Chapter 3 – The Dive

I stand, looking at myself in the mirror.
I run my hand through the black patches on my cheeks. Certainly not the beard that a weathered dog might cultivate. It could be trimmed. Or even dyed white, if I wanted to keep the fluffy ridges that have had people mistake me for a fox.
My hair is growing long. I pull it up in two tails tentatively. I toss my hip to the side and bat my eyes. I imagine myself in a red cheerleader’s outfit. A pair of tight fitting socks. I lift my arms and fan them out, as if waving pompoms. Ready? Okay! 
I toss my arms, punching the air. I make the mistake of deciding to touch my leg to my nose, and the motion seems to rip a muscle in my ass in half. I topple over, pulling towels and toothbrushes with me into a pile on the floor. 
As I lie groaning, I suddenly don’t feel so girly anymore. I’m going to need some help with this one.

Dalia is coming to visit me today. I take the opportunity to clean up the place. I consider taking down my tacky posters of scantily clad writhing siamese cats. But I decide I’m not going to cover up anything. There’s no part of me she hasn’t already seen. In the same line of thought, I send a text, and thirty minutes later my dealer arrives with my delivery. We pat each other’s backs and he salutes me as he retreats to his car.
I know the first piece of advice anyone could and should give someone with mood problems is to quit the weed. But I don’t smoke a lot. Certainly not too much. Which is exactly what an addict would say, I realize. I roll up a joint and set it aside for later.
I have half an hour before she arrives and I spend it writing down some thoughts I’ve had on the nature of existence. Which is a real fucking pretentious thing to do, when you think about it, which is why I don’t talk about it too much.
I write about how life is a series of plateaus. You start at the top, then you roll down. Once you’re down you can never get back up. Everyone goes through the motions; some faster than others. The first plateau is the purest. The world is new and unspoiled. As you roll down, the scaffold gets battered, and the sensation of diving through is tainted; a mere imitation of the previous rolling motion. Gravity is more persistent at the top and lazy at the bottom.
This is a lot of fancy words to say that life gets more boring as you go. But I have fun with the words, in a way at least. My analogy is piss poor and needs work. But at least I have a hobby. 
I doodle a pair of tits beside the scribbles and fold the piece paper over.
The doorbell rings and I buzz her in.
“Nice apartment,” she says as she takes off her jacket. “But you missed a stain of milk on the floor by the fridge. And there’s a dirty set of boxers under your couch.”
I grumble defeated, as I swiftly go the last round with the washrag on the floor and toss the boxers into the hamper.
“Don’t worry,” she says as she throws herself onto the couch and puts her feet onto the table. “I figured you would live like a slob. I expected more trashy posters, actually.” She frowns at one of them. “Isn’t that girl a little young?”
I put my hands in my sides as I stand beside her, looking at the poster with new eyes. “Whatever do you mean?” It’s a cat tossing her paws daringly, while leaning at a revealing angle. Fully clothed, I tend to forget it’s meant to be sexual. She isn’t underage, she just looks it.
“I mean, give her a little time off the pacifier before throwing her at a stripper pole. Doesn’t that net comments from your friends?”
“Ha!” She is funny. “I’ll have you know I have exactly two friends that I let in here. One has certainly commented, but has a very tolerant personality. The other is exactly as fucked up as me.”
“Glad to hear you keep good company. Is that pot?” She nods toward the joint.
“Yes,” I say. “Is that a problem?”
“Oh you,” she says, rolling her eyes. “We’ve smoked together before. Why would it be a problem?”
“You never know,” I say with a shrug. “A lot can change in a year.”
“You’re so melodramatic.” She shrugs back at me. “I’m still a slut, am I not?”
“You sure are.” I shake my head faintly, somewhat frustrated that she doesn’t understand what I’m getting at. That she doesn’t seem to feel the same looming doubt. I sink into the couch beside her, letting the air escape my lungs. “So everything is the same?”
