Constant 3, Chapter 4-4

I don't know if I can overstate how difficult this scene was to write. I don't know why, but it was very slow going and a real effort to complete. It's an important scene--there are important plot elements introduced here that will come to fruition later in the story. In any case, Enjoy! I reckon this scene is pretty much done; and future edits are likely to be minor. But if you notice anything that stands out or have any feedback--well, comments are always appreciated!

Four: 95% Feminine

Julia paid the bill.

            By the time we stepped outside, the unseasonable heat had faded to mid-October chill. Corset notwithstanding, my dress offered little protection and I hugged myself against the cold. Saturday night, and the city centre was busy though our backstreet alley of fancy restaurants was quiet, shopfront lights blinking off one by one.

            Our ride was delayed. It was late, moon veiled behind scuttling clouds and perpetual urban haze. With a distinct click, Chez Pierre locked up behind us. We’d stayed late, drinking and talking, until the waiter firmly asked us to pay up and leave. Drunk, we hung off each other outside, girl giggles in the night as we waited for the taxi.

            That’s when I noticed the man slouched in an alcove across the way. He stood at the top of stairs leading down to some dark and expensive late-night bar. He watched us with an unpleasant grin, and noticed me, noticing him.

            “What’s so funny?” The man lurched towards us into the street. He was drunk, too. Behind us, the restaurant lights flickered and went dark. The street was strangely silent, except for this man’s shuffling steps. The armpits of his white shirt were damp with sweat, and his tie hung loose around the neck. The watch at his wrist and the cut of his suit implied wealth; the stains on his shirt and redness to his eyes told of a bad night out.

            Julia stayed quiet. She went tense and her eyes slid away.

            “Hey.” He was on our side of the road, now. Close—almost close enough to smell. He was big, this guy. Nearly two meters, and the pull of his shirt across the chest revealed bulk and muscle. His knuckles were calloused: he’s thrown a punch or two in his time. “Hey, I’m talkin’ to ya.”

            Julia studiously ignored him. She checked her phone, tracking the taxi’s progress. The night’s cheer evaporated, just like that.

            “Over here,” she said, loudly. “Taxi’s waiting around the corner,” and she tugged me by the elbow.

            “Just wanna talk,” the guy slurred.

            Julia started to walk away, dragging me with her.

            “Fuckin’ bitches,” the man shouted. “Fuckin’ c—”

            And then he was close enough to smell, because with a clatter of heels against cobblestone I was right in his face, staring up into those bloodshot eyes. “Say it,” I hissed. “Go on—say it.” This close, he could smell me, too, delicate perfume warring with sweat and booze and anger. “Please. Call us ‘cunts’—I’m begging you.” I trembled with restraint. My heart pounded in my chest, but my corseted breath was low and controlled. “Give me an excuse, man—do it.”

            He blinked with slow surprise. His lips curled into a sneer—wavered—and staring back he saw something that made him reconsider.  He shook his head, and drew his hand across his face, and fell back a step.

            “Sorry,” he muttered. “I’m—” he shook his head again, “sorry.”

            Julia grabbed me by the elbow again. “This way. Now.”

            I dutifully followed her down the darkened street and around the corner, the clip-clop of my shoes a counterpoint to her hurried steps. It was busier the next street over, back in the middle of weeknight action, brights lights and cheer pouring out of late-night fast-food joints, dive bars, small clubs and florescent-lit 24-hour convenience stores.

            A few minutes later and our taxi found us waiting, shivering, in the shelter of a cheap shop selling touristy t-shirts and emergency prophylactics.

            The car swiftly ferried us back to Julia’s. We rode in silence. I seethed with indefinable emotion riding over a deep well of exhaustion. Drunk, I still spoiled for a fight. I hadn’t realized how much I wanted to hurt someone until that man approached. My fists itched. There was a powerful urge to tear someone to pieces. I nearly vibrated with the desire for violence.

            The reason for this was beyond me. I was too drunk and too tired from the day’s performance. Maybe there’d been too much thinking today, too much delving into emotions ignored for months. Fortunately, the corset was as good a restraint as any, a reminder of the idiocy of lashing out. I felt its unyielding grip and it kept my breathing controlled and gradually, over the course of the ride to Julia’s, the desire to hurt someone faded.

            Meanwhile, Julia stayed quiet. Anger rolled off her in silent waves, though I ignored them in favour of my own introspection. She said nothing as I followed her up to her apartment.

            But once the door clicked shut behind us, she immediately turned on me. “What the hell were you thinking?”

            “I wasn’t.” I knelt to unbuckle my heels.

            “No shit.” She glared down at me. “That guy could’ve—”

            “What?” Standing, I flexed my toes and sighed with relief. “What could he have done, Julia?”

