With a pharmaceutical magnate’s assassins hunting for him, David’s survival depends on living the life of Cindy for longer than expected. Can David suppress his macho instincts and play the feminine role long enough to escape the plot against him--even as the past begins to catch up to him? Welcome to season two of Constant in All Other Things!
Chapter One: David awakens to discover that all is not well. The Clinic may have saved his life in the aftermath of the assassin’s attack . . . but at what cost?
Author Notes follow at the end.
Constant in All Other Things 2
Chapter One
by
Fakeminsk ([email protected])
--check out tradingpostinn.blogspot.com--
“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
Previously on Constant in All Other Things:
Both David Sanders, tough-guy womanizer, and his best friend Tom Smith see their boss, shady pharmaceutical magnate Jeremiah Steele, kill the son of a known mob boss. David decides to turn to the authorities and testifies in court. A failed assassination attempt forces the woman assigned to protect him, Agent K, to relocate to a safe house. There she convinces David that his best chance of survival is to disguise himself as a woman. David reluctantly does so and adopts the identity of Cindy Long. They flee to the Asklepios Clinic, a secluded medical facility that promises safety; on the way they shake off their pursuer, turncoat agent Fosters. David and K bond on the road trip, though he wonders at times where her loyalties really lie; and they share details of their past.
At the clinic David settles into the roll of Cindy and several weeks pass. She helps another patient, Harry Longman, an aging rock star David idolized as a teen, and soon after K returns ready to relocate David into a new, male life. Just as he prepares to abandon Cindy forever, Agent Fosters catches up with him. David reveals that his past contains its own violent secrets and the two fight. He survives the struggle but is left critically injured.
***
My eyes snapped open.
Jagged peaks and swirled plains between, chaotic stucco whorls: an unfamiliar white landscape met my eyes. I blinked, and again, and slowly the view resolved into a ceiling. I was lying on a strange bed in an unknown room. I took a deep breath, held it and then quietly released and wondered: Where the hell was I?
A sudden instinct to lash out--blindly, wildly--without even knowing why seized hold. Inexplicable fear surged through every fibre of my being. Unaware of my surroundings I still felt an incredible desire to flee, to escape . . . what? Something was horribly wrong. I tried to sit up and my body flopped back to the bed and something dazedly felt horribly wrong. My arm strained against some kind of binding and I blinked numbly at the sight of my wrist fettered to a bedpost by leather restraints.
What the fu--what was going on? And my wrist, that hand that squirmed uselessly in its bondage . . . wasn’t right. My arm looked too small somehow. Dainty. Colour flashed from my fingertips--pink and glossy. Cindy liked pink, didn’t she? That’s right: Cindy. I was Cindy; or at least I was pretending to be. Stupid fucking plan. Didn’t keep me safe from Steele or from Fosters, did it?
But I was still alive.
“Easy, Cindy,” a voice called to me. “Everything is okay.” Soft, motherly.
My head whipped around to the other side, abandoning the disconcerting view of my hand. Hair fell across my eyes and I tried to brush it back and grunted in anger and frustration as the restraints held me back. Agent K sat next to my bed. Momentarily, something that looked suspiciously like concern or regret haunted her face; but the moment my eyes found her, the usual neutral expression--the one that perpetually bordered on vague annoyance--settled into place.
“Wh--?” I tried to speak but it came out a hoarse croak.
“Slowly,” K told me, leaning forward. “Try to avoid talking. You have been through quite an ordeal.” There was a surreal moment of dejavu as she hovered at my side. Only slowly coming to my sense, I watched numbly as she emptied a syringe into an IV snaking to my arm. Soon after a sharp, metallic flooded my mouth.
“What is--?” A little better this time. Less froglike croak and more drunken slur.
“A relaxant,” Agent K reassured me. “Nothing more. There is a lot to explain, Cindy. Most of it you are not going to want to hear.” As she spoke she began to undo the restraints holding me to the bed. As she freed my wrist I went to raise my arm but found it leaden and useless. In fact, I very quickly became pleasantly numb.
“These were only to ensure that you did yourself no harm as you recovered,” she said, releasing my other wrist, and my hand flopped limply to the mattress. I felt strangely content. All kinds of fears and misgivings danced at the periphery, but they were shadowy and indistinct, far away and easy to ignore. I knew it was whatever drug K had just pumped into me but couldn’t care less. I was perfectly happy to lie in that bed for just a little longer as she fussed about. There was the faintest sting as she pulled the IV from my arm, distant and easily ignored.
K pulled me into a sitting position in the bed, placing a pillow behind my back. From far away came the slightest of worries: she’s a strong woman, the voice suggested, but she shouldn’t be able to move you that easily. She pulled her chair to the far end of the bed and sat facing me, looking very strict and serious in a dark suit. Her legs crossed at the knee, severe in heavy dark hose emerging from a slim knee-length skirt. This wasn’t a soccer-mom taking care of her daughter, nor was it the Katherine the doctor knew. It wasn’t even the beautiful, broken woman I had mixed and confused feelings for. This was K the secret agent, and something in the way her eyes glittered darkly as they slid across my body briefly pierced through my content fog and sent a hot stab of fear up my spine. Her gaze was hungry, I thought, and cold, but almost unwilling so; and behind it all I imagined lurked a hidden sadness. Never had a felt so vulnerable and exposed before her.
Passively, my eyes wandered across what I could see of my own form. I didn’t move my head--that would have taken too much effort--but looking towards K saw one foot peeking out from beneath cheerfully coloured bed sheets. It was my foot but I felt only vaguely aware of it, couldn’t move it; the shiny pink toenails were nearly mesmerizing.
“Cindy,” K said. “Try to focus on my voice, Cindy.”
With some effort I abandoned my toe in favour of what she was saying.
“How do you feel, Cindy?”
“Don--,” I tried to speak, but my tongue felt thick and stubborn. I carefully swallowed and tried again. “Don’t. Call me that.”
One edge of her mouth twisted upwards in a tight-lipped smile. “You had better get used to the sound of your own name,” Agent K said. “You will have to continue using it for some time.”
It’s a testament to the strength of her drugs that I didn’t leap out of that bed right then and there. Nor did I feel an immediate panic, though fear certainly leapt closer at her words. An angry throb behind my right eye--that’s all I felt as she continued.
“You have been unconscious for nearly two months now, Cindy. Two months! But in that time, nothing less than a miracle has taken place. A miracle, Cindy. When we found you on the floor of the clinic you were all but dead. Your heart had stopped. Your injuries were . . . they were terrible . . . I thought you were dead, David.”
Both her countenance and voice briefly wavered.
“Cindy. It was my fault. I accept this. The disguise and the Clinic were not enough, I misjudged Steele’s determination to find you and the skill of his agents; I should not have left you alone. My failure almost cost you your life.” She shook her head, her hand drifting unconsciously to her side. “It nearly cost me mine as well.”
Flinty steel scored her voice as she continued. “But I will not fail again. You will live, Cindy, no matter what the cost. However, the situation is worse now than before your convalescence. Steele is closer than ever to finding you.”
Agent K sighed. “I spoke to him, Cindy, on the phone we found clutched in your hand. Briefly, but in that time I glimpsed the depth of this man’s obsession with you. It borders on madness, I think, and he will stop at nothing to find you.
“You gave your location away. He knew where to find you and your body was broken. It was a miracle you survived one attack,”--and I heard the curiosity in her voice, the unasked question as to how I defended myself against a professional assassin--“but with arms and legs broken, a punctured lung, shattered ribs and a concussion? You were defenceless. You needed months of bed rest to heal, possibly a year or more of physiotherapy to regain full mobility. In the meantime Steele would be searching for you.”
At its own sullen pace and despite the relaxant K had administered, my brain was slowly waking up. Slowly I became aware of my surroundings, of the details of the bed I lay on and the walls around me. Light peaking through peach curtains, the faint sound of birds chirping, the cries of children playing outside: somebody’s bedroom, cheerfully, somewhat femininely decorated. Another safe house?
K continued to speak and I tried to focus on her words again. Where was she going with all this? “The Clinic is small, Cindy: under two hundred patients with minimal turnover; and nearly as many staff. Steele has already shown his determination and ability to hack into the Clinic’s network and bypass their security system, to directly infiltrate the institute with his own men. He has the time and the resources; patient names, staff listings, stock orders--Steele may have all of these. Meanwhile, we could not risk moving you. You had to remain at the Clinic and heal. And by the time you could be moved--Steele could have a small army of his people following the movements of everyone coming and going from Asklepios.”
Her shoulders slumped and for a moment she looked exhausted. She hung her head, pinching at the bridge of her nose. When she looked up, her eyes fixed me with an almost angry glare. “What choice did I have, Cindy? By the time we could move you--the movement of an unlisted male patient would not have gone unnoticed.
“So I made a choice. Cindy was already a patient at the Clinic. She had been there nearly a month already with a file reaching even further back. Steele was still looking for a man. But Cindy . . . is female, and if Steele’s agents came looking I thought it best to give them precisely that: a woman. Someone who could not be the man they were looking for.”
The slow, angry throb behind my eye? At her words it became a savage lancing pain that made my eyes water. The pain quickly subsided to a hot presence in the back of my head, like an itch in the brain I could not reach. I wanted to cry out, protest what she was saying--but barely managed a low moan. Strong emotions were hard to maintain in my state, slipping through my grasp like a chilling mist.
Perhaps she mistook my pain for sadness, thought my watering eyes were tears. “Cindy--Cindy! I am sorry,” she continued, her voice insistent. “This is for your own protection.”
I forced my head to loll forward. Saw the bed sheets pulled up to my waist. My arms lying limply, thin and dainty, and the painted fingernails that shimmered in the sunlight. Skin tinted a pearly blue by the gauzy babydoll, and the twin mounds that pushed out, rounded and firm, against the flimsy fabric. And beneath the covers, below my waist . . . my God, she couldn’t have. . . !
“Cindy!” she said, loudly. “Yes, the changes you see are far more than the simple prosthetics and makeup of before.” She was speaking faster now, forcefully carrying me along with her words. “Those breasts you see are real. Your waist is smaller and your hips are wider. No one would doubt you are a woman now, Cindy.
“But this remains nothing more than a disguise! A very real and convincing one, but nevertheless only external trappings, a cover for your masculinity--and therefore temporary.” Her hand gestured towards my crotch. “You remain completely male where it counts. The surgical changes, everything else . . . is reversible, Cindy. We originally planned on three weeks. The plan has changed. Circumstances have changed. Now we must plan on three months, or even longer if necessary.
“You are being watched. Not constantly, of course, but frequently and in secret. And of this you can be certain: any suspicious behaviour, anything that suggests that the young woman I see before me is really a twenty-five year old man, will be reported back to Steele. And were he to discover you identity?” She shook her head. “I shudder to think what he would do to you, Cindy, especially if he found you in your current state.”
I wanted to reply; fuck, did I ever want to say something, move, protest--but all I managed was a useless flopping of my arm and an angry twitch of the foot.
Agent K stood, pulling the chair out of my line of sight. She continued to speak even as she disappeared from view. “You may not agree with the choice I made. To be blunt: I do not care.” She reappeared at my side, leaning over me, her features coldly impassive. “I told you from the very beginning that I would keep you alive no matter what the cost. Making you into Cindy seemed the best way at the time, and now there is no choice but to stick to that plan. Steele’s resources are not infinite--eventually he will have to turn his attention elsewhere, confront his other enemies. Then, when it is safe--we can finally put Cindy to rest.”
She walked slowly alongside the bed, her hand tracing the length of my body through the thin sheets that covered me. I felt her touch and my lower body tingled slightly, though movement still felt monumentally difficult. Standing once again at the foot of the bed, she took a long, lingering look at me. There was something final in the way she gazed at me, as if she were burning the sight before her into memory.
“This is your new life Cindy,” she said. “This is your new home. Perhaps not the relocation you expected--but if you live it honestly, genuinely--if you do everything you can to truly become Cindy Long--you will be safe; and once you are safe was can finally return you to a male life. I will be in contact when necessary, but once again my presence is a liability. If it becomes necessary to contact you I will do so through indirect means.”
She hesitated, and added: “In all likelihood, we will not meet again until this is over,” she said. Her mouth opened as if to add something, reconsidered; she turned away and walked out of sight. I heard a door open.
“Katherine!” I called out, my voice hoarse and weak.
Her rhythmic steps faltered. There was a long pause. I knew she hadn’t left the room yet, that she hovered uncertainly at the threshold. “Yes?” she asked, her voice weary.
“I trusted you,” I said.
I waited for an answer that didn’t come. When I finally gathered the strength to shift my head, it was only to glimpse her rapidly retreating back, the sound of her steps fading into the darkness beyond the door. From far away, it seemed, another door shut, and I was alone.
***
I saw my first tranny a couple of years ago.
We’d just finished off a big project at NeoPharm, back when I was at the low end of the corporate ladder and just starting my ascent. We’re talking many late nights here, eighty-hour weeks, lots of stress and staffroom dramas. When it was all over, euphoria swept through the whole team. This was especially true for a few of us who, like Tom and I, were looking at promotions afterwards. It was also this one guy’s 25th birthday, Barry, so when we all decided to celebrate he had a big say in where we went.
“Let’s try something different,” Barry said. He was one of the cleverest people on my team, with a real knack for thinking “outside the box” and for “shifting paradigms”, as these bastards like to say. There were staffroom rumours that he had one hell of a secret social life as well. Personally I’d always taken him for a pillow-biter, but so what? As long as he didn’t try that shit with me, we were cool; and if I caught him ogling my ass once or twice, well . . . whatever. I’m a good-looking guy, you know? There was an undercurrent of arrogance to everything he did, but grating as it could be at times I wasn’t going to hate him for it. It’s not like I’m all that humble myself. He was damn good at his job and made us all look good, and that was enough for me. “I know this club downtown, it’s very exclusive.”
So Barry set it up and there were about twenty of us, a real mixed bunch of guys and girls all dressed up real snazzy, who showed up downtown that evening. We walked up to the entrance of ‘The Pink Room’ and yeah . . . we knew we were up for a different kind of night. The woman who met us at the door was stunningly beautiful, perfectly made-up and shimmering in a crimson evening gown that clung to her every curve. Those clothes were almost enough to distract everyone from the fact that she wasn’t exactly a ‘she’, if you know what I mean. I wasn’t fooled . . . but it was a close call, let me tell you. That dude was unnervingly foxy.
I’d never seen a transvestite before--that I knew of, anyway--let alone been to that kind of club. Not exactly my kind of thing. Like I said before, I’d had a strange childhood and it kind of stunted my social development a bit. Even though I’d been first kissed by a boy at the age of fourteen, I still didn’t really figure out what the whole ‘gay’ thing was until much later. And now this shit? It never occurred to me that some guys might prefer to wear women’s clothing. I just didn’t understand it. The thought of some guy reaming another is disgusting, but apparently you’re just born that way and that’s that. Some people are born beautiful, some are dumb as rock . . . some guys are born with a predilection for cock. If that’s the way it is I couldn’t see a reason to make a big deal out of it.
But clothes? It didn’t seem to me that you could be born wanting to wear a skirt and heels, so I couldn’t see what the whole point was. I couldn’t help but eyeball these scrawny dudes flittering about in sexy waitress outfits as we settled in, and wonder what the hell it was all about. Then I saw Barry at the other end of the table noticing me noticing these cross-dressers, and he gave me this knowing smirk and wink, and that left me all kinds of annoyed.
As the cabaret show that night started up, I watched in amazement and confusion. All the girls on stage were guys--and damn if they weren’t really good at what they did. There were coarse and rude bits, sure, but the dancing was spot on and the routines imaginative. It made for an entertaining night. The booze continued to flow like water. Some of those guys were damn fine lookers as well, curvy in the all right places, wiggling and prancing about confidently in their clicking, breakneck heels, and that was kind of weird to consider. The kicker came with the climax of the show: out came Barry himself, vamping as Marilyn Munroe, singing a breathy ‘Happy Birthday’ to himself.
As the night wound down my colleagues drifted home or off to the next nightspot, and I eventually found myself slumped in a chair next to Barry. He’d switched into something more appropriate--a pleated tartan skirt, a tight silvery halter top, real chic clubgirl stuff--that left him looking really androgynous like, and it was just the two of us from our group left as the club started to wind down for the night. I was completely off my face and there was still no mistaking Barry for a real girl--but damn if he wasn’t looking better by the pint.
“You were right,” I said, clinking my glass to his. “This was different.”
“Have a good night?” He smiled, his painted lips glistening in the dim light. Connecting this girl with the guy who wrote PR shit for our website was messing with my head.
“It wasn’t what I expected,” I answered.
“I bet,” he said. There was a faint glimmer of worry in his eyes, heightened by shimmering eyeshadow. “Listen, David . . . this isn’t going to make things weird for us at work, is it?”
I frowned. “Why would it?” I answered, and meant it. “I already figured you for a queer.”
His eyes narrowed in annoyance. “I’m not homosexual.”
“Sure you’re not.” I smiled. “You just like to wear women’s clothing.”
“That’s right.”
I waited for the punch line but none came. Barry watched me with a curious half-smile. “But--”
“Let’s just say it has more to do with identity than with sexuality.”
“Huh?”
“You should try it,” he said. “You’d pass easily.”
I nearly coughed up my beer. “Excuse me?”
Barry shrugged. “The height’s right. You’re way too muscular but I’m betting you’re small-boned.” He made small gestures taking in my arms, my face. “You’ve got beautiful features. Your cheekbones are killer, and those eyes! You’re gorgeous, David--”
“Whoa. Easy there, buddy. Not interested.”
He sighed. “I’m not coming on to you. I told you I’m not gay. I’m not even bi. I’ve got a girlfriend. . . .” His smile grew and turned wicked. “Actually, I’ve got quite a few. You’d be surprised how many girls find this kind of thing sexy. I probably get more action than you do.”
I laughed. “I doubt it.”
“Do you?” Amusement danced in his eyes. “Tell you what. I’m just getting started. Hang out with me tonight. There’s more out there than cheesy pick-up bars, David, it’s not all bankers and lawyers and corporate bullshit climbers.” I’d suspected for a while but knew right then what Barry really thought of me. That arrogance he carried at work stemmed from disdain. I was one of many in the grey army of working stiffs; he thought I was boring, a hollow shell of a man lost to the corporate lifestyle. His secret life gave him depth and meaning he knew I lacked. His attitude made me smile.
“Follow me and I’ll show you a side of the city you never imagined existed,” he said, and grinned. “And who knows? I might just get you into a skirt yet.”
Well, Barry proved absolutely right about one thing that night: I am small-boned. But he never got me into a skirt. Agent K would be the first to manage that. After she left, control of my body returned faster than the return of my senses. It’s the only way to explain how I was eventually able to slowly sit up on the bed, lethargically throwing my feet over the edge and pulling myself upright, without immediately collapsing again in terror.
Because what I felt and saw as I sat up? There was enough there to send me gibbering back into unconsciousness. The breasts were the most immediate: the way gravity tugged at them, the insistent weight and counter-sway to my every movement. I mean, sure, I’d had those appliances attached for three weeks before fucking Fosters battered the damn things off my body . . . but now I knew just how far removed those prosthetics were from the real thing.
The real thing? How the hell could I have real breasts? I slowly raised my hand to cup them, controlling the limb from miles away, but the colour that flashed at the tip captured my attention and I brought them before my face, slowly turning my palm and wiggling my fingers before my eyes. I could barely recognize my own hand. How could these refined digits be mine, these polished, shaped nails? My eyes drifted past a diminutive wrist up thin arms and finally to small shoulders, before falling back once again to that healthy bosom.
I watched in fascination as those breasts lifted and fell with every breath, faster, and suddenly blood was pounding in my ears and my chest was heaving and I was sucking in vast gulps of air and from very far away I realized I was starting to hyperventilate; and then I wasn’t so far away anymore and. . . .
What did they do to me?
Surging to my feet I staggered into the centre of the room. The room tilted and swayed crazily around me. A flash of light--a mirror--I stumbled unsteadily towards it and gripped the wall to keep from collapsing. My legs shook uncontrollably as I stared blindly into the full-length mirror. Shaking my head brought momentary clarity. I saw myself in fragments, my eyes dancing wildly across the form revealed to me:
Soft, sloping shoulder, their slenderness accentuated by the delicate strap of the babydoll that whispered against my thigh with every movement. Small, slightly upturned nose and the full lips beneath, glistening and soft. The dark, round circle of areolas. The nubs that pushed out rudely from their center. My penis, hanging ashamedly behind its silky blue veil. Blonde-brown hair that fell across my eye and flicked across my cheek. Narrow and weak chin--cute--but not mine. Sleek and lean, smooth hairless calves that nearly gleamed, bereft of hard lines of either muscle or definition. Again those tits, high and firm on the chest, rounded and large--too large--on a narrowed frame.
My legs went weak, wobbled and gave out beneath me. I fell to the floor. The room started to spin. The reflection . . . that girl in the mirror . . . wasn’t me; I couldn’t find myself in my own reflection and this had to be some kind of dream, a nightmare, hallucination, this kind of shit doesn’t happen it real life. . . .
With desperate strength I lunged forward and gripped the mirror by both sides. This wasn’t going to beat me. I was stronger than this . . . this plot, this whatever it was, being inflicted on me. From where I lay on the floor I forced myself to stare into that mirror and find myself. The eyes gave it to me. Those were my eyes--eyelashes longer, eyebrows all but plucked away into a delicate arch--but still mine, green eyes flecked with grey. They were softer and more innocent looking than before, somehow wider and more expressive; but in their depths I saw those familiar hints of pain and loss.
“Deep breath,” I muttered, staring into myself. “Release.” Those massive breasts tugged at my chest as I leaned forward, pulling me down. Every gulp of air I sucked down roared in my ears and I began to feel faint. “Breathe!” I hissed between clenched teeth, my hands gripping the mirror’s edge so tightly the glass vibrated. Hair tickled my bared neck. “Don’t lose it.” Green, with grey flecks. My eyes; not my face but those were my eyes; this is me. This is me staring into the mirror.
I am David Sanders.
I eventually pulled away, remaining on the floor. The girl in the mirror followed every movement. I wanted to turn away but refused to do so. I had to confront her, see who she was--not in broken fragments but as a whole, as a fully cast person--not just as a reflection but as my reflection.
The girl in the mirror was both the Cindy I knew and a complete stranger. There’d always been a lot of David lurking beneath Cindy’s heavy foundation and clever makeup and bodyshaping undergarments. Now when I looked in the mirror I saw more of Cindy and very little of David. The alteration was subtle but profound: this new Cindy showed none of the rough edges or strong features that she had before. Her chin was small, the nose delicate. My once thin lips were full and held a playful, slight curve that seemed to naturally rest in a half-smile. There was an overall youthfulness--even childishness--to her face that wiped away any and every masculine trace. Her light brown hair was shorter than the previous wig but long enough to brush her shoulders, with a slight upward curl at the tips. Small, well-formed ears peeked out, each one glittering with a trio of golden studs. Light makeup, apparently K’s final motherly gift, gently accentuated her natural beauty.
Her face had a deeply unsettling effect on me, but the body nearly unmade me. Slowly, studiously--a façade that barely hid the hollowness I felt--I studied the shape unveiled before me and felt the room begin to tilt and roll vertiginously at the realization of just how much they had stolen from me.
Those . . . bastards, those god-forsaken mother-fucking bastards! How could this be . . . me? Two months. Only two months to undo a decade of discipline and excruciatingly hard work . . . countless hours of running and weights, workouts in the gym and training in the dojo . . . stripped away. How? Flimsy lingerie accentuated how once strong arms were now slender and smooth, hard pectorals melted away beneath soft breasts, legs turned lithe rather than powerful. My stomach remained taut, but no longer held the masculine definition of before. Where once I needed the heavy boning of a corset to create curves, this new shape held them naturally.
I was weak. Everything about this girl was soft and weak and defenceless. Staring aghast at my new reflection provided a sudden glimpse of what could’ve been. Take away the breasts, the tapered waist and rolling hips and there was the hint of a young boy, a scrawny runt who never met Sakura, never became a real man, a wimp who never learned to kill.
Too much. Where I should have found a battered and scarred male stood a supple young woman, healthy and whole, beautiful, innocent. This woman--this girl--was me? This girl with a face I scarcely recognized? This impossible body, powerless, delicate even: a victim.
Too much: I fell away from myself, frantically clutching the floor, stability, my world spinning away, tits swaying obscenely as I shakily struggled to rise on all fours. My torso heaved, and again, and I gagged as an empty stomach tried to expel the terrible fear that squeezed and poisoned my gut. Bile spattered the carpet and the edge of the mirror, yellowish green.
Rolling away and with eyes squeezed shut I curled into a tight ball, legs pulled to my chest. I buried my face into my knees. My thoughts were incoherent, racing wildly. Something terrifying and powerful broke lose within and I felt a shuddering sob rise up through my ribs. My eyes grew wet. I stuffed the edge of my hand into my mouth and bit down nearly hard enough to break skin, stifling the howl that threatened to tear loose. I wasn’t going to cry. Not for this. I was a man and stronger than this. Deep breaths. Force down the fear. Take control. Remember Sakura. Focus.
How long I squatted like that, half-naked in a strange bedroom, shaking and lost, repeating snippets of lessons like a mantra, I couldn’t tell you. As much as I tried to detach myself from my own body, from the physicality of this new femininity, reality would not be denied. I felt hyperaware of every twitch and shiver of my smoother skin, how pulling the babydoll at my waist tugged at my shoulders; and the press of my knees against those soft pillows on my chest. Every shift of new proportions nearly destroyed me. The overwhelming rush of emotions threatened to tear my mind apart.
Betrayal: I trusted K! I had trusted her and she had used that trust to twist my body into this caricature of revenge on an old, dead lover. I had trusted her and thought her a friend and . . . dammit, I had trusted that bitch!
Loss: everything I had built up and tried to be these past five years, gone in a scant few weeks, wasted and thrown away for nothing--my life, my strength, my friends. Every effort to leave behind a violent childhood undone as I slept.
Fear: nearly mind-numbing, at what I had become, the kind of life this body forced me into, the seeming permanency of it all.
Gradually my trembling subsided and the mental torrent quieted down, leaving in its wake a single, distinct thought pure and strong. It grounded me to the present. Gave me the strength to slowly uncurl and stand on weak legs and find myself in the mirror a final time. The woman in the glass was small and soft and weak, but her eyes blazed like newly tempered steel.
I would be revenged on them all.
***
I lost myself in the sounds of my new home. I sat at the edge of my bed, staring unseeingly at the floor and my mind absently followed the aural ebb and flow. The earlier cry of children playing faded as the light from the open window drifted slowly across the carpeted floor, turned red and crept up the far wall. There came the sound of a lawn being mowed and from far away the sound of a dog barking. The occasional car passed. With the dark came a new set of bird cries and anxious chirping, but as the light finally faded and the room grew dim, those sounds left as well. I thought I heard the sound of a man’s voice raised in anger, a woman’s retaliatory shout, the cry of a baby--all muffled, coming through the wall. Eventually I sat in silence and in darkness.
My stomach grumbled.
With a sigh I rose from the bed and stood half-blind in the middle of the room. I couldn’t just sit here anymore. I’d go crazy. I’d been there before--after Katherine died--I retreated into myself and when I returned was no longer quite right anymore. It took a long time to recover from that. The trick was to keep moving. Do things to keep the mind distracted from what was going on, too busy to notice how fucked up things really were. Routine: that was the key.
Agent K said this was my new home; fine. The first thing to do then was to explore. A light breeze tickled my bared shoulders and raised goose bumps across my cleavage. I sighed. No, the first order of the day was to get out of this goddamn scrap of lace and into something sensible.
A cheap lamp next to the bed gave some light to see by. There wasn’t much to the room. The bed was a double, the sheets a cheery yellow, the bedspread fluffy and pale grey, decorated with vivid slashes of red. There was a stuffed pink-and-white bear on the bed--can you fucking believe it? A full-length mirror, short bookcase haphazardly stacked with paperbacks, and a solid but battered dresser finished off the room and left it crowded, but comfortably so, cozy instead of cramped, the bright colours and soft touches adding a warm, feminine dimension. It was most definitely a girl’s room; it was, I realized with a small shiver, now my room.
A quick search through the dresser and closet uncovered a large but not excessive selection of shoes and clothes. Some I recognized from my wardrobe at the Clinic. To my surprise the clothes weren’t outrageously feminine, though some very girly things skulked among the sensible clothes.
The babydoll pooled around my feet with a silky whisper and I kicked the damn thing into the back of the closet. Slipping into a pair of loose grey jogging pants and a baggy sweatshirt, I tried to ignore the pendulous swaying of my boobs that accompanied the act of getting dressed. At the back of my mind lurked the unnerving realization that I wouldn’t be going around without a bra very often, and believe me--that wasn’t something I wanted to deal with at the moment. I shoved that thought firmly out of mind.
Still, I couldn’t avoid a reflected glimpse of myself as I stepped away from the closet: cute, tiny girl snuggling into the comfort of oversized casual clothes. Christ, but I looked like a sexy schoolgirl, slouching around her dorm room on a lazy Sunday afternoon. There were far too many things I could not avoid, each clambering for attention as I haltingly stepping into this new life: the renewed difficulty of doing anything with long nails, the enhanced sensuousness of every inch of freshly shorn flesh, and the ridiculous incongruity of my cock intermittently slapping my sleek thigh. I gripped the doorframe and took a deep, steadying breath and forced my doubts and fears away. Bare feet padded softly on the thin carpet as I stepped out of Cindy bedroom and explored my new home.
A cursory first walkthrough damn well didn’t take very long, I can damn well assure you of that. Compared to my old condo this place was a cardboard box. A quick glimpse out a window revealed that I now lived in a high rise, probably about a dozen floors up. I didn’t recognize any of the buildings scattered across the night sky cityscape, but what I saw suggested a small city rather than a sprawling metropolis. I briefly wondered where I now lived, whether I was in the same city--if I was even in the same country. As every breath and move reminded me of the reality of my form, no longer did anything seem impossible.
Bathroom, kitchen, spare room and lounge: this was my new world, bordered by thin walls and cheap flooring, and filled with used or inexpensive furniture. In a daze I fell back on sofa. Tall vertical blinds, peach-coloured but greying at the edges, swayed with the wind reluctantly admitted by the open patio doors behind. A narrow balconette looked out across the city. A short coffee table filled the empty space between the sofa and an old battered plasma screen TV hung on the wall opposite. A small 9x11 picture frame, bright red and plastic, grudgingly caught my attention. I leaned over and picked it up.
The girl in the picture stood on one leg, the other thrown up in an impromptu barefoot kick. A female friend standing near did the same. They were laughing and tossing their hair in the wind, arms wrapped around each other’s waist. Sunlight glittered in their happy eyes. Both were wearing bikinis and behind them brilliantly blue surf rolled up the beach.
The first girl, the one wearing a yellow string bikini with her healthy bosom nearly overflowing their cups, was me. This happy young thing, prancing half-naked on some sun-kissed foreign beach . . . was me. Me! My grip tightened on the frame until the frame creaked and I placed it back on its stand. It fell over with a clatter and fell to the floor face up. The happy eyes of Cindy followed me as I looked away.
Suddenly, homey touches all over the apartment drew my eyes: the photo collage hanging on the wall, the framed pictures along the hall or perched on shelves or stand all over the place: friends on girls’ night out, girls at a high school prom, elegant gown, beach parties, basement get-togethers, drunken laughter, all caught on film, proudly and happily displayed and in nearly all of them Cindy’s grinning face, smiling, made-up, pulling a silly look, in this one gazing serious into the camera, in that one. . . .
Kissing a boy, her arms around his neck, his arms at her waist.
I closed my eyes against a sudden bout of dizziness. Photo manipulation. If I looked closely maybe I’d find tell-tale touches of digital trickery. Maybe I wouldn’t. Maybe K was that good, or maybe I’d been in some drugged-up half-pickled state as they played dress-up with me and captured these shots; maybe there’d once been a real Cindy and they’d made me look like her and. . . .
The urge to vomit again was nearly overwhelming and I took several more deep breaths to settle down once again. When I opened my eyes I finally noticed the bottle of white wine on the coffee table, waiting with a single glass and an opener. The bottle was wrapped with a bow and had a note attached. I picked up the bottle--painfully aware of how much heavier it seemed--and read the note.
“Good luck Cindy!” it said, in a strong but sloppy handwriting. “From everyone at the Clinic, may this help with a speedy recovery.” Beneath it was signed, “Your friend, Scooter.”
I began to shake once again as I sat there in this sorry excuse of a room, in this poorly decorated prison. I very slowly reached for the bottle opener. The old-fashioned screw opener made getting even that fucking cork out a more difficult struggle than it should’ve been, bringing a brief burn to my arm, but eventually I dropped back into the sofa, cradling a glass of Chablis in my well-manicured hand. Gazing into the amber drink I released one of the deepest groans of my life.
God, I needed this drink. At the same time, how could I trust it to not be drugged? Of course, if Scooter wanted to get at me there were hundreds of ways to do it that I couldn’t avoid: in the air again, through the water supply, while I was sleeping, in my food . . . the bastards could be watching me right now. There could be a camera in the TV opposite, watching my every movement, or in the light fixtures or behind the mirror or. . . . You enjoying yourselves, you fucks? Getting your goddamn pervert thrills ogling all this T&A you’ve given me?
I knocked back the glass in a single long draught. Fuck you, Scooter, I thought. Fuck all of you. I poured myself another glass and settled deeper into the sofa, legs spread comfortably. The wine spread comforting warmth through my stomach, which helped settle me somewhat.
What if K was telling the truth? What if, as absurd as it seemed, she genuinely thought this was my best chance at survival? In her sick little mind, twisting my body into this humiliating prison might actually seem justified; she might honestly believe she was doing this for my own good. The thought wasn’t very appealing, because it meant that outside these walls and beyond that door, Steele’s assassins still lurked. More men like Fosters might still be hunting me. . . .
Yeah, like K said: being caught by Steele while I looked like this? I’d rather die.
If she was lying though . . . yeah, that’s thought wasn’t very goddamn appealing either. Because that meant one of two things: either she was totally insane and acting out some twisted revenge against me and somehow had the full backing of the Clinic; or she was working for Steele.
I had to put the wine glass down. If that was true . . . God, I should’ve killed the bitch when I had the chance, back at the hotel after we first met Fosters. I could’ve just walked away then and there. Called in a few favours from some old friends and taken my chances. Instead I’d trusted her. No; I’d done more than just trust her. I’d fallen for the cunt. Fallen hard and actually thought she was a friend. God, how could I’ve been so stupid? How many times? How many times would I be betrayed before I learned that you couldn’t trust anyone in this fucked up world?
But Fosters had been looking for her. He told me his partner--that other agent shadowing him, the woman--was taking care of K even as he beat the shit out of me. Hovering over me this morning, she favoured her side, a barely healed injury . . . if she was working for Steele, why would his assassins try to kill her?
I poured myself another glass of wine. Puzzling this through wasn’t going to get me anywhere at the moment. Right now, I had to take it one thing--one day--minute by minute--at the time. Survive the immediate; if I wasn’t crazy within the hour I’d tackle the next one, and hopefully I wouldn’t have front dived off the balcony to the concrete waiting below by then.
I nearly snorted wine out my nose at the thought. Yeah, right! As if I’d ever give these bastards the satisfaction of my suicide. Goddamn butchers and psychos. They’d find me a far harder nut to crack than that. Another large gulp of wine and I snorted again, and then nearly laughed out loud. I stifled the release by clamping my mouth shut but too late. Wine dribbled out my mouth and down my chin. I squeaked and suddenly collapsed into giggles. The sound was bubbly and feminine--my throat, my voice--and suddenly that seemed outrageously funny as well and I laughed out loud. Everywhere I looked presented something that sparked off another peal of giggles and laughs. The absurdity of it all. This home. This body. My life.
I laughed until my sides hurt. Hugging myself tightly, arms crossed beneath tits that jiggled with every chuckle, I laughed until I was blinded with tears. I laughed as the tears coursed down my cheeks and spotted my sweater and my voice grew hoarse. My voice caught in my throat and twisted and what emerged was a moan, and suddenly instead of laughter I was wracked with great sobs that tore violently through the entirety of my body. I sucked in a deep, shuddering breath. My howl of outrage and helplessness resonated through the room. The empty glass shattered across the far wall. I grabbed the bottle and drowned my girlish weeping by sculling what remained of the wine. The empty bottle dropped from my hand with a dull thud. I couldn’t stop crying.
This absolutely pathetic weakness overwhelming me pushed me into further feminine snivelling. I could picture myself, my scrawny frame flung across the sofa, clutching at the fabric desperately, bosom heaving with every sob, every cry, shirt wet with tears, weak mewling catching in my throat with each gasp of breath, exhaustion overtaking me: how maudlin. How pathetic. How weak.
As I slowly dropped into a dark and dreamless sleep a single thought haunted my thoughts: maybe they’d given me the body I deserve.
***
Continues in Chapter 02
This is the second revision of chapter one. A few thousand words of new stuff, and streamlined some earlier bits and caught a few mistakes. Still not content with the chapter over all but may have to accept it as is and move forward. The ending probably needs a tweak: I'm fairly sure it slides into melodrama, which is never all that cool.
It's still a work in progress I guess, and feedback and comments are still always appreciated!
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Chapter Two: Finding his body twisted into Cindy’s diminutive form is almost enough to destroy David, but he’s made of sterner stuff and grudgingly begins to live her life. His enemies are still afoot, however, forcing several difficult decisions.
Constant in All Other Things 2
Chapter Two
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
All of a hundred pounds and I couldn’t fucking do it.
First in my triceps then quickly up through both shoulders, the burn settled in my chest behind the pendulous weight of those breasts. Flattened against the cheap bedroom carpeting, both boobs offered a free inch or two of cushioning. The ache quickly intensified and swelled. My arms began to tremble. The pain in my wrist became acute. Pushing and straining, I slowly lifted a scant three inches off the ground; my strength suddenly evaporated and I dropped back to the floor.
Not even one goddamn push-up! Not one! I couldn’t even lift high enough to clear these goddamn tits from the floor. I used to pump off an easy hundred every morning before work and now I couldn’t manage one. But what could I expect? I massaged the soreness and felt how slender and frail my arm was, delicate and bereft of muscle.
A moment later debilitating pain flared through my skull and the room briefly tilted and wobbled. I blinked against what I hoped was sweat but was probably tears. Goddamn! Up close I could see every detail of the carpeting, the dirt and dust lost within the winded fabric and the yellow-green stain still by the mirror. I saw the polished perfection of my long nails and how they contrasted with the floor. I curled those dainty fingers into a fist and pounded the floor in frustration and winced in pain. Rolling onto my back, I squeezed my eyes shut and shook with mute rage. The room spun once or twice more around my prone form before slowing to a halt.
Scooter was right. Damn the bastard, but he was right.
I pressed my fists to my eyes. I’d done all my crying last night, but in its wake there remained a sense of utter defeat. I’d worked out almost every morning for over the last ten years and those assholes had stolen that from me. It felt like something indefinable but precious had been ripped out of my life, as if I’d suddenly lost the ability to see the colour green or could never hear a guitar solo again. I knew then with awful certainty that even if I escaped this trap that I could never return to a life even remotely similar to the one I had known. So much of who David was had been wrapped up in his physicality, in his strength--and that was now gone.
“Fuck!” I yelled to the ceiling, and even my anger sounded shrill and weak.
The killer headache wasn’t making life any easier. In the list of lifelong worst hangover, this baby was partying in the top five. No wonder I’d broken to pieces last night. Those glasses of wine had slammed into a stomach empty for the last two months. Cindy wasn’t quite the drinker I used to be. I’d really had a go at it last night, though. After the wine there was a vague memory of staggering into the kitchen and finding a six-pack of Bud in there. So no surprise I’d gotten hammered, what with the girl looking to weigh maybe half of what I’d been. Yeah, I hadn’t been all that tall or bulky, but I’d carried a lot of muscle weight. Well, bless their black hearts but the Clinic stripped all that away and left behind nothing but these useless curves.
“Just--live this life,” he said. “Give up on the man you used to be. Be Cindy.” Yeah, that’s what Scooter told me. The bastard. Easy for him to say; he wasn’t the one sporting the D-cups.
I’d woken this morning to a blistering headache. Brilliant sunlight slashed through the blinds and pierced my drunken haze. Lying face down on the sofa, my crusted eyes blinked reluctantly as slowly woke up. The heat has been sweltering. My chest hurt. Without thinking I’d sat dazedly up and violently stripped off the sweatshirt, tossing it across the room. My boobs bobbled free, and you can damn well bet they quickly reminded me of the where, what and who of my new life. And feeling as I did, all hungover and shit? Yeah, it was all too much to deal with: I promptly leaned over the edge of the sofa and puked my liquid guts out.
Falling back onto the couch I clung desperately to the armrest until the room settled and the urge to heave subsided. As bad as being dragged kicking and screaming into this new life was, believe me, at that moment the hangover felt worse. God. I was desperate for water but the thought of crawling to the kitchen--finding a glass--twisting the taps--filling the glass--raising it to my lips--drinking; the whole process seemed a task of Herculean proportions. No goddamn way I was leaving that sofa. No matter how angry my bladder got. Another hour--screw that, two months--of sleep, yeah, that’s what I needed. Covering my head with my arms I tried to burry deeper into the cushions, in search of soothing darkness.
“Wake up Cindy!”
The loud booming voice jerked me into painful, wincing wakefulness. I blearily looked around, wondering what the hell I’d just heard. The plasma screen had turned itself on. Rendered in hi-def flat-screen precision, the smiling, bearded face of Scooter looked down at me.
“In the living room, Cindy! Hurry up!” the doctor insisted. “My message begins in thirty seconds.”
Clawing my way into a sitting position, my head clutched between both hands, I glared at the screen. Scooter seemed content to count aloud his thirty seconds, glancing at something off-screen. Each number reverberated within my skull like a pinball.
“I’ll assume you’re in the room now,” Scooter said, the voice dropping to a reasonable (though still painful) volume. “This message is pre-recorded and deleting itself from memory as it plays. So listen closely, because you’ll only get to hear this once and it’s very important that you do.” Even in my groggy state I noticed that the doctor looked the worse for wear, his face drawn and pale. His eyes looked tired and his normally spastic gesturing seemed half-hearted.
On the screen, the doctor took a deep breath before beginning. “Katherine didn’t want me to do this but when it comes to medical matters I won’t have anyone telling me how to do my job. As you’ve no doubt noticed by now, you’ve gone through a few changes.” He smiled weakly. “It’s been six weeks since we found you on the floor of my office and we’re about to move you to Telesforos for a few more weeks of rest and recovery. After that Katherine will move you to your new home in the city, you’ll wake up and you’ll probably freak out. If you haven’t already I’m sure you’re thinking about putting your fist through this screen.
“Well . . . don’t bother. There’s no point. You’re not quite as strong as you used to be. You’d hurt your hand and waste the manicurist’s hard work.”
The manicurist’s hard work dug painfully into my palm as my hands involuntarily clenched. If I could move without falling over I’d have happily tossed that screen off the balcony.
Scooter absently scratched at his beard, considering how to proceed. “You should be thrilled, Girlie! This kind of thing is like a dream come true for. . . .” He faltered. “Listen, Girlie, it’s. . . .” Again he hesitated and finally shook his head. “David. For what it’s worth: I’m sorry.”
With my elbows propped up on my knees, my naked breasts hung heavily between both arms. His apology wasn’t worth the fucking breathe it took to say it.
“I know this is not something you ever wanted. Katherine believes you need to be fully immersed in your new role as soon as possible--but I won’t insult you by calling you Girlie, or Cindy, or anything but by your name. David, you have every reason to hate us, to despise Katherine and me and the Clinic. So go right ahead: hate us.” He shrugged on screen and then leaned in closer. “But just keep one thing in mind as you do.
“She kept you alive, David. A class IV haemorrhage is a nasty thing. That’s half of the five litres of blood running through those pretty little arteries of yours spreading across the floor. She was covered in blood. Most of it was yours but she was injured as well; she’d been shot. Through the stomach and out the side. She’s lucky it missed any organs; so are you. Because when she found you she ignored her own wound and knelt down in your blood and kept you alive. She jabbed a syringe of peptide sealant into your side and manually pumped your heart and gave you air until I showed up, and if she hadn’t there probably wouldn’t have been a whole lot left to save. My staff had to physically drag her away so that I could administer the ephedrine; she broke one of the nurse’s noses. The moment you started to breathe on your own Katherine passed out and. . . .” His voice trailed off and he sighed.
“But maybe I’m wasting my breath here. Have a look for yourself.”
The screen blinked and threw up grainy security footage. A figure lay slumped next to another. Glass and broken furniture and other debris was scattered around them. A dark pool of red slowly spread across the floor. The image zoomed in on one of the figures, the one wearing a tattered skirt: me. God, I looked terrible. Pale. One of my arms was twisted at an impossible angle. So was one of my legs. My skin glittered from the myriad glass splinters lacerating my flesh, each one a fountainhead of red. My face was a mess: badly cut, bruised and broken.
A woman came running into the frame. She nearly slipped and fell in the blood. She was looking beat-up herself, clutching at her side, bleeding freely from a cut to her face. She found her footing. Tore open drawer after drawer until she found what she wanted. Knelt down next to my body on the screen. Despair threatened her features but raw determination kept it at bay. She reached for my limp form, syringe in hand.
“Hate Katherine if you want,” Scooter repeated, his voice-over grim. “But don’t ever question that everything she has done since meeting you has been with your long-term survival in mind. She saved your life. And mark my words: she probably will again.”
I wanted to shout at the screen, to rant and rave. How could these, I wanted to yell, and heft those bloated mammaries for him to see . . . how could these help keep me alive? The swell of emotion made me wince with pain.
The screen blinked back to the doctor as he continued with a shrug. “I’m sure you don’t see it the same way. Personally, and as I’ve said before: I don’t care. I couldn’t give a rat’s ass if you hate me or not, forgive me or not; but I do care about Katherine a great deal. You might think you know her in some small way but you don’t. I’ve known her for over twenty years and I don’t pretend to fully understand her. But I do know there’s no one I’d rather have as an ally against someone as dangerous as Jeremiah Steele, because I’ve never known anyone with a hatred as pure and clear as the one Katherine carries for that man.”
“So keep that in mind before you swear revenge, David. We caught your fight with Steele’s assassin on the Clinic’s security cameras. You’ve obviously got secrets of your own, David. You’re clearly a dangerous . . . man.” You can damn well bet I noticed the slight hesitation at ‘man’, the nervous scratching at his chin. “Think long and hard before you waste any time chasing after Katherine, or me, or anyone at the Clinic. Your real enemy is Steele: never forget that.”
The doctor turned again off screen. He made a slashing motion across his neck. “Yeah, stop it there,” he muttered. “This isn’t what I wanted. Last thing the guy needs is a bloody lecture.” The screen turned momentarily black. When the image returned the doctor looked a little more relaxed, wearing fresh clothes, through still with visible signs of exhaustion entrenched in his face. He was sitting in an office I didn’t recognize, wood-panelled and warm-looking. He glanced aside before looking back to the camera and smiling.
“You still with us, David? Good. Because now I’m going to show you what we’ve done to you, and this part you’ve really got to pay attention to because if you don’t . . . well, it could kill you.”
His hands jerked before his face dismissively. “Sorry for the dramatics. But your body’s been through a hell of an ordeal. As I record this you’re lying in a bed in the Telesforos retreat, recovering. Your body seems to be settling nicely as the last of the surgery heals and the chemicals are purged from your body. The nurses have no idea you’re anything other than what you seem: a young girl recovering from a serious operation. I think the female nurses have taken a bit of a liking to you. Last I heard they were prettying you up in preparation for your release.”
So is that what I was now? A goddamn living doll to play with, to dress up nice and give a manicure to? My hand slipped up to my ear and fingered the earrings there: two in the lobe and another at the top.
“And let me just say, David,” the doctor continued on screen. “I am beyond pleased at how well you’ve turned out. Real pioneering work, to be honest. Experimental processes, real cutting-edge techniques, all for your benefit.” Despite the doctor’s obvious fatigue his eyes glowed with excitement. “You can’t imagine the kind of money people would pay for what you’ve just been given. These procedures are--priceless, to be honest. It may be years before we can even reproduce them.” He shrugged, dismissing such minor concerns. “I’m sure you’ve noticed by now the obvious alterations to your body. I hope you also appreciate the remarkable recovery you’ve made from your injuries.”
Damn him to hell, but he was right, of course. I knew all too well the lingering ache of serious injury and the time it took to heal. In the days when I used to help Sakura I got hurt on a fairly regular basis. Sometimes I got hurt pretty bad. Fortunately, she had these nasty-smelling poultices that used to help, esoteric herbal mixes she made herself that burned something awful as they absorbed into the skin. They quickly numbed the pain and seemed to work miracles on bruised flesh.
Once--only once, until the fight with Fosters--I even got the living shit kicked out of me. I got hurt so bad I can’t even remember the whole fight. Not that I’d want to. After that fight, some of my injuries took a full year to heal. Hell, I guess some of them never healed properly at all. And so, sitting with a skull-splitting headache on Cindy’s sofa, I clearly remembered the fight with Fosters and fully appreciated how lucky I’d been. The swing of the heavy metal bar and the crunch of bone as he shattered my leg. My arm. My face. Those kinds of injuries left scars and took a very long time to recover. Beneath these sweat pants I knew my skin to be smooth and whole. I felt weak and a little shaky but otherwise fine. I normally healed quickly, yeah? But nobody heals this quickly.
Scooter leaned forward eagerly and launched into a technical explanation of what they’d done to me. I’ll be honest. Science was never my thing--like I said, I never even finished high school, yeah? I only followed a little of what he said, picking up some key bits and important-sounding words. Regenerative medicine, he said, and then went on about stem cells and fibroblasts, and all manner of protein names that ended with a dash and a letter, and growth hormones, and he seemed very excited by whatever he was talking about.
“But the adult human body works far too slowly,” Scooter added, seeming mildly annoyed by the failings of human anatomy. So the doctor and his lunatic scientists decided that regressing the body to an earlier state of rapid growth was the trick. By tricking the body into a pre-adolescent state they hoped to accelerate metabolic processes and growth--or something like that. It might as well have been Voodoo for all I understood. They’d been playing with various compounds for years, he told me, trying to find ways to rapidly heal athletic injuries or critical burns in minimal time. No more soccer players missing a season with a busted knee, they thought, maybe even a solution to the shortage of transplant organs and the downside of a lifetime of immunosuppressants. Don’t ask me why they thought that. Like I said, I didn’t understand half the shit he was saying.
The bit I did understand is that for years they couldn’t quite get it to work right--until K slipped them some seized goods from her raid on Steele’s illegal medical facility. Apparently my old employer, NeoPharm, was working on some pretty cutting edge stuff themselves, and it wasn’t all prosthetic boobs and vaginas. A little reverse engineering later and they had a working formula.
“So we dropped you into a chemically-induced coma and gave you a shot of our latest batch,” Scooted said. With a boosted metabolism and a host of impossible chemicals rushing through my blood, muscle and flesh and bone quickly began to knit themselves together. However, they quickly realized that their new miracle drug wouldn’t find much demand on an open market. It wasn’t the ridiculously prohibitive cost, Scooter said. For some reason they couldn’t pin down, the biochemical agent they’d created had one major flaw: the pseudo-puberty it brought on was inevitably a female one. Male athletes coming through the process would heal quickly, sure, but they’d grow breasts along the way and come out looking not just younger, but far more feminine than when they went in.
That wasn’t a problem in my case, of course. And they couldn’t leave well enough alone, could they? No, they introduced some kind of nasty virus that forced a rapid cachexia (Scooter called it), and what muscle mass wasn’t atrophied in those initial weeks was devoured by my enhanced metabolism and rapid regeneration. Once I’d dropped to a near skeletal weight they started feeding me a careful balance of protein, fat and carbs to fuel the next transformation. There was also the flood of hormones they pumped into me. “It was incredible,” Scooter enthused. “The injections greatly enhanced your second puberty. Some processes were already locked off after your male puberty--you weren’t going to get a second growth spurt--but you quickly demonstrated an accelerated development of secondary sexual characteristics typical of an adolescent girl. Breasts grew--quickly. Your pelvis widened. The fat tissue you began to develop distributed itself in a typical female pattern. You even developed a bad case of acne for about a week.”
And while my healing process was all sped up, why not finish off some cosmetic necessities? A few weeks into my coma the Clinic’s best plastic surgeons came in and got to work. Some attacked my skull: a little shaving of the underlying bone structures here, some narrowing there--and suddenly that manly jaw of mine was a thing of the past. But as Scooter described the alterations to my face his verbal torrent slowed. Looking slightly guilty--a first since he had started--his eyes looked out from the screen and he spoke as if carefully weighing his words.
“Your face, David, proved especially difficult. For some reason, your accelerated healing was having a limited effect above the neck. The cosmetic damages were severe. The glass had shredded the skin and muscle. Your nose was--pulped. Your jaw broken and right cheekbone shattered. Furthermore, the procedures we could use to feminize your features, like collagen implants to your lips--require frequent updating or seem obviously artificial.” He paused. “David, feel the skin over your right temple.”
By this point I was in a state of profound shock. Even the hangover seemed to have momentarily receded as I numbly reached up beneath my hair and touched my temple. There was a rounded surface of mottled skin about the size of a dime, slightly harder than the surrounding tissue. A scar.
The doctor sighed. “That scar is the only one you’ll find across your entire body. The easiest way to repair the damage to your face and ensure a realistic female appearance was, in effect, to borrow one. We had a donor: the female agent that tried to kill Katherine. We performed a face transplant, David. The underlying bone structure is yours, the overlying soft tissue--mouth and nose and so forth--was the assassin’s; and what emerged is . . . Cindy.” He added, almost as an afterthought, “The scar is from the bullet where Katherine shot her dead.”
I stared aghast as Scooter continues the litany of horrors committed against my person. His voice continued over video footage of my unconscious form several weeks into the process. Massive bruising covered every inch of my body, but beneath the discoloration the skin seemed whole. Breasts were already budding beneath my enlarged nipples. Briefly I saw a glimpse of my face pre-transplant, skin peeled back and muscle exposed; if I hadn’t been so deeply in shock I would’ve puked again. His every word began to feel like a band tightening around my chest until I could hardly breathe. Every injury I had suffered proved an excuse to make another alteration to my shape.
Floating ribs torn away by Foster’s bullet? Even out the damage and ensure the ribs grow back in an appropriately feminine way. Fractured jaw? Slim it down! My shattered nose was reset in a daintier shape. Burned and lacerated skin regrew with the youthful elasticity and glow of a sixteen year-old girl. Subdermal implants kept the flow of female hormones constant--and kept my tits growing, until they reached a perfect firm B-cup--apparently as big as they were going to get on their own the ‘natural’ way--enhanced by the best implants money can’t buy: a cellulose scaffolding on which stem cells grew another two cup sizes indistinguishable from the real thing. A little mucking about in my throat and Cindy’s happy, airy tones became my new voice, and while in there, why not shave down that nasty Adam’s apple? Even the things they couldn’t change--the size of my hands and feet, already thinner than average for a guy--seemed more feminine as nails grew out and the skin turned smooth and pale.
I was clutching at my chest by this point, gasping for breath, struggling to remain conscious, until the last item on his list left me cold. “Finally,” he said, and suddenly seemed to find it difficult to look at the camera, “as I’m sure you know, men generally have a greater leg-to-torso ratio than women. With your leg already broken, it seemed only sensible to, ah, carve out an inch or so before resetting the leg. You’ll find you’re just a tad . . . um, shorter than before.” He glanced guiltily towards the camera and muttered, “Uh, yes. Sorry David.”
It felt like the whole world fell away. The hangover, that fucking bastard’s voice, this shitty apartment and any sense of self went spiralling away and left me detached and adrift. My height. Not content with stripping away my strength they decided to cut my legs out from under me--literally. I’d always been short for a guy. Five foot five. And a half. What was I now? Maybe five-four? Short--even for a girl. Short and weak and small--except for these tits. Enormous on a frame this small. A light tap against that swollen flesh. Another, reluctantly drawing me back into the world. I thought I’d finished with the crying last night. Apparently there was a little left. The tears returned, a steady silent dribble down my cheeks, catching at the tip of my delicate jaw--falling on my bared breasts.
I don’t know how much of Scooter’s message I missed, but I caught the end of it through blurry eyes. “So finally, David,” he said. He sounded as if he were hurrying, anxious to finish. “You can expect some residual effects from everything you’ve been through. Your hair might grow a little faster than normal for a while. The hormones might play havoc on your emotions until you balance out a bit. We’re honestly not sure but it seems very likely that forcing an adult male brain and body through a female puberty might cause a few other unexpected consequences. And most importantly: David, all these feminizing agents in your blood will, at the very least, chemically castrate you and atrophy your testicles; at worst they could lead to a whole host of serious, potentially fatal, medical conditions.”
Yeah, even as fucked up as I was feeling at that moment you can damn well believe that his words caught my attention. At this moment my cock and balls were the only thing connecting me to the man I used to be. From where I was sitting, with this slim waist and heavy tits and shorter legs, my crotch was the only thing left of David.
“You’ll find in your new bathroom’s medical cabinet several prescriptions for drugs essential to your continued wellbeing. It is absolutely essential that you take those pills as directed. Those implants are producing a hefty quantity of oestrogen and other female sex hormones typical of a ‘girl’ your age, while blocking normal testosterone production. The pills will keep your testicles from withering and your penis from shrinking. Some of them will help neutralize any residual effects of your regeneration. You’ll also find some powerful relaxants in there, in case the initial emotional swings prove too difficult to deal with.”
He gave a final sigh. “Listen, David,” he said, and the face I saw through watery eyes held guilt, pride and respect in equal measure. “This is a hell of a lot to drop on you. I can’t imagine what you’re feeling right now. And I know it’s impossible to believe that this is all in your best interest. But I honestly do believe Katherine is right in this: Cindy is your best chance at survival. Not David--but Cindy.
“So don’t fight it . . . Cindy. Just . . . live this life. You won’t believe me but almost everything we’ve done to you can be reversed to at least some degree. You can be a man again someday. In the meantime: be Cindy. It’s not like you have much choice. You can try to rebuild your muscles but as long as you’re swimming in hormones you’ll find it tough going. Just give up on David. Give up on the man you used to be and become the girl you see in the mirror. Katherine’s given you a fine, simple life--try to enjoy it in the months to come and it’ll be over before you know it.”
He turned away from the screen but paused. “Oh, I almost forgot,” he said, glancing back. “Just thought you might like to know. Your friend, Harry Longman? His operation was a complete success. Last I heard he was flirting with the nurses and preparing to head back to the studio.” Scooter smiled before turning away. “He was also asking after his ‘broken flower’. That’s you, right?”
The screen went blank.
I sat there trapped in this tiny body with this dead woman’s face. I wasn’t crying anymore. That had been nothing more than a brief release. I truly had finished with crying. It felt as if I had nothing left to lose, no further to sink. All that remained was a numb chill the pervaded every inch of my being. I slowly rose to my feet. Shuffled back into the bedroom. Dropped to my knees and then laid flat on the floor--as flat as I could, with those breasts flattening beneath me.
You’re wrong, I thought. I’m not Cindy and this isn’t my life. I can make myself strong again. At some deeper level I felt the certainty of failure. Desperate to prove them wrong, desperate to deny my very body and the life determined by it, I pushed against the floor with all the strength I could muster.
All of a hundred pounds and I couldn’t fucking do it.
***
The next few weeks were a little hazy.
Within the medicine cabinet I found, as Scooter promised, a pharmacy of little brown bottles with white childproof tops and a rainbow of pills. Pink circles, green ovals, brown oblongs: my own fucking stash of narcotic Lucky Charm delights, each with their own direction for use--this one every morning after food, that one twice a day for the next three months, another to be used freely as needed. Sifting through the cluster of bottles, it didn’t take me long to find the antidepressants and the diazepam. I’m sure there was enough there to last several months. Not after I got through with that shit, though. We’re not talking a suicide attempt or anything like that--listen; I’m not suicidal. Stupidest thing in the world, knocking yourself off. Can’t revenge yourself against nobody if you’re dead.
But at the moment I couldn’t quite deal with the thought of being me. At the moment, I didn’t even know what that meant anymore. Whatever aversion I had to mind-numbing drugs faded beneath a steady stream of little yellow pills and larger red ones that kept reality far enough at bay for me to no longer care. The days shuffled past like a disgruntled teen on her way to school, self-absorbed and full of sullen mutters.
Even in my dopey stupor a routine of sorts emerged. I started every day lying spread eagle on my bed, staring up at the ceiling. The morning sun would dance across the far wall and crawl its way down to the floor like a living being, luminous and vibrant; it had little time for me. One day it rained and without the light I felt an unimaginable sense of loss that almost had me in tears--if I’d had tears left to waste.
Eventually I would drift over to the balcony and stare out across the city. I spent hours there. From my high place the wind caressed my skin and ruffled my hair. The day it rained the falling water felt cool and slick against my bare shoulders and naked breasts. Evenings I might spend sprawled on the sofa, staring at the blank and broken television, lost in tracing the fine spread of cracks from afar. Can’t quite remember when I broke the damn thing. I must have hurled the empty wine bottle at it some night, bringing a brief, warming flush of pleasure as the screen cracked and the glass shattered.
By three in the morning I’d be standing behind the patio doors, half-closed against the night-time chill, watching the far-off glitter and shimmer of the city. Intermittent sounds of life would reach my ears. I watched the city through the patio door glass. If I shifted slightly against the dark the city faded into the background and my distant study would refocus on the ghostly image of myself captured in midair. Soon after I’d stumble back towards my bed and lie there staring at the ceiling until the sun returned and the light appeared, beginning anew its journey down my wall. . . .
Thanks for everything, K, Scooter, you bastards. What had they promised? A “fine simple life”? There wasn’t anything fucking fine or simple about this goddamn new life of mine. Not that I felt anything that fierce during those last weeks. I didn’t feel much of anything really, no peaks, no valleys, just a gentle rolling plain of faded whites and muted emotions, and that’s how I wanted it. The occasional hunger pang or sudden weakness registered as a minor concern, easily ignored, as I floated about the apartment.
The sexiest of girls starts looking pretty rank after a couple of weeks of this kind of life, and believe me: I was letting myself go something awful. It’s not like I could be bothered to pull on a top, you know, not after I tossed it aside that first morning. Couldn’t be bothered to change out of those sweatpants either. I’d wander into the toilet for a piss but considering how little I ate and drank, that didn’t happen often. By my second night as Cindy I’d polished off all the booze in the apartment--puked my guts up a few more times--passed out on the kitchen floor--left the fridge door open and spoiled most of my food--and lived off of unheated cans of soup and dried cereal and whatever crackers and other crap I could find buried in the cupboards.
Then one night I was sitting in the lounge, thin arms thrown wide across the back of the sofa and staring vacantly at the ceiling, when I heard her voice.
“You’re looking good,” she said. Her heels clicked on the floor as she approached. She took a seat opposite me at the table, and her every motion was graceful and alluring. I would have happily stared at her for hours, mesmerized by the reflected fire of the candlelight in her eyes, the way her dress fell and slid in shimmering lines across her body. The fact that we were possible enemies and the potential for violence in her every movement simply made her all the more attractive. She seemed elegant and almost ethereal and at ease with her beauty, whereas I felt uncomfortable in my dress shirt and tie, an earth-bound clod wearing a too-tight collar.
Leaning back in my seat, I smiled and shrugged. “So do you. I wasn’t sure you’d come.”
She glanced down momentarily before meeting my eyes. The gesture seemed surprisingly demure and at odds with what little I knew of this woman. The thought was enough to bring a wry smile to my lips. I didn’t know anything about her--not even her name. But I knew enough. I knew I loved her. Ever since we fought, and hid together, and hungrily fell into each others’ arms and fucked in the bushes, biting each others’ flesh to silence our cries as men with guns walked by and the bamboo swayed in the wind overhead and creaked and rustled. . . . From that first moment in which we met I knew I loved this woman.
“You intrigued me,” she said. “How could I not come?”
“The woman I work for is the enemy of the people you work for,” I said. “Doesn’t that make us enemies?”
She shrugged. “Maybe,” she said, and her earrings shivered and glinted in the dim light, shiny lures dancing beneath the water’s surface. “But not tonight. It’s never as simple as one side against another, good guys against bad guys.”
“What if . . . you know? They caught us together?”
“Then I’d have to kill you,” she answered. Her ruby lips glinted as she smiled.
The waiter poured our wine. I was underage; she wasn’t. We raised our glasses and toasted each other. The wine was a dark red but her painted fingernails cradling the glass were redder, darker. She drank deeply and sighed as I hid my dislike at the adult taste of the wine. “I don’t even know your name,” I said.
“Katherine,” she said. “Katherine Ophelia White.”
I jerked awake with a sharp intake of breath.
A dream. Or a memory, all but forgotten. Sometimes I can’t tell the difference, not when it comes to Kate. My first ‘date’ with Katherine, the first of many furtive encounters and secret liaisons, of fights and violent sex and desperately precious moments spent clinging fiercely to each other. Six months later she was dead. It was my fault. It was my fault. I hadn’t been fast or skilled enough to save her. I wasn’t strong enough to protect her.
Clutching my throbbing head I staggered to my feet. Midday sun flooded the room. Christ. Like I wanted to deal with this shit right now. Obviously it’d been too long since I’d popped a pill or something, if reality was insisting on reasserting itself. As far as I was concerned, reality could go fuck itself. I needed a drink. Was I at that point where I could start in on the cough syrup and vanilla extract yet?
Halfway to the medicine cabinet a knocking rang clear and loud from the front door.
Who knows why I went to the door? Sleep-deprived, drugged-up, messed in the head and still feeling the phantom touch of old dreams and a dead lover, I stumbled over to the door of the apartment. I clipped the wall once or twice and knocked down a picture frame and made a bit of a racket. The knock came again, loud and insistent.
“Who--?” My voice was hoarse from disuse, my throat dry. I swallowed and tried again. “Who is it?” My heart pounded a rapid, almost deafening beat, though I didn’t know why.
“I have a delivery for a Miss Long,” a female voice called back through the door. “It needs to be signed for.”
“Just. . . .” Just what? Fuck off? Leave me alone? I wasn’t in any state to be talking to people. I was dirty, drugged . . . female. Yet I didn’t fear being seen. Unlike the first time I dressed up as Cindy and stepped out of that safe house so very long ago (or so it seemed), at the moment I felt a surprising calm at the thought of being seen as a girl. It might’ve been the pills. More likely, it was because I knew Scooter’s butchers had done their job well. If I couldn’t recognize myself, how could a complete stranger? Rather than fear, a sudden inexplicable yearning to connect with another human being arose in me. After days of silence, crawling lights and the far-off sounds of traffic, I felt a powerful need to see another human. “Just one minute!”
I hurriedly stumbled to my bedroom and pulled on the first thing I found, a t-shirt that felt too tight as it hugged my curves and left my midriff exposed. Taking a deep breath, I opened the door.
I’ll give the delivery girl credit: she was a goddamn pro, that’s for sure. She was quite cute, with her little brown cap and pixyish hairdo with purple and pink streaks. Her nose wrinkled at the stench that flowed from my apartment, and she couldn’t quite suppress the flash of disdain or disgust that crossed her eyes as she looked down at me, but she neither flinched nor commented on my appearance. Still, that human presence and appraising look suddenly, forcefully brought me back to myself and I felt acutely and ashamedly aware of my appearance.
I looked like shit.
An awkward silence followed and I imagined what I looked like through this woman’s eyes. The piss and vomit stained sweatpants, the smeared food encrusted over the jiggling exposed top of those tits--yeah, real sexy. My hair lay slickly against my scalp and bloodshot eyes stared anxiously from a pale face. I looked like I goddamn strung-out crack whore or something. It’s a good thing those pants were baggy and the pills murder to the libido, killing off any suspicious bulge down below, because the last thing I needed was the neighbour gossiping about the transvestite hooker in apartment--I had to check the door--1607. Looking at myself I felt intense embarrassment, and for once it had nothing to do with this body in which I found myself trapped. I could barely meet the girl’s impatient gaze.
How the hell could I have allowed myself to come to this? This wasn’t life, existing--barely--on painkillers, detached from the world around me; might as well throw myself from the balcony instead. Life was pain; Katherine taught me that a lifetime ago, and I silently thanked her for the reminder.
“Miss Cindy Long?”
“Uh . . . yeah. Yes. That’s me.” Those were the first real words I’d spoken aloud in nearly two weeks, other than some vaguely crazed mumbling to myself. My first words and they were weak and timorous. The sound of that voice, the softer tones and higher register--this girl’s voice that rang false in my ears--was now mine. Cindy’s voice. And the next words that tumbled reluctantly from my lips took me by surprise: “I’m Cindy Long.”
I made a vain attempt at brushing back my hair and rubbing some of the filth from my face. “Sorry about. . . .”
“If you’ll just sign, please?” Her voice was brusque and I couldn’t blame her. I wouldn’t want to talk to me either.
Taking the delivery I signed ‘Cindy’ instead of ‘David’, which in my detached state I felt quite proud of. Even signed with a lighter hand and dotted the ‘i’ with a heart and everything. The woman handed over an envelope and quickly left. I stood there for a moment, blinking and confused, and slowly looked down at the letter.
Cindy Long, it said, and an address. My address, my new home; I am Cindy Long.
With heavy steps I trudged towards the bathroom, dropping the letter next to the broken picture frame along the way. I needed a shower. Sweatpants slid past jutting hips and pooled on the floor as I stepped free of them. The bathroom was small, crowded and brightly coloured. I pulled back the plastic shower curtain. Stepped gingerly onto cool porcelain. Slid shut the curtain and twisted the knob.
Cold water slammed into me. I gasped through the shock as the shower clawed at the stench and filth and tore through the fog I’d been wrapped in these last two weeks. Staring up into that bitterly chill cascade, for a moment each droplet seemed suspended, catching the diffuse ivory of the curtain and the emerald of the shower tiles in a kaleidoscope of green and white. Blinking, and then shivering violently, I stood unmoving as the water broke against my lithe frame.
As the fog lifted my thoughts gradually cleared. Sudden ideas, thoughts, fragments of sentences flashed through my head and with them came a rush of emotions, feelings thrust aside for the last two weeks as I trembled and my teeth chattered and God, shit, what have they done to me, how could she, I’ll fucking kill them! Giet bid daet selast . . . if Akiko could see me now--or Sakura--kick my ass for letting this happen--they were so fucking sexy, these girls from the past; I wonder where they all are now . . . Daet he donne wel dolige. These things done to me, I can not change. But such things can be endured. To endure such things well is important. Survive until such a time as I can get back to being a guy. Put Cindy to rest and then kill off all the other fuckers responsible for this humiliation, for this frail and fragile body. . . .
I sagged against the wall and released a shuddering breath. Shit. Easier said then done, yeah? My mind shied away from the thought of way lay ahead, from the idea of actually living this life prescribed to me. A diet of feminizing pills, a menu of lingerie and makeup, a feast of tight clothes and high heels; how long could this last? I turned over, pressing my forehead against the smooth expanse of tiles. The water continued to pound and shatter against my back and neck, the icy chill penetrating deeply. The cold forcefully reconnected me to my body, to the physical presence of those nipples tightening almost painfully into hard nubs, to the heavy weight hanging from my chest as the water coursed through my cleavage, and the relentless crawl of goosebumps across my skin. . . .
“Shit,” I muttered. Water ran in cold rivulets down my cheek and along my jaw, dripped from the tip of my nose. My fingers curled into a tight, trembling fist at my side. I wanted to pound that wall. Shatter those tiles. I raised my fist. Clenched and unclenched it. Those fingers--the same size they’d always been--seemed much daintier now. Weaker. What would punching the wall accomplish? With something akin to a groan I uncurled my hand and firmly pressed my palm flat against the smooth tiling and slowly slid to the floor. My polished nails, chipped and dulled after two weeks of neglect, glistened wetly, adding a pink hue to the wash of green and ivory.
My breathing slowed, relaxed. Anger and pain released: with conscious effort I eased into a renewed control of myself. Eventually I clambered to my feet. By this time I was nearly numb from the cold, shivering uncontrollably, teeth chattering. A twist of the dial made the water nearly scalding and filled the air with steam. The heat bordered on painful, but pain was good, far better than unfeeling numbness. I reached for the shower gel and started to wash. The water carried the suds and filth and stench away and I watched them circle the drain and disappear.
Cindy’s shower was small and a little cramped, but the water was hot and the pressure good, and I relaxed a little. I’ve always done a lot of thinking in the bathroom, you know? There’s no better seat than a toilet for some good, serious reading. And a long, hot shower: the natural birthplace of philosophy if you ask me, and the wellspring of a thousand brilliant ideas that never get written down. So no surprise that, as the heat spread through limb and body and my skin flushed a brilliant pink, my brain, like a bear emerging from hibernation, shaking off the slow dreams of long sleep, slowly emerged from dormancy into a state of profound calm but startling wakefulness.
“I’m Cindy Long.” I repeated those words from earlier, turning into the shower and speaking through the fall of water. The sibilance start of this name, the flick of the tongue and the glottal twitch of the throat that ended it: unfamiliar but not uncomfortable as it rolled off the tongue. A rose by any other name, Akiko once taught me, and as Cindy’s perfumed wash permeated the air those words took on new poignancy. Surrounded in the floral aroma that would leave its taint across my flesh, this body announced Cindy to every sense: this soft skin that felt like Cindy, these soft words sounding so female, this gentle scent that was all girl and these curves and hair and gentle features that displayed her to the world.
I was Cindy Long, and my every sense insisted that she was a prison from which I could not escape on my own. The question was not whether I should live this life; I had no choice. The question was whether I could. Pretending to be Cindy for three weeks at the Clinic was one thing, and even that had almost driven me crazy. But to actually live her life, to not just act but actually be female for . . . how long, months, a year? That was a one-way road to hell, a goddamn superhighway paved with perverse intentions that ended in insanity. Yet what choice did I have?
My mind methodically worked through the possibilities: perhaps K was lying and Steele thought me dead; this was all some twisted plot on her part, aided by Scooter and the Clinic. But why? These things done to me must have cost a fortune, but to what end? Even if K was completely insane and obsessed with some bizarre revenge against me, Scooter didn’t seem the kind of guy to indulge her mania, not at the risk to his beloved Clinic. Unless, of course, he thought turning me into Cindy was a convenient way of disposing of me. Then why bother keeping me alive? As sick as these things those bastards had done to me were, they were right about one thing: they’d saved my life, the fuckers. They could’ve left me to bleed on the hospital floor. Any debt I owed them had been paid in full by Cindy, but their efforts meant at least one thing: they didn’t want me dead.
Which meant that maybe K wasn’t lying about Steele. Maybe the sonofabitch was still out there hunting for me. If that was the case, then living as Cindy for a while longer made a twisted, awful sense. Shorter, lighter, smaller, curves and softness squeezed into this tight little package: there was no way that psycho’s assassins could recognize me as David Sanders.
I hefted the weight of one breast in my hand and let it drop back before starting to soap up both tits. Yeah, definitely no way they’d recognize me unless I did something really stupid--like walk out that door and straight to the cops, demanding help. As if they’d believe me. And even if they did, I’d be right back where I started months ago, only with a smaller, weaker body. I could turn to some of my old friends, call in those favours from when I worked for Sakura--but I couldn’t let them see me like this. They weren’t the subtle kind of help I needed right now, anyway: not so much good at hiding things as they were at laying down grievous retribution.
And finally, and maybe most importantly, without the help of the Clinic there was no way I was getting a male body back. The changes were too extensive. Even if I cut my hair, trimmed my nails and had these tits chopped off, I’d still have hips that a man shouldn’t, Cindy’s voice and this impossible face, a dead assassin’s mask lying over what remained of David beneath.
I took all the anger and frustration and doubt and rolled it up into a tight little ball and swallowed it down. Here in the shower I could allow all those distraction to rise to the surface. I could work them through and then . . . let them wash away. With fragile calm, I reached for the shaving cream and began to lather up my legs and armpits. Stuck in the life, I resolved to be the best goddamn Cindy that I could be--for now.
Having finally made that decision, everything else suddenly seemed a hell of a lot easier. People like to think that the biggest changes in life arrives hand-in-hand with monumental events or are marked by grand displays, loud exposition and brilliant words. They’re not. A man gets shot but lives, a woman loses her baby, an explosion wipes out someone’s family and they seize that moment and declare: _now_ I’m different! But they’re not. Within a month or two they’re the same miserable bastard they were before, all the more miserable for their inability to change. Because those radical changes, the fundamental shifts in a person’s life and the way they see the world? They’re just as likely--far more likely, even--to happen during the most mundane of times, over a pint of beer at the pub, while riding a bus they’ve ridden a thousand times before; during a quiet, reflective moment in the shower.
And so an hour later, cleaned, scrubbed, moisturised, smooth and soft, smelling nice, lightly made-up and oh so fresh and pretty, in nondescript bra and panties, dressed in jeans and a bulky sweater and comfortable runners, heart pounding in my chest, terrified, ecstatic, carrying a small purse and repeating a comforting mantra beneath my breath--I finally felt ready to face the world outside my apartment. I primped and fussed and stared at myself in the mirror. A pretty young girl stared back, a stranger with familiar eyes. At that moment I knew--despite the humiliation, the anger and frustration--that I could do this.
Besides, I suddenly realized that I was absolutely starving. Two weeks without proper food or drink . . . hell, I’d probably dropped even more weight since the Clinic released me. I needed to grab some food, pronto. Hell, a little booze might be nice as well.
On the way to the door I picked up the letter I’d signed for. Putting those long nails to use I slit the envelope open. A letter from Cindy’s bank--new ATM cards issued in my name. I peeled the debit card from the paper and held it awkwardly between my fingers. I couldn’t suppress a small smile. A bank card and a bank account: what better, more tangible proof could there be that I was now and truly Cindy Long?
***
Two weeks later, cradling the oversized mug in my hands, the heat slowly penetrating into my hands as the coffee warmed me from within, I stared deep into my dark beverage and found no new revelation there. Looking up I’d still be Cindy: a small, young girl sitting primly at the edge of an oversized sofa-chair, knees pressed together, eyes demurely downcast and only rarely casting shy glances across the busy Starbucks. The too-short skirt would still be riding too high up my thigh, and my trim little tummy would still be bared by the too-tight t-shirt I’d tugged on this morning. Everything about Cindy was ‘too’-something: too small, too cute, too weak. And too bad, because this was now my life and it felt like these past few weeks had been a constant struggle to avoid going too crazy.
I didn’t look up; I continued to stare into my coffee; I couldn’t look up. I felt the hot flush blossom in my chest and slowly creep up my neck before setting my face afire, a deep red glow burning beneath the morning’s light makeup. It’s not like I wanted to examine the floor in all its scuffed and spotted glory or anything, believe me. It’s just that ever since I’d started the daily regimen of medication, these sudden intense waves of emotion would occasionally wash over me, tidal swells as powerful as any lunar tug, insistent, immersive and impossible to ignore. A person could drown in these sudden emotions, bouts of paranoia as persuasive as any I’d ever known, humbling fear that could wring a stomach as tightly as a dirty washcloth--and embarrassment, unrelenting, pervasive, turning legs to jelly and leaving me desperate for longer bangs, hair long enough to hide behind, a veil for eyes incapable of meeting any other in fear of bursting into tears.
The creak of worn leather and a settling of weight. “You mind if I sit here?” A man’s voice. Of course it was a man’s voice. All week strange men had been sitting next to me, opening doors, striking up unwanted conversations--trying to touch me, hold my hand, stroke my back, pet my arm--the goddamn bastards. Normally they could be easily deterred with a cold smile or an empty word. Sometimes I even indulged in a quick chat, making sure to never quite make eye contact, lick my lips, brush back my hair or accidentally touch his arm. I knew damn well the staggering power of such small gestures. It’s like signing a goddamn marriage contract for some of these sad fucks; it’s like a declaration that you’re soulmates--or at least willing to spread your legs for a few free drinks and an expensive meal.
