Open Your Heart
by Abigail Drew

Chapter Two

“Bicycle bicycle bicycle, I want to ride my bicycle!” Drew sang as he rode along, taking his daily ten. “Bicycle —” just then the singing was interrupted — though the music he was singing to could still be faintly heard from the multimedia phone clipped inside his shirt to his bra — by the screech of tires as a car rapidly slowed, and then honked at him. The passenger window rolled down, and the universal signal of disrespect appeared before Drew’s face. “Get over yourself! I’m right where I’m supposed to be, you gotta problem, take it up with the government!” Drew yelled back as the car squealed its tires when it accelerated too fast whilst departing. “Friggen morons,” he muttered as he cranked his small gears up another sprocket.

The road had evened out a bit, so with fewer cracks and potholes to worry about, Drew was now keeping his same steady rhythm at third and five that he’d been holding at third and four. A moment later and with another click as a car whooshed past, he was now at third and six. He was getting close to one of his sprints.

Coming around a bend, Drew cranked his bike up the final sprocket, hit the catch free on his specially designed handlebars, and laid it all out. It was sprint time. From the bend until the next traffic light was about five hundred meters and the light had just turned green. There were vehicles parked back about a hundred meters from the light. His goal was to make it through the light before the last car parked up at the light made it through, though it’d be extra fun to make it before the one ahead of that one — the bastards who flipped him off.

Ordinarily, when riding, Drew spread his senses very wide and instead of really concentrating on the ride itself, he instead concentrated on the traffic around him. This was a must in Northwest Ohio — where bicyclists who failed to hear, see, smell, taste, and feel every nuance of the road usually ended up dead, or worse.

Problem was, when sprinting, you just couldn’t do those things and really perform. Therefore, Drew chose his sprints based not just on distance, but also road condition and timing. This 500 meter stretch was some of the smoothest blacktop in town, and had he rounded that bend and the light was fully green, or still red, or anything other than what it was, he’d have left off this sprint, and, depending, perhaps started a rapid lowering of gears to third and two, his personal “neutral” gear, the gear that proved easiest to begin accelerating from a full stop while on mostly flat terrain.

At this exact timing, he could get away with pulling alongside the parked cars without any nearby cop bothering him, and, at the same time, any approaching vehicles should be slowing, not accelerating, and therefore shouldn’t bother him. Of course… with the way ol’ Murphy loved him…

Moments after “zoning in” on his sprint, there was the familiar whoosh of displaced air as Drew was literally pushed towards the curb whilst a semi approached the light faster than it should’ve, then came the sharp squeal as it laid on its air breaks.

“H-ho-holy…” Drew stuttered, then, “Bastard, y’tryin’ to give me a heart attack!?” he yelled at the semi driver as he passed on its right side. He didn’t know or care if the driver was able to hear him as he pulled back the handlebars, locked them in place and geared back down to settle into his regular cadence. The sprint was already ruined. A minute later and the semi passed him again, though not quite so aggressively. He thought he actually saw the driver mouthing sorry, what a bum.

The storm had passed about an hour after it started, the sun came back out, and most of the water had evaporated back into the air, of course, it really didn’t mean much to Drew. Even if there was a severe thunderstorm moving through the area with a tornado watch and golf ball hail, he’d still be out riding. There really was only one way he’d skip a daily ten, and that only applied in the winter: snow. Not already settled snow. Not a light snow. But if it was honestly coming down something fierce he’d rather stay in than risk a ride. Rain didn’t really mean much, but snow… it deadened the senses. Sounds became softer, smells as if more distant, all you could feel or taste was cold — a bone-deep cold, and as for seeing anything… Drew may have been a little bit crazy, but he was hardly on suicide watch.

Come to mention insanity, just what has he agreed to this for? He’s a man; he’s not transsexual, transvestite, gay, or anything of the like. So what if he’s got breasts and a slightly less-than-manly physique? He can’t help that he has a hormonal imbalance. So what if he likes keeping most of his body smooth and hairless? A lot of male athletes tend to do the same, and it helps him survive the hot muggy summer days out working a little more easily. Speaking of working, it’s also not his fault he has to wear women’s size small gloves. He’d always had small hands and feet, but his feet were wide and his fingers thick — until the breasts started growing.

