Constant in All Other Things 2
Chapter Three
by
Fakeminsk ([email protected])

“Friendship is constant in all other things
Save in the office and affairs of love:
Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues;
Let every eye negotiate for itself
And trust no agent.”
Much Ado About Nothing

One black pump and then the next swung free from the taxi and found pavement. The young woman lifted from the car, finding her balance with confidence despite the pencil-thin, three-inch heels. She tugged her skirt into place, the tight fabric hugging slender legs, dark and sleek in stockings, to just above the knee. She paid the driver, flashing the chatty man a thankful smile, and turned her eyes upwards.

Office towers formed an imposing box of glittering glass and cold concrete looming against a grey sky. A harsh wind blew, pulling at her clothes. She nervously smoothed down invisible wrinkles in her skirt, tugged at her blouse and passed a quick hand through her hair–a futile action as the wind returned and pulled it nearly horizontal, a wheat-blonde wave that swirled about her head.

Eight in the morning and people already thronged the plaza, briefly clumping together at small kiosks selling coffee and food before breaking off and streaming into the buildings. They walked purposefully past as she stood momentarily bemused. She gave her head a little shake before joining the flow. Her stride was kept short by her slim skirt. She kept her purse close at her side. A forced smile to her carefully painted lips didn’t quite hide the fact that she visibly struggled to control the nervousness of a young woman’s first day at a new job. The click of her shoes against the whitewashed cobblestone went unheard among the many other women headed in the same direction.

Taking a deep breath, she stepped into the building.

Her shoulder banged painfully against the heavy glass door. It failed to budge from her weak push. She cursed something distinctly unladylike under her breath and struggled briefly with the door but found little purchase in her heels.

“Need a little help?”

She swallowed her frustration and looked up past the arm that reached across her. “Um . . . yes,” she murmured, smiling hesitantly at the taller man who easily pushed the door open for her. “Thank you,” she added, her gaze dropping demurely away as she stepped into the building.

“Hey, no problem,” the man said, following her through, hesitating briefly and then moving away towards the elevators. She glanced back. So did he. He was young and well-dressed. Clear blue eyes danced away from her ass and the man grinned apologetically at being caught out. A small smile and a farewell flutter of her hand, and she strode purposefully towards the reception desk. Her steps sounded louder against the marbled flooring but again, so did the clicking heels of the other well-dressed women crossing the lobby.

“Yes?” The large man behind the large desk, after a brief study of her breasts, turned his full attention to the girl. “Can I help you?”

“Hi!” she said, and smiled. “My name is Cindy . . . Cindy Long? I’m here for the interview!”

***

Same old shit, different story.

How long ago was it? Seven years . . . no, eight. My life, as I knew it then, came crashing down. The woman I loved was taken from me. She was killed. I had tried to stop the man responsible. I failed. The woman I worked for wanted nothing more to do with me. And what little sanity I had left was hanging by a thread. No family. No friends. I barely even existed. Hell, I didn’t want to. So when I regained the use of my legs and Sakura told me to leave, that’s what I did; and I disappeared into the streets.

It’s not a part of my life I think much about.

Months of sleeping in doorways and cold nights and eating scraps took their toll. I met a few cool, fucked-up people and many nasty, fucked-up people, and the only thing we shared in common was that we’d been discarded by a world that didn’t need us anymore. I had it better than most their first couple of weeks on the street. I was already tough as fuck, but beardless, young-looking and slender, I must’ve seemed an easy mark. First time some older goddamn perv pawed at me in my sleep, I snapped his arm and battered the bastard half to death. Word got out quick not to screw with me.

Malnutrition sapped my health and size but sure as hell didn’t make me weak, even after I picked up a cough that rattled somewhere deep in my chest. Something inside turned hard and bitter and unyielding. I rarely begged, the smouldering anger in which I wrapped myself driving most charity away. Some kids gave me food to help keep the crueller predators away, but I wandered a lot and wasn’t very reliable. I learned to smoke to keep the cold away, and to drink--but not to forget. I didn’t want to forget. And when the hunger became too much I stole what I needed. I ate other people’s garbage, shoplifted when I had to, and yeah, mugged a few people when things got really bad. I did all kinds of nasty shit to get by. I’ve never felt sorry about any of it.

One morning I woke up and a year had passed me by and it was suddenly time to get off my ass and sort out my life. I didn’t have a hell of a lot going for me: twenty years old and a bad drinking habit, worse scars, and a burning hatred for the world. No education, nothing to my name and nowhere to stay.

Compared to what I’d already lost, though, none of that seemed important. Katherine’s death hadn’t killed me. She’d been gone a year and the pain was there, but instead of a hollow numbness it now felt hot and jagged. It felt–alive. I was alive. If I could survive losing her, survive . . . everything that had happened--then fuck, I wasn’t going to let anything else get in my way. I was young. I was tough. I was still good-looking beneath the filth. There were people who owed me favours, and I knew a few places where I could pick up a little cash. It wasn’t much.

First thing I needed was a job.

So I swallowed my pride and called in a favour. An ‘acquaintance’ hooked me up with something easy, washing dishes at one of his diners, a real greasy-spoon that fronted for some other shit he did. The work was the kind of repetitive job I needed to keep me sane as my meagre income kept me fed and under a roof. A few weeks and I started to look and feel better and picked up some new clothes. I started waiting tables and made some good tips, especially from the girls. Managed the place on quiet weeknights and the guy I knew brought me to a club he owned and suddenly I was a bouncer on the weekend. I started working out again and started to fill out. I enjoyed the job–as much as I could enjoy anything back then–and though I never went looking for trouble it didn’t take much to convince me to throw some asshole out on his ass. The waitresses love that, and they loved me to, even though they quickly sussed that I wasn’t exactly boyfriend material.

And from there–well, then I was working bar on Fridays, and before long managing the place, too. I wasn’t really alive, not in the way the people around me seemed to be. Everything I did was purely mechanical. I didn’t go out, didn’t speak much and didn’t make many friends. I spent my free time alone, working out and thinking empty, circular thoughts, reliving memories best forgotten.

God, I hated them back then, all those happy people: the loving couples sitting by candlelight in the restaurant, drinking wine and talking quietly, the girl’s hand resting softly in his . . . the friends who flooded the club and danced with abandon and touched each other and sweated and cried out to the music . . . and I worked behind the bar mixing their drinks.

Could things have gone on like that?

Where would I be now if they had?

I certainly wouldn’t be sitting behind this desk two weeks into a new job, wearing a pleated skirt that kept creeping up my goddamn thigh.

“Cindy, can you get me John Weber on the line, please?” called Jack from his office.

“Straight away, Mr Peterson.” I made a show of rustling through the papers on my desk and flipping through stick-it notes, hunting for the contact sheet, and then punched in the number I’d memorized my first day on the job. The phone rang. “Hi Alison,” I said once she picked up. “How’re you doing? Cool. Yeah, me too. Listen, can you put me through to Mr Weber? It’s for Mr Peterson.” I covered the receiver with my hand. “He’s on the line, Mr Peterson.”

“Thanks Cindy,” he called back, then hesitated and smiled. “Good work.” He closed his door as he took the call.

Melissa, the junior secretary--office assistant--at the desk opposite gave an encouraging thumb up. I smiled gratefully. Another job well done. Gosh, I’m good. Swallowing momentary disgust, I turned back to the stack of data entry before me.

The offices of Volumnia International were on the fifteenth floor of the Jacobs Building in the city centre. V.I. served as an in-house market-research firm for the parent corporation. We--I can’t believe I’m already thinking of myself as part of this place--work closely with our sister company one floor up. They focus on marketing and advertising. A number of out-of-house and international customers rounded out the company portfolio.

V.I. was young and energetic and so fucking cool it hurt. The junior staff worked freely in the open-concept office space--affectionately nicknamed ‘The Lounge’--docking their laptops where they chose, emancipated from the creativity-crushing limitations of the cubicle or even their own desk. There was a pool table and an archaic Ms. Pac-man coin-op arcade game and a few other distractions haphazardly scattered across the room, an almost ironic water cooler in the centre and a palm tree in one corner, complete with sandbox and hammock. A giant dry-erase whiteboard on one wall was covered in witty haiku, scraps of random poetry and the occasional aphorism. The place reeked of ‘synergy’ and ‘thinking outside the box’, though nobody would ever be gauche enough as to actual use those words.

They were all between twenty-three and thirty-three, attractive or at least quirky in some way, with university degrees in sociology or anthropology or literature and other useless shit; they all seemed to speak a second or third language. They were so out of touch with reality it was laughable, but they sure could talk and look pretty. These kids were full of enthusiasm, of arrogant cynicism, of themselves; and I was half-torn between grudging jealously and the urge to slap them all across the face and give them a solid shake. Cindy, however… well, hell, the high school dropout from the backwater town of River Valley was just in awe of her new job and the people she worked for. This was a whole new world for her, invigorating and intimidating.

