Chapter 10: Brass Knuckles for Eyeliraining time was over.

  “We have to make a move soon,” K told me. She gave me a look-over, taking her sweet fug time. I felt like a pieeat, and damn if I couldn’t help but fidget under her eye, fiddling with a bracelet on my wrist. It was a hell of a lot easier to fidget, dressed as a girl. There was more to py with.

  She seemed, if not actually pleased, then at least satisfied with what she saw. “How do you feel?” she asked me, and then with added emphasis added, “dy?”

  “Umm . . . fine?” I tried to answer in character. “I mean, I’m a bit nervous but I’ll be okay.” It’s what K wanted. I was dy. Problem is, I still wasn’t sure who dy was, other than being a piece of fluff. I could do fluff; I’d pyed dumb before. I tried to soften my words a bit, but there was no hiding the mase timbre of my voibsp; I nervously smoothed down the front of my sweater, the cher beh keeping my stomach ft and taut. Beh that tighthere were major storm brewing, believe me.

  “Bruises?” she asked.

  “A little sore,” I admitted. “But I deal.” It was a damn sight worse than ‘sore’ but I wasn’t lying. I could deal. I really could. All the straps a and shit strig me beh that fluffy peach sweater wasn’t helping her. It should’ve been worse, really, but I may have been in state of slight shock.

  “You must be exhausted,” K said, and she was right, I was. Not just from the ordeal of getting dressed up and finding out that I’d be living the few weeks as dy. I was genuinely boired. I’d been going full-out for a day or two now, except for that brief unscious period after I’d been shot--and bullet-enforaps aren’t very restful, I assure you.

  “I want you to take a rest, dy. Take a seat and rex. I need some time to prepare for our departure as well. The rest will do you good.”

  I wasn’t about tue with her. K went off to do secret agent-type stuff iher room. The sofa chair was warm and inviting. I thought I wouldn’t be able to sleep. I thought the boobs and clothes and everything else would distract me and keep me awake. I was wrong.

  A gentle push from K woke me up an ierminate, dreamless period of time ter. She k o me and watched me expetly. “dy?” she softly asked. “Are you ready?”

  “Yeah,” I mumbled. I felt unusually groggy. K handed me a gss of juice, which I eagerly drank down. My mouth felt dry and my tohick as if I had a heavy night’s drinkih the belt. In a way, I guess I had. “How long was I out?”

  “An hour,” she answered. I focussed on her and noticed she looked . . . different. Still K, but she’d obviously been w herself over during my nap. She looked a little bit softer, somehow, and just a tad older. I’d pced her ie thirties, and now she looked about a decade older. The years had been kind, though, with just a touch of grey in her hair. She sed the severe secret agent threads for something that, for want of a better description, screamed ‘soccer mom’.

  “What’s with the getup, K?”

  She smiled, and even that gesture somehow seemed friendlier, if not dht more g, than anything I’d seen from her yet. To be ho, it found it more than a little creepy. “I’m hurt, dy,” she said, with a slightly patronizing tone. “Don’t ynize your own aunt?”

  “You have got to be kidding me.”

  “Not at all, dy. Now , chop-chop, we have a big day ahead of us!”

  She was clearly insane, but I relutly left the fort of the chair and found my feet, albeit with a few wobbles. I had to focus to walk. I had to focus to do everything, really, as dy. “Yeah, yeah,” I said. “So what’s the pn?”

  “Well, the first thing yoing to do,” she said, throwing some things into a purse, “is touch-up your makeup, dear! You look an awful fright!”

  An ‘awful fright’ was a bit harsh, but I was already looking a bit ragged around the edges. K handed me a small makeup case. I looked at the assorted tubes and bottles within and groaned. She might as well have handed me instrus to a model airpne written in fug ese. I hesitatingly pulled out a slim, golden tube, and K gave an approving nod.

  Ten mier, under K’s expert tutege, I mao repair the damages of an hour’s sleep. Practice, practice, practice--but fuck, there was just so much to learn!

  “Well done, dy!” she enthused. “Now just one more thing. Say ‘ah!’”

  “Ah?” She took advantage of my opened mouth to jam a long, slender rod down my throat. There was a sudden ‘hiss’ and this very unfortable, very cold sensation spread across the bay throat.

  I went to tell her off. “Don’t talk!” K anded, kindly persona gone. “This is--well, a necessary precaution. It causes a tightening of the soft tissue separating the hard cartige in the rynx. The extra pressure on the vocal chords will help you speak with a more femich.”

  Clutg at my throat, I felt something decidedly discerting going oh the skin. What the fuck had this bitch just doo me? I didn’t want to talk like some bimbo--not when this was all over, anyway. I gred at her in disbelief.

  “Do not worry, Mr. Saunders,” K said. “The effect is strictly tempenerally sting only four or five hours. Yes, another fine unreleased product from your former employer, though surprisingly from a veterinarian subsidiary. Unfortunately, its use is limited--frequent reapplication of the spray has been known to cause perma damage to the user, one of the reasons why, I’m sure, the product is not yet avaible on the open market.”

  Perma damage? What the fuck did she mean, perma damage?

  “If you speak before it finishes bonding with your voice box, dy, you could cause yourself serious and perma injury. The first application normally takes ten to fifteen minutes, with subsequent use w faster.”

  I tio gre at her, and she tio ignore me.