I gave a quick nod, still unable to look up or speak, still caught in the grip of my sourceless embarrassment. My face burned so hotly, the coffee felt cool as it touched my painted lips. This sense of shame, this humiliation was nothing new. Every morning I woke up and looked in the mirror and as I shook off the dreary remains of last night’s bad dreams the humiliation of being Cindy settled over me, a familiar, heavy woollen blanket draped across my narrow shoulders, smothering, scratchy--a constant, irritating presence. There was no escaping this shame. Countless acts throughout my day reminded me of what I’d become. Every click of my shaped nails as I carefully cradled a glass in my hand; the frequent glances into a compact to check my makeup; the constant flicking of hair from my eyes; the delicate tickle of dangling earrings against my cheek; as the wind caressed the inside of a bared knee; each bump of a purse against my hip; the click of heels--everything; every fucking thing I did reminded me of my new life and every fucking time I felt ashamed of what I was becoming.
But I could deal with this. It could be endured. What choice did I have?
“Hey, are you okay?” I wanted to scream at this nosey jackass and tell him to leave me the fuck alone--but I couldn’t. I couldn’t do that. A young girl like Cindy doesn’t yell at guys in coffee shops. She doesn’t shy away from daily flirtations. She’s comfortable with the come-ons because she’s known the semi-unwanted advances of men both young and old her whole life, just like any other attractive young girl. Sure, the constant attention might annoy her sometimes, but not as much as the thought of that dreaded day the wandering eyes of the opposite sex begins to drift elsewhere.
More importantly, of course, there’s another kind of attention no girl wants to attract: that of the psychotic professional assassin, one of which, I felt fairly sure, had been following me this last week.
The embarrassment gently eased its grip, enough for me to raise my head and brush the hair back from my eyes. I tried for a wan smile. He had clear blue eyes. They were filled with concern, though not so much that they forgot the all-too-familiar wander down my cleavage, with a quick detour across my bared midriff. He smiled back. Shit: contact. Now he’d think I was flirting with him--and probably call me a prick-tease when I shot him down.
“Rough morning?” he asked. He folded the day’s newspaper away as he turned his full attention to me. I took a quick, settling breath. These emotional surges were so powerful they nearly sent me whimpering to the nearest dark, silent place, somewhere I could hide and forget. Fortunately they were usually short-lived. I could ride them out. Confront them face on. Let the waves of emotion break against a cool and collected centre and methodically think the problem away. Anger and fear--these I could deal with. Only the embarrassment was crippling; it was the worst and had to run its course, sometimes lasting for an hour or longer. I couldn’t just will it away because it hit too close to home.
I nodded. “Yes,” I murmured. “My boyfriend and I had a fight this morning.”
“Oh. I see,” he answered, his eyes already turning glassy. Only two weeks and I’d already learned why a pretty girl drops her current relationship status into a conversation as early as possible. The man’s concern evaporated almost instantly and his smile became forced. “Sorry to hear that.”
“It’s really annoying, you know?” I continued, leaning forward. “I mean, Max--that’s my boyfriend, yeah?--he’s like, such a nice guy? And really considerate, too, and I don’t just mean with flowers and stuff, if you know what I mean. He’s got the most amazing touch.” I fluttered my eyes as if in dreamy recollection. “But then sometimes, he’s just such a jerk, you know?”
“Uh . . . sure.” The guy was rapidly developing a deer-in-headlight look.
“Of course you do, you’re a man, right? So I mean, what’s it all about? It’s like, for example, last night we’re having a great time and all, and then suddenly he’s trying to, you know, stick it up my bum, and I’m all like ‘what the hell are you doing down there?’ and he’s like ‘I slipped’ with this stupid smile on his face, and I’m not stupid enough to fall for that one, believe me, and it’s like he tries this almost every night even though I tell him I’m not that kind of girl, and when he tried again this morning we had a fight and I. . . .” I stopped as if at a sudden thought. “Oh my, you don’t even know my name, do you?” I extended my fingers, wrist limp, for a handshake. “My name’s Cindy!”
“I’m, ah . . . John,” he said, looking vaguely horrified.
“So then tell me, John: why is it that guys keep trying to stick their thingy up my ass?”
Well, John didn’t have much an answer for that, and quickly excused himself. Hiding a smile, a strange mix of triumph, horror and shame churning in my stomach, I returned to my profound contemplation of the cup in my hand.
The first week had passed quickly, a blur of terrifying, brief ventures out into the city followed by long hours at ‘home’--and that shitty little apartment was gradually beginning to feel like a home, even if not quite mine--spent exploring every crook and cranny of the place. It’s not like the place was very big, but it’s amazing how much stuff gets crammed away under sinks and in the back of closets, beneath a bed or behind a bookshelf. Whether K set the whole thing up herself or had help--she must’ve had help--I couldn’t help but feel a grudging admiration for their attention to detail.
It wasn’t just the digitally manipulated photos in the albums or on the walls, the ones displaying my new face, the ones that came together to form a fragmented narrative of a life I couldn’t remember. It was the small details that impressed. The battered and faded high-school diary I found buried in a drawer, with its weepy poems and names underlined in gel pens or angrily crossed out. The half-used bar of soap, newly opened bottle of nail polish, the empty tubes of Cindy’s favourite lip gloss and the waiting box of tampons. Errant coins in the sofa, a scratched disk in the bedside alarm clock, the scuffed stiletto with a broken heel. All these minor details came together to create another story, a story of Cindy told through favourite and forgotten things.
Padding around the apartment some nights I felt that I could almost understand this strange girl I’d become. Lying back on the sofa, staring out blindly at the glimmering city, I could almost immerse myself in her life. Sometimes she almost seemed real.
But she wasn’t. Buried in the back of the bedroom closet, beneath an empty shoe box and behind the clothes hamper, I found something no real girl would own: my very own fake vagina. In a sealed medical container, floating in a viscous preservative fluid, I found a grey lump of fleshy material I recognized as one of the prosthetics K had forced on me so long ago. (Was it that long ago? For me it felt like only a few weeks, even though several months had passed. I’d only gone one day with that damn thing off before those bastards got me on the operating table.) A small jar contained the amber goo needed to bond the fucking thing to me. A small stick-it note on the inside, written in K’s small, jagged lettering, quickly explained: “new and improved model, for emergency use only.”
Emergency use--what the hell was that supposed to mean? I clearly remembered the agony of that thing clamping on to my crotch. Nothing could get me to slap that thing back on . . . nothing! I was living Cindy’s life, yeah? But it’s not like anyone was going to be getting into her--into my!--goddamn panties, thank you very much.
My coffee was empty. The frosted pink lip-prints that stained the mug’s rim mocked me. Suppressing a sigh I pulled a small mirror from my purse and set about fixing my lips. I knew damn well how devastating sexy something as simple as putting on makeup could be, those slender fingers holding a thin lipgloss, the way it extended the length of each finger and made them seem more delicate, the subtle and slow slide of shiny colour across slightly parted lips. . . .
Hiding a grimace of pain I uncrossed my legs. Sexy thoughts were bad. A hard-on was bad. It hurt, especially with your nob tucked between your legs . . . and when you’ve just spent the whole shitty morning sitting on the poor thing. Every so often there’d be that sharp jab of pain, or a dull throb, or an almost crippling ache, to remind me just how ridiculous my disguise really was.
I put the mirror and makeup back into my purse. I’d also spent the last two weeks in an intense study of the feminine arts, long lonely nights spent sitting at a table with an array of strange and foreboding products before me. I’d hate to think how many hours were wasted staring into a mirror, putting on makeup, wiping it off, leafing through one of Cindy’s many magazines or books on the subject and starting over. Back at the Clinic I’d done much the same but it had all been different then--annoying but a bit of a laugh, something to keep me busy for a couple of weeks spent in hiding. A perverse joke, a furtive step into a forbidden world, naughty but short-lived.
But now? I wasn’t hiding anymore. I was living, and somehow this practice had become a part of my long-term survival. These skills were an essential part of this new life and it was almost scary how easy, almost instinctive, they were becoming. They were, I was beginning to realize, the few skills that Cindy actually possessed. After all, I wasn’t David Sanders anymore, with his expensive condo and his own corner office on the ninth floor, with a secretary and a string of nightly conquests and a membership to the best gym in town.
Now I was Cindy Long, young and pretty, certainly, but also a high-school dropout. I was unemployed with limited funds in the bank. I was alone in a big city, with a driver’s license but no car, a home full of pictures but no friends, no family, already growing bored of the daily Starbucks coffee routine, of the chick lit books on the shelf and girlie magazines, sickened by the closet full of clothes I hated to wear, and these D-cup tits constantly on display, the exposed half-moon flesh over my close-fitting top jiggling with every movement slowly, now flushing a bright red and the heat crawling up my neck. . . .
Guess I wasn’t going to escape the coffee shop just yet. These mood swings were going to drive me insane.
***
A heavy wind, laden with the promise of rain, swept down the busy street carrying the dust and detritus of the city. Overhead, churning clouds bled over drab buildings that clawed the sky, tainting everything grey. A delivery bike wove between traffic, honking angrily as it left blue-black fumes in its wake. With a wheezy sigh a bus stopped before the coffee shop, brakes screeching loudly, and disgorged its passengers. Those people flowed past, breaking on either side of me, their blank faces casting angry glares and appreciative glances my way as they rushed to work, suits and ties, skirts and heels, briefcases and purses, take-out coffee and cell phones in hand. They all seemed so very busy and purposeful as I stood there bemused, only just remembering to drop my hands before the insistent wind lifted my skirt up and revealed more than just pale thighs.
Shaking away empty thoughts, I stirred into motion. Not yet ten in the morning and I was heading home. I envied these strangers with a purpose, with a morning destination more exciting than a Starbucks. Confronted with all these people, with the vibrant flow of life, the groans and wheezes of the city, I felt--adrift. The urban current could carry me away if I relaxed into it. But where would I end up, this pretty piece of fluff, this delicate ornament cut loose from the world?
I stifled a laugh as I walked. If only Akiko could hear me now--(So long as she couldn’t see me. Anything but that)--when the hell did I become so melodramatic? Besides, cute little things like Cindy don’t drift into strange neighbourhoods. Not if they know what’s good for them. Good way to get hurt--or worse. Yeah, sure, I still knew how to defend myself and all, but with these puny arms? Let’s just say I wouldn’t be looking to pick any more fights these days.
My steps carried me down the street, past windows looking onto offices, through greasy clouds wafting out of restaurants finishing off the breakfast rush, the acrid scent of hairdressers and the warm breath of a dry cleaner. The rapid clip of my kitten heels against the pitted pavement made an almost familiar sound. Already! How long before these distractions no longer registered, before these reminders of femininity became habitual and forgotten? The thought terrified even as it seemed a welcome relief from the constant agitation.
That first time two weeks ago outside the apartment nearly did me in. I only survived twenty minutes, just long enough to snag a bottle of cheap wine and instant noodles from the nearest shop before fear sent me scuttling back to the safety of my unwanted new home. Much better to spend hours scouring the floors and picking up the crap I’d left all over, cleaning the living room and kitchen and airing out the funk of two weeks of pills and dazed sweating and stale vomit.
I’d quickly realized just how sheltered the Clinic had been. Surrounded by crazies, rich weirdos and dopey convalescents, who’d notice one more pseudo-transvestite with issues? But the city was different. Intense. So many eyes, so many voices. People, all ready to point their finger. Ready to accuse, ready to expose me. Or perhaps worse . . . ready to accept me for what I seemed--a girl--and treat me accordingly, to objectify, to leer and ogle. . . .
Asklepios offered beauticians to perfect my disguise, teachers to help me pass, security and protection; the city provided none of these.
I turned a corner at a small grocers and left the main strip behind. The roar of traffic dropped away quickly. There was still the occasional pedestrian headed in the opposite direction but quieter now, their faces more relaxed, an occasional smile sneaking through. A few minutes up the street there was a park where I liked to sit and read. It was a small verdant oasis set surprisingly close to the urban bustle, but if I sat on the right bench the rustling trees hid the overarching towers of concrete and glittering glass.
The wood bench felt cool and rough on my ass through a thin skirt, sending a brief shudder up my spine. Sitting there, I had to admit that these legs of mine were sexy as hell. If I was stuck with the damn things, why the hell shouldn’t I show them off? But these goddamn skirts were fucking inconvenient. I had to cross my legs high up my thigh or risk every passing pervert glimpsing my panties, but believe you me, sitting like this was murder on my balls. Like I had any choice, you know? It was just another painful ignominy forced on me by Scooter and Agent K.
Humiliating, yeah, and painful too, but this is the thing: as annoying as living this life was, there was a part of me that was . . . enjoying it. Fuck that. Enjoying is too strong. Intrigued? Not by Cindy, no, and not by the bullshit necessity of pretending to be a goddamn chick, or of these feminine mysteries slowly being revealed; no, not by any of that. It was the challenge. Starting over. Exploring the city. The study, the practice, the constant risk of discovery . . . and yeah, the subtle thrill of not being discovered, of fooling everyone and feeling all these dumbass pricks following me with their eyes and knowing I’d tricked them, that I was just so goddamn good at what I do that they were swelling in their pants thinking about a guy in a skirt who could’ve once kicked their ass.
God, I’m a twisted little fuck, aren’t I? Because more than anything else it was the danger--the thrill of it, the eager thrum of nerves--that somehow made this almost worthwhile. Not counting that first week on the run with Agent K, I hadn’t felt this awake since . . . God, since I used to help Sakura out. Five years of being David Sanders nearly knocked me into a coma and now I felt powerfully alive. Yeah, that thrill reached me all warped and wrong, made grotesque like the reflection of a Carnival mirror . . . but fuck it, at least I wasn’t bored. This twisted, soft body through which every sensation and emotion touched me made damn sure of that. Looking back I could see how numb I’d become, playing the part of the ordinary corporate dick.
A little sunshine peaked through the clouds overhead, warming me slightly. Gleaming lancets of light splashed off the artificial pond. I tried reading my book--a shitty romance so saccharine it should’ve carried a warning for diabetics--but couldn’t focus on the words. The park made for a nice place to read but I rarely concentrated well. It’s not just that the books and magazines available from home were painfully boring--no, not just that at all. Rather, there were so many other distractions. The park itself, the hint of flowers and grass and sand that tickled the nose beneath my own girl scents. Joggers in the distance, blonde ponytails bobbing in counterpoint to each step, shirt darkening with sweat between their tits, such sexy young girls--and the sharp pain in my crotch: birds chirping as they danced the sky; the woof of a dog chasing a ball. The crunch of passing footsteps and, glancing up, a stranger.
A young man walked by, well-dressed, listening to music on his way to work, with clear blue eyes that pulled away from my cleavage as we made contact. He smiled and I instinctively smiled back and he walked on with a lighter step. Jackass. Yeah, the thought that I’d brightened that punk’s morning brought me very little satisfaction. A little boost, the smile of a pretty girl: maybe he’d have the confidence to hit on a secretary today, bend that bitch over his desk and fuck her over their lunch break, her feet scrabbling for purchase in too-tall heels as he slammed into her from behind, skirt up around her waist and hair falling across her face. . . .
God, I hadn’t fucked a secretary in ages. I shifted awkwardly in my seat, uncrossed and re-crossed my legs, surreptitiously adjusting my boys best I could as they strained against their lacy confinement. So, yeah: plenty of distractions in the park, but nothing compared to the reality of simply being me. Sometimes, for entire minutes at a time, maybe even a half-hour, I could lose myself in an unexpectedly interesting paragraph or in following a pedestrian walk by in the distance, but eventually, always, the tightening of a nipple under a cool breeze, a bead of sweat down my cleavage--the splash of polished colour against paper as I thumbed the page, or my own girl-scent, brought me back to Cindy.
My eyes peeked over the top of the page. A few pebbly dirt paths wound between the trees, dotted with benches on either side. I scanned the faces of the other lonely bastards sentenced to reading newspapers and feeding pigeons on a weekday morning. Already many of them were familiar; these new routines of mine obviously overlapped theirs. There’d been a few grudging, tentative exchanges of ‘hello’ but little more. This kind of place and this time of day, people could be fiercely protective of their own space and thoughts. Besides, they were all a hell of a lot older than me and seemed unsure what to do with this pretty girl in their company.
That early joy of exploring brought me here early last week, and I’d been coming back ever since. I had a new life to create for myself but in many ways found myself falling back on old routines. I still woke up as quickly and early as I’ve always done. The morning workout was replaced by things better suited to Cindy: I swapped sit-ups for cleansing and moisturising and push-ups for hair-care and styling, and you can damn well believe I felt the shame of giving up my manly habits for these things better suited for a pretty young thing like Cindy. There was so much of it: longer showers, the shaving, plucking, cleansing and moisturising, and then makeup, of course. God, the makeup took ages; how do girls put up with this shit every morning? Different cleansers, moisturizer, concealer, foundation, mascara, eyeshadow, pencil, lipstick, another pencil, gloss, blush . . . fucking hell! The whole process couldn’t finish without the tiny click of a dozen little bottle, tubes and vials being opened and shut.
And then I had to get dressed. I set myself a strict time limit on picking out clothes, or I’d lose an easy hour agonizing--procrastinating--over what to wear. Believe me, I took no pleasure in my mornings.
Hardest part of the day in some ways, this getting dressed bullshit. Two weeks of intense research, yeah, but trying to think like a sexy twenty-year old still didn’t come easy. And then I had to overcome that queasy stomach flop as I reached for the day’s panties; and then threading my arms into a bra, long fingernails still fumbling with tiny catches behind my back, and then figuring out how to strap my cock and balls back without crushing the poor bastards, choosing between bare legs or stockings, flats or heels, hating either possibility and myself for being in this position--and then finally that moment of revelation before the mirror as I lost myself in morbid contemplation of the cute sexy thing before me. And every day, that sense of fascination--of sick awe--seemed less intense and faded faster, replaced by a subtle joy at the sight of my own beauty. . . .
Then out the door; and all being said, once I’d swapped muscle for prettiness, it probably only took me a half-hour longer to get ready in the morning than it used to as a guy.
Not, of course, that I had anywhere to get to in a hurry. A slow walk downtown, trying a different route every morning. An indulgent hour spent over coffee; one sugar and a touch of cream now where I used to prefer it black. I’d read the newspaper if someone left one behind, catching up on all the usual news: more violence in the Middle East, some new superbug, a second young girl found slaughtered in the city park, a fucking cat caught up a tree. I wasn’t a big fan of newspapers, you know? It’s like, my life’s been more interesting than most of what’s written in there, and you know what? Once you’ve seen a certain side of the world and been through some tough shit--really harrowing shit, you know?--you can’t help but find the day-to-day stuff pretty shallow. Add to that the absurdity of my current life and, yeah, the papers didn’t hold that much appeal. What did I care if another goddamn ice cap melted when I was wearing a mini-skirt and mascara, in hiding from professional assassins?
I figured that Cindy probably wouldn’t be all that keen on the papers either… well, other than the fashion section and all that shit, of course, and maybe entertainment. I’d never noticed how much of a newspaper--especially the weekend ones, with all their colourful inserts and extra sections--were totally geared to women. We’re talking page after glossy page of advertisements for makeup, fashion advice, sexy women to emulate and shoes most girls couldn’t walk in. But while Cindy might find that shit fascinating--and by necessity I had to learn to like it to, just to learn what was up-to-date for a twenty year old chick--mostly I was looking for some kind of coverage of Steele’s trial.
Nothing.
Otherwise I’d fall back on whatever book or magazine I’d shoved into my purse (goddamn fucking Steele, I had a _purse_!), or I’d sit back and people-watch through the window. Mostly I people-watched, and pondered, and weathered the occasional bout of stormy emotion. Then a little more walking, some exploring, and I’d spend another hour in the park. Some days I followed that by hanging out at the mall, window shopping and feel the buzz of the crowd, eavesdropping on conversations; other days I wandered lonely backstreets and quiet parks, or hid in my apartment. A few nerve-wracking nights I ate out in quiet restaurants. And as much as I really, really wanted to hit a bar or, better yet, a really good pub . . . yeah, I wasn’t up for that. Not yet. Not even close.
Amazing, though, how easy it is to go through an entire day without speaking to anybody, without really talking, if you know what I mean, conversation beyond “paper or plastic, miss?” Even a pretty young girl like Cindy can end up alone, surrounded by the multitudinous crowds of the city.
This was a goddamn waste of time. My mind was dancing around deeper truths I didn’t want to confront. Better off to just head home and do fuck all there. Ten o’clock, yeah? I wondered it was still too early to hit the booze.
A sudden shiver. Something was wrong. A slow look over the edge of my book. That paranoid tingle at the base of the spine: I was being watched. Not in the usual way, the way that girls like Cindy are constantly being watched. One of the faces scattered across the park did not belong there. Unfamiliar, or more likely glimpsed earlier but somewhere else, too often caught at the edge of the background.
I was being followed.
The immediate rush of fear would’ve dropped me to the grass--if I’d not already been sitting. I felt my legs go weak and quivery--but only for an instant. As quickly as the fear came I pushed it aside. I’d been expecting this.
For the past week there’d been that itch between my shoulder blades, that hint of someone unknown on the periphery. He or she was good, but fuck it, so was I. Sakura had taught me a thing or two about being followed--and about following. Besides, K had warned me that Steele would be watching. Not that I could trust anything that bitch told me, of course. This could just be a fluke, a perfectly ordinary stalker with a thing for young girls in the park. It could even be someone K or Scooter had sent. Two weeks of puzzling it over and I still hadn’t figured out their game.
Goddamn the bastard, though, it really could be another of Jeremiah fucking Steele’s assassins. He’d already forced me into this girl’s life but the asshole wasn’t satisfied; he was still hunting for the one that got away. That jerkwad must be getting pretty damn desperate if he was having twenty-year old chicks followed--but that didn’t mean I was in any less danger. Crippled by clothes I’d barely held my own against Agent Fosters. Crippled by my very body, what chance would I have?
On the other hand . . . shit, but this was the first opportunity I’d been given to figure out what the hell was going on. I’d be damned if I’d let it slip away. This hidden bastard following me around might have some of the answers I was looking for. Time to go get them.
I read for another ten minutes, barely seeing the words on the page. Put the book away in my purse. Pulled out a small mirror and spent another five minutes fixing my face, poking my hair into position, freshening up my makeup and fixing that natural glow and feminine shine. I stood, brushing down my short skirt, and stretched my arms wide, breasts straining against their confines. A long, leisurely look across the park, basking in the intermittent sun and cool wind, and I set off, walking back into the city.
Hands thrust into a long beige coat, wearing sunglasses, loitering on a bench half concealed behind a tree with a newspaper in hand: I briefly caught the guy reflected in my compact before leaving my seat. Couldn’t pick out many details but I’d recognize him easily now. When the path turned and I casually looked back towards the bench he was gone. Following from a cautious distance, I’m sure. Good.
My skin fairly tingled as my heart pounded, senses stretching out--feeling fully aware and alive. God, I loved this, even as fear pulsed just beneath my eager anticipation. I left the park and took the long route through the outskirts of the city centre. Narrow homes and cramped apartment buildings competed with convenience shops and small markets for space, and I walked a twisting--but not suspiciously so--path around corners and past small shops. Window shopping allowed the rare glimpse of my purser, ghostly snapshots caught reflected in glass before he stepped back behind a corner.
The clothes on the other side of the window were sexy but classy, a flirty party dress with a wide belt and fluttery skirt in bronze and golden colours, next to a shimmery, form-fitting gown in deep crimson hues. I had a momentary thought: how would I look in that?--and my legs turned weak again.
What the fuck was I doing? I suddenly felt acutely conscious of my appearance. The short denim skirt that hugged my ass and barely reached mid-thigh, this tight t-shirt over a thin halter top that bared my belly-button and hugged these tits: for the first time since beginning this charade I suddenly felt vulnerable, hyperaware of my clothes, this ridiculous makeup and accessories that screamed for attention instead of turning it away; what if this went wrong? If this guy suddenly suspected something and caught up with me--with me so short, and tiny and weak, dressed like some teen princess . . . what the hell would I do? Something stifling blossomed in my chest and a hot flush spread across the exposed curve of my tits and crawled its way up my neck and my face blazed a fiery red as I struggled to breath, to catch my breath, leaning heavily against the glass, nails clicking against the smooth surface, shining pink in the bright sunlight. . . .
No--no, fuck this! This burgeoning panic, it was the hormones, the drugs Scooter fed me, evanescent bubbles in my bloodstream that led to hysteria. In the comforts of a coffee house or my own home, fine, fine, I’d play the stupid little girl and give in to my panic; but not here. Not here! I was stronger than this, stronger than this fucker following me, than the drugs and chemicals and plots levelled against me. I took a long, shuddering breath. Focused on the lessons of another life, remembered the man I’d once been and would be again. Rage was stronger than shame; and the thrill of the game overcame the fear.
They weren’t going to beat me that easily.
As I stepped onto one of the busier streets, merging with the light flow of pedestrians, in a twisted kind of way I even began to enjoy myself. Strolling along, still glancing into shops, I easily overcame the urge to tug down the hem of my skirt or to hunch forward in a vain attempt to hide my tits. Instead, I walked proudly--nearly strutted, swaying with each clicking step, smiling brightly and even winking at one wide-eyed guy walking in the opposite way--fuck, I even tossed my hair at one rude whistle that followed my passing.
Because, goddamn if I suddenly didn’t realize what all this bullshit really was. This was a game. Yeah, a game with the highest of stake--my life!--but still nothing more than a stupid, perverse sport, a match between me and the rest of the goddamn world. This jackass following me, was he good enough to keep up? Did I have the skills to turn the tables on the bastard? And Cindy--the crux of the whole damn thing--yeah, she was nothing more than an elaborate role-play. Could I trick everyone into believing that a tough-guy asshole like me could pass as a sweet ‘lil girl, all sugar and spice and lingerie so nice?
You bet your ass I can. Because when I get in on a game--when I’m serious--I play to win. Always. I’d wiggle my ass and mince about and keep my lips nice and moist, just to make this bastard following me cream his pants with desire; and then give hi the slip and take him from behind and slit his fucking throat before he knew what hit him.
Turning another corner, I passed a dirty, rubbish-strewn cramped alley next to an even dirtier-looking bar. I’d absently noticed it as a place to avoid on a walk earlier this week. The windows were blackened and the ratty posters pasted to the wall half-hidden under scrawled graffiti. The place seemed seedy and dingy and based on an advert stuck to the window I was fairly sure it was a strip bar. But the door was ajar and I’d led my follower on enough of a chase.
I gave him a moment to see me hovering out front of the bar. A sudden fresh burst of fear caused me to hesitate--and then I stepped through the door.
***
Strip clubs aren’t exactly my kind of place, but they’ll always have a soft spot in my heart. About two years ago I’d gone to the one near work for some corporate schmoozing and by the end of the night I’d picked up one of the strippers. She was this big-titted slut called Candi. That wasn’t a stage name or anything (and what kind of twisted parents name their kid ‘Candi’, with a cutesy ‘i’ and everything?) and I’ll be honest: I didn’t exactly date her for the conversation. Although saying that, she was gritty in a way I really liked. She was genuine and real and she knew a thing or two about what life was really like and how crap it could be, compared to the shallow whininess, the phoniness and bullshit of the bitches in my workplace romances.
Candi wasn’t one of those clever university chicks stripping for tuition. She wasn’t doing it because it was empowering, or to make some feminist point, or because she was some freaky exhibitionist. She was a high-school dropout with a drug habit and head full of issues. She had a killer body and an okay face, and she figured out early what she was best at. Step-daddy beat her once too often and so when she was sixteen she ran away to the big city. She scrounged enough cash together to get some quality work done on her boobs, and as long as the looks lasted, she probably took as much satisfaction from her job as David Sanders had from his.
She’d known exactly what she wanted that night and damn if she hadn’t been one of the nastiest, sexiest fucks I’ve ever had. I dropped a lot of cash on that date, and it was some of the best I’ve ever spent. Squeezed into a clingy dress, she cut quite the inappropriate figure at that fancy restaurant I took her to, and damn how I loved the scandalous stares she drew. She slipped under the table before the waiter even had time to take our drinks order. The way she deep-throated me as I struggled to order the Bordeaux, my fingers digging furrows into the tabletop as her head bobbing up and down my shaft, her moans and slurps going nearly unheard beneath the gently falling strains of the restaurant piano player--God, that kind of shit you never forget.
But that was a lifetime ago. Stepping into a strip club these days, management would be throwing me up on stage before they offered me a seat and a beer. Those memories of Candi flared across my mind as I slipped through the door. I shoved them aside.
Squalid and dark, the entrance stank of stale cigarette smoke and spilled beer. Momentary silence enveloped me, a stark contrast to the constant din of the city. Stopping for a moment to catch my breath, eyes blinking and adjusting to the dim light, I felt my heart pounding in my chest. My pursuer wouldn’t follow me into the club, not if he wanted to remain anonymous. He’d have to wait outside for me to emerge.
(If, on the other hand, he was looking to catch me--I’d just given him the perfect opportunity away from the crowds of the street. Pretty girl steps into nasty bar and never comes out; would anybody notice? I’d just be another page two column in tomorrow’s newspaper, girl number three found dead in the park with a slit throat.)
I padded across the entrance and as I approached a swinging door opposite, a faint thrumming of music reached my ears. Treble and midrange joined the beat as I pushed through into a large dimly lit room with a bar at one end and a low stage at the other. The stage was empty but complete with mandatory pole and mirrored backing. A scattering of tables filled the hall. The chairs along jerk-off row were lifted off the floor and turned upside down on the edge of the stage. A large, industrial-size wet-vac sat unattended in the middle of the room. Coloured lights drifted idly across the stage, flashing to the beat of the music turned low. The lights scattered against a mirrored ball and danced lazily around the room.
Passing through the room, I tried to keep as silent as was possible in kitten heels. Women’s clothes aren’t exactly designed for practicality, let alone for subterfuge, you know? Even with the music, the click of those hard-soled shoes and narrow heels sounded absurdly loud in my ears. I’m pretty damn good at being quiet when I want to, but everything about Cindy was designed to draw attention, not turn it away. Keeping low, I wove between tables and made my way for a door near the stage. The “Staff Only” hopefully meant it might lead to a back room, and then onto a rear exit from the bar.
“I don’t give a fuck how fucking big his fucking glands are! We’re already short a girl for tonight, we’re not opening short a bouncer too!”
A short, podgy man came storming into the room from a door near the bar. He was well-dressed and wouldn’t have looked out of place with that morning crowd streaming past the coffee shop, but his face flushed red with rage left him dangerous- and sleazy-looking. “You tell Alex to get his fucking ass down here, you hear me?” he continued, nostrils flaring with anger. His face glistened with sweat as he stomped past. “I won’t have my girls endangered because that pussy’s got a bad cold.” He jabbed at his phone as he stalked across the room and shoved it into his pocket. “Now where the fuck’s the cleaner gone to,” he muttered, headed for the swinging door.
He shouldn’t have seen me. It was bad luck--nothing more. A sudden shift of the lights above cascaded off of one of my earrings and sent out a brief flare. The man glanced absently my way as he walked. I held my breath. He stopped walking and did a quick double-take.
“Who the fuck are you?” he demanded, spotting my crouched form. “What the fuck are you doing in my bar?” He reversed directions towards me.
Shit. I pretended to fiddle with my shoe before standing straight. I flashed a nervous smile. “Um, hi?” I quickly scanned the area for something I could clobber this bastard with if things turned nasty.
He came close enough to see me clearly. I shifted uncomfortably under his gaze. His eyes scanned me up and down slowly and his scowl quickly melted into a smile. His face lost its red flush, and with the anger gone he seemed almost friendly, a beardless Santa Claus in a Hugo Boss suit. Saying that, despite the surprisingly disarming smile there was a hardness to his eyes that he couldn’t hide. It made him intimidating--especially standing this close, with his heft and height that left me feeling so small.
“You must be the girl the agency was sending over,” he said.
Jesus Christ! Five minutes in a strip club and some sleazeball manager was offering me a job. “Um, yes?” I squeaked out, thrusting those D-cups out a little more proudly. His frankly appraising gaze made me want to squirm like you wouldn’t believe. A slow burn started in my stomach, although I had to admit that in some ways the man’s look seemed less sexual than most of the creeps ogling me on the street. This guy was appraising the merchandise, not looking to score.
“My name’s Frank,” he said, thrusting out his hand.
“Hi, I’m. . . .” With a sinking feeling in my belly, I gave the first answer that came to mind. “I’m Candi!” I said, swallowing a deep sigh. His hand, slightly clammy, ignored my limply extended fingers and seized me by the wrist.
“Sorry about earlier,” he said. His grip slid past my arm and found my waist with far too easy familiarity. Giving me a light tap on the ass that made me jump, he effortlessly led me towards the stage. I nearly planted my elbow in the bastard’s temple, but narrowly suppressed the urge.
“No problem,” I answered through gritted teeth.
“Just having some staffing issues. Nothing for you to worry about. After all, my loss is your gain, right?”
“Yup!” I answered, and forced a giggle. “It’s like, I’m new to town and when the call came I was, like, just so happy, because I’m desperate for work and. . . .”
“Of course you are, babe,” Frank said. “You have any working clothes with you?”
I blinked at him in confusion.
He sighed. “For the audition?”
What, the bastard expected me to jump on stage? Yeah, in your fucking dreams, Frank. I shook my head, earrings dancing against my cheek.
“Um, I just moved here and. . . .” My hand fluttered to my lips. “Oh no! The agency, they didn’t tell me and . . . oh, I’m so stupid! I’m sorry, I’m really sorry, I’ll just rush home and. . . .” Okay, yeah, I was laying it on a bit thick but at the moment I just wanted to get the hell out of there. There was a professional assassin waiting for me outside, but believe me, I’d rather go mano-a-mano with one of Steele’s hired killers than get up on that stage and prance around like this guy’s wet dream.
“Easy, Candi, easy,” Frank said, giving my ass a ‘comforting’ squeeze that nearly resulted with my knee in his crotch. He led me towards the Staff Only door. “You can borrow some shit from the changing room, okay?”
We passed through the door into a dark hallway. The slow burn in my stomach redoubled at the sudden realization that I was alone with this strange man in the back of a disreputable club. No one knew I was here, other than the bastard following me outside. My fear was irrational; this guy didn’t get to run his club by assaulting every girl that walked through his door. At least not on the first day of work, anyway. Besides, I knew I could take him despite my lack of strength. It wouldn’t be pretty, but especially with surprise on my side I’d kick this jerk’s ass. Reason did nothing to dispel the anxiety.
With a final pat on the ass he pushed me through a door. “You get yourself prettied up, Candi, and I’ll see you on stage in five.” Again that charming smile, but he spoke with unnerving authority, the kind the suggested something bad might happen if I kept him waiting.
I smiled over my shoulder at him. “Okay!” I answered, trying to look grateful and hoping the dark hid my disgust at this man’s touch. “And Frank? Thanks for the chance.”
“No problem, babe. You hurry up now.” He pulled out his phone. “I’ll set up some tunes and wait by the stage.”
The door shut with a solid click. I gave Frank a minute to clear out of the hallway and scanned the room. Last time I’d been back stage in a strip club had been with Candi. I’d fucked her up against the bare concrete wall behind a rack of cheap fake furs and silver lame stoles. Five minutes flat, rough and intense and rude, and she’d fucking loved it, nearly gnawing a chunk out of my shoulder as she stifled her moans. Then she’d quickly changed and slipped back into the bar to work the tables, and you bet your ass I’d loved the idea of her belly being still warm and sweaty from my efforts as she rubbed her ass up against those sad pervs in the bar. She’d left me to find my own way out, of course, and I’d had to quickly sneak away before the bouncers caught me and embarrassed themselves trying to kick my ass.
I stepped up to the mirror over the makeup counter. The startled-looking girl in the mirror’s green eyes were wide with surprise at the situation she found herself in. Arching my back slightly, I watched as she thrust her chest out and the disarmingly shy smile that contrasted her pose. But looking closer, anger smouldered beneath those soft features, and her eyes were far harder than Frank could ever imagine.
The fucking things is this, though: as my eyes danced across the room, taking in the row of ridiculous shoes, those towering spikes and inches of platform, and the scattered collection of sparkly vials and shimmering clothes, I couldn’t help but briefly imagine myself out on that goddamn stage, shaking my ass and twirling around that pole.
With tits like mine, God, and this fit little body and those years of working out, the grace and dance-like motions that accompanied all my training--goddamn, but I’d make one hell of a stripper. Better than Candi had been, even--other than one important bit, of course, and the stirring of my cock beneath my denim skirt (and the tucked-away pain that came with it) snapped me from my reverie.
Fucking hell. It seemed just yesterday I’d been rising through the corporate ranks, with my own office and secretary, wearing tailored suits, screwing sexy girls I’d picked up in painfully fashionable and over-priced bars . . . how the hell did I end up here, backstage in some grotty little strip bar, half-imagining myself twirling around a pole for the entertainment of a bunch of sweaty, sad men? I gave my head a shake. Goddamn hormones, stupid pills playing with my head; focus.
I poked my head out the door. Empty. Silent. Stepping lightly into the hallway, I walked quickly away from the main room. The door closed behind me with a faint click. I passed a storage closet, staff toilet, turned a corner and . . . perfect: a back exit.
Pushing the bar, I gently opened the door an inch. Blinking in the sudden light, I peaked into a short recess off the main back alley. It reeked of piss and refuse. Flies crawled across the taut skin of garbage bags bulging from a large bin pressed up against the brick wall. The wind breathed down the narrow passage, stirring up dirt--died down--returned stronger than before accompanied by the whistling of cables overhead.
I flicked the lock open so that I could come back this way if I had to. The door closed shut behind me. I quickly crossed over to the back alley. The brick felt rough beneath my palm as I hugged the wall and looked around the corner.
The alley led about thirty metres back to the main street that the bar opened on to. He stood there waiting patiently at the corner. My pursuer. About six feet tall and slender, with shaggy blond hair and good clothes, a strong chin and angular nose. A large dumpster and scattered cardboard boxes and strewn rubbish lay between the two of us. An open vent breathed out greasy warm air and the wind’s presence sounded a low howl as it swept down the alley.
Easy. I crouched down and picked up a discarded beer bottle. I slid the bottle into my purse and gave it a solid whack against the ground. It broke with a muffled crack. My delicate fingers curled lightly around the neck of the bottle and pulled it out and held it up before my eyes. The bottom half lay in shattered fragments in the bottom of my purse, and the jagged edges glistened wetly with leftover beer. A few silent steps to the dumpster, a slow creep along its edge--and then the final rush; even if he heard me it’d be too late. I imagined thrusting the broken bottle into his neck, the gush of blood and gurgled surprise, and smiled. David: 2, Steele: 0, you fucking bastard.
I slipped out of my hard-soled shoes and delicately rested my full weight down on my bare feet. Carefully, mindful of broken glass, I slid into the alley, shuffling forward, weight resting on the edges of my feet, the bottle held loosely in my grip, using the dumpster and boxes for cover. I moved swiftly forward, staying close to the wall, the wind flowing over me and carrying away every sound, my girlish scent, tossing my hair up in a blonde halo around my face and cool against feverishly hot flesh. I reached the back of the large metal container. My nose wrinkled at the stench as I crept closer.
A momentary oasis of unnaturally intense silence. I could hear every sound my follower made, the slight scuff against the ground as he shifted his weight, his exhalation of breath and the rustling of his long coat. My hand tightened its grip on the bottle. A final exhilarating moment; tightly coiled, I slithered to the edge of my concealment and tensed for the attack.
“Hey. It’s Jeff.”
The man’s voice caused me to pull back.
“Yeah, reporting in.” He paused for a moment. “Tell me about it. Shitty day. Think it’s gonna rain. Feels like a big storm coming in.”
He kept his voice quiet as he spoke, and his eyes kept a careful watch on the entrance. A few times he glance up the alley but gave no sign of spotting me.
“You ready? Yeah,” my follower said. “Subject: Cindy Long. Female, age 20. Subject left her apartment at 8:11 am and. . . .” For the next several minutes he gave, at a rapid, clipped pace, a complete litany of my day’s progress. I was a little put off to realize that he’d been following me for longer than I’d known; those damn hormone flashes were playing havoc with my senses. I should’ve picked up on him the moment I left my apartment.
“10:48: subject steps into Satori and . . . .” He stopped for a moment. “Yeah, Satori. It’s a strip club. Strange name, I know. You should see this place, absolute dive. Bit out of character for this girl if you ask me, but she’s definitely got the bod for it.”
Damn straight I’ve got the body for it, you fucking jackass. My grip tightened on the bottle. As soon as he got off the phone he’d find this body was good for more than just stripping and dancing.
“That’s it. She stepped in 15 minutes ago and I’m waiting for her to come out again. Maybe she’s applying for a job or something, how the hell should I know? I haven’t seen her do any other work and she’s got to make cash somehow.” He nodded a few time. “Yeah. My recommendation? This is a fucking waste of time. Why the hell does Steele want this girl followed anyway?”
I flushed hot, then shivered as a chill danced down my spine. There was the confirmation I needed: Steele was still behind all this bullshit. Guilt flashed through me at having doubted Agent K--but only momentarily. The constant weight of these massive tits nestled in their lacy cups didn’t leave much room for any emotion but anger at the thought of that bitch, you know?
“No, I’m not questioning the boss’s orders. You think I’ve got a death wish? But what the hell do you want me to say, Dan? This chick’s life is boring. She wanders around the city and drinks coffee and spends most of her day in her apartment getting drunk.” He paused. “Yeah, she’s been buying loads of booze. Nah, I don’t think she’s got any friends.”
And you know, hearing this bastard judge my life like that--so flippantly, so dismissively--fuck, it actually hurt, you know? Stupid thing to be feeling, crouched as I was, coiled and ready to spring forward; but the stark truth of what he’d said hit me so hard I almost had to blink away tears.
The fucker listened for a bit, grunting a confirmation at the occasional unheard question. Finally he shrugged. “Well, no,” he said, his voice grudging. “But her profile says she’s just come out of a round of therapy and surgery, right? Of course she’s going to be acting a bit . . . yeah. Yes.” He sighed. “No, she hasn’t exactly been acting as expected. Her behaviour doesn’t match her profile, but her recent--
“She’s been aloof. You can quote me: ‘moments of extreme sociability that seem almost forced, followed by long stretches of alienation and introspection.’ No. No. Yes, from this profile you sent over I expected a ditzy blonde or something, a real flirt, but . . . hey, don’t get me wrong, she’s hot and dresses real sexy but . . . hell yes! I’d do her, but there’s something about this girl that’s a bit off . . . I don’t know, something in her body language or something. Like I said--she just left a clinic, right?”
My muscles were beginning to ache. I wanted to stretch out but didn’t dare move. This guy--Jeff--even in his conversation his senses clearly remained alert, mindful of the entrance to the club and any movement in the alley. A few times he had to cup his phone to be heard as the wind whistled through and I nearly missed what he was saying. I was counting on that wind to conceal my presence when I moved.
“Alright, fine. It’s Steele’s money. She’s acting odd. I’ll continue the surveillance.” With that he clicked his phone shut and slid it back in his pocket.
And that was my moment: his brief distraction as he ended the conversation. A short window in which I could rush forward and that’d be that, throat ripped wide open, dead before he hit the ground, his hand still in his goddamn pocket, blood spreading in a slow, dark pool around his unmoving body. . . .
Only I didn’t. Instead I backed away, quietly, back into the bar, and left the broken bottle standing behind the dumpster in the alley.
***
Later that night, after a long shower and several stiff shots of whisky, I sat on my sofa and stared out at the glimmering city lights. Dressed in a fluffy robe with my smooth legs curled up beneath me, I slowly clenched and unclenched my hand and found that I couldn’t dispel the phantom presence of the cool, pitted glass in my palm, the invisible weight of a broken beer bottle.
That asshole--what was his name, Jeff?--would never know how close he came to dying today.
Instead I’d made my way back through the bar. Given Frank some bullshit excuse, a tearful apology about how I couldn’t get up on that stage, how I thought I could but I couldn’t, I wasn’t that kind of girl. . . . Really melodrama, you know? And he’d been surprisingly understanding, which was a good thing because I’d still been in a fighting mood, tense and ready to kick the guy in the nuts if he gave me any hassle. Instead he gave me his card, told me to call if I ever changed my mind. Yeah, don’t hold your breath, Frank.
I should’ve killed him. Jeff. My shadow. I would’ve enjoyed it. Another chance to strike back at Steele, at this goddamn maniac screwing up my life. My hand clenched tight again and I felt my anger bubble up within as a physical presence, a stifling weight that left me flushed and hot. Somehow I’d find the bastard. Make him pay. Steele was the one that I wanted to make bleed--not some anonymous stalker-for-hire. But killing Jeff would’ve given me away.
Better to maintain the illusion. Fool him, fool them all. They had a profile. How, from where? Probably from the Clinic--K said something about Steele’s men hacking into their network. So they knew what Cindy was like. And as long as I acted differently that what they expected, as long as I wasn’t the twenty year-old chick they expected. . . .
They’d be watching.
I’d play their fucking game. I’d be the girliest fucking girl they’d ever seen. I’d dress pretty and live this shitty life they’d forced on me and no one would ever suspect that behind this painted smile and innocent wide eyes, someone--something--else entirely lurked. Eventually my followers would wander off. I’d be free. They all seemed to have these goddamn profiles, psychological evaluations, character sketches, written outlines of who I was. David Sanders. Cindy Long.
They didn’t have a fucking clue.
I’d be watching. And waiting. And when their attention wandered elsewhere I’d be the one following. This was their game but I was damn well going to make it mine.
With sudden resolve I surged to my feet and stalked to the middle of the room. I dropped to me knee and stretched out across the floor. I rested both hand, palms flat against the floor, on either side of my chest. A deep breathe, another . . . and I pushed.
First in my triceps, then both shoulders, and finally my chest: the burn, and then the ache. My arms trembled. I pushed and strained and slowly lifted off the floor. . . .
I held it for five seconds--five eternal, agonizing, magnificent seconds--arms fully extended, wobbling and weak, eyes watering with the effort; and then my strength suddenly evaporated and I dropped back to the floor.
A full hundred pounds--and fuckin’ A! I could do at least one!
And tomorrow, I’d do two. . . .
***
Continues in Chapter 03
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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.]
Constant in All Other Things 2, Chapter Four
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
Synopsis:
Despite David's best efforts at hiding as Cindy, his disguise has been found out by a jilted ex-girlfriend, leaving him scrambling to convince her to keep his secret. If only he'd ended thing better with her ten years ago....
What has gone before:
David Sanders saw something he shouldn't have: his boss, pharmaceutical magnate Jeremiah Steele, murdering an underworld rival. Placed in protection, an assassination attempt forces David 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 and experiences of feminine existence... until a drunken encounter with an ex-girlfriend throws his life into peril once again.
***
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 loose 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.
***
The young woman—more of a girl, really—a pretty little thing, sat alone at a small indoor table in a secluded corner of a fashionable boutique café. On this blisteringly hot and bright Sunday morning, she consciously projected a look of youthful femininity: dainty, open-toed, high-heeled sandals sparkled at the ankle strap; white stockings, patterned with flower blossoms, disappeared beneath a short skirt in burnt orange, high-waisted and tight, cinched in by a row of heavy buttons. Her makeup was glossy, bright and youthful. Her top, black and sheer, form-fitting and buttoned at the back and ruffled at the shoulders, hinted at the bra beneath and emphasised her curves but left her slim arms bare, with a pair of delicate bangles glinting at the wrist. Twin, curved strips of silver twirled like DNA strands at her ears. Her lips, shiny and pink, glimmered in the subdued light of the café. A narrow, pink hairband decorated with tiny bows pinned back her long blonde hair.
The girl sighed impatiently.
She sat as far away as possible from the large windows at the front of the café. Her attention switched frequently between her phone on the table and her image in one of the many small, round mirrors that decorated the café walls. Her reflection seemed to her as delicately wrought and precisely painted as the mirror’s filigree frame of intertwining metal threads. She smiled, weakly, nervously tucking an errant strand of blonde hair back behind her ear, and tried again—better, she seemed to think, giving a satisfied little nod.
A small porcelain cup of cooling green tea sat on the table. A faint semi-circle, rose-tinted, stained the edge of the cup where she’d taken a sip. She turned the cup so the lipstick smudge faced towards the empty seat opposite. Squirming slightly, she crossed her legs at the knee, sitting straight, chest out, head turned slightly to one side to present what she hoped came across as a particularly feminine profile for anyone—a specific someone—walking through the door. Poised, but not prim; composed, and calm. But she couldn’t maintain the posture for long, and slouched, and flicked a glance at her phone and once again at the mirror and wondered, For fuck’s sake, Julia, where are you?
The waiting was killing me. Hours! Hours I’d spent preparing for this, searching for just the right outfit, crafting the right look for this meeting with Julia. Hour spent online, brushing up on makeup and fashion tutorials, trying to decide just what the “right look” could possibly be for meeting an ex-girlfriend who’d discovered the man that dumped her a decade ago was now a young woman—more of a girl, really—a pretty little thing she’d found curled up and puking in the toilet of a nightclub last Friday night.
I hadn’t even noticed the text from her until late Saturday afternoon. I’d no memory of getting home. The last I remembered, clearly—far too clearly—was kissing Dan on the mouth. It was pretty sporadic after that, until waking up in bra and panties in my bed late Saturday morning with a howling headache and a case of the shakes, my clothes in a pile on the floor. There’d been plenty of remorse in the early hungover hours of Saturday morning, vivid and lurid flashes of indistinct memory as I huddled under bedsheets, hiding from the painfully bright daylight: the bright contrast of painted nails against the sharp crisp whiteness of a man’s work shirt, my hand, his chest; the intense scent of bamboo and earth as he leaned close; our lips, meeting, parting; his tongue, and mine…
But I was beyond feeling sick at the thought of kissing him. Too much drink, not enough food. Mixing medication, mixing booze. Stress and exhaustion. Fuck it! It was in the past. I’d been enjoying myself until that point. Sort of. After weeks of social isolation, getting back out into the public had felt—good. Necessary.
Most of Saturday was spent lurking in darkness in Cindy’s little apartment, hiding from sunshine and the world and nursing the worst hangover I could remember suffering in years. It was at least noon before the shakes subsided and I could even sip water or contemplate nibbling at some leftovers surviving in the fridge. Eventually I thought to check my phone. And after scrolling and studiously ignoring a pair of texts from Dan, the message:
Meet me at Café Sporus. 11am Sunday. Let’s talk about D. Little Caesar.
The words were without meaning when I first read them. Shrugging, I’d tossed the phone aside and lurched towards the shower, eager to wash away last night’s filth and the lingering phantom of Dan’s touch. And the moment the first cold spray slapped my naked body I gasped as another memory from the night before came crashing back.
The stall. Throwing up. Pungent sting of vomit. A woman, helping – somehow familiar. Taking control – fixing my makeup – putting me back together to get me home with some semblance of dignity intact. And then a name, tumbling from the distant recess of memory…
Julia.
She’d said my name: David.
How the fuck had she recognized me?
And if her, who else?
***
I take the front and Tom takes the rear.
She’s on all fours on the bed, tartan skirt up around the waist, stockings rolled down to her shiny black heels, tangled around the ankles. Her bra is tossed aside and her tits out. Her soft flesh ripples with each wet smack as Tom rhythmically thrusts into her. She moans; Julia’s moan is muffled around my cock and feels wonderful. She looks up at me pleadingly and I deliberately ignore her. Across the pale expanse of her back, Tom grins and briefly releases his grip on her waist. She’s still impaled on his thrusting cock as he gives me both thumbs up. I return the grin.
It’s ten years ago and it’s the last time I saw Julia.
We’re all young and stupid and very, very drunk. It’s been my first year of real work, my first year after getting off the street, calling in some favours and picking up the fake name and the credentials needed to make my start in the “real” world. This night is the culmination of months of hard work on a contract, my first real professional success, and it’s turned into a night on the town, one that started earlier as a quiet, intimate dinner between Julia and me. At this point we’ve been dating for—what, two month, maybe three? And I know it’s time to end things, that she’s getting seriously invested into me and that I’m just not looking for something serious. And I’m thinking—David’s thinking, the fucked-up me of ten years ago is thinking—why not end it with a bang?
Despite the passage of a decade, the memory of that night remains clear. I hadn’t thought of Julia specifically in ages but I remember the event with absolute clarity, spit-roasting the girl with Tom, high-fiving him over her bare ass as we skewered her on our dicks before groaning and grunting and spewing our load deep into her. I remember the night with more than a little pride and maybe a little guilt.
I mean, she knew what was coming. I’d been working on her for days, building her up to this. By the time we reached the elevator, I think she wanted it as much as we did. And that’s where it started, before we’d left the ground floor, with my hand gently stroking her inner thigh and kissing the nape of her neck and then a moment later Tom holding her hand and kissing her gently on the lips. Before we reached his floor, I was fingering her pussy and he was groping her tits under the blouse and she was panting like a bitch in heat. We were a tangle of limbs as Tom fumbled with the keys and we all but fell through the door into his home. We paused long enough for each of us to swiftly tidy up in the bathroom, catch our breath and enjoy a stiff drink and some heavy petting on the sofa before I picked Julia up and carried her into Tom’s bedroom.
So it was all consensual and a fucking load of fun. But I guess to this day I still carry some regret that I didn’t handle the aftermath better. I left her in Tom’s bed and walked out into the late night and walked for hours until I found my way home a little before dawn, passing through some questionable parts of the city, searching and hoping, I think, for a fight, for some idiot to try and mug me or something. Instead, when I got home, I sat and drank and stared out the window until the sun rose and then I picked up my phone and dumped Julia, by text, and made it clear that I never wanted to see her again and that I was disgusted by what she’d done.
To this day I can’t really explain why I did it. Thinking back on that final night together now, I remember a moment in our threesome with startling clarity. I gaze down at her. She looks up and our eyes meet. Her eyes are wide, and her lips full, a brilliant crimson O pursed around the tip of my penis, until a thrust from Tom pushes her forward and plunges me deeper into her mouth. Her voice, a vibration humming up the length of my cock, feels amazing. I smile lovingly down at her. And my emotions at that moment are genuine. I do love her, or at least feel as strongly about her as I have anyone in the past year. I admire her willingness to do this for us, to submit to Tom and me; I’m in awe of both the strength and confidence it must have taken to put aside her misgiving and fear and follow both of us back to Tom’s apartment.
But any feelings I had for her were a betrayal to the woman I had lost a year ago. The ghost of Sephy rose even as I came, and maybe that explained the twisting bitterness and hatred I felt for Julia afterwards.
I remembered Julia as a strong-willed woman, passionate and ambitious, and yet she’d nevertheless yielded so compliantly, so easily to us. Having fought my whole life for—everything, then and now, I’m mystified, the me of ten years ago and of now, by her total surrender. Awe and respect so quickly turn to scorn and spite: how could anyone ever give themselves over so totally to someone? How did she embrace her own vulnerability so completely?
Wearing stockings and heels and with ample tits of my own, I wriggled at the edge of my seat at the uncomfortable kinship I suddenly felt with the girl of that memory. I squirmed with shame, at the contrast between the manliness I’d embodied then and the girlhood I now lived. From distraction, the consequence of wearing the most feminine underwear I could find: a pretty, long-length bra; thigh-highs and a thong—all white and pink—deliberately chosen as a constant reminder of the role I had to convincingly play today. And finally, unsurprisingly, I squirmed with pain as erotic memories reminded me that underneath all these frills and lace there lurked a penis, straining against its confines, tucked and taped away to maintain the illusion that was Cindy.
That illusion had to be absolutely, totally convincing today. My life depended on it.
Had Julia told anyone about me? Probably not. At least, not yet. What little, discreet research I’d managed online suggested my testimony against Jeremiah Steele hadn’t gone public. My disappearance from the job at NeoPharm might’ve been unusual, but people left their jobs all the time these days. Julia had the day after I dumped her – she just quit and disappeared, just as I had after witnessing the murder. She had no reason to report her discovery of my identity to anyone.
On the other hand, she didn’t need a reason to blab about Friday night’s debacle. A mocking word to a friend, overheard by the wrong person, or microphone; an errant dropping of my name online, picked up by some clever AI scurrying back to Steele with even a hint of my disguise – and I was fucked. Probably literally considering what those maniacs at the Clinic had done to me. The fact I was still alive was probably evidence enough she hadn’t done anything stupid yet. I had to make sure it stayed that way. Had to convince Julia to keep my secret, no matter the cost and by whatever means necessary. Because if Cindy’s words couldn’t convince her, then David’s violence sure as hell would.
I’d sacrificed too much already to fucking lose now. My fingers curled into a tight fist and the prick of longer nails digging into my palm proved a fitting reminder of what was at stake. Whatever sick plot I found myself emmeshed within, I had the navigate some way through it, come out the other side and take my revenge on all the sick bastards who’d ripped my life away and left me …
“Cindy,” I whispered softly under my breath.
***
I’d rehearsed the script the night before and on the bus ride into town this morning.
“Please, call me Cindy Bellamy,” I’d say. “Thanks for last night,” I’d add. “I’m Cindy,” I’d insist. On that final point, Julia had to be completely convinced. Preparing Saturday night and this morning, I considered deeply what, exactly, I needed her to believe; and what image would best support the lie. At first I’d considered dressing a touch more masculine, a subtle reminder of the man Julia had dated. Then I tried going the full opposite, an explosion of full-on femininity that bordered on drag queen exuberance. Eventually I scaled it back to something more suitable, a carefully crafted performance of Cindy’s girlishness—of a life chosen, not forced, but simmering with concealed doubts and concerns.
Because I couldn’t trust her with the truth. At least, not the full truth. I didn’t know this woman, this ten-years older Julia; and I wouldn’t have trusted the one I knew, let alone this stranger. She had more than a little reason to be upset with me, I had to admit, and though ten years is a long time, I understood all too well how some grudges can linger and fester. If she was still angry, would it be enough to turn me in for a price on my head?
No. At least, I didn’t think so. But I couldn’t risk it.
And of course, more than anything she’d probably want to know how or why her boyfriend of ten years ago had, rather than keep pace with her in age, instead shed a few years and, yeah, his gender along the way. My plan, galling as it might be, was to convince her that this was by choice, that I’d made the decision to live as a woman – that I was a woman, and always had been, though I’d been in denial about it for some time. I just needed to convince her to respect the new me – to not mention David or bring up my old existence – to just let me live this new life I’d willingly crafted for myself and keep my secret.
I stood as she entered the café and waited bashfully by the table. Julia was dressed for comfort in loose-fitting harem pants and flats, a plain, camo-green cotton t-shirt clinging to her with sweat from being outside in the heat. She pulled off her sunglasses and tucked back her long, black hair with a flick of the head and quick stroke of the left hand, and I found myself smiling at the remembered, familiar gesture. I envied not only her comfortable clothes but also the unconscious confidence she exuded as she strode purposefully towards me. I’d been too drunk on Friday night to really notice, but Julia seemed to have embraced her thirties with conviction. She looked good. Like, really good.
Smiling openly, I extended one hand gracefully to greet her. “Hi! Please, call me—”
“Sit down and shut the fuck up,” she said, cutting me off.
Stunned, I dropped into my seat as Julia, with surprising intensity, took the chair opposite.
“You don’t get to talk. This is my moment, not—” and here, she waved her hand in a vague gesture taking in my appearance, “…yours, whatever this is.”
“But—”
“Shut it.” Her voice was firm and controlled. She leaned close. “You have no idea how many times I’ve rehearsed this.” She swallowed, and I could see the tightness in the ropes of her neck. “With my therapist. In my head. To the mirror. How many times I’ve dreamed of confronting you. How many times I’ve written down what I wanted to say.”
She took a deep breath.
“You hurt me,” Julia said. She said it softly, momentarily uncertain, as though she didn’t quite believe this thing she had dreamed of so often was actually happening. “You hurt me,” she repeated, her voice growing in confidence. “Ten years ago. I was in love with you.” Her hand briefly reached out towards me, as though to pull me close, but instead fell to the table and gripped its edge tightly. “I loved you and you threw that away, threw me away after you used me, like skin peeled from a fucking piece of fruit. When I woke up in another man’s bed and read that you’d dumped me – by phone, you cowardly, insensitive prick! – it destroyed me. Do you understand? You fucking broke me!”
I licked my lips nervously and went to speak, though I had no idea what to say, and hesitated at the slick taste of lip gloss.
“No!” She banged the table with her first, and my cup clattered noisily. “Still my turn!”
I nodded.
“It took me years – years! – to get over that night. I gave up my job, friends, my goddamn life to get away from the memory of you and start over. And I hated myself for it!” She took a deep breath, and when she continued her voice was low again, controlled and firm. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to hate yourself so thoroughly you want to die?”
Yes, I wanted to say. I do.
“For years I hated myself for letting you talk me into that night with… with, what’s his name?” She sighed with frustration. “Whatever. Your friend. I fucking gaslighted myself, saying it was my fault, that I should’ve been stronger and just said no. Or I told myself it wasn’t a bit deal, it was just a threesome, I must’ve wanted it, right?
“But it wasn’t my fault. It was yours.
“And I didn’t want it; you did.
“But I did it anyway, because I loved you.” She stared at me, at the girl sat opposite and her eyes widened slightly with disbelief. “I loved… you, so deeply and totally that the thought of losing you drove me half-insane and so I convinced myself to go along with it and what happened…? You dumped me anyway. You dumped me and told me it was my fault, that I was disgusting, and you never wanted to see me again.”
For a moment, the soft lighting at the back of café sparkled at the corner of her eyes. She glanced away angrily, and then back, and her gaze was clear and hard. “And I fucking believed you. It was my fault and I was disgusting, and I hated myself so thoroughly I wanted to die, and the thought of never seeing you again left a hole inside of me, a pain so deep inside of me I wanted to disappear into it.”
Julia took another deep breath. “You have no idea what that kind of pain feels like,” she said.
I wanted to laugh; I needed to speak. The desire bubbled up from somewhere deep inside. But taking a deep breath and feeling the tight constriction of the bra, I kept silent.
“Something you want to say?” she spat.
I shook my head, earrings jouncing against my cheeks.
“It took me years to recover,” she continued. “And therapy. And drugs. And at first I hated myself for that too – for being so weak, for needing help, for letting the pain sink such deep roots into me, as though it was a choice, something I wanted or did to myself.
“But you did that to me: you.”
She fell silent, sinking deeper into her seat, staring at me over steepled fingers. Storm clouds gathered at her brow. A waiter, a sharply-dressed young man closer to Cindy’s age than Julia’s, took the moment to surreptitiously slide up to our table. “Uh… ladies?” he said, voice low and deferential, directing his attention ever so slightly more towards her than me, “Can I get you anything?”
Julia started. “Ladies?”
“Miss?”
Her lip curled in a sardonic smile. “Whatever. Yeah. I’ll have whatever … whatever they’re having,” she said, waving her hand at me.
We waited for the waiter to return. Julia seemed momentarily content to sit, silently appraising me in silence. Meanwhile, I tried to regain some of my composure, reaching for that place from which I could convincingly perform as Cindy. A twisted laugh, short and sharp, lurked somewhere dark and deep within, at the absurdity of this scene and the pain we echoed. I hadn’t expected this, not this… anger, this bitterness and pain, not after ten years; and Julia’s rant had left me scrambling for some way to claim control of the situation.
The waiter returned, deposited Julia’s drink, and silently withdrew.
She quietly picked it up and took a long sip. “Good choice,” she murmured, sounding a little surprised. She then sighed and put the cup down. “So… this,” Julia said, and waved her hand at me. “What’s the fuck’s all this, then?”
She sounded exhausted, and for the first time I noticed that she looked tired, too. She must’ve had a sleepless night, maybe rehearsing what she wanted to say, as I had. Her makeup was light, and I could appreciate that she’d made some small effort to conceal the dark under her eyes, and the hint of wrinkles that had started to worm their way into the thirty-something flesh of her cheeks. My makeup was considerably heavier, but there were no signs of aging, no flaws to hide… no trace of errant masculinity. I fairly glowed with feminine youthful vigour. What must she think, how must she feel, looking at her boyfriend of ten years ago and seeing twenty-year old Cindy, a girl even younger than the man I’d been then?
“Please,” I started. “Call me… -” but my voice trailed off, and died, and I swallowed heavily over an unexpected lump in my throat. I held up a finger to signal I needed a moment.
The previous script wasn’t going to cut it. I could see that she yearned for something from me: an apology, mostly, for some recognition of what I’d done to her and remorse for the pain caused over all those years. Every tense, angry line of her body made clear that she wanted me to say: I’m sorry. I’m sorry for hurting you. I was wrong.
That is what she wanted. But beneath that I detected a darker, more primal desire: an unrealized need far more potent than the want for some apology. In the stormy embrace of her gaze, in the way her eyes drank deeply of the image of her feminised former lover, I saw, restrained but not entirely supressed, an almost feral hunger.
She wanted me to say sorry and disappear from her life again, past trauma resolved. But what she needed was to consume me, utterly, to gorge herself in an attempt to fill that void of pain and loneliness left by my departure ten years. She needed – me.
And that desperate a need? I could work with that.
“It’s good seeing you again, Julia,” I started, tentatively.
She laughed. “Is it? Really?”
“It is.” I offered a gentle smile. “I haven’t, you know, really seen anyone from… before.” Truer words were rarely spoken, and I would’ve happily kept it that way. It’s not like I went out of my way to catch up with ex-girlfriends; that sort of encounter is awkward enough at the best of times and this… this wasn’t the best of times.
This was a bad time to be confronting Julia. It’d been two months—two whole fucking months of dresses and skirts, of taping my cock back and shoving my balls up inside, of makeup and heels and wearing a bra and simperingly soft conversations and smiling, smiling, smiling so much I wanted to scream sometimes. I hated it, ever goddamn minute of it, but if I was brutely honest with myself it was also getting easier.
It’s like, I couldn’t go around all day fucking freaking out because I had tits, right? At some point I sort of stopped noticing them, just as the stockings, or earrings, or makeup faded into the background—well, for short periods of time, anyway, until jabbed by an underwire or because the goddam bra strap kept slipping off my shoulder or, most likely, I caught some dude staring at me. Sometimes I could go for, like, an entire hour without really thinking about the misery of my existence, just absently floating along with Cindy as she went about her day, silently observing her from the outside. The darkest hours were usually the alone hours, after work or on weekends, when the comfort of being out of the public eye was made agonising by the freedom to see myself for what I’d become. It was so much easier, in some ways and perversely so, during the busy hours of a workday, caught up in the bustle of work. Bound tightly into routine, there was some relief from the anxiety of simply existing as something I wasn’t. Through repetition, the unfamiliar habits of this unwanted life were becoming… normal; part of me; and therefore familiar and easy, if no less hateful and embarrassing.
But meeting someone who knew me as the man I was less than a year ago brought that all crashing down. Under Julia’s probing gaze, I found myself acutely and painful aware of how far I’d fallen, and keenly felt every feminine trait I’d taken on as part of this disguise. Makeup that had faded to an invisible, weightless mask once again felt heavy and thick; longer fingernails become ungainly; and I felt myself doubting every motion. The familiar once again became foreign, and the performance teetered back towards pantomime.
“You look good,” I said, and took a calming sip of lukewarm tea.
“And you look…,” I could see her reaching for an appropriate word, “different.”
“I imagine it’s a bit of a surprise.”
“You could say that.” Something akin to a smiled twisted her face, trapped between wryness and bitterness. “Let’s just say it’s not quite how I pictured this moment.”
“What did you expect?”
She flicked her hair back, smoothed it down over the left shoulder. “I don’t know. That you’d gone fat, maybe? Or balding? That the past tens years had worn you down to a place where you could look at me and think – damn, I wish I’d done thing differently.” She shook her head in disbelief. “Instead, fucking hell, David, look at you.”
“Cindy,” I said. “My name is Cindy Bellamy.”
“Whatever.” She shook her head. “Jesus, what’re the girls going to think when I tell them?”
“Please,” I said, allowing a note of pleading to enter my voice. “I’d really prefer it if you didn’t tell anyone.”
“And why the fuck, David,” she said, all but spitting out the name, “should I care what you ‘prefer’?” She said the last in a mincing, little-girl voice.
I winced. “Please, Julia,” I said pleadingly. “It’s not nice.”
“Nice?” She stared at me. “You want me to be nice?”
I nodded.
“And were you being nice when you manipulated me into that threesome ten years ago? Was it nice to string me along like that and drop me in your friend’s bed when you were done with me?” She leaned in close. “You used me like a fucking toy; you fucked me and dumped your load in me and then you left me. So, yeah, maybe deadnaming you isn’t particularly ‘nice’. Maybe bringing up the past isn’t ‘nice’. But tell me, please, why the fuck should I be ‘nice’ to someone who destroyed years of my life?”
Very deliberately, I meticulously pushed the sweep of my long, blonde hair back over the left shoulder, and tucked an errant strand behind my ear. “You’re not the only one who’s suffered, you know,” I said softly, and swept one hand across my body. “Do you think this was easy?”
She stared at me for a long, quiet moment. Her hands clenched, knuckles whitening, then relaxed and she released a heavy breath. Somewhat unnerved by her reaction, I looked away and towards the front of the café and blinked at the dazzling bright afternoon sun. Part of me suddenly wished I could trust her with the truth, yearned to share my secret with her – with somebody, anybody. The desire bubbled up within, inexorably growing, like an illness needing to be expelled: this isn’t me! I desperately wanted to shout. I don’t want this! Trembling briefly overtook my hand, and I dug my nails into my palm, and wished for something more painful, like a fork to jab into my thigh, to bring me back to myself.
But when I looked back to her, something akin to momentary doubt or confusion swept across her face, and she sat back and studied me, really looked at me, and under her appraising eye I nervously fidgeted.
“Goddamit,” she muttered under her breath. “This isn’t what I wanted.” She took a deep breath. “This isn’t good. I can’t afford another fucking relapse.” She was turning inwards, and in the way she shifted in her seat signaled she was about to leave, about to storm out. I couldn’t let that happen, not yet, not with so much unresolved.
“Julia,” I called out.
“What?” she snapped, almost distractedly.
“I’m sorry.”
She went rigid, momentarily – staring at me – and for a moment Julia seemed as though she might cry; and then instead she all but collapsed into the depths of her chair.
“You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to hear that,” she said.
I reached out tentatively, furtively, reaching for her hand with mine. “I mean it,” I said. There was something surreal in the appearance of my hand, slender fingers and carefully manicured fingernails, painted a rosy pink, resting over hers. Julia’s nails were unpainted, maybe even slightly gnawed—I’d forgotten she used to chew her fingernails, and apparently still did.
“No,” she said, withdrawing her hand.
“But I…”
“No!” She cut me off. “Why the fuck would I want an apology from some… some, fucking caricature of a girl? I don’t want -your- apology; I want -his-!”
Around us, the café buzzed with activity. Patrons had been steadily flowing in throughout our talk: young couples, sat at small tables; individuals in smart business attire striding in and out with coffee in takeaway cups; a gaggle of schoolgirls, cutting class; a man, sat alone and incongruously dressed in tweed, reading a newspaper, apparently an anachronistic specialty of Café Sporus. Our booth, distant from the entrance, remained secluded and our conversation remained private, though we’d attracted a number of curious glances, many of them young and male.
“I’m not a caricature,” I said. It took some effort – though less than expected – to summon the promise of tears to my eyes. “This is who I am.”
She eyed me suspiciously. “A girl.”
I nodded. “I’m Cindy,” I said. “And I wanted to thank you for Friday night.”
Julia couldn’t suppress a tiny smile. “You were a mess.”
“I know, right?” I gave a small, self-deprecating laugh. “It kind of snuck up on me. It still catches me by surprise sometimes, how… small I am now. A lightweight.”
“Yeah. I noticed.”
“Yes, you did,” I said, and she picked up on the shift in tone. “How?”
“What do you mean?”
“How did you… you know… know?” I leaned in closer, and all but whispered conspiratorially. “How did you recognize David?”
She laughed. “It’s really bothering you, isn’t it?”
I nodded. And it was. Not for the reasons she probably thought. But I needed to know where I’d gone so disastrously wrong. This… disguise, this girlish frame those Asklepios butchers had hacked from my masculine corpse, was so far removed from the person I’d been that it just didn’t seem possible that someone could recognize me. Especially once you layered in all the work I’d poured into this… this costume, the endless hours of practice: voice and speech, walk and posture, the clothes, the makeup and hair, perfecting Cindy’s behaviour…. How had she seen through my disguise? Because if she could do it, then one of Steele’s fucking agents would damn well be able to do the same.
“Yes,” I said. “I’ve worked really hard to, to be….”
“Girly?”
I frowned. “Me. And I thought this—” and I passed my hands over my curves, “and this—” as I gestured at my face, hair and makeup, “and all of it was, you know… pretty convincing?”
She gave a little smile. “Oh, it’s very convincing,” she said. “And there’s no way I would’ve guessed. So, Friday night, after I bumped into you waiting in line for the toilet, there was… something.” She tapped the table with one finger, thinking. “I couldn’t say what it was. Maybe the way you said something, a gesture. I dunno. I’d had a few drinks as well. But it just seemed familiar, somehow, but I couldn’t place it.
“And I’ll admit I kept an eye on you from then on, although I couldn’t really say why. My colleagues were pretty fucking boring, for one. Caleb kept going on about the new dataset and…” She trailing off, and drummed her fingers on the table. “Mostly I was curious; believe it or not, there’s been a bit of talk on my floor about the new girl at V.I.”
I smiled weakly. Inside, my stomach twisted. “Really?”
“Yeah.” She laughed. “Fresh meat, right?” Seeing my expression, she cocked her head to one side. “I mean, you must’ve realised the guys are all eyeing you up, right?”
I shook my head.
“Really? ‘Cus you wouldn’t have done the same?” she added.
I nodded mutely. In all likelihood, I would’ve had Cindy in the sack by now.
“Anyway, when I saw you rush to the toilet I figured you could use some help. And you did, and then some. But what I wasn’t expecting was for you to suddenly call me by that fucking stupid nickname.”
I shook me head. “I… don’t remember,” I said, and genuinely didn’t. “I was pretty drunk on Friday.”
“No shit,” she said. “Surprising, really. You used to really be able to pack it away.”
Sighing sadly, I said, “Not anymore, not like I used to. I think it’s a hormone thing or something.”
Julia paused momentarily, as though processing that, and then shaking her head she continued. “So you called me Little Caesar. Remember that? Like, a week after we’d started dating, we were at this pub quiz and you were terrible at it, like at every category, general knowledge, movies, even the easy stuff, you didn’t know shit. And so you just started drinking, and got really obnoxiously drunk. And then a question came up, I can’t remember, maybe something about crossing the Rubicon, and I shouted out ‘Caesar’ and you looked at me with this stupid drunk grin and shouted ‘Julius!’ at me. You seemed really pleased with yourself, and I laughed, because it was good seeing you finally enjoying yourself. But then you just wouldn’t let it go. You started calling me “my Little Caesar’, especially when you saw how much it pissed me off.”
I stared blankly at her. I had no memory of calling her that on Friday. I barely remembered calling her that ten years ago.
“I’m… sorry?”
“Whatever.” She sighed. “Anyway, when you said it, your name just kind of popped out of my mouth in response. I mean, I didn’t for a second think it was really you.” She frowned. “I mean, how could I? Everything about you is totally different. Like, even your skin tone’s paler, your hair’s gone blonde… you’ve got tits, right? But then at the same time… I don’t know. Maybe at some gut level I suspected something, like you were his sister? Or maybe there was something about the way you said the name—the way you looked at me—your eyes?” She leaned closer, staring intently at me. “Maybe that was it. Under all that makeup, there’s still something of the old you in the eye.”
I self-consciously traced the side of my face with one finger, suddenly intensely aware of my own skin, the heaviness of mascara on lashes and the carefully applied eyeliner and colours accentuating those features.
“You recognized me because of my eyes?”
“Yup, that.” She grinned. “Well, that and the fact you then put your hand over my mouth and then said really, really loudly, ‘Shush! Don’t tell anyone, it’sh’a secret!’ Then you leaned in really, really close and whispered ‘I’m David!’” She gave a burst of laughter. “Total fucking meltdown.”
“I did not.”
“I shit you not.”
“So I just told you.”
“Yup.” She took a sip of tea. “Then you passed out.”
At which point, she went on to explain, she pretty much escorted me out of the bar, telling the guys from work that she’d get me home. Apparently, Dan had offered but Julia insisted and bundled me into an auto-taxi and rode home with me, finding my keys and getting us into the apartment. Which brought her to a final point of evidence.
“Of course, the final proof was when I stripped you for bed. You can imagine what I found hidden away in those ooh-la-la panties of yours.”
“You didn’t.”
“I did.” Her grin was positively cat-like. “Everything else about you might’ve changed, but you can bet I recognized that cock of yours.
“Anyway, I left you in your bed, had a little look around your place, and went home.”
At that point I should’ve been all over her, for violating my privacy, for stripping me naked. And I was angry. But the anger was directed entirely inwards. Putting aside the objectively disconcerting fact she thought she could identify my penis a decade on from last seeing it, or that she’d let herself into my home and stripped me naked; I couldn’t believe I’d just… told her who I was. I’d drunk myself to the point of stupidity, to absolute, incoherent idiocy—and left myself totally vulnerable.
I’d fucked up; I’d fucked up huge, and I couldn’t remember any of it.
And I couldn’t even really blame her for any of it. In some ways, she’d probably saved me from a possibly far worse outcome. Ultimately, the fault was my own and I had to own it. But how was I going to make sure this kind of thing didn’t happen again?
I sat in silence, and Julia seemed quite pleased with herself, slowly slipping her drink with a self-satisfied smile, her eyes flashing with pleasure over the rim of the cup. She clearly enjoyed my discomfort and dismay at having been found out. She had something over me, now: a secret she knew I’d rather keep buried, though not for the reasons she thought.
“Listen,” I said. “I’d like to start fresh. I’d like to thank you for looking out for me on Friday. But mostly, I’d like to… I don’t know; maybe get to know you again.” I gave her what I hoped came across as hopefully, pleading eyes. “Please?” And I stuck my hand out to shake on it.
She eyed it for a second, took my hand in hers, and gave it a firm handshake. And then she laughed, and it sounded genuine. Shaking her head, she seemed to visibly relax. She took a deep drink from her tea and sighed contentedly. “And so, now your name really is …?”
“Cindy,” I said firmly. “Please.”
“That’s short for Cynthia, right?”
I shook my head. “No. Well, yes, it can be, but not mine. My Cindy’s short for Lucinda – you know, like “Lucy”? As in “light”? But yeah, please, just call me Cindy.”
“Cindy.” She paused, as though testing the feel of the name on her tongue, and once again drank me in, absorbing the fastidiously arranged details of my female self. “You look…,” she started.
“Pretty?” I interrupted.
She laughed. “Yeah, sure. Like a fucking doll.”
I winced. “Ouch.”
She shrugged. “I mean, look at you. You’re dressed like what a thirty-year old man thinks a twenty-year old girl dresses, or like something copied off a glossy website. How long did it take you to get ready this morning?”
“A while.”
“Yeah, I bet.” I preened slightly under her gaze. “And… you enjoy it?”
“What, the getting ready?” I shrugged and lied. “Yes. No. Oh, I dunno. Some of it?”
“Like what?”
I raised an eyebrow. “Like what—what?”
Julia shrugged. “I mean… like, what’s so enjoyable about femininity? Because I really just don’t get it. Don’t get me wrong,” she said, raising one hand to forestall any comment. “I’m totally happy with the way I am. Well, mostly. But I’ve been a woman all my life, and you know what? There’s just so. Much. Bullshit, to deal with, every fucking day.
“And then I see guys, and how easy they’ve got it, and I think, we might be able to send a woman off to Mars, but when she gets back here on Earth? We’re still going to treat her like shit. Half a dozen waves of feminism, and we’re probably further back than we were a couple decades ago. We still earn less money than men for the same job. We’re still getting smacked around at home and murdered in parks. We’re still held to hypocritical standards of beauty and dress and behaviour and... and…” She took a deep breath. “And it’s exhausting, sometimes, just so very fucking tiring. So… yeah. Frankly, I can’t see why anyone, given a choice, would give up the joy of male advantage to deal with this crap.”
Confronted by her passionate words, I thought a very long time before answering. “Shoes,” I said.
She groaned.
“No, seriously—I love the shoes.”
“Oh, c’mon, give me a break. You’d give up all the benefits of the brotherhood for a fucking pair of heels?”
