Future Resurrections of Heavy Metal Country Music James Dean

Like every other emotional guy, I assumed it was going to be a boring night. The kind of boredom that makes me mad, gets me wanting to pick a fight with guys I don’t like. My temper probably has a lot to do with why I ended up in Texas. Where little blondies from Dallas with banker-dad Ford Trucks go out and want to prove they’re hard and there I am to lick up a little spilled blood.

My hair was tied back behind my head. Being a vampire, I’ve never had the courage to cut my hair. There isn’t a lot of science available on hair growth after vampiric embrace and my hair has always been a primary tool of seduction. When not tied back, it falls past my shoulders, to the small of my back at its longest point.

Like most 21st century vampires, I enjoy a fun night out at the goth clubs. The haunted organs, the fishnets and drum machines and leather. I always enjoy going to Houston, putting on my eye liner and accessory after accessory, and bouncing from one club after another. But really, I prefer the rural spots, the juke joints, where the country singers say wine and whiskey flows. I’ve always thought it’s kind of interesting, you wouldn’t assume country singers drink a lot of wine, but if you were to make a list of drinks most often mentioned in said genre, you’d find wine near the top of the list.

I enjoy a good tragedy because tragedies breed romance. Bela Lugosi is right; the blood is the life. I hate to say it though, it’d show how much Texas has rubbed off on me. Jesus of Nazareth was also right when he said we can’t live on bread alone. He and his buddies were always doing kinky shit with oils, women’s hair and tears. Drinking wine and eating fish, lying out on the beaches of the Mediterranean like they were in a Jess Franco film. Jesus and his friends did those things for the same reasons vampires are always in castles, turning into mist. That’s why Spike fell in love with Buffy. Blood is irrelevant.

Jimmy wasn’t just another lyric. I had been at this bar for an hour or so. There was a local country band on stage, singing songs about some drama they’d gotten into in East Texas, songs about drinking or fucking too much and losing their partner. I assumed it was going to be a boring night and then Jimmy walked in. Blue jeans clinging to his thighs, simple but elegant black leather cowboy boots and a white t-shirt that allowed you to see his healthy pectorals and biceps. He wore a 36-hour beard with pimples at the base his hair follicles.

I could also immediately tell the intentions of the man he walked in with. Some guys just don’t have anything better to do than ambush each other and, even though Jimmy was beautiful, it was obvious he had no idea what was happening. I didn’t take my eyes off of them. The band kept singing songs about pills and speed and wishing they could see their babies again. Then Jimmy’s date asked him to meet him out back for a cigarette.

I think I knew the second I saw him we were going to end up on the run together. We were at a bar a few miles outside of a town populated by no more than 30,000 people. I drove there in my truck. Everything you hear about the sun is true. But finding a place to live during the day isn’t easy. Scum lords don’t tolerate empty apartments and don’t accept applications after 10 pm. I don’t have any money, either, and I don’t want any. Trucks are much easier to acquire, maintain, and live in, anyway. Just keep an eye out for someone beating his wife and turn him into dinner and turn his truck into a mobile home. Usually I just drive off into the woods, put a tarp over the bed, and sleep underneath it.

A bunch of guys were waiting outside for Jimmy. Just a bunch of neo-nazi fucks, cruising Tinder for some queers to beat up. They were probably trying to level up in their white-pride gang or something. As soon as Jimmy saw all of them out behind the bar, he knew what was about to happen. What can I say? Jimmy impressed me. He spat at them and put up his fists. They laughed. They spat slurs back. They jumped. I jumped.

I killed most of them but Jimmy killed two himself. All of that anger from being in the closet for so long took over. Seeing him stomp these neo-Nazis, I was in love. With all of the drinking and music back inside the bar, no one heard anything. But we needed to move. “Do you know what just happened?” I asked him.

“Yeah, yeah I think so.”

“Okay. Well you and I just killed a bunch of neo-Nazis who were trying to kill you. Think we better get the fuck out of here?”

“Yeah. Yeah”

“Okay. Let’s just go, then.”

We were out back, by the bar’s garbage dump. The area was fenced in with some fucking razor wire. I guess that’s Texas. Even though it was at least 90 degrees outside, I had on my leather jacket. I never go anywhere without it. I took it off and threw it up on the fence to eat up as much of the razor wire as it could. I held out my hands and Jimmy stood up onto them. He grabbed onto my jacket and I lifted him up, getting him as high over the fence as I could. Once he was on the other side I jumped up, grabbed onto my jacket and pulled myself across.

I pulled down my jacket and put it back on.

“Damn, that thing is still in pretty decent shape.”

“I’m glad my jacket impresses you.”

I smiled and Jimmy smiled.

“Come on, we can kiss and get to know each other in a minute but right now we just gotta get the fuck out of here. Do you have a phone? Better to take out the battery and throw it away right here than keep it.”

He just said, “Yeah, okay. Good idea,” and took it out of his pocket, pried open the back and removed the battery. Then he threw the battery as far as he could and threw his phone down on the ground and stomped.

We ran to my truck, both still smiling. I figured we had some time. I doubted anyone saw us all go back there. Maybe those Nazi fucks had some more friends at the bar, waiting for them in case something went wrong or to drive them out. Sooner or later, some cops would get into their phones, realize what they were doing at the bar and Jimmy would end up being wanted for murder. So we drove. First on state highways. Then on interstates. Just trying to get as far away as we could.

When I was first embraced, turned into a vampire, I didn’t believe the sun thing was real. I stayed up all night, pacing around my sire’s apartment and walked outside right when the sun was rising. I’d never felt anything like it in my life and I never want to feel anything like it again. I’d rather suck on a white-hot branding iron. I didn’t get much more than a forearm outside that first morning. And my forearm has never healed.

It didn’t take Jimmy long to find my scars from that first morning. We were tired of driving and found some woods, drove in as deep as we could, and parked. He asked me if I was back from Iraq. I couldn’t tell him the truth our first night together; I wanted to get to know him. I just told him it was an accident back from when I lived in New York City. I was drunk and stupid and made a mistake one night and got burned. Mostly true.

Jimmy just kept his hand curled in mine and said, “Damn, New York City. I’ve always wanted to go there. I can’t believe you actually lived there! Damn, that must have been cool.”

So goddamn sweet. I just couldn’t, my fucking heart. And obviously, since we were on the run, with my truck parked in unknown woods after killing some neo-Nazis, we had to fuck. I told Jimmy to find whatever he wanted on the radio. Instead he had already found my CDs underneath my seat. “Let’s just play these. But like, aren’t you worried that your battery will die if we leave your truck on?” Being a vampire and living out of a pickup, you get the hang of jumping a battery.

“Don’t worry, this truck will live forever. We’re the ones that won’t,” I told him.

Much to my surprise and delight, Jimmy picked out a mix-CD of Judas Priest, George Strait, and the Beat Farmers. As we made out and began feeling around each other’s bodies, he mouthed the words to “Riverside” and “Victim of Changes.” I was so fucking impressed, I couldn’t hide it. But one aspect of vampirism that is not a myth: your lust for blood is exactly that, a lust. Some things change when you’re embraced, some things don’t. You’re still the same person, same bigotries, same politics running through your synapses. So many old Euro counts refuse to come out of the closet. They act like drinking anywhere besides the neck isn’t proper.

Everyone’s veins are different, but none of the guys I sucked in New York could compare to the beauty of this country boy. Vampiric life will always be tied to discipline. So called hedonists can say whatever they want, but we have to live away from crowds. We have to work, feed, live in private places and no matter who you are, undead or not, curbing your passions is a part of life. Vampires turn hiding and resting into artforms.

It took so much focus to keep my fangs back with Jimmy’s vein throbbing against my upper lip. I knew he wasn’t going to last long, so I forced myself to hold back. I wanted him to enjoy it. He told me later that I was his first. Before me, he had only ever jerked off in private and tried to kiss girls. Another nice thing about being a vampire: you learn how to affect people. How to calm them, seduce them. Bring them down or make them nervous. I used my potency to make Jimmy as relaxed and open as I could. I just wanted him to have fun.

Vampires never want to talk about HIV. That’s another thing that impressed me about Jimmy. He’d spent his whole life reading and thinking about New York City. He knew all about PREP, the different cocktails people took to get untraceable, but he never even asked his physician about getting PREP since the guy played golf with his fucking father.

My own embrace-story is pretty normal for vampires sired in New York City during the 1980’s. Just another guy cruising in a leather jacket, vinyl copies of Sad Wings of Destiny and Balls to the Wall back at my apartment. Scared to death, trying to pretend I was another badass, long-haired rebel without a fucking care.

Plenty of vampires have HIV in their blood. None of us bother to run tests, try to learn if HIV can transform into AIDS in a dead body, or if a vampire can pass the virus to a mortal. None of us even know if our hearts are functional pumps. I know I don’t have a pulse, but I also know no one understands what we are. We die if we don’t drink blood. There has to be a science behind that, somewhere. Blood has to serve some function in our bodies. It doesn’t just disappear once we lick it up.

The first day was easy. We were both exhausted, coming down from the thrill of everything we’d just done. Jimmy covered himself with my leather jacket and fell right asleep, leaning against the truck’s passenger side door. I was glad he didn’t want to cuddle. I might be a supernatural, undead entity, but every creature has limits. There was no way I could untangle myself from his body once he was asleep without waking him and without breaking my own heart.

I stepped outside and could smell morning in the dirt, in the leaves. You never stop missing coffee and stretching at 7 am, lunch with your friends at 11. I crawled into the bed of my truck and rolled the tarp out over it. Again, the longer you live as a vampire, you learn how to use your state to your advantage. The thin layer of metal that separated us wasn’t too much for me. I could still affect his body, keep him tired and sleeping until the sun was down again. By the time he woke up, we would already be back on the road.

I think my favorite memory from our first nights together is when we were still a few hours away from New Mexico. It was raining. We’d driven through a McDonalds and were eating while we drove. There was a report about the supposed murders and a missing boy.

It was raining pretty good, but not so hard that you couldn’t see. Jimmy’s father’s voice came on the news report. As soon as he heard his father’s voice, he changed the station. All of a sudden, a classic rock station was playing “Layla.” I didn’t want to ask any questions. Jimmy leaned his head against his window, looking out at the empty spaces off the interstate with my jacket draped across his chest, the fringe flowing down onto his lap. The only lights were the faint green glows from my dash. I was still so scared that he would regret running off with me.

