Revised Fictional Experiment #2 (Patreon)

[Parts of this story have appeared previously on this Patreon. This version lengthens the story to conclude this vignette with a much more satisfying conclusion, and has major edits, which I think flow better. Please give any feedback if you like, hate, love, etc. any part of this!]

This was already a promising morning. A successfully arranged date was already rare, and a coffee date - a chance to meet a man in the revealing rays of daylight - was even rarer. Anna was used to sitting in a dimly lit corner of some shitty bar where the shadows of the corner her date slunk off to would blend with whatever shadows poked through her foundation as the evening wore on. Too much light might ruin the fantasy, after all. And yet here she was, alarm ringing at 7:45 AM, as the words from the phone call last night reverberated through her head.

“Hey, pick you up at 8:30 at your place? I got a new car from work - it’s a Porsche convertible. Might have a little fun with that, I figure.” Anna almost had to stare at the phone in disbelief. She had mostly omitted her own interest in cars; most dates she’d attend in her unremarkable Civic, and left the Supra in the carport. It had projected the wrong image to men in the past; every man claims to want a woman who’s into the things that they are. Gamer gf and all. Maybe that’s true, but she was still searching for a man who wanted a trans woman like that. The upsettingly cutesy mansplaining would rapidly turn to anger, almost disgust, with her demonstration of knowledge that could rival theirs. Not only had Anna rejected her masculinity in a way that already promised to put any man on edge, but she did it while still knowing more about turbochargers, and that was unforgivable. And so as always, she continued to play it as cool as she was capable of. “Oh, yeah, sounds fun! Okay I’ll see you then!”

And now it was 8:27 as she sprayed her sealant on her finished face and walked out the front door, and the dawning realization the mask would slip hit her as she trotted down the stairs - the Supra was covered, but still pretty clearly not your garden-variety white woman crossover. All she hoped was that he would somehow pass right over it in favor of the dress she’d chosen to accentuate her hips. And on cue, as she composed herself and tried to think up lies about the silhouette of the turbocharged Toyota, the sound of a flat-six resonated through the neighborhood. Her chariot had arrived.

Anna knew, of course, this might not go anywhere. Things rarely did. As plenty of her exes would be more than happy to tell anyone who’d ask, it turns out forging a genuine connection is hard to do when you’ve delicately constructed a socially-acceptable mirage of self to present to would-be partners. In Anna’s defense, of course, there was also the general social dynamics of dealing with men, which was genuinely challenging for even the most cis and het of gals. In any case, at the ripe old age of 27 she was considering spinsterhood. But here, this might be something, because this was unique. Broad daylight, a Porsche, and a new dress; they conspired to fill her with confidence unlike any she’d let herself feel in a while.

To Anna or any enthusiast like her, a Porsche is many things. They are a storied marque, with the 911 model, specifically, stretching back through decades of production, each variant more poised, refined, and impressive than the last. They are incredible “grand tourers” - sports cars that can eat away at hundreds of miles in comfort with amenities to spare, while still promising razor-sharp track performance and competitive lap times. The rear-mounted flat-six engine - the Porsche 911 trademark - intrigued her, because it produces handling dynamics unlike any other car. Porsche has soldiered on with this unique layout since the 60s, despite the fact that from a pure physics perspective, centering all your mass behind the rear axle is a very odd decision to make. She had never driven one, but she heard they were truly unique among sports cars, and despite never aspiring to own one, she was always curious.

And on cue, Anna saw the silver 911 with its red top unfurled, her date’s neatly gelled hair remaining coiffed in the wind, red polo shirt’s top two buttons undone as the international cis white man’s code for “letting loose today”. Anna knew that far more important than how she, as an enthusiast, saw the Porsche and her admittedly attractive driver was how everyone would see them. If her date had picked her up in a Ferrari or a Lamborghini, there wouldn’t have been a second date. Those are ostentatious; they are built solely for begging for attention, because they sell them in bright fucking yellow and have loud, obnoxious engines for no real purpose other than to be perceived, and desperation is the universal turn-off. That turn-off is doubly true for a girl with a tendency towards vanity of her own like Anna, who loathed most the things that she saw in others that reflected her own faults just a little too deeply.

On the other end of the spectrum, if her potential boyfriend had pulled up in a Corvette or a Supra, there was an entirely different mental calculus she’d be running. Anna of course knew a car like that might have the competence to keep up with a Porsche, but they have very little general recognition to the public. Being seen riding in a Supra next to a man simply would mean she was on a date with a Car Man, the type who needed arm candy for a show where he was impressing his friends with the pretty objects he’d collect in his life. These men, of course, she already ran away once from and vowed she’d never return to; the instant her own hobby came out to a Car Man, it was over.

