Changed

Content warning: sexual content

“For a good time call 898-LUNA.”

My phone number. 

I read this as my flat ass pressed against the icy toilet seat. I felt some wetness under a thigh. Piss? I looked at the tops of my thighs and watched goosebumps and short brown hairs rise from my pale skin. Who would have written my phone number on a bathroom stall wall? 

I guess it could have been anyone. I reveled in the fact that my phone number ended in the spelling of my first name. 898-Luna. So easy for them to remember. Any of them. Girls, boys, anything in between or out to either side. It didn’t matter; as long as it made the darkness disappear.

But I was getting so tired of trying to tread at the edge of the black pit of nothingness beneath my feet. It was more of a numbness that I felt. A feeling that nothing mattered, because I couldn’t care about it anyway.

I pulled up my underwear, bright orange with the number “69” printed on the back in purple. I left the bathroom without washing my hands. Didn’t see the point when I could never really be clean. 

I walked out back into the club. The base in the music vibrated in my chest and fingertips. A group of women sat at a nearby table. One was wearing a sash that read "bachelorette" across it. She could be an easy target. I eyed the woman’s supple porcelain skin. I traced an imaginary line beginning at the female’s ear and traveled the line down the side of her sinuous body, pausing at my favorite area, the place where the waist met the top edges of the hips. I imagined sliding her hands down and holding on to the creases where legs and vulva met. 

But it was getting late. Time to go home. I had already engaged in plenty of activity for the evening; definitely enough to last the next twenty-four hours.

The short walk to my tent on the 7th street footbridge was the same as always. A kid laying half on and half off the curb of the sidewalk; glitching out from the latest chemical concoction that promised at least a few moments outside of reality. A group fuck in progress down a side street complete with moans and other sounds of gratification. A parade of rats racing down the street, mimicking a small ocean wave. The rats had definitely gained the most when it came to quality of life with recent events.

I was so tired tonight. Ready to climb inside my forty degree rated double sleeping bag with Stella. She would already be asleep. Stella liked to be inside the tent for the night before the sun went down.

Stella, my wife, was the reason I still had love for this city. My life had changed so dramatically and quickly. She was the one thing that had remained the same.

I remember the day that it happened. The day that everything changed for so many of us in this city. I was on my way to meet Stella for the first time. It was our first date. 

We had met online and video chatted for a few weeks, both developing an undeniable interest. I got out of my car at the corner of Third and Eleventh streets. I could see Stella, automatically recognizing her from her pictures on the dating website. She stood around five and a half feet tall with shoulder length, straight brown hair. I remember feeling like every nerve ending in my body was standing at attention. She was gorgeous...and she liked me, so far anyway. 

I took a deep breath and began to pick up my right foot to walk towards her. My entire foot never left the ground, just up to about the ball of my foot, and then my foot dropped back down to being fully connected with the planet.

My memory, the moment it happened, is fuzzy, much like everyone else’s. The sound began as a distant thrumming. As the noise grew nearer and seemed to close in around us, it transformed into a menacing pounding that made my eardrums feel as if they were about to rupture. My hands flew up to defend my ears from this insurrection and I looked up to see Stella’s eyes widened with shock right before she dropped to her knees then toppled sideways striking her head on the ground. She was still.

The sound left us as quick as it had come, and now, three years later, we still don’t know what it was. 

She had left a lantern just outside the tent for me. She was so good at these small acts of love. I clicked on the LED lantern and unzipped the opening of the tent; just enough for me to climb inside. 

Stella was laying on her side, watching a show on her tablet. She pushed back a long wavy section of hair, looked at me and pulled an ear bud from her ear. 

“How was it?” she asked.

I knew she didn’t really want to know how it was. She didn’t want the lurid details of my evening activities. She only wanted to know that I was safe and ok. 

“It was enough,” I said.

Stella pulled open my side of the sleeping bag and patted it, a signal for me to climb in. I stripped off my clothes and slid my thin frame into the warmth. 

Stella pulled me in toward her, pressing her bare breasts to mine. We tangled our legs together. This was definitely the best part of each day. 

I awoke in the late morning to the smell of beef jerky. I opened my eyes and saw my love chomping away at the sweet, brown hunks of meat. 

“Good morning, beautiful,” I said.

“Good morning,” said Stella through a mouth full of jerky.

