With a pharmaceutical magnate’s assassins hunting for him, David’s survival depends on living the life of Cindy for longer than expected. Can David suppress his macho instincts and play the feminine role long enough to escape the plot against him--even as the past begins to catch up to him? Welcome to season two of Constant in All Other Things!

Chapter One: David awakens to discover that all is not well. The Clinic may have saved his life in the aftermath of the assassin’s attack . . . but at what cost?

Author Notes follow at the end.

Constant in All Other Things 2
Chapter One
by
Fakeminsk ([email protected])
--check out tradingpostinn.blogspot.com--

“Friendship is constant in all other things
Save in the office and affairs of love:
Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues;
Let every eye negotiate for itself
And trust no agent.”
Much Ado About Nothing

Previously on Constant in All Other Things:

Both David Sanders, tough-guy womanizer, and his best friend Tom Smith see their boss, shady pharmaceutical magnate Jeremiah Steele, kill the son of a known mob boss. David decides to turn to the authorities and testifies in court. A failed assassination attempt forces the woman assigned to protect him, Agent K, to relocate to a safe house. There she convinces David that his best chance of survival is to disguise himself as a woman. David reluctantly does so and adopts the identity of Cindy Long. They flee to the Asklepios Clinic, a secluded medical facility that promises safety; on the way they shake off their pursuer, turncoat agent Fosters. David and K bond on the road trip, though he wonders at times where her loyalties really lie; and they share details of their past.

At the clinic David settles into the roll of Cindy and several weeks pass. She helps another patient, Harry Longman, an aging rock star David idolized as a teen, and soon after K returns ready to relocate David into a new, male life. Just as he prepares to abandon Cindy forever, Agent Fosters catches up with him. David reveals that his past contains its own violent secrets and the two fight. He survives the struggle but is left critically injured.

***

My eyes snapped open.

Jagged peaks and swirled plains between, chaotic stucco whorls: an unfamiliar white landscape met my eyes. I blinked, and again, and slowly the view resolved into a ceiling. I was lying on a strange bed in an unknown room. I took a deep breath, held it and then quietly released and wondered: Where the hell was I?

A sudden instinct to lash out--blindly, wildly--without even knowing why seized hold. Inexplicable fear surged through every fibre of my being. Unaware of my surroundings I still felt an incredible desire to flee, to escape . . . what? Something was horribly wrong. I tried to sit up and my body flopped back to the bed and something dazedly felt horribly wrong. My arm strained against some kind of binding and I blinked numbly at the sight of my wrist fettered to a bedpost by leather restraints.

What the fu--what was going on? And my wrist, that hand that squirmed uselessly in its bondage . . . wasn’t right. My arm looked too small somehow. Dainty. Colour flashed from my fingertips--pink and glossy. Cindy liked pink, didn’t she? That’s right: Cindy. I was Cindy; or at least I was pretending to be. Stupid fucking plan. Didn’t keep me safe from Steele or from Fosters, did it?

But I was still alive.

“Easy, Cindy,” a voice called to me. “Everything is okay.” Soft, motherly.

My head whipped around to the other side, abandoning the disconcerting view of my hand. Hair fell across my eyes and I tried to brush it back and grunted in anger and frustration as the restraints held me back. Agent K sat next to my bed. Momentarily, something that looked suspiciously like concern or regret haunted her face; but the moment my eyes found her, the usual neutral expression--the one that perpetually bordered on vague annoyance--settled into place.

“Wh--?” I tried to speak but it came out a hoarse croak.

“Slowly,” K told me, leaning forward. “Try to avoid talking. You have been through quite an ordeal.” There was a surreal moment of dejavu as she hovered at my side. Only slowly coming to my sense, I watched numbly as she emptied a syringe into an IV snaking to my arm. Soon after a sharp, metallic flooded my mouth.

“What is--?” A little better this time. Less froglike croak and more drunken slur.

“A relaxant,” Agent K reassured me. “Nothing more. There is a lot to explain, Cindy. Most of it you are not going to want to hear.” As she spoke she began to undo the restraints holding me to the bed. As she freed my wrist I went to raise my arm but found it leaden and useless. In fact, I very quickly became pleasantly numb.

“These were only to ensure that you did yourself no harm as you recovered,” she said, releasing my other wrist, and my hand flopped limply to the mattress. I felt strangely content. All kinds of fears and misgivings danced at the periphery, but they were shadowy and indistinct, far away and easy to ignore. I knew it was whatever drug K had just pumped into me but couldn’t care less. I was perfectly happy to lie in that bed for just a little longer as she fussed about. There was the faintest sting as she pulled the IV from my arm, distant and easily ignored.

