Sneak Peek: Rewriting the Return Home (Patreon)

Hello!  I hope you've all had a good weekend.  I managed a little bit of writing over the weekend, mostly plotting stuff.  As often happens, I had an "a-ha" moment in the shower--always the best place for new ideas--and for once managed to jot it down before it drained away.  It's given me a new approach into the chapter, I think.

In any case, I also tried a re-write of the scene to date.  I was happy with it before, but wasn't sure the conversational tone worked.  I wanted to keep the 1st person voice a little more distant, keep some ambiguity between the story David tells us, and the story Julia receives.  So I wrote most of the "you" out of it, and displaced the rest into (prose in brackets) to show the split between narrating to the reader and speaking directly to Julia.  Does it work?  Let me know which version you prefer.

I also developed the setting a bit more - I wanted to maintain a bit of that sci-fi urban decay feel, but also make more of David's run once he gets back.  Running with men's eyes following him and a newfound awareness of what's betwee his legs, I added in some phallic imagery to suggest where his head's at, unconsciously, in these early days back home.  (The train's a not exactly subtle example of this.)  I don't think the scene's quite there yet, but hopefully I can build up a little anxiety in the prose during successive rewrites. 

Now that Julia's there, I can finally get into the part of the story I've wanted to write for some time - her reaction to David's transformation.

Enjoy! 

***

One: The Story of the Ex-Girlfriend

The story I told Julia was the truth. More or less.

But it wasn’t an easy story to tell, filled with guilt and embarrassment, anger and sadness. And to tell it, I had to go back a little bit, to before she actually showed because… well, just because I had to try, try and justify myself and the only to do that was for her understand.

For example: try, just try and imagine how I felt when I first got back from the Clinic.

Fucked up, to put it mildly. And fucked off. First off, the drive back from Asklepios was a long one. An overnight drive, and I only dimly remember stopping at a charging station halfway. Stumbling into the toilet. Bleary eyed staring into a cracked mirror under flickering fluorescent light through a mess of blonde hair and wondering what the fuck was going on and then standing—yes, standing to take a piss in the stall and feeling a warm trickle down my leg….

I could’ve cried, could’ve punched the wall. Instead, I shook and sat down and took deep breaths until the shaking and then finished the job, trying not to think too closely on what was getting wiped afterwards. Did my best to repair the damage when I got back to the car, grabbing a clean pair of panties and a skirt from the trunk and changed in the back seat. Pushed all the resentment down—like, really deep down—and eventually slept the rest of the way, trying desperately to not think about what the next six months was going to be like with a goddamn fucking slit between my legs.

(Yeah, Jules, I know. That’s like half a dozen fucks. I don’t really swear like this anymore, honestly? It’s just—remembering that first weekend—it’s like stepping back into his skin. Yes, his skin; David’s; and it feels so… angry. He was so angry, all the time, so angry with… everything and everyone.

But not when he was with you, Jules. Oh, sure, he—I—resented some of the things you got me to do. Especially… well. You know. We’ll get to that.)

So. Yeah.

I got home that Friday morning. It was the first weekend of September, and even here in the suburbs you could feel the city trying to hold on to the heat, concrete and steel fingers clawing the sky, but you could still feel it slipping away. The buildings broke up those early autumn winds, but something had changed. There was a nip in the air, a little swirl of cold against my bare thighs and pantied bum as I emptied the car.

And boy was there ever a lot to empty. It’s a miracle no one tried to mug me. The Clinic, in their infinite wisdom and generosity, sent me home with all those gorgeous clothes they’d made for me, all that bespoke lingerie, the 3d printed dresses and shoes, even the Sin-DI corset from the photoshoot.

(You’d love most of it, Jules, I never really got a chance to show it off to you. There’s this nighty, this ephemeral powder blue thing shot through with silver thread; gorgeous. And the corset! Probably worth a month’s rent. Another month’s rent worth of shoes, too. Though come to think of it, you’ve seen some of it… remember that night we went clubbing at Daybreak, that sparkly crop-top I wore, the chunky heels? Those were from the Clinic.)

I bitched about it then, but man, did it ever make the next few months easier. It was a fortune in clothes and awesome stuff, mostly, and not exactly the kind of stuff I could afford on Cindy’s salary. Most of it useless for work, tragically, but as it would turn out my clubbing wardrobe was pretty much set for the months ahead.

