Constant in All Other Things 2: Chapter 01 (Patreon)

For the archives: Constant in All Things 2: Chapter 02. This is the most current version of the story.

Constant in All Other Things 2

Chapter One

by

Fakeminsk (fakeminsk@gmail.com / https://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

Previously on Constant in All Other Things:

David Saunders, misogynistic corporate executive and womanizer, oversees his boss, pharmaceutical magnate Jeremiah Steele, kill the son of a known rival.  Against his better judgment, David decides to turn to the authorities and testifies in court.  A failed assassination attempt forces the woman assigned to protect him, Agent Katherine Smith, 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 Bellamy.  They flee to the Asklepios Clinic, a secluded medical facility that promises safety; on the way they shake off their pursuer, Agent Fosters.  David and Katherine 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 role of Cindy and several weeks pass.  Cindy helps another patient, Harry Longman, an aging rock star David idolized as a teen, and soon after Agent K returns to relocate David through witness relocation into his promised new male life.  Just as he prepares to abandon Cindy forever, Agent Fosters catches up with him.  David reveals his past contains its own violent secrets and the two fight.  He kills Fosters but is critically injured in the fight.

Synopsis

David wakens from nightmares to discover the radical changes made at the Clinic to keep him alive following the assassin’s attack.

Zero, pt 1(Prologue): Radial Line

“He’ll hate you,” Jonathon said.

            Katherine’s reply came a little too quickly.  “I know.”  She took a deep breath.  “But I can not see any other way.”

            “That’s why I avoid thinking about the ethics of a situation. The Clinic hires professionals for that.”  The doctor scratched at his beard.  “It might all prove academic anyway.  Everything depends on Saunders simply surviving.”

            She felt the guilt of her failure keenly.  “What are his chances?”

            “Based purely on the physical damage he’s soaked up?  Not good.  That gaping hole in his side and the blood loss are the worst of it, but coupled with the chemical burn across his chest, the broken limbs—” and he indicated each injury with a tap of a finger, “multiple lacerations, head trauma, facial injuries? Then add in the complication of the cocktail of drugs we were pumping him full of last three weeks? All those psychotropics, hypnotics and painkillers complicate things.”  The doctor shrugged.  “Frankly, he should already be dead.

            “But he’s not—and that’s worth a lot.  I don’t think I’ve ever had a stronger patient on my operating table.  The man woke up while they were prepping him for the Tank—he nearly damn well ripped out Richard’s throat. The sedatives barely worked on him.” Jonathon’s fingers twitched with obvious excitement, and he drew them back and buried them deep in his pockets.  “His bloodwork’s fascinating….”

            He stared off into the middle distance for a moment, momentarily lost in thought, before continuing.  “This guy’s in peak physical condition and he had the good fortune of getting himself assassinated in one of the best medical facilities in the world.  My people are among the top of their field.  The bastard’s tough.”

            Katherine lips twitched in a hint of a smile.  “He is… stubborn.”

“My gut feeling is that if he survives the night he’ll be in the clear.”

            She nodded.  “And then?”

            “Then things get interesting.”  His voice thrummed with barely suppressed anticipation. “We’ve already inserted the test subject into the Tank. Meanwhile, we’ve made the preliminary injections and have Saunders in an induced coma. We’ll keep him on ice until the data comes back from the test run. Even quiescent, the Juice might be enough to keep him alive. Once we’ve reached the required threshold of cellular diffusion, we’ll tweak the process according to the test feedback. And then? It’s Saunders’ turn. He’ll go in the Tank and if all goes well, he’ll emerge—well, he’ll be a changed man.”

            If he survives the night. If he survives the Tank. If he survives waking up—changed. If I don’t fail him again. If Steele doesn’t get him. If David doesn’t go insane. If… if.

            If David doesn’t again surprise them all with hitherto unrevealed talents for violence and subterfuge.

            So many ways this could go wrong. She felt weak and tired. Katherine winced in pain.

            “You’ve got to take it easy, Katherine.” There was a tremor to Jonathon’s voice, easily mistaken for annoyance—he was concerned for her, in his way.  “That other agent, she took a good chunk out of you, too.  Your injuries aren’t exactly negligible, either. You lost a lot of blood. You need to rest.”

            “I will rest,” Agent Katherine Smith answered, “when Cindy is safe.”  She took a deep breath, a painful one, and tried to to suppress the growing unease in the pit of her stomach.  She indicated for Jonathon to continue.  “And there remains too much to do, and little time in which to do it.  Please, call her in.”

            The doctor nodded and tapped a button.  A moment later the door opened, and they were joined by a tall, statuesque woman.

            “Just so we are clear,” Crystal Dawn said as she sat with them. “What you’re doing is morally reprehensible, ethically wrong and almost certainly doomed to failure.”

             She was a tall woman in her late forties, tastefully if conservatively dressed.  A pair of drop pearl earrings and a retro-style perm, tightly coiled and streaked with grey, framed her face.  A thin nose offset a strong chin, and expressive eyes, minimally made-up behind thick-framed glasses, glared at the two sat opposite her. 

            She clicked glossy nails rhythmically against the table’s surface, clearly expressing her annoyance at the meeting.  “If you hadn’t convinced me that this was the only way of keeping this man alive, Jon, I’d have you before the board of directors in a minute,” she said.  “This David’s a neurotic, screwed-up asshole, but anyone who can get through to Harry Longman deserves a second chance.”  She shook her head.  “I can’t believe you’re even marginally involved in this insane plot.”

            “Yes, yes, Carl, your objections are well noted,” Scooter answered. A grin lurked behind the bushy mass of his beard.

            She pursed her lips in annoyance. “Listen,” she continued. “You can’t just expect to throw a skirt on this guy and make him into the person you want.  Yes, this David is… unusually adept at adapting to a role. He presented as female unusually well, considering no obvious prior history of experimentation or inclination towards that identity.  But for him, it clearly remains an act. But that’s all it is, and all it’ll ever be.  An act, and that’s insufficient for what you want.”

            Agent K leaned forward.  “That’s why we need your help,” she said.  “We need to . . . change him.  Change his mind.”  She thought of her own past, and how her experiences with Steven changed her.  “We need to break him and put him back together in a new shape; the same ingredients, just a different end product.”