K pulled me into a sitting position in the bed, placing a pillow behind my back. From far away came the slightest of worries: she’s a strong woman, the voice suggested, but she shouldn’t be able to move you that easily. She pulled her chair to the far end of the bed and sat facing me, looking very strict and serious in a dark suit. Her legs crossed at the knee, severe in heavy dark hose emerging from a slim knee-length skirt. This wasn’t a soccer-mom taking care of her daughter, nor was it the Katherine the doctor knew. It wasn’t even the beautiful, broken woman I had mixed and confused feelings for. This was K the secret agent, and something in the way her eyes glittered darkly as they slid across my body briefly pierced through my content fog and sent a hot stab of fear up my spine. Her gaze was hungry, I thought, and cold, but almost unwilling so; and behind it all I imagined lurked a hidden sadness. Never had a felt so vulnerable and exposed before her.

Passively, my eyes wandered across what I could see of my own form. I didn’t move my head--that would have taken too much effort--but looking towards K saw one foot peeking out from beneath cheerfully coloured bed sheets. It was my foot but I felt only vaguely aware of it, couldn’t move it; the shiny pink toenails were nearly mesmerizing.

“Cindy,” K said. “Try to focus on my voice, Cindy.”

With some effort I abandoned my toe in favour of what she was saying.

“How do you feel, Cindy?”

“Don--,” I tried to speak, but my tongue felt thick and stubborn. I carefully swallowed and tried again. “Don’t. Call me that.”

One edge of her mouth twisted upwards in a tight-lipped smile. “You had better get used to the sound of your own name,” Agent K said. “You will have to continue using it for some time.”

It’s a testament to the strength of her drugs that I didn’t leap out of that bed right then and there. Nor did I feel an immediate panic, though fear certainly leapt closer at her words. An angry throb behind my right eye--that’s all I felt as she continued.

“You have been unconscious for nearly two months now, Cindy. Two months! But in that time, nothing less than a miracle has taken place. A miracle, Cindy. When we found you on the floor of the clinic you were all but dead. Your heart had stopped. Your injuries were . . . they were terrible . . . I thought you were dead, David.”

Both her countenance and voice briefly wavered.

“Cindy. It was my fault. I accept this. The disguise and the Clinic were not enough, I misjudged Steele’s determination to find you and the skill of his agents; I should not have left you alone. My failure almost cost you your life.” She shook her head, her hand drifting unconsciously to her side. “It nearly cost me mine as well.”

Flinty steel scored her voice as she continued. “But I will not fail again. You will live, Cindy, no matter what the cost. However, the situation is worse now than before your convalescence. Steele is closer than ever to finding you.”

Agent K sighed. “I spoke to him, Cindy, on the phone we found clutched in your hand. Briefly, but in that time I glimpsed the depth of this man’s obsession with you. It borders on madness, I think, and he will stop at nothing to find you.

“You gave your location away. He knew where to find you and your body was broken. It was a miracle you survived one attack,”--and I heard the curiosity in her voice, the unasked question as to how I defended myself against a professional assassin--“but with arms and legs broken, a punctured lung, shattered ribs and a concussion? You were defenceless. You needed months of bed rest to heal, possibly a year or more of physiotherapy to regain full mobility. In the meantime Steele would be searching for you.”

At its own sullen pace and despite the relaxant K had administered, my brain was slowly waking up. Slowly I became aware of my surroundings, of the details of the bed I lay on and the walls around me. Light peaking through peach curtains, the faint sound of birds chirping, the cries of children playing outside: somebody’s bedroom, cheerfully, somewhat femininely decorated. Another safe house?

K continued to speak and I tried to focus on her words again. Where was she going with all this? “The Clinic is small, Cindy: under two hundred patients with minimal turnover; and nearly as many staff. Steele has already shown his determination and ability to hack into the Clinic’s network and bypass their security system, to directly infiltrate the institute with his own men. He has the time and the resources; patient names, staff listings, stock orders--Steele may have all of these. Meanwhile, we could not risk moving you. You had to remain at the Clinic and heal. And by the time you could be moved--Steele could have a small army of his people following the movements of everyone coming and going from Asklepios.”

Her shoulders slumped and for a moment she looked exhausted. She hung her head, pinching at the bridge of her nose. When she looked up, her eyes fixed me with an almost angry glare. “What choice did I have, Cindy? By the time we could move you--the movement of an unlisted male patient would not have gone unnoticed.

“So I made a choice. Cindy was already a patient at the Clinic. She had been there nearly a month already with a file reaching even further back. Steele was still looking for a man. But Cindy . . . is female, and if Steele’s agents came looking I thought it best to give them precisely that: a woman. Someone who could not be the man they were looking for.”

The slow, angry throb behind my eye? At her words it became a savage lancing pain that made my eyes water. The pain quickly subsided to a hot presence in the back of my head, like an itch in the brain I could not reach. I wanted to cry out, protest what she was saying--but barely managed a low moan. Strong emotions were hard to maintain in my state, slipping through my grasp like a chilling mist.

