Hunger’s Truth
by
AJ Fitzwater
Content Warning:
Transphobia, Racism Against First Nations People, Implied Prison Violence, Blood, Cannibalism, Sexual Harassment
1.
“Hey sexy! Give us a smile!”
Danyor had a handful of seconds to decide: a close-mouthed smile, and feel dirty all day; flash pearly white, hope against citizen arrest, and feel dirty all day; ignore, and feel dirty all day.
She tongued her broken eye tooth, pressed her lips together, set eyes forward, and ploughed through the crowd.
“Bitch! You’re too ugly to fuck anyway!”
A white-robed leader of a gaggle of Sisters of the Silence flinched as Danyor stormed by. As Daddy had taught her, she tried not to stare at the evenly spaced stitches around their lips. There must’ve been a big public blasphemy trial recently for the SoS to be out in force.
Danyor pressed the nubby tongue callus into the spike of her tooth again. Where was that dentist’s office? She needed her tooth fixed now, or it could be her at the centre of one of those vicious blasphemy trials.
A rattle. A homeless woman collapsed on the footpath, blood caked in the pained creases around her mouth. Gums black. Danyor shuddered, waited for the Silent Mother to steer her flock to the other side of the street, and dropped a coin in the woman’s cup. The woman’s moan might have been of thanks or pain.
The crowd changed the closer to the glass and steel blocks of uptown Danyor walked. Fancy white coats and expensive smiles in the coffee shops. So many men she felt breathless and bruised. Most of the well-dressed women allowed here ignored her.
Darn it all! Look at her! Walking down the street her smile so wide, black suit, white shirt, scarf fresh as blood against her throat. And those heels! Sharp and white as ivory.
“Slut!” yelled a men. “Close your mouth or we’ll give you something to put in it.”
Give us your best smile. Daddy, droning in the back of her mind.
The woman grinned. Teeth blunt, smooth, and white. Her heels cracking hard against the pavement. Danyor scuttled into the marble foyer of the building marked on her card, her stomach boiling
The top floor. Muted sunshine and white leather couches behind artistically engraved glass. No receptionist to stare her down with the advertisement of her smile. No noise from the surgery. Must be well soundproofed. This procedure was going to cost, but the dental plan Danyor had inherited from Daddy for her twenty-sixth would cover it.
Perched on the edge of a couch, Danyor decided to risk it and pulled out that month’s burner phone. No dot-cam signals blipped on the illegal Srchr app.
She thumbed open her stash. Juicy boys paraded across her screen.
Body builders. Pro-wrestlers. Buff movie stars. Boy racer gangsta douche-bags with their Adam’s Straps and pubes showing above thumb-in-waistband. Work-out selfies. Lean muscled rock stars wearing nothing but a guitar.
Danyor bit her lip and tasted salt and iron. She was so hungry.
The bloody drool had disappeared into a lace handkerchief and a Daddy-approved smart-screen was in her hand when the dentist stepped out.
“Danyor Sorenson.” The woman’s smile was the perfect width, with perfect pink-painted lips. Danyor would have dismissed the woman for the receptionist if it wasn’t for the achingly white coat.
Danyor kept her own smile demure and slight. “Yes.”
“I’m Doctor Bridget Bishop. Do come in.” Danyor edged past. Too tall in her black heels, it put the dentist on the edge of obscene. How did she manage to stand in them all day?
Silver tea service and plush wingback chairs awaited them in the surgery lounge. No food. White orchids nodded on a corner table. The room smelled like pink sugar.
“I could serve you something a little stronger if you like?” Doctor Bishop said as she poured, but Danyor shook her head. Daddy would disapprove.
Green Jasmine tea, just how she liked it. The liquid rippled gently, like from an earthquake or the footsteps of a large beast. When she looked up, Doctor Bishop still had on that perfect smile.
“So tell me,” Doctor Bishop said in a motherly tone, pulling out a thin work screen and crossing her legs. Danyor averted her eyes from the perfect knees. “How did you hear about this practise?”
“I had it recommended to me.” Danyor sipped her tea. “By a friend.”
Doctor Bishop tapped the screen. “Mm-hmm.”
Calling the strange woman at the club a ‘friend’ was a stretch, but she had seen her there often enough, all short skirts and laughing smiles.
And teeth. Once, down in the dimmest of lounges where bitebois draped across velvet couches, she thought she had seen filed teeth.
Danyor pulled out a business card, a simple piece of cream heavy-stock with oily black print. “She gave me this.”
“Ah.” Doctor Bishop leaned forward, revealing just enough bosom that Danyor blushed. She plucked the card from Danyor’s cold fingers, glanced it over both sides and all edges, then passed it back. “Good, good.”
Danyor sat very still, like when Daddy used to read aloud all the reports of girls biting boys at school.
Doctor Bishop gently tapped her screen and smiled. Smile, smile, smile! “Well then, we can get started. I have your public dental records here and everything looks up to date. Your first set of babies out at eighteen months.” She clucked her tongue. “Your Young Adults at fifteen.”
Swallowing a spot of blood, Danyor prepared to argue her rapid progression was not that uncommon.
“You look like the perfect candidate to join my surgery.”
Doctor Bishop put aside her screen and raised her hands to her lips. With a deft tug, the dentist’s upper and lower veneer bridges came away.
Doctor Bishop’s smile became a hideous, razor-sharp, hungry gash. All teeth perfectly pointed, white-white against pink tongue. Ready to rend man-flesh.
Danyor couldn’t even scream. It had been numbed out of her in countless dental surgeries, and that moment twenty years ago when mummy…
Her tea disgraced itself over the lovely white carpet.
Shoving a fist in her mouth, Danyor bolted out of the office. No wasting time waiting for the elevator, she took the stairs down to the real world, all twenty-two floors.
2.
As the bookcase slid back to reveal flashing darkness, music pumped the walls like a heartbeat and the heat-stench of male sweat swept up the stairs to greet Danyor. Saliva instantly sprang into her mouth. The emergency veneer vanished into the hidden pocket in her purse. It had taken her a month to find a new bite club on the fleshnet; a quiet wine bar nestled on the edge of the hipster district, deep black leather couches disguising the debauchery humping below, rosé no respectable alpha cisgender male would touch.
Settling near the cheapest couches she could afford, Danyor ordered a martini from a booty-short clad waiter. The rear view as he sashayed away brought bloody drool to her lip.
Ovulation made the hunger worse: her home diet had quickly devolved into dishes of bloody beef which she nibbled at in clean tears, sucking the bones and knife clean. Lunchtime salads were liberally sprinkled with Portobello mushrooms, which weren’t as satisfying as the fleshnet suggested.
