Chapter Text
“Jan once told me that Rocco had been beaten up so many times nobody could count. The last time the cops beat her she came so close to dying. Jan heard that Rocco had taken hormones and had breast surgery. Now she worked as a man in a construction gang. Jan said Rocco wasn't the only he-she who'd done that. It was a fantastic tale. I'd only half believed it, but it haunted me. No matter how painful it was to be a he-she, I wondered what kind of courage was required to leave the sex you'd always known, or to live so alone.”
-Jess Goldberg, Stone Butch Blues
Leslie Feinberg
Somewhere deep in the bustling, rowdy streets of Monterrey, there stood a house.
It wasn’t anything special, but it was spacious enough. A mother and a father lived there with their five daughters, pretending every day that walking to the corner store wasn’t a danger, pretending that their lives were ordinary. What they pretended about most of all was their youngest daughter.
She never liked her name. It had always felt wrong—like slipping into a pair of pants and knowing instantly they would never fit. But it wasn’t just her name. It was the budding breasts on her chest, the way her voice carried too high. Every Sunday morning she fought tooth and nail when her mother entered the shared bedroom with a pressed dress and a look that meant there would be no argument. In the end, she always wore it.
At school, it was worse. The boys would stare at her in her uniform skirt, whispering and smirking. Sometimes one would ask, “Are you a boy or a girl?” loud enough for everyone to hear. She would freeze, cheeks burning, words catching in her throat. She didn’t know how to answer. If she said “girl,” it felt like a lie. If she said nothing, their laughter filled the silence. She learned to clench her jaw and keep walking, nails digging crescents into her palms.
At church, under the heavy air of incense and the watchful eyes of saints on the walls, she knelt stiffly in the pew while her mother adjusted her skirt and hissed reminders to sit like a lady. She hated how the fabric trapped her legs, hated how she felt every eye could see through her. Even the prayers in her mouth felt false, as if God Himself had turned His back on her for not fitting the mold she was born into.
Her sisters were normal—or at least as normal as sisters could be. Rosa, the eldest, was their pride and joy: she curled her hair each morning, walked with confidence, and flirted with the boys down the colonia. Benita came next, softer and gentler, shy and emotional, always the one to step between fights. The other two were opposites locked in orbit—one loud, wild, always scheming pranks; the other sharp-eyed and judgmental, a constant shadow.
Even work at the market made the difference clear. Their father taught all the girls to sell, to call out to passersby with voices like honey. Rosa was a natural, drawing in customers with nothing more than a smile. Even the other sisters, in their own ways, had the talent for it. But the youngest fumbled over every pitch. No matter what she tried to sell—fruit, cloth, little trinkets—the buyers shook their heads and moved on. She could feel her sisters’ eyes on her back, their pitying sighs.
At dinner, Rosa would lace her voice with sugar and say things like, “Maybe she’s better at eating than selling.” The table laughed. She pretended it didn’t sting, but in her chest she swore to herself: one day she would prove Rosa wrong.
On weekend nights, when her sisters begged to watch movies, they crowded around the television, arguing over the actors. Rosa swooned over the leading men, sighing about their strong jaws and broad shoulders. But Sam’s eyes were fixed on the women—their soft dresses, their painted lips, the way they looked when a man touched their hand. A pang settled in her chest. She didn’t want to be the leading man. But she envied him, envied how easily he could stand beside those women, claim them in the open.
Of course, she wasn’t as invisible as she thought. Sometimes she’d catch Benita watching her instead of the screen. Benita never said anything, never teased her the way the others might have. But she knew. It was there in the softness of her eyes, in the way she leaned a little closer as if to shield her from anyone else’s notice.
It only grew harder with age. She noticed the other girls in her class—not with envy, but with longing. She would watch their lips and imagine how they might taste, wonder at the softness of their breasts, picture how their bodies might fit together if they danced. She told no one.
And that was what set her apart. Her sisters all seemed to understand something she never could—a secret language of skirts and smiles, of hairpins and painted nails. They slipped into it as easily as breath. She, on the other hand, sat on the outside, always fumbling, always wrong, like someone trying to sing a song in a language she didn’t speak.
She was the runt of the litter. The smallest, the most different.