Dragging all that stuff up to my apartment that morning was a bit of a nightmare. But it kept me busy though, and that was good, the work kept me moving and not thinking because after I was done… After I’d dropped the last suitcase by the entrance and the door clicked shut behind me, I just stood there a little sweaty and very tired and leaning against the wall. And that’s when it hit me, really. I just kind of took in my little apartment—the whole thing’s visible from the entrance, pretty much—my home for the next six months again—my reality for the next six months….

It all just caught up with me then.

I dropped to the floor and clutched my head in my hands wanted to cry.

But I didn’t.

And when I was done not-crying, I went downstairs and popped into the dodgy little ground-floor shop and bought up a shit tonne of booze and some crap food I could throw in the microwave and brought it all back up to the apartment. I started with the beer, but you know, beer can only get you so far, really, at least when you’re small like I am, what with having to take a piss every thirty minutes and feeling all bloated.

I wandered around the apartment getting drunk. Stopped and stared at the ribbon of peeling wallpaper in the hallway, or that corner in the bathroom crusted over with black mildew, or the wicker chair in the bedroom that was half-caved in under a pile of dirty laundry. I’d left the place a mess. Now, it was my mess.

Eventually, I fell into the sofa and stared at the wall, killing cans of cheap off-brand lager one after another. Then I staggered over to the balcony and stood outside and stared towards the centre, towards the city, towards that great cluster of shining glass and towers clawing the sky.

It was getting close to noon by the time I switched to the hard stuff, some kind of knock-off vodka that was nasty, it left an oily feel to the tongue and was probably in breach of FDA regulations or something. First couple of swigs burned like hell on the way down. It got better after that.

The sun was high in the sky by this time, painfully bright in a cloudless sky behind a brown haze. I stared into the sun until I saw spots, until my eyes stung and watered and tears streamed down my cheek. Julia was out there, somewhere, working that Friday but if I’m honest there wasn’t much room in my head for her, for anyone, for anything beyond incandescent rage and stomach-churning fear and shame, God, I felt so ashamed of what I’d become, at what I’d allowed them to do to me.

At some point I stood naked in front of the mirror in my bedroom.

The time between balcony and mirror remains blank. I just knew it was dark, now. Now, nighttime noises filtered through the open bedroom window: sirens, arguing voices, a child’s cry from another apartment, all riding a breeze that raised goosebumps across bare skin.

I willed myself to hate the girl I saw in reflection. She was young and beautiful in her youth, a slender ghost in dim light. Slender arms hung limply at her side; large breasts pushed out from the darkness, tipped by pale nubs rising in the cool air. Smooth thighs waxed pallid in the little light slipping between fluttering curtains. Her hair was long and straight and fell nearly to the curve of her ass.

But I didn’t hate her. I wanted to but couldn’t, not anymore. I… resented her and despised the life she represented but—not her. After all, she was me; and I was Cindy Bellamy, at least for the next six months, if not… longer.

In one hand she held a half-empty litre bottle in the crook of the thumb by its stubby neck. The other hand—well, it hovered over that space between the thighs, palm down as though warming itself by the heat of a hidden fire. Pulling the hand back confronted what was there: nothing. Female smoothness: the cleft and slit; that garden or rosebud or peach; a pussy, snatch, twat or cunt—meat sheath or honey pot—my vagina.

Enough time had lapsed for the prosthetic to blend perfectly with the surrounding skin. Back at the Clinic I could still disassociate myself from—it—from the dull, grey cover laid over my genitals, like wet plaster wrapped around a damaged limb. But there was no longer any seam or discoloration, no division between where I ended and the artificial vagina began. Most tellingly—judging by the faint stirring of the cool night air—I could feel it, as a part of me, as a tickle of curly blonde hair and a prickle of goosebumps.

Half-oblivious, I just stared at my girl parts for a long while. Eventually, I brought the bottle to my lips for another swig. It was the smell that did it, oddly—harsh, chemical—and my arm dropped back to my side, the bottle dropped to the floor, and I dropped to my knees in a puddle of pungent booze and stared at myself in the mirror and thought, haven’t I already done this?

Six months ago when I first woke up her I faced—well, not the same thing, actually, because that first time was worse, far far worse. It nearly drove me mad that first time, nearly killed me the first time I saw Cindy—I mean myself—in the mirror, it nearly drove me over the edge. And that girl back then, hell, she wasn’t nearly as… girly? as now. Smaller boobs, thicker waist, shorter hair—and a fine specimen of manhood between her legs.

