Chapter Five

With much prodding from Lynn, I started taking the pills the moment we got home. As the weeks passed, I felt antsy, constantly staring into the looking glass in our bedroom, wondering if I could spot the changes. I began shaving religiously; even though I’d never had luck growing a beard, the sight of a single hair became enough to send me into a plucking fervor. So often, in fact, that my wife started to steal the looking glass away any time she caught me staring into it. Still, she’d gotten a bit… strange lately. At first, she’d seemed hesitant to let me wear her old clothes—and even once she’d gotten over that, I still outright refused to for a while, terrified that my big, bulky body wouldn’t fit right or look good. But after about three days of discussing the matter, she practically forced me into one of her old dresses. And when she saw me come out of the bedroom wearing that old, ratty, dull, blue thing, she burst into tears.

So did I.

From that moment on, she refused to let me wear my old trousers and longshirt outside of work. She’d given me a few of her older outfits, and she’d even commissioned some new ones from Miss Miller down the street, but I dared not wear them for a moment without the window shutters closed firmly and securely. Highest forbid if the neighbors were to see me. Especially with my all-too-short haircut, which I’d never given two licks about before, but which I couldn’t stop messing with now. I’d have to wait until the changes got more obvious before I could even think about walking outside like this.

So, every night when I went away to the watchtower, I’d don my longshirt, button up my trousers, drape myself in my horrible cloak, and sulk my way up to the palisade, passing groups of young folks drinking by the Green House and eating slow-cooked pork, making merry like tomorrow would never come. As I sat there on my perch every night, I found it harder to let myself dissolve into the quiet of the night. For so long, I’d simply faded into the background and let the hours pass like minutes. I’d gotten so good at willing the days of my life away. Why was I having so much trouble now? Why couldn’t I get rid of that strange, bubbly feeling at home, and why did my nights hurt so much?

When Lynn called me her wife, I… I felt my heart leap, and I could see behind her eyes that hers followed suit every time. Why did she want me to be her wife? She didn’t seem to know any better than I did. That Thursday, two weeks after we met the witch, she sat me down for dinner before I could sneak off to the tower.

“I think,” she said as she sat across from me, “I’m taking this a lot better than I’d expected.”

I nodded, staring at the table she’d set, complete with baked potatoes, reestit mutton pies, and freshly buttered rolls. Highest, I never went this far when I made dinners. Normally I’d just go to one of the mills, get some flour, and make chicken and dumpling soup.

“I’ll admit,” she said, palming a roll and giving it a sad look. “I didn’t think I had it in me. You know. To be married to a—another woman.”

“You don’t have to—” I began, but she cut me off.

“Nope. Nope, nope, nope. Before you say a word, Rosie, you aren’t ‘pretending’ to be a woman, you aren’t ‘trying’ to be a woman, you just are one. It clicked for me on day two. And now, I really have no clue how I didn’t see it. Honestly, I feel bad that it took me so long, because—well, look at you!”

She gestured to me, and I looked away, taking a sip of my water glass.

“Highest,” she said. “I know you might not feel wicked about the way you look, but I—I think you look absolutely lovely, Rosie. Rosy, even!”

Giggling to herself, she downed the entire roll—which was about the size of both of her fists put together—in one bite.

“Har, har,” I said. “I bet you say that to all the ladies.”

“Nope! Just one!”

 I flushed.

“Though I actually did wonder about myself and—you know—other women,” she said, glancing off to the side. “And—uh—I’m starting to think… maybe I’ve been misinterpreting some old feelings of mine. A lot of things I’d assumed were envy? I think those were more… lustful than anything else. Apparently, most lasses don’t express their ‘envy’ by… you know… playing with themselves.”

“Oh,” I said. “Oh, wow.”

She buried her face in her hands. “I don’t know how I missed it. Honestly, Rosie, I have no idea. Am I just that much of a fool? I suppose I’d just assumed I was like everyone else, because… I’m me! It’d be so odd if I wasn’t normal, you know? I kept asking myself how this relationship between you and me developed, considering how big of a coincidence it was, but then I realized… your ‘being-a-woman’ thing and my ‘wanting-to-be-with-women’ thing might not just be a fluke.”

“You’re saying…”

“I mean, I can’t say for sure!” Lynn said, shaking her finger at me. “But it does seem a bit rich that I married the one man I knew who wasn’t even a man at all. And how… I’ve never really seen myself being with any other man besides you. And you aren’t a man. And that does my head in, let me tell you.”

“Oh,” I said. That made me feel… fantastic, honestly. Wow. “So, you’re not interested in men?”

Lynn went bright red—something we’d both started doing quite regularly as of late. “M-maybe not as much as I thought? I love you, and I’d always thought you were… you know… but now you’re not a man, and I keep looking at the lads around town and picturing myself with them, and I just don’t feel… anything. It’s nothing. Blank. Bare. I keep thinking about them, and I keep feeling numb. But you? And frankly, lasses in general? It’s—it’s just different. I can’t say how. Maybe I need more time to think on this, but I honestly think this whole business with you and the witch… well, it’s been a good thing for me, even though I assumed it was all for you.”