            She stared at me for a long moment, then shook her head in disbelief. “I just don’t—every single time! I forget. You fool me into thinking there’s this sweet, demure girl, all dolled up in a sexy dress and heels and makeup—all giggles and smiles; and then this shit happens, and it’s the same macho bullshit.”

            “What should I have done? Ignore him?”

            “Yes!” Julia nearly shouted. “Ignore him! Like women do ever single fucking day when some creep comes up to them, invades their space—ignore him, and walk the fuck away and hope he doesn’t do anything nasty.”

            “And if he does?”

            Instead of answering, she kicked off her shoes and pushed past me. She was still muttering as she passed: should’ve fucking known. Macho fuckwit—she reached the kitchen and spun on me and demanded: “and what would you have done, Cindy, if he’d turned violent?”

            “I could’ve taken him.”

            She rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. Of course.” She waved a hand in my direction. “I mean, just look at you! Pillar of strength that you are.” She started to rummage around in the cupboard, eventually yanking out a pair of tumblers. “Did you see the size of that guy? You’re full of shit, you know that? Be honest: could you have ‘taken him,’ as you put it, even as David?”

            I walked over and stood hand on hip. “Guess we’ll never know, huh?” Leaning into the counter, I flexed my arm and wrapped my fingers around a slender bicep. “I’m stronger than I look. And I’ll admit it’s not much to look at now, but I was in good shape when you knew me before.”

            “Doesn’t mean you know how to fight.” Julia crossed over to her drinks cabinet and came back with a bottle of whisky—a 12-year old Macallan—and poured a few fingers for us each. She slid the glass over. “Since you’re feeling so fucking manly.”

            Staring into the drink, I considered her anger—or rather, disappointment. She wasn’t wrong. Picking a fight with that guy would’ve been colossally stupid. Sure, it would’ve felt awesome, fleetingly until the inevitable horror expressed by Julia penetrated my lustful anger and drunkenness. Then the reality, of a delicate twenty-year old girl tearing a full-grown man to pieces in full view of security cameras. How long before this idiotic act of violence filtered through to some police or investigatory database? How far might it reach; and might some snoopy AI draw an association between this moment and previous acts of violence, query the little girl who tore larger men to pieces?

            Resisting the urge to knock it back in one, I took a delicate sip and returned the glass lightly to the countertop. “I’m sorry,” I said, quietly.

            “You’re sorry?”

            “I am.” I looked up at her. “You’re right. It was stupid. I should’ve ignored him. Followed your lead.” Staring into the glass again, I swirled the drink. “Been more Cindy, less David.” I took another delicate sip. “I’m sorry. For what it’s worth, I’m trying.”

            We drank in silence for a moment.

            “I know,” she said, quietly, contemplatively. “You really are. I’m constantly amazed at how convincing you can be but…” and she put her glass down and reached across the counter to hold my hand. “It’s not enough, David. You need to do better.”

            Frowning, I went to withdraw my arm, but she held it firm. “Hey, one slip-up doesn’t mean….”

            “It’s not one. It’s all the time. You don’t notice it, but you’ve been slipping up a lot—more than before, to be honest. When I first met Cindy, you were more—mannered, maybe? It always felt a bit performative. Considered. But still convincing. But these past few weeks, getting to know this new you, it’s like…” She considered for a moment. “When you’re Cindy, it feels more natural, more relaxed if that makes sense.

            “But then you break character, and compared to before it happens a lot more often and I can glimpse the man you used to be.”

            “Bullshit,” I said.

            “It’s true. And if your enemies are as resourceful as you’ve made them out to be—you’re at risk, David. And you don’t even know it.” Her fingernails tapped out a cadence against the countertop. “If they’re still looking for you, and they’ve got the clout, they’ll have trained a bunch of AIs on existing data, building up a David-specific algorithm. At least, it’s what I would do.”

            I shook my head, hair dancing against bare shoulders, dangly earrings bouncing against carefully made-up cheeks. “No way.” What she said seemed impossible. I’d been living this disguise for nine months now. I had a vagina, for fuck’s sake! She was making this shit up, her weird obsession with me leading her to see my so-called toxic masculinity in everything I did. “No way some bit of programming could recognize me.” I hefted my tits. “Look at these things! That’s all anyone sees.”

            “That’s all a person sees,” she answered dryly. “At least men. But the software won’t just be looking at appearances. It’ll be checking for David-specific behaviour, David-specific mannerisms and speech patterns. You don’t get it! People still just don’t get how far these things have come. These enemies of yours—if they’ve got access to the security footage of where you used to work and live—that’s at least a decade of data on which to train a model. It’ll be out there already, looking for you.”

            I thought of everything I’d endured so far: the clothes, makeup, simpering around the office—dates, and dropping to my knees—sucking Jonas off under the watchful eye of his digital pimp—flicking hair, and performative painting of my lips—giggles and flounces and tight skirts and mincing steps—all of it, Cindy; no way some fucking AI could link all of that to the real me.

