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

For your enjoyment, Chapter 6 to date.  At this point, the chapter's long enough to stand on its own and I suspect, as with the Interlude, I'll have to break it down into smaller parts for posting.  The framework lends itself to this, I think: since it's really a collection of shorter stories cobbled together by the conceit of the "funeral", posting it in separate chunks should be easy.  There's a final twist that ought to bring it all together as well.

At this point, we've got the two first parts of David's funeral done: the first half of Julia's story, and David's night out with the girls.  I reckon this is about one-third done at this point.  Remaining is the second half of Julia's story (that comes last), a story involving Cindy's boss at V.I. during an office Halloween party, and a bit about how Cindy got in with those girls at the office in the first place.  There is potentially another story--one involving a boyfriend, a relationship spanning a few weeks--but that might get cut due to space.  And at the very end, the 'twist'.  Optimistically, at my current writing speed (which I'm not entirely sure is sustainable--I've got a growing backlog of work and imminent deadlines requiring attention) I'll have the first draft of Chapter 6 done by the end of March.

Meanwhile, he's the chapter to date.  Enjoy, and let me know what you think--and of any errors, inconsistencies, or oddities you otherwise stumble across.

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Chapter 6

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. I’m 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 either, didn’t care if they wanted to ride on top or needed a little fingerplay until his skin wrinkled like after a bath. Took it as a badge of pride to get the girl off, and he was good at getting them there, too.

That’s a hell of a lot better than most guys out there.

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 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 hadn’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.) Squeezing into it—and the under-rigging required to get 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 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 once seemed. Or kissing him. Going home with him and doing what inevitably follows. 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 sad music and, knowing my tastes, the AI’s generating an unending flow of low dirges that seem 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 flimsy coffee and 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 article 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 with 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; very much so. 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, giggling, 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 as 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 contouring, a little colour.

I shake my head.

“What the fuck are we doing here, David?” Julia shifts from one foot to the other.

“Not David,” I say. “Cindy.”

“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’s too big a question to answer in words though I want to, need to, judging by the pressure 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, I already know when David Saunders died. He died the night he stumbled across 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 begin. “Get on with it, then.”

One: The Story of the Ex-Girlfriend

This is the story I told Julia, and it’s all 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 the start of the end between us. There was more to tell, of course, but that would come later.

And believe me, it wasn’t an easy story to tell, filled with guilt and embarrassment, anger and sadness. (And, if I’m honest, some good times as well, some pleasure amidst the pain.) To tell this story, I had to go back a little bit, to before she actually showed because…. Well. Just because, I suppose. I wanted to justify myself to her and to do that she needed to 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 stopped 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. With some justification, of course, but still; that kind of anger is exhausting.

But he wasn’t angry 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. I played 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 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 patent 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 don’t know; 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…. Dressing like that for her? 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 mostly 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—you can see the whole thing from the entrance, pretty much—my home for the next six months—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. That dodgy little shop was great: Cindy wasn’t even twenty-one when she got back from the Clinic, I was fucking underagefor buying booze, but the owner never gave a shit. No ID. So I 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 place. Stopped and stared at the ribbon of peeling wallpaper in the hallway, or that corner in the bathroom crusted over with 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 and concrete and plastic 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… begrudged her life 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, close but not touching, palm down as though warming itself by the heat of a campfire. 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 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 as 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’s tongue in my mouth on a drunken night out at a trendy bar after work.

And now, that first night back in Cindy’s apartment after the visit to the Clinic? 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 hangover but it faded to a bearable ache 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 even if I don’t need it; 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 free food, right, a classy night out, especially on my income?

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 once lived in a pretty swanky community. Gated, clean and well-maintained, nice shrubbery, trees lining the road and paths, private security zipping about in their little carts 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 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 for too long to ever forget it, and the taint of piss and shit and vomit and refuse was a stain that never washed out.

It was a ten minute jog to the park. It was that early Saturday morning stage between the cleaners pushing 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 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 thrift and charity shops. There were also a few bars and an underground club or two and over it all, giant 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.

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 into disuse. Scheduled for demolition, some bright spark about a decade or two ago had the 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.

Surprisingly, the initiative worked and flourished for a few years—according to the faded information panels at the entrance tunnel behind their scratched and scored plastic—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 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 jumpsuit wearing a hi-viz jacket 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, others 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. My body fizzed pleasantly from the run as I leaned against the wall, breathing deeply.

Cutting the music in my ears, I listed to the wind and the grumble of the awakening city. Far below, train tracks sliced a sunken swath through the neighbourhood. Though the station beneath the stadium hadn’t been used in years, tracks still ran through before curving off to join the junction the next stop along 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, blonde and bright eyed—maybe a labrador crossed with something smaller—sleek and energetic, 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 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 that gleamed with the bioluminescent gel that illuminated those depths and conducted power back into the thrusting engine. The train disappeared into the tunnel.

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. When Julia showed up later that night, she found me hard at work, cleaning. She caught me in a cute homemaker dress, one she’d bought me on a whim a few months back, this little 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’d 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 was still proving to myself that I couldplay the part laid out for me. 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’d ever had call to use it. Before, I’d almost always ended up at hers rather than the other way around.

Who knows how long she watched me flutter around, 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 spray bottle and cleaning rag 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 once 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 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 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 an eyebrow desperately in need of trimming. 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 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 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. 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 also 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. A rich, deep brown, 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 style was best described as aggressively work-casual, enviably so, and while she took great pleasure in dressing me in a range of uncomfortable but cute, pretty, or provocative outfits, she leaned heavily 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 hand 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 takeover—apparently in the works for the past year—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.

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 what they want. 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 dog. “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—I never knew what they meant by ‘doe eyes’ but there they are.” 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.

“Sure you are.”

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 go.”

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. She 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 and she trailed further kisses up to my ear. Her tongue flicked an earlobe; she nibbled at my ear; she nudged my face towards hers and my arms snaked around her neck as our long hair intertwined and closed around us like a 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—”

She silenced me with another kiss, her tongue 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, eyes wide and pointing with her 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 for expressing how I felt. “Gone.”

“No,” she said. “No no no!” 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 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 couldn’t meet her glare. My words came out angry, a blend of frustration and embarrassment.

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

I wriggled out of the tight, diaphanous 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, 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 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. Both of us out of heels, she remained taller than me and I wasn’t feeling particularly tall or powerful 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 my groin. “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 things easier. Make the 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 backed 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 toxic masculinity is going absolutely batshit crazy forced to live all cute and pretty like.” My naked bottom bumped up against the wall. She 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, stroking slender fingers along 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, lips wet in anticipation.

“Please,” I said. “Stop.”

“Payback. For what you did.”

“I know,” I whispered.

“No, you don’t.” She titled her head to one 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 never meant 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? After I recovered enough to even consider 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. It would take me years to learn to trust anyone again.” 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 ten years later, three months ago drunk and puking in the toilet stall of a nightclub? No.

“I hate myself for it,” she continued, touching me fleetingly here and there, soft presses 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 trapping my genitals.

But now—God!—the confused and conflicting signals this 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 need that bordered on painful and 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 sneaking around my naked waist, pulling me to her.

“Tried—” I started. “No!”

“Really?”  She sounded genuinely baffled by my answer. “Why not?” 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—”

A wicked smile lit up her face. Julia pulled her hand free, pushed mine aside. Her arm around my waist suddenly tightened, drew me closer, and her leg was suddenly thrust between 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 only added to the heat she’d already lit 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.

