The woman with the pink collared shirt introduced herself as a post-doctoral candidate, and then she added emphatically, “And I identify as a heterosexual female.” Her colleague, with streaked curly hair, introduced herself to me as a budding psychiatrist and added emphatically, “And I identify as a homosexual female.”

I sat across from them. As they spoke, I nodded as if everything now made sense. The lamplight was dim. The windows were purple from the dusk settling outside. From the low chair, I lurched forward over my knees, and my hands quivered as I gripped the armrests.

“So, Jane, we need to know if you’d be a right fit for our Gender Identity group. What brings you here?” they asked.

I explained that I wanted to really understand what it is to be a woman.

“When I talk about gender with men, we search each other’s eyes. There is an insinuation that if we were alone on an island, we’d be like Adam and Eve. When I talk about womanhood with women, we usually proclaim, ‘We put on make-up for ourselves!’ and then sigh, ‘Guys are idiots. I want a guy.’”

“What are you like in a group setting?” they inquired. I looked back and forth at the two of them. Isn’t this a group setting? I thought.

“Have you ever had that flustered feeling around another woman?” one asked me.

“No,” I shook my head.

“But you have with men?” they inquired.

“Yes, definitely.” I recalled Max Hegedus from middle school. Once he flicked his pencil in the air. It hit me in the face. He leaned over for a moment, “Sorry,” he said, as he picked it up. I was grateful that it hit me, my skin steaming.

“Yes definitely. But it’s been a while,” I laughed.

My laugh was answered by silence. They froze with cold stares. I wasn’t coming out. They were disappointed.

“Do you think you would be able to relate to someone who is coming out?” the curly-haired psychiatrist asked me.

I imagined myself before the group, “My name is Jane. And I identify as sexual! ... Some of the time?”

“Yes,” I said, “You can’t wear a mask, but you have to weigh the pros and cons — “

“They’ve already weighed the pros and cons!” the curly-haired psychiatrist interrupted. Like a Jeopardy buzzer screaming: Errrrrrr!

“I am just concerned — hesitant — “ the pink-shirted psychologist smiled widely as she chose her words carefully. “What do you think?” she turned to her cohort.

“I am also hesitant,” the other agreed. “I feel that you would be isolated, and cornered.”

“They don’t want to have to explain themselves,” the curly-haired psychiatrist declared. “Everyone is questioning them. Everyone is asking them to explain themselves. They are sick of explaining themselves! And they just need somewhere to come out!”

Then she remembered about me and turned to me with a smile plastered across her face, “We’re just worried you would feel cornered.”

“How would I be cornered?” I challenged them.

Then, I was taken back to that afternoon on the corner of the bench. Travis spread his olive-skinned arm on the backrest, in the space in-between us. He spat his words at me: “I don’t want you to call me your boyfriend anymore.”

We started walking down the hill. My head throbbed. Out of habit, I reached my fingertips around his tricep — but then suddenly I remembered. He was no longer mine. I recoiled. And then I stood back looked at him from a distance. He trotted down the hill, proud of his decision, as if he’d just freed himself from his last temptation and vice. Disgusting. I felt as dirty as a whore and as unsatisfied as a virgin.

The first man I had ever let in the shower with me. A voice in my mind said, You’re going DOWN. I tackled him. Take him down, take him down, take him down. He lay limp and flat on the cement. Then he looked up at me and laughed, “I’m not all the way down yet.” I stood up and brushed myself off.

“How are you feeling about that?” asked the Ph.D. candidate in pink.

“It’s not just that you would be isolated, it’s that the others would be isolated by you,” the curly-haired psychiatrist said. She pursed her lips and planted her chin on her fist. She glared at me as if I were Marilyn Monroe.

“Why don’t you chew on this for a while?” the Ph.D. candidate in the pink said, as the corners of her lips plucked across her cheeks in a wide grin.

“Thanks,” I started to pick up my backpack in a daze. My head throbbed. Rejection. “Thanks.” Then I said automatically, “It was nice to meet you.”

I walked down the beige-carpeted hallway.

I straddled my bike. I darted into the fresh night. The past drizzled behind me, with all its discomforts. I clenched the rubbery handlebars. Maybe this — all of this, as I heaved my body forward and pummeled down on the pedals — is what it is to be a woman.