Chapter 09: Favourite and Fotten ThingsTwo weeks ter, cradling the oversized mug in my hands, the heat slowly peing into my hands as the coffee warmed me from within, I stared deep into my dark beverage and found no new revetion there. Looking up I’d still be dy: 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 gnces 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 m. Everything about dy 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 stant struggle to avoid going too crazy.

  I didn’t look up; I tio 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 burnih the m’s fresh makeup. It’s not like I wao examihe 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 suddeions, bouts of paranoia as persuasive as any I’d ever known, humblihat could wring a stomach as tightly as a drenched washcloth--and embarrassment, uing, pervasive, turnio 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 worher and a settling of weight. “You mind if I sit here?” A man’s voibsp; Of course it was a man’s voibsp; All week strange men had been sittio me, opening doors, striking up unwanted versations--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 ay word. Sometimes I even indulged in a quick chat, making sure to never quite make eye tact, lick my lips, brush back my hair or actally touch his arm. I knew damhe staggering power of such small gestures. It’s like signing a goddamn marriage tract for some of these sad fucks; it’s like a decration that you’re soulmates--or at least willing to spread ys for a few free drinks and an expensive meal.

  I gave a quiod, still uo 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 lips. This sense of shame, this humiliation was being all too familiar. Every m I woke up and looked in the mirror and as I shook off the dreary remains of st night’s bad dreams the humiliation of being dy settled over me, a familiar, heavy woollen b draped ay narrow shoulders, sm, scratchy--a stant, irritating presenbsp; There was no esg this shame. tless acts throughout my day reminded me of what I’d bee. Every cliy shaped nails as I carefully cradled a gss in my hand; the frequent gnces into a pact to check my makeup; the stant flig 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 fug thing I did reminded me of my new life and every fug time I felt ashamed of what I was being.

  But I could deal with this. It could be endured.

  “Hey, are you okay?”

  I wao 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 dy doesn’t yell at guys in coffee shops. She doesn’t shy away from daily flirtations. She’s fortable with the e-ons because she’s known the semi-unwanted advanen both young and old her whole life, just like any other attractive young girl. Sure, the stant attention might annoy her sometimes, but not as much as the fear 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 followihis st week.

  The embarrassmely 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 , though not so much that they fot the all-too-familiar wander down my cleavage, with a quick detour ay bared midriff. He smiled babsp; Shit: tabsp; Now he’d think I was flirting with him--and probably call me a prick-tease when I shot him down.

  “Rough m?” he asked. He folded the day’s neer 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 dark, silent pce, somewhere I could hide and fet. Fortuhey were usually short-lived. I could ride them out. front them fa. Let the waves of emotion break against a cool and collected tre ahodically 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 sting 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 m.”

  “Oh. I see,” he answered, his eyes already turning gssy. Only two weeks and I’d already learned retty girl drops her curreionship status into a versation as early as possible. The man’s evaporated almost instantly and his smile became forced. “Sorry to hear that.”

  “It’s really annoying, you know?” I tinued, leaning forward. “I mean, Max--that’s my boyfriend, yeah?--he’s like, such a nice guy? And really siderate, 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 recolle. “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, st 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 wheried again this m 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 dy!”

  “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 mu answer for that, and quickly excused himself. Hiding a smile, a strange mix of triumph and shame ing in my stomach, I returo my profound ption 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 expl every crook and y of the pbsp; It’s not like the pce was very big, but it’s amazing how much stuff gets crammed away under sinks and in the back of closets, beh 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 the attention to detail.

  It wasn’t just the digitally maniputed photos in the albums or on the walls, the ones dispying my new face, the ohat 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 rily crossed out. The half-used bar of soap, newly opened bottle of nail polish, the empty tubes of dy’s favourite lip gloss and the waiting box of tampons. Errant s in the sofa, a scratched disk in the bedside arm clock, the scuffed stiletto with a broken heel. All these minor details came together to create aory, a story of dy told through favourite and fotten things.

  I khat she was a real person, and that she’d died, somehow, and that I’d stepped into her life. But it was those tiny, real little details that haunted me. Padding around the apartment some nights I felt that I could almost uand this strange girl I’d bee. Lying ba 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. This version of dy was as fake as—well, as David had been, I suppose.

  My coffee was empty. The frosted pink lip-prints that staihe mug’s rim mocked me. Suppressing a sigh I pulled a small mirror from my purse a 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 wand, the way it extehe 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 ys . . . and when you’ve just spent the whole shitty m 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 ridiy disguise really was.

  I put the mirror and makeup bato my purse. I’d also spent the st two weeks in an inteudy of the femis, 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 dy’s many magazines or books on the subjed starting over. Back at the ic I’d done much the same but it had all been different then--annoying but a bit of a ugh, 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 bee 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 being. They were, I was beginning to realize, the few skills that dy actually possessed. After all, I wasn’t David Saunders anymore, with his expensive do and his own er offi the ninth floor, with a secretary and a string of nightly quests and a membership to the best gym in town.

  Now I was dy Belmy, young and pretty, certainly, but also a high-school dropout. I was unemployed with iermi certainly limited funds in the bank. I was alone in a big city, with a driver’s lise but no car, a home full of pictures but no friends, no family, already growing bored of the daily coffee routine, of the chick-lit books on the shelf and girlie magazines, sied by the closet full of clothes I hated to wear, and these B-cup tits stantly on dispy, the exposed half-moon flesh over my close-fitting top jiggling with every movement, now flushing a bright red and the heat crawling up my neck. . . .

  Guess I wasn’t leaving the coffee shop just yet. These mood swings were driving me insane.

  Author's Notes:

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