The ‘research assistants’ and ‘project managers’ and the like worked the Lounge, and ringed around the open space middle- and senior-management enjoyed traditional offices that looked out at the other glistening office towers and the city sprawling into the distance. And me… hell, I wasn’t even a bloody secretary. I was a goddamn ‘junior office helper’, a step-up from a high-school student on a work-study program. Yeah, it was only for a three months probationary period, but gosh, if I worked really hard and kissed the right ass, then maybe, just maybe, someday I could be a real office girl, too. . . .

“You okay there, Cindy?”

I looked up at Sarah. She was the P.A. to Lucy Jones, the office manager, and nominally in charge of my training. Once an hour or so she swung by to make sure I hadn’t screwed anything up too badly. She spoke in the patronizing and slightly impatient tone of someone left in charge of a precocious but useless child. Damn if I didn’t like her despite the attitude, though. She leaned over me to check my work and her blouse hung loosely. She had gorgeous tits, large and lightly freckled nestled in a tight black bustier with lacy cups.

“Cindy?”

“I’m sorry.” My face felt a little hot. “I was just admiring your, uh . . . necklace. It’s so pretty!” It wasn’t, but she wore it well. “Where did you find it?”

“Laos,” she answered curtly. “Now pay attention. You’ve made a couple of mistakes here, here, and here.” She touched the screen with one expertly manicured finger, pointing out the two mistakes I’d purposefully made and one I hadn’t.

“Oh . . . oh gosh, I’m sorry Ms Jenkins!” I reached for the mouse and the keyboard and my flustered motions knocked over a pencil holder and nearly deleted the file. “Shit!” I stared up at Sarah with wide eyes. “Um. Sorry.”

She sighed. “Cindy, please try to relax around me. You’re doing fine.” She laid a comforting hand on my shoulder and it may have just been wishful thinking but her touch seemed just a tad firmer than professionalism called for. I felt a painful stirring beneath my skirt and smiled through a grimace. “Just . . . try a little harder to focus, okay? Double check the data after you’ve entered each page.”

I glanced at her hand, past her chunky bangle and up her slender arm to her face. Her eyes were a dark hazel behind thin, red-framed glasses with narrow square lenses. Meticulously applied makeup in subdued grey and silver tones gave her a dark, almost hypnotic gaze. Taking a mental note of how she’d done her eyes, I smiled. “I will, Ms Jenkins,” I said, and nodded. “It’s just that it’s all so new . . . there’s so much to remember.”

She allowed a small smile to sneak through. “It’s only your second week, Cindy. Give it time. You’ll be whizzing through this before you know it.” A faint fragrance with hints of vanilla lingered after she stepped away.

“Thanks, Ms Jenkins.”

I watched the sway of her ass as she returned to her office. The under-rigging gave her a slim, sexy figure; damn, but she was a tight little package for a woman just the other side of forty. I’d love to take her out, and take her home, and peel away those layers of clothes and reward the effort she still put into her looks. . . .

Melissa gave me another thumbs up and a shiny smile, which I dutifully returned.

My supportive colleague, on the other hand, I didn’t like. Nasty piece of work, Melissa. Beneath the façade of workplace friendliness and cheerleader-level enthusiasm lurked a committed backstabber. She had an eye on the competition and she didn’t like what she saw. Only a couple of years older than my supposed age, she must’ve been shitting bricks that I’d leapfrog her on the company ladder. Poor, stupid cow; she didn’t see how short the ladder really was. Sure, she was sexy, though in an obvious, young and blonde kind of way. Grapevine had it she’d already had it on with Hassan, one of the junior researchers, but moved on to Phil up in marketing, which was a waste of her time because he had eyes on. . . .

With a sigh I turned back to my work.

How the hell was I supposed to think straight with all this useless crap running through my head? The gossip in this place was ridiculous, and playing the young secretary I had to stifle my complete disinterest and now knew far more about these people than I ever wanted. No wonder errors were slipping through! Fuck it, my concentration was shot . . . and I needed a bathroom stall to adjust myself. These long nails slowed my work and these tits still distracted me, and the constant dull ache from my crotch was almost unbearable at times, but Cindy’s work wasn’t exactly all that difficult, you know? I could get her day’s worth of work done in a few hours--once I put my ditzy blonde head to it, that is, which wasn’t always easy. Distractions abounded.

My eyes drifted away from the monitor and across the Lounge. Nicola was kicking Derek’s ass at a game of pool; Christina, Lin and . . . I think his name’s Douglas? were having a chat by the water cooler, and Surinder stopped on his way to the kitchen to stop and watch Katerina puzzle her way through a sonnet on the white board, and . . . shit, doesn’t anybody actually work around this goddamn place? Suddenly I felt a desperate need to be alone, a hungry longing for the solitary life of the past few weeks. Who the hell were all these people? I didn’t want to know them, hang out with them . . . I definitely didn’t want to work for these kids, scurrying after them, transferring their calls, fetching their bloody copies, filing their paperwork and carrying drinks into meetings.

How the hell was I going to survive the weeks and months to come? To this constant scrutiny, and the humiliation of doing this drudgework and looking up at these . . . kids, infants that not long ago I would’ve been telling what to do, telling off . . . at most, meeting as equals! This place wasn’t NeoPharm . . . but it wasn’t that far off, it felt familiar and that familiarity made it all the more galling.

One of the senior directors comes to work at ten every morning. When Michael Connor arrives, I watch him pass with barely concealed jealousy and unreasoned dislike. I envy him his height and size, his short hair, his tailored suit, the hefty, expensive watch at his wrist, the comfortable shoes, his confident and easy stride, the deference he receives and the automatic respect he expects. That should’ve been me. That used to be me. Instead I trot after him every morning in my dainty heels and bring him his mail and a coffee, black and pass him the newspaper. Every morning I stand in the doorway of his office as this upcoming executive settles into his seat, and every morning I’m confronted with the image of the young girl faintly reflected over him in the expansive window opposite. And every morning I use the opportunity to touch up my image in the window and I smile at the man and somehow grow more familiar and at ease with these ridiculous, flirty little gestures; what the hell was I becoming?

I caught Melissa’s attention. “Hey Mel? I’ve gotta, you know, freshen up? You mind covering?”

She made a big deal of finishing off some work she was doing before looking up. “Oh, of course!” she said, smiling. “You know how to transfer your calls over?”

Bitch. I chewed on my lip for a moment. “I think so,” I said, and redirected my calls to her desk. I grabbed my purse from beneath the desk and slipped my feet back into those godforsaken heels, feeling the all-too familiar pinch at the toes, and felt her eyes scrutinizing me as I stepped from the office.

The toilets were on the other side of the floor, past frosted glass doors and heavy wooden ones that led into the other offices that shared the space with V.I.. I walked quickly, suddenly aware of a burgeoning panic swelling inside--a pressure on my brain--a wild desire to scream or throw myself against a wall or to hurt someone badly.

“Hi Cindy!” Shit. The chirpy voice demanded my attention. I stared unseeingly for a long moment at the woman standing before me, then shook my head and snapped out of it. Fuck, what was her name again? She’s that receptionist from up the hall . . . Katie! I forced a smile to my lips. “Katie?”

She looked at me oddly. Goddamn, what’d I do wrong this time? The silence drew out awkwardly. “Are you feeling okay?”

“Yes, of course!” I nodded. “Why do you ask?”

“You just look a little . . . tense, is all.” She shrugged, a delicate motion of her shoulders. She was a cute little thing--shorter than me, even--in her late twenties with short bobbed hair and dark, almost severe clothes. How she walked around all day in such tall heels I couldn’t imagine. We’d had a long chat in the bathroom two days ago, something about . . . crap, what was it? “Rough day at work?”

I shrugged-- felt acutely aware of how inelegant and unfeminine my gesture seemed compared to hers--and froze mid-motion. God, she was going to think I was having a spastic meltdown or something. Maybe I was. “I guess,” I said. Something flicked behind her eyes but I couldn’t read her, some secret female code still unknown to me. I had to get away before I clawed out her eyes or screamed in her face. “I’m sorry,” I nearly blurted, and pushed past her towards the bathroom. “I’ve . . . really got to go.”

Her eyes followed me down the hall. Sudden it came to me, and I paused and looked back. “Mark!” I exclaimed, and she started at the sound of my voice. Her six-month old son; he’d been colicky and restless at night. “How’s the little guy doing?”

Katie smiled. “Better,” she said, and turned away.

It’s a good thing I didn’t bump into anyone else in the hallway. Fighting back a hysterical laugh--or was it a sob?--I reached the women’s toilet--another urge to break into giggles--my steps clicking loudly on the ceramic tiles--a desperate effort to not see myself in the mirror--why the hell are their so many mirrors in the girls’ room?--didn’t want to see myself--the slender legs and long shiny hair and--I flung myself into a stall and collapsed onto the seat and buried my face in my hands.

I drew a long shuddering breath. A quiet whimper escaped my lips, not the howl of frustration I wanted but the only release available to me. My fists clenched, nails digging into my palm painfully . . . and then relaxed. Another breath. A deep sigh.

