A man named Warren Caldwell is about to have a very bad night.
This article contains CWs for: mild sexual themes, period-typical queerphobia, and abuse of a sex worker.
Skinful Desires by Anorrack and
xexnoncores with art by
AsinineStars
⚠️ content warning ↑
March 12th, 1937
The Devil’s Rest is not a place, but a state of mind.
Warren Caldwell sips a bit of whiskey as bar patrons mill in and out of a dusty saloon. It’s one of the Chicago Spirit’s holes, not the main establishment but enough of an ancillary that the same ghosts haunt the chairs, the same vices the dirty windows.
He takes a deep breath as the alcohol does little favors for the buzzing inside of his head. For the orange glow of the bar smearing into his retinas. His day has been long, prepping bodies for the Spirit’s undertakers, reporting the findings to the Foundation. Slaving away at a typewriter until he forgot who he was in the words, in the solid clacks of metal keys going up and down and up and down and up and down, over and over and over again.
It’s so much tedium, so many bodily fluids. So many gunshot wounds he’s almost jealous of, as often his days were longer than he wanted them to be. The gray offices of the Foundation were never inviting, especially to double agents. It was almost as if the halls could see teetering hearts.
There needs to be someone inside him within the hour or else he’s going to lose his mind.
With a sigh, he swivels around on his barstool like he’s turning over a corpse.
A dock-worker here, a foreman there. A couple of fishermen are crowding near where the bathrooms are.
No, none of those will do. From the looks of them, all were married, and at least most were devoted husbands. At least, that’s how he pictures them in his mind from his experiences. Union men always seemed so fiercely dedicated to whatever they could manage to think about, often to their own detriment.
What about—hm, no, the women won’t do either. Well—maybe? He does not find their breasts attractive or their smooth, hairless bodies as enticing, but a body was a body, and if they were going to be useful to the Spirit, they might as well please him, even if he was one of the lowest on their totem pole.
Warren considers his options for a second before competition walks into the bar. A girl with bright makeup sashays in from the Chicago chill and sits down in one of the chairs. She’s snappily clad in a short black dress, hair cut short while sporting slick, white foundation that makes her look like a porcelain doll. Her lipstick is as red as blood, just to tie the package up all together. Her eyes mirror Warren's, darting from face to face, trying to find tonight's mark.
The working types—if she’s here, she’s definitely under Madam Bullfinch, the premiere ringleader of the Spirit’s gaggle of women in heels. Prostitution was a dying industry, what with the mayor's constituency always nagging at him to take care of the "vice" problem, but the trade still clung on stubbornly in places. As with Prohibition, even criminal markets have their dedicated clientele. It was good to have them on retainer for Chappell too, the Chicago Spirit’s leader, or his many people he needed to please. Derringer, his youngest underboss, was insatiable.
Warren, after all, moonlighted in their services from time to time. He needed the money just as they did, even if he only did it some days.
Please, someone, anyone, he thinks. He’s finished his drink, the burn having since left his throat. It leaves his mouth empty, and wanting. He doesn’t want to go back to his empty apartment, doesn’t want to tell his landlord he’ll be late with rent again.
He just needs a little more time.
But he doesn’t want to approach. He doesn’t want to beg, not now at least. It’s better to be grabbed by the hand, seen for the lithe, skinny blonde that he is, with wide hazel eyes that glitter like amber and catch the light at certain angles to become gold. Charming someone is much easier than asserting oneself, because he knows his reputation precedes him.
As Madam Bullfinch put it in that shrill voice, he was an anomaly. The taboo of taboos, desirable in the most queer of ways to men most would consider unholy, perverse, and sinful, or simply to lonely women whose husbands made them feel all of that and then less than dirt. Take the pick of which was worse.
Warren knows that money makes people look the other way most of the time. The men of the Spirit were haggard, rough, and spike-tongued—but it was in their nature to overlook hideousness if it wasn’t fucking around in their face. It was in their nature as those who toyed with magic and made use of monsters to accept that the world was stranger than they first thought, and that such oddities extended just as much to people as it did the concrete jungle they made their livings in.
When should he start letting that bother him? Will they eventually hurt him too? Will it be with tommy-guns or bruised knuckle fists pounding him into the pavement until he’s lost his life?