            Crystal’s eyes narrowed.  She turned to Scooter.  “Do you hear this?  You’re kidding, right?”  She turned back to Katherine.  “He’s not a bloody Lego kit.  You can’t take him apart and reassemble at leisure.  What you’re talking about would destroy this man--probably still wouldn’t achieve what you want--and would most certainly leave him useless to you.”

            Agent K leaned forward.  “Why?”

            The therapist leaned back and removed her glasses and pinched her nose, taking a deep calming breath.  “My encounters with David were few and informal--he didn’t know I worked for Asklepios, after all--but I was immediately struck by his intense masculinity--and I use the term in the most stereotyped way possible.  I’ve looked through the data you’ve given me and its simply reinforced this certainty.  If there was a sliding scale for gender, he’d be at the far end of it. If gender’s a loop, he’s at that point where it suddenly switches over. If anything, this is what drove him into his adopting the most stereotyped of feminine behaviours: extreme masculinity meets extreme femininity, and it’s precisely because he’s so confident in the one identity that he's able to venture over the threshold into the other.”

            Crystal drew a circle on the table between them.  “But what you want to do to him--what you’ve already begun to do--will directly challenge his core identity.”  Her finger drew a radial line down to the centre of the circle and she tapped one glossy nail there.  “You can’t just pound his psyche with drugs, carve his body into a new shape and expect a new person to emerge.  You’ll either kill him, or the conditioning will fail.  You’ll be left with a very angry, very dangerous and deranged man.”

            The psychiatrist shuffled through some papers and withdrew several photos.  They weren’t entirely flattering to their subject, revealing Cindy at moments when the façade had dropped: staring openly at a passing female patient, or sprawled in a most un-lady like fashion across the sofa in his room. 

            “David’s sexuality is at the core of his being,” Crystal continued, one slender finger gesturing at the photos.  “What we know about this man suggests he’s an inveterate womaniser. He draws great satisfaction in pursuing the opposite sex. Chasing after women is a powerful motivator for him.”

            “Overcompensating for something?” Jonathon asked.

            “No.” Crystal rolled her eyes. “But seeking validation? Maybe.”

            Katherine leaned a little closer. “What do you mean?”

            “This man has a history with women, correct?”  Crystal indicated her folder. “Even a preliminary survey reveals weekend after weekend of one-night stands, reaching back for over a decade. Dozens of women—hundred, even. Few lasted longer than a month; none for even half a year. He is—I believe—looking for something. Or someone.”

            “Someone?” Katherine glanced down at her own tablet, scrolling back through some notes.  “Persephone?”

            Crystal nodded.  “Persephone.”

            Jonathon looked between the two women.  “Who?”
            “The name he spoke during surgery,” Katherine said.

            “And several times in his sleep,” Crystal said.

            “Who is she?”

            “That,” Crystal said, “May be the key to understanding this man.”

Zero, pt 2(Prologue): This Is Where (S)he Died

Sickly yellow light seeped into the far corners of the dirty little backroom, flickering as the bared 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 place reeked of sweat and mould and sex.  There were no windows and two doors on opposing walls provided the only escape from the room.

            The mattress was filthy and stained. 

            David stood unmoving in the centre of the room.  He blinked in the dim light, slowly coming to his senses.  He felt strangely numb, though the hint of terrible pain throbbed in the background.

            No,” he whispered.  “Not here.”

            His voice faded into the dusty air.  He heard the deep thrum of distant music rising through the floor.  Fingers curled into a tight fist.  He thumped his fist against his thigh, and again, but the pain achieved nothing. Then, the creak of hinges. David spun to face the door behind him.  The door swung open onto impenetrable darkness; a slash across a canvas; a chill wind breathed into the room and swirled about bared legs.

            A gasp; a cry and moan: unable to stop himself David turned back to the bed.  A woman was now splayed across the filthy mattress.  She was beautiful--far too much so for such a room--but that beauty was tainted.  The ivory basque she wore should have gleamed but was tarnished and stained. Her stockings were torn and the skin beneath was red and raw.  Dark and heavy makeup, smudged and cracked, did more to conceal her 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 insensate but for her eyes--which were open and blazed with anger.

            “Sephy?” David said.

            (“Hey, did he just say something?”

            “Don’t be stupid.  The patient’s under.”)

            This is where (s)he died.

The pain of her death never went away. But it did fade to an almost comforting numbness.  The guilt was another matter: he used it as he was taught.  Following Persephone’s death, Sakura no longer had any use for him: a tool with a flaw can no longer be trusted. But her teaching remained.  Guilt fuelled his rapid ascent in the corporate world; it underscored many of his sexual conquests.  Like his fear and anger and love, he made it a part of himself and gradually his guilt, as with his fear and anger and love, dwindled until all became nothing more than a comforting numbness, nearly forgotten, easily ignored.

            The nightmares stayed.  He often woke in a cold sweat in early morning, causing him to cry out in the night and if he had company, frighten whatever girl lay next to him.  The company of women did nothing to keep the dreams at bay.  Sometimes the bad dreams came so incessantly and intensely they seemed to haunt him even after he awoke.  Then he sat by the window, looking out at the city glinting coldly below, breathing and trembling steadily until the sun rose and banished the darkness.

            One nightmare recurred most frequently and with greater intensity than the others.  There was no returning to sleep after escaping its clutches.  He recognized the room in the nightmare.  I’m dreaming, he though to himself.  Yet the nightmare had never gripped him with such clarity.  His surroundings and the steady creep of sensations and emotions felt incredibly lucid. 

            The musty taste on his tongue, the urge to wipe his hands clean against his short, pleated skirt, the palpable scorn that flowed hotly from the girl on the bed—his senses felt fully engaged even as he recognized that he must be dreaming.

            With growing dread, he turned to the open door behind him.  The threshold roiled with darkness and in it stood a figure. The figure resolved itself into familiarity: tall, heavy-set, fists clenching at his side and jaw clenched: Agent Fosters now stepped into his nightmare.  Blood flowed freely from a thin slit along the man’s throat, a crimson smile as terrible as the man’s grin above.  The assassin’s muscles bulged and strained against his suit.  Dark eyes flicked over to David.  The man sneered and dismissed him and returned his attention to the girl lying across the bed.

