Chapter 2
I stare at the syringe jabbed into my thigh, and as the clear, oily liquid makes its way through the needle in the slow way it always does, I think about how I’ve gotten here.
With the plunger fully down, I pull the needle straight up and out of my thigh, a dot of blood and oil welling up in its wake.
I lay a bandage over it, the ritual calming me.
Needles used to scare the fuck out of me, and now I could do this in my sleep…
if the rush of the E wouldn’t keep me awake all night.
Sometimes I’ll hit a blood vessel and have to deal with a mild horror show, but today’s injection seems to have gone off without a hitch.
Now, I just have to keep doing it every week for the rest of my entire life. Gladly.
I stand up…slowly, very slowly. I’ve learned my lesson with that after passing out a couple of times after eagerly jumping up with the estrogen flooding my system.
Even with that minuscule amount of estrogen absorbed by my body, the effects have been beyond dramatic.
My formerly flat chest is now adorned with soft, beautiful breasts.
The way my jeans hang on my rounded hips always astounds me.
I stare at myself in the mirror. My face has gotten rounder and softer.
I’m beautiful now, and I can’t get over it.
Laser hair removal did what the hormones couldn’t quite take care of, and now I can, for the most part, be the person I want to be.
My hair falls to my shoulders now, and I constantly get compliments on it.
But I can’t ignore the isolation it brought, too.
Discovering you’re trans is a tough enough journey, but the strain it puts on your existing relationships will show you exactly how strong they are, and which ones will break when tested by something as extreme as you bring your true self.
Some of my friends accepted me with open arms, others shied away.
It was a subtle separation, beginning with a lot of ‘ahh, no, I can’t hang out, I have a lot going on’, eventually drifting to more and more time between check-ins, until eventually no contact at all.
I used to mourn the friends I lost, worrying that there was something wrong with me. But I wasn’t the one with the problem.
My family was, of course, not having any of it.
I wasn’t exactly their favorite son when all this began, and I quickly became their least favorite, grudgingly acknowledged daughter the moment I told them.
They tried to connect for a while, tried to make it seem like they were OK with it, but I saw the disapproval in their eyes grow.
After a couple of years, they gave up that charade too.
Now it was the occasional call around holidays, basically just formalities to establish proof of life.
I’d made new friends, and found family in queer circles.
Other than that whole thing being full of drama that could be too much at times, it was nice.
And to be fair, some of that drama was of my own creation.
I had meetups with other transfemmes here and there, and had even been in a few relationships since transitioning, all with other trans women.
Having a new life after living in the shadow of myself for so long is one of the most exciting things I’ve ever experienced.
But this time of year reminds you how isolating being this different can be. I’ve never minded the isolation, though. At least that’s what I tell myself.
I leave the bathroom and walk back into the echoing, dimly lit hallway. I just need to get to the roof access door to make sure it’s still shut before I can start making my way back down.
Even though the silence is enjoyable, it can be a bit too much after a while, so I take my phone out and hit the first, and only, name in my favorite contacts list. I choose a video call because as the estrogen floods my body, I feel a deep need for human connection that a voice conversation won’t cover.
I tap Maya’s portrait, and almost as quickly as I place the call, it connects, and I’m greeted with a familiar scene of my friend at her computer, a joint burning away in the corner of the frame, casting a thin trail of smoke that makes her annoying if elaborate gamer lighting setup look even more ethereal and spooky.
She doesn’t even look at the camera when she starts the call, focused on something much more interesting on her other monitor.
Her long, silky legs are draped over the arm of her chair, dotted with an assortment of tattoos. She is, like usual, topless.
“What's up?” She says.
“Were you just sitting there ready to take a call?”
“I’m terminally online, Lucy, I sit here eighteen hours a day.” She lifts the joint with her long, lithe fingers and takes a drag, the ember glowing orange. “This shouldn’t surprise you by now.”
“It doesn't…” I walk down the hallway and try to keep my eyes on Maya while not falling over. “And, I don’t have anything, just calling because I’m lonely as fuck.”
“And you’re relying on me to provide entertainment…” Maya says, blowing a jet of smoke into the air, finally turning toward her camera and giving me a look at her deep green eyes.
“Well, you have your tits out, so that’s its own form of entertainment at least.” I round the corner and see the roof access door all the way down the hallway, an achingly long distance for my already tired feet.
“Fuck yeah, I do,” Maya grabs her breasts and releases them, the bounce causing my heart to skip a beat. Her nipple piercings glimmer as they catch light. “Grew these myself, you think I’m going to not show them off?”
