Chapter 06: The Outline of My Old LifeLater, I found myself sat at the edge of my sofa, lost in the sounds of my new home. I sat and stared unseeingly at the floor and my mind absently followed the aural ebb and flow. The earlier cry of children pying 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 industrial automated road-sweepers passing below, and from far away the sound of a dog barking. The occasional drone buzzed past my window.

  With the dark came some lonely 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, ing through the walls. Eventually I sat alone in the silend 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. Crazier. I’d been there before. After Persephone died, I retreated into myself and what returned was no longer quite… me, anymore. Which may have been for the best, back then, but less so now. I o get my shit together. The trick I learned back then was to keep moving. Not much of a trick, really, but it works. Do things to keep the mind distracted from current circumstaoo busy to notice how fucked up things really were. Routihat 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 ay cleavage. I sighed. No, the first order of the day was to get out of this goddamn scrap of d into something sensible.

  I returo the bedroom. A cheap mp o the bed gave some light. 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 sshes of red. There was a stuffed pink-and-white bear on the bed. There was the full-length mirror, a short bookcase haphazardly stacked with paperbacks, and a solid but battered dresser supp a blossoming pnt with vibrant green leaves. A vanity in the er, mirror decorated with stickers, surface hidden uhe crowding tubes, tubs, vials and boxes of etics, finished off the room a it crowded, but fortably 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 rge but not excessive sele of shoes and clothes. Some I reized from my wardrobe at the ibsp; To my surprise the clothes weren’t eously femihough some very girly things skulked among the sensible clothes, scraps of glittery fabric, flimsy dresses, short skirts. I shuddered and moved on.

  With a shrug of the shoulders, the babydoll pooled around my feet and I kicked the damn thing into the back of the closet. I’d never wear that fug thing again, I decided. Slipping into a pair of loose grey jogging pants with pale pink piping and a baggy sweatshirt, I tried to ighe jiggle of my boobs that apahe act of getting dressed. At the bay mind lurked the unnerving realization that I’d be better off with a bra and believe me--that wasn’t something I wao 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 fort of oversized casual clothes. Christ, but I looked like a sexy schoolgirl, sloug around her dorm room on a zy Sunday afternoon. There were far too many things I could not avoid, each cmbering for attention as I haltingly stepping into this new life. For example, the renewed difficulty of doing anything with long nails—my own, not acrylics els or whatever, by my own home-grown sbs of keratin.

  But also, the enhanced sensuousness of every inch of freshly shorn flesh, and the ridiculous ingruity of my cotermittently spping my sleek thigh. I gripped the doorframe and took a deep, steadying breath and forced my doubts and fears away. Bare feet padded softly ohin carpet as I took my first tentative step out of dy’s bedroom and explored my new home.

  A cursory first walkthrough of my new home damn well didn’t take very long. pared to my old do this pce 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, one of those nasty, cheap ohat spring up oskirts of cities, satellite housing for the poor slobs forced to ute an hour each way to shitty jobs closer to the tre. I didn’t reize any of the buildings scattered across the night sky cityscape, but what I saw suggested a rge city rather than a sprawliropolis. A cluster of towers thrust upwards in the distance, lit up against the sky, and myriad little lights flickered and flowed through the night—security and delivery drohe distinctive crimson blink and fre of searchlights of the former far more prevalent closer to my new home than the tre.

  I briefly wondered where I now lived. It wasn’t the same city. I khe outline of my old life too well. Then again, for all I knew I was now living in a different try. My breath momentarily caught in my throat at the thoughts—and that deep breath and every move reminded me of the reality of my form—and suddenly nothing seemed impossible. Taking a moment, I stared out into the dark and decided: I don’t give a fuck. After all, a ge of post code feels pretty goddamn irrelevant pared to a forced ged of gender, you know?

  Bathroom, kitette, spare room and small louhis was my new world, bordered by thin walls and cheap fl, and filled with used or inexpensive furniture. In a daze I fell bato the sofa. Tall vertical blinds, peach-coloured but greying at the edges, swayed with the wiantly admitted by the open patio doors behind. A narrow baly looked out across the city. A short coffee table filled the empty space between the sofa and the broken s on the wall opposite. A small picture frame, bright red and pstic, grudgingly caught my attention. I leaned over and picked it up.

  The girl in the picture stood on ohe other thrown up in an impromptu barefoot kibsp; A female friend standing near did the same. They were ughing and tossing their hair in the wind, arms ed 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 small cups, was me. This happy young thing, prang half-naked on some sun-kissed fn beach . . . was me. Me! My grip tightened on the frame until the frame creaked and I pced it ba its stand. It fell over with a ctter ao the floor face up. The happy eyes of dy followed me as I looked away.

  Suddenly, homey touches all over the apartment drew my eyes: the photo colge hanging on the wall, the framed pictures along the hall or perched on shelves or standing all over the pce: friends on girls’ night out, girls at a high school prom, elegant gown, beach parties, basemeogethers, drunken ughter, all caught in pictures, proudly and happily dispyed and in nearly all of them dy’s grinning face, smiling, made-up, pulling a silly look, in this one gazing serious into the camera, in that one. . . .

  Kissing a boy on the cheek, her arms around his neck, his hand at her waist.

  I closed my eyes against a sudden bout of dizziness. Digital maniputions: if I looked closely maybe I’d fiale touches of digital trickery. Probably I wouldn’t. K clearly had a team behind her capable of geing these fakes. Or maybe they weren’t fakes. Probably, they beloo the real dy Belmy, the woman whose life I’d stepped into. A few digital prompts and AI assistand it was my face—itself a fake, a sculpted mask made to resemble hers—my face over hers; or her face over mi of the scalpel and shaving of bohe needle and the knife….

