Jack and the Pink Thread (1.7k words)

Crappy Hallowieners!!!! Just checking in to prove I'm still alive, although in a month as ooky spooky as October, it is not only the living who are updating their Patreons....

I'm working hard on Two Doms chapter 25! It'll be another fatty, like around 12k words. I've been a bit distracted recently, planning out my next longform story with major help from the WICK-edly talented Qzar24. Oh my god, youse all are gonna love that one. But we've pretty much got the whole plot written out so now I can fully focus on Two Doms and hopefully have that ready for you soon!

In the meantime, please enjoy this spooky short story. I was going for kind of a fairy tale vibe, which means I wrote it in an annoying voice, like a British guy. Fair warning it is NOT cute and is honestly a real bummer. But if you liked my last trans horror story, Dave, you might like this!

CWs: Body horror, blood and gore, violence.

Jack was a stout man with a good life. His work kept him fulfilled and fed, his friends were close and his family a strong support. He had little to complain about, and indeed he would have seen that life through to his natural end, if it weren't for the fact that his body did not fit to his bones. 

It held together well enough, but sometimes it was hard to ignore the way the skin and flesh slipped loosely over his fingers, got bunched in his elbows and under his knees. The wet slap as he walked grated on his nerves, and worse yet was the chafing. He did his best to ease the problem. He firmed and hardened his muscles so that they might grip tighter, and grew out his beard in the hope that the wirey hairs would tie his face closer to his skull. Yet discomfort and anxiety plagued him day to day. 

It came one night that Jack noticed a pink thread, peeking shyly from his wrist like an exposed nerve. It felt warm to the touch, and sparks shot through his body as he rubbed it between his fingertips. His first impulse was to tuck it back between his tendons, and it would hold there for a while, but as the weeks went by it would worm its way back out again, calling to him to tug it loose and see what would unravel. 

Jack focused on the structures of his life. His work, which was fulfilling; his friends, who were close; and his family, who were a strong support. Yet time and again that pink thread would peer its head from the loose skin of his wrist, and at last he could ignore it no longer and felt he had no choice but to pull it out.

The thread unspooled from the murky depths of his body, wet with oily blood, and he felt it slipping from its woven path within his arm, his chest, up and down his legs, around his heart and all throughout his head. With each wet yard he unravelled, his malformed body felt looser, still less tethered to his bones, and when at last the end came free Jack's skin and flesh collapsed to the floor, leaving a waifish girl standing confused amongst his butterflied carcass. 

The girl was as pale as milk, unblemished and untouched by sunlight. Her skin was smooth and slick with albumen. She had been Jack, but now that name lay fallen with the meat it had been tied to. As she stepped free from the body on the floor she saw fit that her name should be Flora, and she set forth to bloom. 

Before she left she turned to witness the remains of Jack, and observed that his body, though eviscerated on the kitchen tile, was stout and solid, with firm muscle and a wirey beard. There was still much good in this body, with its fine name, with its work and friends and family, and so before she left she sewed it back together and set it upright in a chair. Seeing that its eyes were dead, she lit a candle and placed it in its chest, and the eyes lit with fire and Jack’s body rose and began its work, mopping and cleaning the floor of its dark and oily blood. 

Flora nodded to herself, pleased with her cleverness, then dressed as well as she could in Jack’s loose clothes and set forth to explore the city. There was much to do and see, and she was delighted to notice that the colours were brighter without the dim lenses of Jack’s eyes, and that the tastes and smells were richer, the noises more resonant, and the sensations more vivid against her smooth skin.

Yet this brought worries as well. The brisk night breeze was colder without Jack’s body as her coat, and her pale flesh bruised easily. Although she enjoyed her first night of life she returned home in a hurry, took the candle from Jack’s chest and slipped herself back inside. At once she was at ease, the oily blood warming her chills and soothing her bruises. She slept well that night, and when she woke she had a fine day as Jack.

Soon Flora ventured out again, and then again, each time gaining confidence and delighting in the experience of walking the city without her outer skin. Before each trip she would carefully sew Jack up and light his candle so he could continue about his business, and at the end of the night she would extinguish the candle and slip herself back inside Jack’s body, safe and warm, even if the flesh still bunched and chafed between her joints. 