            “You don’t believe me.” She said this as a matter of fact. “Well, I’ve got evidence.” She saw hostility in my eyes, and clearly wanted to show me her proof. Palpable excitement rose in her like a cresting wave. Julia always seemed happiest when proving me wrong.

            “Let’s get you out of the corset.” She wanted me to be comfortable for whatever she had planned. “You should stay the night,” she added. “Seriously,” and for a moment her eyes darkened. “I listened you know. To everything you said, tonight, at the restaurant. I don’t think you should be alone tonight. Not after what you said, and what you almost did.”

            She was right, of course: I didn’t want to be alone tonight and agreed to stay.

            “Good.” She led me to the guest room.

            I’d spent the night many times before, but never in this room. I assumed we’d share her bed. It felt odd, being a guest. A couple of outfits hung in the closet, and more clothes folded away in a chest of drawers. “What do you want me to wear?”

            “Whatever you want,” she said. “Something comfortable.”

            I plucked at the sleeve of a flimsy, loose-fitting and see-through black shirt on a hanger. “I don’t—”

            “Just for tonight,” she assured me, fingers working nimbly at the buttons sealing me into the red dress. “Tomorrow, we’re back to normal. Back in charge, like you can’t even imagine. Ice cold bitch, that’s what you want, right? But right now…?” She tugged the dress down over my shoulders and began to work at the laces beneath. “I need you relaxed. I need you to be yourself.”

            Fifteen minutes later, after I’d taken a piss and scrubbed my face clean, I joined her at the table. I felt strangely naked without my face on—I’m not sure I’d ever been with Julia without makeup. Meanwhile, she’d changed into light grey jogging pants and a t-shirt for a band I didn’t recognize; I wore jeans with pink detailing, and that billowy shirt over my bra. It felt unbelievably good to be out of the corset, and I felt almost giddy by the sudden freedom.

            “One last thing,” Julia said, and clipped the same two dull metal bracelets at my wrist that she made me wear last week as a maid. In fact, she’d made me wear them every visit, without explaining why, and even when out at the mall.

            I held my arm up. “What is it with these things?”

            “Come,” she said, and led me into her office.

            The room was still a mess, and smellier than a week ago. Half-finished cups of tea or coffee dotted her desk, and at least one or two of them had crusted over with something green. “Jesus, Jules, this room’s disgusting.”

            “Good thing the maid’s coming tomorrow,” she said, typing in her password. Then she turned the screen towards me and with a flourish worthy of a magician, cried out, “Behold!”

            I peered a little closer at the screen. Other than my name, Cindy Bellamy and a bunch of timestamps linked to columns of data, I didn’t recognize much. The screen updated in real-time, new data scrolling past. I looked at her quizzically.

            “What’s this?”

            “This?” Her eyes bore into me. “This is you.”

            After last week’s visit to the mall, Julia explained, her project’s inability to define me according to consumer categories annoyed her. Why had Cindy’s appearance confused the artificial intelligence behind the recommendation software? She went digging into the data.

            “The problem,” Julia explained, “wasn’t with the software, but with you.”

            “Of course it was,” I said dryly.

            “You’re inconsistent, see?” She pointed at the screen. “Here, and here.” A few taps at her keyboard, and she brought up snapshots tied to the timestamps, high resolution security still-frame images: Cindy, sitting alone at the coffee shop counter, middle finger raised; Cindy, slouched in her chair across from Julia over lunch. “Normal human beings are hardly robotically consistent, but they trend in predictable patterns. But you? You’re all over the place.”

            A click of the mouse, and nearly a third of the data went yellow, or red.

            “I have no idea what you’re on about, Jules.”

            Her software, she explained, made its shopping recommendations based on prospective client’s appearance—and performance—and how they presented to the cameras: the clothes they wore, but also how they walked and talked, sat and gestured, held their hands, the tilt of the head, crossed their legs or glanced at someone. Cross-referenced against publicly-available data garnered from socials and open government and corporate databases, the AI sifted through it all in real time and determined an individual’s “posture”—as Julia put it—how in any given moment they stood within one of thirty-two predetermined consumer categories.

            “But Cindy,” Julia continued, both frustrated and excited, “doesn’t fit into any of them.” A few more taps at the keyboard, and the data sorted and reorganized into columns, roughly half blue, half pink.

            “Apologies for crass stereotyping,” she said. “But these columns show the instances in which Cindy’s posture skewed female”—she tapped at the screen, picking out clusters of pink data—“and at these points, the AI determined a more masculine posture,” and she indicated blue data.

            Leaning forward I scanned the screen, but it still meant nothing to me. Nevertheless, I felt an uncomfortable prickling at the back of my neck. It felt hot in Julia’s little office and stank of gone off food and body odour.

