by Witt, L. A.
“We still don’t have a cure for cancer, and they’ve developed an implant to keep people from changing genders. How the fuck does that make sense?”
“Fuck if I know,” Alex said into his beer bottle. He took a drink, and for a long moment, didn’t speak.
Staring off into space, he absently spun a bottle cap on the end table with his middle finger. It made a familiar, rhythmic scraping sound, bringing back a dozen or so memories of my girlfriend doing the exact same thing when she was nervous or upset. Another little tell that this was undeniably Alex.
Alex, whose life was in danger. Alex, who I could lose in so many ways in so little time. Fuck, I was going to be sick.
He rubbed a hand over his face. “Did I mention it’s not a single implant?”
“It isn’t?”
Shaking his head, he said, “No. It’s three separate ones. They’re all injected at the same time, but then they separate. Getting them out means finding all three, possibly cutting in three different places, and there’s triple the risk of permanent damage.” He tightened his jaw, and his Adam’s apple bobbed slightly. “Turns out putting one of these fuckers in is child’s play, but getting them out is an entirely different matter. It’s major back surgery.”
My heart sank a little deeper.
“It’s just an injection to put it in. A needle between the vertebra, in go the implants, and they float around until they find a place to settle in.” He gestured with his free hand, the movement as slurred as his words. “Getting them out is seriously invasive, especially if any of the implants have fused to the nerves or bone.”
The beer in his hand suddenly looked really, really tempting.
“On top of all of that,” he went on, bitterness saturating his tone, “it’s considered an elective surgery, especially since it’s a reversal of another elective surgery. It’ll take months of letters, red tape, and God only knows what else to prove it was given to me against my will.” He drained his beer.
“How much does it run?”
“Depending on the surgeon and the procedure . . .” He coughed against the back of his hand, and when he spoke again, his voice wavered. “It can be anywhere from sixty to a hundred grand. Or more. So assuming I don’t go bankrupt trying to prove I never consented to have them put in, and assuming I can figure out how to pay to get them removed, there’s also the fact that the longer they’re in, the more dangerous the surgery is.”
“Scarring?”
He nodded. “They embed themselves, and the longer they’re embedded . . .” He cleared his throat. Again. “So, to recap . . . Leaving it in could kill me, taking it out could kill me, and living with it for the rest of my life will make me wish I was dead. How the fuck was your day?”
Before I could reply, he stood, grabbed the beer bottles off the coffee table, and started toward the kitchen. I sighed and followed him. His gait wasn’t completely steady, and he stumbled a little, brushing the doorway with one shoulder. He wasn’t fall-down drunk yet, but I had a feeling he had every intention of getting there as quickly as possible.
He set the three empty bottles on the counter beside two others. When he pulled an unopened one from the refrigerator, I raised an eyebrow.
“Alex, are you sure you should—”
“What the hell do you want me to do?”
I jumped. “Just slow down. It’s not going to help.”
“Nothing is going to help,” he snapped. “Is it all right with you if I find something in this goddamned world that doesn’t make me feel worse?”
“You’ll feel like hell in the morning.”
“I feel like hell now.” He slammed the bottle down on the counter so hard I was surprised it didn’t shatter. “What do you want me to do, Damon? Tomorrow, I have to go back to my day job and face a boss who thinks shifters are disgusting, not to mention coworkers who only know me as a woman. For now and into the foreseeable future, I have three implants in my spine that are making my life hell and might even kill me. I just went through the motions to put my folks in jail and my baby sister in foster care. My boyfriend is stuck with a man in place of his girlfriend, and no matter how much he doesn’t want me to see it, it’s clearly bothering him.” He put up his hands, and as he spoke again, his voice cracked. “And you want to begrudge me a fucking drink?”
“Alex, I’m sorry,” I said softly. “I’m not downplaying how this is affecting you. I just . . .” What could I say?
“Then let me have a drink,” he whispered, and picked up the bottle again. I didn’t object when he opened it. Didn’t say a word when he took a long drink. Didn’t hold his gaze when he looked at me with a “go ahead and stop me” challenge in his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I murmured. “I’m not . . . I’m just worried about you. I’m . . . I’m scared, to be honest.”
Alex ran a shaking hand through his hair. “I’m sorry, Damon.”
“Don’t be.” I stepped a little closer. “This isn’t your fault.”
He kept his gaze down. “You know, this is one of the parts of being static that is absolute hell. Society says men and women have to behave certain ways. Usually, if I want to act a certain way, I can switch to the gender where it’s more acceptable.” He sniffed sharply. He set his shoulders back but couldn’t hide the way his hands still shook. “But now . . . I can’t. Society says a woman can get emotional, break down, lose it even for a few minutes, but a guy has to be fucking stoic.”
I put my hands on his shoulders. “Fuck society, Alex. It’s just us here right now, and even if it wasn’t, fuck everyone else.”
He rubbed his forehead. “I’m fine. I’m fine. Just . . .” He shrugged out of my grasp. “I’m fine.”
We both knew he was as far from “fine” as he was from sober. What the hell was I supposed to say, though?
