It Gets Even Better

by Isabela Oliveira

  IT GETS EVEN BETTER:

  STORIES OF QUEER POSSIBILITY

  Edited by Isabela Oliveira & Jed Sabin

  It Gets Even Better: Stories of Queer Possibility

  Copyright © 2021 by Speculatively Queer, LLC

  All rights reserved

  Cover art © 2021 by Christy Maggio

  Cover design by Jed Sabin

  Typeset by Ryan Vance

  Cultural consultants/sensitivity readers: Rachana Kolli, Catherine Liao, Angel Giuffria, Sarah Kadish, Anonymous

  I’ll Have You Know © 2019 by Charlie Jane Anders, first published in MIT Technology Review

  The Perseverance of Angela’s Past Life © 2014 by Zen Cho, first published in Spirits Abroad, Buku Fixi

  Custom Options Available © 2020 by Amy Griswold, first published in Fireside

  Venti Mochaccino, No Whip, Double Shot of Magic © 2019 by Aimee Ogden, first published in Daily Science Fiction

  The Cafe Under the Hill © 2018 by Ziggy Schutz, first published in Vulture Bones

  Sphexa, Start Dinosaur © 2018 by Nibedita Sen, first published in ROBOT DINOSAURS!

  The Frequency of Compassion © 2018 by Merc Fenn Wolfmoor, first published in Uncanny: Disabled People Destroy Science Fiction!

  Weave Us a Way © 2017 by Nemma Wollenfang, first published in Sharing Stories: Stratford Upon Avon’s Literary Festival Felix Dennis Creative Writing Competition Winners Anthology

  black is a flower © 2020 by R.J. Mustafa, previously self-published

  The Invisible Bisexual © 2021 by S.L. Huang, LLC

  All other stories © 2021 by the authors

  First Printing: July 2021

  Printed in the United States

  ISBN: 978-1-7366182-0-2

  Published by Speculatively Queer

  Seattle, Washington, USA

  www.speculativelyqueer.com

  Table of Contents

  Introduction, by Isabela Oliveira & Jed Sabin

  The Ghosts of Liberty Street, by Phoebe Barton

  Weave Us a Way, by Nemma Wollenfang

  Custom Options Available by Amy Griswold

  The Invisible Bisexual, by S.L. Huang

  Frequently Asked Questions About the Portals at Frank’s Late-Night Starlite Drive-In, by Kristen Koopman

  The Perseverance of Angela’s Past Life, by Zen Cho

  Sea Glass at Dawn, by Leora Spitzer

  unchartered territories, by Swetha S.

  Midnight Confetti, by D.K. Marlowe

  black is a flower, by R.J. Mustafa

  Sphexa, Start Dinosaur, by Nibedita Sen

  The Frequency of Compassion, by Merc Fenn Wolfmoor

  What Pucks Love, by Sonni de Soto

  Gold Medal, Scrap Metal, by Lauren Ring

  Half My Heart, by Rafi Kleiman

  Venti Mochaccino, No Whip, Double Shot of Magic, by Aimee Ogden

  since we’re here tonight, by Xu Ran

  I’ll Have You Know, by Charlie Jane Anders

  The Cafe Under the Hill, by Ziggy Schutz

  (don’t you) love a singer, by TS Porter

  The After Party, by Ben Francisco

  The Mountain Will Move If You Ask, by Jaxton Kimble

  Content Notes

  Our Community

  Dedicated to those who paved the way to make our possibilities possible.

  Introduction

  Isabela Oliveira & Jed Sabin

  The word queer is a delightfully complicated beast. It refers to gender and sexuality, but that’s not all it is; queerness is built from the weathered bricks of its own history and forever reshaped by everyone who touches it. It’s about who we are, where we’ve been, where we are now and what it’s taken to get here, how we see ourselves and direct others to see us… it’s impossible to fully describe or define, and we wouldn’t dream of trying. These stories aren’t about what queerness is, what it has to be, or even what it will become — they’re about queerness as it might be.