Perhaps she mistook my pain for sadness, thought my watering eyes were tears. “Cindy--Cindy! I am sorry,” she continued, her voice insistent. “This is for your own protection.”

I forced my head to loll forward. Saw the bed sheets pulled up to my waist. My arms lying limply, thin and dainty, and the painted fingernails that shimmered in the sunlight. Skin tinted a pearly blue by the gauzy babydoll, and the twin mounds that pushed out, rounded and firm, against the flimsy fabric. And beneath the covers, below my waist . . . my God, she couldn’t have. . . !

“Cindy!” she said, loudly. “Yes, the changes you see are far more than the simple prosthetics and makeup of before.” She was speaking faster now, forcefully carrying me along with her words. “Those breasts you see are real. Your waist is smaller and your hips are wider. No one would doubt you are a woman now, Cindy.

“But this remains nothing more than a disguise! A very real and convincing one, but nevertheless only external trappings, a cover for your masculinity--and therefore temporary.” Her hand gestured towards my crotch. “You remain completely male where it counts. The surgical changes, everything else . . . is reversible, Cindy. We originally planned on three weeks. The plan has changed. Circumstances have changed. Now we must plan on three months, or even longer if necessary.

“You are being watched. Not constantly, of course, but frequently and in secret. And of this you can be certain: any suspicious behaviour, anything that suggests that the young woman I see before me is really a twenty-five year old man, will be reported back to Steele. And were he to discover you identity?” She shook her head. “I shudder to think what he would do to you, Cindy, especially if he found you in your current state.”

I wanted to reply; fuck, did I ever want to say something, move, protest--but all I managed was a useless flopping of my arm and an angry twitch of the foot.

Agent K stood, pulling the chair out of my line of sight. She continued to speak even as she disappeared from view. “You may not agree with the choice I made. To be blunt: I do not care.” She reappeared at my side, leaning over me, her features coldly impassive. “I told you from the very beginning that I would keep you alive no matter what the cost. Making you into Cindy seemed the best way at the time, and now there is no choice but to stick to that plan. Steele’s resources are not infinite--eventually he will have to turn his attention elsewhere, confront his other enemies. Then, when it is safe--we can finally put Cindy to rest.”

She walked slowly alongside the bed, her hand tracing the length of my body through the thin sheets that covered me. I felt her touch and my lower body tingled slightly, though movement still felt monumentally difficult. Standing once again at the foot of the bed, she took a long, lingering look at me. There was something final in the way she gazed at me, as if she were burning the sight before her into memory.

“This is your new life Cindy,” she said. “This is your new home. Perhaps not the relocation you expected--but if you live it honestly, genuinely--if you do everything you can to truly become Cindy Long--you will be safe; and once you are safe was can finally return you to a male life. I will be in contact when necessary, but once again my presence is a liability. If it becomes necessary to contact you I will do so through indirect means.”

She hesitated, and added: “In all likelihood, we will not meet again until this is over,” she said. Her mouth opened as if to add something, reconsidered; she turned away and walked out of sight. I heard a door open.

“Katherine!” I called out, my voice hoarse and weak.

Her rhythmic steps faltered. There was a long pause. I knew she hadn’t left the room yet, that she hovered uncertainly at the threshold. “Yes?” she asked, her voice weary.

“I trusted you,” I said.

I waited for an answer that didn’t come. When I finally gathered the strength to shift my head, it was only to glimpse her rapidly retreating back, the sound of her steps fading into the darkness beyond the door. From far away, it seemed, another door shut, and I was alone.

***

I saw my first tranny a couple of years ago.

We’d just finished off a big project at NeoPharm, back when I was at the low end of the corporate ladder and just starting my ascent. We’re talking many late nights here, eighty-hour weeks, lots of stress and staffroom dramas. When it was all over, euphoria swept through the whole team. This was especially true for a few of us who, like Tom and I, were looking at promotions afterwards. It was also this one guy’s 25th birthday, Barry, so when we all decided to celebrate he had a big say in where we went.

“Let’s try something different,” Barry said. He was one of the cleverest people on my team, with a real knack for thinking “outside the box” and for “shifting paradigms”, as these bastards like to say. There were staffroom rumours that he had one hell of a secret social life as well. Personally I’d always taken him for a pillow-biter, but so what? As long as he didn’t try that shit with me, we were cool; and if I caught him ogling my ass once or twice, well . . . whatever. I’m a good-looking guy, you know? There was an undercurrent of arrogance to everything he did, but grating as it could be at times I wasn’t going to hate him for it. It’s not like I’m all that humble myself. He was damn good at his job and made us all look good, and that was enough for me. “I know this club downtown, it’s very exclusive.”

