Book 5, Chapter 6: You Don't Have To (First Draft)

With absolute predictability, this chapter's grown larger than originally planned. There's more, but at 7k words already, this seemed a good place to cut it off, and post. I may later merge the next chapter and this one back together, or keep them split; but for now, enjoy!

As always, comments and feedback appreciated.

***

Six: You Don’t Have To

“You don’t have to.”

            “Don’t have to what?”

            “Do this.” 

            “What if I want to? What if I want to thank you?”

            “It’s not right.  You’re drunk.  You’re fucked up.  I’d be taking advantage of you.”

            “Oh, Jonas. I’m taking advantage of you.”

            Poor kid. Never knew what hit him.

***

Irrasshaimase! shouted from the kitchen. Red paper lanterns hung from the ceiling, and behind a long counter a chef with a white apron made quick slices into a slab of marbled fish. A young Japanese waitress led me to a table. She was short—so, about my height—and wore a pretty blue dress, black hair cut in a bob framing her face, cute, small nose, dimpled chin. “For one?” she asked.

            “Two,” I said. “Thank you.”

            I ordered an Asahi. She left me with a small bowl of salted edamame. I watched her return to the bar, pour the drink, come back. I smiled at her. “Thanks.” With a horizontal sweep of nails, she brushed the hair out of her eyes. Purple and yellow eyeshadow, nose stud glinting in the light. It was nearly seven and he was late. Edo was just around the corner from his apartment, but he was late. At this time of night the izakaya was bustling, with couples sat at booths, several men at the counter, and a well-dressed woman on her own, too, hunched over a bowl of ramen. The place was busy, but the waitress seemed unconcerned.

            “Get you anything else?”

            “A guy who actually shows up on time?”

            She giggled, tucked her hair behind an ear. Dangling earrings, little pink cat face and bow. “Cute earrings,” I said. She beamed with pleasure, told me where she bought them, a little boutique shop downtown I’d passed a few times but never visited. I made a mental note to check it out.

            Irrasshaimase! the man shouted again, and she rolled her eyes. “Love that dress,” she said, “so vintage,” and scurried off. The dress was red and short with a plunging neckline. It tied behind the neck and left my shoulders and most of my back bare. It showed off a lot of boob. My nails were red to match, lipstick too, and seven-centimeter heels. It was too much, really. Better if the waitress was wearing it, or any of the other girls out tonight. That woman over at the counter, for example, instead of that professional-looking skirt suit. She’d look great in this dress. Or out of it.

            The thing is, I’d dressed for after-work drinks with Willow. I’d changed in the toilets at Volumina International after shutting down for the day. My work outfit was carefully folded at the bottom of my bag: black pencil skirt, pale blue blouse, pink bra. But then she flaked out, which tracked for Willow. Less than a month of hanging out with these girls, and she was always dropping out at the last minute. But I liked her. She was a hell of a lot of fun. Get a few drinks in her, and she swore like a sailor. But a few more, and she turned dark, seriously dark, deep trauma and the sight of the drowned dead at a young age, family and friends, gone. Then she’d cry and go quiet.

            But the trip over to Jonas’s neighborhood, the press of the bus and then the short walk, dressed as I was? A red dress burns like a fire in a forest at night. Blonde curls and hoop earrings, the click of heels on pavement and eyes, male eyes, tracking every movement. I was hot—fuck yeah, I was—but trotting down those unfamiliar streets brought a frisson of discomfort. A pair of dickheads wolf-whistled as I passed; every male gaze—and a few girls, too, I wasn’t blind to that—latched on to my tits. And who could blame them? My tits were fucking fantastic. And they were on display. I didn’t want the things, but they were sexy as hell. And I could’ve swapped back to work clothes, I suppose, but once out of that pencil skirt, the pantyhose, I didn’t want to, the dress was breezy, more comfortable on a balmy early October evening. I just hoped the dress didn’t freak Jonas out too much.

            Now, sitting alone, I waited. With a gentle squeeze of fingertips, I teased beans from their pods, licked the salt, sipped beer. My nails were a vivid red to match my dress. I was still getting used to them. They were new, an unfamiliar weight at the tip of each finger.  Only yesterday, Mel insisted I join her at her favorite nail salon. You’ll love it, she said, can’t believe you’re not already doing it, this shit’s been around for years, long enough for the cost to come down, it’s not just a rich-bitch, celebrity thing anymore.

