Chapter 08: e With MeThe few weeks were a little hazy.

  Within the medie et 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 fug stash of narcotic Lucky Charm, each with their own dire for use--this one every m after food, that owice a day for the hree months, ao be used freely as needed. Sifting through the cluster of bottles, it didn’t take me long to find the antidepressants and diazepam. I’m sure there was enough there to st 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. Dead men ’t get revenge.

  But at the moment I couldn’t 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 beh a steady stream of little yellow pills and rger red ohat kept reality far enough at bay for me to no longer care. The days shuffled past like a disgrueen 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 m 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 baly and stare out across the city. I spent hours there. From my high pce the wind caressed my skin and ruffled my hair. The day it raihe falling water felt cool and slick against my bare shoulders and naked breasts. Evenings I might spend sprawled on the sofa, staring at the bnk and broken s, lost in trag the fine spread of cracks from afar. Couldn’t quite remember when I broke the damn thing. Was it the first night, after Scooter spoke to me? Or anht? I must have hurled ay witle at it some point, bringing a brief, warming flush of pleasure as the s cracked and the gss shattered.

  By three in the m I’d be standing behind the patio doors, half-closed against the night-time chill, watg the far-off glitter and shimmer of the city. Itent sounds of life would reach my ears. I watched the city through the patio dss. 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 suurned and the light appeared, beginning as journey down my wall. . . .

  Thanks for everything, K, Scooter, you bastards. What had they promised? A “fine simple life”? There wasn’t anything fug fine or simple about this goddamn life of mine. Not that I felt anything that fierce during those st weeks. I didn’t feel much of anything really, no peaks, no valleys, just a gentle rolling pin of faded whites and muted emotions, and that’s how I wa. The occasional hunger pang or sudden weakness registered as a minor , easily ignored, as I floated about the apartment.

  And through it all, I drank.

  The sexiest of girls starts to look 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, not after I tossed it aside that first m. Couldn’t be bothered to ge out of those saher. I’d wander into the toilet for a piss and the occasional shit but sidering how little I ate, that didn’t happen often.

  By my sed night as dy I’d polished off all the booze in the apartment--puked my guts up a few more times--passed out o floor--left the fridge door open and spoiled most of my food--and lived off of ued s of soup and dried cereal and whatever crackers and other crap I could find buried in the cupboards.

  At some point, I must’ve left my little apartment. I holy ’t remember doing it. Like, my first time in public as—dy, as a girl; in this strange neighbourhood; in this strange life. And I ’t remember a moment of it. Who knows what the fuck happened. All I know is that suddenly, I had booze again.

  Then one night I was sitting in the louhin arms thrown wide across the back of the sofa and staring vatly 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 dlelight 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 violen 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 unfortable in my dress shirt and tie, ah-bound clod wearing a too-tight colr.

  Leaning ba my seat, I smiled and shrugged. “So do you. I wasn’t sure you’d e.”

  She gnced away 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 t 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 e?”

  “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 dang beh the water’s surfabsp; “But not tonight. It’s never as simple as one side against anood 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 sses and toasted each other. The wine was a dark red but her painted fingernails cradling the gss 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.

  “Persephone,” she said.

  I told her my name.

  She smiled and took my hand. “e with me,” she said.

  I jerked awake with a sharp intake of breath.

  A dream. Or was it a memory? Sometimes I ’t tell the differenot when it es to Persephone. I’d all but fotten that first meeting. My first ‘date’ with Sephy, the first of many furtive enters a liaisons, of fights and violent sex and desperately preoments spent ging fiercely to each other. Six months ter she was dead. It was my fault. It was my fault. I hadn’t been strong enough to protect her.

  Clutg my throbbing head I staggered to my feet. Midday sun flooded the room. Christ. 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 ed, reality could go fuck itself. I needed another drink. Was I at that point where I could start in on the cough syrup and varact yet? When did it bee okay to piss into ay bottle and skim off the top?

  Halfway to the medie et a knog 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 twid knocked doicture 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 deafeni, though I didn’t know why.