“I’m already worried,” I said.

This was the one day a month I dreaded. Supply run day. Stella would leave the city. She would go through the giant, thirty foot fence that surrounded the city, and travel to get food, clothing, first aid supplies, and anything else we needed at the moment. 

I would walk with Stella as far as I could. Through the city for about three miles, where we would reach the nearest perimeter exit. As always, the guards would prick Stella’s finger and squeeze some blood through the neat wound. Then, they would touch a testing stick to the bubble of blood, after which, lights on the stick would glow green to indicate that Stella was free from “infection”. 

But, it really wasn’t infection; it was some sort of chemical change that had occurred in the blood. Utilizing the term “infection” gifted the government the power to keep those of us that couldn’t produce the cherished green glowing outcome quarantined in the city. Trapped. Caged.

After the test, I would embrace my sweet Stella, and submerge into gratitude for her. The memory of her comforting scent, warm body, and soothing voice saying, “It will be ok” would carry me through her absence. She would always pull back from our entangled torsos just enough to look into my eyes in such a way that I could feel her confidence in what she was saying.

Finally, she would pass through the gates of the barrier, out of reach.

Today, when she left, I felt depressingly cold. I was now dependent on strangers for my survival until she returned. I walked the three miles back to our tent.

It was always on this day that I missed my former apartment the most. Stella and I got to spend almost a year there together until everything fell apart. Until people began to understand the changes that were taking place in their own bodies.

The tourists were already beginning their nightly party in the streets when I arrived back to my street. Street performers were setting up their make-shift stages for the evening. I decided to go ahead and get started on tonight’s shift, so I started in the direction of one of my regular nightclubs, “The Cat Box”. I wasn’t in the mood to deal with any men tonight.

Along the way, I came upon Sam, a street performer that Stella and I knew from our tent neighborhood. I paused to watch.

“Hey there folks!” Sam yelled to his audience. He yelled loud enough and with enthusiasm in attempts to get more tourists drawn towards his area. “Welcome to the REAL sin city!” he yelled in the voice of a game show host. His audience spilled sounds of random laughter and expressions of agreement.

“I have to warn you...what I’m about to show you is not for the eyes of the squeamish,” he said. His intention was to not actually warn people, but to draw people in. Human nature seems to be enticed even more when something comes with a warning.

Sam started music that played from a big Bluetooth speaker. He began moving his hips side to side in a seductive way; that is if you like that kind of thing. He lifted the bottom edge of his shirt slightly, teasing his audience.

They cheered him on with cat calls. “Yeah baby, take it off!” a woman yelled excitedly. 

Sam moved his hands up to the top of his shirt and opened the first button. Then, the next button. As he opened more buttons, working his way down his shirt, at some point the audience suddenly gasped as they saw his change.

There was a point along Sam’s chest where his skin shifted from the normal opaque that one would expect, to completely translucent. And, there, on the left side of his chest, you could see movement. Rhythmic. Beating. His heart.

At least one onlooker couldn’t handle what their eyes were showing them, and moved away from Sam’s stage area quickly. They appeared to be retching as they evacuated from the sight of Sam’s internal organs. Most of the audience cheered and made sounds of astonishment.

Sam continued removing the rest of his clothes until he was completely nude. His whole body wasn’t see-through, but just sections. The randomness of the opaque skin and translucent skin reminded me of a friend I had as a kid that suffered from a skin condition called Vitiligo; except my friend’s skin fluctuated between light and dark tones. Loss of pigment as opposed to opaqueness. Even though I knew how Sam’s performance unfolded, it still disturbed me.

It wasn’t Sam’s condition that made me feel somewhat sick, but the audience. The simple fact that we even had people that wanted to visit here for entertainment. Tourism. A type of freak show.

This behavior of people turning differences into entertainment seemed a pervasive one.

I continued on to my destination.

I could feel myself tiring some. I needed to recharge soon.

The Cat Box was crowded as usual. Back before our sound event, it didn’t used to be so busy. It also didn’t used to be filled with almost exclusively women. Most of the patrons these days were from beyond the fence. They would come in for a night or a couple of days to celebrate anniversaries of all kinds, see the shows put on by locals, or just to be somewhere for a while that was practically lawless.