So Barry set it up and there were about twenty of us, a real mixed bunch of guys and girls all dressed up real snazzy, who showed up downtown that evening. We walked up to the entrance of ‘The Pink Room’ and yeah . . . we knew we were up for a different kind of night. The woman who met us at the door was stunningly beautiful, perfectly made-up and shimmering in a crimson evening gown that clung to her every curve. Those clothes were almost enough to distract everyone from the fact that she wasn’t exactly a ‘she’, if you know what I mean. I wasn’t fooled . . . but it was a close call, let me tell you. That dude was unnervingly foxy.

I’d never seen a transvestite before--that I knew of, anyway--let alone been to that kind of club. Not exactly my kind of thing. Like I said before, I’d had a strange childhood and it kind of stunted my social development a bit. Even though I’d been first kissed by a boy at the age of fourteen, I still didn’t really figure out what the whole ‘gay’ thing was until much later. And now this shit? It never occurred to me that some guys might prefer to wear women’s clothing. I just didn’t understand it. The thought of some guy reaming another is disgusting, but apparently you’re just born that way and that’s that. Some people are born beautiful, some are dumb as rock . . . some guys are born with a predilection for cock. If that’s the way it is I couldn’t see a reason to make a big deal out of it.

But clothes? It didn’t seem to me that you could be born wanting to wear a skirt and heels, so I couldn’t see what the whole point was. I couldn’t help but eyeball these scrawny dudes flittering about in sexy waitress outfits as we settled in, and wonder what the hell it was all about. Then I saw Barry at the other end of the table noticing me noticing these cross-dressers, and he gave me this knowing smirk and wink, and that left me all kinds of annoyed.

As the cabaret show that night started up, I watched in amazement and confusion. All the girls on stage were guys--and damn if they weren’t really good at what they did. There were coarse and rude bits, sure, but the dancing was spot on and the routines imaginative. It made for an entertaining night. The booze continued to flow like water. Some of those guys were damn fine lookers as well, curvy in the all right places, wiggling and prancing about confidently in their clicking, breakneck heels, and that was kind of weird to consider. The kicker came with the climax of the show: out came Barry himself, vamping as Marilyn Munroe, singing a breathy ‘Happy Birthday’ to himself.

As the night wound down my colleagues drifted home or off to the next nightspot, and I eventually found myself slumped in a chair next to Barry. He’d switched into something more appropriate--a pleated tartan skirt, a tight silvery halter top, real chic clubgirl stuff--that left him looking really androgynous like, and it was just the two of us from our group left as the club started to wind down for the night. I was completely off my face and there was still no mistaking Barry for a real girl--but damn if he wasn’t looking better by the pint.

“You were right,” I said, clinking my glass to his. “This was different.”

“Have a good night?” He smiled, his painted lips glistening in the dim light. Connecting this girl with the guy who wrote PR shit for our website was messing with my head.

“It wasn’t what I expected,” I answered.

“I bet,” he said. There was a faint glimmer of worry in his eyes, heightened by shimmering eyeshadow. “Listen, David . . . this isn’t going to make things weird for us at work, is it?”

I frowned. “Why would it?” I answered, and meant it. “I already figured you for a queer.”

His eyes narrowed in annoyance. “I’m not homosexual.”

“Sure you’re not.” I smiled. “You just like to wear women’s clothing.”

“That’s right.”

I waited for the punch line but none came. Barry watched me with a curious half-smile. “But--”

“Let’s just say it has more to do with identity than with sexuality.”

“Huh?”

“You should try it,” he said. “You’d pass easily.”

I nearly coughed up my beer. “Excuse me?”

Barry shrugged. “The height’s right. You’re way too muscular but I’m betting you’re small-boned.” He made small gestures taking in my arms, my face. “You’ve got beautiful features. Your cheekbones are killer, and those eyes! You’re gorgeous, David--”

“Whoa. Easy there, buddy. Not interested.”

He sighed. “I’m not coming on to you. I told you I’m not gay. I’m not even bi. I’ve got a girlfriend. . . .” His smile grew and turned wicked. “Actually, I’ve got quite a few. You’d be surprised how many girls find this kind of thing sexy. I probably get more action than you do.”

I laughed. “I doubt it.”

“Do you?” Amusement danced in his eyes. “Tell you what. I’m just getting started. Hang out with me tonight. There’s more out there than cheesy pick-up bars, David, it’s not all bankers and lawyers and corporate bullshit climbers.” I’d suspected for a while but knew right then what Barry really thought of me. That arrogance he carried at work stemmed from disdain. I was one of many in the grey army of working stiffs; he thought I was boring, a hollow shell of a man lost to the corporate lifestyle. His secret life gave him depth and meaning he knew I lacked. His attitude made me smile.

“Follow me and I’ll show you a side of the city you never imagined existed,” he said, and grinned. “And who knows? I might just get you into a skirt yet.”