Warren loses himself in that thought as a distraction from himself until a large shadow enters the Devil’s Rest.
Everyone perks to take notice. The men shudder as black trails over the wall and creeps up glass bottles, while the women begin tensing their hands into supple, cradled fists as its edge caresses their skirts. The air crackles with unwrought tension, hot and dark like some kind of hole wanting to swallow the sun. Every old nook and cranny bathed in orange light from the bar now wants to be stripped of the privilege of life.
The shadow belongs to a tall, pale man in a black trench coat. It cascades down his form in a flayed, tapered silhouette, masculine in its simplicity and height with shiny shoes completing the entire look. He is sharp in angles and fashion, like a razor blade over skin.
His eyes stare. Warren holds his breath. The man is handsome to him, dashingly so, his face chiseled and Freshly shaved, his eyes cuttingly hued.
Warren finds his tongue caught in his throat when that shadow turns to him, smothering his entire body. The man does not acknowledge the pupils in the room tracing over his bodiless form, except for that of Warren’s.
The bartender stiffens. The stranger approaches.
He gazes deeply into his face, hovering over a seat until he sits down next to him without any words. When he quietly orders a shot of bourbon, he slips the bartender a hefty tip to shoo him away.
Warren’s face heats up. Up close, the man looks like some kind of sculpture. Perfectly angular jawline, stoutly lipped pout, tastefully thick eyebrows. Even his ebony hat frames his face in a boxy manner which forces Warren to imagine it looking down at him in a bedroom glowing with rose-scented candles.
“Do you need something, sir—”
The man interrupts him without hesitation. “The Madam informed me that you would be available today. Palmer House, room 304, you are to be in in the lobby at half-past seven exactly. You will find a key to my room in your pocket as soon as you leave this pitiable establishment.”
Warren blinks. The man sucks his bourbon down like it’s water, hands tense and his expression deeply wrung. With wide eyes, Warren stares into his like he is being dragged in by a net, each passing second a deeper cut of the rope burning into his skin.
The man’s eyes are a deep, deep sapphire blue. Blue enough to shine, vivid enough to cleave. They shimmer like something that makes Warren’s heart flutter for just a moment before he reminds himself what he is doing, what tonight will be, and how he’ll need to get out of this unscathed.
It’s business and nothing else. Business and getting his pound of flesh, however he has to do it. Meek as he was, Warren still prided himself on wanting specific things…hopefully.
He nods quietly, and the man leaves. Behind him, on the stool, lies a golden coin with a woman’s face on it, her curls beautiful and defined. She is looking up at smooth edges so impossible that one might have mistaken the coin for a mirror.
Warren picks it up with a held breath, clenching his fist when a surge of something rushes through his veins.
Shit—
Whew, he’s still alive. And nobody saw that.
He looks out the door, out the swinging doors of the Devil’s Rest, where the man has long disappeared into the mire of Chicago.
That…That wasn’t magic of the Spirit’s. It wasn’t even magic Warren had heard of, and he was exposed to practically everything it could offer a corpse. Of the myriad ways for someone to die, either by accident or the Spirit’s torture, this was…something worse.
Something deeper, more bestial.
Something carnal, more venomous.
Under normal circumstances he’d throw the coin away and run, run; run as far and as fast away as he could to his Foundation supervisor—
But he fancies that whatever money he’ll make tonight can buy him a nice dessert tomorrow after lunch. He’s got to have some change left over.
Something to make up for the emptiness that will still be there when this romp is all said and done.
It’ll all be worth the pain this coin can cause, surely.
7:27PM. Warren has been waiting for thirty minutes. He arrived here early, just in case he heard wrong or if some curse was about to sprung upon him in the case of lateness. The Spirit occasionally used those kinds of magicks to deal with tardiness.
The Palmer House smells expensive. Whiskey from New Jersey, lemon liqueurs from Italy, even some wine from the south of France—it all glitters against polished wine cabinets and dark wood floors. It’s enough to make him bend his head and pretend nothing is happening, nothing will happen to him. He won’t break any of these, nobody will look at him strangely for being in here, he’s not going to be jumped for being some poor thing tumbling in for a handout—just keep your head bent, Warren. Keep it bent.
