Through a looking glass

Jesse watched the two naked teens scramble around the lawns, ponds and flowerbeds. Coating themselves in layers of mud or dust and then rolling over in a tumble of giggles at the raw, physical joy of it. Suzy chased after them with squeaking, stomping demands to settle down and behave… but that too, was just part of the theatre of it, really. Back toward the house, a figure could be seen on one of the upper balconies holding a thin cigar and a steaming mug of something. The ringmaster of this circus, admiring those forever clowning just for him. Jesse ran his mind back through his friend’s views, of them all being really just figments of a twisted imagination… playing out what parts they were made for. It was easy to believe, if you wanted to. What had Betsy once quoted to him, from one of those silly, old books she loved? ‘Sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.’ She’d read them to him, whenever he was feeling truly lost for his place in the world.

It was strange to think: that he might finally have stepped through his own looking glass… and found things were making more sense if he just stopped trying to look back through it all the time. He and his pouting femboy friend being dragged along by those red leather straps could very well have ended up on the other end of such leashes. Who was to say they wouldn’t have been just as happy about it? As a ripple of breeze blew up under his skirt and set him anxious that some unseeable pair of eyes out in the real world might have caught a glimpse… that devilish other voice in his mind smirked that at least he was made up to look a treat for them. If this was who and where he was, then wasn’t it better to enjoy the adventure of it? Rather than agonising over who he might once have been… ‘It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.’

So mesmerised by his own daydreaming, was Jesse, and in watching the frolics ahead… that he very much tripped over the long pair of legs sticking out from beneath a tree, and landed in the lap of the man they belonged to. Dr Pietre had been sketching a view of his wandering approach, of course, yet had neglected to call out a warning even as the young sissy went ass over heels and broke the man’s pencil. He calmly pulled out another one as Jesse brushed himself off, blowing on a grazed knee and apologising profusely. If the teen had expected one back in reply, he did so in vain… but the returning blur of that implement, subsuming the unfortunately scratched line simply as another part of the whole, took grasp of his attention. The man’s skill really was quite impressive, not the least because he was still able to strip any clothing he did not wish to keep from Jesse’s expertly shaded, greyscale image.

“Why do you keep drawing me?” The sissy asked, after simply watching for a minute or two. The man’s answer was immediate, but flatly given. Not looking up from his work for a moment.

“Because you are beautiful.” He chewed on the end of his pencil for a second, judging whether this sketch was finished… before clearly eyeing up Jesse’s new position for the next.

“Sasha says we need to get out and see the beauty in the world… socialise with our peers. It’s important for our health.”

“Who is Sasha?” Asked Jesse, resisting the urge to open up his legs a little as he sat, knees to chest, under such scrutiny.

“Psychological aid system for human administrators: S.A.S.H.A… The ‘p’ is silent…” Remarked the Doctor, setting to work stripping his subject down to a skeletal frame… before applying nakedness over the top.

The answer had taken his muse by surprise though. Something about the way he had said the name gave off much more the impression of a person in his life, than a machine. “So it’s a computer program. Part of the algorithm… that checks up on your mental health after working on the algorithm?”

“Everything is part of the system, that’s the whole point… it doesn’t make the self-administered checks redundant. Each quadrant is always scanning all the others for anomalies. No section is above correction.” The man seemed quite pleased with himself over the small rhyme at the end, almost singing it to himself.