Chapter 08: We Must Labour to Be BeautifulAmanda Lang. God, what a girl. What a woman! She was sexy, with these amazing hazel eyes that stared right through a man like she wasn’t even there; and this amazing inky mahat reached right down to the small of her babsp; But she wasn’t just tits and ass, though she was blessed in both. Amanda was clever. She was smart. I felt everything she did was an aanipution: every little subtle movement, the way and where and when she’d check herself in the mirror and touch up her lipstick, and then slyly smile at your refle when she caught you watg; or what she wore, those tailored and tapered suits, feminine and flirty but professional, with just the occasional glimpse of ce-trimmed bra or the top of a stog. Trying to score with her felt like pying chess with a grandmaster who thinks seven steps ahead, and you’re still figuring out what the horsie does.

  Tom and I ood a ce.

  We’d already chased and fought over most other avaible tail in the offibsp; Amaed on a whole other level. We were middle-ma scum; she lived iallest corporate spires; she enthouse while we remained mired on the fourth floor. She was aive administrator to the powers that be. It’s not like we wanted her to advance our career or anything. We were both doing fine on our own. But a girl like that, you’d do just about anything to score.

  It took months of w her over. Oh yeah, you could tell that she totally knew what we pying at, and she pyed us iurn, and the whole thing was a hell of a lot of fun. You could tell she loved setting Tom and I against each other. She was such a bitch, in the best possible way.

  This is how I ended up in her offi the newly installed NeoPharm divisional offices the night everythi wrong. She’d set a trap for us, as it were. oo subtle hints made it clear she was w te that night. After hours, top floor, empty offid... Amanda. Ripe and ready for the taking. Thing is, who was going to get there first? Tom or me? The little minx was testing us--illing to take the ce, who could figure out how to reach those forbiddeive Olympiad heights despite the after-hours security and risk to our jobs? Yeah, it was just a game, but we both khe sequences could be pretty fug serious. Tom thought she was fug around with us. I knew she was fug around with us, and I took the bite anyway.

  Looking back, it was an exceptionally stupid thing to do. So why’d I do it? Not for Amanda. Not really. To this day, the only excuse that es to mind is this: I was bored; so goddamn bored I was willing to risk my job—fuck, my life—for a ce to outwit some foxy top-floor slut and relive the thrills of an abandoned and violent childhood.

  The peculiar skill set that my misspent youth left me made it easy enough to break into her offibsp; I say “easy” but it bordered on insanity. Had ever a man worked so hard in the pursuit of pussy?

  I’d cut a deal with Frank, one of the ers, whie an ID card into the warren of maintenance halls beh the building. Then into one of the service elevators shafts—the ohey kept turned off at night—and the long climb up the emergency dder—to the fifteenth floor, where executive access started. From there some old-fashioned lock-pig got me into Buddy an’s office, and I knew his pass was sitting in his desk because the poor bastard had been suspended fligence a week ago and Harry in IT moaned over a couple of pints that he was backlogged and hadn’t blocked his at yet because he hoped Buddy’d be back before he had to.

  Then up to Amanda’s floor. A swipe of the bnk access card I’d nabbed from Harry and I was into the hallowed halls of new corporate power. Had Neopharm pletely settled into their new acquisition it might’ve been a lot harder, but they still had holes in their security ce, the AI systems weren’t ied yet and the general chaos of the takeover left gaps to slip through,

  I tell you I was feeling pretty flush and cocky as I finally slipped down the hallway to Amanda’s office.

  And that’s where I found her, in her expansive er office with its night time view over the wide expanse of the city. The office y in shadows and the cold urban lights glittered far below. Traffic sounded a distant muted hum. She sat iall-backed office chair, fingers steepled, long, shapely legs crossed at the knees, waiting. When I slipped through the door her thin lips, painted and outlined a deep burgundy, curved into a slight, wry smile.

  “About time,” she said, and her eyes revealed all the joy and cruelty of a predator’s. The dim illumination overhead glistened itern of flecked crystals woven into her stogs. The garters stretched taut across her ass and y sck across her thighs and pulled her basque tights against her supple body. She thought she was in plete trol. Men dao the sway of her hips, the taut stretch of her skirt, the glimmer on her lips. Sweaty and exhirated by the effort of reag her, I decided then and there to set her straight and show her hile, how ephemeral her feminine trol really was. Her game, but my rules: her eyes went wide as I strode wordlessly up to her, tearing my sweat-stained shirt away. Her mouth opeo say something—it didn’t matter what—as I grabbed her roughly by the waist.