            Fosters grin grew with lust.  Blood dribbled from between his teeth and from his nose and down his chin.  He stepped ponderously across the room, eyes locked on Persephone’s vulnerable form.

            “No,” David howled and launched himself at the man.  But his footing was unsure in heels, and his weak, wobbly steps slowed him, draining all strength from his attack.  With an idle swipe, Fosters sent him crashing into the wall.

            David fell to his knees.  Pain flared in his side.  He clutched his ribs and they felt wet and slick, but his eyes never left the man’s back as he approached the girl on the bed.  Fosters towered over her. He towered over them both, and his powerful hands, fingers long and curved like meat hooks, reached down for Persephone.

            “Don’t touch her!” David screamed.  He struggled to his knees, crawled towards her, reached for her.  “Sephy!”

            Fosters methodically tore the woman apart.  Gore flooded the bed and flowed across the wooded floor. Blood pooled and spread and reached David, still scrabbling to reach the woman he loved. He reached his enemy. Lurched to his feet.  His hands, stained red, curled around the man’s throat.

            “Stop,” he said, tightening his grip. And then Fosters shouted, “Get him off of me!” and suddenly the room was gone, disappearing in a florescent flare, white light, antiseptic slap, and he was sitting up on a table surrounded by men and women in white coats, spattered in red, staring at him with wide eyes over face masks, and everyone began to cry out at once:

            “Holy shit, he’s awake!”

            “Quick, pin him down!”

            “Robert, fuck, Robert, put him out, put him out!”

            “Don’t you touch her!” David cried, flailing out against his opponents, struggling against the hands that sought to restrain him.  A suddenly stabbing pain in the thigh, and he glanced back to see the needle jutting out of his leg, and a moment later he felt his body grow cold and numb beneath him.

            “Sephy,” he said, reaching but unable to reach her, sinking as he was, down into darker depths of unconsciousness.

One: The Babydoll Whispered Its Secrets

Gasping for air, clawing, struggling upwards towards a surface that couldn’t be seen, like a man drowning and lost at sea—I awoke.

            Stucco whorls and dappled spray of light: details of an unfamiliar ceiling.  A lamp with a pink lampshade.  The mattress beneath me was too soft.  Sheets, smooth and cool.  There were muffled voices, at first weak and indistinct, briefly raised in argument and then abruptly gone.  Bright sun slanted through a window accompanied by a gentle breeze.  A distant rumble of traffic.  Hints of familiar smells: a touch of vanilla, and flowers, and fading perfume.  And finally, a metallic aftertaste at the back of my throat. Licking my lips, I found them tacky and sweet.

            Where the fuck was I?

            Turning brought a painful tug at my scalp.  Hair, pinned beneath me.  I had long hair.  Reaching for it, the sight of my hand: shaped fingernails, smooth and glossy crescents extending a centimetre past the tip and painted a pearlescent pink, highlighted fingers that seemed long and slender.  I wiggled them bemusedly.  Their movement were mesmerising. The hand itself was slim and well-formed. The skin, unblemished as though never knowing blister or scar, bruise or split knuckle, blood or pain. They were very cute hands.

            Sharp pain lanced my temple and I winced.  This . . . wasn’t right.  My hands, they were . . .  strong?  Calloused.  They were violent hands: an image of them curled around a throat. I squeezed my eyes shut and took a deep breath. 

            Pain receded; I opened my eyes.  Those unfamiliar hands led to a dainty wrist, up a lithe arm to a well-shaped shoulder.  A delicate blue strap made a pretty contrast against pale white skin, leading down to a billowing babydoll that draped off of well-proportioned, rounded tits.

            I thrashed and kicked and freed my legs from the bed sheets and struggled into a sitting position so quickly that I felt dizzy and saw stars.  Blood roared in my ears before I calmed enough for the vertigo to recede.  Reaching under the sheer fabric, and after a brief hesitation, I cupped the soft flesh that swelled my chest.  Breasts.  Soft and supple, topped by large nipples over dimpled and dark areola.  I squeezed and felt their warmth beneath my palm.  I felt the grip on my chest.  I stared dumbly at the mounds beneath my hands.  One nipple poked rudely between my fingers.  Slender fingers.  Pink nails.  Breasts.

            Huh.

            I had tits.

            The pain in my temple throbbed, ebbed.  None of this seemed right.  But why not?  Why the reaction of a moment ago?  Thoughts formed and dispersed, like clouds on a windy day. One arm fell limply at my side as I stared blankly across the room.  The other kept its uncertain grip on the mound that thrust perplexingly from my chest.

            The boob beneath my palm felt real. So did the nails that dug int the soft flesh. Nothing fake, no prosthetics. The presence of those tits was too vivid, the touch too immediate.

            Why wouldn’t they be real?

            My other hand drifted across my taut stomach.  The skin beneath that touch was soft, smooth.  Fingers crawled over rounded hips and slipped beneath the wispy hem of what I wore.  Searching, they found a pair of lacy panties and beneath—well, I’m not sure whether what I found there surprised me or not.

            With one hand cupping my tit and the other my cock, I felt a moment of profound confusion.

            Think!  I grappled for a name—for my own, which suddenly escaped me.  The first name that came to mind was—Persephone. I shivered. No; that name carried with it pain and shadows and though I knew the name was important, it was not my name.

            A moment later another name forced itself to my lips: Cindy, another girl’s name.  The name brought a flicker of pleasure and familiarity—a fleeting smile to my lips—but somehow it didn’t feel right.  The name was—like a Band-Aid placed over a wound.

            Sitting at the edge of the bed, I winced with the effort of thinking through the dullness that darkened the horizons of my mind.  Sleep threatened.  It would be easier to simply lie down and worry about this later.  It felt strange that the name of two women came first. Despite the cock between my legs, was I actually female? I stared down at those fine tits. The memory of nimbly hooking a bra behind my back, of supporting and nestling their weight in lacy padded cups, fluttered to mind.  So, too, the memory of those nails, of sitting back as an expert’s touch painted and shaped them.  The phantom arch of heels; the shadow of a corset at my waist. A women’s memories, surely?

            David.