            The salon lady cleaned my nails, then applied a protective primer, UV-cured. Her name was Neva: bleeding-heart tattoo over her right breast, scalp half-shaved bald, and clearly trans, a Russian immigrant escaping the ever-escalating right-wing ultra-conservative oppression of her homeland. “My father was going to send me to an education camp,” she said in a thick accent, as she carefully shaped the polychromic middle layer. “There, they wanted me to be a caricature of a man.” Using tweezers, she began applying the micro-LED mesh to each nail. “Here, they want me to be a caricature of a woman.”

            A final UV-sealed transparent polymer layer finished the job. Expensive—way too expensive for Cindy’s budget—but Mel wasn’t wrong, these things made it easy to match my nails to an outfit. No complicated patterns or designs, that was the next level up and cost a hell of a lot more, but French tips, solid colors, that was fine. Mel splashed for the deluxe edition; she had a thing for nail art. Fine for her; her nails didn’t grow as fast as mine. She was good for the month, but I’d be lucky to last two weeks.

            Once activated, my nails defaulted to a dull grey, but with a tap of the app I could change colors at will. “All the prissy princess colors your little heart could desire,” she said. “Pink, peach?” Then she grinned. “Or you could give me app access, let me choose.” I stuck my tongue out and picked the darkest black, just to spite her. An hour later, when she wasn’t looking, I switched to a pale, pearlescent pink. Tonight, before coming out, red, for passion and danger, a match for lips and shoes and dress.

            Now bored, I cycled through colors, ROYGBIV flow across my screen. I hovered over a nice shade of blue for a moment. If I’d sprung for the next level up, I could add a bit of sparkle. I sort of wish I could, wondered if I could afford it next visit. A little bit of sparkle would be nice. I frowned, then swiped back over to red.

            “Stop, go back!” Mid-stride, the waitress froze, flicking fingers in the air to show swiping back. “That was so your color.” She dropped into the seat opposite, crossed her legs at the knee, and smiled. “Still alone?”

            I dragged my finger across my phone’s screen, back over to the blue. Periwinkle, the app informed me. Complementary color to golden blonde. I’d scanned my hair, the dress, and the app made it easy to color-match. “You think?”

            She nodded emphatically. “Beautiful color.” She flashed her fingers at me, the first two nails kept short, the others long and oval shaped, each a different color, each nail decorated with emoji: rainbow, peach, purple heart, cat, swirly-eyed face. “What do you think?”

            “Love it.”

            “I’m Aiko,” she said.

            “Cindy.”

            “Anta meccha kawaii jan ne?” Her eyes sparkled, she spoke with fingertips together, held over bright lips curved in a teasing smile.

            I grinned. “Ore? Hounto ni?” I held my hand to my chest in a gesture of mock surprise. “Iya iya, omae no houga sekushi daro.”

            Aiko laughed out loud. “Ore? Omae? Let me guess, misspent youth watching too much seinen anime?”

            “Who said it was misspent?”

            Another waitress appeared at our table, glowering down at her. Aiko glanced up, grinned. She transferred a bowl of edamame from her tray to the table, slid it across to me. “On the house,” she whispered, theatrically, returning to work.

            When I took the plate, there was a phone number scribbled out on a scrap of paper taped to the underside. Aiko: and a cute little heart for the dot of the ‘I’. With a quiet little laugh, feeling unexpected warmth in the pit of my belly, I slipped the number into my purse. Then, pursing lips around an edamame pod, drawing out salt and seeds, I wondered: had that been a girl-moment?

            Yes. It had been a girl-moment. If felt authentic, whatever that meant. I’d complimented the girl’s earrings. They were cute. Would I have done that as David? No, obviously. Unless I was flirting. Which—maybe I’d been? It wasn’t just Aiko’s earrings that were cute. As a guy, the whole thing would’ve been—a prelude. As a girl, it was—subtext, but in a language I barely understood. She’d admired my dress. Commented on my nails. Just another little exchange between girls, that hidden code I’d only recently discovered, starting speaking myself. And in speaking, I felt—different—more like a girl, maybe.

            But fuck, what did that even mean, to feel like a girl?