“Eh,” she says. “Hardly. People grow and so do we. What’s the point of sitting here talking about it?”
“Well, there are three things we can do.” I hold up my fingers, counting. “We can talk about pointless bullshit as people do, I can beat the everliving fuck out of you in a video game of your choosing… or…”
“Yes,” she says, lifting her finger resolutely. “That third thing being declaring our undying love for one another, batting our eyes in a mannerly fashion.”
I sigh. “You know, sometimes your sarcasm can hurt. What if I wanted to do exactly that?” I try my best to pay her back in kind; to sound light-hearted, kidding, without a hint of worry.
But she sees right through me. She frowns, narrowing her eyes at me. Then with decisive motion, she scoots in and strides over my lap. She grabs my cheeks and turns my head, as if I were a bug beneath a microscope. “You look tired alright. I’m assuming you get enough sleep?”
I appreciate the closeness, but in spite of her crotch being pressed against mine, it doesn’t immediately register as sexual. “I mean, let’s say I get an hour less than I’m supposed to. I can’t imagine it’s much of a difference. I drink a lot of water. I guess I could do with some exercise.”
“I should take you running sometime.” She pulls my lower eyelids down with her thumbs. “Bags under your eyes. Can’t all be because you’ve missed me, can it?”
“Nobody said that.”
“Oh, you implied it.” Her smirk is at once searing and beautifully familiar. “I’m sure you’ve gone over your predicament left and right. You can’t help but overthink everything. How do we save you?”
I sit blinking, trying to gather my thoughts. I reach an impasse. “Yeah, I’m going to need to be high for that one.”
“Oh, you,” she says and pokes my nose. “You get horny like a puppy when you’re high.”
“So?”
“So, if you want to talk, is that a good idea?”
I grab her chest through her shirt and hiss as I pinch her breast. “What?” I sneer. She hisses back as I grin at her. “Afraid your brother is going to give you a good dicking?”
“I might just be.”
“Then, without further ado, let us get acquainted with my balcony.”
I lift her off me, pick up the joint and show her the way to the double doors leading to a mixed experience of a view. You can faintly smell the trash cans below. But the trees lining the railroad some way off allows for some decent sunsets, one of which is upon us at the very moment. The city is burnt orange and if you squint, it’s reminiscent of movies depicting stories of arabian nights.
I do the honors of lighting up, and I can’t help but feel childish pride, as Dalia looks hungrily at me. “So...” she says. “How was work?”
“Work was work,” I say with studied nonchalance. “Today, I kid you not, a woman threatened to sue me because I off-handedly corrected her grammar.” I breathe in and fill my lungs. It swiftly starts seeping into my body.
“You didn’t!” She makes wide eyes, and the buzz already has her edged out vividly against the brick wall. “She didn’t!”
“I certainly did,” I say and pass it to her. “And she certainly did. I fully realize the error of my ways. In my defense, she said ‘irregardless’. I wouldn’t have been able to sleep.”
“Oh man,” she says. “I would have literally died.”
I’m about to correct her on reflex, but proverbially stumble when I see her devious look as she takes a tik. “You did that on purpose.” 
She only nods in response. We take turns and we grow steadily dumber, her faster than me.
“So,” she says. “What’s gotten you down, my man? Give me the rundown.”
I feel the thoughts well up, molten and raw. “Do you know Baudrillard’s theory on simulacra and simulation?”
She blinks, dumbfounded. “Explain it to me like I’m stoopid.” She crosses her eyes at the last word, feigning a few too many chromosomes with ease. 
I sigh. “It’s about how everything is a copy of a copy, so forth. How our perceived reality is a construct.”
She nods overbearingly. “Getting me wet already.”
“Please.”
“Sorry. Go on. Simulatia and simulacron.”
I make a rolling motion with my hand, struggling for words. I’ll butcher it regardless. “You know the question, ‘does art imitate life or does life imitate art’?”