Well, Barry proved absolutely right about one thing that night: I am small-boned. But he never got me into a skirt. Agent K would be the first to manage that. After she left, control of my body returned faster than the return of my senses. It’s the only way to explain how I was eventually able to slowly sit up on the bed, lethargically throwing my feet over the edge and pulling myself upright, without immediately collapsing again in terror.

Because what I felt and saw as I sat up? There was enough there to send me gibbering back into unconsciousness. The breasts were the most immediate: the way gravity tugged at them, the insistent weight and counter-sway to my every movement. I mean, sure, I’d had those appliances attached for three weeks before fucking Fosters battered the damn things off my body . . . but now I knew just how far removed those prosthetics were from the real thing.

The real thing? How the hell could I have real breasts? I slowly raised my hand to cup them, controlling the limb from miles away, but the colour that flashed at the tip captured my attention and I brought them before my face, slowly turning my palm and wiggling my fingers before my eyes. I could barely recognize my own hand. How could these refined digits be mine, these polished, shaped nails? My eyes drifted past a diminutive wrist up thin arms and finally to small shoulders, before falling back once again to that healthy bosom.

I watched in fascination as those breasts lifted and fell with every breath, faster, and suddenly blood was pounding in my ears and my chest was heaving and I was sucking in vast gulps of air and from very far away I realized I was starting to hyperventilate; and then I wasn’t so far away anymore and. . . .

What did they do to me?

Surging to my feet I staggered into the centre of the room. The room tilted and swayed crazily around me. A flash of light--a mirror--I stumbled unsteadily towards it and gripped the wall to keep from collapsing. My legs shook uncontrollably as I stared blindly into the full-length mirror. Shaking my head brought momentary clarity. I saw myself in fragments, my eyes dancing wildly across the form revealed to me:

Soft, sloping shoulder, their slenderness accentuated by the delicate strap of the babydoll that whispered against my thigh with every movement. Small, slightly upturned nose and the full lips beneath, glistening and soft. The dark, round circle of areolas. The nubs that pushed out rudely from their center. My penis, hanging ashamedly behind its silky blue veil. Blonde-brown hair that fell across my eye and flicked across my cheek. Narrow and weak chin--cute--but not mine. Sleek and lean, smooth hairless calves that nearly gleamed, bereft of hard lines of either muscle or definition. Again those tits, high and firm on the chest, rounded and large--too large--on a narrowed frame.

My legs went weak, wobbled and gave out beneath me. I fell to the floor. The room started to spin. The reflection . . . that girl in the mirror . . . wasn’t me; I couldn’t find myself in my own reflection and this had to be some kind of dream, a nightmare, hallucination, this kind of shit doesn’t happen it real life. . . .

With desperate strength I lunged forward and gripped the mirror by both sides. This wasn’t going to beat me. I was stronger than this . . . this plot, this whatever it was, being inflicted on me. From where I lay on the floor I forced myself to stare into that mirror and find myself. The eyes gave it to me. Those were my eyes--eyelashes longer, eyebrows all but plucked away into a delicate arch--but still mine, green eyes flecked with grey. They were softer and more innocent looking than before, somehow wider and more expressive; but in their depths I saw those familiar hints of pain and loss.

“Deep breath,” I muttered, staring into myself. “Release.” Those massive breasts tugged at my chest as I leaned forward, pulling me down. Every gulp of air I sucked down roared in my ears and I began to feel faint. “Breathe!” I hissed between clenched teeth, my hands gripping the mirror’s edge so tightly the glass vibrated. Hair tickled my bared neck. “Don’t lose it.” Green, with grey flecks. My eyes; not my face but those were my eyes; this is me. This is me staring into the mirror.

I am David Sanders.

I eventually pulled away, remaining on the floor. The girl in the mirror followed every movement. I wanted to turn away but refused to do so. I had to confront her, see who she was--not in broken fragments but as a whole, as a fully cast person--not just as a reflection but as my reflection.

The girl in the mirror was both the Cindy I knew and a complete stranger. There’d always been a lot of David lurking beneath Cindy’s heavy foundation and clever makeup and bodyshaping undergarments. Now when I looked in the mirror I saw more of Cindy and very little of David. The alteration was subtle but profound: this new Cindy showed none of the rough edges or strong features that she had before. Her chin was small, the nose delicate. My once thin lips were full and held a playful, slight curve that seemed to naturally rest in a half-smile. There was an overall youthfulness--even childishness--to her face that wiped away any and every masculine trace. Her light brown hair was shorter than the previous wig but long enough to brush her shoulders, with a slight upward curl at the tips. Small, well-formed ears peeked out, each one glittering with a trio of golden studs. Light makeup, apparently K’s final motherly gift, gently accentuated her natural beauty.