“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 wall, 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 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 high the fire 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 last gotten my rocks off. Maybe If Chad hadn’t gone down on me just a few days ago, I couldn’t have resisted her. Instead, with a sound halfway between a whimper and a groan, I shoved Julia away from me.

She stumbled back, looking hurt.

“No,” I said.

Julia’s hands balled into fists. “Why not?” She was red in the face, breathing hard. “Why the fuck not?”

“I’m not—” Standing there in nothing more than a flimsy bra and thigh highs, I shivered, and hugged myself. “Ready, Julia, not for that, not yet.” I saw the frustration, the anger and disappointment at being rejected, and so I hastened to add: “But if I was—” and I smiled weakly—“Believe me, there’s no one else I’d want to, you know….” My hand made a vague gesture in the vicinity of those genitals. “Do stuff.”

She smiled feebly. “Stuff?”

I nodded and offered a tentative smile.

Julia stared at me a long time before finally releasing a deep breath. She stepped away from me and collapsed heavily into the chair, sitting legs spread, head thrown back, staring at the ceiling. “Jesus Christ, David,” she said, and groaned. “You make it difficult.”

It wasn’t entirely clear to me what ‘it’ was, but I shrugged. “Sorry.”

She glanced at me before returning her gaze to the ceiling. “Do you have any idea how fucking horny I am right now?”

“Sorry,” I repeated, padding closer.

“Two weeks,” she said. “God, I was really looking forward to a good, solid fucking tonight.”

“Sorry.”

“Sorry sorry sorry,” she parroted.

With a shiver of stocking against stocking, I dropped to my knees and laid my hand on her thigh. “I can still make you feel good, Jules. It’s not what you wanted, I know, and I wish I could fuck you the way you want, I really do, but….” I smiled and licked my lips, sliding closer between her legs. “I’d still like to make you happy.”

She looked down at me. “Like you did Dan?”

“Fuck you, Jules,” I snapped and pulled back.

But she held me close, hand on my head, fingers curling into my hair. She winced, took a deep breath, and smiled. “Sorry,” she said, and smiling wryly, she chuckled. “So many apologies tonight.”

I reached for her waist. “Nothing happened, you know,” I said, as I undid the slender belt and unfastened her buttons. “I didn’t go down on Dan.” With a sharp tug, her trousers were down to her knees. “I tried. Drank myself half-blind trying to get there.” Her panties were gorgeous, pale blue and sheer, with elaborate ivory lace in a floral pattern, and she wore a matching suspender belt clipped to satin and gold garters at her thighs. “But I couldn’t do it.” I gently drew one long fingernail across the bulge of lips beneath gossamer fabric and elicited a sigh from her.

“But this?” I smiled up at her. “This I can do.”

Before long, we moved to the bedroom. I ate her out, and used my fingers, and she came—I don’t know, half a dozen times. It was easy; I knew her body and played it like a familiar instrument, strumming and fretting her secret chords and drew from her those beautiful sounds, the gasps and screams, the drawn out cry and shuddering moan. The music of her pleasure was exquisite.

Julia softened, melted under my touch and tongue. Eventually we finished, sitting naked on the bed together.

She cradled me in her arms as I leaned into the soft comfort of her chest. She rested her chin on my head and held me possessively between her legs. I felt the cool damp patch of her matted hair against the small of my back. Eventually, she began kissing the nape of my neck, her hand rested possessively over one boob, idly stroking, occasionally flicking the nipple. Holding me, she spoke softly into the blonde mess of my hair. “Mmm, thank you. I needed that.”
 “Always a pleasure.”

“Pleasure’s all mine,” she said, her breath tickling my neck. She cupped my tits with both hands, gently squeezing. “Are these bigger? They feel bigger.”

I sighed. “C-cup,” I said. “But they’ve stopped growing.”

“I like them this way,” she said. “They’re perfect.”

She continued massaging my tits. I hummed with pleasure, leaning back into her. “That feels nice,” I said.

Julia nuzzled my neck. “There’s more if you want it.” One hand abandoned the breast to trail down my abdomen.

“No.” I rested my hand over hers.

“Doesn’t seem fair,” she said. “The pleasure’s really been all mine. I feel guilty.” She ignored my arresting touch and her hand drifted past my waist. “I don’t like feeling guilty. Especially to you.”

“It’s just—”

“I’ve got a dildo in my purse,” she said. “We could use that.”

I stiffened in her arms. “Excuse me?”
 I could hear the laughter in her voice, though the mocking edge was absent. “I bought it as a gift,” she said. “You know—to practice on. After your night with Dan.”

“I didn’t—” I nearly shouted, then realised she was trying to get a rise out of me and took a calming breath. More quietly, I added, “I don’t need practice.”

I felt her laugh as a vibration along the spine. “How long have you been living as a girl now? Three months—four? And you still haven’t done it with a guy.”

“Does kissing and heavy petting count?”

She shook with silent laughter. “No.”

I felt no need to tell her about Chad. “Don’t forget, underneath all this I’m still a man.”

“So? Seems a wasted opportunity.”

“I’m not gay.”

“David, you’ve got tits and a pussy. At this point, whatever you get up to falls out traditional classification.”

“Not interested.”

“Not even a little?” She gave my shoulder a gentle bite. “Not tempted at all?”

She continued massaging my breast during this exchange, squeezing and then gently rolling my nipple between forefinger and thumb. Once, this kind of attention would’ve been unpleasantly toe-curling; I wouldn’t have put up with it. Now? It felt—good—unnervingly so; and her touch and her kisses and her hair and smell were doing a lot to excite me. I would’ve squeezed my thighs together if her hand hadn’t already been there between them.

“I—” I bit my lip against a tremor of nervousness that ran through me. “Of course I’m tempted,” I said.

Her hand now lay gently over my furred mound. She must’ve felt the heat there as a palpable thing, the wetness I felt. She pressed her palm down. “Are you sure this is a prosthetic?” There was wonder in her voice. “It feels….”

“Yeah.” I’d gone stiff in her embrace. “Very real.”

She kissed my neck, my ear. Her hand pressed down more firmly. “You can feel this?”

I jerked my head in confirmation.

“What about—this?”

Very gently, she curled one finger inwards. The tip of her finger parted those feminine lips and slipped—

“Ah!”

“Relax,” she whispered in my ear. She shifted her hand very slightly, finger dipping deeper—

“Please,” I whined.

“Okay,” she murmured and then—she was inside of me, finger buried up to the knuckle, and it felt—she was inside me, and—fuck—I didn’t even know how to process the feeling, but some instinct kicked in and…

“Oh, you like this, don’t you?” Julia said. “I feel you clamping down.”

“It’s not—” I gasped. “Me.”

“You’re so fucking wet,” she said. “You little slut.” Her hand at my tit grew firmer, more aggressive as she pinched and pulled at the nipple—but instead of hurting, the burn there felt like an echo of the heat down below, growing and adding to it. “Tell me to stop.”

With muscles I didn’t even know I had, I clenched down on the finger invading me. “St-stop,” I whimpered and then, “Don’t.”