The night she turned eighteen, she gathered the few pesos she had to her name, packed a bag, and left for the other side. The only one who knew was Benita. Her sister helped her fold clothes into the bag with trembling hands, cried quietly as she boarded the bus, and stood waving until the tail lights blurred into the dark. She pressed her forehead against the window and watched Benita fade into nothing. She had promised to write letters. She never got to.
The coyote who guided her was an older man, the kind who carried himself with the swagger of someone who’d done worse jobs before. Narco, maybe. She didn’t ask; it wasn’t her business to care. All that mattered was reaching the river. She paid him nearly everything she had, then clasped her hands together in the night air, praying under her breath that the border patrol wouldn’t find them.
Crossing the river wasn’t the hardest part—it was doing it silently, wading through black water without slipping, trying not to lose sight of the line of bodies moving ahead. They couldn't even use flashlights, not unless they wanted to be seen. There were families clutching children, men hoping to see their wives again. She wasn't even the youngest of them all, keeping to the middle of the group, her feet groping for rocks that shifted treacherously underfoot.
Then came the shout. A spotlight cut through the dark like a blade, blinding, merciless. Voices followed—men barking in English, sharp commands she couldn’t understand but knew meant danger. Dogs snarled somewhere on the bank, straining at their leashes. Panic surged through the group. Mothers clutched children, men cursed, and bodies scattered in the water.
She tried to stay with them, but the river had other plans. A wave surged and knocked her sideways. She went under, choking, water going down her throat. She thrashed, hands clawing at the surface, lungs seizing with fire. Every kick of her legs only dragged her deeper into the current. She broke through once, gasping, only to be shoved down again.
Her ears filled with the muffled roar of rushing water, with the wails of children crying in the dark. Her chest screamed for air. She could almost see the light of the patrol boats closing in, the teeth of the dogs tearing into her.
And then—Benita. Her face, her trembling hands helping fold shirts into a bag, her eyes shining with tears as the bus pulled away. The sound of her voice, soft but steady, promising, “Write me. Don’t forget.”
Something inside her caught aflame.
She kicked harder, teeth clenched, fighting the pull of the river with everything in her. She clawed forward, stroke after stroke, swallowing another mouthful of water but refusing to give in. She would not go back. She would not be dragged home a failure, would not return to Rosa’s laughter, her mother’s pressed dresses, her father’s disappointed eyes.
She broke the surface again, gasping ragged, dragging herself through the waves until her fingers scraped mud. With one final push she hauled herself onto the far bank, collapsing to her knees, coughing until her ribs ached.
The night was still around her now, broken only by distant shouts and barking fading into the dark. She pressed her palms into the wet earth, chest heaving, trembling all over.
She was alive. Wet, scared and out of breath, but alive.
She was the only one who made it.
Texas was hot. The air pressed down on her shoulders, thick with dust and sunlight. It reminded her of Monterrey—too much, sometimes.
She told people her name was Sam. Short, sharp, easy. She never wanted to hear her birth name again, never wanted to feel the weight of it on her shoulders.
She took odd jobs—whatever would pay an undocumented woman in cash. Washing dishes, sweeping floors, hauling boxes. But it was the garage in Laredo that stuck. The owner, a heavyset man with a cigarette always burning between his fingers, looked her up and down and asked in Spanish if she even knew how to fix a motor. She lied without flinching, promised she could learn.
And she did.
She cut her hair short—short enough to mark her as different, but long enough to slick back with oil and comb lines into. She copied the way the men stood, the way they spat, the swagger in their shoulders. She mimicked their curses, their slang, their sharp hand gestures. They laughed at her accent, but not cruelly. When she scowled, they taught her how to swear off cheap customers who didn’t want to pay full price.
They were good men—the only good men she would know for a very long time. When they asked if she wanted a boyfriend, she pulled a face so disgusted they choked laughing. After that, they didn’t ask again.
Sam grew to love the work—the smell of oil clinging to her hands, the satisfaction of solving a rattle no one else could place, the quiet pride when a car rolled out of the garage running smooth. For a while it was enough: honest labor, cash in hand, nights spent in cheap hotels where her boots waited by the bed and her bag was never fully unpacked.
By 1966, after two years of saving, she finally had enough to travel again. She shook the grease-stained hands of the men who had become her brothers, bid her goodbyes, and boarded a bus that rolled west for hours and hours. She pressed her head against the rattling glass, watching the desert pass by in a blur.
Los Angeles had been calling to her, whispering through movie posters and neon dreams. She wanted to make it big.