Although, oddly, before he went to replace his worn out work gloves one day back when this began, he’d never really understood the common saying “fits like a glove.” Men’s small gloves fitted wide as the butt of an axe handle at the wrist, long enough in the finger to fit wood dowels to his tips, and had enough room in the palm to slip a folded up trash bag, though the fingers were a bit tight. Gloves never fit right. However, he wore them anyways. That day, though, he couldn’t find men’s smalls at all, and on a whim decided to give women’s a try. The fit was perfect. Though the fingers were still tight, the palm was taut as a bungee, the fingers length as exact as the voltage tolerance on a CPU, and the wrist… the wrist was as if it were a perfect mirrored powder coating.

Anyways, back to the problem at hand. What possessed him to agree to this sham? He was currently inactive, but he still generally believed in what his parents raised him to. “Gender is an essential characteristic of … identity and purpose.” And Drew was male. If nothing else, there was something that rather insistently reminded him of this fact every time he woke up in the morning. Although certainly not an authority on medical knowledge, his symptoms were those of a genetic male. He responded well to herbal remedies intended for males with excess testosterone. That wouldn’t be true if he were in fact intersexed, would it? In fact, if he were intersexed, wouldn’t the symptoms have started during puberty? He was a little late to that party, but he definitely joined that one as a full-blooded male.

It probably didn’t help his case for masculinity that he’d never been much into contact sport. And definitely never understood the point of being a sports spectator. The only sport he really liked watching other people do was figure skating, and that was more for the art of it all. To participate in, volleyball of all varieties, skating — though he couldn’t do any fancy moves if he tried, and of course bicycling.

Perhaps the bicycling could be at least a little less of a point against him since he preferred to ride, and at speed, rugged dirt trails where roots, stumps, rocks and sand pits lurk around every corner. He just didn’t get much of a chance to make it out to any… Especially since all the Toledo metroparks were removing bike access from the dirt trails and forcing cyclists onto paved nonsense. Were he caught on a dirt trail by a park ranger; he’d land himself a very stiff fine. If he had to ride a paved trail, why not ride on the road where at least the motorists and occasional jay-walkers could keep him on his toes?

Speak of the devil and it shall appear, Drew snicked down a gear to be safe, double checked behind him, and then swerved around a gang of stupid kids walking in the middle of a busy road. He never understood why so many kids felt a need to spread out wide instead of walking in an orderly fashion. Sidewalks had plenty of space for one “passing” lane and one “slow” lane. But entire gangs of kids seemed to think that it’d be absolutely awesome to all walk the same crawling speed, and spread out as wide as they had the people to do it with.

As it had already been late in the day when he started out, it was getting on towards dusk and Drew reached up to his embedded computer attached to the head of his frame and turned on his lights. His bike was truly one of a kind, the frame made custom from a mould with 7075-T651 aluminum with a mostly hollowed center containing millions of little triangles for reinforcement — literally the toughest frame shy of titanium. He’d had it powder-coated with a mirrored sky blue coat and his name — Andrew Lee Pattengale — etched with silver into the sides of his top tube.

He had power disc brakes, a power gearshift, built-in lights, an electric horn, and a fancy alarm he programmed himself, that when engaged, if anyone touched any part of his bike except the computer that controlled everything the lights started flashing and horn blaring like a police siren. Within moments, it would also phone a digital voice message to 911 using parts taken from an old cell phone and a dumbed down line on his plan with his provider. The computer itself, if they touched that, would wake up and prompt them for his password, they had only one chance to get it right, and they had to get it within one minute of wakeup, or it was back to the flashing and blaring and phoning in a report to the cops. The computer also had a built-in speedometer, pedometer, and thermometer display. All the gadgetry was powered by a long, thin NiMH battery installed inside the down tube and the cabling was routed inside the hollowed out frame. There was a charge plug where the down tube met the head, on the plastic casing for the embedded computer.

Drew loved his bike, almost as much as his desktop computer which he also designed and built himself. Each had cost more than most people spend on a car — individually. Incidentally, Drew drove a clunky old Dodge Ram kept just shy of a trip to the junk yard, and only when he had to.

