BOUND: Together

by Cynthia Dane

  A horse had not killed anyone, however. Yet I am the only one left alive who witnessed the truth for themselves. It flashed before my eyes every single hour of my life.

  It still does.

  “If you’d like…” I rubbed her warm and soft skin as if it were my lucky charm. It helped distract my worsening spirits from the fact I had to let her go. Her nosy questions had reminded me that it was impossible for us to share a bed all night. “You can stay in one of my guest rooms or Clyde can drive you home.”

  “Oh…” There it was. Deflated. With one utterance, I had killed the mood I spent so long crafting since the night before. “Guess I should go home,” Natalie said with a sigh. “That way I can change for work in the morning.”

  She sat up. I hadn’t expected her to use her now unrestrained hands to trace the outline of my face. I closed my eyes and reveled in her touch. She was more than welcomed to memorizing my features.

  “What happens now?”

  I opened my eyes, catching the wary way she squared her shoulders. Here came Natalie Chen, corporate intern. At least I would always know that I had managed to make her forget her identity for a little while. “What do you want to happen?” I asked. Please say you want to do this again. Say that you’ll be mine. I couldn’t let her see the desperation in my eyes.

  “I’m asking you, Mr. Mann.”

  “What I want and what is proper aren’t necessarily the same thing.”

  “Proper meaning…”

  If I laughed loudly enough, would that make her relax again? “Meaning that we have severely compromised our work relationship.” It had been worth it. I would do it again.

  “Yeah…”

  “Don’t worry.” I pulled myself away from her. This was it. Time to start re-erecting my carefully built walls. “I’m not looking to get rid of you, Ms. Chen.”

  “That’s good. Because I worked too hard for that position for you to fuck it out of me.”

  “Hmph.”

  Natalie didn’t let me get away with just that. “Was this a one-time thing? Did we get it out of our systems?”

  I glanced at her from over my shoulder. “A woman as vibrant as you could never be a one-time thing for someone like me.” I meant it, too. The moment I saw her at work the next morning, I would have to have her again. Probably right there in my office. Brooke could watch for all I cared. Sherman would have to leave the room, though.

  Natalie grinned. “I wouldn’t mind getting to know more of your vibrancy either, Mr. Mann.”

  The more she called me Mr. Mann, the more I was reminded of our precarious positions. Mostly mine. “One thing at a time.” I stood up, back kept toward her. “Get dressed while I order a ride for you. We’ll discuss this after we’ve had a day or two to decompress.”

  That was the practical thing to say, and doubtlessly what she expected from me. Or, at least, Natalie seemed pleased with what I had said. She stood up in all her naked glory while I found my phone and informed Clyde I had one last job for him that night.

  I sat on the edge of my bed and watched Natalie get dressed. Although she did it for herself, I felt like I was treated to a show as erotic as the one she gave me when she first took off her clothes. I studied the method she used to put on her bra – straps first, then snap in the back. The way she carefully pulled her hair to the side before she buttoned or zipped up anything. How she checked herself out in my vanity mirror to make sure her hair wasn’t out of place or her blouse too mussed for going out in public. Meanwhile, there I was, still in my clothes and wishing I were naked.

  Wishing my female body looked half as good as hers.

  No matter where we land on the gender spectrum, we are always comparing our bodies to others. Especially to those we find attractive.

  “You’re more than presentable,” I said with a smile. Too bad that made Natalie stand up, and I had to stop staring at her ass. “Too presentable. Maybe you should come over here one more time, so I can wrinkle your blouse or give you sex hair.”

  She sent me a coy smile. “Your whole household may know you fucked me, sir, but I need to at least pretend to keep up appearances.”

  “What makes you think they know that? Clearly, you were in here to take notes and help me with my next shareholders’ speech.”

  “Clearly.” Natalie shimmied into her sweater and came to me. The fact she stayed just out of my reach was torture. “I signed a stack of NDAs that practically said I was coming up to fuck you. Mr. Smith knows, if no one else.”