Up went the skirt and down the panties, a little trick discovered my first visit to a public toilet. My cock sprang free, drawing out a hiss of pain at the sudden release, and bobbed angrily once or twice, still half-aroused from earlier. Only a little over a month since I’d woken up in Cindy’s bedroom and found myself like this, and yeah, the whole thing was still pretty damn unsettling. When I looked down--when I craned my neck to see past those tits they’d given me--and saw those pale white thighs, the sharp contrast where the frilled band of the stockings caressed my leg, the slender length of my legs and the panties pooled around my ankles; and my half-erect cock sticking up. . . . Yeah. Unsettling didn’t quite cover it.

And somehow--and it’s not something I wanted to think about too much--the whole thing was pretty damned erotic. If I wasn’t so concerned about getting caught I might’ve jacked off right then and there. It’d been months since I’d had a proper fuck and sometimes it felt like was walking around in a state of semi-perpetual arousal.

Ten minutes, every day: a solitary moment huddled away in the woman’s bathroom in which I determinedly reassembled a happy, girlish Cindy to present to the world. I’d known that settling into this life would be difficult . . . but God, not like this! The constant gnawing doubt, the fear of getting caught, the shame, the act . . . the palpable anger I struggled constantly to veil behind a smile and wide eyes and a flick of long hair. Pretending to be this young girl hadn’t been so hard before, not in those brief encounters while on the run, not at the Clinic, not even hanging around with Harry Longman.

Somehow it’d been easier then, the bubbly joy and flirty touches, when I’d just been playing the part. Flirty without consequence. With a square jaw and heavy shoulders and thick arms, I’d needed an inch of makeup and all that constrictive shit beneath my clothes to pass as a girl, and somehow tightly restrained by everything I’d felt freer to slip into the role of Cindy. But now, here in the city, in the shops and on the street, at the grocery store and on the bus and at work--especially at work--the expectations, the assumptions of how a young woman should act, and those agonizingly painful moments when somehow I did or said the wrong thing without ever quite knowing what; it was killing me. I’d meticulously studied the clothes and practiced the makeup and spent hours walking in the shoes, but I wasn’t a girl, didn’t think like one and didn’t want to be one--and it showed. Goddamn, but it still showed, and I was left wondering how much further I’d have to take this bloody charade.

It’s like Steele’s man Jeff said a few weeks back in that dirty back-alley: I’m “off”. And I wasn’t yet sure how to get myself “on”.

With a sigh I tucked myself away, drew the panties up tight and pulled my skirt into place. Standing, I took a moment to reset the silicon strips on the thigh highs, drawing the stockings taut. After a quick adjustment of the underwire supporting my tits and some tugging and shifting to get the bra comfortable--or as comfortable as the damn thing ever got–and taking a moment to massage the dimpled flesh, I felt just about ready to face the office again. A final deep breath and I smoothed down my clothes and stepped back into the real world.

The girl that confronted me in the mirror standing opposite . . . she was a real cutie though; I’ll give Scooter and his team of butchers that. They did good work.   She perched almost-comfortably in a pair of almost-sensible red slingback peep-toed heels. Slender legs sheathed in patterned grey stockings disappeared beneath a pleated, tartan skirt that finished several inches above her knee. A wide belt of shiny red plastic with an oversized black buckle cinched her narrow waist in tight and accentuated her curves. A fitted white button-up shirt with wide lapels and short sleeves hugged her figure, undiminished by the thin black sweater with the scoop neck she wore over it. The fine gold necklace hanging from her fluted neck with its small bauble glinted as it lay nestled in the thin, deep line of visible cleavage, matched by the dainty silver and gold strips that danced and jigged at her ears and the bangles at her wrist. Slender neck, sloping shoulders, and thick blonde hair that tumbled in a carefully messy fall to her shoulders–yeah, this girl was cute, a real babe, one part innocent schoolgirl, one part naughty-librarian. Fuck me, that was . . . me; it still took me by surprise sometimes.

I stepped up to the mirror. With every step I once again felt acutely aware of the swish of the skirt against my legs, the gentle shifting of tits within their lacy cups, and the way long hair tickled skin. Each step--the click of those heels, the feminine gait that came all too easily now--and the way I held my hands, the looseness at the wrist and how those long nails changed everything; placing my purse on the counter and zipping it open and pulling out my makeup, I began to fall back into these feminine sensations and the character I playing.

I looked into the mirror. With every soft pass of a brush across lip, eye and cheek, I sank a little deeper into the image before me. As a guy there’d never had much call for staring at my reflection. For shaving, yeah, but I’d never had a heavy beard and only used to shave every third day or so. A quick glance in the mirror before work, maybe before meeting a girl . . . once, twice a day maybe. But as a girl--hell, I carried a little mirror with me everywhere I went, and it felt sometimes as if every free moment was spent staring into the cursed thing. Passing my reflection on the wall was a chance to check my hair or make sure my clothes were hanging right, and I touched up my face constantly throughout the day.

I hated that fucking mirror. Not from the neck down--I mean, hell, if I was going to be playing this part for a while, then yeah . . . I might as well be sexy, you know? I hated how weak I’d become but couldn’t deny a little thrill at every glimpse of smooth skin and those devastating curves. But my face . . . yeah. My face. That was something else. Cindy’s face. It sure as hell wasn’t mine. Leaning closer to the mirror, pulling out my makeup case, I couldn’t recognize the girl who stared back. There was a youthful glow to the girl’s skin, a little post-adolescent chubbiness to her cheeks that added to her cuteness--but it wasn’t my skin. Only the eyes were familiar. I wore another person’s skin: an assassin’s face, a dead woman’s mask. I had the scar to prove it, a mottled ring of flesh the size of a nickel just over my temple.

Talk about fucking with your head, you know? It’s a wonder I wasn’t insane. Yet.

Shoving such thoughts aside, I checked myself over in the mirror a final time and shoved the tubes and vials that now made up my life back into the purse. I smiled, and it no longer felt forced. “Lookin’ awesome!” I said, my voice high and bubbly in the empty room. “You go, girl!”

I hurried back to the office. “Feel better?” Melissa asked on my return.

“Much!” I answered, quickly settling back behind my desk. The phone rang. My fingernails stood out as shimmering pink slashes against the black receiver.

“Good morning,” I answered cheerfully. “Volumina International, Cindy speaking. How may I help you?”

***

The day flew by; five o’clock Friday: time to head home.

Save files, clean up the desk, switch the phone over to the answering service and log out of the computer. I gave myself a quick look-over and touch-up in the mirror, and packed up my purse and started to shove some of the documents I wanted to bring home with me that night into a larger shoulder bag. Melissa was already on her way out the door, barely pausing to give me a half-assed wave as she left. She was on her way to meet up with some friends at a nearby bar, the one where the up-coming young bucks trawled for easy lays. She’d made it pretty damn obvious she was headed for a night out, talking just loud enough on her cell phone that I couldn’t help but overhear. She’d also made it pretty damn obvious--without being really obvious, if you know what I mean--that I wasn’t invited.

The day’s work had been quickly and easily finished off--which impressed Sarah, giving me an unexpected flush of pleasure--but mostly it was the subtle intricacies of just being Cindy that kept me occupied all day. They didn’t expect much of me, but Sarah had me rotating through various low-level positions throughout the week. From working with Mr Peterson she switched me to the reception desk, taking over for a girl heading off to lunch and then home for some emergency or another. The calls came in constantly, as did a steady string of visitors. For the rest of the day I was the face of V.I., and Sarah made it clear that V.I.’s face was not only professional and welcoming, but also pretty and just a little flirty.

“The company’s young, we’re hip, we’re fun to be with,” she told me. “And so are you.”

And so I did my best to make my makeup just a little more striking, and with every phone call I purred into the phone and with every visitor I leaned forward and welcomed them with a glistening smile. Inside I cringed at the role forced on me, and as another set of male eyes clung to my cleavage before finding my face, part of me resisted the urge to throttle the bastard. But another part of me . . . well, somehow, part of me found the whole thing fucking hilarious. If these idiot postmen knew what was slung back beneath this skirt, if these visiting corporate jackasses knew what I really thought of their cocky words and flashy suits, but . . . no.

The women were harder to deal with. It must’ve been an industry thing: it seemed that the women who stepped through our door were all exceptionally sexy. God, it took every inch of willpower I had to not stare at their tits and ass as they stepped up to my desk. Even harder to deal with was the look of barely hidden scorn some of them levelled my way, the shrivelling looks as they judged my cup-size and hair-colour, my clothes and my age and dismissed me as stupid, irrelevant. I swallowed down equal measures of shame and anger at the thought of how, not long ago, these same bitches would’ve been clamouring for my attention, for my affirmation. These sluts, in their tight suits and arrogant condescension should’ve been hanging off my every word, and I swear, I would’ve put them in their goddamn place but quick. . . .

