Her Hands Are Always the Same

Her hands are always the same, soft and firm as old well-worn leather and covered with fine traceries of scars. Some of the scars you recognize—the finger she almost lost slicing onions when she laughed too hard at one of your jokes, the scattered dots where bees objected to her plucking a chunk of honeycomb, the shiny burn-scars on her fingertips that she’d had to beg your help with. Most of them you do not. She was already ancient when you first met.

Conversion Surgery

The surgeon is sprawled out on her living room couch when you arrive, flipping through screen after screen of beautiful people on her ancient phone. One of her housemates answered the door and let you inside, their too-perfect smile drying into a polished mask as they realized why you were there. The last words they said to you before they fled were a quiet “good luck.”

She’s really not much to look at. Chubby and long-limbed, with oily shoulder-length hair. You can see her split ends from the doorway; it’s obvious that she’s never bothered to put proper care into them. Her clothes show a similar lack of effort, just loose grey sweatpants and a tank-top that barely contains her breasts.

It Had to Happen

“The strangest thing,” Carol will say, afterwards, “was that I knew it was right. It was—have you ever seen someone do something, and known it was wrong, without even having to think about it?”

“Of course,” the interrogator will say, “like a wild animal mauling someone.”

“Exactly! But,” she’ll reply, “no, you don’t get it. It—it looked like that, sure. But it was right to do it. It was doing what was best for both of us, for everyone.”