When Sam arrived in California, the shock hit her hard. Laredo had felt almost like Monterrey—hot, dusty, familiar—just with worse food and less to do. But Los Angeles was something else entirely.
People dressed strange. Some had shiny bits of metal dangling from their noses, others looked as though they could toss money at every problem until it disappeared. The city pulsed with energy, reckless and sharp. Sam watched from the taxi window, heart pounding.
She wanted to be like them.
The radio hummed in the background, a song she didn’t know. She let most of the words slide past her, until one line caught in her chest: big shot. Sam sat up a little straighter. That was it. That was who she was going to be. She was going to be a big shot.
Work came quickly. Another garage took her on, mistaking her for a boy. She didn’t correct them. In fact, she found she didn’t mind at all. The labor was heavier here, the customers richer, the pace relentless—but the pay was better than anything she’d earned before.
She rented a cramped, peeling apartment not far from the shop. The landlord didn’t ask questions about papers or credit, just shoved the key into her hand after counting the money. It was small, noisy, barely livable. But it was hers.
Her first nights in Los Angeles were easier than she expected. The time she’d spent with the men in Laredo had prepared her well. She already knew what to say, how to laugh at the right jokes, how to swagger just enough to be read as one of them. On the shop floor she felt like she belonged—almost. But she also knew the truth: if they ever found out she was really a woman, everything would change. So she kept that secret locked tight.
One evening after work, still smelling faintly of grease and gasoline, she wandered down a busy street. Neon signs buzzed overhead, people crowded the sidewalks in pressed suits and short skirts, laughter spilling out of open doorways.
That’s when she saw them.
A couple stood outside a bar beneath a glowing sign: RAMB’S. But it wasn’t the bar that stopped her in her tracks. It was the pair themselves.
One of them was unmistakably feminine—long, dark curls tumbling over her shoulders, her dress clinging to her curves, her lipstick sharp as a blade. Beside her stood another woman, but different. Stocky, short hair cropped close, shoulders filling out a man’s suit like it was built for her. One hand rested on her lover’s waist with the kind of tenderness that made Sam’s throat tighten.
Her heart thundered. She knew what she was seeing, but she had never seen it so plainly. A woman loving another woman in the open—one dressed like the kind of man Sam had always tried to be, the other radiant and unapologetically herself.
Sam stood frozen across the street, staring until her face burned. Then, pulse racing, she turned away and walked back to her apartment, every step heavy. But she carried the image with her, pressed like a photograph into her mind.
She knew exactly where that bar was now. And she swore to herself: on her next day off, she would go inside.
For the next few days at work, the couple she’d seen outside Ramb’s lingered in her mind. She had never been in a relationship, had never so much as kissed anyone, but the sight of them stirred something restless and undeniable inside her. She wanted that. She wanted to feel a woman’s touch, to trace the curve of hips, to bury her face in soft hair. The thought gnawed at her as she worked, even as she kept her hands steady on the wrenches and her voice steady with the men.
When her next day off finally came, she rushed home. She dressed as carefully as she could manage: slacks pressed as best as her cheap iron would allow, a button-up she’d bought for far too much money but couldn’t resist. She slicked her black hair back with pomade, letting a few strands fall across her forehead. A few spritzes of cologne finished the look.
Walking toward Ramb’s, her stomach twisted. She almost turned back three separate times, muttering curses at herself each time and forcing her feet forward. When she reached the door, her palms were damp, her chest tight. She didn’t know what she expected, but when she finally stepped inside, she froze.
The bar looked ordinary—stools lined up neatly, tables pushed close together, the faint haze of cigarette smoke hanging in the air. But the people were not ordinary. Women filled the room. Some of them wore skirts and lipstick, their hair curled and shining under the dim lights. Others had their hair cropped short, their shoulders filling out pressed suits, their shoes polished black. They leaned close to one another, touched hands, whispered and laughed without hesitation.
Sam lingered in the doorway, her throat dry, her heart pounding. She had never seen anything like it before.
She forced herself to walk to the bar and slid onto a stool, tapping her finger against the wood until the barkeep came over, a woman with strong arms and sharp eyes.
“How old are you?” the woman asked, one brow arched.
“Old enough,” Sam shot back, hoping her voice didn’t betray her nerves.
The barkeep studied her for a moment, then shrugged. “What’ll it be?”