            The name burned away those feminine impressions. Yes! But also: no.  No—for a moment, the name felt as wrong as Cindy’s did—almost more so at first—a hollow, empty name—a dark name, without light; and I was about to throw it aside in favour of something further back. Another name hovered just out of my mind’s reach, a brighter name beyond the horizon—but as I rolled David across the tongue—as I compared it against Cindy—it became comfortable. I decided the name would do.  David.

            A man’s name and, looking past those fleshy weights on my chest, a man’s parts; I was definitely male, after all.  So how the hell did I end up sitting here in this girl’s room with a girl’s curves, displayed in gauzy scraps of girl’s clothing?

            Pain: my hand gripped my thigh.  Nails dug into a slender but fleshy thigh.  Detachedly, I noticed my heavy breathing—nearly hyperventilating—but why?  Somewhere in the back of my mind a muted voice howled in rage and betrayal, and fear; and faded and slipped beneath an inexorable wave of apathy. The drugged haze—for what else could this foggy detachment be?—kept the strongest emotions at bay. 

            My fist unclenched.  The angry welts left in my skin would fade. 

            Gathering strength, I stood—wavered slightly—found my footing and stepped away from the bed.  Those tits—my breasts—settled into gravity’s embrace even as the babydoll clung to me like a dream, whispered around my thigh and ass like the breath of a lover.  Long hair tickled my neck and tumbled down the small of my back.  My gaze drifted around the room with faint curiosity: from rumpled bed to cluttered bedstand; a rickety wicker bookshelf creaking beneath spine-cracked romance and suspense novels, a scratched table, a mix of half-melted scented candles and LED tealights. Jewellery boxes erupted strings of cheap plastic treasures.  A closet door, decorated with a ripped and mended poster of water lilies, leaned half-open. Within, a mess of dresses, skirts and blouses lurked. A battered dresser, some drawers half open, erupted with a rainbow of underwear and hosiery, the surface lost beneath more half-melted candles, makeup jars and pots and vials and pencils.

            And in the corner, half-hidden beneath a pastel pink hoodie draped over its edge, a full body-length mirror. A moment’s hesitation and I took a step towards it. The hoodie joined the other clothes on the floor.

            I turned the mirror and stepped in front of it.

            Softness: the first, overwhelming impression was one of softness.  Soft shoulders, wide but their prettiness accentuated by the delicate strap of lingerie.  My skin held a youthful lustre in the early morning light.  Then those breasts, small but perfectly formed, the dark, round circle of areolas and the protuberant nipples pushing out from the center. They sat high and proud over a taut, smooth belly.  Lean hips led to sleek and smooth legs, hairless and bereft of any hard lines of definition or muscle.  And between those legs: a penis, also soft and hanging limp and small in its gauzy blue veil of mesh panties. 

            My hair tumbled in a straight, blonde wave past my shoulders to mid-back. Framed between this golden cascade, a small and slightly upturned nose and beneath, lips that were soft and full.  A narrow, weak chin. Thin, curved brows; long, dark lashes. Green eyes. A girl’s face. Not my face, but somehow familiar.

            My legs went weak. I gripped the mirror’s frame. Without its support I would have fallen to the floor. I stared into my reflection and sought to know myself.  The room started to spin.  The girl in the mirror was me; I was the girl in the mirror; but—

            Pain: like a steel bar slammed upside the head—recollected agony of a broken arm—ragged breaths—shattered leg.  I winced and sagged.  I remembered a punch to the face; a burst of fire in my side. Still gripping the mirror’s frame, I sank to my knees. The babydoll whispered its secrets against my thigh with every movement, every breath of the wind.  And staring into the glass, I saw this person, this not-me girl staring back, eyed wide with confusion yet also—beautiful.  Even in panic there was no denying the allure of those eyes, and the meticulous skill of the cosmetics that emphasised that innate beauty. Mascara, eyeliner, the delicate blending of rose and gold shades, all focused my attention on those expressive emerald depths.

            Deep breath. Release.  I leaned forward until my forehead felt the cool touch of the mirror. In leaning forward, I felt the wispy tickle of lace and the tug of gravity at—my breasts—pulling—me down, towards the floor. The room spun faster, tilted. Nausea rose.  I gulped in air. Fingers curled into the carpet. Nails—pretty nails—glittered. Hair tickled my neck and fell across my face.  My stomach lurched.

            Looking up, I saw this pretty young woman in the mirror on all fours, face a rictus grin of pain, but I focused on the eyes--green, with grey flecks—my eyes; not my face but those were my eyes; this was me.  This is me staring into the mirror.

            I am David Saunders.

            And I remembered.

Two: Don’t Die

They came to see me in the hospital.  It did not occur to me then that they came out of kindness or care, though years later it occurred to me that maybe they did.  But at that time, lying broken in that antiseptic bed with its crisp, pale green sheets, all I could imagine was that they came to confirm my failure. I served as memento mori to Sakura’s children—not that I knew the term back then—a just-living reminder of the cost of failure and disobedience.

            First, Sofiya, pinch-faced, alert-eyed and cold. She slouched into the hospital room and placed a potted purple orchid next to my bed. It was Persephone’s flower—her favourite—and somehow Sofiya knew; but then, she always did, she was the cleverest among us. 

            “You’re an idiot,” she said.  “A fucking idiot.”  She slouched against the far way, every line in her body exuding disdain; later, I understood she cared, deeply but lacked the means to express this.  She visited often, hours often spent in silence. “Don’t die,” she said the last time I saw her, and squeezed my hand. “You’ve got a favour to cash in.”

            Dimitrios also visited; he also owed me.  I remembered how he ducked, instinctively, entering the room and how his bulk filled the space.  He towered over the bed, huge hands curled around the bed’s frame, squeezing and releasing, squeezing and releasing. His concern was genuine, but also selfish.  “I’m not done with you,” he reminded me. “Best out of three, yes? You better get better, yes? Quickly.” I drifted in and out of consciousness often during those early days of recovery, often waking to find him in the room, standing by my side, eyes on the door. 

            The last visitor was Kylie.

            “You’re an asshole,” she said. Despite my condition, she punched me in the shoulder, and she derived pleasure from my pain.  We’d had a short fling, once, which ended when I met Persephone.  “A stupid fucking asshole.” She didn’t hold my hand or smile or wink to soften her words; she meant what she said, always.  “And you’ve gone and fucked it up for all of us.” But when she sat with me, she leaned in close and whispered, “she knew, all along.” Another time, she said, “You were always her favourite.” And the last time I saw her, “She wants to talk to you.”

