Chapter 27: Curled LashesThe car was waiting for me as I left for work that m.
Sleek but uated, ste gray, unmarked with tinted windows, the car gave an attention-drawing beep as I exited the apartment building. The winds fshed my name aination; my phone pinged in firmation. The door unlocked and opened smoothly at my toud closed silently after I sat, swung, and slid into the back seat. With a barely audible whir the car set off, a discrete side panel indig the hours and kilometers remaining for the journey.
Dressed for a workday that was clearly not going to happen, I settled in unfortably for the duration of the ride. The car was all but silent as it hummed through the suburban streets, st night’s lurid artificial glows dispelled by harsh m gre. The air ditioning kicked in, thanking pushing back the already oppressive heat of this August early m.
Driverless, left to my thoughts, I gazed with tired eyes as the buildings and shops, industrial parks and ercial districts scrolled past, thinned out, turned into scattered suburban stretches of detached homes, t apartment blocks, and cookie-cutter residential strips.
The indicator ticked down, ting me inexorably closer to the Asklepios ic.
Could this be it?
God, how I wahis to be my final journey. I his to be the final m of waking up in dy’s shitty little apartment, sh in her dingy, cramped shower, putting on my fa the cracked mirror hanging over the molded pstik. No more body-bang pills with breakfast; no more slipping into panties and bra—plimehis m by sheer bck stogs and suspender belt, Julia’s orders of the day—and tight pencil skirt and blouse. No more heels. No more fug about with long hair. No more performahe unending expectations of behaviour and appearance pced on a young and pretty girl in a professional enviro, the forced smiles, perky versations, pleasantness and pleasantries.
No more Julia. And no more Dan.
Could I allow myself the luxury of hope? To give in to the fervent desire that this car trip was a one-way journey with the i of stripping away this exhausting female disguise? God, how I ached to return to some sembny previous life. At this stage I’d take just about anything – fuck it! Leave me short and sy, looking like some weedy aeenager: I’ll take it! Carve off these tits, filter out these hormones, and just let me be a fug man again.
Because if this visit wasn’t the end—if the ic was just cheg up on my health, as the notification that popped up in my dar this m suggested—if nothing happened—if I came ba a few days, still dy, still living her life…
Groaning out loud, I sank deeper into the seat, deeper into lethargy and despair. Sealed against the outside world, the deep silence of travel soon became oppressive and so, after indulging in a dramatic sigh, I called out to the car.
“Hey, how about some musibsp; A gentle chime firmed plianbsp; I’d inteo request some Longman, but instead called out, “Py Sin-DI.” A momehe opening track began, volume low, a soothing flow of delicate chimes aroniotes: an impressionist painting of digital keyboards in a Japaearoom.
Soon, ominous cellos and muted industrial grind began to swell and tear at the f aural arra, esg into cacophony that abruptly cut into the first vocal trabsp; I’d been listening to her a lot, and the more I listehe more I liked it. Despite her carefully curated media persona—neo-Goth sensuality, crazy makeup and nails, skin-tight outfits and tits aive gres, oozing forbidden passioual music mostly reminded me of Longman’s te experimental stuff.
Hadn’t heard anything about the guy since waking up dy. A cursory look online presented all sort of theories from the aging fanbase: away on sabbatical, at a meditative retreat, secretly inspiring troops in a battlefield abroad, w anonymously in the background of the musidustry; dead. Last I’d seen him was at the ic: moonlight, cool spring air, rustling leaves. Shivering, drawing closer. Embrag. A kiss.
Outside the car, urban remnants gave way to tryside, clusters of browning trees and fields of dried out crops repg broken, deg apartment blocks and abandoned shops, the corroded steel and crete skeletal detritus of another dead town. The window was darkened against the day’s gre and outside curiosity, but I saw myself—saw dy—clearly: her made-up face, lipstid eyeliner and blusher, colours for a young woman’s w day. One finger gently touched her lip and remembered the insistent press, the probing tongue, fingers curling into the flesh of her arm, the stubble that pricked the cheek—the memory of his lips.
I blushed a hot despite the air ditioning. Goddammit.
And in that same refle I also saw myself from months ago, a reminder of that first m after Julia’s. Then, too, I’d been dressed for work, a mix of the previous night’s clothes and Julia’s clothes. I rode the bus into work and stared bnkly over the unfamiliar route. I’d been tired then as well—yet rejuvenated—mind and body still simmering from the night’s fug.
That girl of six weeks ago, early-Juared into her refle and searched within exhausted and anxious eyes flimpse of myself. I’d searched for the hint of David, trapped and furious, lurking behind curled shes, heavy with mascara. Then, as now, I found only barely-repressed anger and frustration and disbelief at the circumstany life. Months into this charade, I still found myself w at how I’d ended up with tits, in a skirt, wearing makeup.
Both girl in the past and me in the present pressed their forehead against the ess of the windowpane, eyes closed, and remembered.
Author's Notes
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