Stretching out my legs from beneath the table, I modelled my fine, slim legs for her, sleek in their ivory stockings, and the open-toed, slingback sandals that arched my feet into their delicate pose. “They look good?” I asked.
“Sure. Whatever.”
“No,” I said, “not whatever. This is serious. How tall do you reckon these shoes are?”
She shrugged, looking utterly uninterested “How the hell should I know?”
“Seven centimeters. It’s about the highest I can comfortably manage for a day. I can go higher, but not for very long, at least not yet. I’m sill practicing.”
“Good for you. But why? High heels are bullshit. Just more crap girls have to deal with, more impossible standards. Okay, fine, you’re a girl; doesn’t mean you have to wear heels. Or makeup, or skirts.”
“Sure. And that’s easy for you to say, because you are a girl, have been seen and accepted as one your whole life. No one’s going to question that.”
“Cindy,” she said, shaking her head. “Nobody’s going to question you, either. You look… totally convincing.”
“Maybe.” Under my makeup I felt suddenly hot, flushing crimson at her words. “But I don’t always feel that way. I still feel like a fraud; I’ve felt like a fraud most of life, playing a part, pretending to be someone I’m not.” And I had to pause for a moment, swallowing uncomfortably at how closely my impromptu words hewed to the truth. “And now I’m Cindy, I’m a girl and the thing is, wearing heels and yes, makeup and a skirt, well, it convinces me just as much as anyone watching that this is who I really am.”
She considered that for a moment. “Fine. But you love them? They’re bloody instruments of torture!”
I shrugged. “C’mon, they’re not that bad. Especially as I’m getting used to them. I don’t know if I’ll ever manage the really high one, but even those, maybe someday, right? Because—I’ll be honest here—I like the bump in height. Do you remember, back in the day, how you didn’t like wearing heels because you’d be taller than me?
“I was always short, and you know… that can really suck for a guy. You talk about double standards, right? Well, it’s fine for a girl to be short. Desirable, even? But for a man, somehow it makes him less of a man, right? It’s a stupid fucking power thing. And it used to piss me off. You have any idea how many bitches won’t even date a guy if they’re too short? It’s literally in our language, we ‘look down’ on someone we don’t respect and that kind of thing is worse for a guy.
“So… yeah, I guess there’s this kick out of making myself a bit taller, you know, strutting around with a bit of confidence.”
She still seemed bemused. “So, wearing heels makes you feel more… manly?”
I laughed. “I hadn’t really thought of it that way.” I considered for a second, especially since—yes; in a weird way, I guess Julia’s point was true. I fucking hated Cindy’s footwear, these ‘implements of torture’ as Julia so aptly described them; but at the same time, by wearing them I reclaimed some of those precious centimeters the Asklepios surgeons had cruelly chopped away from me. With more practice and higher heels, I’d even surpass my old height.
“But no, obviously,” I continued. “And I can’t say I understand it, but… well, wearing them, on the one hand, yeah, it fills me with confidence, it’s just such a feminine thing to be able to do, right? These shoes are like the epitome of girly. And then, at the same time, well… I get what you’re saying, right, these things, they’re stupid. I could barely stand in the things at first! And even this pair,” I added, gesturing at my shoes, “I can walk in them all day, but I wouldn’t want to have to run in them. I still wobble if I’m not careful. I can’t tell you how often I’ve nearly twisted my ankle in the past few months.
“But shoes like this, you know, the delicate heel, the way it forces me to take smaller steps, even the way they’re impractical… I guess that’s how it makes me feel, wearing them: delicate, small. Vulnerable.”
Julia raised an eyebrow. “And that’s a good thing?”
I gave an enthusiastic nod. “God, yes!”
“For fuck’s sake,” Julia said, and her voice was a potent mixture of scorn and frustration, “you sound like some stone age misogynist’s wet dream.”
“I’m not,” I said softly. “You said being a woman was exhausting. Fine. But so’s being a guy, Julia. I always felt as though I had to be strong, had to fill the room, had to be… be, I don’t know, invulnerable. And it was exhausting. So. Fucking. Exhausting.” I pointed at my shoe. “And now? Now I get to be like these things: pretty and delicate, and you know what? You’re right, sometimes it’s not easy. And yes, it can be exhausting.
“But it’s wonderful to finally step back and let somebody else fill the room, you know. Someone else can step up and be strong. And so maybe I’m tired, and sometimes even terrified, but I’m also… happy.” And I smiled for her as convincingly as possible, shyly, lowering my eyes demurely, whilst inside I died a little.
We sat like that for a few minutes, in silence, finishing our teas. Café Sporus continued to bubble and froth with life. The schoolgirls were gone; so were the corporate minions, replaced by nearly identical replacements in dark suits and ties, power dresses and pantsuits. Only anachronistic Mr Tweed remained, slouched behind his broadsheet newspaper, through which he seemed to be making steady and methodical progress.
“So you’re trans, then, right?” Julia said, and my attention snapped back to the table.
“I’m Cindy,” I said.
“And when did you…?”
“A few months ago,” I said. “That is, that’s when I made a total break from the past, moved here and got a job and started living openly, full time, self-identified under a new name. But if what you’re really asking is when was Cindy ‘born’, well…” I waved my hand in an indeterminate gesture taking in me, her, the café and the world around us. “I guess I’ve always been Cindy. I just didn’t, or couldn’t, admit it to myself.”
And God, it wasn’t easy, feeding this steady stream of bullshit to Julia. She’d caught me out a few times, but this part I’d rehearsed for, a fine line about a burgeoning awareness of my real self, a female identity denied for most of my life. Hours of surreptitious online research had given me the broad strokes of my own story, cobbled together from genuinely moving stories of admission and revelation, of denial and coming out and heart-rending struggles. But I felt… uncomfortable, telling her this story; squeamish, becoming in her eyes this trans-woman Cindy Bellamy, only just recently escaped from the masculine shell of David Sanders she’s presented for all these years. Telling this story, I felt strangely embarrassed and acutely aware of the clothes I wore, both outer- and under. Seeing myself through her eyes and feeling her frank appraisal of this feminine distortion of the man I’d been was like torture.
“It’s hard to wrap my head around,” she said. “Like you said earlier, you were always so… manly, you know? Like always working out, muscles, all that stuff. And so confident, so domineering.”
“Domineering?” I answered, genuinely bemused by her comment. “I was… over-compensating, I guess. Took me years to figure that out. But I guess you could say I wore all that muscle like a suit of armour. It was protection. Against anyone seeing the real me; against… me, seeing the real me.” Which was a half-truth, I guess. It was a shell; it was protection and years of honing my body had served me well in the past against very real and very physical threats. And even after I’d left that life behind, well, I continued to do well by being in good shape. Being strong was just part of who I was, the working out an almost instinctive routine of daily life, familiar and comforting despite the pain and effort.
Yeah, it was a massive investment of time and energy, but it always paid out dividends: in the girls I took home most weekends, mostly, but also in the simple, mundane benefits of being fit and strong. And in so many ways it made me fucking furious that being Cindy required an equal investment of time and energy, squandered daily on ephemeral beauty, on developing vain proficiencies in hair and makeup and walking in heels. What was the fucking point when a stiff wind could knock me over now, and I needed help to open a heavy goddamn door? The benefits of an hour at the gym were tangible and functional and meaningful; but where was the advantage in spending an hour meticulously painting my face when I was just going to wipe the shit away a few hours later. So much of Cindy’s time seemed consumed by the frivolous demands of simply keeping up appearances, distracting me from more meaningful accomplishments.
She shook her head. “Now look at you.”
I extended one slender arm, turning it this way and that for her, the bangles at my wrist glinting and chiming. “I know, right?”
“I could take you in an arm wrestle, no problem,” she said.
“I’d rather not.”
She laughed. “I bet. Could you, I dunno, stand up for me? Give me a little twirl?”
“Sure.” I pushed back from the table and found my feet. My skirt flared out a little as I spun delicately on tiptoe, risking a tantalising peek of stocking tops. I gave a little bow and sat down again.
Julia shook her head in disbelief. “It’s not possible,” she said.
“Yet here I am.”
“No,” she insisted. “We used to be the same height,” she said, holding up a finger. “I remember that clearly. Like you said, I didn’t like wearing heels with you because you didn’t like me being taller than you. But now you’re the one in heels and I’m taller than you?”
I winced. “That’s not…”
“Two,” she cut me off. “We’re both in our thirties; you’ve got a year and a bit on me. Or should have. But you look younger now than you did ten years ago.”
“It’s makeup…?” I suggested.
“It’s not makeup,” she retorted. “For fuck’s sake.”
“Good genes?”
She grimaced. “Cut the bullshit. Listen: you’re not the first trans girl I’ve known, alright? And as beautiful and wonderful as some of them have been, none of them shrunk by a half dozen centimetres and shed ten years when they transitioned. None of them magically transformed into their idealised twenty-year old fantasy girl self, no matter how much they might’ve wanted it.
“So maybe this is who you are, and who’ve you’ve always wanted to be – but it just. Isn’t. Possible.” She punctuated each word with her finger, pointing it aggressively at me.
“Yet here I am,” I insisted.
She nodded. “And I want you tell me where you came from.”
“Tell you what,” I answered. “I’m starving. Let’s grab a bite to eat somewhere that serves something stronger than tea. I’ll tell you over lunch.”
***
I started with the story of the wedding dress.
So, I’m seven years old and with my mother. We’re out shopping. I can vaguely remember feeling… excited? or maybe simply wanted? being out with her instead of dumped on a baby-sitter or an irritated friend, or just left at home on my own. She’s with a friend, that friend is getting married soon, and they’re shopping for a dress. And I can remember – how to put it? – this tiny, tight knot in my stomach as we step into this store, with its ivory-clad mannequins, and racks of white dresses, all glittering and shimmering in the bright summer rays of the late afternoon sun. In my memory, the whole room is bathed in a ruddy, warm glow in which seasonal charmeuse and ivory brocade cascades off the slender figures in the window. Swathes of gauzy tulle traps the light of the setting sun in its delicately sheer weave. Embroidered pearls and sequins glitter in the vividly coloured bridesmaids’ dresses. And it feels wrong, being a boy in that place, this intensely female space, like sneaking into the girls’ bathroom at school. It’s a land of lace and veils, but to my prepubescent self it feels as though a mask is pulled from his eyes for the first time. I stand, speechless, as my mom and her friend bustle into the shop and shove me to one side, out of the way.
And I remember wandering, stupefied, among those mystifying clothes, crawling and hiding under the skirts of the larger dresses, or threading between those hanging on the racks and losing myself in the sensation of foreign fabrics softly sliding against my arms and face. For an indefinite time, I explore this garden of taffeta femininity. Emerging from this forest of satin and silk, I see my mom’s friend step out of the changing room wearing her first choice of dresses.
And it’s strange, so very strange that for all the vividness of the memory, the dress itself remains vague and indistinct. There is a powerful impression of ivory, a corona of petticoated pearlescence and effervescent fabric that seemed to draw in and hold the light, and she is made nearly incandescent by her clothes. I stare, utterly enraptured, and a single, absolute certainty burns itself into my young consciousness.
I want to wear that wedding dress.
“That really happened?” Julia interrupted.
I nodded, spearing a morsel of delicately flavoured soy chicken. She’s brought us to a trendy restaurant-slash-bar a short cab ride away from the café. It’s definitely out of Cindy’s price range. Julia chose the seat, and so we’re sat uncomfortably close to the large windows at the front of the restaurant. A steady trickle of people flowed past outside, some pausing and unnervingly glancing in at the patrons. The heavy, tinted windows absorb much of the brutal afternoon heat, but increasingly I’m regretting my choice of clothing: the heavy skirt and fancy underwear might keep me feeling all girly for the encounter, but I could feel what might be boob sweat pooling in my bra, and those damned stockings kept threatening to slip down to my ankles. It felt like my face was going to slide off, and meanwhile Julia seemed totally unfazed by the filtered glare of the sun, perfectly comfortable in her loose and breathable clothing.
And I couldn’t help but gaze enviously at her steak and potatoes, and at the way she wolfed it down with obvious relish. She’s got a frothy pint of beer to wash it back, something craft and local. Meanwhile, I’ve got a plate of fake meat with a small salad and a glass of white wine. Still, as painful and humiliating as the whole act was to maintain, the charade appeared to be working. My ex-girlfriend was buying the lie that her former boyfriend had always been, deep down inside, this prissy and dainty girl….
“And that’s when you knew,” she said.
I swallowed, washing down the chicken with a sip of wine. “Yup.”
“But it was just a dress,” she said, sounding doubtful. “Couldn’t you have just, I don’t know, dressed up in your mom’s clothes when she was at work or something? Like, how did you know you weren’t just a cross-dresser, or just curious or something? We grew up at the height of gender fluidity, right?”
I laughed – an inadvertently genuine one, not one of Cindy softer, controlled giggles. “Where I grew up? Like fuck I could’ve swished around in a dress. I’d’ve been killed.”
Her eyes widened, and she stared at me wordlessly.
“What?” I asked, suddenly self-conscious. “Is it my makeup?” I reached for the phone to check.
She shook her head. “No. No, you look…” She trailed off, and then: “Jesus Christ, you sounded just like… -him-, the way you said that.”
“Sorry,” I said. “It slips out sometimes. I’m working on it but… you know.” I shrugged. “It’s hard.”
“No,” she said, and she shook her head. “I don’t know. Tell me.”
With a little nod, and a lighter voice, I resumed. “But no, that dress changed everything.” So I told her another story, and the whole time I was watching her closely, trying to read her response, trying to bring her to the place, emotionally and mentally, I needed her to be. My story picked up a year later, and how afterwards I shared my secret with a young girl I knew from school called Amelia, a friend who took pity on the small, scrawny, half-foreign kid who so often sat on his own in the playground. How she took me home after school one day, and let me try on one of her party dresses—a frothy, bright red thing—and looked at me sadly, and said: no.
It isn’t right, she said. Boys don’t wear dresses.
And I realised that she was right: boys don’t wear dresses. But wearing that dress that afternoon felt so right and comfortable; it was the most comfortable and right I’d felt my whole life. I knew then that even if boys didn’t wear dresses, that I most certainly would. And by that logic, the only thing that made sense was that for me to be able to wear a dress, that I had to be a girl. Once I was a girl both inside and out, no one would question my right to wear a dress, be it for a party or wedding.
By this time Julia was polishing off the last of her plate. I watched enviously as she speared the final morsel of red meat disappeared between her lips. She knocked back the last of her beer and signaled for the waiter. “And thus Cindy was born,” she said.
“More like killed,” I said, and brought the half-fictional story of my childhood to an end. I told her how Amelia, a few days later, after we had a minor falling out over… something—who knew what trivialities eight-year olds fight about—well, the girl went and told some of the bigger boys in our grade about my love of dresses. She even had a picture on her phone; she hadn’t told me she’d taken in. Cue the age-old story: they called me a sissy and a faggot, they pushed me around, they made my life hell until I snapped and tried to fight back, and then they absolutely destroyed me and I ended up in hospital. It was there during recovery that I learned the best possible thing to do was to leave Cindy behind in that antiseptic palace. I buried her deep, so deeply I nearly forgot about her, and made damn sure nobody was ever able to hurt me like that again.
Julia expression was unexpectedly stony and withdrawn as I wrapped up my story. I couldn’t quite read what she was thinking behind veiled eyes, but when she finally spoke she sounded genuine. “Da…. Cindy. Christ, I’m… sorry, I had no idea.”
I shrugged. “Why would you? I’ve never been one to talk about the past.” Which was the truest thing I’d said that afternoon. “To be honest, the worst thing were the hospital bills.”
The whole story danced flirtingly with the truth, filtered through the fictional pink lens of Cindy’s past but hewing close enough to actual events so that I could remember the story for the future. The conviction of delivery doubtlessly would’ve suffered without its foundation of honesty. My mother did bring me to a bridal shop when I was seven. I may or may not have wandered around a bit before growing bored; I certainly didn’t remember any transcendental revelation beyond the fact her friend looked like too much meat stuffed into a too-tight sausage casing.
And there really had been an Amelia, a seemingly friendly girl who’d taken pity on the lonely, scrawny, half-foreign kid who sat alone in the playground, and she brought me home one day. She showed off her party dress to me, excited about her coming birthday party. I’d been excited as well and held her hand and tried to kiss her. A few days later, when she told me I wasn’t invited to her party anymore because her parents didn’t want me there, I got upset. Then she told some of the other boys that I’d kissed her. They beat the shit out of me and put me in hospital, but I was already a mean little bastard by then, and I brought one of them with me.
And that’s where Sakura found me.
Which, it seems, ultimately led to me sitting here, squirming and sweating, in a skirt. So thanks a fucking lot, Amelia.
“So,” I tentatively asked, in the brief pause as the waiter took away our plates, making room for some desert.
“Yes?” Julia answered distractedly, scanning the drinks menu. “I shouldn’t,” she muttered to herself. “Gotta work tomorrow. Then again: fuck it,” she decided, and when the waiter returned, she ordered desert for both of us, and a Macallan for herself. “Make it a double.”
“I can trust you, right?”
“Depends.”
“On?”
“On what you’re trusting me with.” She leaned back, arms crossed, again impassive.
“My life,” I said, sweeping my hair back over the shoulder with a flick of the head and smoothing it down with my left hand, avoiding her gaze. “Please,” I continued, softly, “These past few months, they’ve been… difficult. Like, really difficult, learning to live this new life. I’ve always known this is who I was meant to be…”—and I had to stop here for a moment, to swallow a momentary pang of disgust— “but actually being me, it’s… hard sometimes.
“But I’m getting there!” And here I looked up, locking eyes with her. “I’m learning. Every day I’m a little bit more me, and little bit less… who I was. And then to suddenly meet someone who looks at me and has these memories of who I was, I feel like it knocks me right back to where I started.
“And then if others knew….” I shook my head. “I think it would destroy me.”
Julia stayed silent as the waiter returned, with two thin slices of cheesecake, her whiskey and another small glass of wine for me. She picked up the tumbler and inhaled deeply, and sighed, as she swirled the glass and its golden contents.
“Maybe so,” she answered evenly. “But you still haven’t explained why I should give a fuck.”
“But—”
“No,” she interrupted. She suddenly surged forward in her seat, leaning over the table, her face close to mine, and she spoke in a cold whisper. “Fuck you, David. Or Cindy. I don’t give a shit who you think you are. And I don’t care how hard your life is. Why should I?
“You say your life’s difficult. Welcome to the party, girl. Yeah, life’s tough being a woman. And you’ve been one for what, two months, and you’re already complaining? Thirty years of living it up with the patriarchy, and now after a couple of months of guys staring at your tits, you’re already complaining?
“That’s not—”
“Fucking deal with it. Like, sure, it sucked that you had a rough childhood. It sucked you didn’t get to wear all those pretty dresses you wanted to wear. And yeah, I get it, maybe that made you into the twisted pile of toxic masculinity bullshit I fell in love with ten years ago. I get it.
“But the fact remains: you hurt me. You wrecked years of my life, years I’ll never get back, and I don’t fucking care what happened to you that made you into such a colossal prick. And maybe you can sit there, all dolled up sexy, and sure, it’s a new you, but it’s still you, you who hurt me, so sorry, Cindy, if I’m not particularly inclined to forgive and forget tonight.” There was an almost chilling intensity to her delivery, a clipped, rapid monotone; was this, at least in part one of the speeches she’d practiced over the years? Were we just performing rehearsed scripts tonight, engaged in a melee of prepared dialogue and practiced emotions?
“So again: why should I give a fuck what you want?” Her eyes blazed and her cheeks were flushed, and there was something wonderfully sexy in her anger and her closeness that suddenly had me sitting uncomfortably.
Just as suddenly as she’d moved in, she sat back, and was all smiles again. Very deliberately, she sliced off a piece of her cheesecake and stabbed it with her fork. She took a bite. “Mmm,” she sighed, momentarily closing her eyes. “So good.” Gesticulating with her fork, pointing the tip at me, she added, “You really should try it.”
Carefully maintaining Cindy’s façade—her mouth a little ‘o’ of surprise and horror, eyes widening and near tears—and with a slight tremble to my hand, I reached for my glass and took a desperate sip of wine. As though unable to meet her hungry gaze, I looked aside and outside. There was a young man there, silhouetted against the setting sun, watching us through the window and my reflection in it. Our eyes met; he grinned and made an obscene gesture; and laughing, walked away.
“I… I need the toilet,” I whispered, standing up, smoothing down my skirt, reaching for my clutch, fumbling as the strap got tangled in the chair, the very image of feminine distress.
“Yeah, whatever.” Julia waved one hand dismissively. “Take your time. I’m in no rush.”
***
Clattering heels pursued me into the women’s washroom, where I locked myself into a stall and sank exhausted onto the toilet. Skirt up, panties down; cautious release of cock and balls; a deep sigh of relief. Making the decision to leave my bits free, I trusted secrecy to the tightness of the underwear and the heaviness of the skirt.
The women’s washroom oozed gentle coziness, suffused with gentle lighting from sunken recesses. Soft music tinkled in the background and a faint scent of rosewood drifted on the air. The mirrors were brightly lit and I leaned close and stared at my reflection over the counter, as I had so often these past few months. An attractive young woman stared back, though truth be told, the strain of the past few hours was beginning to show, in her makeup, around her eyes. She smiled tentatively. Her smile widened into a grin, into a grimace; a sudden, mad impulse to laugh, to scream, to smash the mirror and howl shuddered through me with an intensity that left me panting.
Deep breath. Instead, I reached for makeup. Dabbing gently, I started cleaning away the afternoon’s sweat with blotting paper. Leaning in close to the mirror, glittering emerald stared back. “Under all that makeup, there’s still something of the old you in the eye,” she’d said, and if so, memory-me, that old-I, watched mockingly as I fumbled for a little pot of cream blush.
And I can’t believe this is happening, dotting and blending spots of colour into my cheeks, that Julia’s resentment runs so deeply, what the fuck is wrong with that woman? Yeah, sure, I’d ended thing poorly. And she was right: dumping her the way I did was cowardly, weak, wrong; unmanly. Wrong, but for fuck’s sake, it’s hardly like she was the only one who suffered. A year on from her death, the memory of Sephy was still too fierce, the guilt and the pain and the loss, all twisted and mixed in with the sense of betrayal and resentment and fury at the way I’d been dumped on the streets for a year, a whole goddamn year lost to hard pavement, indifferent cruelty, and callous anonymity that nearly annihilated me. Even now, with a determinedly steadied hand, smoothing out the fine lines where concealer had gathered under the eyes, I struggled to suppress the residual rage that remained a decade later.
I never promised her anything! We were together for what, a few months? Three fucking month. I never told her I loved her. I never asked her to move in with me or offered to marry her. We went out to nice restaurants, I paid for good food and drink, and then we fucked. It was fun. For a couple of months!—and then it was over. It was over and she must realise that, for all the time and energy she’d poured into practicing furious, empty speeches over the years—that I had barely thought of her at all.
Eyes were tricky: a touch of shadow in the crease to bring some colour back and I left it at that. What, exactly, had she fallen in love with, anyways? What, exactly, had I offered her then that was so fucking special? A deeply damaged soul in need of repair? An up-and-coming corporate star? Had she seen potential, a gemstone in the rough in want of polishing before mounting, displaying, possessing?
I suppressed a laugh. No. Picking up some powder, quickly and lightly setting my face, I knew it was so much simpler that that. Julia, twenty-two years old Julia: fresh and young in her first real job out of university; innocent and bright, ambitious and hungry; but also… just a girl.
Just a fucking girl, truly on her own for the first time in her life. And that girl of ten years ago had succumbed to the same primitive, instinctive need that filled so many others, that they secretly yearn for: to lose themselves wholly to a man, a real man, to his dominance and strength, confidence and will. And as fucked up as I was, I’d given her all that, and more. And maybe Julia looked back on that with regret, with anger and spite; maybe she hated me, or her younger self, or both; but I’d been everything she wanted back then. And I’d bet what little pride I had remaining that she still loved me, still yearned for me, because at some level she probably could not admit to she still craved to give herself over, utterly and completely, to someone once again.
A touch of lipstick, a darker shade than before, crimson that bordered on purple like a fresh bruise, and the job was done. I stared at my reflection and an attractive young woman stared back, her face fixed, confidence returned. She posed in the mirror, swept her long hair back, made a little kissy face and grinned.
Fucking hell. It was time to bring this performance to an end.
***
I returned to the table to find Julia, a little red in the face, silhouetted in the rosy-hued fading light streaming in from outside, polishing off the last of both the cheesecakes and her whiskey. Sliding into my seat, tugging my skirt down, and facing her, I opened my mouth to speak. “Listen--” but she cut me off.
“So,” she said, and grinned wickedly. “You like cock now?”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me. Like, I know you’ve still got yours, but then things were getting pretty hot and heavy with that guy from the office on Friday night, so I was wondering: you into guys now?”
“Jesus. Julia!”
“Oh, don’t be such a fucking prude.” She shrugged, gesturing for the waiter. “You certainly weren’t before.”
“I’m not a prude.”
“Then spill, girl. You’ve given up oysters for sausage?”
I frowned. “No,” I admitted, reaching for my warming glass of wine. I stared at it for a moment, giving it a little swirl and watching as it sparkled in the ruby light of the setting sun. Fuck it. I knocked it back in one and grimaced. “But even if I had,” I continued. “It’s not something I’d want to talk, is it?”
She laughed. “Like I care?” The waiter sidled up to our table at that moment, and she ordered another double. She raised her eye at me questioningly.
“Yeah,” I sighed, “why not?” and ordered another.
Julia watched the waiter leave and looked askance at me, before leaning in conspiratorially. “So that doesn’t do anything for you?” She nodded towards the waiter. He was a young man, probably about Cindy’s age: white button-down shirt, fitted black trousers, trailing end of tattoos slithering out from under his sleeve cuffs and lurking at his collar. I hadn’t noticed anything else about him, generally a sign he’d been efficient and skilled at his job. “I mean, he’s got a pretty tight ass, right?”
I looked more carefully, trying to see it from her perspective. Tall, slim, dark-skinned; short, spikey hair, hint of muscle beneath his shirt. Like, maybe? If the waiter’d been a girl, yeah, I would’ve paid more attention; and if that’d been a female ass, I’d probably be a bit more into it. She’d be wearing tighter trousers, for one, with maybe a hint of thong threading those cheeks. Crossing my legs tightly under the table, I turned my attention back to Julia. “Sure. I mean—”
“So you are into guys!”
“I don’t know!” I lied. “It’s all new to me, alright?”
“So what was that on Friday, then?”
I groaned. “I was drunk.”
“And loving his tongue down your throat?”
“Please, Jules…”
Julia was still eyeing the waiter, who still seemed blissfully unaware of our scrutiny. He was chatting to an older woman behind the counter. “He’s got nice hands,” she said. “You had strong hands, remember? I like that in a man. Can you imagine him touching you? Firmly, by the shoulder? Sliding down your side, gently? From behind, cupping your breasts….”
Inadvertently, I shivered. And as she continued, she leaned in closer, crossing the distance between us and I could smell the whiskey on her breath as her voice shifted in timber, deepening. Julia sounded eager as she whispered in my ear. “Imagine him behind you. One hand on your boob, the other softly stroking, fingers caressing their way down, across your skin…” Together, heads nearly touching, blonde and black hair pooling at the edge of the table, we followed his movements as he walked nonchalantly to the back of the restaurant. Our gaze followed him, but as Julia continued mine slide further back, to the far end of the restaurant. “He touches your belly. His fingers press into you. He pulls you back, your tummy tightening under his touch, and his breath is hot on your skin, his cock pressing into your ass.”
“Stop,” I breathed.
“Imagine him kneading your tit, thumb on nipple, on your thigh, and his tongue…”
“Stop it!” I hissed, and without looking back my hand snaked out and grabbed hers. “For fuck’s sake, Julia.” I squeezed, hard. “Stop!”
“Hey, ouch! You’re hurting me.”
“Then fucking listen. You see that man?”
“The waiter?”
“No! Past him, back of the restaurant. Don’t stare. See him? Now, sit back – look at me.”
She followed instructions with a bemused look on her face. She gave her hand a little shake. “What the fuck, Cindy, what’s gotten into you?” Her eyes began to slide towards the back of the restaurant.
“Keep your eyes on me, you stupid bitch!”
Her eyes widened. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me,” I said. And as I spoke, I shifted for her eyes and ears only: the timber of my voice, the way I held myself in the seat; Cindy fell away momentarily and for the first time in weeks, I spoke as myself. “Now listen. That man back there. Did you recognize him?”
“What? No, why would I?”
“Back at Café Sporus. Did you see the man with the newspaper?”
“Why are you—”
I cut her off. “Shut the fuck up and answer the question, Little Caesar. Did you see the man with the newspaper?”
She hesitated for a moment. I could see in her eyes as she thought back, through a slight haze of whiskey and conversation. “Yes,” she said.
“What was he wearing?”
“How the fuck should I…,” she started then trailed off. “Tweed suit?”
“And the man at the back of the restaurant—don’t look!—what’s he wearing?”
“I…” Julia’s eyes widened. “Tweed suit?”
“Yeah,” I growled, calmly reaching for my wine. “Got it in one.”
“But that doesn’t mean anything,” she said. “It’s just a coincidence.”
Raising the wine glass to my lips, looking at her over the rim, I slowly shook my head. I knocked the wine back in a single gulp. “No,” I said. “It’s not.”
“Cindy,” she said, leaning closer. “What’s going on?”
“David,” I said, and grabbing her hand I squeezed it hard. She winced; I took some small pleasure in her pain. “My name is David,” I said. “And I’m being followed. We’ve got to get out of here.”
She stared at me blankly for a moment, the nodded.
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.
“Amazing,” 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 again. Get yourself back into therapy, you crazy bitch.
After all, a few more months and I’d be done with Cindy, right?
To be continued…
***
Author’s Notes:
What to say after a thirteen-year gap between chapters? I only hope that some of those who enjoyed it in the past, and waited patiently, are able to pick it up again. After posting chapter 3 there were significant changes in my life that led to me abandoning the story. Well, not just
the story. I didn't really write anything for the next decade, aside from a brief period in which I started to revise the whole thing, from the beginning onwards; made some progress; and then dropped it again. And then a few months ago I suddenly found not only the urge but the
willpower to write again and started on Chapter 4. I hope it still matches the original style of writing and lives up to expectations. I enjoyed writing again and am already making good progress on the next chapter.
Of course, comments and feedback are always appreciated, whether positive or critical. I can’t overstate how much it means to know people are actually reading this stuff—otherwise, why write it?
A few changes of note:
•David's dead ex-lover, referenced in a number of flashbacks throughout the story, is now called Sephy.
•Julia, prominent in this chapter, was mentioned in earlier chapters under the name Tammy.
•In earlier chapters, David was written as a man in his twenties. He's picked up a few years in the redraft and is now in his mid-thirties, to leave more breathing room for backstory.
Once I've reached the end of the "season", I'll be going back and reposting the revisions to earlier chapters and hopefully bringing a little more coherence to the whole novel-length text. There are ten chapters planned for season two, and once complete I'll publish it as a single document again.
Finally: when I started this in 2006, it never occurred to me to monetise something like this; now, it seems common. Constant will always be free (if a little... slow, in getting published), but if you enjoy and want more: leave a comment! And if you really like it, why not show it at patreon.com/fakeminsk.
Constant in All Other Things 2
Chapter Five
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
Synopsis:
David Sanders, after months of suffering the life-in-disguise forced on him of young, pretty Cindy Bellamy, finally sees a glimmer of hope: a car, waiting to transport him to the Asklepios clinic where he hopes to return to masculinity. But recent past and current travels collapse into each other as he approaches his destination.
What has gone before:
David Sanders saw something he shouldn't have: his boss, pharmaceutical magnate Jeremiah Steele, murdering an underworld rival. Placed in protection, an assassination attempt forces David into the disguise of Cindy, a pretty, young girl. For months he suffers the ignominy of living the life chosen for him, until his real identity is discovered by Julia, a jilted ex-girlfriend. She relished in the revenge exacted on her feminised former lover as David endures in hopes of future release from his humiliating circumstances.
***
The car waited for me as I left for work that morning.
Sleek but understated, slate gray, unmarked with tinted windows, the car gave an attention-drawing beep as I exited the apartment building. The windscreen flashed my name and destination; my phone pinged in confirmation. The door unlocked and opened smoothly at my touch and closed silently after I sat, swung, and slid into the back seat. With a barely audible whir the car set off, a discrete side panel indicating the hours and kilometers remaining for the journey.
Dressed for a workday that was clearly not going to happen, I settled in uncomfortably for the duration of the ride. The car was all but silent as it hummed through the suburban streets, last night’s lurid artificial glows dispelled by harsh morning glare. Driverless, left to my thoughts, I gazed with tired eyes as the buildings and shops, industrial parks and commercial districts scrolled past, thinned out, turned into scattered suburban stretches of detached homes, towering apartment blocks, and cookie-cutter residential strips.
The indicator ticked down, counting me inexorably closer to the Asklepios Clinic.
Could this be it?
God, how I wanted this to be, for this to be the final morning of waking up in Cindy’s shitty little apartment, showering in her dingy, cramped shower, putting on my face in the cracked mirror hanging over the molded plastic sink. No more body-balancing pills with breakfast; no more slipping into panties and bra—complimented this morning by sheer black stockings and suspender belt, Julia’s orders of the day—and tight pencil skirt and blouse. No more heels. No more fucking about with long hair. No more performance: the unending expectations of behaviour and appearance placed on a young and pretty girl in a professional environment, the forced smiles, perky conversations, pleasantness and pleasantries.
No more Julia. And no more Dan.
Could I allow myself the luxury of hope? To give in to the fervent desire that this car trip was a one-way journey with the intent of stripping away this exhausting female disguise? God, how I ached to return to some semblance of my previous life. At this stage I’d take just about anything – fuck it! Leave me short and scrawny, looking like some weedy and weak teenager: I’ll take it! Carve off these tits, filter out these hormones, and just let me be a fucking man again.
Because if this visit wasn’t the end—if the Clinic was just checking up on my health, as the notification that popped up in my calendar this morning suggested—if nothing happened—if I came back in a few days, still Cindy, still living her life…
Groaning out loud, I sank deeper into the seat, deeper into lethargy and despair. Sealed against the outside world, the deep silence of travel soon became oppressive and so, after indulging in a dramatic sigh, I called out to the car. “Hey, how about some music?” A gentle chime confirmed compliance. I’d intended to request some Longman, but instead called out, “Play Sin-DI.” A moment later the opening track began, volume low, a soothing flow of delicate chimes and electronic notes: an impressionist painting of digital keyboards in a Japanese tearoom. Soon, ominous cellos and muted industrial grind began to swell and tear at the comforting aural arrangement, escalating into cacophony that abruptly cut into the first vocal track. I’d been listening to her a lot, and the more I listened the more I liked it. Despite her carefully curated media persona—neo-Goth sensuality, crazy makeup and nails, skin-tight outfits and tits and seductive glares, oozing forbidden passion—the actual music mostly reminded me of Longman’s late experimental stuff.
Hadn’t heard anything about the guy since waking up Cindy. A cursory look online presented all sort of theories from the aging fanbase: away on sabbatical, at a meditative retreat, secretly inspiring troops in a battlefield abroad, working anonymously in the background of the music industry; dead. Last I’d seen him was at the Clinic: moonlight, cool spring air, rustling leaves. Shivering, drawing closer. Embracing. A kiss.
Outside the car, urban remnants gave way to countryside, clusters of browning trees and fields of dried out crops replacing broken, decaying apartment blocks and abandoned shops, the corroded steel and concrete skeletal detritus of another dead town. The window was darkened against the day’s glare and outside curiosity, but I saw myself—saw Cindy—clearly: her made-up face, lipstick and eyeliner and blusher, colours for a young woman’s working day. One finger gently touched her lip and remembered the insistent press, the probing tongue, fingers curling into the flesh of her arm, the stubble that pricked the cheek—the memory of his lips.
Goddammit.
In reflection I then saw myself from a month ago, a reminder of that first morning after Julia’s. Then, too, I’d been dressed for work, a mix of yesterday’s and Julia’s clothes, riding the bus into work and staring blankly over the unfamiliar route. Also tired—yet rejuvenated—mind and body still simmering from the night’s fucking.
A month ago I’d stared into my reflection, searching within exhausted and anxious eyes for a glimpse of myself, for the hint of David, trapped and furious, lurking behind curled, mascara-heavy lashes; and then, as now, found only barely-repressed anger and frustration at the life forced upon him.
***
Waking after a few hours of fitful dozing into Cindy’s daily routine, abbreviated due to hangover: dropping to the floor next to the bed, silently cursing through alternating sets of push-ups and crunches. Shit, shower, shave: armpits and legs, carving tracks through sweet-smelling foam with Julia’s flat-handled razor, leaving smooth skin in its wake. Struggling to remain upright in her expansive shower, fighting fatigue and daily despair, arms braced against the ceramic-tiled wall, hair a heavy hanging cascade as near-scalding water sluiced away the sex and sweat of the night’s passion. Stinging flares as heat discovered bites and bruises across the pert flesh of my tits, especially around puffy nipples still tender from Julia’s abuses.
In the dim light of early morning, within the momentary tranquility and privacy of ablution, I began to doubt yesterday’s choices.
I hadn’t felt this intensely aware of my enforced femininity since the initial awakening several months ago. Not so much Julia’s words and threats as her familiarity with the man I’d been served to highlight how much I’d changed, how much I’d lost and sacrificed. The sense of the profound alienness of my own body had faded over the months—unnervingly so—but now it felt as though everything that had slowly drifted into normality came crashing back as weird and absurd. Under pounding water, I felt those physical differences: the pull of long, wet hair; water coursing over the curves of breasts and hips; plumper thighs and rounded rump; even the droplets that hung suspended in longer lashes and fuller lips. My awareness of these features felt, now, as though I was seeing them from outside myself, imagining how I looked from an external perspective: Julia’s.
These tits, pert and proud, B-cup handfuls of fatty tissue and useless milk ducks topped by coin-sized areola and prominent nipples, a sharp contrast with the hard and sculpted chest of my masculine past. These slim arms, smooth and supple, weak and thin, so easily restrained compared to my previous masculine strength. A decade ago I’d cradled Julia in bed and she’d rested so easily in my embrace, head on chest, loving the power and control implicit in those arms that held her close, protective, vigilant. Those same arms had once dominated her, gripped her by the shoulders and pinned her to the bed as we rutted like animals before collapsing in joyous exhaustion.
And now?
Julia had taken drunken pleasure in highlighting each and every one of my now-diminished features last night, with gentle, stroking touches; coy words and mocking insults, surreptitious licks and kisses and sharp bites; at times with painful yanks and sudden smack.
And it was galling and frustrating and insulting and excruciating and….
I’d fucking loved it.
Our sex was fantastic: Julia’s appetite voracious and vigorous, my own stamina remarkable. I’ve read somewhere that men peak sexually in their late teens, women in their mid-thirties. If so, then perhaps we’d fucked in a way only a psychologically damaged, revenge-fuelled thirty-five-year-old woman could, paired up with an artificially youthened man rocking the body of a twenty-year-old girl: which is to say, passionately, skillfully, repeatedly and exuberantly.
There’d even been fleeting moments during the night, when drunk on wine and sex it felt as I’d reclaimed some lost part of myself, uncovered a precious nugget of masculinity buried these past months under strata of straps and satin and lace. Lucid flashes when I could forget my own jiggling tits and shapely curves and lose myself in snapshots of Julia on her back, moaning in ecstasy, bent double with her legs over my shoulders, me burrowing deep into her, digging deeper, excavating each precious gasp and grunt and earthy demand that I fuck her, fuck her harder, yes, yes, like that, God, oh God, yes….
I came, wearily and I was back under scalding water. Semen and soap swirled down the drain. One hand on my cock, the other massaging water-slick tits. Jesus Christ, what was wrong with me? Like, sure, I’d been pretty much jerking off daily since waking up in this body, but the encounter with Julia felt as thought it had awakened a whole new level of sensuality—and pleasure; it felt as though something fundamental had shifted in my relationship with my body… with this body, I mean. I flicked a protuberant nipple and shivered. Until last night, I hadn’t really played with Cindy’s tit—I hadn’t really dared to. Now, I wondered what I’d been missing out on.
Groaning, I savagely twisted the water over to cold. Pushed back but not quite defeated by an barrage of icy spears, arousal and exhaustion and hangover retreated and remained at bay. I endured the assault for as long as possible, delaying the inevitable.
Today was Monday and Cindy had to work.
Trudging back into the bedroom, I balefully observed that Julia hadn’t stirred. The first rays of summer sunshine were creeping over the horizon, flooding the room with a russet glow. There wasn’t time to head home, change and head to work, so I was going to have to make do with what I already had. Yesterday’s stay-ups were a lost cause, stained and crusted as they were. The skirt and top were just about acceptable for work – I could swap the shoes over once I reached the office but despaired at the thought of mincing my way into the office in heels of that height. Sighing, I resigned myself to the fact I’d be strapping myself back into yesterday’s push-up bra and have tits riding underwire in my face all fucking day. But I drew the line at the panties – they were a sodden, stretched mess, and I couldn’t bear the thought of that scrap of silk threading my ass, let alone the need to tape my cock back. I’d have to borrow a pair of Julia’s panties, hopefully a pair of tights to hold back any bulge.
And that’s when it hit me, really: how the fuck had it come to this? Wearing an ex-girlfriend’s panties, silently slipping into a bra in the near-dark, sitting half-naked at her mirror to put on makeup. Exhausted, mentally rebelling against the idea of dragging myself—of dragging Cindy—into work today, knowing how she’d appear to others, the half-smiles, the smirks and knowing glances behind her back.
Six months ago, I’d witnessed one of the most powerful men in the world murder his rival. An hour before that, I’d been fucking his executive secretary hard against the expansive windows looking down on the distant glittering city sprawl. And now, somehow, I was the fucking secretary.
The sense of absolute emasculation was nearly crushing.
I rolled my shoulder. Shifted my boobs in their lacy cups into a more comfortable position. Sighed, and steeled myself and repeated the daily mantra: Fuck it, just get through this, another day. Looking into the mirror—but not too closely, not into the eyes, studiously avoiding my own gaze, avoiding judgment—I reached for makeup.
Moments later, I swore. “Dammit, Julia,” I hissed under my breath. Tiny vanity drawers clapped open and shut as I clawed through her assortment of vials, tubes and jars. “Where d’you keep the fucking mascara?”
“I could watch this all day,” a tired, amused voice called out from behind. From the bed, and with an infuriatingly pleased smile dancing across tired lips, she watched my attempt at reassembling my face from the wreckage of last night.
“It’s… that one,” she said, waving an idle hand, and then wincing as I banged another drawer open. “Chrissake, David, just… chill.”
“Fuck you, miss work-from-home.”
“That’s Miss Director of Progress to you, thank you very much. Rank hath its perks, bitch.” She paused, as if in thought. “What’s your title again? Secretary?”
I paused in my efforts to glare at her over my shoulder. “Administrative assistant.”
She smiled. “So… secretary.”
Flipped her the finger, I turned my back on her and focused on the pallid face in the mirror. Offering up a curt prayer to the god of cosmetics in thanks for concealer, I popped open the tiny bottle. With swift strokes I began erasing the tell-tale signs of the night’s hedonism, wiping out the rash-like redness across my cheeks, blueish patches below the eyes: the evidence of several bottles of wine and hours of pounding each other like beasts in heat. Fucking hell, I looked rough; and I struggled to suppress a momentary smile.
“What were you before?” she called out. In the mirror, Julia began to slide out of bed. “Manager of something or other?”
“Assistant Director,” I muttered. “Global Brand.”
“For Neopharm?”
“Yeah,” I answered.
She gave a little whistle, half-sarcastic, half-real. “Top job.” I watched as she stood, stretched, tossing long ebony hair back, tits flattening in an all-too familiar way as she reached for the ceiling. Tired, humiliated and angry, I nevertheless felt a yearning to reach out to her, to take her back to bed. I might hate the bitch, but she was fucking gorgeous.
“Now look at you,” she continued, padding towards me. “How the mighty have fallen.”
I slammed the tube of concealer down with a bang, resumed my repairs.
“Sitting in panties and bra, putting on your face. Slipping into a cute dress, scurrying to your little desk. Sitting pretty, low-income wage-slave, really drawing on that university education, aren’t you?”
“Back the fuck off, Jules.”
She sauntered closer, grinning. “Or what?”
I opened my mouth, said nothing, closed it.
“Exactly,” she said, reaching past me. “So just shut it, okay?” She crouched to my level, and with one hand gently cupped my chin. “You’re pretty good at this,” she said, and there was something grudgingly admiring in her tone. “You’ve only been doing this for a couple of months?”
“I’m a quick learner.”
“A natural, you mean.”
“Fuck you.”
“Shh,” she whispered, putting one finger to my lips, then bringing a lip pencil to bear. “Let me.” With luxurious strokes she began to draw in my lips, contouring carefully but confidently. “Something a little more daring for a Monday morning.” And there was something undeniably erotic about the attention, her breath on my cheek, the closeness and care with which she painted my mouth. An echo of last night’s submissiveness, that sensation of preciousness and being cared for, welled up; so did my cock, tenting Julia’s borrowed panties.
She noticed, smiled, tapped the tip with the pencil. “Easy there,” she said, “I like that pair.” Her touch was delicate and caring. “Enjoying this?” she added, knowing I couldn’t answer as she dabbed a touch more colour to my lips. “Surely you can admit some benefits of girlhood.”
I waited till she pulled the pencil back. “No.”
“Shame. You could really enjoy it if you let yourself. Being a girl can be a lot of fun.” She reached for a lipstick, adding, “though I’d prefer you suffer, of course.” She reconsidered, took another. “Crimson Eclipse,” she said, twisting the slender metal bullet. And yeah, if I allowed myself, I’d admit that it did feel good as Julia slowly, sensually slid the slick stuff across my lips. It felt a little creamy, lighter on the lips than the cheap stuff I wore, and if I wasn’t so goddam bone-tired, so sick-to-the-soul exhausted after months of hiding—or rather, living—this disguise, then yeah, maybe, just maybe I could’ve taken some perverse enjoyment out of the whole situation, the dressing up and role play and the deviant pleasure of it all. That is if my goddamned life didn’t depend on playing a part I despised.
A gentle nudge turned me towards the mirror. Her efforts had transformed the face I saw there: a glossy, darker red shimmering like a veil of early night stars glimmering behind the light of a setting sun, a vivid contrast to the paleness of Cindy’s skin.
“Jesus, Jules, everyone’ll be staring at my lips all day.”
“I know,” she giggled. “That’s the point, right?” She tapped me lightly on the nose a final time with the closed lipstick. “Just imagine what the guys’ll be imaging you could do with those lips”
I groaned.
“Let’s get you dressed,” she said.
Which she did, starting with sheer tights with a obvious sheen to help keep Cindy’s secret tucked away—“And don’t you dare tear them,” Julia insisted—but yesterday’s skirt and top; she clearly liked the idea of my heading into work a little rumpled, my appearance hinting at late night indiscretion and debauchery under the veneer of makeup. There was no escaping the heels. Nor Julia’s final effort at embarrassing me: brushing my hair out and setting it into a high ponytail dangling down between my shoulders. The final look was somewhere between sexy secretary and naughty schoolgirl. I hated it; Julia loved it; and she was very good at getting her way.
***
The car hummed with sudden acceleration and looking outside again I saw we were merging onto the highway. Hugging the ramp, the car smoothly joined the rapid flow of traffic. It wasn’t clear where the car was bringing me: away from the city, obviously, but clearly not to the main Asklepios Clinic which was, as far as I knew, halfway across the country. Presumably we were heading to one of the smaller Asklepios campuses or retreats. There were a half-dozen of these dotted around the country: secluded, gated realms of therapy and research where the rich recovered their health and sanity, and hid for as long as they could afford from the real world.
The morning sun outside was only growing stronger, and I felt the heat against the tinted window. The view outside was pretty boring, seemingly endless stretches of agricultural industrialisation glinting in the harsh light, a webwork of towering blocks of concrete and steel clawing the sky, interconnected, automated and layered, growing the fruit and vegetables, fungus and fake meat required to feed the inexorable maw of the urban centres.
Drumming my fingertips against the window brought a series of clicks against the glass, another gift of Julia’s: matching nail extensions in the current style, one of last weekend’s “girls’ day out” activities.
With humiliating predictability, Julia’s influence over my life only grew greater after that first morning. She took not only pleasure, but a strange responsibility, in dressing me after I spent the night. Not that I stayed over at hers every night, of course. In fact, after that initial effort at humiliating me she completely withdrew—ignored my few texts, and I didn’t bump into her at work. I checked in at her office a few floors up and discovered she’d taken a few days holiday. I wondered, briefly, if she’d changed her mind and decided against tormenting me; and couldn’t decide whether I was disappointed or not.
But no: by Thursday morning I’d received her first instruction, and several more followed in the days that followed. Initially, she dictated small details of Cindy’s fashion: a text message in the morning picking a colour of lipstick, or a certain skirt she knew hung in my closet. When I stayed the night, she took particular pleasure in choosing and styling my hair for the day—a long, tight braid one day; once and most embarrassingly, twin pigtails for a Friday.
By the second week, items of clothing began arriving at my home, bought online by Julia and delivered to home or indiscreetly at work: the occasional racy underthing, like the suspender belt and stockings I currently wore, but also smaller gifts: a delicate pair of earrings, or a particularly vivid colour of nail varnish, or a tight, midriff-baring t-shirt, pink and cute, with stylised design of an indolent cat she’d spotted one evening after work.
I was her doll, and Julia delighted in playing with me.
And you know, had she stopped at dressing me up it may have been bearable. It was, in a weird and twisted kind of way, fun spending time with her. Yes, she was a bitch; and half-mad with bitterness and hunger for revenge; and clearly twisted up inside with guilt and remorse over her own vindictiveness; and dominating; and spiteful; and… a hell of a lot of fun, probably because she was such an absolute train-wreck of a human being.
She was also gorgeous—which made being with her so much easier and the more time spent with her, the more I came to appreciate her beauty—and exciting, especially in bed and far more than she’d been a decade ago. She was meticulous and attentive, showing remarkable patience in teaching me all the finer points of female artistry that I really didn’t want to know. Under her tutelage, I’d probably learned more about hair, makeup, nail and fashion in the past month than I’d mastered since the start of this insane charade, despite the fact she didn’t seem all that bothered in applying those same skills to herself.
And she’d gotten surprisingly good—disconcertingly so, especially in such a short time—at manipulating me, at knowing how far to push and when to back down. I may have bristled under her grip, but also found comfort in her careful control, in finally sharing my agonies with another human being. And she, in return, came to understand the precariousness of her own dominance. Push me too far, too hard, and I’d refuse and the illusion that bound us would dissipate. For example, her threat to call the cops or hand me over to—someone, it was always a bit vague—didn’t hold up to scrutiny. Hell, I was probably more likely to give myself away than she was, in drunkenness or anger.
The real threat, a month into this weird and renewed relationship, unsaid but understood, was either of us just walking away. These past few weeks with her had been, in their own way, a hell of a lot better than the earlier months spent entirely alone, every night and weekend, stewing in my own impotent anger and loneliness. There was a strange symbiosis between us: I gained a coach and a confidant, someone to guide me through the intricacies of my role and share my agonies of frustration and anger. We both got to have sex, lots of it.
She gained… what? A sense of satisfaction in revenge? Excitement and passion and a new pet project to occupy her time? Even after a month together it remained unclear to me what exactly Julia expected to get from me—after all, the current situation couldn’t last forever, right?
And so. If she’d stopped at playing dress up, with occasional bouts of humiliation or mockery—yeah, everything would’ve probably been fine. I could’ve played her games and waited out the time until the Clinic gave me back my life.
But she didn’t stop there.
I’m not doing this, I wrote, fingernails clicking and glinting as I tapped at my phone.
You are doing this, she responded, complete with winking smiley face.
I can’t do this.
Of course you can, Julia retorted. You’ve already been out with him.
That wasn’t a fucking date! That was drinks after work.
You kissed him.
He kissed -me-.
You owe him.
“I don’t owe him shit!” I hissed under my breath.
Besides, the jackass was running nearly an hour late. Who keeps a girl a sexy as Cindy waiting for a whole hour?
A month on from that disastrous Friday night out for after-work drinks, and here I was again: in public on a Saturday night, dressed up and on display, a sexy young girl perched at the bar of Chez Lucien, Dan’s choice of venue, Julia’s plotting, the next inevitable step in her efforts to extract revenge from my ongoing humiliation.
Which is how I found myself squeezed and poured into a classic little black dress: sequined, plunging sweetheart neckline, sleeveless and tight, fitted over nipped-in curves to midthigh, finished with sheer seamed stockings. Paired with the tallest heels I could just about navigate for the evening, Cindy cut a fine figure at the bar. She glimmered in the soft romantic lighting—an effect of Julia’s generous application of some kind of shimmery body butter a few hours ago—in a most alluring way.
Consequently, she also cradled her large gin with unbecoming desperation. Glaring into the balloon-shaped glass, the drink’s cherry glow captured the bar’s light in a tumble of ice and tonic. I studiously avoided the surreptitious, appraising glances of passing men, suppressing my own tremulous anxiety fluttering deep in my taut belly. But my own reflection in the glass behind the bar mocked me. Heavy hoop earrings, smoky eyes, dark lipstick, darker thoughts: fuck you, Julia.
No: fuck me, because of -course- that’s what Dan’ll be thinking about all night. He’d be staring at my lips, deep ruby shine that hinted at flushed passion, and imagine them wetly bobbing up and down his engorged cock. He’d wonder what I was wearing under this dress, the sexy under-things Julia’d strapped me into earlier, the lace and straps twining around my lithe form that helped me squeeze into this nothing of a dress, a naughty gift awaiting unwrapping. Or he’d be eying up those padded curves pushing out my front, hands aching to reach out, firm, strong hands kneading, gripping, thumb and finger stroking through lacy cups. Or the smoky shimmer of stocking-clad legs, hand on knee, silky and soft, then thigh, tracing the lacy trim, sliding over suspender tabs and embroidered welt, following straps ever higher, reaching….
I took a deep, desperate gulp of gin to hide the sudden flush blossoming beneath bold makeup. The drink only partially cut through rekindled heat. Eyes closed, shakily breathing, focusing on the sensation of ice and cool glass and the whisper of purified air across my too-bared flesh, I grimaced and fought through the agonising intensity of arousal.
Hooking up with Julia had triggered something unexpected. I’d have thought that the release of months of pent-up sexual frustration would’ve been a blessed release: four months now – over four-fucking-months! living as Cindy, the longest I’d gone without getting laid since escaping the streets. David had enjoyed all-but-weekly one-night stands, the occasional bouts of longer relationships, a constant flow of mostly meaningless sex. Cindy—fortunately—not so much. But now, with Julia, we were fucking at least once, twice a week; but instead of bringing any kind of relief I just found myself hornier than ever, my thoughts constantly ensnared, twisting and writhing within flashes of nearly overwhelming desire.
What the hell was wrong with me?
Worse, arousal brought discomforting sensations where I didn’t want them: in tightening nipples, blooming warmth, timorous tingling flowering in breasts suddenly eager to be held. At times my whole body felt… tight and tense, taut like a guitar string waiting to be plucked; other times, almost tremblingly weak, hot and anxious, as though ready to fall into strong arms. And it took real willpower to push through those moments, deep breathing and focus, even to just keep my own hands under control. It was bad enough at home, where I could indulge my need; out and about was harder, with public eyes burning me under their attentive gaze; at work this was pure torture.
I constantly doubted myself, felt distracted and uncertain. At times, it was like being lost in an agonising haze, and emerging I’d find myself somewhere unexpected; in conversation, I’d zone out, overwhelmed by need and genuinely appear the pretty ditz so many took Cindy to be. Once or twice I’d even had to hide, locking myself into a bathroom stall until the surge of passion passed.
This… couldn’t happen; I couldn’t meet Dan—any man—like this, trembling like gossamer petals in a summer breeze. I opened my eyes and looked at the remainder of my drink and judged I could knock it back in one and get the hell out of here. A pity I’d have to clear my own bill—I hadn’t even checked the prices, counting on Dan to pick up the tab, and judging by appearances Cindy really couldn’t afford this kind of place—but Julia be damned: date night with Dan was a whole level of bullshit too far.
Time to get the hell out of Chez Lucien. I gulped the gin and reached down from the tall stool—frustratingly designed for an average man’s height—to find my footing. Uncertain in fashionably too-tall shoes Julia’d insisted on buying me to wear tonight, I wobbled momentarily, gripping the counter to steady myself—and felt a sudden hand on my shoulder, strong and sure.
“Easy there,” rumbled a masculine voice at my side.
Rolling my eyes, I turned to tell the guy to fuck off, thank you very much, and get his damned hands off of me; saw the speaker; and froze, locking up in momentary fear.
Last time I’d seen this guy was months ago.
He’d been at a distance, as I crouched behind a dumpster in an alley behind a strip joint. I’d lightly cradled a broken beer bottle in my hand. Either he’d been elsewhere these intervening months or—far more likely—had done a better job of keeping himself hidden as he spied on me. Jeff: that was his name. My stalker, some dickhead Steele had stuck on Cindy’s ass to keep an eye on her, in the unlikely event she somehow revealed some link back to David Sanders. I’d nearly killed him back then, eager to twist the jagged edge of the bottle into his neck and watch the blood spurt free.
But I hadn’t and now here he was.
The man grinned, towering over me. At a glance I’d give him an easy 185cm, slender and smartly dressed. I envied the comfort and manoeuverability of his clothes: black trousers and fitted, sharp white shirt, hinting at firm muscles beneath. Dirty blond hair pulled back in a short ponytail, heavy watch, a solitary ring on his right hand, plain and silver. Hazel eyes sparkled with mirth but there was an aura of threat to him, a subtle tension in the way he stood and to his jaw that suggested a quickness to anger and action. A redness to his eyes, the unshaven two-day’s stubble, contrasted with his otherwise crisp appearance.
He had every advantage: height, reach, weight and strength; clothes, stable shoes, no earrings or bracelet or necklaces to catch or tear. Even so: if I acted now, poised as I was and when he didn’t expect it as I gingerly stepped down from the stool, I could take him. Pivot and knee to the groin. Spike heel thrust down into his instep; smash the glass into his face; grab a bottle from the bar and crack his skull, at the temple, and fulfill the promise of blood made months ago by thrusting the shattered edge of glass into his exposed flesh.
No.
Instead, I licked my lips; and Cindy smiled.
“Surely a pretty girl like you,” he said, and with a strong hand helped me back onto the stool, “isn’t sitting alone?”
“I’m not alone,” Cindy chirped, and she tossed long, blonde hair back over the left shoulder, smoothing it down with her free hand.
“Really?” he said. He made a show of looking around, behind the bar, behind him. “Could’ve fooled me.”
Cindy giggled. “No, silly.” She tapped her phone. “I’m waiting for someone.”
He sank into the stool next to her, signalled for the bartender. “Friend? Is she as cute as you?”
“Nice try,” she answered. “Boyfriend. He’s running late.”
“You must be kidding.” He ordered a beer. “What kind of guy keep a girl like you waiting?”
“I know, right?” She tapped her glass with one nail, and the hollow sound of the empty glass rang clear. “But he’s a nice guy, so….” She trailed off and shrugged.
“Nice?” The man scoffed. “Girls don’t need someone nice; they need a guy who’s strong.” He grinned. “Like me.”
Cindy made a little moue of disapproval. “Hey, nice is good.”
“Sure,” he answered. “Wanna bet I can guess the name of this ‘nice guy’?”
“Bet?” she said. “Sure. Three chances.”
He grinned. “What’s my prize if I get it?”
Cindy tapped her glass again with a nail. “You can buy me a drink.”
“I like it. And if I lose?”
“You lose all this,” she said, sticking out her chest, rolling her bare shoulders, and tossed her hair. “And you go away, of course.” But she smiled, taking away the possible sting of her words.
The man nodded, suddenly mock serious as he performed deep thinking. He took a sip of beer and stared upwards for a long moment. Then he lowered his gaze, and locked eyes with Cindy.
“David,” he said.
For several seconds—though it felt longer—too long—we stared at each other, the silence heavy between us, his smile twisting into a smirk at the corner his lips. His eyes narrowed the tiniest fraction. We were in this moment, alone in the bustling restaurant, and I saw then, clearly, past the charming surface to what lay beneath. What did he find in return, beneath my careful, glossy veneer?
I languorously passed the tip of my tongue over my lips and smiled brightly.
“David?” I said and laughed. “Daves are, like, forty-year old car mechanics. Not my type.”
His expression didn’t change; he maintained a strange look between mirth and mockery; sudden tightness built across his neck and shoulders, and it seemed as though he were about to lash out. I supressed a wince, half-expecting a slap across the face I felt powerless to prevent. But then the tension drained away, and his face relaxed into an easy smile.
“Okay then,” he said, without breaking eye contact. “Thomas.”
I gave a little sigh. “That’s a good name. I had a friend called Thomas, once,” I said, wistfully. “He was cute.” And then, staring back at him: “But no, not really boyfriend material.”
He shrugged. He seemed to hesitate, as if suddenly unsure, and then spoke quickly. “Jeff,” he said.
I supressed my surprise at him using his real name. “Hmm, Jeff.” I rolled it around my mouth, contemplatively. “Jeff,” I said, drawing out the fricatives. “Bearded guy in his thirties doing the weather report.” I wrinkled my nose. “Grows his own vegetables. No thanks.”
He made of show of appearing wounded, holding his hand over his heart. “Ouch.”
“Let me guess,” I said. “Your name’s Jeff.”
“You’re better at this than I am.”
“Well, Jeff,” I said. “It’s been fun but…”
“Let me buy you a drink.” He waved at my empty glass on the counter. “Even if I lost. Anything you want. A prize for beating me at my own game.”
“But…”
“My pleasure,” he interrupted, and waved at the bartender. “A drink for the pretty lady.”
“Listen, I don’t think….”
“Then don’t,” he snapped. He held up one finger and shushed me—I flushed with livid outrage and frustration—and then his hand was on my forearm, fingers gently gripping my flesh as the anger drained from him. “Please,” he said, “don’t overthink this. There’s nothing wrong with a drink and chat while you’re waiting, right?”
And I saw in his eyes, then, such yearning, such desperate sadness and loneliness, that my protest caught in my throat. Stifling the instinct to snatch back my arm, I stared back at him in genuine surprise. “Jeff—”
“Sorry, hey, sorry I’m late, I—”
And then Dan was standing there, red-faced and mouth open as he looked at me, at me and Jeff, and surely, he noted the hand resting over my arm. And it occurred to me, suddenly, that I could play both guys off of each other, that I suddenly held a position of bizarre power and that with a coy glance, a soft touch, the right words I could have both these men at each other’s throats. It was an insane, fleeting impulse—Dan wouldn’t stand a chance—and then the situation flipped: if I didn’t act, the situation could so easily devolve into something nasty, with me somehow to blame, especially as Jeff made no move to pull back his hand from where is rested far too casually, staring back evenly at my so-called ‘boyfriend’.
So I acted. I flung myself from the stool into Dan’s arms, releasing a little squeal of joy. “You’re here!” Surprised, he nevertheless caught me—and I kissed him on the mouth, deeply, arms wrapping around his neck. As he stumbled and spun me about, I looked over his shoulders at Jeff, who’s brow darkened and a look of anguish passed across his features. He grabbed his beer and walked away.
At which point, of course, I became aware of Dan’s tongue eagerly exploring my mouth, one hand on my bare shoulder, the other intimately comfortable around my waist. I pulled away, looking down at the floor in a way that I hoped appeared bashful, hiding the shudder of revulsion that tore through me.
He took my hand. “Hey, what was that for?”
“Just happy to see you,” I answered, and he led me to our table.
***
The car woke me from my reveries with a gentle chime. Apparently, we were stopping to recharge its batteries. With a subtle clunk the doors unlocked. Did I want to step out and stretch my legs, grab a snack, take a piss? Yes. But did I also want to avoid human contact, dressed as I was, safe and isolated in the womb of the car? Also yes.
Sighing, I checked myself in the screen and added a dab of lip gloss and opened the door. The heat hit like a wave, as did the full glare of the sun. Goddam Julia for today’s work outfit, suspender belt and stockings, charcoal pencil skirt to the knees, fitted blouse over long-line bra. At least my hair was up off my neck in a high ponytail, but I’d still be drowning in boob sweat and sagging stockings by the time the car finished charging.
I felt distinctly out of place in this rural shithole, the charging station little more than a concrete and asphalt platform with a bank of EV points and a singular petrol pump that probably saw more use around here than all the other eco-alternatives combined. A narrow bank of yellowing trees lined the road, offering some slight shelter from the sun, and away from the road stretched a desiccated field of browning crops withering under rusting spraying towers that probably hadn’t seen a drop of water in the past decade. Other than the hum of cicada and passings cars, it was unnervingly quiet. There was also a small shop and restaurant, with a pair of cars parked at the side.
Sweat beaded along neck and welts and band; makeup wouldn’t survive long out here. The car chimed at me: the rear gently slid open and revealed a small travel bag, and inside a change of clothes. Smiling gratefully, I grabbed the bag and headed for the restaurant and its toilets.
Heels rang out incongruously as I crossed the platform. With each step drawing me closer, I pulled back; Cindy rose to the fore; and I experienced one of those moments again, the strange conflation of sensation and detachment in which I stepped away and observed myself—my Cindy—from without.
The delicate arch of the heels and slight pinch at the toes. A tug with each step, six-taut straps a reminder of that terribly feminine scrap of fabric, the suspender belt and its firm presence at her waist. The heat of the sun on hair, cleavage, flashing of bracelets, dangling earrings and nails. Lithe steps, slight wiggle, toss of hair—growing confidence. Nose wrinkling with the acrid bitumen scent of heat baking asphalt spongy.
Cindy took a deep breath and stepped through the door.
The heat followed her through as the door jingled her arrival to the tired looking waitress rubbing down a chipped counter, both looking as though they belonged in the previous century. A pair of half-depleted racks held bags of nuts and other snacks. Somebody had clearly had the foresight to move the chocolate bars into one of the free- standing cooling units, where they sat in an untidy heap surrounded by cans of energy drink and bottles of flavoured water. There was a small grill behind the counter, a chilled display case holding a few cakes and pieces of pie, and a small desk fan hung from the ceiling in the corner futilely pushing against the oppressive heat.
“Come in, darling,” said the waitress. “Grab a seat,” she added, gesturing towards a stool at the counter, “any seat,” and then towards one of the three tables by the windows. There were two other patrons at a table, a young man and woman hunched over their food, talking quietly and intensely to each other, and a younger man at the counter, maybe a teenager, who made no effort to conceal his close study of the newcomer. Cindy shivered as his gaze swept up her legs, lingered over her boobs and finally settled on the wet shine of her lips. He grinned.
“It’s okay,” the waitress continued, “we don’t bite.”
“I might.” The boy grinned and snapped his teeth at Cindy. “Mmm, tasty.”
The waitress slapped him across the back of the head. “Don’t mind this jackass, he’s harmless. Like a puppy.”
The boy growled.
“C’mon honey, you hungry? You look beat.”
And Cindy thought, not yet; they haven’t beaten me yet. Smiling tiredly, she followed the waitress as she led her to a table.
Following the waiter, Dan led me to the table, one of the nice ones near the tree, an actual living tree at the centre of the restaurant, its graceful limbs unfurling towards the glass dome ceiling and glimmering with coiling fairy lights. The place was busy, an intimate and well-dressed Saturday night crowd, swelling with a gentle murmur of polite conversation, men in dress shirts and women—like me—in fashionably precise femininity: short dresses, tall heels, and makeup, the flash of jewelry and nails accompanying the tinkle of cutlery on plates and glasses chiming in cheer.
And Dan pulled back my chair for me, he’s such a fucking gentleman, and I slid in with a practiced motion, smoothing down my dress and he pushed my chair back. I’m trapped now in this date, this forced evening performance. I could’ve brushed him off, he was an hour late and if it hadn’t been for that goddamn stalker, I’d have escaped and that would’ve probably been it for Dan, I could’ve dumped him by text on the bus ride home.
Instead, I sat there haunted by the final glimpse of Jeff looking almost pathetically forlorn as Dan swept me up in his arms. There’d been such a look of hungry longing that I immediately thought of Julia, and her rapacious need to humiliate me.
Where was Jeff now? Still here, probably, maybe tapped into the restaurant’s security system, assessing and evaluating, watching whether I conformed to his expectations of Cindy-ness. Was he reporting back to his boss that David Sanders remained nowhere in sight?
Time to focus on the date. Truth is, Dan’s an alright guy. A year ago, I would’ve probably had him working on my team, late hours, shown him the ropes, taken him out for a beer. Gotten him drunk, pat on the back, dumped him in a taxi. He’s young, wet behind the ears and full of shit, bit of a dork but yeah… he’s okay. Pretty good shape, too: takes advantage of the company gym, fundraiser marathons, that kind of shit. I respected that.
Doesn’t mean I wanted to date the guy, though, wanted to sit opposite him half-naked in this nothing of a dress Julia chose for me, wrapped in constricting lacy underthings, slathered in makeup. Still, I smiled pleasantly at his bullshit, because that’s what a pretty girl does on a date, right? But something’s a bit off. He’s a little flushed, red in the face and not from running to get here late, and not only from the encounter with Jeff. He’s already had a drink, or three.
And when the waiter arrived to take our drinks, I opened my mouth to order another gin and he put his hand over mine to stop me. “It’s alright, babe, I’ve got this,” he said and ordered a bottle of Moet.
Babe?
And what the fuck’s up with men cutting me off tonight?
He’s never shown this kind of confidence before, bordering on cocky with a dominant streak he’s kept well concealed until now. I’d have applauded him for it – if it weren’t damn well directed at me. Now looking at him closely, I noted the dress shirt, unbuttoned at the collar, and strip of sweat hinting at a tie removed a beer or two ago. There’s a heavy, chunky watch flashing at his wrist, showy and very new. He’s flushed, eyes bright with both eagerness and resentment – and confusion; he doesn’t know what to make of another guy, clearly hitting on me, breakers against which the cresting wave of his excitement just crashed.
I left my hand under his just long enough to show neither offense nor particular interest—hopefully; how the fuck do women evaluate this shit?—before withdrawing to examine the menu. And immediately I’m struck that this place is a hell of a lot more upscale than I’d thought. These prices – there’s no way I could possibly afford this kind of place—I could probably just about manage a starter without flat-lining my credit rating. Eating here I’d literally be in Dan’s debt. Goddammit, but Julia must’ve known that when she pushed me into this date.
“Dan,” I whispered, leaning close. “I can’t afford this!”
He grinned. “Hey, don’t worry, babe. I’ve got it.”
That word again. “But Dan, it’s so expensive ….”
“Hey,” he interrupted, suddenly authoritative. “I’ve got this,” he said, his tone final.
Cindy, slightly abashed, hid her reddening face behind the menu, searching for the cheapest thing she could find. I’m merely bemused by this change in attitude. Two weeks ago, before I’d drunk myself stupid, there’d been something genuinely charming about this guy, in a slightly geeky, trying-too-hard kind of way. This new Dan, splashing cash and taking charge was… unexpected; and annoying, to be honest.
Maybe he picked up on Cindy’s surprise, because he mollified his tone a little. “Hey, honestly,” he continued. “Don’t worry about it. I can afford it. Haven’t you heard?”
I cocked an eyebrow. “Heard what?”
“Promotion, babe!” His grin split into a wide, honest smile. “Your boyfriend’s just made Lead Researcher at Volumina International!”
Boyfriend?
I gaped at him, and he burbled on before I could protest: “I knew it was in the works but didn’t expect anything just yet. But then Fatima handed in her notice last week, and the boss was very happy with the Ariel Jeans contract—and…,” he took a breath. “Are you listening?”
“Of course!” I said and smiled. “But… boyfriend?”
He leaned closer across the table. His hand reached for mine; our fingers touched, and he held them gently, my shaped nails a soft shimmer against his darker skin. “Well… yeah,” he said.
Fortunately, the waiter arrived just then with a pair of elegant flutes in one hand, bottle of Champagne in the other. She popped the bottle and poured the fizz. I chewed my lip, anxiously; and picked up the glass by the slender stem, and they rang out their clear tone of celebration as we cheered.
“To promotions,” I announced.
“No,” he said. “To us.”
When the waiter took our order I tried asking for the cheapest main on the menu, some kind of vegan risotto, but again Dan interrupted. “Chateaubriand,” he ordered, “for the lady and me.”
“Dan….” I tried, meekly, but he ignored me as he ordered starters and sides, and a bottle of red: a Pinot, a poor choice to pair with the steak but I suspected he wasn’t interested in hearing my opinion on this.
“Dan,” I tried again after the waited left. My voice began to betray my annoyance.
“You have to admit,” he continued over me as though I hadn’t spoken. “I’m quite the catch, right? Up-and-coming, right?” His hand, once again finding mine, clasped it more firmly this time. “Don’t you think? You could do a lot worse than a guy like me.”
And the thing was, this heady mix of taking-charge and pathetic openness was… well, there was almost something endearing about it, if it hadn’t been quite so rude. Despite the dress and makeup, heels and lingerie, and the apparent differences in our ages, I felt an almost paternal instinct to take him under my wing, as it were, and show him how’s it done, how to win a woman over without falling back on brute rudeness and boasting. His approach was almost hilarious in its ineptness, and I swallowed a gulp of champagne to hide my smile. The bubbles sparked against my tongue as I considered my response.
I couldn’t laugh at him, though I wanted to.
I could tell him to fuck off: an hour late, ordering for me, interrupting and bragging – those were obvious red flags for most women, right?
But what about Cindy? She was young, inexperienced and to be honest, Dan wasn’t wrong: he was a catch for a girl like me, relatively new to town in a low-paying, dead-end job, on her own with few friends. He was good looking, he had a good income, friends, and professionally heading in the right direction… what was there not to like?
Well, the fact we were both guys, obviously. There were implications to a meal like this. A guy didn’t splash out cash like this, spend the night with a girl the day after his promotion, without certain expectations. Expectations Cindy might eagerly promise but which I would never fulfill.
And of course, there was the possibility that Jeff was still watching from the wings….
I gave his hand a little squeeze and pulled away. “Why don’t you tell me about your job?”
He looked momentarily annoyed but, given the invitation, also eager to talk about his promotion. Which he did—at length: “This is such a big step for me,” he started, “you can’t understand, Cindy, I’ll finally be….” And he launched into it, first about all the amazing things he’d done to get noticed, the hard work and long hours, and then moving on to the big step up in responsibility he’d accepted, leading a team, directing the research, managing the presentations and data analysis, qualitative and quantitative collection; and the opportunities, to work with bigger brands, flying abroad, the adventure and excitement. And at no point did he pause long enough for me to get a word in edgewise, and as my attention drifted I began to wonder: did I ever talk at women like this?
No. At least, I didn’t think so. I’d always been good at reading people, at picking up on what the other person wanted. If I’d been sat opposite Cindy, surely I’d be picking up on her boredom, her frustration, her desire to get a fucking word into the conversation without getting cut off or ignored.
Besides, smiling slightly at the memory of the few women I’d gotten to know beyond a one-night stand—I can’t imagine they’d have let me get away with this kind of bullshit.
“Are you listening?” Dan’s voice intruded, one part angry to one part plaintive.
“Of course,” I said, and smiled tiredly. “It’s just a lot to take in.” His eyes betrayed his annoyance, and so I added, “And I can’t really pretend to understand half of what you’re telling me! It all sounds terrible complicated—and exciting!—but a lot of work.”
Somewhat mollified, he sat back and grinned. “Stepping stones, babe! A couple years leading a team, build up some experience, build up some contacts and then….” He made a gesture with his hands, like a rocket ship taking off, complete with whooshing sound.
“You’ll become an astronaut?”
“No!” He sounded annoyed by my attempt at humour. “I’ll jump ship, go independent, be my own boss! Work half the year as a consultant, spend the other half traveling, or just kicking back, you know, and—”
Thank God the starters arrived at that point, steaming hot shitake mushroom stuffed with real cheese and real garlic, and some delicate filo pastries oozing something that smelled amazing. With food in his mouth Dan couldn’t talk, and there was a moment of blessed respite.
I picked tentatively at the food. It looked… amazing, but I found myself without much appetite. Part of it was down to the clothes I wore, the tight constriction of lingerie and the ongoing discomfort of sitting on my tucked away nuts all night. And part of it was residual anxiety: was Jeff still out there, watching this car-crash of a date?
And finally – dear God, how I just wanted to get away from this guy.
Which is why, with his mouth full of mushroom and garlic, I took the opportunity to stand up. “Back in a sec,” I told him, and fled to the ladies’ room.
Cindy stepped out of the restaurant’s grimy little toilet feeling remarkably refreshed. She swapped stifling work-clothes for the contents of the bag: simple white bra and panties, and a sleeveless summer dress, light and loose and short, peach with vertical pinstripes and leaving long legs bare to a pair of open-toed wedge sandals. Still hot but far more comfortable, she smiled easily as she pranced back to her table.
“Look at you,” the waitress said, coming over with Cindy’s order. “You’re a sight for sore eyes. We could use a little more colour around here.”
“Maybe try cleaning the place, then?” called the boy from the counter. He was now engrossed in his phone—Cindy suspected he may have snapped a sneaky photo of her as she took her seat.
The waitress ignored him. “What’s your name, honey?” the waitress asked, sliding food and drink onto the table, a soy chicken sandwich as hearty as the side salad looked sad, and a frothy, pink milkshake.
“Cindy.”
“Name’s Doreen,” she answered.
Cindy smiled pleasantly at her. “Nice to meet you, Doreen.” And she meant it—there was something genuinely heroic about the woman, in all her dowdy glory, tired and grey but somehow upbeat and resilient. Her uniform was drab and worn, the apron stained, but her nails flashed a brilliant teal and her carefully coifed hair and meticulous makeup suggested a valiant battle against middle-aged fade. Like a soldier in dress uniform mired in the mud and filth of a trench, she rose by virtue of effort alone above her squalid surroundings.
“You should try the lemon meringue, it’s divine,” Doreen said.
Cindy gestured at the sandwich. “After all this?”
“You won’t regret it.” The waitress slapped her thigh as though to highlight the difference between them. “Skinny thing like you?”
“You’re too kind,” Cindy answered. “It’s the magic of vertical stripes.”
Doreen snorted as she returned to the counter.
Taking a dainty bite of her sandwich, Cindy glanced around the restaurant. The boy kept glancing furtively her way, and she made a point of catching his eye, leaning languidly forward and pursed her wet lips around the milkshake straw, slowly drawing on the sweet drink. He blushed, suddenly uncomfortable, and turned away.
Hiding a little smile, she took a moment to tap out a quick message to her friends, first Julia and then Dan, informing her that she’d be away for a few days. Then her gaze lazily danced across the room as she continued to eat.
The two other patrons, sitting a table away from Cindy, continued their secretive conversation hunched over some scribbled pages and cups of iced coffee. The man gesticulated often; the woman shushed him; there seemed to be tension between them. He grabbed her wrist; she tried to pull away; her voice rose then went quiet. Noticing Cindy’s attention, the man glared and she quickly looked away.
A screen over the counter drew her attention as it flicked through current affairs, volume off but with subtitles. Images flashed by in their daily deluge of depressing updates: high-altitude video of a rainforest burning thousands of kilometers away, jumping to drone footage of an armed conflict even further abroad, sickly green gas roiling across shattered streets and hollowed-out buildings. Cutting to: a short update on captain Zhao and her team, a crisis a hundred million kilometers out and halfway to Mars, spitting oxygen from a pinprick hole and trailing sparkling diamonds into the infinite dark.
Then back to Earth, an update on the heat wave, the nation painted in varying shades of crimson, a heat map the colour of blood and rust. Comic attempts at escaping overheating: tubs full of ice, a party in a walk-in freezer, cute dogs swimming in a pool. Segue to more serious local news: images of violence, police breaking up a candlelight vigil, zooming in on a middle-aged woman thrown to the ground, heavy knee of authority in her back, and her eyes were wide in terror at her arrest, another futile feminist protest against the latest rollback of rights.
