The Beast in Me

"Love you, Dad."

She leaned back, rubbed furiously at her eyes, and, against her better judgment, pulled up the concert footage on her phone while she waited. It had been raining that day, and the crowd was drunk. Kevin had been in rare form, and her playing as sharp and crisp as she'd ever done, but all she could see, as she stared down at her phone, was the girl with the black hair and the quasi-catholic school uniform giving the camera a bevy of righteous middle fingers.

***

She didn't have much hope of getting past the door unnoticed. The bar was empty at eleven in the morning, and there was nothing else to distract from the sound of the bell at the door. Helen didn't look directly at Lucia, but Lucia knew she'd been spotted by the way Helen very specifically didn't look at her. Lucia slouched her way to the bar, climbed onto a stool, and waited patiently.

"What'll ya have?" she asked, without looking over.

"Ginger ale."

Helen was already pouring it, and set it down in front of her without making eye contact.

"I... I didn't," Lucia said, in a tone of voice that was really trying hard to be defiant. Like, really, really hard.

Helen shot her a quick look, very flat, before nodding.

The silence stretched out, becoming thin and brittle. "I'm sorry," Lucia said, "okay? I..." before trailing off into silence.

"Look," Helen said. "I get it. I remember fast walking away from Evan like I was trying to exit a burning building in an orderly fashion, when he'd just been trying to talk to me."

"You did?"

The redhead nodded. "What I can't condone," she said, gravely, "is that you didn't pay for your drink."

Lucia made a sound that, while still being dignified, still came pretty close to a guffaw.

"I'm trying to run a business here," Helen said, smirking, and behind her parted bangs lurked an eyebrow looking for an excuse to unleash.

"Capitalist," Lucia hissed, injecting as much venom into the word as its zoning permits allowed for. This earned her a hearty laugh in response, and it felt like a weight slipped from her shoulders.

"A lefty, huh," Helen shot back, jaw slack with faux-wonder.

"I'm an anarcho-communist, thank you very much."

"Either way," she said, pulling a tall glass from a rack to polish with a towel on her hip, "I'm glad you came back."

"Me too," Lucia said, and as she took a sip of her ginger ale, staring over the rim, her eyes connected with Helen's in a way that said, in both directions, I'm really glad.

Thirty minutes later, Lucia flopped onto her back, gasping for air. She brought a hand to her forehead, to brush back the hairs back from her eyes, and found her brow dotted with perspiration. It was probably not all her own sweat. "Holy fuck," she panted. "Holy fuck. Holy fuck."

Helen laid down alongside her, on her side, with her arm propping up her head in a way that showed off her arms. Helen had unripped biceps, but much like the rest of her there was a kind of thickness to her upper arms that Lucia was completely enthralled by. There was so much to grab, and squeeze, and hold, and she'd had plenty of opportunities to do all of those things while Helen was sitting on her face.

If she had to pick a favorite part, and Lucia was fond of ranking things, it was Helen's thighs that she was most fond of (followed by the parts just above her thighs). At one point, while underneath her, Helen had gotten leverage—in a way Lucia hadn't really understood—and squeezed, and Lucia had experienced a sensation unlike any other. The strain had been a little scary, which was in turn ridiculously hot. She'd been completely in Helen's control, her life in another woman's hands, and at no point did it occur to her to stop licking even as her head was being crushed just a little bit.

Helen had a way about her that was direct and delightful: refreshingly unsubtle. Vivian had been like that, at the end. It had been, perhaps, the best part of their brief but impactful relationship.

As she lay there, panting, Helen drew invisible shapes on her skin. Infinity symbols. Triangles. A heart. Helen said, "I really like your sleeves, by the way."

Lucia's eyes fluttered open, and she blushed. She liked the way Helen's eyes were roaming over her body. It made her feel... wanted. Valuable.

It occurred to her, briefly, that 'valuable' was a strange word for her brain to have supplied there, or a strange way of putting it, but the tickling sensation of Helen's index finger running circles around her nipple reduced her ability to think deep thoughts to approximately nil. She blushed, but kept command of her faculties and resisted the urge to bring her arms up and cover herself. She must have flinched, though, because Helen's smile got a lot wider and a lot...

...meaner? Hungrier?

"So where was I?"

Lucia's chest tightened. Painfully.

