Chapter 2: The Walk of Shame
The Jeep felt like a tank he was no longer licensed to drive. Every shift of the gears was an exercise in spatial miscalculation. The steering wheel pressed against the compressed swell of his chest with each turn, the seatbelt a diagonal line of confinement. He drove through the sleeping city, hyper-aware of every potential gaze from other cars, of his own silhouette backlit by streetlights. The city was quiet, but inside the cab, the noise of his own breathing was deafening.
He pulled into the familiar cracked asphalt lot behind the duplex. His parking spot, next to Ben’s equally battered pickup. He killed the engine and sat in the sudden silence, staring at the dark, familiar shape of their back door. The porch light was burnt out. It had been for months. A detail that used to mean nothing, just another thing on the endless “we’ll get to it” list. Now, the pool of darkness felt like a threat.
Getting out was harder than getting in. He half-slid, half-fell out of the high seat, his sneaker catching on the running board. He stumbled, catching himself on the doorframe. The night air was cool, sharp with the smell of damp grass and garbage from the cans lined up by the fence. He fumbled for his keys, the familiar jagged metal teeth feeling alien in his smaller, softer hand.
The key scratched at the lock, missing twice before sliding home. The deadbolt clunked back with a sound that echoed in the still night. He pushed the door open, stepping into the familiar, oppressive warmth of home.
It smelled of old takeout, cheap beer, and the faint, ever-present musk of male sweat ingrained in the furniture. The living room was dark, lit only by the flickering blue glow of a muted video game paused on the massive TV. A first-person shooter, frozen mid-gunfight.
“Hammer? That you? You’re like, four hours late. We demolished that lasagna.”
Ben’s voice came from the couch, a lazy, sleepy drawl. Mark could make out his form sprawled across the worn leather, a blanket tangled around his feet.
Mark froze just inside the door, his heart hammering against the tight confines of the support top. He hadn’t planned this. The entire drive, his mind had been a white noise of sensation and dread, with no concrete script for this moment.
“Yeah,” he said. His voice, even pitched higher, sounded strained, weird in the familiar space.
Ben shifted, sitting up a little. The blue TV light caught the planes of his face. Handsome in a rough, careless way, his own rugby-built frame a bulky shadow. “You sound weird. You get a cold at your weirdo science-fair thing?” He snorted. “Bet you got paid in exposure, right?”
A weak joke. An old routine. Mark stood rooted to the spot, the manila envelope a damp rectangle in his hand. He had to move. He had to get to his room. He took a step, then another, his sneakers squeaking on the linoleum.
The movement caught Ben’s eye. He squinted through the gloom, his sarcasm fading into confusion. “Whoa. Who the hell…?” He fumbled for the lamp on the side table.
Light bloomed, harsh and sudden, flooding the cluttered room.
Mark stopped, exposed.
Ben’s face went through a rapid series of adjustments. First, simple confusion at seeing a woman in their apartment at 3 AM. Then, a flicker of male appraisal, automatic and instinctive, as his eyes took in the outline: the desperate tightness of the jeans over the dramatic hips and rear, the way the baggy sweatshirt still couldn’t hide the pronounced jut of chest, the slender column of the neck leading to that softly pretty, stunned face.
Then his eyes dropped. To Mark’s feet. To the beaten-up, oversized sneakers. The same pair Mark had worn for two years. The left one had a specific tear near the toe from a fence he’d climbed last summer. Ben knew those shoes.
His gaze snapped back up to Mark’s face, searching, his brain visibly refusing to connect the dots. The smirk was long gone, replaced by a slack, open-mouthed stare. “What the…?”
“It’s me,” Mark said, the words barely a whisper.
“What?” Ben blinked.
“Ben. It’s me. Mark.”
The silence that followed was physical, a thick, suffocating thing. The only sound was the faint hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen.
Ben didn’t move. He just stared. His eyes traveled again, slower this time, with a dawning, horrific comprehension. They went from the sneakers, up the jeans that clung to a form that had never existed in this apartment before, lingered on the impossible curves under the sweatshirt, and finally locked onto Mark’s eyes. He was looking for Hammer in there. For his roommate. For the guy he’d drunk beers with and covered rent for.