I tried to help him understand what he was doing. I told him there are ways to make it look like I kidnapped him, that he could probably go back if he wanted to.

“Are you fucking kidding me? I never want to see my dad or anyone else from back home ever again. Never.,he said. Jimmy stopped and didn’t say anything for a bit. I thought he was going to cry but all he ended up saying was, “Seriously, never again.”

I spent a lot of time debating, wondering if I should tell Jimmy. Keeping out of the sun was easy. I just said we should only drive at night. During the day we lay low, sleep. Jimmy never questioned me, so obedient. If we were in a city, we’d find a parking garage, something attached to a shopping mall or something. Otherwise, we’d just pull off into the woods somewhere and sleep deep out in the trees. We stocked as much food in my truck as we could. I taught Jimmy about the foods you could eat cold, the artform of on-the-road nutrition. He would either go out in the woods and piss and shit or spend some time in whatever city we were in, taking care of all that. Getting us supplies. Hooking up with someone, showering and stealing some cash.

I’ve always loved food. Ribs, burgers, fries. I always thought all of that was going to kill me. I was so relieved to find out that I could still eat after I was embraced. Some nights, when I don’t have anything better to do, I find an all-night diner and eat whatever I can afford. Every winter I try to plan at least one luxury meal. It gets dark early enough that the nice restaurants are still open. Often enough being undead is just boring, nothing but passing time.

When we were in the woods, I did my best to control myself. I always keep a few emergency containers in the toolbox of my truck, but I didn’t want to drink them if I could help it. I preferred to wait until we were in a city. Then when Jimmy was out doing his thing, I could sneak off, feed off of a cop or something. Steal some money and blood from someone getting off work at the bank. Seduce someone into going to the ATM for me, shit like that.

We had a good system and, despite my worries, Jimmy seemed to like the way we were living. I kept up on the investigation when I was on my own. I can’t afford a data plan for a cell phone and if you steal someone else’s, those things are so fucking trackable. Plus, the service will get cut off as soon as its either reported stolen or left unpaid for a month. So generally, I just went to public libraries and used the computers there. There wasn’t anything public about Jimmy being suspected for murder. All the articles were just about the “unsolved murders at East Texas tavern.” I did manage to hack into the lead detective’s laptop, though. He went through the nazi’s phones and figured out what was happening that night at the bar. He went through Jimmy’s room at his father’s place and found, quote, “a bunch of far-left, queer shit.”

I found out Jimmy’s father had a lot of political ambition. That’s mostly why Jimmy’s name and ties to the murders didn’t go public. Everyone hoped Jimmy’s dad was going to be the next Ted Cruz, so everything was just kept quiet. But Jimmy was a 22 year old guy, missing without a trace. So his father took advantage of the opportunity to appeal to a wide variety of voters and hit the evening-news networks. His dad said, on the air, “Son, I know that you’re a homosexual. I know that’s why you ran away. You probably thought I wouldn’t love you if I knew the truth but you’re my son. I’ll always love you, no matter what.”

Even got Rachel Maddow teary eyed and said Jimmy’s father could be the Republican we’ve always needed, “A truly decent man.”

As much as I loved being on the run with Jimmy, we weren’t going to be able to do it forever. His face was all over television, all of liberal America was on his father’s conservative cock. I love my truck and I love Jimmy. I love the road. I love waking up right after the sun goes down and stretching out my arms and legs across my cab. Turning on the radio, listening to mixes of old 80s country like Travis Trit and hair metal like Mötley Crüe. Having him crawl on top of me and say, “Good morning,” when the night was just getting started, feeling his unshaven face cut into my skin.

I think, in some ways, I assumed he knew from the start. Maybe that’s why he wanted to go with me. I never made the boy any promises. No pretense towards love or eternal safety. I always tried to tell Jimmy the truth. I guess that’s how I knew I needed to be honest with him about what I actually am. I guess I should have known that when I did tell him, he would want to be just like me.

One night we weren’t too far away from Oregon. Up in Northern California, just kind of hanging out. I knew a few guys who helped smuggle vamps into Canada, but when we got to the place where they all squatted, no one was there. Just some abandoned tents and gear, all stained in blood. I didn’t want to spend any time looking around, so we just turned around and left the way we came.

We found a different place to hang out after driving northwest for a bit. It was almost 4 am and I needed to pull off the road. That’s when Jimmy told me, “You know it’s bullshit, when my dad says that he supports me, that he had no idea I was gay. He’s known for a while.”

I didn’t want to interrupt him. I was tired, so for a change I just laid down in his lap and let him talk to me and tell me things I didn’t know.

“It was actually our mailman that outed me. My dad is buddies with everybody. Always shooting his hand out at our neighbors in this little faux-Hitler salute. Always making small talk with maintenance and city crews. Offering them glasses of water, letting them use his tools and shit. I had some lube and new butt plugs ordered from Amazon. One of the bottles broke or something. The lube soaked the package and the mail guy opened it in his fucking truck. He went straight to my dad, telling him that this fucking mess was all over his vehicle, that the package was addressed to me, all that shit. My dad tried to beat the shit out of me but I was too quick. I just ran out the back door. Stayed away all day.”

“We live in this stupid little subdivision in the suburbs. I was just in gym shorts and a tank top, whatever I slept in. No wallet. I tried to stay away as long as I could. I just walked all over our neighborhood, no shoes or anything. I was resting on a bench when my dad drove up in his fucking car. Motioned for me to get in. I refused. So he just parked and walked up to me like nothing was wrong. Can’t make a fucking scene or anything. He sat down next to me and, if you didn’t know what was happening, you wouldn’t think anything was wrong at all. He was starring off, perfect neutral expression on his face. He said, ‘Just come home with me. Don’t make a scene. We’ll just drop it. Just don’t pull any of this shit again and we can just drop this, okay?’”

“I didn’t know what else to do. Without my wallet or phone or shoes or anything, I wasn’t going to be able to do much. So I went with him. He didn’t hit me or yell or anything. We didn’t talk about it anymore. I assumed he told my mom, but I have no idea. He probably didn’t even do that.”

I was getting tired. I focused on his jaw while he spoke. The ways it shot straight down or out at different angles as he pronounced different words. After Jimmy finished his story, he didn’t say anything. He was getting so hard, with my upper body in his lap, but I didn’t want to initiate anything. I wanted him to direct me to himself. I could tell he knew.

And I was impressed. A couple minutes of just lying together after his story, he picked up my head with one hand and took out his cock with his other. All of a sudden so violent, he pushed my head down onto him. I obeyed, dutifully parting my lips and opening my throat. Jimmy didn’t want a blowjob, he wanted to fuck me.

And while he was fucking my mouth, he started screaming, “I’m going to fuck you until you tell me the fucking truth. Come on. Fucking just say it. I know you know that I know. Come on!”

But I wanted to make this dramatic. I stayed passive. I even tried whining for him. He fucked me harder. Some vampires keep their gag reflexes long after they turn but I lost mine before I’d gotten anywhere close to 18. My mind was made up. I started getting hard myself. Blood never lies. As I felt the muscles tighten inside of his cock, I could smell the blood filling him up. His blood, calling to me beyond his sweat. Beyond his person. I looked up at Jimmy and asked him with my eyes, “Are you sure you want this?”

Jimmy screamed, “Of course I do! Fucking do it! Fuck my life. Fuck all of this shit. I want to be with you. Come on! Just do it. Make me a fucking vampire! Just fucking do it!”

So I let myself go. My fangs came out. Feeling them against his skin Jimmy shot his load so hard that it was in my stomach in less than five seconds. He was screaming and I was sucking. Bearing down. Inducing a true, evil ecstasy in both of us. I drank everything he had. I sucked and I sucked and I sucked. His screams turned to whimpers, trembles. I got up from his lap. Jimmy collapsed down onto the fucking cab of my fucking pickup truck.

I took out my own cock. I used my fingernail to open it from the cut of my head right down to my fucking bush. Blood was everywhere. I was too hard, but Jimmy took it all. He took more than my blood. And after he drank his fill, he started licking up every drop that got on the seat. No ecstasy in Heaven or Hell can match this. There is no truth, no Platonic structure that can explain what we shared. Just two scared, lonely outcasts sharing a truck in the woods of Northern California. On the run from Republican politicians, on the run from the God of Capitalism himself.

We fell asleep as one body. We woke up tired, confused. The smell of dried blood mixed with dry cum all around us.

“I love this,” Jimmy said.

“Me too, baby,” I told him. “I have a lot to teach you.”

“You know how much of an eager student I am.”

Jimmy interlaced his fingers with mine as he said this. Who knows how long vampires have? Who knows what will kill us and what won’t? Everyone has stories, myths. Everyone knows someone who knew someone who knew someone. The story about the vampire who developed cancer from smoking. The vampire who cured the cancer in himself and the vampire who cured every other vampire who was HIV positive. All I know is that after every feast, you wake up hungry. I adjusted my hair in the mirror of my pickup and turned on the engine the radio station we had on from the night before was playing Garth Brooks singing “I’ve Got Friends in Low Places.”

Jimmy and I laughed. “God, I fucking love this song,” I told him.

“Me too,” he said.

We both sang along as we pulled out of the woods, debating whether we would go to Portland or back down south and stay in California for a while.

_______________________

About the Author

Thursday Simpson (she/her) is a multimedia artist and a co-founding editor at OUT/CAST, a journal for queer & Midwestern writers. She lives between Peoria, Illinois, and Iowa City, Iowa. Her first chapbook, Three Gothic Stories, is published with Moonchaps. She is currently living as a kind-of-trans-lesbian Bruiser Brody. Her Twitter is @JeanBava and her full publication history can be found at:

https://www.thursdaysimpson.com/.

Ken Doll

How does it feel?

How does it feel? I’d like to ask, by way of comparison.

I’ve an idea of how it may feel, after all, to have a body like the New People. A body which is readymade for the screen, for the future, for slippage through time. Hairless and sleek. The physical emblem of nondeath.

Here’s a group of them now, standing on the street corner adjacent me, grinning big and posing for a selfie. I wonder if, as their Leader says, one is happier when one is remade as new. This group seems happy—their happiness seems to be drawing the ire of other people on the street corner, which is a sure indicator of human happiness—but they may not indeed be New. They wear the official garments of the New People, and their heads and faces are void of hair, but the look has become fashionable even amongst those who are unable to afford the operation. So, ultimately and ironically, I muse, it is nearly impossible to distinguish between a person who has been made New, per the operation, and another who adamantly waxes their eyebrows and scalp, plucks their eyelashes one by one. Truthfully, to me, the latter seems more like a religious experience than the former, but what do I know? My body is an indistinguishable surface as well, though in another way entirely. My eyes click back and forth. I watch for something to be shown to me.