            “Your software’s full of shit,” I snapped. Plucking at the diaphanous, loose-fitting blouse that clearly showed off my bra and tits, I added, “Look at me, for fuck’s sake. What exactly about this says ‘masculine’?”

            She laid her hand over my arm. “It’s not just about appearances,” she said. “Actually, I hadn’t quite realised how little physical appearance influenced the decision parameters. This is part of the problem, see. A couple of decades ago, there was a real push to improve AI transparency—improve the mechanisms by which it gives feedback as to how and why it makes decisions. When this stuff really took off, no one had a fucking clue how these things worked—they’d built them, trained them, but the actual decision-making magic was a bit of a mystery. Even today, decades later there’s always this cloud of uncertainty, and while feedback mechanisms are now baked into the model, you’ve really got to know where to look, know what questions to ask. Of course, even then, you’re basically asking the AI to report on itself, so it’s just another layer of ambiguity….”

            She trailed off for a moment.

            “Anyway, I looked and I asked. And yes—your tits, your long hair, makeup and everything really shouts ‘female’ for the AI. But all this—?”

            Again, she tapped at the screen, at the cluster of ‘blue’ data. “These postures were mostly gesture-based. Mannerisms. The way you keep your wrist. Sit, legs spread. Where you direct your gaze. Or vocal patterns—especially vocal patterns—pitch and tone persistently sliding into male vocal ranges. Turns out the AI’s a bit hypersensitive to these things.”

            I stared at her screen. “It’s listening to us? That can’t be legal.”

            “Anonymized, obviously,” she said. “But people gave up those privacy rights decades ago. Besides, this data’s from the mall—it’s corporate—the moment we walked through the door we gave our consent.”

            “This doesn’t look anonymous,” I pointed out. “This looks pretty fucking personalised.”

            She indicated the dull metal armbands she’d had me wearing for the past week. “Those help the AI track you. Biometrics too, but mostly its signals you’re a top priority. My contract with the shopping centre gives priority access to the data.”

            I glanced at the armbands and then back at her. “Why?”

            Again, she got excited. “Okay. So, here’s the thing. That day we went shopping, the AI couldn’t figure out what you were. It’s been trained for the possibility of transgender shoppers, obviously, even though that’s not really a ‘thing’ these days, but hey, capitalism trumps political morality, right? Calibrated to compensate for gay customers, or whatever. But—” and she pointed at me, for some reason overjoyed by her software’s failure, “not you.”

            “My sheer, raw masculinity too much for it to handle?”
            Julia winced. “You’re such a dick sometimes, David. But yes—something like that.”

            As the AI tracked and tallied my activities that first day, its parameters simply didn’t know what to do with me. It had twenty clearly delineated ‘feminine’ boxes defined through a cluster of observable traits, and my presentation straddled a number of them, from fashionista to beauty guru—but also strayed into clearly male categories. Faced with fashion recommendations that morning, it glitched: Cindy in a suit; or boyish clothes and bright makeup.

            “So, here’s the thing,” she said. “There are times when the AI’s interpretation places you deep into ‘feminine’ categories, based on a fuzzy aggregate of makeup, clothes and mannerisms. These coincide with what I’ve labelled ‘conscious Cindy’ periods. That is, times when you’ve actively engaged in presenting as some version of Cindy.” She flicked the pink column and the data scrolled; a tap, and it reorganized. “Want to know the most ‘Cindy’ experience you’ve had this past week?”

            I didn’t but nodded for her benefit. “Go on.”

            “Here,” she said, and tapped the screen. “Today.” There was a camera capture associated with the instance: Cindy, in her full bridal brilliance and standing close to her man—to Julia—gazing up at ‘him’ with open adoration. “AI clocks you here at about 95% feminine—pure unadulterated Cindy, right here.” She grinned. “You really nailed the performance, didn’t you?”

            “What the fuck does that even mean, ‘95% feminine’? You can’t quantify that kind of thing.” On screen, a new blue data point appeared.

            Julia shrugged. “Honestly? It’s a bit of a mystery. These models are latest-generation AIs built-up on decades of harvested data but they’ve had some pretty terrible biases baked into them from the earliest days. Very hard to train them off of stereotypes. We’ve tried, but for the purposes of shopping recommendations—let’s be honest—stereotypes work. The AI’s probably a feminist’s nightmare, but it gets the job done. So, when it detects a feminine posture for you—and remember, I’ve guided it along to this point, too—it’s picking up on… well, everything you’d expect.” She patted my arm, almost proudly. “You made a very convincing bride.”

            “Great.”

            “Why so glum?” She took my hand and raised it to her lips and laid a gentle kiss at my knuckles. “I thought you were gorgeous.”

            “Yeah,” I said. “Gorgeous.”