“Tequila,” Sam said, taking out the money. The taste of home slipping onto her tongue.
She sat with the glass in hand, letting her eyes roam the room. Every glance, every laugh, every soft touch was electric. These women moved like they had nothing to hide. Like they belonged here.
The barkeep lingered, chatting between pouring drinks. Eventually she introduced herself. “Name’s Ramsey,” she said, wiping her hands on a towel. “But everyone here calls me Ramb.”
Sam nodded, committing the name to memory. Ramb’s wasn’t just a bar—it was proof that this world she’d dreamed of was real.
Sam nursed her tequila slowly, letting the burn settle in her chest as her eyes roamed the room. She couldn’t stop staring. Every laugh, every hand brushing another, every small gesture felt like a secret she was finally being let in on.
That’s when she saw her.
A tall woman leaned against the far wall, her hair dyed a blazing red that caught even in the dim light. One eye was covered with a black patch, the other sharp as a blade, watching the room with a casual confidence that made Sam’s stomach knot. Her arms were corded with muscle, the rolled sleeves of her shirt showing off every line.
Sam stared too long.
The woman’s good eye flicked to her, catching her gaze. A sneer pulled at her lips.
“You got a problem?” she barked across the bar, her voice rough.
Sam jolted, heat rushing to her face. She stumbled over her words. “I—I wasn’t—I didn’t mean—”
Her tongue felt heavy, useless. She couldn’t look away. She wasn’t afraid, not exactly—just stunned. Awestruck.
The woman’s expression softened as realization dawned. She let out a short laugh and pushed off the wall, crossing the floor with long strides until she stood over Sam.
“You’re new,” she said, not unkindly this time. “Still green. I can smell it on you.”
Sam swallowed hard and nodded. “Guess so.”
The woman extended a scarred hand. “Name’s Undyne.”
Sam blinked, the name catching in her throat. “Uh… Undying?”
Undyne threw her head back and laughed, the sound carrying over the music and chatter. She clapped Sam on the back so hard it nearly knocked her off the stool.
“Might as well be!” she grinned.
Sam couldn’t help but smile, sheepish but warmed by the shift in tone. For the first time since stepping foot in Los Angeles, she felt like maybe she wasn’t alone in the world.
As the hours slipped by, Sam found herself relaxing. Undyne was sharp, loud, quick to laugh — but underneath the rough edges she was easy to be around. They sat shoulder to shoulder at the bar, swapping stories over drinks.
Undyne talked about her job in a factory, a union gig that she said “sucked like hell but kept the lights on.” She told it with a shrug, like hard work was simply what the world expected of her. Sam listened with wide eyes, barely hearing half of it because she was too busy staring. The way Undyne carried herself — tall, broad, hair flaming red — it was like a whole new possibility cracking open right in front of her. She was handsome, the handsomest woman she had ever seen.
By the end of the night, after enough drinks to warm her courage, Sam leaned in and kissed her. Undyne was stunned, but let her. Sam’s heart skipped. She kissed clumsily, uncertain, electricity rushing through her. But when she pulled back, breathless, she realized something: she wasn’t attracted to Undyne, not in that way. And yet… she still looked at her with awe.
Undyne saw the confusion in her face and burst out laughing. “Don’t look so worried, kid. You’re sweet, but I’m into femmes.”
Sam blinked. “Femmes?”
Undyne smirked, tilting her glass. Pretending as if Sam hadn't just kissed her. “Yeah. Women who like looking like women. Dresses, lipstick, the whole thing. That’s what gets me.”
Sam furrowed her brow. “And you?”
“Me?” Undyne slapped her chest proudly. “I’m a butch. Means I look like this, act like this, whatever — and I don’t apologize for it. Out there?” She jabbed her thumb toward the door. “They think we’re freaks. But here, this is who we are. And we take care of our own.”
Sam sat stunned. The word echoed in her head like thunder. Butch. She rolled it over in her mind, tasting it, testing it. For the first time in her life, there was a name for what she was.
She didn’t have to say anything. Undyne saw it in her face and softened, giving her shoulder a squeeze. “Yeah,” she said with a grin. “You’ll figure it out. You’ll get there.”
Sam nodded, heart pounding. For the first time in her life, she didn’t feel like a mistake. She felt like something real.
Later, when the noise of the bar had thinned and the crowd drifted out in twos and threes, Undyne leaned closer, her voice lower now.