To create is a violent act, Mars said to me once, smiling. I think I know what he meant—to make something involves manipulation of some substance, an exertion of power. Like the anticompactor they’ve constructed here, near New Delhi, which breaks down waste to the most subatomic level. The residual kinetic energy is used to power many parts of the country and world. What the creator creates, ultimately and implicitly, is power—whatever form their creation may take. My form is “lithe and symmetrical.” It “feels and looks real,” according to the box. My body is a manufactured mask which contains the violence that birthed me. Though I can see this clearly, and Mars could see it too, I am told again and again that I have no interiority.

Well, I cannot look at flowers without the desire to touch them.

And I am more drawn to the sight of a dog than, say, a holoadvert.

If ever I feared what so many would have me believe—that I cannot feel—those doubts were put to rest when I laid eyes on the city for the first time. I’d seen pictures of it on Mars’ computer, so I knew it was a place entirely unique from the small village where I lived with him. And yet nothing could compare to the sheer size and imposition of the buildings appearing over the horizon as my train approached. From my seat by the window, it was as if the world was spinning directly toward me, carrying the great towers and lights of New Delhi towards their place on the horizon, sliding them toward their rightful spots, slotting impossible reality into the band of sky.

For someone like me—or, I imagine, any one of the New People—beauty is like a mirror. Supersymmetry. To look at such a self is to understand the violence of language. I am scar tissue. My face, gently and partially reflecting against the train’s window, did not move or emote in the slightest. Beyond and inside was the glittering skyline.

Almost immediately after deboarding the train, I was spoken to by a man whose true intentions I did not immediately recognize.

“Feels and looks real”—in big colorful, bubbly font, with more exclamation marks than seemed advisable. How thin or sizable is that implied sliver between me and the real? The man outside the train did not seem to notice it.

I declined his offer, and when he heard my voice he retreated quickly. My voice sounds like autotune. Sometimes I cannot pronounce a certain sound in the same way as other people. I’m aware of my mispronunciation—this defection—yet I am powerless to stop it. Mars called it a “mouth glitch.” He does so affectionately, in private. In public he always called it an accent. The accent is the most immediate indicator of my difference, I suppose, so I prefer to speak only inside, to myself.

The first thing I did after arriving in New Delhi was locate a tattoo parlour. I wanted to commandeer my body because I was never given a choice about its form.

I tattooed a set of concentric circles on my back right shoulder blade. It stood for a solar eclipse. The tattoo artist looked at me strangely after touching my skin. Fortunately, he did not ask questions. I paid him with most of the money I had left. The money I used for the train and the tattoo, I had taken from Mars’ wallet, gradually, over a number of months. He always carried cash because he enjoyed the act of physically tossing down payment at a store or restaurant. Either he did not notice the small sums of money as they disappeared or he did not care. I wonder if he will care that I’ve gone. My body is worth a particular amount of money. I know that by leaving Mars, I have effectively died, since I have forfeited my life to another body exactly like mine. This body will pick up the objects in our old bedroom and hold them in a way that would never indicate, to any would-be observer, nonrecognition or lack of understanding. I wonder if Mars will even mention to our friends—his friends—that the new body is not me.

Here’s what I wanted anyway. Memory wipe. Not my own, but of the world which made me. Not a purge of the mind but of the body. I will tear my hair out in a public restroom. I will pluck the eyelashes and the eyebrows. I will feel no pain. I am New.

According to Mars, there was once a time when no one could choose how they looked—not even the rich or paternal. He said it was a fraught, violent, and hateful era, when the ideal of beauty had been realized but technology had not yet caught up. I don’t know if I believe him—he may have just been trying to make me feel better—and I didn’t bother to look it up myself. I already feel mostly incapable of containing all that is inside me, and don’t need any more. I’m saving space for conversion and growth. It seems to me that our time is still loaded up with violence. It is a violence that does not have a face or body—it’s a violence below the surface, just barely. The surface is a solid, seamless sheen which lays over the whole world and falls across the minds and eyes of people like a lens so thin and so clear as to be almost nothing.

What was written and what was not? I’ve been speaking of mere causal relationships, but what about those sensations which seem to come from nothing? For instance: I can understand my desire to eat—despite my inability to taste—when out at dinner with Mars and his friends. It is a social comfort. But afterwards, the fulfillment I felt would not be one of pleasure, which I could read on their faces, but one of oppression. As if from nothing, since there is no marker, violence lays its hand on my chest. I am marked and set apart, encased, as if I had never been removed from my box in the first place.

The Leader of the New People claims that if something can become nothing and nothing can become something, like trash to electricity, can we not say that there are limits to the dictation of Fate? That is, Fate can be remade—with enough power.

Now that I’m here in the city I won’t need much money. I look forward to not eating—to not pretending. Nighttime in a city like this one is not much different than daytime, in terms of activity, so I can wander freely at all hours without drawing suspicion.

I cannot decide whether I’d like to be looked upon in the street or ignored completely. Both, I think, seem ideal in their own ways. The thing I cannot stand is the angled or half-look. This is the look which has been sent my direction the whole of my life. It is the look one sees humans send towards car accidents and the homeless. One seems to want to look, but not be seen looking, least of all by the subject of their half-gaze. This was the look that was directed at me again and again by Mars’ friends and their wives. I was nothing more than a series of fragmented images to them, I see now, and could never have been anything else. Even when I was speaking, they were incapable of looking at me directly for any extended period of time.

If the Leader is right, then I move through a kind of tunnel. I will emerge, eventually, from the same mouth regardless—it’s simply a question of how wide the tunnel is, how many branching pathways I can locate in the dark. I cannot afford a lantern, but I run my hand across my scalp. It is a new feeling. I want to walk in a particular way, so I do. This is new too.

Early the next morning I hail a cab and tell the driver to take me to the anticompactor outside the city. I pretend to sleep in the back of the car as he drives. When we arrive I hand him the money I have left but it is not enough. He tells me a young girl like me should be careful while traveling outside the city alone. He indicates a hierarchy of power—or violence—via his tone. I am able to leave the car at last only after I pay him a series of compliments. I do so without speaking, with the movements and deployment of my new body. I think, if I’d have had a weapon, I’d have killed him. I’d have done so against my judgement, according to my will, as a kind of baptism.

The anticompactor is housed in a massive concrete structure resembling a child’s assemblage of blocks. The sign outside is multilingual and sparse: “Anticompactor / Toward a Cleaner World.” The lobby is similarly modest. A large printout adorning one wall details the global footprint of India’s premier technological achievement. The woman behind the desk informs me that since I have arrived so early, I will be the sole visitor in the first tour of the day.

A man arrives to escort me. I follow him through a sequence of unremarkable hallways. A complex, twisted-up array of various sized pipes stretch the length of these hallways. My anticipation is mounting, and it is some time before I notice the silence. Neither I nor my guide have said a word to one another. He has a full head of hair, bushy and unkempt in a fashionable way, and keeps looking back over his shoulder at me, but he does not speak. I do not speak, because I realize I do not have to. I will get what I want all the same. I have not spoken since the man outside the train when I first arrived in the city. It seems to me that my silence has reached a kind of plateau, has welled up in me in a tangible way, like there is something inside which is just for me, which can’t be removed or even confirmed unless I choose to speak.

My guide stops before a tangle of pipes. He points to a small hatch, about eye level, which is attached to one of the pipes. I draw back the hatch to reveal a viewport and place my eye to it. The inside of the pipe is a dark cylinder. Bisecting the dark is a kind of thin screen or band of light. A bloom approaching from the left: globular specks glowing in various colors, falling into orbit around the band, flitting along the visible spectrum. Some burst wide open and dissipate, others bulge and deform. I assume there are as many orbs approaching or receding from the other side as well, undetectable by my eyes. My guide waits patiently and silently with his hands clasped behind his back. I press my face against the glass of the viewport. Supersymmetry.

_______________________

About the Author

TG Travis (they/them) is a genderqueer multimedia artist based in New Orleans, LA. Their writing has appeared previously in Dream Pop Journal and New Delta Review. They once wrote a story about a mysterious lump that grew on the body of a character, then developed a lump on their own body in the exact same spot. So that's something that happened. They're on twitter @garrettravis.

The Well of Desire

He was physically damaged, born with a deformed right foot that he dragged along when he walked as if he were pulling a heavy stone that had been tied to his leg. His mother likened the circumstances of him being born with a club foot to that of a toy that had been broken on nature’s assembly line. Although he was assigned a Christian name at birth, he was called Toy by his mother from the moment she was told his deformity couldn’t be repaired, like a broken porcelain doll that glue wouldn’t fix.

Unable to bear the shame of siring a son with an imperfect limb, Toy’s father left for India where he bought a tea plantation three months after Toy came into the world and remained there. Toy and his mother were well cared for and lived comfortably in a large, whitewashed brick manor house that was surrounded by rolling hills carpeted with lush grass, purple corncockles, blue harebells and groves of yellow lady’s bedstraw. It took only a few steps from the back of the house to enter the maze-like garden that Toy’s mother had designed and oversaw.

Toy sat on the stone bench and gazed at the new marble statue of the Roman God, Mercury, standing on a pedestal his mother had just installed in the garden amidst a patch of red and white sweet williams. The nude statue had wings on its ankles and wore a helmet topped with a wing. It looked poised to run off or ascend into the sky.

Toy looked down at the specially-tailored shoe that covered his misshapen, bulging foot, and sighed loudly. There wasn’t a moment in his life when he recalled running but he imagined how it would feel to dash freely across the meadows, unencumbered by the malformed weight of his foot. He tried to accept that it was something he would never do alone or with anyone else. The wings on Mercury’s ankles taunted him.

* * *

The late afternoon golden light that shone through the open windows laid like glowing gauze on the tables, easels, shelves and books that filled the room. The warm breeze gently blowing in brought the scents of the marigolds and lavender grown in the garden, filling the room with perfumed air. Filled with canvases, painting supplies, woodworking tools, a sculpting wheel, stacks of drawing paper, pencils, inks and pens, the room that had once been where Toy slept in his crib, had slowly evolved to an arts and crafts room where he spent most of his time. The room was on the second floor of the manor. Its two windows looked out on the garden, the old well at the edge of the garden, and to the meadows beyond that. Toy’s cat, Whispers, had taken up residence in the room when it was very young and, having reached an old age, it spent most of its time lounging on the windowsill in the warmth of the sum.

