Open Letter

         I'm the one your mother never quite got round to warning you about.  I'm the one who has such shocking thoughts that no right-thinking mother could even imagine what I'm thinking.  I'm the kind of deviant human being who's going to corrupt you if I ever try to talk to you.  Okay? You understand? That's fine, then.  Let's go.
         So, where should I begin?  At the beginning?  No, that's too mundane, too unobvious and too long ago.  Because, in the beginning, even I didn't know what I am.
         Instead, I'm going to tell you about yourself, what you are and what you do to me.

         You're you.  You're confident, you're happy and you have a lot of friends.  You love your body and you want other people to love it.  That's probably why you go to the gym.
         Me, I go because I like to play with the machines.  I love weights and I haven't got a full set at home.  I have wonderful, shapely muscles which do whatever I want them to do.  And, like you, I have friends.  My friends need to get fit, so they join gyms. I don't need a gym, but they invite me along for the ride.  I love that, in a woman.  I love gyms and I love the kind of women who go to gyms.  It's my thing.  I already told you, I like my muscles strong.
         It's your turn again; your turn to listen to some home truths.  I watch you, sometimes, in the gym.  I watch you on the treadmill.  I watch you stride out like a robot determined to reach your destination.  I watch you going nowhere with your earphones tuned to whatever channel you're seeing on the screens.  Sometimes, you stride out as if you're angry.  Sometimes, it's as if life has dared throw up some major inconvenience and you're running away from it, determined to get as far as possible before it catches you up.  Sometimes, both you and the machine look barely in control.  Sometimes, I feel sorry for you but, mostly, I'm enthralled.

         Then it's time to go.  Your work-out's finished and, as if by coincidence, magically, so is mine.  I tell my friend, whoever she is, that I'll see her after I'm changed.  You see, gyms are fun but changing rooms are quite exquisite torture.
         You're an exhibitionist.  Did anyone tell you that?  You love your body so much that you want everybody to see it.  And, if I time it right, I can be drying my hair when you come out of the shower.
         I feel safe, looking through the mirror, the drier in one hand and my comb in the other.
         You walk down the steps shiny-skinned, with the water from your hair running like rain down the contours of your body.  The towel in your hand covers nothing, because you're rightly unashamed of your beauty but I, looking at you, blush like a stammering teenager, my thoughts jumbling together telling me to respect your illusion of privacy.
         But, if a lady puts her body on display, why shouldn't I look?  Just because, when my eyes trace the curves of your breasts, I'm not comparing them with my own, that doesn't make me more sinful than a man.  And if, when I watch the shadows play around the top of your gently-rounded tummy, I want to take you home and love you, that doesn't make me worse than you, with what you told your friends you wanted from the male stripper.  But, if I were a man, you wouldn't disrobe in front of me and, if I were a man, I wouldn't be there to see you.  It's not the fault of either of us that an accident of birth made me both female and male.

         There are some days, when I've seen more than I can bear, when I have to avert my eyes, and gather my things and, damp-haired, meet my friend in the foyer.  On other days, and in other gyms, I catch your eye and you smile, innocently, unaware of what I am, and my eye wanders casually to your left hand, where the proof of your normality is all too evident.  It's just a plain gold ring but it shatters my hopes.