He was now only about a minute from his apartment building and by some brilliant luck in timing Noizy Tribe had just started on his phone as he slowed and started gearing down while turning into Stonevale Apartments and Townhomes. Drew got a lot of bemused expressions from the other residents as he rode through the complex yelling “Yo yo yo yo yo, Now listen yo! What you waitin’ for is, the Noizy Tribe, we’re back!” This was a near daily occurrence. Even if the timing was off, Drew would usually steady his bike with his legs, take out his phone, and start the song manually.

When he got back in his apartment he put his bike in the walk-in closet by the entrance that he used exclusively for this purpose, engaged the alarm system just in case, and walked over to his sound system and turned it on, turning his phone’s music off in the process. His living room sound system was wirelessly connected to his desktop in his spare room that he used as an office where he had a program streaming stereo music upmixed to fill his custom 7.1 surround system. The stream was just beginning Cynical World and as Drew sat in his plastic cool-down chair, his apartment filled with music.

Here we stand in ravishing rain
Joy is like pain
It feels like a miracle
You can't turn back, you're in chains
Never again
Return from a cynical world
If you feel you've loved me in vain
Why not re-live your guilty love affairs
In the warm breeze you will cry
Again and again
That's fate for a criminal

Good intentions lost in thin air
You were craving for affection
And a certain invitation
Led you here to me in the cynical world

No one but me, in this cold place
I will love and serve you, criminal
That's your final consolation
Now hang on to me, in the cynical world

As the song faded and a rock ballad started, Drew was lost in thought once more. His situation struck a certain chord with the song. He felt chained to participation in the upcoming ruse, it was warm out, and he certainly felt ready to cry, though somehow he couldn’t. He also felt like a criminal. Pretending to be a woman for the next heaven only knows how long? He’d have to use women’s toilets when in public. He’d heard of a news story once where a man was caught dressed as a female mannequin in a women’s restroom at some major mall somewhere in England. Would he be arrested too one day? What would his parents make of that? He’d definitely be in a cold place then, with what, the Thompson’s to console him? Nothing against the man or his wife, but he’s not so sure he’d appreciate that as his “final consolation.”

The music changed again to a synth-pop as someone buzzed his apartment. Damn. He’d forgotten all about it. Janet was supposed to stop by for his first “session.” He went over to the intercom and buzzed her in. A moment later she breezed in dragging some sort of large case behind her. He had a suspicion he was going to find out quite quickly what it contained.

When Janet raised an eyebrow at him he remembered that he’d only just come in from his bike ride, was drenched in sweat, and probably smelled like something that crawled up from the sewers, or out of one of the dumpsters in the complex. “I was just about to start my bathing routine when you buzzed.” He answered the eyebrow.

“Riiight.” Janet replied. “You forgot I was coming, right?”

Drew shrugged. “I really was just about to start though.”

“Then I came at the perfect time. Lessee what you use. Go ahead and strip.”

Drew blushed. “Uh.”

“Don’t worry about it; you ain’t got anything I’ve never seen before. Either on my husband or myself.”

Drew’s flush deepened, but he made no move to comply.

“Oh for Chrissake’s man, that modesty does you no good, I’m going to be needing to see it all later anyways when I make the moulds for your prosthetics.”

“M…M…My…” Drew stuttered.

Janet rolled her eyes heavenward as she continued. “Yes, YOUR prosthetics. I do stage costumes for a living; did you really think I was going to let you walk around dressed as a woman with Junior hanging about?”

Drew turned such a delightful color of red that Johnny Appleseed would’ve sworn he saw an apple tree growing from the spot, but he finally complied as he followed Janet into his own restroom in a daze.

When he got in there she was already rifling around in his shower stall. “A real sponge, wow!” She announced as she tossed the said item out behind her. “But this shampoo, body wash and … what’re you even doing with bubble bath?” She continued.

“I” Drew started, but couldn’t continue as Janet rode over him.

“What do you do, just buy the cheapest stuff you can find? Seriously, ‘VO5 Repair & Protect Strengthening Shampoo’, ‘Suave Naturals Ocean Breeze Body Wash’, ‘Kroger Mango Mandarin Bubble Bath’, and ‘Kroger Selenium Sulfide Dandruff Shampoo’… What the hell even is that last one?”