  “Because he knows everything.”

  “Does he know that I didn’t actually fuck you?”

  My smile faltered. “I don’t talk about my sex life with him, if that’s what you’re asking.” Sherman didn’t ask what I did with my dates, whether I paid for them or not. His job was to maintain my security and nothing more. We didn’t even talk about that stuff as friends. I didn’t want to. Nor did he.

  Natalie allowed me to see one last moment of softness as her visage contoured and her hair bent against her shoulders. “I wanted to, you know.” One arm barricaded her chest, an acceptable wall between us. “We’ve still got unfinished business.”

  “You’re not content with all the pleasure I just gave you?”

  “My whole life has been about chasing that elusive thing called equality. Don’t tell me I also have to work twice as hard as everyone else to get into your pants.”

  “No,” I said. “Everyone else works just as hard as you do.”

  She seemed pleased with that answer, like I had promised her she would have her chance to touch me next time. “I at least hope I brought you pleasure, Mr. Mann.”

  “Trust me, Ms. Chen. I am quite pleasured this evening.”

  Sherman was soon at my door, informing me that Clyde awaited Natalie downstairs. I didn’t kiss her goodbye. I stayed on the edge of my bed, watching her saunter out of my chambers as if this had been a tryst between old friends and nothing more.

  I suppose Margot must have escorted Natalie downstairs, for Sherman was soon in my room, sunglasses off and demeanor dour.

  “I was hoping for a little privacy,” I said with a sigh. “I need a shower. No, you’re not invited.”

  That had been meant as a joke. Yet Sherman sat down beside me, his gravity sinking everything around me.

  “Does Brooke know about this?”

  “Know what?”

  “Don’t be smart with me. I just spent the past twenty-four hours facing the fact that you’re obsessed with your intern.”

  I licked my fingers – the ones that still tasted of Natalie – and smoothed down my hair. “No,” I said. “It’s bad enough that you know.”

  Sherman cracked his knuckles. It wasn’t threatening if you knew he only did that when rerouting frustration through his body. Frustration toward me, of course.

  “Erica…”

  “It’s not a big deal,” I insisted. “She signed the documents. Besides, she didn’t notice anything. I made sure she was thoroughly distracted.”

  He didn’t bite my bait. “She’s not necessarily the one I’m worried about.”

  “I’m fine.” My lips were rigid; my teeth bit with purpose. “It’s fine.”

  Sherman stood without sparing me another look. “I’ll be here for a little while longer to finish up paperwork. Don’t hesitate if you need anything.”

  “I won’t. I’m retiring for the evening.”

  I made good on that promise as soon as he was out of my chambers and I had locked the doors. Thanks to Sherman ruining my mood, however, I had to work twice as hard to conjure the feelings and sensations Natalie had offered when she was with me. I savored them on my way into the bathroom, my clothes coming off my body and hitting the floor.

  I pretended she was still with me as I entered my shower and stood beneath the hot water. After rinsing the sweat from my body, I leaned against the heated wall and imagined that I wasn’t alone. That I didn’t have to be alone to give myself pleasure.

  The
thing about fantasies… while they allow plenty of room for exploration, they also leave room for the more dangerous thoughts to creep in.

  It always starts innocently enough. I imagined what it would be like to kiss Natalie in my shower, her wet and naked body pressed against me and her hand stroking the part that most wanted attention. Instead, I had to do it. And when I touched myself, I had to adjust my fantasy to pretend Natalie knew she made love to a woman.

  Such a hearty fantasy allowed me to imagine it. Natalie grinding against me, her fingers in my pussy and her lips on my breasts – like how I had made love to her on my bed.

  Would she want to do that with me? Would she kiss and touch me with as much gusto as she would with the male vision she had of me?

  I came, but it was shallow. Because while I threw myself into the image of that amazing woman going at me like she couldn’t get enough of me, it was tainted with the horrible truth I couldn’t run away from.