He saw only a scared, devastatingly pretty woman.
“No,” Ben said flatly. “No way. This is a prank. Did Derek put you up to this? This is some next-level, fucked-up—” He stood up, unfolding his height, moving closer. He towered over Mark’s new, reduced stature. Mark instinctively took a half-step back, a flinch that was entirely new.
“It’s not a prank,” Mark said, forcing his voice louder. It still wavered. “The trial. The one for the money. They… it worked.”
Ben stopped a few feet away, close enough for Mark to smell the stale beer on his breath, to see the stubble on his chin. Ben’s eyes weren’t friendly anymore. They were wide, incredulous, and dark with something like anger. “Worked? Hammer, you look like you stepped off a fucking… a magazine stand. This isn’t ‘worked.’ This is… what did they do to you?”
“They gave me the money,” Mark said, the desperation clawing back. He held up the envelope like a shield. “A hundred grand. It’s processing. My problems are solved.”
Ben’s eyes didn’t leave his body. The gaze wasn’t admiring now. It was dissecting. “Your problems?” A harsh laugh escaped him. “Dude. Look at you. Your problems just started. How is this… how is this even possible?” He took another step, circling slightly, as if inspecting a bizarre artifact. “Your voice. Your face. And… all that.” He gestured vaguely at Mark’s torso, his own face flushing. “That’s… that’s not real.”
“It’s real,” Mark whispered, humiliation burning his cheeks.
Without thinking, driven by a need to prove this insane reality, Ben’s hand came up—not to touch Mark’s face, but to poke, prodding, at the fabric of the sweatshirt over his chest. It was a clumsy, brusque gesture, the way he might poke a questionable piece of meat on a grill.
His finger made contact, pressing into the firm, undeniable fullness underneath.
They both froze.
A jolt, electric and sickening, went through Mark. It wasn’t sexual. It was a violent violation of boundaries that no longer existed, a physical confirmation of his new tangible reality from the one person whose opinion still mattered. Ben yanked his hand back as if burned, his face pale.
“Jesus Christ,” Ben breathed, his voice hushed. “It’s real. You’re really… you’re a girl.”
“I’m not a girl,” Mark snapped, a flare of his old anger surfacing through the shock. “I’m me. They just… changed the packaging.”
“The packaging?” Ben’s laugh was brittle, unhinged. “Hammer, you’re a fucking boutique now. Look at this place!” He swept an arm around the room at the faded sports banners, the dusty trophies, the empty protein shaker bottles on the coffee table. “What the hell do we do? You can’t… you can’t live here. Not like that.”
The words landed like a punch. “It’s my place too. I paid rent.”
“With money you got for turning into a chick!” Ben ran a hand through his hair, pacing a short, frustrated path. “The guys… the team… what am I supposed to tell people? That my roommate got a magic sex change and now looks like a porn star? They’ll think I’ve lost it. They’ll think you’ve lost it.”
“I didn’t have a choice!” Mark’s voice cracked.
“You always have a choice! You chose the money!” Ben stopped pacing, turning on him. The confusion in his eyes had crystallized into a hot, resentful glare. “You think this is easy for me? I’m looking at my friend, and my brain is telling me one thing, but my eyes…” He trailed off, his gaze dropping again, involuntarily, to the tight denim. He looked away quickly, disgusted—whether with Mark or himself, it wasn’t clear. “This is messed up. This is so deeply messed up.”
The fight drained out of Mark, replaced by a weary, hollow ache that was more than physical. He just stood there, in the middle of their disgusting living room, a foreign object. The initial shock in Ben’s eyes had been bad. This—this rejection, this disgust—was worse.
“I need to sleep,” Mark said dully. He turned toward the hallway that led to their bedrooms.
“Whoa, hold on.” Ben’s voice stopped him. It was quieter now, but strained. “Where are you going?”
“To my room.”
Ben shifted his weight, looking acutely uncomfortable. “Your room… look, man. Girl. Whatever. You’re not walking around here like that. Not until we figure this out. Put on, I don’t know, a parka. Something.”
Mark looked down at himself, at the clothes that were already a desperate attempt at coverage. A hysterical laugh threatened to bubble up. A parka. In September.
