She will float here, she presumes, until authorities arrive. Until she is arrested. That’s okay though, she likes it up here. But the ceiling streams away, opening onto night sky and streetlights. Then she is cosmic, star among stars, far away and shining. Up high for all the world to see. 

Roche, his hand tightly clasped around her wrist and impossibly far away, bolts across the parking lot, into the street, between buildings, through a park. He is glancing back, up into the dark. Amidst the sky he finds her. His eyes, twin black holes hungry for light, beckon her back. Her orbit decays. The wild vibrations of atmospheric re-entry pace to fleeing footfalls. She is thrown about as she careens toward the earth, toward cities, toward streets, toward him. And then she is impacting the ground, far too hard to keep running. Her legs give out beneath her and she crashes into him. They tumble through a poorly kept lawn. 

Her chest heaving madness. Her whole body burning. He drags himself to her. His face covered in dirt. “We’re close,” he tells her between gasps, “we can’t stop,” he insists, forcing himself onto his knees, “that bitch could’ve called the cops by now.” He’s back on his feet. He pulls her up. She half collapses as she tries to stand. He steadies her. “My apartment’s not far.” 

Then they’re jogging. No longer running but not quite walking either. Down another winding block, across a vacant intersection, and finally through a side door and into a hallway. They stop at an elevator and wait. Her limbs are elastic. She feels like she might fall over. The elevator doors part silently. An elderly woman stares in dismay at the two of them as she steps out. She doesn’t stop staring as they stumble in. Only the elevator’s closing doors cut her off. 

Darling closes her eyes, still gasping. Her weight shifts as the elevator begins moving. She wants to say something but breathes instead. Then the doors open again, and right across the hallway Roche slides a key into a lock, turns it, and pulls her inside, closing the apartment door behind them.

Everything that just happened, held at bay by panic and adrenaline, comes rushing back to her. “Fuck,” she gasps, trying to parse what she even feels. Then her head falls loose into waiting palms, “fuck.” A torrent of feelings pour out of her, and she sobs. When she finally looks up from her weeping he is still there, standing in his own doorway. He gives her an almost doofy smile. 

“You’re bleeding,” she tells him as she touches a shallow gash on his arm. She pulls her hand away, his blood warm on her palm.

“You are too.” With two fingers he prods a spot on her shoulder. It stings. Her lips part silently. 

She shoves him against the door. He gasps, startled. She presses her body into his, kisses him desperately. He moans and she takes the opportunity to slide her tongue in, ravenous, as his heavy breaths escape around her lips. His spit tastes like dirt, or maybe hers does. They keep kissing messily for more than a minute before he reluctantly pulls away. 

“Give me your phone,” he commands flatly, reaching out with his waiting palm. She does. He could take an embarrassing picture of her and text her whole contact list, and she wouldn't stop him. 

Only after does she ask: “why?”

“I wanna make you a new file,” he tells her, crossing his small living room to a cluttered computer desk. “I have gotten so much better since back then.” He wakes his laptop and plugs her phone into a usb cable. He starts clicking his way through folders. “But, until I finish that, I still have your old file. We can at least get you started listening again.”

“Roche, wait—” she calls to him. He doesn’t respond, too engrossed in the task to even hear her, really. She watches him drag the file across the screen. She swallows hard and blushes in anticipation. 

The destination already has a file named “DARLING_ASCEND_INDUCTION_2_(FINAL).mp4” 

He stares dumbly at the pop-up. “You still have it,” he states, stunned.

She is silent for a moment. “I do.” 

He turns to her, standing from his chair as his eyes cut through her. “You still listen to it, don't you?”

“I try not to,” she explains, more to herself than to him, “but sometimes.”

“How recently?” He approaches her slowly. 

“A year ago, I think.”

Then he is on her. “You can’t fucking help yourself, can you? No wonder your triggers were still so strong,” he laughs in her face. “Take your shirt off,” he demands. Being cornered ignites something inside her. She complies readily. 

He gropes her exposed breasts. He is rough with her. She needs this. She slips a hand into his jeans and begins unbuttoning them.

“Stop,” he commands sternly and she stops. “We’re not fucking.”

“What?! Wait, I thought you wanted...” Her accusation loses steam. Shame and frustration rise in her. After all that has happened? After all she just lost? After giving in? She might be arrested tomorrow, for fucks sake. 

He grins malevolently, drinking in her anger. “Not here. I’m not wasting our first fuck in the privacy of my own home.” He tears her skirt from her hips and it drifts to the floor.

“Then what are you doing?” Her mind races with possible meanings. 

“Dressing you. Now be an obedient little doll, break apart, and don’t move.”

It begins again, the sliding rush chipping away at her, leaving her less than she was. Less heavy, less clear, less resistant. Her limbs drift softly at her sides. He goes to the sink and wets a cloth. Slowly, deftly he wipes the dirt from her body. His meticulous pace is entrancing. Slow firm strokes flowing like ocean waves along her skin, freeing her of unnecessary detritus. All the things that aren't her. When he finishes he drops the cloth unceremoniously to the floor.

