Sneak Peek: Chapter 6 (to date) (Patreon)

As there may not be an update over the next week, I thought I'd post the current state of the chapter for your enjoyment.  I'd hoped to finish the scene first, but didn't quite get there.  There's only a little bit left: the intimate encounter between David and Julia, and then her reaction when she learns he went to the Clinic in the hope of escaping into a new life - that is, leave her again.

A few changes you may notice from earlier drafts: the opening frame has shifted into present tense, to better distinguish it from the flashback prose of the main text.  I've added a little to the setting, building up the urban decay of Cindy's neighbourhood but laying down a few locations that may prove important later in the chapter.  

Enjoy!  And if you like - let me know what you think!

***

Constant in All Other Things 2

Chapter 6

by

Fakeminsk (fakeminsk@gmail.com)

“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

Synopsis:

“Ordinary” life resumes for David Saunders after his return from the Clinic. With the tenuous hope of returning to a male existence in six months left dangling in front of him, can he endure Cindy Bellamy’s life—as secretary, girlfriend, party girl—for that long; or is it time to take matters into his own hands?

What has gone before:

David Sanders saw something he shouldn't have: his boss, pharmaceutical magnate Jeremiah Steele murder the son of an underworld rival. Placed in witness protection, an assassination attempt forced David adopt the life of Cindy Bellamy, a tragically deceased young woman. For months he suffered the ignominy of living a life he despises, his torture both alleviated and acerbated once discovered by Julia, a jilted ex-girlfriend. A return trip to the Asklepios Clinic raised tantalising hints of the past, revealed an old enemy, and led to an unexpectedly intimate encounter. It also extended his time as Cindy by another six months whilst making his disguise all the more complete.

***

I tried, honestly, but all things considered the funeral of David Saunders’s a pretty sorry affair.

But then, so was David Saunders. A pretty sorry affair, I mean. Oh, don’t get me wrong. His life was fine. Mostly. The sex was good. And there was a lot of it: so much sex, so many girls, though never enough to fill the emptiness at his centre. But then, he’d always been nothing more than a shell, really, a papier-mâché husk. To be fair, he’d made a convincing go at his hollowed-out life, presented a perfectly smooth and suitable exterior but the contents—ah, well, the young man who stepped into that life was already broken beyond repair.

Poor damaged me; how sad.

Look at me, getting all maudlin. If I’m not careful my mascara’ll run. But hey, if I can’t indulge a bit of panda face at my own funeral, then when?

There’d never be a tombstone or grave or anything to mark David’s passing. But if there was his epitaph ought to be… oh, I don’t know. “He was a good fuck.” Probably. I’d like to think all those girls who met him, went home with him, spread their legs for him remembered him—fondly, if they remembered him at all. They ought to. At least he always made a point of getting them off, whatever it took. Never thought twice about going down on a girl, didn’t care if they wanted to ride on top or needed finger foreplay until his fingers wrinkled. Took it as a badge of pride.

That’s a hell of a lot more than most guys. Trust me. I know.

Still. From dust to dust, nothing to nothing; cock to cunt, male to female. Non-existence to stolen-existence: David Saunders’s last act in life was to slip, cuckoo like, into a pair of panties and take over the empty nest of Cindy Bellamy’s existence.

There’s only two of us in attendance. It took some work, but Julia finally agreed to come. I can tell she’s was more than ready to be rid of David. Saying goodbye’s easier than dealing with guilt, right? And she clearly still feels guilty over what she did to me last month, at the way she quite literally fucked me over.

Like, I get it; she wanted revenge. It’s a motive I understand, better than most. But it still hurt and we haven’t spoken since.

Her presence tonight brings a strange sort of fluttery happiness in my belly, even if she’s standing there looking caught between sombre, confused and bored. She’s bothered to show, and that means something. She’s even made some effort to dress up. Julia looks good in black, though I miss the long hair. She cut it short after we fell out. Looking her over, I still feel an echo of the old longing—and a wholly inappropriate dampening at the crotch imagining what I’d still love to do to her. It is a funeral, after all.

And then there’s me, in my tight little back dress, the same one I’d worn all those months ago on that first date with Dan. (Bastard fucking son of a bitch dickhead!) Squeezing into it—and the under-rigging required to make it to fit—brought back all kinds of memories. Not necessarily good ones, mind.

On the one hand, that night with Jules, gilded memories glossed by time: Champagne giggles as we tried to make sense of the bands and buckles of the lingerie. Twisting and turning as she strapped me in—her playful slap across my bottom and sucking in my gut—taut straps across my thighs and her fingers tracing them. Makeup, soft colours painted on each others’ lips… kissing, and back to the sensuous brush strokes, repairing the damage. Breasts pushed up against each other, and the now-distant phantom memory of a cock straining against the confines of panties. Our roaming hands. Our hot whispered words.

Was that the night that killed David Saunders?

No. But it was a nail in the coffin, one of many.

Then the other hand, the bad memories. After the fun, zipping me into the little back dress and sending me off on a date with a man, another man, in the full knowledge of where it would bring me and openly mocking me for it.

Though that night pales in comparison to what came after, because that wasn’t the worst thing she did to me. Not by a long shot.

Funny, though, how disgusting the idea of sitting with another man, in a romantic setting and holding his hand—kissing him—following him home and doing what inevitably follows, once seemed. Funny, though not ha-ha funny. A lot can change in three months.

