“It wasn’t until my skirts got tight that I realized.”
“Pregnant?”
“He had me higher ’n a kite! Those skinflints I lived with ignored it as long as I could work—then kicked me out and the orphanage wouldn’t take me back. I landed in a charity ward surrounded by other big bellies and trotted bedpans until my time came.
“One night I found myself on an operating table, with a nurse saying, ‘Relax. Now breathe deeply.’
“I woke up in bed, numb from the chest down. My surgeon came in. ‘How do you feel?’ he says cheerfully.
“ ‘Like a mummy.’
“ ‘Naturally. You’re wrapped like one and full of dope to keep you numb. You’ll get well—but a Caesarian isn’t a hangnail.’
“ ‘Caesarian,’ I said. ‘Doc—did I lose the baby?’
“ ‘Oh, no. Your baby’s fine.’
“ ‘Oh. Boy or girl?’
“ ‘A healthy little girl. Five pounds, three ounces.’
“I relaxed. It’s something, to have made a baby. I told myself I would go somewhere and tack ‘Mrs.’ on my name and let the kid think her papa was dead—no orphanage for my kid!
“But the surgeon was talking. ‘Tell me, uh—’ He avoided my name. ‘—did you ever think your glandular setup was odd?’
“I said, ‘Huh? Of course not. What are you driving at?’
“He hesitated. ‘I’ll give you this in one dose, then a hypo to let you sleep off your jitters. You’ll have ’em.’
“ ‘Why?’ I demanded.
“ ‘Ever hear of that Scottish physician who was female until she was thirty-five?—then had surgery and became legally and medically a man? Got married. All okay.’
“ ‘What’s that got to do with me?’
“ ‘That’s what I’m saying. You’re a man.’
“I tried to sit up. ‘What?’
“ ‘Take it easy. When I opened you, I found a mess. I sent for the Chief of Surgery while I got the baby out, then we held a consultation with you on the table—and worked for hours to salvage what we could. You had two full sets of organs, both immature, but with the female set well enough developed for you to have a baby. They could never be any use to you again, so we took them out and rearranged things so that you can develop properly as a man.’ He put a hand on me. ‘Don’t worry. You’re young, your bones will readjust, we’ll watch your glandular balance—and make a fine young man out of you.’
“I started to cry. ‘What about my baby?’
“ ‘Well, you can’t nurse her, you haven’t milk enough for a kitten. If I were you, I wouldn’t see her—put her up for adoption.’
“ ‘No!’
“He shrugged. “The choice is yours; you’re her mother—well, her parent. But don’t worry now; we’ll get you well first.’
“Next day they let me see the kid and I saw her daily—trying to get used to her. I had never seen a brand-new baby and had no idea how awful they look—my daughter looked like an orange monkey. My feeling changed to cold determination to do right by her. But four weeks later that didn’t mean anything.”
“Eh?”
“She was snatched.”
“ ‘Snatched?’ ”
The Unmarried Mother almost knocked over the bottle we had bet. “Kidnapped—stolen from the hospital nursery!” He breathed hard. “How’s that for taking the last a man’s got to live for?”
“A bad deal,” I agreed. “Let’s pour you another. No clues?”
“Nothing the police could trace. Somebody came to see her, claimed to be her uncle. While the nurse had her back turned, he walked out with her.”
“Description?”
“Just a man, with a face-shaped face, like yours or mine.” He frowned. “I think it was the baby’s father. The nurse swore it was an older man but he probably used makeup. Who else would swipe my baby? Childless women pull such stunts—but whoever heard of a man doing it?”
“What happened to you then?”
“Eleven more months of that grim place and three operations. In four months I started to grow a beard; before I was out I was shaving regularly . . . and no longer doubted that I was male.” He grinned wryly. “I was staring down nurses’ necklines.”
“Well,” I said, “seems to me you came through okay. Here you are, a normal man, making good money, no real troubles. And the life of a female is not an easy one.”
He glared at me. “A lot you know about it!”
“So?”
“Ever hear the expression ‘a ruined woman’?”
“Mmm, years ago. Doesn’t mean much today.”
“I was as ruined as a woman can be; that bum really ruined me—I was no longer a woman . . . and I didn’t know how to be a man.”
“Takes getting used to, I suppose.”
“You have no idea. I don’t mean learning how to dress, or not walking into the wrong rest room; I learned those in the hospital. But how could I live? What job could I get? Hell, I couldn’t even drive a car. I didn’t know a trade; I couldn’t do manual labor—too much scar tissue, too tender.
“I hated him for having ruined me for the W.E.N.C.H.E.S., too, but I didn’t know how much until I tried to join the Space Corps instead. One look at my belly and I was marked unfit for military service. The medical officer spent time on me just from curiosity; he had read about my case.
“So I changed my name and came to New York. I got by as a fry cook, then rented a typewriter and set myself up as a public stenographer—what a laugh! In four months I typed four letters and one manuscript. The manuscript was for Real Life Tales and a waste of paper, but the goof who wrote it, sold it. Which gave me an idea; I bought a stack of confession magazines and studied them.” He looked cynical. “Now you know how I get the authentic woman’s angle on an unmarried-mother story . . . through the only version I haven’t sold—the true one. Do I win the bottle?”
I pushed it toward him. I was upset myself, but there was work to do. I said, “Son, you still want to lay hands on that so-and-so?”
His eyes lighted up—a feral gleam.
“Hold it!” I said. “You wouldn’t kill him?”
He chuckled nastily. “Try me.”
“Take it easy. I know more about it than you think I do. I can help you. I know where he is.”
He reached across the bar. “Where is he?”
I said softly, “Let go my shirt, sonny—or you’ll land in the alley and we’ll tell the cops you fainted.” I showed him the sap.
He let go. “Sorry. But where is he?” He looked at me. “And how do you know so much?”
“All in good time. There are records—hospital records, orphanage records, medical records. The matron of your orphanage was Mrs. Fetherage—right? She was followed by Mrs. Gruenstein—right? Your name, as a girl, was ‘Jane’—right? And you didn’t tell me any of this—right?”
I had him baffled and a bit scared. “What’s this? You trying to make trouble for me?”
“No indeed. I’ve your welfare at heart. I can put this character in your lap. You do to him as you see fit—and I guarantee that you’ll get away with it. But I don’t think you’ll kill him. You’d be nuts to—and you aren’t nuts. Not quite.”
He brushed it aside. “Cut the noise. Where is he?”
I poured him a short one; he was drunk but anger was offsetting it. “Not so fast. I do something for you—you do something for me.”