He has to wear a special suit when out in public like this, the only thing afforded to him by Madam Bullfinch when he began moonlighting as…well.
He doesn’t like the word. Nobody does, not even the prostitutes themselves. But he’s in a league of his own here, being a man and reveling in the sin of the painted woman. It’s an odd crossroads to be at—it was even odder given his age and even stranger talent from that. He was much older than the youth often employed to turn tricks, but by some stroke of luck, he barely looked a day over twenty-five. Supple cheeks, smooth button nose, a full head of lusciously fluffy hair—if he wasn't wearing the clothes he was now, he swears he would have been mistaken for a girl. He sometimes was, as a child.
Why the wealthy homosexuals of Chicago were so obsessed with youthfulness, he doesn’t know. He made more money for the secrecy of their perversions, but he felt all the more invisible, all the more liable to slip into the real reason he began this in the first place, when he still had his savings moving to this city.
The hole within him—when he first stumbled into Chicago from London after the Great War, he had already lost something close to his heart that broke it in two. A dear friend, a doctor, a man who loved books as much as he loved to teach. That man, Warren dares not remember his name or visage in public—made him feel alive. Electric, rambunctious, anxious and hasty—Warren could not help but want to spend more and more time with him as the years passed on and they were going through the motions together—
Of course, all good things must come to an end. His dear friend perished just a year before the Great War’s end, victim of the same disease afflicting a soldier he tried to save.
Ever since then, it’s been a ghost of a chase. A specter of a high, a glimpse of a silhouette, a hope some soul could mend what was burned and then left to rot in its own vomit. A hope that a man could lift him from this wretched morass.
Failing that, sex came as the second best thing. It was quicker, and easier too.
He doesn’t order any drinks or food, checking the clock as soon as it hits the arranged time. There was the slimmest possibility he would be asked to share room service, some kind of finger food or luscious desserts. That was a very recent addition to the Palmer House’s amenities, and only afforded to those who could afford the faceless privacy, but Warren had been given a sample twice already. Once by an oil baron’s son, the other an industrialist who owned a great many emerald mines.
…There.
The man coasts through the crowd like something less than a spirit. His trenchcoat seems to leave a residue on the floor that nobody notices, for dozens of polished heels amale over it without restraint.
The protocol is to wait. To avoid suspicion, Warren was to trail him approximately a minute after he was out of sight, ideally when he can see nobody in the stairwell that looks important. Discretion could hardly be bought in a mulling crowd as lively as this, but better the lobby be full with eavesdroppers than the halls.
They were everywhere if you knew where to look.
When he finds himself moving, he wonders what the pay is. This wasn’t just about money, obviously, but Madam Bullfinch always insisted upon a larger cut of Warren’s pay than the girls. Forty-sixty, as her husband Perch put it, take it or leave it. Was it because he fetched higher prices? Each session was usually a hundred dollars, an ungodly amount of cash in this day and age.
He gets to the room soon enough. Warren slips in without trouble, having scanned the hallways thoroughly. The air feels electric, wired like a spring, ready to splatter at any moment. Especially over the silken sheets, the chandelier hanging over their heads, the crystal clear window upon which he now looks down at the winding streets of Chicago.
As he locks the door, he notices the man still hasn’t undressed past his outer layers.
“…Excuse me? Sir?”
No response.
Warren sits down on the bed. His suit is ill-fitting, just a tad—off-the-rack ones weren’t sized very well for someone with shoulders as small as his.
“We can get started now if you li—”
“I’m not in the mood,” the man says curtly. Warren swiftly realizes that he missed that this stranger had a posh, royal British accent from their first meeting. Did Madam Bullfinch nmiss that too? This person was from very, very out of town.
“…What am I here for then?” he asks with as much restraint as he can muster. His suit is going to take forever to wash, and he got it out for this?
The man looks over at Warren with those eyes again. Glinting in the room’s yellow light, they are no longer comforting, but instead filled with a sick, stolid curiosity that flutters as he blinks.
Warren gasps as he’s grabbed in what is a very solid, cold hand. Part of the man’s face is hidden by his upturned collar and his shadow.
“…Lithe little thing. You look like a weeping willow more than you do a man.”
