Constant in All Other Things 2: Chapter Five, Part A
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

(Another chapter in under a decade? Well, not quite: half a chapter, trying out shorter but more frequent releases. More detailed author's notes at the end.)

What has gone before
David Sanders saw something he shouldn't have: his boss, pharmaceutical magnate Jeremiah Steele murdered a rival. Placed in protection, an assassination attempt forces him into the disguise of Cindy, a pretty, young girl. Left on his own, living a life he never chose and despises, but promised an eventual escape back to masculinity, the new Cindy struggles through several months of feminine existence... until an unexpected encounter with an ex-girlfriend. Discovering pursuit, they flee together.

***

Alone, a girl walks through the bustling crowd. Friday night, and some strange impulse drives her off the bus several stops early. Storefronts gleam in the night, luminescent auras seeping lurid glows across pavement. The air is warm but cooling with the encroaching darkness, and most are dressed, like her, for the day’s earlier heat. She hesitates outside a restaurant. She sees herself in the glass, a ghost of a girl—slim, blonde hair, short skirt—trapped, suspended in reflection in the window; outside, gazing in. The comforting clink of cutlery, murmur of conversation, and of music envelopes her as a trio of patrons leave the restaurant, cut off abruptly as the door closes.

A couple: young man, broad-chested in a white shirt, tie loosened and cuffs rolled back, gesticulates with a fork, a piece of meat impaled on its tines. Opposite, a woman listens with a hint of a smile. Her eyes sparkle as she raises a glass to glossy lips. The man mirrors her, reaching for his wine. The woman’s gaze dances away, down but then flitting aside, looking outside, and there notices the girl watching through the reflection in the window. They make eye contact. The woman raises an inquisitive eyebrow. The girl outside feels a suddenly, nearly overwhelming yearning; heart pounding, she scurries away.

Pools of intermittent light dropping from streetlamps see her home as she walks the several remaining kilometers, alone, back to her empty apartment.

***

To her credit, Julia played along beautifully as we escaped the restaurant. We finished our drinks quickly—but not too quickly—and she ordered a cab, which duly arrived as she settled the bill. Laughing, chatting, tossing back our hair as we slid handbags over shoulders, we left the restaurant and slid into the waiting car.

“What the fuck—” she started the moment the door shut, but I cut her off with a look and pointed at the sign on the back of the seat: all rides were audio and video recorded for the safety of the customer and the company. Driverless, the vehicle acknowledged and confirmed our presence, and hummed into the early evening, winding its way to Julia’s apartment.

“Not the day I expected,” Julia muttered.

I laughed. “No kidding.”

“Here. This is for you.” She passed a slip of paper, a number scrawled across its back. I raised an eyebrow. “The waiter’s number,” she said, and despite the tension her eyes sparkled with mirth. “Guess he noticed us checking out his ass.”

We lapsed into silence. I stared out the window, a tight knot in my belly. Outside, the city suburbs slid by, awash in artificial dawn as shop fronts and restaurants, bars and shops spilled their light onto the pavement. Swiftly, we wound our way towards the centre, ever-taller cathedrals of cement and glass clawing the night sky. The moment felt inexplicably familiar—sat in the back of a cab, next to Julia—slipping into the night—though the sleek legs emerging from the short skirt, crossed at the thigh, and the painted fingers clutching tightly at the knee, and the shoes sparkling in the dark, all belonged to the wrong person. And yet despite the incongruity, this moment raised a ghost of shared memory.

We paused at a junction, traffic light momentarily painting us red, headlights strobing from turning cars. A pedestrian, crossing, glancing in would see two attractive women, possibly girlfriends, sat close in the rear of the car.

“Hey, you remember?” she suddenly started, snapping me out of my reverie as the car slid forward.

“The gig?”

She nodded.

“Why’d you suddenly think of that?”

“Dunno.” She shrugged. “Back of a car, it’s a hot night… one of us is wearing a skirt.” She chuckled. “You were remembering too, weren’t you?”

“Harry,” I said, feeling a sudden pang.

She laughed. “Yeah, you loved that old guy, didn’t you? Wasn’t really my thing.” She paused in recollection. “Was a pretty awesome gig, though. Guy knew how to put on a show.”

“Yeah,” I said quietly. “Longman was pretty awesome.”

Sensitive to our words, the car started up some music, not so loudly as to interfere with conversation. It was the classic title track from his second album: Beautiful Losers. The opening melancholy chords filled the space between us.

“Didn’t he…?”

“Yeah,” I answered. “First encore.”

We sat there like that for a moment sharing the music and the memory, and I felt the space—short centimetres, long years—separating us. A crazy impulse to reach out nearly overcame me, to hold her hand or pull her closer. It was the music and the day’s drinking and the darkness outside the car, and I knew she felt it too. Almost too quietly to hear, I heard her whisper: “I didn’t rehearse for this.”

Her words triggered an assault of—not guilt, exactly, but still something like a physical cramp in the belly—discomfort and doubt. Julia didn’t deserve this. Whatever anger and bitterness she felt over me was her own, and she’d clearly worked hard over the years to move on from our past. I could just jump out of the car and disappear. She might reveal my identity; she might not; either way, she’d probably be fine. But if I went home with her now and saw this through, I’d be binding her to me once again. It wasn’t fair to her.

On the other hand, waking up alone with tits and an identity I never chose wasn’t exactly fair, either. Losing my job, my income, my home; losing my self, my sex, my privilege—in exchange for… what, exactly? I glanced down at the paper in my hand, sighed and slipped it into my handbag.