“Yes.” She is diligently keeping eye contact, even though I can see the high has her blinking frequently. “Both, is usually the answer.”
I clench my fists. “You’re right. Our way of life has been endlessly copy-pasted back and forth between how people actually live and how people say we should live.” I bite down. “And it bothers me.”
“Bothers you.” She winces, taking too deep a drag. “Why?” She coughs, regaining her breath.
“Because it makes me ingenuine. It bothers me how… My dreams aren’t realistically achievable. Not in the sense that I want to fly, but can’t. In the sense that if I do accomplish my goals, it will be tainted by my comparing the result to the expectations. I will never genuinely live the adventure. I will only imitate it.”
She rolls her eyes, but keeps humoring me. “What goals?”
I take back the joint. My thoughts are rolling off my tongue. “Take… the sexual fantasy of… A threesome. How does a threesome organically happen? Three people need to be horny, possibly intoxicated, and let loose of inhibitions. Two girls and a boy dive into a backroom at a party and get it on. That might be the fantasy; conversely a married couple discuss this beforehand. They make a post on Craigslist, a third part shows up. And now they have to imitate the party’s intoxication. They make-believe.” I almost forget that I need to make sense. “Here’s what kills me. Even the first threesome is make-believe. They’ve heard of threesomes like so before. They’ve seen it in porn. And must therefore measure the experience against that.”
She hums to herself, as if desperately trying for a reasonable response. “As always, you overcomplicate things. The sort of person to get into a threesome at a party, doesn’t think like that. They just live it. Instead of analyzing the situation.”
I nod. “Which is my issue, then. I overanalyze. I want something genuine, but my stilted frame of mind only allows make-believe.”
She nods back slowly, grabs the joint, takes a hit, then nods again. “I remember when mom sat us down… way back when. Discussing dos and don’ts.”
The day our father snapped. “Ah yes. Good times.”
“You didn’t like it. Because it made it forced.” She passes me the joint, almost burned down.
“No, it was fine,” I say. “It played a bit into the teacher fantasy.”
“And afterwards. What happened with dad?”
“It… certainly happened.”
“You got... mistreated something fierce.” She frowns, her mind seeming to be at large, struggling not to say something wrong. “But it was... genuine. It was an actual submissive position. No one was... ‘playing along’ with a fantasy of yours.”
I take the final drag, making the cinders flare up aggressively, before tossing the butt over the railing. “I wouldn’t say I had submissive fantasies back then. Submissive fantasies are more… advanced. For guys, at least. Those fantasies came later.” I shrug. “Still. You’re right. If nothing else, it was intense. And in comparison, everything else seems diminished.”
We look at each other, and I can tell that she’s looking for something to say other than ‘therapist’. She puts a hand on my shoulder, and I smile, letting on that she’s already gone in deeper than I had expected her to.
We’re interrupted. “Ah sweetheart, having female company for once?”
Both of us freeze up and we look up to a balcony above mine. It’s one of my neighbors; an old lady opossum. She’s watering her oregano, leaning out dangerously far for someone her age.
“Oh no, you got it wrong,” I say, waving her off. “This is my sister.”
“Ah, what do you know?” she says. “Good evening, you two.”
The two of us wave nervously at her, before we go inside. I close the doors.
“Why’d you do that?” Dalia asks.
“Do what?”
She creeps up behind me and wraps her arms around my stomach. “Tell her that we’re related? We could have made out right there on the balcony. She would have thought it was cute.”
I take hold of her hand, squeezing it. “I don’t want you to ever not be my sister. It’d be a… crime.”
“Ah, we’ve got to play out your fantasy right, is it? Might we try that you just give in? Do you need another joint?”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine. Go put some porn on.”
I stand, blinking, losing my balance where I stand.  “Alright then.” I go hook my computer up to the television and start looking through the archives. I’m thinking I’m going for something… cutesy. If it’s going to be a family activity, it’d be weird if it was something... violent or overtly revolting. 