Still, no denying that night—that first date—was a step leading to tonight’s… celebration? That seems a bit cold. Ceremony, then.

I smile at Julia from behind my veil as she shifts uncomfortably in her heels. There’s some kind of irony to the fact she’s less confident in heels than I am. She’s getting better, though—she’s had to and I take a weird satisfaction in that. Meanwhile, my makeup’s appropriately dark and smoky, lips a deep dark burgundy, nails a glittering shade shy of black.

“Thanks for coming, Julia,” I say. “I mean it.”

She opens her mouth to answer, frowns, shuts it and shrugs.

Appropriately sombre music rolls in the background. I’d asked the speakers to throw out some sombre music and, knowing my tastes, the AI’s generating an unending low dirge that seems one-part remix of SIN-Di’s latest to two-parts ambient dark synth. Murky and ponderous throbbing sets a perfect mood. A few dozen LED tealight candles dotted around my tiny apartment flicker and dance in the dark, glimmering from chipped shelves or dotted across the stained coffee and flimsy end tables. A little circle of lights cast their faint glow on a picture of David Saunders.

It was the best photo I could find. I nabbed it from an international trade paper from a few years back, a report on Neopharm’s recent expansion into Japan. The original picture captured the Hanami party in a wide-angle shot, black suits and colourful kimonos against a backdrop of brilliant cherry blossoms. A little zooming, cutting and cleanup and I’d extracted David from the moment. He was leaning, arms crossed, against a tree trunk, smiling that sardonic half-smile. He was alone beneath the short-lived sakura. A single sliver of peach-shaded petal rested on one shoulder.

(The risk was minimal. I’d popped into a trendy café on the way home from work one night, one off the usual route. I’d used a shell account and a scrubbed laptop to grab the image.)

There’s no denying he’s a good-looking guy. Short-cropped hair, lean but the stretch of his white shirt hinted at the muscle beneath. A little short, sure, but even at rest he exudes confidence—a cocky, crazy confidence I admire. Looking at the framed printout, I want that old confidence for myself.

Yeah, right. If I was there as I am now, I’d be one of those slim, pretty girls in the colourful kimonos, shyly smiling and bending at the knee and serving up sake to the businessmen. Gliding around the edge of the action, checking and keeping my makeup meticulous, an adornment to this manufactured scene of powerful and important people.

And afterwards? Yeah, I could totally see myself hanging off that guy’s arm at some club. My fingertip-length skirt sparkling in the flashing lights, a sexy contrast to his suit, white shirt and tie. His arm around my waist, possessively; possessed and cared for, pressing into him, safe.

I’d studied his face carefully before framing, setting it to memory: the angular features, bright eyes… sharp, high cheekbones—cheekbones just crying out for a little contouring, a little colour.

I shake my head.

“What the fuck are we doing here, David?” Julia sounds impatient.

“Not David,” I say. “Cindy.”

“Really? Fine, whatever. Cindy. What’s all—” and she sweeps her hand across the room, taking in the candles and photograph, the flowers and canapes. “This?”

It was too big a question to answer in words though I want to, need to, judging by the pressure that pressing my chest and squeezing my throat into silence. Instead, I force a shrug and offer a weak smile instead.

She leans against the wall, drinking me in for a moment. “I’m going to need more than that. Cindy.”

I try again. “We’re here to commemorate the life and death of Davd Saunders.”

She raises an eyebrow. “What, you’re…,” she sighs. “He’s dead?”

My bottom lip trembles a little as I nod.

“How?”

“Four suspects,” I say, and with all the flourish of a Sherlock Holmes—or more appropriately, I suppose, a sexier Velma Dinkley or Jane Watson—I raise four fingers.

Julia rolls her eyes.

“They all did him in, “I continue. “But who takes the blame?”

The whole thing’s a bit pointless, to be fair, but I want Julia, want somebodyto understand and maybe even mourn my—his—death.

Thing is, if I’m brutally honest David Saunders died the night he caught Jeremiah Steele with a gun in his hand. That bastard might as well have shot him down then and there. There’s no returning to the way things were before—not after witnessing that sort of thing—especially after turning to the authorities. Even then I knew that whatever followed wouldn’t be David Saunders’ life, but somebody else’s, a new life to replace the old.

I just didn’t expect things to turn out like this—by ‘this’ meaning the tits and pussy, obviously, the skirts and heels, and so on; mincing around as a secretary all day, and nights—

“The ex-girlfriend,” I state, pulling back one finger. “The girls at work,” I add, drawing back the second. “The boyfriend, and the boss.” I raise my hand, fingers curled into a small fist.

“The ex-girlfriend?” Julia smiles without humour. “Really? Fuck this, David. I’m out of here.”

Wincing, I hold up a placating hand. “Please,” I say, and the sincerity and pleading whine to my voice must touch her somehow. “I… I don’t think I can do this without you.”

Julia tosses her head as though sweeping an invisible mane of hair over her shoulder, and her hand reaches for something that’s no longer there, a gesture I’m all too familiar with. She scowls but stays, picking up the glass of wine I’ve poured for her.  It not great stuff, not on my secretary’s income. She takes a heavy drink, grimaces, and forces a humourless, red-stained smile.

“Well?” She waves a hand as though giving me permission to behind. “Get on with it, then.”

One: The Story of the Ex-Girlfriend (part one)

So, the story I told Julia was true, more or less, though I left out some parts and embellished others for her benefit. It started with my return from the Clinic, and finished with—well, the reason everything fell apart between us.