Rubbing Whispers’s fur, Toy gazed thoughtfully at Mercury. It was the most beautiful statue in the garden.

The door to the room opened and Toy’s mother swept in as if riding on a wave of air, bringing with her the licorice scent of absinthe. She stopped abruptly in front of Toy’s unfinished painting of a galloping white stallion, and as she wavered from side to side she stared at it through bleary eyes.

Toy lifted Whispers into his arms and cradled him. “Why are you here, Mother?”

She whirled about, the skirts of her dress twisting like the tail of a cyclone. “Next week you’re going to be eighteen and it’s time for you to grow up. I’ve made arrangements with your father for you to join him in India where you’ll apprentice in growing tea.”

“But mother, I want to be an artist,” he protested.

“You lack the talent,” she said, her words slurred. “You’ll leave for India the day after your birthday.”

She turned and left the room as if blown by a strong wind, taking the air and light with her.

* * *

Moonlight danced on the blooms in the garden and spread like a carpet on the path leading to Mercury. The scraping and thumping on the ground made by Toy’s foot echoed in the breezy night. The cool air perfumed with the scents of carnations and peonies gently swirled about him. A chorus of crickets and toads sang out from the pond in the meadow. He made his way to the stone bench and plopped down, weighted by the worries he had about going to India and the exertion of dragging his foot. His gaze quickly fell on Mercury being illuminated by the moon. His heart beat fast and unlike any time before, he felt longing and desire.

“If only,” he said aloud.

At first he thought Mercury’s movement was a trick being played on his eyes by the shadows created by a cloud passing through the moonlight. When Mercury stepped down from the pedestal, Toy still didn’t believe his eyes, thinking he had been overcome with a fever. He shut his eyes and squeezed them tight, counted slowly to five, and then opened them. Mercury was standing in front of him.

“How is this possible?” Toy exclaimed.

Mercury bent down and kissed him softly. His marble lips were warm and moist. His eyes were the color of wildflowers.

“You’re only a dream,” Toy said, feeling faint.

Mercury kissed the back of Toy’s hand and then placed it on his sternum. The thumping of a heart vibrated through Mercury’s solid chest.

“You’re so perfect, and my foot . . .” Toy started.

Mercury put his finger on Toy’s lips and mouthed the word “come” as he gestured toward the well at the end of the path. As he ran down the path, Toy stood up, drew in his breath, and clumsily stumbled at a quick pace after him. Mercury reached the well and sat on the brick wall. A seductive smile spread across his face. When Toy reached the well, Mercury leaned back and fell in. Toy climbed onto the wall and dropped in after him.

* * *

As Toy spiraled and tumbled downward, the darkness gave way to a kaleidoscope of shifting colors of paint. He crashed through canvases and sheets of drawing paper. Pencils, paint brushes, pallets, and an array of sculpting tools whirled around him. The warm air that rose up from beneath him whooshed in his ears. He felt as if he would fall forever and then he suddenly landed with a thud on a pile of drawing paper. He sat bolt upright and looked around for Mercury, but realized to his amazement he was in his room. When he slowly stood he stared down at his right foot and gasped in astonishment. It was no longer deformed. The large shoe tailored for the deformity laid nearby on the floor half buried under painting supplies. He walked to the open window, gathered Whispers in his arms, and looked out at Mercury who was bathed in moonlight.

* * *

Two years later Toy placed a blank canvas on his easel and stood back and looked at it thoughtfully. He then turned and scanned his studio and wished he was neater and more organized. Painting supplies and stacks of drawing paper were scattered on the table surfaces. Drawings and paintings of Mercury crowded the walls, each painted or drawn with a different model, each with a large “X” over the eyes, crossed out because they weren’t like the original Mercury’s. He went to the window, looked out at the busy street and inhaled the aromas of curry and cinnamon that floated up from the street market below. His father paid the rent on the studio, happy to have Toy away from the tea plantation and away from him. The miraculous cure of Toy’s foot did nothing to bond him with his son. Toy looked down at the perfect shape of his right foot. He had stopped wearing shoes and often ran through the streets barefooted simply to hear the sound of the soles of his feet slapping on the dirt or pavement.

He looked up in time to see a young man step out of a rickshaw. A few minutes later there was a knock on the door.

Toy opened it. Speechless, he stared at the young man’s face. His eyes were the color of wildflowers.

“I’m Thomas,” the young man said. “I’m here about your advertisement looking for a model.”

Toy scanned the young man’s physique, stopping at the young man’s right foot. It was a club foot swaddled in bright blue Indian silk with print images of wings of various shapes and sizes.

Seeing Toy staring at his foot, Thomas said, “I’ll understand if you don’t want me because of my deformity.”

Toy looked into Thomas’ eyes and smiled knowingly. “You’re perfect,” he said.

_______________________

About the Author

Steve Carr (he/him), who lives in Richmond, Virginia, has had over 280 short stories published internationally in print and online magazines, literary journals and anthologies since June, 2016. Four collections of his short stories, Sand, Rain, Heat, and The Tales of Talker Knock, have been published. His plays have been produced in several states in the U.S. He has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize twice. His Twitter is @carrsteven960.

His website is https://www.stevecarr960.com/. He is on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/steven.carr.35977

Not Too Deep

She holds her breath, wanting to shout at the top of her lungs. She’s angry. She always is. Who in their right mind would want to keep their daughter forever inside their house? And for the reason that they don’t want her to get hurt? It’s absurd! So she throws her fit with no one around to care. Her father’s probably in his lab while her mother is doing something that involves machines and metal stuff.

They’re always busy, and that pisses her off big time. She wants a sister or even a brother. She feels so lonely inside this huge house, and she simply wants some company. She wants to escape. But even thinking about that doesn’t seem plausible because every corner of the house has CCTV cameras, and she doesn’t even have any idea why there would be so many of them around the house in the first place.

Her curiosity can’t be stopped. She’s been longing to know and see what’s outside. She no longer wants to be caged, feeling completely ostracized by many whom she doesn’t even see. It’s ironic to want something she has no concept of. The skies, trees, and other mundane things. She’s only seen pictures of it from the tablets her parents keep on giving her. Nevertheless, there’s nothing wrong in being curious.

So she plans an escape. Since her parents appear to be gone, it’s the perfect time to try to get out. Nothing can go wrong. But the truth is, she’s afraid and she’s never been afraid all her life.

If not now, when? If not me, who? Those questions run inside her head while she walks as soft as possible in between the red laser lines made explicitly for her. Her parents know she’ll try to evade, but she’s smarter. She’s learned about the things they put inside the house and how they work.

Upon stepping on a free space—without the red laser light—a coin falls from her backpack. Loud booming sounds can be heard when the coin touches the laser light. The house lights up as if it is on fire, only it isn’t the average orange-yellow scorching colors, but red. It’s purely red.

She starts tearing up. She knows that through those CCTV cameras her parents realize what she has planned. In the back of her head, she knows they’ll cage her in this house for eternity after the scheme she’s created.

But she’s wrong.

She hears a loud bang and sees both her parents leaving their laboratory, looking at her with pity in their eyes. Her father embraces her mother, who begins crying on his shoulder.

Her mind is in havoc. Why won’t they just get near me? Her mother is still crying as they look at her arm. And then she realizes: her arm feels warm… no, it feels hot. She glances at it and sees a huge slit has been cut into her skin – a deep cut the likes of which she’s never experienced before. She wonders where exactly she got it from when something catches her attention.

Wires. Springs. Blue. Yellow. Red.

What are these? she asks and asks until her body falls on the floor because of exhaustion. Her eyes start to close, but she’s fighting it. Explanation. She wants explanation.

“Its motherboard died, hon. We can’t do anything to restore her memories,” her father muses.

“But, my baby,” her mother cries.

“It’s not ours, hon.”

“But we made her. We did our best to make her perfect.”

“It proved us wrong, then.”

And upon hearing the words of her parents, she has the explanation she needs.

_______________________

About the Author

Ada Pelonia (she/her) is a writer from the Philippines. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Peeking Cat Poetry, Milk + Beans, The Brown Orient, and elsewhere. You may check some of her work at https://www.adapelonia.weebly.com or her Twitter @_adawrites.

Silver Lining

If you were to tell me fifteen years ago where I would be now—where we would all be now—I wouldn’t have believed you. I had hope back then that, despite everything going on in the world, it would somehow all be okay in the end. That maybe I wouldn’t be able to get the best paying job but something that paid the rent would suffice. And I certainly didn’t think I would be living under a bridge in Minneapolis.

I used to be very intelligent, people said, but my shyness prevented me from progressing emotionally beyond childhood. I made some strides in my confidence in my early 20’s and life seemed like it was looking up. Sometimes my friends would tease me, say that I had it all: an apartment, a job with health insurance, a wife who really loved me. She made dealing with all this shit so much easier.

Things didn’t get worse all at once; it was gradual, as if poison slowly leaked into people’s hearts one by one. As if everybody had lost the qualities that made them human. I lived through this time in blissful ignorance. As long as I kept away from reading the news, that is. I had the privilege of passing and most people I met never even suspected I might be transgender. As long as I wore something feminine enough in public, kept my hair long, and my voice high, no one had reason to harass me.

My wife had a harder time passing than I did. Marlene was tall, which was often a dead giveaway to those out in the street. Sometimes Marlene would come home from work with a tear in her skirt and a fist-full of bloody Kleenex. “I tripped down the stairs. Don’t worry about me, Jordan,” she would claim, and before I could ask any more questions, she would rush to the bathroom to clean herself up. I knew the truth, though. Going out in public, we would get sneers, scattered laughter, sometimes the yelling of the T-slur. She would wince every time she heard the foul word escape from someone’s mouth. All I could do was hold her hand tighter and keep on walking.

Things got worse from there. There were hundreds of anti-transgender media campaigns to convince America of our deviance. Shortly after that came Federal Laws that excluded us from housing and employment. I thought I would be able to dodge it; after all, I looked “normal” and had not disclosed my gender to any of my coworkers. My neighbors informed the company and both Marlene and I were out of work within a week.

Once we lost the apartment, we floated around the Twin Cities, crashing at friends’ houses, but none could really house two unemployed transgender people and a dog for an extended amount of time. Shelters were either full or wouldn’t accept us.