I scroll. I keep scrolling. Oh yes. Mary the Little Lamb. A ten minute animation that could have had a Hollywood budget, yet still with a main character that looks dangerously young.
I look up, and suddenly Dalia is wearing nothing but panties. She has her back turned, leaning into my fridge, humming to herself as she rummages. Her clothes are thrown carelessly around her. My eyes fixate on her rear. Her panties are a bright, girlish pink. They fit snugly around her rear, not brandishing a single unnecessary ounce of fat. I wonder what goes through a girl’s head when they pick their underwear. How far into the evening do they plan?
I once read the “light novel” behind an anime I enjoyed, where the protagonist spent no less than four pages describing a girl’s underwear. I wonder if I could do that; a part of me wants to.
“Your panty fetish needs no context, does it?” she says, and I turn my eyes to hers in a snap. She’s looking over her shoulder, eyebrows raised in a mocking expression.
She is right, but I don’t want to give her the satisfaction. “What are you doing?”
“I’m looking for stuff convenient to shove up my asshole. It’s a toss-up between carrots and grapes. The choice is yours.”
I nod, intrigued. “Grapes. We already did carrots.” 
“Grapes it is,” she says and lifts them out. 
As she turns and struts back, I admire how the swagger in her bearing makes a lot of what she’s got for breasts.
I press play, and Mary the Little Lamb starts strutting down the flowery paths of the forest. She is going to visit her boyfriend. It’s not an outright cuckold production, but it certainly leans against it.
Dalia stands solidly in place with the grapes, looking like a waitress. She nods expectantly towards me, and I get up.
As she watches the screen, I fold out the couch, so it’ll fit the two of us more readily. I take off my shirt and pants, before I toss myself onto the cushions, waiting for her.
She sets down the grapes and slithers up next to me. “Oh this one,” she says as she strides over me, back against me. “Really? Isn’t it kind of… boring?” 
“You uncultured twit.” I stroke a hand along her tail, the other pulling at the edge of her panties. “This artist does immaculate proportions. It isn’t just hot as hell. There’s themes. Progression.”
The sheep embodies innocence. Mary gets lost in the woods. She happens upon a pack of three wolves. It’s hard for me to explain. But the fact that she isn’t scared at all is an important part of the piece. As they prod their erections against her, she’s only happily confused.
“You and your cartoon porn,” Dalia says and raises her rear, waving her tail at my face. “You appreciate what you have here or I’ll throw a fit.”
I pull her closer and bury my nose in the fabric. Only a faint sour smell lets on that she’s not as pure as newly fallen snow. 
 She pulls my underwear down my leg and I kick it off. She wraps her hands around me, grabbing my rear as she runs her tongue against me. She laps at an eager pace and my erection waxes full. She rocks from side to side, rubbing at my face. “Stuff me.”
I pull her panties to the side, and soon feel myself drawn to the bare pink valleys. As she sways on all fours, I see her muscles tense up, and I think I can tell something has been inside her today. My finger slides inside her ass with ease, as I pick up a cluster of grapes with the other. They are firm, so I don’t feel like I need to fear them breaking.
“Somebody has been warming up.”
“You know,” she says, as I weigh the grapes, biding my time. I work her rim with my fingers, intrigued at how stretching her seems to affect the inflection of her voice. “One of my classmates, Iggy, slavic goat, had an anniversary with his girlfriend yesterday. She had promised him good loving. You know what ‘good loving’ means to her?”
“What?”
“He got to fuck her without a condom on. With the lights on.”
“And that’s… special to them?”
“To her. Not to him. He was disappointed. I knew he’d been dreaming of anal. So I let him fuck my ass. What is it with you boys and wanting to stick your dick in the wrong hole?”
My erection twitches at her words and she giggles, perfectly aware that in spite of my fingers inside her, she’s in control. 
I run my tongue from her pussy and up her tail. “What is it with you and letting them?”
“Touché.”
