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What, two sneak peeks in a week?  Why not.  Mostly because, starting a new chapter there's always a bit of... insecurity? I guess, as to how it's going.  This is compounded by the facts that a) I'm returning to Constant after a break of a few months, b) I'm returning to David's "voice" after a year of writing in 3rd person, and c) I'm trying something a bit tricky, capturing a shift between "now" voice and "then" voice, compounded by the unreliability of the narrator (and the author's skill!).


So, below, the start of Julia's story, which may or may not follow directly from the framing device of the funeral.  Obviously still in a (very!) early draft form.  Let me know what you think or if you've picked up on any major errors or glaring omissions!


***

One: The Story of the Ex-Girlfriend

Try to imagine how I felt when I first got back from the Clinic.


Fucked up, to put it mildly. And fucked off. First off, the drive back from the Clinic was a long one. An overnight drive, and I only dimly remember stopping at a charging station halfway. Stumbling into the toilet. Bleary eyed staring into a cracked mirror under flickering fluorescent light through a mess of blonde hair and wondering what the fuck was going on and then standing—yes, standing to take a piss in the stall and feeling a warm trickle down my leg….


I could’ve cried. I nearly punched the wall. Instead, I shook and took deep breaths until the shaking stopped and then sat down to finish the job. Did my best to repair the damage, grabbed a clean pair of panties and a skirt from the trunk of the car and changed in the back seat. Pushed all the resentment down—like, really deep down—and eventually slept the rest of the way, trying desperately to not think about what the next six months was going to be like with a goddamn fucking slit between my legs.


Yeah, I know. That’s like half a dozen fucks. I don’t really swear like this anymore, you know? It’s just—remembering that first weekend—it’s like stepping back into his skin. Yes, his skin; David’s; and it feels so… angry. He was so angry, all the time, so angry with… everything and everyone.


But not you, Julia. Oh, sure, he—I—resented some of the things you made me do. Especially… well. We’ll get that. But otherwise, it was mostly about the clothes, right, I was your little fantasy dress up doll and while part of me really hated giving up that kind of power to you, you know, letting you decide how I dressed and ought to act…


Well. What can I say? It was also a lot of fun. Maybe if I’d been honest about that before we wouldn’t be here now. Thing is, what made it fun was doing it with you, Jules. I’m not sure I’ll ever like the really girly stuff and the pigtails and pink and glitter and all that stuff, but….


You kept the anger away, Jules. Helped me forget just what a wreck of a human being I’.


So. Yeah.


I got home that Friday morning. It was the first weekend of September and the buildings of the city were holding on to the heat like fingers of concrete and steel, but you could feel it slipping away. The buildings broke up those early autumn winds, but you could still feel something had changed. There was a nip in the air as I emptied the car. And boy was there ever a lot to empty. I’m lucky no one tried to mug me. The Clinic, in their infinite wisdom and generosity, sent me home with all those gorgeous clothes they’d made for me, all that bespoke lingerie, the 3d printed dresses and shoes, even the Sin-DI corset from the photoshoot.


Hey, I’m not complaining! It was a fortune in clothes and awesome stuff, like, you’d love most of it, Jules, I never really got a chance to show it off. There’s this nighty, this ephemeral powder blue thing shot through with silver thread; gorgeous. And the corset! Probably worth a month’s rent. Another month’s rent worth of shoes, too. Honestly. All stuff way beyond what I could ever dream of buying on my salary. But dragging all that stuff up to my apartment that morning was a bit of a nightmare.


Kept me busy though, which was good, kept me moving and not thinking because after I was done… After I’d dropped the last suitcase by the entrance and the door clicked shut behind me, I just stood there a little sweaty and very tired and leaning against the wall. And that’s when it hit me, really. I just kind of took in my little apartment again—you can pretty much see the whole thing from the entrance, right?—my home for the next six months again—my reality for the next six months….


It all just caught up with me then.


I dropped to the floor and clutched my head in my hands wanted to cry.


But I didn’t.


And when I was done not-crying, I went downstairs and walked to the nearest shop and bought up a shit tonne of booze and some crap food I could throw in the microwave and brought it all back up to the apartment. I started with the beer, but you know, beer can only get you so far, really, at least when you’re small like I am, what with having to take a piss every thirty minutes and feeling all bloated. I wandered around the apartment getting drunk. Sat on the sofa and stared at the wall, killing cans of cheap off-brand lager. Then I staggered over to the the balcony and stood outside and stared towards the centre, towards the city.