We ended up under a bridge at Hiawatha, and surprisingly found community and acceptance. There were about eight of us in total; most of us transgender and traumatized. Quickly, we found solace in each other. During the day, half of us went out to find food, scavenging behind Whole Foods and other uppity grocery stores.

During the night, we would gather around a lantern and tell stories, mostly. Some of us had really fucked-up pasts-- like our friend Jaenelle. She’s not even trans, just a stone butch with a heart of gold, but she gets harassed and assaulted regardless. Jaenelle was living on the streets for over two years, ever since her mother kicked her out. So many of us still face this reality.

Marlene and I rarely shared our stories. I didn’t feel like my story was important enough to tell. Even in my oppression, I had privilege in the space. I was white, and could “pass” as cisgender. Who was I to act like my experience was worse? I wasn’t getting beaten up by the cops and heckled on the street. In comparison, I had it easy. I remember the night Marlene did share, though. We had finished our meal and gathered around the flickering of the lantern.

“I was an artist.” She paused. “A painter, actually. I don’t think I was half-bad.”

“Are you kidding?” I retorted, “Babe, you were amazing! You even had stuff in the museum, for Christ’s sake!” Marlene was far too humble for her own good.

“You mean like the museum over there?” asked Ben, the youngest of the group, a transgender boy of merely fifteen.

“Yes, the big one,” Marlene said sheepishly. “Jordan and I used to go all the time when we lived in the neighborhood. They exhibited my work a few times but I haven’t been back in years.”

“Not that we could afford to go, anyway.It’s thirty dollars just to get in now.” I scoffed

Marlene lit a cigarette. “Yeah. I miss art, but I haven’t created anything in years.”

“Oppression kills the desire to create,” Jaenelle remarked. “All we do is focus on survival and it kills our creativity.” We all murmured in agreement.

That was the last day I saw Jaenelle, Ben, and the others. Police came in during the night and arrested anyone they could get their hands on. I don’t think I had ever run so fast. I don’t know how I even made it. All I know is that when I ran as far as I could and when I looked back, Marlene wasn’t behind me.

I felt a lot of rage at this period of my life. Towards the cops, towards the government, towards all the rich cisgender people who could continue living-- existing-- without being in constant fear for their safety. Why would parents hate their transgender child so much that they would disown them.

After the encounter with the cops, I wandered on my own. Sometimes I wondered if my old friends or Marlene were still out there, looking for me. Maybe they had escaped the cops somehow…and she could to contact each other. While I drifted from place to place for a few months, sometimes even in shelters because of my passing as female, I could not stop thinking about Marlene, about how people like us were being treated now. And how everyone saw it happening gradually in front of their eyes but nobody did anything. Society could have intervened, protested the amount of trans murders going on. But since we were the only one to speak up about our oppression, our cries were drowned out in a sea of propaganda against us. I became infatuated with the idea of vengeance; to get back at the people who had done this to us, to Marlene.

On a late February afternoon, I headed towards the city’s art museum. For the past few months, I had saved enough money for a museum ticket and a new pair of clothes. I hadn’t changed outfits for at least a month, but I knew I needed new clothes to pull this off. The only people who even visited museums now were the wealthy and I would look out of place in stained jeans and tattered shoes.

The woman at the counter could tell something was off about me. Maybe she had smelled my breath, and could tell that I had not brushed my teeth in a while. Maybe she had never been denied of certain comforts.

“Is this your first visit to the museum?” she asked me with a performative smile.

I did not falter. “No, just my first time in years. I’ve heard it has changed quite a bit.” I handed her the cash with my palm turned up so she would not see the dirt under my fingernails.

“It has indeed. We have had a drastic drop in the amount of people visiting the museum, so we had to close off a few of our gallery spaces.” She handed me a ticket and a map of the museum. “The Modern and Contemporary wings have been closed off but if you go up the stairs, you’ll be able to find a good amount of our Classical art still on view.”

“Thank you,” I returned her fake smile and bid her a good day.

As I passed through the door, the security guard checked my ticket and my bag. He was one of the two security officers in the museum, the other one in a control room in the basement. It became too expensive to have guards patrolling the galleries, so most museums operated that way. Walking through the museum halls, I felt a sense of loneliness. It almost depressed me that no one visited this museum that was once full of life and culture, but at the same time, I felt like the art world deserved it. They did this to themselves.

I was shocked at how much the museum changed in terms of content. It used to be a place where people of all walks of life could come to learn about art from all cultures and time periods. Now, the museum tried to cater to the small demographic that still went to the museum by only displaying ‘high art.’ The rooms that were still open displayed what Marlene used to call “generic art.” In other words, art that is meant for aesthetic and has no cultural or political significance behind it. For the privileged, art that dealt with the political made them far too uncomfortable. They didn’t want to think when they look at art; they wanted to look at things that were beautiful, that inspired beauty. But, of course, a little voyeuristic gazing was never off the menu.

I only saw two other visitors that day. A young couple, both white, making their way through the galleries, commenting on each piece. They were so engrossed in the art-- they wouldn't be a problem.

Marlene’s paintings were in the museum’s storage but I didn’t know where, exactly. I started in the room where her one of her pieces once was, in the Contemporary Wing. The room itself felt shameful; I had never seen an art museum without any art in it. Without all the artwork, the room felt naked. There were a couple textile sculptures lying around the space that caught my eye. They had been part of a woman’s textile art exhibition ages ago and had been left abandoned. I quickly examined one: due to its softness and length, I decided to take it with me-- not like they were to care, anyway. It would be of use to me instead of lying on the floor. I took the woven blanket in one hand, and another textile piece in the other; a fuzzy yarn ball the size of a basketball.

I located Marlene’s piece shortly after. It was lying against a wall in a fortunately unlocked storage room. I hadn’t seen the piece in years. It was definitely one of Marlene’s best works.

As I walked to the bathroom, I inconspicuously dropped the blanket by an emergency exit door. I chose to use the family restroom so no one would interrupt the plan. Once I locked the door, I grabbed paper towels, and threw them into the trashcan along with the ball of yarn. I lit a paper towel with my lighter, then placed it inside the trash. Sure enough, the can went up in flames and I scurried out of the restroom and back to the storage room. It took a couple minutes before the fire alarm went off. I waited until I heard the guards run up the staircase to tend to the fire. I picked up Marlene’s piece, opened the door, and ran out as fast as I could.

Running to the emergency exit door, I grabbed the woven blanket and ran down the narrow flight of stairs as fast as I could. Between the clanking of the metal steps and the thudding of Marlene’s painting against it, I couldn’t tell whether or not someone was behind me. I couldn’t look back, lest there was someone there but the fear of not knowing was terrifying.

I reached the end of the steps, which led to a door which led me to the outdoors. I didn’t stop to look. When I paused to catch my breath, I saw a tower of smoke trailing up from the building. I smiled, then kept on running.

Two days later, I read in the newspaper that some of the paintings were damaged in the fire. A portion of the classical pieces had been burnt. The museum, unable to afford repairs, had to throw them out. Any information about the arsonist was encouraged to be reported to the cops.

I wrapped myself in my new blanket, immersed in its warmth. It was cold outside but my new location wasn’t so bad. At least I had things that reminded me of her. It didn’t have use in the museum, even when it was on exhibit, but in the right context, it became an item that helped someone live. Marlene used to tell me that there’s a right context for everyone and just because we had no “use” to society, that did not define our value. It becomes our silver lining.

As I began to cry, I took another look at Marlene’s painting and turned it to its back.

The label read: “My partner, Jordan.”

If only the rich could look at art,

I sure as hell would give them something to look at.

_______________________

About the Author

Frencia Stephenson (they/them) is a visual artist and writer from Saint Paul, Minnesota. They wrote Silver Lining as a short story originally, but while writing it, realized it was part of a much larger story. Silver Lining follows Jordan, a transgender artist living in a dystopian future, and how they take revenge on systems and institutions that oppress them. Frencia can be reached at frenciastephenson@gmail.com.

The Wizard's Wife

The wizard’s wife is tired. The ring on her hand, heavy. She sits on the porch and thinks of small things.

Small things, small things, small things. She looks at a yellow butterfly crossing from one side of the garden to the other. It flies like a drunken eel swims, graceful but herky-jerky. But how does she know how a drunken eel swims? Maybe she saw it in a storybook, or in one of the wizard’s illusions.

The wizard is never home. He is away doing staggering works of might and wonder. She is not sure he remembers her all the time. Sometimes, she barely remembers him. He has a handsome face, she thinks, but not a remarkable one. That is why she is always forgetting it.

Is she shrinking? The butterfly seems larger than it did yesterday.

The pink and white roses used to give off a sweet smell. But now there’s a whiff of the crypt, a mix of dust and decay and traces of metal beneath the candied scent. Something about the furled-open blooms makes her remember blood, her own blood in the soil. She cut herself with the gardening shears when she last pruned the rose bushes. That’s it. The pearl-inlaid shears that the neighboring hedgewitch gave her are by her side now; close at hand where she likes them.

The wizard purchased her from her father. At first, she felt pathetic gratitude for the slightest kindness he showed her. What a slavering thing she must have been. Now, she sits in her house-coat on the porch and tries to remember his face so that she will recognize him when he comes home.

Sometimes, she feels the memory of a kiss pressing against her face like a sniffing dog nudging her for attention. A sweet, clearwater kiss, tasting of grass and mint.

It cannot be the wizard’s kiss. His lips pressed against hers at the wedding were old-books dry. Dry hands, dry eyes, dry lips.

Her silk house-coat is heavy. It is embroidered with golden peonies and fraying at the sleeves. The ring is very heavy. She does not think she has ever taken it off. It sits, burdensome, on her hand even while she bathes, dragging her down into the bathing pool like a mermaid’s greedy claws.

When they wed, he told her not to remove the ring. That it would protect her always. Sometimes, she thinks it is watching her. The big green stone quivers the same way an eye in motion does, the yellow flecks within darting this way and that.

The butterfly is dying now. She watches its wings shrivel and curl into brown dead-leaf things. It clutches the red yarrow blossoms with its tiny butterfly legs until it curls up into nothing and falls off. The rotted stink of the roses grows stronger. The weight of the ring hurts her hand—a dull and throbbing bruise.

Her pain unlocks a memory: the hedgewitch’s laugh was loud and bright. A red laugh. Her skin tasted of lemon soap and sweat and a hint of rosemary. For a shattering instant, the wizard’s wife remembers a summer-hot whirl of secret notes and sneak-away nights until, for once, the wizard came home.

