Bad Boy

  That was the tragedy: Being trans taught you not to trust yourself. To doubt everything, even your own heart.

  “Answer me.” My grip firmed. “Do you know what Laney’s really doing? What haven’t you told me, Tam?”

  That coded sparkle in her eyes again. “The Wolf never does anything by accident. There’s always a design within her chaos.”

  Tell me your story, I’d said. The one where you kill a man.

  “Listen.” Urgency in my voice, throaty and hot. “There’s something me and Laney did together. Something damning. If it ever comes to light, she’ll take the fall, not me. It was collateral, to make me trust her. Maybe that’s her real motive. I tried to use it as leverage to make her take out Adam, and she—”

  Footsteps in the hallway.

  Tamsin laid a finger against my lips. Not now, she mouthed. Meet me later.

  Then she flung the door open and breezed out.

  Ingrid waited till I’d walked past, too, before saying, “You should change your code name, Cane.”

  “What? Why?”

  “To fit her. Cressida.” In the dark, her smile was a curved bone knife. “Because now you’re her Troilus.”

  ———

  My sleep was fitful, restless. In the dream—it was always the same anxiety dream—I ran from something I couldn’t see, chasing me through the tintype haze and mirror façades of the city. But I was too slow. My legs moved sluggishly through air thick as water, churning. I’d throw myself onto hands and knees and run like a wolf, nails clawing pavement, till my brain sensed the lack of biofeedback and slowed me down again. While you sleep, the body enters temporary paralysis. Without feedback from your limbs the brain can’t maintain the dream fiction of running. That’s why you’re always slower than what’s chasing you. Why you always stumble, fall, feel the humid breath snorting against your neck.

  I woke sweating and cold. The apartment was empty.

  On my phone, an address.

  We met at a bar on the North Side, all weathered brick and raw pine, smelling of the wet salted street. Tamsin rose from a booth and headed for the back hall. When I caught up she wrapped me in a suffocating hug, and I hugged back just as hard.

  “I’m so sorry,” she murmured against my cheek.

  “About what?”

  “All of this. All the pain you’re suffering.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  Her expression was sorrowful, sober.

  “We must talk,” she said. “Candidly. No more games.”

  We ordered two pints of beer, foam glittering as it dissolved. Her hands danced across the tabletop while she told me all the things she’d been holding back.

  Six months ago, Laney Keating came to her. A friend of mine knows your sister. Half sister, technically. Frankie Baylor, friend of Ellis and Vada. Former webcam girl turned entrepreneur. Every year Tam and Frankie visited each other, in Maine snow or English rain. Frankie doted on Tam, beseeched her to move to America, to live like real sisters. But Tam’s mom was sick, stuck in limbo on NHS waiting lists. Without Tamsin she’d never get to her doctor’s appointments. She’d give up, wither.

  “It’s not an excuse,” Tam said. “I’d have done something fucked-up one way or another. It’s in my blood. But at least my fucking up in England served another purpose.”

  Frankie excelled in school and fast-tracked herself into college; Tam dropped out of sixth form and robbed the posh boys she slept with. They bought her designer handbags, heels in snakeskin and gold lamé, perfumes she never even sniffed before hawking them on eBay. She’d fuck a boy till he shared his bank card codes. The last day he ever saw her, she’d say, Meeting a friend. Be a good lad and I’ll suck your cock when I’m back.

  She cleaned out his account. He never got that blowjob.

  “I didn’t give it all to Mum,” Tamsin said. “I wasn’t bloody Robin Hood. I was selfish, young, stupid.”

  And overconfident.

  Which was how she got caught.

  She messed with the wrong wealthy white boy. He told his dad, who pulled some strings. The policeman who came to her flat was tall, handsome, smiling. In a svelte voice he explained how it would be.

  You’re going to shag me, he said, or you’re going to jail.

  From the corner of the room, Mum, her eyes clouded with dementia, said, Stupid cow. What’ve you done?

  “Tamsin,” I breathed.

  “It’s not what you think. He never forced me, physically.”