So this continued, until one night she met another pale woman on her travels, and they set to talking. The woman was named Yvette, and had shed her skin many years before. She was sweet and keen, and Flora delighted in speaking to someone who was enamored not with Jack but with herself. So they spoke not of Jack but of Flora and of Yvette, and the next night they met again, and once again the night after that. Soon a romance blossomed between the two women, though each of their meetings was cut short when Flora returned home to take her place in Jack’s warm body. 

When a month had passed Flora brought Yvette roses, and Yvette seized the bouquet in one hand and Flora in the other, and entreated her back to her flat. And so for the first time Flora spent the night, and Yvette explored her pale body with greedy joy while the roses lay forgotten by the bedside. In the morning they woke to see the flowers had withered without a vase to drink from, but Yvette declared their night together was well worth the loss, and the two women fell into bed again.

The time came for Flora to return home, and when she opened Jack’s chest she saw that the candle was burning low, and perhaps soon another solution would be needed. In the meantime she put it out and slipped herself inside, and so things continued as they had, with Flora greatly satisfied and eager for what lay ahead. 

As the weeks went by Yvette grew weary with Flora’s haste in rushing home after each meeting, and frustrated with her arriving to each date with albumen-slick skin. One night she followed Flora home, waiting at a distance so she wasn't seen, and she peered through the window and saw her greet Jack, with his candlelit eyes and crawl inside his chest, and Yvette decided this could not continue. So the next day she invited Flora to a picnic at a beautiful park far from her home, and when Flora arrived Yvette was not there. So she returned home, with an hour or more having passed in the meantime, and went to the kitchen to return to Jack’s body. 

But when she reached the kitchen Jack was not working away, washing dishes or sending emails. Instead she found Yvette standing with a wide smile and a kitchen cleaver in her hand, and Jack’s body was hacked to pieces on the floor. She had torn through his head, baring his nostrils and spilling the white jelly of his eyes. The tendons of his limbs were snapped, and the flesh of his broad chest sliced to ribbons. There was no piece bigger than a palm, and the kitchen floor was wet with oily blood. And Yvette beamed at Flora, and told her that now there was nothing to keep her from being herself, and that they could be together forever and all the time, and she raised her blood-drenched arms to welcome her in a hug.

Flora stood stunned for some time, and when at last she gathered herself she screamed for Yvette to leave, and chased her from her home, and fell to her knees amidst the wreckage of Jack's body. His firm muscles were ripped to pieces, the wirey hairs of his beard curling like shrivelled worms amidst the viscera. She searched vainly amongst the mangled scraps of his carcass, and at last she overturned the shredded husk of his belly and found the candle, little more than a stub, still flickering weakly with the last remnants of light. 

She took it in her shaking hands and laid it on the counter, and then surveyed the ruins of her male self. Yvette had left the door open when she left and a chill draught blew through the room, cutting deep through Flora’s frail body. She steeled herself and fetched a large pot for the stove, then began to gather hunks of bloody meat from the floor. She slopped them in, chunks of foot and scalp and cock, and set it to a simmer. She hunched over it, stirring through, watching as the features of Jack’s face melted away and all that remained was that oily blood, dark and thick and sickly sweet. 

When she was satisfied, she let the mixture cool and took a last look in the mirror. Her feminine form was beautiful, innocent and rare, but it was waifish and weak. She was still just a babe, knock-kneed and naive, and she had work to do, and friends and family she was not prepared to lose. And so she dipped her hands into that oily blood and smeared it over her pale skin, letting it drip hot and thick down her arms, her chest, all up and down her legs, soaking deep and pooling around her heart and all throughout her head. At last, drenched in oil from head to toe, she turned to the candle, flickering its last feeble light, and held her palm to the flame.

At once she caught alight, and the thick dark blood blazed with fire, searing her to the bone, roasting her skin and hair, licking at her eyes and roaring through her veins. She sank to her knees and let it consume her, and when at last the fire died it had formed a new skin. It was thick and hard, with firm muscles and a wiry beard, and there was no pink thread to pull.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you all so much for your support, and I want to wish you a very, very crappy Hallowieners 🧡🖤💜 I promise no more weird shit like this for at least two months.

Next up: Two Doms Ch. 25, then Backup Girl Ch. 4. Both coming out this month guaranteed!