And I tried to efface her through booze, back then, the last truly glorious bender of David Saunder’s life and—well, it didn’t work, right? And if not then, why would it work now?

And so while it’s all a blur, I can dimly remember stumbling into the kitchen and pouring the rest of the bottle down the drain and then—well, I must’ve collapsed on the sofa or my bed or maybe just the floor, but I don’t remember anything until the sun and heat beaming through the open balcony had me crawling to the toilet to puke my guts out.

(You’d planned to come around then, hadn’t you? After all, I’d messaged you on my way home but then you didn’t hear anything else from me. Maybe you thought I was blanking you but really, I was trying to blank myself. Fortunately, you got caught up in that mess at work, right? The takeover, the changes in management, the new rules coming through the pipeline. So you were busy, so busy I never even heard from you. Which was probably for the best, because it gave me the rest of that Saturday to get my shit together.)

I’d woken up with a blistering headache but it faded quickly—a perk of all those bullshit chemicals in the bloodstream keeping me fit and female, I guess. I ate and drank a lot of water and looked at the state of my apartment and decided I couldn’t quite deal yet, so instead I slipped on a sports bra and some jogging pants, did my hair up in a quick ponytail and went for a run.

It’d been ages since I went for a jog in the neighbourhood. After starting my bullshit job at Volumina International, I started using the employee gym there; still do. And no, it’s not because I’m trying to catch the eyes of the managers, whatever those bitches at work say. Although I do, obviously, and the guys who show up that early are in great shape, like I used to be; and they appreciate a bit of eye candy on the treadmill, just as I once did. Maybe a few of them have offered help on occasion; maybe I’ve accepted once or twice; or done my makeup before the workout instead of after. What of it? And if one of those guys wants to take me out for a drink, pay for dinner…

But I’m getting ahead of myself. That’s a different story, right? Point is, I went for a run around the block to clear my head and this time… this time, it felt different.

And no, I don’t mean the obvious. But let’s get that out of the way first. That first run was probably the moment I realised that, yeah, as much as I hated having my cock and balls sealed away behind some kind of crazy fake-flesh Frankenstein bullshit science experiment, I felt… free. Not like a bird, but you know… I didn’t have to strap anything back, right? Nothing constrictive, nothing tight, just a simple pair of cotton panties and some baggy jogging pants and no pain, no anxiety over someone noticing an unlikely bulge between my legs. I had a drawer full of underwear in a rainbow of colours and dizzying array of styles that I’d never worn because of the need to sleeve, tape or tuck my dick out of the way.

That morning, a minute into the run and I was grinning like a fool, despite the throbbing in my skull and the fuzz on my tongue. It felt—good; great, even, to just be able to walk or run freely again. Just an easy, lopping stride, ponytail dancing in counterpoint to each step, and for a moment I forgot what was—or wasn’t—between my legs. So, yeah, score one for the vag: Cunt 1, Cock 0.

It didn’t last, though. Because it didn’t take long for me to start to notice just how sketchy my neighbourhood was. I’d never really noticed before. Or more to the point, I’d noticed but hadn’t cared. Why would I have, intending as I’d been to get the hell out of town as quickly as possible?

Now don’t get me wrong. David used to live in a pretty swanky community. Gated, clean and well-maintained, nice shrubbery, trees lining the road and paths, wannabe cops driving around in their little cars keeping the neighbourhood clean. And sure, from the lofty reach of my penthouse condo I used to look out over the neighbourhood below and you could always see the darkness, almost breathe in the stench of trash piled up just beyond the walls and gates and barriers of my little upper-middle class fiefdom. Distance and height might dimmish the sirens and cries in the night, but never got rid of it.

Thing is, I’d lived on the other side of that wall and the piss and shit and vomit and refuse left a stain that never washed out.

