the third sex

I was in Phuket, staying on my own at a beach resort. It was early evening, and I was sitting in my bungalow working on my laptop. My mobile chirruped with an incoming message. It was from a ladyboy who meant a lot to me. “I in hospital” the message said. I texted straight back asking what was wrong. “Have operation cut cock” she replied.

I rang her immediately. She had had the operation earlier that day and sounded woozy under the drugs. Once I found out that everything appeared to have gone well, all I could do was to sound happy for her. And, if that was what she really wanted, of course I was happy for her.

Then I went outside and stood on the beach in the darkness. I felt thoroughly miserable. Our relationship had been a non-exclusive one but it had been close. I felt a genuine love and protectiveness towards her. She was tiny, and vulnerable, and only 19. She had the sweetest face and the sweetest personality. I had photographed her many times, and she was the most photogenic person I have ever known. I had told her many times she was perfect, and she was.

She had always told me that she didn’t want to have the operation. I hadn’t really believed her at the time, because she was so feminine that she could with relative ease make the transition into girlhood that so many ladyboys crave. But I had never seriously thought she would. I had just gone on enjoying being with her, and enjoying photographing her.

And she hadn’t told me that she was going into the hospital for the operation, hadn’t even mentioned she was thinking of it. She knew I would be unhappy, and so she kept quiet. Which was thoughtful of her, rather than deceitful, when I turned it all over in my mind.

I would never have argued against it. To have that operation is such an intensely personal decision that for someone, an outsider, to try and lay down the law would not be appropriate. But I would have dreaded the whole process, and it’s not just the removal of the penis. It is the fact that her personality was about to change.

I have seen this happen so often. A close ladyboy friend or a lover has the operation, and afterwards she ceases to be a ladyboy and becomes someone who is not quite a genuine girl but who is also not the person she was before. As she moves further into the mainstream, fulfilling her own deepest wishes, she leaves behind the person she once was. In many cases she will want to forget her previous life. She will find new friends, new lovers who may not even suspect she started life in the opposite gender.

I knew all this was about to happen to someone I cared for deeply. For her, it was a new beginning. For me, it was the end of the relationship. And to cap it all, I had lost one of my best models.

Out there on the dark beach, I suddenly felt very lonely.