Women draped over the bitebois lounging on the velvet couches. Hickies purpled on nearly every part of their bodies; crotches were strictly out of bounds. For an extra tip, the returning waiter let her tentatively nibble on his forearm. She lapped up his sweat, and he pinched her chin, smiling gently. The kind ones always made her wet.
A male customer passed by. Trans people were welcome in the bite clubs because they suffered from the cruel trick of hypocrisy. Sometimes trans women were used as examples of Not All Women, but when they inherited the hunger it suited men they were Not Real Women. Trans men were accepted as Part of The Team, then reviled as gender traitors. Non-binary and genderqueer people simply confused the men, and barely escaped prison colonies by code shifting as the need arose. Even the rare cis man suffered from the hunger, but Danyor had never met one.
Danyor trusted good taste. She took her drink and followed the man.
The biteboi he led Danyor to brought tears to her eyes. Golden skin rippling across great pecs, shoulders, and biceps, thick black hair, wine coloured bruises. For a few dollars more, said the colour of his booty shorts, she could even pierce his skin a little.
She and the man negotiated shares in thirty minutes. The boi tasted like champagne on a hot day. She savoured the piercing with her broken tooth until the last few minutes, and the wound oozed the flavour of duck liver pate with a hint of oranges and cinnamon.
Danyor ordered a second martini. The bitterness of the alcohol helped cut the sweetness of flesh. A very weak cosmo was the most Daddy would allow her on their Sunday brunch Daddy Dates. She hated cosmopolitans.
Her shoulders softened. She practised mouthing the word “no.” The lights and belly-deep hum of the music lulled Danyor into a semi-meditation.
A polite cough from the waiter brought her round.
“Compliments of a patron.”
Chills swept through Danyor. The fresh martini sat on a card inscribed with oily black script. An impossibly rare invitation one did not refuse.
The rainbow pixels of the privacy shimmer dusted apart as she approached the room overlooking the dance floor.
A bite boi of slim agony and long fingers reclined on a velvet chaise. Not really her type, but no one passed up the opportunity to taste the unique flesh of a regen boi. Her salary wouldn’t afford even a slice of one.
Bending over the boi, scalpel in hand, was Doctor Bishop.
The boi artfully parted his lips and beckoned. He didn’t even wince when the dentist slid the scalpel along his bicep and whicked off a sliver of flesh.
Danyor winced for him and wiped drool from the corner of her mouth.
“Try some, Danyor,” Doctor Bishop said, turning to offer a sliver on the knife’s edge. “It’s the most divine thing you’ll ever taste in your life.”
“I can’t go back to my old dentist now, you know.” Danyor clapped her hands over her mouth immediately. The alcohol and environment had loosened her tongue.
“I know. And I’m sorry for frightening you.” The flesh scrap jiggled on the edge of the scalpel.
How did one take such communion? To nibble, suck, or swallow whole like an oyster?
“Hold it on your tongue as long as you can,” Doctor Bishop instructed with a slight, pointed smile. “You’ll want to find all the grace notes.”
Danyor fought the swoon, but the lingering pheromones had her grasping for a velvet armchair by the time the middle notes hit her palate.
“Follow with this.”
A glass of real champagne chilled her hand. Black and silver sparkles joined the rainbow shimmer in her vision as she took a sip. She shuddered. She might have moaned.
When she came to, the regen boi gave her a lazy close-lipped smile. Doctor Bishop was dabbing a gel that smelled of Turkish Delight around the new wound. The edges were puckering into a gentle scar that would probably be nothing but a keloid by morning. He was one of those genetically reorganized monsters whose original purpose in the war theatre had been easily absorbed into the need of a different war. How did her awful little city afford one of these gods made flesh?
“Thank you.” Doctor Bishop patted the boi’s knee and he set to pouring more champagne.
As Doctor Bishop sipped her drink, Danyor did as her Daddy had taught her and waited, hands folded on her knees.
“You’re very brave for coming,” Doctor Bishop said. The boi placed his head in her lap.
Bravery had nothing to do with it. “I am but a slave to my instincts,” Danyor sighed dramatically.
Doctor Bishop frowned, fingers twining in the boi’s hair. “Don’t use that word. What we are is natural. Evolution. What’s not natural is how we have to hide underground, like this.”
“This isn’t so bad.” Danyor gestured at the pretty boi, the sexy lighting, the hor d’oeuvres dusted with skin flakes.
“I would like to talk more on what constitutes the definition of ‘bad.'”
Here it comes. Danyor been well educated about these women. The picture of a well-practised recruiter, ready to sink her fangs into a hapless young woman at the mercies of her hunger. Which resistance movement was posturing for what little control remained this time? Daughters of Lilith? The Kellies? Lamia Mafia? Terrible women, Daddy would say, endlessly feasting on men until they ruined the world with their hunger.
“What do you want?” Danyor snapped. Her glass struck the glass table with a harsh ring.
“It’s not about what I want,” Doctor Bishop glanced at an expensive, paper-thin palm screen. “It’s about what you need. What this world needs. Honesty about our true nature.”
Danyor rolled her eyes. Definitely the words of a self-styled prophet.
“I thank you for the singular opportunity to taste—” Danyor gestured at the boi who was watching the exchange with worried eyes. “—this, but I’m not interested in whatever revolution you think you’re trying to sell.”
Doctor Bishop sighed and rubbed her eyes. “We don’t do revolution. We do change. Do you want your teeth to stop hurting or not?”
“That’s not going to change—”
“One step at a time. Teeth, yes or no?”
Danyor tongued her sharp eye tooth and the loose veneers around it. She was used to the pain and random bleeding. That was life since her baby teeth fell out and her first fangs grew in. If she did this, Daddy would never forgive her, she’d lose her job, couldn’t even walk down the street without fear.
“What’s in it for you?” Danyor demanded.
Doctor Bishop glanced at her screen and shook her head. “No. We’re out of time. There is going to be a raid on this club in thirty minutes. If you want to learn something about your choices and an end to the pain, come back to my surgery in three days. 7:00 p.m. Bring a plate. It’s potluck night.”
These concepts crashed against each other. The boi calmly wiped DNA traces off the glasses and surfaces.
“A…a raid?” Danyor leapt up and palmed at the shimmer panel, but it wouldn’t let her out.