And believe me, 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.

And there’s no way she’d understand if she couldn’t put herself in my shoes and 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.

That’s, like, half a dozen fucks. I weird, because I don’t really swear like this anymore? 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 Jules. Oh, sure, he—I—resented some of the things she made me do. Especially… well. We’ll get to that. But 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 should 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 difference rocking up to work in soft pastels and pleated skirt looking like a demure schoolgirl, versus the shiny faux-leather skirt and tight white blouse of the naughty librarian.; or whatever other 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.

And I wish I’d told Jules this, back then, though at the time I couldn’t appreciate how good things were. Maybe if I’d been more open about—enjoying dressing up for her—I dunno; things might have turned out differently. She wouldn’t have done the things she did and—and neither would I. Maybe.

It’s like, even after all these months I’m pretty sure I’ll never like the reallygirly stuff, the pigtails and pink and glitter and all that—but…. It was fun, and what made it fun was doing it with her.

Julia kept the anger away. She helped me forget just what a wreck of a human being I am.

So. Yeah.

I returned to Cindy’s apartment on Friday morning. It was the first weekend of September, and even here in the suburbs you could feel the city’s efforts to retain heat, concrete and glass fingers clawing the sky, but it still slipped 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.

I bitched about it then, but those clothes made the next few months easier. Worth a small fortune, it was a really pretty pile of clothes, mostly, and not exactly affordable on Cindy’s salary. Most of it tragically useless for work, but turned out my clubbing wardrobe was 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 and that was good, the work kept me moving and not thinking because after I was done, after I’d dropped the last case by the entrance and the door clicked shut behind me, I just stood there a little sweaty and very tired and leaned against the wall. And that’s when it hit me, really. I just kind of took Cindy’s 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 and wanted to cry.

But I didn’t.

And when I was done not-crying, I went downstairs to 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. The plan was a simple one: to huddle down and hide until everything went away. Everything: me, Cindy, the thing between my legs and the expectation that I live with it for the next six months.

I started with beer. Wandering around the apartment, getting steadily more and more drunk, I surveyed the apartment. 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 Cindy’s 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. But beer can only get you so far, really, at least when you’re small like I am, feeling bloated and having to take a piss every thirty minutes. I stared at the can in my hand and I wasn’t feeling it, some little nagging voice at the back of my head kept staving off the desired oblivion. Feeling increasingly nauseous, I staggered over to the balcony and stood outside, breathed deeply and stared towards the centre, towards the city, towards that great cluster of shining glass and cold steel standing tall against the dark sky.

It was getting close to noon by the time I rallied and switched to the hard stuff, some kind of knock-off vodka that was nasty, leaving 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. Nighttime noises filtered through the open bedroom window: the wail of 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 everything she represented but—not her. After all, she was me; and I was Cindy Bellamy, at least for the next six months. And possibly longer.

In one hand she held a half-empty bottle in the crook of her 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 draped over a damaged limb. But there was no longer any seam or discoloration, no division between where I ended and the artificial genitals 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.

In that half-obliterated state of extreme drunkenness, I stared at my girl parts for a long while. Strange and incoherent thoughts churned through my head. Eventually, I brought the bottle to my lips for another swig. It was the smell that did it—harsh, chemical—and I laughed, once, and then 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.

Curled into a naked little ball with knees to chest, I looked 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.

I tried to efface her through booze, too, back then, the last truly glorious bender of David Saunder’s life and—well, it didn’t work, right? A few weeks later I had a job, was living Cindy’s life, had men hitting on me, men like Dan, and Cindy’s first kiss, a man tongue in my mouth on a drunken night out at a trendy bullshit bar after work.

And that first night back in Cindy’s apartment? It just didn’t feel right, I couldn’t get into the groove of killing her off, if that makes sense. Hey, maybe therapy works after all, right?

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.

I’d woken up with a blistering headache but it faded quickly—a perk of all those regenerative chemicals in the bloodstream keeping me fit and female, I guess. I ate, drank loads 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 guys who work there, the managers and directors, the up-and-comers, whatever those bitches at work say.

Although I do, obviously, catch their eyes that is. And yeah, the guys who show up early like me 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 from time to time, like spotting me on the bench or adjusting the machines; and maybe I’ve accepted their help once or twice; and sure, I might do my makeup and hair before my workout because… why not? Doesn’t mean anything, and if one of those guys wants to take me out for a drink, pay for dinner, well, I’d be an idiot to turn down food, right?

But I’m getting ahead of myself. That’s a different story, another nail in the coffin. 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 lunatic fake-flesh Frankenstein 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 a 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, loping 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 lived 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 safe. 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, and if you breathed in deep enough you could almost taste 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 diminish 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 taint of piss and shit and vomit and refuse was a stain that never washed out.

It was a five minutes jog 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.

It seemed that for every tired shop or grubby apartment building there a hole in the row of buildings, like gaps in a boxer’s grin who’d gone one too many rounds. Fire and riot and decay had left their indelible mark over the years, but I noted what survived: the gambling shops, off-grid tech traders, pawn shops and foreign fast-food joints; the dodgy dealers in jewelry, ticket and credit resellers, grungy cafes and AI re-trainers; the laundrettes, the market stall and the cast-off clothes resellers. There were also a few bars and an underground club or two, and over them giant media screens behind protective glass flashed larger-than-life promises, oozing sensuality, glistening lips and ballooning tits. The image I saw that morning 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 many 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 before 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. A few called out but I couldn’t hear them over the music in my ears. But I shivered nonetheless as I passed.