"Evan was the one who drove me to my first—"

"Could you... not?" Lucia whimpered. The expression on Helen's face made her wince. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I just..."

Helen pulled her hand back, and suddenly Lucia really wished she wasn't laying on top of the sheets. She would have loved to cover herself up right then.

"I can't handle listening to how much you miss someone who isn't around, because that's..."

The redhead exhaled slowly through pursed lips, and nodded. "Okay."

"No," Lucia said, pushing herself up onto her side and facing Helen. "Listen. I appreciate what you're doing. I just... I came here tonight to try and forget someone."

Helen smirked. "Did it work?"

"For a little while," Lucia said, smiling sadly.

"Okay. Well." Helen twisted, and for just a moment while she thought she pushed her tongue out through her lips.

Lucia stared unabashedly. It was a tongue for kissing. Sure, it might have served Helen well enough when she was swallowing or tasting, but as far as Lucia was concerned it was for kissing.

"Wanna hear something I've never told anyone?"

"Yeah," Lucia whispered. She'd never wanted anything more in her whole life.

"I miss my balls."

Every time it felt like Lucia was about to stop laughing, Helen would giggle a little and that would set her off again. It was a good two minutes before she caught her breath. As she lay there on her back, worrying a little bit in the back of her mind that she'd had the wrong reaction, Helen sat up and put her bra back on, and again Lucia was struck by it. The woman had incredible lingerie. It had extra bands across the front that seemed to serve no purpose, but they followed the contour of the redhead's skin and mapped the shape of her breasts in a way that appealed to Lucia's animal brain. Helen had very soft skin, and it was hard not to think about that when it was being shaped so dramatically.

"I wouldn't trade my tits to get 'em back," Helen said, with a smirk, "but... yeah. I liked them."

"Is that the only thing you miss?"

"Oh yeah," Helen said, nodding enthusiastically as she pulled up her matching panties. They were a hipster cut, giving definition to her hips and waist while leaving the bottoms of her rounded cheeks exposed: beautifully suited for her frame. "Yeah, I don't know how it is for the rest of my trans sisters, but I couldn't wait to get bottom surgery. No regrets whatsoever, and I'd do it over again in a heartbeat, but yeah. I liked my balls." She shrugged, and giggled a little.

Lucia rolled onto her front, elbows digging into the bed while her palms supported her chin, as she watched Helen walk across the apartment toward the bathroom. That she left the door open behind her said something. Maybe about confidence, maybe about comfort level. Maybe about a desire for bathroom sex.

"When did you know?" Lucia asked. "Is it okay if I ask that?" She reached down over the edge of the bed and hooked her fingers into the hem of the balled up shirt Helen had discarded, pulling it out to get a better look at it. It was a black t-shirt, which was about all that Lucia had noticed earlier. What she had missed, though, just above the heart, was a pink skull with a bob haircut, and a little bow sitting on top just off center.

She had never put on a piece of clothing so fast in all her life.

"Hard to say when I first started thinking about it," Helen called, voice carrying across the open space. "Maybe fifteen?" The redhead re-emerged from the bathroom a few seconds later, and quirked her head. "That's my shirt."

Lucia shrugged, wearing nothing else, and moved to sit on the edge of the bed. Helen narrowed her eyes as she walked, her smile becoming very cold and calculated, and that look made Lucia shiver something fierce.

"When did you know you were gay?"

Lucia licked her lips to buy time, and looked down. "I don't know how to answer that."

"That wasn't supposed to be a hard one," the redhead said, as she collected her jeans and moved to sit down.

"This is going to sound stupid, but for a long time, for me, sex wasn't about that."

"Not about who you're with?"

"No," Lucia said, shaking her head. "I..." She dug her thumb into her temple, worrying at a phantom knot, and added, "I don't always feel like I've had a lot of control in my life. Sometimes, sex is just a thing that happens, and maybe not always something I choose for myself? Not sure if that makes sense."

This time, it was both of Helen's eyebrows that moved, and Lucia was unmade by their expressiveness.

She shrugged, and was reminded all over again that she was wearing another woman's shirt. It felt scandalous in all the best possible ways, and that was much easier for her to process than her complicated sexual history. Helen finished pulling up her jeans, with only her bra on above that, and Lucia stared at her unabashedly.