He leaned against the counter, his shoulders dropping under some unseen weight. “I swear to God, getting this thing out might kill me, but if I leave it in, I might end up killing myself.”
I stared at him. I’d never realized how deeply this affected any shifter. Guilt burned deep in my chest. How much had I unknowingly contributed to this? Forcing him, without even realizing it, to be a woman when he desperately needed to be male?
“Alex, you could . . .” My voice trembled. “You could have told me.”
“We’ve been through this, Damon.” His eyes met mine. His exhausted, pained eyes. “My family knew, and it disgusted them. So much so that they’re willing to go to prison for correcting me.” He dropped his gaze. “You were the first person I ever loved like this, and I was so fucking scared of losing you.” He pulled in a ragged breath. “I still am.”
“I’m still here, aren’t I?”
“Yeah.” He looked at me through his lashes. “But for how long?”
“Alex, I’m not going anywhere.”
He searched my eyes. Then he turned around and rested his hands on the counter like he just needed something to hold him upright. “There’s one other thing.”
I was afraid to ask, but I whispered, “What?”
Over his shoulder, he said, “Sometimes the implants do permanent damage. Even if they’re removed quickly.”
“You mentioned that,” I said. “Nerve damage, things like that?”
“Well, that, but . . .” He let his head fall forward. After a moment, he faced me, and when he met my eyes, the hint of an extra shine in his sent a chill right through me. “There’s a chance I won’t be able to shift again. Ever.”
My heart dropped into my feet. “Never?”
He nodded. His cheek rippled as he set his jaw. “So, if you do stay . . .” He gestured at himself, and his voice faltered. “This might be all there is.”
“When will you know?”
“If I can shift?”
“Yeah.”
“My appointment with the specialist is in two weeks. After that, it just depends on how long before they can schedule the surgery, and how long it takes to recover afterward.�
��
I was numb. Stunned. Completely at a loss. Finally, I said the only thing I could trust myself to articulate: “I guess we’ll see what happens then.”
Yeah, we’d see what happened. With the implant. With Alex.
With us.
After Damon left for the night, I drank more than I should have. Way more. I just couldn’t bring myself to give a fuck how I’d feel in the morning. All I wanted was to be numb for a few hours. Numb and preferably unconscious.
On the bright side, it helped me sleep.
On the not-so-bright side, it meant waking up to the blistering shriek of my alarm and crawling out of bed with a massive hangover.
As I poured my coffee, a prickly ball of nerves settled in my stomach. I had to go back to work today. There was no getting out of it. I couldn’t afford to burn any more sick time, I couldn’t afford to take any unpaid leave, and I sure as shit couldn’t afford to lose this job. Even if I increased my hours at the Welcome Mat, I quite possibly had a hundred-thousand-dollar medical bill looming. So, that meant I had to go in today and face the music and let the chips fall where they would.
It also meant I had to watch my every step at work from now on. Showing up at least ten or fifteen minutes early to avoid being even one or two minutes late. Making sure I came back precisely on time from every break. Being damned careful to keep all of my call logs filled out and my customers happy. I didn’t dare accidentally walk off with so much as a pen.
It wasn’t that I was a slacker or the type to cut corners. Quite the opposite. I was an honest, hardworking employee, and I had the reviews to prove it. The thing was, my boss was a master at finding legal grounds to fire people he wanted gone for illegal reasons. The pagan guy down in engineering? Came in late a few too many times. Pregnant receptionist? Fired two months before her due date for stealing office supplies. A customer service rep who went to HR because the boss was flirting and behaving inappropriately? Terminated after her customer complaints tripled over the course of three months.
All of those were legitimate grounds, of course, but everyone knew better. The pagan engineer was late because of childcare issues that weren’t a problem until the day someone saw his pentagram pendant. The receptionist walked off with a few pens, whereas the boss in question made no effort to hide the occasional ream of paper that left with him. And yes, the customer service rep’s complaints had tripled. They went from two to six, while all the other reps were consistently well into the teens.
My boss was notoriously anti-gay, anti-trans, anti-shifter, anti-anything-off-the-accepted-definition-of-normal. He was careful how he articulated that around the workplace, but it was no great mystery. If I knew him as well as I thought I did, he’d be sniffing around for a reason to cross me off the payroll. I wasn’t going to hand him a reason to fire me. He’d have to work for it.
With enough coffee in my system to tide me over and keep me from falling asleep at the wheel, I drove in to work. All the way there, I berated myself for ignoring a buddy’s advice a few years ago when I applied for this job.
“Alex, men are treated better and paid better in this industry. It’s a fact, kid. You’re just setting yourself up to have to work harder for less.”
As a feisty college grad, hell-bent on changing the world’s view of those who didn’t fit perfectly into socially accepted gender categories, I’d blown off his advice and applied for the job as a female. I knew I was setting myself up for some discrimination. A smaller paycheck. Callers asking to speak to men. Colleagues looking down my blouse and not taking me seriously. But damn it, they would learn to take me seriously.