Leaving the main drag behind, I cut across a disused lot, passed down a residential back street lined with dog shit and uncollected garbage, skirted a roundabout decorated with an almost hilariously incongruent statue of a sword-bearing angel—now stained with patches of rust and rude artwork—and reached the park at last.

The gate into the park was open. I made my way in, 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, an impressively designed oval raised in glory 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 worked and flourished for a few years—according to the faded information panels at the entrance tunnel behind their scratched and scored plastic protection—and drew investment 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 likely more interested in the land beneath than the community above. 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 only put in the minimal effort necessary to avoid triggering a major lawsuit.

Jogging along the winding 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. There was some token effort at maintenance. At one point I passed a crew repairing a fountain and the bench next to it. A bored-looking young man in a grey-and-orange, hi-viz one-piece outfit listlessly checked over the fountain, whilst a pretty, young female counterpart watched in sullen silence as a third man, older and grizzled, worked on the wooden bench. Hammer in hand, he lined up each nail and pounded them deep into the yielding wood, over and over again. The girl winced with each blow but seemed fascinated by the rhythmic beat of his labour.

Eventually I worked my way up the concentric circular paths that wound the circumference of the old stadium. I grew warm with the effort, a tired but pleasant buzz infusing my limbs. Jogging on, 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.

At one end of the oval, at the far end of highest concentric ring of the stadium park, there was a lookout platform. A simple round slab of horizontal concrete ringed by transparent plastic walls with a few solid benches, the viewpoint still offered a stunning view over the suburban sprawl below. Stopping there to catch my breath, I enjoyed a little break. Killing the music in my ears, I listed to the wind and the grumble of the awakening city. Far below, train tracks cut a sunken swath through the neighbourhood. Though the station connected to the stadium hadn’t been used in years, tracks still ran through here before curving off to join the junction the next stop further down the route.

I wasn’t alone. A man, probably about David age, with a full reddish beard and heavy eyebrows, sat with his dog. She was a slim, beautiful mutt—maybe a labrador crossed with something smaller—blonde and sleek, her fur shining in the sun in contrast to the heavy leather and steel of her harness. She was yapping up a storm, paws up on the barrier, barking at the trains below, and the man was hauling her back.

“Princess!” he shouted and yanked on her leash. “Heel!”

The dog dutifully returned and sat next to him, looking up with expectant and loyal eyes.

“She’s a stupid bitch,” the man said, grinning apologetically as he scratched the dog behind the ear. “But I love her anyway.”

Turning away, I shivered in the wind and watched as a heavy-duty maglev train approached with only the faintest hiss, 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 with eel-like grace back onto its route. It slid silently and smoothly into the waiting tunnel, gleaming with the bioluminescent gel that illuminated the path and conducted power back into the thrusting engine. The train disappeared into those depths.

By this time my headache had largely cleared and so I left the platform, taking a final look over the park and my home 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 walling of the balcony forever shot their triple droplets of jizz towards the concrete floor.

Afterwards, back in the apartment I was feeling—pensive, I guess. Behind the anger and the tiredness 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 Cindy’s—over my—home.

Stripping naked, I 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 as 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 thought: okay, let’s do this.

And if I had to pick a moment when all this started, the first step down the road that leads to the death of David Saunders, I think maybe it started then, a willful act of self-negation; suicide, in a way.  Something started to shift inside of me after that jog. By the time Julia showed up later that night, I’d already taken the first small step towards a larger change.

Which she did. Turn up, that is, uninvited. And when Julia showed up later that night, she found me hard at work, cleaning. She saw me in a cute Suzy-homemaker dress, one she’d bought me on a whim a few months back, this saucy red number with white polka dots, really 1950s vintage-inspired and flouncy with a nipped in waist. My makeup was done up all proper to match, I slipped on some thigh highs and heels, and with some cheery music on in the background I was busily carving my little oasis of peace and tidiness out of the mucky mess of the previous three months.

And why was I dressed like a sitcom housewife from the 50s? Because at that precise moment, that’s who I wanted to be. Or rather, that was the part I wanted to play, the happy homemaker, 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, and I was laying it on thick—as thickly as the cream smeared across my face hiding the imperfections and ravages of the past day—though saying that, even then, 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.

So 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 and cleaning. Later, it was going to worry me that I hadn’t noticed her come in. I had the music on, was deeply into the task at hand, but still… to not notice someone invading my home?

Her voice cut through to me.  “David?”

I started in surprise, turned and saw Julia.

Standing there in that swirling dress, in heels and heavy makeup, with a duster in hand as her eyes roamed back and forth over me brought a swell of emotions I could hardly process at that time. There was an unexpected warmth, a happy surge at the sight of her.

But at the same time: I wasn’t ready, I realised, not yet, to deal with other human beings and especially one who knew me as a man. In two days, I’d be heading back to work as an “office administrator,” a glorified secretary, and so back to all the social expectations and anxieties and pressures of ordinary life; and I wasn’t ready, I just wasn’t prepared to go back, not when I was still reeling from the realities of life with a vagina.

One look from her and I instantly and acutely felt like a man prancing around in a flirty dress and flushed a deep and painful red with embarrassment.

She smiled, plum-coloured lips parting in a broad smile, and her eyes sparkled with mirth. “Hello honey,” she said, stepping away from the door. “I’m home.”

We stared at each other for a moment, and my smile grew to match hers. Why not?

