Chapter 6: Nightwalk

 

Sophia never really liked The Smiths, but it helped her remind her of her friends, namely John. And you can't have a lonesome, angsty nightwalk without some Smiths.

Walking over the bridge, she caught sight again of a ghost memory of John standing towards the edge, staring into the water, emptying his guts out after his 6th bottle of whatever concoction of shit he was drinking that night. Sophia stood beside him, scolding him, telling him to step away and get his bearings back before he fucking falls into the river and kills himself. This has happened so many times now since she's moved here, it's almost become routine. 

She was a good friend, wasn't she? Has she grown into a real person, finally? With real connections, and interactions, and memories with others? Does she exist as an entity in the memories of others? Surely, if worse comes to worse, someone like John would extend their hand to help her out in her times of need too, right?

So much had changed since she'd moved here. But how much had she changed herself? She'd made so many jumps forward in her life, breaking free of the static stillness she was suspended in before. She'd started HRT, after dreaming about it for so long in the dark disgusting recesses of her mind. She'd finally escaped away from her family, gotten a job, obtained some small form of independence for herself. She's made her first real friends she's ever had. Her 15 year old self could've never imagined living life as she does now. 

But she was still so weak. She was still such a failure. She still couldn't step forward with being honest to others. She couldn't come out like she was supposed to. She still recoiled at being clocked. She still was terrified of being trans. She was still too fucking scared to even wear women's clothes. She was still scared. She was a failure. She was a failure. She was a failure. It doesn't matter how many steps forward you make in life if you eventually hit a wall and start stepping backwards again. It makes all the progress you made for naught. It makes everything before a total waste of time. Worthless. Worthless. Worthless.

The moon spotlit on her again once the marching line of buildings came to an end as she reached the waterline. Passing the bridge separating one world to the next, she was yet again in the 'bad part of town'.

Maybe someone will kill her here.

Maybe some dude will proposition her for sex and then kill her by slamming her head against a brick wall in the back alley. Maybe she'll get attacked with a heroin needle and get infected with some disease and die. Maybe that group of kids from earlier will see her again and start beating her bloody after clocking her again. Maybe she could get hit by a car after accidentally slipping on a banana peel on the sidewalk. Any one of them could be the perfect escape from all her troubles. Death could be her knight in shining armor. Swoon.

If someone would simply grace her with sweet release, without having to do anything herself, she could finally be free of all responsibility, of all obligation to 'keep trying, keep trying' for meager returns. She would be free of the shackles of struggle - of indecision. Of her constant constant constant thoughts thoughts thoughts never ending never stopping never ever ever. She was tired of her own voice in her head. She's been tired of it for many, many, many years. She'd forgotten when she'd first heard it, because she couldn't remember anything in her life before it started speaking to her. Everything before then was a blur, and everything afterwards was just memories of her Voice. It always ruminated, dwelled, brooded, in a vicious cycle, spiraling, spiraling, spiraling down, overwhelming all thought, all feeling, everything in the rest of the world. She'd get lost in her own head as life passed her by, stuck on a staggered thought like a stray thorn tugging on a ripped hem, and when she'd open her eyes again, she'd be all alone. Alone with her thoughts, all over again. Never ending. Neverending. Never-ending.

Maybe if a guy fucks her hard enough, the voice would finally shut up. Maybe if she came hard enough, she could finally stop thinking forever. 

But first, a burger. 

—

Considering their comments the night before, it was very unlikely Mark and John would ever return to this accursed place beneath the uranium cake-yellow arches - meaning it could be a safe haven. A place for her to do or be whatever she wanted to be, or to end her old life for good.

This must be what some runaway gay kid must feel like. 