            I certainly didn’t, but I was thinking about it because—because of Anna. Ever since that first visit to Xanadu and our long conversation, I’d carried a newfound meta-awareness of my daily experiences. Anna eagerly listened to my reports from the feminine front lines, and I didn’t want to disappoint her. I could tell her about Aiko, next time. Anna would love that, the story of a moment of shared womanhood grounded in a dress and earrings, the color of nails. And I could say: this is what it feels like, to be a girl, or at least a sliver of it, like a splinter of glass. A compliment, a smile, a euphoric burst of pleasure at being seen. And maybe at the end of the day, that’s all it takes. A voice, a flash of color, a flick of hair. Voila: authentic girl.

            And it happened all the time, now, with disturbing and disarming regularity. The compliments, the exchanges in passing. Mostly with the girls at work—especially Emma, she loved to gush about… anything, really, from a book I might be reading, to how I’d done my hair that day. It was a little unsettling, to be honest, at first I never knew what to say in return, kept wondering if she was being sarcastic. But she wasn’t. I’d never known someone quite as genuine as Emma. She was just too good for this cesspool of a world. Much easier with Mel: every compliment an insult, and I liked that. Truth be told, it turned me on a bit. I was beginning to suspect she knew it, too, the bitch, wanted to see that pink little flush rise in my cheeks at work, the bite of the lower lip.

            But even random chicks I’d never met before might say something nice about my hair, or my shoes, a shade of lipstick or a top I’d picked at random that morning. And I didn’t quite know how I felt about it. It’s not like I needed constant fucking re-affirmation of my worth or something, and my worth wasn’t tied to hair, shoes, lipstick or clothes. So, at first, every kindness left me confused, grappling with unfamiliar feelings. Now, it just felt kind of nice: to receive and to give in return. I’d even thrown a couple comments at Anna, when I last visited Xanadu, and to see her beam so happily, hell yes, it was worth it.

            So yeah, it was a learned behavior, and I was getting better at it, finding the thing and making some innocuous acknowledgment of it. At first, I got it wrong. Either didn’t say anything or said the wrong thing. Always so self-conscious about it, like I was about to blow my cover. But gradually, it got easier. It was just a compliment, after all.

            Not from guys, though. Yeah, no. That was a fucking minefield I didn’t need to explore, thank you very much. Very quickly, I learned it was a bad idea, saying—frankly, anything to guys. So now, I didn’t say shit, for the most part, outside of what was strictly necessary at work, or minimal interactions outside of work. And that felt profoundly weird, considering how my entire life had centered on those conversations, conversations with men. Now, I spoke to girls, and barely initiated talk with men at all. I didn’t have to, because they were more than happy to pick up the slack.

            Guys complimented me, too, all the fucking time, whether I wanted it or not. Emphasis on the ‘not,’ obviously. The things they said weren’t nearly as nice as what the girls said. Hell of a lot less confusing, though. Like, really easy to parse their intentions, right? Random assholes on the streets would call out—oh, I don’t know, shit like “shake that ass” or “nice tits”—at me, like zoo monkeys flinging their spunk at passing tourists. Every now and then, one of these pathetic shitbags might take to following me around, muttering or shouting, “I bet you’d scream pretty,” “I’d wreck that,” crap like that. In some ways, better when they kept it simple: a hissed or spat “bitch” as I walked past, completely out of the blue, sullen spite or casual cruelty: slut.

            More annoying is the fact it also happened at the office. More subtle and all the more sinister for it, like Max this morning. Hovering at my desk, he looked me over. “You’re killing me here, Cindy,” he said. “The Vanta report’s due today. How the hell am I going to get anything done with you looking like that?” And then the shit-eating grin as he waits, like I’m supposed to thank him. And then the dilemma: do I act all demure like, let it go? Tell him to fuck off? Giggle and thank him? Fuck you, Max, for forcing me to choose.

            Although maybe if Mr. Connor said something, it’d be different. But he never did. A few times, I caught him watching me. Never anything more than that.

            And all this—was it “feminine” too, did putting up with this crap make me more of a woman? Like, did my ongoing performance, the learned behaviors forced on me, did it all stimulate some kind of genuine girlhood within? Perhaps femininity was a communal experience learned through shared suffering. Or maybe personal girlhood was manifested by the way others treated me. Or through my own actions? Or was it all predicated on something innate, some nebulous inner essence?

            I watched the girl flit around the izakaya, blue dress fluttering, and saw in her every moment a natural expression of her gender, one so genuine and pure I couldn’t imagine ever matching it. But then, she was actually a girl, and I wasn’t, I was just pretending.