“Oh my goodness, Dear, you look exhausted,” I trilled, and flounced over to her.  And it wasn’t just role-playing: Julia did look exhausted and to judge by the way she was dressed, she’d just come from the office. She was wearing a fitted woman’s suit, white shirt with a touch of lace and ruffle at the collar and slim, high-waisted trousers paired with heels. Julia never wore heels—hated them, but loved getting me in them, the taller the better—and the professional femininity of her work clothes was a new look for her, one that clearly left her slightly ill at ease.

With one hand on her shoulder, I reached up and gave a soft, lingering kiss to her cheek.

Julia’s hand hovered over the lipstick imprint left behind. “Thanks,” she said, raising a sculpted eyebrow as I took her suit jacket.

“Hard day at work?”

“Yeah.” She sighed. “Yeah, you could say that.”

I took her hand and pulled her into the room. “Sit down,” I said. “Let me get you a drink.”

She smiled. “I like the sound of that.” Julia passed me a bag she held at her side. “Got some Champagne in there I picked up on the way over. Should still be cold.”

“Champagne?” I gave a little clap of joy. “Yay!”

Julia smiled wryly. “Yeah. Yay.”

I brought the bottle to the kitchenette and placed it on the counter. One of the high cupboards had a pair of Champagne flutes in it, stashed away out of common use. Even in heels I couldn’t quite reach. Straining, I gave a little “eep!” of surprise when I suddenly felt a pair of strong hands at my waist.

“Here, let me,” Julia said, gently pulling me aside and her hands brushed up against my tits as she reached past. She was taller than me, especially in heels. She passed me the glasses.

“Thank you.” I turned to the bottle, stripped away the wrapper and made a show of struggling with the cork. Making a little moue of disappointment, I silently passed the bottle to her and shrugged. Julia took the bottle with a tolerant sigh and easily popped the cork and poured out the Champagne.

Our glasses gave a merry tinkle. “To…?” I asked.

A smile tugged at the corner of her lips. “Tonight,” she said.

She took a deep drink, and I a little sip. My stomach churned a little at the thought of more alcohol after yesterday’s abuse, though the quality wasn’t lost on me; it was a fine Champagne, an expensive one and belied her offhand comment about simply picking up the bottle on the way over. She was spoiling me, and I appreciate the effort. The role-reversal wasn’t lost on me, especially with me in the dress and her in trousers.

I took her by the hand and led her over to a chair. “Sit. Relax,” I told her. “Tell me about your day?”

Still with that curious half smile, she sank gratefully into the chair. “Jesus. Where to start?” Julia stared balefully at her shoes. Shiny and black, a good ten centimetres of slender heel and just a touch of platform, they were beautiful, expensive, and entirely out of character for Julia. Her usual work ensemble was possibly best described as aggressively work-casual, enviably so, and while she took great pleasure in dressing me in range of uncomfortable but cute, pretty, or provocative outfits, she skewed towards comfort and convenience for herself.

I sank gracefully to the floor next to her, knees together to one side, dress settling with a whisper over my stockinged legs. Smiling up at her, I removed her shoes and she sighed with toe-wiggling pleasure. I rolled down and removed her thin socks. Then I took her left foot in next and began giving her a foot massage. With gentle strokes and precise presses of finger and thumb up and down the arch of the foot—not too strong, but firm enough to not tickle—I sought out knots and stiffness. Finding blocks and pain, I worked to release them.

And as I massaged her, I invited her to talk. She groaned, at first, and went silent, but then stirred and with her eyes closed began to tell me about her day. “I wasn’t meant to work today,” she lamented. “Fucking takeover. Fucking egos.” Julia eased into her complaints, amidst a series of twitches, grimaces and grunts as my fingers danced along her foot.

She told me about the past two weeks of work, the unexpected announcement of a corporate takeover, the gradual integration of the new bosses and new processes, the changing expectations. The sudden spike in workload and the introduction of new fears: fear of redundancies, changing job descriptions, lateral shifts in the management structure. After years of relative comfort, Julia suddenly found herself fighting for her job again.

Guided by her reactions, the ‘ooh’ and ‘ahh’ of relief—I gradually increased the pressure, kneading the muscles, rubbing at the tendons, pushing harder until my own hands began to ache.

“That explains the shoes,” I said.

She smiled wanly down at me. “Yeah,” she said. “There’s also a new dress code. Can you fucking believe it? The new owners brought in a new dress code which—wait for it, it’ll blow your mind!— only affects the women.”

“Like me?” I asked quietly.

She snorted. “Hardly,” she said. “You’re pretty much the poster-girl for the new dress code. You’re already part of the makeup-and-heels brigade. If anything, you might have to tone down the girliness. No,” she added, voice souring, “it’s more a management thing. More crass chauvinistic bullshit to keep women in positions of power under the thumb of patriarchy.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, quietly, even though it wasn’t my fault and I was hardly the embodiment of patriarchy at the moment.

“Yeah, I bet you are,” she said, looking down at me.

“Be nice,” I said. “Or I stop.”

“Heaven forbid,” she said, and settled back in the chair. “Carry on, Dear.”

Which I did, following a sip at my Champagne. The rim of my glass was stained cherry with lip-print. My nails, cradling the glass, made a sharp, shaped contrast between their vivid, painted redness and the pale yellow of the drink. The sun had long since set and a faint gloss of moonlight cast its light over the two of us.

In silence, I tended to her aching feet.