  She’s not like that. She’ll hate you the moment she learns the truth. Just like Brooke almost jumped off a bridge in Paris when she found out you were a woman all along.

  You’ll never be man enough for any of them. You’ll never be enough as you are.

  You’ve been robbed of love. The possibility is gone.

  What even are you? What kind of freak are you? Are you a monster?

  Neither man nor woman. Both man and woman. A man in a female form. A repressed woman screaming to come out and be recognized as what she had always been.

  Did I want Natalie because I had been conditioned to want women? Was my attraction to her unreal? Was I broken beyond repair?

  Would anyone ever want the real me? If I could ever figure out what that was?

  I shut off the shower and stood in the steam for a long while. When I finally walked out, I didn’t bother to grab my towel or a robe. I went straight to my bed and collapsed in a pile of wet skin and hair, my genitals bare to the world and my breasts free from the constraints of my binder for the first time since I showered that morning.

  Exposed. Broken. A man had made love to Natalie Chen. A man had attracted her, seduced her, and given her the kiss of lust and love. It was his heart and his cock she thought about as she touched herself at night.

  I was a fraud.

  The photo frame was warm. I stared at the image of my brother and the little dead girl.

  Which one was I? Was I dead?

  Would either of us ever really be alive?

  Chapter 20

  ERICA

  Voices roused me from the depths of my subconscious. I didn’t know what time it was. I didn’t care.

  “Erica.” Sherman sounded so far away. What was he doing there? Didn’t he go home? Now what? His wife would have my head for keeping him away from home so much.

  “He’s been like this for an hour now.” Margot, also a million miles away, spoke with a kind of wariness I didn’t often hear in her clipped voice. “I’m not sure what we should do. Do we call…?”

  “Erica.” For one second, I recognized Sherman’s touch against my shoulders. Then it was gone, as if someone had yanked him away from me. “Are you okay? Snap out of it.”

  Oh. That’s what had happened to me. I was catatonic. Again.

  That happened more often than I would like to admit, but usually it only meant staying home for the day or having a heart-to-heart with Sherman before dragging my ass into work a few hours late. But, I hate to admit, being with Natalie and having old wounds refreshed did not help me that morning. I’m not even sure I ever fell asleep. I think I may have laid in my bed for so long that I merely… ceased to exist.

  “We must at least get some clothes on him,” Margot insisted. “Get him some decency.”

  “I’m trying to snap her out of it first.”

  They were not helping. My well-meaning staff and the way they effortlessly switched pronouns based on how they saw me would ruin me before I could do it to myself. Stop calling me a man. Stop calling me a woman. Did they know that was my problem? I was fucked. I was a monster. Broken. Spiritually battered until I didn’t know who to trust anymore. I couldn’t even trust myself. I should be allowed to die.

  It may have been a long time since I was last in a stupor like that, but even now, when I remember the darkness growing in my festering wounds, I shudder. It would be so easily to go back to that. So easy to drink away my pain, to down a bottle of pills, or lose myself in women who were paid to not give a fuck about what kind of body I had.

  It wouldn’t heal me. It would kill me. I wouldn’t care.

  “Erica!”

  There was almost nothing worse than hearing panic in Sherman’s voice. He cared for me too much. One day, my problems would send him to an early grave, and then who could watch over me? I didn’t pay him enough to deal with my issues.

  “What’s going on? Is he okay?”

  Brooke. It must have been late enough in the morning that they brought her in to help.

  There they were, three of the only people who had ever seen me naked, fretting over my bare body that I never bothered to cover after I got out of the shower.

  “What in the world happened?” Brooke.

  “I have no fucking clue. She was like this when Margot brought me in here.” Sherman.

  “I’ll leave you to it.” Margot. “I need to get back to work.”