            Another sip of beer. My glass nearly empty. My fingers drummed against the tabletop with a click of nails. Truth was, I wasn’t thinking about any of this shit because of Anna. No, I was thinking about this shit because of Jonas.

            I was nervous. Of course I was. There was an expensive piece of tech hidden in my bra, and an expectation that I’d finally use it tonight. I’d made contact with the target only a few nights ago. And based on that first encounter, I had an idea how tonight would play out. Judging by last weekend, ramen wasn’t the only noodle I’d be slurping tonight. My stomach twisted at the thought of doing it again. I’d have thought it would get easier with practice. But it wasn’t. I didn’t want his hands on my tits. Or his cock in my mouth. But that’s why I was here tonight.

            Because the goddamn kid was annoyingly careful. He locked his laptop or tablet when he was away from it, even if just for a minute, and otherwise it timed out in under five. I’d already gone down on the kid three times, for fuck’s sake. That first night at Tartarus. Again in his apartment, later that night. And again the next day. The first time, to get close to him. The second, because—honestly, I don’t know, I was so fucked up and barely remember doing it. The third, my first genuine attempt at distracting him from his work.

            The pretty girl flowed through the restaurant. Aiko flashed a smile in passing, red lips and a flutter of lashes. She winked at me. I smiled back. I bet she’d be a lot of fun. She was cute. And confident; I liked that. Only now, instead of imagining how a night between her and Cindy might play out, I was thinking about Jonas’s cock.

***

Waking up in his bed, the unmistakable smell of a young man’s room: sweat, the musk of unwashed sheets. Faintly lingering scent of hand cream and the funk of crusty tissues but also, an acrid soupcon of vomit, a flavor matched by the dry burn at the back of my throat. Christ, I nearly had a heart attack then and there, tangled in sheets I didn’t recognize, a room I didn’t know, but still wearing that gorgeous dress, thank God, even though it was so tight I could barely fucking breath. Makeup smeared across the pillowcase. Sunlight slipping in between pulled curtains. The room dark, but not dark enough. Desk over in the corner, three monitors, stacks of books and a mess of cutlery, stacked dirty dishes. Then, the hangover slammed into me, depth charge detonation behind both temples. I whimpered, buried my face in the pillow.

            The night came back to me in flashes. There were lights, and dancing. Mel. Then some guys. Hands on tits, fingers gripping my thigh. I moaned into the pillow, fists digging into my belly. A dim memory of quiet, glimpses of a deep blue sea, and iridescent jellyfish. A sunrise over a gilded savannah. Then Jonas. He’d been the reason I’d suggested Tartarus to the girls in the first place, to scout out the kid, make initial contact. But I hadn’t expected the plan—to the extent that I had one—to go off track so quickly. First the dress, then the booze, and finally those pills. Sweat and endorphins and a rainbow of happy little chemicals hit me like a fucking freight train. I’d been tripping balls and ended with them bouncing off my chin, and that hadn’t been the plan, for fuck’s sake, I just wanted to find the kid, not suck his dick.

            But that’s what happened, and with the clarity of day and a pounding headache, I leaned over the side of the bed and upchucked viscous strings of yellow-green bile into a conveniently ready bucket.

            With post-puke clarity, I remembered cuddling the boy. Crying into his shoulder. Something happened then: like a break, deep within. After, we talked. He brought me home with him. We stopped for ramen and the night faded to black after that. Now, my head was fucking killing me. My jaw ached and so did my stomach. This room stank. And with a sudden burst of panic, I realized I wasn’t wearing panties, that familiar thread missing between my ass-cheeks.

            A tentative knock on the door: “Cindy?”

            I groaned.

            “Sorry.” It was Jonas, and he didn’t sound all that apologetic. “I hope—” he stopped. “Jesus, it stinks in here.” He crossed over to the window, yanked it open. Light and cool air flooded the room. I squeezed my eyes shut and whimpered.

            “I slept on the sofa,” he said, and I felt him sit at the foot of the bed. “Um—you were in pretty rough shape last night.”

            “Did we—?” I couldn’t finish, stomach clenched tight around sick nothingness. “Did you—?”

            “Did I…?” He sounded confused. “Oh! You mean, did we fuck? Er, no.” The tension in my belly eased, tight bands relaxing. I cracked open an eyelid. He was staring down at his fist and something held there. Jonas looked trapped between angry and confused. “No. Although—um, you kinda tried? To, uh—go down, I mean, give me a blow job. You were very eager. But you were way too drunk, you really sucked at it.” He cracked a wan smile. “Sucked, get it?”