Sighing, suddenly uncomfortable, Cindy started to drift just as the news flipped over to the next story: growing concerns over the next variant, vaccine-resistant and a year overdue, poised to sweep across the country after having already peaked overseas with tens of thousands dead. A Neopharm talking head calmly asserted their researchers had it in hand, then stepped aside and handed over to…
Jeremiah Steele.
Cindy watched, appetite suddenly gone, as the familiar figure took the media briefing. He looked—good, unchanged by the events of the previous six months. He stood—confidently, behind a solid mahogany podium diminished by his nearly two-meter height. Strong hands gripped the stand as he spoke, steely eyes severe as he assured listeners that NeoPharm was ready, that the same corporate drive and genius that saw the world through the previous crisis would lead the way once again. In his tailored suit, shaven scalp gleaming under the media’s glare, unflinching before a barrage of questions, he appeared a man—powerful, dominant, muscular—in charge, the epitome of alpha masculinity.
And the cute girl watching trembled, slender fingers curling into the pleated folds of her pretty dress, manicured and painted nails biting into her soft skin. She looked at the impressive man on the screen and she wished....
This date is over.
I tapped at my phone, manicured nails clicking at the screen. Locked away in the privacy of a stall, I allowed cock and balls to hang free and breathe for a few minutes as I made it clear to Julia that I was done.
Her response came nearly immediately: FFS, what is it now?
He’s been promoted! I typed furiously. This place is expensive!
So?
He’ll be expecting something after.
You don’t know that.
I know men.
Julia replied with a laughing emoji. Fine. So give him what he wants.
Very funny.
I’m being serious.
My fingers hovered over the screen for a moment. What did she expect me to do, exactly? WTF, I typed. I’m not gay.
Neither am I, came the answer. People are talking.
People—what people? Work colleagues—her friends—family? And it occurred to me that we’d been spending a lot of time together, that Cindy and Julia were in each others company often and that, yeah, people might start questioning what exactly was going on between the older woman two floors up and the pretty new girl in the office. And her concern was understandable, I suppose. Tolerance for that kind of thing wasn’t what it’d been a decade or two ago.
I hesitated before answering. I’m not into guys, I tapped.
Is Cindy? Julia answered.
To which I could only reply—
“What the fuck?”
The man in the corner sudden surged out of his seat. Lanky and wiry, in faded jeans and a threadbare t-shirt, thrusting his seat aside as his face flushed red with anger, and Cindy, taken aback, wondered what was wrong. The man held aloft the remains of his burger, gesturing at Doreen behind the counter. “You tryin’ to poison me, bitch?”
His companion, a younger woman barely out of her teens, if even that, reached out placatingly to him. “No, Mal, please,” she said, standing. She was pretty enough, with pixyish hair and vividly bright makeup, but rail thin in fishnet tights under cut-off shorts and a baggy t-shirt from which her limbs jutted awkwardly. She placed one hand on the man’s arm, gently, like one would for an angry child; and her voice was soft and gentle, too.
He brushed off the girl’s hand. He threw the food to the floor. “I ain’t paying for this shit!” He glared at the waitress, daring her to contradict him.
Doreen gazed back at him levelly. She sighed and seemed more tired than frightened by the man. “Ain’t nothing wrong with that food I made you,” she said.
“You calling me a liar?” He took a step towards the counter.
“I’m telling you I’m not paid enough to give a shit what you think,” she said. “But there’s a half-dozen cameras around this joint, and they’ve been watching you since you rolled in.”
Glaring at her, he took another step forward. “I ain’t payin’,” he said through gritted teeth.
“I’ll pay,” Cindy said. The words just sort of popped out, and for a moment she seemed wide-eyed and surprised by her intervention. No one answered, so she said it again, louder: “I’ll pay.”
The man glared at her across the room. “Mind your own fucking business, bitch.”
She raised her hands as though to ward off his hostility. “Please,” she said softly, “I’m just trying to help.”
“You think I need your help?” he barked across the room at her. “Huh? Think you’re better than me?”
Cindy shook her head, felt her long hair fall like silent curtains between her and the man, and suddenly felt acutely aware of the difference between them – the appearance of her clothes, the fine cut and quality fabric, her immaculate makeup and the rich glitter of her minimal jewelry.
But now the man’s attention was focused on her, and she squirmed under his appraising gaze. He seemed to like what he saw, and grinned unpleasantly, and Cindy took a nervous step backwards.
“Mal,” the young girl said, reaching out to man. “We should get out of here.”
He ignored her, taking a first step towards Cindy.
“Mal—” the girl tried again, following him.
“Shut up!” And this time he spun and the back of his hand caught the young girl across the chin. Her head snapped back. She twisted and fell across the table. Drinks and plates and cutlery spilled everywhere with a loud clatter, and the table flipped over as she collapsed to the floor.
Doreen shouted something at the boy, and he sat there frozen, and the man screamed obscenities and she reached for her phone and he surged across the restaurant and then suddenly had Doreen by the neck and still the boy wasn’t doing anything. The man hissed threats through clenched teeth. Doreen gurgled and her hands scrabbled futilely at the man’s grip. He reared back; his punch took the waitress in the stomach and her face—already so grey and tired—blanched and her eyes went wide and she sagged and crumpled to the floor.
The door jangled as the boy ran away.
The man called Mal turned and faced Cindy. “Should’ve minded your own business, cunt.” He stalked forward, jabbing a finger her. “Should’ve kept that slut mouth of yours shut.”
And Cindy, wide-eyed with hands held out with fingers spread as though to ward off his approach, whispered, “Please—"
“… please?”
I’d returned to an annoyed ‘boyfriend’ bemoaning the length of time women spend in the toilet and now the starters were cold. He’d drank most of the champagne and was looking a little flushed. We were in that awkward interlude between starter and main, and his inexplicable resentment had stalled the conversation. Taking Dan’s hand and holding it between mine, I smiled, a little pleadingly, and leaned closer. The soft light glimmered enticingly, I hoped, in the gloss of touched-up lips. “Just listen, okay?”
He visibly drooped. “I’ve been a pain tonight, haven’t I? I’m sorry, I am, it’s just…”
“Dan….”
“It’s been a weird week, you know, a stressful one? First Fatima leaving, then the promotion, and—”
“Dan.”
“And I don’t even know if I’m ready for this step up, it’s a lot of responsibility. And I know I was late tonight, and I’m sorry about that, but there’s a reason, see—”
“Dan.”
“And….”
“Shut the fuck up!”
His eyes widened, he opened his mouth to protest—caught the look I was giving him—finally!—and shut it. Dropping Cindy’s sweetness to the side, I gave him a hard glare. “For the love of God, will you just—stop? When a girl wants to talk, let her talk.”
He waited a moment, then nodded.
“Good– just… chill. You’re trying way too hard, man. Like, way, way too hard. I’m here with you, okay? You asked me out and I said yes. You don’t need to impress me with fancy steak and drink. And I don’t need you to take charge, yeah? I like you, you’re a nice guy, but for Chrissake, let a girl get a word in edgewise? Let her order her own food, let her order her own drink.” I gave his hand a gentle squeeze and pulled away, fingernail trailing a path across his palm.
Hiding a sudden grimace behind the flute and sparkle of a final sip of champagne, I resented the need to go so gently with this guy, and the uncomfortable flutter in my belly at the physical contact, the flirtatious tracing of a long fingernail lingering. Dan sat silently for a moment, dark eyes contemplative. Resentment and frustration seemed to war with regret across his features: he drew back his hand, fingers curling into fists, but his face seemed suddenly sad.
“I was going to cancel tonight, you know,” he suddenly said. “It’s why I was late.”
“You probably should have,” I said.
“I’d made other plans,” he said. “Last minute.”
“Sure. You were celebrating your promotion.”
He nodded.
“With friends,” I guessed. “But you’d already booked this place and asked me out last week.”
“Yeah.” His lips curled in a sardonic smile. “Some friends.”
“What happened?”
“They bailed,” he said. “We were a couple of pints in, and Hasan got a call from his fiancée, so off he went; and Derek followed soon after, of course.”
“Just Hasan and Derek? No girls?”
He grimaced, then nodded. Would a real girl have been jealous? Offended? Maybe. Cindy should’ve been hurt but I got where he was coming from: unexpected promotion, cause to celebrate—why spend the night with a girl you barely know, even a pretty one, when already in the company of good friends?
“And were you going to let me know the date was off after the second or third beer?”
He had the good grace to look at least a little ashamed. “I’m sorry.”
“So why didn’t you?”
“I had a feeling those guys were going to bail.” He shrugged. “And well, you’d already said yes and—”
“You wanted to get laid.” I interrupted. “You’d gotten a promotion and the other girls weren’t having it, and you thought, hey, I deserve to celebrate, I worked hard for this thing, right, I deserve a reward, and that Cindy girl, she looks pretty easy and frankly, I’m doing her a favour, a fine catch like me, right?”
He gaped at me for a moment, recovered, frowned. “I never said you look easy.”
“That’s hardly a denial.” I tossed the last of the filo pastries at him. “Jesus Dan, relax; I’m not angry.”
“You’re not?”
“Look at this place,” I said, with a sweeping gesture taking in the restaurant and our table. “And this food’s amazing. What’s not to like? Sitting here with you, champagne, shitake mushrooms, steak? It sure as hell beats sitting alone at home, you know?” I smiled. “Even if the company so far has been a bit shit.”
“Hey!”
“Just—stop trying so hard. Here, let me clear the air a bit. Let me make it easy for you. You are not fucking me tonight.” Maybe the bubbly had gone to my head a bit—it came out a touch louder than I’d intended. “Yeah? I want to be absolutely clear on that point. You’ve got zero chance of getting into my panties tonight, got it?”
He went a little red, but before he could respond the waiter arrived. “Chateaubriand,” she announced, with the good grace to not comment on a conversation she’d clearly overheard. Instead, she slid the steak in between us, a fine slab of real meat, red and juicy and sliced for serving. She dotted small bowls of sides around the table. It all looked amazing; it smelled amazing; putting up with Dan’s crap was totally worth it for a meal like this.
There’s no way Cindy could afford a meal like this on her budget. And sure, Julia had dragged me out for some excellent meals, but she always insisted on controlling what I ate: steak for her, salad for me, that kind of shit. Grudgingly, I had to admit that there were definite advantages to being young, attractive and female. Hell, if I didn’t exploit them, I might never enjoy quality food and drink again.
The wine followed, and we sat in silence as she withdrew the cork and poured out a sample.
“Sir?” she asked, passing the taster to Dan.
With all the finesse of a man out of his depths, he gulped it down and shrugged. She poured out two glasses and left—flashing me a wry smile and quick wink as she passed.
He speared a slice of beef for himself and grabbed some potatoes and greens and silently attacked his meal. Shrugging, I followed suit, and was about to take my first bite when Dan put down his cutlery with a clatter and leaning closer, blurted, “Girls like guys who take charge!”
“Sure,” I answered, fork poised at the edge of my lips, succulent meat impaled on its tines. “Some do.” I waved the morsel at him. “Some people like their steak rare, some blue, some”—I gave an exaggerated shudder—“well done.” Taking the fork into my mouth, I wrapped my lips around the steak and crunched down and moaned at the release of flavours. “Oh, dear God that’s good,” I said, eyes fluttering with pleasure.
I swallowed and speared a potato shiny with butter, spotted with chives. I waved the fork at him again. “And sometime, they don’t even want steak. They want a potato.”
His eyes danced from the steak to the potato, to my eyes, and the hint of a smile curved his lips. “You’ve lost me,” he admitted. “Your metaphor sucks.”
“Sometimes, a girl knows exactly what she wants,” I said, reaching for the wine. “And sometimes, she doesn’t have a fucking clue and wants you to decide. Either way, she knows what she doesn’t want.
“Your job,” I added, raising my glass in mock cheer, “is to figure out what mood she’s in.”
Dan took another bite. “Why not just tell me?”
I gave a little laugh. “Where’s the fun in that?” I answered and took a drink of the wine. It was good and paired better with the steak than I would’ve expected.
“Doesn’t seem fair to me.”
“Maybe.” My fingers drummed out a staccato beat on the table as I worked through my response. “Is it fair I get paid less at work?” I swept my hand along face and flank, taking in the efforts of the evening: makeup and hair, earrings and under rigging, the whole agonising and humiliating costume that helped convince the world I was a girl. Could I be blamed if my voice took on a bit of a frustrated edge? “Or that I’m expected to put all this on for you?” My hand swept across the room. “Or that at least one of the women in this room is statistically likely to go home tonight and get the shit kicked out of her by her partner?”
Dan winced. “I didn’t mean—”
“I know.” I shrugged. “But what the hell does ‘fair’ even mean when we’re playing different games?”
He went to answer, seemed to think better of it, and hid his doubt behind some wine. Mirroring him, I also took another deep drink, and in the brief lull my eyes slid across the room, taking in all the other couples, the murmur of conversation, and the intricate dance of their interactions. Increasingly I found myself paying attention to the women—identifying with them—taking pleasure in their appearance, sure, but also taking note, still learning from their gestures, glances, the small signals they gave their partners and each other. Assessing them, evaluating, studying.
That woman there: tall and slim in an enviably elegant long dress, brilliantly white and backless, slit to the thigh, legs crossed at the knee beneath the drape of fabric, hand delicately held to her slim throat as she laughed, a precise fall of notes like a tinkling chord on a piano; but with eyes that flared like a freshly struck match, and when the man sat opposite turned to call the waiter she grimaced and her fingers curled into a small, tight fist around the chain at her neck.
Or the woman sat in the corner, early thirties, navy skirt suit and fitted blouse, both feminine and serious, subdued makeup but chunky jewelry, hair set in soft waves that offset the sharpness of her attire – sitting with impeccable poise opposite a man in jeans and faded t-shirt, slovenly, belly threatening to overpower his belt, unshaven, laughing, relaxed and happy. His humour seemed forced, quickly cut off as the woman began to shake with silent tears, tiny glimmers rolling down her cheek as she maintained both posture and presence.
Or that girl—Cindy’s age—in bold colours and tight, short clothes—sat opposite a man a decade older—listening intently like a dog to its master as he spoke, dangling earring sparkling like Christmas ornaments as she nodded to the cadence of his emphatic gesticulation… how she rolled her eyes and sighed when he stood to go to the toilet, and she gazed longingly at the exit as she waited for his return.
What did the women here see when they looked at me?
Jesus. I had to get back to being a man, and soon.
“If you weren’t here with me tonight,” Dan intruded on my observation. “Where would you be?”
Fucking Julia, probably. “At home. Alone.” Also possible. “Handwashing underwear and stockings.” Sadly, also true. “Maybe watching something with a glass of wine.” Or a bottle, followed by jerking off. “What about you?”
“A lot more drunk,” he said, gazing into his wine glass.
“Why’d your friends ditch you?”
Exhaling loudly, he hacked at the shared steak and served himself another portion. “Because, Cindy,” he said, and sounded tired, “friendship is constant in all other things, save in affairs of love.”
“In the office,” I corrected him, somewhat to my own surprise. The words just sort of came unbidden.
“Excuse me?” he said.
“You got it wrong,” I said. “Which one is it? Love’s Labour’s Lost? Much Ado? One of those, right? It’s ‘in the office and affairs of love’.”
“You know I did my degree in English Lit, right?” he said. He sounded annoyed. “With a focus on Shakespearian adaptations for my Masters dissertation.”
“And I’m just a silly bimbo with a high school education,” I answered. “Great tits and blonde hair, right?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Well, I don’t need a fucking degree to know a little Shakespeare,” I snapped. “I’ve got a good memory.”
I’d also dated a professor of Literature, years ago, though Dan didn’t need to know that. Akiko, beautiful, sexy Akiko, who used to prep her lectures naked in bed, reading out samples of text to me where they etched themselves indelibly into memory, forever mixing the poetry of language with the sensual image of her skin, her hot breath whispering in my ear, soft kisses down my hard chest, and her lips ….
“Look it up,” I gasped, and as he reached for his phone I refilled my glass with iced water and gulped it down, hiding my sudden, painful arousal.
A minute later he grunted. “Huh, you’re right.”
“Though she be but little,” I said, huskily. “She is fierce.”
He looked at me then—really looked at me for the first time, it felt, this whole “date”. It was as though the previous hour he’d been imagining being elsewhere, with someone else; but suddenly, I’d become worthy of his attention. He smiled; his eyes sparkled like dew at sunrise and he reached across the table for my hand. Grudgingly, I extended mine in return and his thumb traced gentle circles across the back of my hand.
“I’m sorry,” he said again, and for the first time sounded like he meant it.
“It’s… okay.” His hand, softly stroking mine, brought something unexpected, catalysed by those earlier thoughts of Akiko, of days in bed together indolently making love amidst the prose and poetry of her profession. The memory of her touch mingled with the current reality of Dan’s. Confusion triggered a powerful yearning, an aching arousal that echoed the one I’d felt earlier this evening, reaching even further back to the ghost of another’s touch and the promises of something more.
Trembling at the gentle sensation of his fingers, his touch trailing lines of fire as he caressed my skin, my eyes closed and I imagined myself falling into—his?—somebody’s arms, being held close, and—my lips suddenly felt warm; a hot flush crawled up through my belly, tendrils uncoiling through chest and neck; and I felt—
Angry; suddenly, so fucking angry and resentful, to find myself trembling and timorous as a schoolgirl blushing with guilt and desire she couldn’t acknowledge let alone understand. And I felt—
Scared, by this rising tide threatening not only my self-control but my very sense of self. And I felt—
Disgusted, by this man’s touch and by Cindy’s feverish response. And I—
Wanted to escape; wanted to submit. Wanted… release.
And release came, though not as expected. I squeezed my eyes shut and took a deep shuddering breath. I struggled against the crash of powerful conflicting emotions, but the struggle was brief: I lost, and sank beneath the waves.
“Hey, hey you okay?”
I shook my head in a silent, desperate ‘no’ as the first, shameful tears began to dribble down my cheeks. I snatched my hand away, hid them beneath the table; clutched at my legs, and dug those long fingernails, Julia’s gift, into the fleshy softness of my thighs, hoping the pain might bring some sense of control.
And then he was kneeling next to me.
“I’m….” A shuddering breath, a struggle to stifle a sob. “Sorry.”
“No, I am, I’ve been a jerk,” he said, his hand was on my bare shoulder, and I gasped at his touch. With his other hand he gently stroked my hair, like one would soothe a pet, then cupped my chin. “I’m sorry.” He wiped away a tear with the back of a finger.
Eyes squeezed shut, I could sense his closeness, feel his heat, red berries and steak, sandlewood and smoke, and the gentlest of prods tilting my head towards him. My lips parted in a sigh, an exhalation of need.
“Please—”
“Please,” she begged,
Trembling with—anticipation?—Cindy backed away, hands still outstretched against the approaching threat. The man, Mal, stalked closer. “Don’t….”
“Excuse me?” The man paused and he trembled too, with barely restrained rage. “Excuse me?”
“You don’t,” she tried, her mouth dry. “You can just leave, I won’t tell anyone, please….”
The man grabbed a plate and hurled it against the wall where it shattered with a loud crash. “Shut the fuck up!” the man yelled. “I am so fucking tired of bitches like you telling me what to do.” He swept a chair out of the way and stormed towards her and there was suddenly nowhere for Cindy to retreat, the man loomed up in front of her and her voice caught in her throat as she found herself backed up against the wall.
Up close, she saw the stubble and the redness in his eyes, the unhealthy pallor to his skin and she breathed in his stink, foul-breath of bad teeth and unwashed body. What she’d taken for lean toughness at a distance closer resembled emaciation—beneath the stubble his cheekbones stood in sharp relief, and his eyes were sunken. But he had the strength of anger or desperation as he focused his rage on the young girl.
Cindy shook her head in desperation. “I’m not—”
His slap took her across the cheek, a jarring blow that spun her head backwards. And then the man was up against her, his body pressing her up against the wall, his stinking breath hot against her neck. She felt fear—genuine fear and sick rise in her throat—as she felt the man’s erection through his trousers, prodding her, stabbing for her, as his hand reached for her neck and he buried his face into her hair and breathed deeply.
“Fucking cunt,” he grunted, “You want this.”
“No,” she whispered.
But any further words were silenced as he forced himself onto her, as she—
—was guided upwards with a gentle touch to meet his kiss, and our lips met, parted, and I moaned into him, his tongue briefly dancing with mine before he pulled back, and I followed him, wanting, desperate for more, lost in a moment of arousal and confused memory until the euphoric daze passed. I opened my eyes and saw Dan’s face, still so close to mine, now smiling.
And just like that, the emotional maelstrom of a minute ago drained away and left me cold and in control once more. Intellectually, I was left feeling disgusted and shamed; I’d just kissed another guy, willingly; I wasn’t gay; and I couldn’t even be angry with him because situation reversed, I’d have done the same thing, probably.
But I didn’t feel any of it. Mostly, I was left incredibly tired, tired and hollowed out by the ebb and flow of emotions and by the very thought of maintaining the charade of Cindy any longer.
He continued to hold my hand, delicately, as though I might break, the other drifting downwards, brushing cheek, bare shoulder, and lingering at my knee. “Cindy, I’m—"
“If you say you’re sorry one more time,” I stated flatly. “I’ll punch you in the nose.”
Shaking his head, he returned to his seat. He took a sip of wine and hesitated before asking, “Why did you cry?”
And I wanted to tell him, you’re not the only one who’s had a hard week. And I wanted to say, do you have any idea how exhausting it is to not being taken seriously? And I wanted him to somehow understand the humiliation I endured every minute of every day, the shame of a man wrapped in lingerie and hiding in skirts and under makeup, crying and craven, smiling and simpering, afraid and so very, very angry, always angry.
But how could I explain to him the frustration of having people look at me and see nothing but this young girl, this pretty, uneducated girl, and think this is all there is to me: all glossy surface, these clothes, this hair, this makeup. Circumstances forced me to take an excruciating degree of interest in my appearance, and that very interest meant others believed I had nothing interesting to say.
Instead, I sighed and reached for my fork, eying the remainders of a steak for which I no longer felt hunger.
“You want to know why I cried, want to know what’s wrong?” I sighed. “I’m tired, Dan, that’s what’s wrong.” And nearly added: and I’m sick and tired of being dismissed as irrelevant just because I’m pretty, because I’m wearing a skirt or I’ve put on lip gloss. Far more urgently, I wanted to cry out: I’m a man, for fuck’s sake! This isn’t me, this is not who I am!
He nodded. “You said the same thing last time, on Friday.”
“Because it’s true.”
“Sounds a bit like a stock answer to me, to be honest.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”
“I mean, I get being tired. I really do. But I’m asking what’s wrong, and… that’s all you’ve got?” He spread his hands wide, as though to show he had nothing to offer. “We’re all tired. I can’t help with that.”
“I didn’t ask for you help.”
“But I’m offering it,” he said. “Is this one of those moments where I’m supposed to take charge?”
“Fine,” I said. “You want to know the truth, Dan? You’ve treated me like shit all night,” I started, ticking each point off on a finger. “You were an hour late because you had ‘better’ people to be with, you order my drink, you order my food, you cut me off and talk over me, you complain like a little bitch when I take a break in the toilet—did you ever think maybe I just needed a little space for five minutes?—and then suddenly because I know a couple lines of fucking Shakespeare, I’m worth your time?”
I shook my head. “Screw you, Dan.”
And then something entirely remarkable and unexpected happened: Dan stayed quiet, watching me contemplatively over steepled fingers. He nodded, once, but didn’t say anything.
Perhaps because of the unexpected silence, perhaps because there was finally a space in which I could be heard, I felt compelled to continue, and it was a relief—a goddamn relief—to get this shit off my shoulders. And yeah, I could share all this with Julia, but she took active pleasure in my misery and what I needed right now, what I really needed, was a sympathetic ear. The fact the ear belonged to a guy—a guy I’d just kissed—and I could still feel the memory of his touch on my lips—well, I forced that to one side.
“Frankly, it’s a goddam miracle I’m still here. You’ve thrown up enough red flags to flatten a half-dozen china shops. But here I am! I’ve stuck it out because, frankly – what choice do I have? Can you imagine what people’ll say if I show up on work on Monday having bailed?”
He nodded. “You think I’ll say something about you.”
“How should I know? Maybe. Guys can be real pricks sometimes, and how am I supposed to know what kind of guy you are? So far, the signs aren’t great. So better to suffer through it, right?
“But you don’t understand, Dan—you can’t understand—how exhausting it is to have something to say, to have something important to add to the conversation, and all the other person does is stare at your tits.” My painted fingernail gleamed in the restaurant’s lights as I pointed at him. “How long did it take you to get ready tonight? Twenty minutes: shit, shower and shave, right? You threw on a shirt, a tie—got rid of the tie after a few drinks—and out the door?
“Any idea how long it took me tonight?”
He shook his head.
“Two hours, Dan. Two fucking hours. Showering and shaving takes a hell of a lot longer when you’re a girl. Moisturiser and body cream. Makeup. Hair – dear God, you have no idea how long it takes to tame all this,” I said, raking fingers through fastidiously straightened hair. “And finally strapping myself into all this”—I swept one hand across my torso—“outer and under, and just having to accept that I’m going to be uncomfortable for the whole night, squeezed and pinched and restricted, just so I can look… acceptable, live up to expectations that also mean I’ll just be ignored because anyone who wastes two hours of their life on their looks must just be a frivolous bit of fluff, right?
“So—you asked. What’s wrong? I’m a girl: that’s what wrong, and I’m tired, and I’m angry and frustrated and it all just boiled over for a moment in tears, okay?”
He nodded again, silently.
“I’m done, Dan,” I instructed. “Please, speak.”
He grinned, ever so slightly. “Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice?”
“I’d actually quite like to hear your voice now,” I answered, reaching for my glass of wine. “I’d like to know what you’re thinking,”
“I’m thinking: to thine own self be true.”
“Still with the Shakespeare?” I sighed. “And what is that even supposed to mean?”
“It means….” He hesitated. “I don’t know, actually. Be true to yourself. Live your good life? Something like that. Always seemed like pretty impossible advice to give—like, can we ever really know ourselves? The line seems predicated on an idealised conception of self, a sort of Platonic self by which to align ourselves. But then, in the play the only person who’s probably “true” to himself is Claudius, and he’s the villain, a murderer, a likely adulterer and acknowledge hypocrite, so maybe not the best role model, right? So…” he trailed off, and blushed. “Er, sorry.”
I smiled, and it was maybe the most genuine expression I’d made that night. “No, please,” I said, “Continue.”
He shook his head. “I don’t want to bore you.”
“Because I’m blonde?”
“Because everyone gets the same glassy-eyed stare when I start to ramble on about Shakespeare,” he said. “Not just the pretty girls.”
“Well, this pretty girl isn’t bored. Yet. And I’m just about able to follow along, so long as you don’t use too many big words.”
“I didn’t—”
Ammunition was running low but I found a stray slice of citrus-glazed carrot and tossed it him. “Jesus, relax. I’m just kidding,” I said. “And tell me more about being true to myself.”
He took an uncharacteristic moment to think before speaking. “So, it’s not something I’ve really thought through before,” he started. “But first, it’s worth noting the line comes after a bunch of platitudes. Typical, tedious advice from a dad to his son. And the line’s potentially deeply ironic, since the guy saying it is hardly true to himself and so, as he says, it follows he’s false to others.” He paused, lost in thought for a moment, tapping the table with is finger.
“However. Maybe more than any of Willy’s other plays, Hamlet’s a play about acting, right?”
“Willy?”
He shrugged. “I’ve spent so much of my life studying the guy, I feel I’ve earned first-name privileges.”
“Of course you do,” I said. “Go on.”
“So everybody’s playing a part: anointed king, devoted daughter, loving mother. And the men in the play, especially, they each give different perspectives on how you might play the same part: that of duty-bound son, of vengeance-seeker. Laertes, Fortinbras, Hamlet, even Pyrrhus in the actor’s speech—they’ve all lost a father to murder. They’re all seeking revenge. But only one, in doing so, seems “true” to himself: Fortinbras, “strong-in-arm”, who swoops in at the end, gives a tidy little speech and win the play.
“But Hamlet—we see him try to be that guy, to be the dutiful, murdering son avenging his father’s murder. He creates in his head this concept, this image of who he should be, compares himself to idealised models but he just can’t be “true” to that conception of self, because it’s not who he is. And it’s not that he’s procrastinating or timid—he’s pretty quick to blindly stab people through curtains, or board pirate ships—but he’s a privileged aristocratic intellectual, a university student, a moralistic Christian disdainful of medieval ritual and responsibilities.
“And so he attempts to play the part he’s been forced to take on, but it’s never “true”, never really who he’s meant to be.”
I stared into the bottom of my glass. “And doing so gets him killed, doesn’t it?”
He signaled for the waiter. “Well… no, I don’t think so.”
“I’m no expert, but I’m pretty sure Hamlet dies at the end of his tragedy.”
“Yes,” he said. “But maybe it’s because he -was- true to himself, in the end.”
“I don’t follow.”
“It’s only after his little detour to England, and after he’s seen a thousand good men on the march to die on a worthless hill—that is, when he’s finally confronted the full absurdity of human existence—that he’s finally able to be true to himself. He stops fighting, stops doubting, and simply is.
“If it’s God’s will that his enemy lives: so be it. Equally, if it’s God’s will that he should be the divine tool of judgment… that’s fine, too. All that matters—all that a man can do—is act when the times comes; everything else is without meaning. Thus, “the readiness is all”: and maybe it follows, then, that it’s only by being true to himself that a man can truly be ready when called to act.”
He lapsed into silence as the waiter approached. I barely noticed, unexpectedly struck by his words.
“Hey, you still with me?”
“No,” I said. “I don’t buy it.”
He shrugged. “Fair enough. To be honest, I was mostly talking out my ass, there.”
“No, no, that’s not…” I shook my head. “Everything you said, it sounds good, it sounds like something some five hundred year-dead white guy might write; but that’s not how it works. I mean, how can you be true to yourself if your ‘self’ changes? Are you the same person you were ten years ago? Last year? This morning?” I gestured at myself, at hair and boobs, little back dress and tear-wrecked makeup. “What if this, all this, is a lie?”
Dan smiled. “Then I don’t want to know the truth.”
I sighed. “I’m being serious, here.”
“Well, Hamlet would say it’s all falsehood, anyways. ‘God has given you one face, and you make yourselves another,’ with makeup, right?”
“But it’s not fair!” I insisted. “Why should slapping some shit on my face make me less of a ‘true’ person?”
“Hey, the guy’s a misogynist with mommy issues. Besides, it’s just words, just a knavish piece of work?” He spread his hands wide on the table, placatingly. “We that have free souls, it touches us not,’ right?”
I stared at him, frustrated, feeling as though something important, something profound, lay just beyond my grasp—a glimpse of some truth underlying the absurdity of being Cindy sitting here opposite this idiot boy—an idiot boy who, I had to grudgingly admit, was proving a touch more interesting than I’d anticipated, though perhaps polishing off the bottle of wine had helped a little with that.
But what was the point of all this talk if it was just… words, words, words?
Releasing an exasperated puff of breath, I crossed my arms and glared off to the side in a performance of feminine annoyance.
“Are you honest?” he asked.
I turned back to him. “Excuse me?”
He grinned. “You’re certainly fair,” he continued. “And there’s definitely a touch of Ophelia to you.”
I frowned; prettily, I hoped. “Crazy?”
His smile widened. “More tragically doomed.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“And loyal.”
“Er, yeah,” I answered. “Not sure I’m as dutiful a daughter as she was to… um… Poldark? Paul? Her dad, what’s his name, I forget.”
“Polonius?” Dan raised his glass in mock salute. “To a wretched, rash, intruding fool.”
“Didn’t he die, too?”
Dan nodded. “True; but he did have some pretty pithy lines: ‘the apparel oft proclaims the man.’” He gestured at me with his largely empty glass. “Or woman.”
I grimaced, drained my drink, and stood slightly unsteadily from behind the table. “So what does this apparel proclaim, then?
He took a long, appreciative look, his eyes slowly scanning up across my body, lingering in the expected places, before settling back in his seat contemplatively. His made an idle gesture with his hand: “turn around,” he commanded. His unexpectedly authoritative tone sparked a little thrill, a troubled pleasure that sent me into a silent, slow twirl, deftly spinning in my heels. Finishing with a mock curtsey, and settling back in my seat, I awaited his judgment.
“Beautiful,” he said, and the intensity of his gaze and the unabashed honesty in his voice made me want to squirm, though whether with delight or disgust I could not tell. “And stunning.”
“You flatter,” I said, fluttering a hand to cool myself. “My makeup’s ruined, my face puffy from crying.”
“No,” he said, looking almost comically serious. “I don’t. You look—gorgeous, Cindy, and I’m sorry—please don’t punch me in the nose!—but I am sorry I didn’t show my appreciation when I arrived, and I was a fool to keep you waiting.”
“Thank you,” I said, and unexpectedly it genuinely felt good hearing him say that. “Apology accepted.”
The waiter approached at that point; he went to order but then hesitated. He turned to me.
“More wine?”
“I really shouldn’t.”
“The lady doth protest too much.”
Maybe so, but I remembered what happened last time. I was far enough into drink to want more, but still sober enough to know it was probably a bad idea to continue. On the other hand—I was finally enjoying myself, unwinding from the stress of the week and free from Julia’s oppressive control.
I mean, sure, if he’d asked thirty minutes ago I would’ve refused, easily, but I was actually beginning to enjoy myself, now that Dan was being less of a prick. His apology meant more to be than it should have. He was an affable enough guy to hang around with, and yeah, there was something quite fun about having someone pick up the tab for the night. While it also made me distinctly uncomfortable, I couldn’t deny that I enjoyed the attention, the appreciation of my looks and the effort I’d put into them. Yes, I resented having to play the part of Cindy, of a girl—of this kind of girl—but I’d always enjoyed the benefits of good looks, and if was stuck being a woman, then why not a sexy one?
Besides, it was a Saturday night, and still early.
“Go on,” I said. “Fuck it. Another bottle.”
“What would you like?”
And smiling, I answered: “you choose.”
I disappeared to the toilet to fix my makeup while he ordered and returned to another bottle of red and some beautifully presented crème brulé. We talked, recapturing the ease of a month ago, and damn if I didn’t enjoy myself. I found myself finally able to relax, for the first time that evening, and just slip under the surface of Cindy. She took over, acting on automatic, listening attentively, nodding along, smiling, reaching out, fleeting little touches leading after another glass of wine to held hands. We fed each other our final spoonful of dessert, and our chairs crept closer together around the table.
And if he dominated the conversation, why should that be a bad thing? He did try, asked a few questions, mostly easily deflected, though I was forced to make up a few details about the past, including playing understudy Katherine in a high school production of Taming of the Shrew.
Which Dan followed by telling me about a production of Romeo and Juliet he played in a few years back—“just Sampson, just minor roles”—his last year of university. “It wasn’t very good,” he conceded. “Totally up its own ass, and so caught up with being ‘subversive’ and ‘controversial’ it forgot to actually be, you know… good.” He grimaced. “They did it in a so-called ‘authentic’ style.” Noticing my blank stare, he continued, “you know, with an all-male cast? Women weren’t allowed on stage in Shakespeare’s day,” he said. “So all the parts were performed by men. All those great lovers from the plays—your Juliets and Cleopatras and Titanias—all squeaking, crossdressing boys.” He gave a little gag. “All those classic, romantic kisses? Two guys.”
I hesitated before replying. “Not a fan of two men kissing?”
“No,” he stated flatly.
“What happened to ‘to thine own self be true?’”
Dan shook his head. “That’s different,” he said. “Homosexuality is…,” he hesitated. “It isn’t an idealised self, it’s a deviance from the norm.” He frowned slightly. “Doesn’t it bother you?”
“Maybe not the way it used to?” Treading carefully, I tried to articulate inchoate feelings. “I guess my idea of what’s the ‘norm’ has changed since I’ve moved here.”
He laughed. “Yeah, the city can do that, country girl.”
“And you feel the same way about men in women’s clothing?”
“Kind of, yeah,” he admitted. “Like, sure, you be you, right? What do I care what somebody else does? But sumptuary laws existed in Willy’s days for a reason, and the fact we’ve sort of brought them back says something about today. Workplace dress codes and prescribed fashions are back, and polling suggests it’s all very popular, right?
“Besides, I’ll be honest: I don’t get it. Why would a guy want to wear a bra?” He grinned. “Weren’t you complaining how much of a pain all this stuff is?”
“Sure, but it can also be a lot of fun,” I lied. “And a way to express identity and mood. Besides, like you said, ‘gorgeous’ – who doesn’t want to look beautiful?”
“Yeah, but that means something different for you than for me, right?” Even half-drunk, he couldn’t help himself, one finger tapping his chin in contemplation. “Given there’s no objective standard of beauty, I mean, it’s all societally prescribed. If I wore what you’re wearing, I wouldn’t look beautiful, I’d look ridiculous. Even worse, I’d look weak.”
I flushed under my makeup with a flash of anger. “I’m weak?”
“Of course not!” he grinned, reaching out and gently stroking my bared, slender shoulder. “But—you know what I mean! What you’re wearing, it’s designed to emphasise feminine attributes, and…” he waggled his eyebrows lasciviously, “your attributes are most certainly feminine.”
I punched him in the shoulder. “Pervert.”
He puffed out his chest. “But I’m a man! And a man should be….?”
I waited. “Yes?”
He deflated. “I was hoping you’d tell me.”
I laughed. “Idiot.”
Grinning sheepishly, he shook his head. “Idiot, maybe. But you know what I’m getting at. It’s not like it was twenty years ago. My parents keep going on about how liberal it all was at the turn of the century, so open, so free… so confused. Messed up pronouns and transgendered celebrities and nobody had a clue what to wear anymore or who they were.” Dan took a drink, stared into his glass for a moment, and shrugged. “I dunno if it’s better these days, but at least people have a clearer idea of what they’re supposed to be.
“Men are men.” He tapped his chest. “Women are women.” His hand, still lingering on my shoulder, gave a gentle squeeze. “I should be strong, ambitious, and work hard.”
Shifting slightly, I withdrew from beneath his touch. “And what am I supposed to be?”
“Exactly what you are,” he answered.
I hid my blush behind a deep drink of wine.
And so the evening went: we chatted, flirted, laughed and drink wine. We finished off the bottle and I found myself wanting another, warmly fuzzy and happy despite the uncomfortable constriction of undergarments struggling against a belly full of steak and drink.
Fortunately, this time Dan didn’t ask. He paid the bill, and suddenly I found myself outside, unsteady in heels and drunkenness, with his arm around my waist as we walked down the street, past restaurants and cafes and bars, and I kept expecting him to call for a cab but instead we stopped in front of small block of condos after what felt like far too short a walk.
“Here we are,” he said.
I blinked up at the well-appointed building, glittering windows and small balconies overlooking a small leafy park opposite, green and lush despite the heat. “You live here?”
He nodded. “Fancy coming up for a drink?”
“I….”
He rushed to interrupt. “Hey, no pressure. Listen, I heard you before: I’m not getting laid tonight,” he said, smiling ruefully. “I get it. But I’m having a great night. And I hope you’re having one too now that I’m not being such a dick. And, well…,” he blushed, “I guess I just don’t want the night to end, not yet.”
I smiled at him and laid my hand flat on his chest. “That’s really sweet, Dan. But we both know I should go….”
He looked crestfallen. “So that’s it?”
I nodded.
With a twinkle in his eye, and the hint of a grin, he reached up and cupped my cheek. “Wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?”
Despite dreading what had to come next, I couldn’t suppress a little smile, nor the words that followed. Steeling myself for the inevitable and leaning into his hand, I murmured, “what satisfaction canst thou have to-night?”
His mouth found mine: soft, tentative. Slight rasp of stubble against my cheek. His eyes closed as he leaned in closer, encouraged by my lack of resistance. And this kiss, it was different than those before. Before, I’d been half-blind drunk, drowning in some hormonal haze, or lost in memory. And yeah, sure, I was drunk; still swimming in a sea of feminine influence; and dogged by the past—but I was still in control, still me… whatever that meant tonight.
Everything, tonight: choices, freely made.
One hand slid down my back, cupped my ass, pulled me closer as the other hand found the base of my neck, fingers playing through long hair. Dan was an alright kisser, I had to concede, not one of the greats but better than I’d expected. A little too wet, a little too eager, and there it was, his tongue sliding its way in between my parted lips.
I observed all this coldly, clinically, wishing to detach myself from within the event. Much better to remove myself from the scene and watch from the outside, watch this young man and his pretty girlfriend make out in the pool of light dropping from the lamp above against the backdrop of the night sky.
But I couldn’t subsume myself in Cindy, retreat and play the part, not this time. Trapped in the moment I was forced to experience it all as myself, as a man gamely playing the feminine role in this romance—melting into her partner, soft and compliant—because… because, why?
My eyes fluttered close. His kiss deepened, growing more passionate. Dan pulled me closer. His hands began to roam, along my side, brushing across tits and thigh and shoulder. We twirled as we kissed, slowly and awkwardly in our silly little dance. And it felt so… mechanical, predictable, ridiculous even as I submitted to his touch and tongue and waited for it to end. Opening my eyes, I sought some kind of distraction from this boy’s touch, and saw:
A glimpse of someone standing at the corner of the building opposite, half-hidden in shadows, watching. A man: Jeff’s height and build; I would’ve bet my life on it; in a way I was.
What else could I do?
I gave myself over to the kiss, completely. Drawing closer to Dan, I whimpered into him, fingers gripping his back with toe-curling abandon. I matched his passion and resolved to put on a show convincing enough for that little fucker of a spy to take home to the spank bank.
Until I felt Dan’s cock poking me in the thigh.
Instantly, any sense of detached performance was torn away. Everything became brutally real, and I saw myself then clearly: a man in his thirties trapped in a tiny, tight dress, cowering in makeup and lingerie, pawed at by some younger guy. Weak and shamed. Disgust swelled my throat and I raised my hands to the boy’s chest to push him back and it was all I could do to avoid screaming—
“No!” Cindy shouted, shoving the man with frantic strength.
He stumbled back a step, heel catching on the edge of an overturned chair. Arms pinwheeling, he shouted, “Fucking bitch!” and reached for her. Cindy desperately scrambled away, trying to skirt around a table, keeping it between them.
“What do you want?” Cindy screamed at him.
He stopped, breathing heavily. “For cunts like you to know your place.” Then, with unexpected speed, he grabbed the table and toppled it to the side and jumped forward, grabbing at the young woman. His finger snagged the trailing edge of her billowing dress as she tried to dodge. She found herself suddenly brutally yanked back. With a cry she pulled away, the fabric tore, but pain flared through her scalp as he caught her by the hair.
He hauled her back, slamming her back up against the wall. His hands were suddenly on her, groping breasts, grabbing for her thighs. Cindy screamed. One hand found her throat—controlling, not choking—the other covered her mouth, and he used his full body, pressed up against hers, to trap her against the wall.
“I saw you come in here,” he hissed into her ear as she squirmed beneath his hold. “So fucking classy, like you own the place, think you’re better than us, eh?”
And he punctuated each word by thrusting up against her.
“Slut.”
“Tease.”
His tongue darted out, trailing across her cheek—and she screamed, muffled by his hand; and bit down, hard, into his finger; and he howled in pain, and she twisted free from his hold.
“Bitch!” He caught her arm before she could escape. He hauled her back; grabbed her by the shoulders; shook her once, twice and then threw her forward.
She stumbled, twisting and falling—
Into his arms and he held me close as he came up for air.
His breath was hot on my neck. “Are you sure you don’t want to come up for that drink?” he whispered.
No, I desperately wanted to shout. I don’t! I want—anything but this, because we both know damn well the promise a young woman makes entering a man’s home at night after an expensive date.
And at the same time, I did want that drink, I wanted it intensely, I wanted to drink myself into an oblivion in which shame and disgust, rage and loss simply ceased to be.
I wanted to blink and wake up at some later day without memory of this awful night, without recollection of another man’s touch lingering hotly across my flesh, his lips crushed against mine, his cock—
Most of all, and with such vivid passion that I trembled with the effort of restraint, I wanted to smash Dan’s face in. I wanted to stomp him to the curb and rip him limb from fucking limb and scream into his face: I am a man!
Resting my forehead against his chest, I released a shuddering breath.
“Cindy?”
“One drink,” I murmured.
He took me by the arm—
—and hauled her to her feet, shook and shouted in Cindy’s face, spittle flying.
“On your knees,” he demanded and shoved her away. She staggered, footing unsteady in wedges; pitched forward; her head struck the side of the counter. Pain flared across her temple and dazed, she sank to her knees—
—I sank to my knees—
And I was on my knees with this little black dress unfurled to the waist, tits out bra off, waist cincher and suspenders, hair cascading back, gazing up at the naked man looking down with a grin, with expectation, with lust and craving and his cock was out, thick and dark and swaying in anticipation of my delicate fingers curling around its shaft, my tongue dancing along its length, wet lips, kisses, mouth and throat, wet holes ready to service his needs….
And I was on my knees with this dainty peach sundress in tatters, one tit popped out of its bra, fabric torn to the waist, hair a tangled fall across my eyes as I stared up at the raging man looking down with fury and lust and craving, reaching for his belt buckle as he stalked towards me, grinning in anticipation of wet holes servicing his needs.
My fingers came away from my forehead slick and red with blood where I’d glanced off the counter’s edge. The man stood over me. His face contorted with lust and anger. “You had this coming,” he said. “Bitch,” he spat and reached for me. “You deserve this.”
And I looked up at him and my face split in a wide, fierce grin. “Yes,” I hissed, “I do.” My hand met his at the wrist and grabbed; kicked his legs out from under him; took him down, hard. He hit the ground with a crunch and I was on him before he knew what was happening.
A little later, after I’d had my fun, I made my way over to Doreen, absently wiping my hands clean on my dress, staining it crimson. It was all I could do to keep from whistling a jaunty little turn.
She whimpered at my approach and tried to scramble away. “No, please,” she said.
Smiling pleasantly, I knelt next to her. “Hey, hey, it’s fine,” I insisted. “You okay?”
She shook her head and moaned.
“Listen, earlier, you mentioned security cameras,” I said. “Remember? You told him everything was being recorded. I need to wipe those clean, Doreen.”
“No cameras,” she said, and coughed. “In a shit hole like this?”
I held her gaze. “You wouldn’t lie to me, would you, Doreen?”
She shook her head.
I believed her. “You also said something about pie?”
She stared at me as you would a lunatic.
“Would you mind if I took a slice for the road?”
Back in the car, I examined my hands, and mourned the torn and broken acrylic nails Julia had gifted me; she’d be pissed. They stung something terrible now but I’d barely noticed in the moment—curling and uncurling each finger into a tight fist, I sighed with deep satisfaction. I devoured the lemon meringue—Doreen was right, it really was a slice of heaven—and settled, smiling slightly and comfortably and deeply into the seat.
I dozed. A chime woke me, and the car was silent and immobile and it was growing dark outside. Light poured from an expansive building opposite, and the door slid open.
An attendant was immediately at my side. “Welcome to the Asklepios Clinic, Ms Bellamy.” A young woman, very pretty and precise, and professionally attired, greeted me. “If you would follow me, please?”
I was swept along, through reception and out the back, along the edges of a lush garden heavy with the scent of citrus and lavender, buzzing with evening insect sounds, to a small cottage, a private room in a long row of similar looking accommodations.
“Your room, Ms Bellamy,” the pretty young woman stated.
Touching my hand to the door, it chimed and opened.
“Thanks,” I grunted.
Subdued lights activated at my approach, and I passed through the entrance into the living room beyond. It was all very well appointed; a little bland, maybe, but comfortable enough. I tossed my handbag on the sofa and was about to seek out the kitchen when a voice, a voice I hadn’t heard in quite some time, called me back.
“Mr Sanders.”
Katherine—Agent K—sat straight-backed in a chair in the corner, and leveled that look, stern and sexy, which I’d yearned to see for months.
“We need to talk.”
*** to be continued ***
Author’s Notes:
Phew! Well, that chapter took a lot longer than expected. Coming in at just under 20k words, short-and-frequent doesn’t really seem to be my style. Various real-life crises and interruptions consistently interfered with the happy writing routine I’d established for chapter 4, and it became a real slog to maintain any kind of momentum.
Special thanks to those supporting me on Patreon—I honestly don’t know if I’d have completed this without their help and encouragement. It certainly would’ve taken a lot longer otherwise. If you’ve got currency-of-choice to spare, and fancy taking part in the creative process, by all means join us: https://www.patreon.com/fakeminsk. Any and all support appreciated, and there are opportunities to influence the writing of the story, from introducing a favourite band to appearing as a character.
Also, some changes of note. What was previously chapter 5, part 1 has been collapsed into chapter 4. Structurally, it fit there better and essentially details Julia’s entrance into the story and her role in it; and fronting the chapter with the snapshot of the girl walking alone at night hopefully brought a bit more focus on the theme of David’s alienation and loneliness. It also meant that Chapter 5 could focus entirely on the two strands of his trip to the clinic: the memories of the date with Dan, and the encounter in the café, and how both events mirror and collapse into each other. At least I hope so: my aspirations as a writer often outstrip my actual skill!
I’m currently averaging about 500 words/workday, so 2500 a week. Hopefully back in six weeks with the next installment!
And finally: please review or leave a comment! It can’t be overstated how much it means to know somebody is actually reading this stuff.
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:
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.
Constant in All Other Things 2
Interlude II (1/3)
by
Fakeminsk ([email protected])
(Patreon: www.patreon.com/fakeminsk)
“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
Synopsis:
David Sanders returns to the Asklepios Clinic in the hope of leaving behind Cindy’s life and regaining a male identity. There, both mind and body are assessed by Jonathon “Scooter” Bridges and Crystal Dawn; whilst the enigmatic Agent K has plans of her own.
What has gone before:
David Sanders saw something he shouldn't have: his boss, pharmaceutical magnate Jeremiah Steele, murdered the son of an underworld rival. Placed in witness protection, an assassination attempt forces David into the disguise of Cindy, a younger woman. For months he suffers the ignominy of living a life he despises, his torture both alleviated and acerbated once discovered by Julia, a jilted ex-girlfriend. A trip to the Asklepios Clinic, the research centre responsible for his transformation, triggered both uncomfortable memories and a violent encounter.
Interlude 2, Part One
One: Who Are You, Mr Sanders?
Who are you, Mr Sanders?
This was the question haunting Katherine as she sat and waited in the dark solitude of the small apartment set aside for David Sanders at the Asklepios Clinic. This was the question at the front of her mind as she heard the subtle click of the door. He stepped into the room and tossed his handbag onto the sofa. He hadn’t noticed her yet.
She was about to call out when his movement triggered the lighting of the room. Recessed spotlights bathed him in their soft glow. A sudden surge of emotions whirlpooled through her, an exhilarating sinking of the gut at the sight of the man. Katherine’s breath caught in her throat. The transformed man was pretty—very pretty, in the peach sundress and wedge heels she’d placed in the car for him, fingernails and earring flashing, long hair tousled from the extended drive.
She noted with amusement that the man already had one hand down the back of his dress, unhooking his bra. How… womanish, she thought. She allowed him the dignity of slipping the bra out the front of his dress, and the relieved sigh, before she called out from her seat in the corner: “Mr Saunders.”
His eyes were instantly alert and wary.
“We need to talk.”
He stared back at her for a long moment. Spots of dried blood stood out like a dark constellation across the bodice and skirt of the dress. Slender fingers tucked a twist of stray hair back behind one ear, and he stood and stared at her for a long moment. In the other hand he held the bra. He opened his mouth as though about to speak—but stopped, lips slightly parted, brow furrowed. Then he sagged and shook his head.
“Need a piss,” he grunted, and walked off.
Katherine waited and contemplated the changes in her ward. The past six months had provided a steady stream of photos and videos of Mr Sanders’ ongoing transformation, but the physical reality was something entirely different. She remembered him as she’s last seen him in the flesh, lying on the bed of the new-to-him apartment arranged for him in one of the cheaper outer districts of the city.
His new curves veiled in a pale pink nightie, he’d seemed the very image of a modern Sleeping Beauty. Even his hair, makeup and nails had been freshly and lovingly done by the staff at the Clinic before transporting him unconscious to his new home. He'd been setup to awaken into his new feminine reality. Even then, however, there’d still been a hint—much more than a hint, really—of the man beneath the surface: not just the sizeable bulge in his pink panties, but masculine traces across his body.
But now? The most obvious were the physical changes, subtle but indelible evidence beyond the illusions of makeup and shapewear indicating the process of feminisation had continued. Subtle, but evident: a further softening and rounding of features once hard and sharp, seen in shoulder, chin and hands. Still slender, but now with a definite curve to the hips absent before, an unmanly narrowing of the waist. And there was also a—she hesitated to call it a glow—an undeniable feminine property to his skin and hair, a vibrant sheen that spoke of girlish youth and vigor.
But most intriguing were the changes in behaviour: the hesitation in his response, an apparent nervousness, the unconscious way he brushed back his hair and held his hands, fingers slightly splayed, at his side before turning away.
She heard the toilet flush but it was several minutes more before he returned. When he did, his hair was brushed and gleamed, and his lips glinted with a fresh coat of gloss. Smoothing down his dress, he sat opposite her with knees pressed together and to one side, poised at the edge of the sofa. He unbuckled his shoes and where his dress billowed open Katherine saw the swell of his unrestrained chest. His breasts were larger, too.
Sighing with pleasure, he curled and uncurled his toes, nails glinting pink in the pale light. He glanced up, green eyes glittering through long lashes, and she saw there a spark of humour.
“Like what you see?”
“Yes,” she said.
He scowled. “You fucking bitch.” He straightened and the humour was consumed as the spark flared into anger. “You fucking—you had no right!” He shook his head and swept the hair out of his eyes. “No fucking right to do this to me.”
She cocked her head to one side. “I saved your life.”
“You stole it,” he snarled.
“When I found you, Mr Sanders,” she said, “you were dead. Your heart had stopped. Your injuries were . . . they were terrible.” With the words came the memories. Desperate, rasping breath, her own, and pain and fear, scrabbling into the room, slipping, blood – her own, welling between fingers but then on the floor – so much blood – everywhere and the crushing sense of loss and failure.
“And it was my fault.” She accepted this, now even more than she had accepted it in those initial, frenzied moments in which she scrambled to save his life. The initial attempt to disguise him: not enough. The protection of the Clinic: not enough. She had misjudged Steele’s determination to find him. She had underestimated the skill and resources of his agents. And when she thought back to those days at the Clinic, she could see now that leaving David alone had been her mistake. Blinded by her own arrogance, distracted by emotion and desire, she had failed in her duty. “It nearly cost you your life.” She shook her head, one hand drifting to her side. “It nearly cost me mine as well.”
Flinty steel scored her voice as she continued. “And I swore then that I would not fail again. I determined then that you would live, Mr Saunders, no matter the cost; and that cost would be great, as Steele’s grasp was closer than ever.”
“Cost?” David snorted. “Cost!”
“Yes, cost,” she answered. “You are not the only one who has suffered and lost,” she continued. “You are not the only one who has paid a price these past six months. Cindy—”
“David,” he interrupted.
“I spoke to him, Cindy, on the phone we found clutched in your hand.” The conversation had been brief, intense, and she thought of it daily. So much hinged on those words exchanged with Steele. “Briefly. And I glimpsed the depth of this man’s obsession with you. It borders on madness, I think. And in that moment I understood that Steele’s very obsession to revenge himself against you could be made to work against him.
“But we needed time. And we had very little of that most precious commodity. By speaking to him you confirmed your location. He knew with certainty where to find you and that your body was broken. It was a miracle you survived one attack,”—and again she wondered, how Mr Saunders? Who are you, Mr Sanders?—“but with arms and legs broken, a punctured lung, shattered ribs and a concussion? You were defenceless. You needed months of bedrest to heal, possibly a year or more of physiotherapy to regain full mobility. And in the meantime Steele would be searching for you.”
“Bullshit,” he said. “Fuck you,” he added. “You could’ve John Doe’d me in a hospital in the middle of butt-fuck nowhere and left me to recover.” His voice trembled with barely suppressed rage. “There’s no way turning me into a woman was the best possible option. You could’ve of… tried, something, anything else.” His entire body tensed and for a moment he seemed about to launch himself at her, the angry lines of his form an incongruous contrast to the delicate fall of his dress, the lilt of his voice.
“You could’ve left me to die,” he nearly whispered, and he sagged, suddenly, collapsing back into the sofa. “You didn’t even ask.”
Katherine cocked an eyebrow. “Ask a dead man for permission to save his life? No, Mr Saunders, I did not ask. Instead, I made the necessary arrangements to ensure your survival.”
“Survival?” Hefting the generous swell of his breasts with both hands, he presented their fullness to her as though on a platter. “Look at these thing! You gave me tits – real fucking tits!—and a life to go with them. What, exactly, of David Saunders’ life survived?”
Katherine pursed her lips. “Mr Saunders. The facility was a small one: fewer than a hundred patients with slow turnover; and nearly as many staff. We knew already that Steele had hacked the Clinic’s network and bypassed their security systems, infiltrating the Clinic with his own agents. He has the time and the resources; he now had patient names, staff names, addresses, medical records.
“The only detail working in our favour was that he had no reason to link you to the identity of Cindy Bellamy.
“Meanwhile, we could not risk moving you. You had to remain at the Clinic and heal. And by the time you could be moved—Steele could potentially track the movement of everyone coming and going from Asklepios.”
Pinching at the bridge of her nose, she winced at the memory of the decisions made then, of Jonathon’s offer and the risks involved. Fixing Mr Saunders with an angry look, she continued. “What choice did I have, David? By the time we could move you—the movement of an unlisted male patient would not have gone unnoticed.
“So I made a choice.” A choice rooted in tragedy: the suicide of a young woman, a rare failure by the Clinic to heal and rehabilitate a patient. Cindy Bellamy, already a patient at the Clinic, already a month into her treatment with a digital record reaching even further back, a real world existence with no link to Mr Saunders. A life, tragically cut short – but lost in secrecy—perfect, it turned out, for someone to adopt and continue.
Mr Saunders glared at her, bright green eyes smouldering with anger and hatred. She was struck by the beauty of the man’s face—the prettiness of his emotion—the way the delicate strap of his sundress slipped down his shoulder as he trembled with anger. “Choice? Your choice?” he hissed. “You took everything from me, K. I had… a life! A life, and a pretty damn good life, too, one I worked my ass off to build. You have any idea how hard—a job, K, I had a fucking job, a high-paying one, I was near the top, you know? The bullshit I pit up with to get there! With interns and a free gym and, and… shit. I had my own office, I’d finally scored the corner office! And…”
Red-faced, he sputtered.
“And?”
“And…” He scowled. “I had a home. I was half-way through the goddam mortgage on my condo. And a brand new car. And I had… I had friends. Friends and a favourite bar and—they knew me by name down at the Clocktower.” He jabbed a finger at her. “They knew my name K!”
For a moment his voice turned plaintiff, and he swallowed, and then he was yelling at her once again. “And… shops! I had a thing going with the girl behind the counter at the corner store, her name’s Kayla and…” He pounded one fist into his palm. “Girls! Getting laid every goddamn weekend, K!”
Watching and listening to his rant, Katherine noted how performative it was. She watched this man from whom everything had been taken struggling to find anything he truly cared about. The anger was genuine, but hollow: without any real sadness or loss, only outrage remained.
“And I had fucking muscles!” Slender fingers wrapped around his thin bicep as evidence, and for the first time she noted the tremor of true emotion. “I was… strong. And you—you gave me, what, in return? Tits! Skirts and heels and some shitty little apartment on the edge of town. A job as a, what, a goddamn secretary? And this—somehow—you call this a choice?”
“Yet here you are, Mr Saunders. Alive.”
“No.” He jumped to his feet and stalked up and down the narrow space of the lounge. “That’s not good enough! You could’ve found another way.” He stopped and shouted at the ceiling. “Fuck!”
Resuming his pacing, he continued. “Do you have any idea what it was like, waking up in that apartment on my own? Waking up Cindy, with no idea of how I got there?”
She shook her head.
“I nearly went crazy, K! Nearly. And there I was in a body I didn’t recognize with clothes that weren’t mine and pictures of me I couldn’t remember and then I realised—you’d betrayed me.” He stopped and spun and pointed a finger at her. “This was all you. You wanted this—me—you like it, don’t you, watching me prance around in these dresses like some fucking fairy, putting makeup on my face… degrading myself every fucking day, the shame and humiliation.”
“There is no shame to being female, Mr Saunders, no degradation.”
“But I’m not female!”
Katherine stood. In her low heels and him barefooted, she nearly towered over the feminised man. “You say I take pleasure in seeing you like this?” With the back of one hand, she gently stroked his cheek. She thrilled at the smoothness of the skin and at the way he seemed to unconsciously lean into her touch. “Yes,” she said.
She leaned in and whispered in his ear. “Do you remember, Mr Saunders? You asked me once who Cindy was, and I told you: she is gentle, yes, and dependent? Weaker, at least physically, than you were, and reliant on others. And so very soft.” She held his chin, gently, and felt how he trembled under her touch. “And so, yes, David, I do like this, very much so.”
And her lips found his, in a single, deep kiss, dark and passionate. She tasted his lipstick and felt the suppleness of his lips and wanted to run her fingers through his long hair and slide the other strap down his smooth shoulder and grab him by throat and pull him to her so that they crushed together and she could feel the supple flesh of his chest against hers—Katherine wanted all this and more, much more; but she pulled away.
He stood there, swaying slightly, one finger held to his lip. “You bitch.”
“You are alive, David.” She sighed and sank back into the chair. “Six months, yet you remain alive despite the unfettered attention and determined efforts of one of the richest and most powerful men on the planet to revenge himself against you.
“Do I take pleasure in seeing you like this? Yes, Mr Saunders, because it worked; because there was no other alternative; and because you are alive.
“And so, David– Cindy–I do not offer you an apology.”
He fell back into the sofa opposite, legs splayed as wide as the dress would allow, arms stretched across the back. He stared up at the ceiling. “And so now what?”
“Now?” Her eyes lingered over the slight frame of the man sat opposite. Katherine licked her lips and smiled. “You are booked in for two weeks. Think of it as a holiday. Arrangements have been made with Cindy’s workplace. Relax. Enjoy the hospitality of the Clinic.”
“Two weeks? Julia’s not going to like that. But, yeah, sure.” Still staring at the ceiling, he waved one arm to take in the room. “Whatever. But it’s not like this little face-to-face needed to be here, right? What’d you drag me out here for?”
“Ah. For that, you will have to speak to Jonathon.”
“He’s here?”
“Yes.”
“To undo all of… this?”
“That,” Katherine answered, “is not my decision.”
Two: The Flash of a Knife’s Edge
The next morning, Katherine woke up early. Over time her nightmares of the past had faded; never forgotten, but they only rarely disturbed her sleep. The encounter with Mr Saunders had brought those terrible, vivid dreams back in full force, and her sleep had been haunted by incoherent visions of violence, a bloated body, gaping wounds and blood—so much blood, and the sensation of drowning. She woke up gasping for air.
She washed and dressed, reviewing her agenda for the day. Leaving her spartan staff accommodations at the Clinic, she met the technician in the studio set aside for her by Jonathon. Accepting a coffee and croissant, Katherine settled into her seat at the computer and accessed her documents. The video files from the diner were waiting, per her request.
The footage was clear enough. She forwarded through the tedium of the early day, only slowing once a pretty woman in a tight, professional-looking skirt appeared on the scene. The woman crossed over to the bathroom and emerged soon after in a breezy peach sundress. She sat, ordered food, waited. There was a commotion. The girl flinched, protested, avoided eye contact.
On the screen and seen from the camera’s raised angle, the man named Mal stormed towards the girl. She cringed away from him, her simpering protests only angering the man further. He was ex-military turned mercenary, a hardened survivor of combat and atrocities overseas. When his hand lashed out it hit with precision, taking her across the cheek, snapping her head back.
“Fucking cunt.” The man’s voice sounded tinny and distant as he pinned her to the wall, hands reaching and grabbing, burying his face in her hair and breathing in her scent.
The girl struggled, twisted, shouted “No!” and shoved the man away with surprising and desperate strength.
“Stop.”
The image froze with the man in mid-stumble, arms pinwheeling and foot caught on the leg of an overturned chair.
“Can we zoom in, Ari?”
“Yes, but the quality will fluctuate.” The technician was short and wiry, head half shaved, the rest a coloured and coifed wave, reactive chromatic dye crawling through a rainbow’s spectrum as her head twitched between screen and client in the room’s dim light. Intricately detailed tattoos snaked across neck and brow.
Ari sounded apologetic. “The composite you’re looking at should hold up even in extreme close-up, but the original footage quality isn’t great,” she said. “Only three of the six cameras in the restaurant were working, and the capture quality was low. Well below legal requirements,” she added with a sniff. “The software can boost the image and clean up the noise, and we can extrapolate some of the missing data, but you’ll lose fidelity the closer you get.”
Katherine nodded. “Fine,” she said, swiped back across the screen, rewound seconds to just before the man’s assault and with a few taps and touches closed in on the face of the girl. The image pixelated, processed, cleared; and she examined the face of Cindy Bellamy under duress.
Eyes brilliantly green and freshly made up: done with great care, expertise even, in colours that accentuated the girl’s startling and startled beauty. Up close, each eyelash was delineated in mascara, exaggerating eyes wide with fear under pale, tidy eyebrows, carefully drawn in and threaded into thin arcs. Very good, very fashionable: Katherine nodded her approval and then pulled the image back, brought into focus the highlighted cheekbones and painted lips rounded in an ‘o’ of horror. It was a face captured in an instant of genuine fear. Katherine knew the face, knew it well, had been there for its conception just as she’d been there for the end of its previous life.
She advanced the footage at a deliberate pace, transfixed by the girl’s expression as the man approached, raged, and assaulted her. Intimately familiar with the range of human emotions, with their expression and concealment, Katherine understood the extremes of anger and loss and fear. She’d felt them too deeply herself and recognized their expression in others. And what she saw on the screen before her appeared genuine; impossibly so, it seemed to her, knowing as she did what followed.
With each incremental advance, the slice of frozen time revealed nothing more than a young woman in genuine panic, confronted by an eruption of all-too common masculine violence. Katherine looked for the narrowing, the tightening of expression that belied the girl’s helplessness. It wasn’t there. If she hadn’t known better, she would have accepted the footage at face value.
But she did know better. She knew that beneath the makeup and fear, the long hair and slender arms, the dainty dress and vulnerability, there lay a man, and this man concealed a shocking capacity for violence.
It irritated her profoundly to think back to her first encounter with Mr David Sanders and accept that he had fooled her completely. The smugness, the cockiness with which he’d approached her office had blinded her through annoyance.
“I hear you’re the one to talk to,” he said that day, all but sauntering up to her desk. “About Jeremiah Steele.”
She’d looked up from some paperwork, already in a bad mood. He’d been a stunningly good-looking man, slim but strong, perpetually mocking eyes under short-cropped hair, golden undertones to his skin hinting at some mixed ancestry. Flashing an affable grin and absurd confidence, he approached her desk. Mr Saunders’ chin had been dirty with stubble and his clothes looked slept-in, but the disheveled look only added a certain raffish charm. Katherine had disliked him instantly, intensely. Much to her irritation and only later could she admit her instant and intense dislike was rooted in an instant and intense attraction to the man.
Katherine had resented him then for how she made him feel. Annoyingly, the same feelings resurfaced last night and lingered still.
Back on the screen, the man named Mal recovered, grabbed the girl by the hair, hauled her back. She cried out in pain—then, surely? Katherine rotated through the scene, the details blurring then sharpening as the AI extrapolated and rendered missing data, filling in the gaps in the image. Even now, face distended with pain, she saw only Cindy, nothing but a young woman being brutally yanked by her hair back to her assaulter and the authenticity of the scene was fascinating—because she knew the man was yanking on the tail of a viper—yet equally disturbing. The pain and violence she witnessed was genuine, and she felt an impossible desire to intervene, to rescue this seemingly helpless girl.
The man slammed the girl up against the wall. Her face went white, the breath knocked out of her. Now? No—not yet—not even as the man grabbed her, roughly mauling her breasts. She cried out, her voice a terrified mix of fear and disbelief, and the desperate and high-pitched keen of her distress rang true. He covered her mouth, thrust up against her, and Katherine watched fascinated as the man she knew existed beneath the surface submitted to the assault.
Mal grabbed Cindy and shoved her away and her head collided with the edge of the restaurant countertop. The girl sank to the ground, dazed. Blood flowed freely from her forehead. The man stalked over, hauled her to her feet, threw her back down and now she was on her knees and he towered over her, he reached for his belt buckle, and….
There it was.
Like the flash of a knife’s edge in moonlight, or the bursting of the chrysalis: it was now Sanders on his knees. David not Cindy in the torn dress, face framed in blood, kneeling and looking fiercely upwards, long hair like gilded shutters drawn aside to reveal incandescent, furious joy, a slice of sharp sunlight cutting through parted curtain flooding a darkened room. In every line of the young girl’s—no, not a girl, definitely not a girl but a man’s—frame, the transformation was clear: an anticipatory tenseness, a curl to the lip, the lustful narrowing of eyes.
And the man, the other man, the ex-soldier Mal, had no idea what awaited him as he reached down.
It would have been painful to watch had it not been so richly deserved. It wasn’t a fight, really, more a deliberate, surgical dissection performed with cold pleasure. Rather than the brute force demonstrated in the fight against Agent Fosters, David now moved with precision, with a fleet and sinuous grace as he leverage both surprise and his lighter, smaller frame to his advantage. There was a savage meticulousness as he evaded his victim’s grip and hooked Mal’s knee, twisted and brought the man to the ground, and tore into his target with ruthless efficiency.
Agent K was intimately familiar with every aspect of Mr. Sander’s recorded life. Per standard procedure, after that first meeting Katherine had initiated the usual dig into the man’s past. A superficial pass revealed nothing unusual: a fairly ordinary life and a boring man. He was a successful corporate employee, exploiting male privilege and innate charisma to rapidly rise through the ranks, though both charm and privilege were supported by genuine ability. Even then, however, certain details hadn’t rung quite true. Ruefully, Katherine had to admit she’d ignored her early doubts, blinded by the possibility of having something on Jeremiah Steele.
She’d still been careful, of course—Sanders could’ve been a plant, a distraction, even a trap to call her out—though those early misgivings fell away after the man took two bullets to the chest after his day in court.
No, it was after that, after the drive and the fight and the conversation on the phone with Steele, after the man she’d put under her protection had very nearly bled to death on the Clinic floor, that she began to dig deeper.
She’d pulled every shred of data she could snag with the widest nets available to her, calling in favours and contacts both private and State: birth certificate, school reports, employment records; his every achievement and sanction, success and failure. Medical records, extensive vaccination data, and vast fields of biometric data culled from an adult lifetime of digital existence. Location stamps, favoured travel routes, shopping trends and every use of currency, every purchase, every snack and meal, gym membership, passport records, taxes. Every drink—so many drinks!—from every pub and bar and restaurant and club and dirty little hole in the wall he’d ever visited.
Then she’d unleashed the data sifters, the best semi-autonomous algorithms available to her and got them crawling through the mountains of data that delineated a life. They sniffed out the patterns and the abnormalities that lay outside those patterns; the times and places where other data fields overlapped—the recurring habits and people, places, anything of statistical significance that could explain how an ordinary man with an ordinary past could sink so easily, so thoroughly, into a role so antithetical to his very identity. Or more to the point: how could someone so ordinary, so boring and without experience of violence or war, survive both the attack of a trained assassin and the sexual assault of a decorated, damaged veteran? The answer, she hoped, should arrive later in the week as the AI completed its search through the data.
Meanwhile, in controlled slow motion, the man who presented as a pretty young woman pulled back from her assault on her victim. With a dainty touch, he dabbed at the errant drops now spattered across his face. The blood smeared like grotesque blusher across his cheeks, and his smile and eyes sparked with wild joy. The man, Mal groaned and twisted on the floor in pain. David stood over him and stared for a moment, bemused, where an acrylic nail had ripped away. Then, with something akin to a shrug and with almost casual disdain, the girl picked up a folding chair, collapsed it flat and held it high, ready to slam the edge down into Mal’s face.
Apparently noticing something, he hesitated. Tossing the chair to one side, he knelt next to the wounded man. He spoke, words too quiet for the cameras’ microphones, long hair obscuring the movement of his lips. David stood and walked away from the broken man.
Katherine sat back, let the footage play itself out, and watched as the man in the torn dress stood and stalked towards the collapsed waitress. He walked unsteadily in his wedge heels. There was a brief conversation, after which the young woman seemed to reassert herself. She left the café and returned to the car under the scorching glare of the sun, trotting across the tarmac with an almost ebullient confidence. Cameras switched automatically to provide unbroken coverage, picking up first on the external footage as she strode swiftly across the pavement, then switching to the camera in the car.
She watched the girl in the car for a long time, lips pursed in thought. Cindy sat there unmoving as the vehicle hummed to life, left the station and returned to the main road. She was smiling as she looked out the window. At one point, she examined her hand, the torn knuckles and nail. She made a lazy effort at wiping away a spot of blood on her dress. Eventually, her eyes drifted shut, and she slept.
Katherine allowed the recording to play and quietly watched the resting face of the pretty man. A flutter of darkness at the edge of her vision: exhaustion, but also fragments of a nightmare, ragged shreds of memory. This she thrust aside, and smiled, the slightest curving of razor-thin lips. For the first time she allowed herself to believe, rather than simply hope, that her plan could work.
Leaning forward, Katherine tapped a few keys and shut down the footage from the diner. She switched to a live feed from the Clinic’s security system. Camera after camera, she followed her ward as he made his way from the residential quarter through garden paths and public corridors to the Iaso building. She noted the femininity of his apparel and the appraising glances of passing patients and nodded with silent approval.
Soon, he stood outside the designated therapy room. A subtle hum from his armlet indicated he should enter. There was a moment’s hesitation. He smoothed down his long hair with a nervous gesture and took a moment to check his appearance in a convenient mirror. Katherine watched him take a deep breath and cross the threshold.
Three: Fun Little Secret Society
A small room, greige walls, sparsely decorated and designed to feel unthreatening. Spikey green succulent in a simple pot; paintings of muted colours in textured swaths on the wall; comfortable chairs and a large, heavy table in solid wood. Two women faced each other across the table. The first, very pretty and dressed to accentuate her youth, presented as fashionably vivid in contrast to the subdued room and the other woman opposite. She slouched in her chair, legs crossed at the knees, hugging herself against the chill of the room. Painted fingernails clicked against the chair armrest.
Opposite her, an older woman—in her mid-forties, perhaps—sat poised and professionally attired in a charcoal grey blazer and knee length pencil skirt. A little matronly in appearance, with a strong jaw, heavy eyebrows and pronounced chin, her sternness was softened by the ruffle of her collar, severity offset by flouncy lace trim at her sleeves and the bright colours of her rings and chunky necklace.
Behind heavy-framed glasses, deep-set eyes sparked with perceptive intelligence. She leaned forward. “Before we begin,” the woman started and rattled off the usual patter that this was a safe space, a non-judgmental space in which the patient was free to speak openly and honestly; however, the Clinic nevertheless did record all interactions between therapist and patient. She left out the tracking of patients’ reactions through GSR, heart rate, pupil response, thermal change and a host of other methods. This was a very special client, after all—one with which the Clinic was inclined to tale a few liberties, perhaps, and make the most careful observations. Specialised equipment in the room tracked the patient, and the wristband assigned to all patients at the clinic contributed a steady stream of further data.
The therapist added that her full name was Crystal Carlotta Dawn; that she was a licensed therapist employed by the Asklepios Clinic; the patient’s name was Cindy Bellamy, age twenty; and that this was a follow-up session to their previous meeting six months ago.
The younger woman shook her head in dismay. “Wow, six months already?”
The therapist continued: the session was to evaluate the patient’s wellbeing and to assess how she was coping following her previous treatment at the Asklepios clinic.
“Is this thing part of it?” the girl interrupted, plucking at the thin strip of soft plastic around her wrist. “Like, I get that it gives access around the clinic and pays for food and stuff, but when I went to the gym this morning is also had my heart rate and whatever on it. Is that part of the interview?”
The older woman nodded. “Yes. It allows us to monitor the patients’ vital signs and respond in case of an emergency,” she answered. “And it provides other useful data. Is it comfortable?”
“Yeah.” Cindy crossed her wrists, and the clinic’s pale strip of white plastic made a dull contrast to the colourful bangles decorating the other arm. “Bit bland, though.”
“I’ll be sure to pass that on to our tech department.” Thin lips in pale beige lipstick twitched in a hint of a smile. “So, with all that out of the way—shall we begin?”
“Um… sure? I guess.” The younger girl tapped at the wristband, fingernails clicking against the plastic, then seemed suddenly conscious of her fiddling and stopped. She shrank back into her chair. She seemed smaller, now, and more vulnerable.
“Would you mind if I asked you a few questions?”
“I guess not?”
Crystal took a moment to draw a tablet from her briefcase and placed it before her. She took a moment to review some notes written there. The girl opposite fidgeted with her bangles, spinning them around her wrist as she waited in silence.
“How are you feeling today?” Crystal finally asked. She smiled. “Cindy?”
For a moment the young girl seemed taken aback, angry, even, and surprised by the question. Her mouth opened once, closed—she took a deep breath—and shrugged. “Fine, I think,” she said. “A bit tired. It was a long drive yesterday, and it took me awhile to wind down. Didn’t sleep very well, I guess, and I woke up early.”
“I see.” Video capture and biometric data confirmed Cindy was awake at 4am and jogging on a treadmill in the gym at 5. “Why was that?”
“I….” Cindy hesitated. “I don’t know. Yesterday was a stressful day, you know? Or, you know what it’s like, sleeping in a strange room?”
“Bad dreams?” She knew, of course, that Cindy had indeed been plagued by bad dreams last night – again, the collected data suggesting the familiar pattern of recuring nightmares had followed her from her home in the city to Asklepios.
“I don’t know.” The girl played with her dangling earrings, twitching and twirling the glittery strands. “Like, maybe? I can’t remember.”
The older woman nodded, made note of the lie and then hesitated before her next comment. “You look good today, Cindy.”
The compliment seemed to placate some of the girl’s anxiety. “That wasn’t a question?”
“No, I suppose it wasn’t,” she said. She made another note on her tablet, then looked up. “Could you walk me through the steps you followed in selecting your outfit today?”
Cindy’s brow furrowed, her nose wrinkling slightly with apparent confusion. “I don’t follow.”
There was a pause in which Crystal leaned back in her seat and observed the younger woman over steepled fingers. “Last time I saw you, Cindy, was six months ago. Do you remember?”
“Ye—ees? I mean, kind of. It was all a bit informal, right?” She frowned with the effort of recollection, a gesture so cute and disarming it couldn’t possibly be unconscious. “We had a couple of chats. You asked me a bit about my life before, you know…”
“Yes, I remember.”
“No offense, but honestly – I’m drawing a bit of a blank. I kinda thought you were a bit flaky, you know: ‘Crystal’? and ‘Dawn’? I remember thinking, that can’t be her real name, can it? It just seemed, like, a bit new-agey?”
Crystal stifled a laugh. “Fair enough,” she said. “However, from my point of view, those encounters were very meaningful, very memorable. You left a very strong impression.”
“Oh.”
“And so, to return to my request: before leaving your room this morning, you were free to dress any way you wanted. This is the outfit you chose.” Here, she indicated the black mesh top Cindy wore, sheer, tight and sleeveless, over lacy balconette bra shadowed by the dark fabric; and the high-waisted, button-down shorts and wide belt, and ankle boots. “Can you to walk me though the process that led to you wearing this?”
There was a pause before Cindy answered. When she spoke, her voice wavered. “Is there a problem with the way I’m dressed?”
“No. Of course not.”
“Then why?”
“I’m hoping you can explain the thinking, maybe the emotions, behind your choices. Nothing more.” Crystal indicated the girl’s footwear. “For instance, can you explain why you chose to wear heels today?” She leaned a little closer and offered a reassuring smile. “They’re very pretty. Very colourful.”