  “I have a delivery for a Miss Belmy,” a female voice called back through the door. “It o 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. Uhe first time I dressed up as dy 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 doheir job well. If I couldn’t reize myself, how could a plete stranger? Rather than fear, a sudden inexplicable yearning to ect with another human being arose in me. After days of silence, crawling lights and the far-off sounds of traffic, I felt a powerful o see another human. Besides, it had to be something important. Nobody uses couriers anymore, not when a drone would do, unless it’s something valuable.

  “Just give me a minute,” I muttered.

  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 a my midriff exposed. Taking a deep breath, I opehe door.

  I’ll give the delivery girl credit: she was a goddamn pro, that’s for sure. She was quite cute, with her little bro and pixyish hairdo with purple and pink streaks. Her nose wri the stench that flowed from my apartment, and she couldn’t quite suppress the fsh of disdain or disgust that crossed her eyes as she looked down at me, but she her flinched nor ented on my appearanbsp; Still, that human presend appraising look suddenly, forcefully brought me bayself and I felt acutely and ashamedly aware of myself.

  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 sants, the smeared food encrusted over the jiggling exposed top of those tits--yeah, real sexy. My hair y slickly against my scalp and bloodshot eyes stared anxiously from a pale fabsp; 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 st thing I needed was the neighbossiping about the trae hooker in apartment--I had to check the door--1607. Looking at myself I felt intense embarrassment, and for o 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 e to this? This wasn’t life, existing--barely--on painkillers, booze and dreams of dead people. I couldn’t just detach myself from the world around me; I might as well throw myself from the baly instead. Life ain; Persephoaught me that a lifetime ago, and I silently thanked her for the reminder.

  “Miss dy Belmy?”

  “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. dy’s voibsp; And the words that tumbled relutly from my lips took me by surprise: “I’m dy Belmy.”

  I made a vain attempt at brushing back my hair and rubbing some of the filth from my fabsp; “Sorry about. . . .”

  “If you’ll just sign, please?” Her voice was brusque and I couldn’t bme her. I wouldn’t want to talk to me either.

  Taking the delivery I signed ‘dy’ instead of ‘David’, whi 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 a rge, heavy sealed envelope and quickly left. I stood there for a moment, blinking and fused, and slowly looked down at the letter.

  dy Belmy, it said, and an address. My address, my new home; I am dy Belmy.

  With heavy steps I trudged towards the bathroom, dropping the envelope o the broken picture frame along the way. I needed a shower. Sants 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 pstic shower curtain. Stepped gingerly onto cool por. Slid shut the curtain and twisted the knob.

  Cold water smmed into me. I gasped through the shock as the shower cwed at the stend filth and tore through the fog I’d been ed in these st two weeks. Staring up into that bitterly chill cascade, for a moment each droplet seemed suspended, catg 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 body.

  As the fog lifted my thoughts gradually cleared. Sudden ideas, thoughts, fragments of sentences fshed through my head and with them came a rush of emotions, feelings thrust aside for the st two weeks as I trembled and my teeth chattered and God, shit, what have they doo me, how could she, I’ll fug kill them! If Akiko could see me now--or Amanda, she’d fug love this—or Emma or Sofiya, they’ d ugh their tits off—or Sakura--kick my ass for letting this happen--they were so fug sexy, these girls from the past; I wonder where they all are now. . . . I grinned a skull’s grin into the falling water, a feral, savage grin, and thought such violent and whirling thoughts that my body trembled.

  Survive. Survive until such a time as I get back to being a guy. Put dy to rest and then kill off ead every one of the sick fucks 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 y 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 st? I turned over, pressing my forehead against the smooth expanse of tiles. The water tio pound and shatter against my bad neck, the icy chill peing deeply. The cold forcefully reected me to my body, to the physical presence of those nipples tightening 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 ay 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 wao pound that wall. Shatter those tiles. I raised my fist. ched and unched it. Those fingers--the same size they’d always been--seemed much daintier now. Weaker. What would pung the wall aplish? With something akin to a groan I uncurled my hand and firmly pressed my palm ft against the smooth tiling and slowly slid to the floor. My polished nails, chipped and dulled after two weeks of , glistened wetly, adding a pink hue to the wash of green and ivory.