            I groaned again.

            “You don’t remember?”

            There were a few flashes. Hairy thighs, knees and carpet. A hand at the back of my head. Pigtails bouncing. Black leather sofa, jeans around ankles. Shiny pink nails, curled around a spit-slick cock, swift jerks. A kink in the neck. Open mouth, thick tongue, an ache in the jaw. Vertigo and this thing in my mouth—slowing—then nothing.

            “You fell asleep,” he said. “Like, literally with my dick in your mouth.” He shrugged. “You’re heavier than you look, you know that?” He dumped me on his bed after that and left me there. Managed to get my shoes off, pulled the bedsheet over me, then left and crashed on the sofa. “You’ll probably want these back, though.” He unfurled his hand. My bunched panties rested in his palm. “You took a piss when you first got here, left them on the bathroom floor.” Somewhat gingerly, he dropped that scrap of satin and lace at the foot of the bed. Then he said nothing else. His arms rested on his thighs, palms open, facing up. Jonas stared into his lap.

            I forced myself into a half-sitting position. The room tilted horribly for a moment, settled, and the cool air through the window felt divine. The dress was too tight and a little twisted, pinching my boobs. And the inside of my mouth felt painted with grit, as did the underside of my eyes. Talking was difficult, tongue thick and unwieldy. But I forced a smile, or something at least smile-adjacent. “Thank you,” I said, softly. “For, you know. Taking care of me. At the club. And after.”

            He nodded, somewhat jerkily, angry. “You started to drop at Edo. One second you were fine. Kind of. Then suddenly, bam!” He hit his fist into his open palm. “You dropped like a rock. Started to slur your words, and your eyes kind of rolled around a bit, it was super creepy. I was going to put you in a taxi. But wasn’t sure you’d be okay on the other side. And you kept asking to come home with me, you said you wanted to spend the night, kept saying you wanted to practice, you had something to do. And you kind of snuggled into me and, you know, your hand was on my crotch and it was hard to say no? So I paid up and you gave me this great big kiss.” He shook his head. “It was kinda sloppy and gross.”

            My face burned. My hands twisted knots into the sheets.

            “We started to walk and it’s just around the corner, but it took forever, you kept wandering off or trying to sit down on the curb. Made a lot of noise, too. You really struggled with your shoes. Tried taking them off at one point. Some people laughed. My neighborhood, it’s—uh—not a very nice one, we were kind of lucky, actually. I would’ve called Bruno for help, but he was still working.

            “I just about got you home but then your legs sort of gave out on you. I had to drag you up the stairs through the front door, through the lobby and you were sort of laughing or giggling one second, then crying out the next, like, no, no, I don’t want to, and I barely got you into the elevator. I think you fell asleep on the ride up. Then the same thing again, I dragged you out the elevator and down the hallway to my apartment, and you kept making all this noise, and when I tried to shush you, you laughed, then went quiet, and then started to cry.

            “You just kinda—gently wept—the rest of the way until I got you to my door and got you through it.”

            He didn’t say anything after that, just sitting there staring into his lap.

            “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry, Jonas.”

            His shoulders jerked in a shrug.

            “Please don’t be angry with me.”

            He started, looked at me and his eyes went wide with surprise. “Angry—with….” He shook his head vehemently. He shifted a little closer, so that he sat by my feet. “I’m not—angry, it’s not you, I—” He frowned, held a hand to his head. “My head’s killing me. I’m not going to explain myself clearly. So I’m sorry if I accidentally offend. Like last night, if you remember. It’s not my intent, but I—don’t always speak very clearly. Especially around pretty girls.” He shrugged in apology, smiled a little. “And you are very pretty, Cindy.”

            I raised an eyebrow.

            “Maybe not so much right now,” he conceded, then shook his head. “No, even right now. You’re easily the most beautiful person to ever lie in that bed, okay? And that’s the thing. Last night, that doesn’t happen to me. Ever. Girls don’t hit on me. And I don’t mean ‘girls like you’ but girls in general, not at Tartarus, not anywhere. I’ve had girlfriends before!” he added quickly, then smiled bashfully. “Well, one girlfriend.”

