Tango

Carl was missing work a day or two a week. Today was one of those days. He couldn't pull himself together. He got up from his breakfast of coffee and cold cereal, called in sick and went back to bed.

“I'd give years off my life to have her back.” he bargained. “Right now! I want her back. Thirty three is too young to die of cancer. I'll make a deal.” Carl reached over and straightened out Carla's rumpled out mohair sweater and ran his fingers over it. He wished he could fall asleep, a permanent sleep, but he couldn't.

Carl worked on aeronautical guidance systems at a large engineering firm at the edge of the city. Carla had worked at a nonprofit in an exurb. Their life had been happy and comfortable, except that Carl worked 60 hours or more a week. He only got paid for 40 but everyone was expected to work the extra hours, or else.

Carl made it in to work Friday, but Saturday he hadn't turned the heat on again and was back in bed. He reached over and ran his fingers through Carla's sweater again and shivered a little.

“Put it on,” Carla's voice seemed to speak in his head. “Put it on. It's too cold.”

Carl sat up, startled, then sank back down into the bed in a reverie. The voice spoke in his head again. This time Carl put it on. He lay in bed stroking the sweater. It seemed to help.

As the new week unfolded Carl added other Carla items to his attire. The more he put on, the less the pain, sorrow and angst he felt. By the following weekend he was kicking around the house in one of Carla's tops and slacks and wore one of her wigs. He played Carla's tango and flamenco CD's. He remembered to turn the heat on too.

In the afternoon he realized he had been sitting in front of the computer for an hour and a half and couldn't remember what he was doing all that time. It dawned on him when he received the package several days later; six bottles of female hormones. How on earth had he ordered that? He put the pills in the pill drawer, but then the following week he noticed one of the bottles open on the counter. The pills in it were mostly gone.

That same week Carl's boss called him into his office.

“Carl you've been taking lots of time off from work, leaving at five and not pitching in on Saturdays. We are a team here, and we all work together. I'm very sorry about your wife, but it's been almost two months. It's time to get over it and move forward. There is a new prototype for a non-jammable drone guidance reset component we need to test and calibrate with the programmers. We just received it. I'm putting you and Darryl on it. So I can count on you to get back to schedule?”

Carl nodded vacantly.

A month later Carl got a call from personnel. As he sat in the personnel office time slowed down. The lady in front of him mouthed lots of words but the only ones he heard were: “ . . .terminate your employment, . . . final paycheck . . . and remove all your personal items in the next hour.”

Carl drove home and dropped the box of belongings in the corner. After taking a bath he put on a pair of lavender panties with white lace trim and a bra to match. He was starting to develop breasts, but he had to put some silicone pads in to fill it out. Next he put on some tight jeans and a black velvet top with a square cut bodice. He hadn't cut his hair in three months so it almost looked OK for a woman. Finally he put on some lipstick. Now he was safe from the pain and depression.

Carl quickly went through the box from work, diligently sorting and filing and discarding. He put on a tango CD and tried to move to it. “Don't try, let me lead you,” a familiar voice drifted in. The second time he played the music whatever he was doing actually looked like a tango.

A little later he went out to the mailbox and found another package of hormones had arrived. Again he didn't recall ordering them. “Am I losing my mind? There's still two bottles from the last batch in the drawer and I never ordered these.”

“Yes you did, you really want to do this you know . . . for me.” unmistakably Carla's voice coming from, somewhere else? Or, from deep inside him?

Two weeks later Carl received a private note on Messenger, “ Dear Carl, Jana and I are wondering how you are doing. We were reminded of your loss when we came across a drawerful of Carla's belongings. Would you want to come by and get them? Your friend Louise at New Solutions Collective”

“Hi Carl.” Jana looked up from her desk. “We put Carla's things in a box. Are you getting along any better yet?”

Carl nodded.

“It's almost lunch time. Louise and I like to go to a little place around the corner. Come with us. It will be good for you.”

Realizing he had a lot of time on his hands lately, he agreed.

After telling Carl how much she missed Carla, and how much she wanted him to be able to become happy again, Louise reminisced, “You two were quite the couple, so well suited for each other. You even looked similar. Actually you look more like her than ever before.”

“Disclosure is the nourishment of the soul.” Carla's voice resonated within Carl.

“What was that?” Louise looked startled.

“How could she have heard that?” Carl thought. “What did I say?”

“Disclosure something.”

“I did?”

“Yes. Is there something you want to disclose? Does it relate to what I just said?”

Carl now knew what a trapped animal feels like.

“Looking like each other, somethings different, or should I say a bit too much alike.”

Now both women were staring at him.

“Is there something you would like to tell us.”

“Uh no, . . .but I will, I uh . . . A bit after she died it helped the pain if I touched her things. It was as if she was closer again. . . and then I put a few of them on. It helped more. It was as if she was touching and speaking to me. Then the hormones came in the mail. I don't remember or ever imagined that I would ever get them, but I guess I did . . . and . . . and . . . the same for taking them. So I guess I've gotten more like her.”

“Wow, you have.” said Jana. “How do you feel about it? Do you want to be her?”

“It makes me feel closer, not so sad. I want her to be back, in any way.”

“Your body must be changing. Your face is softer, more like hers and your hair is thicker. What about the rest of you? Your body shape could be, probably is changing. Do you have breasts now? It actually looks as if you do.”

“He doesn't have to answer that!” Louise said. “It's scary enough to tell us what he just told us.”

“It's OK. Yes, I have breasts now and I wear loose t-shirts so people won't notice. I was recently fired for spending too much time away from work, so no one there knows.”

“I think it's sweet. If you keep doing it, it could be like having Carla back again.”

“Ooh, that could be fun.” chimed in Jana. “So what's next? Are you going to continue taking the hormones? You could go to Thailand and do a sex change.”

“Don't pressure him Jana.” Louise looked thoughtful, and turned to Carl. “When Carla died we replaced her with another lady. She will be moving away in about two months and the position will be open. It doesn't pay much, but with your engineering and electronics background you could really make our displays much better so we could hire you and pay you a little more. What do you think?”