A woman caught in a bite club meant serious colony time unless…you had someone like Daddy…but not even mummy had…
“Take a breath. There are more ways out than the front door.” There was a smirk in the dentist’s voice. “It’s under control. No one who doesn’t want to will get hurt.”
Fall girls. Good lord, who would be so foolish as to provide cover for another’s useless hunger?
The boi pushed a velvet upholstered panel open. He gestured and Doctor Bishop was swallowed by the darkness. Danyor laughed. Dramatic! The endorphins mixed with the easy high from tasting flesh and drunkenness. Daddy she would deal with tomorrow. She’d been offered an out and damned if she wasn’t going to take it. She pushed the boi ahead of her.
The cramped hallway connected other rooms, which tossed giggling, crying, shaking women and bois into an abandoned sewer tunnel. Very monstrous, Danyor thought as she stumbled along the river’s edge.
Sirens distorted by distance. The crowd dispersed, bois huddled under shawls slipping into the shadows that were forever their home. The man she’d shared a feast with earlier brushed past. At least he was safe.
Heart pounding at the near miss. Head swirling. She hadn’t felt this fearless since…since the day mummy had been taken away.
A zigzag through side streets. Replace the emergency veneer. Wipe her pink kitten heals clean best she could.
Danyor pretended to happen upon the chaos. Feigning shock and disgust at her own species came too easy. She hated herself too well.
A large crowd had gathered to watch women and staff being cuffed face down in the gutter and shoved into vans. A waiter screamed as police took batons to his knees and neck. A cop grunted “traitor” and “cuck” between strikes. When the perpetrator’s blood and tears were displayed to the baying hoard, Danyor nearly shrieked. It was her waiter, the kind one. She swallowed the noise into a jeer of disgust, mimicking the rest of the crowd. The waiter’s eyes brushed over her, but there was only forgiveness and respect.
Why? He was a man. What made him any different?
Ambulance chasers argued for access to clients or the best scoop. Danyor watched it all for as long as she could stomach. She needed to vomit, but not here, not in disgrace, not where the contents of her stomach could easily be tested for DNA.
A black car with tinted windows oozed to a crawl. Danyor wanted to believe it was the dentist, raising her metaphorical middle finger, making sure the pageant was unfolding as intended.
3.
“Hey, baby doll. How about a smile for Daddy? There we go, much better. Hmm, you’re looking a little pale. Your period early? Should I be afraid? Ha ha!”
The corners of Danyor’s mouth ached. “I’m fine, Daddy. Thank you for asking. How did the negotiations with the Smiths contract go? Did the climate credits come through?”
“Don’t you worry your pretty little head about that.” Colin Sorenson patted his daughter atop her coiffed black hair. “It’s hard enough for you to figure out all those machines in your office. You leave the hard stuff to the big boys.”
She actually grimaced. The previous night had buried deeper in Danyor’s bones than she realized.
“Something wrong, baby doll?” Daddy was very good at narrowing his eyes without narrowing his eyes. He held her chair out from the café table just far enough that she couldn’t sit gracefully.
“Oh, it’s nothing.” Flippant voice, flippant hand. “Just a broken tooth.”
Daddy took her face between his meaty hands, twisting her head this way and that, his rough thumbs lifting her upper lip. “How long has it been like this?”
“Only a few days.” Every lie hurt less every day since her mother had been gone.
Daddy squinted at her red, weepy eye she had done her best to cover with make-up. Another side effect of tricky veneers; the constant sinus and jaw infections. “Ah. The emergency veneer. You poor darling. Want me to put in a good word for a quick-see?”
“No, no. Just waiting for the insurance to clear. I have to learn to do this myself sometime, Daddy.”
Danyor knew that men couldn’t read women’s minds, no matter what the evo-psyche’s said about the hunger mutation gene. Thoughts sometimes make it to faces, was one of the few pieces of advice mummy had secreted to Danyor. Advice coated with a thin layer of blood.
“Well, if you’re sure.” Daddy didn’t look sure. He kept watch on her lips as they sat down.
A waitress hovered. Daddy assessed her ass, stomach, breasts, then let his gaze settle on her lips. She gave him a practised smile Danyor envied.
“Can I start you off with some drinks?” She asked, hands clasped just so.
“I’ll have a pinot, something French of course, and she’ll have a cosmopolitan, light on the vodka.”
“Is there any possibility, a maybe, of getting something a little stronger, Daddy? I just thought, since my wisdom stage has come and gone—”
“Yes, yes. Of course, baby doll. You’re old enough, I suppose. Waitress, a glass of your best rosé for the pretty girl!”
He took the liberty of ordering food: well done steak for him, vegetarian omelette easy on the cheese for her.
Danyor gave Daddy her best close-lipped smile and he eased back ever so slightly into his chair.
All at once, the weight of some many things overloaded her senses: the sun pounding her hungover skull; the throb in her gums and sinuses; a woman in white at another table; a white wimple like dove’s wings bobbing along beyond the high fence; a nice specimen of man walking by, all buttocks and straight lines; much older men leering at her, confident since blasphemy trials had been on the up lately.
Her hunger returned in a rush, a slap in the face. She covered the shock with a sip at her drink, the terrible sweetness cut with soda water. Barely alcohol at all.
Daddy eyebrows raced towards his immaculately threaded hairline. “Are you sure the tooth is not bothering you?” That was not the question Daddy was asking.
“Oh no.” She found her laugh. “It doesn’t bother me at all!”
He quick-checked the gender ratio in the café. She remembered that look, had it seared on her brain since that day she was seven. The way he squinted at all that blood, the gore under mummy’s fingernails, her red-painted lips.
She needed to convince him. The decision occurred with barely a thought, like she’d wanted it all along. “Actually, I have an appointment. On Tuesday. At a new dentist. Highly recommended.”
A smile ached across his face, and he deigned to take a sip of his wine.
“Make sure her matches the shade of the new veneer to the rest of your teeth. White makes right!” Daddy laughed.
“I promise, Daddy.”
The last promise she had kept had been to her mother.
From behind Daddy’s back, the woman in white gave her a tiny smile hidden by the rim of her glass. Danyor envied her perfect tan, the elegance of her straight smile. White made her own skin look so sallow.
God, was this how it was to be from now on? Seeing the cracks in the faces everywhere?
“Now, tell me about the date with that nice young man I set up for you last week…”
Danyor sipped her watery wine, and planned her outfit for Tuesday.
4.
Porcelain cups replaced by plastic, tea with blood red punch, sterility with laughter.
It took Danyor a moment to figure out why the laughter felt so out of place. Devoid of the trappings of cat calls or a man explaining or a man simply breathing nearby, the laughter was relaxed and genuine.