            He trailed off and, not wanting to interrupt him, I slowly raised myself a little further in the bed, until I was properly sitting now, propped up with a pillow. I felt desperate to get out of that goddamn dress at this point. It was too tight, my left boob throbbed, something pinched the nipple, and I felt like I hadn’t taken a deep, full breath since yesterday. And for the first time, I considered the idea of how I’d get home. Taxi, sure but still the walk from the door, and in reverse at the other end. Wrinkled dress incongruous with the day, panties bunched up at the bottom of my purse, too-tall heels for the morning, pale-faced and tired; obvious, what everyone would think. Flushing a little, I listened as Jonas continued and surreptitiously tried to adjust my tits.

            “But I don’t really have experience with one-night stands, that kind of thing, taking a girl home with me. Actually, you’re the first. And I don’t know if what happened last night counts? Because in the end, nothing really happened. To be honest, I’ve been feeling pretty bad about it. You told me not to worry about it but from my point of view I took advantage of you. It’s like, you caught this weird second wind after we got through the door. It’s not clear in my head how but we ended up on the sofa. We kissed for a bit and then your hands were on my belt and I tried to stop you, I think, but you’re strong for a girl, you know that? Then you had my jeans down and when you went down—I didn’t stop you—and….”

            He trailed off, glanced up at me. He frowned, returned to his study of his lap.

            His words came from far away. There was a rushing sound in my ears, like distant waters roaring. My hand was at my throat, and the hot flush only grew and spread as he described me kissing him, yanking down his jeans, eagerly sucking him off, like some stupid club slut. I wanted to be sick, but there was nothing left. I wanted to be angry—and I was angry, but not with Jonas. Who could blame the kid? In his place, it’s not like I would’ve pushed some eager blonde slut off my lap.

            “Nothing happened,” I murmured.

            “No.”

            “Is that why you’re angry?”

            He looked at me then. Dark brown eyes under a mess of tangled hair. He looked tired and pale. There was a lengthy silence before he finally spoke again.

            “You were right last night, you know. Maybe you don’t remember. You called me an arrogant prick. Said I didn’t know anything about the world.” He chuckled without humor. “You were right. Because up until last night, I guess you could say I always thought that the bad stuff that happens, you know, the stuff that happens at a club like Tartarus, or rather after a night out, to—girls, to pretty girls, like you, I guess I always felt she carried some part of the blame, or more than just a part. Dressing a certain way, her choice of men, yes, that, always picking some meathead. Plenty of nice guys, dorky guys like me, but pretty girls like you always end up with the assholes, right? And no surprise it turns out badly.” He rubbed the back of his neck, and there was a nervous tremor to his voice as he continued. “Night after night, I watch it happen.

            “I’ve even got the data, right?” He waved his hand towards the computer in the corner. “I could deep dive into the security data, correlate all sorts of data points. Height, body shape, size, even hair color, sort by tags assigned to clothing, style, we’ve got how much you spend in there, how much you drink, and what. Anonymized, obviously. But I could build up a model of who leaves with who, what kind of dickhead leaves with a girl on his arm, and the sort of girl he scores.”

            For a moment there, I swore he got a bit excited at the prospect of doing just that, but then he reined himself in, and sighed. “But I’m doing it again. Sorry. Sorry. Because I was wrong. I saw that last night. Turns out, I’m that asshole, too. You’re the sexy girl, and I was the dickhead.”

            He gave his head a shake. “This isn’t coming out right, I’m not saying this clearly. At Edo, and after. You were a mess. And that’s your fault, it’s on you. Maybe, I don’t know. Like, there could’ve been all sorts of reasons why you dressed the way you did, drank the way you drank, and took the drugs that you did. Social-economic reasons, peer pressures, culture stuff, or class, and that whole patriarchal-capitalist engine driving you to act certain ways, and can you even separate the two these days, late-stage capitalism’s just another label for patriarchy, right? But something made you come over to my pod, and sit with me, and then decide you wanted to thank me for—what, just talking to you? Like we’ve commodified basic human interactions, and when did the price tag for basic human kindness become a blow job from a young girl, how fucked up is that?”

            I pinched my nose between my eyes. “Jonas,” I said. “Please, can you—”

            “Sorry,” he said. He shrugged. “I know, sorry, it’s just—okay. And so there I was taking you down the street. Or trying to. And you were a wreck. And nobody stopped me. Nobody checked that you were okay. Quite the opposite, actually. People laughed—laughed! One guy gave me a thumbs up, another guy called out, ‘have fun, dude’—like, can you believe it, ‘have fun, dude,’ that’s what he said. And I was dragging you home, literally along the ground at some points, and like I said, you were pretty noisy, you cried out a few time, even screamed once. And no one did anything. Then, once I got you back here, I dragged you through the hallways—dragged you! by the arms!—and fuck, but you made a lot of noise.