He returns to his computer desk and picks up a thick Sharpie, and presses it to her skin. With it he writes the word FAG on her right arm. USE ME on her left. He keeps going, along her belly, her thighs, her legs, her butt, her chest. Most of it is too oblique for her to read. She loses time as he works. Sometimes her thoughts are in his voice.  Eventually he steps back, does a slow circle around her. 

“Come with me.” 

He shepherds her into a small room with a mattress on the floor, scattered clothes, and a full length mirror leaned against the wall. Across her belly he has written and underlined GIRLY FAGGOT. The word PATHETIC below that, just above her crotch, intentionally paired with the SISSY that is written along her shaft. She twists in front of the mirror, trying to take it all in. Some she can see, some she can’t.  FREE USE, FREAK, TRANNY FAGGOT, LAUGH @ ME, HYPNOTIZED FUCKHOLE, NEEDY, HRC SLUT, PLEASER, WORTHLESS, GROPE ME. The words slip out of her brain almost as soon as she reads them, leaving only a delirious procession of arousals she feels but can't fully understand. 

While she is staring at herself he begins to dress her. Fishnets but no panties. A skirt that barely leaves her hips. Wrist length gloves. A crop top with GIRL FAG written in the same black sharpie that adorns her skin. Heels locked in place. He brushes her hair, gives her doll-like makeup. He lets each moment linger, its own sensation, its own dance. Turn, sit, pose, smile. She follows each command. Finally, he slips a collar around her neck, makes it snug, clasps it in place, and attaches a leash.

“I’m gonna take you somewhere now. I don’t have a car so we’re gonna be walking. It’s about a mile. I made you, and I want the world to see what I made. You're not going to hide or cover yourself. You will walk proudly. Do you understand?”

Maybe it's the years of hypnotic reinforcement or maybe it's just what she is, but she knows she will do whatever he asks. It’s a terrifying thing, to know you belong to someone’s will like that. That there is no boundary you wouldn’t transgress for them. That every inch of you will always bend to their gravity. “Of course, Roche. I understand.” He gently kisses her forehead. As he pulls away she grabs his neck and drags him to her. Kisses him fiercely. 

She grins deviantly at him. 

“You know what’s coming, don’t you?” He asks.

She nods, an almost child-like glee in her eyes. 

“Then break apart with me, Darling.”

He opens his door and they walk out. He moves and she flows behind. Out of the building and onto the sidewalk, her motions locked to his. People pass them. Some staring, some averting their gaze. One girl calls her a “faggot” as she passes, a trace of playful affection in her voice. Darling’s heart is racing—not understanding how the world hasn’t caught up with them yet, punished them for what they’re doing. Everything about this is impossible, except that it's happening. The woman who is being pranced down the street toward some lurid finale isn’t any fantasy, it’s her.

They reach a plain wooden door between closed storefronts. It opens into a small receiving room. A woman with short teal hair sits behind a foldout table with a laptop in front of her. She is casually painting a tabletop miniature. Her eyes light up as they enter. “Roche!” she screams, bounding from behind the table to hug him. 

After their embrace she turns to Darling. “So, is this your new project?” She smiles, examining Darling as though she were art on the wall.

“My oldest project, actually.” He is beaming. “My first.”

“Wait, this is her.” The woman looks over Darling one last time. “Well let’s get her signed in.” She hands Roche a clipboard and he starts writing, filling in Darling’s form for her. After a few minutes he hands the form back to the woman, who looks it over. She laughs, and walks up to Darling.

“Read and sign this.” the woman hands her a liability waiver. Darling reads it as best she can, and signs. The woman takes the clipboard back. “Good, now for everyone’s safety I have to ask you a few questions. Darling, Roche has marked your trigger phrases as free, unrestricted use. That means that the phrases, along with their effects, will be sent to the evening’s group chat and anyone inside is free to use them on you if they wish, unless you or Roche say otherwise. Is that what you want?”

Darling’s eyes go wide. She feels the air rushing into her lungs. “Yes, I want that.”

“Your body has also been marked as free, unrestricted use. That means people are allowed to touch you and engage in sexual acts with you, unless you or Roche say otherwise. Is that what you want?”

She imagines being wanted by an entire room. “Yes,” she answers, her voice vibrant.

“Well then, they’re gonna love you in there,” the woman muses as she opens up the door for them. Vibrant, moody music echoes out. Roche enters, Darling follows. As Darling passes the woman, she smacks Darling’s ass and whispers, “good luck and break apart.”

Darling drifts into a large room, tethered to Roche. She wishes she could speak, but struggles to even finish a thought before it evaporates out of her.  

All around her are things she’s never seen before. A couple disappears behind a door, giggling. Two naked femmes negotiate a rope scene. In a corner three men entangle in each other as people casually watch. On scattered couches people chat, flirt, and laugh with each other. As they move through the large room Roche is greeted half a dozen times. Person by person he introduces them to her. She can’t keep conversation, but she manages a hello when prompted, and gives a proper moan when groped. 