            She considered me for a moment, head titled to one side and hair a dark line reaching towards the floor. “It wasn’t just the dress either, David. Whether on purpose or unconsciously, there was a minute there where ‘Cindy’ really came through—where you embodied the idea of her fully.” She released my hand. “Or at least, the AI thought so.”

            “And how would it know? You said she—I—defied easy categorization.”

            She nodded, eagerly. “Okay. So, here’s the thing. After digging through the collected data, I started to play around with it a bit. Just messing around last week—you know, when you were cleaning? The AI was watching then, too, and I saw the data come trickling in and watched in real-time as these precise moments were sorted and clustered together. And I started to think—which of these are really ‘Cindy’?

            “I created a new category—a ‘Cindy’ category and began to associate collected impressions. That is, I took specific data points that seemed appropriate, ones that expressed desired traits and discarded others, and sketched the outline of a person based on appearance and performance. And the more I added, the more the AI engaged with the categorisation. It extrapolated Cindy’s characteristics based on data I approved. It began to build its own Cindy model.

            “Initially, I rejected some of its suggestions, but within a week it hand the shape of you and was sorting data into optimal ‘Cindy’ impressions with impressive accuracy and ranking them—like it did with that bridal photograph—a single instance in which appearance and mannerisms reached a… a Cindy ‘singularity’ you might say; a pure expression of who she is.”

            I shivered and hugged myself. “This sounds… wrong, Julia. I know it’s just a shopping algorithm, but still—you’re talking about an individual’s identity—like it’s something you can just define, measure and rank. I say you—but it’s not even you—you’ve just handed it over to the computer?” For some reason, I suddenly thought of the Clinic, and that glass cage deep underground, and the monstrosity it contained. “How can you define ‘Cindy’ when she doesn’t even exist?”

            “You’re overthinking this,” she answered. “Like you said, it’s just software to sell clothes. As for Cindy…it’s an idealised version, sure, something to strive for but also completely distinct from who you used to be.” She tapped at her keyboard. “Think of this as my gift to you—because if you’re going to survive, we need a living, breathing Cindy, don’t we?”

            I felt those dull metal bracelets at my wrist grow warm. First on the left, and then the right, they briefly vibrated, and then turned quiescent.

            I raised a querying eyebrow. “What’s happening?”
            Julia’s smile, if possible, grew even wider. “Do something,” she said. “Just—be yourself.”

            “I don’t know what you mean.”

            “Do something—David. Do the most David thing you can think of.”

            Shrugging, I decided to play along. I leaned back heavily in my seat and spread my legs wide. “What’s so funny?” I snarled, then scratched at non-existent balls and grabbed my tumbler of whisky and knocked it back in a single gulp, grimaced at the burn, and forced a loud belch. Then, I slammed the tumbler down on the desk, loud enough to make her laptop jump. “Hey, I’m talkin’ to ya. Just wanna talk.” I half-standing and leaned in threateningly over her desk. “Fuckin’ bitches.”

            Julia started back, suddenly afraid. I held the pose over her. “So… what now?” I whispered theatrically.

            She glared at me. “Asshole.”

            “Too over-the-top?”

            She pointed at my right wrist. “Feel anything?”
            And suddenly, yes, I did feel something—an unnerving warmth at my right wrist, where the armband lay against my skin. It grew hot—uncomfortably so. Much more and the heat would become painful. I held my arm up and tapped at it. “What the fuck, Jules?” I said, and at my words it grew incrementally warmer.

            “Now,” Julia said, “be as Cindy as you can be.”

            We went back and forth like this a few times, between me acting like various caricatures of masculinity, and expressions of ultra-femininity—flouncing, limp-wristed, ‘oh icky poo!,’ ass-swishing, hair flipping, lip-pouting nonsense. Some of these had Julia nearly pissing herself with laughter. In between gasps, she managed to squeeze out: “No, no—dear God, stop—not like that—like Cindy!”

            I took a deep breath, let it out. Lowered into the seat opposite her, and crossed my legs at the thighs, and brushed long hair back over one shoulder. Head tilted to one side, I smiled—but only a little, somewhat hesitantly—and released a soft sigh. Back straight, chest out, with both hands on the desk between us, fingers splayed wide, I admired the play of light over my painted nails. “Like this?”

            The armband at my left wrist gave a subtle hum, a pleasant tingle running up my arm.

            “Like that,” Julia said, pleased.

            Both armbands, she explained, not only helped the AI track me. She’d also built a haptic feedback system into it, a way to indicate when I was performing David and performing Cindy. For now, it worked best within her apartment, where dozens of cameras, the infrastructure of any modern smart apartment, could track me constantly. Beyond these walls, feedback was slower and largely limited to where she had access, like the mall.

            “With these you can refine Cindy to perfection. Then your disguise really will be undetectable.”

            “And you get the pleasure of watching David disappear?”

