by Elliot Wake
“Know what item number one is on mine?”
“Bet I can guess.” I looked her over. “Fear of commitment.”
“Am I that transparent?”
I ticked off my fingers. “Expatriate. Not employed in your field of study. And you’re running from something.”
“You’ve read my file.”
“Actually, I haven’t. Ellis didn’t give me jack shit. I’m reading you.”
Tamsin propped herself on one elbow, amused. “Let’s dig deeper. Quid pro quo. Ready?”
“Ready.”
“I dropped out of college. High school, in America.”
“I lost a college scholarship. University, in England.”
We eyed each other.
“How’d you lose it?” she said.
“It was a girls’ basketball scholarship, and I stopped pretending to be a girl. Why’d you drop out?”
“Couldn’t live up to my sister.”
Rain pounded the glass, a hundred syncopated heartbeats.
“Round two,” Tam said. “I use men for money.”
“I use women for sex.”
Saying it aloud was a shock. I knew, obviously. Joked about it with Armin, other men. But admitting it to a woman I was pursuing was like shooting myself in the foot.
“Well,” Tamsin said, “aren’t we the pair of walking clichés.”
“This game is dangerous. Maybe we should stop.”
“It’s just getting interesting.” She laced her fingers over her ribs. “Round three. I let a man use me. Beat me. For years. Let him put me in hospital.”
It was as if some spell had fallen over us. My words came like an incantation. “I slept with a man who didn’t know that . . . that I was a guy inside. I led him on. Made him think I was a girl.”
“I ruined the man who hurt me.”
“I let a violent criminal walk free.”
“I’m a fugitive.”
Horrified, I whispered, “I’m a killer.”
She whispered back, “So am I.”
In the glass behind her the world was liquid chrome, her face the only color in it, flushed, that deep brown richening with red undertones. Her eyes were a little manic. No one sat near. No one could have heard. But it felt like our words blazed in the air, scarlet letters branding us.
Tamsin said, “I was wrong about you.”
“Wrong how?”
“I’m not harder.”
We reached the L station at the end of the line. I stood and offered my hand, and she took it. Hers was slim as spun glass while mine had grown thick and rough, veins roping the skin. Her fingers twined through mine, tight.
Out in the rain we ran, immediately drenched but not letting go. In the station we broke through the commuter rush and found a place against a wall. I pushed her to the subway tile, lifted her face. Her skin was lacquered with rain. This close I saw that the hazel of her eyes was a fine weave of green and gold, a splash of sun on autumn grass. My mind knew I should stop but my body was its own creature.
Tamsin made a fist in my wet shirt. “Do you think less of me, Renard?”
“How could I? You hurt someone who deserved it.”
“Not for the hurt I’ve caused. For the hurt I took, because I’m weak.”
My hands framed her jaw, olive against umber. We’d both been hurt by men. I could never victim-blame someone else, but I could blame myself. And did. For letting it happen. For letting him get away with it.
For letting him walk free in the world, able to do it to others.
“Being hurt doesn’t make you weak,” I said.
“Oh, rubbish. Be real with me. You feel weak, too. It fuels you.”
At the ridge of her jaw, her pulse fluttered against my palms like butterfly wings. “Maybe it does.”
“Good. Gather it. Hoard it. Keep it close to your heart.” Her body lifted off the wall, rising to mine. “We’re going to use it to kill someone.”
———
Tamsin took the photos, and Ingrid plotted his movements. Together they drew a map of Adam’s life in the city, a dark web looping in on itself over and over. Old haunts and hangouts. The basketball court at Corgan, where Ingrid had played. A coffee shop all four of us had frequented till Inge deliberately knocked a scalding mug of tea into Jay’s lap. A network of memories.
Adam was looking for me. The me I used to be.
A girl who no longer existed.
Tam reported dutifully to Laney. We didn’t tell her about the flowers, the threat. That Ingrid was one of us now. This wasn’t Black Iris business, anyway—this was personal. And I trusted Delaney Keating about as much as a feral wolf among sheep.