            Sakura was both the first and last to visit. I was unconscious as she watched over me as she arranged for my care and recovery in the hospital. Four months later, the day before being discharged, I awoke from a brief nap to find her standing at the foot of the bed. The door was closed and the curtains drawn. Even the security camera, with its ever-blinking red light, was stilled. We were alone.

            “L—,” Sakura said, and here she called me by my first name, a name long buried and left to the past. I remember her as colours: red lips and dress, black hair.

            I sat up in the bed. It hurt but I suppressed any outward expression of pain. Even then, I didn’t want to appear weak in front of her. I still yearned to please her. I still needed her approbation.

            Silently, eyes glittering, she watched. Sudden fear trilled through me as it occurred to me that she might be there to kill me. My fear was short lived. I realised I no longer cared. Or perhaps I also believe that I was hers to kill, if she wished it. I already owed her my life: once, when she took me in, and again, when she brought me here to heal.

            I opened my mouth to speak, closed it and stifled my first instinct to lie or deflect or deny any wrongdoing.  Instead, I took a deep breath and riding a surge of emotions, simply said, “I’m sorry.”

            She nodded, once.

            “I—betrayed you,” I said. “She was… an enemy.” I took a deep breath. It burned my chest. “I knew better but I did it anyway because—” I trailed off, grasping for an adequate justification for having disobeyed the woman whose approval still meant more to me than anyone else’s. For nearly a decade she’d trained me, sheltered me, taken care of me and yes—used me; but also made me part of something bigger, even if I hardly understood what we did.  And I threw it all away for….

            “You betrayed me for…?”

            Her soft, flat voice gave no indication of either anger or disappointment.

            “For love,” I said.  And saying it out loud was nearly too much. Something precious and terrible and rare shuddered within me, flailed once and died.  A cresting wave of overwhelming rage and sadness swept through me and went still, and in its wake, I couldn’t meet her gaze. Staring at the bedsheets, I said, “I loved Persephone and now she’s dead. I nearly died too.”

            Sakura nodded, once. Her steps were a whisper bringing her to my side. With a precise and elegant motion of a single finger, she drew her long black hair back over her shoulder. She leaned forward and kissed me on the forehead. I remembered that her lips were surprisingly warm.

            “Goodbye,” she said, and walked away from me.

            I cried out before she left the room. “Was it you?”

            She stopped at the door and looked back over her shoulder at me.

            “Did you send the man, the one who killed her, the one who nearly killed me?”

            Even with the distance between us and in the darkness of the room, I saw her thin, red lips curve into a smile.

            And then she was gone. I haven’t seen her since.

Three: Fragments of a Girl

Eventually I drew back from the mirror, though I remained kneeling.  The girl in the mirror mimicked every movement.  I wanted to pretend she didn’t exist. That wasn’t an option. As my mind cleared, I knew I had to see who she was. Not as fragments of a girl but as a whole, as a fully cast person.

            I confronted the girl in the mirror once more.

            She was both the Cindy I remembered, and a complete stranger.  There’d always been a lot of David lurking beneath the girl’s heavy makeup.  Now when I looked in the mirror I saw much 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 of before.  Her chin was small, the nose delicate.  My once thin lips were full and held a playful curve that seemed to naturally rest in a slight pout. There was an overall youthfulness to her face, a childish plumpness over once masculine features.  Her blonde hair was shorter than the previous wig but long enough to dance between shoulders blades, with a slight upward curl at the tips.  Small, almost elfin ears peeked out, each one glittering with a trio of golden studs, two in the lobe and one higher up.  Light makeup gently accentuated her natural beauty.

            Her face had a deeply unsettling effect on me, but the body nearly unmade me. 

            Slowly—in a vain attempt at controlling the chaos churning within, and with all the growing horror of an approaching train—I studied myself and felt the room tilt and roll vertiginously at the realization of just how much they had stolen from me.

            Decades of discipline and work; uncountable hours of running and weights, workouts in the gym and training in private; sweat and pain and the burn of muscles and lungs pushed to their limit—gone.  Everything that defined me—stripped away. 

            How?  Flimsy lingerie only accentuated how once strong arms were now slender and soft, hard pectorals melted away beneath rounded breasts, legs turned lithe rather than powerful.  My stomach remained taut, but no longer held their masculine definition.  Though my shoulders remained wide and my hips narrow, there’d be no need for the boning of a corset to create curves; this new body held its feminine shape naturally.

            I was—weak.  This weakness was felt as an absence in the flesh as I grew into an awareness of my own physicality. Weakness penetrated to the bone—an inability to change the world around me as before. Even at rest, I felt conscious of this newfound delicateness of the flesh: I felt exposed and vulnerable.  Everything about this girl’s body felt feeble and defenceless. 

            And staring aghast at my new reflection, I had a sudden glimpse of what might have been.  Take away the breasts and the smooth skin and the curve of the hip and there was a shadow of a young boy, a man who never was: a scrawny runt who never met Sakura. Equally, I also saw what should have been: the suddenly, startling impression of a battered and broken man: ribcage gaping open, leg shattered, face half-pulped, skin torn to ribbon, the entire figure bathed in blood.

            I blinked and saw—felt—what they did to me. Did they laugh, Katherine and Scooter, as I lay helpless on the operating table and they—what? Cut back the skin and slid sacks over pectoral muscles, pump them full of saline? I pictured the scalpel and the scissors, clamps and hooks: cutting flesh, carving away what made me a man--peeling back my face and sculpting these wide, terrified eyes, full lips and soft chin.

            My supine form lay vulnerable, a flayed mass of bloodied muscle into which they injected tits, grew hips, and sutured a new face over the broken horror of my old body. Muscles dwindled and lying prostate and powerless, I imagined ribbons of skin—a pale mockery of my heritage—wrapping around my helpless form: soft, weak and supple; beautiful skin, but not mine; and phantom hands worked the malleable flesh into Cindy’s, into her diminutive shape.

            A deep groan shuddered through my frame. I blinked and these visions disappeared and what remained in the mirror was a young woman, healthy and whole. She was beautiful and she was innocent and she was me. 

