Little Fish

by Casey Plett

  “Yeah, probably.”

  “I get my son Moe to take her there. You ever see a young Jewish guy in there looking miserable with an old lady, that’s my family.”

  “Oh, I know them! They come in all the time.”

  “My apologies,” said the doctor dryly. “You can’t pick your family, you know? I’m just kidding, I love ’em, ’course I do.”

  “They’re nice. I like when they come in.”

  “You’re a sweet liar, Ms Reimer.”

  “Ha! I like you, doctor.”

  “Don’t get too hasty.”

  “You’re funny—ouch!”

  “Told you.” She drew fluid from the burst bubble on Wendy’s pinkie into a syringe and popped it into a vial. “Pretty sure I know what you have. Goes away with antibiotics. It’s weird you don’t have it on your armpits.” She printed out a prescription slip and signed it. “Anyway, I’ll have this fluid tested on the off-chance those antibiotics don’t work. Call my office if your hands aren’t clear in a week. They will be, though.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Ninety-nine percent. Nice meeting you.”

  She watched the doctor’s back as she started down the hall.

  “Wait!” Wendy said. “Do you know what caused this?”

  “It’s random. You get this, it’s just random.”

  A thought occurred to Wendy as the doctor was about to enter another door.

  “Wait.”

  Dr Freedman turned around.

  “Moe. His last name isn’t Hirsch, is it?”

  Her brow furrowed. “It is. That’s his dad’s last name.”

  “We were in daycare together. I just realized. I remember that name. That’s your son.”

  “No kiddin’!” she said. “You remember little Moe. The daycare on Grant Avenue. John Dafoe.”

  “Yeah,” said Wendy. “My mom got me in to that place just before she died. Not that I remember that. Parting gift, I guess.”

  The doctor’s smile flickered. “Funny, I don’t remember a Wendy. Thought I remembered everyone Moe went to class with, even back then, but I don’t remember a Wendy.”

  “Well, it was a while ago. And after daycare, I went to school in my own neighbourhood. I mean—I didn’t even recognize him at the store. Guess he wouldn’t recognize me either.”

  Wendy looked down at her hands. Her long ponytail fell in a sweep of black across her shoulder.

  “What’s Moe doing now?”

  “He’s a contractor. Plumber, I guess you’d call it. He likes it. Engaged to a real sweet lady.”

  “Good for him. I always remember he was nice to me.” He had been. One of Wendy’s few friends. Maybe her only. They were so little—four, five years old. But she did remember.

  “Thanks again for your help, doctor.”

  “’Bye now.”

  Wendy went across the street to a Shoppers and filled her scrip, popped her first two pills, and went back out to the bus stop. Okay, so she wasn’t dying. Thank you, God, she felt herself thinking. She took out her phone and texted Raina: I’m not dying. They knew what it was. I got some drugs. Love you. Then she remembered they’d been evicted. She wanted to punch something. She yelled “Arrrrhghhh!” to no one. A couple shrank away from her and hurried inside. She saw them pointing her out to a clerk. She hated them. Hated them. It was those kinds of people who kicked her out of her fucking house! It was those kinds of people who killed her friend! Sophie—goddamn it! She kicked the side of the bus stop, and flakes of ice showered to the ground. Then the bus came, and she went off to work.

  Dr Freedman was right. The pain stopped in hours. By the end of her shift, the tinier bubbles had withered and faded. The bigger ones stopped growing and began deflating slightly.

  She took more antibiotics at home, then looked at her little half-used foil sheet of blue pills, the medroxy.

  Should she keep taking this stuff?

  They did make her feel better.

  Dr Freedman had said it was random, but Wendy also hadn’t told her she was on these things.

  Did anyone really fucking know what hormones did?

  She wished she could trust doctors.

  Wendy took the sheet and shoved it in a drawer with the vitamin bottles. Not yet. Maybe again, later, but not yet.

  Then she remembered: Anna. She was seeing her tomorrow. Holy shit.

  Her phone was pinging with timewasters and wankers. Hey, she thought to herself. Tonight, just get a good night’s sleep. You have a long day tomorrow.