Eventually she finds herself staring at a naked mattress laid on the floor toward the back. There is a stain in the bottom corner, and briefly she wonders if the stain is real or not. Roche notices her staring. “I love your fucking brain, Darling. Do you want to be fucked on a dirty mattress in front of everyone?” Her breathing is heavy with anticipation as she affirms silently to him that she does. “My pleasure,” he smiles warmly. “Now you look pretty and don’t move for a minute while I set this up. I want it to be perfect.” He leaves her side, finding his way to a tall, heavy-set, goth woman with a lanyard and badge, and begins talking with her. Darling admires the woman’s dick peaking elegantly out beneath an expensive looking black corset. 

In response to something Roche says the woman types into her phone, and Darling hears notifications going off around her. There are a few laughs, and she feels the eyes of the room falling on her. A short stocky man comes up and sniffs her. He reminds her somehow of the man in the parking lot from a decade ago. Someone grabs her waist from behind, and she feels their erection press against her. ‘Having fun?” They ask playfully. She nods. 

The goth woman approaches Darling, looking her over. Darling feels so small before her. She grabs darling’s hair in her fist and pulls, forcing Darling to look directly into her eyes. The woman leans in and her lips graze Darling’s ear, “You’re about to put on a good show. Tell me, what does that little faggot brain of yours want?” 

“Please just ruin me,” she begs the woman, Roche, the whole room.

“My pleasure,” she hisses, shoving Darling backwards onto the mattress, “Break apart.”

Darling is floating. Darling is weightless. Eyes like glittering stars stare at her as she hangs there, suspended above the mattress. Roche rises from the edge of her vision. Someone somewhere in the emptiness yells “break apart!” Darling begins to crumble. Roche's fingers trace a path along her skin. He lifts her leg, biting her thigh in a starburst of sensation. She cracks along faultlines as he thrusts fingers into her. The constellation of bodies around them pull closer, drawn inward by the moment. She feels a pair of hands on her foot, a tongue between her toes. Roche forces his fingers deeper with the weight of his hips, a cock of his own making. “Break apart,” he demands. She feels the tearing, the burning, the certainty of blood. He is deeper. Her body is quaking. “Break apart,” they chant at her, a relentless rhythm matched to his thrusts. Someone else’s dick traces the corner of her mouth, sweetly anonymous. Thoughts leave her, just debris, pulled away from her undoing as she is drawn into him. She fought this for so long, tried so hard to keep a shape of her own, to be recognizable and distinct. But this moment has been waiting for her. Roche was always going to be the abyss that would claim her. Others keep reaching for her. Hands swarming, infinite touch. She rises into him, and he collapses unto her. Time falls away. Boundaries lost and blended, colliding amidst the crowded dark, spiraling into each other, until union, until singularity, until nothingness. 

She cums, screaming. He tumbles beside her, delirious and out of breath. Someone gently kisses her forehead. Another hugs him from behind. Slowly, the crowd disperses. The corseted woman gazes down at them, smiling warmly. Darling smiles back. And then the woman, too, is gone. Roche and Darling float on the stained mattress as the room moves forward around them. Other people fuck, do scenes, talk. Darling can’t help but find the chaotic soundscape calming, and drifts off to sleep.

Jennifer’s reverie falls away, lost, leaving her only the feeling of it, and a yearning to return. Three years in the Seattle nonprofit mines for this moment. Sure HRC’s candidate has said some problematic things about our medical care, but that’s why Jennifer being here is so important. But a gnawing anxiety rises in her. They like the newly out girls for these things, and she isn’t new to her body like that. Even if she’s been lying about it. 

MOTIVATIONAL_INSPIRATION_JENNIFER_(FINAL).wav. 

Jennifer wants to help the cis understand our plight. Jennifer wants to make the world better for us. Jennifer has dreamed of this for so long. Jennifer is a proper, respectable trans woman that everyone likes. A good little nonprofit doll that's happy to be used. This isn’t about Jennifer. Jennifer is playing a role. Jennifer is here to uplift us and make the cis, even the ones who hurt us, take notice and do better. This is how the world is changed, one voice at a time. 

She hears her name like a premonition. They applaud for her. She’s never been before a crowd this full in a room this big. But the unity of applause gives her hope. If we can come together like this about the issues then we got it. 

A face among the noise, lurching into focus. Mortified, twisting in on itself. Glaring in horror and recognition. Too late.

Break apart. 

The ground runs away from her. Her clothes unravel. Her flesh atomizes. Jennifer is fed to the audience. 

Nothing left now but Darling’s singular and awful desire. Not to be something, but to become it.  Always becoming. Unending transformation sequence. Broken and remade. Inappropriate for primetime. No more audience-friendly loss of anatomical detail. Who even let this on air? But always watched, always airing Thursdays 4pm PST.