“You really did that?” I ask, almost timidly. I taste no cum inside her. Of course, he could have cum any number of places, and she’s certainly cleaned herself.
She sighs. “Just believe me, alright. Let the image wash through you. Stop thinking. Get on with the fucking grapes.”
“Yes, mam.” I pick a grape and poise it against her asshole. It’s like I need no force at all, but I push as slowly as I can, watching her expand around it. Suddenly she closes up, caressing my finger, and the grape is swallowed. “Unn,” she whispers. “More. How many do you dare? The further you get in, the worse they’ll taste.”
I smile. She obviously cleaned herself up like a professional, before coming here. So I dare a great deal, I’d wager. 
One by one, I fit the grapes inside her. I look past her, watching the porn still running. I try to count, but I lose my way with numbers around four or five, when her tongue moves against the head of my dick in a way I find particularly tantalizing.
As my eyes water, I barely focus on the lamb on her knees, blinking with her enormous doe eyes. “This is my favorite part.” I nod towards the screen. “The guy cums on her nose, and she’s like ‘oh, what’s that?’ at once taken aback and intrigued. ‘I’m sticky, but I made someone happy; what’s this fickle feeling?’ “
“Shut up and eat your grapes,” she says, and as she pushes, a grape bursts forth and hits me in my eye.
“Ow!”
“Hush,” she says. “Open wide. One at a time.”
I stick out my tongue, and a green bulb emerges. With a gentle plop, it lands on my tongue, and in the daze I chew it. It’s all sweet, and I feel strangely as if I’m in a sort of dreamland. A scape of candy canes and bubblegum, where a playful sprite is keeping me well-fed and drugged up.
She lets my dick fill her mouth, having no second thoughts about bringing me to the verge of orgasm. A verge I can stay on for long when I’m high.
She drops another and I eat like I’m starved. She drops two at once. My mouth is all sugar, and I have no idea what she meant with it ‘tasting bad’. 
I’m not sure she’s watching the animation with me, but I feel her body shiver as she feeds me. I hope she’s in a dream, like me.
I believe we’re at at least ten when she’s finished. I’m not sure if the hint of bitterness I taste is real, or just from it being over. “Again?” I ask.
“Nah,” she says. “I want to get lovey dovey.” She turns around and crawls up, dragging her fur against mine. “I’ll be your little lamb.”
“Now she has relinquished to being used,” I say, looking over her shoulder. Behind her, the porn is ending. With a wolf in each of her holes, the lamb is rolling her eyes, moving with them in the evening light, swaying with captivated moans.  One by one, they pull out and paint her with impossibly large loads.
Mary sits back, blinking as they disappear among the trees. Another important detail; you can tell she knows she did something wrong, and that she regrets it for a moment. What will she tell her boyfriend? But then she doesn’t regret it at all. She would do it again in a heartbeat.
“That ending gets me melancholic,” I say. “She will never experience that dive again. How does she live a story quite like that another day?”
“But sweeeeetheart,” Dalia says, somewhat annoyed. She sits on my dick, and I’m surprised I didn’t notice how wet she was before. “You get to watch it over and over. And there are a hundred other little lambs that you can watch dive in. Your life has a hundred new adventures waiting for you.”
What adventures? Is watching others dive what’s left for me?
An obnoxious jingle sounds. “Fuck!” she says. “Miguel is calling.”
She reaches for the phone vibrating on the table and barely reaches it. Rocking against me, she fumbles with it in her hands.
I concentrate on staying on the verge. “You’re not picking up, are you?”
She puts it to her ear. “Hiii honey.” I sit back, frozen, as she grinds against me, keeping her voice lathered in honey. “Oh, not much, just hanging out with my brother.” Without looking she puts her fingers around my dick. “Yeah, we’re making dinner.” She guides me inside her. “Unf. Mac and cheese. Yeah, he loves that. Nah, I don’t think it’s childish, I don’t mind.” She starts bouncing at a careful pace, and I bite down fiercely, struggling not to let out a groan. “Yes, I was by Iggy’s earlier, returned those albums you borrowed. No, he’s fine. Had a great anniversary yesterday, I hear.” She eyes me deviously, and she picks up the pace with a smirk. 