If Warren could sigh, he would. Everything about him is smooth, from his face to his chest to even his ass.
This was what he sold himself on, but to be so openly complimented on it in settings like this made him wonder if he could be more. If he had more food to eat, could he gain weight to make that go away? Could he grow taller somehow, maybe, just to hit heights like his father and other brothers did? Everyone in the family was tall, even him, but somehow there was always a man taller. Always a man somehow looking at him like he was some thing more than he was a person.
Maybe he’d finally look his age if he was a person. He certainly felt both the fear of arrest and arrested development, yet by some deigned order from God he’s stuck with a perpetual baby face no matter what he does.
He assumes the man is complimenting him. He has to be. With one swift motion, Warren guides his hand to cup his cheek, thinking this is what he wants. He must be here to merely look at him, afraid to fully commit to the act. No matter, Warren could work with this. It was going to be a monumental pain, but maybe he could…help him be comfortable.
As soon as he leans into the touch, the man jerks his hand away.
“Don’t you dare,” he growls. “Do not touch me unless I say to.”
Warren’s eyes go wide. He gets up to speak, but the man pushes him back down to the bed.
“Stay. I am here tonight to look at something. Satisfy a curiosity of mine, and I will double your pay. Since I know you will wish to inquire more.”
“A curiosity?” Warren’s voice comes out as a hoarse squeak. He didn’t mean to say that aloud.
“Yes,” the man replies stoutly, frowning. His lips are thinner than Warren’s. “I promise, you will not be injured.”
“M-Madam Bullfinch will know if you—”
“That little pest can suck on her hands for all I care. I paid for you, tonight is my time. I chose you for a specific reason, boy.”
Warren shudders, freezing up as the man goes back to…not fondling his face, but tracing it with his finger. Thumbing his jawline. Whatever was him running his fingers over the wet corners of his mouth.
This is followed by him running that same thumb over his cheekbones, nearing his eyes. Warren wonders if there’s the intention to sink skin into his eye sockets, because he’s absolutely defenseless right now. He could bleed so, so easily.
The man sighs, and retracts his hand. He shakes it off like there’s a filth on it, wiping it on a handkerchief he pulls out quickly from his pocket. It’s woven with the most delicate threads Warren thought possible for a piece of cloth.
“Take off your clothes.”
Warren pauses, but obliges him. First comes off his pants, then his shirt. He’s cold, but resists showing it. Soon, it’s just him in his underwear.
The man sighs, motioning for Warren to hold out a hand. He does, and he shudders, but he is still otherwise. Everything in the air, from the cigar smoke lingering on the bedsheets to the wine aromas staining the ceiling feels like needles.
That’s when the man pulls out a real needle.
A large one. Sleek, golden, and with a beautiful marble cameo at the top.
“Steady,” he says as Warren does nothing. He doesn’t jerk away, no, that would be rude, but his heart races as he thinks of the coin again and all of the ways he could be stabbed with such a sharp instrument. It was very similar to the tools he used at work to cut open corpses—why?
They’re not necessarily unpleasant thoughts. In some ways, he would have loved for the man to drag that needle across his skin, just to feel something. Bonus if he told him to take it.
It would be so thrilling, so, so, so thrilling. So much more thrilling than anything he’d get in the morgue or the Foundation’s offices.
“Do this and I will triple your pay tonight. Without telling the Madam—it will be our little secret.”
The man’s deep baritone voice sends steel shivers down Warren’s spine. He didn’t need to be told to hide things from Madam Bullfinch, practically all of his clients did something she’d find offensive in some way or another. Their secrets were meant to die with him, obviously.
“Hold out your arm.”
Warren complies. The needle glows pink for just a second—was that a trick of the light?
The man prods and pokes Warren’s inner arm, as if for a vein. Warren does not breathe for as long as he touches him. Quickly he takes that long sharp point and pricks deep into pallid flesh, muttering a phrase in some unknown language while a small light glows from the tip of his fingernails.
Most people would have run by now. Most people would have screamed. But something in Warren always makes him stay when the offensive acts happen. He’s not meant to just to be poured into, but cut, bled, and thrown around. Pick him up, crush him into pieces—something told him he wouldn’t entirely care, and he didn’t know why that didn’t scare him now as much as it did when he was younger.