  We decided to make this book in late summer of 2020, when life was flinging volleys of lemons in all directions. Everyone we knew was exhausted, anxious, and running low on optimism. It Gets Even Better: Stories of Queer Possibility is our way of reaching out, spreading positivity, and reminding our queer family of what it feels like to be surrounded by love.

  These stories are about identity, relationships, and community. They’re about hope, acceptance, affirmation, and joy. And most of all, in a time when uncertainty feels inescapable and overwhelming, they’re about taking one another by the hand and choosing together to embrace the unknown.

  The possibilities are endless.

  Content notes can be found at the end of the book.

  The Ghosts of Liberty Street

  by Phoebe Barton

  When you told me about the half-there train you saw whispering down the grassy shoulder next to the Interstate, I didn’t know what to think. All these years, all these experiences, and I’ve still never been able to parse the whole map of you. You’re a subway with more lines than can be counted and more stations than can be visited. So much of you is hidden from view.

  “There’s another one,” you say, pointing down the median. “Coming out of the tunnel. Yellow with three green stripes, like the one we saw in San Francisco. That’s what they’d look like, right?”

  I shield my eyes with my hand and look, but there’s only grass stirred by gusts of wind kicked up by passing cars. I can’t remember if they ever laid tracks out here, but if so, they’re long gone. There’s nothing to see, and I tell you so.

  “Calling me a liar, are you?” you say, and stick out your tongue playfully. I respond in kind and wrap my fingers around yours. It’s not that I don’t want to see what you see. You’ve given me far too much for that. Through all the painful moments of my transition, on all those days I hid myself away in the washroom and cried until I thought the room would flood, on all the days nobody but you looked at me and saw a woman, you were there even when you weren’t.

  “Maybe it’s the sun,” I say. “We could come back later.”

  “Sounds great.” You grin, and peck my cheek. The warmth of your lipstick lingers and I can’t bear to wipe it off, not after everything I’ve made you go through. “I was worried you weren’t going to be adventurous after all.”

  * * *

  For me, learning that Cincinnati has a subway was a revelation, an explosion of possibility, and a reminder of how some things don’t work out.

  A hundred years ago streetcars weren’t quite the hot new thing anymore, but plenty of cities were built around rails and trolley poles. Cincinnati decided to solve its problems by building a subway underneath downtown, digging until the money dried up and the bottom fell out. Depressions, wars, chaos — through all of it the subway was down there, waiting to be put to use. Only getting bare, minimal maintenance to keep it all from coming apart. Neglected, dark, and practically forgotten.

  It didn’t have to happen that way, sure. But that’s how it happened here.

  * * *

  The Interstate’s less busy at night, but not by much. At least the old tunnel opens out onto the right side of it, with cars driving past and away. No headlights reveal us as we sneak to the big, unmarked grey doors weighed down with eighty years of rust. I test the door and it creaks open.

  I could close it right now and walk away. I know you’d follow me. I know it’d disappoint you, too. So I bow and gesture to the darkness.

  “After you.”

  You give me a wicked smile and dart in. I take a last furtive glance around for cameras or cops before I follow you.

  “So much more peaceful in here, isn’t it?” you say. “My kind of place.”

  You’ve already got your flashlight
on. It’s the only light in the tunnel. Mine isn’t nearly as powerful, but it’s enough to illuminate my steps. I cast the beam around, slicing through air full of scattered dust, and let it linger on the graffiti. The walls here are encrusted with tags from visitors, explorers, and wanderers. Some go back decades.

  We’re walking where the rails would have been. Their absence is the only indication so far that the work was never finished. If I squint, I can almost see their ghosts. It would be so much brighter in here if they could reflect my light.

  “Such a shame,” I say. “Such a mess…”

  “Hang on.” You stop, kneel down, put a hand to your ear. “One’s coming. Get off to the side.”

  The tunnel is wide enough for two tracks, separated by concrete supports. You climb between them. I stay.