“You’re amazing,” she eventually said. “When you’d get so damn good at this?”

Breaking character for a moment, I shrugged. “I’m a thirty-five year old man, Jules. It’s high on the list of things every guy should know. You know, like how to order a good wine or drink a single-malt whisky.”

“If you say so,” she said. “So where’s lip gloss and lingerie on the list?”

Instead of answering, I drove my thumb into a knot and made her jump. I smiled sweetly in response to her glare and continued the massage. Eventually she relaxed again and sighed. Her eyes rolled back and she sank deeper into the chair. I continued for a little longer and wondered whether she was falling asleep, but then she stirred and sat up a little. Julia took a sip of her Champagne. She licked her lips as she watched me.

“God, I could get used to this,” she murmured.

I smiled up at her and continued.

“I get it,” she continued. “What guys see in this.”

Without stopping, I glanced up at her demurely, inquisitively.

“The kneeling girl, the skirt-and-heels, the perfect makeup, the attention and care.” She leaned her chin in the palm of her hand, elbow on armrest, and made a show of studying the bubble-and-fizz sparking from her glass. She gazed at me through its amber lens. “And all for me. All this effort, for me, for my approval. The male gaze.” Reaching down, she stroked the side of my head, which felt good until I realised she was basically petting me, like a cat. “And the attention’s nice, the devotion. Being listened to.”

She pulled her hand back and I nearly chased the retreating touch, and unexpectedly missed it when it was gone.  “But you know, I don’t think it’d work for me if it was a guy down there, a man on his knees.”

“You’d turn down a foot massage from a guy?”

Julia took a sip from her drink. “Of course not,” she said, but when she turned her eyes back to me, I saw the lust burning there. I felt an echoing warmth, as though heated by the fire of her desire, and felt the first, disconcerting stirrings below.

“But it’s not the same,” she said. “It’s the way your dress hangs open when you lean forward and shows off those beautiful tits of yours.” Her eyes roamed over my visible assets. I suppressed the instinct to cover myself. “It’s the long hair and the way it tickles. It’s the way you look up at me, those great big green eyes behind heavy lashes.” She pulled her feet back and sat up in the chair and reached for me. Her fingers caressed my cheek and I tilted into her touch. Julia nudged my chin upwards until she looked down at me and smiled. “It’s a power thing, and I hate myself for feeling it, but I’d be embarrassed looking down on a man like this.”

“I am a man, Julia,” I said, pulling away.

She grinned. “If you say so.”

Whatever stirring I felt went cold under her mockery, and the roleplay suddenly didn’t feel so fun. I pulled back and clambered to my feet. But when I turned and went to step away her arm snaked around my waist.

“Let me go,” I said.

Instead, she pulled me closer and unsteady in heels, I fell back into her lap. “Aw, did I upset my little princess?”

“Fuck you,” I said, and struggled to disentangle myself from her grip. She was larger than me, and stronger too, and so her arms remained fast around me.

She nuzzled my neck, and one hand crept its way to my chest. “I missed you, you know,” she said. “I’ve been thinking about you.”

Giving up the fight, I succumbed to her advances. “I missed you, too,” I said, although that wasn’t entirely true. I’d thought about her during the stay at the Clinic obviously and talked about her a lot with Crystal but—well, between the gym, therapy sessions and… well, Chad; I hadn’t really had time to miss her.

But under her touch, the earlier warmth returned. Her hand fondled my breast through the thin fabric of the dress and the bra beneath. She kissed my neck and I sighed and leaned my head to the side so that she could trail further kisses up to my ear. Her tongue flicked an earlobe; she nibbled at my ear; she nudged my face towards hers and our long hair intertwined and closed around us like a silk cocoon of blonde and black silk.

“You have no idea how much I’ve been looking forward to this,” she said. Her hand grabbed my tit more roughly, she held me closer and crushed her lips up against mine. When she pulled back, she licked her lips and smiled. “Mmm. Haven’t tasted lipstick on another girl’s lips in two weeks,” she said. She squeezed my tit again. “Or felt this.”

“Happy to oblige,” I murmured. “But Julia, we need to—”

But she silenced me when her mouth found mine again, her togue thrusting between my lips and dancing with mine. I couldn’t suppress a little moan, a groan at her touch. I twisted in her grip and on her lap, trying to break free once again, but her hands held me by the tits. She kissed my neck again and my knees felt weak. I felt it elsewhere, too.

“I’ve been waiting two weeks, David.” Her tongue lapped at my ear, her breath a hot whisper against the skin. “Holding off in anticipation.” The hand at my breast grew firmer, roughly fondling, thumb flicking across the increasingly hard point of an engorged nipple. I squirmed in her lap, caught in her grasp, and growing increasingly aroused and—uncomfortable—by my arousal.

“Julia, we need to talk.”

“My little housewife,” she purred into the curve of my neck. “Don’t fuck this up with words. I am so goddamn wet right now. Bedroom. Now.”

She stood, and I slid off her lap and stood with her, and now her other hand grabbed me by the ass, snaking its way beneath my dress and gripping my lace-clad bottom. “I want you to fuck me,” she said. “Make me scream. Make me weep.” And her hands fondled and roamed, even as she hissed in my ear—“I want your cock inside me”—and her fingers reached for the expected bulge….

“What the fuck?”

She shoved me away, hard, and I stumbled in heels and nearly fell on my ass.