  She poured her fourth big vodka-and-Fresca of the night and settled into her bed, sipping and smoking cigarettes and dreamily scrolling through Facebook, starting and stopping episodes on Netflix, listening to the soft hum of Raina’s and Genevieve’s voices talking above her. She settled on a movie called Comet and watched the whole thing without paying attention, poured another drink, and let herself float under her layers of blankets, feeling and thinking about nothing, her barely cracked window sucking out the wisps of her smoke and the returning tendrils of pure, clean cold filling the air above her.

  Then, turning off her light, she got one last text: U still awake

  Maybe, she texted back reflexively.

  Up for an outcall by the perimeter to see a respectful gentleman?

  Lol respectful gentleman huh

  Pip pip cheerio

  She tittered. Tricks were so rarely funny.

  Maybe i’m downtown so thats far

  Ill pay cab plus etransfer half the money upfront so you know it is worth your time. Whats your rate for two hours?

  She told him, and he said yes. Shit. Couldn’t turn that down.

  Alright sweetie cakes. ;) I’ll come once the money clears. Send to …

  She tossed her phone down. She was tired. She was so, so tired. It was so cold out, and she felt so nice and warm and the best kind of fuzzy-drunk-sleepy. Part of her didn’t want the money to come. But she couldn’t turn it down if it came. (This was ingrained into her skin, and it always would be. She could never turn the money down.) And it came, twenty minutes later. With extra for the cab.

  “Alright, alright.” She pressed her healing hands on her face. “Come on, champ, let’s do this.”

  After long expanses of nothing past Kenaston, there were dots of luxury homes in undeveloped fields near the Perimeter. It was barely even suburban out here; it was like they expected the city would fill in to the space. Eventually.

  The cabbie stopped at a row of thin, new, cheap-looking townhouses, the kind that technically had their own street numbers but were still basically just apartments with their own front doors. So he didn’t live in a luxury home, then. Geez, if you weren’t getting a nice place anyway, why the fuck would you move all the way out here?

  The guy opened the door in a shirt and jeans. He was young and pale and muscled and he looked happy in a manic way, and Wendy immediately thought Cocaine.

  “Fuck, it’s cold! Come in!” he said.

  She took her coat off, and he said, “Want a line? I just got this and thought, fuck, I should call you!”

  “I’m alright, thank you.”

  “Fuuuuuck, I can’t wait, thank you so much for coming over! Can I e-transfer you the rest of the money? I don’t have any cash. Do you want some wine? I got wine. Got us a big bottle of wine!” A cold magnum of white. Wendy poured a glass.

  Weights and video games were scattered in the living room. He sat down on the couch and intensely tapped on his phone to send the money. Midway through his head jerked up. “Sorry, I’m watching porn. I’m a pervert.”

  Wendy hadn’t even noticed. She swivelled her head at the big cocks on the screen. “That’s okay. I like watching porn too,” she said.

  The guy’s eyes were moving a million miles a second. “I like watching shemale porn. Does that make me a faggot?”

  He didn’t seem dangerous—but there was a possible yet that Wendy tagged onto that assessment.

  “I’m sorry if I can’t take
it good,” he said. “I never been fucked before, will it hurt?”

  Shit. She played dumb. “Will what hurt?”

  “When you … when you—when you fuck me in the ass.”

  “Oh. Honey, I have a vagina. I’m a trans girl with a surgical vagina.”

  The guy gaped at her silently with his jaw open and moving. “You don’t have a dick?”

  “No.”

  “You chopped it off!”

  “That’s not—yeah, I did.”

  “Fuck! Oh, son of a bitch, I was hoping you’d fuck me with your cock!”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, “it says in my ad, I have a vagina.”

  “I didn’t read your ad.”

  “Ah, well then.”

  “You don’t got a friend you can call?”

  Instantly Wendy thought of Sophie. What a laugh this would’ve been, doing duos together, trading off driving this loser wild, shit-talking him in the car ride home, and she went to the kitchen and said, “Maybe let me just get my phone, and I’m gonna have some more wine!” and she sucked at the magnum like it was a water tap and turned the faucet on full blast and opened the fridge door to let it run and left it all like that for a few minutes so he couldn’t hear that she was crying.