The song ended, surging though the crunchier second half, the intense, short guitar solo that underpinned the lyrics of loss and yearning; and then something else started, somehow recognizable but still unknown. It was definitely more contemporary—dirty beats, layered synth underscored by harsh guitar that briefly surfaced from the aural wash—maybe a sample from Longman?—but then the vocals kicked in, the woman’s ethereal tones ordering the crafted cacophony.

“Turn it up,” Julia commanded, and the car dutifully obeyed.

“What’s this?”

She looked genuinely surprised. “Really? It’s been on constant play like… everywhere. Huge.”

“I’ve been a bit distracted lately.”

“Cindy,” she said. “That’s her name—well, like you, I guess. Spelled differently, though: ‘sin’ in the religious way; capital D – I at the end. SinDi. She just popped up a month ago; major push by the label, we’re doing a bit of work with them, but this track’s just really grabbed the zeitgeist. To be honest, at first I thought she was just another pop starlet of the moment, you know—you should fucking see her! Sexy little thing—but seems she might have traction.”

The song’s appeal was clear: catchy hooks, but with depth; crafted rather than processed. I could already imagine the bass-heavy remix pounding away at a club or relaxing to it in the dark with an acoustic version at home. You could dance to it; you could fuck to it. I liked it instantly, even if the girl’s voice was a little breathy for my taste.

“Song’s called ‘Broken Flowers’,” Julia said, and lapsed into silence as I listened to the opening lyrics:

You’ll miss me when I’m gone
She said
There was a girl
She said
Lip gloss and lilacs
And the moon.

The song was just beginning to open up, the lyrics pulling back as the layered soundscape started to assert itself—and then it faded and disappeared, leaving me wanting more.

“We’re here,” Julia announced.

The cab turned down a short cul-de-sac, leafy and affluent, past a row of terraced houses, and then disgorged us at the base of a turn-of-the-century building, a towering slab of glittering glass, sharp-angled porches and red-brown brick. The car purred off into the night. Drinking in the details of her home, I followed Julia as she led me past the concierge—the bastard’s eyes on our asses as we walked past—and into the elevator. I could sense her assessing me as we surged upwards, feel her growing desire to demand answers. We stopped at the twelfth floor, a few floors shy of the top penthouse. The hallway was silent, brightly-lit, and smelled sharply clean, with only two doors at opposing ends. She led me to the one on the left, tapped the lock and led me into her home.

The door had barely clicked shut before she spun on me, eyes flashing. “What the fuck!” she shouted. “What’s going on—”

Anticipating her outburst, I clapped my hand over her mouth. “Quiet.”

Her eyes glared at me over my fingers.

“Speakers.” I indicated towards one I could see. “Smart appliances.”

Her eyes widened slightly with understanding. A few taps on her phone, and she nodded. “Off.”

“Good,” I breathed, sagging with relief. Heels clicked on the hardwood entrance as I looked around. “Nice place you’ve got here.”

“You’re going to tell me what the hell is going on here – David.”

“Yeah, sure.” I waved her off and sank into the nearest seat, a long sofa in slate grey, lamps responding to my movement and lighting the way into her home. I fumbled with delicate straps and tossed my shoes aside and gave a deep sigh of relief. “Oh, thank God,” I said, stretching out aching arches. “Goddam implements of torture.”

“I thought you loved them.”

“I hate them,” I growled. “And these,” I added, slipping off the bracelets decorating my wrists, unclasping the bauble at my throat.

She watched me quietly, and I ignored her. Julia had a nice place: large, open plan, very contemporary, taking up half the floor. Large windows, blinds pulled aside, granted a view towards both the city centre and opposite, the sprawl of suburban streets stretching towards the horizon. It was darker now; the commercial monoliths cut dark silhouettes in the distance, washed from below in garish street-level glows, glittering along their edges and tops with safety lights. Her furniture looked new and sleek. What I could see appeared startlingly clean. Aside from some token decorations that spoke of the girl remembered from a decade ago, the place felt strangely impersonal, like a show room for a new block of condos. There was a dull comfort and familiarity to her home, like a hotel room you’ve visited a hundred times before in any number of cities. The odd blandness of the place went some way towards tempering the stab of jealousy I felt at the contrast between Julia’s slick accommodations and Cindy’s tiny apartment.

Julia padded into the kitchen, the lights softly rising at her entrance. She pulled a bottle of wine from the fridge and two glasses from a shelf. “You lied to me,” she stated, returning, dropping into the far end of the sofa. She passed me a glass.

“Yup.”

“How much?”

“Almost all of it.” She twisted the bottle open and I held out the glass and she poured a generous serving of Riesling. She kicked off her shoes, legs curling beneath her. In contrast, I sat with my legs spread as wide as the skirt would allow. It felt good to spread out. “Like, 90% of it.” I considered a moment. “Maybe 80%.” The day’s emotional exertion suddenly caught up with me. Given a moment’s peace, I could so easily close my eyes and fall asleep here, like this. Instead, I stared blankly at her ceiling, waiting.

She frowned. “You’re not trans.”

“Ha! No.”

“Makeup?”

“Hate that shit.”

“And that story about the little girl and the bullies and…”

“Ah. That one’s true.” I took a drink of wine, a long one, relishing the crisp coolness of it. Julia served quality stuff. “Except for the bit about the dress.”