            She was too much: I fell away from myself, frantically clutching at—the floor, the chair, the bed—for stability as the world spun, tits jiggling 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.  Yellowish-green bile spattered the edge of the mirror and the carpet.

            Crawling towards the bed, I squeezed my eyes shut and hugged myself and pulled my legs to my chest.  I buried my face into my knees.  My thoughts were incoherent, racing wildly. I began to rock. Something terrifying and powerful broke lose within and I felt a shuddering cry rise through the layers of my being.  I stuffed the edge of my hand into my mouth and bit down hard enough to break skin, stifling the howl that threatened to tear loose. 

            I began to shake. Nails dug into flesh. I dug claws into those tits and tried to tear them off. I sobbed with pain and fear as my grip tightened to draw blood and I pulled and wrenched but they were part of me, the pain was part of me and there was no escape from my own body. I yanked at my hair until my scalp burned. I collapsed into myself and curled into a tight little ball.

            I couldn’t say how long I remained coiled around the pain and hollowness, half-naked in a strange bedroom. There was no escape from my own body, from the fleshiness of this new femininity. The reality of my situation could not be denied.  The awareness of every twitch and shiver of my smoother skin—the breath of the babydoll at my thighs—and the press of knees against those soft pillows on my chest: every shift of these alien proportions ate away at my perception of my self.

            Layered over all this, an overwhelming rush of emotions threatened to tear my mind apart. Ouroboros-like, my brain twisted in amongst itself, the same primal emotions driving thoughts without purpose as empty thoughts sought to consume themselves in a cycle that had no end.

            Betrayal: I’d trusted her; I’d trusted that bitch. Agent K: she’d used my trust to twist my body into this caricature of revenge.

            Loss: everything I had worked for and built up these past two decades was gone. Wasted and thrown away for nothing: my body, my work, everything I owed and everybody I knew. 

            Fear: mind-numbing, stomach-lurching dear at what I’d become and the kind of life this body demanded; and the seeming permanency of it all.

            And confusion: How?  How the fuck was this even possible?  I’d been all but dead, body broken, bleeding out, Jeremiah-fucking-Steele’s mocking voice ringing in my ear, my assassin’s corpse laid out next to me.

            Still curled into that tight little ball, I dropped into darkness.

Four: A Bloody Lecture

“Wake up, Cindy!”

            The loud booming voice jerked me into wincing wakefulness.  I blearily looked around, wondering what the hell I’d just heard. Again, the voice called to me: “get up!” calling out from an adjacent room. My feet hit the floor and I staggered out of the bedroom before I quite knew what I was doing or where I was. Pain ping-ponged between my temples, and my tongue felt thick in my mouth, and it only took a few steps for those tits hanging off my chest to remind me of the wrongness of my situation. My breasts bounced as I lurched down the short hallways. I leaned heavily against the wall for support and held one arm across my chest and grimaced. Belated, I realised that fucking pale-blue babydoll still floated around my slender frame. The voice came from the end of the hall. A few steps and I emerged into a small, sparsely decorated lounge, unfamiliar and flooded with sunlight.

            A large screen on the wall flickered to life with my arrival. The smiling, bearded face of Scooter looked down at me.

            “This pre-recorded message begins in thirty seconds,” the doctor said. “And this warning’s going to keep looping until you show.”

            My knees wobbled and the room tilted. I spotted a small sofa and pitched myself into its embrace. Forcing myself into a sitting position, head clutched between both hands, I glared at the screen.  Scooter seemed content to count aloud his thirty seconds, glancing at something out of frame.  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.  “At least, this next part shouldn’t trigger until you are. To be clear, everything I say from this point on is pre-recorded and deleting itself as it plays.  So listen closely, because you’ll only get to hear this once and it’s very important that you do. It’s quite literally a matter of life and death—yours, that is.”  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 jerky gesturing desultory.

            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 three weeks since we found you on the floor of my office and we’re about to move you to Telesforos for another two 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. Or rather, I guess you have, and you have. If you haven’t already, I’m sure you’re thinking about putting your fist through a wall.

            “Well . . . don’t bother.  There’s no point.  You’re not 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.  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, 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, naked breasts hanging between both arms, his apology didn’t mean much to me.

            “I know this isn’t what you wanted. Katherine believes you need to be immersed in your new identity as quickly and completely 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 leaned in closer.  “But just keep one thing in mind as you do.

            “She kept you alive, David.  You were bleeding out like a stuck pig when she found you.  Half of the five litres of blood running through those pretty little arteries of yours, pooling across the floor.  When we caught up to her, she was covered in blood.  Most of it was yours but not all of it; those damned agents of Steele’s took a chunk out of her, too.  In the stomach and out her side.  She’s lucky it missed any organs; so are you.  Because when she found you, she ignored her own wounds and knelt in your blood and kept you alive. Peptide sealant and manually pumping your heart and giving you air meant when we showed up, there was something left to save. 

            “David, my staff had to physically drag her away so that I could take over. She broke a nurse’s noses and an orderly’s wrist. The moment we took over she 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 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.

            I looked terrible. Pallid and broken. One of my arms was twisted at an impossible angle.  So too my leg.  My skin glittered from the myriad glass splinters lacerating my flesh, each one a crimson fountainhead.  My face was a mess: one ear, and my nose reduced to ragged shred of flesh; skin torn into ribbons; mouth gaping open, teeth broken.

            A woman ran into frame.  She slipped and fell in the pooling blood.  She clutched her side, and blood welled from between her fingers.  She regained her footing.  Tore open drawer after drawer until she found what she wanted.  Jabbed a syringe into my side.  The despair she exuded was palpable but so was the raw determination.  Bending over my limp form, she exhaled into my open mouth before laying her hands over my chest and began the desperate, rhythmic pumping that kept me alive.

            “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.  If you ask me again, she probably will again.”

            I wanted to shout at the screen, to rant and rave.  How could these, I wanted to yell, and hefted those bloated mammaries for him to see . . . how could these keep me alive?

            The screen returned to the doctor.  “You probably 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 whose hatred is as pure and clear as the one Katherine carries for that man.”