“Hey, Cindy.” Dan leaned against the desk. I looked up as he grabbed a complimentary mint from the bowl and idly popped it in his mouth--and nearly choked, forcing me to stifle an open laugh. Every day since Wednesday he’d found some excuse to pass by my desk. Hell, it’s not like he was the only one. At least he tried to think up an excuse before hanging around for a bit, starting up halting conversations before blurting out some task for me and fleeing back to his desk. It would’ve been cute in a pathetic kind of way if it didn’t keep dropping more menial and humiliating work on my skirted lap. I wanted to hate the guy and on some level I did, but recognizing my anger stemmed largely from jealousy and the stifling weight of my circumstances I restrained any urge to lash out in the only ways left me--bitchy nastiness, cold shoulders, cock-tease turndowns--and kept a pleasant smile to my face. It’s not like he was a bad guy or anything.

More importantly, Cindy was flattered by the attention--intrigued, even, and impressed--and more than a little attracted to this boy. If I wasn’t playing the girl in this little encounter I would’ve been tempted to drag him down to the pub myself. There was something ingratiating about the kid that made me want to take him under my wings. He had a quick smile and a touch of hesitant cockiness to his eyes I liked. He was slim without being wimpy, well-dressed without being effeminate, and only a few inches taller than I’d used to be. The guy clearly kept active and in shape despite the busy job; I respected that.

“Hi Dan!” I gave him a wide smile. His eyes lit up at my unexpectedly warm reception. I’d been playing it a bit distant the last two weeks, but maybe it was the long day’s work, a month’s exhaustion, or something less definable, but I felt like having a simple chat with someone--I needed to have a real conversation with someone, no matter how brief. Besides, he made me laugh: a year out of university and somehow Dan was still awkward around the girls. “Working hard?”

“Hardly workin’,” he answered.

He winced; I stifled a groan; and suddenly we both laughed. “I’m just heading home,” I said, standing. “Walk me out?”

We left the office together, chatting as we went. He told me about the project he was working on, an out-of-house research bit on jeans aimed at a teenaged girl market. I listened attentively and deftly deflected personal questions back to him and by the time the elevator hit the ground floor he was assuring me he could hook me up with a free pair of low-riding jeans.

“Oh yeah, it’s no problem!” he said. “We always get extra samples to show off to the research groups, and somebody always snags them. You’d look dead sexy in them.” He hesitated in mid-step and gave a forced cough. “Uh, I mean--”

I giggled, lightly touching him on the arm. “That’s sweet, Dan. I’d love a pair.” We passed through the lobby; I hung back and he pushed the heavy glass door open for me.

It had rained briefly but heavily during the day and the plaza was grey and damp from the storm, giving rise to the not-unpleasant scent of wet grass and pavement. We crossed the slick cobblestone plaza quickly, just another pair among the hundreds streaming away from the buildings that loomed overhead. I had to trot quickly to keep up with Dan, his stable shoes and long stride making his pace hard to match. I felt myself blushing furiously with embarrassment at the effort to just stay a humiliating step or two behind him, my heels wobbling precariously on the slick stones, torn between concentrating on my footing and listening to his words, my handbag bouncing from the crook of my arm against my hip, free hand fighting to keep gusting winds from lifting my skirt, struggling with the weight of my shoulder bag. . . .

How the hell did these women, walking quickly and assuredly across the same surface, manage to look so composed and at ease? I felt like a sheaf of papers bound together with a loose thread: a frayed string or strong wind away from flying apart in every direction, an inelegant accident about to happen. Shit--how, again, was all _this_ supposed to deflect attention from me?

I was about to ask Dan--to my shame--to slow down or if I could take his arm for balance--Christ, even worse!--when he stopped and looked at me expectantly.

“Sorry,” I said, nearly panting.

“Oh,” he said, almost dejected. “It’s nothing, just. . . .”

“No, I didn’t hear you.” I forced a smile, catching my breath. “Go on. . . .”

“Well, I was just wondering if you’d like to, you know, maybe grab a drink? At that new place, Noir, a few blocks over?” He seemed to rush to add more. “It’s just that I’m meeting a, uh, friend there later tonight and didn’t want to wait on my own . . . ?”

Looking up at him through heavy eyelashes and a veil of wind-tousled hair, biting lightly down on a fingertip, I hoped to project coquettish uncertainty to cover up the very real confusion I felt at that moment. On the one hand: it’d been a brutally long day. The work itself had very little to do with it, but two weeks of playing Cindy in public had left me mentally and emotionally exhausted. The last thing I wanted was to drag it out a couple more hours, playing innocent small girl in the big city for this guy. My feet hurt. My back ached. My panties were riding up my ass and pinching something awful. I really, really wanted to go home, crack open a bottle of wine and sleep through the whole weekend.

At the same time . . . well, shit. I was dying for a drink. A real drink, not some shit from the dodgy guy at the corner store who turned his eye at a lack of ID. I hadn’t been out on a Friday night in . . . ages, and Dan was the first colleague to ask me to join him after work, and I knew damn well how important those first invites were. Those kids working The Lounge kept erratic hours and tended to hang out together; management did the same, only occasionally mingling with the creative-types; and as for the secretarial staff . . . well, Melisa could go fuck herself. I still couldn’t bring myself to hit a bar on my own, not as a girl. They probably wouldn’t serve me anyway, what with my fictional twenty-first still being a month away. And here was this guy, watching me hopefully, probably ready to buy all my drinks for the night. But that was the problem, wasn’t it? When a guy buys a girl drinks . . . yeah, he’s after something more than just pleasant company. He sure as hell wasn’t inviting blonde-little-me along for intellectual stimulation.

I knew this kid’s game, probably better than he did. He was trying to lay an early claim on the new piece of tail in the office. But then I looked at him again and thought I saw something familiar in his eyes, loneliness or tiredness that mirrored my own, and all he wanted was a pretty face to sit with him, because it’s always better to drink with someone than alone, and always better to sit with someone beautiful if you can. Maybe the guy wasn’t ready to head home yet, to an empty apartment, shit food and a broken tv. . . .

Maybe the guy just wanted a goddamn drink.

His eyes flicked away while I made up my mind, following the movement of a leggy blonde with hair down to her ass. I followed his appreciative gaze and shared his joy in watching something beautiful pass by. I felt a stirring beneath my skirt watching her walk and felt an unexpected kinship to this kid--and a pang of regret knowing that we’d never relate on that level. This kid could’ve become a new friend, another Tom; but not dressed as I was; never like this. He was a young guy and I was--a girl. And that made a simple friendship impossible.

With that in mind I was about to turn him down when the decision was suddenly taken out of my hands.

He stood across the plaza, leaning idly against the wood-paneled side of a coffee kiosk, newspaper in hand. The length of his long coat swayed heavily around his legs. He’d been absent for nearly a week now. A strong wind tore across the plaza. Loose papers swirled and danced between us and people braced against the sudden gust, men pulling their jackets tight, women’s hands falling to their skirts. My hair flew into my face, momentarily blinding me. When I could see again the man was gone.

Jeff was back.

A thrill ran down my spine and with it the absolute certainty that I should’ve killed him when I had the chance, back in that dirty alley behind the strip joint. My fingers itched to curl around an imaginary broken bottle as I considered how too much had been committed into staying alive, into these initial steps towards my revenge, to lose it all now.

The wind died down and I flashed a wide smile at Dan. “You know what? I’d _love_ a drink.”

“Really?”

“C’mon!” I flitted past him, tugging at his sleeve. “But you’re buying!”

Noir was a swanky place, newly opened and packed with a young and energetic crowd. A DJ buried somewhere near the back spun out edgy tunes that were just cleverly mixed and just old enough to be cool again, as we threaded our way to the bar. The lighting was dim, coloured lamps in cleverly concealed nooks and behind transparent panels in the floor casting soft ambient glows bleeding across the walls. Alcoves with sofas and private booths provided intimate comfort away from the open space of scattered stools and tables out front of the bar. This place was shiny and modern and glistened: in the detailing, on the lips of women and their sleek legs in the subtle light. . . .

This place felt eerily familiar.

I fought down a sudden bout of vertigo that bordered on panic. Dan picked up on my sudden reluctance and, his hand finding mine, pushed through to the bar. Busy as this place was with the after-work crowd, nobody was going to check for ID. Dan ordered our drinks. We were lucky to find a seat at a small round table in a corner. The chairs were contraptions of polished twining bronze and silver. As I clambered into the tall seat I thought that they looked like they’d been stolen from a goddamn museum of modern art. Fucking things; they weren’t designed for a short girl in a pleated skirt. Dan, damn him, looked comfortable with his legs spread comfortably apart for support. I, on the other hand, perched precariously at the edge, one heel hooked into the chair legs, thighs tightly crossed, knees together.

Sitting balanced like that forced me to keep my back straight--pushed my breasts out--God, it wouldn’t take long to be a real strain on my back--and I felt acutely aware of those D-cups thrusting out for all, and especially Dan, to see. It seemed like every woman who walked by threw an appraising glance my way . . . and the men ogled . . . and it suddenly clicked why this place felt so uncomfortable to me.

