A short story I'd cooked up as a bonus piece for my next published book. Unfortunately it doesn't fit the theme of the book itself -- "Enamored," coming to a Smashwords near you in a few days! -- but I still wanted to share it, so here it is!

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Ellen looked at the cover of the magazine and sighed.

She had already read it four times before, and it was looking like she would be reading it again. The office had other magazines, sure, but nothing less than two years old, and most of the other choices were the kind of periodicals you find on your grandmother’s coffee table, full of pictures of country houses that cost more than the GDP of a small country to buy and twice as much to make so photogenic.

Not that the magazine in her hands was any more realistic, she admitted to herself, staring at the happy couple on the cover with their perfect teeth and the waves lapping on some beach with an unpronounceable name behind them.

Ellen had learned years before that there were two kinds of people in the world: those who found love, and those who never did. As much as she didn’t want to admit it, she had come to the conclusion that she was one of the latter.

Her issues started with her appearance. While she knew she wasn’t ugly, per se, there were times when she wished she were. Instead, she knew that she was simply ‘blah,’ her features falling somewhere short of attractive but not so much as to be distinguishing. Her nose was slightly beaky, her lips a bit too full on the bottom and too thin on top, and the milky brown of her eyes a bit too dulled by the drudgery of living paycheck to paycheck to be anything else. At twenty-nine she could already see the crow’s feet starting at their corners, warning of the same early aging she had seen on her mother’s face, one of many features she felt both blessed and cursed to have inherited from her.

She had been lucky to get her mother’s small frame and general features rather than her father’s bulk and height. It had made transition that much easier than it might otherwise have been, and meant that, as plain as she was, at least she knew that she passed.

But she would never look like one of them, those perfect people on the cover of the tabloids.

With a huff of frustration she dropped the magazine back in the rack and took her seat to wait her appointment sans reading materials.

What would it be like to have a life like that? To have more money than you could ever spend, the health to do any fantastical thing that came to your mind, and the lack of responsibility to go along with it? A humorless laugh escaped her, unbidden. After all, she would settle for enough money to be able to replace the heater core in her car. As for the health, she was lucky in that she was, at least, healthy enough to work, though how long until that would break her down, like it had her parents, her aunts and uncles, and everyone else she knew, she dared not ponder.

She didn’t even want to start on the responsibilities part of the whole fiasco.

“Ellen Reyes?”

Ellen sighed and put all her frustrations aside as she wound her way back through the familiar paths of the doctor’s office.

Her weight was down, that was good. Her blood pressure was a bit high, as per usual. Not so good. Height? Yep. A five minute chat with her doctor and she was on her way for her blood work and hormone booster shot, same as normal.

Then she stepped back out into the lobby.

He was gorgeous. Six foot three, at least, and built like an athlete. Chiseled chin with just the right amount of stubble, and he was speaking to the lady at the desk with a voice like black velvet covered in chocolate. Ellen felt her stomach tighten as her eyes traced him from foot to the top of his head, over his expensive slacks and silk button-down shirt.

He was one of the ones who had everything. One of the beautiful people. What was he doing at a gender clinic of all places?

Ellen’s thoughts were interrupted by a tug at her elbow.

“Hmm?”

“Miss Elen Reyes?”

“Yeah, that’s me.”

“Could you wait out here for a moment? There’s an issue with your billing we need to talk about before you leave.”

“Ugh. Yeah, fine.”

Disgusted at yet another reminder of her have-not status Ellen took a seat, casting her gaze back toward the magazine on the rack with its beautiful cover people, only to be distracted again by the just as beautiful man from before sitting down next to her.

“Hi,” he said, in that voice that caused something inside her to twist and melt.

“Umm, hi,” she said back, giving him her best smile.

“Are you a patient here?” He asked her next, the smile on his gorgeous face slipping a bit with nervousness.

“Yeah,” Ellen admitted, blushing. “I started three years ago.”

“Wow,” he said, looking her up and down not unlike how she had looked at him earlier.

“What?” She asked, a little annoyed.

“Oh, sorry,” he said, abashed. “I was just thinking I wish I were as lucky as you.”

Ellen almost asked what he meant when it struck her like a ton of bricks.

“Gaby Stephens?” The nurse called, and the gorgeous man sitting next to Ellen stood up and gave her one last sad but still beautiful smile before walking through the same doors she had not half an hour earlier.

Ellen looked at the door, then back at the gorgeous figures on the cover of the magazine and, for the first time ever, imagined herself in the role of the man instead of the woman.

She shivered.

Maybe she wasn’t so jealous of a life like that after all.

- end -

Hope y'all liked it! Be sure to let me know in the comments if ya did.