“Dirty girl,” she purred, and licked my ear, and half withdrew her finger and then thrust it back in again. And it felt—oh, so very good—as she continued, finger-fucking my cunt with a steady rhythm. And with each thrust I felt something growing inside, a—rising wave that felt both familiar and utterly alien—a pressure deep down where I imagined my balls were—a desperate need for release—but instead the pressure grew—and the sound, the wet slick sound of it—and I was panting with wanting, mewling with the need for it to end—"feels good, doesn’t it?”—but also wanting that wave to grow ever larger, the promise of something truly spectacular—“my horny little slut”—but it was too much—

“Stop!” I yelped.

“What’s wrong?”

“I need—” I yanked myself free and scrambled from the bed. “Need to piss!”

Later, I sat shame-faced in a thin robe watching Julia get dressed. We’ d finished off the last of the Champagne in silence, and the buzz of it did a little to comfort my embarrassment. She was still laughing at me. “Idiot,” she said.

“I told you I wasn’t ready.”

“How many girls have you fucked, David?” She buttoned up her blouse. “That was your orgasm,” she said. “You were about to cum.”

“Felt like I was going to piss myself.” I drew the robe around my more tightly, feeling petulant and frustrated. “It felt weird.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Well, welcome to the club.” She shrugged, pulling on her socks. “It can also feel—fantastic.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”
 She raised an eyebrow. “I seriously hope you’ll do more than that.” Slipping into her work blazer, she leveled an unexpectedly serious look at me. “You’ve got that thing on for the next three months, right? You ever go three months without release?” She shook her head. “You’ll go nuts. And if that prosthetic’s as responsive as it seems—why the hell wouldn’t you make good use of it?”

Blushing a little, I stared at the floor. “I’ll take your advice under consideration.”

She padded over to me and laid a comforting hand on my shoulder. “Listen. I’m being serious here. Yes, I get a thrill seeing you trapped all girl-like like this and yes, I think you deserve it for being such a dick in the past. But…,” and here she took a deep breath, “Things have changed. You’ve changed. You’re not the same guy I once knew.”

I gave a dry laugh. “No shit.”

“I mean it, you’ve changed. And so have I. I—care for you, David. And I think you’ll go nuts if you don’t make use of that thing down there.”

“So, what, I should spread my legs for the next guy I see?”

“Why not?” She shrugged. “You might be surprised at how much you enjoy it.”

I shook my head. Instead, I took her hand in mine. “What about… us?”

She smiled, a little sadly. “Tonight was fun. Unexpected, but fun. But… no. Maybe on occasion. But like I said—with a girl—I enjoy it, but I need something more.” Her hand touched my long hair and smooth cheek, my slender shoulder, the swell of my breasts. “And right now, you’re all girl. At least where it counts.”

Her words hurt. “I see,” I answered, still petulant, still frustrated.

She glared balefully at her shoes before slipping back into her heels. “Let’s meet up tomorrow. You’re back at work on Monday? You’ll need some help getting your shit together—believe me.” She gathered her belongings as she spoke but paused and looked back at me still sat in the chair.

Julia smiled. Reaching into her purse, she pulled out the dildo she’d earlier mentioned. “I meant this as a bit of a joke,” she mused, turning it over in her hand. “But now, I’m thinking you might get some good use of it.” She tossed it to me and I caught it wordlessly, gingerly as though its touch might burn.

The quality of the thing belied her comment about it being a joke: it was an impressive replica, covered in synthetic flesh that felt real and room-temperature to touch, veiny with balls and little prickly hairs. I lacked the shopping experience but imagined it was an expensive item—not super-expensive like an AI-enable, fully responsive sex-toy, but still an extravagance for a simple joke. The colour was a near match to Dan’s penis, the size a little larger—more Chad’s girth, perhaps. I suddenly felt a little sick to the stomach and forced a smile for Julia’s sake.

“You can thank me later.” Julia laughed. “Let me know how you get on with it.”

She slipped on her jacket and picked up her briefcase and walked over to the door, heels loud on the cheap laminate flooring.

At the doorway she hesitated.

“Why’d you disappear to that Clinic for two weeks?” Her voice was strangely neutral. “You didn’t go to get that prosthetic attached,” she added. “So why’d you go?”

I was still contemplating the dildo in my hand. “To assess whether I was ready,” I said. The detailing was impressive. The smoothness of the glans, the feel of the shaft under my fingers—just holding it brought back memories of kneeling between Dan’s legs, or at Chad’s feet. It felt surprisingly real to the touch, even the wrinkly and hairy skin at the scrotum.  Through dry, I swallowed. Could I really put this thing in my mouth?

“Ready for what?”

“To say goodbye to Cindy,” I said. Very deliberately, I put the dildo down on the coffee table. It’s not like I needed it: Cindy already had a vibrator buried at the back of a dresser drawer. “To go back to being a man. Disappear, and start a new life under witness protection.” On the other hand, it was a hell of a lot more intimidating, this life-sized artificial prick compared to simplicity of the other sex toy, a simple, smooth and slender silver rod.  “I didn’t really expect to come back.”

“Disappear?” she said. Julia’s voice was dangerously quiet.

Only then did I focus on her. “I—” Too late I saw the betrayal in her eyes, the gathering storm of her anger.

“You were just going to disappear? Without even saying goodbye?”

“I thought….”

“You selfish prick,” she said. “You haven’t changed at all.”

She didn’t shout or slam the door. She just stared at me for a long moment, as though casting me to memory. Then she turned away and left.

We didn’t meet up the next day, as planned. In fact, Julia didn’t speak to me for a full month.

***

Julia is on her third glass of cheap red. She’s eaten most of the canapes. Outside is getting steadily darker, a strong November wind dashing rain against the windowpanes and rattling them in their frame. It’s only about four o’clock in the afternoon but feels much later, and it’s getting dark in here, too. I should really turn on a light.

“This is shit,” Julia says. She’s staring at the glass she holds, but I’m pretty sure her words are directed at the funeral.

“I really could’ve used your help that first week,” I said. “I needed you, Jules.”

“Yeah?” She avoids my gaze, choosing instead to stare out the window. “Well.”

“And I’m sorry,” I say.

“For what?”

“For hurting you. For not talking to you first.” I take a sip of wine, wince at the taste, and hurry on before I lose courage. “And—and for not understanding, sooner.”

Now she’s looking at me. “Understanding what?”

“That you’d fallen in love with me,” I say.

She releases a deep breath; one I hadn’t realised she’s taken. Julia stares at me for a long moment, then stands up and walks away. For a moment I fear she’s going to leave, but instead she disappears into the bathroom. Five minutes pass before I hear the toilet flush and running water. When she returns, her makeup’s been touched up but beneath the concealer I can see her eyes are a little red and puffy.

She sits heavily opposite me and stares out the window for a long moment before talking. “I did,” she says.

“I’m sorry.”

“Stop saying that,” she snaps.

“I—” I stop myself, and nod, and draw a chair closer and smoothing down my dress, sit opposite her, close enough for our knees to nearly touch. I reach out, hesitate, and then lightly lay my hand on her knee. “Talk to me.”

“I hated you,” she begins, “so much. When you first left me, ten years ago.” She visibly sags. “And we don’t need to go over that again. But when I found you all those months ago in that stall, and realised the next day that it really was you, somehow, that this young girl was really David, the man who’d hurt me so badly—I…” She pauses, and bites her lip, and looks away.