“Julia—”

“What the fuck?” she said, panting slight and eyes wide, pointing with one finger. “What the actual fuck?”

I stood bashfully in front of her, eyes downcast.

“Was that—?”

I nodded. “Yes.”

“Where’s—?”

“It’s….” My sad shrug was wholly inadequate to expressing how I felt. “Gone.”

“No,” she said. “No no no!” Scowling, she stormed towards me. “This is some sick joke, right?”

Falling back, hands raised in defence, I shook my head.

“Show me!” she commanded, “Strip!” and I swear she nearly started to rip the clothes from me herself.

I batted her hands away. Stepping out of my heels, I turned and lifted my hair and indicted the back of my dress. Her hands—angry, hurried—fumbled with the buttons there, and a wiggle later I stood before her in nothing but my underwear. I suddenly felt very small next to her, and vulnerable.

Her eyes widened at the sight of the smooth curve of my crotch. “You’ve got—”

“A vagina.” I sighed. “Yes.”

“Are you—” Conflicting emotions crawled across her face, a complex mix of—anger, disappointment, outrage, delight and… humour? I swear a hint of a smile tugged at her lips, but she sounded disgusted when she spoke. “Are you fucking wet?”

I felt the return of the hot flush spreading across chest and face. “Yes, I’m fucking wet!” I nearly shouted back.

She stepped closer. “Panties. Off,” she ordered.

I wriggled out of the tight, lacy thing and stepped free. Now I was down to thigh highs and bra and shivered a little under her hot gaze. Her eyes widened further, if possible, and her mouth gaped a little. She dropped to one knee and shuffled closer and studied the light blonde fuzz and mound and slit and I could see she didn’t quite know what to think.

“Is it—?” She pointed with one finger like she wanted to poke it like you might an unfamiliar but recognizable bug on a branch. “Real?”

“It’s a prosthetic.” It felt—awkward, having her see me like this, embarrassing, and my hands twisted within each other; I didn’t know what to do with them.

“Like hell it is.”

“I swear.”

“So it comes off?”

“Not for at least three months.”
 She looked me in the eyes. Her mouth opened, then closed. She frowned. Then: “Is this why you went to that Clinic for two weeks? To get them to put this… thing on you?” Now close enough to touch, her hand hovered at my hip but she seemed reluctant to touch me. She continued before I could answer, and her voice was scored through with anger and disappointment. “And you didn’t even think to ask me?”

“I….” I swallowed. “I don’t know what you mean.”

She scowled. “We’ve been fucking each other for what, three months now? You didn’t think I’d have a vested interest in… this? Fuck sake, David!” Her hand slapped me across the thigh, almost like a spanking, and it stung. “You selfish bastard. I waited two weeks for you! Two fucking weeks; you have any idea how horny I am?” She slapped me, again, then pointed. “What the fuck am I supposed to do with that?”

“I can—fingers, tongue, you know—”

She surged to her feet and glared down at me. Even out of heels she was taller than me, and I wasn’t feeling particularly tall or power at that moment. “I don’t want your finger, I want your fucking cock inside me!”

“I—” Felt emasculated, which I quite literally was; and ashamed; but also frustrated and angry. “It’s not like I asked for this, you know?”

She’d already started to talk over me but froze at my words. Her mouth opened once or twice, silently. Then she frowned. “What?”
 “I didn’t go to the Clinic for—this,” I said, and waved a hand in the general direction of the prosthetic. “It was… unexpected.”

I wasn’t sure what to expect; it certainly wasn’t laughter. She threw her head back and laughed, and when she looked back at me her mouth split in a wide grin. “You didn’t want this?”

“Of course not!” I answered, indignant.

“Oh, David,” she said. “My God, what have they done to you?”
 “They said it would help,” I answered. “Make the next six months easier. Make my disguise more convincing.”

“You think?” she said. She stepped closer, uncomfortably so, and I shivered in my nakedness as she brushed up against me, her suit unexpectedly prickly against bare skin. “I mean, they’re right. I can’t see any trace of the man I knew.”

I stepped away from her. “You know I don’t want any of this. You know I hate this.”

“I do,” she said, advancing slowly as I continued to back away. “And you know I love the idea of David Saunders squirming somewhere inside this female flesh.” I winced and stepped back and she smiled and stepped forward. “That under all this softness, this angry little bundle of misogynistic toxic masculinity is going absolutely batshit crazy forced to live all cute and pretty and demure.” My naked bottom bumped up against the wall. She all but had me pinned there and lit from behind her shadow fell over me.

“I’ve loved torturing you these past few months, David. Watching you prance around at work in whatever outfit I’ve picked out for you. Seeing you sink ever deeper into this… disguise.” She all but sneered. “And look at you: you’re more feminine than I’ll ever be; God, you’re such a fucking girl now, aren’t you? All soft and sweet and pretty.”

“I’m still a man,” I insisted.

She laughed. I nearly shook with suppressed anger. “Tell that to Dan.”

Memories of that night crowded in—trembling nervously in lingerie before a man, sinking to my knees between his legs, curling slender fingers around his erect penis until he came into my stocking—and then I thought of Chad—his firm hands on my tits, grabbing my ass, the happy flutter in my belly and again, falling to my knees and pulling out his cock, licking my lips in anticipation.

“Please,” I said. “Stop.”

“Payback,” she said. “For what you did to me.”

“I know,” I whispered.