“Fuu-...” I whisper.
She puts a finger to my lips. “Ohh, how sweet, I miss you too. Yes, I’ll be home at ten.” She gasps. “Miguel! Not now, he’s right there.” She giggles. “No, I can’t wait either.” 
Huffing, I can no longer help myself. I thrust against her. She breathes in sharply.
“What’s that? No, I think I might be catching a cold.”
I thrust again, harder, and her eyes open wide. “I’m sorry hun, I gotta go. Or I’m gonna burn the eggs. Talktoyoulaterbye.” She ends the call and tosses the phone aside.
She dives in closely. “Miaw.” She growls and sets her teeth against my neck, gripping at my shoulders.
I almost laugh, but I’m starting to tip over the verge, and the air gets caught in my throat. “Burn the eggs? I thought we were making mac and cheese?”
She hisses, like a snake. “I want him to shake in his trousers, all nervous. Could she be cheating on me, the prize stallion? With her brother? No waaaay. She’s freaky, but not that freaky.”
I put my hands on her hips. “Oh, you’re a real cheating whore, aren’t you?” I thrust once. Twice.
“Flesh and blood.”
I cum. My body tenses up, and the waves come crashing. The blood seems to leave my head. I could topple over.
I am woken up by my candyland sprite, sucking on my tongue. “Mmm, tastes like grapes.”
“Mmm,” I echo.
We sit, reveling in the haze for a good minute. I feel my cum seep out of her and down my legs.
“Poor Miguel,” I say.
“Oh shush,” she says. “He has it coming. He’s been around and then some. Call it karma.”
Even if I’m spent, there is a thought that’s been pestering me. I don’t know if I’m nervous mentioning it, but here goes nothing. “What are the chances Miguel would fuck a boy?”
She narrows her eyes, smirking. “A boy as in you, you mean?”
I sigh. “Yes. Me. How do we make that happen?”
“Oh, you’re adorable,” she says. She shrugs. “He hasn’t shown interest in any boy that I know. Or that is… anyone obviously a boy. He has had some embarrassing encounters, where he... didn’t know until the boy turned around. You know.”
I nod, glad at the natural transition to my next question. “Could I pass for a girl?”
“Ah, I can imagine exactly what he’s doing to your fragile masculinity.” She smiles. “Yes. You have a fine chin.” She lifts it up, looking me over. “You have prominent lashes. Soft fur. If you straighten your back properly, you’re slim around the shoulders. Most important of all, you’re beautiful. People will believe anything pretty enough is a girl. A tall girl, sure. But a girl still.” She shakes her head. “Actually, honestly, what kind of stupid question is that? ‘Could I pass for a girl?’ If you couldn’t, then who could?”
I frown. “...Thanks? I guess?” I look into the ceiling, no longer disheartened, planning. ”So I dress up as a girl. Then what? What’s my next move?”
She runs a hand over my chest. “You’re likely going to have to go beyond dressing up. You have to pitch your voice. Sway your hips when you walk. And you’re going to have to work up some... resilience.”
Right. Just wanting to sit on a horse cock probably won’t cut it. “Do I have to?”
She nods resolutely. “If you don’t practice, he’s going to fucking split you open. Do you want to get boned by a horse or not?”
“Yes,” I say without doubt. ”But do you think he’s even going to bite? He seems very serious about you.”
She rubs her chin pensively. “He’s cheated before, he can cheat again. But I don’t know what’ll happen when you pull out a dick.” Her eyes suddenly light up. “Oh, that all reminds me. I was going to invite you to a party.”
“A party?”