“I’ve had a lot of therapy over the years. It took me a long time to get over you, and to learn to trust anyone else. I’ve already told you this: I tried dating women for a while, and then I went back to men, and for awhile I just gave up entirely. And some of those men, they reminded me of you, and those were the men I wanted the most; those were the relationships I always sabotaged; the ones where I hurt them, and they hurt me the worst.

“That was all years ago. Now? Now—” She gives a dry chuckle. “I was in a good place. I finally settled down a bit, stopped bouncing around and actually focused on me, on my job and my needs and my pleasure. And surprise! Things got better. I got promoted. I met a couple of nice guys—nothing serious, or at least nothing really serious, you know, but someone I could call up on a Friday night, take in a meal and a few drinks, a good fuck when I needed it.”

Her eyes glance askew to me, slide away, and she sighs. “And then you pop up, looking like….” She waves her hand at me. “This. And all these urges, these revenge fantasies and old hurts and—desires….” She winces. “That first night in my apartment, it all came crashing down on me: I wanted you. So intensely it hurt and when we fucked, and after, I felt—” Her fists clench and unclench, knuckles whitening as she speaks. “Something I hadn’t felt in a long time.”

Julia makes a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob. “I wanted you. Physically and—more; inside me, yes, but also… inside me, like I wanted to—consume you, if that makes sense. And unlike ten years ago, you were—vulnerable.” She looks at me, then, and I see her gaze travel across my hair, chest, slender arms and legs. “Weaker. Softer. And at my mercy; quite literally, because suddenly I could have you killed if I wanted it.

“And it was wrong, and I knew it was wrong; it was… immoral, to take advantage of you that way. But God, you deserved it, you deserved anything I did to you and there you were, sucking it all up, dressing the way I wanted, acting the way I wanted, my own little….” She reaches for a word. “Sissy, femboy—”

“Hey,” I interrupt.

“I wanted to hurt you, like you’d hurt me.”

“Mission accomplished.” I try to keep my voice neutral, but resentment rises to the surface like bubbles in a kettle, like marsh gas frothing scum.

She flinches, then her eyes harden. “Do you expect me to feel bad about what happened?”

“I know you do,” I say.

“After what—” She stops. “You deservedit.”

I keep my voice gentle. “I forgive you, Julia.”

“I don’t want—!”

“But I want yours,” I say.

She opens her mouth to answer, closes it, and surges from her seat. She stalks away, but the apartment is small; there’s nowhere to go, really, other than out and she’s not ready for that, not yet. “Jesus, you make this hard,” she declares to the wall. She turns in a tight little circle and faces me again. “You never loved me, did you?”

Slowly, I shake my head.

And when she asks, “Why not?” her voice trembles, briefly, and there is something unbelievably tragic in her expression, quickly suppressed, a desperate need for affection and understanding that has been there since before I ever met her. Perhaps had she met some other man, all those years ago, a better man instead of an angry, broken bastard, she might’ve found happiness.

Instead, she found me. “Because I loved someone once,” I say, and think of Persephone. “Once, before you.” The memory of her death is always close at hand, far more than the memories of her in life. “And she died.”

Julia waits, as though expecting more.

“And that’s it. She died.” She was murdered. “And with her, part of me.” I shrug. “Sorry.”

She walks over to me, and sits down again, and our knees touch, a murmur of black stocking on stocking. “That’s not good enough,” she says. Her hand hovers, as though wanting to reach out to me. “You can love again,” she says.

I take her hand in mine. “No.” I say. “I’ve tried.” I smile wanly. “I tried with you.” My thumb traces little circles on the back of her hand. “And I care for you, Jules. I do, I really do. The time we spent together—after you came back, and before you hurt me—I didn’t realize it at the time but… it’s probably the happiest I’ve been in a very long time.” My grip tightens around her hand. “Maybe ever.”

“David,” she begins, but I interrupt her.

“Cindy,” I insist. “David is dead, and… well, we’re here to commemorate that, remember?”

Her smile is sad, but she nods. “Fine,” she says. “But I’ll need more wine.” She grimaces at the empty glass in her hand. “No offence, but no more of this corner-store shit, please? Open up the good stuff I brought.”

I force a laugh and step into the kitchenette and grab two clean glasses and crack open the bottle and pour us out fresh drinks. I’m considering what story to tell her next. She’s not ready for the rest of her story; neither am I.

She takes a sip and sighs with pleasure. “Mmm, that’s better.”

“Hey, that ‘shit’ is the best I can afford,” I grumble, and the bitterness is real. “You try getting by on a secretary’s pay.”

“Been there, done that. No thanks.”

“Besides,” I add, pointing at the empty bottle. “It’s not that bad.”
 “Adequate at best.” She raises an eyebrow and smiles behind the rim of her glass. “Gauche, new world and pedestrian.”

“You forgot sharp, with hints of bitterness.”

“We still talking about the wine?”

I laugh and raise my glass in mock salute. Julia laughs too, but strained, stress visible in the wrinkles in the corner of her eyes and the tightness at her neck. I know her, her body and she’s dreading the next part of the story.

There’s an uncomfortable moment of silence before she asks: “So… what’s next?” She stares into the ruby depths of her glass. “How did the ex-girlfriend kill off poor David Saunders?”

I tap my chin as though in contemplation. I’ve already decided. I hadn’t intended on telling her this next story, but then I hadn’t anticipated acknowledging her love for me, either.

“How about instead of that one,” I say, holding a painted fingernail to glossy lips, “I tell you the story of the first guy I sucked off?”

She coughs, sprays her wine, and it bubbles in her nose. I laugh, and she glares at me through watery eyes. “You did that on purpose.” She wipes her mouth and eyes, careful with her makeup. “You could’ve done it with the shit wine.”

“Yeah, but—” I shrug. “This was more fun. So. You wanna hear?”
 “Yes, I wanna hear,” she mimics.

I take a deep drink.  “I have to be a hell of a lot more drunk than this.”

She tops up my glass and I begin.

Two: The Story of the Dress

Imagine a dress.

No. Imagine this dress: short—very short; panty-flashing with the slightest bend at the waist. And tight; very tight, hugging curves like a second skin, like a sausage casing, a sheer strapless painted-on tube reaching from tits to thigh. Barely clearing the nipples, a built-in bustier top pushing C-cup tit-flesh upwards in a lewd, jiggling display.

Black sheer fabric embroidered with myriad silver sequins in a swirling pattern of stars, veiling and displaying tantalising hints of naked skin beneath. Wearing it, I felt like a fishing lure, dancing and flashing to draw in those primal forces surging beneath the water’s placid surface, sleek, serpentine predators seeking prey. Prey, like me: fresh meat, vulnerable in heels, towering platform sandals and tottering, trotting steps, body shimmering with glitter, silver and steel flaring at wrist and ankle, neck and ear.

Now imagine me dancing.

How I swayed and hugged my curves and languidly slid crystal-encrusted nails along iridescent flanks and reached for the ceiling with graceful arms, slender shoulders dipping, hips swaying, flesh glistening, head thrown back and hair gleaming like gold under strobing lights to throbbing music. The only thing brighter than the flashing lights was the gleam of gloss on my lips.

Boys orbited us like sharks in the ocean, like pilgrims at a shrine. They circled ever closer, driven by the scent of sex in the air. They circled ever nearer, desperate for a touch, a taste, a moment’s contact with the divine—with me, the incarnation of their lustful worship. I was the boys’ epiphany, their miracle made flesh; a Madonna on a pedestal; or chum in the water.