But a Porsche has cache outside of the esoteric circles of automotive enthusiasm. They have persisted for so long with such a strong image that it confused her that they still wrote ad campaigns; they could sell as many cars as they could make forever just based on popular identity. A Porsche, to bystanders, is the mark of tempered success. A 911 is a Good Choice for anyone who appreciates a sports car, and they present restraint while still implying fortune. They are the car of doctors, lawyers, executives, and anyone else who still has to be seen by clients but enjoys a goddamn good sports car, and Anna knew this. More importantly, everyone else knew it, and she was about to go for a ride with the convertible top off as she made doe eyes at her driver.

Top down was already promising. This was about as opposite as the dimly lit bars as you could get. A convertible is a your own little promenade, and regardless of whether Anna’s date wanted to show her off, the top down meant he at least was willing to, and that was a lot more pleasant than dealing with some chaser’s internalized shame and self-loathing. “Morning, you look nice! Hop in!” Wait do nice men still open doors? She vaguely remembered being impressed the importance of that upon her by some ex in another lifetime. Damn she was 21 then, right? Maybe it was some college thing? Fuck it. Get in the Porsche, Anna. And so she popped the door, plopped her purse on the footwell, and off they went.

“Yeah so I got this thing as a tester car… I work for an automotive magazine, and Porsche just sends these to my door to review.”

“Oh wow. That sounds like a dream come true!” The enthusiasm in her voice was genuine - she’d kill someone for that life.

“This is a brand-new 911 S, what do you think?”

“This interior is gorgeous… and I love that it’s a manual.” she plumbed gently, not overly eager to engage a possible Car Man on his own turf this early in the morning, but still curious to see how he’d react to the mention of the transmission.

He continued, with no indication he had noticed. “We’re going to head to this great coffee shop that’s over by my usual testing grounds. I figured there’s no better way to get to know each other better than a nice drive with some pretty views up through the canyons - sound good?”

“Oh of course, how do you test out a car like this?”

“Well, you see, I work as a test driver for a race team, and so this magazine really hired me for my on-track prowess. There’s a winding road up through the canyons that’s sort of like a track, so I go drive it there and see how it performs, like its grip and brakes and power and all that.” She nodded along - this was actually promising to be an interesting day, with the flat-six singing behind her and the wind running through her hair and an actual enthusiast piloting the whole thing. “Have you ever been in a Porsche?”

She shook her head. “No, but I’ve always liked them, they’re really pretty and I think they sound great.” It was getting harder to keep it vague - she really wanted to delve into this thing. Perhaps she had an opening; her mind churned at outcomes and she decided to go for broke, despite her best instincts. “I have a Supra back at my place, so I certainly can appreciate this.” The next few sentences might clarify a lot.

“Oh cool! I have a 911 Turbo back at mine - 1987, super fun as you may know. I just brought this today because I figured you’d like something with seat heaters and stuff since it’s chilly up the mountain. Anyway, this is a bit faster than mine is in a straight line, but they put some tires on I’m not a huge fan of, so we’ll see how this goes…”

She slumped back in her seat a little bit, half relaxed, half pissed. Here she is walking around with her biggest hobby a shameful secret out of a sense of self-preservation, and this dude doesn’t bat an eye. She should be happy with this, but it’s like when the construction workers working on the 5-over-1 down the block look at her head to toe and don’t catcall; it’s a weird mixture of relief and wondering exactly what is wrong with this package to not get the expected effect. Nonetheless, she spaced a little bit as she teetered between wondering what the fuck was wrong with her and harsh disappointment at his deadpan reaction, and apparently the monologue had shifted to his writing abilities, apparently.

It was, admittedly, pretty easy to space out in this car. As they ripped past tinted store windows on the way to the coffee shop, Anna watched the reflection of the silver convertible and its two young gorgeous occupants enjoying a fall morning. Well, she was mostly looking at one occupant: herself. It still boggled her mind a bit to be in a Porsche, taken to a coffee shop in broad daylight; maybe her date was just so excited to impress her that he’d be rambling for a bit, and on the run back she could gingerly ease him into the idea of her Supra sitting under the carport and that his enthusiasm was something she shared just as deeply.

