Chapter 38 Chapter 37: The Experiment
Some point deep into the night; we both stirred on the sofa. The credits of the old movie were rolling in silence, casting a faint, grey light across the room. I must have fallen asleep too, lulled by her warmth and the weight of the day. My neck was stiff, and Silver was a soft, heavy warmth against my side.
Gently, I shifted, rousing her just enough to mumble. "Come on," I whispered, my voice rough with sleep. "Let's get to bed."
It was a clumsy, tender procession. I half-walked, half-carried her the short distance from the living room, her body leaning into mine, her feet shuffling. She was mostly a dreamy weight, her consciousness already fading back into sleep. As I lowered her onto the cool sheets, she murmured something into the pillow, her words slurred and thick.
“We were going to have sex,” she said, the statement simple and soft, almost an echo from a waking thought now surfacing in the shallows of sleep. It was a fact, devoid of pressure, a quiet acknowledgment of a promise the evening had held.
I pulled the blanket up to her chin, my heart aching with a mixture of fondness and a sharp, protective fear. I bent down and kissed her temple.
“We will,” I promised into the quiet dark, my words a vow meant more for myself than for her. “We’ll do it tomorrow.”
But Silver was already asleep, her breathing evening out into a deep, peaceful rhythm. She never heard my words, and as I crawled into bed beside her, the promise hung in the air, feeling as fragile as the moonlight on the floor. Tomorrow was a cliff edge, and I was terrified of the fall.
Silver had Uni in the morning and a shift at the Apostrophe at night, but she had a precious few hours in the afternoon where our worlds could overlap. We shared a quiet breakfast, toast and kaf-ka, the domesticity of it both comforting and strangely painful. Before she left, she kissed me deeply, a promise sealed with a smile. "This afternoon," she whispered, her eyes sparkling with a mix of desire and reassurance. The unspoken plan hung between us: This will fix it.
The moment the door clicked shut behind her, the apartment felt cold and empty. The lingering scent of her kafka was a ghost, and the silence was a physical weight. The promise of the afternoon felt both like a lifeline and a countdown to potential heartbreak.
I needed a distraction, something to stop me from watching the clock. I decided to go through all the files on Sylva again, to bury my anxiety in facts and figures. I was determined to know that place better than I knew the back of my own hand.
The absurdity of the thought hit me like a physical blow. I let out a sharp, involuntary laugh that echoed in the empty room. The back of my own hand? My own body was a stranger to me, changing as unpredictably as the wind. The laughter caught in my throat, twisting into something perilously close to a sob. I took a deep, shuddering breath, forcing the emotion down.
Then I saw my com unit. The screen showed over twenty unread texts from my mother. A wave of guilt, thick and suffocating, washed over me. I couldn't avoid her any longer.
I took the com onto the balcony for a sliver of change, the cool air a shock. I tapped her contact, my finger trembling.
The connection was instant. "Nanda?" my mum's voice squeaked with relief and worry. "Where have you been? I've been worried sick!"
"Hi, Mum," I said, forcing a lightness I didn't feel. "Sorry. I've been... sick. Bedridden, really. I'm staying at a friend's place until I get better." The lie felt like ash in my mouth.
There was a pause on the other end of the line, a beat too long. "Your voice..." she said, her tone shifting from concern to confusion. "It sounds different. Deeper."
My heart hammered against my ribs. "Yeah," I croaked, leaning into the excuse. "Sore throat. It's really raw." I tried to clear it, which only made the sound more convincingly gruff.
"Have you heard from the clinic?" she asked, the worry returning.
"No," I said, the truth for once. "They said it would be a few days." I prayed she wouldn't call them to check.
"And what about Sylva? With you being sick and all..." Her voice was laced with a fresh layer of anxiety. The diplomatic mission was her pride, and my potential failure her fear.
"I'll be fine by then, Mum," I interrupted, perhaps too quickly. "It's just the flu. A couple of days' rest and I'll be good as new." The words sounded hollow even to me. Good as new. If only she knew how impossible that was.
We said our goodbyes, her concern only partially placated. I ended the call and leaned heavily on the balcony railing, the cold metal a stark contrast to the feverish shame burning my skin. Every lie was another brick in a wall between me and the life I was desperately trying to hold onto.