It was getting close to noon by the time I switched to the hard stuff, some kind of knock-off vodka that was nasty, it left an oily feel to the tongue and was probably in breach of FDA regulations or something. First couple of swigs burned like hell on the way down. It got better after that.


The sun was high in the sky, painfully bright in a cloudless sky behind a brown haze. I stared into the sun until I saw spots, until my eyes stung and watered and tears streamed down my cheek. You were out there, somewhere, working that Friday but if I’m honest there wasn’t much room in my head for you, for anyone, for anything beyond incandescent rage and stomach-churning fear and shame, God, I felt so ashamed of what I’d become, at what I’d allowed them to do to me.


At some point I stood naked in front of the mirror in my bedroom.


The time between balcony and mirror remains a blank. I just know it was dark. Now, nighttime noises filtered in through the open bedroom window: sirens, voices, a child’s cry from another apartment, all riding a breeze that raised goosebumps across bare skin.


I willed myself to hate the girl I saw in reflection. She was young and slight, a pale ghost in dim light. Slender arms hung limply at her side; large breasts pushed out from the darkness, tipped by pink nubs rising in the cool air. Smooth thighs waxed pallid in the little light slipping between fluttering curtains. Her hair was long and straight and fell nearly to the curve of her ass.


But I didn’t hate her. I wanted to but couldn’t, not anymore. I… resented her and despised the life she represented but—not her. After all, she was me; and I was Cindy Bellamy, at least for the next six months.


Probably longer.


In one hand she held a half-empty litre bottle in the crook of the thumb by its stubby neck. The other hand—well, it hovered over that space between the thighs, palm down as though warming itself by the heat of a hidden fire. Pulling the hand back confronted what was there: nothing. Female smoothness: the cleft and slit; that garden or rosebud or peach; a pussy, snatch, twat or cunt—meat sheath or honey pot—my vagina.


Enough time had lapsed for the prosthetic to blend perfectly with the surrounding skin. Back at the Clinic I could still disassociate myself from—it—from the dull, grey cover laid over my genitals, like wet plaster wrapped around a damaged limb. But there was no longer any seam or discoloration, no division between where I ended and the artificial vagina began. Most tellingly—judging by the faint stirring of the cool night air—I could feel it, as a part of me, as a tickle of curly blonde hair and a prickle of goosebumps.


Half-oblivious, I just stared at my girl parts for a long while. Eventually, I brought the bottle to my lips for another swig. It was the smell that did it, oddly—harsh, chemical—and my arm dropped back to my side, the bottle dropped to the floor, and I dropped to my knees in a puddle of pungent booze and stared at myself in the mirror and thought, haven’t I already done this?


Six months ago when I first woke up her I faced—well, not the same thing, actually, because that first time was the worst. It nearly killed me the first time I saw Cindy—I mean myself—in the mirror, it nearly drove me over the edge. And that girl back then, hell, she wasn’t nearly as… girly? as now. Smaller boobs, thicker waist, shorter hair—and a fine specimen of manhood between her legs.


And I tried to efface her through booze, back then, the last truly glorious bender of David Saunder’s life and—well, it didn’t work, right? And if not then, why would it work now?


And so while it’s all a blur, I can dimly remember stumbling into the kitchen and pouring the rest of the bottle down the drain and then—well, I must’ve collapsed on the sofa or my bed or maybe just the floor, but I don’t remember anything until the sun and heat beaming through the open balcony had me crawling to the toilet to puke my guts out.


A little context helps, doesn’t it? You’d planned to come around then, hadn’t you? After all, I’d messaged you that I was on my way home but then you didn’t hear anything else from me. Maybe you thought I was blanking you but really, I was trying to blank myself. Fortunately, you got caught up in that mess at work, right, the takeover and changes in management and were busy, so busy I never even heard from you. Which was probably for the best, because it gave me the rest of that Saturday to get my shit together.


I’d woken up with a blistering headache but it faded surprisingly quickly. I ate and drank a lot of water and looked at the state of my apartment and decided I couldn’t quite deal yet, so instead I slipped on a sports bra and some jogging pants, did my hair up in a quick ponytail and went for a run.


It’d been awhile since I went for a jog in the neighbourhood. After starting up at V.I., I was more likely to use the gym there; still do. And no, it’s not because I’m trying to catch the eye of the guys in management, though I do, obviously, and yeah, maybe I’ve… well. That’s a different story, right?  Point is, I went out and this time… this time, it felt different.


