It was still dark when I awakened on Sunday morning. I knew it was morning only because the digital clock by my bed read 5:00 AM.
Even though I was in my own bed in my own apartment, something seemed strange, wrong, out of place, out of focus.
Oh. I was still dressed. How did that happen?
Finally, my confused 'Why am I awake this early, lying in bed, and still dressed?' memory began to clear up.
I had returned physically exhausted from Lorraine's home office late Saturday afternoon. Or maybe it had been early Saturday evening. In this early morning darkness, I was beginning to realize that I had stupidly driven back to my apartment on mental autopilot, driving while drowsy. Very dangerous. Fortunately I had arrived safely.
What had been intended to be an afternoon of sexual relaxation between Lorraine and me had unexpectedly begun with me arriving at her house sopping wet from the rain.
She had graciously offered to dry my clothes. She realized the only other robe she had to offer me as a temporary cover-up was one of her fuck-me, semitransparent robes. On me, that robe concealed absolutely nothing and was so short it should have been accompanied by a g-string. She said it made me look incredibly sexy. To make matters worse, that's exactly how wearing it had made me feel. Hmmmm.
That led us into an ultratitilating conversation about Lorraine's theory of initial sexual duality.
Her theory is that during the first eight weeks after conception when a baby's brain begins to form, the baby's foundational sexual sensations are established. She believes that regardless of the baby's gender as determined by its chromosomes, every baby the innate capability to have and experience both male and female sexual sensations and behaviors.
Lorraine believes those behaviors are not cast aside but remain forever archived in our brains as they grow and develop. Our developing brain determines which bank of sexual behaviors it needs to draw from for us to develop as infants, then toddlers, then pubescent teens, and finally as adults.
She believes our genes and chromosomes guide our anatomical development which mostly but by no means consistently shape our bodies as male or female. However, our this-feels-really-good sexual behaviors sometimes run counter to the way our bodies are shaped genetically and our behaviors molded culturally.
That, she theorizes, may be due to our male sexuality traits being developed and stored in one area of the brain while the female sexuality traits being stored and developed in another. A variety of factors, influenced heavily by gender and culture, allow or maybe even facilitate some degree of communication between the two areas and result in most of us exhibiting greater and lesser degrees of male and female sexuality traits and behaviors.
Lorraine had concluded that my sexual 'gift' developed from my brain's atypically allowing the male and female trait portions of my brain to exchange sexual signals easily and automatically without any gender conflict being created. The result was that as a biological male, my brain could route, receive, and process the sexual signals a woman was sending just as if I was a woman but also as what I was anatomically born, a man. She referred to me as an unwitting sexual codebreaker.
That ability enabled me to engage in sex with a woman but automatically adjust my male responses, peaks and valleys, to reinforce and coincide with or even to offset hers. I could also prolong my male orgasm to coincide with the entirety of a woman's multiple orgasms occurring in rapid sequence.
Lorraine also believes that it enabled me to interact remarkably comfortably and naturally with trans women, cross-dressing men, and possibly gay men.
To arrive at these conclusions about me, Lorraine had relied on her extensive penile plethysmograph results and her detailed analysis of my near-sexual interaction with Stephanie when I was an undergrad. My freely acknowledged sexual attraction to newhalf photographer Misako Sato further reinforced her theory..
Lorraine had suggested that when Emily and I had viewed the rehearsal video of two of Emily's trans women models, Kerri and Karla, my unashamedly becoming aroused watching them have sex together was likely a manifestation (a healthy one from Lorraine's point of view) of my brain's sexual duality.
Our conversation of her theory having aroused both of us to a heightened level, we then looked first at the photo book Misako Sato had prepared for me. Unlike Bethany and Robyn who had already viewed the photos, Lorraine had not obviously become especially aroused by the photos.
From there Lorraine and I proceeded to look at the remarkably detailed and flattering drawings my artist friend Geri O'Rourke had done when she had looked at Misako's photos of me a few days earlier. Geri's drawings represented her mind's image of my 'sexual aura,' the term Major Robyn Broadsword had given my feminine side she had clearly seen when she viewed the photos.
The most shocking of Geri's drawings, though, was the last one. It showed the masculine me seated fully clothed across from her in a straight-back chair. It was detailed and flattering, more like a monochrome photo than a drawing.
But I wasn't the only figure in Geri's last drawing. Standing next to the seated masculine me with her left hand on my right shoulder was the feminine me. The feminine me was completely nude but with a penis. Geri had drawn her - well, me - as a beautiful woman but with a penis. Geri's explanation was that the completed feminine me was the various assembled features, my 'sexual aura,' she had seen in various stages in the photos Misako had taken of the masculine me. Geri had seen everything she included in her drawing.
Upon seeing Geri's drawing of the masculine me clothed and the feminine me nude, Lorraine had become more convinced that her own theory about our sexual brain development could be correct. She further had concluded that in my case (and likely with other people as well), our 'sexual aura' had physical properties that could be so strong as to make it briefly visible to certain people. It was the extreme potency and temporary unexpected visibility of one's 'sexual aura,' she theorized, that caused some people to be overcome to the point of immediate masturbation and sometimes spontaneous orgasm.
Lorraine had invited me over that Saturday afternoon to enjoy sex together. Her pubic hair had fully regrown after being depilated so she could attach and test the prosthetic phallus, but a reaction to the chemical regrowth formula had forced her to temporarily abstain from any form of sex. On Friday afternoon her OB-GYN Amanda had cleared her for sex, so Lorraine's sex motor was revved and ready when I arrived.
The combination of my unexpectedly wearing her filmy lingerie, our conversation, Misako's photos, and finally Geri's drawing showing the feminine me had turned Lorraine into an EF5 sexual tornado. I'd had the good fortune to be with her when the tornado touched down. In the ensuing whirlwind of sex, I had experienced sensations I'd never felt before, sensations which may very well have originated in the feminine portion of my sexual brain.
To the extent I remember the drive home from Lorraine's, I was physically and mentally exhausted. It was as if both my male being and feminine aura had drawn on my physical body's energy reserves for the sex I'd experienced with Lorraine.
That explains why when I arrived home from Lorraine's on Saturday, I had stumbled into my apartment, simply kicked off my shoes, and fallen still fully clothed on top of my bed. I vaguely remember fumbling with a blanket sometime during the night.
Now, Sunday morning, the clothes I had been wearing since the day before and had slept in were a mess.
I stripped myself and the bed, then carried the bundle of clothes and bed linens into my apartment's private laundry room just off the kitchen. I started the load of laundry, then walked nude into the bathroom for a nice, long, relaxing shower.
Stepping out of the shower and drying off, I felt like a new man. Surprisingly, there were no remnants of the Saturday haze. Instead, I felt remarkably clear-headed. After dressing and having a light breakfast, I settled in to study. It was 7 a.m.
My stomach started rumbling. I looked at the clock. Really? 12:30 p.m.? I had been studying for over five hours straight? And yet at the same time, my mind was telling me that it had been a remarkably productive study time. With only the coming week between me and the meeting with my Master's committee to defend my thesis, for the first time I really began to feel confident.
Trying to help me prepare emotionally for my thesis defense, Kim had assured me this is probably what would happen. She had said that I would feel hopelessly inadequately prepared leading up to this week. I would feel as if I had landed on an inescapably high plateau engulfed in a fog. Then, for no apparent reason, the fog would lift and I would see that rather than being on an isolated plateau, I would be one easy climb away from the summit of the mountain. That's exactly how I felt right know on that Sunday afternoon.