"You know," Helen said, "I really expected you to take the back door and disappear yesterday. I was shocked when you didn't." It was a really nice bra, but Helen caught her staring and turned away. She looked back over her shoulder as she headed toward her closet, and said, "I really had you pegged as a one time thing."

"If we'd met a few months ago," Lucia said, "yeah. That was kinda my thing."

"What happened?"

"It was suggested to me," she said, planting her hands behind her on the bed and leaning back slightly, "that I was substituting one addictive behavior for another. For a while there, I was averaging... I don't know, four to six partners a week? Never the same one twice? Just... empty pleasure seeking behavior."

Helen reappeared from the closet, shimmying into a V neck blouse with short ruffled sleeves, and looking completely unperturbed. It occurred to Lucia that she was surprised that the other woman was so nonplussed. It then further occurred to her that she had probably, unconsciously, offered that slightly exaggerated number to try and scare Helen off. That it hadn't worked said something.

Instead, Helen said, "Not anymore though?"

She shrugged and shook her head. "No. It's one thing when you have a bad habit that you don't really acknowledge, but, you know, with NA, and the steps, that's not the kind of thing you can just ignore once it's been brought to your attention. Not if you're really trying, anyway... and I am."

"Now you just have random sex sometimes."

"Hey," Lucia said, "you hit on me! I quit coke, not being awesome."

All Lucia could manage was a mild smirk. It was a good, pithy joke, but it wasn't one she really believed. Her self-image was fragile. Before, with drugs, Lucia hadn't ever really needed to believe in herself. She could chug attitude, snort confidence, and shoot up swagger. She was still stubborn as a mule, but it came out more as perseverance than anything else.

But Helen hadn't laughed either. She was nodding thoughtfully, and said, "It can dull the pain."

Then she remembered that, yes, it had been Helen that initiated, and no, she hadn't flinched at Lucia maybe bringing someone different home every night. That made her heart hurt a little for the redhead.

Once Helen was dressed she felt a kind of pressure to be not naked, like she was holding Helen up, and so Lucia shoved her own top into her purse and threw on her jeans.

When she was pulling on her boot, Helen said, "What are you doing on Thursday?"

She did some quick math in her head, counting out which nights she'd be in a meeting. Instead of answering, though, Lucia said, "Are you asking me out on a date?"

Helen didn't take the bait, which Lucia respected the hell out of. She said, "I do derby on Thursdays. You should come check it out."

Lucia watched her shamelessly as Helen started toward the door. "Will you be wearing, like, some cute short shorts?"

The bartender laughed, which was a wonderful sound, and shook her ass back and forth a little. "Only one way to find out."

After giving Helen a twenty second head start, Lucia came downstairs. Karl, the other bartender, was leaning casually against the bar. The room was nearly empty.

"Second time this week," Karl said, giving her a direct look.

Helen's voice came from the back, in the kitchen, shouting "Karl!"

Karl looked unperturbed, and stared at Lucia with a flat expression. It seemed, to Lucia, that flat was probably his mode. "Hey, I know that shirt."

Lucia said, "Karl, what do you know about wealth extraction?"

"Oh for fuck's sake!"

"If this place turns even a penny of profit because of your labor, she's robbing you. That's payroll theft."

"Skipping straight to dirty talk, huh?" Karl shrugged, disaffectedly. "You're definitely her type."

"Lucia, just go!"

"Yeah," he said, with all the enthusiasm of an exhausted sloth, "get outta here, punk."

"Wage slave," she shot back.

On her way out the door, she heard Karl lean his head into the kitchen and say "Okay, you need to put a ring on that."

"You're fired, Karl!"

***

"Oh, that's for six months, right?"

Lucia flinched, and instinctively tucked her blue Narcotics Anonymous key tag into her palm. The shock of being spotted as a recovering addict, though, was insignificant next to the immediate realization, as she turned slightly, that she recognized the woman who had sat beside her on the crowded bus as it trundled down Freemont. Vivian's girlfriend, the one with the smile, was looking at her with genuine warmth and compassion, and it hit her like a blow to the gut.

"The key tag?"

Lucia licked her lips and looked back down, slowly twisting her hand at the wrist to expose what she'd tried to hide. Her voice was shaky when she said, "Yeah. "

"That's really impressive!"

"Thanks," Lucia replied, even though saying so made her want to throw up. "It's eight months, really, but they don't have an eight month tag. Gotta... gotta wait for nine."