  Both Sherman and Brooke attempted to get me to snap out of my catatonic state, but all I could do was slowly blink my eyes and bury my face in the crook of my arm. Brooke splashed water on me. Sherman attempted to lure me out of bed with my breakfast, left cold on a table. Finally, after Brooke rearranged some of my morning meetings, she announced she was calling the big guns.

  The helpful people from Yesterday’s River, a psychiatric facility built for and ran by my fellow wealthy assholes. A place all too familiar with my condition, as they loved to put it. I had already been there twice that year. The first time for two weeks, after I checked myself in when my former girlfriend broke up with me because I wouldn’t show her my dick. The second time was for a day, because I was overwhelmed with anxiety on the anniversary of the first time Brooke and I made love.

  Both times I checked myself in with the understanding I could leave whenever I wanted. This time? My psychiatrist was called to meet us there, so she could have the honors of inducting me into mental boot camp.

  I don’t remember going. I don’t remember the clothes Brooke put on my body. I don’t remember anything until a day had gone by and I sat up in an unknown bed, having to pee so badly that I almost knocked over an orderly on my way to the bathroom.

  ***

  Yesterday’s River was my home for most of that week. Brooke brought over changes of clothes and my toiletries. Every afternoon, she sat with me in the expansive, well-manicured gardens overlooking a koi pond stocked with the finest fish you had ever seen. Sometimes she held my hand in silence. Other times, she blabbered about work and her personal life, and I often wished she would shut up. Because those were the moments I heard her thanking her lucky star she never married this mess beside her.

  I wasn’t in prison. Or at least I didn’t feel like it. I may have been under the whim of my doctors and the therapists on site, but Yesterday’s River thrives on treating their patients like they’re at a luxury resort. I ate the same fine food my dietician insisted I needed. I had my choice of relaxing activities. My usual shortlist of trusted people was allowed to visit me anytime during the day. My room was private and stocked with my favorite amenities, including a clawfoot tub in the middle of a tropical scene. Birds chirped over the speakers. The scent of greenery filled the air.

  To this day, I don’t know how much it cost to stay there. It didn’t matter. I had the best insurance in the world, and the coffers to live there for the rest of my life. Sometimes, it felt like it was a necessity.

  Talking with my doctors and therapists during the mornings was supposed to help me heal, although I’m not sure what I was healing from. My psyc
hiatrist heavily suggested we try SSRIs again, but the last time I went on them (for a total of two years, jumping from one brand to another every six months) I was nigh malfunctioning because of the side effects. I was happy with my herbs and physical therapies, such as massage, acupuncture, and exercise, which I already fit in on a regular basis. But I agreed with the doctors and therapists that they couldn’t help me forever. There was a block in my head that prevented me from truly facing what made me want to die.

  Sorry. I mean my depression, because I’m told those are two different things.

  “I rescheduled your meeting with Sam Garrett,” Brooke said, as we “enjoyed” tea beneath a large elm tree overlooking the koi pond. The natural silence of the large garden allowed me to pretend that I was out in the wilderness instead of within the confines of an institution. “That was supposed to be today.” Her sigh made me jerk my head up. My baggy sweatshirt and jeans rustled against my body. For the past few days, I had worn only the most gender-neutral clothing that hid everything. No binders and no strap-ons, but you wouldn’t be able to tell when I walked or sat. Just because I didn’t wear a binder meant I wanted to be reminded of my tits every five minutes. “I’ve rearranged most of your schedule, but it would be fantastic if you could come back to work by Friday.”

  “Friday, huh?” I matched her sigh. “I’ll try.”

  Brooke softened her demeanor. “Your interns are worried about you.”

  Natalie. She must have meant Natalie, whom I had not seen or talked to since she left my room Sunday night.

  “You mean Ms. Chen.” Before Brooke could assume a more clandestine nature between the female intern and myself, I continued, “Because I doubt Mr. Webb has noticed my absence.”

  She wanly smiled. “Yes. Ms. Chen has been asking about you. She probably thinks she offended you enough on the trip that you refuse to come into the office.”