rejection slips, contracts, and the like.
After I found what I wanted, I spread the mass of papers out on the floor (the dogs lay off to the side, heads on paws, rumbling at me), and began scanning them carefully.
It was all there, in unwavering black on white. My name, “D. B. Winston,” on my contracts, no “Debbie,” no “Ms.,” or “Miss,” or any indication that “D. B. Winston” was a woman. Likewise, those zines who either sent handwritten rejection slips, or personalized the form ones were all similar—either “Dear D. B.,” “Dear D. B. W.,” or “Dear D. B. Winston,” or, worse, “Dear Mr. Winston”...something which hadn’t bothered me before. When I was still outwardly a woman. Then, the loss of my feminine identity wasn’t a pressing concern...why should it have been? I knew who I was, what I was...what did it matter that other people weren’t in the clear about it?
At the time, it didn’t seem important, it actually didn’t matter.
I picked up one of the rejection slips, from a small press zine, with my now blunt and stubby-fingered hand. The editor had typed, “All this time, my husband and I thought D. B. Winston was a man! What a surprise to see you sign your name ‘Ms.’” That letter, the cover letter to a story I sent to her, was a rarity on my part, and I never signed another one that way....A few years ago, I once sent a fan letter to Robert Bloch, and even he addressed his postcard reply to “Mr. D. B. Winston”...and to think that it seemed humorous at the time. With a growing certainty, I scanned the contributor’s copies of the many zines which ran my material, and was confronted with page after page of fiction credited only to “D. B. Winston” (and noticed all that junk mail in my wastebasket addressed to “Mr. D. B. Winston”; why even the computer mailing lists had an erroneous view of my gender!), and on top of it, zines like Bloodbath Quarterly and Skin didn’t run author’s pages (even if they did, people seldom read them)...and many of the stories I’d written were told from a man’s point of view. Right from the start, most of the writers in the horror genre were men...which was the main reason I’d used my initials only on submitted material. I’d read once in an article about breaking into the writing field that men have the edge when it comes to selling certain types of fiction, and since I wasn’t fond of my name in the first place (to me, Deborah Bambi Winston always sounded so cotton-candy-cheerleader-from-Queen-Disneyland-sorority-sister-cutesy, and plain old Debbie Winston had a small-town-lumber-mill-office-clerk feel to it), using my initials seemed so appealing, so natural, so crisply efficient...and, unbeknownst to me, so masculine.
Crazy as that sounds, it does make sense; wasn’t that editor surprised to find out that I was a woman, which in turn meant that the impression she’d gotten that I was a man was a strong one? After all, didn’t Peter Pan, or one of those fairy tale kiddies, say that “wishing makes it so?” If that’s the case, wouldn’t “thinking makes it so” also apply? I remembered the B.Q. editor’s note, the one he included with my contributor’s copies...the one with the readers’ survey results. That meant a lot of readers who looked for my stories, and if I had had my doubts before—Winston was a man. I got out the letter, and if I had had my doubts before—
“...fifth most requested author, behind Bloch and Williamson and Koontz, and you’d be surprised which authors you topped. Funny, some of the readers added comments in the margins about their favorites, and about you they wrote, “he’s my favorite,” and “That Winston dude scares me!” I guess the readers really got into those macho-hero adventures about pagan sacrifices and bird-blood worship you wrote while you were still living in....”
—that was the capper. Odd, even though I now know (think I know) what happened, I’m no better off than before...like, I can’t do any—
Thought of something. More later.
July 2. My hands and fingers aches, my eyes are blurred from staring at endless black letters marching across illuminated white paper, my tongue is coated with that awful gummy taste from licking too many stamps and envelope flaps...but I think this may work. Might work. Has got to work. Pleasepleaseplease work.
In less than two weeks I have written eight short stories, three poems, and a criticism of faceless-personality-less-mindless killers in 1980s teen slasher flicks. Plus cover letters for each submission with my full name, Deborah Bambi Winston, as in “Miss” and “Ms.” etc. on each one, and on the upper-right hand corner of each first page. And all the rest of the pages, for good measure. I’ll mail them all, twelve different envelopes for as many different zines (all the ones I submit to who don’t know I’m a female...inside), but I’ll wait until darkfall to leave the apartment.
July 25. Maybe it will work. My chest feels plump in places, the right places. And it seems shorter, not that I examined it much to begin with. Keep thinking girl, girl, I am a girl, chant it like a litany....
Aug. 1. The hair on my chest is thinning, fine and almost gone from under the now slight protuberance on my throat. Got back two ms., with slips attached for a “Miss Winston.” Much better. One poem sold; the check is made out to “Ms. Deborah B. Winston”—I guess the “Bambi” part was a bit much for the poor editor! Got a packet of fan mail (!) from B.Q., a few were addressed to “Mr. or Ms. Winston,” and one was for a “Miss”! Also, a b/w mock-up of the next cover, with the full name, etc.
The dogs are licking my hands and letting me pet them again.
Aug. 16. I’m almost big enough upstairs to wiggle when I walk! A bit disconcerting with the remainder of the chest hair, but I’ll live! Two rejection slips, made out for “Ms. Winston.” One sale, no check yet. The editor from B.Q. called, said my phone line sounded clearer. Part one of the “Deborah Bambi Winston” novella will be out September 2. I may be able to throw out the tweezers and shave cream yet!
Aug. 30. Plucked out what I pray is the last whisker this morning. Can show my face in the hallway again, neighbors claimed they missed me. Weight down to 141. That is gone now, almost, retracting from whence it came, for eternity, I hope. (Never did give in and urinate standing up.) Today I will go shopping out in the mid-day sun, and never mind the ultraviolet rays. Cancer can’t be much worse than...what happened.
Sept. 4. Got the check for “The Metamanphosis” from Skin. I’d almost forgotten that I’d sold that one...wanted to forget, actually. I’ll have to contact the editor and have him change the byline. He’ll probably get a kick out of the “Bambi” part. I’ll write him a note after stopping at the bank, and walking the boys.
Sept. 5. It’s out. In the stores. Skin Magazine, with the “Clarke Dennis” byline and story title on the front cover. My contrib. copies came late, bulk rate, sent in late August. The editor put in a note. Said how much he loved the story. Said the first part almost fooled him. Said he enjoyed talking with me in July. Said I should subscribe, cut-rate to his zine, that I’d like it. Said his readers were bound to go nuts over the story. Said I seem like a really great guy.
He’s right. Sort of.
I am a great guy.
In a few places here and there this time.
AFTERWORD
Those readers who have already bought my other Borgo collection Ewerton Death Trip, or who may have seen the classic 1980s digest-sized horror magazine Night Cry are probably familiar with my story “Dear D. B. ...”; it was in the final issue of N.C., and was also a fairly popular download on the now defunct Alexandria Digital Literature site. But this version is the fate I originally intended for Deborah Bambi Winston—however, the editor at N.C. thought it was too literal to qualify as a N.C. story, so he suggested that I try rewriting it, which I did. I do agree that this is a tad literal, but, then again, so was Gregor Sama’s transformation in The Metamorphosis.