He didn’t reply. He just walked down the short, dark hallway, feeling Ben’s eyes boring into his back the entire way. He pushed the door to his bedroom open.
It was a time capsule. A shrine to Hammer. A pennant from the championship game two years ago. A shelf of trophies. His old rugby jersey, number 8, hung on the closet door. The bed was unmade, sheets tangled. It smelled like him, like the ghost that lived here.
He closed the door and leaned against it, the wood solid against his back. He was shaking. The envelope fell from his fingers to the floor.
For a long time, he just stood there in the dark, listening to the silence of the apartment. Then, from the living room, he heard the unmistakable sound of a beer can being cracked open. Then another. The quick, sharp hisses punctuated the night.
Ben was drinking. Alone.
Mark finally moved, stumbling toward the small, attached bathroom. He didn’t turn on the overhead light. He clicked on the dimmer bulb above the medicine cabinet mirror.
He had to see. Without the baggy sweatshirt.
His hands were trembling as he pulled the sweatshirt up and over his head. The support top was next, a relentless grip he peeled away. The cool air of the bathroom hit his skin, and he watched in the mirror as his body reacted, the details sharpening in the low light.
He was monumental. The booster serum hadn’t
just exaggerated his existing frame—it had invented entirely new geography. The reflection showed slopes and valleys that belonged to a different species of person. He traced a line from the underside of one breast, down the severe concavity of his waist, to the flared shelf of his hip. The skin was smooth, unblemished, soft to his own tentative touch. It felt like touching a mannequin, something purchased and assembled.
A strange, detached curiosity cut through the horror. He turned, looking over his shoulder at the reflection of his back, the dramatic taper, the new, rounded prominence below his waist. He’d never had to think about his own rear view before. It was a fact, like his elbows. Now it was a statement.
He heard another beer can hiss open in the living room. The sound was aggressive. An accusation.
The numbness began to crack, pushed aside by a simmering, familiar anger. This was his place. He’d paid rent here for two years, even when he was short. He’d bled on that couch from a split lip after the championship game. That was his jersey on the door. That was his life in this room. And Ben was out there, drinking their beer and deciding he didn’t belong anymore because of… packaging.
A reckless heat flooded him. It was the same heat that used to send him charging down the rugby pitch, ignoring the smarter play. The same stubbornness that made him sign Dr. Reed’s waiver. He was tired of being stared at. He was tired of being a problem.
He looked at the old jersey. Number 8. It hung loose and large. He yanked it off the hook, the familiar smell of old sweat and grass hitting him. It was a tent. He pulled it over his head, and it swam on him, the shoulders hanging past his arms, the hem brushing his thighs. It concealed everything, turning the dramatic silhouette back into a shapeless mass. He looked like a kid playing dress-up. Or a girl trying very hard not to be noticed.
That wasn’t the point anymore.
He ran his hands through his hair—the blonde, fuller hair he’d barely registered—and felt a plan, stupid and defiant, crystallize. If Ben wanted to be uncomfortable, he’d give him a reason. He’d force the reality down his throat until he choked on it.
He brushed his blonde hair out of his face and smirked. He was about to fuck with Ben.
He defiantly stepped out of the room shirtless, the huge jersey hanging open like a robe, and announced to the living room, “Yes, bro. I have tig ol’ bitties for the next year. If this is gonna be a problem, let me know. I’ll move into the girls’ dorm.”
Ben, midway through raising a fresh beer to his lips, froze. His eyes, already red-rimmed from shock and alcohol, widened. They fixed on Mark’s chest, now openly displayed in the gap of the jersey, then darted to his face, searching for the joke. He found none. Just a hardened, challenging glare in a face that had no business making it.
The can lowered slowly to the coffee table with a dull clink. Ben’s expression cycled from shock to disbelief, then settled into a deep, weary anger. “Put a fucking shirt on, Hammer.”
“Or what?” Mark took another step forward, letting the jersey swing. “You gonna poke me again? Freak you out that bad?”
“Everything about this freaks me out!” Ben shouted, surging to his feet. The beer sloshed over his hand. “You showing up like… like that! You talking like that! It’s not funny!”