“R-really?” I asked. “How? Why?”

“I don’t know,” Lynn said. “I guess I just… didn’t think I had it in me.”

I frowned, staring down at the little dress I’d donned that morning. It strained at my waist and shoulders, highlighting every little defect in my body with cruel glee, constricting me at my most masculine features. Everything I hated about myself, the dress demanded I notice at all times.

“You’re a good person,” I said. She had to be, if she was willing to put up with this shit.

“Thanks?” Lynn said.

Biting into one of the mutton pies, I leaned back in my chair. Highest, I had to learn how to cook like this.

“You ought to come to the spinnery tomorrow,” Lynn blurted.

I just stared. “I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“It wouldn’t be proper?”

She squinted at me. “Uh-huh.”

Glancing off, I tried my best to disappear, crossing my legs and arms and hunching over. “You don’t get it…”

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“You’re right, I don’t.”

We stared at each other for a while.

“Rosie,” she said, “I know I’ve been repeating myself a lot, but… it’s so obvious what you want.”

“Yeah?” I said. “Trust me, it doesn’t feel obvious on my end.”

“How do you not know what you want?”

“How did you not realize how you felt about other women?”

For a while, she puzzled a bit, her hand on her chin. “I guess you got me there,” she said.

“That’s ’cause I’m a clever clog.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Don’t get ahead of yourself, now.”

Gesturing to my dress, I leaned forward. “I’d say I’ve been well ahead of myself for a few weeks now.”

Lynn frowned. “What?”

I popped the last bite of pie into my mouth and forced her to watch me chew before I finally answered. “You had to drag me out to the woods. The witch told you what was happening for me. I’m not even wearing this because I wanted to, it’s because you told me I had to for my own good. When, exactly, have I done anything on my own? Lynn, you proposed to me. How pathetic is that?”

She paled. “I—well, I didn’t think it was… I just—is this all…?” trailing off, she just gazed through her untouched plate.

“Sometimes, you need people to push you,” I said. “But I’m a cart without a horse.”

“You’re not a—”

“Do you know what it feels like? When everyone else knows what you want, because it’s ‘so obvious?’ But you just can’t feel it? So, you just let people drag you from thing to thing, telling you, ‘this is it; this is definitely what you want,’ even if you say you don’t want it? Or maybe it’s not that you don’t want it, maybe it’s just that you’re not ready? Did you ever think of that?”

She didn’t say a word. I just finished my dinner, stood up, and went to the bedroom, where I shed the dress, slipped on my work clothes, veiled myself in my cloak, and trudged back to the dining room.

“Thanks for dinner,” I said, before slumping my way down the stairs. The chickens in the clucked at me from the roped-off area in the hay-covered mini-barn we called a basement, and I chucked some extra grain into their feeding trough, Even still, I had to gently hold the rooster, Clucky McCluckough, back with my foot as I opened the door so he wouldn’t bolt into the yard when I left.

“Rosie!” my wife called as she rushed down the steps and onto the dirt floor.

I glanced at her, my eyes dark.

“I—I’m sorry, Rosie,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”

I shrugged.

“Would it—well, I, er…” she blushed in the faint, flickering light from the rushlight candles on the walls. “Would it be improper if I… came with you for your shift tonight?”

Stunned, I couldn’t do much more than open and close my mouth like a fish caught in a net. “I… guess you can? If you want.”

She gave me a soft smile and slammed me with a hug. I took a step back, and Clucky McCluckough dashed out into the yard, along with a dozen of his hens.

“Oh, shit!” I yelped.

Lynn tightened the hug tenfold. “Shh,” she said.

“We need to build a proper henhouse,” I said.

“Oh yeah,” she replied, holding me as hard as she could manage. “Basements don’t make good barns.”

I smiled and leaned into her embrace, letting the chickens play outside for a little longer.

 

Damn you, Clucky McCluckough! Oh well. If you're enjoying this story, consider chucking a handful of extra grain into my feeding trough over at ! I promise I won't run off into the yard UWU UWU UWU UWU U̴̗̻̭͐͆͛̏͜Ẅ̸͙́͐̕ͅȔ̸͍͐̇̆ ̴̛͎̗̩̻͗͒U̶̱̺͝W̵̛̲̑̋͊Ǔ̵̫̃͊ ̵̼̻̣̂̍͐̽U̸͎͋͑W̸͇͂̽͗̏Ǘ̵̧̘̖͊̑͑ ̶̘̚W̸̛͕̗̼͋̉̋U̴͉̐ͅẄ̷̹͍̳̹̉͒̏ ̴͉̫̠̂Ẇ̵̱̰͈Ǘ̸̯̤̜Ẉ̷̡̦̆Ȗ̵̡̹̱̅͝W̶̙̉̔̄

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Sometimes, I look at the stuff I've written and just... sigh. Can you believe I'm an adult? With a job and a degree and a fiancée and a car and a mortgage preapproval letter? 'Coz I can't.

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