Maybe it’s because I worked in a bar myself so soon after I’d escaped the streets. I don’t know. Whatever the reason, I’d developed both a soft spot for overworked bartenders, and an unreasoning dislike for places like this. The painfully cool furniture, shiny people, and carefully designed atmosphere: the whole thing just felt so damnably fake. Don’t get me wrong: I like a good drink or three. But give me a choice and I’ll always head for the pub. Give me my back to the wall at a sturdy wood table with a couple other guys and a steady supply of pints, and I’m about as happy as a fly on shit. Give me a couple of lonely old bastards slung over the bar staring into their glasses; give me a dozen different beers on tap, a low ceiling and dark walls, and a few smart, classy chicks for eye candy drinking wine at a table across from mine; that’s where I like to be.

Places like Noir weren’t for drinking; I went to get laid. Since waking up as Cindy I hadn’t stepped foot anywhere like this and it was freaking me out more than just a little. I mean, everything I do reminds me of how things have changed, and that I’m playing the girl now, but I swear nothing brought it crashing home like stepping into this goddamn upscale meat-market. For a moment there, stepping through the door I’d slipped back into old habits. An appraising eye sliding across the crowd, picking out the couples, the groups and the singles, separating the wheat from the chaff. Back in the day, there weren’t too many nights that I left alone. I knew this place and I recognized the game; but the game had changed and so had my place in it.

I clutched at the drink handed to me as does a drowning man his life preserver, and found to my annoyance that Dan had bought me a white wine. Jesus, I was getting sick of this sweet shit. I eyed his Stella with envy.

Coming here with him was a really bad idea. It’s not like all I had to do was come to terms with what I looked like and the sudden pressure to ‘relax’ in this goddamn bar. No. I also had to listen to Dan, and pretend to be interested in what he had to say while trying to find a balance between friendly and flirty, and maintain the illusion of my youthful innocence; and the whole time I was trying to keep an inconspicuous eye on the bar and pick Jeff out of the throng; while also trying to come off as anything other than the uncomfortable feminized male hiding in plain view that I was . . . and I swear, it was killing me and the only thing keeping me stable was the drink in my hand. It wasn’t nearly strong enough. I felt a sudden burgeoning of the panic from this morning and quickly clamped down on it: not here. _This_ was why I always headed home straight after work. I wasn’t strong enough--yet--to endure nights in public. How much longer could I maintain this Cindy charade?

Dan picked up on my distress. “Hey, you okay there?” he asked, and his hand surreptitiously snaked across the table to lay over mine.

“I’m just a little tired,” I answered, briefly holding his hand and giving it a light squeeze, before smiling wanly and slipping free. “But thanks.”

“That’s what I always say,” he answered. His smile twisted a little, sardonic. “People must think I’m an insomniac, the way I’m always tired.”

I chuckled and suddenly realized that it was a totally natural reaction--not something forced--but a genuine release. It felt good. “Tell me about it.”

He took a long pull on his beer and wiped the froth from his lips. “Fucking job.”

I nodded. “Stupid job.”

“Fuck it!”

“Yeah!” And my sip of wine turned into a gulp, and then another, and suddenly the glass was empty, the chilled wine pleasantly transforming into belly-calming warmth.

“Nice,” Dan said. He grinned. “Another?”

Dan went off to the bar to get another round of drinks, clearly determined to get me drunk–which was good, because I suddenly felt very determined to get drunk. While he was away I cast a wandering eye across the women around me, standing at the bar or sitting at tables or delicately threading their way through the crowd. So many sexy young things--like me--and I felt a sudden uncomfortable kinship with them that had me squirming in my seat.

There was a girl at a table near mine. She was cute, and young, probably in her mid-twenties. As I watched, some guy joined her. He was clearly an older man and was coming straight from work, his suit well-tailored and the cufflinks that flashed at his wrist expensive. The way she was dressed, she definitely hadn’t come straight from work. Delicately highlighted cheeks glittered in the dim light and her red lips shimmered almost as brightly as her clingy sequined top. She crossed and uncrossed her bared arms and played idly with a silver bracelet, twisting and sliding it up and down her forearm.

Was she bored with her date? Were they colleagues or friends or something more? Was she with him for his money, or because she was attracted to the power money can represent, or because the man was a fucking God in bed? Maybe he was a nice guy. I didn’t think he was a nice guy. His hairline was receding and there was something in his expression, an arrogant curl to his lip or the way he straddled his seat that made me dislike him. But the body language between them was fascinating. Every toss of hair, sideways glance and flip of her wrist . . . the way she drew his attention back with a light touch when he glanced away towards another woman, or the way she pulled back when he leaned forward . . . in the give and take of their conversation, in the battle of words and gestures between them, were they meeting as equals? Was she in control?

And suddenly I realized that I was empathizing with the girl, that I was imagining myself in _her_ position, and it freaked me out. When she stood to go to the bathroom, the guy looked in my direction. We made eye contact. He had grey eyes. They weren’t friendly or shy and held my gaze unswervingly. He smiled knowingly and I felt myself blush and quickly looked away.

The brief exchange left me hot despite the fact that my clothes suddenly seemed to barely cover me at all. I tugged at my skirt, wishing for something longer, for a proper pair of slacks, and the situation--me sitting in this all too familiar setting but in such changed circumstance--twisted into a bizarrely surreal moment for me, an uncomfortable one.

Fortunately Dan returned just then with more booze. This time he’d ordered me a large. Another long drink helped calm my nerves.

Bemused, he watched me gulp the wine. “You still seem a little . . . tense,” he said.

“Stressed,” I answered.

“The job?”

“Yeah, sure . . . .” I shrugged. “It’s sometimes, like, I wonder if I should even be here, you know? Whether I can handle all this. It’s just so new.” I forced myself to put my glass down, watching the play of light in the surface of the pale wine. “And I wonder why Sarah hired me?”

Dan nodded unconsciously in agreement. “Yeah, you seem a little. . . ,” I could see him choosing his words tactfully. “Inexperienced for the job.” I don’t know how the word leaked out (although I suspected Melissa, that bitch), but it became common knowledge around the office within a day of my start that I was a twenty-year-old high-school dropout. Were rumours already circulating of my stunning ‘oral performance’ at the interview? Cindy probably would’ve been mortified but in a way I was quite glad. It saved me from acting through those tedious moments of shyly admitting the truth, the forced blushes and tentative smiles and pleading looks for reassurance.

“I know.” I shrugged and smiled weakly. “I guess she saw something she liked.”

It didn’t matter how much she liked me or not. Walking into that interview I knew the job was mine. It’s a good thing too, because I almost shat a brick stepping into her office. Fortunately I kept the panic under control and sweated my way through the interview. It wasn’t easy. It wasn’t easy coping with the clothes, let alone the terror of being caught out, or of being surrounded by so many people for the first time since becoming Cindy. Stepping out of the taxi into that huge crowd of people two weeks ago nearly gave me a heart attack. The appreciative eyes and cheeky smile of that bloody kid who opened those goddamn heavy doors for me almost sent me gibbering back to the safety of my home. Until I found my stride, that is, a little sass and a sexy wiggle that turned the whole thing into a game and carried me through that first meeting with Sarah.

The whole thing was a charade. Sarah must’ve known. Maybe she was even in on it, though after two weeks I really didn’t think so. There were other people being interviewed, a couple of women and one guy, and I’m sure they all out-classed Cindy’s scanty resume. They were older and professionally dressed and carried themselves with a mature air that I, as Cindy, simply couldn’t exude. It didn’t matter.

The moment I decided to play this game, to be Cindy and ride this out to the brutal, inevitable end, getting a job became a top priority. My inherited bank account was haemorrhaging like a gangland shooting in the ER. It damned well wasn’t going to hang on much longer. With my qualifications--high-school dropout, knockout body--I knew there were limits to what I could hope for. Waitress. Cleaner. Retail work, if I was lucky. Hell, I was even considering Frank’s goddamn strip joint, I was so desperate for a little cash. I spent a few days walking about town looking for jobs, and hours in the coffee shop poring over the papers, but I never quite built up the courage to apply anywhere. And then out of the blue it arrived: the letter.

It was an acceptance letter for a job interview I’d never applied for. There was never any doubt in my mind about accepting the job. The thing had obviously been set up--by K or by Steele, or someone else? It didn’t really matter. It was at best a way of testing me, at worst a trap; it was also the first hint that whatever the twisted game I’d been dropped into, someone was making their next move. Now it was my turn and I’d bend this to my own advantage. Somehow. When I’d finally accepted that I was going to have to play this part--no, to be this part--it wasn’t just as a means to stay alive.

Survival alone is never enough. Katherine taught me that. I survived her death, and the streets, and rebuilt myself into David Sanders. Now that life was over; so fucking be it. Now I had this job . . . and it was the first step on a long road that would end with my hands, delicate and manicured though they may be, tight around Steele’s mother-fucking throat.

“No doubt,” Dan said, and paused a second. “I know I do.”

I blushed, and it wasn’t entirely forced. I opened my mouth to answer, turned away, and covered my embarrassment with a sip of wine. The frosted pink imprint on the rim suddenly fascinated me. The whole time he grinned at my discomfort. “Thank you,” I finally managed.