“Who’s laughing?” Mark’s voice was low, calm. A dangerous contrast to Ben’s outburst. “You said I can’t live here like this. So I’m showing you this. This is the packaging. The hundred-grand packaging. You gonna help me figure it out, or you gonna sit there and judge which parts of your buddy you can still look at?”
Ben’s jaw worked. He looked away, his gaze landing everywhere but on Mark—on the trophies, the TV, the blank screen. The silence stretched, thick and sour. When he finally spoke, his voice was rough, defeated. “Just put the shirt on. Please. This is… I need a minute.”
Mark stood his ground for a three-count, letting the tension simmer. Then, with a slow, deliberate motion, he pulled the edges of the jersey together. He didn’t close it. He just held it. “We’re having a house meeting tomorrow,” he said, his tone leaving no room for argument. “Figure out the rules. For both of us.”
He turned and walked back to his room, leaving Ben standing amidst the debris of their former normalcy, the reality of their new one hanging open in the space between them.
The door clicked shut behind him, a sound both final and fragile. He stood in the dark of his room, the oversized jersey hanging from his shoulders like a ghost of his old self. The adrenaline that had propelled him out there was gone, leaving a hollow, quaking shame in its place. He could still feel the phantom pressure of Ben’s finger, that clumsy, brutal probe. Outside, he heard the couch groan as Ben collapsed back onto it, followed by the slow, deliberate crack of another beer.
Sleep was impossible. The bed smelled wrong, like a stranger’s laundry. He lay on his back, staring at the ceiling, the new weight on his chest a constant, pressing reminder. Every slight shift sent unfamiliar sensations rippling through him. He was a prisoner in a flesh-covered cockpit of alien controls.
When gray morning light finally bled around the edges of the blinds, he hadn’t slept a wink. His body ached with a profound, cellular fatigue. The sounds of the apartment were all wrong. The flush of the toilet, the clang of a pan in the kitchen—they were invasions.
He waited until he heard the front door slam, Ben leaving for his morning class. Only then did Mark emerge, moving through the silent apartment like a thief. He avoided the bathroom mirror. He couldn’t face the stranger yet. Instead, he dug through his drawers, finding an old pair of sweatpants and a hoodie. Dressing was a logistical nightmare. The sweatpants hung loose on his hips but clung to his rear and thighs in a way that felt obscenely intentional. The hoodie was better. It shrouded his outline.
His phone buzzed on the nightstand. A notification from his bank. A deposit of $100,000. The number should have been a triumph. It felt like blood money.
He spent the day in a fog, jumping at every creak of the building. He ordered groceries delivered, terrified of being seen. The delivery person, a kid his age, didn’t give him a second glance. Just a girl in a big hoodie. The invisibility was a relief, and a new kind of torment. He was either a spectacle or a ghost. There was no in-between.
Ben came home in the evening. Mark heard the key in the lock, the heavy drop of a backpack. He stayed in his room, his heart thudding against his ribs. The silence from the living room was heavier than any argument.
Finally, a knock on his door. Not the usual open-palm bang, but a tentative tap.
“Yeah?” Mark called, his voice sounding thin.
The door opened a crack. Ben stood there, not looking in. He stared at the floor, his hands shoved deep in his pockets. “We need to talk. Not… not like last night. Just talk.”
Mark followed him to the living room. Ben had cleaned up the beer cans. He sat on one end of the couch, leaving a cavernous space between them. Mark took the other end, tucking his legs under him, a posture that felt instinctively protective.
“I Googled it,” Ben started, his voice flat. “The trial. It’s legit. Or, as legit as something that insane can be.”
“Told you,” Mark mumbled.
“I know. I just… needed to see it.” Ben finally looked at him, his eyes red-rimmed from lack of sleep. “A year, huh?”
“A year.”
“And then you just… change back? Poof? Back to normal?”
Mark shrugged, the movement feeling awkward. “That’s what the doc says. The serum… wears off. Cells revert or something.”
Ben nodded slowly, digesting this. He picked at a loose thread on the couch. “So. A year. We can… manage a year.” He said it like he was convincing himself. “But there have to be rules.”
“Rules.” Mark repeated the word dully.
“Yeah. Like… you can’t walk around like last night. The shirt thing. Or no shirt. Whatever that was.”