“No, you don’t.” She cocked her head to once side. “You have no idea how much I hated you, David. How badly you hurt me. How—long, it took me to put myself back together after you fucked me and dumped me.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I am. I’ve said it so many times and I’ll say it again. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“But you did.” She reached out and I flinched, but her touch was gentle as she stroked my cheek. “Did you know I tried switching teams after you left? I mean, after I recovered enough to even contemplate a relationship with anyone ever again.”

I hadn’t known, though I’d guessed. From the very start she’d been comfortable with my femaleness, with tits pressing up against hers, long hair mingling and the taste of makeup on each others’ lips.

Her eyes were shadowed as she continued. “I thought I was done with guys. So I tried girls for a bit. And it was…” She trailed off, momentarily lost in thought. “Just as shitty as with men, to be honest. But not all of it, and never as bad as it got with you. There was this one girl, Ayesha, we dated for a few months and….” She trailed off again, smiling a sad little smile. “It didn’t work in the end.”

I had no idea why she was telling me this. Her hand continued to idly stroke my cheek, and her closeness and her soft touch aroused distinctly uncomfortable feelings. “Why not?” I asked.

“I was still too broken,” Julia answered. “And I couldn’t trust her, not as she deserved.” Her hand drifted from my cheek to touch an earlobe and the small dangling earring she found there, then drifted down to my shoulder. “But mostly because it never felt—right. I tried, I dated a bunch of women, but even at its best—with Ayesha—petting, kissing… sex….” She sighed and shook her head. “When it was good, it was good; I enjoyed it. But it always felt like something was missing.”

Her fingers curled into my shoulder. Her other hand reached for my flank but pulled back when I recoiled. I looked up at Julia. The hardness in her eyes softened. Instead, there was a desperate yearning there, and a desperate sadness, too. So I reached up to her in return, cupping her cheek in my palm, and she leaned into it, and sighed.

“I missed—you, David.” Tears beaded in the corner of her eyes.

What could I say? That I hadn’t thought of her at all over the intervening decade? That I all but forgot of her after that final night with Tom and me, until she found me three months ago drunk and puking in the toilet staff of a nightclub? No.

“I hate myself for it,” continued, touching me fleetingly her and there, softly pawing at my breast, a hip, the shoulder. Her words and her touch and her tears especially brought a tingle to my tummy and it was all I could to not squirm with the renewed sensation of dampness between my legs.  “God, I hate myself for wanting you.”

“I want you too,” I murmured, and it was true, fuck how I wanted to tear those trousers from her, bend her over the sofa and thrust myself deep into her familiar cunt. The yearning I felt was qualitatively different than when I’d worn a prosthetic before. That one I’d only worn for a few weeks; it’d been attached hastily, painfully; and the sensation it transmitted, though initially baffling faded quickly until for the final week it was nothing more than a dull, heavy weight over my genitals.

But now—God!—the confused and conflicting signals this damned thing attached to my crotch sent my brain left me confused, weak in the knee, desperate. It was—how to explain?—like I still felt the phantom ache of balls, somewhere inside, that physical build up of desire that bordered on painful demanding release. And I swear there were—twitches—ghost sensations of hardness, vibrations along invisible wires that jolted my hips forward to impale her on something absent. But that same jerking wasn’t just a pushing out, it was a drawing in, and I felt—

God, I felt—

“Have you—tried it, yet?” In my distracted state she’d drawn closer, her arm snaking around my naked waist, pulling me to her.

“Tried—” I started. “No!”

“Really?” A wicked smile lit up her face. I felt fingers drift closer, sliding gently across my thigh as they crept towards that hot, wet place between my legs. “You haven’t been tempted?”

“No,” I whispered. I laid my hand over hers. “Please,” I said. “I—don’t want—”

Julia pulled her hand free, pushed mine aside. Her arm around my waist suddenly tightened, drew me closer, and her leg was suddenly thrust mine, and my crotch rubbed up against her thigh, and—

A low, shuddering groan from between cherry lips.
 I could hear the smile in her voice as I sagged against her. “Sure sounds like you want it.” She sniffed. “Smells like it, too.”

A shuddering breath as my hips twitched, confused, caught between wanting to impale and be impaled, push out and draw in. There was a—need—still unmet; but the touch of her textured trousers against my enflamed flesh only added to the heat she’d already planted in me with her fleeting touches of breast, hip, and cheek.

I squirmed in the circle of her arm, which only served to rub tight nipples against the cool silk of her work shirt and the soft swell of her own breasts and I bit down on my lip to stifle another moan. She shifted her stance; her thigh rubbed up against the pussy again; my legs went weak.

“Tell me to stop,” she whispered.

“Please.” My breath hissed between clenched teeth.

“St—stop.”

“I’m not doing anything,” she said. “I’m not touching you.”

And it was true; she wasn’t. She kept me close, trapped against the way, her leg thrust between mine—but she wasn’t moving, and it was me, my own needs betraying me as I rubbed myself back and forth along her thigh, trousers stained wet with my snail trail of arousal.

I was so fucking turned on, and from her flushed face and heavy breathing knew she was as well. The temptation to keep going, to rub myself up against her a little more and feed the heat between my legs and see just how the inferno could grow was nearly overwhelming. I felt the arousal in my groin and in my tits and my whole body thrummed with desire.

But. I didn’t want this, and unlike Julia it’d only been a few days since I’d gotten my rocks off. With a sound halfway between a whimper and a groan, I shoved Julia away from me.

She stumbled back and looked angry, looked hurt that I’d pushed her back.

“No,” I said.