  “It’s coercion. It’s still—”

  The word I could not say.

  “You have to understand,” she said, leaning toward me, “that my life improved with him. He earned a steady paycheck. Took care of us. It wasn’t force—he paid for sex. I sold it willingly.”

  “If he held something against you, you didn’t have full agency. You were a captive. A captive can’t give consent.”

  Tam shrugged. “We’re all trapped by something. Freedom is an illusion. It’s the wind in your hair as you plummet off the cliff’s edge.”

  “How could you love someone who hurt you?”

  “How could you?”

  “Hurt” was such a small, insufficient word for these things.

  “Tell me,” she said. “Tell me what he did to you, Ren.”

  If she hadn’t used my name, I don’t think I could have answered. But she validated my identity, let it supersede the past.

  Made it the slightest bit easier for me to reclaim.

  Once upon a time, I told her, there were two girls, two friends who were more than friends. One of them wasn’t really a girl, and the other could never accept that. They hurt each other. Fought incessantly. Tried to cut each other loose, move on, but some awful unbreakable thread would not sever. Bound together and miserable, they stewed in their own toxicity. One of them—the one who wasn’t really a girl—wanted to hurt the other in a permanent way. A way that would free her from their entanglement, forever. Let her become the person she was meant to be. So she found a boy who was willing, and gave her body to him. Not completely—there were certain things she would never do. But she put her mouth on him, tasted him, let him taste her.

  The other girl raged. I hate you, she said. You’ll give yourself to anyone but me.

  I don’t know who you are anymore.

  I hope it makes you sick. I hope you choke on his fucking come.

  I hope he destroys you.

  And he did.

  Because this boy had a friend who whispered poisons in his ear. A friend who would one day name himself Crito. Crito said a girl’s “yes” had no expiration date, and if she took it in the mouth, she was a slut and she’d take it anywhere. The boy had tried before, pressed his hips against hers, and she shoved him away. What’s the problem? he said. It’s less work for you. She said, Just don’t.

  One night, drunk on Crito’s venom and his manifest destiny as a male, the boy told the girl who wasn’t a girl, Lie back.

  Her instincts were frazzled, unreliable. She thought he wanted to suck her off. It felt good, sometimes, when she closed her eyes, thought of it in a queer way. Just one boy sucking another boy off.

  But she could never tell him that. He’d hurt her.

  If she knew he could hurt her, didn’t she know this could happen?

  Didn’t she let it happen?

  She lay back.

  When he put his whole weight atop her she realized her dreadful mistake. Don’t, she said, and, Please, Adam. Please.

  Bewildered, he said, You’re a virgin.

  Because of the blood.

  Please stop, she said, and he said, But you’re so wet.

  The printouts they gave her at the hospital read The body may react to unwanted sexual contact with arousal, including vaginal wetness and orgasm. This does not indicate consent.

  But in the moment she’d thought, horrified, If my body is acting this way, isn’t that saying yes?

  How could she trust mind over body when her mind had told her
terrible things? That her body looked wrong, completely wrong, every time she glanced into a mirror? That she should destroy it. That she should unravel and unstitch it with scalpels and needles.

  She closed her eyes and thought, Be quick.

  It was after, on the bus, that she cried. Couldn’t stop crying. Then she understood: This was her body’s way of speaking to her. Inarticulate and raw, a primal howl of pain. She should have trusted it. Should have listened. The dysphoria she’d felt was real—she wasn’t a girl after all, but a boy. And this agony wasn’t from rough sex. It was from rape.

  There.

  I said the word. In real time, to a real person.

  Oh, fuck.

  Tamsin braced me as I stumbled to the bathroom. For a ridiculous moment I hesitated between the doors, staring at the signs—pants, dress, meaningless fucking gender binary—till she pushed me bodily into the men’s. I sank to my knees, face in my hands. Sobbing like a child.

  Tam knelt beside me and simply held on.

  Nothing in me but that map of blood and nerve lighting up my lungs. The place where sorrow dwelled.