“That’s so cute,” he said. “You really are new to the city, aren’t you?’

I gave a little moue. “Is it that obvious?”

“A little.” He laughed, noticing my mock frown. “Not that much. Really! You’re just a bit . . . different, than most of the other girls around here.”

A faint smile. “Am I?”

Dan nodded. “It’s nothing that major, it’s just . . . .” He shrugged. “It’s hard to pin down. Just something in the way you carry yourself. And dress. The way you drink.” He waved his half-full pint at my empty wine glass. “You’re just different from most of the girls I know.”

“I’m sorry,” I answered, in a quiet voice, and with lowered eyes.

His hand found mine again. “Don’t be,” he said. “I like different.”

I held his gaze for a few long seconds. He had brilliant blue eyes. They reminded me of David’s. Shyly, I finally looked away, and only drew my hand back a moment after that. “Thank you.”

We talked for a little longer, mostly inconsequential stuff concerning the office as he finished off his glass. With a smile and looseness to his step he went off for the third round of drinks. This time he asked what I wanted. I ordered a Guinness. It was the manliest stuff I could think of short of switching to scotch.

While I waited I did a little damage control on my makeup. It was a miracle the stuff wasn’t running in streaks down my face, the way I felt I must be sweating. My mirror allowed for another secretive check for Jeff. No sign of him but I knew my stalker was lurking somewhere. I had to find the bastard--had to know where he was--had to make sure he was here, getting all of this. He needed to be watching. I _needed_ him to be watching.

Thinking about a single set of eyes of eyes on me was in some ways a lot easier to deal with than acknowledging the many more I knew were constantly, lazily, hungrily checking me out. It’s not like I wasn’t used a certain amount of attention as David, but that felt very different. Wearing a suit, looking expensive and confident and strong, the surreptitious, shy or occasional brazenly lustful looks from women used to just feed my ego. Now those similar--but so very different!--stares from men left me feeling anything from nervously self-conscious to sickened and self-loathing, and if maybe somewhere deep inside I felt a sexy little thrill I did my best to bury it and forget. It was again a relief when Dan finally returned with our drinks, so that I could stop mindlessly fidgeting with my makeup or plucking at my skirt. For some reason his presence was making the awful experience of being in this bar more bearable.

“A beer for the lady,” he said.

“Thanks.”

“Not what I would’ve expected you to order.”

I raised the glass in toast. “Too manly a drink?”

He laughed. “Hey, I wouldn’t drink that stuff.”

I shrugged and took a sip. “It’s an acquired taste.” It certainly was, and one Cindy obviously hadn’t managed yet. Struggling to fight back a grimace, I delicately dabbed at the foam that flecked my lip and chin. It never used to taste this . . . earthy, did it?

“Do all the girls drink beer where you’re from?”

My turn to laugh. “Of course!”

“And are they all as pretty as you?”

I winked at him. “Not even close.”

“And here I was about to book the next train to. . . .” He smiled and waved his hand in the air. “To wherever you’re from.”

“River Valley,” I answered, without missing a beat. “No train, though. You’d have to catch the bus.”

“River Valley? Sounds. . . .”

“Dull?” I smiled, a little wistfully. “Maybe.” I absently traced the rim of glass with a nail as I spoke. Strange how perfectly shaped that nail was, and how the barely-pink varnish caught the light. Just like the wine. These small things, they still caught me out when I least expected them. “But it wasn’t that bad of a place growing up. I guess.”

“I was going to say, ‘pretty’.”

“It is.”

“What’s it like? Tell me about it.”

“Well,” I started. “It’s in this valley, and . . . it has a river.”

“Wow,” he said, grinning. “It’s almost like I’m there.”

I gave him a mock glare. “It gets better.”

“So tell me, then,” he said, settling back into his seat.

And so I did. I told him about River Valley and about growing up there, about the cottages by the lakeside at the deepest point in the valley, and how beautifully the sun glimmered off the water during those long summer evenings, and how I loved to walk along the river with the grass tickling my bare legs and the wind breathing through a light summer dress. I told him about John Wilson’s, the beat-up bar on the edge of town where the fights always seemed to happen, and how a boyfriend back in high school got a tooth knocked out there. There was the Point, where the kids all used to hang out in their beat-up cars, stretching out across hoods and watching the clouds drift across the sky during the day, and the expanse of stars at night. Supposedly, more girls lost their virginity there than anywhere else in town. Somehow I even ended up telling Dan, as we polished off our third drink, about my first kiss, at thirteen, playing spin-the-bottle with kids older than me and how I ended up in the closet with Billy Cox--most definitely not my top choice for first kiss--and how he ended up molesting my nose with his tongue in the dark. And the fact that nothing I said was actually true made any difference, made it any less real, because I was acutely aware that every lie I spoke became reality the moment the words left my lips and created more of this young woman I was becoming . . . that I was turning myself into.

And the thing was: I was loving it. I really was. There I was perched on that ridiculous stool, leaning forward just enough to show off some of that fantastic cleavage, and gently flirting with this young guy with sparkling eyes who seemed to hang off my every word, lying, spinning out a fine old yarn about an imaginary girl’s past; and I was having the most fun I’d had in . . . well, since hanging out with Harry Longman, I guess, getting drunk at the Clinic. Of course, it wasn’t all lies, or at least they contained those small seeds of the truth in there, somewhere, that all the best lies had. Much like Cindy, I’d grown up in the countryside before running away to the city. There’d been a small river--barely a stream, really--running through the clustered and ramshackle buildings, and I’d enjoyed walking barefoot through the grass. And the sky . . . God, in my memory the night sky back home was dusted with an impossibility of stars that seemed to light up the firmament with an argent glow broken only by the brief flare of falling stars. Those fucking stars, they’re the only damned thing I miss from my childhood.

“Sounds beautiful,” Dan said, his chin resting over interlaced fingers. “Much better than growing up in this shithole of a city.”

I shrugged. “Guess I’ve forgotten the bad stuff over time.”

He laughed. “Aren’t you twenty?”

I blushed. “Sometimes I feel like I’m thirty.”

Dan winked. “You certainly don’t look it.”

With my cheeks again burning a deep red, I found myself forced to look away and suddenly realized that it wasn’t just my cheeks that burned, but that I felt flushed all over and quite drunk. This of course reminded me that I’d just knocked back two glasses of a wine and a pint of beer. My bladder felt like it was about to burst. With an apologetic smile I excused myself from the table and awkwardly clambered down from my perch.

Finally, those two weeks of heavy drinking alone in my apartment every night paid off. Despite the heels I found my feet with only a slight wobble, and cocooned in pleasant drunkenness worked my way to the bathroom through the crowd, picking up speed as I realized that I suddenly really, really had to go. Until I reached the door, and the line-up, and the half-dozen other girls waiting their turn.

“Fuck,” I muttered under my breath.

The girl ahead of me, a brown-haired girl with thick-framed glasses who seemed to tower over me, glanced back and smiled bitterly. “Tell me about it.”

She did a double-take, looking at me once again. As she did so, I felt a momentary jolt of recognition. It seemed as though I should know this girl, even though that was pretty much impossible. Did she work in the same office building? Perhaps I’d passed her in the woman’s toilet and checked her out, something I had a bad habit of doing. In my semi-drunken state I struggled only briefly to remember her before dismissing the concern. She seemed to experience a brief moment of recognition as well, but that was even more implausible.

Instead, we shared a brief moment of quiet, shared pain. I wondered if it was worse for her, whether my hidden cock, held back as it was, eased some of the pain of an over-full bladder. Some guy breezed by, stumbling into the wall before disappearing into the men’s bathroom, and I felt impotent rage at the freedom he so unwittingly enjoyed.

“Fucker.” The girl ahead of me glared at the man’s retreating back.

“Tell me about it.”

“Sometimes, I really, really hate men.” Her voice, flecked with British intonations, made it sound a well-timed joke.

I choked back a laugh as the girls’ queue crawled forward. How long did it take to piss? It occurred to me that an accident just then might not just be embarrassing as hell, but potentially deadly, especially if spotted by the wrong person. Damn: Jeff. I hadn’t thought of that bastard in too long; somehow I’d almost forgotten about him. Fuck. Did he get a sick thrill out of watching me wait, dancing from toe-to-toe, in the toilet line-up? At least the nervous tightening of my stomach at the thought of my stalker distracted me from other pressing pains. I survived the rest of the wait, keeping a less that subtle wary eye on the crowds back in the bar, exchanging the occasional platitude with the brunette ahead of me. Finally it was my turn. With a clattering of heels I rushed into the first open stall and slammed the door shut, locking it firmly.