I continued to study until Silver arrived home, the dense text on Sylvan trade agreements serving as a feeble dam against the torrent of my anxieties. I focused on the words until they blurred, a desperate attempt to stop thinking about everything, my body, my future, and most pressingly, the promised, terrifying intimacy with Silver.
When her key finally turned in the lock, she rushed in like a storm, all vibrant energy and wind-tousled hair. The apartment, which had felt so cold and empty, was instantly charged with her presence. She didn't say a word. Her first kiss was an answer to every unspoken question, a desperate, hungry connection that melted all my fears away, if only for a moment.
What followed was a frenzy. We ripped the clothes from each other like crazed animals, fabric tearing, buttons pinging against the wall. The intellectual calm I had forced upon myself shattered into a thousand primal pieces. She felt so small and fierce in my arms, a bundle of taut muscle and soft skin. I ran my hands down the perfect, delicate arch of her back while our kiss deepened, a tangle of tongues and shared breath. My anther was already hard and urgent between us.
When my hands reached the soft, perfect curve of her bum, I didn't hesitate. I lifted her effortlessly, and she wrapped her legs around my waist. In one fluid, desperate motion, I impaled her onto me. The sensation was electric, and she purred a loud, lasting moan directly into my mouth, a sound of pure, unadulterated need.
We crashed against the nearest wall, the impact jarring us. Pressing her into the plaster, I began to pump into her. Her fingers clawed into my sweaty back, leaving trails of fire on my skin. With each thrust, I sped up, driven by her gasps and the overwhelming need to lose myself completely. We were a crazed, rhythmic dance of slamming bodies, a tempest contained within the four walls of her apartment.
Half-turning, I carried us to the bed, never breaking our connection, and dropped us onto the rumpled sheets with me still buried deep inside her. "Yes… Yes!" her screams were not just of pleasure, but of command, and they drove my lust to its absolute limit. I was surfing a tide of her passion, each moan, each quiver of her body a wave that pushed me further.
Just as her screams reached a new, piercing height and her body arched into a final, shuddering climax, I spent my load. A hot, pulsing release, the salt of life pumping into her as my own vision whited out at the edges.
She held me in a tight, trembling hug as I collapsed, gasping, trying to find the breath I had exhaled moments before. After a moment, I rolled off her, the cool air of the room a shock on my feverish skin. I needed to come down, to remember how to breathe.
She looked over at me, her face flushed and glorious, and laughed a breathless, happy laugh. "You're out of shape, Nate," she teased, putting a deliberate, playful emphasis on the Nate. Her fingers trailed down my stomach and toyed idly with my now-flaccid anther, a cheeky smile playing on her lips.
The moment of pure, animalistic connection faded, and reality seeped back in. I was still a Nate.
"I need to take a waterdrop and go," she said, her voice tinged with genuine sorrow. She leaned over and kissed my shoulder. "Come to the bar tonight and pick me up. No argument." It was a statement, not a request. Then, before I could form a reply, she slipped out of bed and padded towards the bathroom, leaving me alone in the quiet, the scent of our sex heavy in the air, and the weight of my unchanged body heavier still.
“I love you,” she said, the words tossed back over her shoulder like a lifeline as she headed out the door to work. The door clicked shut, a soft, final sound that echoed in the sudden stillness of the apartment.
And I was once again alone.
The silence that descended was absolute, broken only by the frantic thrumming of my own heart. I stood frozen in the centre of the room, my entire being focused inward, scanning for a shift, a tremor, any sign of the transformation we had so desperately hoped for. I waited for the familiar tingle, the softening of edges, the profound internal realignment that would mean I was returning to myself, to the, her that Silver had fallen in love with.
But I felt nothing.
No change. No magic. No sudden rewriting of my biology.
There was only the hollow, aching absence of Silver. The warmth she left behind in the air was already cooling. The ghost of her touch on my skin was a taunt. The theory, our beautiful, desperate hope that our intimacy was the key, lay shattered around me. It wasn't the sex. It had never been just the sex.
The crushing weight of the truth settled in my bones. I was not a puzzle to be solved with a key. I was a permanent anomaly. A freak.
Her "I love you," still hanging in the air, now felt like a requiem. It was a love offered for a person who, in that moment, felt irretrievably lost. And I was left standing there, in a body that was both familiar and alien, with the devastating knowledge that I had no idea how to find my way back.