* * *

The date had not progressed beyond his masturbatory self-congratulation at the coffee shop. She could tell you his entire career history or his jet-setting lifestyle that still somehow hinged on him crashing on an awful lot of friends’ couches. The Supra never came up again because she said very little in general, not for a lack of trying. She was, quite simply, the chosen audience for the day. They were out in broad daylight for all the reasons she loved to be, but all for him. Her excitement at being perceived as on a date in a Porsche with the top down was actually what he was excited for himself, and her presence there was nothing more than a mere accoutrement to his ego. This only got worse once the coffee date ended and the ride through the canyons began.

He was admittedly a pretty decent driver, but he was also terrifyingly close to the limit, as tires squealed at every corner and and brakes began to fade from repeated stabbing at the pedal. Anna knew this area well, and that meant she knew that out here emergency services are at least an hour away. Honestly, though, at the speeds he was going, she knew she’d not be lucky enough to be anything more than a mangled corpse after going off the side of one of the many unguarded cliffs. The further along the canyon they drove, the more loose gravel they’d encounter and the more the tires and brakes baked, further increasing the risk she might die in service to his ego. Every single god-damn downshift he nailed, he explained why his prowess was unrivaled. He was “learning so much about this car” but he solemnly explained it wasn’t quite as “visceral” and “raw” as his ’87 back at home. Anna, of course, had read a car magazine before; she knew enough to recognize that her pilot not only was callously disregarding her safety, he was also a walking cliche.

Worse than his tired descriptors and the ever-present risk of death, there were no more onlookers to at least see Anna riding in a 911 in her flowing white dress. She was strapped in for a ride out to the middle of nowhere, and her role was clearly supposed to be the fawning dame to her pilot’s performance. She’d be more concerned that he was taking her out here for nefarious reasons if he’d actually seemed to pay attention to her, but he seemed essentially uninterested in her both as a date and a person. She spaced out watching the cliffs race by as the Porsche seemingly flirted with the shoulders more and more intensely around every bend, and refused to react. If she couldn’t at least indulge her own vanity, she sure wouldn’t give the pleasure of even letting this prick see fear in her.

Finally they reached the top of the hill and he parked the car “to let the brakes cool”, and she leaned on the fender as he continued on with whatever profundities he’d come up with about the convertible. At this point she’d realized she had nothing to lose by performing a psychological experiment on this man, so she pulled out her other dirty secret from her purse, a pack of American Spirits, which she knew from experience was a turn off to most men. There would be no second date anyway, and that drive genuinely called for something to take the edge off from peering at one too many cliff bottoms from the passenger seat of their would-be $140,000 casket.

She continued nodding to whatever train of thought he was plowing on with, took a drag off her cigarette, and sized him up. Genuinely, he had an impressive gig, and was a solid driver. He wasn’t strictly a Car Man like the ones she’d dodged before. He didn’t necessarily look down on her enthusiasm, because he was so self-obsessed he actually had not recognized that she was a person. This at least seemed like how he’d interact with any woman he took for a date rather than a trans woman specifically, so with a twinge of disappointment at her own warped pride, she at least felt validated through his sexism.

His entire life — the borrowed cars, the ostentatious watch, the slicked-back hair with a pair of ray-bans neatly perched on the top of his head — was a carefully constructed facade to hide that there really was nothing behind it. The way he spoke about his accomplishments and how hard he drove in a $140,000 car with a girl he just met were a desperate attempt at validation. How sad, she thought. Some random trans woman was the depths you’ve sunk to in your search for vindication of your life choices? He didn’t even seem to have a fetish for her, which she decided made this display more pathetic than if he’d at least shown a bit of interest in her girldick.

She hated herself for so willingly volunteering for this. Why would she ever be worthy of a ride in a car like this; what made her think this would go differently? The ever-present gnawing feelings of inadequacy she felt on a lot of her dates stepped to the forefront as her cigarette rapidly disappeared. Here she’d gotten all pretty, hopes high, and she could have worn sweatpants and a messy bun as long as she shut up and let him feel good about himself. Her existence as an individual did not matter to him, and she was an idiot for ever thinking it would. In that moment of self-hatred, she decided the best way to make herself feel better was to make him feel worse. With a Porsche potentially at her fingertips and a road she knew pretty well, she felt like she could be the hand-selected angel of Karma itself, delivering him his comeuppance through her divine handiwork.