Julia took a sip of wine, then carefully placed her glass down on a coaster on the coffee table by the sofa. I could see her struggling; her hand clenched and unclenched and the tension was clear in the tendons of her arm. She struggled to keep her voice neutral. “Then what the hell is going on, David?”

And here it was: my leap of faith.

“Witness protection,” I answered.

“Witness--?”

“Protection.” I took a deep breath. “I saw something I shouldn’t have, and instead of keeping my mouth shut like a sensible person, I told the cops. They kept me in hiding until calling me as a witness.” I took another long drink of wine, nearly finishing it, putting the glass down next to hers, mine holding the reddish half-moon lip mark on the rim while hers didn’t. “Afterwards, it became very clear, very quickly, that my life was in danger.”

Julia raised an eyebrow. “Death threats?”

“I wish,” I answered drily, and told her in minimal details about the attempt on my life outside the courtroom: two bullets, one jacket, and bruises and broken ribs.

Her mouth dropped open in horror. “No way.”

“Yeah.” I pointed to where the bullets hit. “Here and here. Scary shit. And so my handler—that’s the agent appointed to keep me alive—she decided to smuggle me away to somewhere safe to recover. In a dress.”

“No!”

I smiled ruefully. “Yes. Well, sort of. Tight jeans, stuffed bra, heels and makeup, wig. Enough to fool anyone from a distance while she escorted me.” The events all seemed a lifetime ago. After all, these events belonged to the story of David Sanders – not Cindy Bellamy. But telling the story brought it back vividly, those bizarre, synthetic breasts K stuck onto my chest at the start; the impossible bio-engineered pussy that came later; and K herself, stern and sexy and twisted. The short, intense time we spent together. The drive and the hotel room. The Clinic.

“But it didn’t work. There was a man chasing me. He found me. He broke my arm,” and I held out the injured limb, delicate and smooth, bare to the shoulder, for Julia to see. “Here, with an iron bar.” I gestured without touching at my face. “Smashing in my nose and jaw. He tossed me through a glass door, he cut me, he shattered my leg. And then he shot me in the side. I think he tore a hole in my lung; I don’t really remember. There was a hell of a lot of blood.”

Julia looked a little ashen, shaken as her mouth hung open. She turned away, silently grabbing the bottle and refilling our glasses and passed one back to me. I took it gratefully and drank deeply.

I hadn’t really reflected on my near assassination since recovering from the attempt, nor had the opportunity to share the experience with anyone. Doing so brought a flurry of conflicting emotion: mostly, and most vividly, I remembered the sheer joy of the fight, of cutting loose after so many years of playing nicely according to the mundane rules of David’s life. Even hampered by ridiculous clothing, matched against an opponent enjoying every possible advantage… I’d held my own; gave as good as I got; and yeah, I should’ve died then and there but I took the fucking bastard with me. The vivid slash across the neck; the gurgle and crimson froth; eyes wide with the realisation of his own death: there was a savage satisfaction to it all.

But he’d killed me. At least, I should’ve died. It would’ve saved me the living death, the slow, painful humiliation of inhabiting Cindy’s life. But for the unlikely intervention of the Asklepios Clinic’s freaking Frankenstein science, that would’ve been the end of the story of David Sanders: ten years the corporate stooge; what was the fucking point? And I probably should be shaken, deeply traumatised by the experience of brutality and pain and the reality of my near death. It was the stuff of nightmares.

But I already had my own nightmares and they weren’t so easily displaced. It wasn’t my first brush with death. And other than a visceral thrill at the memory of violence, I couldn’t summon up anything greater than apathy at the thought of David’s demise. It was almost as though he’d hardly existed to begin with.

Julia was watching me carefully, studying the play of emotions across my face. She was clearly carefully considering what to say next.

“You’re lying again,” she said.

“Nope.” I shook my head, blonde tresses falling about my face. With a flick of the neck, I sent my hair back over my left shoulder, and smoothed it down with a quick stroke the hand. “This part is true. They got me. I was a goner.”

“But…”

“You said it was impossible for me to look this way.” I smiled wryly. “Maybe you’re right. But everybody knows there’s some pretty crazy shit out there these days. Like, there’s a goddam factory on the Moon, right? We’ve got people half-way to Mars. There was all that medical voodoo shit they did when the last pandemic hit a few years ago. So, yeah, I got to experience some of that stuff up-close, I guess. They dunked me into some kind of tank, a bleeding wreck of a corpse; and I came out like this.”

“A girl!”

“A disguise,” I insisted. “Remember that scandal last year, at the Olympics, the gene doping one? It’s like that, I think, something like that but instead of expressing all those genes for strength and endurance and whatever, they went for—this.” I cupped the soft flesh of my chest. “Tits and soft skin and long hair and… all the rest.” I could feel the anger creeping into my voice, the frustration and sense of betrayal, the intense humiliation.

“And this all happened a few months ago?”

“More like six, going back to the very start. The tank was about four months ago.”

She shook her head. “But it’s not possible. If what you say is true: shot, cut, broken, bleeding out. Nobody heals that quickly, not even with crazy voodoo science.”

“Like I said before: here I am.”

“Show me,” she said.

I raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

“I want to see,” Julia answered. “Stand up. Strip. Show me.”

“Didn’t you see enough on Friday?”