Laney knew things I didn’t. Something made her keep an eye on Adam while she kept me in the dark. Something stayed her hand against Crito. She could’ve tracked him down, taken care of him.
But she waited.
Tamsin’s reports revealed no clue as to why.
If I could trust them.
“She needs a code name,” Tam said one night.
Ingrid gave that slow, glacial smile. “Like Cressida, betrayer of Troilus?”
“I liked the sound of it. It has no meaning.”
“Caeneus has meaning. Figured it out yet? Or are you still deluding yourself that he’ll tell you?”
“Ingrid,” I said.
Tam shrugged. “I think Frigid Cunt would suit you, personally.”
“Tamsin,” I said.
They smiled at each other.
“I like her.” Inge’s eyes were hard, unblinking. “She’s a tough little nut.”
Later, I cornered Ingrid in a dark hall, out of earshot.
“Can you at least try to be human around Tam?”
“Am I supposed to be happy you’re moving on?”
My teeth ground. “You moved on, too. Don’t be a hypocrite.”
“None of mine had potential.” Ingrid leaned against the wall, sighing. “I’ll be a good girl.”
“Just be my fucking friend.”
“I don’t know how anymore. All I know is how to be the crazy ex.”
The words jarred us both. Too real. I started to raise my hand, to speak. To reconnect.
Then Ingrid said, “Don’t fuck her in the house. Or I’ll watch.”
She left me there in the shadows, unsettled.
Days passed, growing grayer, colder, and still we stalked him, watching.
Like Laney, we were waiting, too.
———
Nothing makes you feel quite so godlike as the bench press. Flat on your back, feet on the floor, pushing that barbell up like you’ve got the whole planet in the palms of your hands—the power is intoxicating.
I finished my set and gazed out the windows of Armin’s gym. Redbrick warehouses stretched to the horizon, quaint ironwork clinging to walls like bits of fragmented typesetting. All the factories had converted to tech and media firms, crafting only bytes, information. A city of industry now a city of imaginary things. In the abandoned places, beneath pelts of dust and in shafts of light splitting through broken glass, there was an air of melancholy about the way things used to be.
I knew that feeling.
Chicago was me. It had been built for other things, torn down, burned, rebuilt. Beneath the cement skin and neon veins it hid blood-soaked slaughter yards, pipes made of poisonous lead. A secret history. Sometimes the old bones showed through, reminding you: I was made for other things. Design isn’t destiny.
From an aluminum sky came the first November snowflakes.
I toweled the sweat from my chest and headed for the shower.
It took all my willpower not to jerk off. My libido was just stupid—when water hit the wrong way it felt like my dick was getting the electric chair. Four times your prescribed T dose will do that. What exactly was the etiquette for jerking it at a friend’s gym, anyway? I thought of Tamsin’s mouth, Ingrid’s thighs.
And twisted the tap to cold.
Downstairs, Armin sat in the lobby,
dressed like a prince in cashmere and gabardine.
“Looking for me?” I said.
“Need your help with something. Can you spare a few hours?”
“Sure.”
Once I would’ve asked a million questions before committing. T made it easier to roll with things. My curiosity about the world shifted from risk analysis (worth my energy, sanity, personal safety?) to simply asking myself: Do I want to do this or not? I lived less in my head, more in my body. Wasn’t sure if it was primarily hormonal or social. The unknown was always less risky for men. I didn’t have to tell a friend where I was meeting an Internet hookup, or walk with a buddy to public transit, or have the taxi drop me off a block from my actual apartment. I—
Okay, so not a complete change. Still spent a lot of time spinning my wheels inside this skull.
Out in the crisp autumn air salted with snow, I looked up and let the sky dust my face. A thousand cold needles pricked my shaved skin. Every muscle swelled, taut as steel cable.
God, I felt good. Like myself again.
Armin drove his Range Rover downtown. Chicago was glorious in the clutch of late fall: leaves pasted the windshield, plum and pomegranate and marigold, and the snowmelt left a shine on the world like pottery glaze. Miniature white stars hurtled against my window and dissolved.