“Hey, I’m not complaining.” I say, staring at the dim screen of my phone.
Yes, of course, I had a crush on Maya. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t understand how anybody could not have one.
She was just so effortlessly cool, so unbothered by life.
Yes, we’d hooked up, and it was amazing.
Maya’s not really the kind of person who turns down advances from anyone who shows enough sustained interest in her.
And, it’s hard to not be enamored by somebody who doesn’t let anything get to them.
But, she was also probably too messy for me.
That chaos, that carefree attitude, it’s appealing to witness and even be a part of until you find yourself at BDSM clubs where you witness people doing things you thought were just online jokes about how extreme kinks can go, or, maybe more importantly, you find yourself sitting in your car for an hour waiting to go to a concert that you had spent most of a paycheck on tickets for, just to finally have a call connect with your friend who had completely forgotten about said concert and tried to laugh it off.
That sad little anecdote was the first and last time I actually tried to be in a romantic relationship with Maya, something beyond desperate experimentation or times where the two of us were too tired to attempt going out with someone else.
Since then, I’d kept her chaos at arm’s length.
Still, I couldn’t deny that she was hot as fuck, and maybe just…
…but no, now I’m good at catching myself before I go down that rabbit hole again. The younger Lucy would call me boring for it, but I knew stability and calm was better for me in the long run.
“So, how are things going in the corporate grind?” Maya says, typing something on her keyboard before suppressing a clipped ‘fuck’.
“Boring…more boring than usual because everyone’s gone for the week already, so I’m walking around an empty building.”
“Why’s it empty? Did everyone finally grow a conscience and decide to throw off the shackles of capitalism?” Maya clicks her mouse a few times, accompanied by another flurry of typing.
“It’s Christmas in three days.” I say.
“Oh yeah…” Maya chuckles to herself. She takes another drag of her joint. “Been so long since I’ve been invited to it that I’ve kinda forgotten. You fucking bitch, fuck!”
“What?” I say, Maya’s scream still echoing against the terrazzo tile beneath my feet.
“S…sorry…have to carry my whole fucking team, again. Nobody else wants to play support so they leave it to the dolls to pick up the slack.” Maya rolls her eyes.
“Have you tried paying attention to one thing, and just one thing, for more than a few minutes…ever?”
“Lucy, if I let myself focus on one thing, that’s when the grim shit can come into my brain and ruin my night, so I do what I can to not let that happen.”
“Fair…” I get to the locked roof access door and pull it firmly, confirming that, yes, it is absolutely shut.
I turn away and take a step before turning back, then pull the door again. Just to be sure, it’s absolutely shut. A semi-untreated anxiety disorder might make me good at my job, and I’m going to have to just live with that.
“So what are you playing? League?”
Maya looks up at the camera, her gaze focused and sullen, like I’d just tarnished her honor beyond repair. “What did you say? How could you insult me like that?”
I feel a bounce in my step as Maya puts on the drama queen act. “Oh my god, I can’t keep up with whatever fucking game you’re into right now, I have an actual job.”
“Bitch…” Maya guffaws to herself, “I made five hundred dollars on furry porn commissions to people today, and that’s on the low end for me…and I’m playing Rivals.”
“Embarrassing.”
“Fuck off.”
“I love talking to you, Maya.” I smirk. Maybe it comes off more romantic than it should, but I do genuinely love talking to her.
“Still fuck off…but…I’m glad I can be an entertaining distraction.” Maya smiles, some of the cool and unbothered facade finally falling. There is actually a very sweet, caring woman under all of the layers of snark, somewhere. “I gotta go, but, don’t get too lonely, alright?”
“I know who to call if I do…”
“Not me.” Maya’s shields come up again in an instant.
“Absolutely not…” I say, getting to the staircase where my cell reception will cut off, so I stay right at the threshold to keep talking to Maya.
“Have a good rest of your night, and the Nico Robin statue I had to pay a teenager in Tokyo that five hundred bucks I made today to get from a crane game is on your doorstep at home, just checked the tracking.”
“What?” I say in actual shock. Maya always did this, she loved giving outlandish gifts to her friends, all while acting like she truly didn’t give a shit about us. “Are you serious?”
“Maybe…guess you’ll find out when you get home…” Maya looks up at the camera and blows a kiss. “Byeeee…”
The video cuts off, and I’m greeted by Maya’s profile picture, the excitement in my night suddenly disappearing.
Back to the grind. Back to silence. And maybe worst of all, back to my own thoughts.