But she hadn’t, and so I did. In the dim lighting of Julia’s living room, I stood there, carefully undoing the heavy buttons until I could wiggle free of the skirt. The wine, on top of the day’s earlier drinking, rushed to my head and I fumbled with the buttons and my longer nails again felt ungainly. The skirt pooled at my feet, revealing smooth, shaven thighs over lacy stocking tops. With some awkwardness, I reached for the buttons running up my back, and shimmied out of my shirt, and in doing so found myself standing in nothing but my underwear—pink push-up bra, bulging thong, white thigh-high stocking—and earrings and makeup, in front of my ex-girlfriend, and I trembled very slightly despite the warmth, a deep flush slowly crawling up my chest and throat.

Julia circled me, drinking in every detail of my femininity, and I saw in her gaze the same ravenous hunger, the insatiable desire, that I sensed earlier in the day. Clearly, it was all she could do to refrain from reaching out and touching me, and stroking the smooth, whole skin. I felt acutely aware, for the first time, how she was larger than me now, taller as I stood there barefooted; and uneasiness fluttered across my belly.

“No scars, nothing,” she said.

“I know. Crazy, right?”

“But you were… shot?”

“Right fucking here,” I said, and took her hand. She jerked slightly at my touch but allowed me to bring her to a place over my ribs halfway between hip and armpit. Her touch lingered there, hot, uncertain, but then she tentatively pressed at the spot. “Does it hurt?”

“Not at all.” I giggled, involuntarily. “It tickles a little, actually.”

Her hand slowly traced a path down my side, towards my waist. She was standing directly in front of me now, our foreheads nearly touching. “There isn’t a mark on you.”

“Nope.”

Her fingertips hovered at the edge of my abdomen, at the waistband of my panties. “You used to have a birthmark here.”

“Gone.”

With gentle prodding, she urged me to turn. Her touch explored my shoulder, my back, a finger traced down my spine. “You had scars here,” she said, “and here, and here.” She punctuated each with a touch.

“All gone.”

She stood so close I could feel the heat from her body. Her hand briefly, tantalisingly brushed across my ass, bared and supple, split by the thong wedged between both cheeks. I felt her presence, her touch, with painful intensity, and trembled with arousal. There was a faint smell to her—a miasma of memory—that carried with it recollections of intimate times together.

“Unbelievable,” she whispered.

I took her hand in mine again, turned to face her. “You should check this out,” I said, and brought her hand to my breast.

She pulled her hand away.

“Hey, it’s fine,” I said, bringing her back.

Her breath tickled my collarbone and sent an errant strand of hair dancing. Her hand rested tenderly, almost nervously, over my boob, the gauzy fabric of the bra a flimsy barrier between her touch and my flesh. At her nervous touch the flush felt earlier, the embarrassed heat crawling up my neck into my face, now rolled downwards, hotter than before, intensifying as it flowed into and filled those tits. There was a sudden urgent need for someone—for her—to grab my boobs. Almost incoherent images of Julia, grabbing, fondling, sucking flesh and nipple flared across my eyes.

The immediate reaction to her touch—a weakness in the knees—ache in my balls—a sudden tightness at the centre of each breast—surprised, unsettled me with its intensity. What I now felt was disconcertingly different from my own rough handling, the drunken groping of infrequent lonely nighttime masturbations over the previous months. Julia’s touch brought sensations that differed in magnitude from those experienced with the fake tits of before. Dan hadn’t quite reached second base, last Friday… would it have felt like this if he had?

And the realisation that this was the first intimate contact I’d made with anyone for months flared through me. Her hands were the first to touch these fucking udders other than mine. Her shy touches were waking in me a desperate yearning that threatened to overwhelm any control.

How much of my torment did she even notice? Did the corner of her mouth twitch into a hint of a wicked smile? Eyes downcast, she watched her own hand as it grabbed more firmly. She felt their weight in her hand. “How big are you?” she asked, gently kneading.

“B cups,” I gasped.

“I don’t think so,” she said, and looked up. Her eyes found mine. “You’re… beautiful,” she breathed.

A shudder coursed through the entirety of my body at her words, her touch, and at the force of her look. We were so close I could feel the warmth flowing from her, smell the day’s heat in her hair. And then suddenly, my lips found hers. My mouth crushed against hers and I groaned into Julia, leaning fully into the kiss, arms rising to encircle her, to pull her closer. Fleetingly, I felt the softness of our lips’ meeting, mine slick with lipstick and gloss, a hint of berries and a taste of wine, and she seemed to collapse into me…

“No,” she cried. The hand at my breast shifted: her fingers abruptly pinched the nipple and twisted, painfully. I cried out in surprised pain. She shoved me away, fiercely, and I stumbled, tangled in the clothes at my ankles. Julia lurched back, eyes shadowed and glittering like obsidian. She passed the back of her hand across her mouth, wiping away the tacky hint of gloss left there.

“Fuck!” I instinctively crossed my arms over my chest, seething at the ignominiously throbbing of my nipple.

“No!” She was breathing heavily, flushed and her whole body quivered like a plucked, taut string. “You don’t get to kiss me,” she said. “You don’t get to touch me.”

“I—”

Her hand lashed out with surprising speed. Even had I wanted, drunk and discombobulated, off kilter and distracted, arms crossed, there was no way I could have blocked or dodged. Her slap took me fully across the face. I reeled back, face smarting, eyes watering.