Sophia had always read about stories of "trutrans" kids growing up. Apparently, to be legitimately trans and part of the "LGBT club", you had to run away from home at 13 and join some gay brothel halfway-house or whatever and become a drag queen. As some dysfunctional autistic loser nerd living in the suburbs who's only life skill was save-scumming in emulated video games on her PC, such a nonsensical dream was impossible - and also pretty disgusting to her, too. She fucking hated drag queens. She fucking hated all that pride shit. It just made her look bad and obnoxious, and made her feel constantly self conscious. "Is that what I am to people? Is that all I can be when I grow up?". Maybe if those people didn't exist and ruin trans people's reputations all the time, she wouldn't have been too scared to tell her parents about her fantasies growing up. Surely things could've been different for her if those freaks simply didn't exist. 

There was one other person in town she suspected was trans, at a local grocery store. Well, it's not like she could read her mind or anything. Or their mind. Or his mind. Nobody knows what identity someone may hold. But she - they were clearly a Hon. Probably mid 40s. Balding. Patchy foundation brushed over thick beard shadow. She'd never heard her speak yet, but she'd imagine they had a rich, smokey voice, right out of a fucking Jerry Springer segment. Ring on their finger - married, or divorced? Likely had multiple kids, somehow, through their dysphoria.

How could any real tranny ever possibly think of using their dick for anything!? 

Everyone could tell nobody wanted to talk to her. Everyone could tell nobody wanted to look at her. Everyone could tell nobody wanted to be near her. And Sophia didn't either. She always chose the other registers to cash out, but tried to avoid even entering the store entirely, and told Mark and John not to go there either. The grocery store hon could ruin Sophia's reputation, after all.

Reputation as who, though? Before transitioning, she'd always admired a certain kind of girl. Alternative girls. Androgynous girls. Girls who seemed to be confident in whatever they wanted to do. Girls that seemed to only exist in idealistic fiction, but sometimes glimpses of the platonic idea would shine through slivers of reality, clouded by her own admiration and infatuation. She wanted to be with them. She wanted to be them.

But she could never be a punk. She could never be a rebel. She could never be cool. She was just a normal quiet girl, with nothing exceptional about her whatsoever. Her fate was to live a quiet life alone, without disturbing anyone, without anyone finding out about her horrible deep dark secrets. The only ones who get to be successfully trans in this world are those that are strong enough to break the mold of society and live their own lives. Meaning 90% of the rest of them get churned into ground meat, guts spilled over to be washed out into a river. 

Maybe if she was born a real girl, she could've been like Jennifer. Prim, proper, normal. A hot fashionable social young woman with a cool boyfriend. A normal girl. Someone who could wear whatever she wanted, and do whatever she wanted, with no real issues and nobody to tell her what she was doing was wrong. A perfect life. Not cool, but happy - normal.

The pangs of jealousy and envy got stronger and stronger every time Jennifer entered her mind. This must've been what was pissing her off in the bedroom, and what made it impossible to talk with her like a normal fucking person before that. Painful memories of high school came rushing back in, where she used to stare at girls in the hallway, wishing she could join them. Not as a boy - a potential predator - but as simply one of them. But no real woman would ever base her friendships off of bitter jealousy and envy like Sophia was bound to. Her dysphoria would always make it impossible for her to ever have a real, vulnerable, intimate, and trusting friendship with a girl. She'll always be on the borders looking in, staring outside of the window like a sicko. 

However, if this scummy building she was staring down was to be a 'safe haven', a separation of the world, then maybe she can be a little impulsive. A little crazy. A little cool, even. One last wild act before someone kills her. Just like at work, or chatrooms growing up, she needed an escape, to transform into someone else entirely. 

And so, this time, she chose to walk into the McDonalds with a little swing in her hips, and a soft grace in her wrists.

She used to practice walking up and down the 5 foot length of hardwood floor she had free in her tiny room as a teenager, imagining she was some kind of fashion model - one who had just turned into a girl after being given some special drink or wearing a special tiara or whatever else her perverted hyper-active brain had thought up that night. She'd close her eyes and imagine her hips growing wider, breaking some seams in her shitty boy's jeans (in her mind). She would even get some socks and strap them to the side of her brief's elastic waistbands, Signaling to everyone who looked at her that she was a woman and could bear children. She'd get some more socks, and roll them up in a ball, placing them inside a tank top contraption - simulated DIY breast forms. She'd wear them for hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours, the sense of weight soothing her mind and silencing the voice. I'm just like some DeviantArt furry freak jacking off in a suit at this point, she'd think to herself.