  “Now. When we leave the apartment, Mr. Saunders, we will make our way to a car waiting for us down below. Walk at a normal pabsp; Talk to me as any daughter would her auntie. Aally. Wheer the car, fiddle with the media pyer, your purse--typical girl stuff, riding with her parent. You leave the older man you were behind you; now, you are only twenty and a girl.

  “And most importantly: from the momeep out that door, you are dy. There is no David Saunders. To the rest of the world you must appear like nothing other than dy Belmy. Walk like dy, talk like dy, act like dy. Do you uand?”

  I was still furious with her, but nodded. The numbness at the bay throat was slowly fading. I watched mutely as she collected some final things, though she otherwise seemed tent to leave the p a shambles. On a sed gnce, I realized that was uhe pce wasn’t a mess, it looked lived-in. She must’ve sorted it out while I was napping. If anyone checked this pce out after we left, they’d find a pce that looked untidy but homey. There were even some family-type photos on the wall I hadn’t noticed before.

  There was a small backpae; pink, of course. There was a sele of clothes and toiletries buried in there, and a reading tablet. I wondered what kind of girly shit dy read? Guess I’d find out ter. K also handed me a purse, a sporty little thing that went well with my outfit, I guess. Rummaging through it I found more makeup stuff, a brush, a couple of bills and s, a hair schie, a tampon, a few s . . . .

  My muffled excmation drew her attention. My expression clearly stated ‘what the fuck?’ as I waved those final two things in her face.

  “You are twenty, dy. It’s always difficult for an aunt to accept, but I’m no fool. My, the stories your mother told me!” She looked wistfully into the middle distanbsp; “But you were a bit of a boy-chaser as a teen. And dressing the way you do . . . well! I guess it’s just a sign of the times. I don’t quite agree with the type of guy you like to date, but girls will be girls, I guess.”

  With anry grunt, I waved the tampon at her.

  “Better safe than sorry, dy. Fortunately it’s not that time of the month yet.”

  No fug shit. What did she expect me to do with that thing, shove it up my ass? I closed the purse and slipped the damn thing over my shoulders and mao yank my new hair something awful; that wig was clipped into my hair and hurt if I pulled on it. It must’ve been an expensive wig. It fell naturally a like the real thing. Great, ahing to learn how to deal with. Me, I like my hair nid short. Quid easy in the m. Aer in a fight. Hopefully we wouldn’t have to fight, not dressed like this.

  I was feeling ready. I was getting antsy. Not that I was looking forward to stepping out into public looking as I did. Despite what the mirror showed me, I was still half-vihere was no way we could pull this off and that someone would stop and stare, that I’d be a goddamn ughingsto pantyhose.

  K checked her watbsp; “It should be okay to talk again,” she said. The ess at the bay throat seemed gone.

  “About fu--” I started to say, but squeaked at the sound of my own voibsp; I found myself clutg my throat again. “What the fuck?” Somehow, it didn’t sound as forceful as it used to, those words. It suddenly sounded . . . .girly, to my ear, anyway, and unusually squeaky and high pitched. It was hard to tell if it roperly feminine or not from within, but it certainly wasn’t anywhere near my usual gruff tones.

  “dy, please remember--nguage. Try and soften your voice a bit when you speak. Once we are safe at the ic, we will begin your vocal coag. In the meantime . . . try and mimic a girl you know, a girlfriend or something. And whatever you do, do not speak in a falsetto.”

  “This better wear off, K.” Pattern myself after a girlfriend? What girlfriend? I wasly the itting type. Lo I’ve ever dated someone--and I use the term very loosely here--was four months. Julia sted two. Akiko a bit longer. None of those ended well. Persephone was the lo. That one ended very, very badly.

  Fug Persephone.

  And most of the other women in my life, well, we weren’t together for the versation, you know?

  “It’s Auntie, remember?”

  “Yeah, fine. Sorry Auntie, I’ll do my best.” Dammit, but this voice didn’t sound angry, just petunt.

  “And don’t worry, dear. Like I said, in six ht hours you’ll be back to your normal voice.” It was weird, hearialk all normal and shit. And calling me dear. Didn’t quite like that, to be ho. As she spoke she gathered her own things. She slipped on a bulky, cheap-looking jacket and shouldered her own purse. It felt a bit like the old days, running with the gangs, getting all suited-up and psyched up before heading into a rumble . . . except in some kind of surreal, feminized version, sing brass knuckles for eyeliner aher for ce.

  Maybe I spoke too soon, though, as I saw K have a quick check over a handgun.

  “Auntie! I didn’t know you packed heat. All the irls are going to be so jealous! I have ooo?”

  She didn’t smile. “Do you know what this is?” She didn’t really sound like ‘an aunt anymore.

  I’d never handled a Glock but knew what one looked like. I shrugged. “Uh, a gun?”

  “Not a ughing matter.” She slipped the on into the recesses of her jacket. “And no, you ’t have one, dy.” Suddenly she was all smiles and motherly charm again. “So, are we ready?”

  And at that moment, I suddenly felt that I really, really wasn’t ready. As much as I’d hated everything that had gone on in this shitty little apartment over the st few hours--at least there’d only been K and me in here. Out there were . . . people. Girls who knew how to act like girls and pricks staring at my rad wanting to fuck me somewhere they couldn’t. A’s not fet the assassins. No, let’s not fet them. Fug Steele. If I ever saw the bastard again, I was going to pnt five timeters of Dold Gabbana spike heel into his goddamn s.

  “Yeah, let’s get the fuck out of here.”

  “dy!”

  “Sorry Auntie.”