I changed sex in the Tarabaya Memorial clinic in Bangkok, at the age of twenty-one, after I’d recognized a great truth: I liked being with men, not with fags. Forgive me, I’m well-read and I know such words shouldn’t be used, but they told me I should talk as if I were in my own home. So if they bother you, I’m sorry. As I said, I had my operation in Bangkok. A long way away, but safe. A lot of people have sex changes there, they’re used to it and it always goes well. I read about it in a magazine and then made inquiries. My girlfriends told me I was crazy. Tongolele, you’ve gone crazy! You’ve really lost it! But I was sure. Scheherazade, who’s like a sister to me, was the only one who looked at it a bit scientifically and told me it wasn’t worth it, that it was an unnecessary risk. According to her, women have three pussies: one in the mouth, another in the vagina and the third behind, in the you know what, right? And so she said and still says: of those three I have two and I’m happy with that and I make my men happy, those who also like cock. For Scheherazade that’s enough, but not for me. I wanted real men, the kind who fuck but won’t let themselves be fucked. When I’d recovered from the operation, which takes time — but of course, Bangkok is wonderful! — I went to see a physical trainer, because now came the external transformation… I showed him a photograph of Pamela Anderson, the stunner I wanted to look like, and said: I need to be like that, what do I have to do? how much does it cost?
He didn’t say it was impossible, although he looked at me sadly. Couldn’t you have chosen an easier model? I said no, Pamela Anderson was the woman of my dreams: if I’d been a man, a man in my soul, it was a girl like her I’d have liked by my side. I’d have liked to find her every morning between the sheets, in the shower, look after her when she had a cold, or see her sitting on the toilet, taking her morning leak. That’s why I want to be like her. Not that it was such a stretch. What I mean, my friends, is that I was already a woman, men gave me the eye when I stood up, when I went out for a walk; I felt that look, the kind that lifts miniskirts, goes through panty material, and burrows away inside, like a termite but really nice, it’s great to be looked at like that, isn’t it, my tongolelos? But let me carry on with my story: with the photograph of Pamela I went to see the best plastic surgeon, a really nice Colombian, Tomás Zapata, who’s the one who beautifies the women who matter in this world, beginning with Amparito Grisales and Fanny Mikey, I’m talking about the body, not the soul, and not only in Colombia but also in Spain and Brazil, where the major leagues are, and I said, Tomasito, my dear friend, this is what there is and this is what we want to have. Then I took out a photograph of Pamela who was originally wearing a thong but who I’d stripped using Photoshop, since I needed to make things clear. Tomás grabbed it from me and said: we’re going to make you very similar, or rather the same, my darling, and the rest is up to you, with that grace and intelligence God gave you. Oh, I love that Tomás! Because as the classics say: there is no beauty without brains.
But anyway, I’ve been invited here to talk about aspects of my life and my relationship with Pamela, not to philosophize, so I’ll carry on: first came the silicon, the Botox, the nips and tucks, and then, when I’d recovered from it all, I started the physical work. Three hours a day in the gym. The tanning I do with P.A. products, which are the best, the acronym is like an amulet. I attend to everything, every detail, because the body is a painting. Let’s say, for those of you girls who are cultivated, like Rembrandt’s Night Watch. Every fold of the clothes is perfect. That’s how a girl should be if the aim is to be the most beautiful woman in the world, or at least in my world, let’s not be presumptuous. If you want to be a lady and not a floozy. Every tiny thing has to be perfect because otherwise the whole effect is ruined. This lovely hair I have, for example, is natural. You see what I look like today. The day after tomorrow, I’ll be thirty-five and nobody believes me. They all think I’m in my twenties. And some men even confuse me with the original, after a few drinks, but I always say to them: no, darling, I’m the other one, the number two, the original is unattainable! The other day a boyfriend of mine, to make me mad, said I was the poor man’s Pamela. How dumb can you get? If only he knew that I’ve won seven beauty contests in trans bars, at the Latin American level, and have been Miss Wet T-shirt Trans for 2007, 2008, and 2009. In 2010 it was stolen from me and given to the girlfriend of a drug trafficker, a filthy bitch who bribed the judges. When it’s a clean competition, I always win, I’m the most beautiful because I’m identical to Pam. I can imagine you must all be wondering if I know her. Well, I have a little bit of gossip for you: yes, we did see each other once. At a charity parade. She was in her dressing room and I was in mine, but I preferred not to say hello to her. I was scared. What if she’d said something rude to me? What if she’d looked at me anxiously? When it comes down to it, she and I are the two faces of one and the same person. That’s why I prefer not to know her and to continue dreaming. What could I do? I’d either keep quiet, or I could say simply: I always wanted to be you. But that, my darlings, is something you don’t say to anyone. Not even a goddess.
11
In those years I had just one friend, Consul, a friend from school who was quite eccentric, and lived a strange life. A quiet guy who spent his evenings reading. His name was Edgar Porras, but sometimes, to play around or to be provocative, he liked to call himself Edgar Allan Porras. As you might imagine, his favorite author was Poe, and he always carried a book by him in his coat, which was a kind of very theatrical olive green overcoat.
He lived in upper Santa Ana, the rich part, and his house was a palace with nine bedrooms and lots of floors, in the last row before the hills. He knew English and French because he’d lived in various countries, but almost never spoke them. He said he was only interested in languages for reading. I was impressed by his library, it made me feel small. I only knew the little English and French I’d learned at school, which wasn’t enough to read seriously. He on the other hand had, and had read, books in the original language by Céline, Malraux and Camus, Poe and Lovecraft, Salinger and Dylan Thomas, Roth and Bellow, and even authors I had barely heard of like David Foster Wallace, Kurt Vonnegut, John Cheever, and Thomas Pynchon.
I went to his house at weekends and sometimes slept over. The pretext was studying. My parents didn’t usually allow such things, but since he was from a rich family he impressed Father, who always ended up agreeing. Like the social climbers they were, they thought it was an achievement that their son was spending time with rich families, and Mother, who was addicted to “aspirational” soap operas, talked proudly about the Porras family at the florist’s. Of course Edgar and I never studied, being there was an excuse to do other things, because his family was always going out to dinners or cocktail parties, and the few times they were at home it was because they were throwing parties or dinners for lots of people, and since the house was very big we could be in his room and not hear a thing.