Sanctuary

Old habits die hard. Jamie Lee was reminded of the truth of that aphorism the day that she forgot to use the ladies’ room. As a transsexual who’d undergone counseling and was presently taking daily doses of estrogen both to repress her testosterone and to maintain her breasts, softened skin, fuller buttocks, and the other secondary sexual characteristics of the female, Jamie usually remembered to use the public restroom that coincided with her change in sex. However, today, distracted by her concern with her father’s declining health, she entered the men’s room, as she had done all the years of her life, before she’d discovered that she was a woman trapped inside the body of the opposite sex.

She’d done more than merely enter the wrong restroom. She’d actually stepped up to one of the urinals, unzipped her jeans, withdrawn her penis, and begun to piss. She knew she’d made a mistake when she heard the man who’d just entered the facility cry, “What the hell?”

Mortified, Jamie blushed, willing her bladder to cease emptying itself, and stuffing her penis back into her pants.

“Freak!” the man cried.

Jamie’s blush deepened. She hurried toward the exit, without pausing to wash her hands.

The man blocked her way. He was big and burly. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

“Please,” Jamie entreated him, “just let me go.”

He grinned humorlessly. “Like hell.” He strode toward Jamie, but she dodged him and sprinted toward the door, as fast as she could on her heels. Behind her, she heard the big man’s grunt of surprise, followed by a curse. She never knew whether he chased her (although she suspected he did), because she never glanced back to find out. In a couple of seconds, she’d exited the men’s room and was in the hallway outside. What if the big lug did intend to pursue her? Jamie asked herself.