I hoped the desperate release of urine didn’t sound too loudly as a relieved sigh escaped my lips. Note to self in the endless litany of female comportment: when in a busy bar, always head to the bathroom at least ten minutes before you’ve actually got to go. Sitting on the shitter–now a pisser, I suppose--I took a long moment to compose myself. Away from Dan I felt briefly shamed at my actions. This conversation with its sideway glances and fluttering touches . . . I mean, fuck. The sexual tension was there, and building. It couldn’t go anywhere, of course. The poor boy’d be going home alone, cursing me for a cock-tease and . . . what, probably drunkenly jerking off to the thought of my tits and lips before bed tonight. What did he expect? A kiss? At least a kiss. More, probably. David would’ve expected more.

Goddamn. Couldn’t I enjoy a simple night out? Didn’t I deserve an easy night? I took a deep breath. Tucked my cock away once again. Swept the frustration aside and sank myself into happy thoughts. “Lookin’ awesome,” I whispered to myself, voice lost in the bustle of the busy bathroom room. “Go.” I forced myself to stand.

A few touch-ups at that feeding-trough of a mirror, jostling for space among the preening, primping women, and I returned to the bar.

“Cindy!” Dan was standing, two fresh pints of Guinness in hand, by one of the softly-lit alcoves with the low-slung sofas. He grinned and waved, spilling beer in the process. “Over here.”

With a laugh, a light step and a happy smile on those plumped, painted lips, I joined him in the privacy of a booth.

***

A deep breath.

Mud between toes, branches scratch bare ankles and the sound of waves lapping the shore. Heady scent of wet soil, night air, a musky perfume of ripened nature. A wind rushes past; heart pounding; taste of blood? Running: towards or away something forgotten? So long ago, quickening childhood memories along the dark snake curves of a moonlit river. Tears maybe, for the path is blurred and shadowed. I trip. Falling. Skinned knee. Crying—deep howls of pain far beyond that of childhood bruises.

My God: can this weakness be mine? Pathetic.

These memories, are they real? Are they even mine? For a moment, these fleeting remembrances seem like truth, the smell and taste of it all—but they might be as nothing more than an illusionary belief in a photograph taken by someone else and kept as one’s own experience. I’m drunk. The room is spinning and dipping, and this vertiginous centrifuge throws my memories in together with those of Cindy.

Another deep breath. Dan’s scent. Again.

The groan of bamboo. A shiver of wind through branches.

Smell of oak. Musk and the thick, moist ground bunching between fingers as, crouching in a ditch behind trees, the falling rain fell in a steady patter against leaves. My breath came in short, shallow gasps, steaming in the cold air. She knelt nearby, her eyes wide and wild, grin feral. Half-naked, our bodies were caked and streaked with mud, and the long parallel gouges across my back burned with wonderful intensity. Her breasts hung heavily. They glowed red where I’d bit and grappled and threw her face-first to the ground. Her ass rising to meet my thrust. Muffled cry, ecstatic, furious and violent. Rising and falling together in the mud and afterwards, as the steadily falling water slowly washed us clean and I was left intoxicated, she drew close and said,

“Again?”

With lips puckered for comic effect into an airy kiss, I pressed closed to Dan. He held his phone at arm’s length, ready for another shot. And his scent, the cologne he wore—did he slap this on for me when he went for a piss?--subtle but up close intense in its masculinity, dragged me back into the ditch and the bamboo forest and left me . . . dazed. How else to explain what happened next?

Dan turned towards me in anticipation. We were . . . so close, my eyes wide. Lips slightly parted and breath caught in my throat. The moment hung heavily between us as I wrestled with my own past, caught between memories and lies and an event I felt powerless to prevent. He leaned towards me. His lips pressed up against mine. God, that scent--it overwhelmed me. Heavy eyelids drifted shut. My mouth parted involuntarily. His fingers curled into the flesh of my upper arm. At his touch I released a soft moan that faintly echoed the past, lost in half-forgotten passions; our tongues met, danced and retreated; he pulled away. The fleeting sensation endured all too briefly, and I savoured the forgotten kiss until it faded. I slowly opened my eyes.

Grinning, Dan showed me the photo.

The young girl seemed all too compliant. She was all too pretty, and too real. Reality came crashing back. The sofa, the alcove, the cocktail--my fifth? sixth? drink of the night--his hand had been on my knee for the last hour. What time is it? His thumb kept stroking my leg, sliding smoothly across those stockings. Drunk, I hadn’t pulled away. His touch played with the lacy edging that tickled my thigh. We talked. About . . . nothing, really. He told me about himself. I listened, and laughed. Fluttered eyelids, licked my lips. He went for another drink. The rest of the bar felt distant as I waited. I felt hot and felt ashamedly pleased that my skimpy outfit offered at least some cooling from the stifling bar air. Without Dan around all sorts of insecurities came crowding in. What was I doing here—too many people! A few wild looks about, suddenly remembering Jeff. A giggle; I could imagine what he was seeing; would he jack off when he got home, thinking of me? Then Dan was back. A drunken cheer! A text message—he had a look—cleared it—flipped the phone over and with a grin, pulled me closer for a photo. His arm was heavy across my shoulders, reminding me of another man months ago, and the strength there drew me close too easily. Cheek-to-cheek we smiled into the camera, and I breathed in, and. . . .

The memory of his touch on my arm still seared the skin and I felt painfully aroused.

For a moment rage and denial, disgust and hatred, longing and sadness coursed through me, filtered through the blurry lens of beer and wine and liquor, in a paralyzing swell of overwhelming emotion. I struggled to cope with the conflicting and alluring sensations this boy had awakened within me. That kiss—a kiss; God, it’d been so long since I’d felt a kiss, closeness of any kind to someone. A few confused moments with Harry; angry, complicated grapples with K a lifetime ago… was that all? It wasn’t enough, it wasn’t fucking enough for anyone. It was a rare week indeed in which David Sanders did not get laid . . . and yeah, Cindy Long damn well hadn’t had—and wasn’t going to see any--action since waking up over a month ago. Jerking off was beginning to wear thin.

Through the booze I felt honest—couldn’t lie to myself—I felt a sudden profound sense of not only loneliness, but also of disappointment. A lifetime of aloneness should strengthen a person to solitude, right? How fucking hard had my childhood been? Abandoned by everyone I knew—the only woman I’d ever loved torn away—a year devoured by the streets—years of meaningless relationships—even best friends taken away over time—and most recently . . . fuck, a life erased and the most painful of isolations forced upon me, trapped not just by circumstances but by my very body; surely all that should’ve made me immune to this—this goddamn aching loneliness?

But if I was truly, brutally honest with myself . . . God, I craved another kiss, and the sense of a lingering human touch on my arm.

It was the booze. And the pills. And the hormones, and whatever those bastards at the Clinic left in my head, and in my blood. Exhaustion and weeks of playing the role forced onto me. Everything I’d done, hadn’t it been to lose myself in this role? And so I had. Even if only briefly. If it felt so. . . God, whatever it felt like, it was too much to deal with right now; well, that was just proof that Cindy was all the more real. That was a good thing, right, what I wanted, what I needed?

No. What I needed was . . . was a good, solid fuck: to bend some bitch over an office desk, to smack her ass, to shove my cock so far down her throat she gagged on it, to—fuck! Fuck!

Instead, as I slowly found my breath and untangled myself from the complex web of emotions that bound me after that single kiss, I realized that the odds of me getting it on with any damned woman was pretty fucking slim. It wasn’t fair. This loneliness . . . God, this soul-numbing, pathetic, crushing aloneness . . . it wasn’t going away. Not any time soon. Not as long as I was Cindy. Maybe not ever.

And then I felt it—no, not now!—hot and heavy—tears, and a sob that threatened to tear me apart.

Dan was watching me. His grin faded. Momentary hurt, then fleeting annoyance, and then finally a sweetly concerned look crossed his face: “Hey, you okay?”

I tried to nod but couldn’t.

“Hey, listen, I’m sorry, I. . . .”

Fleetingly, I felt sorry for him being stuck with such a basket case of a bitch of a date this night. But I also realized why he was being so nice. What he really wanted: me. And the thought of actually getting picked up by a colleague--and what would be expected--God, his hands roaming all over me, groping, kneading, his tongue pressing into my mouth, and his cock, fuck, yeah, I knew where he wanted to shove that thing, I wanted the same thing, a girl on her knees with his fingers twining through my hair, controlling, and the thought made my skin crawl and my stomach twist painfully.

“I thought. . . .”

With a wave of my hand I cut him off. “It’s not--”

Suddenly caught between these extremes, I didn’t know whether to cry or to throw up. I squeezed my eyes shut against the tears, but then the room seemed to spin and lurch to the side. I opened my eyes and swallowed an unpleasant-tasting burp. I wanted to tell him that everything was okay and that I wasn’t angry but all that came out was a slurred, “s’nice,” and a sickly grin. “Feel . . . sick.”

He smiled wanly. “I have that effect on girls.”

“B’back!” I managed, clamping a hand over my mouth before fleeing to the toilet.

It was a small miracle that there wasn’t a queue. Once again I found myself rushing for a stall. Even as I reached the toilet, though, I knew I wasn’t going to be sick. The moment had passed nearly as quickly as it came. Any memory of the scent of the bamboo forest and of that overwhelming masculine assault on my senses was dispelled by the onslaught of antiseptic cleanser, stale perfume, musty undergarments, piss and shit.