  “Man, I hope you got a friend or two,” he said when she came back.

  She didn’t really know other hos these days.

  Come on, Wendy. Save this. She didn’t want to give back this much money, and no way she was running out on him here in butt-fuck nowhere.

  “I’ll text some people,” she said, and then a lazy smirk crept onto her face. “It’s a shame you didn’t see me before, I had a huge dick.”

  The guy’s eyes turned on like lamps.

  “Why’d you have to cut that shit off,” he said. “I bet your dick was fucking beautiful.”

  “It was,” said Wendy. “You wanna see?”

  Years ago, Shemale Yum had come through looking for girls. It was mostly a bust. But Dexedrina—a mother-hen ho and back then the only trans girl Wendy truly called a friend—phoned the bitches she liked when she heard about it. It was a decent gig. Three hours posing and touching herself and moaning. Paid her six hundred American bucks. The cameraman was a jolly ex-Navy guy in his forties with a beard.

  Wendy missed Dexedrina. She’d moved to Toronto years ago. Dex’s old joke: “Trans women in this city either leave or die. I know which one I’m doing.” Trans women like us, Dex had clarified after. It’d been ambiguous whether Wendy was included in that us. Dex was from an older crowd. Well, maybe only five or seven years older but that was a lot in trans years. Wendy was no stranger to hardship, but she knew that being poor and trans in this city used to be much, much, much harder.

  She’d no idea what Dex was doing these days, a thought that flashed to Wendy as she cooed to this guy about her old huge cock, clumsily typing a name into Google with his PlayStation controller. Dex had fallen off Facebook, but Wendy’s Yum shoot was still online.

  “Whoa,” he said. “Your cock is beautiful! Why’d you cut off a beautiful huge thing like that?”

  “I know,” Wendy giggled, massaging his coke-soft dick through his pants.

  “You text your friends?” he said.

  “Oh right, thank you for reminding me!” She took out her phone. Already been here 20 minutes. Good. She texted Lila to check in at four if she saw this—she hadn’t been responding, was probably asleep—and then (what the hell) texted Aileen the address with the same request. I’ll explain later, she added.

  “In the meantime,” she grinned, “check this out.” She thumbed at the controller with her bra hanging off her.

  On the screen, Wendy-from-five-years-ago wanked and moaned. The camera focused on her gaping perfect O of a mouth.

  Her balls were so big. She’d forgotten about that.

  “Fuuuuck, that’s hot,” the guy said. “Am I a faggot for loving this? I’m a faggot. I just like this—it’s hot. Will you call me a faggot while I’m getting fucked? I just, I don’t know. I like girl’s clothes too.”

  New sissy. “It’s very common,” she reassured him, stroking his flagging dick, kissing his neck. “You want to get dressed up, be a little bitch?”

  “I’m a little faggot,” he said. “I don’t know. I’m ex-military, eh? I just got discharged a few months ago. And all I’ve been doing is this.” He leaned over and did another line. “Fuck. This is hot—that dick of yours—damn it, I wish you could fuck me with it.”

  “Ssshh, look, I’m about to come,” she whispered. They watched as twenty-five-year-old Wendy worked up to jizzing in her own mouth.

  I looked good in this, she thought. Her hair and nails never looked that good anymore. Wendy’d primped for this shoot more than for nearly any other occasion in her life. Seeing clients included. She always thought that was funny. Drunk boys in the dark won’t notice armpit stubble, but a camera damn well will.

  She tried to blow him afterward, but he just leaned over and did another line. He was getting more nervous and worked up. A kettle about to sing. “Do you have clothes you can put me in?” he said.

  “I didn’t bring any, sor—”

  “I have heels—you wanna see me wear ’em? Me, the little faggot?”

  “You little faggot sissy,” Wendy laughed. “You’re new to this, aren’t you? You little faggy shit. You ever been put in girl’s clothes before? You like being dressed up and taking orders?”

  “Oh shit.” Those darting coke-head eyes.