A woman in blood red held out a shield box and Danyor gave up both her phones with a performed look; a woman working security.
Then she was there. Doctor Bridget Bishop. Danyor loved and hated how the dentist peeled herself away from a wall, large warm smile with a hint of those vicious fangs behind pink lips. She ushered Danyor inside the womb of her surgery.
Stop. Catch breath. Look down. Look up.
Doctor Bishop’s words buzzed as she shouldered through the mass of women. Quiet danger palpated the air. No one else wore white. The woman were splashes of bright colour, mouths daringly wide or stuffed with food. Obscenity and blasphemy laws broken in plain sight.
Danyor hadn’t been around this many women since her the Sisters of Silence had paid a visit after her mother had been taken away. Even the bite clubs made her a little uncomfortable with their gender ratio, but at least that was in the dark.
Look. There. A man. Danyor’s chest let out a notch. They must be trans to be welcome here. So they’re not Daughters of Lilith. That’s a start.
“…nith is a partner at Lest, Crowne, and Crow,” Doctor Bishop was saying about a very tall woman in a black suit with hair pulled back from her smooth ebony face. Her smile was the best of the crowd, even, white, the perfect width. Envy sunk claws into Danyor’s stomach.
“Your face is familiar,” the woman said, her voice as warm as her smile. Danyor couldn’t remember the last time she’d experienced such overlap. “I’ve seen you at Sorenson, Sheldon, Miller, and Associates.”
“Danyor Sorenson.”
“A real live Sorenson?” The woman gave a firm handshake. “I’m very sorry.”
A laugh fell out before she could stop it. Danyor clapped out her hands over her mouth and glanced around.
Doctor Bishop grinned. “It’s all right, Danyor. I promise you’re safe here.”
“I wish I could say I got the job on my own merits.” The admission tumbled out after the laughter.
Tanith gestured around the party. “A lot of us had to start somewhere, do things we’re not proud of, to infiltrate the patriarchy.”
Danyor nodded, the strange word sticking, semantic satiation following her around the room to each introduction. Looking so many women in the eye was exhausting, but not as humiliating as being introduced like some trophy to a group of men and potential suitors in a room reeking of cigar smoke.
There were two trans men looking more relaxed than at a bite club, and a person who introduced themself as non-binary. From one angle, Crix looked like a very handsome woman, and from another a very pretty man. Danyor enjoyed the idea of such flexibility, liked Crix’s tired smile immediately.
Doctor Bishop was good at this. Danyor tried to judge her age, but recent advances in circumventing the Hayflick limit had seen certain higher production unit women allowed access to lengthened life spans under strict licensing.
Men had no such legal limits.
Danyor flushed at the memory of her recent first attempt at acquiring a production unit score. It had been depressingly low as she was still unmarried.
After the rounds, Doctor Bishop called the room to order. None of that uncomfortable office furniture designed to keep you on edge; soft seats, quiet giggles, deep cushions.
Stop. Breathe. Listen. Prep. Her mother’s old words.
The dull thud of Doctor Bishop’s words told her the inner surgery was sound proofed. Was the building bugged? Were any of these people a deep government plant?
“..anks to the land which we stand upon—” Doctor Bishop said something in a strange tongue, making an unusual, formal gesture to a woman with olive-tone skin. Danyor stared. An indigenous, in the city? I thought they kept to their camps?
When her name was invoked, reality rushed in like a catcall.
“Danyor Sorenson is new to our journey. Please respect that she hasn’t shed her patriarchal assigned name, chosen her gender, or the pronoun that suits her.”
Doctor Bishop loomed large in the spacious room. There would be no escaping these wide smiles if they decided she was threat enough, was Sorenson’s daughter enough. Women didn’t eat woman-flesh, but there were always myths kept alight about the very hungry in the prison colonies.
“Danyor has decided to join our us.”
I have?
Yes. She was here. There was no turning back now. She didn’t want to. She was twenty years too late.
Danyor stared at Doctor Bishop as everyone performed a hand gesture, like prayer but in reverse, setting a soul free.
Locked in her head, Mummy smiled wide. Lots of teeth.
“Danyor is here for the first procedure. We will come together and show her the way through the pain.”
The crowd murmured. Sympathy? Danyor’s whole body buzzed. She thought she would faint before she got in the dentist’s chair.
“There doesn’t have to be any pain if you don’t want,” a woman leaned in to whisper. “Bishop uses anaesthetic.”
Anaesthetic, for women…?
“Unfortunately and fortunately, Danyor joins us at a time when Change is fast upon us.” The crowd murmured and nodded. “We must teach her well, but soon.”
“Teach me what?” The words sounded childish. Don’t whine, Daddy would say.
“Soon we will show the world our truths, and bring about Change.”
That word again. Danyor heard the capitalization, but it was just a small word, an idea.
The room shivered to a stillness Danyor had only experienced once before, in that one beautiful moment before mother had been discovered covered in bloody gore.
The reward from turning in this many women would mean Danyor wouldn’t ever have to work again. Or rely on Daddy.
Doctor Bishop opened to the door to the surgery proper, the inner sanctum. Padded chair. Tool table. A wide spotlight turning sharp edges to cut glass. “You may choose people to come in with you.”
Daddy’s voice sizzled in her head: I’ve got nothing against lesbians, but you do have to wonder how clean their uteri are.
Doctor Bishop’s green eyes were so bright and large, a thick stirred ocean. Danyor squirmed. She couldn’t take that first-last step.
Doctor Bishop nodded, offering a gentle smile for Danyor’s hesitation. “We honour our sibling Ruth by bringing her daughter back into the fold.”
That did it. Oh yes, clever Doctor Bishop. She’d held on to the best till last. That name. Struck from the record. Forbidden.
“You knew my mother?” Danyor whispered.
“She was one of us.”
“One of who?”
“We prefer to go nameless. Names give power. Right now, anonymity is a strength. We will choose a name when the time is right. As will you. Like we all have.”
Her own name. Her own mouth. Her own hunger.
Danyor’s legs moved before she could put taste to feeling.
As she passed each person, they removed fake veneers to reveal wicked smiles or honourable grimaces.
Danyor’s eyes and gums burned. She nodded at Crix and Tanith, the two who had been kindest. They looked tough enough.
The vacuum seal door closed behind the four with a sucking sound, like an indrawn breath. Danyor slid easily across the soft plastic. The chair hummed, tilting her back, hair spreading like a dark halo. The women donned paper masks. Tanith handled the tool table like a professional.