  A moment ter I had her up over her desk against the wide expanse of those windows that looked down on the world below, panties a torn mess on the floor behind her. Her tits made generous pillows as she spread her legs wide, thrown forward i heels, sleek and bd probably worth a week’s sary. “Fuck me, you son of a bitch,” she hissed, “harder!”

  And I did, half mesmerized by the swirl of lights outside and the feel of her body tensing through the flimsy fabrieath my hands. If I’d knowhat she’d be my st fuonths I would’ve paid more attention. I gripped her waist and fucked her hard and steadily until she released a low, shuddering wail that she half-stifled by biting into her own hand. When I withdrew, she wobbled for a moment on weak legs before finding her footing. A rough shove had her on her knees, and she proved a remarkably skillful cocksucker, vish ahusiastibsp; Amanda cut a fine figure kneeling at my feet, ed in dark lingerie, head bobbing up and down, her voice a muffled moan, carefully manicured fingers cupping my balls, until, with a final triumphant grunt, I blew my load dowhroat. She swallowed it all.

  Theood and spped my across the face, hard.

  “Get the hell out, you bastard,” she said, and winked.

  That should have been the end of it. Who knows what would have bee of my te night venture if, slipping free of her office, I hadn’t been momentarily distracted by an ued sound down the hall? But instead of heading home, I allowed curiosity to draw me onwards, as I cmbered bato my clothes, down unlit hallways and past newly built directors’ offices and upstairs, to the open, unfinished floor above. Wind tugged at pstic sheeting through gaping windows and the night air felt fantastic after the night’s fug. Distant lights glinted coldly and I stood by a gap ier wall, staring into the dark, vertiginous drop beyond. A single slip—or step—and a thirty-something fall to the ground below….

  Nearby indistinct sounds resolved themselves into something all too familiar. Sliding into one of the adjoining room, I stealthily ducked past crates and trolleys overflowing with equipment and tools. A space, waiting to bee corporate halls: exposed wiring, single-bulb lighting, unpainted walls and open paneling, stacked desks waiting to be installed. And in the middle of that room….

  Fuck.

  That’s where I saw it all, that bastard Jeremiah Steel gun down Geio in a savage shower of blood and gore and recorded a video of it for posterity on my phone.

  Somehow, though, the memory of it all doesn’t quite seem enough to expin how I’ve ended up here, torn from those height and forced into this dirty ugly apartment, floung bad forth across the room, keenly aware of every little jiggle of these its, the sway of hair across the nape of my ned the fsh and dance of those damned earrings as they tickled my cheeks. What could possibly make sense of this whole goddamn feminine package I found myself squeezed into? God, if Amanda could see me now.

  A quote kept flitting ay thoughts—Yeats? Heany? One of those Irish dudes—as I submitted to K’s instrus: ‘To be born woman is to know— / Although they do not talk of it at school— / That we must bour to be beautiful.’ Well I might not have been born woman, but I fug well b ….

  “Keep ys straight!” K anded. “Legs together!” Arip across the room and she added, “No, no! Point your feet straight!”

  “Whatever.” I grumbled, but tried to do as she said. I’d assumed a half-dozeimetres or so of heel were ‘sensible’ heels, no big deal, right? Well, those timeters threw everything off and were a fug nightmare to walk in. I knew how to walk, dammit, but these slim heels were wobbly and my ankles kept twisting out to pensate.

  “And dy, rex,” K added. I swear, that bitch was enjoying this far too mubsp; “You look ready to throunch.”

  I was fug ready to throunbsp; “Yeah, yeah,” I repeated, turned sharply, mindful of how the heel wavered beh my foot, took an unsteady step forward a my ass wiggle as I walked across the room.