Oh, silly me. Crusading for gender equality while trying to earn a living was more exhausting than I’d expected.
Having to show up at work in my male form after all this time? Fuck. Now, instead of being “that chick down in tech support, how cute,” I could be the subject of “holy shit, one of those people works here?” The occasional leer was annoying. Now my coworkers could all try to sneak a peek at the freak on the fourth floor.
On the way into the office, I kept my eyes down. It wasn’t unusual for vendors and customers to walk through the building, but I felt conspicuous. My badge was clipped to my belt, and I kept a hand over it, afraid someone would see my name and make the connection. Or see that I was an employee, not a visitor, and try to figure out why they didn’t recognize me. Or worse, introduce themselves to “the new guy.”
Fortunately, no one approached. Maybe they didn’t notice. It would be a different story when I got to my own floor.
Steeling myself, I knocked on my boss’s door.
“Come in,” came the voice from the other side, and I closed my eyes as nausea rose in my throat. If I had to make a list of the people in my world who I didn’t want knowing what I was, he was easily in the top five.
I pushed the door open.
No recognition registered on his face. “Can I help you?”
“Yeah.” I pulled a folded piece of paper out of my pocket and watched my hands unfold it. “I would have done it over the phone, but I wanted to make sure you got a copy of this.” I handed it to him and managed to look him in the eye.
He peered at the letter. “What’s this?”
“A medical waiver.”
Furrowing his brow, he started reading it over. “But I’ve never seen you in my— Oh, my God.” He dropped the letter like it had bitten him, and stared at me with wide eyes. “Alex?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
“Have a seat,” he said flatly. I sat in one of the chairs in front of his desk while he read over the rest of the letter. His lips twisted and the furrow in his brow deepened. Not much different than Officer Asshole Daly’s response, if decidedly less subtle. I didn’t think I’d ever seen the man looking so squeamish and uncomfortable. I did find a tiny bit of satisfaction in the fact that he probably felt ill thinking about all those times he’d hit on me or looked down my shirt. Well. Now he got to feel as uncomfortable as I had whenever he’d leered at me.
He set the letter down and cleared his throat. “So, you need a few more days off, then?”
“No, I can work.” I tapped my fingers on the armrest. “I’m actually looking into getting the procedure reversed, so I may need to burn some sick leave for that.”
“Reversed?” He chuckled. “They stick you in the wrong body or something? I’d be pissed about that, too.”
I gritted my teeth. “Something like that. Anyway, I just wanted to update you on what’s going on. I guess I should get to work.”
“Right. Thank you.” His gaze darted toward me but quickly flicked to something on his desk. “Do you, um, need me to send around a memo or anything? Let people know what’s . . . going on?”
Yeah, right. I could only imagine how that nice little memo would be worded.
“No,” I said. “I’ll deal with it.”
“Are you sure? Might be better to just nip these things in the bud. Keep people from speculating and gossiping.”
Oh, there was no nipping that in the bud. People would notice. They’d gossip, speculate, gawk. All I could do was go to my desk, get to work, and act like nothing had changed.
“I’ll manage. If I change my mind, I’ll let you know.”
“You know where to find me,” he said with a superficial smile.
“Thanks.”
Stomach still churning, I got the fuck out of his office. His discomfort made my skin crawl, and God knew how the conversation would’ve gone if Human Resources hadn’t been a phone call away, but at least it was over.
Now to go deal with everyone else.
The walk back to the elevators wasn’t bad. This was a big company, there were bound to be unfamiliar faces in the halls, especially here on the lower floors where bigwigs met with clients, field representatives came and went, and prospective employees were interviewed. Should’ve known on my way in that I wouldn’t be noticed, but no one ever said paranoia and rationality were close friends.
I took the elevator up to my floor, and when it stopped, I swiped my badge through the reader. The red LED went dark. The green one came on. Then the doors opened, and with my heart pounding in my chest, I stepped out into the lion’s den.
Eyes focused straight ahead, paying no attention to the buzz of “Hey, who’s that guy?” coming from the occasional cubicle, I walked to my own cube. When I reached my desk and took a seat, the whispering began in earnest.
“. . . you don’t think . . .”
“. . . come on, no way . . .”
“. . . okay, you explain it, then . . .”
“. . . could be a temp . . .”
I put on my headset and tried to ignore everyone. It’s amazing how gossip was amplified when it was about you. On a normal day, people could stand right outside my cubicle and loudly dish juicy tales about the CFO and his secretary’s ongoing affair, and I had no trouble tuning it out enough to help a caller troubleshoot a malfunctioning monitor. Today? Every whisper made it to my ears like people were shouting in my face.
“. . . no one’s heard from Alex in days . . .”
“. . . that doesn’t mean . . .”
“. . . well, it’s possible . . .”
“. . . the last person I expected to be one of them . . .”
One of them? Really? I rolled my eyes and tried not to groan aloud. Just eight hours, Nichols. You can do this.
The phone queue showed seven calls waiting, which meant it would ring as soon as I logged on. Blissful distraction, yes, but the second I answered that phone . . .