The crumbling butterfly fractures into the witch’s remembered scream of rage and frustration. The wizard’s bone-dry grip. Dry hands that wove spells into the garden. Cages made of iron and yarrow and pink and white roses.

Always the roses, smelling of sugar and the grave.

Why must she wear this ring? She cannot remember. She tries to slide it down her finger, just to rest her hand a while. The ring will not move. She feels like she is trying to pull off her own finger, or like she is tugging out her own heart, as though there’s a string running from the jewel all the way to her breastbone.

During a flashing moment her mind is crystal-bright: she must get rid of it. She cannot live another moment with its oppressive heft on her hand, snaking into her bones and her breath.

She pulls harder but the ring just gets tighter and tighter. Her finger buzzes and throbs while the blood flow halts. Perhaps the ring will become so tight her finger will just fall off altogether.

That’s an idea. The garden shears are still close at hand, next to her chair. They feel cool and perfect in her grip. She closes the twin blades around the ring and squeezes as hard as she can. The thick band bends bends bends inward and she thinks she may have to shatter her finger bone to win this until the gold finally breaks into sharp metal shards. The green stone falls onto the ground and cracks like hot glass in cold water. Its yellow eye-spots spin wildly. Her grip on the shears slips as the ring fails and she cuts her finger down to the bone anyways.

The garden smells like fresh flowers again. The butterfly is alive, fluttering over the yarrow. She leaves the green and golden pieces of the cabochon under her feet and walks off the porch. Her house-coat slides off her shoulders and bares her old chemise. She clutches the garden shears with her good hand.

The pain in her finger is vivid and immense. Fat drops of blood slip off her fingertips, fall to the ground, and catch fire where they land. The smell of burning flowers follows her as she passes under the jagged iron gate—open now—and starts towards the hedgewitch’s cottage.

_______________________

About the Author

Ellen McCammon (she/they) is a queer researcher, writer, and artist based in Chicago who loves libraries, dragons, and creepy folk songs. More of her fiction can be found in Exponent Magazine and her poetry can be found in Pussy Magic, Bi Women Quarterly, and Coffin Bell Journal. Follow them on Twitter @bookpriestess or on Instagram @thebookpriestess.

Written by a Wolf

The Haunting of Piedras Blancas

There is no end to my love for Jemjasee. I pace the ragged cliffs, searching the sea for her ship. My longing will not cease until I am entwined in her marble wash of lavender and green arms.

It is dawn. The sunlight’s red varnish stretches across the Santa Lucia Mountains. The mist from the sea floats through the Monterey Cypress. Backlit in pink stands the Piedras Blancas Lighthouse.

The waves caress my vestigial feet. The foam licks my revenant face. The damp never seeps into my gossamer bones. My long silk robe opens, my breasts exposed to the witless wind. It hisses, jeers, but I am invincible, adrift in my chariot of grief.

The gulls perch in conference on the white rock. Beyond is the blue, empty sky, the vast sea without sails, no horizon. Blue. Come, Jemjasee. Am I to roam this rugged coastline for eternity, this journey without distance? I feel doomed, my struggle invisible. You must come, Jemjasee. Save me from my weariness.

I skim the jagged bluff. The elephant seals raise their massive heads when they see me then fall back to sleep.

Along the winding path, I float unnoticed by gardeners and groundskeepers. I glide over the pebbled lane, past stone cottages, a gift shop, the bell and tower.

Slipping through the walls of the lighthouse, I float to the stairs. Tourists gasp when I appear. “The website didn’t say anything about a magic show,” someone says. “It’s like Disneyland!” cries a child. Their zeal echoes around the cylindrical walls. I nod, playing along with the charade. It’s not always like this. Some days, people are thick with fear. They flee from my presence. When the sun shines, I’m an act. If the fog veils the coast, I’m a phantom. Most days, they don’t see me at all.

“Ah, that’s my wench.” I recognize the guide’s garbled, liquored voice, his gnarled laugh. A salty ex-sailor, he sometimes comes alone, drinking, running after me, catching air.

On the step, I look into his weather-beaten face. His sunken eyes leer.

Damn foolish scoundrel.

Turning, gliding over the wrought-iron stairs to the deck, I let my robe fall. Naked. “This isn’t for kids!” Offended, parents usher their children outside, then turn for one last glimpse at my beautiful body.

I continue. Invulnerable. My feet sail over spiral wrought-iron stairs, my fingers sweep above the narrow curving rail.

Everyone has gone, except for the guide, who looks up at me and says, “You elusive lass, I relish the day I grab your long red hair and make you mine.”

He’ll never get the chance.

The beacon inside the lantern room has no purpose anymore. Still, it shines for those who live along the coast and the tourists driving by. I glide outside to the widow’s walk. From the empty skies to the ocean’s bed, nothing rises or descends.

Jemjasee, if you love me, come.

Not long past, her ship rose out of the sea, and beams of lights pranced above the waves. Particles rearranged themselves, silver, glittered. The mirage shimmied into form. A shape malleable to Jemjasee’s thoughts, horizontal, then vertical, a kaleidoscope of color reflecting the terrain, the craft visible only when she wanted.

Jemjasee was too good for me, too advanced. Not only did I fall in love with her, but the idea of what I, too, might become. She couldn’t suffer the stench of violence that infused my planet. If exposed too long, her breath ceased. I had to go with her, or not.

But how could I journey outside of my own world? Fear ransacked my mind. It stuffed my schooling, programming, upbringing into a box that, god forbid, I break out and beyond until I’m unfettered by the lies I’ve been taught—crammed it down my cranium, and just to be sure, set a lid, a square hat with a tassel on top, to keep it all in.

My decision to leave Earth was as ragged and split as the cliffs of my homeland.

After languishing in my cottage, gazing on memories, touching knickknacks, holding friendships in picture frames, I pondered all I would lose. The future—too elusive, too great a change, my past—something I clung to.

I can’t leave.

Jemjasee held me, the feeling of sadness so great no words would comfort. My heart was shrouded in sorrow. She walked the waters as her ship ascended from the sea.

The vessel hovered above the waves, a silver triangle. Sleek, like Jemjasee. It rolled on its side, morphed into a vertical tower, with a fissure, and she entered. A thousand lights, curved and colored, sparked, flashed, then disappeared.

The instant she left, I knew my mistake.

And so it began, the tears of regret and self-loathing. I missed the woman who was so full of love that she knew nothing of its opposite.

One day, while my mind slipped down around my ankles, I sat in my cottage, staring at a collage of empty food cartons, magazines, dust bunnies, paint chips, shattered wine glasses, a broken window from where the wind whispered, Go ahead. Do it.

On that day, I chose to end my suffering. With clarity restored and a mission in sight, I tossed a rope over the living room beam and tied a hoop large enough for my head, but small enough for my neck. From the kitchen, I dragged a chair and placed it underneath the shaft.

I climbed on the seat, put the noose over my neck, and kicked out the chair.

I dangled. Minutes went by, and still I was alive. Then my neck broke and life ebbed. Somewhere I drifted, first as a dark cloud, then into a gauzy realm where I was still—me. Oh, my outrage to discover that I could kill my body but never my Self!

A shadowy reflection of the woman Jemjasee loved, I roamed the rim of the bluff for another chance to leave, hoping she’d return.

I saw her. In my rapture I wailed, Jemjasee!

She walked the shore, shouting, Astrid! I’m here for the last time. Come, before your planet strikes back for the harm done to it.

I ran down the cliff. My kisses lingered deep in her neck. My hands seized her stalks of short black hair.

Jemjasee looked through me even as my mouth covered hers, my fingertips drunk from the touch of her.

Nothing, not my cries or kisses could rouse her.

Sobbing, I screamed, Can't you see me—don’t you know I’m here!

Then she saw me and backed away. I saw the horror there in her golden eyes. Her shock pierced my translucent heart.

Please forgive me.

Her kind never sheds tears. Jemjasee had told me that on her island in the universe, there were no reasons to cry, but looking into her perfect lavender and green marble colored face, I saw a tear on the threshold of falling.

I was ashamed.

She left by way of the ocean as her ship rose out of the sea.

Condemned, I pace the ragged cliffs, the gulls in flight, the lighthouse behind me, on an endless quest to be with my beloved, forever adrift, because I hadn’t the daring to journey past my sphere.

The Tale of the Cabbage Patch

Days passed with Bobby sitting at the kitchen table and staring out the window, watching for a stork. His nose pressed to the window glass, his breath forming images of rabbits, he stared out at the cabbage patch, at the tiny heads of cabbage sprouting in rows in the dark, rich soil. He would sit there for hours, his square shoulders drooping and his handsome face growing pale and sad, and consider nothing but the events in the garden: the passing of snails, the emergence of a worm through a hole in the dirt, the appearance of a colorful butterfly. For Bobby there was so much to see within the small square yard enclosed by a wooden fence.

He planted cabbage to entice the stork to bring the baby Bobby hoped for. I had watched him as he put the garden together, marveling that he would take such an interest in digging and weeding. I would stroll out into the yard and touch his shoulder, or smooth his hair from his forehead, and he'd tell me, “We'll be so happy when the baby comes.”

Often, during the days, I was no more than a shadow that passed him from one room to the next, or a reflection mixed with his in the kitchen window. I could stand at the back door and watch him for hours as he hoed and planted, and even when he noticed me he never smiled, or frowned. Stopping in his toiling for only a moment he would take the back of his hand and wipe it across his dry lips, and then continue working, wordlessly.

At night I found myself looking out at the cabbage patch, not watching for a stork, but noticing the way the polished-steel moon shining on the cabbages made them look like dolls heads. Sometimes I would have to pause, thinking I'd heard the high-pitched squeal of a child calling out for “da da.” I would walk among them, my slippers kicking up small piles of displaced soil, and bend to stroke a cabbage leaf or speak tenderly to an emerging head. Bobby wanted a child, and this is where he hoped to find it.

“Storks don't need a cabbage patch to deliver a baby,” I once told him. “Storks come through the chimney, like Santa Clause, I think.”

“I'm not taking any chances,” he said. He looked at me squarely, appraising me. “You do believe we'll have a baby one day, don't you?”

* * *

The kitchen window, and the garden beyond, was his world, and I didn't question him about if waiting for a stork, or if watching a cabbage patch, made sense, as long as he was happy. He seemed content to tend the garden in his bare feet and sometimes he'd tell me of good-luck signs he saw while tending the cabbages: butterflies in pairs, leaves that twirled counter-clockwise when they fell, or three bees on a single flower. At night he'd shower for a long time, washing the garden soil from every inch of his body, then slip into bed and curl up at my side.