            “It’s a win-win,” she said, immensely pleased with herself.

            I tapped at the armbands and felt trapped.

            “Get some sleep,” Julia said. “I’ve got big plans for you starting tomorrow.”

            That night I slept deeply, though haunted by dreams in which dim and indeterminate figures lurched and lurked. At some late point in the evening—around 3am, when the whole apartment lay in darkness and breathed in silent wait—I jerked awake in a boozy sweat, and momentarily confused by the unfamiliar surroundings of Julia’s guest room, felt my heart pound and sat there breathing wrapped in bedsheet clutched to my heaving chest. Then I went for a piss, and returned to bed and dozed intermittently, sleep interrupted by both the usual nightmare and incoherent thoughts of Julia’s expectations.

            When thin Sunday sunlight finally slipped through the curtains, I groaned and contemplated the armbands at my wrist. I’d slept with them, per Julia’s instructions. Presumably, her test had already started. Her software watched, waited and judged as I lay there.

            A full day as ‘Cindy,’ or rather her idea of Cindy. Even more precisely, her AI’s concept of this girl I’d become, an amalgamation of Julia’s hangups and impulse for revenge and humiliation mixed into a digital cesspool of tropes and stereotypes. Jesus. No wonder I didn’t want to get out of bed.

            Instead, I yawned and stretched and felt a reassuring tingle at my left wrist. A good start, I guess. Before crawling into bed last night, I’d slipped into a negligee Julia left out on the bed. It seemed to please my autonomous stalker. What did it see, as its cameras tracked across my lithe body? Full tits veiled in pale pink, stiff nipples pushing out against the gauzy garment; pink panties, long legs and gentle curves, and blonde hair fanned out across the pillows.

            I bit my lower lip in response to another tingle, this one lower down. Fucking morning wood—or morning dew—Jesus, I had to stop perving over myself. Some mornings, the illusion that some sexy bitch lay in bed with me was just too strong—the feel of my own tits, soft skin under my touch, or the tickle of underwear, even my own, delicate smell—no wonder I spent my days in a fugue of sexual arousal.

            When my fingers slid beneath panty waistband, scratching at that moist itch, and my lips parted in a silent sigh, the armband tingled again. The mood vanished.  Touching myself to the silent approval of some digital overseer felt creepy, and wrong.

            I considered getting up, washed and dressed—and getting the fuck out of here and never returning. Why, exactly, was I staying? By this point, I’d gotten what I wanted from Julia. Yet there was something—intriguing—about her proposal, a day of ‘training’ and fully embedding myself in character. More to the point, I didn’t want to leave. But why not? Guilt, perhaps. Curiosity. An odd reluctance to leave Julia. And again—though unable to admit it at the time—fun; some weirdly masochistic part of me getting a tremendous kick out of all this. It was crazy and perverse, but hardly boring.

            A knock on the door. “Cindy?”

            “Yeah?” I called out, sitting up in bed.

            My wrist glowed warm as Julia entered the room.

            “What’d I do wrong?” I pointed at the armband.

            Julia shrugged. “I’ll admit it’s not always clear. I’m setting up a tablet this morning to clarify feedback. This is a work in progress, after all.” She grinned and pointed. “Nice tits. I expect in this context, it expects Cindy would probably cover up a bit better?”

            “Even when it’s just us girls?” With a dramatic sigh, I pulled the sheets up to my neck. “It’s going to be a long day, isn’t it?”

            “Depends on how quickly you get into character. Breakfast in fifteen, okay?”

            She left the room. I remained like that for a moment, second guessing my next move. Would Cindy get out of bed now, or burrow under the sheets for another five minutes? And in getting out of bed: should she erupt into a tousled mess of hair and fluttering negligee, or slouch and scratch at her bum, or droop and melt to the floor and only grudgingly stand? Slip on fuzzy slippers for the walk to the bathroom, or pad barefooted? Yawn, lick lips, blink blearily or smile happily?

            Jesus. This way lay madness.

            Pushing these concerns aide, I tossed back the sheets and stood and scratched at the underside of my boob and lurched into the ensuite and the armbands neither rewarded nor punished. A quick shower, hyper-aware the whole time of being monitored, and then the impossible decision as to what to wear: I defaulted to last night’s jeans, bra and gauzy top, digging out a fresh pair of panties from a drawer. I kept the makeup super simple, five minutes for a touch of concealer, a few swipes of mascara, filled in my eyebrow and a dab of tinted lip balm.

            Did the AI approve? Taking the absence of response as endorsement, I smiled, brushed my hair back into a quick ponytail and joined Julia in the kitchen. She was pulling some grapefruit halves from under the grill, tops crisp and browned with sugar. There was also fresh yoghurt and honey and juice, a few croissants and slices of hard-boiled egg, yokes a brilliant orangey-yellow.