“Mind walking a bit?” Armin said.
“Not at all.”
We parked in a garage and strolled up the Mag Mile, taking in the pageantry: shimmering tinsel, twinkling lights, and a high pure note pinging the sky like struck glass, just above human hearing but turning the air musical, crystalline. A coffeehouse door swung open and a warm cinnamon breeze swirled out. I wanted to taste the snow with my tongue on the chance it was confectioner’s sugar.
At our last meeting, the girls had noticed the change.
You’re so spirited, Tam said, smiling. Inge said, Have you been drinking?
Armin stepped into a tailor’s shop, the leathery musk reminding me of Tam. We crossed a buffed wooden floor and a man in a smart suit glided toward us.
“Mr. Farhoudi, always a pleasure.”
They shook hands. The tailor greeted me. I shook, too, feeling like an asshole in my skinnies and jean jacket.
“Is this the gentleman we spoke of?” the tailor said.
My heart made a fist. “Armin, you didn’t—”
“Sorry for the deceit, but I had to.”
“Please,” the tailor said, “make yourself at home.”
He backed off, giving us privacy.
“What are you doing?” I demanded. “I can’t afford this.”
“It’s taken care of.”
“We talked about this, Armin. No handouts.”
He shrugged, and the snow dotting his topcoat drifted to the floor. “It’s not a handout. You have a job interview coming up, and every man needs a suit.”
“This is nice of you. Everything you’ve done is really nice. But also really, really humiliating.”
“You’re a friend, Ren. I help my friends.”
I pitched my voice quieter. “Can you honestly say you’d do this for your cis guy friends?”
His eyes narrowed thoughtfully beneath thick charcoal brows. He gestured toward a pair of brass-studded club chairs. I sat beside him, uneasy. Our voices stayed low.
“You may not believe it,” he said, “but I’m not friends with any cis men.”
“Seriously?”
“None. My social circle in college consisted of the . . . organization I was part of.”
Eclipse, the precursor to Black Iris: they were essentially the bizarro version of us, a bunch of rich, privileged douchebags who acted like masters of the fucking universe and abused girls and minorities in the process.
Laney had destroyed Eclipse from the inside out. Including Armin.
“The men I associated with were toxic,” he said. “That poison tainted everything. Their masculinity, their worldview. And I immersed myself in it for years. Became accustomed. You can’t exist in a culture like that without some assimilation occurring.”
“Have you been reading Ingrid’s blog?” I muttered.
“What?”
“Nothing. Sorry, go on.”
Armin smoothed his coat. “I comforted myself by thinking graduate life would be different. I’d meet some different breed of man there. And I did, but it became even clearer that my little club hadn’t been an anomaly—it was the microcosm. The masculinity I saw around me was entitled, violent.” He ran a hand through his hair, sighing. “I don’t have any other male friends because most men I meet are accustomed to those things. It’s how we’re bred. We’re raised in it and we repeat it to each other and we end up in an echo chamber. I’m in it, too, Ren.”
My chest felt tight. “You’re not. Not anymore.”
“Does it matter? I’ve already put evil into the world. But to answer your question, no. I wouldn’t do this for any man. I think you’re different because you were raised differently, treated differently, and those experiences shaped you into someone better than me. Someone more deserving.” His eyes gleamed, flecks of gilt and bronze catching the light. “I’ve been watching your early vlogs. There’s one called ‘Adrift,’ about birthdays, and growing apart from old friends. It got to me.”
“Why were you watching those?”
“Would you believe I was comparing myself to you?” He smiled, so casually, devastatingly handsome. Perfectly designed face, flawlessly engineered body. Everything I’d ever wanted. “I was trying to figure out how you did it. What it takes to make a good man. You say you’re ‘self-made,’ and I realized how much I want that. How I’ve let others make me, instead of taking responsibility for my own masculinity.”
My whole chest seized up. I choked the words out. “I’m ordinary, Armin. Nothing special.”
“Maybe you can’t see it, but I can. Being yourself in this world is what makes you special.”