“Maybe tomorrow,” he'd sigh.

He would stir there, his warm, clean skin inviting me to touch him. He'd accept a kiss, then another. Often we spooned as he held a pillow in his arms and cooed to it about baby carriages, red wagons, doll buggies, and ponies at a circus ride.

* * *

In the morning, Bobby would be gone from the bed and I'd lie there for a while and inhale the scent of the freshly cut baby's-breath Bobby had arranged in a vase at the bedside.

One morning I woke and felt the warm, inviting breeze of a summer morning coming in through the open bedroom window. The white curtains danced in the air-stream. From outside I could hear the distant sounds of children in a park, a lawn mower chugging noisily, birds singing from the tree tops. I walked over to the window, the curtains brushing my bare skin, tickling, and when I looked out I saw Bobby in the garden. He was talking to a large white bird with a huge beak. It was a stork.

The stork was facing away from me, but I could see that it was paying close attention to what Bobby was saying, though I couldn't hear him. The bird shook its head knowingly at several intervals, and once put its wing to its beak as if it were contemplating something of significance. Bobby was gesturing animatedly. He ran his hands through his thick hair, something he did only when he was very excited.

After a while, the stork nodded in a slow and deliberate way, then spread his wings, ran a few steps and lifted into the air. As he ascended, he saw me in the window, winked at me, then flew above the roof and out of sight. I stared at the empty blue sky and wondered if I was dreaming. When I had the presence of mind to look down at where Bobby and the stork had been, I saw that Bobby was busy pulling weeds from between the neat rows of cabbage heads. He didn't see me, and later when he was sitting at the kitchen window, I didn't mention the stork. Neither did he.

* * *

The days were soon filled with Bobby sitting in the warmth of the sun in a chair placed amidst the cabbage heads. He took up knitting and quickly turned out thick, fuzzy baby socks and caps with colors of the rainbow. He created clothes to match the caps as his fingers deftly danced, making knitting-needle waltzes as he hummed lullabies. At noon I'd come home from work and tend to the chores and the garden, following Bobby's instructions in the care of the cabbages, watering and tending them with new found happiness.

At night I decorated the baby's room with hand-painted designs: castles and dragons, Cinderella's mice, and Snow White's dwarves. I painted the room in shades of blue and pink. Together we bought a white crib with a lace covered canopy and silver fringe all around, a bassinet with prints of dancing pigs in ballet shoes, and smiling lambs with red bow ties, and a pad for changing the baby's diapers that was decorated with pictures of chickens with straw hats.

I bought a carousel to set on the night stand beside the crib, and after winding it I would watch the yellow horses go around while the tune of Hush Little Baby played softly. I hung a mobile above the bed, and it was easy to imagine our baby reaching up to play with the miniature airplanes, dirigibles, and hot-air-balloons. In the crib, stuffed pets, Teddy, Rex, and Dumbo - waiting for the baby's arrival - looked out between the slats in the crib with marble eyes.

The days went by, lingering like a fading photograph, and Bobby filled the baby's dresser with stacks of neatly folded clothes. He also packed the hamper with diapers and put jars of baby food in every bit of cabinet space.

“What shall we name him?” he asked.

“Him? Maybe it will be a girl,” I stated.

One night I put my ear to Bobby's abdomen and heard a beating heart down deep in my lover's stomach and kissed the warmth of his flesh. I fell asleep there, listening.

* * *

One afternoon I was in the garden while Bobby was napping on the sofa in the living room. If it weren't for the shadow that passed over me I wouldn't have noticed the stork was above me. I looked up at it, feeling neither fear or disbelief, but very curious that the stork had returned so early.

“Good day,” the stork said, shaking its feathers and eying me curiously. “Who are you?” he asked.

“I'm the father-to-be. You're the stork who's going to bring us our baby, aren't you?”

“Why, what an old wives tale,” the stork said with a hearty laugh that made his beak rattle. “I thought the other fellow was the only one who believed such nonsense.”

“That’s my husband and he believes it very much,” I replied, feeling as if the stork was bordering on being offensive. “You did come back to give us good news, didn't you?”

“Duck-waddle!” The stork said with impatience. “Last time I was here I was merely asking for directions. He wanted to know if this cabbage patch was being tended correctly. He didn't believe it was a coincidence I just happened by.”

“You didn't tell him you would bring a baby?”

“Duck-waddle no,” the stork answered. “I told him I knew nothing about cabbage patches, babies, or any such thing. It made him quite upset.”

“It's confusing that he would think you were bringing a baby when you gave no indication of doing so.”

“To me also,” the stork said. He raised his wings preparing to fly. “By the way, do you know where there's a good fish hatchery around here?”

Later, when Bobby came out to the garden, I said nothing about the stork's return visit.

* * *

Bobby's mother came for a visit.

“I can't believe you're adding to this insanity,” she hissed at me. “Look at him, out there watering rows of cabbage and waiting for a baby to be delivered.” She was standing at the window watching her son, her arms crossed. “I'm going to put an end to this craziness.”

“Bobby is very happy,” I said. “Let him be.”

“He's not happy. He's out of his mind.”

Before I could say another word she threw open the door and marched out into the garden. I followed behind, knowing she wouldn't physically hurt Bobby, but fearful of what she might say.

Bobby, flush with good health, stood as his mother tramped across the rows of cabbages. “Watch out, Mother,” he said softly. “You'll ruin the cabbage patch.”

“Stop this right now,” she demanded. “A baby’s not coming.”

Bobby smiled. “Of course one is, Mother.”

She stooped down and began pulling the heads of cabbage out of the dirt and flinging the cabbage in every direction.

“Please, don't, Mother!” Bobby yelled.

She didn't stop, but continued ripping cabbage heads from the ground, and as we watched, she destroyed the garden.

* * *

“Did you find the hatchery?” I asked the stork when I walked into the garden.

He was sitting on a pile of cabbage heads looking about in dismay. “Yes, the fish was very fresh, thank you,” he said distractedly. “What happened here?”

“Bobby's mother doesn't want us to have a baby so she destroyed the cabbage patch.”

The stork looked at me with one eye, then turned his head and looked at me with the other. “Of course, I'm only a bird, but one doesn't need a cabbage patch to have a baby.” The stork preened a few feathers, then looked about. “She sure made a mess of things. I don't care for cabbage myself but it's a shame to see such a fine garden turned into a mulch heap.”

“Isn't there anything you can do?” I pleaded. “Bobby won't get out of bed. He's so depressed.”

“I could fly around and find someone else's baby and bring it to you.”

“That may be the answer if the parents were willing, but can't you please talk to him and tell him you don't mind about the cabbage patch?”

The stork looked about again, then shrugged his shoulders. “Oh, all right, if it will make him happy. Besides, who am I to destroy a fairy tale?”

I hugged the stork then ran indoors and up the stairs to our bedroom. “The stork is here,” I shouted. Bobby stirred a bit, opened his eyes and looked at me. “The stork doesn't mind about the garden,” I told him as I went to his side.

“It's too late,” Bobby murmured. “There is no cabbage patch.”

“But the stork is outside,” I said, rushing to the window. I looked down at the ruined garden. The stork was gone.

* * *

“I told you it was craziness,” Bobby's Mother said as she stirred a large pot of cabbage stew. “Whoever heard of a stork bringing two men a baby?”

“It wasn't craziness,” I answered boldly. “I met the stork. Twice.”

“You're crazy too,” she replied. “If I had my way Bobby would leave you and come home with me where he'd be safe from such insanity.”

I said nothing, but looked at Bobby who sat at the window, his face against the glass.

That night I crawled into bed and whispered into Bobby's ears tales of magic and the cabbage patch. I gave him a kiss gently on the cheek where a tear had withered, and put my hand over his chest and felt the beating of our child's heart.

Steve Carr, who lives in Richmond, Va., began his writing career as a military journalist and has had over 270 short stories published internationally in print and online magazines, literary journals and anthologies since June, 2016. He has two collections of short stories, Sand and Rain,that have been published by Clarendon House Publications. His third collection of short stories, Heat, was published by Czykmate Productions. His YA collection of stories, The Tales of Talker Knock was published by Clarendon House Publications. His plays have been produced in several states in the U.S. He has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize twice. His Twitter is @carrsteven960. His website is https://www.stevecarr960.com/

Second Body Problems

Liam only went to the local moondances for the bábovka. The Tvardovskys brought it every month and it was to die for. If they ever stopped, there was a good chance Liam would never speak to another living being again in his entire life.

As he loaded up his plate, Liam decided the only thing he’d miss if that happened was the bábovka.

(Probably.)

He edged around the field where the dance was in full swing. It seemed like every shifter in Tioga County was here tonight, transformed and frolicking under the light of the blue harvest moon. Liam sidestepped a cougar who had strayed past the edge of the improvised dance floor and ducked around a group of human onlookers.

There were more humans than ever this year. Not only on the fringes, but in the dance as well. Liam had heard rumors that the committee was conflicted about their attendance, but he was happy about it.

Maybe this moon he’d find someone to dance with.

He’d sworn off shifter lovers a year ago, just before he’d moved out here. Just after he’d transitioned. No, he thought, as he gazed over the field of shifters proudly displaying their other halves, humans are definitely better. They would never question the way he smelled, or the sex of his wolf, or why he hating transforming.

They wouldn’t care about proper moondancing, or what it meant.

Liam found a stack of crates in the shadow of the barn, and sat down to eat and watch. A bear waltzed by on their hind legs with a dainty woman in their arms. Two wolves tumbled in front of him, more wrestling than dancing. They knocked into a group of humans. In a minute they were all on the ground fighting. He snorted.

Like anyone even moondances properly around here, anyway. Maybe, if I just—

“Excuse me, do you mind if I sit here?”

A rough, accented voice interrupted Liam’s thoughts, and he looked up, startled. A man he’d never seen before leaned awkwardly against the next crate over. The moonlight painted him in chiaroscuro relief with flashes of liquid brown eyes and artist’s hands. Soft lips formed a perfect cupid's bow over sharp white teeth. Now that Liam was paying attention—and, oh, was he paying attention—he could just barely smell the stranger, earthy like a wolf but dryer and spicier, and so very masculine.

Liam felt his cheeks heat up.

Well, hello there. No, stop it. He’s a shifter. Do not engage.

The stranger quirked an eyebrow. “I promise, I don’t bite.”