“It was my jersey,” Mark said, a spark of defiance flickering.
“It was a damn show,” Ben shot back, then reined himself in. He took a breath. “Look. This is messed up for me, okay? I see my friend, but my eyes see… something else. It’s confusing. You gotta give me a minute to reboot. So. Clothes stay on. All the time. In common areas.”
Mark laughed, a short, bitter sound. “What, you think I’m gonna parade around? You saw the package, Ben. It’s not exactly comfortable.”
Ben flushed. “Fine. Whatever. Second rule. No one can know. Not the guys, not your professors, no one. You vanish for a year. You tell people you took an overseas study program. I’ll back you up.”
“And how do I go to class?” Mark asked, the practical absurdity of it all swelling. “How do I be a ghost and also live here?”
“Online,” Ben said, as if it were obvious. “You transfer everything you can online. For the rest… I don’t know. A hat. Big glasses. You’re a girl now. People see long hair and curves, they don’t look at the face. You’ll figure it out.”
The cool efficiency of it was more crushing than anger. Ben was already problem-solving, containing the situation. Making him the situation that needed to be managed.
A heavy silence fell. The unspoken third rule hung in the air: And we never, ever talk about what this really is.
Ben shifted, clearly wanting the conversation to be over. “You got the money. That’s what you wanted, right? So just… lie low. Stay in your room. Order takeout. Watch the game with me if you want, but just… be cool. Be normal.”
Normal. The word was a dagger. Mark looked at his friend, his roommate, who was now a strange, uncomfortable stranger negotiating a treaty with a foreign entity. A hot, reckless anger, born of a sleepless night and the hollow victory of the bank notification, surged through him. This wasn’t partnership. This was a quarantine.
“Is that what you need, Ben?” Mark asked, his voice dropping, losing its strained pitch and taking on a lower, more deliberate tone. “For me to be cool? To be invisible in my own home?” He didn’t wait for an answer. He uncurled from the couch and stood up.
Ben watched him warily. “What are you doing?”
Mark didn’t answer. He slowly, deliberately, pulled the hoodie over his head and dropped it on the floor. He stood there in just a thin cotton t-shirt, the fabric stretched taut, leaving nothing to the imagination. Then, with a calm he didn’t feel, he walked the three steps across the worn carpet and lowered himself onto Ben’s lap, straddling him.
Ben froze, a statue of pure shock. His hands hovered in the air, unsure where to go. “Hammer—what the hell—get off—”
Mark leaned in close. He could smell the cheap detergent on Ben’s shirt, the faint sourness of old sweat. He could feel the rigid tension in the muscular thighs beneath him. He saw the panic in Ben’s eyes, but also, beneath it, a flicker of something else—a raw, instinctual recognition of the form pressed against him. Mark placed a hand on his own chest, the gesture absurdly, blatantly seductive.
“Are you sure,” Mark whispered, the words slow and deliberate, “we can’t come to some arrangement?” He shifted his weight, an unmistakable, grinding movement. “The money’s in my account. I could make it worth your while. To be… understanding.”
Ben’s face cycled through horror, disbelief, and a deep, shameful arousal all at once. His body betrayed him, reacting instinctively to the warm, unmistakably female weight in his lap, even as his mind screamed in revolt. He shoved Mark off, hard, sending him stumbling back onto the coffee table with a crash.
“Get the fuck away from me!” Ben roared, scrambling to his feet, his face pale with fury and self-loathing. “What is wrong with you?!”
Mark caught himself, his heart hammering, a sick thrill mixing with the instant, crushing regret. He’d crossed a line there was no coming back from. He’d taken the unspoken weirdness and made it a grotesque, physical fact.
Ben was breathing hard, looking at him as if he were something venomous. “You’re not him,” Ben spat, the words like bullets. “I don’t know what you are, but you’re not my friend. Stay in your room. Don’t talk to me. Just… stay the hell away.”
He turned and stormed out, the front door slamming shut with a finality that shook the walls.
Mark sat on the floor amidst the scattered coffee table debris, the echo of the slam vibrating in his teeth. The hollow victory was gone. Now there was just the fallout, and the chilling understanding that he was truly alone.