Cindy expression wavered; something resembling anger smouldered in eyes already smoky with heavy mascara, eyeliner and shadow; but then she smiled with something like relief. Almost as if a switch had been flipped, she slid easily into her answer. “Thanks! I wasn’t sure, you know? But I saw them there in the wardrobe of clothes the Clinic provided – and I mean, like wow, how’d they get my size right for everything?” She rubbed her hands down the length of one long, lithe and smooth leg, the skin luminous with youthful vigor and body shimmer lotion. Cindy danced her fingers along the boots, curling graceful fingers around the chunky heel. Sequins sparkled in the light. “But I don’t know. Like, sure, the flats were tempting but I guess I wanted to feel a little taller today? I like feeling tall. And I saw the boots and went from there?”
A little moue of concentration, pinked pursed lips and wrinkled nose, again, and she shrugged. “I read an article about Sin-DI this morning? And she looked pretty and cool and had shoes kinda like these, and so I tried to copy the look a bit? Maybe?” Cindy stretched out her legs, recrossed as the ankles, faux leather shorts squeaking with the movement. “Is it too much?”
“Not at all.” Crystal for a moment and tapped at the tablet again. “I may have read the same article as you. Was it the one in -Lumen-?”
With a little nod, Cindy answered, “yes, yes that one,” and she seemed relieved to move away from the topic of clothes and dressing. “She talked about some older influences, like… um, Grimes? Hadn’t heard of her. And that Japanese V-pop girl, Haruki, the AI hologram?”
She nodded. “Yes.” A huge fan herself, Crystal couldn’t resist the lure of discussing Haruki, and so indulged in a brief deviation from the intended topic. “Did you know her owners decommissioned her last month?”
“No way! I mean, she was, um, before my time, kinda but still – an icon, right?”
“No longer profitable, apparently.” Crystal sounded a little sad, and angry. “And too expensive to maintain. She’d already expanded into trillions of parameters and exabytes of storage. Last year, I visited the server block in Osaka that used to house her; massive, skyscraper thing. Quite the experience, walking inside, walking through a celebrity’s mind and soul.” She shrugged. “But after the earthquake—even with the distributed backups, they just couldn’t get her right again.”
“Sounds like you’re a fan?”
“I am. Or rather, was.” She shook her head. “But I’m the one that’s supposed to be asking the questions, right?” Crystal laughed. “And of course, Sin-DI mentioned another influence, didn’t she? A friend of yours. Harry Longman.”
The younger girl blushed. “Um. Yeah.”
“Quite the fashion shoot, I thought,” Crystal continued. “There was the one you mentioned; I can see the influence. Any thoughts on the other photos from the -Lumen- article?”
If anything, Cindy turned redder. “They were… um. Interesting.”
-Lumen-: notorious for both its writing and photography. A higher-end Arts and Culture magazine (critics called it a pretentious celebrity gossip glossy for pseudo-intellectuals) its reputation was built on a promise of entirely human-written content—no AI-generated word-porridge—and for launching the careers of a handful of recent media superstars. Constantly mired in a morass of controversy and gleefully flirting the moral outrage of politicians and pundits across the political spectrum, -Lumen- never apologized, retracted or changed tact; and each quarterly publication was one of the literary talking points of the season; or at least has been since its inception a year ago.
True, most of the articles were half-imbedded advertising and shameless promotional pieces for the artist being interviewed; and yes, it often skirted if not outright ran roughshod over generally accepted boundaries of common decency: but getting covered by -Lumen- almost always indicated a media personality worth knowing about.
And everybody already knew about Sin-DI. Yet the newcomer pop star remained enigmatic, alluring, this sudden, sexual and potent new female presence on every screen, every speaker, every tongue. Unsurprisingly, the article dug into her background (mysterious) and inspirations (old and new), her real name (still secret) and her stage name (what did it mean?) and insinuated some tough questions touching on her personal life (who was that young boy last weekend?) and touched lightly on the future (ambitious; very much so).
A few queries raised a frisson of disquiet. Did she write her own music? How could a girl her age craft such elegant and sophisticated and nuanced lyrics? And when did aggressive sensuality tip over into blatant pornography and smut? Was she inspiring young girl to express themselves creatively, or normalising fetishism, emboldening indecent and sexual promiscuous behaviour?
Her responses were—for the most part—ambiguous.
Mostly, though, the article was just a promotional piece for the artist, hinting at her next release, advertising her current tour, and dripping with saccharine statements inspiring girls to chase their dreams.
Then there was the photo shoot. Her vague declarations of feminine empowerment sat awkwardly, deliberately so, juxtaposed with the four-photo spread, the highlight of the piece.
The first image, the influence on the day’s outfit, was relatively tame, at least in comparison to the others: trendy girl dressed for a night out, though skewing uncomfortably towards jail-bait sensuality in its school-girl aesthetics, highlighted by the pigtails and sparkly pink makeup. Glossy lips curved in an open smile, and one hand daintily held a Champagne flute, its edges tinted pink with lipstick. With one leg foot-popping up behind in bubbly joy, she gazed adoringly towards the screen—from which a heavy shadow stretched towards her. Angle and framing gave the shadow a distinctly male caste, made it imposing, threatening; and in doing so positioned the viewer within the male gaze.
“I suppose girls your age are the more likely target audience for this publication than I am,” Crystal continued, and she positioned the tablet on the table between them. She spun it around to show the article to her patient. “I’m curious what you made of the second photo?”
Here, Sin-DI was all ultra-tight under-bust corset and fetish ballet heels; long hair braided, tied and twisted into arm binders held high behind the girl’s back. Sin-DI’s defiant glare, narrowed eyes and flared nostrils were directed towards the camera. Her makeup was glossy, vivid; there was a passing resemblance to Cindy’s. Wet, red lips were stretched wide around bright teeth bared and clenching down on the metal bit distending her mouth. She was collared and harnessed, a leash running back to the figure in the shadows, another heavy, masculine presence holding her bridle. Kneeling and leaning forward, held back by the shadow behind, her naked breasts heaved, nipples pierced and engorged, and every muscle was taut with tension, cords of her neck taut as she yanked at her bondage. Her skin gleamed with sweat and grime, and the fabrics restraining her were all liquid metals, dull cold steel gleaming in the harsh glare of an unseen light.
“Any thoughts?”
Cindy squirmed a little in her seat and didn’t quite make eye contact, blushing again under heavy makeup. “I don’t know. I mean, sure, it’s kinda cool, I guess.” The biometric data collected earlier that day suggested she’d found this specific photo particularly arresting; elevated heart rate and breathing implied at least one, if not more, rounds of masturbation that morning.
“Online discussions,” Crystal mused, “are heated and divided, as you can imagine. Does this suggest the struggles of a successful, powerful young woman against the oppressive, controlling constraints of patriarchy; of is it just more fetishized commodification of submissive femininity under the guise of sexual empowerment, pushing more beauty pornography glamorising the degradation of women in the interest of selling copy?” She tapped the screen and zoomed in on Sin-DI’s face, her fierce glare and bright lips and the bit between her teeth. “How does it make you feel?”
“Uncomfortable,” Cindy answered without hesitation. She stared at the photo. “I don’t know how… she can do that?”
“Do you mean embrace and exploit her sexuality so overtly?” Crystal pulled the image back, showing the full spread of the pop star in bondage. “Or submit and be sexually commodified and exploited for profit?”
Cindy didn’t answer.
“Some critical responses argue the photos problematize contemporary idealisations of womanhood,” she said. “That this is what we want – aggressive femininity, blatant sexuality – but restrained, under male control.” Crystal swiped, brought up the third image. “As is typical with -Lumen-, there’s a sort of narrative arc to the photos. From date night to its conclusion, perhaps, and then….”
“The bridal shot?” Cindy’s voice was quiet.
“Perhaps this is intended to capture the inevitability of the female journey? That this is every girl’s dream, their destination?” Crystal shrugged. “What do you think?”
“She’s… beautiful, in that one.” She tucked a stray blonde bang back and her nose crinkled in awe. “Beautiful and a little scary.”
Ivory and tight, from neck to wrist, a sleek column of silk and lace that flowed over exaggerated curves to pool at the woman’s feet, a shimmering froth of feminine fabric that glittered with a thousand tiny gemstones and flooded across the rough concrete floor. Standing ramrod straight, perched on skyscraper platform heels exposed by a slit in the dress, her poise and posture was that of a storefront mannequin—a posture further enabled by the hint of a metal rod, only just visible behind the fold of her dress and concealed by flowery decorations, running up and… behind her? Or inside of her? Even without, the tightness of the dress and the height of the heels must have made even the smallest of steps impossible.
The bride’s delicate hands presented a bouquet of flowers to the viewer, one half lurid scarlet blossoms, the other a cluster of obsidian petals. The vivid colours made a startling contrast against the desaturated, over-exposed brilliance of the scene. Long and graceful fingers seemed to distend, meld and disappear into the stems of the bouquet, girl-becoming-accessory at the extremities, just as her elevated feet seemed to disappear into lacy froth. Thorned vines from the flowers wrapped and writhed around her wrists like verdant cuffs; the bridal fabrics at her feet wound like laces up to her knees.
A curtain of clinging glimmering weave veiled the bride’s face. Behind the veil, a hint of a smile, of eyes demurely downcast, of tears dampening the delicate fabric.
But then ambiguities: was that a bulge below the waist revealed by the unforgiving tightness of the dress, an unexpected curve rather than cleft to the bride? Were her shoulders just a little too square, and the veiled hint of jaw too strong? And the ubiquitous shadowed figure, still featureless, still threatening, standing behind the bride, with crop and leash in hand, though now unused—did they suddenly seem less masculine than before, with a hint of hip and longer hair to the oppressive silhouette?
Cindy looked at the photo for a long moment. Her fingers were tightly interlaced in her lap. “But, um. Yeah.” She shook her head. “I don’t really know about any of that stuff. I get this is meant to be telling a story, but I guess I don’t get what that story is meant to be.” Cindy sighed. “Like I don’t know if she’s, what did they call her? ‘The herald and vanguard of sixth wave feminism’?”
The young woman shrugged. “I just think she’s kinda cool. I like her music and she sounds smart when she wants to, and she really just seems to be enjoying herself. And some of her lyrics just really connect for me, you know? And the way she presents herself is so brave and challenging?”
Another sigh, and she tapped at the screen with one colourful nail. “But this stuff, I guess it’s not really my thing. Like, I’m sure it’s fun and all? And the photoshoot must be a blast and trying out all the different outfits and the shoes and having a makeup artist and all that. But I couldn’t imagine ever wearing stuff like that.” With a flick of the finger she brought the second photo back, tracing the lines of metal bondage lightly with one finger.
She paused, staring at the tightly bound woman on the screen. “It looks… uncomfortable.” With a shiver, Cindy flicked the photo away. “I don’t think I could ever… do that.”
“Do what, Cindy?”
“Give up control like that.”
“You don’t think she’s in control?”
“How could she be?” Cindy said. “Tied up like that.”
“She rich. She’s powerful. It’s her photoshoot. By all accounts, she’s got complete control over every aspect of her media image and is the primary creative force behind all this—I’m not sure even -Lumen- could coerce her into modelling she didn’t approve of.” Crystal shrugged. “There isn’t a single person involved in the making of this image that she couldn’t have fired and blacklisted and their career ruined. Is that not power? Is that not control?”
“No,” Cindy answered, her voice quiet. “Because once you’re tied down and gagged everything you’ve just said becomes—theoretical. The… woman on the screen here?” Again, she traced Sin-DI’s bondage, the bit between her teeth, the cuffs at her wrists, the taut lines of her neck drawn back and exposed. “This isn’t power. She’s powerless. She’s half-naked, tits out, voiceless. She’s there for the enjoyment of others.”
“Isn’t that a form of power in itself? To be able to provoke, to influence others’ reactions?”
Cindy shook her head.
“And yet,” Crystal said, “you drew on her for your own look.”
Suddenly a little sheepish, Cindy nodded. “Sure, she inspired what I’m wearing today, but I think this is my limit.” Cindy rubbed her hands up and down supple, exposed legs. “It already feels like I’m barely wearing anything.”
“Does that bother you?” Crystal asked, blanking the tablet screen.
Cindy seemed to consider this for a moment. “Maybe?”
“What do you mean?”
“I feel exposed. I feel watched. And that makes me… uncomfortable. These clothes,” and here she plucked at the high neckline of her clingy mesh top, “they’re designed to draw attention, right? Like, the whole point of this thing is to see the bra under it right? You know, just in case people forgot I had tits. And the bra, the underwire, it’s designed to push these puppies up on display.” Cupping her breasts, she gave them a little push upwards. “And because its so goddam cold in here, even my nipples poke through, right?
“And then you can nearly see my ass cheeks in these things,” she continued, tugging at her shorts, “and I’m baring so much skin I’m nearly naked, right?” She gestured at the tablet. “I mean, it’s a slippery slope, right, I’m on the same fashion spectrum that leads to that final photo, you know what I mean?”
The final image, the conclusion of Sin-DI’s photographic narrative, presented the bride after the ceremony. The bride, defrocked and lying resplendent in lingerie on ebony sheets, shimmering ivory basque and stockings and suspender belt, gilt gleaming to every seam, link and edge; and straps, so many straps coiling sensuously across every curve, one part caress in lace to one part bondage in satin.
With a look of coy—apprehension and anticipation?—or satiated yearning?—on parted lips and lidded eyes, Sin-DI held one arm across her chest, and the other, fingers spread, covered and hid her naked genitals. Shot in greyscale, the bride resplendent shone luminous whilst the edges of the frame lay in churning darkness, encroaching, powerful and threatening but in the moment held beyond the pale.
“I think there’s some distinction between post-coital posing in underwear on a bed, and what you’re wearing,” Crystal answered. “But I take your point.”
“I guess I’m just not used to being so… on display, all the time.”
“Not yet?” Crystal suggested.
“Not ever.” She shook her head. “I don’t think I’d ever get used to it.”
“Yet you chose those clothes,” Crystal said. “You chose to display yourself.”
Cindy cocked her head to one side. “Not much of a choice.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that this, all of this—it’s what expected, right?”
“Expected by whom?”
“By…,” Cindy waved her arm to take in the woman opposite, the room—the concealed cameras in the room?—and the world around them. “By everyone!”
“By you?”
Cindy blew a lock of hair out of her face.
“Tell me,” Crystal continued, “You found inspiration in Sin-DI’s style before.” Crystal presented the photo on the tablet of the redolent woman in her bridal lingerie. “Could you imagine wearing something like this?”
Green eyes tracked across the bride’s partial nudity, lingering over slender heels, shimmering stockings, straps and catches and hooks and delicate decorative bows. Cindy grimaced and looked away.
“Cindy?”
“Yeah,” she said, her voice surly. “Yeah, I guess I can.” But then she turned back, eyes flashing with anger. “But not like that.”
Crystal waited.
“Like, okay, fine – yeah, I’ve worn… stuff like that. Heels and the garter belt and all that crap. Julia’s really into it right now. I wore something for Dan….” Cindy trailed off. “But it’s different, okay?”
“How so?”
“Because… it is, okay? It just is.”
“Did you feel comfortable?”
She seemed ready to launch into a retort, stopped, and then shrugged. She gave a little half smile. “Honestly? It’s not that bad. Not as bad as I’d have once thought. Listen. You want the truth? Fine. It’s kinda fun, sometimes. Bras are a pain in the ass, usually, and the really constricting stuff gets annoying pretty quickly, but the underwear’s comfy enough, and I guess I’ve gotten used to flossing my ass with the skimpier panties. Even the garter belt isn’t as much a pain as I thought it’d be. And yeah, it can feels sorta sexy, okay? And that can be nice, too.”
But then she pointed at the photo. “But not like that. Not—displayed, like that, so some guy can get his perv on and jack off to the sight of my tits or something.”
As you did this morning, Crystal thought.
“So you wouldn’t wear something like that for a man.”
Cindy growled with frustration. “Not by choice, no.”
“I see.”
“And definitely not… you know, bridal lingerie.”
“No, I suppose not.” Crystal made a few notes. “Not even for the right person?”
Cindy frowned. “No.”
“I see.” Crystal nodded. “But I’d like to return to this idea of choice. It was that choice that I wanted to explore when we first started.” She indicated her own outfit. “My choice, for instance, feels very different than what you are suggesting.”
“You feel comfortable?” Cindy asked.
Crystal hesitated for a moment, and her eyes unfocused briefly. She smiled, slightly, though she gave an impression of sadness. “Yes,” she said. “I do.”
“Fine,” Cindy said. “But it’s not the same.”
“Why?”
“I don’t have the same freedom to choose as you do.”
“Why not?”
“Well for one thing,” Cindy said. “You’re old.”
“Thanks,” Crystal answered drily.
“But it’s not the same, is it?” Cindy continued. “You’re on that side of the desk, and I’m on this side. You’re the professional and you look it and that’s what’s expected. But I’m….” and here she trailed off into silence.
“Yes,” Crystal urged. “What are you?”
Her jaw clenched; she sneered; then deflated and sagged. “A girl,” she answered. “Just—an ordinary girl.” Her hand fluttered in indistinct circles, fingernails flashing in the light. “And this, all this, I guess, it’s what’s normal and expected of—a girl like me.”
“And what kind of a girl are you?”
“I’m….” A deep breath, an inarticulate groan, and she retreated deeper in the chair, pulling her legs up and hugging them close. “For fuck’s sake, I dunno, doc. I’ll tell you what I’m not. I’m not normal. I feel like a pervert, a freak, most days, like everyone’s looking at me with pitchforks and torches hidden behind their backs. When they smile or laugh, I wonder: do they know? Are they laughing at me?” She blew a frustrated breath out her nose. “Does any of that strike you as normal?”
Crystal gave a small smile. “Normal is a subjective term, Cindy. But what I can tell you is that it’s not uncommon for young women to feel… worried. Uneasy and uncertain. Perhaps not always to the degree you just expressed, but many of my female clients express the fear and anxiety they constantly feel, living in a society that places such a great deal of pressure on women to conform to narrow ideals of femininity.”
At that, Cindy shifted uncomfortably, her fingers fidgeting with the ankle strap of her boot. “But what can I do about it?” she asked, her voice nearly a whine.
Crystal leaned forward. “You can embrace it,” she said. “You can recognize that there is nothing wrong in taking pleasure in who you want or have to be in this moment, independent of who you were in the past or who you may be in the future.”
There was silence, a silence that extended and reached out and filled the room as both women watched each other from either side of the desk. Neither moved; until even the white noise breathing of filtered air drawn through the room felt loud. Finally, with a creak of tight shorts and the gentle song of metal bangles chiming, Cindy uncoiled in her seat, sitting up and leaning forward, and faced her therapist directly.
“It must fucking kill you, yeah?”
Crystal’s face remained impassive, indicating no surprise at the sudden shift in tone. “What do you mean,” she said. “Cindy?”
The younger girl flinched at the sound of her name. Her painted lips curled in a sneer. “I mean, just look at me. These tits. These legs, this hair, my goddamn lips… I’m gorgeous, right, just look at me, a real sexpot? Feminine. So goddamn feminine it hurts, and… I hate it.” Her fist slammed down onto the desk with a dull thud. “I hate it.” And again. “I hate it!” she all but groaned, and this time she surged to her feet, standing and punching directly down into the desk in a jangle of tinging bracelets.
Blood dotted the wooden surface. “I fucking hate it,” she hissed.
“And you sit there and tell me to embrace it, that there’s nothing wrong with it, to be who I want to be but this—” and here Cindy all but hit herself, small fist smacking into her chest. “I’m not a fucking girl! This isn’t who I want to be!”
Cindy leaned over the desk and the impassive woman sitting opposite. “But I bet you’d give anything, wouldn’t you, to have—to fucking be, what I’ve got here, what I’m forced to be. I bet it eats away at you, yeah, just really aches to see me despise this thing you’d give you left fucking nut to have, to be this beautiful, this feminine, this… girly.”
Crystal looked up at the red-faced girl. “I gave up my left nut many years ago,” she answered. “And the right one too.” She waited for a slow count of three, and then asked. “Are you done?”
Cindy let out a deep breath. “Yeah.”
“Please sit down.”
The younger woman did as she was told, looking sheepish.
Crystal gestured at the girl’s hand. “A pity about your hand. I think you broke a nail. Again.” She smiled. “They look—looked—lovely, by the way.”
Cindy stared at her, mouth open but silent. She sighed, and then returned the smile and seemed thankful for the invitation to change subjects. “Thanks. There wasn’t much to do this morning, so I popped into the salon after the gym and breakfast.” She raised her hand and wiggled her fingers. Vivid nails too long to be considered sensible, each painted a different colour, shimmered and sparkled. “They fixed up the broken one and then had a bit of fun, I guess. They’re, ah… a touch longer than I’m used to.” The younger girl raked her nails though her mane of perfectly straight, long blonde hair, sweeping it back over her shoulder. “They also did my hair and makeup. Really went to town on me.”
“Very feminine,” Crystal said. “Very pretty.”
“Yeah.” Once again, the edges of Cindy’s smile strained. She unfolder her legs, sat straight, and splayed her hands on the table. “Pretty.”
“And how does that make you feel?”
Cindy’s eyes narrowed. “Just fucking great, doc.”
“I take it from your tone that this isn’t so.”
“What the fuck are we doing here, Crystal?”
“What do you mean?”
“Am I passing your test?”
“Do you feel as though I’m testing you?”
“Fine, fuck it, whatever.” The girl held one limp-wristed hand to her chest in a performance of joy. “Oh, I just love feeling pretty!”
“Cindy—”
“No, really, I do!” The girl jumped to her feet and sashayed back and forth across the narrow space of the room, talking over her shoulder. “Like, wearing these heels! I love the way they make me feel; taller; more confident; sexy! Like nothing can stop me, you know,” and here she spun on one heel to face the therapist, “and I even like it when I catch people, you know, especially guys, checking me out.
“Like, who can blame, them, right?” Cindy’s glittering fingers swept across her torso, picking out the veiled cleavage on display. “But it’s not like I need their validation, of course? It’s more like, knowing the effort’s being appreciated, it feels good. Like when a girl, I mean another girl, notices my nails or something new I tried with my makeup, and it feel good, inside, a little flutter of happiness.” She paused and bent over the desk between the two. “Feeling feminine, feeling pretty, it’s like being part of a fun little secret society, isn’t it? where the price of entry is that little bit of effort, a touch of makeup and glam, and bam! I’m in.”
Crystal remained silent and waited.
“You want more?” Cindy rolled her eyes. “Fine. Dressed like this, I feel like… like—a sparkling jewel, catching the light, shining and bright on a dark day. Like I’m a sunset, painting night clouds in soft colours at the end of the day. I’m a porcelain doll, delicate and loved because my beauty’s so fragile.”
Crystal grimaced. “Please stop.”
Cindy dropped back into her chair. “You asked.”
“I didn’t ask for greeting card platitudes. I’m asking how it feels for you to be seen as beautiful by others.”
“You want to know? You really want to know how I feel?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Because this is how I really fucking feel.” And here, without any wrinkle of the nose or any pretense at cuteness, the young girl slouched back in her chair and glared at the woman opposite over, with her elbows on the armrest and her hands clenched together under the chin. Her knuckles whitened as she spoke, and her voice was firm and strong.
“You ever hear of an iron maiden?”
Bemused, Crystal nodded.
“The medieval torture device, I mean, not that rock band from last century.” Cindy’s smile was tight, and her eyes remained angry. “So these iron maidens, maybe they never really existed. I don’t know, I’m not a goddamn historian. But everybody knows the story, you can find a million examples online. Sin-DI even used one in the video for “Spiral”. I’ve read they’re popular these days, popular with the kind of people who like kinky shit in the bedroom, lots of rich fuckers buying them for their wives or girlfriends.
“So yeah, originally they were a container shaped like a human – like a woman, a maiden – sometimes even decorated and beautiful on the outside, painted with girl’s clothes and a pretty smile. And inside, spikes: hundred of them, and you throw some fucker in there and close the door.
“And so what happens to the poor bastard? If he’s lucky he gets impaled on the spikes and dies quickly when they close the door. But maybe those spikes, they just prick the skin, right, hundred of little knives perforating him, just a little, just enough to make him bleed but not kill him. No, instead, the maiden milks him dry, slowly, steadily weakening the man inside the shell until he gives up.
“Or maybe he just goes fucking insane because he can’t sleep from the constant pain and fear.
“Or he starves to death, slowly and in agony, over a period of weeks.”
And here, the girl in the chair, eyes glittering and pretty lips curled in anger, leaned forward. “So you want to know how it feels when people think I’m beautiful? When you call me pretty and tell me how cute my goddamn nails look? It fucking feels like that.”
Though she remained unemotional, to anyone who knew her it was clear that Crystal was shaken by the answer. Her voice remained calm. “Please explain,” she asked.
With obvious effort, Cindy unclasped her hands, knuckles still white, and deliberately stretched them open on the table. “These pretty nails. This makeup I’m wearing, these clothes, the hair, soft skin, the goddamn tits and, and… everything – it’s fucking torture, like a box as strong and unbreakable as iron, no matter how delicate and painted it is on the outside. And I’ve been thrown into it – you threw me in here, you and everyone here at the Clinic. You threw me in and slammed it shut and locked me in to this shape and tossed me out into the world, but it might as well have been a dungeon because there’s no escape.
“And you did this and never once thought of all those spikes. They pierce me every day, doc, and I’m bleeding, I can feel myself draining away day by day. And every goddam day I think about impaling myself on those spikes, just ending it… but I don’t, I don’t because everyday I hold on to the hope that somebody’ll unlock the door and let me out.
“And so instead I try and stay as still as I can, disappear inside this torture and hope the rest of the world just sees the pretty exterior, so that I survive as long as possible inside this beautiful shell, this girl’s shell, and the less of me there is the easier it becomes, in a way, the spikes don’t hurt so much, you know, and I can fool myself into thinking this is it, right, this is the way, just don’t move, don’t even breathe if you don’t have to—just don’t be and just leave it to the maiden, she’s made of iron, she’s tough enough to get me through this.
“But I’m starving, Crystal, I’m withering away in here, I’m going fucking crazy in here and soon, soon there’s not going to be anything left inside, just a hollowness at the centre of a painted husk, lipstick and old blush painted on a rusted shell.”
Cindy took a deep breath. Tears sparkled at the rim of hers but refused to fall. “So you tell me to just embrace who I am: but what is there left to embrace? You ask me how I feel when you call me pretty? I feel angry, Crystal, so fucking angry it hurts. And tired, tired to death. But the iron maiden, she just keeps on smiling on the outside. And inside? Some poor bastard’s still clinging on to that last sad hope that somebody’ll let him out.”
And Cindy—but it was clearly not Cindy any longer, but David, seething with anger and exhaustion and something entirely darker and more desperate, and he clawed the table with those beautifully manicured nails. “So tell me, Doctor Crystal Dawn: are you gonna fucking let me out?”
And for the first time, the emotional turmoil felt by the older woman seeped through; there was a crack in her demeanour as anger flared in her eyes and briefly, her finger curled around the frame of her tablet, so tightly it momentarily seemed as though the plastic might crack. She visibly counted to five, and relaxed, and uncurled her hand.
“That decision isn’t mine to make, Cindy.”
“Then we’re done here,” the girl answered, and stood. She strode to the door and flung it open but stopped at the threshold. “And the name’s David, for fuck’s sake,” he hurled back at her over his shoulder, and left the room, the door slamming shut behind him.
Katherine cut the feed from the interview room and sat for a moment, gathering her thoughts, giving Crystal some private time to recover. Finalising her own notes, she left her studio from where she’d watched the session. A few minutes later she entered through the same door David had left and sat in the now vacant chair opposite the therapist.
“You okay?” she asked.
“I’m fine.” The therapist’s voice was tired. “You listened?”
“Yes.”
“I think,” Crystal began, and sagged. “I think you better tell me how your talk went with him last night. Because I need to know who this guy is, Katherine. Who is he? Who is David Saunders?”
Four: Crazy Voodoo Sci-Fi Bullshit
With some trepidation but even more unconcealed eagerness, Doctor Jonathon Bridges signaled for his next appointment to be sent through. He considered his office, the sprawl of annotated printouts across his desk and half-finished cups of coffee, the dilapidated sofa and forlorn potted plant in the corner, perpetually declining into ever darker shades of yellow and brown. He should’ve tided up, or at least given the cleaner access to his workspace.
But to what end? He didn’t give a shit about appearances, especially coming face-to-face with the very thing that got him his current job—with the living embodiment of the high-risk gamble he’d taken six months ago.
He’d earned this position. Those risks were going to pay massive dividends for Asklepios – for humanity, he told himself. And his name would be forever attached to the science behind it all. If all went well, glory might be the least of the rewards for his efforts.
The nurse had completed the usual preliminary check-in process: drawn the blood samples, weighed and measured, scanned and imaged the patient and completed the usual tests. Preliminary results suggested the patient was the epitome of health, though the full results, especially the all-important blood tests, would take a few hours to process.
Standing to greet his patient, he wiped his hands down the sides of a rumpled lab coat before burying them into deep pockets where he could hide the perpetual twitch of excited fingers. Jonathan knew he wasn’t a particularly pleasant man. He was arrogant with little patience for stupid people; and he thought, by and large, most people were idiots.
“Hello David,” he said to the young woman entering his office.
The contrast between the two couldn’t have been much sharper. With his lab coat stained with the day’s lunch, hanging loosely over an untucked shirt undone at the neck, Jonathon looked as though he’d slept in his clothes. He had. His tie hung loose, his hair was a wild mess of red and grey, and he had the unhealthy pallor of someone who hadn’t been exposed to sunlight in far too long, bathed in the glow of digital displays and florescent lighting.
David Saunders, lips freshly painted a glossy pink, smiled. He’d obviously touched up during the wait before stepping through the door—the man’s whole feminine deportment gave every indication of having been refreshed before the appointment. From head to toe, brushed hair to chunky heels, the man’s female appearance was immaculately presented.
“Scooter,” David said. “I can’t tell you how goddamn happy I am to see you.”
The doctor suppressed a flash of annoyance at the name. “Scooter?” he grumbled. “Still?”
“You don’t think I’ve earned it?”
Jonathon bit back a retort. “Yeah,” he said. “I suppose you have.”
Swallowing back his irritation—or was it guilt? he often struggled to tell them apart—he focused his attention instead on the man standing before him. Does he even realise how much he’s changed? Jonathon wondered, taking in the tell-tale signs of his process’s ongoing effects. Even at a preliminary glance it was obvious how much the man’s feminisation had progressed.
He thought back to the first time they’d met, when David Sanders had been a man in woman’s clothing, cross-dressing as part Katherine’s crazy plan to keep him alive. He’d had cutting-edge prosthetics attached, prototype bio-engineered breasts and genitals salvaged during the raid on the Neopharm black project site; but still just a man in a dress. Katherine had diverted to the Clinic with Steele’s agents on their trail. Much to Jonathon’s lasting shame, those same agents had infiltrated Asklepios’ defences with ease and nearly killed his client.
He took fierce solace in the fact that those responsible for invading his laboratory had paid for their audacity. More importantly, they’d only been after Katherine and David—and not his research. Bad enough to have infiltrated the Clinic, but what if they’d penetrated into the deeper labs, discovered the Tank, stolen his work?
The last time he’d seen David in the flesh, the man was submerged in the Tank, unconscious in a bath of nutrient-rich fluids reshaping his body, dissolving muscle, reshaping body fat, flipping genetic switches, transforming David Saunders even as the process regenerated the fatal damage he’d taken in his fight with Steele’s agent.
“How’s your arm? I trust the nurse was gentle?”
“That bitch’s a fucking vampire,” he growled, the tone discordant with his delicate appearance. He gestured to the cotton swab affixed by
a plaster to his arm. “Think she took enough blood? Thought she was going to drain me dry.”
“The first of many, I’m afraid. We’ll need daily blood tests.”
David grunted.
“How’re you settling in at the Clinic?”
“I nearly attacked K last night,” he said, “and came close to throwing a chair at Crystal.”
“I half expected you to come in here swinging.”
“Hey, the appointment’s not over yet,” David said. “Let’s see how things go first,” and judging by the glint in his eyes, he wasn’t entirely kidding. Jonathon was reminded of the reports he’d reviewed that morning and prior to the appointment: the update on their ‘patient’ downstairs; yesterday’s security footage of the man at the café; Crystal’s feedback from earlier that day. The person standing before him presented as young and female, dainty and slight, with an almost frivolous focus on makeup and fashion—and had killed one man and severely injured another.
He was sharing a room with a killer. He’d killed Steele’s agent that day six months ago, in an office not unlike this one. How quickly could David cross the distance between them? Kill him? Jonathon wasn’t a fighter. Faster than security could arrive. Not that there was any real danger, of course: the slim bracelet they all wore contained a powerful tranquiliser that would knock the largest and angriest of clients unconscious, should the monitoring security AI detect any threat.
Still, the feminised man had good cause to want to hurt him, or worse. Although I did save his life, Jonathon thought, irritated at the man’s ingratitude.
“Mind if I sit?” David said, dropping into a chair. “These heels look great, but they’re a killer after a while. Even after months of practice.”
“If you say so.” But why worry about something as banal as the possibility of violence when confronted by the medical miracle before him? Deep in his pockets, his fingers twitched again with the desire to study his patient.
“I do.” David leaned back in his seat, making a show of examining his manicure, gazing at the doctor over glossy nails. “And by the way, I’ve gotta say, you look like shit.”
Jonathon grunted. He noted the repair to the missing fingernail broken earlier that morning in the meeting with Carl. He noted the lustre to the man’s hair, the softening of his jawline and the curve of breasts and hips. He noted the lines of the man’s bared legs and the tension in the muscle.
“Jesus, Scooter, take a picture, it’ll last longer.” David’s tone was mocking, but Jonathon picked up on the underlying threat.
The doctor nodded. He returned to his side of the desk and sat down. “I imagine, David Saunders, that you’ve got questions.”
“You think?” The man who looked like a young woman leaned forward. “Yeah, there’s plenty I’d like to know.” Pink painted lips twisted in an ugly scowl and his eyes darkened. “Like, what the fuck happened four months ago? I wake up in some shitty little apartment, looking like… like this, alone, and suddenly I’m supposed to live this girl Cindy’s life, yeah, but not just in a sort of pretend kind of way, throw on a skirt and prance around for a couple of days kind of way…. No. I wake up in this girl’s home and I’ve got tits, Scooter, a goddam set of knockers, real ones, and I nearly go bat-shit crazy wondering what the fuck is going on!”
He leaned in close, and Jonathon could see the physical effort it took hold back. “And sure, I appreciated your little video message. Made it clear I wasn’t having some kind of mental breakdown. But it wasn’t enough, Scooter, not even close.”
Jonathon remembered the message he sent, the quickly recorded video offering the bare minimum—against Katherine’s wishes—calculated to convey medical concerns without giving away the realities of the project—and reinforce the illusion of Cindy’s life.
“So, yeah, you might say I’ve got questions. Like what the hell did you do to me so that I look like… this? Or: what were you thinking, for Chrissake, just dumping me in some shithole apartment on the edge of some fucking new city with no goddam clue what was going on?” But then he shook his head, unconsciously tucking a strand of hair back behind one ear. “But no.” He held up a finger. A single scarlet nail flashed under office lights. “No. I’ve only got one. One fucking question, Scooter, but man, it’s a doozy.
“When are you giving me back a male body?”
“That,” Jonathon answered, “is a more complicated question than you know.”
“No, it really isn’t.” Knuckles whitened as David gripped his knees. “Just… do whatever crazy voodoo sci-fi bullshit you did to me last time, okay? Just turn me back into a man.”
Jonathon shook his head. “Listen, girlie, if I tell you it’s complicated—”
Something ugly and dangerous juddered through his patient. “No,” he interrupted, in a low growl only slightly softened by its feminine lilt. “You don’t get to call me that.”
Face reddening, Jonathon bit back a retort, and nodded. “Listen. David. Do you remember our last face-to-face meeting?”
Fascinated, he watched the crinkling of the nose, the pout of concentration on the cute girl’s face that floated over the man beneath. As quickly as the anger had seized David, it dissipated, replaced by a performance of cute girlishness that seemed too natural to be faked. Over the past six months he’d reviewed regular updates on David’s progress, both physical and psychological, and watched segments of the video feed captured from the man’s flat. He’d examined the photos and read the reports and sifted through the data—but there was something qualitatively different in experiencing the reality in person; or rather, the person in reality.
“About six months ago, right? Yeah, kinda, I guess. I had those stupid prosthetics on, right?” and David cupped his breasts, “Those massive tits, they were—what were they?—like, double-D parasites, some kind of plant thing hanging off my chest?”
Jonathon couldn’t help himself; he snapped. “Stupid?” He stood up in a surge of indignation. “Plant things?” he spluttered. “Parasites? Listen, David, those artificial breasts were an absolute miracle! A miracle of bio-engineering, absolute cutting edge of prosthetics technology!”
Without meaning to, he found himself striding across the room, infused with righteous anger at the ignorance of the small-minded and selfish. “They weren’t crafted, or molded, or built – they were grown. Grown!” he nearly shouted. This wasn’t an uncommon occurrence, shouting at people mired in indifference or ignorance. His hands were out of the pockets now, fingers twitching, drawing circles in the air, punctuating each point with a savage jab at David. In his mind, he saw the whole process, knew the brilliant minds that worked on it, the setbacks and losses and corporate meddling; the espionage and terrible, horrific losses and toll of Project Sporus.
To Jonathon, the artificial breasts were a marvel of synthetic biology, an extraordinary blend of science and nature, of design by artificial intelligence and artifice by people. Instead of being mechanically crafted or molded, they were organically grown. He could see the process, see in his mind’s eye the delicate tendrils sprouting from the fungal medium, intertwining and forming a latticed framework. Pallid little strands growing an intricate structure serving as the foundation for the prosthetic, delicate yet remarkably robust and flexible, and with a little guidance shaped to mimic the aesthetics and functionality of natural breasts.
The bio-fungal growth process was an art form, conceived and developed in the laboratory. Nurtured within those controlled environments, the specialized fungus thrived, guided by precise genetic modifications and carefully calibrated conditions. Then, the final artistry, the miracle: as the fungus matured, it exuded a pliable substance, resembling a supple and elastic flesh. Over time, the substance evolved, thickening and gaining resilience until it achieved a texture similar to that of human tissue – in this case, human breast tissue.
Once the fungal growth reached the desired stage, skilled bio-artisans delicately trimmed and shaped the mass, sculpting it into the final form. Additional layers were added to provide support and enhance the natural feel. Finally—another miracle of engineering—the complex system of biocompatible connectors, the interface with nerves and blood vessels, and receptors that allowed for a genuine sensory experience – creating an uncanny resemblance to their biological counterparts.
He knew the names connected to the project; had met at least half of them at international academic conferences over the years. There were stories, entire arcs of industrial espionage, noble and altruistic pursuits of knowledge and craven betrayals for profit. What better example of the Chinese decades-long dominance in biotech than this—a functioning synthetic flesh innovation arising almost accidentally from climate science-inspired research into alternate food sources?
To dismiss this miracle of technology and human innovation as… stupid, as a… plant thing, a parasite? “Grown!” he repeated. His hands chopped the air as he stalked across the room. “Do you have any idea the work – the genius! – artistry! – innovation! – behind the engineering to create those – those – ‘plant things’?”
“Whatever,” David answered, then looked down at his own veiled breasts and sighed. “At least the fucking things came off.”
Jonathon pushed aside his anger and returned to his side of the desk. “What was it you said? That I ‘look like shit.’ Yes.” He dropped into his chair. “Yes. Yes, I suppose I do. It’s been an interesting six months, David, since you were last with us. A lot has happened. A lot of changes. A lot of progress. And you’re part of it all – not the only part but an important part of what we’re doing here at Asklepios.” He thrust his hands back into his pockets. “A very important part.”
“You’re not listening,” David answered. “I don’t care. I really don’t care what you’re doing here. I don’t care about your progress or changes or how goddamn interesting any of this is.” Planting both heeled feet on the floor, he leaned forward, eyes bright. Again, he tucked a stray bang back behind his ear, mindful to avoid tangling dangling earrings.
“I don’t give a shit.” He pulled a face, suffused with ager and frustration. “All I want is my fucking life back! Give me my goddamn male life back, or—”
Jonathon cut him off. “How’s your finger?”
Nonplussed, David held Jonathon’s gaze for a moment before glancing down at his hand. Nails like jewels glittered in his lap. “Excuse me?”
“Your finger,” he repeated. And then, lacking patience, “Your hand. How is it?”
David held them both in view, fingers splayed. “Fine?”
“You punched a desk this morning? Broke a nail? Yes?”
David raised an eyebrow. “Yeah.”
“Does it hurt?”
The feminised man examined his hand. “No. It’s fine. Listen, Scooter, I don’t….”
“Your head,” the doctor interrupted. “How’s it feel?”
“Fuck sake, Scooter. I’m fine, okay, stop….”
“That man in the diner, he hit you?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, he did.” Jonathon didn’t need to refer to his notes; he’d gone through them thoroughly before the meeting. He rattled through the list: “Slap across the face, here,” and he tapped his own cheek to indicate the location. “Neck, here,” he added, where the man, Mal, had grabbed Cindy by the throat. “Hair and scalp,” where he’d grabbed and yanked her back, “breasts,” where he’d groped her, “bicep, left shoulder, knees.”
Then he tapped the side of his head, near the temple where David had made contact with the sharp edge of the counter. “And here.” The girls in the salon had done a good job that morning. The injury wasn’t visible beneath a thin dusting of makeup and the sweep of David’s hair. Apparently, it hadn’t taken much to conceal the damage, the bruise already fading from an angry yellow and black to a dull blue. “And despite these injuries –you were in the gym this morning, weren’t you? Running?”
David nodded.
“Any pain?”
“Not really.” He thought for a moment. “No.”
“You strike me as someone with a more than passing familiarity with physical injuries, David. Tell me: have you ever recovered so quickly before?”
David shook his head, earrings jouncing and glinting.
“I didn’t think so.” When Jonathon smiled, it was without pleasure. “Did you know that the man in the café was ex-military?”
Jonathon knew, in that moment, that the question was a dangerous one – an unwise one. They knew so little about this man. The unanswered questions about his past, the history than enabled him to survive an encounter with Steele’s agent, or the man in the café: these needed to be asked. But was he the one to do it? Katherine, he conceded, was much better at subtly drawing out a person’s secrets; God knows she’d done it to him. Carl too, despite the psychobabble and annoying empathy, had a knack for earning others’ confidence. Jonathon on the other hand – people didn’t like him. And he was fine with that. But there were times when he wished he was capable of a little more subtlety in conversation.
David hesitated, one finger tapping at his chin, and then he nodded.
“How?” Jonathon asked.
“Tattoo,” he answered. “Back of hand. Saw it after he hit the ground.” He shook his head, seeming a little sad. “Blackfire Phoenix. Poor bastard.”
“The man’s name was Mal—Malcolm DuBois,” Jonathon said. “We ran a search on him after Katherine cleaned up your mess. Survivor of that fucking debacle out East. Real tough guy, but a total mess after—whatever—went down. Professional soldier; mercenary. A man trained to hurt others. And he hurt you, didn’t he, David?”
David nodded.
“Yet the next day, you’re running on a treadmill.”
He stared back at him silently.
“I think, David, you should come with me. There are a few things you need to see.”
Curiosity clearly piqued, David nodded and followed the doctor. Carrying a small briefcase, Jonathon led his patient out of his office and down one of the nondescript hallways, past small offices and windows looking out on the green gardens of the clinic. It was another hot day; bees buzzed languidly among the washed-out colours of flowers and yellowing leaves and the polarised glass struggled to repel the heat.
They stopped at a small elevator, which opened silently at his approach.
David raised a finely shaped eyebrow. Jonathon tapped his wrist. “Subdermal chip,” he said. “Like your armband.” It was a superfluous security measure – even in the short walk from office to elevator, a half-dozen cameras had tracked their movement, facial recognition software and a host of other sensors confirming his ID beyond the additional data from the chip. There wasn’t any need for anything as crude as eye- and finger-print sensors when the security AI could assess their identity every step they took within the clinic.
“Where are we headed?” David asked. He sounded curious, but not nervous; Jonathon noted how he seemed to be quietly taking in every detail, assessing his surrounding with an almost absurd confidence.
“Where the magic happens,” Jonathon answered. “Sub-level 2,” he added, addressing the lift. With an almost imperceptible hum, it shifted into motion, doors closing and pulling both men into the complex infrastructure beneath the Clinic.
“Last time,” Jonathon said as they traveled, “you might remember I brought you to one of our labs. That was a much more… impromptu affair. Six months ago, Katherine brought you to one of our minor experimental sites: an important Hygeia resort for the clients, but a minor research centre for Asklepios.”
David’s eyes were fixed on the row of numbers next to the door. “Weren’t you the lead researcher there or something?”
“Was,” he answered. “My job’s changed somewhat since we first met.”
The lift hummed to a stop, and the doors opened with a quiet chime. Jonathon led the way through a series of pipe-and-wire lined concrete tunnels, broken by the occasional numbered door. He made a mental note as they passed each door, tracking which ones were in use, and nodding with satisfaction at the sight of his research team at work; there was exciting stuff going on down here. But for the purposes of this visit, there was only one thing that David needed to see.
They reached a final door, double reinforced heavy steel doors recessed into the wall.
“Welcome to The Tank,” he announced.
The door opened like a whisper and the scientist led David into the place of Cindy’s birth. Jonathon always felt a sense of deep satisfaction—and enduring wonder—every time he entered the Tank. Not that it was anything particularly exciting to see: a large vaulting chamber of open mesh metal flooring over exposed wiring and tubing. Poured concrete walls and steel girders delineated the room and cooling pipes and a mess of cabling snaked across the room, connecting improvised control boxes and banks of panels and screens and switches. Hastily assembled, growing almost organically to match the ever-increasing needs of running the Tank, the entire chamber was almost comically shambolic in presentation: except for the Tank itself.
Raised on a dais at the centre of the room, with a half-dozen cables dropping from the ceiling or winding across the floor to connect to it, sat a cylinder just under three meters in length and another meter in diameter. Thick glass formed a tight seal within the curving frame of solid grey metal, rugged and with massive bolts along its seams. It was filled with an emerald-green fluid, currently quiescent. Even at rest it churned, dull and sluggish in the cylinder, but in Jonathon’s mind he could see it froth and swirl and glow with alien luminosity as it all but obscured the patient within.
David stood at the threshold, curious but hesitant. They were the only two people in the room, and it annoyed Jonathon that his patient wasn’t more impressed by the sight.
“What am I looking at?” David asked.
“You don’t remember, do you?” Jonathon answered. “You spent two weeks in here, David.” He gestured towards the cylinder. “In there, to be more precise.”
David took a cautious step forward, mindful of the open mesh floor. His boots rang out against the metal. Clearly, the room hadn’t been designed with female visitors wearing fashionable heels in mind. He pointed at the cylinder. “In… there?”
Jonathon nodded, struggling to restrain his eagerness. “Yes, yes– in there.” He rushed to it and ran one hand down the curved glass, with the sort of reverence usually reserved for idols or saints. “In here. This, David, is where…. Well, where David ended and Cindy was born.” Feeling an immense surge of pride and satisfaction, he gestured for David to come closer, finger twitching with excitement. “This, David, is the future. And you, David, are the living embodiment of that future.”
Frowning, David approached, daintily stepping between coiling cables. “What, the future is female?”
Jonathon laughed. “No.” He paused and thought for a moment. “Well, maybe.” He gestured towards a nearby console next to table and a set of cheap plastic chairs. “Probably not. Grab a seat.”
They sat in the shadow of the cylinder under the high arcs of the ceiling disappearing into darkness behind suspended florescent lighting. David sat straight-backed with legs crossed at the ankles opposite the doctor. The transformed man appeared both impatient and apprehensive, as though he already knew he wasn’t going to like what the doctor had to say.
“What did you call it?” Jonathon started. “Crazy voodoo sci-fi bullshit? I’ll concede one of those words: crazy. What we’re doing here is crazy; but it is neither magic nor fiction. What we’re are doing here is nothing less than the achievement of one of humanity’s greatest yearnings since it first looked at the world around it and conceived of Gods to explain that which it could not understand. Do you know what that is, David, what humanity wants more than anything?”
“Shit, Scooter, I don’t know – sex?”
Jonathon scowled. “Immortality!”
David gave a bark of laughter. “Sure. So you’re saying I’m going to live forever?”
The doctor groaned in impatient exasperation. “For fuck’s sake!” he barked. “Take a look at yourself! You sit there, a nearly forty-year old man in the body a woman half that age, and you laugh?” Jonathon took a deep breath but couldn’t keep the anger from his voice. “You sit there the epitome of youthful health and you have the audacity to doubt me?”
David opened his mouth, closed it, and stayed silent.
“Did you even once stop and consider the implications of the changes you’ve undergone? Beyond even the near-miraculous healing of the injuries—injuries that should’ve been fatal—that were, in fact, fatal, thank you very much!—but beyond that, the fact that you appear to be, for all intents and purposes, twenty years younger? Just once, can you think beyond your own petty little life and consider what this means—for others, for the world? Do you have any idea how much people would pay—what they would sacrifice—or do—to be twenty years old again?”
“I didn’t much like being twenty the first time around,” he muttered. “Not so keen on doing it again.”
Jonathon glared at him. “My entire career, I’ve been working on regenerative medicine, David. Low-key, easily marketable treatments, the kind of procedures the Clinic knew it could sell. De-aging skin, erasing wrinkles, easing the aches and pains of ordinary life. Accelerated recovery from surgery.
“The lack of vision was excruciating.” Jonathon shook his head. “Growing and attaching a new ear – we’ve been able to grow ears for a decade. But they just wanted to do it better, faster. At most, colleagues might entertain the idea of regenerating a whole limb. But nothing… exciting.” He shook his head. “Nothing that would fundamentally transform the human condition. Oh sure, they’d entertain wild ideas in theory but in practice the work was always mundane, always marketable.
“The human body is capable of such remarkable recovery, David—but so many species do it better. The hydra, forming a new body when cut in two. The salamander, regenerating limbs and organs. Zebrafish. Flatworms. So why not humans?
“Scooter—”
Jonathon ignored the interruption. “Stem cells. Blastema. Regenerative –yet still woefully limited, organic systems declining and shutting down with ageing. But why senescence? Why do our cells have to stop dividing and die? Must negative traits accumulate and lead to degeneration?” His hands chopped the air with excitement. “So much of life on Earth dodges or delays the deterioration we all suffer: lobsters, trees, clams, sharks – so why not us?”
David shrugged, and with the voice of someone who did not much care, answered, “Because we’re not fucking flatworms?”
“Exactly!” Jonathon exclaimed, leaning closer. “We’re not. Yet we share the same genes with species that long outlive us. All the tools needed for a longer life, for regeneration, locked away, here, inside of us, an immense potential denied because tens of thousands of years ago, it made more evolutionary sense for us to grow old, die, and make room for the young.
“So why settled for simply healing injury when we might regenerate the entirety of the human body itself? And then, why settle for simple regeneration when we might even halt and reverse the damage and decline of even ageing?” He jabbed one finger at David. “But how to unlock that potential? My life’s work, decades of research!”
“That’s all really fucking fascinating, Scooter,” David said, keeping a wary eye on the doctor’s thrusting finger. “But can you please get to the point?”
“We made progress; I made progress; solid if minor, profitable advances that accelerated recovery processes here at Asklepios. But then, nearly two years ago,” Jonathon said, “Katherine led a raid on a NeoPharm black site, an off-the-books laboratory.” His eyes unfocused and his voice grew grave. “Your former employers were engaging in some truly horrific stuff, David. What she found there was… disturbing. Human experimentation. Homeless victims, undocumented workers, the lost and forgotten. Kidnapped, lifted from the streets, migrants and refugees, imprisoned. Then used, subjected to experimental procedures, tests, surgeries.”
He shook his head. “That’s where she recovered the first generation of those fungal prosthetics you tried out six months ago. It’s also where she salvaged the equipment and research that led to all this.” He took the entirety of the chamber in with a sweep of his hand. “It was a pure luck, she told me, some kind of breakdown in the kill system that prevented it from all being destroyed.
“And when she showed it to me, I nearly wept, David, like a child.” There were many things that woke Jonathon up at night, panting and in a cold sweat. This was one of them: knowing, that somewhere out there, there was a genius—or many—a team of researchers working at a level so far ahead of his own native intelligence that it humbled him. For decades the Chinese held dominance in fields of biotechnology and artificial intelligence; Koreans in robotics; and then suddenly, out of nowhere—this entire body of regenerative research, forcibly recovered here, at home.
“They were ahead of us,” he continued, “so far ahead it was as if we’d just discovered fire and they were launching a manned flight to the Moon.”
David held up one feminine arm, turning it this way and that, showing off the soft and graceful lines of the limb. “Looks to me you did alright,” he said.
“We’ve come a long way,” Jonathon said. He felt the long hours, the frantic work, in his bones, those initial exciting days of setting up the salvaged equipment in this makeshift space, hooking it up, writing and modifying the software—deciphering the research, adapting, integrating—and that first, exhilarating, horrifying attempt at firing up the first prototype of the Tank. It’d been a much smaller unit, then. Just large enough for a rat. The rat hadn’t survived the process, its death grotesque.
“Listen, this is all fascinating, Scooter. It really is. But I’ll be honest: I don’t give a shit. I don’t. All of this,” and he waved his arm, bracelets jangling musically in the cavernous space, “all of it, sure, maybe it’ll change humanity. Maybe we’ll all live longer, and better, whether we want to or not. Probably it’ll be the rich who’ll live forever and everyone else just die old, poor and bitter like they always have.”
He shrugged. “I don’t care. All I care about—all I want to know—is how you’re going to make this, and this—” and here, he cupped one tit with one hand, and the other with another, “go away.
“Your crazy voodoo science made me into Cindy. Whatever you want to call it, you transformed me—without consent!—into a twenty year-old girl. But that’s not who I am. And now it’s time to turn me back into a man, Scooter. Throw me back into that goddamn tank of yours, flip whatever Frankenstein switches you need, power that shit up, and turn me back into a guy.”
Jonathon thought for a moment. “Take off your shirt,” he said.
David raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”
“Take off your shirt,” he repeated.
“Jesus, Scooter,” he said. “You are such a perv.” But he did as asked, draping his top over a nearby console and sitting topless in his bra. He shivered, crossing his arms across his chest. “Fuck me, it’s cool down here.”
Jonathon opened his briefcase and pulled his seat closer so that their knees were nearly touching. He took his patient’s blood pressure, listened to his heart, and confirmed the nurse’s earlier readings. Taking one of David’s arms into his hand, he inspected the limb from nail to neck, fingers paddling from the wrist up to the shoulder. Bemused, David watched in silence.
Jonaton withdrew a phlebotomy kit from his case. David raised an eyebrow. “Really?” he asked. “More?”
Prepping a swab with alcohol, he nodded.
David sighed but submitted as the doctor drew several more vials of blood. His fingers remained still as he drew the blood—because he was a professional—but he had to actively suppress the urge to twitch, the rush of excitement as he collected the samples. In his fevered anticipation, the thin crimson vials seemed to glow with the possibility of what they might contain.
Finishing, Jonathon stood and circled the patient. Sweeping long hair aside, he examined David’s throat, the other arm, and chin. He checked the contusion at the temple, nearly invisible under its covering of makeup.
Sitting again, he gestured at the man. “Bra.”
David frowned. “No.”
Jonathon shrugged. He would check the nurse’s report later. “How are you feeling?”
“Uncomfortable.”
“Yes, yes. Physically?”
“Uncomfortable.” David reached for his top. “We done here?”
“Listen—”
“No, you listen,” he said. “You ever wear a pair of shorts like this?” He patted one flank, drawing the doctor’s attention to the pair of high-waisted, faux-leather shorts. “I’m gonna guess ‘no’. They’re tight, Scooter. Really tight. And other than stripping for the nurse an hour ago, I’ve had them on all day. My cock’s strapped so far back I could piss out my ass, and my balls are swimming around somewhere in my belly and I’m fucking exhausted, okay?” He tugged his shirt on over his bra, surreptitiously rearranging his breasts as he did so. “So, yeah, I’m uncomfortable. I’m tired. And frankly, I’m getting angry, here.
“Great, you’ve shown me your little toy and hey, I’m happy for you. Change humanity! Make a difference. Whatever. But I’m getting sick and tired of waiting. Prep that goddam tank, fire up whatever you’ve got to fire up, and make me a man again!”
Taking a deep breath, Scooter tried again. “Don’t you find it odd that your injuries from yesterday’s encounter are almost completed healed?” he said. “Soft tissue damage gone, discoloration gone.” He took David’s hand and indicated the nail broken earlier that day. “Did it sting when you broke it?”
“Honestly?” He shrugged. “I was too angry to notice. Then I popped back into the salon and they gave me something that killed the sting, dissolved the old nail and popped a new one on.”
“It’s already nearly healed, David.”
“What are you trying to say, Scooter?”
Jonathon took a moment to consider how to present this to his patient. Until the blood test results came back, what he was about to say was mostly theory – backed up by his observations and data collected over the past six months, and this encounter. He took a moment to organise his thoughts and consider how to present this to his patient.
He frowned, and then sighed. “I’ll be honest with you—”
“It’d be a nice change.”
“I’ll be honest, David. The Tank,” and here he drew David’s attention to the wonder at the heart of the chamber. “We don’t really understand it. What it does is a miracle, a transformative miracle we barely understand, let alone control. At first, we were running off of the salvage from the raid on Steele’s lab. A broken tank, stolen software, and… the Juice.”
David cocked an eyebrow. “Juice?”
“The fluid that fills the tank,” Jonathon said. “One of the techies called it that, and it stuck,” he added, almost apologetically. “I hate the name. You can imagine the… fun,” and here, he nearly groaned at the implied idiocy of his colleagues, “people had crafting a working acronym out of it. Best they’ve come up with is ‘reJuvenating Ultra-tech Infusion for Cellular Enhancement.” He shook his head in despair. “It’s not even an infusion.”
“Scooter? I don’t care.”
Jonathon frowned. “This fluid, it makes the whole process possible. Hell, it is the process, from a certain point of view. Put the subject in the tank, fill it with fluid, and flick a switch and—”
The Juice. The synthetic medium captured from Steele’s lab. It suffused any biological subject immersed in it, infiltrating at a cellular level and remained quiescent until triggered. In unison with the Tank, it could translate precise instructions at a genetic level, setting a desired template, flipping gene expression and transforming any number of biological processes.
Despite their best efforts at filtering and restoring the little they had, they were running low. Every attempt at synthesising their own version had ended in failure.
“And—magic happens, David,” Jonathon continued. “We tell the body to mend and… cells regenerate, damage heals – even the slow, ordinary damage of normal human aging. And the process can be controlled: adjust the flow of power into the cylinder and the whole process can be directed.
“But we’re clumsy, David, we’re barely able to adjust things without putting the target at risk. It’s like playing the piano with oven gloves on. At the moment, we can only send the crudest of instructions, like hammering those keys with both hands. Regenerate! Rejuvenate! We can send commands but only in the simplest of terms. But we’re learning. One day, we’ll play a person’s genes like a symphony, and create a new kind of music yet unheard by humanity.” Then he smiled ruefully. “But at the moments, our finest adjustments are more like…” he considered for a moment, “I suppose like switching between a sledgehammer and a howitzer for cracking open a nut. Which is to say, crude and heavy-handed.
“Out first attempts were disastrous. Horrifying,” he said, though his voice remained clinical. He could still see the results of those early attempts, the inverted animal carcasses, masses of jutting bones and twisted flesh; the viscous blobs of blood and sinew; warped organs and soups of dissolved tissue and bulbous lumps of tumours. “Trial and error eventually brought some success, and it was only at that point we discovered something… fascinating. But possibly problematic, considering our long-term hopes for the project.
“Every subject that survived the process was female.
“Our first assumption was one of selection error. We must have inadvertently picked female subjects for our experiments. But no; a quick check of our records clarified we hadn’t. Perhaps something riding on the male chromosome interfered with the process? Or maybe that some of the gene expressions in male subjects were problematic? But no: our next male subject survived the process but emerged female.”
Jonathon hurried on, seeing the growing anxiety and anger in David’s face. “Of course, what we discovered soon after was that the subject was only exhibiting female characteristics—at a genetic level, it was still XY male. As are you, David. Subjects’ DNA remains untouched by the process. I assure you that you remain 100% male.”
David scowled at his prominent chest. “I sure don’t feel 100% male,” he growled.
“If your DNA is the script, then this machine lets us create a new production. Think of… you ever go to the theatre, see a play?”
He nodded.
“Take—Romeo and Juliet. Same script, more or less, for the past 500 years. But how many different productions? Medieval, contemporary, sci-fi. Or focused on gender or race, class or politics. A decade ago, it was fashionable to do sex-swapped version, Romeo as a girl.” Jonathon pointed at the feminised man. “That’s you, now. Same ‘David’ script; fashionable production.”
David raked his fingers through his hair and glowered.
“What we discovered,” the scientist continued, “was that the regenerative process invariably flipped genetic switches associated with female secondary sexual characteristics. Breast development. Fat distribution. Estrogen production. The subject went through a forced—female—puberty as part of the process. Our current theory is that…”
“I don’t give a fuck about your theory, doc,” David finally snapped. “And I sure don’t like where this feels like it’s headed.” He held up one slim arm to the lights overhead, as though to see through it, into it. “Am I still filled with this… ‘Juice’?” he asked.
Jonathon hesitated briefly then nodded. “We have to wait on the blood test results to come back,” and he pointed at the recently taken samples. “But yes, based on the data we’ve collected so far, you’re still infused with it.”
“And what does that mean?”
The doctor shrugged. “We don’t know.”
“Listen, doc…,” voice dropping to a dangerous growl, only slightly undermined by its softer feminine lilt.
At which point, Jonathon snapped. “No!” he shouted, surging to his feet. “You listen, you ignorant, ungrateful….” Words failed him and he fumbled for an insult to adequately express his anger and frustration. “Peasant!”
He stalked away from his client, storming towards the Tank on its raised dais. “When I tell you I don’t know,” he called out over his shoulder, “it’s because we don’t have a damn clue how this thing works. We don’t know how it works! We can barely control the damned thing, and even then only in the crudest fashion.” He hopped up onto the raised platform and passed his hand over the cool dark metal of the cylinder. Briefly, he held back the desire to pound on the heavy glass out of frustration; lost the battle; and punched the glass. His fist smarted. The deep green fluid on the other side of the glass continued to slowly swirl, quiet and potent, unaffected by his anger.
Jonathon spun to face his patient, still sitting bemused.
“You shouldn’t even be alive!” Jonathon shouted. “Why are you still alive, David?”
David watched him from across the chamber. “Because you put me into that thing?”
But the doctor shook his head. “No. No! You’re the first, David! The first! The first human test subject to come out of here alive—and whole. The first to wake up stable and healthy. The first to leave and carry on living a normal life.”
David snorted. “I wouldn’t call it normal.”
The doctor hopped down from the platform and stormed towards him, jabbing an accusing finger at his patient. “And why? What makes you so fucking special, David? Why did you come out—” and here, he gestured wildly, taking in the entirety of the man’s transformed frame, “—perfect! when every other subject…” and here he faltered, remembering previous attempts; and especially the one kept locked away nearby, “… didn’t.”
“How the hell should I know, doc?”
“So when I tell you I don’t know,” Jonathon continued, “believe me, this is an even greater frustration for me than it is for you. But I’ll tell you what we think we know. We believe that the instructions sent into the Tank are locked by the residual Juice still within you. A… template, a set of instructions embedded overriding the normal state of affairs and maintaining gene expression, hormone production—everything—to a specific state defined by the initial process.
“And so long as your body remains suffused with the juice, any attempt at physical change—yes, even masculinisation—won’t work. This, right now,” and he grabbed David by the shoulder, “this body, this is its current desired expression. Young. And female. And any attempt at changing that is at best doomed to failure—at worst, likely fatal. We could cut your breasts off and they would regrow. Pump you full of testosterone and your body would shut down receptors and ignore it. This, right now, is what your body wants to be.”
The silence that followed was complete. David fell back into his seat, face hidden behind his hair as he stared at the ground for several long minutes. Finally he looked up and a dangerous determination burned in his eyes.
“I don’t care,” he said. “Put me back in there and throw the switch.”
“You don’t—”
“Yes,” he said. “I do. I understand. And I don’t care. I lived through this once. Maybe I’ll get lucky again. Make me your next human text subject. You said you can send simple commands. So write up something new. A new program, with a simple order: Male. Overwrite the previous template.”
Though at some level tempted, Jonathon shook his head. “It would kill you.”
David shrugged. Walking past the doctor, heels ringing out against the metal flooring, he and stood looking up at the massive bulk of the Tank. “I’d rather die,” David said, and with a sweeping gesture took in the entirety of his feminine form: the glossy long hair, smooth skin, the makeup and clothes, breasts and heels, his narrowed waist and slender limbs. “I’d rather die than live like this.”
Jonathon walked up behind him. “You don’t mean that.”
David didn’t turn, and his face remained hidden, though a shudder passed through his whole body. “I do.”
And Jonathon believed him. Making his mind up on the spot, he gave a curt nod. “Fine,” he said. “But there’s something I need you to see first.”
Five: Bright Red Lips and Long Blonde Hair
Chad Jenkins knew he was living his best life.
Good-looking, tall and healthy, white, male and twenty-five, he enjoyed the freedoms of early adulthood while suffering none of the responsibility. And he had a good job, a real job, one uniquely suited to his personality, he continued to explain to the young woman sat with him at Eros, the British-themed pub a short distance from the main Clinic complex.
Photos of Piccadilly Circus and Oxford Street decorated the dark-paneled walls, as did paintings of the old Queen, then King, and current Queen. A life-sized replica of the pub’s namesake, the winged archer atop a bronze fountain, took pride of place near the entrance. Chad lounged in the comfortable red velvet seat of one of the secluded nooks, smiling at his pretty companion.
“Like, a year ago I was a ski instructor, eh? Banff—you know it? Paradise. Skies like you can’t imagine, so blue, and Lake Louise, if you’ve never been you gotta check it out someday. And there I was teaching spoiled rich kids, mid-life crisis dads, recently divorced moms, ski bunnies,” and he grinned at the girl, “and I was loving it but barely getting by, doing some physio on the side, some personal training. Skiing season was so short and even with the machines going non-stop we couldn’t keep the snow on the slopes, right, because of the heat?”
He paused to drink and watched the girl over the rim of his pint. Bright red lips curved in a half-mocking grin, and her nails flashed as she raised a thin flute of bubbly. Small sapphire stones dangled from her ears as she tucked back her hair. She wore a short blue dress that hugged her curves and bared her legs from mid-thigh. “Sounds lovely.”
Smiling, he enjoyed the brief swell of nostalgia. “It was.” And it had been: especially the views, the scarlet flare of distant-crystalline high peaks as the sun set, or the achingly beautiful vista where sky and lake met in an unbroken blue at the base of rocky slopes. But also evenings, the people, night after night of intimate touches in dark rooms, kisses and bodies pressed together, so many women, the occasional man, brought together by transient holiday freedom, lust, rebellion—he never cared, never questioned, just listened. “And that’s when I met Tab.”
“Tab?”
“Tabitha. I was her instructor—at first—but you know…” He shrugged. “We were spending nights together. A week in, on my day off, she’s taking the slope with another instructor and gets injured—nothing too serious, but she’s not exactly happy.” He reached for the pitcher of beer on the table, refilled his glass. “She asks for me. I’m helping with her recovery, you know, some physio to get her skiing again and out of the blue, she offers me a job, here, at Asklepios. Turns out she’s on the board of directors.”
“So you fucked yourself into a sweet job?”
He raised his glass in mock salute. “I’m good at what I do, eh?” he said.
And the girl opposite, she seemed… non-plussed by his response, neither intrigued nor put off. The tag on her arm marked her as a client of the clinic. There were certain protocols to follow when hitting on a client, but his own monitor would’ve warned him off had there been a concern. Quite the opposite: the warm glow at the wrist when he approached her was an invitation, not a warning.
Clients at Asklepios were there because they were fucked up in some way, and Chad was keenly aware that for a heart-aching number of people, he was the last non-medical person they’d even spoken to—kissed—fucked—enjoyed a final intimate moment with.
She eyed her glass for moment. It was nearly empty, the rim reddened with lip-prints. “How about,” she said. “You buy me another drink, and I’ll keep listening to your stories?”
Chad laughed. “How about you tell me your name first?”
“Cindy,” she said. “Cindy Bellamy.” She held up her arm, slender and bare to the shoulder, and gave the bracelet at her wrist a little shake. “I’m a patient at the Clinic.” She looked suspiciously at her glass. “But you probably already figured that out.”
He hesitated for a moment, suddenly uneasy. He studied the girl closely, drinking in her beauty, generous cleavage revealed by the low-cut front of her dress, the brilliant green of her eyes and the pale flesh of her thighs. Her lips shone and curved in a mocking smile he found irresistible. And yet—there was something familiar… Her name, maybe?
Over-thinking had never been his forte. He gestured for a waitress, ordered a bottle of Prosecco on ice. “A name for a drink. Seems fair. More of the same?”
“You know I’m not going to fuck you, right?”
Chad laughed. “If you say so,” he said.
“I’m just here for the free drinks.”
“And the sparkling conversation, eh?”
“Yes,” she said, and smiled, raising her glass in salute. Her eyes sparkled with knowing contempt, and he loved it. He loved the background buzz of the pub, the clink of glasses, indistinct chatter, the smell of beer and the cozy, dark-wood panelling. He loved the fact he was sat opposite a pretty young girl with bright red lips and long blonde hair, and who cared if she only sat with him because he bought her a drink? She was a little bit bitchy, and he liked that; she was honest and that was even better; and she was doubtlessly fucked up in someway, but then weren’t they all?
There was also a haunted looked to her. As he spoke, he often found her drifting away and staring into the middle distance, staring at something that she couldn’t unsee—a trauma, most likely, a loss or injury, as with so many of the patients. Usually, they just wanted him to talk, to fill their minds with anything but the one thing they felt they couldn’t escape.
He wondered what it was for her; what haunted Cindy Bellamy?
Clearly, she wasn’t here to talk and share, at least not yet. But then so many of them weren’t at first. Mostly, he could tell that she didn’t want to be alone.
And Chad thought, maybe I’ll end up in bed with her tonight, or another night—that’s usually how it went—but maybe not, and that was okay, too.
Cindy drained her flute and refilled, struggling a little with the large bottle, pouring a little too quickly and overflowing the glass. With a little ‘eep’ she brought her face down to the glass and sucked up the foam, lips a perfect red ‘o’, eyes glaring up at him through framing bangs as though daring him to laugh.
He laughed anyways and she grinned. They drank, and he told more stories. It was only some time later, in the middle of a good one about skinny dipping in the hotel pool, that he noticed she wasn’t listening. “You’re not holding up your end of the bargain.”
She shook her head. “Sorry.” She stared at the table as she spoke, and her voice was quiet. “I—experienced something today, saw something I wish I hadn’t.” She paused and glanced up at him. “Have you ever been afraid, Chad?”
His pretty companion didn’t wait for an answer. “I mean, truly afraid. Terrified, so deeply that it swallows up your insides, so completely you’re left hollow. I’ve known that kind of fear precisely twice.
“Once, long ago. I lost someone. Because I was afraid—and didn’t act, couldn’t—and the most precious thing I’d ever known was taken from me.” She was staring into the distance now. “I still have nightmares about it.”
Then she looked up at him. “I never thought I’d feel that deeply afraid again.” Very carefully, she put her glass down. Her hands trembled. “I was wrong.”
Six: The Man Who Killed You
Rows of florescent tube lighting suspended from the concrete ceiling illuminated the chamber. Under the sharp glare there were no shadows, nowhere to hide. Within this space deeper beneath the Clinic stood a pair of connected transparent rooms, smaller boxes made of slabs of reinforced transparent polymer, nearly invisible and all but unbreakable. There were no visible joins between the walls. Within one of the two rooms was a small cot and a short toilet, both made of the same plastic-like material, also seamlessly molded out of the polymer surface. Cameras overhead surveyed the room, and several sensors tracked temperature, air quality, and the chamber’s inhabitant.
A faint hum hinted at the presence of air filters recycling and scrubbing the air. The temperature was just slightly too low for comfort—at least for David, dressed as he was, in his chunky heels and tight shorts, bare arms and mesh top.
He shivered, arms wrapped tightly around himself, and stared, eyes wide, the hair standing at the back of his neck. “Why the fuck are you showing me this?” he asked. “What the fuck are you showing me?”
There was a woman in the transparent room. At least, it had the characteristics of a woman: too many of them. The figure writhing on the floor was an exaggerated caricature of a girl, a grotesque eruption of secondary female features. There were glimpses of something supernaturally beautiful, a refined expression of femininity pushed to its extreme: full lips and skin that nearly glowed with vitality, cascades of lustrous raven hair and fulsome curves. But that shape was all but lost beneath fleshy protrusions and bulbous sores sprouting from her curvaceous form. Breasts—but too many—hung heavily from her frame, large, well-shaped, some leaking. Fingernails like talons raked the floor without effect. One hand disappeared between her thighs, clutching at genitals beneath her furious palm.
“Specimen Zero,” Jonathon replied. “The first human specimen to emerge from the tank alive.”
David stared as the woman continued to scrabble at her crotch, feverishly reaching for a climax that eluded her. Her mouth distended in a silent moan as she squirmed on the floor, long hair swirling around her like a dark cloak.
“Why are you—why is she locked away like this?” David took a hesitant step towards the transparent wall that divided him from the woman. Glancing back over his shoulder, he stared at the doctor in disbelief. “You can’t—”
“Yes,” Jonathon answered, his voice cold. “I can.”
As the woman twisted and flailed, David noted with horror a bloated, malformed limb—a third leg, swollen and undersized, emerging from around the hip, boneless and flopping useless even as it twitched and scrabbled against the floor.
“This,” Jonathon said, with haunting clinical detachment, “is both out greatest success and our greatest failure. Clinically dead when placed within the Tank, the patient was the first to emerge fully healed and alive.” He held a tablet in his hands and tapped at a few buttons. “But sadly, not whole.”
The misshapen woman became aware of their presence. She looked up and hate-filled eyes locked on the doctor. With a face at once beautiful and horrific, she bared her teeth and screamed without sound.
“The walls are soundproof,” the doctor noted. “Initially we contained her in far simpler accommodations, but the screaming proved too disturbing.”
David looked at him in disbelief. “This is… wrong,” he said.
“Yes, it is.” The doctor’s voice remained calm though scored with anger and frustration. “This is what happens when mistakes are made, David. You’re very cavalier about things you know nothing about. ‘Put me back in the there,’ ‘I’d rather die.’” The doctor mimicked David’s words in a little-girl’s voice. “But what if going back in the Tank means… that?” He pointed at the figure in the glass box. “That’s what happens when we mess around with a process we barely understand. That could have been you. It still could be.”
David stared at the doctor, then at the imprisoned woman. They made eye contact. Her eyes—beautiful, large hazel eyes beneath thick lashes—widened; her mouth distended in a feral howl; and she launched herself at the wall between them. David flinched back even as she slammed into the transparent polymer. The palms of her hands pounded at the wall, and her many breasts and protuberant growths flattened grossly against the surface. She slammed her head once, twice, a third time against the surface, and with each dull thud she left a dark red splotch.
“She’s angrier than usual today,” the doctor noted. “I better calm her down.” A tap at his tablet, and she almost instantly sagged and went limp. “Gas,” the doctor explained.
The woman slumped to the floor, and as her limbs drooped away from her groin, David saw for the first time the penis, glistening and engorged, suspended between the prisoner’s legs, over an inflamed and dripping vagina.
“Jesus.” David stepped back from the cage. “Christ. Christ. What the—what the fuck is this?”
“Those contusions to the head will be gone within the hour.” A hint of wonder crept into his voice. “The regenerative process never stopped. It’s out of control. Tumours and flesh, limbs and secondary sexual characteristics, hair and nails, the patient is in a constant state of healing and growth. Clusters of cells regress, specialize again – organs grow where they shouldn’t.” He shook his head. “Every week we operate on the patient, slicing away excess flesh and atrophied limbs. She’s… stunningly beautiful, beneath it all. An absolute expression of femininity.
“And she’s strong. Muscular and bone density well beyond normal parameters, at the extremes of human potentiality. She escaped, more than once, and hurt colleagues—but we’ve learned to not underestimate her. She’s a dangerous one.” He walked up to the wall and tapped, like one might at a fish in a tank. “But you’re never going to hurt anyone again, are you?” He turned back to David. “She been a constant source of fascinating data. We’ve been able to try all sorts of procedures on her. We’ve learned a lot from her.”
“You can’t do this,” David said. “You don’t have the right to….”
“Yes, I do.” The doctor’s voice was firm. “And before you get too high on your horse, I should point out that without her… sacrifice, let’s say, you may well have emerged from the Tank in the same state, or worse. We made correction to the process you underwent based on the data collected from her first trip into the tank.
“Besides,” the doctor added. ““She wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you.”
David glared at the doctor. “That’s not funny.”
“No, it isn’t.” Jonathon tapped at his tablet, and suddenly they could hear the patient within her prison. “Here, let me introduce you. Good afternoon, Patient Zero. How are you feeling today?”
Her breathing was low and ragged, an angry hissing intake of breath. “Plea… please. No….”
“Answer the question.”
“Make it stop,” she slurred, shaking her head, her dark shroud of hair falling away from her face. Numbly, David noticed an eye—clouded, unmoving—growing at the base of her neck. “Stop—stop, please….”
“Answer the question.” Jonathon’s finger hovered over the tablet. “You know what happens when you don’t answer the questions.” Though his voice remained clinical and cool, it was clear he was being deliberately malicious, and taking pleasure in his victim’s suffering.
There was a sudden shift in the patient’s posture, and she slowly picked herself up from the ground, sweeping the hair away from her face to look at the doctor. Though her eyes burned with hatred, her smile was suddenly saccharine and sweet, almost beautiful were it not for the cluster of cysts the deformed one side of her mouth and left it drooping. “I’m good today, doctor,” she said, and her voice was clear, soft and lilting, musical even. One hand sought out and fondled a full, pendulous teat hanging from beneath her armpit. “I’ve been good.”
“Have you?” the doctor asked. “Tell me.”
“Yessss…,” she hissed, and pouted. “Good. I’ve been a good girl.”
“Well, then,” the doctor said. “I’d like you to meet someone.”
The patient’s eyes fluttered and flicked between the doctor and David, before locking onto the latter’s feminine frame. “I’ll… Please. Help… me,” she purred. A ripple ran through the patient—lust, or rage, or both—and she spread her hand wide against the wall between them. Long curved nails several centimeters in length scraped for purchase against the polymer surface, and up close, David could see the cluster of pustules and polyps that marred the flesh of her palm.
David glanced at the doctor, and back at the patient, and then back to Jonathon. “I get the message, doctor. Okay? I get it. Going back in the Tank’s a bad idea. I don’t want—that. Fuck. But why—”
“Who are—” she stopped to suck in a dribble of drool escaping the side of her mouth. “You?” The patient took a deep breath, hand leaving the breast and sliding back down to her crotch. She began to rub again, slowly and with a sigh. “Who?”
Smiling wickedly, and clearly taking pleasure in the revelation, the doctor provided the answer. “This is Cindy Bellamy, though perhaps you’re more familiar with her former name.” And the doctor turned to David, and with an expansive gesture completed the introduction.
“David Saunders, I’d like to introduce you to the man who killed you: Mr Adam Fosters—you knew him as Agent Fosters—Steele’s man.”
Author’s Notes:
It took rather longer than expected, but here it is, finally. It was supposed to be a short chapter, a brief interlude offering the reader a glimpse at what was going on from outside of the first-person narrative of the previous chapters, but it sort of grew beyond expectations. At over 70k words in length, it seemed wise to break the chapter into digestible chunks. The second Interlude is complete, and I’ll post the next two parts over the coming weeks, though if you want it faster you can find the rest on my Patreon.
If you enjoyed this, please - leave a comment! It's nice knowing someone's reading this stuff.
I’d just like to give a shout out to those supporting me on Patreon. I think it’s fair to say that this chapter wouldn’t have been completed without their support. I disappeared for months, and they were still there when I came back, and their encouragement got me back into the writing groove. Thank you, all of you, very much. Hopefully the story doesn’t disappoint, nor the time it’s taking me to write it.