  “Better, better,” K enced from the side. God, I must’ve look like such a fool, like some prang asshole, but I couldn’t help but wiggle my ass and thrust my chest out, squeezed into these clothes. This was the sed hour of K’s ‘training’ i of being dy, and I was just about at my limit. My calves burned and my toes were cramped and the makeup still felt heavy and thiy fad I felt light-headed from the pression around my waist. I was tired and sweating in my pantyhose and jeans and ag and only slightly drunk; and none of these were good things. Meanwhile, K sat fortably in the sofa chair in the er, one leg dangling over the other, cradling a gss of red wine in her hand.

  The moment K felt I’d had enough of staring at dy in the mirror, she started the training. At first she just wanted me to look at myself, to turn to the side and check my posture. Between the waist-cher and heels, and those gias hanging off my chest, yeah, my posture was a bit different, you know? I wao overpensate for the heels while those massive jugs, even in a bra, made me feel all top-heavy. Once she thought I’d built up a bit of fidence, she brought me out of the bedroom to the main room. More space to walk. Joy.

  Bad forth, forth and back; a lifetime of watg women pran heels hadn’t prepared me much for doing it myself. “Heel first”, “Shorten your stride”, “Swing your arms for bance”, “no, not that much!” These were the ands K tio repeat during that first half-hour of walking. And damn her if she wasn’t right--within half an hour, my walking improved and my fidence grew. However as my fidence grew my mood darkened. I could just fug picture myself, walking across that room: the short ming stride, my arms swinging girlishly with each step, the sway of my ass, the jiggle of my cleavage--earrings, bangles, hair--fuck, everything pulling and squeezing and jangling with each step. How in chrissake did girls put up with the stant distra? Worst of all were my cramped ball and, despite the pain, my cock straining against its fines, strangely aroused by all this enforced femininity. After two hours, I felt ready to erupt in my panties.

  My fug panties!

  K didly give me many breaks. Even when I was taking a breather, she kept feeding me girly info and vocabury she said I had to memorize. When she handed me another drink--and the Scotch was gone, damo hell! repced by gsses of sweet white wine--she made sure I held it correctly, drank from it primly, and taught me how to touch up my lipstick afterwards. I think that’ll always be a vivid image burned into my mind: the first time I pulled that gss away from my mouth and saw the frosty pink imprint of my lips on the rim.

  And through it all those damn heels! “Practice makes perfect!” K insisted, so even if I wasn’t specifically practig walking, I kept the fuckers on. I did everything in those damn shoes. Bitch would’ve locked them on to me if she could have, I’m sure. So when I grabbed a bite to eat--not that I could fit mu my stomach, even though I was starving, stricted as I was--it was ihat I trotted about the kit, making a quick sandwich.

  Amazing, how something as simple as making a sandwich bees a whole new experience when you’re dressed like a chibsp; Even leaning down to butter my bread I had to keep dragging my eyes away from that massive crevice splitting my chest. The fsh of colour at my fiips with each motion of my hands--distrag. The tap-tap of that slender heel against the floor--very distrag.

  Hell, even hitting the became another exg goddamn adventure in femininity. Freeing myself from the bohat is ultra-tight jeans, pantyhose and paook lohan expected--I almost pissed myself before I got my cock out. And wouldn’t you fug know it, but K even checked in to make sure I was doing it like a chick--sitting down and all. I almost lost it then again; I told her to fuck off or I’d storm out of the apartment and take my ces with the hitmen.

  Sitting there on the crapper, panties and hose around my ankles, awisting out at an awkward angle because of those heels, I couldn’t even see my cod balls--those bloody tits got in the way. It wasn’t all bad, though. It gave me time to knoother one off, and damn if it wasn’t better tha one. I don’t think I’d been this horny since I was a teen. Guess I had easy inspiration: I just had to look down. But I didn’t touch myself or anything, you know? Squeezing those tits or fiddling with those new nipples while jerking off . . . that would’ve been fug weird.

  And then, squeezed bato that girly getup, back to walking, bad forth across the room, K proved herself a harsh taskmistress and an inteeacher.

  Believe me, it went on and on. I was learning more than I ever wanted about women’s shit. I mean, yeah, y girls home and you learn a bit, and I’m a fairly observant guy when I want to be, but it’s not like most guys ever pay much attention to what the chick’s actually wearing. Watg a girl sensuously strip off her stogs is all about what lyih the fabriot about the damhings themselves.