Crix took her hand. “How many sets of teeth you had come through, honey?”
“Seven. I’m on my wisdoms.”
Crix winced. “You poor love. So early. You must be starving.”
The spicy-sweat perfume of the dentist washed over her and Danyor knew she should be afraid, but for the first time in her life she could not stop herself. Didn’t want to.
Doctor Bishop held up a tube and a syringe. “This is special numbing gel, and this one will knock you out. Not going to lie. It will hurt, and it will sound bad.”
“I’ve been through worse,” Danyor said.
Doctor Bishop weighted the choices in her hands. “You’re safe here, Danyor.”
No, worse was a lie, and the truth. She didn’t have to go through that, not here.
“The numbing gel,” Danyor said quickly. She trusted these people enough, but she wanted to be sure. There were no straps on this dentist chair.
Doctor Bishop slathered it on with a latex finger.
A glorious quiet hole of freedom opened in Danyor’s face as the gel took effect.
Doctor Bishop binned the emergency veneer, only meant to be worn for more than a day or two, in the hazardous waste receptacle. “That’s the easiest part.”
Then the tiny chisel and hammer came out. A drill whined.
5.
Everything had a new layer. Filmy. Easily lifted to see the sharpness of reality underneath. Women. The streets. Daddy. Her smile.
Even her date. Danyor hadn’t recognized Tomm with his clothes on.
The bite boi from the club occupied two-thirds of the train seat, as was his right. He patted her hand from time to time as if to apologize for forcing her to huddle against the window. His gentle touch didn’t make the hunger flare, his lean lines covered by dour sleeves and long sexless pants.
At the station, Tomm took her elbow and Danyor measured her pace through the faceless rows of aspirational housing. They spoke cheerful, practised phrases as shimmer-draped windows out stared above tongues of perfect lawns. Miniature versions of the house she grew up in, Daddy’s sanctuary.
Pam, the security woman in red, met them at the door. She shooed Tomm off to the games room to join the other men, then proceeded to break down and put back together Danyor’s burner phone in swift, easy motions. A new sim was installed.
Air kisses. Smiles. Hand squeezes. The house thrived with women’s voices. Crix was there too, which brought Danyor’s shoulders down a notch; they’d been clubbing together.
You’re not like other girls, baby doll, Daddy whispered in her head. Always at each other’s throats.
In the dining room swept free of dotcams and shielded from bee-drones, dinner was served with the freedom of real laughter. It had taken Danyor weeks to relax with men in earshot, but they had all proven worthy allies.
“What have you got for us today, Crix?” Doctor Bishop asked as the biologist carried in a large tray.
“Something quite special,” Crix said. “A first taste of next-generation tank flesh.”
The gaggle applauded. Danyor joined them belatedly. Tank flesh had been deemed illegal under genetic modification laws. This hadn’t stopped experiments within the war theatre. Crix was deeper in the cogs of government than Danyor had surmised.
Bare teeth nibbled and opinions given. Nothing could be written down, but Crix had a superbly trained memory. More envy Danyor tamped down.
To Danyor, the tank flesh tasted like boiled chicken and overripe, floury apples. She didn’t want to hurt Crix’s feelings. The underground worked so hard on solutions it was difficult to face failure.
Other women were less reserved. Soon Crix stabbed a butter knife into the remains of the fleshy snacks and gave an ugly little chuckle. “On a design and molecular level, the flesh is perfect. But there are so many variables I’m not allowed to introduce I feel would add subtlety.”
“You can’t grow a soul in the lab,” Pam muttered into her wine glass. Danyor blinked at her. To avoid Danyor’s stare, Pam flicked a window’s privacy shimmer. “Sweep,” she called.
The women fell into inane chatter about the quilt project that gave their potluck cover. After a tense few minutes, Pam called the all clear. The neighbourhood watch had passed out of range.
Mind firing, Danyor wanted to return to the debate about soul versus flesh. The revelation flushed her with excitement. However, Doctor Bishop ignored her advance and swept Crix aside for an intense, whispered debate. Pip, the group’s onomatologist, saved her from floundering in the middle of the room.
“Do you have something for me?” Danyor asked as Pip handed her a matching glass of blood red wine. It even smelled of blood. But like the tank flesh it didn’t taste quite right.
“I think so.” Pip sat her down in a quieter corner. Doctor Bishop kept ignoring them. “There’s nothing on the official registries. Even the fleshnet has patchy history on some mother-lines.” She grimaced. “Some of the earlier Changers brought in to eugenics.”
A swallow of the bittersweet wine kept words down. The more Danyor learned from her new friends, the harder it was becoming to keep her tongue in check. She didn’t like this new side of her. Perhaps what Daddy said was true. Freedom was a cage.
Pip continued. “After checking through some dead languages, I found something in the mentions of the prison camps. Your name is Romani, and it’s actually, um, a boy’s name. It means ‘born with teeth.'”
“What does that mean?”
“Men like to pretend that names don’t mean anything. But I’ve learned in my time working for Change that women have harnessed this power to pass down coded history.”
Thoughts swirled. Her mother had chosen the name of one of the original Changers, one reborn and struck from history many times. Why had Ruth chosen this name for her? Were they of a hidden Romani line? Spite against Daddy? To empower Danyor towards a different fate?
Perhaps Daddy had approved. Daddy had always wanted a boy. They were so much easier to handle, he said.
Most people on the underground had chosen a True Name, and some like Doctor Bishop had been using openly since they were young. But no other name held Danyor in her proper shape. She couldn’t step through a Danyor shaped hole in the world either.
Danyor attempted to approach Doctor Bishop again, but she couldn’t edge her way into the tight circle held around the good dentist. She sucked at her lip, scowling at obscenely colourful pieces of pottery. It had been like this for the last few meetings. Doctor Bishop was a busy person, lots of people to oversee.
Someone coughed for her attention. Robin, the group’s geneticist.
“I thought you might like to know the results from your chromosome markers test,” Robin said, standing at military ease, a slight smile brightening his broad brown face. Tall, muscular, handsome, pert bottom. One of her types. Saliva started up again even though she had just eaten.
“Oh, good, thank you. Go ahead.”
“We’ve confirmed you are Double X.”
Matches the official public paperwork. Why did she think it would be any different? “And that means?”
“Absolutely nothing.”
Danyor made a sound between a grunt and a moan, the kind Daddy would have whisked her off to the evo-psyche in a moment for. “I don’t get it.”