Make him useful, do something with his body. Create something temporary disguised as forever with semen, fondling, and bodily fluids. Whatever marked him as something above the dirt he felt like, just for a little bit. Just for a little bit.
Just for a little bit.
Girls didn’t last long in this business before being forced out by the cops. But the ones who did grew older with a plethora of arm scars.
“If I may ask, what—” Warren clears his throat, now reverting to a servicing tone. “Is the point of this?”
“You will see in a moment,” the man replies. “When you pass out.”
Warren gasps as he’s grabbed by his neck, without warning, shaken by the man as he’s pushed back and everything goes black.
When he stirs, the room smells like cream. It smells like something dead floating in a vat of ice cream, as if the mild, milky sweetness was meant to smother something always destined to drown.
His chest feels heavy. As do his hips. And his legs feel…smoother?
Warren coughs, sitting up. The man is eating some rosy macarons off a golden treat cart.
“Wh-Where am I?” Thank god he still sounds like himself. “What happened to me?”
No reply. The door is still locked.
“Look in the mirror,” he says as he pops a puff pastry into his mouth. Warren drools a bit, until he realizes his lips are wet with…something else.
Wet with…wait, what?
Why do his hands feel so small?
A tall, silver mirror sits erect besides him. Without any words, Warren slowly arches his neck over, realizing quickly that it’s missing its—
“What have you done to me?!”
Warren bolts upright, clutching his chest and privates. He stumbles over himself, tripping onto the floor, the man snarling at him with pointed fangs.
“You little—”
“What did you do to me?!” His voice doesn’t match his appearance anymore. It doesn’t match his new long curly blonde hair, his skinny little waist, or the sleek, slender legs he now sports.
“Why am I a—a—?!”
“Keep your voice down,” the man hisses at him. Warren swallows spit that tastes like foundation and lipstick.
Turning back to the mirror again, he can’t believe what he’s become. To say he was a woman was an understatement—he looked like someone halfway shoved into a different body. While his legs were skinny, his feet remained the same size, same with his shoulders. Though there was fat padding his thighs, it felt like there was a phantom weight between his legs that should have been there, hanging down.
None of that was mentioning his face looked exactly the same. Same jaw, same lips, same nose, everything.
That wasn’t proper for a woman.
“…You look off.”
Warren stares, catatonic. His eyes water as he shakes.
“…Please,” he begs, thinking of what his father might say if he saw him, his coworkers at the Foundation. The Spirit, even.
“Please what?” The man sits down on the bed with little empathy in his voice. “I did you a favor, did I not?”
Warren blinks, his hands going to his thighs. He squeezes, his breathing fast.
“Why?”
The man rolls his eyes. “Why what? Stop asking me questions. Stand up.”
Of course he obliges.
The man approaches Warren and grabs his jaw again. Warren wants to cry watching him, beautiful even if his silhouette was obscured by clothing. He looks like what Warren should be. What he wanted to be: aged, and chiseled to perfection. Capable of growing facial hair, needing the routine to shave it and keep it down…
“Why didn’t this work…”
Warren freezes, tensing. He grips his chest and shudders. His breasts don’t feel like they belong to him. They’re far too large.
“Your face looks odd for a woman.”
Warren nods. “I suppose so.”
“Your hair is beautiful, but why are your shoulders still so wide?”
He whimpers. “I don’t know.”
The man mutters something about fairy glamours under his breath that Warren can’t quite hear. “Are you not enjoying this?”
Are you not enjoying this?
Asked to him during a drag party back in 1934. One of the oddest things about the Chicago Spirit was the kinds of people they let into their bars. There was no decorum about who needed a drink; no noses turned up at who came in and out of their dusty floors with want on their breath. Wayward souls, straggling whores, homeless rats, all were welcome if you had the money for a drink.
But for a while a few years ago they played host to something else.
Warren turns to the mirror again and compares himself to the people he saw back then. Large, beautiful men in makeup and lipstick, prancing around in red dress with women below them hanging off each others’ arms. They’re making obscene gestures and speaking in even more obscene tongues as a piano plays, the air smelling of sex, lust, and liquor the more the night goes on.