The woman next to her was wearing mauve scrubs and very sensible shoes. A nurse, Lucia thought. Because of course. Educated. Softhearted. Giving.

"My girlfriend had a problem for a while, but she's doing really good too." The way that the nurse was staring into the space in front of her with a proud smile suggested a lot about how close they were. Every word from her perfect little mouth was like a poison.

"Your girlfriend?"

The nurse nodded emphatically. "It's been about six months for us." She furrowed her brow briefly, and then smiled even more brilliantly. "Oh my god, yeah. It has been six months. I'm Delia, by the way."

"Lu...cy," Lucia said, giving her a brief nod. "Hi."

"Pleased to meet you!"

It was morbid, masochistic, to continue the conversation. "So, you're a nurse?"

"Mhm!" she said, brightly. Even her teeth were dazzling, and Lucia self-consciously compressed her lips just a little bit tighter. "I work in the ICU at St. Vincent's. That's actually where Vivian and I met."

She should have been glad that Vivian had found someone that made her happy, but still; hearing Vivian's name from her lips absolutely sucked.

"Oh, was she... visiting someone?" she asked, feigning ignorance.

"No! She was the one in the coma! Bad one too. At first, the attending in intensive care was sure she'd have brain damage if she woke up at all."

Lucia blinked, and licked her lips. "You know, I've heard that some people who..." She pointed at her head absently. "...who suffer head wounds can, like, have their whole personality change. Is that... is that real?"

"Technically, yes, that can and does happen, but that also assumes that, like, who we are is some kind of fixed entity when the truth is that we grow and change every day. You're not the same person you were eight months ago, right?" she asked, gesturing to Lucia's palm. "Yesterday? This morning? An hour ago?"

"Deep," Lucia said. It was getting harder keeping a straight expression in the face of Vivian's girlfriend being simultaneously existentially-wise and medically-educated. "Did that happen with your girlfriend?"

Delia uncrossed and recrossed her legs, and seemingly bought time to think by tucking a few stray hairs behind her ear. She had extremely short hair, though, so none of it stayed tucked. "You know, I didn't know her before her accident, so I can't say for sure, but what I can tell you is that whenever we're around her family, I get a vibe from them. Especially when we first started dating, it was like she was on thin ice, or her last second chance or something. They never said anything that made it seem like she was acting out of character, but they also kind of treated her like they were meeting her for the first time while they were meeting me for the first time? Something was off about their interactions. That much, I can say for sure."

Lucia couldn't help but picture them together; Vivian, tall and lean with her new, terse disposition being complimented by this adorable, chatty, short-haired tornado.

"Oh my god," Delia laughed. "I'm so sorry. I'm just going on and on about me and my—"

"No," Lucia said. "It's-it's fine."

"I do this thing where I just, like, talk to everybody, and Vivian, you know, she's always rolling her eyes at me, but I meet so many interesting people! Lucy, was it?"

"Yeah!"

"Are you a musician?"

Lucia looked down at her guitar case and frowned. It would have been better if Lucy was as little like Lucia as possible. "I'm an assassin," she said, feigning an excess of confidence. "That's where I keep my rifle."

Even her laugh was bewitching. "My girlfriend's a musician! Do you record?"

"No," Lucia said. "No, I—"

"Are you in any bands I might have seen? We go to a lot of concerts."

She shook her head. "I used to be, but no. Not in a while. I think that part of my life is over."

The bus hit a particularly hard bump, and Lucia looked up enough to realize that she'd missed her stop. Her stomach tried to twist itself into a braid, and she reached into her purse for her phone. Then she looked up at Delia, and made a bad decision.

"Sorry," she said, focusing on her phone for a moment while she typed out a message to one of her students saying she'd been delayed in traffic and that she needed to cancel their lesson. "I just need to let my girlfriend know that I'm, um, running a little late."

Delia was giving her a look of quiet, approving solidarity, when she finally sent it, that made her feel like a complete fraud, which, of course, she was. When she stood up, Lucia flinched.

"Are you getting off here too?"

The word 'too' made her blood run cold, and that worst instinct of hers, the one where she leaned into the worst of the pain, made a grab for the wheel. Lucia arched back and stared out the window for a minute. "Yeah, I, uh... I think so. We just moved, and I'm still getting my bearings. Is it this one?"