  Later, drained, I stood at the sink splashing icy water on my face. My skin had an ill pallor. The strange thing, the thing I didn’t expect:

  I didn’t see Sofiya peering through.

  Just me. Renard.

  “It was him, wasn’t it?” I said. “The man you killed. That cop.”

  Tamsin watched me in the mirror. “He disappeared under mysterious circumstances. I heard his body washed up near Gravesend. Death by misadventure.”

  “That’s why you’re here, living in hotels, getting paid under the table. You’re still running from it.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Your sister sent you to Laney for protection.”

  “Turned out I had some useful skills, and a powerful boredom, and a shite opinion of men. Frankie knew Laney’d have a use for me. So she hired me on.”

  “And told you to watch Adam.”

  “Yes.” She slid between me and the mirror. “What’s the collateral you have on her?”

  In the early days of Black Iris, before Ellis upgraded our tech, we ran ops old school: me, a gun, and a name and address.

  No one to watch what I did.

  No one to judge.

  Teach him a lesson, Laney would say. Make sure he never does it again.

  At first, I thought rage would frighten them most. I tossed them around like rag dolls, let them feel how flimsy and frail they were in my hands. Relieved them of a few teeth, a fingernail, the joint of a toe. It was usually enough.

  But not always. Some took a beating and came back stronger. I knew this process well. Some wounds are forever, and the scars harden inside you like diamonds, a sparkling, razor-sharp lace surrounding your heart. It can’t be removed but also can’t be broken. Diamond is the hardest naturally occurring substance on earth.

  The most dangerous people out there? They’re made of scar tissue.

  It was time to adjust my strategy. Think long term.

  I smacked them around, but before any serious damage was done I drew my knife and said, I’m giving you a gift. I’m letting you go.

  Snick. Bonds cut. Gushing gratitude till I added:

  I’ll be watching.

  Any moment, any day, if I see something I don’t like—bothering a girl who wants to be left alone, pressuring her, hell, even bitching to a bro about being friend-zoned again—I’ll strike. Take a finger, an eye, maybe a ball, depending on my mood. (Here I’d trace the named body part with the tip of the knife, for dramatic effect.) So keep that in mind, bud, when you’re out living your shitty little life.

  I’m watching you.

  Laney said, Whatever you’re doing differently, it’s working.

  One night I got a call.

  Some kind of accident. She needed my help. When I got to the warehouse Laney stood over a man lying in a pool of blood thick and dark as tar. Paralyzed, but alive. One side of his face twitched, short-circuiting. Laney told me what he’d done—drugged girls, violated them, scared them into silence with threats of revenge porn—and she’d decided that for once, vengeance was too kind. She wanted him wiped from the face of the earth.

  Why am I here? I said breathlessly.

  So I can give you this. She passed me her phone. On it, a video of her pulling the trigger. I’ve put blood on your hands. Now you have something on me.

  Why? I’d said.

  She tapped SEND, forwarding me the video. Because a day will come when I’ll ask something of you that you don’t want to do. This is your collateral. This is how you’ll know I won’t betray you.

  Tamsin gazed up at me, calculating. “What happened then?”

  How light it had felt, that trigger pull. The frighteningly soft force required to end someone. “She turned off the camera, and I finished him. He was dying. There wasn’t enough brain left for him to appreciate that fact anymore.”

  “You’re not a killer, Ren.”

  “I ended someone’s life.”

  “That was mercy, not murder.”

  “But it felt good,” I whispered. “It felt right.”

  All I’d thought, when I saw the body still, was:

  I wish it were him. My Poseidon.

  Tamsin’s arms were around me then, both of us trembling. “Mine felt good, too. We’re both a little broken.”

  “I don’t think I can be fixed, Tam.”

  “I don’t intend to try, if that’s your worry.”

  I cupped her cheek but couldn’t quite meet her eye. “You’re the first I’ve told, after Ingrid. About Adam. No one else knows.”

  “Did you think I’d see you differently?”

  “Yes.” I swallowed. “As . . . lesser. Less of a man.”

  Because what kind of man let another do this to him? Hurt him so deeply. Break something buried so far inside.