She'd get hot and excited imagining her body changing like a normal girl's would during puberty, instead of the bony, malnourished, stick figure male body she actually had. The new center of gravities, the new weights in every which direction, would force her to change how she walked, how she had to handle her body now, even how she was perceived by society. A total transformation, of her body, her identity, her life, even in the internal memories of others. It almost seemed like a joke, like putting lipstick on a dog, for a freak goblin like her to be looking like them, the royalty. Maybe that just made it even more exciting. She was breaking the caste rules, after all. 

While she was on HRT, she'd only barely gotten a small taste of her wild insane impossible fantasies. She still only had little AA cups, after all, and barely noticed any other changes while draped in baggy black hoodies all fucking day long. But the desires still stayed with her as her motivation. If they'd died, she would've killed herself long ago, and wouldn't have waited for anyone else to do it for her.

Maybe she could be as graceful as Jennifer someday if she'd walked like they do. Maybe then men would notice her. That's why femininity was so exciting to her. It could open up a whole new world for her that she'd never got to experience before. To feel free, graceful, expressive, sensual. To be held down, dominated, protected, controlled. To feel at mercy of her own impulses and inhibitions, instead of her cursed fucking constantly chattering mind. 

If anyone knew what she was thinking when she let herself act like this, she would surely end her life out of shame, like a classical samurai.  There was nothing "true" about her, like the flamboyant drag queens she hated and resented. The lie she told her HRT doctors were just that - lies. "I was always wishing I was a girl, thinking I'd grow up to be a girl one day, and now I want to make it come true!" she'd plead to them with puppy dog eyes - even though it was mostly an adolescent-borne transformation fetish that both came out of nowhere and spun out of control. She can't remember the details about her childhood much anymore, but as far as she knew, she was always exceedingly normal. 

Something about shutting off some part of her mind and letting her move through the world as her own facsimile of a woman felt so freeing, so liberating, so -

There's someone watching.

God. There's actual people here.

Of course there is - it's a weekend evening, after all.

But someone's watching her. Someone's watching her. Someone's staring daggers at her. She's felt this feeling before, many times in her life. She forgets when it started, but she's never wrong about her instincts. Who is it? Who is it? Who's staring her down? Who's judging her? Is the friend group here again, whispering tranny again? Mark and John, seeing her walk like an effeminate faggot? Jennifer, realizing what a freak she really is and would never want to be her friend no matter what? Some street druggie zonking out? Mother?

She ran into the men's bathroom. Safety in conformity. Hopefully she didn't come across as some effeminate freak to whatever reprobates were staring at her.

Maybe they saw my breasts...

Violated. 

She'd started to wash her hands to cleanse her filth...

...When a man started to walk in, and then...

...Swung back around just as suddenly.

And then...he came back in...

...Again. 

As if forcing himself, the indecisive man muttered out a quick, "Eh, I thought I entered the wrong bathroom there...haha..."

A thousand thoughts started to flood through her head. Was he screwing with her? Was he going to get angry? Was he fucking high? He looked more like some old dad-bod guy rather than some meth tweaker, but you could never be too sure in the city.

Sophia squeaked out a small "Uh...okay...", reverberating poorly off the worn-out bathroom tiles.

The man stared her down again, looking her up and down, and started to get visibly flustered. Oh fuck, what voice did she just use? Did she use her girl voice?

The man finally asked, "Hey, this is the men's right?", deepening his voice this time, as if to establish his own sex in this trepidatious land of confusion.

"Y-Yeah. Men's," she said while trying to match his low pitch. She couldn't pull it off. He must be a baritone or some shit. 

She escaped as soon as she could, drying her hands on her jeans, barely brushing past the man standing by the doorway. He's so hairy.