Her face had a deeply unsettling effect on me, but the body nearly unmade me. Slowly, studiously--a façade that barely hid the hollowness I felt--I studied the shape unveiled before me and felt the room begin to tilt and roll vertiginously at the realization of just how much they had stolen from me.

Those . . . bastards, those god-forsaken mother-fucking bastards! How could this be . . . me? Two months. Only two months to undo a decade of discipline and excruciatingly hard work . . . countless hours of running and weights, workouts in the gym and training in the dojo . . . stripped away. How? Flimsy lingerie accentuated how once strong arms were now slender and smooth, hard pectorals melted away beneath soft breasts, legs turned lithe rather than powerful. My stomach remained taut, but no longer held the masculine definition of before. Where once I needed the heavy boning of a corset to create curves, this new shape held them naturally.

I was weak. Everything about this girl was soft and weak and defenceless. Staring aghast at my new reflection provided a sudden glimpse of what could’ve been. Take away the breasts, the tapered waist and rolling hips and there was the hint of a young boy, a scrawny runt who never met Sakura, never became a real man, a wimp who never learned to kill.

Too much. Where I should have found a battered and scarred male stood a supple young woman, healthy and whole, beautiful, innocent. This woman--this girl--was me? This girl with a face I scarcely recognized? This impossible body, powerless, delicate even: a victim.

Too much: I fell away from myself, frantically clutching the floor, stability, my world spinning away, tits swaying obscenely as I shakily struggled to rise on all fours. My torso heaved, and again, and I gagged as an empty stomach tried to expel the terrible fear that squeezed and poisoned my gut. Bile spattered the carpet and the edge of the mirror, yellowish green.

Rolling away and with eyes squeezed shut I curled into a tight ball, legs pulled to my chest. I buried my face into my knees. My thoughts were incoherent, racing wildly. Something terrifying and powerful broke lose within and I felt a shuddering sob rise up through my ribs. My eyes grew wet. I stuffed the edge of my hand into my mouth and bit down nearly hard enough to break skin, stifling the howl that threatened to tear loose. I wasn’t going to cry. Not for this. I was a man and stronger than this. Deep breaths. Force down the fear. Take control. Remember Sakura. Focus.

How long I squatted like that, half-naked in a strange bedroom, shaking and lost, repeating snippets of lessons like a mantra, I couldn’t tell you. As much as I tried to detach myself from my own body, from the physicality of this new femininity, reality would not be denied. I felt hyperaware of every twitch and shiver of my smoother skin, how pulling the babydoll at my waist tugged at my shoulders; and the press of my knees against those soft pillows on my chest. Every shift of new proportions nearly destroyed me. The overwhelming rush of emotions threatened to tear my mind apart.

Betrayal: I trusted K! I had trusted her and she had used that trust to twist my body into this caricature of revenge on an old, dead lover. I had trusted her and thought her a friend and . . . dammit, I had trusted that bitch!

Loss: everything I had built up and tried to be these past five years, gone in a scant few weeks, wasted and thrown away for nothing--my life, my strength, my friends. Every effort to leave behind a violent childhood undone as I slept.

Fear: nearly mind-numbing, at what I had become, the kind of life this body forced me into, the seeming permanency of it all.

Gradually my trembling subsided and the mental torrent quieted down, leaving in its wake a single, distinct thought pure and strong. It grounded me to the present. Gave me the strength to slowly uncurl and stand on weak legs and find myself in the mirror a final time. The woman in the glass was small and soft and weak, but her eyes blazed like newly tempered steel.

I would be revenged on them all.

***

I lost myself in the sounds of my new home. I sat at the edge of my bed, staring unseeingly at the floor and my mind absently followed the aural ebb and flow. The earlier cry of children playing faded as the light from the open window drifted slowly across the carpeted floor, turned red and crept up the far wall. There came the sound of a lawn being mowed and from far away the sound of a dog barking. The occasional car passed. With the dark came a new set of bird cries and anxious chirping, but as the light finally faded and the room grew dim, those sounds left as well. I thought I heard the sound of a man’s voice raised in anger, a woman’s retaliatory shout, the cry of a baby--all muffled, coming through the wall. Eventually I sat in silence and in darkness.

My stomach grumbled.

With a sigh I rose from the bed and stood half-blind in the middle of the room. I couldn’t just sit here anymore. I’d go crazy. I’d been there before--after Katherine died--I retreated into myself and when I returned was no longer quite right anymore. It took a long time to recover from that. The trick was to keep moving. Do things to keep the mind distracted from what was going on, too busy to notice how fucked up things really were. Routine: that was the key.

Agent K said this was my new home; fine. The first thing to do then was to explore. A light breeze tickled my bared shoulders and raised goose bumps across my cleavage. I sighed. No, the first order of the day was to get out of this goddamn scrap of lace and into something sensible.