They orbited me and the girls who were with me and they orbited our purses and drinks on the floor at the centre of our shifting, sweaty, exultant band of feminine indulgence, concentric rings of beauty and excess and desire. And I was part of it—at the heart of it—a man and yet the brightest glittering star of them all, all tits and ass and makeup and minidress and heels, a manifest dance floor fantasy of youthful vigour and female sensuality.

For all the dresses worn over the past months, I’d never worn anything like this. Scandalously short, tantalisingly revealing, and tight—perfect for clubbing—worn with platform heeled sandals and delicate hoop earring and lurid makeup—dangerously braless, paired with a scrap of lace, g-string panties flossing my ass with each shimmy and shake. Only sheer willpower and constant attention kept everything in its place.

It wasn’t a dress many could wear with confidence. Hell, most women I knew would’ve felt insecure in this thing, constantly tugging at hem or neckline, or awkward in the heels, self-conscious at the exposure, embarrassed by the expanse of flesh on display, their whole body and posture betraying their discomfort.

And for David Saunders, wiggling into the tight little thing was an act of ego-suicide. Wearing this was humiliating. The way it flaunted my assets, shameful.

But fuck me if I didn’t look great in it.

Yeah, I felt pride wearing it, at how sexy I looked, and felt pleasure too. Yes, pleasure: as a tingle in chest and groin as I primped in the mirror and painted my lips and marvelled at my own audacity. The pride was rooted in youthful sexiness, my ability to draw the admiring eye, the lustful desire. And the pleasure? That came from the simple fact that as I gazed upon myself in the mirror—I turned myself on. I ran my hands over my hips and saw my heavy-lidded gaze in reflection, the full and wet lips and deep cleavage between my full, round tits on display—and God, I tingled and grew hard and tight in disconcerting way and I wanted to fuck the girl in the mirror in a way that simply wasn’t possible.

However, pleasure and pride stood in agonizing tension with the shame and humiliation. Humiliation, at the debasement of displaying myself in this way for the enjoyment of men. At the start of the night, my prancing, clattering walk and acres of naked skin belied the possibility I was dressing this way for anything but the gaze of men: not for myself, or my friends or the pure pleasure of my own femininity, but to entice and enflame male passion.

The shame, on the other hand, lay at the utter effacement of masculinity in this girlish presentation. Six months, yes, living this life; but is that all it took, really, to wipe away all presence of the man? Looking in that mirror, I only saw the girl; but beyond those precisely painted eyes, behind the mascara and eyeliner and shadow and finely sculpted brows—there was still a man, buried deep and staring out those eyes and he felt—afraid, at what was to come.

And so: that dress, and the girls who chose it for me; the shame and humiliation; and the night that carried us to Tartarus, the waterfront club at the edge of the city where I met a boy and what happened after… all of it proved as much a nail in David Saunder’s coffin as anything Julia ever did.

Imagine, therefore, a girl in a tight, sparkling minidress writhing in musical ecstasy with a thousand other bodies pressing up against each other, ensnared in the throbbing swell of bass and the DJ’s craft, tits and ass and abs and strong arms swirling in this bacchanal of youth and fleeting touches: David Saunders, drowning in feminine sensuality.

But in the then and there, in that heaving press of hedonism, I danced. I danced badly and awkwardly at first—very much a man in a dress ashamed and aware of his mincing steps and clown-painted face. And so I drank. I drank so that I could forget and I drank so that I could dance, and in the fog of drunkenness that descended I found some liberty. The desired haze, fragmentation, fleeting moments of acute consciousness against a backdrop of swirling impressions: coloured lips, loud voices, gyrating bodies, touches, arms at waist, grins and pretty eyes; and over it all the scent of sweat, the heavy jungle miasma of arousal.

Body grinding against body; gilded hair tossed and flashing in syncopation with sequins; bums bumping; nails flashing in cascading lights, lips too, eyes wide, pupils dilated, a spray of sweat, the exultant cry and twist and then a boy—not the first, hardly the last—moving in, the grin, flash of white teeth and hungry eyes roaming, lips and tits and legs. A touch; a grab—too rough and unwanted—his voice loud in the ear like a foreign language. Then interception—thank God for Mel, sliding in between us, the cutting remark and fuck-off body language and a sudden lull in the music….

Hand-in-hand, scooping up purses, a momentary retreat. Standing at a table—no sitting in these outfits!—another round of tiny white tabs dissolving on the tongue—then “Drink up, bitches!”: lick the salt, knock back the shots, suck the lime, grimace. Blossoming warmth and sidling glances at the next table over, grinning boys, not bad looking, what d’you think? Shit—he’s coming over? You look great. He’s looking at you—no, you. Fuck me, the size of him—those arms!—think he’s the same below?

Then Emma was gone with her sandy-haired boy in his ridiculous jacket and vivid tattoos, and she flashed a smile back over her shoulder, one-part thrilled to one-part panicked. Three of us now—the Slut-keteers?—diverting from dance floor to toilets. Obnoxious queue, idle chat, and an anxious little dance from foot to foot as boys breezed past. Finally! Time for a quick piss then primping in the mirrors, jostling for space: “hey, watch it!” “fuck you,” “love that colour,” “she’s a tramp”, “may I?” “here, let me” “he said what?”—an ecstasy of fumbling, lipsticks and brushes, and skilled precision, the eye pencil wielded under the influence, mascara, feathering and blending. Unceremonious hiking of pantyhose, twisted skirts, fixed suspenders and garters, tweaked bras and tits hoisted back into position and adjusted straps on shoes, then—out again, into the heat and sweat, noise and energy, holding hands threading through the crowds.

To the bar, grab a drink, something bright in unnatural colours sweet and with a kick to fell a bull. We watch the couple making out pressed up against the wall—laughed as he attacked her neck and she rolled her eyes—stopped laughing as his fingers disappeared under her skirt and her whole body shuddered and then her eyed really did roll back; and something is us responded. Onwards! Ignoring a trio of guys catcalling, and a girl vomiting, hair held back by a friend. Past an archway opening into a vaulting chamber filled with foam and shadowy figures, ivory-lit from beneath; another sloping downwards into darker, heavier music; and back into the rhythmic, pounding beats of our chosen space, mixed pop and synth sounds driving the masses to frenzy. Back to short skirts and fitted shirts, bared midriffs and tight abs, freshly gleaming lips and finely stubbled chins.

“Shit, where’s Willow?” “There!” “She’s fine.” “But—” “She’s fine—” and there she was, now dancing with some guy, tossing her head and waving her shirt in the air, cute in her denim romper suit and pink bra flashing, his arms coiled around her waist. Mel had me by the hand drawing me along, smiling, teeth flashing like fangs, nails digging into palm, and she pulled me close: “feel it yet?” Her voice and breath hot in my ear, chest to chest. “What?” “Feel it?” “No.” “No?” “Nothing; you?” “I’m—”

A flick of the switch, circuit sparking, the pills kicking in and then the music sparked, the lights thrummed and her touch flared ecstatic lines across bare skin. I grinned, so that my mouth ached: at the sudden infusion of joy, at the tremulous upswelling of inchoate emotion felt as a prickling flush through supple flesh; and at the insanity of a thirty-five-year-old man in a tight dress consumed in this frenzy of youth, this agony of hope: all this pointless, wasted, beautiful energy and I was part of it, it was my energy too and I felt connected, I felt blessed, I felt—like a girl, in my flesh and in clothes worn as an extension of that flesh.