Robin chuckled. “The hunger mutation travels on the X chromosome but that means nothing when every human has it. Sure, it’s much stronger in certain chromosome combinations, but you’ve met men and intersex people where it’s weak to medium, right. It’s not the gene, but a genetic error. But then, who’s to say what’s an error, what’s normal? There are many cascade effects within development, within a person’s lived body, and it could take years, decades, to unravel it all. If we had the right funding.” Robin grimaced. In the military, he had the right funding, but not the right funding.
Danyor blinked as she tried to process the jargon and ideas. The words fell out of her mouth before she could stop them. “What are you?” Stupid, stupid!
“I’m XX too.” He shrugged. “You’re going to have to unlearn everything you’ve been taught about sex chromosomes. I mean, that’s not even the right term anymore…”
Danyor’s eyes glazed over again as Robin carried on. She couldn’t help but assess which parts of the scientist would make good nibbling. Doctor Bishop saved her from further embarrassment by calling the meeting to order.
“We only have an hour before the next sweep. Neighbourhood Watch are particularly busy tonight,” Doctor Bishop said.
Even with her true smile exposed, the dentist’s voice had a way of soothing Danyor. Danyor zoned out further, having heard the stock standard rallying speech many times. There were always new recruits at the meetings these days.
“Evolution is always evolving. We evolved this way, and fast, for a reason,” she was saying, tones as gentle as her dentist’s hand, magic and pain all wrapped up in one woman. “Gaia requires our survival. This may be just a start point of our genetic history, or somewhere in the middle. But this certainly isn’t the end game men would have us believe. They won’t break us or hide us all away. Those sort of numbers leave a mark on history, even if it is birth records, census numbers. It’s a signpost for other generations.”
Doctor Bishop’s eyes grabbed on to Danyor. Something warmer and deeper than even a feed of flesh leeched into Danyor’s belly. Danyor looked away. Women weren’t supposed to hold someone’s attention that strongly. Only a father or husband had that right. Doctor Bishop had so many good things to say but sometimes she could be too intense.
“Change is coming.”
This phrase was usually how she ended her rally speech. Impermanent permanence. Hold on. We’ve got you.
“Change is coming.”
Her tone changed, slithering from a warm embrace into tight expectancy.
“Salem Day.” Doctor Bishop’s gaze slid across the room. “Salem Day is coming.”
Something shifted within the room. A storm brewing; of ideas, knowledge, truths.
“Our sibling schools agree the time is ripe. There is heightened awareness around the dissolution of the Daughters of Lilith—” Dissolution was too kind a word. “—and feelings are running high with the passing of the Preservation of Life Act.”
Every child is sacred, Daddy had said. Our bodies, our voice, Doctor Bishop had said. Danyor laid a hand on her flat stomach. There roiled a repulsion she’d never interrogated. Parasites, under her flesh…
“You will each be assigned a job for the day. It is your choice whether you are involved, no one will think any less of you if you choose not to.” Somehow Doctor Bishop made it sound like an assurance and a threat at the same time. But all the other women were making eager noises. “We go masked until it is time not to be. This time will be different.”
Grinning faces, flush with light of the good Doctor’s praise. A dozen people couldn’t take down a system. But a dozen here, a dozen there, a dozen dozen coming together with another dozen dozen, emerging from the confines of the fleshnet, seizing the means of information. But the sheer logistics, the size of what was proposed? Would there be enough of them?
Daddy’s voice crowded in against Doctor Bishop’s words. We do this for your own good, to keep you safe from yourselves.
It all seemed a dream. Or a nightmare. Or both.
Danyor tongued her smooth new veneers; nothing hurt. Took a breath. Let it out slow. In out. That’s it, baby doll.
Finally, the prayer to Gaia. Danyor found it odd ascribing gender to a non-sentient entity, but with her eyes and mouth newly opened, everything, even the gods, had a strange mutability.
A banging at the front door. Pam swore. Danyor flinched. Like Daddy banging down the hallway outside her bedroom door…banging through the big attic when they had come to take mother—Ruth—away…she was seven…she was twenty-seven…she was dead….
Everyone assumed positions. Forgetting hers, Danyor huddled in a corner behind the big wall of Robin.
Pam answered the door.
“…quilting party…”
“…ten minutes until the maximum allowed…group of women…disperse…check papers…”
“…our permit states…”
“…ten minutes…”
“Yessir.”
As everyone said their goodbyes, collected totes, and shrugged into their coats—don’t rush, make it look good—someone tapped Danyor on her shoulder.
The good dentist towered over her. Danyor kept forgetting how big she was, even though Doctor Bishop only had a couple extra inches on Danyor.
“I need you to do something for me.”
Danyor’s breath sped up. She nodded, eager.
“Carry your burner phone with you everywhere.” Bishop lowered her voice. “Everywhere.“
Such a simple thing. Such a betrayal.
Danyor found just enough power for her voice. “Isn’t that dangerous?”
“A little. But we’ll make sure you’re protected.”
“How? Why?”
Doctor Bishop folded her arms and shifted her weight to her other leg. “It’s safer you don’t know.”
So Danyor won’t betray them if caught.
“You won’t call—”
“No.”
“Is it bugged?”
Doctor Bishop tilted her perfectly coiffed head, said nothing.
Tomm melted out of the shadows, and took Danyor’s elbow. “Say goodbye, Danyor.”
“Goodbye, Danyor,” she whispered as they joined the party leaving two by two down the freshly swept paths bordered by sharp box hedging.
6.
“Show us yer tits!”
“Slut! Put some white clothes on!”
Jane Ohlan was a professional; a popstar who chose to risk public performance. She mixed calm with coquettish ecstasy as she pranced around the open-air stage, flipping her long pony-tail and purring about how much she enjoyed chivalry.
Secure behind the crash mask of her stolen uniform, Danyor allowed her gaze free range. Salem Day. Salem Square. It might have been named for a place, or a woman, or one of those strange cults, no one was completely sure. Such things had been lost in one of the earliest purges. The men regretted such losses of history. They did.
The kettling architecture invoked unease in women and assurance in men. The abstract statues were today draped in white, advertisements for dental products were projected against the old stone buildings, and Sisters of Silence prayed in their assigned, cramped area.
In the concert pit, sweaty men squirmed around giggling young women. A small but significant extra quota of women had been allowed in via a ticketing hack, and the crowd underestimated security lining the steps.
Danyor ground her teeth, but no pain shocked her. The last of Doctor Bishop’s treatments had settled, and she had eaten well the night before.
What was she doing? How had she got from the good little girl who drank cosmos with Daddy on Sunday to someone inciting change? All she had wanted was her teeth fixed.