Instead, I found myself sitting on the can, face in hands, breathing deeply and struggling to control myself. My stomach twisted and turned like a small animal caught in the jaws of a steel trap.

I’d just kissed a man. Another man. And this time, it wasn’t a game. I wasn’t wearing a costume, I wasn’t playing pretend, I wasn’t sitting with some rock star I’d idolized since my teenaged years. I was Cindy. Cindy: the pretty young girl working in the offices of Volumina International. New. Innocent. Fresh meat.

And these feelings . . . the way my body reacted . . . I could feel my cock’s desperate yearning, the hot throb of pain made manageable only by the numbing shield of drunkenness. Dan’s touch still burned my arm, my thigh, and I felt . . . something new and pleasant in places where I’d never felt pleasure before, and. . . .

Finally, it came: first, a loud, terrible, drunken sob, embarrassing and complete, that wracked my entire body. Then briefly: tears and a complete collapse into these emotions that so easily and often overtook me these days. And then the vomit. With a final twist my stomach lurched and I launched the night’s food and drink into the porcelain throne.

It didn’t take very long. I threw up three more times, two heavy, spattering sprays and the the last one more of a chunky burp, and almost immediately felt… ‘better’, if still very far away from ‘fine’. A few more heavy, shuddering breaths and I regained enough composure to wipe my eyes clear with the back of my hand and sit back on my haunches. My hand was streaked with black mascara. Tiny splinters of silver eyeshadow sparkled there. The blonde tips of my hair were wet with sick and my throat burned.

There was a knock on the stall door. “You okay in there?”

My faintly mewled response was barely audible. Knowing my breakdown had probably been overheard by half the girls in this fucking bar nearly sent me tumbling into another crying jag. My humiliation felt complete; could it get worse than this? After a few seconds during which I struggled but failed to raise my voice above a pathetic squeak to tell the person outside the stall to go away, the door opened.

It was the woman from before, the strangely familiar, tall one from the line for the toilet. She repeated that moment of puzzled recognition in her eyes, quickly replaced by a look of mixed amusement and disgust. “Fuck me,” she said, not unkindly, “just look at you.” Her nose wrinkled in distaste at the smell as she reached down to help. “All better?”

I gave her a thumbs up.

With her help, I found my unsteady feet and she led me to the sink and counter to survey the damage. God, I looked like shit. Bloodshot eyes stared from a pasty face. Under harsh florescent lights I looked half-dead, and my mascara ran in heavy, black streaks down my face. I couldn’t go back out there looking like this!

What the hell would Dan think?

Why the fuck should I care what Dan thinks?

“Poor thing,” the girl said.

I gave a tentative poke at the thing in the mirror. I turned lost, pleading eyes to the woman. “Help?”

Her smile, though a touch condescending, seemed friendly enough. “You were sitting with that guy, right, off in the corner, the one with the suit and trainers?” She squinted with the effort of remembering. “Dan?” Not understanding how she knew his name, but not quite trusting myself to speak yet, I nodded weakly. “I’ll get your bag. Tell him you’ll be a few minutes. Help you put yourself back together.”

And off she went before I could even ask her name, leaving me propped up by the counter, wobbly in heels, to the uncomfortable contemplation of the girl in the mirror. What a pathetic specimen. What the hell led me to this? It suddenly seemed as though I could barely remember the man I once was, as though his name had been wiped from my memory, as though he never existed. Through burry eyes I certainly couldn’t see any trace of him in the delicate, useless girl in the mirror. Crazy, fleeting thoughts stormed across my drunken, fevered mind. David was an illusion. I’d always been Cindy and was going mad and dreamed up this lunatic belief that I’d once been a guy to deal with a painful past. Or maybe all those years of hardship were the illusion. I’d always been soft, pathetic. Becoming Cindy was inevitable. I’d wanted it. Needed it. The freedom of weakness and of dependency.

I squeezed my eyes shut and suddenly found something else lurking beneath all the angst and fear and burgeoning madness. It proved irresistible: when I opened my eyes and once again beheld the silly girl in the mirror, her panda-bear eyes and snotty nose, her sloppy grin and smeared lipstick, and the ridiculous, sexy clothes she—that I—wore, an irrepressible laugh bubbled to the surface. Collapsing against the counter in a fit of giggles, all the horrible shame and loneliness simply drained away. When I finally dared to look myself in the mirror again, my red-faced, teary-eyed expression set me off in another round of breath-stealing laughter.

It was to this near-manic scene that my helper returned.

“You seem better,” she said, handing me my purse.

I grinned at her through tears of laughter. “Oh, fuck yeah.”

My mood must have been infectious. “Crazy night?”

My head wobbled in a drunken nod. “God yes,” I said, fumbling around in my bag for something to repair my face with. I stared blankly at the mascara in my hand. The idea that this little tube of black gunk could somehow repair my appearance and set things straight seemed ludicrous. Turning helpless eyes to the girl, I uttered another feeble, “help?”

She laughed. “You’re really out of it, huh?”

Her grip was surprisingly strong, but her touch gentle. She pulled out some wet-wipes I didn’t even know I had in my bag and went to work. There was something strangely compelling about submitting to this woman’s touch as she quickly went about repairing my makeup. With enviably confident strokes she took on the task of cleaning up the worst of the damage. I submitted to her instructions easily as she wiped away my streaked and ruined makeup, undoing in a few moments my hour-long painstaking efforts from earlier this evening.

She rooted deeper into the bag, pulled out a tube, and smeared a little gunk beneath my eye, spreading it with her thumb. “Let’s conceal some of these blotches, shall we?” She held my chin in her other hand, steading my face as she worked.

In between all the intense work, I managed to slur out a question. “You know Dan?”

She chuckled as she flicked open another tube. “Yeah. I’ve seen you around before, too.”

“You have?”

“Yup.” She didn’t sound half as drunk as I did, and I envied her self-control at the moment. “I’m with the marketing and advertising people... you know, a floor up from V.I.?”

I raised and lowered a shoulder.

“Well, you’re new.” She laughed. “Word gets around.”

What kind of word, I wondered, and how far around? After tonight, was I the new office cock-tease? The secretarial slut? The bubble of manic happiness burst; instead, a horrible sinking feeling dragged my already weak stomach down to around my delicately heeled feet. I sagged, slightly, and the woman paused to grab me by the shoulder. “Hey, steady there,” she said. “You with me?”

My thin smile was waxen and unpersuasive.

“We’re almost done here,” she said. “Just a touch-up around the eyes; think you can manage your lipstick?”

I gave a weak thumbs up.

“We’ll get you back out there. You can say bye to Dan. I’ll bundle you into a taxi. You’ll be better in the morning.”

She was wrong, of course. I’d still be Cindy in the morning: I’d still have this weak, rail-thin body; I’d still have tits. I’d still be trapped in this unwanted existence living somebody else’s life, a female life, stared at and ogled, looked down at and patronised, swaddled in skirts and lost in lingerie, powerless—

“Don’t you fucking dare,” the woman fixing my face growled. “I’m not doing this so you can go and fuck up my repair work with another cry!” Her firm grip on my chin pulled me forcefully out of my introspection.

“Why are you doing this?”

She shrugged and threw her hair back with a flick of her head, unconsciously reaching back to tuck errant strands of her long black hair behind her left ear. “Because we’ve all been there, honey.” Her eyes went momentarily distant. “Young, lost and fucked up because of some guy.” She focused on me again. “Now shut up and stop distracting me. You don’t want to lose an eye.”

With deft, precise strokes, she started her final repairs. A little pencil work along the eyebrow, a little colour along the eye lid. Had I not been so bedraggled, drunk and exhausted, there could’ve been something almost seductive about her soft but firm touch, the gentle strokes across the sensitive skin of cheek and eye. I felt suddenly acutely aware of her closeness. I sighed, suddenly exhausted, and leaned slightly closer. She reached for my hand, and the mascara I still held there. And her eyes stared intensely into mine as our fingertips met. And there was suddenly something more to her look: curiosity, but also confusion. Her dark, hazel eyes widened slightly with something akin to recognition. There was a heavy pause, a sense of sudden isolation amongst the bustle of the woman’s toilet, as we stared into each other.

“Um.” Her hand left mind to tuck her hair back behind her left ear again, the gesture achingly familiar. “I think we’re done here.”

“Thanks,” I mumbled, and then the word, a name, suddenly tumbled out. “Jules.” I giggled and reached up, gently stroking the back of my fingers across her cheek. “My little Caesar.”

“What did you call me?” she whispered. She flinched back from my touch and grabbed me by the wrist. She pulled me close and held me firm.

“Hey,” I exclaimed, staring dumbly at her hand. “Ow!”

But her grip didn’t relax. She stared intensely at me in disbelief.

“David?” she said.

***

[Author's Notes, 01/22: Uh... an edit and an update after a ten-year delay? If anyone's still reading... I've picked this up again, currently working on Chapter 4, and edits on earlier chapters.]