His frame looks like them. In this very queer new body of his, halfway to his desires and halfway out of it, he feels like he’s playing pretend. Both with men, the sex his heart belonged to, and what it wasn’t, what he’s sure is a false skin that he must take off sooner rather than later if he is to keep his sanity.
Why did those people do what they did? He didn’t know. He sure as hell didn’t ask. Tacky feather boas, fur coats made of mink and clacky heels—what motivates a man to wear something like that? What motivates women to see that type of clothing as desirable, except obligation?
What motivates a drag queen to prance around and blur those lines?
Allegedly Chappell, the leader of the Chicago Spirit, watched those kinds of people. Lesbians, pansies, homosexuals of all types. Nobody knew why; Warren had heard the jokes that he was one of them, but he dared not repeat those in polite company unless he wanted three bullets in his head, unless he wanted to be one of the bodies in the morgue he went to everyday.
The man frowns.
“I thought—”
He stutters for a few more moments. Warren looks back at him.
His eyes— His pupils—
They’re slits, like a cat’s.
When did that happen?
Warren clears his throat. “…Can you change me back?”
The man does not respond. Warren sighs.
“This…it can’t be permanent,” Warren says shakily.
“You should be squirming more,” the man replies.
Warren can only turn to him and lean against a vanity.
“Do you want me to?”
The man looks like a statue when he pouts, when his lifeless eyes are wide and boring into flesh. Warren twirls his hair with long, bony fingers and slumps. Thank god he doesn’t have clothes on right now.
“…Do you dream of this?” is all the man asks, quiet and solemn, coming down from an authoritative tone. It sounds like the physical embodiment of rust forming.
“Of being a woman?” Warren considers his answer for a moment. He could be honest, say no and go home. He could be true to his soul and recall the hideous fact his father nearly drowned him as a child because he got too close to the other boys at school. Boys are for women, and women are for the boys, he said.
But perhaps there is something to be had here. Perhaps this man just needs some…coaxing.
Or perhaps there is something within him that needs to be dug out.
“Every man dreams of it.”
The man’s pupil’s dilate. He stutters over his next words a little bit, leaning forward.
“…Really? It makes life so difficult for you.”
“What, are you not into the fairer sex? It’s not as queer of an affinity as you think it is.”
The man stands up straight, glaring.
“I would loathe to touch you if I was given the option. Don’t lie to me, boy.”
Warren gasps as a hand reaches and grabs him, pulling him down by his hair. The man hovers over him with a burning hatred, his palms beginning to smell like smoke. His fangs glitter with frustration, and the crackling of a quick flick of magic.
“You are lying to me. Foul little thing. Good-for-nothing whore. I don’t even know why I bothered with this.”
Warren whines, falling to the floor when he’s thrown aside. The man’s trenchcoat catches on his foot and he kicks him, leering deeply at him.
“Why?”
Tears. All Warren can do is summon tears. He covers himself as if he’ll be hit again.
“Why lie to me?” the man asks, guttural and clear. “I know it’s part of your…”
He pauses, looking down at his own hands as if they’re imprinted over Warren’s. Warren catches just the smallest glimpse of the man’s face stitching together in terror just before he turns away.
“Nature. But I came here seeking the truth, and you cannot be bothered to overcome yourself for a single moment?”
No words. There’s nothing to be said, nothing to be done while in this body. Womb of truth, womb of lies. Warren just hopes he doesn’t have one—his sisters had the worst periods growing up.
This has to be temporary. He can feel wisps of smoke trailing off his breasts as he struggles to get back up. Where it left, it peels away skin, peels it away in a painful, pink polish dripping down his muscles and legs.
The man scoffs. He throws something at Warren, something soft, yet hard enough to roll his head over just a bit. What was inside of it?
He threw a wallet at me? Warren thinks as he sits up. He wipes the fake lipstick off his mouth readily.
“Take it. Take your pay and leave. Disgusting little cretin—”
There’s no use in protesting. Warren knows it won’t work, knows that for someone as rich as this, there’s no use in really anything at all. He’ll have his way whether he wants to or not, he’ll languish in his own misery like a thick stew simmering to burnt.
It’s inevitable. He wishes it wasn’t, but this is just the way things are.