A moment later, she had me up against the wall. Taller, bigger, stronger, she grabbed my wrists and held them above my head with one hand. Her body pinned me to wall. Her other hand found my tit again, squeezed, finger and thumb pinching the wounded nipple through the thin fabric, twisting once more. Redoubled pain erupted under her grip, hot and intense and I struggled briefly against her grip. Without releasing my wrists, she slammed me back once more against the wall, and her hand released my aching boob and snaked up between us and latched around my throat.

And I could’ve thrown her to the ground, broken free, easily. She wasn’t a fighter. A little bigger and stronger, sure, but a subtle shift of weight, a twist from the waist and she’d go down. I could’ve headbutted her in the face and smashed in her nose; kneed her in the crotch; reversed her sloppy hold and popped her shoulder out of its joint or snapped her elbow. This bitch wasn’t a fighter, but I submitted passively to assault. I was curious; I’d anticipated something like this; and truth be told, the roughness and hell, even the pain was sort of exciting as her fingers curled around my neck.

“You…,” she breathed. “You goddam, fucking bastard.” Her mouth was right up against my ear. “I hate you. I hate you so much.” She bit down, once, into the cartilage above the earring. I inhaled sharply from the pain. Spinning me around, she dragged me sideways towards the window.

“Look at you.” My reflection mocked me as she held me before the framed night, a feminine image caught between the light inside and the outside darkness. “So small, so weak,” she murmured. “So pretty.” She released my wrists, and I felt her fumble at my back and then yank the bra down my arms. My tits popped free, momentarily, before she seized both roughly, shoving them upwards, displaying them rudely in reflection.

“Did you want these?”

“No,” I whispered.

Her hand snaked into my hair, fingers curling deeply into my mane, grabbing a fistful, and then pulling harshly. I gasped. “Did you want this?”

“No.”

“You make such a pretty girl, David. Is this what you wanted?”

“No!”

Next I knew, she had me pressed up against the window. My tits flattened against the cool glass. God, what must this look like from outside? Then she spun me back around. “Good,” she hissed. And the kiss that followed was fierce and angry and passionate, her tongue forcing its way in, and her hands were on my ass, squeezing, then groping at my chest again, or grabbing a fistful of hair, or at my neck, and then back at my ass.

And she would pull me forward into her and then shove me back, bared ass smacking rudely up against the cool windowpane. And my cock strained against its confines, and my balls ached for release, and I groaned as she attacked me in her anger and passion. All those months of stifled, frustrated desire swelled up and it was all I could do to restrain myself from throwing this bitch face down across the back of her sofa and show her just how manly I remained, how a disguise of tits and ass and long hair didn’t make me any less a man.

But I didn’t. Instead, I dropped my arms limply at my side. Behind the blonde curtain of hair I hid my face, and when she next kissed me, savagely, I let her. Her breath was hot and angry on my face, my neck, my shoulder; she bit; her entire body coiled around me as she straddled my leg, thrusting against me, sliding back, pushing again, riding my thigh. Her thumb pulled at my lip, smearing lipstick, forced its way into my mouth. She buried her face into my hair and her thighs suddenly clenched tightly, painfully around mine one more time.

Julia shuddered, and with a long, rapturous moan she came.

She held me there, pinned against the glass, panting heavily. Her touch lingered, briefly, lightly stroking, as though trying to trace a forgotten pattern within my flesh. Then she withdrew, and Julia appeared momentarily stricken and aghast; but the haunted look quickly disappeared.

“Not a word!” Julia glared and stalked towards me, now a predatory gleam to her dark eyes. There was a wet patch at the crotch in the thin fabric of her trousers. Her fingers hooked the waistband of my panties and tugged.

“Easy!” I complained.

“Get those fucking things off,” she said, and her fingers curled around my throbbing, erect cock.

I hastened to do as she ordered, kicking them away, but as I went to roll down the stockings she slapped my hand away. “No, keep those,” she said. “You look cute in them.” She gave my member a little tug, leading me towards what I presumed was her bedroom. But such was the turmoil of emotions I felt in the instance—raging desire, profound shame, weakness, surprise, drunkenness and anger, a seething, toxic slurry roiling in my belly —that my legs gave way and I stumbled, pitching forward.

Julia caught me and I fell into her. We sank to the floor together, her arms suddenly wrapped around me, strong, confident. And it felt unexpectedly good being held by her: I felt suddenly both small and protected, delicate and precious, in the comforting folds of her arms. Confused and sickened by this weakness, I furiously suppressed a sudden desire to tear up and sob. There wasn’t time to even consider where this surge of feminine emotion originated as Julia’s boobs pressed up against mine though her thin shirt. Our hair pooled together, black and blonde. “Jules…” I gasped.

She pawed at my painfully erect cock once more. “I’ve wanted this thing inside of me since I saw it last Friday,” she whispered into my ear. Her grip on the shaft tightened, thumb sliding across the smooth lip of the helmet. “You want it too, don’t you?”

Breathing heavily, I nodded.

“Then fuck me, David, like you used to,” she said.

***

Laying in the tangled mess of bedsheet in the dark, Julia’s languid body curling into mine, I marvelled at how great sex felt after months of deprivation. A man trapped on a desert island for months, denied proper food, rediscovers the glorious riot of flavours denied for so long. Deafened, then with hearing restored, a woman realises a taste for music previously absent, relishing in the purity of tones and the crystalline cadence of sound. How could sex be any different? My body still thrummed with the intensity of it, the release, the fullness of giving and receiving pleasure. And though I’d admit to being a little out of practice, I more than made up for it with effort, keeping up with Julia’s voracious appetite. Damn those doctors for what they did to me, but an unexpected benefit of this whole-body reboot was that I could fuck like a twenty-year old again.