            “But nobody came out to see what was going on.

            “And I got you into my apartment, and at that point, I could’ve done anything I wanted, really. I could’ve—”

            He stopped.

            “Raped me,” I said.

            Jonas nodded.

            “But you didn’t.”

            “No, I didn’t,” he said. He passed the back of his hand across his eyes, took a deep breath, and looked me straight in the eyes for the first time. “But I wanted to.”

            I felt my stomach clench tight, but did not flinch away from his gaze.

            Then he scowled. “And it’s so fucked up to even say that, right? That somehow, I feel like—less of a man—because I didn’t force myself on you? That culturally, I’m surrounded by this whole embedded series of reinforcements, you know, it’s systemic, right, our whole culture’s constantly reminding me of what it means to be a man. And I know it’s this whole capitalist thing commodifying insecurities, and why shouldn’t masculinity itself be a growth market? You girls have had this crap shoved down your throats for centuries, now it’s our turn. Decades of picking apart what it means to be a man, weaponizing our fears, selling us this bullshit and recently, Cindy, no reason you’d have noticed, but the pressure’s more intense than it’s ever been! Be a man, be strong, be tough!” He emphasized each by pounding his fist into his open palm. “Hate the other, fight the competition, fuck the girl.”

            Jonas sighed. “And being aware of this shit, knowing it’s happening doesn’t make a damned difference, because the messaging is so simple: a girl goes home with a guy, she’s his, she knows what she’s agreed to, and so does he. A real man knows what to do, or at least he better, because his value as a person’s tied into getting this right. He doesn’t have to overthink it, doesn’t doubt, he just—gets on with it. And why would I even have any doubts? You were literally undressing me. Never mind you could barely walk. Or talk. Hard to say ‘no’ when you’re that drunk. Or with a cock in your mouth.” He smiled grimly. “Consent was implied, and if that’s good enough for the courts today, why not for me? Who cares if you passed out? Clearly you wanted it. It can’t be sexual assault if you wanted it,” he said.

            “I didn’t want it,” I said softly.

            He grimaced. “Yeah, I know.”

            “I’m sorry,” I said.

            Eyes wide, he stared at me. “For what? What the fuck would you have to be sorry for? Because you were fucked up? Why shouldn’t you get fucked up if you want to? Like, that’s why I do the AI stuff at the club.” He hesitated. “Do you remember any of that? We talked for a bit before the ramen shop.”

            My smile was thin and brittle, and I gave a tender little nod. The room wobbled slightly, stabilized. “Digital pimp,” I said. “Helped set the mood.”

            Jonas winced. “It’s not—”

            “I’m joking. I remember.”

            “Tartarus has never been safer. Fewer fights, fewer assaults. The AI’s trained to pick up on signs of distress, sends a bouncer pronto. Girl trapped in a corner? Bouncer’s there. Fight about to break out between some drunk dudes? Half the time, we can break it up before anything happens. Some chick’s barely able to stand because her drink’s been spiked—bouncer checks in. The club’s safe. Or at least, safer. But not after you leave. There’s no AI after you step out the doors. And—I don’t think I appreciated that before, you know? That a girl might not give off any obvious indications of distress, nothing the security AI can pick up on, and yet—” He shrugged. “A girl can do everything right, and still end up drugged, or drunk, or with an asshole. And even a nice guy can turn out to not be so nice, after all. And it turns out that just about any guy can drag a girl crying through the streets, screaming to his door, and nobody gives a shit.”

            He went quiet, dug his thumb into his thigh. Eventually, Jonas stood up. “I’m sorry, Cindy. Listen, if you need to crash for a bit longer, that’s cool. I’ll pop a clean towel in the bathroom, okay, if you want a shower. It’s the first door on the left.” And then he grabbed a few items from his room and left.

            After he left, and somewhat precariously, I looked around and found my little clutch purse at the side of the bed. First, I checked that Darius’s security key was still in there, sealed in an inner pouch. It was, and that was a fucking relief. Then, I dug out my phone. It bleeped like crazy when I turned it on. The girls were going batshit crazy, all kinds of messages fired back and forth across three different apps. High drama, too: not a great night for Emma either, lot of tears, much stress.