            “So, keep that in mind before you swear your revenge on us, David.  We caught your fight with Steele’s assassin on the Clinic’s security cameras.  You’ve obviously got secrets of your own.  You’re clearly dangerous, too.  But think long and hard before you do something monumentally stupid like running to the press or something, or give away your identity, or even worse, waste time chasing after Katherine, or me, or anyone at the Clinic. Your real enemy is Steele: never forget that.”

            The doctor turned away.  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, though still with visible signs of exhaustion worn into 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 tell you what we’ve done, and this part you’ve really got to pay attention to because if you don’t . . . well, you’ll die.”

            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.  I suppose you can’t appreciate it now, but… it’s a miracle, is what it is.”  There was a corresponding tone of awe and reverence to his voice.  “A fucking miracle.”

            “And let me just say, David,” the doctor continued.  “I am beyond pleased at how well you’ve turned out.  You were the perfect patient, a one-in-a-million find. Your blood, it’s… well.”  He grinned. “I won’t bore you with the details.  You wouldn’t understand them anyways, and I wouldn’t want you accidentally giving away corporate secrets, right? Let’s just say you’ve been through an… experimental processes, real cutting-edge stuff, and 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. And incredibly difficult to reproduce successfully—maybe even impossible, for now, without further research.”  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.”

            Yeah, I’d noticed. I had a more than passing familiarity with pain and injury.  Cuts, bruises, burns and the occasional broken bone, especially in my youth. It took days—weeks—once, a broken arm, months—to recover.  The worst fight—until Fosters, that is—the one that brought my old life to an end? Frankly, I don’t think I ever fully recovered from that one.  Physically, it took most of a year.  I spent months in hospital, I remember that.  Not much else, though: not even the fight, really.  In nightmares, glimpses of what happened: a dirty room, the distant throb of music, and Persephone, dying on a filthy mattress.

            Sitting with a skull-splitting headache on Cindy’s sofa, fragments of the fight with Fosters flashed through my mind.  The swing of the heavy metal bar and the crunch of bone as he shattered my leg.  My arm.  My face.  The kick to my chest and the bullet to the side.  Those kinds of injuries left scars and permanent damage.  Yet my skin remained smooth and whole.  I felt weak and a little shaky but otherwise fine.  I’m a quick healer, but nobody heals this quickly, this completely, not from those kinds of injuries. If anything, I looked—younger? And healthier than before.  Impossible, but all those minor aches and pains that started to accrue in my late thirties were… gone? I only just realised the absence of the mild strain in my back, the hurt in my elbow.  Even my eyesight and hearing seemed sharper than before.

            “Suffice it to say,” Scooter continued. “That your body’s been through something remarkable.  Essentially, we’ve rolled your body back to a… well, pre-adolescence I suppose, pulling cells into a pluripotential stage where they could re-differentiate and…”  He trailed off, scratched at his beard and smiled sheepishly. “Fuck it. We tricked your body into thinking it was a child again, and the dragged you forward and made you a teenager again, David.  Unavoidably, I’m afraid, gene expression switched to female, but as your raced through a second puberty, your body healed.  Along the way you demonstrated an accelerated development of secondary sexual characteristics typical of an adolescent girl.  Breasts grew. Your pelvis widened.  The fat tissue you developed distributed itself in a typical female pattern.  You even developed a bad case of acne for a day.”

            He couldn’t help himself, and his face split in a wide, toothy grin.  “You are, in almost every way that matter—physically, hormonally—a nineteen-years old girl. Cindy’s records list her as twenty.  Just like that,” he said, and snapped his fingers, “we haven’t just healed your body of traumatic injury--we’ve reversed twenty years of aging!”  He slapped his desk.  “It’s a fucking miracle, David!”

            The recoding suddenly skipped a rough edit that suddenly put Scooted behind a different desk.  He was wearing a rumpled lab coat again, and his hair was a mess.  He looked tired as he looked into the camera.

            “There was another side-effect,” he said, and his eyes slid away.  His voice was a near mumble as he continued. “As I’m sure you know, men generally have a greater leg-to-torso ratio than women.  Your leg was broken—shattered, actually. We reset the bone, though the damage was so extensive that left to normal healing it would’ve taken years to fully heal, and you might never have walked the same again. Our regenerative process worked a charm but… Well. David.  The femininizing rejuvenation also initiated a general—shortening—or shrinkage, of the body; and we had to make, uh, adjustments to the other leg, too.  You’ll find you’re just a tad . . . um, shorter than before.”  He glanced guiltily towards the camera and muttered, “Uh, yes.  Sorry David.”

            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.  165 centimetres or so.  What was I now?  Maybe one-sixty?  Short--even for a girl.  Short and weak and small.

            “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 will grow a little faster than normal for a while. Nails too. You might even find ordinary cuts and bruises healing faster. You’ll also be feeling the residual effects of a teenage female puberty: hormones might play havoc on your emotions until you balance out a bit.

            “Honestly, we’re not entirely sure what the effects of forcing an adult male brain and body through a female puberty might be; there could be a few other unexpected consequences. We’ve arranged a follow-up session at the Clinic for Cindy in three months. It’ll allow us to check in on your progress and ensure “Cindy” remains healthy.”

            On screen, he smiled though it fell far short of his eyes.

            “But here’s the most importantly thing: David, all these hormones and residuals, the 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.”

            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 rounded tits and shorter legs, my crotch was the only thing left of David. My hands curled into tight little fists at my side and I began to shake.

            “You’ll find in your new bathroom several prescriptions for drugs essential to your continued wellbeing.  It is absolutely essential that you take those pills as directed.  Your body is 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 balance out other residual effects of your—rebirth, I suppose.

            “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 his voice conveyed 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 might not believe me but just about everything we’ve done to you is reversable.  You can be a man again. Someday. If you take your pills like a good girl. You might be tempted to regain what you feel you’ve lost by, I don’t know—hacking off all that fine hair, or working out again like a madman to regain that muscle mass. 

            “I… wouldn’t bother.  We can’t say for sure, but early indications suggest your body’s going to resist any such efforts.  Like I said: your hair’s just going to grow back, faster than before. The hormones and—other things in your bloodstream right now—are going to actively work against your efforts.  This is who are for now; it’s what your body wants to be. Push it too far, and you might just trigger further feminisation as those residual chemicals kick in again.