  My breathing slowed, rexed. Anger and pain released: with scious effort I eased into a renewed trol of myself. Eventually I cmbered to my feet. By this time I was nearly numb from the cold, shivering untrolbly, 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 shel and started to wash. The water carried the suds and remaining filth and stench away and I watched them circle the drain and disappear.

  dy’s shower was small and a little cramped, but the water was hot and the pressure good, and I rexed a little. I’ve always done a lot of thinking ihroom, you know? There’s er seat than a toilet for some good, serious reading. And a long, hot shower: the natural birthpce 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 dormanto a state of profound calm but startling wakefulness.

  “I’m dy Belmy.” I repeated those words from earlier, turning into the shower and speaking through the fall of water. The sibint start of this he flick of the tongue and the glottal twitch of the throat that e: unfamiliar but not unfortable as it rolled off the tongue. A rose by any other name, Akiko oaught me, and as dy’s perfumed ermeated the air those words took on new poignancy. Surrounded in the floral aroma that would leave its taint ay flesh, this body announced dy to every sehis soft skin that felt like dy, these soft words sounding so female, this gentle st that was all girl and these curves and hair ale features that dispyed her to the world.

  I was dy Belmy, and my every sense insisted that she rison from which I could not escape on my own. The question was not whether I should live this life; I had no choibsp; The question was whether I could. Pretending to be dy for three weeks at the ic was ohing, 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 superhighaved with perverse iions that ended in insanity. Yet what choice did I have?

  My mind tried to methodically work through the possibilities once again: perhaps K was lying and Steele thought me dead; this was all some twisted plot on her part, aided by Scooter and the ibsp; But why? These things doo me must have cost a fortune, but to what end? Even if K was pletely 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 ibsp; Unless, of course, he thought turnio dy was a ve way of disposing of me. Then why bother keeping me alive? He’d been right about ohing: they’d saved my life, the bastards. They could’ve left me to bleed on the hospital floor. A I owed them had been paid in full by dy, but their efforts meant at least ohing: they didn’t want me dead. Yet.

  He spoke of experimental procedures, corporate secrets and my miracle rebirth. Was that the price K paid for his help: me, an unwitti subject for some fug Fraein sce projebsp; But then why let me go?

  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 dy 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 reize me as David Saunders.

  I hefted the weight of one breast in my hand a drop back before attag them with the soap. Yeah, definitely no way they’d reize me unless I did something really stupid--like walk out that door and head 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 old favours from when I worked for Sakura. I ticked eae off on a long, painted fingernail as hot water tio fall around me. Emma, Sofiya, Dimitrios, Caleb: all favours outstanding. Assuming they were still alive. Especially Caleb, after that horrific clusterfuck out east. As for the girls, fuck, I couldn’t let them see me like this!

  Anyway, they weren’t the subtle kind of help I needed right now, anyway: these people from my past, they’re not so much good at subtlety as they were at ying down grievous retribution.

  Besides, and most importantly, without the help of the ic there was no way I was getting a male body babsp; The ges 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, dy’s void her face, this crazy teenage body sculpted from David’s flesh.

  And so: what to do?

  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 distra to rise to the surfabsp; I could work them through and then . . . let them wash away. Let those emotions e arayal fester somewhere dark and deep inside. Save them for ter. For now….

  With fragile calm, I reached for the shaving cream and began to ther up my legs and armpits. Stu the life, I resolved to be the best goddamn dy 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 ges in life arrive hand-in-hand with moal events, or are marked by grand dispys, loud exposition and brilliant words.

  They’re not. A mas shot but lives, a woman loses her baby, an explosion wipes out someone’s family and they seize that moment and decre: _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 ge. Because those radical ges, the fual 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 ter, ed, 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 fortable runners, heart pounding in my chest, terrified, ecstatic, carrying a small purse aing a f mantra beh my breath--I finally felt ready to face the world outside my apartment without the be s or booze.

  I primped and fussed and stared at myself in the mirror hanging over the shelf by the door to dy’s apartment. 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.

  On the way to the door I picked up the envelope I’d signed for. My fingerprint undid the csp and its tents tumbled out. A phone. A driver’s lise. A letter from dy’s bank—bank and credit 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 phone and credit card and a bank at: what better, more tangible proof could there be that I was now and truly dy Belmy?

  Author's Notes:

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