And no, I don’t mean the obvious. But let’s get that out of the way first. That first run was probably the moment I realised that, yeah, as much as I hated having my cock and balls sealed away behind some kind of crazy fake-flesh Frankenstein bullshit science experiment, I felt… free. Not like a bird, but you know… I didn’t have to strap anything back, right? Nothing constrictive, nothing tight, just a simple pair of cotton panties and some baggy jogging pants and no pain, no anxiety over someone noticing an unlikely bulge between my legs. A minute into the run and I was grinning like a fool, despite the stinging in my head and the fuzz on my tongue. It felt—good; great, even, to just be able to walk or run freely again. So, yeah, score one for the vag: Cunt 1, Cock 0.


It didn’t last, though. Because it didn’t take long for me to start to notice just how sketchy my neighbourhood was. I’d never really noticed before or maybe more to the point, it’d never really bothered me.


Like, don’t get me wrong. David used to live in a pretty swanky community. Gated, clean, nice shrubbery, wannabe cops driving around in their little cars keeping the neighbourhood clean. And sure, from the top floor I used to look out over the neighbourhood below and you could always see the darkness, almost breathe in the stench of trash piled up just beyond the walls and gates and barriers of my little upper-middle class fiefdom. Distance and height might dimmish the sirens and cries in the night, but never got rid of it.


Thing is, I’d lived on the other side of that wall and the piss and shit and vomit and refuse left a stain that never washed out.


It was five minutes to the park. It was that early Saturday morning stage between the cleaners passing through—if the bots bothered to show—and the homeless creeping from whatever refuge they’d found for the night. Trash littered the streets: broken bottles, scattered silver canisters like bullets gathered in corners, used condoms under a bridge. Graffiti – giant media screens behind protective glass flashing larger-than-life promises, oozing sensuality, glistening lips and ballooning tits and the image I saw that morning, of a corseted, Sin-DI leaning forward, wide-eyed and arms bound behind her back, hit home hard.


But most of the screens were damaged, black patches flickering amidst impossible dreams of foreign trips and aspirational purchases; or simply dead and broken. Darkness lurked behind cracked windows wallpapered with newsprint, and I’d never noticed how many lean, angry men with sunken eyes stood in doorways as I ran past. They tracked my passage with a scowl, or an unnerving grin; some called out but I couldn’t hear them over the music in my ears. But I shivered nonetheless as I passed and made my way into the park.


There, too, decay and despair to which I’d been previously blind. There’d been some small effort to maintain the space; it was a corporate land-holding so maybe they had a contractual obligation, but it was a half-assed effort. Jogging along the circular path, I passed too many benches taken by men and women in that deep state of despair I recognized that’s almost impossible to escape, some still drunk or drugged from last night, some starting the process over again.


I’d been one of them, once, after all


You didn’t know that about me, did you, Julia? But then, there’s an awful lot about me you don’t know.


So when I got back home I was feeling—pensive, I guess. Behind the anger and the hangover and the shame, something started to roll over in the back of my mind. I locked and chained the door behind me and stood there for some time looking over my—Cindy’s—home.


Then I stripped naked and stepped into the shower and washed away the stench and grime from the run, the flecks of vomit in my hair, and lingering traces of piss from the drive back. The water ran scalding hot and I scrubbed myself vigorously clean. A moment’s hesitation and then I allowed instinct to reassert itself and reached for the razor and shaved armpit and legs.


And then I found myself standing in front of the mirror once more, once again naked, but this time under the bright light of the noonday sun. I stared at the girl in the mirror; I stared at myself; and I thought—who do I want to be?


Why am I telling you all this? I mean, it’s supposed to be your story, right Jules? Because it is your story, but also because context is everything. I need you to understand that when you showed up that night—uninvited, I might add, though I was happy to see you—that something had already started to shift, inside of me, that I’d already taken the first small step towards a larger change.


I think when you showed up that night, and found my apartment clean and tidy, and saw me in that cute Suzy-homemaker dress, the red one with the white polka dots, the one you’d bought me, and my makeup all done up and me in stockings and heels, with some cheery music on in the background—well, you thought I’d done it for you, right?


