The bell dings as he walks through the door.

A burst of wind follows him in, as if it too, were trying to escape the frost.

Inside the dark saloon only a few people look up. dull conversations stopping briefly, only to be taken up again.

The smell of spilled beer sticks to the floors.

Some People kiss their glasses of bourbon with yearning. Some, with disinterest.

He approaches the bar and the barkeep gives him a brief raised eyebrow, before swinging warm whisky into a glass, at his request.

Some people steal glances. They know there is something off about him, yet they cannot make it out.

“Not from around here”, they settle on, and move on.

He does Certainly look the part, or at least, close enough. Dirty working man clothes. Boots worn through just like everyone else.

He sits his hat on the bar and takes a welcomed drink.

He still feels their eyes on him sometimes, or at least he thinks he does. the sideways glances have became less and less with the years.

Too many times he was thrown through a door, out of sad places like this. Too many times denied drink he had money to pay for.

Too many times he was mocked, or treated like a freak.

Once too many times had his body been violated by men who did not think him whole, or true, or right.

Yes, He had paid a high price for this seat.

But now, he seemed to fit in.

He had long since left behind the act of dresses and corsets. It’d been a Long time since he had stopped playing dress up to please the people who had never once said please.

The ones who’d only taken what they thought belonged to them because he, after all, had been born property.

But not anymore. He sat in the saloon, just like every other man. He dared anybody to challenge him now. His revolver displayed on his hip. and the anger,which still swam deep from years suppressed, sat ready to draw if ever provoked.

But he wasn’t.

He sat and he sipped.

He too, kissed his glass of bourbon.

He threw three coins on the bar and then quietly, and unceremoniously, set his hat back atop his head, and headed out the door.