Some credit given where it’s due:
--the Iron Maiden rant by David was inspired by a segment in Naomi Wolfe’s “The Beauty Myth”.
--some of the “crazy voodoo sci-fi bullshit” stuff was inspired by The Epigenetics Revolution, by Nessa Carey, and Ageing: A Very Short Introduction, by Nancy Pachana. The Coming Wave, by Mustafa Suleyman, which I’m currently listening to, influenced the edit.
And if you like this – why not pop in and check out the Patreon, join the conversation?
Constant in All Other Things 2: Interlude II (2/3)
by
Fakeminsk ([email protected])
(www.patreon.com/fakeminsk)
“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
Synopsis:
David Sanders returns to the Asklepios Clinic in the hope of leaving behind Cindy’s life and regaining a male identity. As his three minders discuss his fate, David struggles to come to terms with both his male past and feminine present.
What has gone before:
David Sanders saw something he shouldn't have: his boss, pharmaceutical magnate Jeremiah Steele, murdered the son of an underworld rival. Placed in witness protection, an assassination attempt forces David into the disguise of Cindy, a younger woman. For months he suffers the ignominy of living a life he despises, his torture both alleviated and acerbated once discovered by Julia, a jilted ex-girlfriend. A trip to the Asklepios Clinic, the research centre responsible for his transformation, triggered both uncomfortable memories and a violent encounter.
Interlude 2, Part Two: Bargaining and Depression
Scene Seven: “Tough Guy Talk”
“Slut!” Amplified by the speaker, the former agent’s howls resonated within the constrained space of his transparent cage. His screams were matched by the dull thud of Fosters’ fists against the wall. “Sissy faggot cunt!” The transformed assassin screamed, threw himself against the barrier, hammered his head until blood smeared the wall translucent crimson. “Did this—you—kill!” Spit flecked the wall between them.
Jonathon allowed Fosters his moment, curious how David would respond.
David stood there impassively, watching the man who killed him—the man now twisted into a grotesque caricature of femininity and rampant regeneration gone wrong—swear and rave. With insults raining down on him—bitch and bastard and vivid threats of rape and torture—David stood in silence and watched. He turned his back on the display behind him and faced the doctor. He appeared deeply troubled, and a dark and dangerous anger smouldered in his eyes.
“This is wrong,” he said.
Jonathon raised an eyebrow. “He killed you, you know. When Katherine found you, your heart had stopped. He shattered your leg. He’s the reason you’re several centimeters shorter than before.”
“Doesn’t matter,” David said. “We fought. He lost. He should be dead, not… this, this living nightmare.” He jerked one thumb over his shoulder at Fosters, who now stood, wordlessly breathing heavily, one hand still groping incessantly at his crotch.
“Help me,” Fosters whined. “Please…..”
Jonathon cut the feed. Anger bubbled up inside at the ingratitude and moral judgment of this man. “Wrong?” he said, quietly. “Dead?” He stepped closer to his transformed client. “You stupid. Selfish. Idiot.” He jabbed an angry finger at David. “D’you think you were the only person Fosters hurt that day?” He gestured at his prisoner. “This—man, hurt and killed on his way to you, David. His companion did the same.” With angry jabs of the finger, he brought up a secured data file and thrust the tablet at David. “Here – have a look – he’s a real piece of work.”
A life defined by violence, rape and murder. Cruelties abroad and at home; mercenary work, dark government contracts and most recently, private work under Steele’s broad umbrella. The litany of the man’s atrocities made for harrowing reading, and he watched as David’s eyes—such pretty eyes—danced down the list.
“Deserves?” Jonathon pointed at an entry in the litany of horrors attached to Fosters’ name. “There a good one; a personal favourite. Children, David. He killed children. You dare pass morale judgment on me? Yes—a living nightmare,” Jonathon concluded. “His outsides now match the inside.”
David passed the tablet back to him. His former enemy now seemed oblivious to them, writhing once more on the floor in a paroxysm of groping, breasts and cock and pussy and agitated limbs, moaning in denied release. The feminised man watched the assassin for some time before Jonathon gestured for him to follow.
They left the room in silence.
Later, sitting opposite his patient back at his office at the ground level of Asklepios, Jonathon regretted his outburst. He was pleased with the impact the revelation had on David; it had instilled in him a necessary fear regarding his transformation. But he also acknowledges his anger was rooted in guilt—a particularly annoying, pernicious guilt he couldn’t quite shake.
David looked around, tenderly raking hair out of his eyes with nails to which he’d yet to adjust. “Why haven’t I ever heard of any of this?” he asked. “You’ve talked about raids on secret laboratories. Mad science, human victims—you’ve got a war criminal, locked up downstairs?” He grimaced. “Stuff like this makes the news.” But even as he said it, his voice betrayed an all too typical belief in the power of the rich and powerful to do whatever the hell they want and keep it secret. “Something must’ve gotten out?”
Jonathon thrust his hands deep into his pockets. “Why? You’d be surprised how much of our funding comes from governmental sources – Neopharm’s too. Nobody wants this getting into the press. Undocumented workers used for corporate experimentation it’d help fund? It’s a bad look for everybody involved.
“After their site got raided, Neopharm certainly didn’t want news getting out—might hurt their stock value. As for us – for the first time we had something on the competition, and best of all they didn’t know it was us, thanks to Katherine’s involvement. Might’ve been a corporate raid; might’ve been the Chinese, the Nigerians….” He trailed off and shrugged. “And as far as they knew, the research was destroyed in the attack on the lab. They didn’t know we had it. And we had to keep it that way.
“When those agents followed you here, David, I’ll be honest: your survival wasn’t my top concern. Keeping the Tank secret was far more important.”
“Then why are you showing me all this?” David asked. “Aren’t you afraid I’ll go running to Steele? Or the media? Take what I’ve seen here and deliver it to him on a silver platter, try and strike a bargain with him? I’m thinking the bastard would love to know what you’re up to here. I’m thinking the bastard would pay through the nose to know what’s going on in here.”
Jonathon smiled, though it wasn’t a pleasant one. “You and I both know you’d never do that. There’s no bargaining with Steele. The only thing he wants on a platter are your balls.” With a wave of his hand, he indicated the feminised man’s figure, the full breasts and lithe legs and long hair. “And in your current condition? Can you imagine what he’d do to you?”
David scowled.
“As for the press,” Jonathon continued, “what would be the point? Maybe—just maybe—you’d slightly inconvenience Steele, put some pressure on Asklepios. Maybe embarrass somebody powerful in government you’d probably rather not have as an enemy.
“But more to the point—let me ask you, Girlie. You’ve seen that… thing, now, downstairs. Without Asklepios—without my help—are you willing to risk that?”
David stiffened. His grip on the chair tightened. “I don’t take well to threats, Scooter.”
“It’s not a threat,” the doctor said. “It’s fact.”
“It doesn’t roll off your tongue, doc,” David said, sneering. “This tough-guy talk.”
“It’s not—idiot!—just think for a moment. What the hell do you think I want from all this? You’re—a problem. A fascinating and frankly, extreme valuable problem. You’ve gone in the Tank and come out the other side and you’re healthy and—”
“Female.”
“Yes. Fine. But you’re also a concern, David, a risk to everything we’re doing here, especially if you fall into the wrong hands. So in all honestly, if it wasn’t for Katherine, I’d have you in a cage just like that abomination downstairs. A far more pleasant cage, to be sure, especially if you were a good little girl and played along nicely, maybe give you a job as a secretary or receptionist, but I’d have you under observation and available for study 24-7.”
David frowned. “No thank you.”
“Yes, well,” he continued. “It’s not up to me. Katherine, whether you believe it or not, keeps insisting you’ve got human rights, that you deserve a new life after the sacrifice you made of testifying against Steele. That you’ve made a deal, and that deal involved returning to a male life after all this.”
David’s eyes lit up. “Yes,” he said. “Tell me more about that.”
Scene Eight: “I’ve Never Done This Before”
He didn’t come to his scheduled session on the next day, nor the next. So when Crystal heard the tentative knock at her door ten minutes past the start time, she was already deep into some hobby-work and annoyed by the interruption.
“Yes?” she snapped.
The head that peeked around the corner gave a sheepish grin, and green eyes sparkled from between a frame of blonde bangs. “Ah—bad time?”
Crystal took a deep breath. “No. No, please come in.”
The young woman slipped into the room, barely opening the door wide enough to pass through. The first thing Crystal noted was her perfume, the scent of jasmine and cut grass that followed the girl into the room, the impression of a summer’s day. She was dressed down from their first session and looked far more comfortable in a grey tracksuit and simple top, hair tied back in a ponytail. Her appearance still exuded femininity in the pink piping down the legs, or the soft pastel of her wedge heel sneakers. The slim fit of her shirt emphasised rather than hid the swell of her chest, and hung loosely at the neck, leaving one shoulder or the other bare. Her makeup, though carefully and skillfully applied, remained subdued.
The overall look was quieter than before, a gentler femininity. To Crystal, the expression of girlishness was more powerful for its subtlety. This man, for whom this female impersonation was hateful, a humiliating and painful prison, somehow conveyed this unwanted identity so compellingly, so convincingly, even without overloading on the makeup and tight or revealing clothing.
Watching Cindy—or David; she waited to determine to whom she was speaking—slink into the room, Crystal did feel a stab of… more than annoyance, though far short of active dislike. She felt… frustrated by her patient, she decided. David’s comment last session had been all too accurate. Crystal was jealous of the gift he’d been given, the remarkable transformation that embodied everything she could possibly have once hoped for years ago, and even now yearned for in weaker and more tired moments. If only he could appreciate the miracle he’d been granted: not just (just!) his life, or an extended youth—but the opportunity for an entirely new identity, free from the burdens and limits of whatever past he’d escaped.
The—girl?—slid into the chair opposite, poised and expectant. Crystal continued with the task at hand. Other than the click of needles, the room was silent.
“Knitting?”
Crystal paused mid-stitch. “Obviously.”
“Wouldn’t have thought—”
“Why not?”
Silence resumed, and Crystal completed the row and started the next. She waited. Eventually, her patient sighed and leaned forward. “Listen, I just wanted to—”
“I should think so,” Crystal interrupted.
“I didn’t mean to—”
“Yet you did.” Crystal put her work to one side. “But I accept your apology. You were in pain and by sharing that pain you hoped to alleviate it. You wanted to hurt me. But I am not your enemy here. My role is simply to help.”
“Help?” The smile was lopsided, sarcastic. “Help who? And with what?”
Crystal nodded. “Your mistrust is understandable. But I am here to talk, and to listen. To ask questions and seek answers. To give you an opportunity in a safe space to share your concerns and explore your situation.”
“My… situation?” Her client shook their head in disbelief. “Is that what you call it?” They sighed and sat back. “Fine. But you know what? Let’s do this. God knows I could use the help.” They waved one hand, as though giving permission to begin. “Why don’t you ask me how I’m feeling today?”
“Fine,” Crystal said. “And how are you feeling today?”
“Who are you asking?”
“I’m asking you.”
“No,” they said. “You want to know how I feel? Honestly? I feel… exhausted. And scared. Mostly, I feel so goddamn fed up and tired of all this.”
“I’m sorry, David.”
At the sound of his name, the feminised man sagged. “Thank you,” he said. “Why couldn’t you have started like this last time?”
“I treated you as you presented,” she answered. “You came to me as Cindy; I spoke to you as Cindy.”
“But I’m not Cindy.”
“Maybe not.” She tapped at her tablet, bringing up some images she had prepared for their meeting. “And yet….” She passed the tablet to him, and he swiped through the pictures, an echo of their previous appointment. Cindy, sultry in a little back dress holding hands across the table with a handsome young man in a fancy restaurant. Two nights ago, beautiful in blue with Chad at the pub, red lipstick and glittering earrings; and finally, flirty in a peach sundress, sitting legs crossed at the thigh, gazing into the distance bathed in bright light from outside the diner. “Is this you?”
“That’s Cindy,” he said.
“Is this you?”
He stared at the images for a long time before answered. “No,” he said and then a moment later, “Yes,” he admitted. He fiddled with an earring and tucked an errant bang back behind his ear. “But it’s also… not me.”
Crystal nodded. “Can you explain?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Like, yeah, obviously the girl in those pictures is me, it’s physically me, right? I was there, I remember.” He tapped one long nail at the screen. “The touch of Dan’s hand on mine, the taste of wine.” He flicked to the next photo. “The heat in the diner, the smell of grease, and how nice the dress felt after all those hours in the car wearing the outfit Julia picked out for me.” He frowned, paused and then went to the last photo. “And last night. Yeah, Chad. He’s alright. Talks too much, but sometimes I guess that’s what you want.” He looked up, eyes flashing with anger. “But Christ, don’t I get any privacy?”
Genuinely sorry, Crystal shook her head. “The Clinic is very mindful of all its clients. And the pub is technically on Asklepios property; the Clinic owns it. But perhaps more to the point, you know how valuable you are to Jonathon. And to Katherine.”
“Doesn’t mean I have to like it,” he conceded.
Crystal took back the tablet. “So you recognize the young woman in these moments as yourself, then,” she said.
“Fine, yes, I do. But like I said—only physically. That’s me. Or it’s a version of me. But it’s not the real me, it’s… a ‘production’ of me, Jonathon called it, a template applied to the real me. A disguise. It’s the part I’ve been told to play, forced to play.”
She nodded. “Of course. But if you don’t mind, David, I’d like to focus on a few details.” Turning back to the photo of Cindy and Dan in the restaurant, she zoomed in a little to centre the couple in the image. “Before all this started, had you ever held hands with another man in this way?”
He looked startled by the suggestion. “What? Hey—fuck no! Of course not.”
“Had you ever felt any attraction to another man before?”
“No,” he said. Then leaning forward, voice angry, he continued: “I’m not gay.”
“That’s not what I asked, David.”
“For fuck’s sake, this is about the story I told K, isn’t it? Back at the start, on the way to the Clinic, that night in the hotel room? Yeah, fine, my first kiss was with another guy, when I was like twelve years old.” One slender finger tapped at the table as though to emphasis the point, painted nail clicking against the surface. “K took it as evidence that I was really some kind of repressed homosexual or something.” His nose wrinkled in an expression of disgust and disappointment, but when he went to continue—“and you know, thinking about it…” he hesitated and went silent.
Crystal gave him a moment, then prodded. “Yes?”
“It’s just, well… in some ways, when Ken—that’s the boy who kissed me, like, over twenty years ago—I didn’t deal with it well, you know. I beat the living sh… I hurt him, Crystal, really bad. I regretted it then, and I regret it now. And like I told K, what really got to me back then was the anger, the disappointment. Not in Ken but in myself, because really, why did I care so much, it was just a kiss, right? He opened up to me at a time and place where frankly, being gay wasn’t exactly seen as acceptable. He took a real risk. There was real bravery there. And Ken was a good kid, he was a friend when I didn’t have any and I really looked up to him, nearly worshipped the guy.
“I would’ve been that boy for him if I could’ve, I think, but that wasn’t me, I couldn’t make it work and he understood that even if I wasn’t able to.”
Listening to him, Crystal found it all too easy to imagine the young, lonely boy torn between the desperate need to please a friend, the willingness to lie—to themselves, to others—and their innate sense that it was somehow wrong, wrong for him and that living an untruth could only ultimately bring pain to themselves and others.
“And yeah,” David continued, “since then, there’s been other kisses.” He counted each one off on a painted oval nail. “That boy in the hotel. Harry.” He grinned. “And Dan.” The grin floundered. “And after each one I think back to Ken and that first kiss, and I tell myself that I’m no fucking homophobe, that I don’t care if the world’s a cesspit that hates on gays and that I don’t give a crap because I’m a guy, dammit, I’m a man and that’s who I am. And all this shit, the tits and makeup and whatever, it’s superficial, it’s… external to what I really am, to how I feel on the inside.
“Not one of those kisses turned me on, is what I’m saying. It was just—acting. I’m still a guy. And if that’s true, then… why should it matter, right? What’s a kiss? How can a kiss change who I really am?”
Crystal remembered a kiss of her own, not her first but the first that mattered: the kiss that revealed to her who she really was. Julian Cooper, on a late-night train platform huddled under his umbrella in the rain after one too many post-seminar drinks. The closeness. The musky scent muddled with the heat of rain on pavement, and the intensely frightening, frighteningly wonderful sense of his arms around—her—the moment of realisation—and their lips met and she knew, suddenly who she was, the crystallisation of doubt into an unshakeable sense of self. And she thought how a single kiss might not change who you are, but that it certainly could bring to the surface the self that you’ve buried deep for so many years.
“But more and more, it feels like I’m lying to myself,” David said, and as he continued his voice shifted, becoming more… feminine, Crystal thought, though it was difficult to pin down precisely how so or what that even meant. “Because—because I am changing, aren’t I? I mean, look at me.” He grabbed at the tablet and stared at the photos there. “Look at me! A year ago, you’d never have found David Saunders in a tight dress holding hands with another man. But that… that’s me, and how can… that person possibly be a man?
“And I’m looking at these pictures, and I remember being there, but now I’m thinking maybe I wasn’t really in control, you know, and it seems like I’m remembering from the outside, like I was watching somebody else, watching Cindy living those moments.
“And now I’m wondering, maybe Ken knew something all those years ago, saw something all those years ago. And if that’s true then… who am I?” His fingers curled into fists, and he crumpled into himself, into a tight, angry ball, hugging his knees to his chest, and he squeezed his eyes tight against the tears. “Who am I now?”
Crystal considered for a long moment how to respond. Finally, she reached for her knitting and picked it up and continued the next row. The gentle clicking of the needles pushed back the silence of the room.
David opened his eyes. “Really?”
“I’m knitting a scarf. I’m doing it for my nephew,” she said, and held it up for him to see. Nearly a meter in length, it rolled out in bands of different colour: black, brown, blue, green; she’d just started on a new row in orange. A pattern of interweaving lines stretched across its length, uncoiling toward the unfinished end. “I could just have the thing printed, obviously, but it’s the effort that counts, right? Think he’ll like it?”
“How should I know? Listen—”
She held up a hand. “Just watch,” she said, and knitted another row, and then another, continuing with the orange, switching to black when adding to the pattern of coiling lines. It took her a few minutes, and once done she held it up for him to see. “Not bad, right?” she said, feeling more than a little proud.
“Yeah, I guess it’s great? But I don’t see—”
She held up a hand to forestall further protest. From a canvas bag at her feet, she retrieved another colour. Pink, shot through with threads of sparkly silver – to really drive home the point. Switching to the new colour, she quickly added a few more rows. David watched her proceed, clearly bemused.
“What do you think?”
“I think I shared something pretty meaningful? And you’re sitting there knitting?”
She nodded. “A scarf.”
“Sure.”
She continued knitting. “Is it still a scarf?”
He cocked his head to one side. “I don’t follow.”
“I’m adding another row. I’ve changed colour. Is it still the same scarf?”
He nodded.
Stopping, she reached back into the bag and pulled out a hobby knife. Sighing, she extended the blade and brought it to the start of the pattern, to the original stitches she’s knitted and purled. She cut a stitch, and another, and unraveled a strand. Mourning the lost work, she held it up for inspection. “What about now? Still the same scarf?”
“Sure?”
She unravelled a row, cut a few stitches out from the middle, put down the knife and began knitting out another row. “And now?”
“It’s looking a little rough, and I don’t think your nephew’s going to like it as much anymore but yeah, it’s still the same scarf.” He offered a little smile, shaking his head ruefully. “You didn’t have to ruin your work, you know. I get the point.”
“Do you?” She put down the knitting. “Tell me.”
“I’m the scarf?” he said. “And just because you’ve added some new bits at the end or trimmed some bits off the start doesn’t mean it’s stopped being a scarf.” He shook his head. “Sorry, but I’m not convinced.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s not the same scarf. It’s now a scarf with holes in it, it’s now a scarf with sparkly pink in it, and maybe that’s not the kind of scarf it was meant to be.”
Crystal nodded and lay the scarf out on the desk between them. It lay in bands of colours across the solid wood desk, one end cut and frayed, the other unfinished, a meter of wool and hours of effort. “It’s not a bad metaphor for a life, though, is it?” she said, fingers poking through the popped stitches at the beginning of her work. “What holes have been punched into your life, David, and what remains unbroken in the pattern of your life, and what have you forgotten?” She traced a line through the length of the scarf, drawing out the single knitted line that led from start to end. “What will new experiences add to your tapestry, and what are you meant to be now?” All of the other lines went nowhere or ended prematurely. “For me, this is the key to the pattern. It runs the whole length of the scarf, an unbroken line from start to end.” She smiled at her patient. “Can you pick out something in your life that runs unbroken from start to end?”
David stared at the scarf, lips puckering a little with thoughts. Crystal was struck, again, at how… pretty, he looked, the smooth skin and wide eyes, lips painted a soft pink and the brilliant green of his eyes. It was easy, at times, to forget she was speaking with an older man, a violent man with a hidden past. The twenty-year old innocence he so easily projected remained compelling and convincing.
“I don’t follow,” he said.
“You could call it an essential property,” she answered. “Unlike a scarf, woven to a pattern, so much of a life happens out of our direct control.” She traced the lines that went nowhere, and her fingertips hovered over errors and damage she found in the weave, the dropped stitches, cuts, gaps and knobbly bumps. “Accidents happen, the unexpected happens, but does it really matter? If you stripped away those experiences, would it change who you really are?” She held up the middle of the scarf, a band in dark brown. “If I’d knitted this in grey instead of brown, would it make a significant difference?” She shook her head. “I don’t think so. I can’t even remember why I chose the colour.”
“But some events are of such significance, whether trauma or joy, that they prove transformative.” She returned to tracing the lines that danced the length of her effort. “I think something essential would be lost if I left these out,” she said. “If I cut out the middle, or knitted it only half the width, or length, or a different shape. At what point does it become a shawl, or stole, or even just a belt?”
David continued to watch and listen, remaining silent.
“You say you feel as though you’re losing something of yourself, but are these things essential properties, David? Are they the defining aspects of who you are? To me, it sounds as though your encounter with this boy twenty years ago truly matters; it was an experience that formed part of who you are. But this kiss with the boy in the hotel six months ago? Had it not happened, would it have made a difference?”
“I don’t know.” He spoke slowly. “To be honest, I don’t like thinking about the past much.”
“I understand,” she said. “To paraphrase, the past is a nightmare from which many of us are trying to awaken.” And she was careful to tread carefully here. She had a responsibility to dig out as much of this man’s past as she could, but also knew doing so could easily provoke him or break what little trust she had established with him. Better to draw it out surreptitiously rather than through direct questioning. “Would you mind if I focused on a more recent incident?”
He shrugged, one bared, slender shoulder rising and dropping indolently.
She checked her tablet. “Can we talk about Dan?”
David grimaced, a cute wrinkling of the nose. “I don’t know,” he said, and tugged at his neckline, covering up his shoulders. “It’s embarrassing.” He wrapped his arms around his slim frame and shivered. “And humiliating.”
Crystal reassured her patient, and slowly he warmed into a retelling of the night. He told her about Dan, the young man from Volumina International that had flirted with him from his earliest days there. The playful banter leading to an unexpected night out at Noir, a trendy local hotspot. “It wasn’t a date,” he insisted, and at first they spent the night talking, and he enjoyed the human company after weeks alone. And then drinking; too many drinks and ending up on the man’s lap, posing for a picture and—kissing him.
“One second I was looking into the camera, the next I turned my head and…,” he grimaced. “His tongue was down my throat like a rat down a sewer drain.”
Crystal nodded.
“And then I felt his hardon poking me in the ass,” David said.
“How did that make you feel?”
He laughed, though without humour. “I ran to the bathroom,” he said, “cried and threw up.” Which is how he met Julia, this woman from his past who seemed intent to push him into new feminine experiences. She pushed David into agreeing, under duress, to a date a week later with Dan.
Crystal made notes to follow up later: Julia; the intensity of David’s reaction; the suggestion of surging hormones and the subtle influence of other drugs. Meanwhile, David continued his story. Despite his occasional reluctance as he relived moments from the night, he almost seemed… relieved, to talk through the experience.
He spoke of getting ready for the date, showering and shaving, and the peculiar embarrassment he felt at slathering himself in shimmering body lotion that left his body sparkling and luminous. Then he described his shame at squeezing into the straps and lace of lingerie, slithering into a little black dress, the makeup and hair and drinking and chat with the other woman—a shame he admitted was tempered somewhat by the fact that there’d also been something fun, something exciting in the ritual of feminine preparation.
The moment he slid his feet into the arch of towering heels and stood, swaying slightly, and posed and pirouetted for Julia, he admitted to feeling trapped, like the ongoing misery of a tourist stuck in a holiday gone wrong to a foreign destination they can’t escape.
But he also felt a thrill, a delight rooted in pride, and a tingling deep in his belly to rival the nausea, at just how damn sexy he looked—at the hungry gleam he provoked in Julia’s eyes, in his own, a hunger that led her to grab and pin him up against the wall and forced him to repair his lipstick in the mirror several minutes later.
He skimmed over the details of the date itself, arriving early, his date arriving late, drinks and conversation, sharing the meal—and again, how he began to enjoy himself despite the constant frustration of playing a part he abhorred, enjoying the company if not necessarily his role in it. They talked about work; they talked about Shakespeare.
Then tears, arousal and frustration and anger. Another kiss. Again Crystal noted the intensity of his emotional swings. Something to raise with Jonathon, she thought.
The date ended.
“I walked with him to his place,” he said. “I was pretty drunk by this time and knew I should just get the hell out of there. But I was also kind of having fun, and then—I don’t know.” David shook his head. “I let him kiss me.”
“Let him?” Crystal asked.
David blushed. “It was fucking cheesy, but I’ll give the guy credit, he dropped the right line at the right time. I could’ve just walked away but instead I….” He shrugged. “I can’t lie to myself here. It wasn’t the booze and he didn’t force me. I didn’t start it but—I don’t know, it was like rewarding him for a game well played.”
Crystal nodded, impressed though not surprised by his willingness to share despite the discomfort at reliving the night. She knew her client was confronting the possibility that his life as Cindy might last longer than hoped. He’d arrived at the Clinic with clear expectations of returning to manhood: why deal with uncomfortable feminine experiences when he could just move on and try to forget?
But now?
His eyes were unfocussed as he relived that evening, and his hands fluttered in his lap.
“He kissed me and I didn’t pull away. It’s not like I wanted to, you know, kiss another guy… but he deserved it, right? At the end of the night, where he’s paid the bill and made at least some effort to show me a good night out….
“A kiss is the least he’d expect. The very least. Hell, I’d have expected a hell of a lot more from a girl—usually got it, too.”
As always, Crystal stilled her personal reactions to a patient’s words, but something must’ve shown. He frowned and his reply sounded defensive. “Hey, I’ve never forced a girl to do anything she didn’t want. But when a guy picks up the bill for the night with some chick he barely knows, of course he’s got expectations. First couple of dates, you barely know each other, right? You’re not there for the conversation.
“And it’s not like the girl doesn’t know the game. I can’t tell you how many—sexy, vapid, boring little bitches—have done their best to drain my wallet, and you better damn well believe I was happy to play along so long as they drained my balls afterwards.”
“And were you?” Crystal asked, drily. “Happy to drain his balls afterwards?”
David’s eyes darkened. “No,” he said. He stared at the table for some time before continuing. “No,” he repeated. “Even though I knew that’s where this was heading. Which is why I just stood there and let him have his fun. It was—one of the weirdest experiences of my Cindy life, one of the most uncomfortable. For a moment, it was like watching from the outside, and I could see this guy slobbering over this young girl, groping and grabbing her as she stood and rolled her eyes and stared into the distance. But that girl was me, and then I was back inside and living it, and I forced her… myself to respond, to… act, and I was about to break away and leave, when… well, you know.”
Crystal waited, and when he didn’t continue, prompted him. “Yes?”
He shrugged. “Steele’s man. Jeff—or whatever his real name is. The guy who’s been shadowing me since the start. And just like when he approached me at the restaurant bar, I knew I had to maintain the illusion, keep it convincing.
“So with that creep watching I couldn’t just walk away, couldn’t turn Dan down without appearing suspicious, without that goddamn creep possibly following me home, right? And so I agreed. I fucking agreed to go up to Dan’s condo even though I damn well knew what I means when a girl follows a guy up to his place after a night out for ‘just another drink’.”
Making a quiet note—Jeff?—to pursue later, Crystal nodded for David to continue.
The very pretty man opposite her reached into his handbag and rummaged around. He pulled out a little makeup bag. “It’s strange,” he said. “I don’t really want to talk about the next bit.” Crystal waited, and he sighed. “But at the same time, I do, I really do, I guess I’ve wanted to get this off my chest since it happened. I didn’t even tell Jules what happened, you know, though she’s been texting for details, believe me.
“But I’m not used to this crap, this touchy-feely bullshit, talking and sharing feelings so much.” He glared at her, almost accusingly, but then his expression softened into a lopsided grin. “Although you know, maybe it’s helping, just a bit.”
He spun one of the bangles around his wrist, eyes on the flashing sparkles. “But it’s not easy, and… and I’m nervous and it’s weird but recently, I don’t know why, but this shit—” and he pulled a lipstick from the bag and gestured with it, “—the makeup, I dunno, I find it calming.” His smile was a little sad, twisted with self disgust; a wan apology. “I hope you don’t mind.”
She watched as this man, at first with a slight tremble in his hands but then with calm confidence touched up his makeup. He repainted his lips a dark, matte cherry red and applied a coat of mascara and seemed to visibly relax as he continued the little ritual of beauty. “I don’t know why,” he said, glancing up at her from behind his reflected image on his phone. “But it helps.”
Crystal nodded and waited.
“So when Dan took me by the hand and brought me into the building, I didn’t resist,” David said, closing his handbag with a little snap and stowing it at his feet. He sat straight backed in his seat, hands on the table between then, fingers splayed. He affixed her with a penetrating gaze that bordered on unnerving. “I pretended to not see the little wink the concierge gave him on the way in.
“And yeah, he was all over me the moment we stepped into the elevator. He took me around the waist and pulled me close and kissed me and—and I kissed him back. His hand roamed over my tits, grabbed my ass and the other was at the back of my head and we fell back against the elevator wall, he had me pinned there and the whole time I could feel his dick jabbing into me. And I touched it, I stroked him through his trousers and smiled because… because what else could I do? When he went to kiss me again, I pulled back and the door dinged and we fell out into the hallway to his apartment, shushing and giggling like teenagers as he led me to his door. He fumbled with his keys and I laughed and he silenced my laugh with a deep kiss.
“His apartment was… nice, like really nice, very open concept and way beyond what I’d expect a guy his age to have, but then the steak, the wine… it was clear this kid was loaded, or at least his parents were. My reaction confused him, I think. He was obviously used to surprising visitors he brought home, impressing the panties off girl he brought back to his place and… I wasn’t that impressed, I guess, at this watered-down version of what I’d had just six months ago.”
David paused, as though contemplating what he’d lost, before giving a little shake of the head before continuing.
“He poured us drinks, a bottle of white he pulled from a wine fridge, and he dimmed the lights and put on some smooth music, and I almost laughed. But only for a moment, because now that we were in his place I was thinking, how the hell do I get out of here? We clinked glasses and drank. It was a good wine, nice and dry, expensive stuff. I drank it in big, nervous gulps and then he kissed me again, and I tasted the wine on his lips, citrus and white pepper on the tongue.” He gave a dry laugh. “On his tongue.
“When we came up for air he poured me another and we talked for a bit, but it was that awkward kind of empty small talk that fills the space when you know you’re really there for something other than conversation.
“Dan’s arm was back around my waist. He’s been stroking my knee through my stockings but now he held me close. His finger traced my spine, followed the small zipper that sealed me into that dress, danced down my bare shoulders, rested on the curve of my ass. His hand felt heavy, you know, and strong over the thin fabric and the underwear beneath. His thumb traced the edge of my stockings and snapped the garter. ‘Sexy,’ he said.”
David shivered.
“I leaned into him. I had to because in a moment his hand was going to try and go places it couldn’t. I wiggled in closer to Dan, and he kissed my ear, my neck; his tongue trailed along my collarbone. With one hand I still held the empty wineglass, and the other I pressed up against his chest. I remember being startled by how bright, how vivid and colourful my nails seemed against his shirt. How long they seemed, and shaped, the paleness of the pink and the crisp whiteness of his shirt and the contrast with the darkness of his skin. Were those really my fingers? I remember thinking. They seemed so—feminine—set against the masculine flatness of Dan’s chest.
“Dan took my glass, put it down, and I still see them, those two glasses, side by side, the one stained by the pink print of my lips. He took me by the wrist and held my hand to his mouth and kissed my fingers, one by one. And I saw the desire in his eyes, but more, I saw the—satisfaction, the smugness at his victory.
“Then he had me by both wrists, and I felt vulnerable as he kissed my neck again—suddenly aware of his strength, how slim my arms were in his grasp. It only lasted a second, but for that second I felt—afraid? Trapped, as he held me, and there was a hollowness in my belly, even as a half-dozen ways I could take him down flashed past my eyes.
“So I pulled away and he let me go. I asked for more wine, to buy time, to help see me through this; and my free hand brushed against the prick tenting his lap, the one that’d been jabbing me in the belly just a moment before. He smiled. I smile back, and I swear, it was like I could hear a voice in my head, a girl’s voice, giggling and eager for what might come next. With those bubbles of hysteria popping in my head, I smiled back and told him I needed a few minutes, that I needed to freshen up and you know, I almost lost it then, almost cracked at delivering a line I’d heard from the other side so often.
“Thinking about it now, I’m amazed I didn’t snap. I was close to—I don’t know. Losing my shit, collapsing, screaming, hitting him, running from the room—I don’t know. Instead, I walked calmly, ass swaying in heels for his viewing pleasure, into this guy’s bathroom and locked the door, thinking, what the fuck am I doing?
“That’s around when it hit me just how drunk I really was. Everything gets a bit hazy from that point on, impressions, more like snapshots than a video, if you know what I mean. Foggy. I remember staring at myself in the mirror over the sink. Smeared lipstick. Wide eyes and remembering, remembering who I used to be, but disjointed, confused. The giggling in my head came and went. And feeling sick, not like I was going to throw up but something deeper, a nausea deep in my bones. For a moment it felt as though I was about to hyperventilate. But then—
“A switch flipped.” David snapped his fingers. “The panic and fear retreated. Instead of freaking out I slipped off my heels and unzipped and wiggled out of that dress and went for a piss. God, how I just wanted to strip out of everything, I felt bloated and pinched in and overheated and uncomfortable and—fed up. But I gave my balls a few minutes to breathe, let everything hang out as I sat and took a piss. I washed my hands and padded around the small room in my stockinged feet.
“I rummaged around a bit. You can tell a lot about someone from their bathroom. It was classy, very modern, lots of mirrors, glass and exposed brick, recessed lighting. Very chic, bit pretentious for a kid his age. Checked the cabinet and found the usual guy stuff, deodorant and toothpaste and a razor, but also more pills than I would’ve expected, pain killers, anti-depressants—I might’ve popped something, I’m not sure, something to kill the noises in my head, something to bring the calm.
“There was also a single tube of lipstick, hiding behind some hand cream.
“Why was it there? Did he have a girlfriend? Was it left behind by a previous conquest – why’d he keep it? Cherry Whispers: a deep, rich red, mature and matte, seductive.” He smiled. “I’m wearing it now, actually. I looked at it as like it was some kind of message in a bottle, or a dispatch behind enemy lines, woman to… woman.
“I took the lipstick; I don’t know why, but I stole it. I returned to the mirror and touched up my makeup and I felt strangely calm, detached, leaning over the sink in my underwear in some guy’s bathroom, fixing the damages of the night.
“Eventually I found the willpower to slide back into those skyscraper heels and tape my cock back again, extra secure for the finale, right? I didn’t tuck; there was no way I was going to get my balls back up inside, not in that state, but so long as I kept his hands under control, I reckoned it’d be okay. Probably says something about how drunk I was at the time, trusting to blind luck to keep my disguise safe.
“Then it was time to pay the piper, as they say.”
He sighed. Staring blankly into the middle distance, he went silent, and Crystal noted a slight tremble to his lower lip. After a long moment, he gave himself a little hug, and smiling ruefully, continued.
“Something happened, then. I don’t know if I can really explain it, describe it in a way that makes sense. But there was a… moment. As I reached down for the dress, and stepped into it, carefully, I didn’t want to tear the thing with those heels. And I glanced up, and saw myself in a mirror, damn thing nearly took up half the wall.”
He frowned. “It was as though, in that moment, everything stopped, stopped and came into focus. The world froze, and I saw myself, daintily stepping into that tight little dress, half-naked in some guy’s bathroom, half-naked wearing panties and bra, heels and stockings, suspenders and waist-cincher, all those straps, bows, lace, tight fabric and mesh, midnight black and crimson.
“The smells and sounds, feelings, it all washed over me in that moment, a symphony of sensations that held me suspended in the moment. The tight grip around the waist, breath of cool air across the top of my tits, sudden goosepimples, the sound of Dan beyond the door, his sturdy steps in the kitchen and a shift in the music, something—blue, rolling and smooth, piano and bass—and strawberry and rose, lingering from the hand soap, the shimmer of colour at my fingertips. A hint of his cologne, sandalwood and smoke. A tickle of lace. Sensual slickness, the slither of stockings against the tightness of the dress, the stretch of the suspender across my bum; and the taste of my own lips.
“And in that caress of impressions I saw myself and wondered—is that me? And then: how is this me? Those curves and clothes, all that softness, the heavy fullness of breasts in their cups, stepping half in and half out of a woman’s little dress, and makeup: the reflection mocked me in its honesty.”
His nose wrinkled in an expression of confusion or disgust. “It literally took my breath away. As in, I felt light-headed for a moment. The contrast between the lingerie and skin—what you could see of it, anyway—the pale flesh of my thighs, the narrow band between bra and waspie, shoulders, tits; God, suddenly, I wanted this girl in my bathroom, primping for my pleasure, and—”
He shook his head as though in disbelief at the memory.
“But it was me. That girl was—me; and… how was that possible? Six months! Six months to go from… David to—this girl, preening for some prick waiting in the other room.”
He trailed off for a moment.
“So I watched this girl zip herself back into her dress, suck her gut in after all that steak and the reflection jolted me back into the moment. I saw this girl—saw myself—and I was fucking hot, I’d lost track of just how goddamn sexy I was. And something grew inside of me—an anger, frustration, something… dark; I couldn’t name it, but I fairly vibrated with this feeling.
“If this—thing—was going to happen, if I was going to do what came next, then it was going to happen on my terms, I thought. With a final wiggle, a little squeeze of the tits putting them on display, I stalked up to that mirror, wiped my mouth clean and reapplied the forgotten lipstick I’d stolen. I don’t know why, and that moment really stuck in my mind, the image of my face in the mirror, pale, leaning in close, framed by hoop earring and painting in those dark, red lips.
“Then I rode that swell of emotion back to Dan.
“He was waiting, standing next to the sofa, shirt half-unbuttoned, a large glass of white and an open bottle of whiskey and a generous dram in a glass tumbler, waiting on a side table. He drank me in as I left the safety of the bathroom. Did he notice the colour of my lips? I don’t know. He clearly liked what he saw, though. He went to speak but with a single glossy fingertip held to red lips, I silenced him.
“And stalking towards him, ass swaying, the click of heels on hardwood sounded loud in my ears. I felt hot under his devouring eyes. Music whispered and I thrummed with insane confidence—drunk—and with a different kind of desire as I reached him, and my hands slid in under his shirt, nails raking his skin as I explored his body. I’d never touched a man in that way before, never passed palms across hard abs and pecs in that way. Dan was in good shape and I respected that—envied his strength, really—and when I pulled him close it was as though I was trying to reclaim some of the power for myself. I—kissed him, tilting my head, shorter than him even in heels. Hungrily finding his mouth, I wrapped myself around him, threw my arms around his neck and drew him to my chest, burying his face in my cleavage.
“Then I shoved him back, onto the sofa, and straddled him, hovering over his lap and the hardness I knew waited.
“He handed me a glass. The glass was very full. I took it from him with a grin and knocked it back in one, in great big gulps, and then tossed the empty glass aside. Glass shattered. Then I had him again, lips tingling with alcohol, running my fingers through his hair, gripping his shoulders, pinning him to the sofa, rubbing my body, tits up against his chest and….”
He shook his head.
“I don’t have a fucking clue what I was doing at this point. I was a mess. My head was swirling. I’d had some vague idea of—I don’t know. I knew I wanted out of there but didn’t how to make it happen. Puking and begging off drunk and grabbing a cab or slinking away in the morning, maybe; but the urge wasn’t there, I didn’t feel it in my belly, the need to be sick. At least not in that way. Maybe I was still thinking about Jeff waiting and watching outside, buying time. And maybe at some level I saw myself in Dan’s position, had been there with some sexy bitch in my lap and damn well knew what I’d expect at this point, what I deserved, how a girl like Cindy repays her man.
“And the room was whirling and I felt like everything was spinning out of control – out my control, at least—and that swell of emotions, that inchoate anger that started in the bathroom began to spill over. My hands roamed across his chest. My lips found his. I kissed him. I kissed—him, crushed lips against his and my ass grinding his lap. I kissed him and groaned, nails digging into his flesh and he cried out and I didn’t care. If—this—whatever—then I wanted to be in control.
“I stood over him. Tossed my hair and licked my lips, caressed my curves and slid my arms down my side, my thighs – onto his lap and felt Dan’s hard cock, waiting. My hand lingered there. Cindy knew what he wanted – I knew—
“But I hesitated.”
David’s eyes dropped and he avoided eye contact as he continued.
“Dan’s the first guy to touch my tits,” he said.
“It happened so quickly. In my drunkenness I thought I was in charge, but then he had me by the wrists, and his hands seemed so big, so strong; and without any effort at all he pulled me down off those heels and into his lap. His arm’s around my waist and suddenly I felt so… small, weak and breathless under his touch, and the heat that buoyed me until then went cold and scooped out any illusion of control, left me empty under his hand. Confidence evaporated and I went still as his fingers slid up my back and… he found the zipper and—”
He paused.
“I used to love that. You know, with a woman, when she’d turn and lift her hair and expose the back of her neck to me. The sparkle of an earring, the glitter of necklace, and that little patch of bared skin between hair and clothes, open and vulnerable. The trust, maybe? But also that feeling of… of power over her, just a little and the anticipation. And yeah, in the heat of the moment I might tear her out of those clothes but I always preferred to take it slowly, let my finger trail down her spine as I released her, like the satisfaction of slowly peeling fruit before tasting the flesh.
“But as the girl?” He shook his head. “I hate it. I hate that it’s so awkward to reach the zip on my own, especially with these nails. I hate the sense of… openness, of dependency, needing someone like Jules to, to… seal me into my clothes. And that’s what it feels like, being fastened into something; trapped. The tightness. The way it draws in around the forced curves of lingerie, the restriction, the… reminder of how tiny I’ve become, how… delicate.” He chuckled drily. “It was a very tight dress.
“But suddenly the dress was down around my waist and I was missing the little protection it offered. I was in another man’s arms, half naked in my underwear, and I’ve never felt so exposed, so vulnerable, somehow ever more naked than if I’d actually been naked.
“Half naked?” he grumbled. “Like for a second. He gave a quick tug, and next thing I knew the dress was down around my ankles, and as much as I hated the damn thing I suddenly found myself missing it, intensely.
“Then he was holding me, he was kissing me, he had me balanced on his knee with his fingers tracing the boning upwards, whispering in my ear, ‘you’re so fucking sexy,” he said, “so hot,” shit like that, grabbing me as his tongue found mine, and then his hands were on my tits, over the bra, and it felt….”
David covered his face with one hand and groaned. His shoulders shook as he took a long breath but after a moment collected himself enough to continue.
“I don’t think I’d realised until then just how different a man’s touch can be. Julia, she’s really into my tits. To humiliate me, I think, to remind me that I’m not the man I was. She likes to grab and pinch and twist and—it hurts, but dammit, I kinda love it. Nipple shit never did anything for me before but now—I guess there’s just more to play with—and with her—fuck, but it’s hot, it really turns me on when the mood’s right. My tits up against hers, her softness up against mine, and even when she’s at her most brutal her touch is still… somehow, I don’t know… feminine. Even at its most embarrassing, like when she forced me to play with my own knockers, wearing—whatever she picked to remind me I’m her girl—it always leads to me fucking her, burying myself deep in her cunt, and well—”and David grunted with satisfaction—“yeah, whatever she does, at the end of it all I still feel like a man.”
“But this, this was a man touching me. A man with his arms around my waist, holding me close, a man’s scent, a man’s hot breath on my neck, nuzzling at my neck, stubble like sandpaper against my cheek, then biting at my ear; a man, running his fingers through my hair, paddling my shoulders, reaching behind and then –
“He unclasped the bra and it came off.”
David stopped.
Crystal waited.
“I don’t know if I can keep going,” he said.
She nodded. She waited as he reached for a glass of water, took a tiny sip, and very carefully put it back on the table. Then he reached for his handbag. He stared at it blankly for a moment and put it back without opening it. Finally, he sank back into his seat, staring up at the ceiling.
“Would you rather continue another day?” she asked.
There was a long wait before he finally shook his head negative.
“Can you tell me how you felt at that moment?”
He glared at her. “How I felt? With my tits in another man’s hands?”
“Only if you feel up to it,” she said.
Lurched forward, he gripped the table with white-knuckled anger, and leaning over the table went to speak—and then sagged, the emotion draining from him almost instantly. “You want to know the truth?” he said. “It felt—”
He looked pained. “You have to understand. I was drunk. Confused. Angry and afraid. I was all over the fucking place. But at no point in the least bit turned on, not by any of it. The whole time I was all over him, and he was all over me, I was—performing, I guess is the best word. Running off of some kind of instinct rooted in the girls I’d made out with in the past, only flipping it around and playing their part. The whole thing was an act, right?”
He grimaced. “My whole fucking life’s an act.
“But when I felt his hand on my chest it felt… good.” He shuddered. “And so different from Julia’s touch. Stronger, more confident, even though she’s never been one to hold back. Somehow it just felt more—natural; and when he touched me, when his thumb flicked across my nipples, and they went hard—something jolted through me, I gasped and suddenly felt weak in the knees—and next thing I knew I was half laying back on the sofa and he had one hand on my right boob, and he was kissing the other. He licked and twirled around the nipple and then sucked and I moaned like a bitch in heat, and for a moment it felt like my whole body was centered around those two hard, little points, and I was arching my back, throwing my head back, shoving those tits towards him—except it didn’t last because then, yeah, I did get excited, and thank God the tape held, but when I groaned it was in pain, not pleasure, not that fucking Dan could tell the difference.
“But he did stop, thank God, and with his hardon poking me in the belly and his body held over mine, his breath hot on my neck, he whispered into my ear: ‘I want you’.
“With a nod of the head he gestured towards what I assumed was his bedroom. ‘I want you so bad’, he said, ‘I want to take you into that room and spread you wide and fuck you,’ he said. The words didn’t come naturally to him. I could tell; he was trying to talk dirty, play tough—I guess be the guy he thought Cindy wanted.”
David shuddered.
“So what did you say?” Crystal asked.
“Well I damn well didn’t say ‘okay’,” David answered. “His hand was creeping up my thigh as he said it, and things were about to get… bad. But some guy telling me he wanted to spread me like butter did a lot to bring me back to Earth, let me tell you.
“So I placed my hand over his and he stopped reaching for a pussy that wasn’t there. I whispered into his ear. ‘Oh babe,’ I said to him. ‘I’m so sorry. I wish—I want to, I really do. I’m so turned on right now,’ I told him, and I forced my other hand to drift to his cock and he was so hard I thought he might tear a hole through his trousers. I gently rubbed him as I spoke. I gave him a great big kiss, moaning into his mouth as our tongues danced. ‘But I can’t,’ I said when we parted. ‘It’s that time of the month.’”
“His hand retreated as if I’d told him I had the plague, and you know, for a moment there, I felt a little thrill of fear. He had me pinned to the sofa, he was like twice my weight and while I could’ve fought him off, it wouldn’t have been pretty. But the look that flashed across his eyes when I told him… it wasn’t pleasant. For a moment there, I saw anger and frustration, and his grip on my shoulder grew painfully tight.
“But only for a moment. Then he relaxed and next think you know, he’s looking so sad, so pathetic, like a child who just dropped their ice cream cone. I could’ve laughed, you know, if I hasn’t been nearly naked under this guy with my tits hanging out.
“Dan sat back. I sat up. His hand still held mine, rubbing it in small circles over his dick. He was still hard—harder, even, as he looked at me with a little smile.
“’How about…?’ he started, and cupped my chin with his hand, his thumb pressing against my lips.
“And when he pushed his thumb into my mouth, I let him. I whimpered a little as he forced his thumb back and forth, moaned as with the other hand he held my heavy breast in his hand once more and kneaded. ‘God, you’re sexy,’ he said. ‘A sexy little tease, aren’t you?’
David looked pained.
“‘Naughty,’ he said. ‘Naughty clothes,’ he said, and his hand left my tit to trace my lingerie, dancing down the boning nipping in my waist, finding my stocking tops and snapping the straps he found there taut across my thigh. I whined around the thumb still slowly thrusting into my mouth as he continued, ‘for a naughty girl.’ He took his hand from my mouth, then, and kissed me deeply, passionately, and forcefully. ‘And naughty lips,’ he said.
“And then he asked, ‘You’re a naughty girl, aren’t you?’.
“Wide-eyed, I nodded.
“‘Will you do a naughty girl thing for me?’ he asked.”
David grimaced, and with elbows on table clutched his head between his hands. When he looked up at Crystal, his eyes despaired.
“What the fuck could I do?” he said. “What choice did I have? Dan looked at me, all hopeful like, and I gave a little nod. His hand was a heavy weight guiding me, but even more I felt the weight of expectation. I slid off the sofa and sank to my knees.
“I knelt—between his legs. Between a man’s spread legs. Dan gave a happy little sigh and shifted a little, making room for me, leaning back into the sofa. He even reached over to the side table and picked up his tumbler, can you believe it? He sat back and sipped his whiskey as he waited, one hand idly caressing the side of my head, playing with my hair, my ear, as I knelt there between his legs and fumbled for his belt buckle.
“And I knelt there remembering: how many girls have knelt like this between my legs?
“And I knelt there thinking: that should be me with some pretty little bitch on her knees, reaching for my cock.
“And I knelt there wondering: how the hell did I get here, how could this be happening, this couldn’t be happening, I didn’t want to do this, I couldn’t be about to stick some guy’s cock in my mouth, I’m not a cocksucker, not a….”
David trailed off and stared at the table. When he continued, he was unable to meet Crystal’s gaze.
“I undid his trousers, pulled them and his boxers down to his ankles and reached up and touched another man’s penis for the first time in my life. He had hairy legs; that surprised me, and I remember the hair bunching beneath my palm. And then the thing in my hand, twitching under my touch. And saying it now it sounds gross, impossible, like how could I possibly have crossed that line in the sand, right? I’m not gay. I’m not—but there I was with another man’s dick in the palm of my hand. The thing I most clearly remember thinking was, Christ, he probably went for a piss when I was in the bathroom.
“But in the moment—with his hand stroking my head, like a master with a skittish pet—and the room swirling with booze, blurry, I was aware—painfully aware—of kneeling there, in stilettos, in stockings, in sexy underwear—tits out—and the way he gently drew my long hair to one side, over one shoulder, and sighed under my touch…. In the moment, it all just sort of happened. I wasn’t thinking, not really, it was all just stuff happening in disjointed flashes.
“And in one of those flashes, I’m staring at this bastard’s penis up close and it’s….” David gave a dry chuckle. “Well, it was a man’s cock. We both know what a man’s cock looks like. Uncut. It looked like that. And there it was, the closest I’ve been to a dick not my own, though I felt pretty far from the girl’s hand that held it. Like, those slender fingers curled around the shaft, the pretty nails—that couldn’t be my hand, right? And maybe that was the trick, to just… disassociate myself from what was happening. It wasn’t me kneeling between Dan’s legs, but some drunk, half-naked girl eager to please her guy, some girl with pretty fingers and long hair dancing at the edge of her vision, the taste of foreign lipstick at her lips, mouth dry and in her hand—in her hand….
He paused.
“Dan’s smaller than me.” David glanced up and something adjacent to dry humour touched his voice. “Like, I’m trying to pretend I’m not there, but the first thing I notice as I’m eying this guy’s meat up close, this thing I’m holding in my dainty little girl hand is: yeah, sure, not bad but fuck if I’m not bigger; and I feel this surge of, oh I don’t know… pride? For just a moment.
“But it didn’t last for long because even if I’ve got the bigger rod, I’m the one on my knees about to impale my face on this asshole’s prick. And he’s looking down at me, so cocky and comfortable, and I’m looking up at him through bleary, half-lidded eyes heavy with mascara, earrings dancing against my cheeks and I’m feeling tiny, so… lost; and I really, really don’t want to do this thing.
“‘You’re fucking gorgeous,’ he whispered, drinking me in, and I can feel his gaze burning across my body, taking in the full sight, the dark lingerie and lingering over naked tits before settling in anticipation on my red and ready lips. “Thank you,” he added before cupping the back of my head and—guided me in.
“And I went with the gentle pressure, felt the heavy pull of breasts as I leaned forward, felt hot, felt trapped, felt my chest tighten, felt out of breath, breathless, I opened my mouth to draw in air and….”
He stopped.
“And?” Crystal prompted.
“And—I couldn’t do it,” he said. Tears beaded in the corner of his eyes, sparkled and rolled down his cheek, dropping silently to the table between them. “I just couldn’t do it.”
Crystal waited, and he shrugged, almost apologetically.
“That close I could smell his musk, that smell of sweat and balls that’ve been stewing all evening. His nob loomed large before me, bobbing just a bit, a bit purple, shiny with pre-cum. I thought of all the girls that’ve gone down on me and how easy they made it seem. I also remember thinking: no way he’d last long, surely he’ll blow his load straight away. I just had to… give it a little kiss. A lick. Open up and swallow like a good girl. A few swirls of the tongue and he’d be done. It wasn’t me doing this, right? It was Cindy. It wasn’t gay for a girl to blow her date at the end of the night, give him a wet little thank you for a night out…”
“And for fuck’s sake, it’s just a blowjob, right? I’d known girls who’d drop to their knees faster than they’d share a kiss.
“So I could do this. I wanted to do this. Just to prove—”
David sighed.
“Like I said, I was pretty fucked up by this point, and it all just swirled around my mind as I knelt there with Dan’s prick there—right there—centimeters from my lips, those sexy, red lips he’d been fantasising about all night.”
“His hand at my head pushed a little harder, and I—”
He winced, as though at a painful memory. “It was like there was this schism in my head. Pain: this flare of blistering pain, like a lance of light through the brain. And on the one side, I could see Cindy—this pretty, sexy girl looking up at Dan and cooing with pleasure as she held his dick and went down on him. She smiled and opened wide and took his prick into her mouth, dark red lips a crimson ‘o’ around his shaft as she held him there for a moment and swirled her tongue around the head. Then she started to bob up and down his shaft, moaning, her own pleasure blossoming as she fondled her own tits with one hand, pinching and pulling her own nipples as she played with his ball sack with the other, and he groaned and threw his head back and—”
David shuddered. “The whole thing was like a roll of old-school film unspooling, flashes of images flickering against the back of skull. And at the same time, I saw myself—like, myself-myself, male me; but also on my knees, looking ridiculous in stocking and heels and makeup, a mockery of femininity. And there was this swell of… shame and confusion, and… rage, blinding rage and even as I imagined my pretty blonde head bobbing up and down Dan’s dick, overlaid I saw myself grabbing him by the throat, throwing him to the ground and—hurting him.”
He cut off and looked pained.
“I felt suspended between the man I used to be and the girl I could become if I just submitted to this one act. And—I froze. When Dan tried to guide me in, I resisted. I pushed back because if I hadn’t, I don’t know what would’ve happened.
“Sitting back on my heels, I couldn’t meet his look. His hand cupped my chin and lifted my gaze. And I could see he was annoyed and frustrated. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked, irritated, and then he saw the way I was trembling and the tears dribbling down my face.
“‘I’ve never done this before,’ I told him, and the sound of my voice—it was pathetic, a little girl’s whine—but they were the truest words I spoke that evening. ‘I’m not ready,’ I said. ‘I want to, but I’m not ready.’”
David went silent. Quiet tears continued to bead along the sharp line of his chin, fall and he rubbed the wet spatters into the table’s surface.
“So what happened?” Crystal asked after some time.
The feminised man wiped the back of one hand across his eyes, smearing his makeup. “Not much. I guess I was pretty lucky. At the end of the day, Dan’s an alright guy. He didn’t try to force anything, even though he was clearly disappointed. He told me it was alright; he apologized; he—said I could spend the night, if I wanted, and he’d call me a cab in the morning. And the whole time he was talking, I still had my fingers wrapped around the base of his penis, even if it wasn’t quite as hard as before.
“Maybe because he was being such a nice guy, I don’t know, and almost without realising it but as he was talking, I started to rub my hand up and down his penis, just a little and not too fast, and the words died in his mouth, and wow, how quickly he got hard again.
“And still looking up at him, still kneeling, still naked, I smiled with a sudden idea. I stopped, just long enough to unclip one of my stockings. I slid it off my leg and then rolled it down over his dick.
“What can I say? I’ve been at the receiving end of too many bad hand jobs and the guy didn’t deserve that.
“So when I started up again, palm sliding smoothly up and down his length with the silky whisper of the stocking, he groaned, and sighed, and hissed, you know, ‘yes’ and ‘oh god,’ and ‘just like that,’ that kind of shit, and I shuffled in a bit closer until I was leaning against his thigh and picked up the pace and for some reason this was so much easier, I was a goddamn pro at jerking off after all these months and this… this was just like that, sort of, at least that’s what I was telling myself and even the sight of my slender fingers and those flashing nails around an erect cock didn’t seem that strange to me, not then, not in the messed up state of mind I was in, it was a bit like watching porn, drunk and late on a Saturday night.
“And so I jacked this guy off until his hands gripped my shoulders and he dug his fingers in and it hurt, and his whole body suddenly jerked, and his cock spasmed in my hand and he shot his load.”
David took a deep breath before adding: “I’d just made another man cum.”
Crystal nodded. “And how did make you feel?”
“Feel?” Red eyed, scowling, David sounded disgusted. “Angry.” Then his eyes slid away. “But also pleased.” He paused then added, “Messed up.” With a wry look, he held up his hand as though reliving the moment. “And gross. I threw the stocking away. Couldn’t picture myself ever wearing them again, not without imagining his spunk burning into my skin.” David’s smile was thin and sardonic. “They were my favourite pair of stockings, too.
“So. Yeah. After he took me by the hand and sat me on the sofa next to him. He held me, gently. To comfort me, I think. We shared a sip of his whisky. He laughed at me—as the drink burned my throat and I coughed—this idiot kid thought he knew his scotch better than me, pretentious little shit.
“Then we cuddled. And it was… nice.” David sounded quietly surprised. “Even though I was still in my underwear and he had most of his clothes on, I curled up on the sofa next to him, finally kicked off those goddamn shoes and he held me close and it felt… good, his arm around me, like really good. I had my head on his shoulder, my hand inside his shirt, feeling the gentle rise of his chest. I listened to the quiet sound of his breathing and it was… peaceful, even if his hand rested possessively on my boob.
“It was weird, but nice-weird. I’ve had plenty of girls cuddle with me like that but I never expected to… you know, be that girl. But by this time I was too drunk, too exhausted, too emotionally worn out to think anything of it.
“I fell asleep like that. When I woke it was the middle of the night. The room was bathed in moonlight and it was quiet, as if the world was holding its breath. Dan snored a little. The bottle of whisky was empty—he must’ve polished it off while holding me.
“And that was that, really. I got dressed, called a cab and went home.”
David collapsed back into his chair and looked utterly spent. It seemed to Crystal that she could see the man trapped under the layers of girlishness, even if only for the moment: tired and drained, vulnerable and frustrated, deflated by the effort of sharing. Long hair fell across his face and his breathing was quiet.
She gave him some time before speaking. “Thank you for sharing. I know it was difficult.”
“Yeah,” he managed. “So… you asked me to talk about Dan. And now we have. Is this what you wanted to hear?”
Crystal nodded.
“So is this where you tell me everything’s fine? That I didn’t do anything wrong?” He slowly drew the bangs away from his eyes. “That there’s no shame in the way Cindy acted?”
“Is that what you want to hear?”
He nodded, slowly, and in that soft movement the illusion of the older man was dispelled, the girl was restored and it suddenly seemed to Crystal that it was Cindy sat opposite, her eyes puffy and red, mascara smeared and lower lip trembling. And against her professional judgment, she spoke the words she had been invited to speak: “Cindy, there’s no shame in anything you did that night,” she said. “You didn’t do anything wrong. And everything is going to be fine, Cindy.” She held the girl’s eyes and repeated those words: “everything is going to be fine.”
The pretty young woman who stared back at her seemed genuinely mollified by those words. She slowly sat up straighter and tucked her hair back behind her ear. Accepting an offered tissue, she dabbed at her eyes. “Thank you,” she said.
“Have you heard from Dan since?”
“Yes,” Cindy answered. “Well, sorta. It was Saturday when I went out with him. Monday, your car picked me up and brought me here. So I haven’t seen him in person. But he’s been messaging me.”
Crystal nodded. “And how have you responded?”
She sighed. “At first I just ghosted him, which I know kinda sucks, but I couldn’t deal. But yesterday I finally answered him. Apologised. Told him I’d had to take some time off work for an emergency. Nothing to do with our date. I think he bought it.”
Knowing she should end it there, Crystal nevertheless felt compelled to ask. “And…?”
A giggle escaped the girl’s pink lips. “Take a look for yourself.” She passed her phone over.
Crystal raised an eyebrow. “Your first dick-pic?”
Wide-eyed, she nodded. “Dan sent it this morning.”
“It’s a…. fine example of manliness,” Crystal noted.
“I think I’m to blame,” Cindy said. “Check out the picture I sent.”
Scrolling back through a flirting exchange of short messages, she soon found Cindy’s photo: her naked tits, pert, full and round in their youthfulness, large areolae and erect nipples. Crystal felt a momentary and most unprofessional swell of… jealousy, instantly quelled, at the sight of the young woman’s perfect breasts.
“I think I’ve got a boyfriend waiting for me if I go back,” Cindy added.
Crystal nodded. She checked the time: she was well past the time for her next appointment. “I’m afraid we need to stop here.”
The young woman stared at her for a long time before standing up. “Yeah,” she said. She paused at the door. “Same time tomorrow?” she asked over her shoulder.
“Yes,” Crystal answered and then impulsively and against the dictates of professionalism, added, “you should grab a drink tonight. You’ve earned it.”
“You fuckin’ think?” Shoulders shook with silent laughter. “Way ahead of you, doc.”
Scene Nine: “Healthy, Safe and Stable”
The three of them met the next week, Crystal, Jonathon and Katherine sitting down together to decide their ward’s fate. Though they’d met frequently in pairs over the previous days, this was their first three-way face-to-face since David’s arrival. The room was intimate and warm, wood-panelled and decorated with expensive paintings, gifts to the Clinic from wealthy, grateful clients: impressionistic, hazy swaths and swirls of light and dark colours, apparently valued in the millions. A bust of the Greek god Asklepios overlooked the chamber from a high mantle. Overall, the room gave an impression of old university stuffiness, of dust and still air, one in which even the walls and heavy oak table were infused with knowledge and aged secrets.
“I hope you both appreciate this,” Jonathon was saying, pouring out some wine, one of several bottles sitting beneath the table. He’d already started before the others arrived and was well into his third glass. “I dug out some of the good stuff.” He held it up to the light. “DeGrave ’33. The vineyard never recovered, but they say the heavy flooding that year really brought out the mineral flavours. You won’t taste one of these again.”
“I gave that to you,” Katherine said flatly. “We seized the case from the Neopharm site.”
“Wasted on those bastards,” Jonathon said.
Crystal sat in silence, staring into the ruby darkness of the drink. There’d been daily encounters with David and Cindy—increasingly, considering them as separate clients seemed appropriate—over the past ten days, often both morning and afternoon sessions.
Day-by-day, Crystal found it fascinating to watch the gradual evolution in her client’s behaviour. Despite his angry outburst at their first meeting, ever since unburdening himself of the night at Dan’s, her client had proven far more… compliant? Or at least willing to talk openly. In their meetings, he seemed far more relaxed—at times, even happy. Much of the anger had drained away, leading into a period of—negotiation, perhaps, in which Crystal might propose an experience, an experiment or opportunity to explore a little more deeply this new Cindy.
Occasionally, he might flat out refuse; but gradually, as the week passed, Crystal found him, if never eager, at least open to new suggestions.
One consequence proved a fascinating parade of evolving fashions. As Cindy, there seemed an almost newfound confidence in how she presented herself. The day after their long session, she arrived in the morning wearing a very cute floral print romper, off the shoulder with delicate frill trim. That evening, a long, fuzzy, light blue sweater and hip-hugging capri pants, cinched in with a wide belt; and another day, a crop top and pleated plaid skirt, baring her toned midriff.
He became a daily fixture at the Clinic salon. Already a familiar figure with the staff there, they took great pleasure in the free pass he gave them—playful experiments with hair, nails and makeup—but also frequent indulgence in their more luxurious services, massages, medi and pedicures, and facials, the best they had to offer.
Overall, Cindy’s presentation remained undeniably feminine, but less aggressively so, and to Crystal’s mind it hinted at the beginning of an exploratory phase, one in which the girl was beginning to search out her own style. It might all be a bit gender-stereotypical, but then what wasn’t these days? More to the point, it somehow seemed more… comfortable and genuine, rooted in a growing sense of self rather than a projection of male fantasy.
Cindy certainly still skewed towards what could only be termed ‘girly’, high heels and bright makeup and vivid colours, especially in the evening, but Crystal took some pleasure in seeing the subtle changes in her. In speaking she seemed calmer, at ease, with fewer bouts of knuckle-whitening anger, crying jags, or moments of shame and doubt. Her voice was more measured and contemplative and the resentment and fury lurking within those eyes had retreated behind precisely applied mascara and delicate eyeshadow.
In these sessions, Cindy opened up a little about her relationship with Julia, her anxiety over the experiences the older woman had forced on her, and still could. Together, they explored Cindy’s developing sensibilities over the role of women, of contemporary femininity, and what was expected of young, pretty girls like her. They talked about fashion, and music, and her work at Volumina International.
They talked about Dan and about Chad.
Other sessions, those more focused on David, gave tantalising glimpses into his past. Wayward comments, the occasional dropped hints—vague intimations of violence, rough living, lost love—enough for Crystal to suspect some traumatic history he was keen to leave buried and behind him.
And today? The last update Crystal received had Cindy tightly cinched into a corset, a look of mild panic to her as they prepped her for the next stage of her photography session.
“Oh, lighten up, Carl,” Jonathon said. “We’re celebrating.”
“Are we?” she answered and struggled to supress the tremor of anger and guilt running through her voice. “And what exactly are we celebrating, Jon?”
“Success!” he said, raising his glass in a mock cheer.
“Success?” Crystal asked. “Do tell.”
“What else would you call it?” He dropped heavily into his chair, some of the wine sloshing over the rim and onto his lab coat. “Shit.” He rubbed at the stain and shrugged. Feeling ebullient as the initial run of testing returned on their special client, a little spilled wine or a sullen colleague wasn’t going to dampen his mood. Everything, it seemed, was going according to plan—better, even, than expected.
The greatest achievements of the week were of course highly confidential—not something to share with his companions. Carl and he might work for the same Clinic, but in very different divisions. The therapist owed him a certain loyalty, but their over-developed sense of professionalism and annoying ethical dogmatism could also get them all into trouble.
And as for Katherine—well, she’d always been a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. The key for as long as he’d known her had always been her unwavering hatred of Steele. So long as their interests aligned, she could be trusted. Beyond that? Impossible to say. Even now she sat at the far end of the table, forcing him to stand to slide the glass of wine to her. Separate from the other two, she watched them both with an inscrutable smile.
No. Best to keep certain details to himself.
“The initial test results on the blood samples confirm what I’d both hoped and predicted: David’s blood shows a greatly reduced levels of the regenerative compound, with mmol/L concentrations halved since our first measurements four months ago.” He ticked each point off, finger by finger. “This reduced level of the Juice is exhibited across a range of samples—blood, soft and hard tissue, and so on—with a similar reduction by half since exiting the Tank. Consequently, enhanced regeneration within the subject continues at a limited and non-hazardous level. Further physiological changes to the subject appear to have slowed as well, though the ongoing transformation over the past several months has been nothing short of spectacular.
“As I’m sure you’ve noticed,” he added, grinning and waggling his eyebrows at Katherine. “He won’t be going around braless anymore. You’ll be pleased, I’m sure, to learn that he’s—how do you say?—blossomed from an initial small-B to a healthy C-cup.”
“Please, Jonathon. Keep it professional.”
“Height reduction seems to have halted at a petite 157 centimeters; his hips have filled out a little. He measured 86-74-81 as of a few days ago, weighing fifty-four kilos. Hair’s nearly down to his ass, facial features have softened; facial hair growth has halted. Even muscle mass and composition have altered towards female-norm, especially in skeletal musculature, exhibiting a shift towards slower-twitch, less dense fibres.”
He smiled, flushed red with pride and wine. “I doubt there’s a person or A.I. recognition software out there that could link our little twenty-year-old Cindy to nearly-forty David Saunders.”
Behind the warm glow of success, however, remained irritating doubt.
Earlier in the week, he’d asked David: what makes you so special? The question continued to vex Jonathon. It annoyed him profoundly that his success with their patient appeared to be rooted in nothing more than pure, dumb luck. This simple truth—and one he avoided raising tonight, one that in more sober moments undermined the doctor’s satisfaction—was that it remained a miracle that David had not only survived the Tank but come out of it healthy and whole. Even accounting for the tweaks made to the process following the initial experiment on Fosters, there’d been no reason to expect David would emerge… intact.
Yet he had. Something—unique—to the man, some fluke of genetics, something buried in his DNA, made him the perfect candidate for the process. Finding him had been a stroke of pure luck, a totally unexpected key to unlocking the process—a discovery on level with the harvesting of HeLa cells nearly a century ago. And just as those immortal cells had transformed medical research around the world, so would Saunders’ cells transform humanity.
Cultures of DaSa cells were maturing under carefully controlled conditions in the laboratory downstairs, had been cultivated there for months, ever since Saunders first left the Tank. Initial testing of carefully calibrated microsamples of Juice tempered with DaSa cell on Fosters had proven somewhat successful, temporarily taming the out-of-control extravagance of the regenerative process; and recent reports on their third and final human test subject remained positive as well.
None of this, of course, needed sharing with the others. Turning to Crystal, he resumed a more serious tone. “He’s emerging from what could be considered a heightened second adolescence and hormone levels are stabilising into those typical for a young woman in her early 20s. As David is a male in his late thirties, this is likely having some impact on his behaviour. Based on some of heightened emotional swings you’ve reported, we may need to consider whether further adjustments are necessary. Overall, however, he appears to be remarkable healthy, safe and stable.”
He turned to Crystal. “Your turn,” he said, and reached for his glass.
Crystal took a moment to compose her thoughts. She updated them on their client, adding a few points of her own, observations related to their client’s recently improved behavior and emotional well-being. “Overall,” she said. “He’s doing surprisingly well. Much of the anger and frustration from the start of the week has been channeled into what appears a form of… bargaining, for want of a better word.”
“What do you mean?” Katherine said.
“On the one hand,” Crystal continued. “David hopes that before he leaves here that he’ll be restored to a male identity. On the other, he dreads that we are setting him up to continue Cindy’s life. In between those two possibilities, David seems to believe he can— negotiate —with us to restore him to maleness. In his mind, this relies on convincing us that he has come to terms with Cindy; that he has learned to embrace his feminine side, as it were.
“Consequently, it is difficult to assess to what extent the behaviours he exhibits are genuine, which is to say, embedded behaviours that have become natural and unconscious; and which are performative, an act to convince us he has… learned his lesson, I believe is how he put it once.”
“I see,” Katherine said. “And what do you think?”
“I think it’s very unlikely the behaviour we’ve seen are entirely a performance put on to fool us. You’ve probably seen for yourself—unconscious little acts, like playing with his hair or checking himself in reflection, seem too natural to be forced.
“Rather, I think his own efforts at presenting the behaviours he believes we want to see have become self-reinforcing, which is to say, in pretending to be the kind of girl David thinks we want Cindy to be, he’s actually, at some level, becoming her.”
“As you planned,” Katherine said.
Crystal frowned and said nothing. When Jonathon first invited her into this conspiracy of three, Katherine convinced her that they were acting in the best interests of a man who needed help in maintaining a disguise. The hyper-masculinity of this man—the arrogance, the history of sexual conquests and misogyny—intrigued her; could she really enable a man like that to successfully pass as a woman… no, as a pretty young girl, vivacious and vibrant, so antithetical to his real self?
The nature of the challenge was undeniable. So, too, the personal appeal. Almost instantly, she identified within herself a desire to… externalize her personal journey towards self-actualisation onto another. From behind the safety of her desk she could explore, maybe even put to rest, pains that plagued her to this day, the gnawing insecurities, remaining doubts, and lurking fears. The temptation to play out her own unresolved issues through David Saunders was intense.
But she also recognized deeper within herself a darker impulse, a terrible desire to strike back at the type of man David Saunders represented. Hyper-masculine, alpha male, aggressively heterosexual—everything she had never been—the type of man who had made her life—her old life—a living nightmare. Let him suffer as she had; feel the agony of living a life in the wrong body; and unwillingly play out her own fantasies and nightmares.
And for these reasons she declined Jonathon’s offer. The potential for abuse—the personal closeness and professional conflict of interest—was too much; she couldn’t guarantee the necessary detachment from the project.
Only when it became a request—when he insisted he needed her on this project—did she agree, out of an abiding sense of obligation to the man.
So she’d worked with them following the attack on the Clinic to devise a strategy designed to keep David safely ensconced in the identity of Cindy Bellamy. She studied the data Katherine provided and created a new life for their client. She picked out the apartment and generated the fragments of a life David had never lived, photographs with his new face, framed memories of a new life. She arranged for the transportation of the real Cindy’s estate to the new home, the few remaining artefacts of a former life. Then there’d been clothes to buy and a job to arrange. Pulling a few strings, Crystal got Cindy hired on as an executive assistant—a secretary—a demotion designed to remind him of his new role over the coming months.
There’d been dozens of minor little details to create and plant, digital fingerprints to disperse and a female presence to maintain, all part of the meticulous crafting of a personality somewhere between the tragic young woman who’d died under the Clinic’s care and the man who was going to inhabit that vacant space.
Then the drugs—psychotropic or otherwise—and synthetic hormones, calculating the perfect balance, minimizing negative side-effects and enhancing the positive, keeping his sex drive boosted and carefully determining the slow-release dosages to keep him both calm and sane, whilst also buttressing his efforts at conforming to feminine rules of comportment.
“Considering the flood of hormones and psychotropics he’s on,” Crystal finished. “It’s a testament to how strongly he identifies as male that he’s able to perform as Cindy so convincingly yet revert to being David with ease. The contrast between the two grows more marked over time. And considering the relatively short length of time we’re looking at here,” Crystal said, voice tinged with disbelief, “there is something genuinely amazing at how quickly he’d adapted. He already presents a host of typically feminine habits as though he’s practiced them his whole life.”
Chuckling drily, she added, “It took me ages to learn to walk with any degree of confidence in heels, and to be honest, he’s already better at it than I am.”
“The test results aren’t in yet,” Jonathon said, “but I believe we’ll find the behavioural changes have worked out as I theorised. My hypothesis is that the slow-release administration of psychotropics has run parallel to the regenerative bolstering of new neural pattern development.”
Deep in his pockets, his fingers twitched with excitement. The implications were immense. Learning was such a slow process, a painful process, reliant on repetition and rest, the gap between expectation and reality, vulnerable to emotional swings, distractions and context. At the same, what was learning but the generation of connections between neurons, the forming of new synapses and encoding of experience into the brain?
Although levels of the Juice across David’s body had halved in the past six months, their scans discovered that this wasn’t true in the hippocampus and in distinct locations across the cortex. There, in those deep structures of grey matter, the compound seemed to be enhancing the patient’s neuroplasticity, boosting the brain’s ability to not only encode new information but migrate it to the cortex and form long-term memories. Higher concentration of the regenerative compound near mirror neurons suggested the boosted learning may even extend to so-called “muscle memory,” considering the aptitude the patient displayed at moving and reacting in new ways—such as learning to walk in heels.
The process had not only regenerated the man’s body but his mind as well. Driven by the threat of discovery, the man’s intense focus on learning to behave as Cindy meant his brain may well have encoded the patterns of her life and in doing so, changed him in unexpectedly profound ways.
The details of all this were another Asklepios innovation he felt no need to share with his companions beyond the bare minimum. “As Carl put it,” he continued, “the man’s adopted a lifetime of desired behavioural habits—feminine ones—in a space of months rather than years, thanks to our efforts here.”
They were already working on developing a short-term, focused version of the process. One of his colleagues, Dr Thelma Makris, had already theorised an ingested, short-lived version disassociated from the Tank, capable of boosting learning and retention, even the formation of memories. He smiled, thinking of the ambitious woman, intelligent and beautiful, and the way her bangs curled, like crimson DNA helixes, and fell across her face as she leaned over his shoulder to traced data points across his screen.
Thelma had already formulated a series of tests. She’d been keen to highlight the potential to cure degenerative conditions of the mind: reverse dementia, eradicate schizophrenia or help hasten the long-term physical rehabilitation of patients. But when his fingers twitched, it was from considering how he might adapt those tests to the prisoner in the basement. What learning could they augment, which behaviours could they encode? What memories could they create?
“All-in-all, I’d say we engineered ‘Cindy’ just about perfectly,” he said. He held up his index finger and waggled it at Crystal. “And if that wasn’t enough, well, finally, the subject’s taken on board every lie I’ve sold him this week. You call it a negotiation, but it’s all one-sided. Whatever bargain he believes he’s struck with us, he’ll behave. He’ll do as he’s told; he has to out of fear of ending up like our specimen downstairs. I told you that showing him Fosters was the key.”
Katherine frowned. “You know I disagreed with you.”
“And you know you were wrong,” he said. He took a long drink of his wine and smacked his lips in pleasure. “Fuck me, but that’s good.”
“I hate it when you get like this,” Crystal said. “Smugness doesn’t become you.”
“It does when I’m right.”
“It’s not right. It’s wrong. Have you considered the cost of what we’re doing here?”
“What we’re doing?” He twisted in his chair to face her. “What the hell do you mean?”
“We’re destroying a man,” Crystal said. “We’re breaking him in two. We’re taking a mentally healthy man—”
Jonathan coughed.
“—a man secure in his sexuality and in his masculinity,” she continued, glaring at him. “An identity rooted in absolute certainty of his heteronormative self and—tearing it in two. From everything I’ve learned of this man, it’s clear that his relationship with women—and specifically, the taking and giving of pleasure with them—is central to his identity.
“And we have removed that from him; made him the woman within that dynamic and forced him into redefining his self through his ability to find pleasure from, and return it, to men—other men.
“He described several times a sense of ‘watching’ from outside himself.” Making air quotes, she frowned. “I told you already that there is widening gulf between his male and female personality. This isn’t merely a gap, but a growing division between the two halves of his self. First there’s a Cindy half, an amalgam of his own deep-rooted misogynistic ideas of how an attractive young woman should act; and his interpretation of the personality forced upon him—she’s a bundle of stereotypical feminine traits reinforced by drugs, hormones and your process, Jonathon.”
He nodded. “Just what the doctor ordered.”
“And then there’s David.”
Katherine leaned forward, clearly intrigued but still with that slight, secret smile. “Yes?”
“This second half,” Crystal continued, shifting her attention to the other woman, “increasingly seems like a distillation of masculine violence and anger. At some unconscious level, he seems to be… isolating these aspects of himself, these essential characteristics, as though protecting some core self from what he might interpret as the corrupting influence of Cindy.” She shook her head. “Without knowing more about his past it’s difficult to precisely identify what parts of himself he’s consolidating; it’s unclear what aspects of himself he values most. But it seems clear he is creating his own shadow to balance out the anima of his lived personality. Both aspects of his selves are being pushed to extremes: ever more stereotypical “masculine” balancing out increasingly “feminine” behaviours, or at least as he perceives them.”
