Andrea returns

The glasses pinched at the bridge of my nose, and the cheap perfume rising from Marsha’s handbag seemed to curl around me like a phantom, clinging, invasive. The satin nightgown itched where it brushed the backs of my thighs. I hated how naturally my legs pressed together, the shape of my hips forcing me into that posture. Every gesture screamed not mine, and yet my brain had no escape—signals firing through nerves that weren’t built for me, but which now imprisoned me.

I caught myself breathing shallowly, chest rising in a way that felt obscene, the weight of those surgically stiffened breasts tugging at my ribs. God, they felt heavy, a constant reminder that I was inside someone else’s history, someone else’s sexuality. I shifted, and they swayed against the satin. My cheeks burned, half with fury, half with a sick curiosity at the sensations.

Andrea’s magazine slid off my lap. The glossy cover brushed the floor and I bent to pick it up—too fast. A sharp pop of ache flared in my lower back. “Fuck,” I hissed in that ghastly husky croak. Even my curses sounded wrong. I pressed my palms against my thighs, the skin softer than mine had ever been, papery at the edges, nails clicking faintly like props for someone else’s performance.

A knock at the door. My heart jolted. Too fast, too loud.

“Come in?” I said, hating the upward inflection.

Andrea slipped back inside. She’d left not twenty minutes ago, but her eyes were wet again, lashes sticking. She looked at me—at Marsha—with an expression I couldn’t decode. Pity? Guilt? A daughter staring at her mother resurrected and warped?

“Couldn’t sleep,” she murmured. She sat down on the bed beside me, so close I could smell her shampoo, the honey-gold scent of her hair.

“Andrea…” My throat rattled. I wanted to call her darling, to remind her I was still here, her husband, her Steve. But the sound that came out was her mother’s voice, nasal, ruined.

Her hand drifted to my arm. A simple touch. Warm, familiar. Yet my body betrayed me—I shivered. Skin that wasn’t mine shivered under her fingers, a strange tremor that pooled low in my stomach.

She noticed. Her eyes flicked to me, wide, then narrowed. “Steve. Don’t.”

“I can’t help it,” I whispered. God, how pathetic it sounded. “Inside I’m still me. I still… I still need you.”

Her lips parted, trembling. Her face was inches from mine, so close I could see the faint line where her lipstick ended. I wanted to lean in, to taste her. To remind her. But in the mirror I’d seen what lips I now wore—thin, stretched, marred by smoke. The thought of pressing them against her soft mouth made bile rise in my throat.

She leaned back, shaking her head. “You look at me with her eyes now. Do you even understand what that does to me?”

“Yes,” I said. And it was true. The horror wasn’t one-sided. She was grieving a husband, clinging to a mother, and here I was, a grotesque collision of both.

Her hand still rested on my arm, and every nerve in me screamed. Heat spread outward, embarrassingly fast, dragging my body into reactions I didn’t want. My chest heaved; those breasts rose with the breath. The nightgown slid against my thighs, reminding me of the void below, of the fact that I wasn’t even castrated—no, worse, I’d been rewritten. My manhood stolen, replaced with folds and emptiness I didn’t dare touch.

I swallowed hard. “Andrea… please. If you won’t see me as your husband, then at least—see me as not her. I can’t be your mother. Not in here.” I tapped the side of my head.

Her eyes filled again. She brushed her thumb over the ridge of my knuckles, painted gold, the polish chipped. “And what if I need you to be both? My husband gone. My mother gone. You’re all that’s left.”

I laughed bitterly, tears catching in my throat. “Then you want me to be a monster.”

“No,” she whispered. “I want you to survive.”

Her hand slid away, leaving my skin tingling in her absence. I hated that I wanted her hand back.