Sinter

by Tessa

A dude goes hiking with his trans girlfriend, looking for the perfect spot to surprise her with an anniversary gift--unaware that she has a surprise of her own.

CW:

The late-morning air was still cool and damp, the full summer sun not fully breaking through the patchwork of clouds as we hiked the trail. Thankfully, Delilah still seemed to be having a good time, as far I could tell. A grin remained plastered on her face, her long dark hair tossed upward by the occasional breeze. This whole trip had been her desire, the perfect way to cap off a year of us being together.

Delilah and Jason. It rolled off the tongue like a sonnet. I was so lucky to have found her. 

“Hey babe, I think we’re almost there,” she said to me in her high tenor voice, glancing back towards me, eyes wide with delight and mischief. These hot springs were evidently a bit of a local secret, a gem amongst a monotonous crush of conifers. Delilah had only known about them due to her being a geology nerd, and even then she’d spent weeks researching it. Honestly, I think she was more excited about the prospect of seeing silica sinter formations than the prospect of skinny dipping. We’d had to duck around a few caution signs, but Delilah had reassured me that the spring we were going to was safe.

Jason and Delilah. It was a slowly crooned love song. She was so lucky to have found me. 

More than lucky, really. She had been on the streets when we first met, recently unhoused after her rent had been increased yet again. Despite the legal protections afforded trans people in our state, she’d had an enormously difficult time getting a job once her lack of a permanent address was added into the mix. I encouraged her to move in, to get a roof over her head, even though we’d only been dating for a few weeks after a meet-cute in a coffee shop. Who knows where she could have ended up without me. 

“We’re here!” Delilah exclaimed, coming to a sudden halt. I looked out, and saw a landscape surrounded by a low cliff and dotted with shallow pools of clear water, a tenuous mist rising from each one. Here and there a streamlet fed from one to other, stepped terraces of glistening white mineral deposits marking each channel. The soil itself was slightly glittery, an odd mixture of sand and clay–no doubt a legacy of eons of chemical erosion from the hot, mineral-rich water. It was a fairy land–no wonder Delilah had been so keen to see this. The only thing that marred it was the distinct odor of rotten eggs, but even that seemed like it was dissipating as we got closer.

“C’mon babe, let’s take a selfie!” she said, motioning me over to the edge of the nearest cliff. “And then I have a surprise for you.” She’d been oddly secretive over the last few weeks, and I had no doubt she’d been hunting down the perfect anniversary gift. But I had a surprise of my own. 

“Okay, but one thing first,” I said, my heart bubbling happily in my chest. “I have something for you.” I drew out the surprise I’d been doing my best to keep secret from her for the past month. It was a necklace I’d found on Etsy, five opals shimmering iridescent blue-black, connected by a fine silver chain. “For my little kitten. Happy anniversary, babe.”

Her eyes widened. “Oh my God, it’s perfect!” She gently took it from my hands and fastened it around her neck. “Great, now it’ll look perfect for the picture!”

I wondered what her gift would be for me as we both backed up to the small cliff overlooking the springs. Whatever it was, it was small enough that she was apparently able to keep it on her person–I hadn’t seen anything unusual amongst our bags.

I retrieved my phone out of my pocket and swung it around in front of us. “Alright, smile–”

Suddenly, I felt the ground disappear beneath me as Delilah grabbed my shoulder and pushed me over the cliff. I landed on the edge of the nearest spring, the sandy soil cushioning in my fall–though I suspected I’d still have some odd bruises later. It wasn’t a long fall, and it only managed to knock the wind out of me, nothing more. I couldn’t say the same for my phone, which had gone flying into the pool. Damn. Well, I was due for an upgrade, anyway. 

“Babe, what the hell?” I asked, on the verge of laughter. Clearly, this was some sort of joke, a reflection of Delilah’s odd sense of humor. But then I noticed that I wasn’t catching my breath–in fact, it was getting harder to breathe, harder to move. My nose and throat burned. I tried to raise myself up, but my strength gave way, and I collapsed back to the ground. Meanwhile, Delilah was perched on the edge of the cliff, gazing downward towards and scrutinizing me. 

“What’s going on? Why can’t I move?” I gasped out.

“That would be the hydrogen sulfide,” she said with a proud smirk. 

“Why don’t I smell anything, though?” This was obviously still a joke, had to be. 

“Because it’s already paralyzed your olfactory nerves. The rest of your nervous system will follow within the next hour or so.” Her smirk sharpened with the satisfied pleasure of a predator towards its dying prey. 

“But–why–?” It was getting harder to get the words out, betrayal and toxic gas choking off my throat. 

“I got tired of living in fear. In deprivation. Of being cold and hungry all the time.” She started pacing along the edge of the cliff. Whatever was coming out of her mouth was something she’d been nursing in her heart for a long, long time. “But no matter how I tried, I couldn’t catch a break. Society wouldn’t permit that, not for a freak like me. So after a while, I figured, fuck, why not just murder someone and take their stuff?”

Hell. She really was trying to kill me. “Thought you–loved me?” I burst out through the pain. 

“Loved you?” Her body recoiled, her face a mask of disgust. “I never loved you, not really. I don’t even like men. But, hey, I had to start somewhere, and you were it. Them’s the breaks, I guess.” She gave a shrug that seemed impossibly indifferent. 

“My–little–kitten,” I said, plaintively. 

Her face broke into a sneer, all her softness instantly boiling away, leaving something razor-sharp and rock hard. “I never wanted to be a little kitten! I want to be a goddess whose mere presence inspires terror and reverence! Not something small and harmless.” 

She stopped to take a breath, regaining her composure. 

“But, you know what, you weren’t a bad guy,” she continued, reaching behind her neck. “Here.” There was a small tinkling sound immediately to my left as the necklace I’d gifted her landed next to me in a pool of silver and opal. I groaned in response, no longer even able to muster the energy to form words. “I’ll tell them that you must have wandered off during our hike, looking for the perfect place to present your anniversary gift, when you tragically stumbled and fell before succumbing to the fumes. You’ll have died as the ultimate romantic. It’s the least I can do for  you, really. Especially after I burgle the hell out of our apartment later.”

She turned to walk away, her footsteps growing fainter, and the white sinter cliffs above me swirled into darkness. I barely heard her call, “Happy anniversary, babe.”