  “What’s coming?” I ask, but you’re gone. Just as you make the far tunnel, I feel a faint lick of wind brush the back of my neck. I spin around, drown the tunnel in my light, but there’s nothing and no one.

  “Whoa, are you okay?” You dart back to me, thread your fingers between mine and squeeze. “That was close. You felt it, didn’t you?”

  “Okay?” It’s an old tunnel, and there are vents. There’s no reason there wouldn’t be drafts. “It’s wind.”

  “You’re going to have to pay closer attention than that,” you say. You smile at me, but after so much practice I can read the sadness on your lips. “There’s still plenty to see.”

  * * *

  Exploring the subway was my idea. You’ve never been into the nuts and bolts of transit systems like I am — you’d never fly to another city just to ride around on its rails — but you love seeing new things and you love me, and that’s enough.

  “Don’t worry about a thing,” you said. “As far as I’m concerned, it’ll be amazing.”

  I trusted you. I trust you. So I led you into the dark, hoping I wouldn’t lead you wrong.

  * * *

  I see my first stranger when we walk into Brighton Place, the first empty station. I’d known there was always a chance we wouldn’t be alone in the subway, not with the unlocked door so inviting. You brought your second-favorite knife and I had a canister of bear spray, just in case we found ourselves in a situation we couldn’t talk our way out of. I didn’t like having to bring them, but in a tunnel there aren’t many places to run.

  The stranger waits at the edge of the platform, not dressed like an explorer at all. No pack, no cameras, nothing. In fact, they look like they’re wearing a suit, dark and sharply-cut.

  I blink, and they’re gone. I clamber up to the platform but it’s empty. The layers of graffiti are covered in more layers of dust. There’s no sound but our breathing, even though there’s a parkway on the other side of the ceiling.

  “Hey,” I whisper, as if anything louder would disturb the station, would make it obvious we’d been there, would make it impossible for me to avoid the cops on our way out. I tighten my grip on your hand as if I’d lose my way without you, even though there are only two directions to go down here. “Did you —”

  Before you can answer, there’s another lick of wind. I blink, and I see the stranger again, and more besides, but only through one eye. The other sees the dark platform, empty, quiet, abandoned. The impression of something big, heavy, and long rolls in. I see faint windows, a yellow body, and three green stripes.

  “What —” I breathe as it moves on the way we came. There’s another touch of wind against the handful of stubborn hairs on my arm that endured all those laser sessions, all that electrolysis. I can feel pinpricks in every place where the hair won’t grow anymore. “That was —”

  “A possibility,” you say, and you kiss me. On the lips, this time. Soft and warm. “I was getting worried. There’s hope for you after all, looks like.”

  We linger on the platform, taking in the unbreathed air and undisturbed dust and all the graffiti left by everyone who came before us. When I feel the wind again, I take picture after picture. But the camera only sees what’s there: abandonment and emptiness.

  * * *

  The day I told you the truth, my blood flowed like plastic and the air turned to ice in my lungs. We’d been together for so long already, but I was sure that those few words would flip your magnet around, that we’d suddenly have two north poles trying to attract and only being pushed apart. I’d spent weeks agonizing in my head, unwilling to trust anyone with the fact of myself, wondering if it’d be worth it to lock that fact in a chest and tie it in iron chains and drop it into the deepest part of the ocean so I wouldn’t have to risk losing you.

  My life was a tunnel then, even if I didn’t realize it. There was only one path forward. It was a cloudless blue day outside when I told you, back on the day I found that fear cast shadows deeper and darker than any storm cloud.

  “I’m trans,” I said. I made sure to say it while we were walking, so the wind would carry it away. I said it so that we could carry it together, because I couldn’t bear its weight alone anymore.

  Your eyes glimmered and you didn’t miss a step.

  “Hi, trans,” you said with a curving smile. “I’m the girl who loves you.”