  Not a real one.

  Tam turned my face to hers. “What happened to you doesn’t change what you are. You are every bit the man I’ve been falling for.”

  All at once, a heaviness lifted. I felt untethered, buoyant. The way I’d feel when I lined up a sure shot on the court and everything seemed to click: clear space, the hoop a red bull’s-eye, the perfect arc of my wrist. Letting the ball go as lightly as dandelion fluff. The sense that I could turn around, let it sink without watching, because I could already feel the swish in my core.

  Fingers touched my face, brushed the water away. Then her mouth was on mine, soft. I kissed her and tasted my own salt. Pushed her onto the sink counter, against the mirror, kissing harder. Our hands slipped into each other’s coats. It was rough, suddenly, our bad blood stirring, raising a dark sediment: the things that had been done to us, the things we’d done. I bit her lip and she gasped into my mouth. “Did I hurt you?” I said, and she said, “Yes. Do it again.” So I took her lip between my teeth, tighter and tighter till she cried out. Then I kissed her gently, sucking at that sweet coppery warmth.

  “Hurt me back,” I said.

  Her fingertips skimmed my throat. My nerves sizzled. “I can’t, lovely boy.”

  But that fire would not cool.

  In the taxi, as snow gusted at the windows, my hand moved over her thigh. Then to the inside, her muscle tightening but her legs parting. Snowflakes melted into liquid confetti, dappled the glass with colored lights. Her heat filled my palm. She put her hand on my leg, and I stiffened, and she looked at me. That conversation without words. Is it okay? Is this what you want?

  When we reached her hotel I told the driver to circle it.

  Tamsin held my gaze as her hand moved. Every fiber in me tensed, tugged toward my center. I moved as she did, higher. To that densest heat, her hand cupping the bulge in my jeans as I slid two fingers into the hollow between her legs. We both gasped without sound. That we did this here, with a stranger, without being able to fully react, made it crazy. Wild. Broken. She rocked her hand against my cock. I’d gone so hard my skin felt like it was
coming apart. A man’s arousal is more than the erection—it’s every muscle flexing, every artery swelling, a terrible intensity that needs to be released, received. In that softness between her thighs, her jeans damp against my hand.

  I took my hand away. She removed hers.

  Our breath fogged the windows.

  “You drive me mad,” she said.

  I watched her walk through the snow to the brass doors, not turning. Knowing my eyes were on her. Knowing I wanted nothing more than to tear through the lobby, throw her on the hotel bed, unleash myself. Knowing that someday I would.

  And maybe let her do the same to me.

  ———

  “I’m sorry to put you in this position,” I said. “But you’re the only one I can trust, old sport.”

  Ellis frowned at the papers in her hands. No question she’d turn them over, but first she needed to process this.

  “I feel like I’m the rope in a tug-of-war,” she said. “You and Laney are pulling me back and forth.”

  “You don’t have to do this.”

  “But I want to. I want to help you, Ren.” Her face rose, her eyes sanguine, earnest. “You know we’re part of something bigger than ourselves, right? Nobody really understands what Black Iris is doing at any particular moment except Laney.”

  “And that’s dangerous, E. We’ve concentrated all our power in one person’s hands.”

  “She’s never given us reason to doubt her intentions.”

  “She gave me reason.” I nodded at the documents. Crito’s current location, movement patterns, everything. “That’s my cause for doubt. She’s been hiding things from me. It’s time to bring them to light.”

  Ellis sighed and passed me the papers. “Are you going to . . . hurt him?”

  “Crito? You fucking bet I am.”

  “I mean—the other man.”

  We locked eyes.

  “When I’m done with him,” I said, “there won’t be anything left worth calling a man.”

  ———

  Tamsin and I stood in a gold disc of streetlight at the bus stop, our breath knitting the air into gossamer scarves. Snow fell slowly, heathering our wool coats, and when Tam threw her head back and exhaled, her teeth shone as brightly as the tumbling sky. We were breathless because we’d ditched the cab a block away and run to the stop. Down the street through the haze of powder, the bus headlights burned hot.