            “So, instead… why not just wait? Just… be Cindy.  It’s not like you have much choice.  For now, give up on David. He died; Steele’s assassin got his man. Meanwhile, Katherine’s given you a life to inhabit. Miss Bellamy—she was a patient of ours—and a fine, young woman. Try to enjoy the months to come and it’ll be over before you know it. Just give up on the man you used to be and become the girl you see in the mirror.”

            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.

            My fingers curled and uncurled into fists. I breathed—hadn’t even realised I’d been holding me breath—faster; I sucked in air, desperately. I sat there trapped in this foreign body. A numb chill pervaded every inch of my being but quickly burned away beneath the rising tide of rage. I breathed, deep, ragged breaths. My fists clenched. I rose to my feet.  Stood, wavering.

            With an angry scream—a visceral yell that even in my rage I knew sounded hysterical, feminine, more shriek than roar--I grabbed the nearest thing at hand—a lamp—and hurled it at the screen with all my strength.

            It wasn’t much, but it was enough. The screen shattered in a shower of sparks.

Five: The Outline of My Old Life

Later, 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 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 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, coming through the walls.  Eventually I sat alone in the silence and 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 needed to 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 circumstances, 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.

            I returned to the bedroom. A cheap lamp next to 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 slashes 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 supporting a blossoming plant with vibrant green leaves. A vanity in the corner, mirror decorated with stickers, surface hidden under the crowding tubes, tubs, vials and boxes of cosmetics, 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, 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 fucking thing again, I decided. Slipping into a pair of loose grey jogging pants with pale pink piping and a baggy sweatshirt, I tried to ignore the jiggle of my boobs that accompanied the act of getting dressed.  At the back of my mind lurked the unnerving realization that I’d be better off with a bra 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. For example, the renewed difficulty of doing anything with long nails—my own, not acrylics or gels or whatever, by my own home-grown slabs of keratin.

            But also, 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 took my first tentative step out of Cindy’s bedroom and explored my new home.

            A cursory first walkthrough of my new home damn well didn’t take very long.  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, one of those nasty, cheap ones that spring up on the outskirts of cities, satellite housing for the poor slobs forced to commute an hour each way to shitty jobs closer to the centre.  I didn’t recognize any of the buildings scattered across the night sky cityscape, but what I saw suggested a large city rather than a sprawling metropolis.  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 drones, the distinctive crimson blink and flare of searchlights of the former far more prevalent closer to my new home than the centre.

            I briefly wondered where I now lived. It wasn’t the same city. I knew the outline of my old life too well. Then again, for all I knew I was now living in a different country. 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 change of post code feels pretty goddamn irrelevant compared to a forced changed of gender, you know?

            Bathroom, kitchenette, spare room and small 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 onto the 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 balcony looked out across the city.  A short coffee table filled the empty space between the sofa and the broken screen on the wall opposite.  A small 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 small 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 standing 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 in pictures, 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 on the cheek, her arms around his neck, his hand at her waist.

            I closed my eyes against a sudden bout of dizziness.  Digital manipulations: if I looked closely maybe I’d find tell-tale touches of digital trickery.  Probably I wouldn’t.  K clearly had a team behind her capable of generating these fakes.  Or maybe they weren’t fakes. Probably, they belonged to the real Cindy Bellamy, the woman whose life I’d stepped into. A few digital prompts and AI assistance and it was my face—itself a fake, a sculpted mask made to resemble hers—my face over hers; or her face over mine—cut of the scalpel and shaving of bone, the needle and the knife….

            Again, the urge to vomit nearly overwhelmed me and I took several more long, deep breaths to settle my stomach.  When I opened my eyes, I finally noticed the bottle of white wine on the counter of the kitchenette, 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, wishing you 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. 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 needed this drink.  At the same time, how could I trust it to not be drugged? I laughed: a solitary, lonely bark in an empty 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 in the water 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 even be watching me right now.  Almost certainly, they were. Maybe a camera in the broken screen opposite, but more likely microlenses watching my every movement, in the light fixtures or behind the mirrors or. . . fucking anywhere.

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

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

            The wine spread comforting warmth through my stomach, which helped settle me somewhat.  It was a good wine; at 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 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. 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 Clinic to perform their bullshit magic science on me 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 didn’t exactly appeal.

            But what if she was lying?

            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 Scooter and 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 disappeared and taken my chances.  Instead, I’d trusted her.  No; I’d done more than just trust her.  I’d fallen for the bitch.  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 fucking trust a woman?

            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.  Coming to my rescue in that security footage, she was clearly badly injured . . . if she was working for Steele, why would his agents try to kill her?

            I poured myself another glass of wine.  This was a puzzle. I fucking 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 one step--one day—fuck it, one minute at the time. Get through the seconds; breathe. Survive the immediate. If I wasn’t crazy within the hour I’d tackle the next one, and hopefully I wouldn’t have dived off the balcony by then.

            I nearly snorted wine out my nose at the thought.  As if I’d ever give these bastards the satisfaction of my suicide.  Goddamn butchers.  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.

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 next to the sofa. The shattered screen. A sports bra, hanging over the back of a chair. The absurdity of it all.  This home.  This body.  My life.

            I laughed. I laughed until my sides hurt. Hugging myself tightly, arms crossed beneath tits that jiggled with every chuckle, my stomach growing painfully tight, 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 choking gasp, 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.

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

            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 scream by sculling what remained of the wine.  The empty bottle dropped from my hand with a dull thud. 

            I chuckled and wiped the back of my hand across my mouth.

            Screw this shit, all of it.

Time to get fucked.

To be continued…

Author's Notes

For those who’ve been following Constant from the beginning, you may remember an “Interlude” taking place between Book 1 and Book 2 (previously labelled “seasons”). I’ve cut the interlude, and re-written parts of it into a Prelude. Some good stuff unfortunately ended up on the cutting room floor, but I suppose that’s the point of editing!

I was never satisfied with the original chapter one to this second story arc to Constant. This rewrite is hopefully a little more compelling and true to character, whilst also emphasizing the body horror and trauma of waking up in a body you don’t recognize. I also found room to flesh out a little more of David’s background.

As always, I’d like to thank the patrons that have kept me writing; Constant would have languished unfinished without their support. Also, a thank you to those who’ve provided feedback, criticism and encouragement—I don’t think it’s possible to overstate the importance of reviews and comments for writers!