But I’d done it for me. Because at the precise moment, that’s who I wanted to be. Or rather, I was playing a part, and proving to myself that I could play that part, as ridiculous as it was. I didn’t get dressed up for you, and I didn’t clean up expecting your visit; I did it all for me, to lay the foundation for the next six months.


How long did you stand there, though, after you let yourself in with your key? How long did you watch me flutter around as I tidied and clean?


“David?”  

Comments

Julia

Well the 'voice' seems to be flowing nicely. Still feels like David but a David making a solid attempt to accept or at least live with his Cindyness. Still the same fucked up enigma of a man, and yet a subtle shift post Clinic. I like the free form dialog. Even though it's a bit too descriptive and literary to be a true dialog with Julia, I buy the conceit quite easily. The narrative is still enjoyable to read and I appreciate the 'colour' it provides. I was wondering if a few present tense inserts of Julia reacting to the tale might work to remind the reader that Julia is physically there hearing David, but I fear that might make the more florid narrative in the dialog ring false. I'm assuming the querying end "David?" is the first word of a flashback to Julia walking in on David? Are you planning to do that in 3rd person? Might help with keeping the past and present separated as I expect this chapter will be time jumping in ways that would make a TARDIS blush. It's an enjoyably disorienting experience when you play with the POV's and I think you do a marvelous job with it.

Fakeminsk TG Fiction: Constant in All Other Things

Yeah, finding that right balance for the "conceit" is tricky. It's like reading Frankenstein - it beggars belief that the whole thing is a letter (going four narrative levels deep at one point, if I remember) - but readers generally just shrug and go along with it. I'm rewriting the next bit of Julia's story to get that feel right. I've thought of inserting Julia in different places but held back; I'll revisit it during the revision.

Carmons58

All ideas of future scenarios that were proposed in comments seem to be interesting. Encouraged by them I will also add my suggestions. In fact you inspired me with that kimono party. In my scenario present Cindy meets David from from the past. She tries to warn him about the future, but is in danger of being treated the standard way David treats chicks or be taken for insane, jealous ex-girlfriend. It may be a dream, vision, movie scene (see below) or even effect of using time machine,or door to another universe. Lets say that Cindy is watching David's favourite movie on television (maybe The Fugitive with Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones or Mission Impossible because of masks). She knows the movie perfectly, David has seen it like a million times. But suddenly she sees a scene that wasn't there before. (As far as I remember there's a moment when action of The Fugitive take place in a hospital). Somewhere in the background a nurse tries to convince her patient to leave hospital because it' a bad, terrible place, while the patient tries to steal her a kiss. Only a nurse looks like Cindy and patient looks like David. Or Cindy is employed for some short movie scene. She finds herself on scene dressed in stereotypical feminine way (maid, princess, femme fatale, whatever) when she discovers that she plays a scene together with actor who looks and acts like David. With David actually. She tries to warn him about the future, but David complains that he can't work with some bimbo, who's forgiving her lines. The director forces her to play the scene according to the script and to seduct or be seducted by David. She tries to speak with him again and goes to his wardrobe/tiring house, where she has to hid not find by David's jealous girlfriend Julia. Later she's find herself taken by David to his old apartment again only this time as a female. Or thay can meet at that kimono party exacly as you described it. Or she may be (fucked?) Mr Steele's secretary, the one that which meets David exacly as you have written at beginning of the whole story. Another possibility is Cindy finds clues that K actually kept her word and returned masculinity to David after his visit in Asklepios Clinic only... it's not her. Or she's forced to become Mr Steele's personal secretary and kills that bastard in the end. Only one more suggestion. Wouldn't it be better if Cindy had to actually spend a lot of her salary on heels, dresses and cosmetics instead of just getting them? That way she would be annoyed that she's expected to do it and she had even less money.

Fakeminsk TG Fiction: Constant in All Other Things

Interesting suggestions! Though I don't think time-travel shennanigans are appropriate for Constant (that's a whole different feel of Sci-Fi, I think, than what I'm going for her) there's certainly scope for a dream (or nightmare) sequence, or even some kind of AI-generated movie scenario to somebody's specification. Something to think about, for sure. You're right about the frustration aspect, but that's still going to be there. The stuff from the Clinic's not really work-appropriate wear, especially when he discovers there's been a dress code implemented whilst he's been away.

Asklepios

I'm really intrigued to see where this goes (I feel like that definitely isn't the first time I've written that!) One small point, Cindy gets home and chains and locks the door but then Julia lets herself in with her own key - not possible if its chained....