What matters now is making sure he’ll get out of this alive. Out of this in one piece ideally, because if he died, well, he'd want to go in some dignity. The idea of being buried in a potter’s field because no one recognized him—Warren had few concerns about death, but that was perhaps the worst fate for someone like him in his mind.
He grabs sheets off the bed and pulls them over himself in a frenzy. The man is gathering his things to leave, shoving everything into a little bag taking far more than its size should allow. The way he moves is haphazard, clunky, stuttering almost, like a lightbulb flickering on and off. Warren didn't know someone could shake so much.
His sloughing form receives not a goodbye, but a door slam and a turning of a lock.
Silence.
Silence as the world mills about outside, as heavy footsteps eventually disappear and the spinning in his head finally goes away.
Ah, what is he to do now?
Warren looks back to himself in the mirror one more time. He wipes dirt off his cheek that he quickly realizes is just the magic used to transform him now going bad. Ugh. Why did it have to look like stained milk?
Best to wait this out, then escape through the window when he could find his composure.
Not the way Warren wanted this to end, but at least he was still a man at the end of the day. At least he got his pay, and can take it back to Madam Bullfinch.
That was the best thing in the world for someone like him.
Percival Darke arrives at his limousine quickly, panting as cold air burns his lungs. The image of Warren won’t leave his mind; it festers as he takes his seat and barks a command to his driver.
Why didn’t it work? Why didn’t it work? God, it was the latest development in glamour magic and it still didn’t change his voice. It still refused to touch his mind. Those damn fairies—did he forget to read some fine print? Did they trick him with some verbal loophole again? If so, there was going to be a lot of meetings when he got back to London. Lots of wringing that stupid queen Ortellica and making sure she knew to keep her subjects in line.
He was definitely lying, but Percival wants to believe him. He wants to believe the word of one who barely looked like a man in the first place, the ideal image to Percival as far as men went. They were nothing special to look at unless they were small, boyish, and coy like flowers in a field, destined to die at any moment.
But those weren’t the kind of men who did well in business. Anyone like that knows better than to remain like that for long—put your suit on, straighten your shoulders, avoid bad company. Avoid bad company at all costs, avoid the kinds of people who would love you so fiercely for that kind of appearance.
Does what Percival did tonight make him one of them?
One of the perverts, one of the degenerates? One of the mollies, one of the in-group queers that pranced around Chicago as they did London, New York, Paris, and Amsterdam?
He shudders as his mind wanders intrusively to the kind of glares he would get from his clients. Knowing who he contacted, what he did to him, how he did it. The mere idea of them watching him asking that question, so needy and pathetic and desperate.
That would mean death. Loss of profits, utter ruin. His partners would view him as a pansy, a freak of nature, something more hideous than sin and lesser than nothing.
Wasting good magic on such silly little thought experiments… Expensive magic too. That pathetic ant didn’t deserve any of that.
So why couldn’t he just walk away?
Why couldn’t he just have pretended the buzzing in his head didn’t exist again?
Why get someone involved with that? The affliction that had cursed him ever since he took on a merchant’s life? That poor sap probably barely escaped with his own. And if he did, he’ll probably be contained by the Foundation as some halfway thing until the glamour fully wears off.
Percival groans as the car pulls into a garage. The darkness reminds him of what he wears, drab barrier blankets between his body and his mind that made him forget how wide his own shoulders were. How narrow his hips were, his legs and his chest.
It’s only the most appropriate attire.
Too many dreams… no, nightmares, about becoming a woman. About being a woman. Suffering as they suffer, ravaged as they're ravaged. It's too much. It's all too much.
And yet never enough. He…He treasures those dreams more than he admits, more than he wants to.
Waking up like that one day…
…
By the time Percival reaches his suite, he has concocted the most elegant of ‘forget-me’ spells in his mind, one that pairs well with brandy and ice. He will have to give up something later down the line for this little comfort, but the fairies had caused enough trouble today, what was a little more?
As he pours himself a draught, his finger dipping into the drink to poison it with the taste of honeysuckle, wolfsbane and the waters of Ortellica, he hopes he gets to put this all behind him. That he will never suffer again the misfortune of conducting a charade of this caliber.
It’s only natural. It’s only natural.
Only natural, unlike everything else that happens so plainly.