This wasn't what was supposed to happen. Trans women were supposed to be lumbering ogres who could never pass, and always got kicked out of bathrooms. Well, women’s ones, at least. This was like, 3 separate passing occasions in a single week. This had to fucking mean something. And with Jennifer too...No, no, wait, wait, she was just passing as some weird faggot now that didn’t belong with Real Men anymore, real men like This Dude. But it doesn't mean she belongs with women yet. Still caught in the in-between. The Handicapped Bathroom, for the Handicapped Gender. That's probably what this dude was really signaling by his confusion. 

She couldn't take much more of this confusion. She wanted solid ground. She wanted to stop feeling indecisive. She wanted to stop feeling stuck in the in-between. She wanted to use the fucking women's room for fucks sake - something she never thought she'd ever say to herself. But, the boymoder must follow the rules. The boymoder must abide. The boymoder must obey. The Boymoder must Boy. There is no escape for her. There never will be. Safety in fear. Fear in safety. Beyond the border lies indecision. She couldn't just...be a girl. It was impossible. Lipstick on a dog. 

Sophia knew she had a habit of becoming too over-confident, too narcisistic, too proud. These were the times she was relieved to have the Voice in the back of her head, helping her balance out her impulsiveness, and reach a sane and rational conclusion. And it was right - there was no way she could ever girlmode. That guy mistaking her for a woman must've just been trying to be polite!

—

She kept toying with her phone case and keys in her pocket while waiting for her order. The cashier who's Miss'd her wasn't here tonight. Sad. She couldn’t stop fidgeting. When she fidgets, she feels her mental energy transfer through her body, through to her hands, to her fingertips, and flowing out to whatever unfortunate tactile object was in her grasp. But for some reason, doing this just tended to build up more tension inside of her. The heat of anxiety. 

She still felt someone watching her.

In the corner of her eye, she saw a strange woman sitting in the corner. Was she there last time, near the kids? Jean jacket. Band pins. Kind of tall. Blue highlights in her hair. Probably has pronouns, too, judging by her 'look'. She kept on staring, stealing glances, over and over again, in her direction from a far cubicle. Trying to build up a profile of her in her peripheral vision, piecemeal-like, as she waited for her order to come up.

Something about her was strangely magnetic, this desire to get close to them, to admire them. Just like back in school. 

The woman stood up and started walking towards her.

Holy shit.

"Hey you. You were looking this way? I remember you from last time, I think. You're trans, right?"

 

---

 

Sophia was busy playing in the sand after school with her mommy. She was imagining she was a dinosaur, roaring and bucking her head. Or a bird, forming wings and flying in the open skies. Or a mermaid, growing a tail and swimming in the deep ocean. Or a Pokémon, in the middle of an evolution - shapeshifting, transforming, changing. Lost in her imagination for hours, imagining being anything she could imagine.

Just as long as she wasn't Nick. 

"My, what a cute daughter you have! She looks just like you!", one of the other parents came and said to them. 

Sophia beamed. She felt a great ball of light swell inside her. This wasn't the first time this had happened.

Girls were pretty. If Sophia was getting called a girl, then she must be pretty too. She couldn't be ugly if she was a girl. Most of the kids at school were very very mean to her, and it must have been because she was really really ugly. But, if someone thinks she's a girl, then she must be pretty. Being called a girl must be a compliment. Her brother never got called a girl. She must be special in some way. Special like mommy.

"He's my son, thank you very much."

"Oh, ah, of course! Sorry about that..."

Sophia felt a stabbing in her brain telling her that it was time to leave.

"Let's go get your hair cut again, Nick. It's been a few weeks already. It's getting past your ears. It's so messy. It'll make you more handsome and popular with the girls. The other mothers at school tell me how popular you are. All the girls love you and have a crush on you. Let's set up another playdate. It'll be fun!"

"Okay mommy!"

Sophia loved her mother more than anyone else in the world. Mommy was the only one who really loved her. Mommy was so pretty and graceful and kind. Sophia wanted to be just like her when she grew up. 

Click.