Luxuriating in post-coital contentment, I stared up at the ceiling, listening to the quiet sound of her breathing and the distant murmur of the late-night city. I felt both exhausted and exhilarated. I lost count of how many times she’d panted, moaned, juddered and cried out in orgasm. I’d managed a hat-trick of my own, pacing myself according to the brief breaks she’d allowed: here, a few minutes for a piss and to scrub my face clean; there, a glass of water; we’d kept it going into the early hours of the next day. The sliding door to her bedroom patio stood ajar—we’d fucked out there too, her moans drifting into the dark—and now the breeze caressed my legs still in stockings; she’d insisted I keep them on all night. Goose pimples rose and fell across my thighs; nipples tightened in the cool air. A crescent moon, its sliver of brightness hidden behind gauzy shreds of cloud, extended pale ivory tendrils into the room.

And then, perhaps as a consequence of the quiet and calm and the woman resting in the crook of my arm, I remembered a girl called Molly.

***

One night the street, curled up in a doorway shivering through the long hours of cold loneliness. The next night a stained mattress in a tiny room over a nightclub. One more and now a soft bed, the faint scent of perfume, cheap framed poster of sunflowers and a girl, gently snoring through to morning.

How did it happen, this transition? I can’t remember. I purposely forgot what it was that drove me to cash in the favour that got me off the streets, only that one day I made the decision to bring that period of my life to an end. There was a year of living death, of hollowed existence drifting through empty days, of cold and bitterness and hunger and anger and sadness; though everything, actions and emotions, events and thoughts, seemed muted and distant. Time, obliterated. Then suddenly a morning in which I walked up to one of Tahir’s nightclubs and asked for help.

The guy owed me from a thing a few years back, and the only problem was convincing the staff to let me talk to him. He took one look at me, nose and thin moustache wrinkling with disgust, and led me to the showers. Brutally hot water hammered my emaciated body, carving rivulets through the thick dirt and caked grime. The water ran brown and I stood there insensate, watching the past year slough off and circle the drain, until he cut the heating and the icy spray shocked me back to life. He had fresh clothes for me: jeans, a t-shirt, underwear still wrapped in packaging, clear socks. Food and a place to hole up until I found my feet.

I’d wondered at the time whether he knew what happened to me, about Persephone’s murder and my failure to prevent it. I didn’t ask; it didn’t do to pry. Tahir wasn’t one for extended conversation anyway. Tall and taciturn, with an odd predilection for velvet suits, once presentable he invited me to sit with him.

“You have come to me,” he said, over steepled fingers, long and precise. “You have given me a problem to solve.” He frowned. “I do not like this problem.”

I shrugged. At the time, asking for anything beyond a shower and a free meal seemed presumptuous. I’d saved his life, once; now, he offered the same in return.

“Your problem,” he continued, “is your past…,” and here, he called me by a name I no longer use. “For one so young, you have a very troubled past. Many skeletons. Much darkness.” He shook his head. “And of course, a woman we both know.” He opened his hands, revealing a single, pink petal.

Sakura.

“But perhaps,” Tahir continued, “There is a solution to our problem.” And he slid a large, thick envelope across the table to me.

I opened the envelope, shaking out its contents. There was a flutter of documents, a brief shower of hard plastic, a key. I picked up one of the cards. It was a drivers’ license, with an unfamiliar name: David Sanders.

“This man,” Tahir said, “this David, he does not have a troubled past. He is a young man with a fine past. He is a young man with a bright future. A fine future, with much potential.”

The offer was clear. Tahir would set me up with a new identity. He’d put me up for a year in a little apartment above one of his clubs, and in return I’d work for him, first as a bouncer, then as a bartender, possibly even as a manager. Afterwards I’d be free to go; David Sanders would be free to step away from the ruins of another man’s past.

“But you must agree,” he said, gently drumming the table with his fingers. “To say farewell to that past. Your past, it remains far away, yes? Like a foreign country. It is no longer yours to visit.” The implications were clear: if I accepted his offer, the person I’d once been was effectively dead—gone—twenty-two years of my life written off as a bad debt and forgotten. What family I had: gone. Friends: gone. Sakura, Persephone…

An easy choice to make.

That first night, head swirling at how quickly everything had changed, I sat at the bar in borrowed clothes, drink untouched, feeling absolutely lost, watching as the first patrons arrived. Nominally, I was there to learn something about the job but really it was just to experience normal—ha!—society again after so long out of it. And this girl came up to the bar, ordered a drink, and after a pause turned to me.

“Hey there.” The girl seemed impossibly pretty, dark-skinned and curvy with a beautiful smile, her outfit glittering with a thousand sequins and I wondered why she’d speak to somebody like me. “Haven’t seen you here before.”

At a loss as to how to react, I tried copying her. My smile felt like an ill-fitting mask dragged over unwilling features. Opening my mouth to speak, nothing came out. Annoyance flashed across her face, but also disappointment; she began to turn away; and it seemed as though the mask I wore was no different from the one she wore, too. Sadness simmered beneath the surface, loneliness and hurt, an echo of my own. And though it seemed the hardest thing in the world, I answered her.

“Hi,” I said.

She smiled. “I’m Molly.”