It was five minutes to the park. It was that early Saturday morning stage between the cleaners passing through—self-propelled bots that didn’t bother to show half the time—and the homeless creeping from whatever refuge they’d found for the night. Friday night trash littered the streets: broken bottles, scattered canisters like silver bullets gathered in corners, used condoms under a bridge. Lurid paint on closed security shutters barricading shops and restaurants shut prophesised revolution, the end of the world, and where to have a good time; hastily scrawled tags warred with meticulously painted, sensationally artistic graffiti. Giant media screens behind protective glass flashed larger-than-life promises, oozing sensuality, glistening lips and ballooning tits. The image I saw that morning, as I slowed in passing, of a corseted Sin-DI leaning forward, wide-eyed and arms bound behind her back, smiling around the steel bit between her bared teeth, hit home hard.

But most of the screens were damaged, black patches flickering amidst impossible dreams of foreign trips and aspirational purchases; or simply dead and broken. Darkness lurked behind cracked windows plastered with anachronistic newsprint, and I’d never noticed how many lean, angry men with sunken eyes stood in doorways as I jogged past. They tracked my passage with a scowl, or an unnerving grin; some called out but I couldn’t hear them over the music in my ears. But I shivered nonetheless as I passed.

The gate into the park was open. I made my way into the park, jogging out of the sun and into the long dark tunnel before passing into the wide oval space beyond.

Thirty years ago, the park had been an Olympic stadium, a giant ‘O’ of athletic prowess. Then it became a white elephant, a curse on the community as the promised Big Team takeover kept getting delayed—the arena languished once game seasons started to get too hot for outdoor play. A few corporate rentals, the occasional music festival, but one pandemic and a few bouts of street violence, and even those died out. Once the owners finally admitted they couldn’t be bothered to build a retractable roof over the thing and install air conditioning throughout, it fell it disuse. Scheduled for demolition, some bright spark about a decade or two ago had to idea to use some federal greening money to revitalise the whole thing, turn it into a closed garden and community centre, break up the concrete and steel sprawl with some shrubbery and flowers.

It flourished for a few years—according to the faded information panels at the entrance tunnel behind their scratched and scored plastic protection—and drew money and people back into the neighbourhood. Shops, restaurant, an art gallery and even a nursery moved into the faded shell of the stadium. Property values went up; crime went down.

A couple of years and change of government later, and the whole thing was sold off to some corporation. Even the propaganda at the entrance couldn’t salvage the story of negligence: part of the buyout was a contractual obligation to maintain the space, but over the past decade they’d but in the least effort possible necessary to avoid a major lawsuit.

Jogging along the circular path, I could see the new owners were doing a top-notch job of letting the place collapse into wrack and ruin. The park at the centre of the stadium was yellowed from the sun and lack of water, and drifts of rubbish accumulated at the base of trees. Working my way up the concentric circular paths that wound the circumference of the old stadium, I passed bench after bench taken by men and women in a stupor.

I recognized their deep state of despair, the kind that’s nearly almost impossible to escape, some still drunk or drugged from last night, some already starting the process over again. It wasn’t everyone and everywhere, of course—there were a few other late morning Saturday joggers out for a run like me, mostly men but a few women as well—but it was impossible to ignore the despair and decay at the heart of my neighbourhood. You just needed to know where to look and what to look for.

I did. I’d been one of them, once, after all.

(You didn’t know that about me, did you, Julia? But then, there’s an awful lot about me you don’t know.)

At the top of the stadium park there was a lookout platform, a slab of concrete and transparent plastic walls. Stopping there to catch my breath, I looked down at the tracks far below. Though the station connected to the stadium hadn’t been used in years, the tracks still ran through here before curving off to join the junction a few stations further down the route. I watched as a heavy-duty maglev train silently approached, hauling a half-dozen cars marked with industrial waste symbols. It diverted down the stadium branch, allowing a passenger train emerging from the tunnel ahead to rush past. The ugly, snub-nosed engine slowed as it approached the disused stadium platform, a swollen bulbous protuberance dragging the storage cars that snaked sinuously behind. Then it picked up speed once again, amidst a shower of sparks and grinding of connectors, before gliding back onto its route. It slid silently into the waiting tunnel, gleaming with the bioluminescent gel that illuminated the path and conducted power back into the thrusting engine, and disappeared into those depths.

I turned away and from those heights took a final look over the park and my neighbourhood for the next six months. I took in the tired, tall and slender trees below, and the washed out building beyond, and the hollow and empty spaces that once housed fashionable shops and cafes. Crude cock-and-ball graffiti scored into the plastic sheets of the balcony forever shot their triple droplets of jizz towards the concrete floor.

