Page 44 of Rock Bottom
“I told Julian you were my therapist a long time ago. I figure Marco knows because he’s told me he’s been through my head. I’d really rather no one else knows.”
“When you were my patient, I was still human, living in a world of supernaturals, and…” She sighed. “Maybemostlyhuman would be more accurate. The point is, I drew the attention of some of the big bad guys. Evil vampires, and worse.
“Usually, either Cora or Nathan was assigned to guard me. They sat in the waiting room, but they saw people coming and going. I haven’t asked either of them if they remember you, but there’s a good chance they saw you in the outer room. The NDA I had with Drake Security protected my patients, all the privacy stuff was good, but you should know the two of them might know you were my patient. I haven’t asked them because if they don’t remember then I’ll have told them you were.”
I nodded. “Okay. Thanks for telling me.”
“One of the things I find fascinating now that I have more senses than I used to, is that I can feel the masculine energy coming off you today. Last night, too. But early yesterday, you felt more feminine.”
“Julian says my scent changes. What are you picking up?”
“I have no idea. Your aura, I figure. Your basic energy signature. I have a friend who transitioned years ago, and she’sallfeminine when I see her. She transitioned for real, you know? I have no idea what’s in her pants these days and it’s none of my business, but it doesn’t matter because her energy signature is completely female. Actually, she was on the last Girls’ Night Out, so you might have met her? Tara? She’s a nurse, and she stows a medical kit in one of the limos now, since she invariably ends up working onsomeonepretty much every outing.”
Before I could answer, she continued. “There’s this trans woman who works at a coffeeshop I like though, and she’s completely masculine energy, every time I’m in there. Cora says her scent is masculine, so…” She shrugged. “I call hershebecause that’s what she says she is, but I wish her aura and scent reflected that. It’s like…”
She sighed. “Whatever her reasons, her heart doesn’t seem to be in it because she still either thinks of herself as male, or there’s something else going on, and wow, that sounds bitchy — I don’t mean it as a judgment, it’s just something I notice, y’know? Whatever she’s working through, I hope she has the proper support.”
It would’ve beensoeasy to go off on a rant about how this latest trend has fucked it up for people like me — those of us who’ve never fit cleanly into society’s boxes — but I’ve developed a personal policy of not speaking about other people’s journeys, so I focused on my own experience.
“I mean, I’ve been like this, dressing how I feel, since I started elementary school — long before this sudden wave of people trying out new pronouns or identities, but I figure it isn’t my place to decide who’s experimenting and who’s finding their truth. The whole thing annoys me, but I figure it’s healthiest for me, personally, to ignore it, to just focus on myself and not others.”
“I think I agree with that.”
“Cora’s right. It’s easier being your friend. As my therapist, you’d have spent most of the hour digging into that andexploringit.”
She chuckled. “Yeah, probably, but like you said, you know who you are now.”
I pulled the sausage pan off the burner and kept stirring the onions. “These are close. We can probably add the mushrooms and tomatoes. I prefer to add the spinach towards the end, so it’s cooked a little, but not too much.”
“Me too.” She walked to me with a cutting board, pushed all the mushrooms and tomatoes in, and I stirred it all together.
“So, Nathan was your bodyguard, and now ya’ll are together?”
“It’s so much more complicated than that, but yeah. I’m going to crack the eggs while you finish up with that. Toss the spinach in when you think it’s time. How many eggs do you want?”
I looked at them and saw they were on the small side, and said, “Three, please.”
“Yeah, me too.”
Before long, we were sitting at the table with our omelets and some potato fritters, which she made from leftover mashed potatoes while I made the omelets.
“Where is everyone?” I asked.
“Nathan and Cora are sleeping in. Mordecai stopped by briefly last night. We’ll have a big meeting with all of us, you included, to talk about the necklace. We haven’t set a time yet, but it should happen in the next couple of days. I think Mordecai may bring my old Sensei, who had the necklace before I did.”
“It chose you while you were visiting him?”
“He offered it to me before I went on something of a quest. He told me it might not choose to stay with me, but if it did, to pay attention to it. Turns out, it decided to stay with me. I have no idea if he knew it would, or whether he thought it would return to him when I finished my quest.”
She put her fork down and looked at me, her gaze serious. “I don’t know how much I should tell you about Xaephan, so I’m going to give you some highlights of the personal bits. You’ll find out more at the meeting, along with a game plan of how you should deal with him if he appears out of thin air.”
She shook her head. “Sometimes he walks up to you in his own body, and sometimes he’s in the body of someone else, so he looks human and he’s talking from their larynx. I imagine he can mimic the person’s speech, but for me, he’s always talked like himself — his cadence and accent, word choices, snarkiness — even if his voice sounded like the person he’d taken over.”
“You mean, like, possessed?”
She nodded. “Yes. There are people who’ll make deals that allow him to take over their body, or agree to kill someone, seduce them, steal from them, whatever. He’s very good at making things sound tempting, and he’s tricky. No matter what he offers, your answer needs to beNo deal.Nothing else. Don’t argue, don’t negotiate—he’ll twist anything you say into agreement.”
She crossed her arms. “Andfuck, knowing him, if that’s all you say, he’ll structure things so if you say those words you’re accepting it, in which case, just stare at him and don’t say anything. Use your brain when you’re with him — listen to every word and analyze every sentence. I can’t stress enough how tricky he can be. It’ssoeasy to like him, but you can’t trust him even a tiny bit.”