Later, laying in her soft bed, her plump, beautiful body warm and comforting lying next to mine, I bid farewell to my old life. Maybe he was still out there somewhere, cold and alone, sleeping rough, his existence coiled around an emptiness, a loss and a mistake that could never be fixed. He could stay there, that sad, broken boy. I looked down at the girl nestled up to me, the source of my newfound solace. David, I swore, would never be alone again.

She stirred in my arms. “Hey there,” she murmured, eyes still closed.

“Hey.”

The girl spread one hand flat across my pectoral, and she nestled deeper into the crook of my arm, sighing. With her other hand, she patted my cock once as though congratulating an eager puppy. “That was fun.”

“Yeah.”

“You never even told me your name.”

“David,” I told her. “My name’s….”

“David. Mmm,” Julia purred, her hand sleepily sliding its way back to my breast. “I like this,” she said, squeezing the soft flesh.

“I noticed.”

“And this.” Her knee gently prodded my exhausted and semi-flaccid penis.

I grunted.

“We’re going to have so much fun together,” she mumbled.

I smiled, and lightly danced my fingers down her side.

“I’ll help you,” she said.

“Help me?”

“Teach you.”

“Teach… what?” My fingers hesitate at her thigh.

“To be a girl,” she said, and she stirred against me, turning onto her side and opening her eyes. “To be my girl.”

“Jules…,” I started, a warning tone entering my voice.

“Oh, I just love you like this,” she continued. “Small and soft. Submissive. So much better than the arrogant prick you used to be.”

I went to pull away from her, but her hand at my breast, her leg over mine, restrained me. “And you, hating every minute of it! It’s more, so much more and better than I could have possibly hoped for. The man who fucked me and ruined me and left me—trapped! Living a life he despises, living as a girl, experiencing everything he’s looked down at and derided his whole life.” Speaking like this, she slowly slid on top of me, her whole body pressing down on me, breast to breast, her hands seeking mine, fingers interlacing, holding me down.

“You’ll be my little doll for me, won’t you, David, wearing what I choose for you; my little puppet, mincing and prancing when I pull your strings? I’ll pick the prettiest outfits for you, David, the sexiest clothes, and show you off at all kinds of fun places.”

I tried to push her off but she had me pinned to the bed. “Fuck you, Jules, I’m not going to—”

But she cut me off with a deep and passionate kiss, stifling my protest. Then she kissed my cheek, lightly licked the edge of my ear, and whispered: “But of course you will,” she said. “Or I’ll tell your secret.”

Going limp beneath her, I hissed, “you wouldn’t.”

Kissing lightly down the neck, across my collarbone: “Wouldn’t I?”

“I’ll be killed. You’re not a killer.”

She paused, and when she spoke her voice quavered with momentary weakness. “No, I’m not,” she said. “Even after what you’ve done to me, I don’t wish you dead.” Then she resumed her tender ministrations, small wet kisses and darting tongue, as she worked her way towards my tits, her whole body sliding down my length. “I’d much rather have you like this,” she said. Her tongue flicked across my erect nipple; my whole body tensed; I released a sharp intake of breath. “You could enjoy it too.”

“I hate this,” I snarled, or tried, voice inadvertently squeaking as her tongue flitted out again. Throughout our night of frantic screwing, she’d largely abandoned her early fixation on my tits, other than the occasional, almost haphazard grope. Now, she was awakening sensations in my breasts that were new and, because unfamiliar, distinctly uncomfortable; on the threshold of painful, despite this new tenderness; and yet somehow also intensely pleasurable.

Pleasure this feminine, I didn’t want to indulge; but shit, it felt so good, like something hot and fluttery cocooning in my belly, working its way free.

“Good,” she said, her breath hot against my skin as she slowly circled the nipple with the tip of her tongue. “And here’s the thing, David. I’m still angry with you. I want to hurt you the way you hurt me.

“And you’re right: I probably wouldn’t give away your secret. Purposefully. But in anger? Or when I’m drunk and bitter? What then? I can’t promise I wouldn’t… slip, wouldn’t forget, just for a moment.” Her hand spidered up my side, her thumb flicking across my other nipple; and my whole body twitched in response. “Like you did on Friday.”

Intended as an angry grunt, the sound that escape my parted lips was a moan: softly sighed, distinctly feminine, intensely embarrassing; and in hearing myself, it suddenly seemed as though I could see myself, or rather Cindy, imagine her pinned beneath this larger, supple woman playing with her tits. A switch flicked: the cocoon split; heat blossomed; and warm pleasure suddenly coursed through me as I submitted to Julia’s touch.

“Don’t you think,” she said, “It’d be better if you kept an eye on me?” and her lips gently closed around the nipple, and softly suckled, her tongue still indolently circling; her other hand picked and plucked and pulled at the other nipple; and my whole body quivered, back arching. I was instantly hard, again. Her mouth was at my teat; one hand at the other breast; and the other curled around my shaft and slowly began to pump.

“Julia….” I bit back an unmanly whimper, squirming beneath her.

“Will you be my Cindy?”

“I—”

Her hand slowed, even as I ached for release. “We could have so much fun together,” she said. “Imagine going out together, dressed up all sexy, high heels and tight dresses.” She slowly resumed stroking, and continued the nipple play, and darted down for quick, sharp kisses between words. “We could drive the boys crazy, couldn’t we, tease them all night long? And each time we touched, knees beneath the table, a finger caressing a bare shoulder, and in the toilet fixing each other’s makeup, we’d know, wouldn’t we, we’d know what’s waiting for us when we walk away from those pricks?”