“I know you probably can’t let me… but could I drive it for a little on the way down?” She literally batted her eyelashes a little; all of her shame was gone and she was fully committed to this strategy. “Well…” he hesitated. “I really shouldn’t, but this is such a rare chance to get behind the wheel of a machine like this for someone like you, I get that. You can drive stick, right?” Her forced smile stayed glued onto her face as she processed what “like you” meant — it was insulting enough in general, but if he meant “like you, a tranny” she would absolutely drive this thing off a cliff to spite his ass. As her mind reeled decoding his intent, she told him — for at least the second or third time today — that yes, she could drive manual.

She decided to take the less insulting meaning of his comment just to get to the driver’s seat faster. “Alright, here, you can take it down to the next turnout, just please be careful. These roads are a little tricky, as you saw, and I am a professional driver so it’s not as easy as I made it look, seriously.”

She smiled genuinely for the first time in hours as he handed her the key fob. Karma, thy name is Anna. “Oh of course, I promise I’ll be very careful! I just want to say to my friends that I’ve driven a Porsche.” And she stepped in and subtly put it in Sport Mode, and with a guttural purr the flat-six’s silencers opened up and she gripped the wheel in anticipation.

* * *

Anna was impressed. How on Earth had Porsche managed to put all that weight - a three-liter and an entire twin-turbo system - right over the rear axle and make the car this nimble? 97 mph into the sweeper, guardrail trailing away to reveal a sheer cliff face, as her date attempted to hide the fact that he was not enjoying this, but was completely unsure how to signal that without losing face. Show off to someone more easily impressed next time, she cackled first to herself, then out loud as she slipped into third and the rear stayed firmly planted as she matted the accelerator, flooring it hard into the next corner. Late brake, rear squirreled a little bit - ah, that would be the weight balance - and the tires begin to sing on cue.

Anna didn’t know this road as well as the ones she’d been running nearly every night since she was 17, but it was familiar enough she felt pretty confident outdoing how hard he’d pushed the car. She could drive through half-heartedly, slowing for blind corners, watching extra hard for loose dirt or gravel, and still likely impress her passenger, but for her race-car prince, she was fully committed to scaring him and that meant no holding back. She’d tapped into that intense concentration she reserved for racing, and he was getting the same affordance of self-preservation she gave herself: none. He nearly pushed his feet through the floorboards like a douchebag caricature of Fred Flintstone as she hugged the inside wall of a corner he’d taken at 20 miles an hour less than this. She knew roughly where the pavement wouldn’t tolerate this speed, but this section was recently enough paved to allow her to come in this hot and truly terrify her date.

And on the same cue he yanked his vision from the winding bends unfolding ever-more-rapidly in front of them, turned over with a forced smile and said “I think you should ease back a bit”. She had won. She looked over after a flawless heel-toe down to second, slamming on the brakes until ABS groaned, and got the car back down to 65. “Yeah, sounds fine, it’s Porsche’s car after all, and I am driving it harder than you were.”

She smugly returned her gaze to the road ahead, and reveled in her victory while the adrenaline still pumping through her every vein. Never before had she ever shut anyone up that efficiently and indulged her own curiosity in a Porsche at the same time. It felt incredible. For the first time that morning, Anna was actually quite satisfied with how her date was going.

She continued on down the canyons, and the self-loathing she had pushed aside with speed and adrenaline came back to the forefront of her mind as the rush faded. It was broad daylight; there were way more cars — and witnesses — up here than when she ran this at 2 AM against other maniacs. She had taken such pains to only ever endanger herself and ensure that she kept her profile low under the cover of night, and now she was out here acting like an invincible 19 year old again for what? To get her comeuppance for a shitty date? She’d worried about his driving, so her answer was to be even stupider. What if she’d crashed, lived, and killed him?

Her thoughts were racing now. That would be prison for sure, Anna, you idiot. In her deathtrap Supra she wouldn’t live to see the inside of a men’s jail cell, but this 911 had amenities such as “airbags” and “roll bars”. Survival — and the subsequent trial — were actually possible in this thing, something she tried to ensure wasn’t ever an option. And god forbid a highway patrol had actually been parked on the long straightaway they sometimes sat, where she’d hit triple digits today. All of her methodical risk taking was out the window for a guy she never intended to meet again. Did she do this for karma, or just because she was tired of not being able to show off herself?

She pulled the car off at the turnout, and silently stepped out of the driver’s seat. Her date, finally, had shut up. He had nothing more to wax poetic about, and although he attempted to fix his face in a way that wouldn’t betray his thoughts, his mind was clearly processing both his own recent proximity to mortality, and the fact this bitch had just shown him up. He was not impressed, but he was ashamed, and that meant that finally, Anna and him were on the same page.