“Listen,” she said, one rough hand drumming on the bar. “What we did? That kiss? You can’t just go around doing that with other butches. Not in here, not out there. It’s not how things work. Might seem harmless, but people get the wrong idea — and trust me, you don’t want that kind of trouble.”
Sam nodded quickly, her ears hot. She didn’t regret it, not for a second, but she understood. It wasn’t rejection, not really. It was a lesson.
“I get it,” she murmured. And she did. The kiss wasn’t about romance or desire — it was a door swinging open to a world she’d never imagined.
They sat there under the glow of the yellow lightbulbs hanging over the bar, talking for what felt like hours. Undyne told her stories of fights she’d gotten into, of women who had been run out of town, of the way cops would raid bars like this just to humiliate them. But she also spoke of loyalty, of the way they looked out for each other, how a stranger could walk in and still find family inside these four walls.
Sam drank in every word, her chest warm in a way that had nothing to do with the tequila. She had walked into Ramb's,terrified and alone. Now, sitting beside this one-eyed woman with the flaming hair and a voice like gravel, she felt something she hadn’t felt in years.
She had walked in unsure that she would ever find her people. But now she knew.
She was glad she came.
Sam kept going back to Ramb’s after work. Every day while she bent over engines or wiped grease off her hands, she thought of the smoky light of the bar, the music, the laughter, the women who walked and touched each other so freely. Back home in Monterrey, everyone had been forced into neat little boxes. Everyone except her. Now she finally understood why.
But Ramb’s wasn’t always safe.
It happened one night when the bar was packed, the jukebox blaring, the air hot with bodies pressed close. Sam had just begun to loosen up when the front doors burst open and shouts rang out.
Police.
The music screeched to a stop. Boots thundered against the floor. Sam froze, heart pounding. Then Undyne’s rough hand grabbed her shoulder.
She shoved her through the crowd, her grip iron-strong, and kicked open the restroom door. Sam stumbled inside, wide-eyed.
“Out the window,” Undyne ordered, already yanking it open. “Go!”
Sam hesitated, throat tight. “What about you?”
Undyne’s good eye burned. “Don’t argue. Run.”
Sam clambered through, scraping her palms on the sill, and dropped into the alley outside. The night air hit her like a slap. Shouts and crashes echoed from inside the bar, but she didn’t dare look back. She ran until her lungs burned.
It was the first time she had ever experienced anything like this—being hunted just for existing—but she knew it wouldn’t be the last. And though she was shaken, it wasn’t the scariest thing she would ever face.
She didn’t see Undyne for a week.
Whispers filled Ramb’s. Some said she’d been hauled off to jail, others that she’d hitched a ride back from some border town after the cops tossed her in a cell miles away. One woman swore she’d punched a cop in the face. Sam didn’t know what was true, only that when Undyne finally returned, her fire looked dampened, like a flame fighting smoke.
Her smile didn’t reach her eye anymore.
Sam tried to ask what had happened, but Undyne only muttered, “Doesn’t matter,” and waved her off. Later she learned the truth in fragments: many had been arrested that night. Some beaten. Undyne had taken the worst of it.
When Sam slid onto the stool beside her, she said nothing at first. Just ordered two drinks, pushed one toward Undyne, and let the silence stretch. The glass caught the yellow bar light between them like an ember.
“For you,” she said simply.
Undyne looked at her for a long moment before raising the glass in a quiet toast. Sam tapped hers against it. No words were needed.
That night, when she returned to her apartment, the silence pressed down heavy. She sat on the edge of her narrow bed, still tasting the bitterness of fear at the back of her throat. For the first time, she understood that simply being who she was could cost her everything—her freedom, her future, maybe even her life. She didn’t know what caused Undyne to save her from the violence that night, something in her told her that it was to protect her from the inevitable.
And yet… she couldn’t stop thinking of Undyne. The strength in her grip, the blaze in her eye, the sheer refusal to shrink. To be so wholly herself even when the world wanted to crush her. Sam curled her fists tight in her lap. She wanted that. She wanted to be like that someday.
She lay back on the thin mattress, staring at the cracked ceiling, the memory of boots and sirens still echoing in her skull. But beneath the fear was something else, something stronger.
Resolve.
Someday, she promised herself. Someday she would be unshakable too.
And with that thought, she closed her eyes.