            At least Willow and Mel had a good time. There was a picture from earlier in the night, sometime after we parted ways, of Mel and some boy, bare-chested on the dance floor, flashing lights and she was raking her nails across his chest, his head thrown back, loving it. A little later, Mel with some girl, indigo hair and purple lipstick, crooked grin and arms around each other’s waist, grinning into the camera. Meanwhile, Willow had a great time, catching up with show girls from a gig she did a year ago: lots of posing, group shots, sexy fun.

            Then, the messages turned anxious, then frantic, and soon everyone was freaking out after I disappeared. I fired off a couple messages to the girls, let them know I was okay, then shut the phone down even as it started dinging. With that settled, I snoozed for a bit. Then, when the hangover receded a bit, I took Jonas up on his offer.

            It was a cramped little bathroom with a bathtub shower, pretty much what I expected from a college guy, faint stink of mold, stained bath curtains and porcelain unacquainted with the concept of cleaning products. In the shower, a small grimy window looked out over the back of a pair of tall apartment buildings from somewhere about a dozen floors up. The sun was high behind grey clouds, and a dull roar of traffic reached me from far away.

            Stripping off the dress was a fucking relief. I took a deep breath, the first it felt in too long, and rubbed at the angry red marks across my torso left by the bodice. Then, I let my hair out of those pigtails. They already looked like a pair of bird’s nests stuck to the side of my head. The face in the mirror was a pallid horror of smeared makeup and self-disgust. I peeled off a single false eyelash—who fucking knew where the other one was—and clambered into the shower. I cranked the water over to hot. For the first minute I just stood there. The heat eased aching muscles, and penetrated deeper.

            First, a sigh, then another, rising to something like a laugh, growing to a sob, and next thing I knew, I was on the floor of this boy’s bathtub, knees to chest, arms wrapped around my legs, tits squashed and torso heaving—great big, shuddering sobs—and then hitting myself—slow, wet thuds to my thigh, my chest. All this in near silence, with tears no louder than the water falling about me. There was disgust and there was fear and a hideous sense of loss. I’d kissed this kid, this young man. And fine, he was hardly the first man I’d kissed. But I’d also kissed his cock. Taken his penis between my lips and tried to make him cum in my mouth.

            Now squatting at the bottom of this kid’s bathtub, I had to confront the undeniable fact that I’d given a man a blowjob, my first. Not my first attempt, sure. There’d been Dan, and then with Chad. But something affirming in those failures. At first, I wanted to believe that doing this thing, going down on a guy, it wasn’t that big a deal, right? What to fear from—what—a couple minutes of fumbling in another guy’s pants, a bit of spit and polish?

            But it didn’t work that way. A blowjob was—just a blowjob. As meaningless or as meaningful as a kiss. I wanted to believe a man’s cock in my mouth didn’t carry any meaning beyond necessary deceit and, secure in my masculinity, dismiss it as a triviality, soon to be forgotten. But I remembered last night with vivid clarity. Crouched under the scalding spray of water, I understood that I’d irrevocably crossed a threshold.

            Against a backdrop of giant screen phantasmagoria fading to black, I’d fished out his cock and eagerly wrapped my lips around it. Yes—eagerly; that was the truth of it. It wasn’t something that had to be done; I’d wanted to do it. And having done so, I felt myself a lot less David, and that little bit more Cindy, whatever that really meant. If feeling female was one part performance, then last night’s performance had shaken some deep part of me.

            It happened. Own it. I wanted to do it, had to do it; and it’s done. Move on. And remember, it’s all just a performance.

            And if I was shaking, as I slowly uncoiled from the bottom of the bathroom and clambered back to my feet, it’s because I was angry. Angry with myself, with my stupidity. Because how drunk had I been, how fucked up to reach that point—and after, such a wreck that any asshole could’ve taken me home, had his way and fucked the helpless, stupid little girl slut I’d been last night, weak, alone, and vulnerable.

            Under the hot spray, I stared out the tiny window. A few drones hovered past, red lights blinking. And birds, startling pure and white against the sullied brown of a polluted sky, ducking and weaving, flying freely, into the distance.

Author's Notes:

Many thank to the ladies of the Dorley discord, whose discussion on identity informed David's musings at the izekaya.