No. She hadn’t known what she wanted until Doctor Bishop found her. She wouldn’t let anything happen to Danyor. Not like mummy.
No. Mummy couldn’t help it. Some women just can’t help themselves, baby doll.
Danyor twitched her shoulders as she went over all the moves in her mind Pam had taught her. She wouldn’t need them. People would listen—Daddy would understand— once they understood the size of the change, the size of the lies before them. The Change would be simple, quiet, gentle, to show people the hunger’s wasn’t what they’d been led to believe. Strategic speeches at Salem Day celebrations across the world. No takeover, Doctor Bishop had insisted. An integration back into society. Security was only to make sure people were kept safe.
And where was Doctor Bishop?
Jane Ohlan finished her set to cheers and jeers. Suddenly, the weight of the day made Danyor feel so tired. Doctor Bishop called it all those old, almost eradicated terms for mental illnesses which meant nothing to her. Still, she woke up tired every day. Perhaps she needed a better diet. More exercise. Something.
You have a good job, a good life, baby doll. A comfortable life.
Stage crew reset. Lewd shouts. A sweat-soaked woman squealed as she was body surfed out to security.
Expecting an all-male rock band, the crowd jeered louder as a black-haired woman in a long tasselled robe strode out on the stage. A Native American in full regalia. Not the same one who sometimes came to meetings.
She looked dangerous as in the war histories. The red beads on the calf-skin dress gleamed and clacked. Women in the audience shifted from foot to foot, looking away. Men shouted insinuations to the easiness of her race. Danyor’s fingers tightened on the haft of her bolt stick.
“My name is Sharee Vulture Feather. And I am here to tell you the truth.”
People shuffled, voices were raised. Perhaps the woman was a joke, a fake-out, shock value the band had added to their set. Any moment now she would break into a scream and do some crazy, old-time war dance.
Screens either side of the stage flickered. People stared at and shook their dead phones. There it was, the jacking of government and informational channels had kicked in.
The lines of security around the square linked arms.
Sharee Vulture Feather took out her false veneer.
The crowd dissolved into chaos.
The Change had begun.
The woman sharp teeth flashed in the spotlight as she recited some poem in a rolling, swallowed tongue. The words were lost in the furore. Bolt sticks discharged into the rush of men trying to escape.
Wedged tight between Pam and Crix, Danyor went rigid and lifted her riot shield. Bodies battered the tough plastic but the line held tight.
Used to bruises, most women and others remained calm and in place. A few women joined the rush, but upon seeing the rest holding ground, they paused. Waiting.
Yes. There it was. The calm. The control. The terrible power just behind the lips.
“Are you hungry, my siblings?” Sharee Vulture Feather raised her arms, revealing olive-skinned arms ringed with forbidden tattoos. Somehow she maintained her presence on stage. Ah, there: collaborators forming a human shield in the wings, shocking anyone who dared come near. The sticks must be set to maximum charge if men were dropping so easily.
Another figure walked on stage. Flowed really. Like blood. She wore red pants, red blouse, red shoes. Hair dyed red. A shock of colour against the whiteness of the day.
Doctor Bridget Bishop.
Her mouth spoke truth with a smile matched that of Sharee Vulture Feather, but the words faded into a buzz again. The same words about Change.
Men shoved up against Danyor, spitting and clawing. Pam shocked them, and they fell twitching.
“How many sets of teeth have you gone through, comrades?” The microphone still worked. There was an attempted rush at the mixing desk, pushed back by diligent fake security. “One? Three? Seven? It doesn’t matter! Still in your baby teeth or with complete wisdoms, your hunger is ENOUGH!”
Men shrieked. Lies! Fake! Slut! You’re dead, bitch!
A ripple through the crowd. Women, others, testing out their tongues. It pulsed and receded, a tide of questions.
“Salem’s lot. Your time has come. Open your mouths, show us your teeth, speak to your hunger, your truth, and be heard! You don’t have to hide behind false ivory gods. Your satiation is at hand. Regen flesh, tank flesh, donors! Enough for all to never go hungry! No one has to die! You want to turn down the hunger? We’re looking ways to do that too! Knowledge. It’s not. Just. Women! We are so many glorious genders! There may never be a cure, but we won’t stop looking if that’s what you want! Choices! This is what you deserve! And we can do it together!“
A rising ululation. Probably a plant, but it did the trick. The wail spread from mouth to mouth like a hungry kiss.
This was good. So far, nothing terrible had befallen them. Everything was well planned this time. Problem factions softened, compromise found.
A scuffle in the wings.
Armoured people dragged bound and hooded men on to the stage. A violent image, stolen from the annals of history when women’s executions for publicly expressed hunger were simply performance.
Except these hoods were black instead of white.
That was not in the plan.
Danyor wanted to hiss a demand at Pam or Crix, but neither her crash mask or fear of discovery would let her. She glanced up and down the lines. No other change-maker was stepping out of formation. She’d just have to go with it. Trust the good dentist knew what she was doing. Doctor Bishop had promised no one would be hurt.
Doctor Bishop stepped behind one of the wriggling men with an artfully placed wound on his bared arm. A moan wandered through the crowd; hunger and pain and relief. Men shoved and yelled, but they were shocked down by security or simply ignored.
Ignored. Dear Gaia. That was Change in itself.
Near Danyor, an older woman took out a false veneer. Her friend shrieked, then stared.
Captors stepped behind the other men, holding them in place with one hand, raising a scalpel with the other.
With performed swiftness, each captor removed the hood and swiped their scalpel across exposed flesh; pectoral, bicep, thigh, calf.
Thin wounds, really, but blood flowed and the men shrieked like they were dying.
Another great moan flowed across the crowd.
Within a blink, Danyor’s view turned from hazy to crystalline. Colours and lines snapped into painful focus. Iron oxidized red. Tongue pink. Rolling eye white.
People in the audience screeched in recognition. Someone’s father, brother, uncle, boss, husband. Women shoved to the front and they were lifted up to confront their assigned man. They knelt as if praying, or stood over them as if confused by their options. Only one woman moved to unbind one of the men; the captors did not prevent her, and they were escorted off stage without fuss.
The crowd applauded. Except for the men. Some cried out “Pussy!” or “Gender Traitor!” or “Take it like a man!”
Danyor breathed out. Yes. We’re not like that.
Danyor saw it coming in slow motion, lightning fast. Doctor Bishop bunched her fist bunched in the hood of the remaining captive, and pulled.