  * * *

  For the subway’s second station, all that’s left is a name: Linn Street. The station itself is gone, sealed off behind concrete walls, and only the lips of the platforms betray that it was ever there at all. Did they fill in the whole station with concrete, I wonder? If not, it must be the only place in the subway without graffiti. The tags are thinning out the further we go along the tunnel, but not by much. Plenty of people have come this way before.

  Maybe you stopped to examine a particularly artistic piece of graffiti and I didn’t notice. Maybe I was just walking too fast. However it happened, our hands slipped out of each other’s, and I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. I saw the ghost of solid earth filling the tunnel because there was no tunnel. There were so many possibilities where it was never dug at all. Just like there were so many chances for me to never meet you. All those unlikely choices that led to us here together press down on me with the weight of a thousand tons of dirt. My tears are November mud, dirty and cold. It was all so close to never happening.

  I’m choking. I’m alone. I’ll never be found and I’ll die in darkness. All this goes through my head in an instant. I know that it’s what life without you would feel like. Entombed.

  Then I feel your hand, and I can breathe again. I can move again. The tunnel is a tunnel again, full of dusty air and empty of ground.

  “You okay?” you ask. Your brow’s furrowed in worry and concern, as if things are accelerating beyond what you expected. “You saw it, didn’t you?”

  “What was that?” It shouldn’t have been anything. “I couldn’t —”

  “A glimpse of another possibility,” you say. “You get used to it.”

  It’s the first time I’ve known you to lie.

  * * *

  For the first few weeks after I came out to you, I was alert and on guard for anything. I’m sorry for that now, but at the time, it was the only way I could think of to make sure I was safe — to catch any sign of differences, of things changing, while there was still enough time to act. I’m not sure what I could ever have done. It was the sort of vigilance that drained the life out of me, that replaced happiness with fear, that made keeping the life I had my only goal.

  It’s the sort of vigilance that warps people. Without you, it would have twisted me into an unrecognizable shape. When fear transforms, it isn’t pretty, and once its shape is set it might never be broken.

  * * *

  It’s a lucky thing that the station at Liberty Street was never used, because it would have meant that Cincinnati was ash. Planners at the height of the Cold War didn’t need to think hard about the possible uses of underground chambers beneath cities. If the sirens had roared, a few handfuls of people — maybe they’d even think of themselves as lucky, at first — would have hurried down here to wait for the bombs.


  “I heard about what it was like here,” you say, squeezing my hand. “I didn’t think it would creep me out so much. Living in a world like this, it’s just…”

  The supplies are long since gone, but the metal bedframes remain. Through one eye I see them old, rusted, empty. Through the other I see half-there mattresses, thin sheets fiberglass-smooth, and people waiting to die. Some shout and cry, some try to fight in silence, and some only shiver. Some are already dead, but the others haven’t noticed yet. They’re all together, filling the station, and they’re all dying alone.

  It’s a good thing the stairs to the surface are shuttered. I’m sure if I could walk up there, I’d see the city half-annihilated. I look at the way you’re biting your tongue, and I know you see it too.

  “I still don’t understand,” I say. “How is this possible?”

  “It was more possible than anyone wants to believe,” you say. “It’s so easy for things to fall apart. To leave you gasping, alone. Sometimes tunnels end like that.”

  I imagine you and me on those beds, unable to find each other’s hands, our breaths slowly shallowing. I can feel it, my DNA unwinding and my organs liquefying as radiation poisons me.

  It feels worse than being buried did. At least then I knew I was alone.

  * * *

  I still remember our first fight. Our only fight. I tell myself that it was all my fault, because I can’t bear to blame you, because I couldn’t be the person you needed me to be.

  “I’m sorry,” I’d said the night before, drawing away from you, pulling the covers close. I wanted to lick my lips but I couldn’t, not after where they’d been. They were coated with radioactive poison. “I can’t. I can’t.”

  You must have stewed on it all night, because the next morning you were raw and boiling. That was the worst of it. I thought I could overcome my repulsion, that what I felt for you would let me perform, but I was overwhelmed. You didn’t understand. I still don’t blame you. Society wants you to think of sex as natural, wants you to not understand.