  Again, the urge to vomit nearly overwhelmed me and I took several more long, deep breaths to settle my stomabsp; When I opened my eyes, I finally noticed the bottle of white wine on the ter of the kitette, waiting with a single gss and an opener. The bottle was ed with a bow and had a ached. I picked up the bottle--painfully aware of how much heavier it seemed--ahe note.

  “Good luck dy!” it said, in a strong but sloppy handwriting. “From everyo the ic, wishing you a speedy recovery.” Beh 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 fug cork out a more difficult struggle than it should’ve been, bringing a brief burn to my arm, but eventually I dropped bato the sofa, cradling a gss of Chablis in my well-manicured hand. It really needed chilling but fuck it, when needs must, right? Gazing into the amber drink I released one of the deepest groans of my life.

  God, I his drink. At the same time, how could I trust it to not be drugged? I ughed: a solitary, lonely bark in ay room. There were a hundred different ways they could get t me and there was nothing I could do about it. Through the air purifiers, or ier supply; while I slept or in my food; undoubtably in any or all of those pills he insisted I take. Fuck, those the bastards could eveg me right now. Almost certainly, they were. Maybe a camera in the broken s opposite, but more likely microlenses watg my every movement, in the light fixtures or behind the mirrors or. . . fug anywhere.

  You enjoying yourselves, you creepy fucks? Getting yoddamn pervert thrills ogling all that T&A you’ve given me?

  I knocked back the gss in a single long draught. Fuck you, Scooter, I thought. Fuck you, Katherine. And fuck you, Steele—especially you. I poured myself anss aled deeper into the sofa, legs spread wide, and scratched at my balls. I stared into the gss and grinned and added: and fuck you, Fosters. At least David went out with a bang. Fuck you all, you fucks.

  The wine spread f warmth through my stomach, which helped settle me somewhat. It was a good wi least that was something. Taking another drink, I spread my arms wide across the back of the sofa, threw my head back, and stared at the ceiling. So, David, I thought: what do you do now?

  What if K was telling the truth? What if, as absurd as it seemed, she gehought this was my best ce at survival? In her sick little mind, twisting my body into this humiliating prison might actually seem justified. She might holy believe she was doing this for my own good. Assuming the footage Scooter shared with me was genuine, I couldn’t deny she’d saved my life. Fosters’ wounds were fatal, but she kept me alive long enough for the ic to perform their bullshit magic se and bring me back from the brink. I—owed her. The question was, what, exactly did I owe her: thank you? Or a punch to the face?

  The idea that she might be right, though, wasn’t very appealing, because it meant that outside these walls and beyond that door, Steele’s assassins still lurked. More men like Fosters, still hunting me. . . .

  The thought of getting caught by Steele looking like this didly appeal.

  But what if she was lying?

  That’s thought wasn’t very goddamn appealiher. Because that meant one of two things: either she was totally insane and ag out some twisted revenge against me and somehow had the full bag of Scooter and the ic; or she was w for Steele.

  I had to put the wine gss down. If that was true . . . God, I should’ve killed the bitch when I had the ce, 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 disappeared and taken my ces. Instead, I’d trusted her. No; I’d done more than just trust her. I’d fallen for the bitbsp; Fallen hard, took her for an ally—for a friend, goddamn it. God, how could I’ve been so stupid? How many times? When would I learn you to never fug trust a woman?

  But Fosters had been looking for her. He told me his parthat ent shadowing him, the woman--was taking care of K even as he beat the shit out of me. ing to my rescue in that security footage, she was clearly badly injured . . . if she was w for Steele, why would his agents try to kill her?

  I poured myself anss of wine. This uzzle. I fug hated puzzles. Especially when I was missing half the pieces and didn’t even know what the final thing looked like. Thinking about this shit wasn’t going to get me anywhere.

  Right now, the priority was just—keeping my shit together. I had to take it oep--one day—fuck it, one mi the time. Get through the seds; breathe. Survive the immediate. If I wasn’t crazy within the hour I’d tackle the one, and hopefully I wouldn’t have dived off the baly by then.

  I nearly snorted wi my the thought. As if I’d ever give these bastards the satisfa of my suicide. Goddamn butchers. They’d find me a far harder nut to crack than that. Ane gulp of wine and I snorted again, and then nearly ughed out loud. I stifled the release by g my mouth shut but too te. Wine dribbled out my mouth and down my . I squeaked and suddenly colpsed into giggles. The sound was bubbly and feminine--my throat, my voice--and suddenly that seemed eously funny as well and I ughed out loud. Everywhere I looked presented something that sparked off another peal of giggles and ughs.

  A photo of me kissing a well-muscled boy on the cheek, tits bursting out of its bikini. A copy of a well-known, dog-eared chit-lit romantasy o the sofa. The shattered s. A sports bra, hanging over the back of a chair. The absurdity of it all. This home. This body. My life.

  I ughed. I ughed until my sides hurt. Hugging myself tightly, arms crossed beh tits that jiggled with every chuckle, my stomach growing painfully tight, I ughed until I was blinded with tears. I ughed 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 choking gasp, and suddenly instead of ughter I was wracked with great sobs that tore violently through the ey of my body. I sucked in a deep, shuddering breath.

  Clutched at my throat, long nails curled into soft skin.

  My howl of e and helplessness resohrough the room. The empty gss shattered across the far wall. I grabbed the bottle and drowned my girlish scream by sculling what remained of the wine. The empty bottle dropped from my hand with a dull thud.

  I chuckled and wiped the bay hand ay mouth.

  Screw this shit, all of it.

  Time to get fucked.

  Author's Notes:

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