Afterwards, when I got back home I was feeling—pensive, I guess. Behind the anger and the hangover and the shame, something started to roll over in the back of my mind. I locked the door behind me and stood there for some time looking over my—Cindy’s—home.

Then I stripped naked and stepped into the shower and washed away the stench and grime from the run, the flecks of vomit in my hair, lingering traces of piss from the drive back and yesterday’s makeup. The water ran scalding hot and I scrubbed myself vigorously clean. A moment’s hesitation and then I allowed instinct to reassert itself and reached for the razor and shaved armpit and legs.

Soon after I found myself standing in front of the mirror once more, once again naked, but this time under the bright light of the noonday sun. I stared at the girl in the mirror; I stared at myself; and I thought—who do I want to be?

(Why am I telling you all this? I mean, it’s supposed to be your story, right Jules? Because it is your story, but a little context helps, doesn’t it? Context is everything and I need you to understand that when you showed up that night—uninvited, I might add, though I was happy to see you—that something had already started to shift, inside of me, that I’d already taken the first small step towards a larger change.)

When Julia showed up later that night, she found me hard at work, cleaning. She saw me in that cute Suzy-homemaker dress, the red one with the white polka dots, the one she’d bought me, and my makeup all done up and me in stockings and heels, with some cheery music on in the background.

She probably thought I’d done it for her. (Didn’t you?)  But I hadn’t known she was coming. No, I’d done it for me. Because at the precise moment, that’s who I wanted to be. Or rather, that was the part I wanted to play at that moment, the happy housemaker, the cheerful cleaner because, frankly, if this was going to be my home for the next six months somebodyhad to do something about the goddamn mess. And yeah, it’s a bit ridiculous but I wanted to prove to myself that I couldplay that part. I was laying the foundation for the next six months—though saying that, even that, somewhere in the back of my mind, I was already considering what I could do to get the fuck out of there, to spend as little time as possible in my shitty apartment in that shitty neighbourhood.

I didn’t hear Julia let herself in. She had her own key from before, not that she ever used it. Before, I’d almost always ended up at hers rather than the other way around.

Who know how long she watched me flutter around as I tidied and clean. (How long, Jules, before I noticed? Did you like watching me float around in that dress you bought me?) I had the music on, was deeply into the task at hand, when her voice cut through to me.

“David?”

Like I said, I hadn’t expected the visit, hadn’t checked my phone in hours, and it was already getting late. I started in surprise, turned and saw you, and—

It was always about the clothes with Julia.  I was her little fantasy dress-up doll, playing the parts she never could. Part of me really hated giving up that kind of power to her, like letting her decide how I should dress and consequently, how I ought to act. Like, her influence over the kind of workday I was going to have on its own was reason enough to resent her, right? Because it makes a big different, rocking up to work looking like a demure schoolgirl versus the naught librarian look; or whatever kinky fantasy seized Julia that morning.

But.

What can I say? It was also a lot of fun.

After two weeks of playing dress up at the Clinic, after all those sessions with Crystal, after—Chad; and after what they did to me? Well. I guess maybe Julia’s little games didn’t seem so bad anymore. And giving in to them, giving in to her? That first month, after we made up and before we fucked it all up again? Honestly, probably one of the best months of David Saunders life.

(I wish I’d told you this, Jules, back then. Maybe if I’d been more open about—enjoying dressing up for you—I dunno; maybe we wouldn’t be here now. Thing is, what made it fun was doing it with you, Jules. I’m not sure I’ll ever like the really girly stuff and the pigtails and pink and glitter and all that—stuff, but….

You kept the anger away, Jules. Helped me forget just what a wreck of a human being I am.)

Standing there in that nipped-in dress, in heels, in heavy makeup, with a duster in my hand as her eyes roamed back and forth over me brought a swell of emotions I could hardly process at the moment. I hadn’t been ready yet, I realised, to deal with other human beings and especially those one who knew who I really was. In two days I’d be heading back to work—as an office administrator, a glorified secretary—back to all the social expectations and anxieties and pressures of ordinary life; and I wasn’t ready.

I needed help. Instantly, I thought maybe Julia could help me, even as I felt deeply embarrassed at being caught by her like this.

She smiled, red lips parting in a broad smile, and her eyes sparkled with mirth. “Hello honey,” she said, stepping into the room. “I’m home.”

[Roleplay husband and wife?]