A cheap lamp next to the bed gave some light to see by. There wasn’t much to the room. The bed was a double, the sheets a cheery yellow, the bedspread fluffy and pale grey, decorated with vivid slashes of red. There was a stuffed pink-and-white bear on the bed--can you fucking believe it? A full-length mirror, short bookcase haphazardly stacked with paperbacks, and a solid but battered dresser finished off the room and left it crowded, but comfortably so, cozy instead of cramped, the bright colours and soft touches adding a warm, feminine dimension. It was most definitely a girl’s room; it was, I realized with a small shiver, now my room.

A quick search through the dresser and closet uncovered a large but not excessive selection of shoes and clothes. Some I recognized from my wardrobe at the Clinic. To my surprise the clothes weren’t outrageously feminine, though some very girly things skulked among the sensible clothes.

The babydoll pooled around my feet with a silky whisper and I kicked the damn thing into the back of the closet. Slipping into a pair of loose grey jogging pants and a baggy sweatshirt, I tried to ignore the pendulous swaying of my boobs that accompanied the act of getting dressed. At the back of my mind lurked the unnerving realization that I wouldn’t be going around without a bra very often, and believe me--that wasn’t something I wanted to deal with at the moment. I shoved that thought firmly out of mind.

Still, I couldn’t avoid a reflected glimpse of myself as I stepped away from the closet: cute, tiny girl snuggling into the comfort of oversized casual clothes. Christ, but I looked like a sexy schoolgirl, slouching around her dorm room on a lazy Sunday afternoon. There were far too many things I could not avoid, each clambering for attention as I haltingly stepping into this new life: the renewed difficulty of doing anything with long nails, the enhanced sensuousness of every inch of freshly shorn flesh, and the ridiculous incongruity of my cock intermittently slapping my sleek thigh. I gripped the doorframe and took a deep, steadying breath and forced my doubts and fears away. Bare feet padded softly on the thin carpet as I stepped out of Cindy bedroom and explored my new home.

A cursory first walkthrough damn well didn’t take very long, I can damn well assure you of that. Compared to my old condo this place was a cardboard box. A quick glimpse out a window revealed that I now lived in a high rise, probably about a dozen floors up. I didn’t recognize any of the buildings scattered across the night sky cityscape, but what I saw suggested a small city rather than a sprawling metropolis. I briefly wondered where I now lived, whether I was in the same city--if I was even in the same country. As every breath and move reminded me of the reality of my form, no longer did anything seem impossible.

Bathroom, kitchen, spare room and lounge: this was my new world, bordered by thin walls and cheap flooring, and filled with used or inexpensive furniture. In a daze I fell back on sofa. Tall vertical blinds, peach-coloured but greying at the edges, swayed with the wind reluctantly admitted by the open patio doors behind. A narrow balconette looked out across the city. A short coffee table filled the empty space between the sofa and an old battered plasma screen TV hung on the wall opposite. A small 9x11 picture frame, bright red and plastic, grudgingly caught my attention. I leaned over and picked it up.

The girl in the picture stood on one leg, the other thrown up in an impromptu barefoot kick. A female friend standing near did the same. They were laughing and tossing their hair in the wind, arms wrapped around each other’s waist. Sunlight glittered in their happy eyes. Both were wearing bikinis and behind them brilliantly blue surf rolled up the beach.

The first girl, the one wearing a yellow string bikini with her healthy bosom nearly overflowing their cups, was me. This happy young thing, prancing half-naked on some sun-kissed foreign beach . . . was me. Me! My grip tightened on the frame until the frame creaked and I placed it back on its stand. It fell over with a clatter and fell to the floor face up. The happy eyes of Cindy followed me as I looked away.

Suddenly, homey touches all over the apartment drew my eyes: the photo collage hanging on the wall, the framed pictures along the hall or perched on shelves or stand all over the place: friends on girls’ night out, girls at a high school prom, elegant gown, beach parties, basement get-togethers, drunken laughter, all caught on film, proudly and happily displayed and in nearly all of them Cindy’s grinning face, smiling, made-up, pulling a silly look, in this one gazing serious into the camera, in that one. . . .

Kissing a boy, her arms around his neck, his arms at her waist.

I closed my eyes against a sudden bout of dizziness. Photo manipulation. If I looked closely maybe I’d find tell-tale touches of digital trickery. Maybe I wouldn’t. Maybe K was that good, or maybe I’d been in some drugged-up half-pickled state as they played dress-up with me and captured these shots; maybe there’d once been a real Cindy and they’d made me look like her and. . . .

The urge to vomit again was nearly overwhelming and I took several more deep breaths to settle down once again. When I opened my eyes I finally noticed the bottle of white wine on the coffee table, waiting with a single glass and an opener. The bottle was wrapped with a bow and had a note attached. I picked up the bottle--painfully aware of how much heavier it seemed--and read the note.