And again she slowed, stopped, bringing me painfully close to climax, but this time to rise up over me, her wet pussy hovering over my throbbing member. And in the moonlit darkness of the room I could make out Julia’s hungry, fierce grin, her eyes sparkling in the ivory glow. “We come home and fuck,” she said, and she grabbed my tits and clenched tightly as she impaled herself on my cock.

I gasped, and she cried out in exultant pleasure.

And as she rode me, she told me what we could do together, how she’d take care of me, teach me to be the best Cindy possible, her Cindy, a girl nobody could ever possibly recognize as that wicked, nasty, piece-of-shit man from her past. I’d be hers, she’d be in charge, but she’d keep me safe and protect me. She’d check in on me at work, take me out for dinner, watch me blush as the boys hit on me, watch me squirm, watch me blush, and smile as I was forced to play the part of the girl I’d once have fucked. Another notch on the bedpost, used and discarded, but this time, this time, oh this time I was the fluff, the flirt, the little bitch, her bitch, her slut, and—

If we hadn’t woken up the neighbours earlier, she must’ve gotten them this time. Gasping and grunting her filth into my ear, her whole body went rigid as her voice rose through its bitter hiss into a triumphant yowl, eyes rolling back into her head as she rode my cock to climax.

She collapsed onto me, gasping for breath, utterly spent. A few minutes later her breathing eased, softened – and Julia fell asleep, snoring slightly. I sighed, still skewering her sopping wet cunt, ignominiously pinned to the bed beneath her weight. My erection wilted and after a half-hearted effort to shift her, I gave up and resigned myself to an uncomfortable night.

I grinned.

Goddam stupid fucking cunt bitch. Enjoy your little games, Julia. Have fun with the fantasy. Enjoy it while it lasts.

Everything had gone—more or less—as I’d expected. The man in the café, and the one at the restaurant: two different men, of course, but it was a stroke of luck they’d been wearing something passably similar. It’d been enough to convince Julia of danger, trick her into bringing me home. And once we’d crossed the threshold into her apartment, sex had been an inevitability.

And yeah, she’d been a bit more… dominant, than I liked but fuck me if I hadn’t needed it. She wanted me; God damn, she wanted me so badly! There was a fierceness and purity to her desire that bordered on the manic, but it paired up perfectly with my own needs.

Reflecting back over the past few days—or week, or months—I could now recognize how loneliness gnawed at me. Admitting this was more difficult than expected. But it was true, and it was affecting me in odd ways. Stepping off the bus early to walk kilometers home, indulging a fleeting experience of being part of a human crowd. Staring through windows, imagining myself sat at the tables within. Even working late, arriving early, simply to be around others—even if being around others reminded me, intensely, of the role I was forced to play and the severe humiliation of my appearance and performance.

I’d kissed Dan—another man!—willingly!—and in my drunkenness might’ve gone even further out of a desperate yearning for physical contact. I’d followed him to the bar that night out of need of companionship, for the sounds and lights of the city, for a beer and a chat, out of a profound desire for society, in a desperate bid to recapture, even if from the female perspective, the simple pleasure of going out on a Friday night. I’d long considered myself above such petty needs. But as days rolled over into weeks into months, trapped in Cindy’s diminutive body and life, it became clear these needs couldn’t be ignored. Cindy was a social creature; apparently, so was I.

I’d lied to myself for too long. Looking back over the years I could see that scorning other people’s company had always driven me to find solace in the arms of whatever slut—bitch—woman—of whatever Molly I could find for the night.

Six months since this whole goddamn ordeal has started, six months without physical intimacy, without social contact—without a good, solid fuck. No wonder I’d slipped up so badly last Friday. No surprise, really, that I’d let slip my secret and told Julia who I was. At some level, I must’ve been desperate to share, to reach out to someone; to maybe find an ally. Frankly, it was a miracle I hadn’t snapped earlier. And if something didn’t change, I’d mess up again, probably worst than before, and end up dead.

Julia’s face was buried between my tits, her quiet snores a secret whispered across the hills and valley of my chest. Our hair mingled in a dappled wave across the pillows. I needed her just as badly as she wanted me. She’d keep my head clear, keep me focused as I figured my way out of this pantomime. I believed her promise to teach me, and as galling as it was, having someone to share the burden of pretending to be Cindy would be… helpful; good, even. Having someone with which I could drop the façade, even if only briefly and be myself—be David—would make it that much easier to hold on to what remained of my masculinity.

So I’d let her play out her little revenge fantasy for a couple of months. I’d fuck her on demand, prance around in the pretty dresses she bought for me, and when the time finally came—well, goodbye and fuck you, Little Caesar, I’m dumping your ass once againn. Get yourself back into therapy, you crazy bitch.

A few more months, and I’d be done with Cindy.

A few more months, with Julia in charge.

How bad could it be…?

To be continued…

Author's Notes:
I hope you enjoyed the chapter! Comments, feedback, reviews all very much desired and appreciated! For those who've (re)read the earlier chapters, some obvious incongruities may jump out - changes both minor and major as I edit the earlier chapters. These include:

• Julia's name in earlier chapters was Tammy.
• Persephone, the murdered woman from David's past, was previously named Katherine.
• Cindy initially had D cup breasts - they've been trimmed back a bit in the rewrite.

Finally, if you've really enjoyed this, and want to support and encourage the writing of the story - you can support me on Patreon: patreon.com/fakeminsk.