  So putting on the bra wasn’t a big deal because I’d taken enough of the fug things off. But until today I didn’t know, for example, that what I was wearing was a D-cup balet bra. Sure, I’d bought lingerie firls I’d dated in the past, but those brief shopping experiences into the fn and strange world of women’s fashion had taught me little. Now I gave the damn things a little adjustment as I walked ahe straps ay shoulders, as slender as they were, dig into my skin.

  I knew what lipstick was and all the basic crap, but as I practiced my walk K was giving me a crash course in femierminology as I strolled around the room. Finally it was time for another break, and K gestured for me to sit opposite her. Last time I got it wrong she made me walk for another fifteen minutes. This time, I eased myself gracefully into the chair and casually crossed my legs at the knees--despite the throbbing pain in my groin--and gave a tented sigh. Truth is, I wasn’t feeling very good: I had a nasty headache ing on.

  “You are doing very well, dy.”

  “Yeah, thanks,” I said. I sounded abrupt but her praise actually felt kind of nibsp; I was doing well, dammit. “Listen, K . . . I know why you’re puttihrough all this and all, but I seriously doubt one of Steele’s assassins is likely to quiz me about my favourite brand of lipstick, you know?”

  K smiled. “Are you so sure?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure.”

  “And what if you were to step into a restroom, dy? You take care of business and step up to the mirror to cheakeup. The woman standio you, she asks you a question--maybe she asks to borrow some makeup, maybe she pliments you on your top and wants to know where you bought it.”

  I hadn’t thought about ever using the chick’s bathroom. I had pretty mixed feelings about that one. Any ce to see some sexy things in their natural state’s a good one--but what’s the point if your cock’s crammed away in a prison of d nylon?

  “So? It’s not like she’s gonna say ‘I like that sweetheart nee,” and it’s a trick question because it’s really a v-ned I say ‘yeah’ and she hauls out a gun and pops a cap in my ass.” It’s the fug women you’ve got to watch for, of course. No doubt Steele had female agents chasing after me. If he’s got a profile on me I’m sure it must’ve highlighted women as a weakness of mine.

  K sighed. “Again, of course not. What I am saying is that aancy, and fusion over matters that a girl ye would know instinctively--would have doime and time again every day over several years--will ring false. This is a very sensitive time, dy. Until we get you out of the city, anyone . . . anyone, could be a in the employ of Mr. Steele.”

  I took another sip of wine. It retty foul shit, way too sweet for me, though I knew chicks dig this kind of crap. “Yeah, but then why are you making dy--sorry, me--out to be such a girly-girl? I mean, with these tits and my waist all crushed in like this, you could throw sneakers and a jogging suit on me and I’d probably still pass foddamn chick.” Especially with the long hair, which I was tinuously brushing away from my eyes or pulling away from my lips, poking the long tresses back behind me ear.  “I mean, does she have to be all ‘icky poo!’ and feminine? Why couldn’t I be a kick-ass girl, you know, a tough broad, like you? Why all this limp-wrist shit?”

  K took a moment to collect her thoughts. I looked her over and wondered, yeah, why couldn’t I be dressed up like her, for fuck’s sake? K was tough, but there was no denying she was a woman, full stop. I didn’t want to be a girl, but if I had to then that’s the kind of woman I wao be.

  “Mr Saunders,” she started, and already it seemed a shock to hear her use my male name. “When you approached us about testifying against Mr. Steel, and asked for witness prote, what did you think it would entail?”

  “Not this,” I answered dryly.

  “What, then?”

  “I dunno. A new identity, a new job, and that you’d shuffle me out of town, somewhere far away from the bastard.”

  “Yet you khat nowhere is truly ‘far away’ from Mr Steele. In an age of multinationals and AI surveilnce, he has eyes and ears feeding data back to corporate branches and subsidiary panies across the world.”

  “Then bury me in some small town somewhere. The odds of ever bumping into him are slim, yeah? He’s ly a local-bar kind of guy.”

  “And his employees, Mr. Saunders?”

  I shrugged. “Okay, sure, he’s probably got employees living just about everywhere, but it’s not like they’re all going to be keeping a for me. There’s not going to be a corporate e-mail going around saying, ‘reward for David Saunders! Wanted dead or alive!’”