            “Nice,” I grunted, and the armband warned me. “What the fuck?” I pointed at the armband. “What now?” I added, as it grew even warmer.

            Juggling grapefruits, she shrugged and gestured with her chin at a tablet on the countertop. “Have a look.”

            She’d clearly been up early this morning, working on the interface. Instead of inscrutable columns of data, updates were presented in clearly defined boxes. There were also simple graphics, now, bar and pie charts embodying data for easy understanding. So far, I was trending high on [feminine traits here]. Meanwhile, Appearance earned a green tick; mannerisms and tone, a red one. Fucking sexist piece of shit: it didn’t like the way I talked.

            “Gosh, that looks scrummy!”

            Julia rolled her eyes, but the red tick faded.

            She reached for some plates, and noticed my tummy and yesterday’s piercing, visible through the diaphanous top. “How’s the naval ring?”

            “What, this?” I gave it a little flick. I’d fiddled with it occasionally in the night. “Fine. All healed up.”

            She nearly dropped the plate. “The salon said it’d take months.”

            I shrugged. “I heal quickly.”

            Shaking her head in disbelief, she passed me a plate and we pulled stools up to the counter. Over breakfast, she filled me in on the plan for the day. She was going to work on calibrating the software; my job was to just ‘be Cindy,’ as she put it. Then popping out for lunch and a bit of shopping: she wanted to see how the store’s mirror responded to me now. Then back to hers so I could maid-up and clean the apartment before debriefing on the day. She was excited to see what the AI thought of Cindy-the-maid, whether it might define a few new characteristics for me.

            Then the evening was mine, though I expected by then I’d be too exhausted to do anything other than head home and prep for work tomorrow.

            Julia licked her spoon clean of yoghurt and contemplated it for a moment. She avoided eye contact. “You’re still having nightmares, aren’t you?”

            “Yeah.” A warning warmth. “Yes. How did you—”

            “Heart rate, galvanic response.” She scrolled back through some monitoring data. “Biometric response typical to a nightmare.” She sounded concerned. “Is it the same one? As fourteen years ago? I remember—you used to—"

            “Yes.” Biting my lower lip, I gave a little nod. “The same.”

            The armband tingled.

            “Jesus. I’m sorry, David—”

            “Cindy.” I smiled weakly. “If we’re doing this, you need to get it right, too.”

            A flash of annoyance and a curt nod, which I thought was a little unfair. “Cindy. Have you—you know, talked to anyone about this? Tried therapy?”

            A slight pause, and then I shook my head no, hair dancing at the edge of my vision.

            “Jesus.”

            “I’ll be fine,” I said, “but thank you,” and I smiled wanly at the tingle at my wrist. “How do I look?” I indicated the bra beneath the see-through top, slender shoulders and thin arms veiled under flouncy sleeves. “Not too showy?” I pushed out my chest, turning a little this way and that. “It feels showy.”

            “You look fine.” She watched me, posing, and a little smile grew. “Does it… bother you, still? The showiness?”

            “Honestly?” I crossed and uncrossed my legs and felt another pleasant little tingle. “A little.”

            “I’m not surprised,” Julia said. “I mean, that’s sort of what we’re doing here, isn’t it? You ever read Berger?” She thought for a second, reaching for a quote. “Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. But the watcher of women in herself is male, and that’s how she turns herself into an object.”

            She frowned. “Something like that. Anyway. You embody that quote, I think, probably better than anyone ever has, but without the whole lifetime backing it up, you don’t have those two decades of lived experience of being the object, the watched, the woman who appears.”

            I studied my fingertips, checking for flaws, chips in the colour. How would my nails look if I’d punched that guy last night?  “Hey, I was a good-looking guy,” I said. “Women used to stare at me all the time. I’ve been objectified.”

            “You know its not the same.” She had a sip of tea, found it had gone cold, grimaced and put it down. Unlike me, she hadn’t showered yet, put on any makeup, and there were bags under her eyes. She looked tired. Again, it struck me how she struggled to keep up with me—matched me for drinking and lack of sleep, but she just didn’t bounce back as quickly. Between running my life and keeping up with her own, Julia increasingly showed the strain.

            “A few years back,” she continued, “we picked up a project for a lingerie brand. This particular brand was targeted at children—not college-age girls, not even older high school girls, but actual children, skimpy panties and lacy bras for ten- and eleven-year-olds who’d barely hit puberty. Just think about how fucked up that is. And it wasn’t ground-breaking or controversial; this wasn’t anything new.

            “Now, imagine growing up with that? You’re, like seven, and already your shorts are just a little bit shorter, a little bit tighter than your brother’s. Your school shorts as well, P.E. shorts that aren’t just uncomfortable, they’re embarrassing. Brighter colours, too, for everything you wear and carry with you, showy and by the time you hit ten, you’ve got sleeveless tops and ones that show off your midriff. And I’m not saying parents are consciously sexualising their daughters, it’s nothing that gross, it’s just… normal, right? And that’s what girl learns, from their earliest years, it’s normal to show off your legs, your arms, a bit of tummy, right?”