I felt that dress—that gorgeous dress—that pretty, showy, short and sparkly dress—and how lovely the sense of it: tightness a loving caress, constriction an exhilarating containment of femininity yearning to rupture like overripe fruit. Slick and soft against my skin, and each shining sequin a little sparkle of bliss. With each shimmy I felt the pull of flush fabric across thigh and belly and breast: a delightful pressure on tits warmed in the spreading flush simmering flesh from neck to bosom—and further down. With each shift came the acute awareness of silky threads taut between my ass, panties drawing tight against the sudden tingling wetness felt below.

Even the pinch of arched feet and towering heels became a projection of my girlishness: precarious, poised, pretty; coveted, on a pedestal of my own making. Suspended, I suppressed the desire to squeeze thighs together, or jerk hips forward, or hold—or bring—hands to my tits, or my cheek, or my mouth. Instead, my gaze swept incredulously from glittering fingernails along shimmering skin, across sparkling dress and lithe, glistening legs to the final spark of those platform sandals and the entirety of me seemed to flash in the light at the centre of the darkness of the dance floor.

I was a star, filled with radiance, my whole being suffused with luminosity. A momentary doubt—the wrongness, mortifying fraud of it all, the indignity of flashing tits and the tiny dress and the leering eyes of boys—encroached, turbulent roils of doubt darkening the brilliance of my pleasure—but then I saw my joy mirrored in the ecstasy of Mel’s face, looming close and wide eyed, pulling back as she turned on the dance floor, caressing herself before reaching out to me in supplication. Her hand bridged the space between us, carrying me from my masculine doubt to her feminine joy. I gripped her hand tightly and drew myself to her.

In that instant, whatever doubt, fear, or shame I carried with me that night fizzled and faded, burned away in the heat of her presence. In that moment there was only room within the diminutive dimensions of my female frame for euphoria: for Cindy.

And Cindy’s chest nearly burst with this sudden and unexpected freedom. She felt unburdened. She felt loved. She felt wanted. Desire flared in the swirl of eyes around her. That desire echoed her own. As she turned in the embrace of the other girl her gaze swept across the faces and bodies of all the beautiful people sharing this moment with her. Skin gleamed ebony and amber and gold; all precious, and their eyes were like jewels.

The girls were beautiful and so were the boys. She saw the mesh dresses and flaring skirts, cropped tops and slinky dresses, and the shoes and the makeup and the flash of earrings and bracelets and she wanted to wear those clothes herself, feel those clothes and explore the multiplicities of self she saw reflected in these possible female versions of who she could be. And she saw the boys, in their tight t-shirts, slim trousers, bared arms and tight bums, and she knew them and wanted them, too: their strength and confidence, their solidity, their purity and openness. She wanted to be with them.  She wanted them to have her. She wondered who she could be and what she might become in their having of her.

For she saw that their look was hungry, the boys’ gaze lustful and possessive; and her desire to be possessed and lusted after confused her. Cindy wanted their touch and desire but the projection of their male presence came at the expense of her own. The surge of male bodies nearly overwhelmed her. Darkness nipped at the bubble of her joy. She felt the first inkling of fear. The aura of incandescent delight in which she’d ensconced herself trembled and she stopped dancing, suddenly awkward and self-conscious.

Two cooling hands found her face. The touch focused her attention. It was Mel. Her grin brought Cindy’s smile back. Her touch returned Cindy to the dance floor. Mel held Cindy close. They held each other under ephemeral light as the music swelled. The music shifted. Suddenly it was Sin-DI. Familiar happiness fluttered through her like a shower of pleasant sparks. In her happiness she looked at Mel. Cindy saw the passion there, the echoing joy, and again the desire. And wonderfully aware of her own excitement, riding the surrounding sweat and sound, Cindy surrendered to Mel’s advances.

The girls kissed. Berry gloss and peach lipstick and the scent of passion and perfume. Breasts pressing together, hands at waist and hands at neck, and both swayed and Mel spun the smaller girl around so Cindy’s ass ground her crotch. Mel massaged the other girl’s boobs, nibbled her neck, turned her again and they were kissing once more, stumbling on stilts into each other. “I knew you weren’t such a prissy bitch,” she breathed heavily in Cindy’s ear. “You little whore.”

Cindy moaned. She was lost in the moment. Her skin felt on fire with her touch. Her nipples felt hard and hot. Her crotch felt wet and it tingled. She wanted to be looked at. She felt Mel’s eyes on her and it made her squirm. Cindy felt hot. She felt tight. She wanted to be taken and roughly held and she wanted something more. Her body shuddered with the impossibility of the release she desired.

“Here they come,” Mel said.

The boys moved in. Divide and conquer: the display of female affection drew them in, both excluding and inviting their interest. At first Cindy danced with Mel and forgot the intrusion. They twisted and turned, bodies intertwining. Hands on each others shoulders they slid sinuously to the floor, heels high, asses out, pressing into each other, and rose again, caresses, hair tossing, gazing adoring into each others’ eyes. Backs turned to the boys they faced each other. They kissed. Their tongues slid sensuously together. They were briefly, blissfully cocooned within the joyous embrace of their own celebrated femininity.

Soft, gentle and yielding: the touch of Mel’s lips felt wonderfully supple, the tack of her lip gloss delicious, the tickle of her hair playful. Cindy giggled into Mel’s mouth. The kiss seemed to last forever yet felt too short. They pulled apart, smiling, touching tenderly nose to nose before leaning into each other, forehead to forehead. “Thank you,” Cindy said. Eyes bright and wide, Mel threw her head back and laughed—and then she was gone.

Replaced by a boy. Young, shirt off, pecs gleaming in the light, flecks of sweat and drink, feral grin and storm-grey eyes and reaching arms. His arm, at Cindy’s waist. His grip, pulling her close. Surprised, she stumbled into him.

The boy kissed her. Boy lips seared berry gloss; fingers curled ass flesh tight and close; tits pillowing rock-hard abs; twirled in strong arms, golden cascade and swirl of lights; unsteady heels and hot breath, hot hard twin points, and his mouth over hers. She moaned, suddenly so hot, tongues sliding past each other, wet, God so wet—and hot—can’t breathe—roaming hands trailing sparks, and it felt good and her whole body shuddered and she felt weak in the knees but then he was gone, and she swayed, momentarily lost, but there was another boy taking his place now, and that boy’s hand was on her chest and he’s all smile too, all teeth and laughing eyes now, speaking but incomprehensible over the pounding of the music and her blood and then he’s on her, his tongue in her mouth and it still feels good, but not as good, no, she feels the magic fading, the sparks burning brighter but more painfully, now, and then he’s gone, too, and there’s a third boy—or a fourth?—it too much but now this boy dips his head and–-his tongue trails slug-like across her collarbone—his tongue’s on her nipple—her tit’s out its sheath—and his hand’s on her breast, pinching—and it hurts—and tongue’s invading her mouth again, he’s twisting her nipple—and it hurts—and she feels how hard he is, thrusting, jabbing into her side and suddenly the mood’s gone, ecstasy’s fled, there’s no joy in this, no pleasure, only the horrible pawing of a drunken man ugly in his lust and the leering, laughing eyes of his friends and her tits flopping free and now someone’s trying to hike her dress up, and she’s had enough, yanking her dress back over her breast but he didn’t let her, she’s nearly in tears as she struggled to break free but his grip is too strong, and someone smacks her across the ass and holds her wrist and pulls her close and his hand grips her hair hard and controls her as he forces another kiss as friends close rank and hide the moment in the midst of a heaving crowd lost in their own moments.