  “David,” K said in a most serious tohat is precisely what I expect Mr Steele to do. Once his agents lose track of you--and I have every iion of assuring that they do, and that is why your dy disguise must be as perfect as possible for its duration--he will rely on the bes of being one of the rgest iional employers in the world.

  “Think of your own offibsp; How would colleagues react to request for leads regarding the whereabouts of a certain individual, a former employee? Perhaps they spin it as benevolence: , for the mental health of a disappeared colleague. Perhaps the offer a reward... if turning him in could a year’s sary reward . . . would your former colleagues do so?”

  Bastards. Yeah, they would.

  “But I am sure you knew all this already, dy,” K tinued, and the thing is, the damn bitch was right. For all my grumbling and pining, when I approached the feds I khat witness prote, long shot that it would be, wouldn’t be an easy thing but probably my best shot. “So what were you expeg?”

  “A disguise, I guess.”

  “A new life?”

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “And so are the people chasing after you, dy. Pstic surgery is easy and cheap. Enough to fool simple facial-reition software, maybe. But Steele has access treater resources than that. He will unleash the most sophisticated AIs Neopharm has access to. They know that you will ge your appearanbsp; Perhaps not so drastically,” and here she smiled slightly, “but heless, other than some basic parameters--height, weight--they are not looking for someone who resembles David Saunders.”

  “Then what are they looking for?”

  “They are looking for someone who acts like David Saunders,” K answered. “Someone loud and rude. Strong and fident. Someone very manly and capable. They are looking for someone who isn’t you, dy.”

  I hated her for being right. I hated dy, too, at that moment. But it made a twisted kind of sense, I guess. Whatever kind of psych profile these guys drew up, there’d be nothing in there about me dressing up as a chick, especially one like dy. It’s just not the kind of thing I’d ever done or thought about before, and would seem totally trary to character. And who knew how many ways they might have of trag me? How many eyes would be watg? How many cameras could they tap into? In public, I o be anything but myself if I had any hope of remaining hidden and safe.

  I sunk deep into the chair and threw one arm ay eyes. I felt siy stomach again. “K, be ho with me. Seriously. The truth. How long am I going to be stuck like this? It’s not just going to be a day or two, is it?”

  Her response felt carefully sidered and a long time ing. “David, in all hoy I don’t know. If all goes well--and I pray it does--two week, maybe three. I knobsp; A private medical ibsp; It is very remote and in the tryside. It will give you a little time to rest and heal and most importantly, to disappear. In a few weeks when Mr Steele’s attention has been diverted by more important things--hopefully life-time impriso--we recreate you in a male persona and transfer you somewhere else.”

  I released a deep, defeatist sigh. Two weeks, maybe three of this shit; fuck, maybe even longer. Weeks of waking up to get dressed up in these goddamn clothes. Of walking in heels and practig how to . . . fuck, how to do everything, all ain, but in a dy kind of way.

  “K,” I said, and I fought to keep down the despairing tremor creeping into my voice, “I don’t know if I do this.”

  “I have every fiden your ability to pass yourself as a woman.”

  I wasn’t too sure how to take that. “But--I mean, hell, there’s just so mubsp; Every m, slipping on pantyhose and putting on makeup and prang around in heels . . . shaving all over and . . . it’s too much!”

  “It sounds like nothing more,” K said, and she smiled wryly, “than what most women gh every day.”

  “But I’m not a woman, dammit!” I excimed. “And I don’t know how to do any of that shit. It’s not like I snuto my mom’s room when I was eight and pyed with her makeup, K. I didn’t grow up with any of this crap in my life. Girls learn it as they grow up--I didn’t.”

  “They learn it through practice, dy, just like everything else.” She shrugged, almost apologetically. “By the time the average girl has reached her mid-teens, she has already spent hundred, if not thousands, of hours practig in front of the mirror. She has read magazines on how to do her hair and wear makeup, and looked online how to choose the right dress for the prom, and watched TV and picked role-models whom she would most like to be like. And then she copies, aes . . . and practices. You just had a te start.

  “Speaking of which . . . .”

  With only the slightest of whimpers, I cmbered to my high-heeled feet and started to walk.