She slides off me, and cuddles up to my side. “Oh, it’s perfect. He’ll have to be drunk. Where does most cheating happen? At parties! You’ll have an alibi, being there with someone else. He’ll hardly recognize you, he’s only seen you once.”
“What party is this?”
“It’s at my friend’s house, out in the suburbs. Christie. She wants to meet you. Cute skunk. Daddy issues. Likes to wear collars. I think you’ll like her. She’s a camgirl too, I think it’ll be easy to get her in on the scheme.”
I blink silently. Christie. Skunk. Camgirl. The pieces start to fit in my brain. “Are we talking about Honeycomb Christie?”
“Oh, so you already know her?”
“Well.” I waver my head. “I wouldn’t call myself a fan. But I know she’s got quite the following. And my friend Rory is stupidly in love with her. I’d wager he’s spent a few hundred dollars getting her to call herself his ‘mommy’ on stream.” To be honest, I don’t think that’s at all something to be proud of. But he’s a good friend still, so that’s his business.
“I’m guessing he’s the ‘shameless’ one?”
“Of my friends? Sure.” I shake my head. “Never mind that. How do you know Christie?” I had the sense that she was… exclusive, in a way. Picky about her friends. Being pseudo-famous and all.
She hesitates for a long moment. “An app called Confessional. You share secrets semi-anonymously. They have a category for sexual endeavors.” She grips nervously at my fur. “She’s waaaay into what I’ve got going with my big brother. We’ve been talking back and forth for like a month. And she’s invited me and Miguel to this party at her parents’ place. She very much implied that you’re welcome.”
I sit for a moment, wondering what stories she’s sharing about me. Whether I care. 
“Anyway,” she says, picking up her excitement again. “I’m betting she’ll help you dress up. Act the girl. Be your wingman. She’s got that punk-goth aesthetic going on, and to let you in on a secret, apparently Miguel is into that. He’s embarrassed about it.”
“I see, I see.” The plan is taking shape in my head, and I’m feeling adventurous. I’m already terrified at the prospect of acting like a girl in front of people I don’t know. But I can see the wisdom. It’s my best bet at getting with Miguel. And if I’m lucky. If I’m a good girl, maybe he’ll realize he isn’t so straight after all. It happened to me, after all.
“Let’s do it,” I say. “Hey. How would you like staying the night? We’ll go running tomorrow, before I have to go to work.”
She considers it only a moment. “Sure. But I’ll have to cook up a good excuse for Miguel.”
“You oversalted the eggs. You got electrolyte poisoning.”
“Shut up, I’ll just say it like it is. My brother needs emotional support.”
I groan, malcontent, but quickly realize that it’s actually the closest we’ll get to a believable excuse that would warrant her staying.
We lean against each other, and we open our mouths as our lips touch. I’ll take her emotional support any day.

We run as planned the next day. I absolutely hate it. I’m in terrible shape. My life passes before my eyes as I limp down the street behind her. I focus intently on her ass and hips moving in her shorts in front of me, like a stricken horse chasing a carrot. When we finally stop, my ears are ringing and my vision almost fades out as I let myself drop against a brick wall.
She tells me I did a good job. She tells me it’s a good start for getting more flexible. I feel a motivation of sorts. 
She kisses me goodbye in public, and leaves me with an erection that I don’t have time to take care of. I have to shower, eat breakfast and get to work in thirty minutes.
At the office, while on the phone, I jot down a checklist of preparations I might go through before meeting Christie.
I need to get myself appropriate clothes. I’m sure I can borrow make-up.
I need to exercise and limber up. However much I can do in three weeks.
I need to try to learn how to walk and talk femininely. 
I need to train my sphincter. Either get a dildo and lube or make do with vegetables and shampoo.
I need a girl’s name. I might try to dig up some old ideas. How childish, to make a persona like that. 
But necessary, I decide. I’ll do it, and it will be glorious. 
Dalia said she would pass my number on to Christie. So now my life revolves around waiting for the moment she will call.