My Katie, My Kevin

I mentioned this on the Covington blog and realized that many people haven't heard this story (and I'm guessing most of the others don't have all the details).

Years ago as a grad student at UC, I met a girl named Katie. She was into many of the same stuff as me--Three Stooges, SF, Star Trek, general geek interests. She was also surprisingly good looking (horrible foreshadowing) with deep red hair and a great body. . .what could go wrong?

I was working on a public access comedy show and needed a sample hot babe so I asked her if she'd do a few parts. She played a nude model (not really but blocked to look like it--more foreshadowing) which pushed my "ask-out" button.

Things didn't go as well as I'd hoped. After a couple months, we'd talked a lot but had virtually no physically contact (more, more foreshadowing)--mainly going to dinner and movies (one of which was The Crying Game--horrible irony).

She turned out to be extremely religiously and yet hyper-PC which kept matters cool (not to mention with nothing going on but tight-lipped kissing). She was adamant about all non-Christians going to hell and she defined Christian as only those who thought exactly like her. A couple of fights and make-ups. Then she moved back to her parents at the end of the school year without a formal break-up.

A while later I began going out with another girl (now wife) and felt incredibly guilty if Katie would come back to town thinking we were still together. I asked about her to a UC grad student who taught with me at NKU and he said cryptically, "She's changed."

After a few months of wondering, I heard a mutual old friend mention "Kevin." "Oh, you didn't know." Uncomfortable pause.

Katie had mentioned that she'd been put up for adoption shortly after birth and never knew her real parents. That might have been because she had male and female genitalia.

No more guilt. Just feeling weird. Felt a little better about my new girlfriend already having a kid (all parts must be in order).

I never saw Katie's plumbing so I don't know how things exactly worked but she bought tampons and was well-developed so somehow estrogen must have been produced (Could she just have bought tampons as a ruse? Maybe.) I asked my cousin who is a doctor and he said, "True hermaphrodites are very rare but do happen."

As awkward as it might have been to find out, I wish we'd been more physical. I've filmed several naked men reading poetry and been in situations arguably as high on the alternative scale than hugs and weak kisses. Would I be a cooler person with a mixed/same-sex relationship? Does this mean people in Cincinnati can discriminate against me or do I have to do something bigger?

Who knows? Just one of the weird stepping-stones of my freakish life.

Last I heard, back about 1995, Kevin was going on for his Ph.D. He was dating a girl with a great body and deep red hair and as far as she knew, her boyfriend had always been Kevin.

Ah, Cincinnati.