David was holding the mail in his hand and looking over at Mandy as he closed the door. “Howdy. Doing your thing over there?”

Mandy stiffened up and answered in his usual quiet demeanor of saying the bare minimum to count as an interaction, “Hi hun. Yeah, pretty much.” He also didn’t want David to suspect he was just arguing with the illusion in front of him.

“Okay. Whenever you’re ready for the jumbo size dilator I got it waiting right here.” David joked lazily while tapping his crotch. Then went back to flipping through and opening his mail.

“Aw.” Mandy said in response, as he usually did to his husband’s light banter. He next glared at No Name, hoping his expression signaled to it that it was time to disappear.

No Name looked over at David then back at Mandy, “What? You want me to leave now? Then why don’t you open your mouth and tell me to leave. You can talk to me. It’s okay, he won’t hear you.”

This had to be a trap. It wanted Mandy to look crazy by talking to nobody in front of David, and Mandy wasn’t going to fall for it. In a manner that didn’t attract David’s attention, Mandy flared his angry eyes at No Name as if his eyelids were yelling ‘Go!’ at the figure.

No Name could see that Mandy will keep silent no matter what. “Tsch! Nuts to you. I guess I’ll go play with David instead.” No Name said as it went right over to David. Mandy’s expression went from angry flare to wide-eyed alarm. He couldn’t say or do anything to stop it without giving himself away. All he could do is watch.

“Hey. Check this out.” No Name called out to Mandy. Mandy next saw No Name grab David’s empty hand, pull it near it’s mouth, “Hhoock...Puuh!” and then spit in David’s palm with as big a wet wad as it could muster. After that it slapped David own hand into his face, smearing the spit all around.

“David! No! Uh—” Mandy couldn’t help but shout, then immediately stopped himself, not sure if it was safe for him to have even responded.

David just keep looking at the mail in his other hand, not even flinching. “See.” No Name said, “No reaction. Because it didn’t really happen. And the moment you look away, your brain resets the scene.” No Name holds his arm out under David’s face, and waves it upward past his head like a magic wand. David’s face and hair went from smeared with saliva to looking like it did beforehand as No Name moved his arm over it.

David looked up at Mandy, “The bitch’s lawyer sent me a notice. Can’t wait to read that on the toilet.”

The ‘bitch’ David referred to was his ex-wife. They had 3 children together and a 4th in the oven unbeknownst to either before David left her for Mandy. Mandy had so little interaction with her that he forgot what she looked like, but she caused enough trouble in his relationship with David to earn the title of Demon Woman. But she wasn’t on Mandy mind at that moment. He was far more distracted with the apparition.

“So it’s okay to interact with me out in public. Nobody can see you do it. To them it just looks like you’re ‘deep in thought.’” No Name says with quotation fingers at the last three words. Mandy needed to test what it said about not being heard without drawing David’s attention, and spoke in a strong, deliberate voice that David could easily hear. “So how has your day been going?” Mandy said, looking at David but addressing the figure.

David had no reaction whatsoever, and began to walk away towards the fridge to grab the new meal that David had requested Mandy try to cook before he came home from work. “It’s been very productive and educational for both of us, thank you.” The apparition said.

The claim was true apparently. Mandy felt brave enough to continue talking to it. “Last question: where’s your ‘off’ switch?”

“Sorry. I can’t turn off. You’re stuck with me forever. Here I am, get used to it.” No Name said, arms folded.

Mandy said, “You’re lying to me. I can feel it. You showed up right when I had negative thoughts about myself. I bet doing the reverse will have the opposite effect.”

“I showed up while you were breathing too. Maybe you should stop doing that instead.” No Name said sarcastically.

Mandy pulled out the dilator finally, because he was done using it for the required time. It was an instant relief to have it out. He was finished with both the dilator and whatever this other thing is. He required a method to feel good about himself, so he came up with a mantra on the spot that gave him comfort and peace of mind. Mandy put his fingers to his temple and closed his eyes to concentrate. “Transwomen are women. Transwomen are women. Transwomen are women. Transwomen are women…”

The figure already began to fade. As Mandy continued the mantra, it taunted Mandy as it gradually disappeared. “You’ll never get rid of me Mandy. Deadnamers are like beach balls: the deeper you push me under, the faster I hit you in the face when your hand slips.” Then it was gone.

Glad to have gotten his sitdown out of the way, Mandy got up from his chair and headed to the bathroom to shower and dress. “Do you like it?” Mandy asked David, referring to his meal.

“Eh. It’s not what I was expecting, but it does the job so far.” David said.

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