“That’s enough.” A heavy hand tore the boy away. The boy blinked and turned and reared a fist back and a moment later scrabbled in a headlock, face red, eyes bulging, and the circle of friends conspicuously gone. The bouncer, a tower of diffident strength in the midst of humbled apologists, looked slightly ashamed as he effortlessly held the youth to one side and extended a hand to Cindy. “You okay?”

Mutely, Cindy shook her head no, face screwed up in a little-girl expression of imminent tears.

The bouncer visibly sighed. “Let’s get you out of here.” He waved someone over. “Get this shithead out of here.”

“She was gagging for it,” the boy insisted. “She was all over us!”

The slightest tightening of his arm and the boy’s face purpled and went silent.

“Well she don’t want it no more,” the bouncer rumbled.

` He passed the boy over. “Fucking slut!” her assaulter spat, before being unceremoniously dragged away.

The bouncer’s heavy hand fell on her shoulder, powerful and gentle. “Come with me,” he said, and took Cindy away.

Later, I sat alone. With knees together and long legs stretched out to one side—the only way I could sit in that dress without hiking it up over my waist—I leaned deep into the velvet softness of the seat. I sank into soft ambient music that gently lifted me as I came down from my high. Floor-to-ceiling screens coalesced calming scenes in 360-degree hyper-realistic sharpness around us: currently, a slow sunrise in oranges and purples over rolling green hills. Having retreated into the club’s chill lounge, I hid behind my pall of long hair in the soothing embrace of a pod built just for this purpose. The room was long and high and dotted with a dozen of these comforting capsules. With a fresh bottle of water in one hand, and a tumbler of whiskey in the other, I hid from the world.

Well. An… interesting night.

I’d entirely lost track of Emma, and Willow and Mel. Time, too, had melted away. In blissful isolation along with all the other fucked-up, drugged and drugged dipshits dotted across the lounge, I sat and stared and breathed and recovered. I alternated between sips of cooling water and sharp whiskey. The awesome high and awful low of whatever the fuck had been in those pills had mellowed somewhat. Lights and colours still flickered at the edge of vision, melted and reformed. I held my hand up in front of my eyes and turned it this way and that and marvelled at the paleness of the skin, the vivid colour and unwieldy length of each nail. The webwork of blue veins across the back of my hand seemed unnaturally bright, and in the lines criss-crossing my palm lay a secret message, if only I knew how to read it.

So, yeah. I was still high as a kite. Still plastered, too, though riding those pills I felt lifted above mundane drunkenness, immunised against simple booze. The whiskey was warm on the tongue and rich and smooth as I burrowed deeper into the safety of the pod. In that cushioned retreat, there was safety and space to consider the night. Even in that dim, dark place my dress sparkled.

The dress was emblematic of everything leading up to me wearing it. Heels, bras, stockings and corsets: why was everything a woman wore weighted with so much meaning, a nexus for gender discourse? These shoes: fun and sparkly? Or embodiment of patriarchal oppression? Empowering or crippling, freely chosen or cultural imposition? To dress as a woman meant to engage in an intense cultural debate in which I barely knew the language let alone the leading arguments, and meanwhile all I wanted was to survive for one more goddamn day. Maybe, even, have a little fucking fun.

And so: sitting there in that process of slow recovery from the night’s debauchery I considered the girls who brought me here and who abandoned me throughout the night. My thoughts cast back to a week prior to tonight’s dance floor rapture.

To a shopping weekend for the girls.

Four of us: the office girl gang and their newest member, Cindy. All of us in our twenties, free and fun and sweeping through shops in a show of tittering comments, jibes and laughs, hugs, pictures, influencer poses and—for me at least—a near-constant sense of panic. We clattered into the labyrinthine halls of the shopping centre in our heels and skirts, a showy display of girlish glee as we descended upon the first of many, many shops—so many shops—in our exhausting exploration of female capitalism.

Passing through shop entrances triggered half-hearted protests as digital shop assistants read our socials and biometrics and generated recommendations—uneasily mannish offerings for Cindy, surprisingly ultra-feminine for Willow—then the human attendants’ subtle guidance—and then the flurry of changes, because while smart mirrors were quick and easy, where was the fun in that?  We could buy all this stuff online, but the fun was in the experience.

Laughs and giggles alongside performative catwalk displays, hair tosses and rolled eyes and licked lips. Then the break for coffee and a small sandwich and then back at it with the Saturday afternoon rolling out ahead, a glittering, glamorous procession of skirts and dresses, shoes, hair and makeup, accessories and nails punctuated by further breaks, some wine, talk about next weekend, uncomfortable questions about guys and eventually looking at underwear.

More giggles then, and sideway glances, bit lips and inquisitive stares; odd silences; lingerie held up against bodies and always the unspoken question: dare I wear this? Will I feel sexy in this? Will I get laid in this? Tension broken with manhandling sex toys, an impromptu sabre-fight with floppy-shafted dildo the size of forearms. And while the other two sifted through discounted nightwear, Mel sidled up to me and with a surreptitious tug at the elbow pulled me into a crimson-painted side room.

“Pretty fucking freaky, huh?” she said, and there was a wicked gleam in her eye as she scanned the room and then looked at me. Lifelike mannequins, mostly big-titted female, a few well-hung male, one or two ambiguous, stood or knelt or were otherwise posed in positions of bondage or punishment. There were harnesses and handcuffs, gags and plugs, whips and crops, cages and canes. Both leather and steel gleamed, and whilst black dominated, pinks, whites and reds burst like extravagant flowers in a Gothic midnight garden.

“How’d you like this?” Mel asked, drawing one finger along a sleek-looking collar.

I pursed glossy pink lips in silent disapproval.

“You’re such a prissy little bitch,” she said, and laughed, and bought it anyway.

Sitting immersed in soothing music a week later, body humming with the lassitude following the excesses of drug and drink, I felt the collar at my neck, the cuffs at my wrist, steel d-rings and leather hidden under layers of fluffy pink armbands. Tugging absently at the pink at my wrist, touching the oversized scrunchies holding my hair high in two extravagant pigtails streaked with further pink and purple, I felt the return of that earlier wonder, and marvelled to find myself here, dressed in this way, so cute, so sexy yet still male, somehow, beneath all these layers of feminine frivolity.

The cuffs were tight at my wrist. I pulled them pink armband aside and contemplated the leather beneath and their gleaming D-rings. They were part of a harness set: wrists clipped to waist behind the back, another leather strip stretching tautly to the collar at the neck; and suddenly pictured myself kneeling and naked in harness, breasts thrust forward and elbows held back, wrists at side and chin held high… I licked my lips and shivered despite the warmth of the pod and the glow of the sun on the giant screen overhead.

Instead, thoughts turned to earlier tonight, to the hours before catching the cab to the club: the anxious bus ride to the girls’ for pre-drinking and prep, crowded into the tiny basement apartment they share a few miles from the offices of Volumina International. A little food—nibbles to soak up the booze, but not enough to bloat, girls’ clubbing outfits were fucking unforgiving—and drinks and singing and drama.