She hadn’t known. She knew.
Of course.
Daddy.
This was why she’d taken the burner phone to work, into Daddy’s house, to places she never should, as instructed. Like a good girl. A Trojan Horse.
Like any other day, Daddy would have been locked behind walls concrete and digital, working to “make life better, baby doll”.
Better for who?
Doctor Bishop had used her.
Danyor bit down so hard her new veneers creaked.
How COULD she? She treated me like her own…
No.
She was Ruth’s daughter.
Doctor Bishop wasn’t even looking for her, but Danyor knew she was waiting.
No. I won’t.
On stage, Sharee Vulture Feather recited forgotten histories along with matching visuals on screen. The women hovered around their men, stroking hair and faces, nibbling fingers gently, licking the blood off their wounds. Putting themselves into the performance. A farce. They wouldn’t really. They’d been trained too well.
Then the hunger lust kicked in.
The man’s scream was animal-like as a middle-aged woman bit his shoulder. A younger woman, possibly her daughter, hesitated, then chowed down on some thigh. The wounds are ugly and shallow as the two women couldn’t remove their permanent veneers.
Zap. Crack. The crowd surged again, screams of fear and delight mirroring the cries on stage.
Even across hundreds of people and through her mask, the stench of fear sweat and salty iron and meat smacked Danyor in the face.
Her stomach rumbled and saliva dribbled down her chin.
NO. I WON’T.
Monster. Gash. Witch. Cunt. Danyor couldn’t hear the words, but she was well versed in the way Daddy’s lips formed words.
Just like that day over twenty years ago.
“Don’t call her that,” Danyor whispered through gritted teeth.
But still. Ruth. The base of truth.
A satiated sigh ripped back to front of the crowd. The man currently under digestion had been reduced to the odd animal-like cough. Women crowd surfed forward for a taste, stuffing gobbets of flesh into their mouths. Sharing. Together.
Somewhere in the city, a series of whumphs. Explosions. Sirens crying out. The military on their way but the fleshnet and allies shoved into the chinks of the war theatre would slow them down.
Shouts from high windows. Encouragement, threats, or pleas for help? Danyor couldn’t get past the buzzing in her ears, the clench in her guts. Her teeth chittered.
I won’t.
Memory: of blood on chin; of panic deep in green eyes; of a set of beautiful canines tipped with gore; of fingers licked clean.
I love you, baby girl. Don’t let them change you.
I won’t, mummy.
A blink of blackness.
Swimming across benison hands. A chant, soft, alluring.
The crowd deposited Danyor on the stage. Somewhere she’d lost her crash helmet and bolt stick. Doctor Bishop and Daddy loomed close far away close in her vision, their heads monstrous then a pin head. The overwhelming stench of meaty blood.
The other two men were in the process of being stripped down. People huddled over them. The men’s feet and hands twitched feebly.
Danyor slipped in blood.
Doctor Bishop helped her up. Like mother had helped her up that day. Run, Dani. Wipe your chin. Don’t let him catch you here.
Colin Sorenson sneered, all veneer of respectability gone. “I should have known,” he growled. “Like mother, like daughter.”
Doctor Bishop smacked Daddy in the back of the head, and he yelped. “Mind your tongue, or that will be the first part she eats.”
“I won’t,” Danyor whispered.
Daddy ignored her, glaring up at Doctor Bishop. “We’ll put you down like the bitches you are.” His growl broke like a pubescent boy.
Another explosion, closer.
Doctor Bishop held out the scalpel to Danyor, an echo, this time tainted with Daddy’s blood. “Go ahead. You’ve deserved it.”
Danyor licked her lips. “No.”
More explosions. Sounds of fighting, bolt-fire at the edge of the square. Restlessness through the crowd. They were almost ready. Almost on their side. A few women trying to fight their way out, but their struggles were half-hearted.
Be true to your hunger, baby girl.
“No,” Danyor said again.
The scalpel glinted in the hard stagelight. People seethed across the flayed corpses, made equal by the sheen of blood and gore across their faces.
“You can fight this baby doll,” Daddy crooned. “I’ll make sure you’re safe.” A hopeful smile splashed across his face as he tried on pity for size. A little dribble of blood at the corner of his mouth.
“No.” Why me?
The women on stage. They were much older than her. Even the youngest seemed to have a good ten years on her. The hungry people in the crowd pressing to the front of the stage, eager for a whiff, a lick of it, looked young. Confusion twisted their faces. Some of them watched Danyor intently. Some egged her on.
Why, mummy?
Change needs a martyr.
Doctor Bishop was still holding out the scalpel, patient, like the memorial statues. She asked: “What’s your name?”
Danyor removed her glove. Five o’clock shadow scraped her palm. She snatched her hand away as Daddy snapped his teeth.
Her stomach rumbled.
Danyor removed her veneer. Daddy shrieked, the noise amplified by the microphone.
With a quick slash, Doctor Bishop sliced open his shirt, exposing him neck to Adam Strap. Danyor grimaced and looked away. Not something a daughter needs to see.
Doctor Bishop’s hand came up again. “You are surrounded by love. What is your name?”
“Love?” choked Daddy. “What do cunts know about love?”
“Don’t. Call. Her. That.” Danyor said through gritted teeth, and Daddy shrank back at the sight. The light bouncing off the scalpel was giving her a headache. Sharp. Hard. It’s lines could be softened just by pressing it into flesh…what would that flesh taste like after so many years cooking on the bone…he smelled musky and dense with woody notes like truffle slivers in oil…
Fire raced up her gullet. The ringing in her ears had become a full peel from the cathedral of her hunger.
Danyor dropped her fake veneer on the bloody floor and stomped it to little porcelain pieces. She carried so much guilt what was one more stone into the pit of her always empty stomach.
“My name,” she said through gasps. “is Ruth.”
Daddy made some wordless curse while the crowd cheered. Some people knew that forbidden name. Maybe not her mother’s name, but another Ruth—truth—like it.
Danyor grabbed the scalpel hilt, squeezing Doctor Bishop’s hand hard. Bishop didn’t let go, pulling her forward to grasp her other arm in solidarity. A battle of truth.
They made a tight fist together around the scalpel.
____
Copyright 2019 AJ Fitzwater
AJ Fitzwater is a meat-suit wearing dragon (cousin of the unicorn), living in the cracks of Christchurch, New Zealand. Their work can be found in such venues of repute as Clarkesworld, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Glittership, and Shimmer Magazine. They survived the trial-by-wordfire of Clarion in 2014. They Twitter at @AJFitzwater.