  Alright, we can do this. “Show me your heels, faggot!”

  He led her down the hall to his room. Back in the living room, the video of Wendy jerking off re-started on the screen.

  The bedroom was barren but for delivery boxes and random papers littered across the room. Nothing on the walls. A king-sized mattress and box spring in the corner, and on the bed, up against the corner, a human-sized stuffed koala.

  Wendy’s heart dropped into her knees.

  Sweetie.

  The guy turned back from his closet wearing clear, six-inch heels never meant to be worn outside. His face was moving like there were bugs on it. “See these? That’s some faggy shit, huh?” he said excitedly.

  She nodded. “Take off your shirt.”

  He obeyed.

  “And your underwear,” she said calmly. “Over your heels.

  “To the kitchen. Move faggot.” He did as he was told.

  “Face the counter,” she said. “Bend over.” He did. “Don’t you dare fuckin’ even look or turn around.”

  “I wo—”

  “Shut up, faggot.”

  She turned around and took her bag from the table. Took out a large condom, lube. Grabbed the magnum of wine and sucked, sucked, sucked, sucked, until she’d killed it to almost a third of the bottle left.

  “Ah,” she whispered.

  He stayed bent over, quivering, waiting for her. Quivering boy. She wanted to cry again. She felt the wine rushing through her system, converting in her blood. You’re clear from here. You’re fine. Do your job and go home.

  Behind him, so he could hear everything, she rolled the condom over her bunched fingers and lubed up her fingers and the outside of his hole. “You want to be fucked like a little slut?” she whispered.

  She couldn’t conceal the choke in her voice.

  He didn’t notice. “Yeah!”

  Some guys were coy about their butt experience, pretending they were new, their asses then swallowing appendages like gumdrops. Not him. He breathed and shook at the first fingertip. “Ssssh, you little faggot,” she said. “I’ve got you.”

  The monster slugs of wine were really hitting. Her naked body was tingling and warm and she felt a second-wind night-power of adrenaline charge through her, down to her bare feet on the linoleum.

  “You want to get fucked, don’t you girlie,” she said.

  “Yes,” he said. “Fuck me.”

  A little deeper. “That feel good, you little shit?”

  “I
t hurts but I love it. Holy fuck what the fuck.”

  Wendy massaged, slowly probing and opening him up. “You got a name for yourself, you little fuckin’ girl.”

  “Kaitlyn,” he said immediately. “Kaitlyn. With a K.”

  Wendy shut her eyes and breathed deep to open her body to her exploding brain.

  “That’s a … lovely name. That’s a lovely name, Kaitlyn.” She reached into his ass deeper and he bucked again. She pressed up against his back, his soft, hairless muscly flesh, rubbed her clit with the heel of her hand, and fucked him slow and intense till her own eyes rolled into the back of her head.

  “Could you, like, tell me, maybe?” he said, sitting on the couch quietly now, though his teeth were still grinding after his ass had taken her hand to the wrist. “What it was like. How you knew.”

  Wendy finished off the wine, drops spilling onto her lips and face.

  “You’re asking,” she said, “because you want to do it too, don’t you?”

  “I don’t know. Probably not—I don’t know.”

  “Everyone starts somewhere,” she said blankly.

  “Do I want to cut my dick off? Like you? Fuuuuuuck, I don’t think so! But your body’s so fuckin’ sexy, if I had a body like yours …”

  “Thank you.”

  “Can you tell me?” he said. “What it was like cutting your dick off.”

  “That’s not how it works,” she heard herself say.

  “No? Damn, that’s crazy! Do we still have some time? Before you have to go, right? I just. Maybe it would help me. I’m a mess. This is what I’ve done ever since I got discharged.”

  “We have a few minutes left, yeah.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Surgery isn’t—look, sweetie, hormones are a much bigger deal. You transition and take estrogen and you look more like a girl and you feel so much better. You’re probably a girl, and that’s probably what you need to do.”

  He looked down, then up. His teeth still grinding away. His eyes weren’t there.

  “Tell me about the surgery,” he said. “Tell me about chopping off your dick.”