“Off-brand Selsun Blue.” Drew answered.

“And that is? Oh never mind, obviously it’s some kind of dandruff shampoo. Why don’t you use Head & Shoulders?”

“There’re two major kinds of dandruff, Head & Shoulders only treats the dry scalp variety, and I have the oily scalp variety.”

“Oily scalp dandruff? What the hell kind of oxymoron is that?”

“Instead of your scalp being dry and flaking off directly, it’s so extremely oily that it just kind of sheds itself into the hair where it dries and leaves a thick clotted itchy mess.” Drew answered, trying to remain patient.

“Hm. I’ll just have to take your word for it since they seem to have a shampoo for it. You don’t have any bar soap, what do you do for your face?” She continued, then pulled her head out of the shower stall.

“I”…

“Nevermind that. What the hell is up with you?” She said getting her first good look at Drew in the buff. He was completely hairless except on his head, where he didn’t even have beard stubble.

“I had serious hirsutism, I mean; I looked like an ape kind of hirsutism. When I started using depilatory creams and an epilator selectively, I realized I really kinda liked the feel of smooth hairless skin, so I bought a home electrolysis machine.” Drew answered honestly.

“Hm. And Junior, why ain’t he happy to see me at all?” Janet was wearing skin-tight short-shorts and a midriff-baring tank. Even though she was getting towards her forties she was athletic and still looked quite fit, and she knew it.

Drew shrugged. “Never really been interested in anyone sexually.”

“Anyone?” She prompted. “You sure you’re not a closet gay?”

“Anyone.” Drew confirmed emphatically. “I have been attracted to people, but it’s different for me.”

“How?” Janet asked.

“It’s difficult to describe… Here, let me read you a poem I scribbled down as another kid in my old Humanities class did a reading of his own poems for a class project:

“Month in a Moment” by Drew Patridge

I was going along one day,
minding only myself.
You came that day,
to help those that let.
We met, we talked...
seemed we knew each other,
yet never before we met.

One day some time ago,
a day past yet still here...
We met, we talked...
though different in many ways,
something just clicked.

The universal law,
nature of the universe.
Opposite-equal...
opposites attract.
The timeless love,
some people are destined.

You were Nipponjin,
me English to the core.
You a kind, soft heart...
mine hardened with bad past.
Yet when we met that day,
a balance shifted,
time froze yet went on.

An interminable instant,
the month in a moment...
I can keep no secret...
when it comes down to it...
I'm hopelessly infatuated.

The universal law,
nature of the universe.
Opposite-equal...
opposites attract.
The timeless love,
some people are destined.

An interminable instant,
the month in a moment...
I can keep no secret...
when it comes down to it...
I'm hopelessly infatuated.

“He liked a girl that was way different from him. So?”

Drew sighed. “I should’ve known you wouldn’t understand. No one else in the class understood either. I did. I saw it in his eyes as he read the poem. There’s times when you meet someone you’ve never known before, but somehow it’s as though you’ve always known each other… It’s like a strong spiritual bond. Most people, for some reason, never seem to really experience it. I’ve felt it more than once.”

“Hm.” She responded dully, and then perked back up. “So you’ve experienced something then, how many times? Who for?”

Drew blushed very deeply once again. “Twice…” he answered softly, barely audible. “Once for a geeky girl in my youth group, and then…” his voice got even softer… “the boy who wrote that poem.”

Janet’s face went very wide. “You’re bi!” She exclaimed, and then clamped her mouth shut and walked back into the living room, coming back a short time later with a bunch of soaps and cleansers. Drew was sobbing softly as she returned.

Musical accompaniment for this chapter brought to you by:

Queen - Bicycle Race
M.O.V.E. - Noizy Tribe
Yuki Kajiura - Cynical World

Poem near the end really is by me, no, I didn't write it special for this story, I wrote it years ago, thought it'd be cute to have had my character meet me once ;)

Please, by all means, tell me how horrible it is that essentially nothing happened at all in the 3k+ words in this chapter.