I stood off to one side of the bar, scoping the crowd, looking for what I thought of as a “mark”. Sometimes my brain would use the term “prey”, but I didn’t like thinking about it in that way.

“How’s business?” I heard a familiar voice say. I turned and saw that my friend, Tori, had appeared beside me.

“Hey Tor,” I said. “Business is usual. How are you and Alice?”

Tori sighed. “Still sticking together I guess,” she said, not sounding too happy about that. “Honestly, Luna, sometimes I feel like me and Alice are only together because of...you know...what happened. We are stuck in this...situation. Ya know?”

“I get it,” I said, “but I can’t really relate at the moment.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Tori said with disdain. “You and Stell are so in love.”

“We are,” I said, looking at her to impress my conviction. “And it’s a damn miracle,” I added.

Tori knew what life was like for us now, and I was sure that she had certain judgements about the situation. So did I.

I finally spotted a possible mark. 

“See ya later,” I told Tori as I started to move across the club.

The target was an attractive female with blonde hair cut sharply at her jawline. Probably in her mid or upper twenties. But, it wasn’t her physical appearance that caught my attention; but a combination of facial expression, body language, and context.

The mark was sitting with a group of three other women; probably friends of hers. Her group were leaning in, almost huddled over the cocktail table in between them, chatting and laughing, however, she was leant back in her chair with her eyes on the stage. The current entertainment consisted of two nude women with some kind of growths on their heads, resembling horns. After a couple of years watching people closely, I could tell when they were enjoying something, and she was definitely enjoying the show. 

I walked towards her table.

…

Less then fifteen minutes later, I was outside, leaning against the brick building of The Cat Box, having an emotional breakdown.

I didn’t get what I came for. I couldn’t. The memories were too heavy tonight.

The same day that horrible sound came through our city, also turned out to be one of the best days of my life.

After Stella and I determined that neither of us were injured in the strange event, we continued with our date. The city was in a state of shock, and many closed businesses wrecked any plans of dinner out, so instead we ordered take out at a restaurant that was still functioning and went to my apartment. We filled our bellies, snuggled in a pile of blankets, and watched movies (and each other) until we fell asleep. We talked randomly about anything and everything. We had that instant, magical connection that I’d always heard about, but had yet to experience. 

We weren’t physically intimate that night, with the exception of an incredible kiss. 

I didn’t yet know that I had changed.

The next morning, upon waking, Stella and I made love. The first time that she moaned and shook in a peak of pleasure, I immediately felt it. Energy surged into me. That first time, I thought I was just emotionally echoing her physical climax. The second time, I started questioning that initial assumption. Also, this is when Stella began to tire.

On the third time, I knew something was wrong. I felt more sudden energy than I ever had in my life, and when Stella’s moaning stopped, she fell unconscious.

This is when we found out that I had changed. Over the next few days, we came to the realization that I couldn’t survive and remain loyal to Stella at the same time without killing her.

…

I just couldn’t replenish my energy tonight. I missed Stella horribly and felt like I needed, more than anything, to be loyal to her now.

I drug my body towards home. My legs felt so heavy; I had to will myself through each step. I would just sleep. I could try again tomorrow; I would just rest.

I dreamt of Stella. In my dreams, I was unchanged once again. Normal. I didn’t have to share myself with anyone else. Stella and I had a home together, out in the country, surrounded by nature and green views. In my dream, we would get to grow old together. There was a soft bed with white sheets. No tents on bridges, nightclubs full of prey, or monthly supply runs.

In the real world, the sun rose and struck light through the tent. How long had Stella been gone? I couldn’t remember. Had it been just a day? Two? A week? Part of me wondered if she would ever come back to me. I would understand if she didn’t. Why come back to a home in a tent and a wife that was never loyal? She should stay outside of the fence, where she could be free. Even if she were gone for a long time, I would still want her. Even if she never came back, I would still want her. 

I didn’t know how much time had passed when I started to feel like I didn’t need to breathe as fast or as often. I could sense the systems in my body slowing to a crawl. I was in and out of consciousness, the bright green glow of the tent, and the sounds of the city turning on. Then off. Then on again.

Then, one time that I opened my eyes, she was suddenly there. 

“Stella?” I barely managed a grainy whisper.

Stella silently slipped off her pants and pressed herself against me. She kissed me intensely and then let herself slip into bliss.