“So what’s the problem?”
Crystal frowned, ignoring the doctor as he poured himself another glass of wine. “Frankly, as I said before, considering the psychotropic drugs we’ve flooded his system with, the bath of hormones you’ve released in him, it’s not just a testament to his strength of will that he’s held on to his male, David self; it’s a miracle his psyche hasn’t already shattered.”
“No, it’s a testament to your good work.” Jonathon interjected. “Listen, you’ve brought him around. A week ago, he crippled a man in that diner so he could reassert his masculinity – that’s what you said, right? And when he first got here, he described living as Cindy as… what was it? Medieval torture? And he told me directly he’d rather die than continue to be a woman.
“And now… he’s what, openly talking about a possible relationship with another man?—yes, Carl, I’ve read the transcripts. Going on about fashion and other frivolous shit? And he’s been playing dress-up all week. Hell, yesterday you two were swapping makeup tips. It sounds to me like, at one level or another, he’s coming around to the idea of being Cindy for longer.”
“Maybe,” Crystal admitted.
“Because you’ve done good work,” he said. “Look, to put it another way—where is he right now?”
Katherine glanced at a tablet sitting to one side at her end of the table. “Tracker places him on Clinic grounds.”
“He’s in the Thalia Building – the photography studios. I convinced him to try out our photography suite,” Crystal said. “One of our ‘therapeutic experiences’. I started to set it up last week, but to be honest I didn’t really expect he’d go for it. I’m a little surprised he agreed—it didn’t take that much convincing.”
“See, that’s what I’m talking about,” Jonathon said.
“I imagine he’ll be finishing up soon.” Crystal checked the time. “He told me—or rather, Cindy did—that she’s got a date tonight.”
Katherine checked her tablet. “With that physiotherapist—Mr Jenkins, is it?”
“They’ve been meeting up pretty much every night.”
“Look, you’ve even got him flirting with another man.” Jonathon grinned and slapped the table. “Like I said… we’ve done good work here. If I thought you’d take the bet, I’d put good money on Cindy dropping to her knees with his dick in her mouth before she leaves, mark my words.”
Scene Ten: “A Little Gift for Your Boyfriend”
As the tightly bound figure twitched and yanked at their restraints, Jasmine Poole considered how she both loved and hated her job in equal measure.
On the one hand, on an almost daily basis she felt an intense and hateful jealousy of the gorgeous fashions and intense situations she designed for others. Such beautiful clothes; such wonderfully weird and exciting and titillating and often erotic experiences—wasted on all these rich fucking bastards that passed through her hands. They never appreciated the artistry, the craft then went into making their fantasies an experiential reality.
Oh, sure, the occasional actor or musician got it. A lifetime of backstage costume changes and posing in front of the camera and performing on stage gave them some small inkling of the effort Jasmine put into her work. But the billionaire portfolio holders, the socialite daughters, energy barons, cocky CEOs and elite aristocrats and spoiled inheritors—fucking bastards, all of them, expecting the world and giving nothing back but complaints and ever more demands.
You’d think elegantly bespoke corsets just grew on the rack, or that they kept stylish dresses, sparkling with a thousand embedded crystals, perfectly sized and fitted, lying around in storage. To say nothing of the props, costumes, and decorations; the preparation and planning; the posing and photography—the incredible effort her team put into their art. 3D printing and on-demand drone delivery only got them so far. The local town worked hard fulfilling their orders, an unlikely commune of skilled artisans delivering clothes, props and setting on demand.
Wasted, Jasmine grumbled, on wealthy, entitled pricks looking for a new experience, some titillation to fill the emptiness of a life already brimming with everything the world could possibly offer them.
Dickheads and bitches.
Except, she admitted, sometimes the effort really was worth it.
Last week, they’d brought to life a terminally ill child’s Disney princess dreams, frothy frocks and a fantasy landscape filled with princes and anthropomorphic animals. Another week, the sci-fi hallucinations of a failed writer—the century-old ray-gun and go-go boots aesthetics a crazy thrill to manifest. She loved her job for those moments; she hated it for the boardroom power fantasies, tropical bikini shots and trite nightclub stripper delusions.
On the other hand, she thought, pulling corset lacing tighter and eliciting a strangled gasp from her client, every now and then something special came along.
“You okay there?” she asked.
The client gurgled around the gag in their mouth, then with a twitch of long blonde hair jerked their head in assent.
Despite the boobs and feminine name, “Cindy” was clearly born biologically male, judging by the generous package tightly taped back in their delicate panties. Unusual, but not surprising. The intimate nature of the work made the fact impossible to hide, and “Cindy” was hardly the first man she’d strapped into lingerie before. Normally there was some indication on the client’s record, but not always—anonymity reinforced by terrifyingly-intense non-disclosure agreements ensured clients experienced their fantasies or therapy at the level of privacy they required or desired.
Football hero to cheerleader, star to starlet, CEO to secretary, husband to housewife, master to maid, groom to bride—and vice versa—and far too many strippers, sluts and college girl skanks—the fantasies started to feel mundane after awhile, like they were a dream factory of misogynistic tropes. At least the so-called ‘therapeutic’ sessions, where the client was apparently learning something, brought a frisson of excitement—there was something delightful in seeing these powerful men (and occasional women) squirm in discomfort as she squeezed them into some tight little outfit and had them act out in ways so contrary to their inclinations.
“Cindy” was something else, though. There was a wonderful discordance to the client—clearly consenting to the process, but equally clearly hating every step of it. The way their eyes widened in fear—in near panic—as Jasmine spoke thrilled her. “I’m going to tighten it a little more,” she said, “and then seal away the lacing and the busk. You’ll be locked in; the locks are one a timer; it’ll be impossible to loosen the laces until we’re done. Understand?”
Cindy moaned, sparkling red lips blanching as they bit down on the gag. As Jasmine explained the D-rings and showed off the arm binders and other gear, they went pale under heavy makeup. They closed their eyes and when opened again there was such fierce determination and anger there that Jasmine found herself flushing hot.
“You’re doing great,” she whispered, leaning in close with one hand resting gently on the narrowed waist. “You’ve got this.”
Afterwards—after stripping away the corset and bondage and wiping away the photography makeup—Jasmine sat with the client. Cindy blew at wisps of steam rising in curls from a herbal tea, a simply cotton gown hanging loosely revealing the twin swell of naked breasts. Jasmine flicked through the raw footage from the first two shoots of the day.
“How is it?”
“Good.” She flicked threw the images. “Like, really good. Great. With a bit of editing we’ll really get these to pop.” She glanced up. “Do you mind if I ask you a question?”
Cindy shrugged.
Jasmine hesitated. Strictly speaking, she wasn’t really meant to engage with the client like this—keep it professional, keep it cool. Guide them through the process, ease their anxiety when necessary, draw out their best. But there was something about Cindy that invited questions. “Are you enjoying this?”
Grimacing, Cindy glared at the floor for a moment before answering. “Honestly?”
Jasmine nodded.
“Between you, me, and whoever’s listening at the other end of this thing—” and they tapped their armband, “no, not really.”
“The first one was kinda fun,” they continued, passing a hand through long hair, picking out purple and pink streaks. “Even the clothes and makeup. But that last one?” They shivered and drew the gown tighter around their slender frame. “No.”
“You did great.”
“I was fucking terrified.”
“Fear is good,” Jasmine answered. “Brings intensity to the shoot.” And it’s fucking hot, she thought, seeing this—man?—trussed up and tied back, tits jiggling with the struggle against their restraints, eyes wide with fear, breathing heavily—as heavily as the crushing corset would allow—around the bit parting plump lips—every muscle straining in bondage—suffering an extremity of feminine indignity—at least as they understood it.
Jasmine couldn’t help but wonder if she’d maybe lost just a little professional focus in her enjoyment of Cindy’s predicament. She may have laced the corset slightly tighter than necessary and trussed her client up that little bit more savagely than warranted.
Cindy grunted, a decidedly unfeminine sound, and sipped their tea.
“So why are you doing this?”
There was a long pause as the client seemed to consider this. “You know, you’d think while you had me all tied up there that I would’ve had time to think up a good answer, right?” They shook their head. “But—no. I was too busy trying to keep my shit together. And yeah, believe me, I’ve been asking myself the same thing: why the fuck am I putting myself through this?”
Cindy frowned. “Like, I knew what I was getting myself into, but I didn’t ‘know know’, if you get me. I knew what we were aiming for but….” With a vague wave of an arm—a wide gesture that parted her gown again, with one sleave slipping down an appealingly bare shoulder—she took in the expanse of the studio. “Not all this. Didn’t think it through. Didn’t think the corset would be quite so tight.” Cindy glared at her in mock anger. “Or that I’d feel so….”
Their voice trailed off.
“Hey, like I said—you did great.”
“I was scared.” Cindy voice sounded like a little girl’s voice.
“A little fear isn’t uncommon, Cindy.”
Cindy shook their head. “You don’t understand.”
“You can stop. You’ve done two out of four.”
“No,” Cindy said. “That’s why I’m here, right? For the experience?” They spread their hand wide, wiggling fingers and watching the sparkling nails flutter and flash. “To learn something, right? Build up some… girl memories, I guess.”
Jasmine gave a bark of laughter. “You think these are typical girlhood experiences?”
“No, of course not. But—well, also, yes.”
“I’m not going to speak for my entire gender,” Jasmine said, cocking an eyebrow. “But most women I know aren’t into locking corsetry and heavy bondage.”
Cindy grinned sheepishly. “I know. But—how did Crystal explain it?—it sort of made sense before, when she explained it—it’s about the vulnerability, the… fear.” They looked up from their hand and locked eyes with her, gazing directly into with an intensity that Jasmine found unnerving. “Feeling constrained by things out of your control. Restricted in what you can do. Being at somebody else’s mercy, voiceless and completely dependent on them to let you out. Agreeing to something and then the fear that comes when you realize you don’t want it to happen anymore but you don’t know how to make it stop.”
Jasmine flushed and looked away, suddenly annoyed by her own discomfort. For a moment there, she’d felt afraid, as though Cindy was some kind of threat to her own safety. “You always had the option to stop this whenever you wanted.”
“With my hands tied behind my back, and gagged?” Cindy shook their head, slowly. “Listen, I know this is all illusion. And you and your team were good—really fantastic—and got me through this.” Cindy eyes unfocussed. “But there was a moment there, when you cinched me in really tight, and I thought I couldn’t breathe, and had that fucking thing between my lips, and I couldn’t move, couldn’t talk, couldn’t… and….
They sighed. “I felt… afraid. Like I haven’t felt in a very, very long time.”
What are you, like twenty? Jasmine wondered but remained silent. While it wasn’t uncommon for clients to work through some kind of epiphany during or following a session, it rarely happened with her—she rarely got to sit with her subject in this way. And watching Cindy process—something—it seemed suddenly very clear to her that she was sitting, talking and working with a man, with someone who identified as male despite their physical appearance. Something in the way he spoke, the cadence of voice and expression, convinced her that this was a man—a very feminine man—and somehow that made everything all the more exciting and troublesome for her.
She reached out and took his hand in between hers. “Listen, I don’t usually say this but… maybe you should stop. Maybe try again later.”
“No,” he said. “There won’t be a later.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“I’m running out of time,” he said. “And—I want to finish this. Damn her for being right, but Crystal knew what she was signing me up for. It’s a fucking weird form of therapy but I’m working through stuff I buried years ago.”
Jasmine smiled, unsuccessfully hiding her pleasure at the idea of strapping this strange man into his next costume. “If you say so.”
He noticed the smile and groaned. “It’s another corset, right?”
“This one’s gorgeous,” she said, eyes sparkling wickedly. “And even tighter.” Her smile grew. “But we’ll save that one for the end. We’re doing the lingerie shoot next.”
He unconsciously drew the gown a little tighter around his lithe frame. “Wonderful.”
“It’ll be fun,” she said. “Besides, you get to keep most of this stuff.”
“Great.”
“Anyone special to wear it for?”
The sudden blush blossoming across the pretty man’s face betrayed the truth. “Yeah, maybe.” He bit at his bottom lip. “I’ve, ah… been seeing this guy for the past week. Wanted to do something special for him tonight.” The blush deepened. “He works here as a physiotherapist.”
“You don’t mean Chad, do you?” She couldn’t suppress the joy from her voice. “Oh my God. That’s… that’s wonderful!”
“You know him?”
“Tell you what, Cindy.” Jasmine grinned. “If you’re a good girl for me for the rest of the shoot, I’ll let you in on a thing or two about Chad.” She tapped a finger on her client’s nose. “And if you’re really good, maybe we’ll sneak in an extra little shoot—something quick, something special—a little gift for your boyfriend….”
Scene Eleven: “Formed by Tragedy and Loss”
“He is strong,” Katherine said.
“Yes, he is.” Crystal glanced up from her uncomfortable study of the table. “He’s remained remarkably secure in his masculine identity despite the trials of the past few months.”
“To what do you attribute this—stubbornness? Willpower?”
“Maybe.” Crystal considered for a moment. “But there’s more to it than that. On the one hand, there is the influence of this woman, this Julia.” She looked askance at Katherine. “Did you make that happen?”
Katherine gave a thin-lipped smile. “Not everything is by my doing, Ms Dawn. The arrival of this woman from Mr Saunders’ past, I am reluctant to admit, appears to have been entirely coincidental. Though I find her intriguing, from the data my team has collected on her.” Her smile grew by the slightest of degrees. “An ordinary woman driven to revenge by the thoughtless cruelties of a man. Yes. Her part in pushing Mr Saunders deeper into his role appears to have been fortuitous.”
“Maybe.” Crystal voice was doubtful. “Yes, she’s had an influence on her ex-boyfriend. And yes, in her desire to humiliate David, she’s pushed him further into femininity, and faster, than he may have done on his own. Reinforced by the accelerated learning of Jonathon’s process, I concede her involvement’s been… helpful.”
“But.”
“But.” Facing Katherine, Crystal sat back in her chair, arms crossed. “Her own… desires? And unresolved issues with their shared past? And apparent need for David also serves to reinforce his masculine identity. Even as she’s dressing him in the most feminine of clothes or subjecting him to new feminine experiences—such as dating that boy from his office—her very need for him ultimately feeds his male ego.
“He spoke with some enthusiasm of their physical relationship. To be blunt: every time he fucks this woman, it brings him back to himself. And not just for the physical pleasure it brings him but for the pleasure he brings her. Sex is one of the foundations of who he is—not just masturbation—but the give and take between man and woman.”
Crystal hesitated. “Had he remained alone, I believe that ultimately the loneliness and his own pleasure principle would have driven him in the role of Cindy into the arms of another man. He would have necessarily relied on his Cindy identity to enable this and in doing so, this feminine aspect of himself may have become ascendant.
“But so long as he’s having sex with this woman, David remains dominant.”
Katherine thought for a moment. “A pity,” she said. “Her role in this has proven… useful. But we may have to arrange for her removal.”
Crystal winced. “Do you have to make that sound so sinister?”
“A new opportunity. A change of jobs or promotion. Nothing more.”
“Or you could, you know…,” Jonathon cut in, “just get rid of his cock.”
“No,” both Katherine and Crystal replied.
“Why not?” He scratched at his beard. “Listen, right now, his body actively wants a vagina, okay? We’ve had to actively intervene to keep his manhood from withering away. He’s no longer at a point where the process will do it on its own, but he’d recover from any surgery we do a hell of a lot faster than if we wait another couple of months. A day’s surgery and we’d be sending him back within the week with a brand new pussy.”
“Jon!” Crystal turned on him. “That’s enough.”
He grinned. “Hey, he goes back to his girlfriend and they have a little strap-on fun and he learns to be a good girl, right? Seems a win-win to me.”
“Don’t be crude,” she said. “This isn’t funny; this is a man’s life. His identity. Yes, he needs to accept his Cindy identity to survive; but it’s the promise of returning to his male self that keeps him going. Take that possibility away from him, and….”
“Yes?”
“For all our talk of his willpower, his stubbornness and desire to survive, there’s also increasing evidence of strain. Not just the mood swings or lashing out. Those were expected.”
“Then what are you concerned about?” Katherine asked.
Crystal hesitated, though only for a moment. “You’ve also been monitoring our sessions?”
“Of course.”
“To be clear, it’s entirely possible that David has been lying to us. As much as Jon wants it to be true, his recent… submission might be an act, even if that act ultimately subverts his own rebelliousness. But there remains something about him—what he says, or how he says it—that just doesn’t sit right.” She pinched at the bridge of her nose in concentration. “It’s difficult to explain. Beyond the bargaining, at times it feels as though he’s… not so much lying as telling me what he thinks I want to hear, filtering his experiences through the lens of my own hopes and expectations.” She looked at Katherine. “Do you know what I mean?”
The other woman gave a slow nod.
“It’s difficult to assess how much of his—anger, frustration, sadness—anything he’s shared is genuine. I can’t quite pinpoint it, but at times it feels as though there’s a… an emptiness underlying so much of what he says, a hollowness at the core of him he seeks to fill through a remarkable empathy that takes on the other person’s expectancies and experiences. And so, his story about following Dan up to his apartment….”
Jonathon reached beneath the table. His glass was empty, and he pulled up another bottle. “I listened to the recording,” he said. “Steamy stuff.” Working the screw into the cork, he grinned lasciviously. “You think he made it up?”
“No,” Crystal said. “At least—not all of it. We know he followed Dan up to his apartment. We know what time he caught a taxi home. But the details of what actually happened—without interrogating the young man, there’s just no way to confirm. And some of the details, they just don’t didn’t feel right. The lipstick in the bathroom. The lap dance. Falling to his knees.”
“What, you think nothing happened? Or he actually blew the boy and lied about it?”
Crystal pulled a face. “No. That part I think was true. I think he genuinely tried and couldn’t do it.”
“Then why doubt the rest?”
“I don’t know, okay?” Her jaw clenched and she counted to five, biting down on a further retort. How to explain that those little details—extraneous touches unnecessary to his story—somehow resonated with her? They were details she appreciated and found disconcertingly exciting. David’s retelling of the night with Dan was remarkably detailed and precise—more narrative than recalled experience—and filled with little touches that resonated uncomfortably with her own predilections.
“I don’t know. But often. something feels off when I speak with him.”
She closed her eyes, briefly, considering. She turned her attention back to Katherine. “Tell me about this Jeff—this agent of Steele’s that he says has been following him since the start.”
Now it was Katherine’s turn to hesitate. With one finger tapping the table, she held back from responding for some time. She took a sip of wine—her first—and returned the glass to the table in precisely the same spot as before.
“I’ve uncovered no evidence of this man,” she said. “No trace of ‘Jeff’. There was no one in the restaurant footage. Only Cindy sitting alone at the bar until her date arrived. There was no one outside the other man’s apartment building that night either.”
Jonathon looked at her. He frowned, even as Crystal nodded.
“Does he exist?” she asked.
“No,” she answered.
“So this… Jeff, this agent of Steele’s; he’s not real?” Jonathon asked.
“It seems unlikely,” Katherine answered. “It is possible that this ‘Jeff’ was able to access the footage from the restaurant and eliminate any trace of his presence. The same with the civic security camera outside the apartment. But he would have had to act swiftly before my people accessed and made their copy of these files. Furthermore, they found no traces of manipulation.
“All possible, of course—but the far more likely explanation is that this man does not exist.”
“So he was lying, then?” Jonathon asked.
“No,” Crystal answered. “I think David genuinely believes this man is pursuing him.”
“But—”
“Consider when he appeared,” Crystal said. “Just as Cindy was about to leave the restaurant, escaping an unwanted romantic encounter. Instead, this hostile presence forced him to remain. Then, when Cindy attempted to leave at the end of the night and thus avoid following her date up to the apartment – an act with only one possible outcome, in David’s mind—this Jeff suddenly appeared again and forced her into that man’s embrace.
“It seems to me that David is projecting this… boogeyman as an incentive to force himself into acts that he can’t consciously commit to; a facilitator for femininity his male ego won’t allow. Jeff manifests an external agency enabling David to submit to the Cindy role he despises but must embrace to survive.”
Jonathon blinked. “So he’s nuts?”
Wincing, Crystal shook her head. “Please, Jon,” she said. “We don’t use that kind of language. And no, he’s not. But equally, he’s not well.” She returned her glass to the table, wine untasted. She stood and stepped away from the table.
“So what’re you saying, then? That deep down inside he actually wanted to fuck that guy?”
“No.” She gritted her teeth. “What he wanted was to survive. But we’ve taught him—trained him, even—to act as though his survival is contingent on successfully passing as Cindy. And Cindy—as I’ve told you—in his mind, seems to be this jumble of his own misogynistic expectations of a pretty young woman, and the characteristics we’ve forced on him. You,” and she pointed a finger at Katherine, “expect Cindy to be soft, compliant and dependant—an inversion of David’s own strength, stubbornness and self-sufficiency.
“Then in his own mind, a woman like Cindy has to be superficial and shallow, sexual and flirty, defining herself through her relationship with men. And you,” and here she pointed at Jon, “have engineered a balance of chemicals and hormones that work to bring out the most stereotypical of behaviours. And all this feeds into his own practice at playing Cindy, reinforcing those behaviours at an unconscious level.” She picked up her glass of wine again and swirled it. “And then there’s the influence of the real Cindy, the ghost of the girl whose life he’s taken on—and she was a bundle of insecurities, too, obsessed with her own appearance and others’ perceptions of her.”
She sounded sad as she finished. “David could’ve been—something else, I think; but this is what we’ve created.” With that, she took a long drink from her wine, half finishing the glass in one go. “That is good,” she admitted ruefully, and sighed.
“No, it’s excellent,” Jonathon said. “And so is what we’re doing here.”
“No,” she said. “It’s not. What we’re doing to him is unethical,” she added. “It’s wrong. I joined this project because you—” and she raised her glass in a mock cheer at Jonathon, who responded with an exaggerated ‘who, me?’ expression—“invited me onboard. You thought I might have some special insight.”
“You’re a woman who spent most of her life pretending to be a man,” he said. “And he’s a man pretending to be a woman. Seemed obvious. More to the point, you’re good at what you do.”
She turned to Katherine. “And you convinced me that this was the best way to keep him alive. You made a compelling argument for helping this man accept this fabricated personality—”
“Cindy wasn’t fabricated,” Katherine interrupted. “She was a real person.”
“And she died because the Clinic failed her.”
“And her death provided a lifeline to this man—”
“A lifeline?” she snapped. “A line leading to what sort of life? Even if he willingly accepts to live as a woman—without needing to summon up violent boogeyman—is this the type of woman he’d choose to be?”
“Nobody gets to choose who they are.”
“I did,” Crystal said, glancing aside at Jonathon.
He smiled, lips stained with wine.
“Then you are fooling yourself,” Katherine answered. “We are who we are due to circumstance. Of life and chance and adaptation. Formed by tragedy and loss. But so very rarely choice.”
Crystal held the gaze of the woman at the far end of the table for as long as she could before flinching and looking away. “What happened to you, Katherine?”
The woman opposite merely returned an enigmatic smile over the rim of her glass of wine.
The table went silent. Katherine waited patiently at her end of the table. Jonathon smacked his lips and tapped a message out on his phone. Crystal stared into her glass again, lost in thought.
“Hey, you look good tonight,” he suddenly said in a low voice, interrupting her musing.
She started and smiled, feeling an unusually happy little flutter within. “Thanks for noticing.”
“Not your usual—”
“I know.” She plucked at the low neckline of her dress, still not entirely comfortable with how much it revealed. “I think Cindy’s rubbing off on me a bit.”
With a wolfish grin, he made a show of looking her over. “I like it.”
“Pervert.”
“Nothing perverted about appreciating a fine pair of—” he started but cut off as his phone dinged. “One sec.”
With him frowning at his phone, Crystal turned back to Katherine. “You convinced me, six months ago, that this approach was the best chance of keeping this man alive. And so I helped. I spoke with him; I developed a conditioning regime to help ease him into the protective personality of Cindy, something aligned with both the girl she’d been and what this man might accept. I worked with the information I had on both David and the Clinic’s files on the girl. And now….”
She sighed. “Why are we still doing this?”
“Actually, I’d quite like to know that as well,” Jonathon interjected, sliding his phone back into his pocket. “I don’t really give a shit, either way. But I’d keep him here if it was up to me. He’s an extremely valuable asset for the Clinic.”
“Locked up downstairs?”
“Under our protection,” he answered.
Katherine leaned forward, and her smile had disappeared. “Because he isn’t safe,” she said. “Here, or anywhere, as a man, as anyone that can be traced back to David. Because even now, Steele searches for him.
“I vowed to keep David alive. And he will live, no matter what.”
“Even if he doesn’t want to?” Jonathon asked. “He might’ve moved on from the death wish of earlier this week, but I’m sure he’d still jump at the chance to be male again.”
“Can he?” Katherine asked.
His fingers stilled in his pockets. “Yes,” he stated with a confidence he didn’t quite feel. “Conventional surgery could restore a masculine appearance to him, albeit he’d be a scrawny specimen. Mastectomy, some cosmetic work to the face, take away the hair—he’d pass. Maybe. Although the behavioural changes aren’t likely to just disappear, either. He’ll still move like a girl, act like a girl until he’d unlearned those new behaviours. It takes time for conditioned behaviours to go extinct, and the latent regenerative process might undermine it further, reestablishing neural links he’s trying to decay.”
He scratched at his beard. “What I’m saying is, he wouldn’t just look like a short, scrawny man—he’d come off as totally effeminate. In theory.” He looked at Katherine, and then Crystal, and shrugged.
“Also, the process has slowed, not stopped. He’d recover quickly from any surgeries, probably, but in doing so his body might begin to lean back into the Cindy template. Hair would grow quickly. Nails as well. He might develop breasts again. The skeletal and muscular changes would remain, possibly even progress further if his physical recovery kicked the regeneration back into high gear.
“Now of course, we could compensate a lot of this through traditional methods, hormones and so on. As I said earlier, we already are to some extent, to keep his cock from shrinking, per your insistence. Just in case it wasn’t clear before, it would’ve been a lot easier to send him out with female genitalia four months ago. His body wants a vagina.”
“And the initial shock would’ve broken him. He might never have recovered,” Crystal said.
“What about putting him back in the Tank?” Katherine asked.
Jonathon’s finger twitched. “It could restore him. In theory. Obviously, we’ve worked hard at minimising the feminising effect of the process. And in theory, we should be able to engineer smaller-scale changes; targeted healing or growth, or tweaks to an existing template that don’t require full immersion in the Tank.”
“In theory?”
“In theory.” In theory, they might compensate for the automatic feminising; in practice, they might bolster it. Experiments run on Fosters suggested the latter. Akslepios was far more advanced with the process than he’d let on with David that afternoon down by the Tank. They were capable of subtle manipulations—Cindy being a fine example of refined adjustments—and learning more every day. But private experiments on Fosters aside, very little research had been completed on the effects of the process on those who’d already undergone it.
Besides, with finite and diminishing quantities of the Juice available, and with little success at synthesising more, Jonathon was reluctant to use it unnecessarily; and he saw no real or immediate need for returning David to his male life.
“I wasn’t lying,” Jonathon continued, “when I told him there was a real risk to going back into the Tank.”
“Fine,” Crystal cut in. “So… what about a far simpler disguise? Breast binders, cut the hair, baggy clothes. Set up a life for him somewhere boring, in the middle of nowhere. He could lie low until he’s clear of… of whatever you’ve filled him with, Jon, and then get whatever surgeries he needs at that point. He’d jump at the idea of—”
“No.” Katherine’s voice was firm, simmering with restrained anger. “We will not waste the effort of the past six months. We will not put him at greater risk. Cindy remains.”
“But why?” Crystal asked. “Yes, we’ve put all this work in, and so has he. But this isn’t some sunken cost fallacy. It worked! He’s alive. And even if he’s ready to carry on as Cindy for another six months—and it’s a big if—surely there’s no need? By this point, Steele must have given up.”
Katherine stared at her. She did not blink, but her eyes narrowed, and Crystal felt a thrill of fear pass through her, goosebumps rising across her forearms as this woman studied her; and Katherine sneered, the slightest curving of the lips and baring of the teeth.
“You do not know what you are talking about,” Katherine said. Her seat creaked as she leaned closer. From the far end of the table she fixed them both with her gaze. “You do not know our enemy, not as I do. You do not understand what he is capable of doing.”
“Yes, maybe, but—”
“He has not given up. He will not give up. He can not give up. Jeremiah Steele is no more capable of ignoring David’s insult than he is capable of forgiveness. The man is driven by a purity of vision—a clarity of purpose—in all he does, but especially in his desire for revenge. David must be found; he must be punished; and David must know at that point that it was Steele that brought him low. To suggest Steele is no longer a threat is to speak from a position of extreme ignorance.”
Jonathon glared at her, scowling with anger. “Mind your tone, Kat.”
She turned and gazed at him and after several long moments he flushed and looked away. “We stay the course,” she continued. “Mr Saunder leaves here as Cindy. He resumes her life until it I have determined it is safe for him to abandon it. And in the meantime, it is in all our interests if he submits even more fully to the female identity we have constructed for him.”
“Our interests?” Crystal asked. “Or yours?”
She turned her steely gaze to the therapist. Crystal cooly returned the other woman’s glare. After several long, uncomfortable moments, during which Jonathon resolutely returned to his glass of wine, Katherine relented. She smiled, and to Crystal it suddenly felt as though she’d passed some kind of test.
“Jonathon is very lucky to have your friendship and loyalty,” she said. She reached into her briefcase and retrieved her tablet. “A moment, if you will.” It only took her another minute as she booted up her device, linked to the screen on the wall, and retrieved a file. She sent it over to the screen.
“Please watch.”
Scene Twelve: “You Saw Nothing”
In frame, two men.
The first, a face intimately familiar to the world having graced countless “Man of the Year” magazine covers, labelled ‘saviour’, ‘genius’, ‘disruptor’, ‘the most powerful man alive’—a strong-jawed, sculpted face, aquiline nose and deep-set, penetrating eyes burning under a famously bald head. He stood tall with utter disregard over the body at his feet, blood pooling across the bare concrete floor. Steele stood shirtless, dark-skinned and broad-chested. His suit trousers were grey and tailored, shoes shiny and black, and at his wrist a heavy watch. With his attention focused off-screen, he seemed oblivious to the arrival of the other man.
That other man was David Saunders. It was difficult to reconcile the man on the screen with Cindy Bellamy. To those watching the sight was a visceral shock, a reminder of how much he had changed. Short, especially juxtaposed with Steele, but compact and wiry, whip-like and ruggedly handsome despite his disheveled appearance. Dark hair tousled and his clothes were stained with grease and grime, shirt haphazardly untucked and trousers torn, but he carried himself with an arrogance that matched that of the man opposite.
“Hey,” David barked. The audio quality was good, as befitted the next-gen mobile that captured the video. The phone had clearly been propped up somewhere to catch the action.
If Steele was surprised by the shout, he concealed it well. He turned slowly and assessed the man opposite. “I know you,” he said, voice deep and smooth as twilight. “David, is it?” He considered for a second. “Yes. David Saunders.”
Hearing his name on Steele’s tongue, more than anything, seemed to surprise David. He scowled. “Yeah,” he said. “We met once.”
“The event at the Delhi office.” Steele nodded once. “Your name’s passed my desk a few times. Rapid riser. Someone to watch for. Potential.” He cocked his head to one side. “Perhaps I should have watched more closely.”
“No shit.” David stepped a little closer. “What’s going on, Jeremiah?” He nodded towards the body at Steele’s feet. Even at a distance, the gruesome details were visible, the blown-out skull and gore mingled with blood.
For the first time, Steele seemed to acknowledge the corpse at his feet. He stared at it for a long moment and when he looked up, something akin to—sadness?—briefly washed across his face. He slowly dropped into a crouch, resting one hand on the body, and he grimaced, brilliant white teeth bared in a rictus grin of rage. But when he looked back up at David, the previous aloofness returned.
“An accident,” he said.
“Some fucking accident.”
“What do you want?” Jeremiah Steele asked.
“You know, that’s a really good question,” David said, stalking closer. His steps were light and swift, cat-like as he closed the distance. “A really fucking good question. What are you offering?”
Jeremiah seemed to consider that for moment, and the first hint of a smile curved his lips. “Nothing,” he said. “The best you can hope for is nothing, Mr Saunders.”
“Yeah.” David sighed. “That’s about what I expected.”
Jeremiah watched with obvious curiosity the approach of the other man. “Why are you here, David?”
“I was fucking your P.A.” David grinned. “Dipped my wick in the corporate vat, so to speak.” He was close now to Jeremiah, almost within touching distance as he looked down at the crouching man. “She’s a real firecracker that one, isn’t she Steele? God, what a bitch.” He said it with pleasure, appreciatively. The camera’s software automatically zoomed in to keep the two in frame. David’s gaze burned with fevered intensity to counter the barely restrained rage simmering behind Steele’s eyes. “Came up for a little fresh air. Heard a noise. Saw—”
Steele’s impassive demeanour wavered. “What did you see?”
“I saw….” David’s grin grew. “I saw what I saw, Jeremiah.”
“You saw nothing,” Jeremiah hissed. For the first time fear brought a tremor to his voice.
There was a sudden sound off screen—unclear, perhaps of something falling over. Maybe a startled cry. Jeremiah twitched towards the noise.
“I saw everything, Steele!”
With a snarl, Steele refocused his attention on the shorter man. “Nothing!” he roared, and suddenly there was a gun in his hand, a compact, nasty-looking thing he yanked out from beneath the body. His arm swung towards David. A shot rang out. David leapt out of frame.
“Mr Saunders!” Jeremiah shouted.
From somewhere off screen, a voice taunted, “You’re a sick fuck, you know that?”
Steele spun towards the voice. Another shot rang out.
Then silence. Jeremiah stood as though frozen and the long silence was broken only by the whistling of wind and from somewhere off screen, the flap of plastic sheeting. Eventually, Steele stirred. He took in a deep, calming breath. Stared down at the corpse at his feet. And then he howled, with the full rage of a powerful man used to getting his way in everything suddenly finding his desires thwarted: “You’re a dead man, Saunders!”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” David whispered, suddenly close to the camera. The video skewed wildly, taking in a wash of walls and ceilings, as a hand closed around the phone, and then ended.
Scene Thirteen: “There is No David Saunders”
“Mr Saunders witnessed Jeremiah Steele murder the son of a powerful and influential rival. From that moment on, Mr Steele has been—how shall we say?—distracted.”
“Is that what we saw?” Jonathon snorted. “Because I didn’t see a murder.”
“He’s on camera standing over a body and he’s got a gun!” Crystal protested.
“Didn’t see him shoot.” He shrugged. “And he only had the gun after he felt threatened by David. Frankly, I imagine his lawyers had a field day with this.”
“Jonathon is correct.” Katherine nodded. “On its own, this footage would be a mere inconvenience to Mr Steele, especially once his team began to obfuscate reality through accusations of deepfake manipulation and industrial slander.”
“So why does he care so much about David? Clearly, he’s used to getting his way. But there wasn’t enough there to draw his ire; not to the extent you’re suggesting.” Crystal pursed her lips in thought. “There’s more, isn’t there?”
“Yes.” Katherine nodded. “David also recorded the shooting itself.” She grimaced. “You do not want to see it. Jeremiah was exceptionally violent in his killing of the other man.”
Crystal considered this. “But there’s more, isn’t there?”
Katherine stared at her for a moment and her lips curved into a slight smile. “Yes.”
“Something we haven’t seen?”
“Yes.”
“What is it?”
“I do not know. Mr Saunders indicated that there is another video he took, prior to the killing. He has yet to share this. He insists that it remains secure, uploaded and stored somewhere safe. Mr Saunders referenced it in the courtroom, in ambiguous terms; but Steele seemed to take his words seriously. Whatever it is that David witnessed beyond the murder so enraged Mr Steele that he resorted to open assassination in an effort to eliminate him.”
“And you have no idea what it is?”
“None.” Katherine tapped at her tablet, rewinding the video to a still frame of Steele, face caught in a contortion of rage. “And of course, even without vague threats Mr Saunders’s testimony in court four months ago has proven very troublesome for him.”
Before answering, Crystal wracked her mind for any memory of the trial. “Has it? Because I haven’t heard of anything.”
“It hit NeoPharm where it hurts most,” Jonathon muttered. “Their stock value.”
“And Asklepios picked up some very lucrative contracts, as I remember.” Katherine smile fell very short of her eyes. “Internal comms suggested shareholders and investors were somewhat spooked by the idea their largest shareholder and CEO might also be a murderer. Though I suspect they were more concerned with the unwanted judiciary attention.”
“What attention?” Crystal said. “Like I said, it felt like it barely registered, barely got the media attention it deserved.”
“Indeed.” Her eyes betrayed an anger her otherwise impassive voice did not. “It seems there was a concerted push to suppress reporting on the proceedings. Originating from—well, from any number of vested interests, I suspect.”
“Why’d he do it?” Jonathon interrupted. Bleary eyed, he eyed Katherine with suspicion. “You’re not telling us the whole story. Why’d David confront Steele like that?” He pointed at the screen. “There was a noise, off screen. Steele was distracted before David showed up. What was it?”
“A friend,” Katherine said, and sighed. “Everything that has happened to Mr Saunders since that moment is because he was trying to protect a friend. David and a work colleague, a Mr Thomas Turner, were engaged in a… friendly competition, that evening.”
Crystal raised an eyebrow. “What kind of competition?”
“To see who could reach Steele’s secretary first. A sexual competition.”
Jonathon chuckled. Crystal shook her head. “These are men in their thirties, right?”
“When I first saw this footage,” Katherine continued, “I thought Mr Saunders was lucky. Very lucky, indeed, to avoid getting shot at that range. Even more lucky to escape the building alive. Now, of course, when I watch it is clear that he anticipated the shot. He knew the gun was beneath the corpse. He was ready for Mr Steele’s attack.” She shook her head in displeasure. “I should have noticed immediately.”
“What happened to her?” Jonathan asked.
Katherine raised an eyebrow. “Who?”
“The secretary.”
Katherine frowned. “She was… promoted. To the position of Steele’s direct personal assistant. Relocated to his immediate entourage.” With clear frustration in her voice, she added, “She hasn’t been seen since.”
Crystal felt a chill run through her.
“The security manager working that evening also suffered an unfortunate heart attack a few days after the incident. Unsurprisingly, it consequently took days to recover the security footage from that evening. The footage revealed nothing of value.”
“So it was for nothing, then?” Crystal shook her head in disbelief. “David sacrificed—his life, his manhood—for… nothing?”
And for the first time, Katherine smiled seemed genuine, eyes lighting up with glee accompanied by a thin-lipped, nearly imperceptible curving of the lips. “Hardly,” she said. “His sacrifice has made a difference. His friend, this Mr Thomas Turner, is alive. And in the weeks both preceding David’s day in court and in the months since, my agency has been… well, if not inundated, then at least at the receiving end of a noticeable increase in reports on Steele’s more nefarious activities. Most of these are anonymous, and some of them are clearly crackpot, but collectively enough of them form a growing pile of evidence with which to attack Steele’s operations. Formal media channels may have been suppressed, but the word nevertheless got out of David’s willingness to stand up and be heard.”
“That’s wonderful,” Crystal said. “But probably cold comfort for David. I think he would’ve hoped for something more tangible, more significant.”
“More tangible?” Katherine’s went silent and for a moment Crystal wondered if something was wrong until she realised the other woman’s shoulders were shaking with silent laughter.
“More tangible than this, Ms Dawn?” She swept her arms wide, taking in the table and its occupants. Jonathon, until now glowering sullenly at the table, started as though startled awake. “Consider the extraordinary efforts of all of us in this endeavour. The financial cost of all this. Your remarkable innovations, Jonathon.” The doctor raised in glass in recognition of his own brilliance. “Your sterling work in supporting Mr Saunders in his role, Ms Dawn. And I assure you my team have met the challenge with equal determination. And for what? To keep one man—”
Jonathon coughed into his wine.
“To keep one witness alive in the face of unsurmountable odds. Steele’s inability to enforce his vendetta reveals his weakness; it is an open invitation for others to exploit this weakness. Mr Saunder’s betrayal—for he sees it as a betrayal, I believe—remains a thorn under the skin, an outrage requiring rectification. David insulted him—to his face—and mocked him in the presence of others; and such flagrant disrespect demands retribution.
“Yet he lives! Six months since Mr Saunders first witnessed this murder, he lives—as a direct consequence of his own remarkable efforts, and our own. Yet these efforts have been matched—surpassed, even!—by Mr Steele’s obsessive hunt for his target. You have only the slightest inkling of the opportunity cost our client’s mere existent exerts upon his enemy, to say nothing of the financial cost. To be blunt: in remaining alive, and by drawing Steele’s attention, David is doing a good thing—a wonderful thing.”
“Yeah, a real hero,” Jonathon said.
“Jesus, Jon, what’s with you tonight?”
“Nothing,” he answered. “But let’s not overdo it here. He’s hardly the second coming of Christ or something. Hell, if anything I’d say he’s probably quite a bad man.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No,” Katherine interjected. “But we have good reason to suspect Jonathon is correct.”
Jonathon turned to face her. She, too, had yet to touch her drink, and was examining its crimson depths with a frown. “Got something?”
She nodded. “The first report arrived this morning. There is more due, but what we have already makes for fascinating reading.”
“And….?”
With a grimace she turned to Crystal and said, “There is no David Saunders.”
Crystal blinked. “What do you mean?”
“The identity of Mr Saunders is a fabrication. A lie. The algorithm sifted through nearly two decades of data and found the expected patterns, correlations; every indication of an ordinary man leading an ordinary life.” She paused to consider. “A few abnormalities over the past few years worth pursuing. They’ll require feet on the ground, visit to locations he’s visited; but nothing egregious.
“But before those years? Nothing.”
Jonathon raised an eyebrow. “No records?”
“A birth certificate. High school and university graduation records. A driver’s license. A few low resolution scans of physical documents. But beyond that: virtually nothing. No location stamps, no consumer history, no online existence whatsoever. A digital ghost with only the minimum presence required to summon up a liveable identity.”
Jonathon fingers twitched and tapped the table. “So… what does that mean? Someone wiped his childhood record clean for some reason?”
“Possibly,” Katherine answered, “though unlikely. Digital records are notoriously difficult to eliminate so thoroughly. It seems more probable that the man we know as David Saunders previously went by a different name, was a different person for the first twenty or so years of his life. And then, for reasons unknown, he abandoned that identity and began life anew as Mr Saunders. The forgery is skilled, but I suspect the technological limitations of the previous decade limited its digital reach.”
Katherine smiled, turning to Crystal. “In many ways, Cindy Bellamy was—is—a more real person than David. She has a verifiable history, a lived history. Mr Saunders? A dance of light and shadows on the cavern wall.”
Crystal nodded. Katherine’s explanation aligned with suspicions of her own. “So who was he?”
Katherine shook her head. “I do not know.”
“A psychopath,” Jonathon said. “If you ask me. You should’ve seen him. He didn’t flinch. Fosters was howling, swearing, threatening rape, smashing against the wall and David just stood there. Watching.” He took a deep drink of wine, paused, and took another. “Not normal.”
“Police? A soldier, maybe?” Crystal asked.
“Possibly,” Katherine said. “Though he would’ve been young. He has demonstrated some familiarity with weapons. And he recognized the tattoo on the man in the diner.”
“Blackwater Phoenix,” Crystal said. “I’d never heard of it.”
“No reason you should have,” Katherine said. “Five years ago. It was a miliary operation out east, in the Crimean Dominion. Mercenary unit contracted through so many layers of secrecy no one ever really determined who hired them. They raided an R&D site—maybe Chinese, maybe Russian, Indian or American—it was never clear. May even have been corporate independent.”
“I heard it was a manufacturing site,” Jonathan interjected. “Neopharm-type stuff, viral engineering and bio-horrors.”
“Like you keep downstairs?” Crystal snapped.
Jonathon glared back. “I’m not going over this with you again. Fosters gave up the rights owed any individual when he decided to raid my lab and hurt my staff. He was a war criminal before he stepped through our doors, and frankly, he deserves whatever we do to him, and more.”
Crystal’s face flushed red, but she kept silent.
“The few survivors,” Katherine continued, “of Blackwater Phoenix have either been unable or unwilling to clarify what happened there. When hints of this crept onto the internet, you can imagine the field day conspiracy theorists had with it.
“Ultimately, though, the attention died down. Part of that seems to have been active suppression. But the survivors’ own stories never aligned; they themselves never seemed to understand what they were doing there. Most were deeply traumatised. The only general consensus that emerged was that whatever went down there, they averted some kind of major catastrophe.”
She shrugged. “No major government has ever claimed responsibility for the incident, and we may never know. But it seems we all owe a great debt to those who returned, and to those who did not. Like Mal.” She gestured towards Jonathon. “Is he still recovering in the infirmary?”
The doctor nodded. “A screaming nightmare the first few days, but he’s doing better now that he’s cleaned up a bit. Major substance abuser. A few days here has done him a world of good.”
“David’s recognition of the tattoo may be an avenue worth exploring.”
“He couldn’t have been part of it, surely?” Crystal asked. “Five years ago, you said. He was working at Neopharm then.”
“Also, no tattoos,” Jonathon interrupted. “Not when we put him in the Tank.” He hiccupped and felt increasingly irritated by the conversation. They were there to celebrate his—their—success, and he was determined to get drunk, disgustingly so. With some luck he’d end up in bed with someone and he didn’t particularly care with who. “Several old injuries, though. Some hadn’t healed well. He probably lived in constant mild pain before the procedure.”
Katherine raised an eyebrow. “You never mentioned.”
“You never asked,” he said, mimicking her voice, “and I don’t report to you. After we stabilised him, we ran a full set of scans, confirmed his suitability for the process. With Fosters in the Tank and David stabilised, we had a bit of time and wanted to get it right. And afterwards it wasn’t relevant. Those old injuries are gone,” he said proudly. “Totally healed.”
“He jests at scars that never felt a wound,” Crystal said softly.
“Whatever.” Jonathon scowled at her. “Jesus, give it a rest, Carl. We’ve done good work here. You,” and here he waved his glass at Katherine, wine sloshing over the edge of his glass onto the table, “managed to keep the bastard alive against all the odds.” He pointed at Crystal. “You’ve got him ready to accept being Cindy for another six months.” And raising his glass in a flamboyant cheer to himself, he finished, “and I’ve just gone and unlocked the secrets if immortality!” He dropped down in his chair and grinned at the others. “Frankly, I think I’ve outdone you both.”
Crystal stared at Jonathon for a long moment, and the sighed. Asshole, she thought. She liked the man, maybe loved him, in a way, and had even entertained some romantic interest in him, once upon a time. She owed him much, a debt she knew she could never repay.
But damn, he made it hard sometimes. He’d been getting steadily worse over the past year as well. It went beyond the constant deadnaming, the crass comments and belittling tone—she’d come to accept that from him in a way she wouldn’t from anyone else. But since the divorce, the arrogance and rudeness had gotten worse; so had the drinking. The high-stakes gamble with Katherine, the stress of developing the Tank. The strain of monitoring David and keeping so many secrets. And finally the guilt—a guilt she chose to believe they shared—over what they were doing to David and to the patient downstairs.
It also didn’t help that he wasn’t wrong. She found her role in all this distasteful and had serious morale qualms about what they were doing to… David, or whoever he really was. Cindy, then. She wanted to believed Katherine’s insistence that this was the best way to ensure the man’s survival, and if it meant helping him accept this new identity—a replacement for a previous identity that now seemed about as real as a mist of breath on a mirror—then so be it.
“And so,” Katherine resumed, turning to both her companions. “Are we agreed, then? As to what we are telling David tomorrow.”
“Six more months,” Jonathon said.
Crystal frowned. “Why six? Why not three—surely that’s enough? Another six months will mean he’s lived as Cindy for nearly a full year.”
“Yes,” Katherine said. “And? If required, he will remain as Cindy for another year beyond that, and another, and another. The disguise remains until it is safe to discard it.”
Crystal sighed. “But there might not be anything of David left by that point to recover! You insist all this is necessary for saving this man’s life—but what if there’s nothing left of the man at the end of all this?”
Katherine looked at her levelly. “Do you think this is likely?”
Crystal considered for a moment and answered: “I don’t know.” She weighed everything she knew about her patient, his stubbornness and will, and matched it up against their efforts: the biological and psychological changes, the drugs and hormones, conditioning and subtle influences; and simply couldn’t decide. Certainly, the experiences would have a profound and long-lasting impact on the man; but would it destroy him? Katherine’s earlier revelation suggested something traumatic had happened in this man’s past, sufficient to force him to recreate himself in the persona of David Saunders.
Who had he been, before? What happened to him? Without this, she felt as though she were operating in the dark.
“Cindy isn’t real,” Crystal said. “She is a construct, a disguise built on a foundation of Mr Saunder’s own personality. In many ways her characteristics are an inversion of his own; he may simply revert to his ‘authentic’ self once the need for her is gone. Though that ignores the very real difficulties he’ll face: unlearning behavioural habits that will only grow stronger over time, recovering from the physical changes; even the ordinary and mundane challenges of starting all over in a new life.”
Her fingers danced across the table as she spoke, sketching out her thoughts as she spoke. A line down the middle: male and female symbols on either side, the proud shield-and-spear bearer, the vain mirror-holder.
“That’s the best-case scenario. In six months from now you extract him from Cindy’s life and he resumes a male identity, relearning how to ‘be a man’ and eventually moving on from the experiences of the past year. Perhaps he’ll be a kinder man, a gentler man.” Her finger drifted to the male sign, tracing out jagged, angry lines. “Just as likely, his anger and resentment pushes him even further into misogyny and violence.”
Shifting to the female side, she drew out a question mark. “More likely, I think, what will emerge is a synthesis of his David self and his Cindy self. It’s impossible to say what this might be: a very effeminate heterosexual man? A life-long crossdresser? Possibly a gentler and more empathic individual, but also one whose confidence and resolve has been eroded by doubts and anxiety.”
“Worst case?” Katherine asked.
“Suicidal depression? Insanity? Possibly the collapse of his self, a complete giving way to the shell we’ve created for him: the identity-death of David Saunders. Or whoever he really is.”
Her finger finished a crude sketch of Cindy bisected by the line, a stick-woman figure with long hair, triangle body and straight-lined mouth. “I suppose in this scenario, insisting on a return to masculinity would be even worse. Forcing the… female personality that survives his collapse to resume a masculine identity would be torture.”
Katherine considered this in silence for some time. “I believe you give him too little credit, Ms Dawn,” she said. “David is strong; he will endure; and he will survive Steele’s vengeance.”
“It just seems… cruel.” Jonathon, sitting quickly and staring at the table, looked up and met their eyes. He slurred his words as he spoke. “I don’t particularly like the guy, but I can say that when I spoke to him, he clearly thought we’d brought him out here to restore his manhood. He’s hoping to leave here a man. Or at least, to leave here and go somewhere he can live as one. Even after everything I’ve shown him, he’s thinking the regenerative process is winding down. That Steele’s lost interest. That you, Katherine, are going to uphold your part of the deal and let him be a man again. He really expects this. And when we tell him he’s stuck as Cindy for another six months….”
Jonathon drained his glass and belched. “He’s not going to be happy.”
Scene Fourteen: “One of the Good Ones”
Chad said goodnight to his colleagues, paid his part of the bill, and left, grinning sheepishly at their knowing winks and laughing comments as he crossed the pub floor to meet her at the bar.
She looked especially good tonight—very feminine, a real change from the past few nights. Short, pleated white skirt and collared shirt, with a sweater vest, soft pink and figure-hugging. Her legs sparkled in patterned ivory stockings, and she wore lace-up platform heels that were far taller than her usual footwear. Her makeup was similarly pink and sparkly without being overly loud, and her hair was up in a high ponytail, and the blonde tumble now had streaks of purple and pink. The girl gave off major co-ed vibes as she gave him a cute one-handed wave.
The problem, he thought as he joined her, is that I think I’ve fallen for her.
It was a real problem. He deliberately made a point of not keeping a tally of the number of women—and the occasional man—who’d crossed his path during his time at Asklepios: the many nights, like this one, in the pub filled with meaningful chats, drinks both cheerful and sombre, and often, the caresses late into the evening, the final dawns, the last kiss, cuddle or fuck. Often, they went on to resume their ordinary lives beyond the Clinic. But too many of them never did.
Somehow, Cindy was different. They’d met nearly every night since that first at Eros: a few times at a restaurant in the nearby village, but usually here, in the comfort of the wood-panelled snug beneath the portrait of a glowering Churchill, chomping down on his ubiquitous cigar. Not even two weeks, but he’d found himself thinking about her constantly.
They hadn’t even kissed, hadn’t really gotten beyond holding hands. He’d had his hand on her thigh, once, and felt the smoothness of her skin beneath his touch. He’d jerked off more than once thinking of her: moist lips, hot skin, her scent, the promise of full, heavy breasts, the curve of her ass and the tickle of hair, all flaring through his mind before climax.
Spending time with her had often felt like a disorienting ride, a whirlwind of expectations and tone. She’s start flirty, then turn brooding and resentful. Or she’d be all saccharine girly sweetness and shift, abruptly, to crass rudeness, foul language and graphically sexual. She often seemed wiser and wearier than her twenty years. Her mood was all over the place—angry, resentful, sad, joyous, sympathetic, funny and relieved—and yet she never felt… crazy, for want of a better word, but rather as though she was responding to thoughts and surging emotions she barely comprehended and which she had only just started to share with him. He never quite knew where he sat with her and… he found it exhilarating in a way that completely took him by surprise.
Yet her appearance rarely gave any indication to her mood. One night she’d shown up in grey track pants and a baggy sweatshirt that swallowed up her curves, and she’d been all over him, smouldering eyes and flirty, licking her lips and flicking her hair and touching him throughout the night. Another night: the shortest of skirts and tightest of tube tops, with heels taller than her skirt, and she’d spent half the night glaring at him with a fuck-you expression dripping with resentment; only to turn sweet and grateful near the end of the night, hugging him and thanking him for the evening.
And… he loved it.
What he loved most of all, maybe, was the way she’d gradually opened up (as they so often did), moving from the almost-sullen quiet of their first encounter to the lively, convivial chats of recent nights. Early on they’d swapped numbers and starting messaging throughout the day. She’d sent him photos, sometimes getting his opinion on what she was going to wear to the pub that night. She never took his advice.
And day by day, Chad found himself increasingly looking to the evenings, and their time together.
Cindy sighed, a contented sound, as she slid into their booth—their booth. Her lips sparkled as she smiled and she played with a twirl of hair that framed her face, twisting it around her finger. “Fancy meeting you here,” she said.
He raised his pint in salute, and noted hers when she raised it in return. “Going soft?”
“Giving the liver a rest tonight.” She glared at her orange juice, and then formed the cutest little pout. “Doctor’s orders. Sorry.”
Chad grappled for something clever, something light and breezy but came up empty. His usual confidence escaped him. Instead, he grimaced and said nothing.
“Hey, you okay?”
Nodding, he took a deep pull at his beer and then steeling himself, asked, “operation tomorrow, eh?”
“God, I hope so,” she said, and for a moment she became distant, staring into the distance. One of her hands drifted to her side and slowly tracked across curves and clothing. Her lips grew to a slow smile, and he felt her pleasure as a punch to the gut. “I really do.”
“So, I guess this is it, then,” he said. “Final drinks.”
His words brought her back to the table. “Final drinks,” she said, nodding.
“I’m going to miss you,” he blurted out. The words caught him by surprise, and he looked away, flushing with embarrassment. God, what’s wrong with me, he asked himself. A gentle touch on his cheek brought him back around. Cindy was now sitting next to him. He could feel her thigh up against his.
“I’m going to miss you too,” she said. She stared into him, emerald eyes wide and deep and beautiful, and there was something sad and angry there, too. “This week, it’s been difficult. But you—”
“Cindy,” he started, before she silenced him with a kiss.
It took him by surprise, her lips crushing against his, the taste of her lip gloss—cherry—and her perfume, the scent of pale flowers on a hot summer’s day. Her tongue slid into his mouth, danced against his. Instinct brought his hands to her waist—so tiny—and the feeling of lingerie beneath her clothing, boning and fabric; his arm coiled around her waist by instinct and pulled her closer.
He held her close for a long moment. She felt small in his arms. He breathed in the scent of her hair and her breasts pushed into his side, and she trembled slightly in his embrace.
Her hands cradled his face. “I’m sorry, Chad,” she said, pulling away. “I never meant to—”
“You didn’t—”
“It’s not—”
He put his finger to her lips, took a deep breath, and forced a smile. “Let’s start over,” he said.
Staring cross-eyed at his finger on her lips, Cindy smiled. She gave the tip of his finger a quick kiss, grinned, and scooted back opposite him. Sitting there, in the warm half-light of the pub in her white and pink clothes, hair gleaming like burnished gold over her shoulder, eyes and lips and nails shimmering—it suddenly occurred to Chad that he’d never been so immediately and powerfully attracted to a girl. His desire was physical, yes, to judge by the uncomfortable swelling in his pants; but there was something deeper that he struggled to understand.
“You go first,” she said.
Nodding, he scrambled for something to say, still thinking of her scent, her taste, the feeling of her body beneath his touch; his erection hidden beneath the table was very distracting. “Was that a… corset?”
She blushed. “It is.” Her hand fluttered at her side. “It was—my therapist’s idea.”
“To wear a corset?” He gave a lopsided grin. “Jesus, your therapy sessions are way different than mine.”
“Like you wouldn’t believe.” She considered for a moment, then added, “So—umm. Did you know the Clinic has a photography suite?”
He’d used them for a passport photo, once, and dated one of the photographers for a bit; Jasmine: short, quirky and with a fondness for erotic photography he’d initially found fun. She’d taken great pleasure in posing him, dressing him up, taking photos—he still had a few of them.
“Well, my therapist signed me up for a, uh, how to put this—‘fantasy photography session’? To umm, act out certain ideas, externalize some fears—to embrace them, I guess.” Cindy’s face grew steadily redder as she spoke, blushing beneath her makeup, and she couldn’t quite meet his eyes.
He’d heard of this service, of course; it was a popular one. The image at the end was only a small part of the package. After all, for most clients it’d be a lot easier and cheaper to just hire a digital expert exploiting AI photo generation to create an image of them in just about any situation imaginable, in any style.
Rather, it was the experience: of being the bride or groom at a wedding that might never happen; or posing powerfully at the head of the boardroom table as the corporate head, or alternately, sitting demurely to one side, the submissive secretary, and learning from that as well. He’d even taken part in one several months past, an extra in the background—a strange one, all swords and sandals, heroic speeches and buxom princesses.
“It was an interesting afternoon,” she said.
“You’re afraid of corsets?”
She rolled her eyes. “You ever wear one?”
“Yeah, every other weekend.” He laughed. “Of course not. It’s not exactly something men wear, eh?”
“Yeah,” she said.
“Sexy as hell, though,” he added. “What’s it like?”
“What, wearing a corset?”
He nodded.
“Feeling curious?”
He shrugged. “Sure. It’s not something I’m likely to try outside of Halloween, right?”
“Maybe if you play your cards right tonight,” she purred, “I’ll let you slip into mine.”
“Is it tight?”
“Very.”
“Easy to get into?”
“If you do it right.”
He coughed. “We’re still talking about the corset, right?”
She laughed and gave him a little punch in the arm. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m not being very nice tonight, am I? I’m just—nervous, I guess, about tomorrow.”
Chad forced a smile.
“But to answer your question: yes, it’s tight. But not as tight as it could be—like earlier in the day—but the ladies at the studio didn’t overdo it with the lacing before packing me in this outfit and sending me out tonight.” She plucked at the sweater vest in contemplation. “And no, it’s not uncomfortable—well, a lot less than I’d expected, at least when it’s like this. It’s like….” She paused, wrinkling her nose and twirling a bang of hair around her finger. Her fingernails flashed ivory, and Chad felt a hollowness in his belly. “It’s like a firm hug, a constant caress, but one you can’t really get out of. It’s always there. Sitting here, I’m more… here, I guess, feeling this thing wrapped around me. It reminds me to move in certain ways, avoid bending too much.”
Arms akimbo, holding her hands at her waist, she spread her fingers wide, as though trying to touch thumb-to-thumb, index-to-index around her narrowed waist. “And then there’s the little tug from the stockings when I stand, or the feeling of breathlessness when I get a little too excited, climb some stairs or move a bit too quickly. It’s fine so long as I don’t engage in any strenuous activity.” She grinned and fluttered one hand as though to cool herself. “Oh my.”
“That doesn’t sound too bad, actually.”
She smiled and hugged herself. “It feels a bit like I’m wearing a layer of hidden armour, you know, protection against the world.”
Chad laughed. “You’ve never worn armour, have you?”
“You have?”
“Absolutely!” He banged himself on the chest in a display of masculine vigour.
“What? Kevlar body armour? Makrolon face shied?”
“Chainmail hauberk.” He scratched as his chin, remembering a beard he’d long ago shaved off. “Heavy.”
“Bullshit.”
“’tis true,” he said, taking her hand in his, bowing his head. “Milady.” He kissed the back of her hand softly, and when he looked up he was surprised the effect his kiss had on her: she was blushing, lips half-parted with a sigh. “They were filming up at the ski lodge, some kind of period piece, and….”
As he launched into the story, he felt back on comfortable ground, recapturing the special place they’d occupied this past week. The chat and banter, the sharing of stories and the gradual growing confidence, on her part, to also share until it was no longer just him talking most of the time. He was going to miss this. He was going to miss her.
“Was this before or after the thing with the heiress, her butler and the diamond dildo?” Cindy asked.
“The diamond was just the piss-hole,” he said. “The dildo was gold-plated.” He thought a moment. “Before.”
“I see.” She hid a small smile behind her fingers. Her eyes were happy, and for some reason that made him happy, too. “So… what was your point?”
“I had a point?”
She made a strangling sound in the back of her throat. “You’re an idiot, aren’t you?”
“Probably.” He gazed into his pint. “But clever enough to know you’re changing the subject.”
“Am I?”
Her hand was still in his, had been ever since he’d reached across the table to gift her his gallant kiss. She hadn’t pulled back, and her slender fingers and ivory nails were achingly pretty, hinting at purity and innocence, the skin pale and soft, something he felt was delicate and worth protecting, like a silk flower or a terrible secret. Clasping her hand between his, he leaned closer.
“What’re you nervous about tomorrow for?”
“Because….” And here she hesitated, eyes dancing to him and away again, and she stared at the floor as she answered in a quiet voice. “Just because,” she said.
Chad watched her and suppressed the urge to move to her side and hold her. “Did it work?”
“Did what work?”
“The photoshoot. Did you… learn, anything? Face your fears?”
At that, she looked back at him and slowly smiled again. “You know what? Yeah—maybe I did.” She thought for a moment. “I thought she was fucking nuts when she suggested it, but—it wasn’t half bad. Totally professional and really… reassuring? Like, they never made me feel weird or anything.
“Thing is, I’ve always had a thing about control. You know, as though I need to be in control, and there’ve been times in my life where everything’s fallen apart and feels totally shit and the only thing I’ve got remaining that I can have any influence over is—myself. And so long as I can control… well, me, then maybe things aren’t so bad, they haven’t hit rock bottom.
“And I think this left me with a real fear of letting others take charge. Of giving up agency and letting others do things—for me but also to me. And lately—well, I haven’t exactly been, you know, in charge of my own life, and it’s been… hard.
“But today, giving myself over to these people, letting them dress me and pose me, telling me what to do and just going along with the flow, it was… liberating, in a way? Maybe even fun.” She tapped a finger against her pinks lips and smiled. “Sometimes.”
Chad listened and nodded, and her words resonated with the few glimpses into a life she’d shared only reluctantly throughout the week. He didn’t know how much of it was true. He suspected she was a consummate and skilled liar. But he also accepted that she’d likely never share what had really happened in her past—probably couldn’t, even if she trusted him enough—but how he wished he could be there for her when the truth finally emerged.
“If it taught me one thing, it was that I didn’t always have to be in charge, and that something good, exciting even, can come out letting someone else take over. Submitting, letting someone else be dominant.” She nibbled on her lower lip in thought. “Maybe? Because in a weird way, at the same time, I was always in charge; like, I could stop the whole thing anytime I wanted. And there was something fun about being totally in control even when I was, like, totally….” She trailed off and blushed a deep crimson.
“You were totally…?” It was fascinating watching her work through these ideas. Her words rang hollow, as though reciting the lesson she knew she ought to have learned rather than genuine feeling. Behind the blush and embarrassment, he picked up a current of anger and possibly, fear.
“Tied up,” she whispered, eyes sliding away and then back, glaring at him as though daring him to comment.
He raised an eyebrow but stayed quiet.
Reassured, Cindy continued. Her fingers danced from earring to hair, fingertip to corset-induced curves. “And all this was part of it, too. The clothes and hair and makeup, and the posing, it all really pushed me out of my comfort zone.” She gave a dry laugh. “Like, really really far out of my comfort zone. A few times I nearly freaked out, which, by the way, is so much worse when you’re stuck in a corset. But they were so easy-going, so relaxed that they always got me through the moment, and—”
She smiled wickedly. “Wanna see?”
“Yes,” Chad answered. “Yes, I do.”
She slid her phone over to him. He picked it up, aware of her eyes on him. He looked at the first photo, and the next, onto the third one and back again. Shifting uncomfortably in his seat, he hid his response behind a long pull of his pint glass, emptying it and willing his erection to die down again.
“Pretty sexy, huh?” she said.
“Is that….” He coughed. “Was that the Sin-DI photoshoot in -Lumen-?”
“And more.” Cindy grinned. “It was running pretty late by the time they finished the final photos. They cleaned me up, then got me ready for tonight as a little bonus. Told me to just keep the corset on.” Her eyes shimmered with wicked humour as she watched him. “It’s all bridal lingerie under here,” she said, slapping her flank.
He swiped back and forth between the three photos: pre-date Cindy, posing with Champagne flute, pigtails and sparkling smile; Cindy posed in a wedding dress, an ivory hourglass; and post-nuptial Cindy, resplendent in ivory lingerie and heels, on her back in black-and-white photography.
“You’re killing me here,” he said.
She grinned.
He swiped though a few more photos, variations on the originals but from different angles or with stylistic edits. “So—where’s the other one?”
The colour that’d begun to fade from her face returned, brighter than before, up to the tip of her ears. She snatched her phone back. “None of your business, mister.”
He laughed. “I was joking,” he said, but then watching her squirm in her seat, his jaw dropped. “No way. You—”
She looked away.
“Corset, harness, leash…,” he ticked each item off.
“Stop.”
“Cuffs, binders….”
“Please.”
“Bridle and bit?”
Cindy groaned and buried her face in her hands.
“Wow.”
She peaked between her fingers. “You must think I’m some kind of colossal slut or something.”
He cocked an eyebrow and, genuinely curious, asked, “why?”
“Because it’s… kinky and weird and perverted?”
“Hey, I’m firmly in the ‘sexually liberated’ camp on this one. Yeah, it’s exploitative and kinky as hell, and I certainly couldn’t imagine doing something like that. But I reckon it takes some serious balls to do that kind of thing.”
“Exactly!”
“You wanted to prove you’ve got the balls?”
“Sort of,” she said. “Yeah, I guess I kinda did.”
“So can I see the photo?”
“Not on your fucking life.” Then she grinned. “But if you play your cards right tonight, I might just have a special gift for you.”
She disappeared to the toilet after that, and he went to the bar to order another beer and an orange juice. It was getting busy, and the counter was crowded as he waited. A girl next to him tried to catch his eye—pretty and tall, friendly and wearing a nice dress; he’d seen her around before.
But he wasn’t interested. Returning to the booth he saw that Cindy was already back, sitting with a little clutch purse open on the table. She was touching up her makeup, and he watched as she meticulously painted her lips and fixed her mascara, swept a brush across her cheeks. Chad watched and waited, unwilling to interrupt the moment.
Only after she cleared away did he rejoin her in the booth. To his surprise, she slid in next to him in the close space of the snug. Instinct once again brought his arm around her shoulders and then she lay her head against him, and Chad realised he couldn’t do this for much longer. There was a rumbling in his chest and he never wanted her to move and he wanted—more; something he could never have.
Cindy appeared preoccupied, comfortable in his embrace but staring at her Asklepios armlet. She kept tapping at it, lost in thought as he took a silent drink. He waited and eventually she shifted in his arms. Facing him, she looked sad and for a moment it felt as though his heart stopped.
“Chad,” she said. “I just wanted to say—”
“Hey, hey—you don’t—”
“Shut the fuck up,” she interrupted, giving him a punch to the arm. “Let the lady speak.”
“Ouch.” He rubbed at his arm. “You’re no lady.”
She gave a dry laugh. “True. But seriously. Chad.” She curled her legs beneath her bum in the narrow space of the snug and sat back on her haunches, heels jutting to one side. Cindy raised herself to his height. The pleated skirt rode up her thigh and he glimpsed snowy stocking tops, garter tabs and a flash of pale skin.
Then she reached up and held his face between her hands, long fingers tracing the line of his jaw, passing gently over stubble and threading into his hair. She held him and kissed him again, deeply, pressing up against him so that he could feel the corsetry beneath her clothes and the soft crush of her tits against his chest. His hands drifting down her side, over and then under her skirt as he gripped the firm spheres of her ass. He felt her grow tense, and then relax and draw even closer and shudder beneath him, kissing him ever more furiously, almost desperately.
And then—suddenly—“Thank you,” she said, softly, a hot whisper in his ear.
He gazed at her in wonder and before he could speak, she lay a finger over his lips. “You’re one of the good ones, aren’t you?” she said.
“You’re a good man, Chad.” Cindy gazed at him in what felt like admiration. The tiniest of smiles tugged at the corner of her lips. “When I needed you to talk, you talked. When I needed you to listen, you listened. And when I just needed some quiet but couldn’t bear to be alone—you were there. You never pushed too hard, or took advantage, even though—” and here her hand brushed against the all too obvious erection tenting his trousers—“I know you want me.”
Cindy’s finger left his lips to tenderly draw across his cheek, and he leaned into the palm of her hand. “It’s been a tough two weeks, Chad, and… I really don’t know what’s going to happen next. Everything might change tomorrow. Either way, in a day or two, Cindy will be gone.”
He closed his eyes and focused on the touch of her skin against his. He closed his eyes and focused on the sound of her voice.
“Whatever happens, I just wanted to say… thank you, Chad.”
Her touch disappeared. He opened her eyes. She’d shuffled back to her side of the booth. She was watching him, chewing with what seemed like indecision on her bottom lip. One hand rested on her armlet, where she kept tapping the hard plastic with her fingernail.
“So is this goodbye?” Taking a deep breath, and feeling empty inside, he asked, “Is that what you want?”
Cindy stared at him and seemed to come to a decision. That hint of a smile grew to a full smile—by way of something darker, a scowl of frustration or self-loathing she couldn’t quite conceal quickly enough.
“No,” Cindy said. She reached across the table and held his hand. “I’m tired of drinking orange juice and I’m tired of wearing this goddamn corset. I want you to come back to my place, Chad. I want you to undress me, slowly; I want you to peel me out of these clothes.
“And then I want to give you a proper thank you, because you deserve it and because you’d never ever ask for it. I want to suck your cock, Chad and give you the best fucking blowjob of your life.” Her grip tightened painfully around his hand and she fixed him with her gaze in a way that he found intensely arousing. “That’s what I want.
“So, what do you say, Chad? You coming back to mine?”
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I am.”
Scene Fifteen: Bio-engineered Venus on a Half-shell
Katherine left.
With her gone, Jon seemed to deflate and sink into his seat. He was far gone into his wine by this point, sullen and quiet. Leaving him to find his own way home would be best, but in good conscience Crystal knew she couldn’t do that. Instead, she knelt next to the man to whom she owed so much.
“Come on, Jon,” she said. “Let’s get you to bed.”
Bleary eyes fixated on her. The wine had brought out an angry flush in his cheeks and nose, ugly splotches visible under his patchy beard. He hadn’t shaved in days. She hadn’t noticed, preoccupied as she’d been with David. And Cindy. Jon had never been one to care about his appearance, but she hadn’t seen him like this since the divorce.
He grunted and lurched to his feet, still holding an open bottle of DeGrave ‘33. Crystal helped him along, out into the corridor, quiet and dark at this time of night, soft lights rising and falling with their passage. “Fucking Thelma,” he muttered, and “nice…” he slurred, his eyes fixed on her stocking-clad legs. Fortunately, it wasn’t far to his office—the sofa there had served as his bed many times before and would once again.
“Here we go,” she said. “Sleep it off.”
“Fucking mediocrity,” he slurred. “Bitch.”
“Go on,” she said, taking the bottle and holding his wrist to the access panel. The door clicked and unlocked, swinging open silently.
“Melody,” he said.
Crystal sighed. “She’s been in touch?”
“Getting remarried,” he said. “To—” he hiccupped, “Tyrone, that idiot, that pedestrian piece of shit.” A shudder passed through him. “I miss her, Crystal, so much.”
“Oh Jon,” she said. “I’m sorry, I really am.” Impulsively, she leaned down and kissed him, once and lightly, on the cheek.
He looked at her, then, fixating on his wrist, where she still held him, and then up her arm, gaze crawling from shoulder to neckline and the exposed curve of her heavy breasts, the line of her neck, upsweep of hair and finally resting on her lips. Jonathon tried for a charming grin that drunkenness made creepy and lecherous.
“You’re beautiful, you know that?”
She hated that his words brought a little flutter to her stomach.
“You want to come in, Crystal?” he asked, his hand falling heavily on her waist. “Like the other time?”
Crystal smiled, sadly, and shook her head. “That was once. And long ago.” Stepping back, she freed herself of his grip, but reached up and brushed the back of her hand against his cheek. “Sleep it off, Jon.”
She left him with the bottle. Crystal turned and walked away and left him alone.
He stood at the threshold to his office. He picked up the bottle and took a swig. He knew he should head into the room and collapse onto the sofa. Sleep it off, as his friend said. But he knew he wouldn't. He shuddered to think of the incoming hangover, then flushed with indignation. It wasn’t fair. Cindy—David—whatever; they didn’t suffer from hangovers—possibly—another unexpected benefit of the process—the process flushing the brain clean whilst they slept off the effects of booze.
Sleep….
Jonathon stumbled into his office, leaving the door open behind him. He fell into his office chair and woke his computer. Drunken jabs at the keyboard brought up the live feed on his client. The tracker on David’s wrist had him back on Asklepios grounds—back in his accommodations—a quick check confirmed another presence in the room: Chad Jenkins.
Fucking Canadian bastard, Jonathon thought. Jenkins was a bicycle half the Clinic had ridden, and what was he? An idiot, a barely-educated ski instructor; and everybody loved him. Cindy certainly seemed to. And I bet her lips, those full, plump lips, shiny and pink are wrapped around his cock right now. Lips I engineered! He imagined her head bobbing up and down between that idiot’s legs, the long hair falling across his lap, the full, pert breasts—those curves he created—felt the swelling in his pants and thought, mine, all that ought to be mine.
Jonathon lurched back into the corridor, still carrying the half-full bottle of wine. The elevator welcomed him, dinging as it pulled him down into the sub-levels beneath the Clinic. When he entered the chamber, the lights came on at half-strength, the monitoring AI familiar with his habits. He pulled a chair over and collapsed into it.
“Hello, Doctor,” Fosters purred. “I was expecting you.”
Jonathon grunted. He stared at his prisoner. Fosters was at his—no, her—most beautiful, now; only yesterday they’d removed her from the cage and carved away the excess flesh, incinerating the grotesque mass of rampant growth, half-formed limbs and tumorous eruptions. The scars and cuts had already healed over; by tomorrow, the first new growths would begin; but tonight—tonight only—she was….
“Thank you,” she said, voice low and sultry. Turning slowly, she slid her hands down her flanks, slowly tracing the exaggerated curves of femininity as she reached down to her calves, bending over with easy suppleness, perfectly formed ass high in the air. “I feel… mmm, good tonight, doctor.”
He knew it was all a product of the extreme androgen intolerance generated by the first trial of the regenerative process; and that the feminising of the subject had been pushed to even further extremes by the ongoing experiments he’d run on Fosters; and that this gorgeous, lithe creature was really a man, despite the exhibition of hyper-femininity. She was a caricature, a doll—his doll—a devil in the guise of an angel.
But as she stood, one delicate hand cupping her groin, one slender arm across her chest, long raven hair tumbling in midnight waves to mid-thigh, full-lipped, wide-eyed, soft and curvy and grinning wickedly, a bio-engineered Venus on a half-shell—he wanted her. Jonathon desired her with painful intensity, with an ache in his chest that made his breath run short.
“Dance,” he groaned.
“Like last time?”
He nodded. She began to sway and turn, hefting her firm, prodigious tits for him, caressing herself, moaning and calling out to him, always careful to keep her penis hidden and out of his view, even as she slid a finger in and out of her pussy. Jonathon took another pull from the bottle and set it aside and unbuckled his trousers and let them fall to his ankles.
With a sound halfway between a sob and grunt, he pulled out his throbbing, erect cock. Jonathon masturbated, watching his creation mince and prance, twirl and fondle herself.
Fosters smiled, watching him. She licked her lips and waited.
Author’s Notes:
If you’ve enjoyed this – please, leave a review! If you didn’t like it – please, leave a review! It’s nice knowing whether people are still reading the story. And if you really like it, and want early access to works in progress, sneak peaks, and to read the rest of the Interlude early, why not pop over to the patreon (https://www.patreon.com/fakeminsk)?
For those following from the very beginning, I’ve made some tweaks as I’ve come back to the story. Cindy’s surname changed to Bellamy (originally ‘Long’) and David’s age moved upwards into the thirties – this gave room for more backstory. The encounter with Steele was never really fleshed out in the first series, so finally gets some overdue attention. Jonathon “Scooter’s” personality has probably changed the most, but hopefully it makes for a more rounded character. Inconsistencies will all get tidied up when I give the whole story a final edit at some future point.
Constant in All Other Things 2
Interlude II
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
Synopsis:
David Sanders’ stay at the Asklepios Clinic comes to an end. Will he return to masculinity, or be forced to resume Cindy’s life—that of a young, female secretary—for another six months?
What has gone before:
David Sanders saw something he shouldn't have: his boss, pharmaceutical magnate Jeremiah Steele, murdered the son of an underworld rival. Placed in witness protection, an assassination attempt forces David into the disguise of Cindy, a younger woman. For months he suffers the ignominy of living a life he despises, his torture both alleviated and acerbated once discovered by Julia, a jilted ex-girlfriend. During a return visit to the Asklepios Clinic, he discovers the secret of his transformation; confronts his handlers; explores his feelings; encounters an enemy; and plays dress-up.
Part Three: Acceptance
Scene Twelve: A Colourful Life Beckoned and Winked
On the final day of David Saunders’ manhood, he awoke in an unusually cheerful mood. He was alone. Chad had left several hours earlier. Wisps of the previous night danced hand-in-hand with exhaustion but like any dawn mist faded with the rising sun.
The morning started like most others. First, he stumbled into the bathroom for a piss. Even after several months, the incongruity of holding his cock with finely manicured fingers as he looked past the swell of breasts brought a frisson of discomfort. Passing through the living room back to the bedroom, he ignored the detritus of last night: stockings like emptied husks lying limp and high from the mirror frame; the ivory corset, rigid and unlaced, a clam shell pried open to expose the pearl within; delicate panties, a scrap of satin and lace, hanging from a doorhandle.
Instead, knowing there wouldn’t be time to hit the Clinic’s gym, David dropped to the floor and began the first set of push-ups. The heat of exertion burned away the ghosts of the evening.
Sometime later, he showered. He shaved legs and pits and washed out his mass of blonde curls—for the last time, he thought. Filled with memories of the previous days and of last night, he jerked off into the swirl of foam and water. Had he known it would be his last time bar once he may have made more of the event but tired as he was, it proved a desultory affair, perfunctory and unsatisfying,
Afterwards, lying on his bed and tucking and taping his testicles and cock back, he marvelled how something so odd, so outside of his normal life experiences only a short six months ago had become so mundane. He slid into a snug pair of panties and secured everything in place. This I won’t miss, he thought; nor this, as he strapped himself into a padded push up bra.