            She speared a slice of egg, and there’s anger in the jerkiness of the movement that belied the calmness of her voice. “Start high school, and it gets worse. It’s not like when we were kids, David….” She grimaced. “Cindy. Most schools have uniforms these days, and it won’t surprise you, it’s skirts for the girls; last couple years, it’s even become—I dare say fashionable—to actively ban trousers for girls. Toss in cheerleaders and Barbie and a whole media barrage aimed at teenage girls, and—well, we’re back to the quote, right, ‘a woman must continually watch herself,’ it’s part of her identity, an identity rooted in her sense of being surveyed, of being an object, a thing to be seen and watched and judged, but after so long it’s mostly unconscious, an instinctive sense most notable when you don’t feel yourself watched.”

            She munched contemplatively on a slice of egg. I fiddled with a bra strap that kept sliding down my shoulder. “That’s what you’re up against, Cindy. That—instinct? How can you possibly feel what I’m talking about, after only a few months of living it? You might understand, even sympathise, but you can’t know it in your gut.” She smiled, a brittle and unpleasant expression. “But maybe it can be taught.”

            “Is that what this is about?” I poked and fluffed my hair a bit and smoothed it down over my shoulder. “You want me to feel objectified?”

            “No,” she said. “That’s exactly what I don’t want you to feel.” She stood, and pushed her food aside, and leaning forward across the counter, reached out to flick a stray bang from my eyes. “You are an object, Cindy.  And when you don’t feel it anymore, when that truth is so ingrained you don’t even notice it anymore—that’s when those armbands won’t be needed.”

            Standing, I helped her clean up after breakfast and received a gentle reward at my wrist for the effort. “Childhood, those teenage years, all those milestones along the way,” Julia continued, as I wiped down the counter. “Your first period, the first time you leaked, the embarrassment of leaving a stain on a chair in your classroom and not wanting to stand so nobody knows. Trying on your first bra, or the first time some asshole snapped your bra strap. Trying out makeup for the first time, messing it up, smearing mascara, laughing with your girlfriend, finding your style, horrified at old pictures of yourself.”

            “I’ve done the makeup thing,” I said, grinning ruefully. “Believe me.”

            “You’ve barely scratched the surface, Cindy. What about buying a prom dress—your first crush on the boy—the pain of getting dumped—shaving your legs for the first time; or the first time you walk down a street at night and feel afraid—not because the night itself is scary, but because of the scary men you now hide in the dark, and what they can do to you?”

            She tidied our plates away into the dishwasher. “Being talked over, because you’re a girl? Having your opinion ignored, because you’re a girl? Getting told to help in the kitchen while your brothers or uncles or cousins relax at Christmas—because you’re a girl?”

            It’s true: I hadn’t experienced these things or, at best, only in a superficial way and from the perspective of adult experience. I remembered my first bra and shaving my legs for the first time, and those hours spent mastering makeup. But since it was all in the context of surviving a possible assassination attempt, it probably didn’t align with most girls’ lived experience.

            Still. I found it curious the milestone experiences Julia didn’t mention. This past month during her absence, I’d experienced my own female firsts.

            That first dancefloor ecstasy, shining brightly, the centre of attention.

            Listening, empathising, consoling Emma over a bad date, or Mel’s anger, or Willow’s joy—feeling, for the first time, a bond with them that frankly scared me, at times, in its intensity and difference from what I remembered of male friendships.

            The joy of standing in front of the mirror and for the first time realising: nailed it, navigating makeup, shoes, underwear and clothes and emerging the other side as—the me I wanted to be in that moment.

            Also, too, the… comfort? care? felt in Jonas’s arms, or under Chad’s intense gaze. The warmth of an embrace. The pleasure in relaxing into someone else’s protection. The first time Mr Connor’s voice shivered down my spine. Even that tremor of delightful helplessness, so alien yet exciting, felt in corset and heels and, yes—kneeling, an escalation of wrongness and desire and nakedness and passion and vulnerability and determination only possibly felt as a woman reaching for a man’s cock.

            I blinked and shook my head and felt the armband at my wrist reward me with its most intense tingle to date. Perhaps I hadn’t lived Julia’s female experiences, but after nearly a year I’d certainly had my own.

            “You’ve only had, what, nine months, no, not even that?” Julia leaned against the counter, eying me appraisingly. “Most girls have a lifetime to figure out who the hell they are. And your lifetime’s going to be a short one if you don’t get a handle on this.”

            Julia jabbed at her keyboard a few times, smiled grimly, and slapped the lid shut. “But maybe, just maybe I can help you catch up a little.”