“Good luck Cindy!” it said, in a strong but sloppy handwriting. “From everyone at the Clinic, may this help with a speedy recovery.” Beneath it was signed, “Your friend, Scooter.”

I began to shake once again as I sat there in this sorry excuse of a room, in this poorly decorated prison. I very slowly reached for the bottle opener. The old-fashioned screw opener made getting even that fucking cork out a more difficult struggle than it should’ve been, bringing a brief burn to my arm, but eventually I dropped back into the sofa, cradling a glass of Chablis in my well-manicured hand. Gazing into the amber drink I released one of the deepest groans of my life.

God, I needed this drink. At the same time, how could I trust it to not be drugged? Of course, if Scooter wanted to get at me there were hundreds of ways to do it that I couldn’t avoid: in the air again, through the water supply, while I was sleeping, in my food . . . the bastards could be watching me right now. There could be a camera in the TV opposite, watching my every movement, or in the light fixtures or behind the mirror or. . . . You enjoying yourselves, you fucks? Getting your goddamn pervert thrills ogling all this T&A you’ve given me?

I knocked back the glass in a single long draught. Fuck you, Scooter, I thought. Fuck all of you. I poured myself another glass and settled deeper into the sofa, legs spread comfortably. The wine spread comforting warmth through my stomach, which helped settle me somewhat.

What if K was telling the truth? What if, as absurd as it seemed, she genuinely thought this was my best chance at survival? In her sick little mind, twisting my body into this humiliating prison might actually seem justified; she might honestly believe she was doing this for my own good. The thought wasn’t very appealing, because it meant that outside these walls and beyond that door, Steele’s assassins still lurked. More men like Fosters might still be hunting me. . . .

Yeah, like K said: being caught by Steele while I looked like this? I’d rather die.

If she was lying though . . . yeah, that’s thought wasn’t very goddamn appealing either. Because that meant one of two things: either she was totally insane and acting out some twisted revenge against me and somehow had the full backing of the Clinic; or she was working for Steele.

I had to put the wine glass down. If that was true . . . God, I should’ve killed the bitch when I had the chance, back at the hotel after we first met Fosters. I could’ve just walked away then and there. Called in a few favours from some old friends and taken my chances. Instead I’d trusted her. No; I’d done more than just trust her. I’d fallen for the cunt. Fallen hard and actually thought she was a friend. God, how could I’ve been so stupid? How many times? How many times would I be betrayed before I learned that you couldn’t trust anyone in this fucked up world?

But Fosters had been looking for her. He told me his partner--that other agent shadowing him, the woman--was taking care of K even as he beat the shit out of me. Hovering over me this morning, she favoured her side, a barely healed injury . . . if she was working for Steele, why would his assassins try to kill her?

I poured myself another glass of wine. Puzzling this through wasn’t going to get me anywhere at the moment. Right now, I had to take it one thing--one day--minute by minute--at the time. Survive the immediate; if I wasn’t crazy within the hour I’d tackle the next one, and hopefully I wouldn’t have front dived off the balcony to the concrete waiting below by then.

I nearly snorted wine out my nose at the thought. Yeah, right! As if I’d ever give these bastards the satisfaction of my suicide. Goddamn butchers and psychos. They’d find me a far harder nut to crack than that. Another large gulp of wine and I snorted again, and then nearly laughed out loud. I stifled the release by clamping my mouth shut but too late. Wine dribbled out my mouth and down my chin. I squeaked and suddenly collapsed into giggles. The sound was bubbly and feminine--my throat, my voice--and suddenly that seemed outrageously funny as well and I laughed out loud. Everywhere I looked presented something that sparked off another peal of giggles and laughs. The absurdity of it all. This home. This body. My life.

I laughed until my sides hurt. Hugging myself tightly, arms crossed beneath tits that jiggled with every chuckle, I laughed until I was blinded with tears. I laughed as the tears coursed down my cheeks and spotted my sweater and my voice grew hoarse. My voice caught in my throat and twisted and what emerged was a moan, and suddenly instead of laughter I was wracked with great sobs that tore violently through the entirety of my body. I sucked in a deep, shuddering breath. My howl of outrage and helplessness resonated through the room. The empty glass shattered across the far wall. I grabbed the bottle and drowned my girlish weeping by sculling what remained of the wine. The empty bottle dropped from my hand with a dull thud. I couldn’t stop crying.

This absolutely pathetic weakness overwhelming me pushed me into further feminine snivelling. I could picture myself, my scrawny frame flung across the sofa, clutching at the fabric desperately, bosom heaving with every sob, every cry, shirt wet with tears, weak mewling catching in my throat with each gasp of breath, exhaustion overtaking me: how maudlin. How pathetic. How weak.

As I slowly dropped into a dark and dreamless sleep a single thought haunted my thoughts: maybe they’d given me the body I deserve.

***

Continues in Chapter 02