Then he dressed. The resentment, frustration and anxiety had faded with time, but this morning he felt especially troubled by the decision as to what to wear. Excessively girly? Something masculine or reflective of his real age; both? What image did he want to present? Comfortable or alluring? He’d quickly learned that for women, the two were often incompatible.
There was a code to female fashion, a syntax and grammar far more complex than the simple language of men. What was normally learned by instinct and unconsciously grown into by most girls in their youth—the unconscious picking up of nuance, slang and idioms—had been for him months of gruelling study. David knew he was barely literate and worried he too often misspoke—that the clothes he wore and the way he wore them broadcast a message he never intended. At what point did heel height shift from “poised” to “prostitute”? Skirt or dress length seemed to fluctuate between “feminine,” and “flirty” so easily. Not enough skin and he might come off as dowdy, boring or cold; too much and suddenly: slut. No makeup? Lazy. Too much? Frivolous, unserious.
As a man, he’d never worried about the message his grey suit, blue shirt, straight tie and loafers delivered as he strode confidently through the corridors of work.
His hand passed over the hanging clothes. So many colours, textures, from the lacy tickle fringing sleeve and collar to the heavy stiffness of boning and shapewear. Unbidden, memories fluttered to mind with touch. Distaste and anger, at the black mesh top he wore his first day here; unexpected fondness for the slinky blue dress; and the peach sundress, cleaned and ironed but still stained, to his eyes, with blood.
His hand paused over a skirt. Rubbing the fabric between thumb and forefinger, he felt the slight prick of heavy wool, the slickness of the inner lining. How his relationship with clothes—with women’s clothing—had changed! Especially in the past month it seemed, under Julia’s tutelage and Crystal’s urgings.
It occurred to him that this might be the last time: the last time slipping on skimpy underwear, rolling stockings up his legs, stepping into a skirt or pulling a tight shirt over the curve of tits. He knew this was unlikely; he hoped, with an intensity that stole his breath, that it was true.
Would he miss any of this?
A moment’s indecision and he pulled the skirt from the closet. The Clinic had done a remarkable job in filling his closet and drawers. Some had been waiting for him on arrival, and more bought or printed on demand per Crystal’s request. Everything fit impeccably, but then who better knew his body, its very dimensions, its deepest secrets? They’d created it, designed the template and engineered the flesh; written a life story into the skin and poured the essence of David Saunders into the vessel that had once been Cindy Bellamy.
With a self-deprecating snarl, he grabbed a colourful shirt and stepped away from the closet. He thought of last night, and the day to come, and shook his head. Enough with the melodramatics, he decided. Get dressed. Don’t be late.
This past week he’d learned to rely on the smart tech built into mirror and wardrobe to build his outfit for the day: the room knew its contents and made suggestions, projecting the illusion of clothes over his reflected frame in the mirror. Equally, the vanity made playful suggestions for makeup and hair, earrings and accessories. A quick search online or query with a fashion bot produced more combinations and possibilities than he could process. If an item was missing, the Clinic could swiftly create and deliver it. It was something he’s never needed in his male life, and well beyond Cindy’s meagre means, but which proved a godsend this past week.
More often than not, when faced with an overwhelming range of options he’d fall back on his male gaze, choosing an ensemble he thought was sexy, picking the illusionary girl he’d most like to ogle, have on his arm, or fuck—and rue that the girl would be him, and that others would doubtless be thinking the same way when they saw him.
This morning, however, he assembled the outfit on his own. He started with the shirt and built from there. Sheer, patterned pantyhose to present slender, shapely legs; black pleated mini skirt, detailed with shiny gold buttons; the horizontally striped t-shirt with a high neckline, three-quarter sleeves and cut out shoulders. Slim headband to hold back his hair, and knee-high boots—a first for him—heeled of course—though nothing too high, chunky with a bit of platform, a modest boost to his height. Pulling up the zip on the boots and feeling the pliable material caress his calves brought another shiver of pleasurable distress as he grudgingly acknowledged enjoying the sensation.
If there was one thing he’d miss when he abandoned the world of femininity, it might be the shoes; not the pinch or strain or discomfort, but the cultural permission—encouragement, even—to fake his height, to grab a few centimeters at the expense of a little stability. Doing the same as a man was an invitation to scorn.
The thought flashed across his mind unbidden, and he quickly suppressed the thought. You won’t miss this, he insisted. Any of it. But then standing in front of the mirror, he turned this way and that and—somewhat to his chagrin but equally to his pleasure—admired the young woman in reflection.
That woman was him; and he looked great.
Ten minutes to brush out his hair and dry it. He enjoyed the golden cascade over his shoulder, the streaks of purple and pink. Another ten minutes for makeup and accessories. He picked out dangly earrings, a pair of colourful bracelets and slid on a few sparkly rings.
Finally, with stomach rumbling he made his way to the Clinic canteen. The weather had turned with predictable swiftness over the past few days, blistering heat giving way to blustery winds and cold. Oranges and reds danced in the foliage, the trees already succumbing to the inevitability of a brief autumn and bitter winter. The first leaves fluttered and flew across the pebbled path, and David grumbled and questioned his choice of clothing and clutched his skirt as the wind’s fingers pulled and plucked at the hem.
It was with some relief he entered the canteen. God, I’m sick of this, he thought, contemplating the intersection of fashion and weather.
And then he thought, I’m sick of this, too: it was impossible to not notice the appraising glances flashed his way by both staff and other clients. The women he assumed were appraising his style, makeup, judging the way he held his hand at his side or tucked back his hair as he entered the room. The men were rating him, tits and ass, legs and lips, scoring him against some arbitrary scoreboard of their own preferences before returning to their food. A few might stare longer: picturing those glossy, full lips up close, the touch of long nails against their skin, or imagine their hands rudely grabbing the fine ass barely concealed by the short skirt, hauling her close, the press of soft breasts up against Chad’s firm body, and….
Flushing red, he scurried to the counter to collect his breakfast.
Whatever, he told himself. He’d been used to appraising and approving glances as a man. He’d been a good-looking man, after all, very much so and took the gaze of others as a given. But it was different as a woman, somehow; especially a young one.
He sat and began devouring his breakfast: eggs and toast, bacon and sausage and hash browns, a meal that belied the size of the girl eating it.
“This seat taken?”
Stifling a groan, David looked up from his breakfast at the woman standing next to the table.
She was young, though a few years older than Cindy. Not much of a looker: ruddy face and beefy arms, mousy hair cropped short, but bright-eyed and tall. The woman was plump and dressed in baggy clothes that hid any hint of curves but looked appealingly comfortable. Her only concession to femininity appeared a swipe of dark lipstick and a simple gold stud in each ear. David felt suddenly vaguely ridiculous, prim and over-dressed, and resented her for it.
“I’m Ivy,” she said, her voice inflected with the precise intonations of expensive foreign education and a vaguely European accent he couldn’t place, maybe Italian or Spanish. I bet you are, he thought, but feeling a slight warmth in his Asklepios bracelet he sighed and answered “Cindy,” and offered a distant smile.
She sat opposite and made a desultory stab at her food: a small bowl of something that looked almost like porridge, a grey-white protein-rich calorie-reduced sludge decorated with slices of apple. “I know it’s for my own good,” she said, “but I hate what this place feeds me.” Her eyes widened at the sight of David’s breakfast. “Not fair,” she moaned.
Shrugging, he cut into an egg and moped up the yolk with a slice of toast.
“I mean look at you.” Ivy waved a spoon at him. “You look fucking gorgeous,” she said. “How do you keep so slim, eating like that?”
“Good genes?”
Ivy grunted. “Not fair.”
He speared a slice of bacon. “Want it?”
Her eyes betrayed wanton desire. “You evil bitch,” she said. “Do I want it? Yeah, I want it.” She snatched the bacon with plump fingers. “Like I want to get out of this place.” She took a bite and flung the remainder back at his plate, then stuck her fingers in her mouth, sucking at dribbles of grease. “Oh God, that’s good.”
Ivy, it turned out as she explained in some detail, was in line to inherit a family fortune, a ridiculous sum of assets and property and investments—conditional on her returning home a “proper young lady,” she spat. “So they sent me here, because I crashed out of the local fat farms and finishing schools. I was an ‘embarrassment,’ they said. I was bringing ‘shame on the family’ with my ‘vile debauchery,’ they said.” She gave a bark of laughter. “It’s like, the first time they’ll turn a blind eye, but after a half-dozen times with a strap on pegging some little princess in latex and suddenly you’re the antichrist or something, you know what I’m saying?”
“You know we’ve just met, right?” David said. “I don’t know you.”
“This thing says you’re okay,” she answered, tapping her Asklepios bracelet. “Not that I trust the bastards that run this place.”
“Yeah. No kidding.”
“But you seem okay,” Ivy said. “Bet they think you’d be a good influence on me.”
“Me?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Well, yeah… I mean, look at you? You’re my parents’ wet dream: slim and beautiful, prim and perfectly dressed and presented. You’re what this place is trying to make me into.”
He couldn’t help himself. David laughed out loud. “I seriously doubt it.”
They chatted over the rest of their breakfast, and he found himself warming to her. He could sympathise with her story of being made to a live a life not of her choosing; her hatred of femininity coaching, lessons on poise and fashion and behaviour, training her to instinctively present a self she’d never wanted to be. “These kinky lunatics had me in a photoshoot, can you believe it? It was totally insane. Heels and a girdle—yes, a fucking girdle, can you believe it?—and spiral bra and polka-dotted housemaker dress, like something out of a century-old postcard! And then a debutant ball, posing for some bullshit coming-out party in a poufy gown.” She snorted. “As if I need coming out.”
“I can sympathise. Been there, done that.”
“Yeah, right.” She made a show of looking him over. “Prissy little princess like you? You’re already perfect. You are the fantasy. What could you possibly act out?”
And because he resented her calling him prissy, but also liked her brash manner, he showed her the picture from the -Lumen- photoshoot, the one he never showed Chad, the photo of corseted bondage.
Ivy’s eyes widened with a satisfying combination of shock and desire. “Careful princess,” she said, “or I’ll have you face down in your eggs bent over this table for a spanking.”
David put his phone away. “You haven’t even drank your coffee yet.”
“True,” Ivy said. “Caffeine first. Spanking second. Then I’ll put you in your place.”
“My place?”
“Or mine, I’m easy.” Ivy grinned; David could see newly kindled intrigue and respect in her. “You’re full of surprises, aren’t you?”
“You have no idea,” he said drily.
She sat quietly for a moment, idly digging into her breakfast, before asking around a mouthful of protein-rich mush: “so what’re in here for, then?”
To safeguard me from a sociopath. As a science experiment. Therapy for a therapist. A damaged woman’s revenge. Or maybe: I’m here because I want to live, live long enough so that I can revenge myself against the world.
But since David couldn’t speak his truth, he instead shared Cynthia Bellamy’s truth, or at least what he knew of it from her profile, read those many months ago and explored this past week in conversation with Crystal.
“I tried to kill myself,” he said, poking at the last bit of sausage on his plate. “Repeatedly.” And succeeded, David thought with some sadness. And now you’ve got me living the life you didn’t want.
“Jesus.” Ivy put down her spoon. “Why?”
“They called it body dysmorphia brought on by survivor’s guilt. My parents died, like, in a car crash a couple of years ago. It took me quite a bit of therapy to understand this, but they weren’t very good people, my parents. I was never good enough, you see. They loved me. I guess. In their way. Or rather, they loved a version of me that I never quite matched up to, if that makes sense.”
Ivy grimaced. “Yeah. It does.”
“Anyway. They died. Car crash. And I blamed myself, even though I wasn’t there and being there wouldn’t have made a difference. And all the doubts and fears were amplified after that. I obsessed over my appearance. Tried to become the person my parents wanted me to be. Of course, with them dead the ideal became impossible, their approval unattainable.
“We’d been well off before the crash, and all that money came to me. It’s paying for this place. Before, it paid for… well, everything else. I sought validation in other people’s opinion, men and women, and you can imagine how that went. Eventually, though, makeup and clothes weren’t enough. Turned to surgery, little corrections to flaws that didn’t exist that grew to bigger fixes that always left me feeling worse than before.”
Ivy’s hand reached across the table and took his. “Princess,” she said. “You’re beautiful.”
A sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob escaped. “And yet I still hate this body,” he said. “I hate it so much. I hate the way I look and I hate the way I dress and the way I act.”
And he could see from the bemused look on Ivy’s face that she simply couldn’t understand how someone as pretty as Cindy could hate their own flesh so deeply. Reflected in Ivy’s eyes, David glimpsed the existential horror the real Cynthia Bellamy must have felt, every day, hating what she saw in the mirror but unable to look away. It must have been a self-loathing surpassing even his own.
His bracelet suddenly vibrated and flashed the time. “Oh, look at that. I’ve got to go,” he said.
Ivy let go of his hand. “It was nice meeting you, Princess.”
“Yeah.” He took a deep breath. “Same.”
“You ever want to talk,” she said, and slipped him a card. It was a business card: her full name, contact details: Ivy Burgess, and a local address. “You ever want to catch up again, look me up.”
Thinking it unlikely that he would ever meet her again, he left the canteen. Guided by his bracelet, he quickly found his way through unfamiliar corridors to a place he’d never visited at the Clinic, the infirmary.
The infirmary was a bit of an oddity. In a facility designed for the healing and betterment of the ultra-rich or otherwise fortunate, most medical concerns were dealt with through bespoke services, with privacy during both procedures and convalescence. But not everyone at Asklepios was a client. Accidents were inevitable among the massive staff that worked the site, and those needing recovery time ended up here.
It was still one of the nicer medical facilities he’d visited, David noticed as he stepped through a door, with large open windows and subdued colours. Individual beds were given a generous space, and from the smell of it, the food was a significant step above typical hospital fair.
The long hall was mostly empty this morning as he worked his way past several beds, stepping in and out of shafts of watery sunlight. He noted his reflection in a bedside mirror, the gilt gleam of hair, the flash of red lips, and he stood a little straighter, chest out, as he approached his destination.
The man was sitting up in bed, eating breakfast, watching the news on a retractable screen. Watching him from a distance, David saw footage of the escalating conflict overseas. The report finished on an image of a burned-out husk of a tank before fading to a graphic of a viral cell. A graph showed domestic infection levels rising, the scroll along the bottom of the screen indicating government officials were considering the usual short-circuit lockdowns to break the spread. Talking heads he couldn’t hear argued, their expressions serious.
He doesn’t look that bad, David tried to convince himself as he approached, noting the care the Clinic had taken of his injuries, the healing bruises, bandages and casts. But when the man turned at the echoing sound of heels on the hard infirmary floor, the man winced with pain and his face remained bruised beneath a week’s growth of stubble.
With one lip split, and an eye still reddened by burst vessels, he watched the girl’s curiously and without fear. There was an inquisitiveness to his gaze as he fixed on David’s face.
David saw the flicker of recognition. He braced himself for the man’s inevitable anger, accusations or misogynistic slurs. Instead, he was taken aback as the man’s face split into a giant grin revealing stained and broken teeth.
“Well, Jesus!” he exclaimed. “It’s you!”
“Hello Mal.” David offered a little wave.
“Sit down, sit down!” Mal gestured with an awkward sweep of one arm, the other one broken, immobilised and healing in a cast. David stepped closer and felt the man’s gaze sweep back and forth over him, assessing him—but not in the same way as the men in the canteen. There was a keen appraisal in this man’s eyes rather than simple lust.
“Fuck a duck,” the man said and whistled. “Look at you! You’re a pretty little thing, ain’t ya?” He shook his head in disbelief and winced in pain. “And served me my ass three ways from Wednesday.”
David pulled up a chair, smoothed down the miniskirt and sat next to the bed, straight backed and knees pressed together. On the flickering screen, the news report shifted once again: images from far, far away as a ship continued its long journey to Mars. No longer trailing glittering crystals of ice, the brief update on Zhao and her crew summarised recent events: one dead; damage repaired; the potentiality of human endeavour.
He kept a wary distance from the man but offered a tentative smile. “How are you feeling?”
“I’ve felt worse,” he grunted.
“I suppose I should apologise.”
“Don’t.” Mal scowled. “I deserved it.”
“Still….” David waved his hand vaguely at the battered man. “You look awful.”
“Best I’ve felt in years,” Mal answered. “I needed a serious ass kicking. You have no idea how fucked up I was in here.” He bumped his temple with a fist. “What shit I was on. I was in a dark place, a really dark place; you know, the kinda place so dark it blinds ya to the nightmares but funny thing is, you can always see your nightmares, aye, and remember them, no matter how tightly you squeeze your eyes shut.” He winked at her. “I’m betting y’know what I’m talkin’ about, eh, little girl?”
“Me?” David gave a deliberately languid shrug. “I’m just a pretty little thing.”
He laughed, coughed, and grimaced. “Sure.” With a press of a button at his side, he raised his seat slightly and wincing, turned to face him more directly. Again, the assessing eye, sweeping across his frame but with little attention to tits and ass. Rather, Mal seemed to be searching for something.
“Anyway. You don’t go filling that pretty blonde head of yours with guilt for beating up ol’ Mal. I had it coming, and getting my ass knocked into this place’s the best thing could’ve happened to me. What’s her name, that tough-ass bitch boss woman of yours, Ms Smith?”
David blinked. “You mean Agent K—Katherine?”
“Yeah, tha’s her.” Mal smiled. “Whatta gal, right? Anyway, she’s the one got me in here. Dunno why—not like I could’ve afforded’t otherwise. She didn’t explain none, just passed by to say I was here on her expense and so long as I played nice, I could stay. So I’mma playing nice. Meanwhile, they’ve cleaned me up real good here,” he said. “Cleaner than a poop shoot after a green tea enema at a detox spa.”
That’s when David saw it, the hidden gesture, the subtle curve of the finger and twitch of the hand. David gave the expected counter-sign, with his hand held low by his thigh.
Mal gave a slow nod.
“So what’s your name, pretty girl?”
“Cynthia.” David smoothed back his hair, tucked behind one ear a few strands that had escaped the hairband. “Bellamy. But everybody calls me Cindy.”
“Well, Cindy, I owe y’a favour, and Mal don’t like being in debt.”
“I’m sure you’ll find a way to pay me back.”
Mal laughed, so hard he clutched his side and groaned. A machine beeped, the sound somehow anxious. With hurried and heavy steps, a nurse approached, glaring disapprovingly at David as he moved to lower Mal back into a resting position. Crystal may have pulled strings to enable the visit, but David knew he shouldn’t outstay his welcome.
“Sorry,” he said to the nurse.
“You’ve got five minutes,” the nurse answered, brow furrowed with concentration as he checked his patient’s vitals. “He gets tired easily.”
“’Cuz you won’t let me get the fuck outta bed!” Mal shouted.
The nurse fixed him with a steely glare and his patient grumbled and subsided. “Five minutes,” he repeated to David, before retreating.
“Goddamn pissant tyrants!” Mal mumbled under his breath, then gave a little grin and wink. “I jus’ love to wind ‘em up. Best doctors I’ve ever had, and I’ve known a few.”
“I bet you have.” David answered. He knew he shouldn’t and that it was none of his business; and he knew that anything said openly here would be picked up by Katherine and the others; but curiosity and the memories of an old comrade compelled him to ask, in his little girl voice, “after Blackwater?”
Mal eyes darkened and he looked away.
“Sorry,” David said.
“How’s a cute girl like you know about a terrible thing like that?”
“Maybe I’m not as cute as I seem,” David said. “Maybe there’s a lot about me that isn’t as it seems.”
They spoke for a few more minutes. Mal asked about the girl he’d been with at the café—Alia, he said, his ward, a sort of adopted daughter, the child of a friend of his. When David told him he’d hit Alia and thrown her to the ground, his eyes darkened and he withdrew into himself, into a terrible, self-loathing silence that David recognized all too well.
“I’m sorry, Mal.” David said, and for the first time reached out and lay his hand over the other man’s. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”
With surprising speed, the man grabbed David’s hand. He held him in an iron grip. Mal yanked David close, out of his chair. David felt the man’s breath on his face and saw the madness still lurking behind Mal’s eyes.
“You better know what the fuck you’re doing, little girl.” Mal’s voice was a low hiss, and David realised the man’s grip was tight around the armband at his wrist—blocking any audio pickup from the device. “It’s a nasty fucking favour you’re calling in.”
David met his glare levelly and after a moment grazed the man’s cheek with a kiss. “I know,” he said. “And thank you.”.
Mal rubbed at the faint imprint of lipstick left behind, grinned and gave a lewd wink in reply.
Leaving the infirmary, David checked the time and saw he still had a half-hour to go before the meeting. He felt at a loss. What to do? There wasn’t time to hit the gym; he wasn’t hungry enough, yet; and as nice as the staff were, he hoped to never visit the salon—any salon—again unless it was to get these damned acrylic nails removed or long hair hacked down to size.
Walking without direction, he checked his phone. Nothing from Julia over the past few days. Her last message warned him something was up at work. Things were super busy, but she looked forward to his return, needed a good, solid fuck and had some darling outfits she couldn’t wait for him to try on. Nothing from Dan, either: the last message was nearly a week ago, a few cheeky exchanges following the dick and boob pics, sexy promises, dirty late-night vulgarities and some saccharine words, then nothing.
Probably caught up at work with his promotion, David thought.
He could visit Chad, maybe?
The thought brought a tingle to his tummy, a pleasant flush that caught him entirely by surprise. A memory of last night flashed across his mind before he could still it: strong male hands at his waist delineating his corseted form before effortlessly twirling him around, reaching for the laces behind; the near ecstasy of the undergarment being loosened, unclasped, and pried away; then the breath of cool air against his skin as he shimmied out of the light cotton tank top. Standing there nearly naked and smiling shyly up at Chad and taking his hand in his….
Fucking hormones, David thought, suddenly hot. Still flushed with these phantom feelings of femininity, he remembered his promise of a final gift to Chad. He brought up the ‘special’ pictures Jasmine took of him, her little reward during the photoshoot for being a ‘good girl’.
He gazed at them for some time, caught somewhere between queasy and a pleasant, tingly warmth. They were gorgeous shots, and he felt proud of how they’d turned out. They were unabashedly sexy, and he felt sickened that it was him in those poses.
His phone bleeped confirmation, and he realised he’d just passed them on to Chad. Blushing, he thrust his phone back into his handbag.
Further wandering brought him to a little nook, one of many dotted around the Clinic, little oases of calm where clients and staff could retreat, relax and reflect. It was unusual to find them unused, but then David was wandering in unfamiliar locations outside of his usual times. This little alcove contained a semi-circular divan set before an expansive curved window looking out over a little garden, Japanese Zen-style of combed pebbles and perfectly placed features constrained within a narrow bamboo enclosure.
He stood there unmoving for a moment, a short-skirted silhouette against the daylight. The silence of solitude beckoned him, with only the muffled sound of his steps intruding in this secluded retreat. He smoothed down his skirt as he sat, and then grimaced, wondering why he bothered with the performance when he was alone. With legs crossed at the thigh, hands resting in his lap, David stared into the garden.
Minimalist features drew his gaze to the lines in the gravel and he followed the pattern as they curved and swirled around larger stones, a few modest shrubs, the tiny pond. In focusing on the simplicity of the arrangement he found himself suddenly mindful of his isolation. An unexpected ache of loneliness seized him. He quelled an instinct to reach for his phone and contact—someone; anyone.
Instead, he took a deep breath. He felt the constriction of the bra at his chest and the slight movement of air against his bare arms and breathed out slowly and again breathed in and again breathed out and felt a welcome calm settle. In his calm he felt hyperaware of his situation and appearance, the gentle grip of boots at his calves and the slight arch to his feet; the tickle of earrings at his cheek and the weight of long hair; the straps over his shoulder and the weight of breasts; the dull ache of his testicles; caress of pantyhose and the annoyance of a rolled waistband cutting across his belly; even the mostly insubstantial presence of makeup on lips, cheek and eyes.
He felt all this and breathed and felt the anger and frustration and breathed and tried to let it go. And not for the first time but louder and more distinct than before, it seemed as though two voices spoke within him:
This is the last day, one said.
You’re fooling yourself, the other answered.
I don’t need you.
I’m not going anywhere.
I can’t take this any longer.
Yes, said the softer voice. We can.
Opening eyes he hadn’t consciously squeezed shut, David followed the maze-like pattern outside to where they converged at the base of a small pear tree. Its leaves danced in the turbulent winds beyond the window and the riot of oranges and yellows contrasted vividly with the placid restraint of the garden. David watched the tree for a moment, the way some of its branches reached upwards as though to escape the confines of the space created for it.
And it seemed to him that he could see his own life branching out before him in the boughs of the tree outside. The arms of the tree seemed to extend from the faint image he reflected in the curved glass. Each split in the tree led to a different branch that dipped and swayed in the wind, winking in the dappled light, grown fruit hanging heavily.
His eyes traced branches on the far side of the tree, the side that curved back into the garden. Sheltered a little from the autumnal blast they held more colour, more leaves and lent their brilliance back to the communal space. He saw in these branches the continuance of Cindy’s life and even as his mind balked at the possibility, for the first time David directly confronted a female future.
His fingernails dug deeply and painfully into his palms as hands curled into clenched fists. He looked down. Such beautiful fingernails, glossy and shaped and softly pink, a testament to the artistry of the Clinic’s salon and his own developing skills. His breathing became laboured and something churned deep within his belly and he looked up.
From the tip of every branch, like a plump and juicy pear, a colourful life beckoned and winked. One pear was a young girl dancing, sequins and sparking heels in the strobing light, and another was a secretary, pencil skirt and fitted top, sitting attentively by the side of the boardroom, and another was coffee shop chic, and another lounged in the brilliant glare of sun and beach, sunglasses and bikini, and another twirled in platforms and tassels around a pole under lurid lights, and another knelt naked, leashed and in bondage and yet another stood demure in bridal ivory, veiled and beautiful. The next melted into the arms of her lover, and another was a girlfriend, always pretty and attentive and taken care off.
And there were other pears beyond those, swaying in the shadows just out of sight, hints of a life he couldn’t quite make out, but always a life that shimmered and glowed so long as youthful vibrancy endured, dancing and partying in defiance of irrelevancy, work days flirting with male colleagues and nights, endless nights filled with daring outfits and even more daring heels, moist lips and eager curves, pressing up against the hardness of men and the constant games of predator and prey until, finally—it ended, with age, with faded beauty, with the once-sought, once-resented gaze of others turned elsewhere.
Other bare branches struck him as more sombre, lonelier paths of frustration and resentment, seeking to reclaim lost authority in a world reluctant to take her seriously no matter how she hard she worked. In this future what she wore or how cleverly or knowledgeably she spoke seemed irrelevant. Pantsuits and power heels, subdued makeup, impassioned speeches, further studies, ignored opportunities, denied pleasures, focus and intense effort, anger, manicured fingers curled into tight fists pounding endlessly against an unbreakable glass wall in a fruitless effort to regain what had once so effortlessly been his.
The far side of the tree reached upwards and outwards and therefore suffered the full brunt of autumnal winds. Buffeted by the weather, this side bore no fruit and the branches were nearly bare. David imagined his lost male life in the twisting branches. He saw surprisingly little. The few branches grew out of the life he’d known six months ago. Dark suits and crisp shirts, heavy shoes and standing bored at the head of a corporate meeting whilst lines jumped and fell on the screen behind him. He saw the long counter of a bar under dim lights and him standing there, with some shallow little bitch at his side drinking at his expense. He saw a man sitting alone in a heavy chair with a tumbler of single malt whisky, staring out over the cold, uncaring, unblinking lights of the city from the high perch of an expensive condo.
He saw no branches beyond that, no fruit to pick; and could not imagine a life beyond the one from which he’d been torn. His gaze flitted between the two sides of the tree, tracing and retracing potentiality. And with each branch he followed he felt a spark that grew to a flame to an inferno within, a rage that suffused his being until he realised that what he really wanted was none of these things, he wanted to tear the tree down, set it afire and burn the whole fucking garden to ash.
The bracelet at his wrist vibrated.
It was only a short walk to the building where he’d been meeting regularly with Crystal over the past two weeks, and he arrived in good time for his appointment. The door was locked, a subtle red light indicating they weren’t yet ready for him. He took a seat and waited. On the other side of that door, he knew, his three… keepers, he supposed, was the correct word; beyond that threshold, Crystal, Jonathon and K would determine his future.
This was the end of Cindy’s story. He plucked nervously at the woolen outer of the skirt, and his other hand tightened around a nylon-covered knee. What purpose could there be in forcing him to live her life any longer? In the moment and fleetingly, he felt his return to masculinity as a physical reality defined by absence: the weight gone from his chest, feet no longer pinched and poised in an arch, his scalp unburdened, a face free of makeup, his frame no longer constrained by restrictive clothing.
I’m leaving here a man, the voice in his head said.
Wanting it doesn’t make it true, the other voice answered.
He checked his armband. The appointment should have started by now. Nervousness bubbled inside of him—what could be taking so long?—and he rummaged around inside his handbag and pulled out a little sparkly case. Gazing into his mobile, he began to touch up his makeup. The soft sweep of the brush at his cheek, the attentive line of a pencil at his eye, and the smooth touch of lipstick brought with it a reflexive calm. He even smiled at his reflection, at the beauty he saw there and enjoyed the simple pleasure and peace brought by preening —until David suddenly felt outside himself, watching this frivolous little princess primping in public, and was seized by disgust.
You’d miss this, the second voice said. You’d miss me.
Would he? Sitting there, he considered what he’d miss from the past six months. Six months! Since that fateful night at the top of the Neopharm tower, he’d gone from—
From what? the second voice whispered, the girl voice.
Director, David thought. Global brand. Top job. Suit and tie, brogues and a heavy watch at my wrist.
That was never you, the voice said.
From being a man, then, he returned. From bending Jeremiah Steele’s personal assistant over her desk and fucking that bitch senseless from behind, gripping her by the tits and burying myself up to the hilt in her tight, wet cunt.
We enjoyed strong hands on our tits last night, didn’t we? the voice murmured, tinkling with laughter.
From being in control, he said. From being in charge.
From being lonely, the girl in his head returned. From chasing anything in a skirt in the hopes of recapturing something you lost long ago.
No! David squeezed his eyes shut.
You’ve never had it so good. With Julia, the voice said. And with Chad, the voice said.
Chad; again, the little flutter in his stomach, a bubble of happiness at the memory of their meetings over the past ten days. And last night, leading him by the hand to his—to her apartment, walking the lamp-lit pebbled paths of the Clinic under the half-moon, shivering a little in the rising wind and cold air until he pulled her closer. Nestling in the crook of his arm as they passed through the many gardens resplendent in their autumn colours. Pausing, under the swaying branches of sheltering trees, an eruption of yellows and reds and feeling a man’s hands at her waist, at her shoulders, behind her neck and gently pulling her into a—kiss.
The wristband vibrated. David stood. He took a deep breath and tweaked his bra into a more comfortable position, tugged at the hem of his skirt, and smoothed down his front. He slid his handbag over his shoulder.
At his approach, the door opened. David stepped over the threshold.
It was an intimately familiar space to him after his many sessions with Crystal Dawn. Crystal was joined by the other two on the far side of the table: Jonathon Bridges, pale and bleary-eyed, lips downturned in a scowl, hands buried deep in the pockets of a stained lab coat; and Agent K, impassive and stern. There were papers and forms, tablets and glasses of water on the table, neatly placed or stacked in front of the women, a jumbled mess in front of Jonathon.
David scanned Crystal’s face—for a hint, for any indication of what was to come, and found her closed to him; it felt like a betrayal.
“Mr Saunders.” Agent K’s voice gave nothing away. “Please sit.”
He sat, knees together, and waited their judgment. With the memory of a kiss still warm on his lips, David felt off-kilter confronted by the three sitting opposite him. Both women were dressed seriously, professionally, barely-there makeup and serious shoes presenting an appearance in marked contrast to his own.
Under their appraising gaze he felt acutely aware of the shortness of his skirt, the gleam of his lips and the slender fit of his boots, and the way the bra thrust out his tits, high and proud on his chest. Cursing his choice of clothes, he supressed the instinct to fuss, to tug at a hem or twist the rings at his fingers. What did his appearance say to them? What did they read in his clothes—what if they decided he wanted to dress this way, enjoyed it even?
“You look good today.” Did K’s lips curve ever so slightly in a smile?
He didn’t answer.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” Crystal said.
David shrugged.
Agent K looked to each of her partners; Crystal kept her eyes fixed on David, and Jonathon grunted. The doctor was sullen and silent and to David’s experienced eye, he appeared very, very hungover. Were they drinking last night, celebrating?
“Before we begin,” Crystal continued, “Would you mind if I asked you a few questions?”
His anxiety nearly bubbled over into a nervous giggle; nothing new, then. How many times had Crystal started their sessions this way? The familiarity of her voice did nothing to ease his fear. What questions remained to be asked other than the single question that mattered?
“How are you feeling today?”
David waited, and Crystal’s face softened a little, and with a smile she added, “David?”
Releasing a breath he hadn’t realised he’d kept in, he returned a glossy, expansive smile of his own. “Fine, I think,” he said, the same answer he always gave. “A bit tired.”
“Bad dreams again?”
Hardly, the voice in his head trilled with pleasure. He kept them at bay; and David felt the phantom of fleeting kisses across his bare shoulders, along his neck; the strong hand that pulled him close and the memory of lips and tongue, of breath hot against skin. He felt the pleasure of fingers pressing into yielding tits and ass and the small gasps of pleasure that followed; and his own fingers, fumbling with a belt buckle and tugging trousers down even as he sank to his knees….
“No,” he said.
“You look good today.”
“That wasn’t a question,” he answered, retreating from the memories of last night into reflexive answers that came unbidden, and suddenly he realised they were back where they’d started two weeks ago.
“No, I suppose it wasn’t,” she said. “Could you walk me through the steps you followed in selecting your outfit today?”
Raising an eyebrow, he wondered where she was going with this. “I don’t follow.”
“Before leaving your room this morning, you were free to dress any way you wanted. This is the outfit you chose.” With a wave of the hand, she indicated the short skirt, the slim top, boots and accessories. “Can you to walk me though the process that led to you wearing this?”
Was she testing him, and if so, to what end?
“I started with the skirt,” he said. “Because….”
It was there, one voice in his head finished.
Because it’s short, the girl in his head said. It’s sexy. You like feeling sexy. You liked the way he looked at you last night, in that little pleated skirt, the way his eyes kept checking out your legs, ‘nice ass’, he said, and you liked it when he said that.
“I liked the pattern and the colour,” David said. “I thought I could pair it with these tights and it’d look good. The boots were something new but I figured, you know….”
“Go on,” Crystal said.
“It’s my last day, right?” David said. “At the Clinic, and as…,” he trailed off, waiting, and then spoke to fill the silence. “So I guess I thought, why not? I might never get to try something like this again.” Nervous fingers drummed against his thigh. “The rest just kinda followed naturally, you know, the makeup and everything. Didn’t really think it through, just sort of went with what looked good. Instinct, I guess you could say, it wasn’t really a conscious thing.” He offered up a tentative smile. “How do I look?”
“Very pretty,” Crystal said and though she smiled, to his eyes it seemed strained—a little sad, even. “Very feminine.”
Should’ve worn jeans and a t-shirt and flats, said one voice in despair.
Never, said the other voice, bubbly and pleased. Skirts and dresses, always.
“It is indeed your final day at the Clinic, Mr Saunders.” Before Agent K spoke she glanced aside at Crystal, brow slightly pinched with disapproval. There was tension between the two, David noticed, something unresolved. “I hope you have enjoyed your stay.”
“Sure. I guess.”
K’s smile was thin and failed to reach her eyes. “Had you been paying for your stay you might feel more appreciative.” With a flick of a finger, she sent a file from her tablet to a large screen on the wall. “You have made good use of the sports centre here,” she said. “Daily, it seems, including massages, the weight room, cardio and aerobics sessions….” She touched at the list of activities. “And an impressive calorie intake, Mr Saunders. So much food and drink.” She scrolled further down. “Photo sessions. Clothing. Accommodation.” His every movement, every activity, itemised and tracked. Agent K raised an eyebrow. “You never took advantage of the swimming facilities.”
“Didn’t feel like it,” he said.
Didn’t feel like being on display in a bikini, thank you very much, said one voice.
We’d look great in that teeny red one, burbled the other. Really show off our boobs.
“An expensive stay,” Agent K added.
“I didn’t ask for any of this,” he said. “You brought me here.”
“Indeed. And now, we must determine our next step.”
Finally, he thought.
Dr Jonathon Bridges, silent until now, stirred. When he spoke, his voice was gravelly and grudging. “Uh, yeah,” he grunted. “Guess it’s my turn.”
David faced him. The doctor really did look terrible—more so than usual. His clothes looked slept in and behind his beard his face was waxen and grey. Deep weariness coupled with resentment smoldered in his eyes. The doctor lay his hands on the table, fingers spread wide and still, and he stared at his hands as he spoke as though unable to meet David’s gaze.
“So. The tests.” He paused. “Thank you.” He glanced up at David before dropping his eyes back to the table. “I know there were a lot of them over the past two weeks. Daily blood samples. Scans. Whatever she says—” and he jerked his head in Katherine’s direction— “I consider your bill settled by your contributions. We’ve learned a lot.”
“I’m happy for you,” David answered.
Jonathon looked up and grimaced. “You still don’t get it, do you? This is bigger than you, bigger than any of us. What we’ve done here—it’s going to change the world.” His fingers twitched, once. “You were dead. Dead, David! Lying in a pool of your own blood. Broken. Your heart stopped!” Red spots arose across an already blotchy face in his excitement as he spoke. “And now look at you, sitting there—”
“In a skirt. With tits,” David said.
And aren’t they just wonderful, the voice gushed. You certainly enjoyed them last night.
“Yes—yes!” Jonathon leaned forward. “And even that—can you not see beyond your own fragile ego for just one moment and appreciate the miracle—the genius—the sheer wonder that a nearly forty year old man in such a short time can be so convincingly transformed into—” he waved his hand at David—“into you?”
“Fine. Great,” David said. “I’m a goddam living miracle. So thank you, thank you very, very much for all this. For saving my life. For keeping me safe. For months of mincing about in heels—”
—we look great in them, though, don’t we?—
“and skirts—”
—he loved our legs, he said that, didn’t he?—
“and makeup—”
—and our lips—
He winced and tried to block out the chattering voice. “It’s been an experience, it really has. Okay? I’ll be a better man for it or something. But I’ve done my bit. I did the right thing and snitched on an evil man who did a bad thing. I did the right thing and now you’ve got all your really exciting data.
“So… yay.
“And maybe you think I ought to be more appreciative of the time I’ve spent here,” he continued, turning on Agent K. “Fine. It’s been a great holiday – a break from the life you forced on me. Let’s just ignore the fact you took it all away from me, my condo and my work, my investments and income and everything I’d built up over the past decade, and instead you gave me… what? A shitty little apartment in a shitty neighbourhood, and a shitty job to go with it.”
From director to secretary, grated a voice in his head.
“So a two week break from the hell you dropped me into has been great, really great, and you know, I have enjoyed the food and drink and luxury without having to rely on some guy to foot the bill for me.”
But you didn’t mind when Chad paid, did you? said the girl’s voice. And you didn’t mind paying him back last night.
“And fine, okay, talking through shit has helped, maybe.” He jerked his head at Crystal. “Bringing up shit I’d buried long ago and maybe that’s good, I don’t know, but getting the past few months of my chest—you know, this fucking c-cup pair of joy you’ve given me—fine, sure, it’s been good, great for my mental health or whatever.
“But we’re done here, okay? For months now I’ve done the right thing, the good thing: I’ve been Cindy and kept my head down and… and it’s enough, it’s more than enough, I can’t do this anymore.
“So now it’s your turn. You do the right thing, do the good thing and give me my life back, for fuck’s sake make me a man again!”
He was standing and not sure when he’d found his feet, leaning over the wide table towards the other three, heart pounding in his chest and fingers curled into the hard wood beneath his palms, all but panting with the exertion of both speaking and drowning out the voices crowding his mind.
“Mr Saunders, sit down,” Agent K said.
He glared at her. “Or what?”
The Asklepios armband grew very slightly warm, and emitted a warning beep, the first time it had done so. He stared at the armband for a long moment, assessing his chances. How strong of a dose could such a slender band contain? And of what? How quickly might it affect him? For a moment he seriously considered launching himself across the table, visualised his trajectory and the satisfying impact of foot against bone, and smiled at the thought of his fist connecting with Scooter’s skull.
Do it, whispered a voice in his head. Be a man.
Be good, whispered the other, be a good girl.
He saw, in Jonathon’s eyes, a glimmer of fear and took pleasure in that. He saw, in Crystal’s eyes, disappointment, and it saddened him. But in Agent K’s eyes he saw nothing.
David dropped back into his seat. Crossing legs at the thigh, he tossed back his hair, sneered at Jonathon and waited.
“Um… yes,” he said, and to David’s surprise he saw… something that chased the fear. Excitement, maybe, or even lust—a momentary widening of the eyes and flushing of the cheeks. Jonathon licked his lips and his fingers curled into fists and uncurled to lay flat once more. “Those tests. The blood samples, we’ve taken and tested them daily since your arrival. Checking for the levels of the compound that made all this possible.”
Taking a deep breath, he continued. “What we’ve seen over the past two weeks is a downward trend indicating a reduction in compound levels within your body. This… decay is matched by similar lowering of the compound in other tissues we’ve sampled: soft and hard tissue produce similar results.”
With giddy joy, David clapped his hands and gave a little hoot of relief. “That’s good, right?”
The doctor didn’t immediately answer. He glanced askance at Agent K before returning his gaze to the table. “However, where we expected a linear rate of compound degradation, what we’ve found is that the decline appears to be tapering off. Levels remain well above what we predicted and cellular suffusion remains unexpectedly high.”
Jonathon stopped. David felt a tightening around his chest and momentarily struggled for breath. There was a prickling at the base of his neck and he heard as though from far away a low, delighted giggle.
“What—what does that mean?” he asked.
Finally, the doctor looked up and he grimaced before speaking. “I means we can’t risk using anything connected to the regenerative process here to masculinize you,” Jonathon said. “We can’t even risk traditional surgical methods. Compound levels are just too high. You’ve seen the possible outcome… downstairs. Any changes we made—”
“No—”
“Might kick the regeneration into overdrive—”
“No….”
“Revert back to the original female template—”
“No!”
Yes, crowed a voice in his head. He’s lying, seethed the other, why is he lying? The prickling warmth at the base of his neck spread and unfurled tendrils of heat that coiled around chest and head—he couldn’t breathe—penetrating his skull and his brain burned—he couldn’t breathe!—and the gleeful girl’s laugh was suddenly closer and louder and everywhere.
He felt the doctor’s words like a kick to stomach and he wrapped his arms around himself and curled around the pain, doubling over.
He felt sick. He gagged. Turning to Crystal he saw pity in her eyes, but he didn’t want pity, pity told him she knew what his future held and how difficult—impossible—it would be for him.
“Then leave me like this,” he gasped, turning to K. “I can hide the tits. Cut the hair. Wear baggy clothes. Live as a man, somewhere—you can find me a new life—anywhere. Somewhere; anyone. I don’t care so long as I go back to a male life.”
Her eyes betrayed nothing: no satisfaction in his predicament, nor pity at his pain. Instead, she shook her head, once. “No,” she said, voice level. “I can not simply summon a new life for you out of nowhere, Mr Saunders. Furthermore, Cindy’s sudden disappearance, more than anything, would betray you to Steele. Your presence here is known, a matter of open record.”
“You can’t—”
“Have you not said yourself that you saw this agent of Steele’s, this… Jeff pursuing Cindy recently?”
David rocked in his chair, holding himself tight. He stared at her and the voice said, she’s also lying, why are they lying? Meanwhile, the other voice, dainty and playful—but more than a voice now, a presence growing in strength and stature—laughed with glee and cried out ‘yes’ and wound itself around the other voice—now diminished, despairing, and wild —and their whirling dance filled his head with a noise become a roar that he felt as a physical pressure, a force threatening to crack him open, rupture and spill out as a torrent of bile and rage and despair.
“Please, K,” he pleaded. “Don’t do this to me.”
“Six more months,” she said.
“I can’t,” he said.
“You must,” she said.
“You can,” said Crystal. “You’re strong, David. And so is Cindy.”
“I’m not—”
“But you can be,” she said. “Accept her; be that part of your self.”
“It’s too hard.”
“But it doesn’t have to be.”
“You don’t understand—”
“Look at me, David.” Unexpectedly strong and firm, her voice demanded his attention. “You told me living Cindy’s life was torture. Like an iron maiden whose spikes were bleeding you dry. But the torture is of your making, David, and always has been. Spikes of your own mind.”
“You’re wrong,” he said.
“‘You could be bounded in a nutshell and count yourself a king of infinite space’ – isn’t that how the quote goes?”
Were it not that I have bad dreams, he finished, but said nothing.
“Nothing is either good or bad, but thinking makes it so—did I get that right?”
“I’m not—”
“You’re being forced to play a part you hate. Your safety depends on how well you convince others of the role you play.”
David felt the allure of the character: in a court full of enemies, he moved with impunity. Filled with doubt, a disguise of madness allowed him to seek out truth. Sent to his death, he survived. And in survival: vengeance. Vengeance, against no less than a King himself.
But what happens when the disguise stops being an act? What happens when mad in craft becomes mad in essence?
You’re not mad, whispered the lilting voice in his head.
“You say that this performance is torture,” Crystal continued. “That the realities of Cindy’s life feel like spikes driven into your self. But if you take those spikes away, what are you left with?
“Armour. Not just a beautiful shell, David, or a painted husk, but armour, subtle and strong—strong, like you—a shield against the world. You told me that the thing you miss most from your male life is your strength – your muscles—the years of effort and discipline that Jonathon’s process stripped away from you. You derived confidence and conviction in your masculinity from your physical strength. You called it your armour.”
With his arms wrapped defensively around his pain, David was acutely aware of what he’d lost: felt the slender weakness of his limbs, the pliant and supple flesh beneath his folded arms, and knew he was the smallest person in the room. It seemed almost impossible to imagine that bulk now, the simple pleasure of flexing an arm and sensing the restrained power—the firmness of chest and abdomen—the satisfaction of exertion and the joy of manipulating the physical world around him with ease. Only in others could he sense that strength, now, and yearn for the unconscious affirmation it brought them and perhaps share in it by being close to them.
You enjoyed being close to Chad last night, didn’t you? Enjoyed his firmness?.
“But Cindy can be your armour,” Crystal continued. “Her softness, your strength. She can—how to put it?—‘bear the whips and scorns’ of the next six months. Let her absorb the blows. And at the end of all this, when it’s safe to do so, you crack open the armour, step out of it and what’s left? You—the real you—unharmed, untouched by everything that’s happened.”
He shuddered and dropped his eyes and hid behind the fall of his hair.
She seemed to genuinely believe her own words. There was a painful sincerity in what she said and how she said it. Curled in on himself and from behind the safety of blonde curtains streaked with purple and pink, David glanced from Jonathon to Katherine to Crystal and saw no escape from the future they mapped out for him. They were lying. If they chose to do so, he knew they could return him to a male life. They chose not to. Why?
Now, the room itself felt threatening. If he refused: what then?
Unbidden, he felt again the terrible fear experienced in bondage during the photoshoot, arms and legs straining behind his back, harnessed and leashed—and at the far end of that that leash he saw the shadowy figure of Jeremiah Steele.
No; never. David squeezed his eyes shut. Then he recalled the monster downstairs, its fleshy protrusions and misshapen form, locked and sealed away, on display behind transparent walls, and shuddered.
The Clinic was not the ally he had hoped, and it seemed clear to David that Jonathon and Katherine could no longer be trusted—were perhaps even his enemies.
Crystal Dawn?
She seemed honest, hopeful that he would accept her words—she offered an escape, he realised, a way out of this room and this facility. After, in solitude and safety—if such a thing even existed—he could determine what the hell was happening: why these people he once saw as allies had turned against him. Then, he could find a way out of this life.
My thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth, one voice murmured, muffled and distant but still very much present.
David looked up. “But it’s so hard,” he pleaded, and in rushed the reality of what he was on the cusp of accepting. A torrent of images, projecting the previous months forward into the tedium of daily life to come, crashed down on him. Days and weeks of skirts and dresses and thin blouses and bared shoulders or midriff or arms or thighs; the frivolous indulgence of hair and makeup and nails; the pinch and poise of heels, sacrificing stability in favour of unsteady steps and mincing gait; and everything else, God, daily strapping himself into a bra, rolling stockings up legs, clip of suspenders—and shaving, keeping arms and legs silky and smooth—always on display, Cindy appropriately presented to the world, day after day after….
So easy, said the girl voice in his mind. And fun, we’ve been doing this for ages.
“It’s too much.” The bus ride to work from his cramped apartment into the city: the sweat of passengers, the ogling stares, whispers and whistles and stray hands brushing across tits and ass he had to pretend to not notice. Swapping shoes over, sneakers for stilettos and the daily morning primp in the women’s toilet, then sitting at his desk, pretty and prim, scurrying about for others, delivering coffee, taking notes, quiet. Six more months of being looked down at by women with jealousy or scorn; of being appraised by men, dismissively or in lust; and desperately chasing the approbation of both.
And it wouldn’t be possible, not for six more months, to avoid the advances of others. There would be women, in changing rooms and corridors, offices and in open public spaces, watching and judging and finding him wanting, finding him strange, curious, suspicious. There would be men—men like Dan but also like Chad—and where there were men there was flirting, pick-up lines and innuendo and ‘accidental’ touches as they passed by his desk or crowded in the elevator or sat without invitation as he tried to relax, eat his lunch, take a break, escape the attention of others even if only for five minutes. Flirting would lead to dates, to kisses, to touches and caresses and ultimately to—
Last night: his slender fingers, fingernails vivid in the dim light, reaching into a man’s trousers and curling around a hard cock.
“I can’t do it,” he whispered. “Not for six months.”
Of course we can, echoed the other voice. And for even longer.
He looked up through a veil of hair. “I’ll give myself away.” Months of tucking and taping, of shoving his balls back up inside and concealing his sex, the discomfort and pain, and the terrible fear of being caught. “It’s too hard, I can’t do it, someone will catch me out.”
To which Crystal gave a little smile and said, “we can help with that.”
What came next remained a blur as everything came crashing down on him. A cacophony of noise, a roaring voice and gleeful trill of joy, a rising swell of despair and rage that filled him to the brim. He vaguely remembered a long, drawn-out moan, pain in his chest and being sick. Accusatory voices raised in conflict: “I told you this would happen,” “get the nurse in here,” “it’s too much,” “Jesus, she’s stronger than she looks.” It seemed to him that the room went dark. The voices in his head went silent. At some point he nodded—“six more months”—and gave himself over to the Clinic. A prick in his arm; everything went dark.
And in that darkness, David dreamed.
And it was the old dream, the same dream, the nightmare that had haunted him for years in all its permutations and sick twists. One night of relief cradled in another man’s arms, otherwise night after night it had him thrashing in his bed, lashing out in his sleep, waking and bolting upright, chest heaving, bathed in sweat, grasping for something lost long ago.
It was always the same room. Sickly yellow light seeped into the far corners of the dirty little backroom, flickering as the bared light bulb swayed as the end of its frayed cable. A shoddy table stood next to a rusty, steel-frame bed. An old round clock ticked persistently, its shadow stretching and twisting as the light above danced. The clock sat on the table next to a worn, dog-eared book. Tattered wallpaper peeled and curled from the walls. Bugs crawled from cracks between the floorboards.
The room reeked of sweat and mould and stale booze. There was no window and two doors on opposing walls were the only way in and out. The mattress was filthy and stained. The deep thrum of rhythmic music rose through the floor from the club below.
A gasp; a cry and moan: and she was once again splayed across the filthy mattress, and her beauty made a mockery of the squalor. Beautiful but tainted: the ivory basque should have gleamed but was tarnished and stained, and her stockings were torn and the skin beneath red and raw. Heavy makeup, smudged and cracked, did more to conceal her natural beauty than enhance it. One leg hung over the edge of the bed and her arms lay limply at her side.
She seemed unconscious or perhaps dead—but for her eyes—which were as he remembered them: open and blazing with love and anger.
“Sephy?”
Always, he called to her. Always, she turned to him.
Then the creak of hinges, the door opening onto impenetrable darkness, a slash across a naked canvas.
Who would it be this time? Ever since their fatal fight and especially since visiting the transformed agent beneath the Clinic, Fosters was a frequent guest star, a grinning, raving villain, protean and terrible. Julia, more than once, had featured; Agent K too; and also Jonathon, the doctor sliding through the door, fingers twitching, each nimble digit ending in gleaming scalpel blades. Before that they were often faceless, a shadowy figure whose face collapsed into a vacant, ragged hole. Sometimes, they were only seen from behind, a hulking brute whose frame filled the space as they stalked inexorably across the room.
He blinked, and the figure glided past him, the figure was in the room and he could see them only from behind as they advanced on the bed. Persephone lay there insensate, unmoving and vulnerable.
“No,” he called out, and reached to stop the intruder; or tried to, for suddenly his words were muffled by the slender metal bar drawn tightly across his mouth, and his arms were tied behind his back, and for all his struggle all he managed was to make his pendulous tits shake uselessly. He was back in the bondage from the photoshoot and tied and leashed and gagged as he was, all he could do was quiver and moan and watch.
The figure paused and looked back over its shoulder. Somehow its face remained hidden in darkness, yet from the darkness gleamed its slow smile, sharp-toothed and vicious.
And David felt afraid, a return of the deep, devouring fear he’d felt during the photoshoot, the sense of utter helplessness brought on by being tied so securely and unable to free himself. Vulnerable, weak, stripped of agency: bound and gagged, he’d never felt fear as he had in that moment.
Normally, he tried to prevent what happened next by physically attacking the figure. Always, he failed. This time, he could only watch and squirm as the figure turned back to the helpless woman lying on the mattress. He moaned in fury and despair around the bit that parted his lips. The figure took Sephy by the neck and squeezed.
How many times had he seen the woman he loved killed in his nightmares, and in how many ways?
Suddenly, she was fiercely, brilliantly alive. Now she struggled. She battered his side and arms, her fingernails dug deep into his flesh, flaying it from his frame, and yet as ribbons of blood and gore curled to the floor the figure continued to strangle her. Her legs beat the mattress like a drum and her body writhed upon the bed and her eyes bulged. With a final twitch, she went still.
The figure then turned and advanced. David pulled at his restraints in terror, breathless in the crushing corset, achieving nothing more than to jiggle and sway uselessly. Pulled back by the tightly braid hair laced to his arm restraints, his neck was exposed and vulnerable as the intruder reached for him. In the final moment before its fingers curled around his neck, David saw the nails were like his, beautifully manicured and painted; and the face was his own face, his male face, and the hungry grin twisted into a snarl of betrayed rage.
Darkness; the nightmare faded; he slept.
Many hours later, recovering in his room that evening, he lay alone on his bed in the dark and stared at the ceiling. He knew that he wasn’t really alone. The armband at his wrist continued to monitor and transmit his location and vital signs—any erratic action and he’d be instantly tranquilised. Hidden cameras watched him as well and followed every movement of his naked body. Perverts, he thought, but the hazy remnants of the drugs in his system slowed his thoughts and quenched the fire of his anger.
Robbed of strength, he lay there languidly and felt the tingle at the tips of his body as the anaesthetic slowly faded from his system. It felt as though his entire body was abuzz, a pleasurable but distant humming of the skin as the cool air of the room breathed over him. Fingertip and toes prickled, the tip of his nose, a borderline erotic tightening in every extremity. He felt it most strongly in now-erect nipples, tight little buds demanding touch, and it made him think of Chad.
Too tired and weak from the drugs to suppress remembering any longer, David groaned. He sighed and drew one limp arms across his eyes and gave himself over to the memory of last night.
He took the man by the hand and led him into the apartment. Chad grabbed him from behind—“nice ass,” he said—and an irrepressible giggle escape David as he was spun about and then—kissing, Chad’s roaming hands delineating femininity, fingers tracing every curve and drawing sensuously over shoulders and sides, face and thigh. A sinuous wiggle, and the little pleated skirt slid over his hips and pooled at his feet. With a smooth movement and flick of the arms he sent his top flying across the room. He struck a pose, resplendent in the bridal brilliance of ivory corset and bra and suspender belt and stockings, teetering only slightly in the lace-up heels from the day’s earlier photoshoot.
With an appreciative whistle, Chad drew him closer. With the thumb of both hands touching, the man stretched his fingers wide, a butterfly lattice stretching around David’s narrowed waist, and something thrilled inside at how dainty he felt, small and delightfully powerless beneath this masculine touch. Effortlessly Chad twirled him around and untied the laces at the back and loosened them. The spin and initial rush of air was exhilarating, and again when Chad’s strong fingers unclasped the metal fastening at the busk and the overbust corset opened and fell away. The simple cotton tank top soon joined the corset on the floor.
He stood there, then, in nothing but gilt ivory lingerie glimmering in the dim light, a delicate flower in need of the most tender touch, small and yielding to the man’s robust size and strength. The man’s eyes widened appreciatively at the sight of his breasts, pale teardrops rising towards him. “God, you’re gorgeous,” he said, and something inside David melted at his words and gaze, so that when Chad seized him, David gave himself over to his touch with ease, over to his kisses, over to the passionate hands exploring his tits and ass and to his surprise he felt the first stirrings of his own passion as a dull ache from where his cock and balls remained tucked.
His own reaction confused him deeply. Six months ago, he couldn’t have even contemplated kissing another man. Now, he eagerly invited it, for even as Chad’s hands roamed his body David returned the attention with equal passion. When Chad’s hand kneaded his tits, he leaned into the man’s grasp; when he kissed his neck, David whimpered; and when the man pulled away, he followed him with hungry kisses of his own, almost whining into the man’s open mouth as he demanded more.
And it wasn’t drunkenness or the threat of an enemy that drove him into the man’s arms. Rather, it was the simple realisation that it felt—good; that Chad made him feel good; and that there was no way to stop what he’d started.
More importantly, he didn’t want to. For the first time he wished for his own release, to receive pleasure rather than simply give it. But that hadn’t been the plan for the night, this night was about rewarding the man who had helped him so much during these past two weeks, and in doing so reaffirming his own identity.
As the man’s fingers strayed dangerous close to somewhere they couldn’t go, David realised he couldn’t delay any longer.
He remembered the photographer’s words, Jasmines advice, as he fumbled with the man’s belt. Painted lips curved into a wide smile as he hooked manicured nails into the waistband. The trousers went down and he followed. He knelt before this man, on his knees level with his crotch, sober and committed to what he was doing. Chad looked down at him, standing strong and drinking him in with eyes filled with lust and admiration and with something more powerful, something that made David feel small and wanted.
‘Look at him,’ Jasmine advised. ‘Talk to him. He likes that.”
And so, even as David’s smile felt increasingly strained, he maintained eye contact. “Your eyes on me makes me… mmm, tingle,” he said, and then moaned. “And wet.” He reached his hand into the man’s boxers. “I’m so damn horny right now,” he said, and licked his lips, and touched for only the second time in his life another man’s penis. “I want to feel your cock. In my mouth.” He hesitated then, feeling the hard, hot flesh; but only for a moment before drawing it out. “I want to taste your cum.”
And lying there on the bed in the present, he remembered staring at it, staring at Chad’s cock, willing himself to do this thing. You can do this, he thought. It’s just… a blow job. Women do this all the time. It’s not like it’s a big deal. It’s not gross or perverted or weird, it’s just—a thing women do. And right now, you’re a woman, or at least he thinks you are, and you’ve got to do this, got to prove to yourself how meaningless this act is, that Cindy can thank this guy like a good girl and you can wake up in the morning unchanged, unaffected, and still be—yourself, and go back to being a man and living a man’s life.
But when he licked his lips, it was with nervousness, not eagerness. And the roiling in his belly wasn’t from alcohol because he hadn’t touched a drop all day. Any further words died unspoken on his tongue. Try as he might, he couldn’t bridge the gap—such a small gap, a few easy centimeters—between his wet, pink lips and the man’s cockhead, shiny with pre-cum and bobbing in anticipation.
A hand at his head ran fingers through his long hair—lovingly, urging him to look up rather than down. Chad was smiling at him, eyes still filled with that intimidating deepness that signalled something far more profound than simple lust. A gentle touch at David’s chin refocused his attention upwards.
“You don’t have to do this,” Chad said.
“I want to.”
“Have you ever before?”
David shook his head.
Chad slowly lowered himself to David’s level and squatted back on his haunches. With the back of his hand, he tenderly brushed his cheek, and his fingers cupped his chin and drew him in for a kiss. Eagerly, David fell into the kiss, a reprieve from the act he thought he was ready for but clearly couldn’t yet bring himself to do. And lost in the depth of their embrace, he noticed too late the man’s drifting hands—hands that moved from his shoulders, down his side, slid beneath the waistband of lace panties and tickled their way along his bum and—
Chad’s fingers draw across the taped length of David’s cock and he gasped into the other man’s mouth, around the eager tongue dancing with his own.
Pulling back, fearful fingers curled instinctively into fists—he tottered in his too-tall platform heels—and fell unceremoniously back on his ass, legs splayed wide.
Chad laughed.
Flushed red with anger and embarrassment and fear, David scrambled away from the other man. “It’s not—”
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Chad said, standing.
David gaped up at him. “Did you—know?”
Chad reached down and pulled the feminised man to his feet, where he wobbled briefly and held the other man’s arm for support. “I suspected,” he said.
“How?”
“For one, I knew you weren’t really Cindy.” Chad stepped over to the sofa and sat and motioned for David to join him. After a moment’s hesitation he followed, and when Chad took his hand and guided him onto his lap, he settled without protest. Sitting there fully aware of the other man’s hardon pressing into his bum, he felt painfully aware of his appearance in a way he’d never quite experienced before—a deep humiliation rooted in what he wore and what he was doing in the presence of another man who apparently knew him to actually be a man.
Playing at Cindy for Julia was one thing; making out with Dan another; but perching on Chad’s knees in sexy women’s underwear when the guy knew he was also male was something new. Suddenly, it felt—gay—homosexual in a way it hadn’t before. Before he was a girl—albeit a pretend one—pleasuring a man. Now they were two men in the room—admittedly, one in insubstantial lingerie, the other naked from the waist down—and Chad’s hard cock was poking into his thigh, and it made David feel queasy.
“I knew Cindy Bellamy,” Chad said. “She was a client here, remember? Somebody must’ve slipped up, not updated the client database or something, because the Clinic armband invited me in to talk to you the same as it did with her. I got to her know her a little when she was here. Took me a few days to remember; this was half a year ago.”
“Did you sleep with her?” David asked.
“Yes.” Sadness tainted his voice. “There was something very—tragic—about her. Sad and beautiful and so very angry. I’ve only met a few people who clearly hated themselves that deeply.” His gaze burned into David. “But she was such a kind soul, a lovely person, but one who couldn’t see that loveliness in herself. She was so eager to please, to find validation in others.” He shook his head. “I guess she never found it.”
In the present, lying on his bed, David remembered how they talked, if only briefly, about the young woman whose life he’d usurped, even if unwillingly. Chad never asked how he’d come to take her name or her life; presumably, he knew better than to ask such questions of clients of the Clinic. Rather, he simply held him in his arms, on his lap, as his cock slowly shrank. Finally, he gave a single kiss to David’s forehead and easily lifted the smaller man from his lap and positioned him on the sofa.
Grinning, Chad then slid off the sofa cushion to his knees between the feminised man’s legs.
“What are you doing?” David cried out.
“Giving you something you need a hell of a lot more than I do.” With one strong hand holding David’s thigh, he used the other to gently push him back into the sofa. “Just… relax.”
“But—” David struggled to articulate his confusion. “We’re both guys.”
“If you say so,” Chad said, smiling up from between a pair of lithe legs, sleek in ivory stockings, with knees thrust high by the arch of stiletto heels. “But from where I’m at, all I’m seeing is a gorgeous woman lying back with a handsome stud between her legs.” He pulled at the flimsy white panties, down one leg and then the other, and flung them across the room. Dextrous fingers then felt for the tape holding David’s cock and carefully peeled it back, layer by layer. “Wow, you really strapped yourself down, didn’t you?”
“But—”
“Just shut up,” Chad said.
And when he felt the man’s first confident touch on his penis, the first time any man had ever touched him there, David didn’t think he could go through with it. He remained limp and unwilling and he felt a powerful wrongness deep in his belly at the thought of a man touching him so intimately. But then Chad kissed him, every so gently, first on one thigh and then the other and the kiss was almost feminine in its tenderness. His lips were soft and his touch delicate. The hands stroking his skin were soft, flicked at suspenders, skimmed along his sides, and paddled at his boobs, and when those swift, nimble fingers grazed his nipples he moaned—
And in the present, David moaned too—
And in memory, he hissed in pleasurable pain as the man pinched his nipple between forefinger and thumb and chuckled wickedly at David’s reaction. For the reaction was all too visible: under Chad’s skilled ministration, his cock stiffened and rose. Chad firmly gripped the engorged cock and without hesitation took it in his mouth.
The man’s sensual touch threatened to overwhelm David. He felt lips and tongue running up and down his cock, the warmth and the pressure as Chad’s head bobbed up and down his length, and in David’s mind it was all mixed up with the past, with the many girls he’d known, flashes of anonymous, pretty faces, a cavalcade of glistening lips and eager tongues; and at some point the smiling lips that flashed through his mind were his own, carefully painted and shiny and keen to please. And all this became mixed up with the other sensations he submitted to, Chad kneading his tits, fingers digging into fleshy thighs and ass, coming up on occasion to nip at an ear or trail kisses down his abdomen or lick cat-like at a erect nipple.
And in the present, he felt the phantom touch of the previous night, and one hand crept to his breast and found pleasure there, and the other crept lower—
And in memory he felt it too, and the sensations were at first focused around his cock, and he nearly wilted then as he returned to the thought of another man going down on him, the implied homosexuality of it—he wasn’t gay, he was a man—but it felt so good, he hadn’t been on the receiving end of a blow job in ages, it wasn’t Jules’s thing but dear God, it felt great. And there was a woman in the room—yes, oh God, yes, don’t stop—her moans filled the room, her keening cry, her desperate need—and her slut sounds made him ferociously hard again, and so what if that woman’s voice was his own?
His perception shifted, and he felt the feminine presence in the room, he was that woman but then that woman was also pleasuring him, he found his own tits and groping himself and moaned in pleasure—felt the scratch of long nails—a woman’s hand on his woman’s tit—but also the yielding flesh beneath his hand—and then the feminine presence shifted to the eager cock-sucking lips pleasuring him; and the moans he heard were a girl’s moans; they were his own rhythmic exclamations of desire; and he was subsumed within the whirling sensations, the whisper of long hair, the silkiness of stockings beneath his palm; tug of straps and tickle of lace; toes curling in the constraint of heels; but a man’s strong hand pinning him to the sofa; and his hips bucked and he arced his back, pushing his boobs further into whoever’s hand mauled them, and when he finally came it was with a deep, ball-emptying cry, fiercely grabbing the head between his legs with both hands and pulling it closer and burying himself deep, fucking the face that pleasured him and then falling back with a groan, spent and confused.
“Jesus, you’re strong,” Chad said afterwards. He grinned, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. “Ouch.”
David drew in a ragged breath.
“I hadn’t planned on swallowing.”
He winced. “Sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Chad grinned. “You should try it sometime. It’s really not so bad, you know, once you get past the taste.”
In post-coital torpor, David slid from the sofa into Dan’s arms. He felt contented in this man’s embrace. He felt a powerful and confusing desire to cuddle, and his fingers played idly with Chad’s chest hairs, curling the coarse hairs around his slender fingertips. Fingertips slid across the man’s strong chest and traced the lines of his abdomen—Chad had kept the athletic physique of his skiing days, and David felt an overwhelming envy that manifested as a profound attraction to the man.
They held that pose for some time, in the silence of the early evening, David in delicate lingerie cradled in the arms of the larger man. They both sat on the floor, together. He knew he should be… disgusted, by all this, and terribly angry. Instead, he felt wonderfully relaxed with Chad’s arms around him, at peace in a way he couldn’t fully comprehend but was loathe to give up.
“I should probably go,” Chad said.
“Don’t,” David said.
He knew what would happen if Chad left, then. David would cast aside the last of the day’s dressing-up, the stockings and the belt and the shoes, and then the guilt would come, the recrimination and self-loathing. He’d shower in blistering hot water and scrub every last vestige of the makeup away and stand in front of the mirror and despise what he saw there. Crawling eventually into bed, he’d toss and turn for hours. Sleep would come—and with it, the inevitable nightmare. No; not tonight.
He noticed only then that the fingers of one hand had come to rest casually on the other man’s penis. Under their gentle presence, he felt it stir and grow once more. “Please. Stay.”
Chad looked at him in silence for a long moment. “You don’t have to….”
“Now you shut up,” he answered, taking the man’s cock into his hand.
His second ever hand job felt very different than his effort two weeks previously with Dan. For one, he was sober. But most importantly he felt—close—an intimacy with this man that confused him. Though the buzz of orgasmic release had largely faded, he still felt wonderfully content, a little detached, as though in the last stages of a pleasant dream.
He took his time in pleasuring Chad. First, he found some hand cream and warmed it in the palm of his hand. Then, they kissed passionately before Chad returned to the sofa and David settled comfortably between his legs on the floor. Sitting with his legs to one side—still laced into those towering shoes—David gazed adoringly up at Chad with wide, green eyes. He smiled as he pumped the other man’s cock, attentive to his every reaction, adapting his speed and rhythm, keeping a firm but gentle grip. “Do you like that?” he cooed, “how’s this?” and he languorously and carefully drew one long fingernail along the man’s ballsack.
With his head thrown back and eyes closed, Chad sighed and seemed lost in the pleasures of the beautiful man stroking his cock. He moved slightly with each upstroke along his shaft.
It didn’t take very long. The intensity of his breathing deepened, and suddenly Chad groaned. He gripped David by the shoulder to steady himself, and David knew that he was near. “You gonna cum for me?” he whispered, and the thought suddenly flashed through his mind—I could do this now—and he imagined, vividly, lowering himself onto the other man’s cock, taking his penis into his mouth and sealing plump lips around the slick shaft and mewing with pleasure as his man came and emptied his seed down his willing throat.
“God—Cindy…. I’m—!”
Chad’s hips thrust, and ready for it, David pointed the cock at his naked chest. It spasmed once, twice: the man’s cum spatted across his tits. It was unexpectedly warm, and a little dribbled into his cleavage.
There’s a man’s jizz on my chest, he thought. On my tits.
David kept his smile and never broke eye contact as Chad slowly returned to himself. He felt some of it on his hand. He looked at his palm and it glistened with cum.
And for the first time in his life, he wondered, I wonder what it tastes like?
Suddenly hot in the face, he reached for a tissue and wiped his hand clean and made a go at sopping up the cooling goo from his chest. “Like that?”
Rather than answer, Chad drew David from the floor into an embrace and buried his face in his hair and shuddered. “Thank you,” he said, and when he drew back his cheeks were wet with tears. “Whoever you are. Cindy”
“Chad—”
He silenced her with another kiss. Afterwards, they withdrew to the bedroom and lay together in silence, the larger man curling around the smaller. David had never shared a bed with another man before, not like this—both naked, intimate and comfortable in each other’s arms—Chad hand resting easily across his boob, and on occasion he felt the man’s dick stir and press into his thigh.
At one point—though he may have dreamed it, as they both faded in and out of shallow sleep—Chad’s arms tightened into a firm embrace. “Don’t make the same mistake she did,” he said, his voice a hot whisper on his neck. “You’re… special, and beautiful and wonderful.”
“But I’m a man,” David insisted.
“What does that have to do with anything?” Chad answered.
They lay like that until early morning, at which point Chad left without a word.
And in the present, David found himself finally strong enough to stand. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and after a moment’s rest struggled to his feet. He turned to the full-sized mirror.
There was no denying what he saw. While not special and wonderful as Chad insisted, the woman in the mirror was certainly beautiful. Cindy was beautiful; and wasn’t he Cindy, now? Framed in flowing coils of golden hair streaked with purple and pink, falling nearly to the pert curve of her ass, the naked body he saw reflected in the dark of the room seemed radiant in its beauty. Her breasts were round and full and sat high on her chest, smooth white skin topped by pink nibs erect in the cool air. Narrow hips led to slender, well-formed legs. Feet and toes were cute, nails painted a glossy pink, the same as her hands, though both hands and feet were a little ungainly, maybe larger than expected on a girl of her stature. Shoulders, too, were a little too square, possibly, considering her willowy frame. Wide, green eyes scanned across her image in reflection, drawn inexorably towards—
The space between her thighs.
The prosthetic vagina the Clinic attached to him several hours ago remained pallid and grey, the colour of a slug’s underbelly. The anonymous nurse who’d assisted in the procedure assured David that over the next twenty-four hours the synthetic flesh would slowly change to match his own skin tone, bio-synthetic chromatophores activating and adapting to perfect the illusion of real skin. The same with sensations and responsiveness; what currently felt heavy and dead and cold, like a wet plaster cast over his crotch, would gradually warm and begin to transmit sensations.
“As close to the real thing as you can get without surgery,” the nurse assured him, and smiled comfortingly as the anaesthetic wore off
and David returned to wakefulness. Asleep for the procedure, he avoided the blistering pain he remembered from the previous prosthetic that Agent K had attached to him. That one had lasted mere weeks, and the hurried application had nearly knocked him out with its sensation of fiery pins and needles thrusting into his groin. No pain, this time. “It should last for several months,” the nurse said. “But we’ll need to have you back in about three and decide then whether to replace it with another or move on to a surgical alternative.
“Best of all,” the nurse continued, “it allows for intercourse. You’ll probably find clitoral stimulation easiest, but the prosthetic allows for a full ten centimeters of penetration.”
Average female depth, the nurse explained, and just under average male length; enough for a finger or penis, so long as you’re both careful and he’s not too generously hung. The angle is slightly off that of a biological female, directing the penetrating object towards the abdomen, and passing close to where your own male genitals are kept—unlikely to be noticed in the heat of the moment.
Holding David’s hand, the nurse seemed mystified that these explanations weren’t particularly reassuring for the patient. “You’re really lucky—this is absolutely cutting edge, the latest in biomechanical prosthetic technology.”
The nurse went on to explain that once the neural interfacing was complete, the outer skin would respond as expected: it would sweat and self-heal and self-lubricate, too, where and when necessary. Within days, the lightest of touches should be perceptible; a breath of air tickling across the synthetic skin would raise goose bumps; and as for a kiss….
The nurse smiled. Sex—and here the nurse couldn’t suppress a little smirk—while maybe not quite as good as the real thing it ought to provide an entirely satisfactory experience. More than satisfactory, the nurse assured him—authentic. A biochemical release system integrated within the prosthetic was designed to release synthetic hormones associated with the general ebb and flow of ordinary life—that is, ordinary life with a vagina, of course, the nurse added—but also with the specific intensity of sexual arousal. You’ll be flooded with happy little chemicals, the nurse said, or sad ones; either way, you’ll feel it here—the nurse tapped the space over David’s heart—and here—and tapped his temple. And as for orgasm—the nurse’s smile grew to a wide grin—well, it ought to be suitably intense.
And you can rest assured, the nurse finished, easing him back in his bed, that your male equipment is perfectly safe and secure beneath it all, the prosthetic secreting a mild anaesthetic keeping everything comfortably numb and quiet.
Quiet and numb.
A buzz at his wrist reminded him it was nearly time to leave.
Standing in front of the wardrobe, he considered what to wear for his farewell and for the long ride home. Nothing, he thought. He didn’t want to wear anything. To pull on panties and a bra was to accept his fate for the next six months. The artificial intelligence within the wardrove must have senses his uncertainty, for it reached out with a tentative beep.
What would you like to wear this evening? it asked, the words scrolling along the top of the mirror.
David stared blankly at it.
What would you like to wear this evening? the wardrobe prompted.
It waited a moment longer before trying a different question: what are you going to do?
I don’t know, David thought.
He knew that somewhere within the associative links of its millions of parameters, the artificial intelligence lurking inside the wardrobe was searching for a way to stimulate its user to action. It had been taught that fashion was one way of expressing identity—and its user had presented a wide range of identities these past two weeks. What did its deep learning algorithms make of him, David wondered, of the shoes and underwear, skirts and dresses and tracksuits he’d worn these past two weeks, the cosmetics and accessories? What narrow category did he neatly slot into; what real-world example did he most conveniently match?
After a moment, the wardrobe rephrased the question once more.
Who would you like to be? the AI asked.
Scene Thirteen: “The Truth about David Saunders”
Who are you, Mr Saunders? With that question lingering at the back of her mind, Katherine Smith watched the taillights of the car disappear into the night. A final red flare as it passed behind some trees, turned a corner, and then it was gone.
The departure of Mr Saunders—or rather, Cindy Bellamy—came as a relief. Her relief was lessened by the thought of the long road that remained ahead. Some small residual guilt, perhaps, also undermined her relief at her ward’s departure. He would be safe for the next six months. It was not the life he desired; but then, in her experience, very few were privileged to live the life they wanted. Mr Saunders would survive: he was strong, he would endure; perhaps he might even learn to enjoy Cindy’s life, though she pitied him for what was to come.
Meanwhile, she had other duties. She had already made her farewells to Jonathon and Crystal. All the remained was to collect her few possessions. A car was waiting to carry her to the nearest airport.
She remained distracted as she cut across the Clinic grounds, passing through falling circles of light that cut pale swaths in the night. The air was cool but oppressive, the earlier winds giving way to an almost unnatural, heavy stillness that hinted at a waiting storm. Too much remained unknown. Most concerning was her ward’s own past. Despite two weeks of sessions with Crystal, they’d learned very little about who Mr Saunders had been before taking on that identity; nor where and when he’d learned to fight with sufficient skill to survive an encounter with hardened mercenaries like Fosters and Mal.
Fosters: the presence of that monstrosity in the underbelly of the Clinic concerned her.
Mal: what whispered conversation had he exchanged with Mr Saunders?
The door to her small apartment at the Clinic opened silently for her. Preoccupied with these thoughts, she felt the presence in her small apartment too late.
She spun towards the figure in the dark corner, thinking – Steele; how, why? And why hadn’t Clinic’s security stopped them?
A woman stepped from the shadows, short and slender like a whip. Her age was indeterminate—she could have been anywhere between thirty and fifty—and of some Asian decent, possibly Japanese. Her long ebony hair, streaked with grey, fell in a tight braid down to her waist.
“Ms Smith,” the woman said, and raised a single hand in a placating motion. “My name is Sakura.”
Katherine, hand already reaching for the weapon concealed in her jacket, arrested the motion. “I have heard of you.”
The woman nodded. “I have been watching you with some interest. You have come into possession of one of my… charges, shall we say.” She stepped closer and in her every motion Katherine saw threat: the promise of violence, restrained. “Shall we talk? It is time you learned the truth about ‘David Saunders’.”
To be continued…
Author’s Notes:
At 72,000 words, the Interlude is nearly as long as Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone’s 77k word count. I hope its length goes some way to explain how long it took to get it done! Originally planned as a short collection of brief scenes from points of view external to the main character’s, it quickly expanded into… well, what you’re reading. I hope you enjoy it! And please let leave a comment if you do, critical or otherwise. It’s always encouraging to know people are actually reading this stuff.
Once again, I’d like to thank those who’ve supported me on Patreon – I honestly doubt I’d still be at it without their encouragement. (https://www.patreon.com/fakeminsk) Come and join the conversation! Also starting to try my hand at some commissioned work.
Onwards to chapter six! Only five more to go.
Credit given where due:
The “pear tree” scene was inspired by the plum-tree scene from Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar.
The Blackwater Phoenix special ops backstory was inspired by Operation Screaming Fist in William Gibson’s Neuromancer.
I was listening to the audiobook of High Heel (Object Lesson) by Summer Brennan while writing this – an easy recommend, and I’m pretty sure it indirectly influenced a couple of scenes.
I’m not quite sure where the scene with Ivy came from, and she just sort of popped in unexpectedly, but I’m fairly sure she’s inspired by Pam from the Archer animated series.