Emma knocked back two glasses of white wine spritzer and had a meltdown and locked herself in the bathroom for fifteen minutes. (“She fucking does this every fucking time,” Mel confided.) At twenty-four, Emma was the oldest of us by a year. She was very beautiful, thought she was ugly, and was in desperate need of a win after getting dumped by her long-term boyfriend six months ago. She was the tallest of us and so Mel teasingly called her “mom” and a string of unsatisfying one-night stands had left her weary and wary and desperate.

Meanwhile, Willow was quiet until she got drinking—then she never shut up. She was a tiny little thing—about my height, actually—and cute, giving off a real tomboy vibe. (“She’s even more girly than you,” Mel said. “All frills and lace under there.”) She had long straight black hair, and dark eyes and had an unnerving tendency of intensely staring during conversation. She drank beer, until she got drunk, and then drank the sweetest, girliest drinks on offer.

And then there was Mel. Mel was a bitch, a sexy, angry, insecure mess of self-destructive impulses, unrealized potential, and sharp intellect pointed inwards, assessing what she found there, and lashing out, projecting her disappointment on others. I hated her when I first started working at V.I.: manipulative, condescending, at times cruel—but since she’d welcomed Cindy into the group, also helpful, fun and—where and when no one could see—genuinely caring.

God, how I wanted to fuck her. Frankly, there wasn’t one amongst them I wouldn’t have bent over their sofa and rapturously impaled until they begged for more and screamed my name.

“Wow, Cindy!” Instead, I was doing Willow’s lips for her. “You’re so good at this,” she said. “How’d you get so good?”

“Shut up,” I said kindly, switching from pencil to brush.

“Because she’s a prissy little princess,” Mel added, topping up my glass.

“Thanks,” I said, taking a sip. “And fuck you. Don’t forget you’re next,” I added and waggled the brush at her.

“Whatever, bitch.”

“And I’ll do your hair!” Willow said.

Mel rolled her eyes. “Will….,” I warned.

“I’m thinking pigtails,” she said. “And pink!”

I groaned and finished off her lips and felt—weird, so out of place in that cramped little apartment with these three girls preening and prepping for a night out. I was one of them—or Cindy was—and yeah, it was fun, especially after a couple of drinks helped me relax a bit—and with nothing to hide between my legs a lot of the stress was gone. But an insane ambivalence remained. Yes, I was one of these girls, pretty and more than a little vain, fussing with my makeup and hair an anticipating—fuck, I didn’t know; a good night out, whatever that meant.

But at the same time, buried beneath the layers of makeup and frills, there remained a thirty-five year old man; and he felt utterly bewildered to find himself caught up in this flurry of feminine activity. Like, Willow was only twenty-one, Mel twenty-two and while I wasn’t quite old enough to be—I don’t know, their dad—I felt moments of insane protectiveness for these girls I’d gotten to know over the past two weeks. It was almost brotherly, at times, like I wanted to protect them.

Yet simultaneously, I wanted to ravage them, especially as we moved into the final phases of getting ready and they all but pranced about me in their underwear, Willow rolling stockings up her legs and snapping them to suspender tabs, Mel closing the long row of hook-and-eye fastening of her black bustier. Emma emerged from the bathroom all micro-dosed smiles, resplendent in an ivory long-sleeved body embroidered with floral details. And God,

how I wanted to grab her and fuck her then and there. Instead, I helped button her into her dress and the whole time, my body hummed with horniness and I grew wet at the crotch.

And that was then, hours and a dance floor lifetime ago, and this was now; and for fuck’s sake I was still turned on. The tingling remained. I was still aroused. Horny. I raised a finger to my lips and swept it across my cupid’s bow and shivered at how good it felt. There remained an eagerness to feel something against those lips—or between them; and the same down below. There remained an eagerness to fuck—or be fucked.

Well, even drunk and drugged, that’s sure as hell wasn’t going to happen tonight.

And yet….

I raised my head and tossed back those dangling pigtails and looked along the length of the lounge. The illuminated backdrop shifted, flaring into brilliance as the view swept across a crystalline sea reflecting the clarity of a clear sun set in an azure sky over a golden beach. About half of the other pods were occupied, some by intertwined bodies moving in slow unison, others by sad, silent individuals like me.

Directly across from me sat a boy.

Not much to look at, really. Under the light of that imagined tropical sun, he looked pale and a little scrawny. Short, sitting cross-legged in his pod, leaning back, eyes closed. Young-ish, probably early twenties, and he hadn’t made much effort to dress up for the night, wearing what looked like a fresh pair of jeans and a simple t-shirt.

My head lolled left, and then right. On one side, the next pod over was empty. The other side, a girl slumped deep into a pod’s recesses, legs in fishnet tights and heavy boots sticking out in a stiff horizontal ‘V’. The music progressed into something a little darker in contrast to the sunny display, ambling into deeper droning balanced against tinkling ethereal textures.

I turned back to the boy, finger resting against my lip. His dark hair was shaggy and unkept, falling freely across one eye. The look suited him. Rather than scrawny, he seemed slim; maybe more poet than player. There was a little stubble to his chin, though; too young to grow a beard, or two lazy to shave before a night out. It really wasn’t fair—I’d spent hours getting ready for tonight and this jackass could just amble up in t-shirt and jeans. He probably hadn’t even showered.

Annoyed by this silent boy’s implied insult, I huffed and turned away. Suddenly aware I was still softly sliding the pad of one finger along my lip, I stopped and reached for my bottle. I took a sip of water. I squeezed my thighs together and placed my little clutch purse on my lap. It was a miracle it hadn’t been lost or stolen; and studiously ignoring the flashing lights of unread messages on my phone, I pulled out a lipstick. Slowly, enjoying the sensuous slickness of its application, I touched up my lips. Digging out some gloss, I put that on too, and it also felt and tasted wonderful.

The brilliant sun overhead began to set. As the sky deepened into the purples of twilight, transitioning into the velvet hues of night, I checked out the boy again. Actually, his stubble suited him. In his own way, his look was as calculated, I suspected, as my own. A bit haphazard sure, lazy in appearance, but that was a look in itself. So, not lazy; just different. And his stubbled offset a gentleness implicit in his weak chin, his slender arms. Not much of an athlete, then, not one for the gym; disappointing. Cute, but not particularly manly.

Wait, what—cute?

The sun set. A full moon rose, and under its argent glow I could see him more clearly. Yes: cute; disconcertingly so. Undeniably a bit geeky: the jeans looked like they’d been picked out for him by his mother, or maybe a well-intentioned but equally geeky friend. He had a backpack in the pod with him. Curious, that he’d hadn’t had to check it in at the door. It was decorated with a dozen little metal pins: from concerts? Favourite shows? Declarations of political idealism? The more I looked, the more character I saw to this boy, the more intriguing he became and consequently, just that little bit sexier. And I was dabbling my lower lips with my fingers, and my thighs were tightly squeezing together, and a slow, hot flush was building at my neck and spreading across my chest once again; and I was still tingling and yes, I was growing wet again, embarrassingly so. And then the moon reached its apex and cast its full bright glow down up on us, and I realised that the boy was awake. Eyes open, he stared back as candidly as I stared at him.

I wanted him.

Fuck me, and fuck the booze and fuck the drugs but—yeah: I wanted him; and lucky little shit that he was, in the right place at the right time, this cute young man was going to get his cock sucked tonight.

 [...]