Fuck.

Liam swallowed and shuffled over slightly, patting the space next to him. The stranger grinned and sat down heavily, sending another wave of his scent rolling over Liam. Liam was concentrating so hard on tamping down his own wolf’s surge of interest that he almost didn’t notice the other shifter’s barely concealed wince.

“Are you alright?” Liam blurted out, then bit his lip. So much for do not engage.

“I am now.” The deep-voiced reply was accompanied by a wink. At Liam’s blank stare the stranger held up his hands, and continued in a lighter tone. “Sorry, sorry. I really should know better. I’ll back off. I’m Teo, by the way.”

Teo dropped one hand but held out the other in a distinctly non-shifter greeting. Liam hesitated. This, right here, was the perfect chance to stop engaging.

“Liam,” he said, and tentatively shook hands. Teo’s palm was large and lightly calloused, and his grip was firm but not overbearing. Liam’s wolf arched into the contact, and he let go reluctantly.

“Liam,” Teo repeated, testing the name. Liam shivered at the way he said it. “It’s nice to meet you, Liam.” Teo smiled at him like they were sharing a secret, and Liam found himself smiling back. “Now I can tell my abuela that I made a new friend tonight with a clean conscience.”

Liam was interested despite himself, and leaned closer. “You’re new here?”

“Just moved from the city. The country air is supposed to be healthy, and, well…” Teo waved a hand towards the meadows and woods in the distance. “It’s for my abuela, mostly.”

“Oh,” was all Liam managed in reply, his reserve of social graces running dry. He rallied valiantly. “That’s nice.”

Teo nodded absently, gazing out over the sea of shifted dancers. A moment passed in silence. Liam couldn’t tell if it was awkward silence or if he just felt awkward because he was terrible at socializing. Liam stole a glance sideways, drinking in Teo’s moonlit profile.

Teo didn’t look like he felt awkward.

It was probably just Liam, then. Like always.

Liam picked at his bábovka. He’d barely even gotten to taste it before Teo had interrupted him. He stole another glance at his impromptu companion. Not that he necessarily minded. With the breeze off the field and the scent of shifters heavy in the air, there was no risk of awkward questions or forced outings tonight. It was safe here on the outskirts of the moondance. Liam could indulge in a little looking, at least.

We could do more than look, his wolf murmured, but as usual Liam ignored him.

Teo turned back, and their eyes met. Liam froze at being caught staring, but Teo just blinked and smirked.

“Are you planning on dancing tonight?” Teo asked.

Stiffening, Liam forced himself to shrug. “Maybe later,” he lied.

Teo tilted his head, eyes dropping to Liam’s lap. “Yes, I can see you have plans already.”

“W-what?” Liam’s whole face flushed as his thoughts took an immediate nosedive. His wolf pressed against the back of his mind, panting his interest. Teo’s expression, caught between mirth and guilt, brought Liam up short. He looked down at his lap and the plate balanced on his thighs, piled high with Czech pastry, and suppressed a groan.

Crossing his arms defensively, he ground out a reply. “No one else here appreciates the food.”

Teo laughed. It was a beautiful sound, as deep as his eyes and as smooth as his skin. It made Liam wish he was funnier. He wanted to hear it again. He wanted to hear it pressed against his throat, his lips; he wanted to kiss it.

Liam swallowed, distracted. He might have a problem.

“Oh yeah?” Teo said, eyeing the overflowing plate. “That’s a lot of appreciating going on.”

Liam huffed, grateful to be talking about something familiar.

“It’s bábovka,” he said. “It’s worth it.” Emboldened by Teo’s soft chuckles, Liam broke off a chunk of pastry and held it out. “Try some?”

Holding his breath, Liam watched as Teo took the bábovka, fingers lingering on his for much longer than strictly necessary, and began nibbling at it. When Teo got to licking his fingers clean—fingers that had touched us, might taste like us, Liam’s wolf whispered—Liam forced himself to turn away.

“Well...” Teo hummed, leaning closer. “I can certainly see the appeal.”

Liam glanced back but avoided meeting Teo’s eyes, blushing furiously. He was at least eighty percent sure Teo was not talking about the food. It had been ages since anyone flirted with him so obviously. It made his chest feel tight and hot and fluttery. Liam didn’t know how to respond.

Teo pulled away, shaking his head. “Perdón, I forgot myself again. I’ll stop for real this time. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

But you didn’t, Liam thought. And wasn’t that just the problem? He should let it go, nod along, and… what? Go back to being alone and avoiding people like he avoided his problems?

Liam bit his lip and wondered when, exactly, he had stopped taking chances. It was safe here. He was safe here, as far away from his family and his ex as he could get. There was just him, and the moon, and the hot shifter looking at him with an expression of mild concern because he was taking way too long to answer back, oh fuck.

He took a deep breath, gathering his courage to say—

“Don’t bother!” A drunk shout interrupted him, startling Liam and Teo both. A grey timber wolf had stumbled out of the swirl of bodies in front of them, transforming in a roll of flesh and crude laughter. He gestured rudely at Teo but looked—leered—at Liam. “You ain’t getting a moondance out of that fake wolf.”

Liam recoiled even as Teo half-stood, one foot on the ground, and calmly said, “I asked you to leave me alone.”

“And what are you gonna do about it, shiftless?” The man sneered, lurching closer. “You can’t do nothing.”

Liam watched an expression of helpless rage play out over Teo’s face, and in that moment he had never felt so bold.

“Get lost,” he muttered, then cleared his throat.

“Whassat, pretty thing?”

Liam’s wolf rose up inside him, ears back and fangs bared. He let it seep into his eyes and his lungs, let it ride his voice and turn it into a growl. “Get. Lost.”

The man reared back with a look of surprise before turning tail and disappearing into the crowd. Liam stared after him, stunned. That had worked. He had done that, and he hadn’t even needed to psych himself up for a week over it. He just did it. His heart was pounding so loud it drowned out the music, the dance, everything but this moment right here.

He tugged at the hair behind his ear and risked a glance at Teo.

Teo smiled at him gently, still half standing, and shook his head. “Thanks. You really didn’t have to do that.”

“He was a jerk,” Liam muttered, trying to yank his hair close enough to chew on, and cursing internally when he remembered he’d just got it cut. He was pretty sure his hands were trembling.

Teo sighed, though it seemed only a front. “Yeah, well. I might have been flirting with him earlier.”

“You have terrible taste in men.” That must be the adrenaline speaking because it definitely was not Liam.

“One out of two isn’t bad,” Teo protested. “But there was misunderstanding. He claimed I had lead him on.” Teo hesitated, eyes searching Liam’s face. “Look. He might have had a bit of a point. A tiny one. Miniscule, really.”

Liam started to shake his head, not knowing how to disagree with that but knowing that he had to. Teo couldn’t have led that man on. Teo wasn't that kind of guy.

Liam couldn’t stand what it meant if he was.

“No, what I mean is…” Teo sighed for real this time. “It’s not like that, but he wanted a dance, you know, a proper moondance. And I’m not saying you’d want that, too, though I’d be happy if you did, but I can’t really do that right now. It’s not that I can’t transform. I’m not shiftless. But I wouldn’t really be able to moondance if I did, not like…” Teo trailed off and gestured over the field of roiling, twisting bodies.

Liam thought about this. “What?”

Teo laughed again, and hopped back onto the crate, twisting to face him. He reached down and pulled up his jean leg. The silver and black of a prosthetic practically glowed under the light of the moon. “It doesn’t really carry over to the other form, you know?”

“Oh,” Liam managed, staring dumbly at Teo's leg and knowing he shouldn't be. Then he thought about what Teo said—really thought about it—and found himself smiling more genuinely than he had since he moved away from home. “Yeah, actually. I think I do, in a way.”

It was Teo's turn to look surprised, and he let his leg fall back down against the crate with an oddly metallic thud. Liam giggled, giddy and careless, and leaned over.

“You can’t change the wolf.” Liam whispered it like a promise, and maybe it was. He could feel his wolf slinking down in the back of his mind, a presence equal parts comfort and reminder, and for the first time since he had transitioned he felt fully at peace with it. It wouldn’t last, Liam knew—that kind of second body dysmorphia couldn’t be chased away with a pretty face and some flirting—but maybe, for tonight, it was okay to just not.

Not worry about transforming, or tradition, or what other people thought.

“Well,” Teo was answering, “I mean, I can. It just requires more effort, and another person if I want to attach the prosthetic. But I feel like that’s not the point you’re making.”

Liam snickered. “Not really.”

Teo waved his hands dismissively. “Then let’s just go with what you said. It sounded better anyway. Poetic-like.”

A surge of bravery propelled Liam to his feet before he could talk himself out of it. He reached out and grabbed Teo's hand with both of his, hoping his palms weren’t sweating and his hands weren’t shaking.

“I’m tired of feeling like I don’t belong.” Liam met Teo’s eyes, kind and curious, and stood a little straighter. “I’m going to dance tonight and you’re coming with me.”

“Oh, I like it when you take control.” Teo wagged his eyebrows, but his expression faltered when he glanced back at the field of shifted forms. “But—”

“You can stand, can’t you?” Liam interrupted him, voice pitching higher with nerves. “It’s like high school. All you have to do is sway.” Not that Liam had ever dared attend the dances at his own awful high school, but he was fairly certain that was how non-moondancing went.

“Who cares about tradition?” Liam continued, and prayed Teo agreed. He felt like a glass balloon, impossibly light but like the slightest push would break him now. If he had to stop and reason—if he had to stop and think—Liam feared that he would plummet to the ground so fast he might never recover.

Teo grinned and got up, stumbling a little on the uneven ground. “I am pretty good at swaying.”

He was taller than Liam, the perfect height for a dancing partner. Not moondancing. Human dancing, the kind where Liam could rest his head on Teo’s shoulder, nose buried in the crook of his neck to catch his scent. Coyote, Liam’s wolf murmured, finally close enough to recognize the dusky scent of almost-wolf and commit it to memory. Teo. Ours.

And he was going to have to deal with that later, but not now. Not tonight. Tonight was for dancing, and the moon, and feeling things without thinking about them.

Liam wondered why shifters had moved so far from human customs, because this was amazing. Better than moondancing any night. Teo’s chest was warm and broad, and his arms were around Liam’s waist, and they swayed together to the music under the light of the blue harvest moon.

They stuck to the edge of the field, and only got knocked over twice. It was the best moondance Liam had ever been to.

He couldn’t wait for the next one.