“God. We’re two dudes misting up about masculinity in a tailor shop. Let’s talk about a war, or a dog, or something.”
Armin laughed. Didn’t hide his face or feed me psychobabble. Just let me see his vulnerability, his fragility, unflinching. Owned it.
Being a man meant being strong enough to let your fragility show.
Somewhere, I imagined Ingrid rolling her eyes. Baby’s First Man-Tears. How quaint. You used to be more interesting.
“Need some air?” Armin said.
“I’m good. Let’s dapper me up.”
“Just so you know, he’ll need you to undress. That okay?”
“Does he know I’m trans?”
“I didn’t mention it. That’s your call.”
As we stood, a jag of panic rose. I was packing like usual, but it’s one thing to see a bulge from a distance and another to wag it in a man’s face. That plus the surgery scars plus my bone structure—
Okay, I thought. These things I cannot change. I’m a guy with scars and wide hips and a prosthetic dick. I can still look good in a suit.
I can own my fragilities, too.
The tailor put me at ease. Brisk but gentle, he asked about my job as he measured. I told him I yakked on YouTube for a living but was trying to transition to youth outreach. “Transition” had been such a loaded word for years, but here it felt unremarkable. Ordinary. People transitioned all the time—between careers, homes, relationships. Even their bodies, in nongendered ways: gaining muscle, losing fat. Life was constant flux. In all these little ways, I’d been preparing for the biggest change of my whole life. It felt good to be getting back to the small stuff. When the tailor measured my inseam I impressed myself by not clenching my thighs.
It was the fully clothed part that freaked me out. He pulled a suit coat and pinned it against my body. My shoulders were broad and square, masculine. My hips curved like a bell.
That hard twist in the pit of my stomach: dysphoria.
Tactfully, the tailor said we could tweak the silhouette. Slim fit, or—he released some pin
s—traditional. Which did sir prefer?
Sir preferred not to look like a fucking girl.
“Traditional,” I said.
Too boxy, too dadcore. Paradoxically, the more it hid my hips, the more I cringed, slouched. Diminished myself.
Even if no one else saw it, I knew I was hiding something.
“Can we try the slim fit again?”
As I stared into the mirrors, my mind split in two. One part saw a guy of below-average height, muscular, dusky, chiseled. His jaw could cut glass and his eyes could melt it. Wide legs, narrow waist. Instead of the typical male V shape, his body made an X.
The other half saw a girl pretending to be a guy. All the muscle, stubble, body hair were merely a costume. She’d nailed it save for the dead giveaway: those childbearing hips.
How could I still feel like this after nearly five years on T?
I love watching you, Sofie.
“I’m kinda dizzy,” I said. “Stuffy in here. Can we take five?”
On the street in my own clothes I paced up and down the sidewalk, compulsively rubbing my neck. Armin followed, silent. People passed between us, a blur of wool and snow.
I headed for an empty plaza. Something was revving up in me, an awful engine of anxiety.
“Ren,” Armin said.
I snapped as if midargument. “It doesn’t end. It never fucking ends.”
“What doesn’t?”
“This.” I gripped my spine through my skin, as if I could tear it out, show him. “There’s something wrong inside me. Fundamentally wrong. It’s a design flaw and I can build a grand illusion on top of it, but the core is still broken.”
I squatted in the snow. Imagined smashing my body into the pavement, watching shattered pieces tumble out, one of them the faulty gender mechanism. It was in me somewhere, the wrongness that caused all of this. The fault. Armin knelt beside me, his coat flocked with snow.
He said the last thing I expected.
“Did you up your dosage?”
“What?”
“I spoke with Ellis. She thinks you’re self-medicating depression with testosterone.”
“Since when are you and Ellis speaking?”
“Since she needed a clinical opinion. And I think she’s right. I’ve noticed an increase in your energy level. You’re working out more, skipping rest days. More positive, upbeat. And quicker to anger.” He spread his hands. “I’m not your doctor, but I am your friend. I’m worried about you, too.”