Chapter 8: Tender Moments
The silence after was louder than the shouting from the couch. Mark showered alone, the water a neutral temperature, washing away the stickiness and the lingering sting. He dressed slowly, the fabric soft on his tender skin. He could hear Ben moving around in his own room, the sounds of drawers opening and closing, textbooks being shoved into a bag.
They didn’t speak as they left the apartment, the air between them thick enough to slice. They walked to campus side by side, but not together, a foot of charged space keeping them apart. Ben’s jaw was set, his eyes fixed on some distant point ahead. Mark felt oddly calm, a ship that had weathered a storm and found itself, against all odds, still afloat.
The pharmacokinetics tutorial was a special kind of hell. A fluorescent-lit room smelling of old coffee and desperation. Ben, of course, was in his element, firing answers back at the graduate TA with casual precision. Mark stared at the equations on the whiteboard, the symbols swimming like angry insects. His mind kept drifting back to the feel of the sofa fabric against his cheek, the decisive click of the deadbolt.
“Hamilton?” The TA’s voice cut through his reverie. “Can you walk us through the conceptual difference between elimination rate constant and clearance?”
Mark blinked. The room felt suddenly small, all eyes on him. He saw Ben look down at his own notebook, a muscle working in his cheek.
“Uh,” Mark began, his voice too high, too bright in the quiet room. He cleared his throat, trying to find a lower register. It didn’t work. “Right. So, one’s like… how fast the party empties out. And the other is, like, the total bouncers kicking people out. Per minute.” He shrugged, a gesture that felt familiar in his old body but now just drew attention to the shift of his shoulders under his shirt.
A few people snickered. The TA pinched the bridge of his nose. “An… imaginative analogy. Not incorrect, but perhaps insufficient for the exam. Bradshaw, care to elaborate?”
Ben did, in fluent, dry medical jargon that made Mark’s head hurt. He kept his eyes on the TA, never once glancing at Mark. The dismissal was colder than any insult.
When they filed out an hour later, the sunset was bleeding orange and red across the campus brickwork. Ben walked ahead, fast.
“Hey,” Mark called, hurrying to catch up, his new center of gravity making the motion feel unsteady. “Wait up.”
Ben didn’t slow. “I’ve got a lab write-up.”
“It’s five-thirty. Your lab was yesterday. You already did the write-up.” Mark reached out, his fingers brushing Ben’s elbow.
Ben stopped and turned. The setting sun haloed his short hair and cast his face in shadow. “What do you want, Mark?”
The use of his real name, not ‘Hammer,’ not ‘Mia,’ was a wall. Mark let his hand fall. “You’re pissed.”
“I’m busy.”
“You’re pissed,” Mark insisted, falling into step beside him as Ben resumed walking. “Because of this morning.”
Ben let out a short, harsh laugh. “This morning. Right. One of many fascinating new data points.”
They reached their apartment building, a squat, ugly block of gray concrete. Ben took the stairs two at a time. Mark followed, his breath coming a little quicker. By the time he got to their door, Ben was already inside, dumping his bag by the couch.
The air in the apartment was stale, thick with the memory of the morning. Mark went to the fridge, grabbed two beers, and twisted the caps off. He held one out to Ben, who was standing by the sliding glass door to the balcony, staring out at the parking lot.
After a long moment, Ben took it. He took a long pull, then slid the door open and stepped out into the warm evening.
Mark followed.
The balcony was a afterthought of cracked concrete, just big enough for two plastic chairs and Ben’s stubborn, half-dead basil plant. The sun was a dying ember on the horizon, painting the cheap cars below in tones of rust and gold. Mark leaned against the warped railing, the metal still warm from the day. He watched Ben, who stood rigid, his back a straight line of tension.
“Your shoulders are burning,” Mark said quietly.
Ben didn’t turn. “What?”
“The sun. Today. On the field during practice. You’re roasted.”
A slight shrug. “It’s fine.”
Mark took another swallow of beer, then set it down on the ledge. “Take your shirt off.”
That got Ben to look at him, his expression unreadable. “What?”
“You heard me. You’ve got aloe in the bathroom cupboard. I saw it.” Mark’s tone was light, practical. “You’ll be miserable tomorrow if you don’t.”
Ben stared at him, then downed the rest of his beer. With a grimace that was more about the situation than the alcohol, he pulled his t-shirt over his head. The skin across his shoulders and the back of his neck was an angry, painful-looking pink.
“Sit,” Mark said, nodding to one of the plastic chairs.
“I don’t need–”
“Sit down, Ben.”
Ben sat. The plastic creaked under his weight. Mark went inside, found the green bottle of aloe vera gel in the chaotic cupboard under the sink, and came back out. He squeezed a cool, clear blob into his palm.
The first touch of his fingers to Ben’s sun-scorched skin made Ben flinch. Mark gentled his hands, smoothing the gel in slow, careful circles. He felt the incredible heat coming off the burn, the tightness of the skin. He worked quietly, methodically, his thumbs pressing into the knots of muscle at the base of Ben’s neck.
Ben’s head dropped forward, a low, almost inaudible sigh escaping him. The fight seemed to drain out of him, leaving only weariness. Mark kept massaging, the aloe turning slick and absorbing into the red skin. The only sounds were the distant traffic and the faint rustle of the single basil leaf.
After a few minutes, Mark felt Ben relax incrementally under his hands. The music from a neighboring apartment, something soft and instrumental, drifted through the warm air. Without really thinking about it, Mark began to sway slightly, his hips moving to the faint rhythm. His body, connected to Ben’s through his hands, pulled Ben into a gentle, unconscious rock in the chair.
They stayed like that for a long moment, a fragile, swaying truce in the dying light.
“Since when do you give spa treatments?” Mark asked, his voice a soft tease near Ben’s ear.
Ben’s reaction was swift. He turned his head, his mouth finding the sensitive skin just below Mark’s ear. He nipped it, sharp enough to make Mark gasp. “Shut up, Mia,” he murmured, the threat utterly undermined by the fact that his hands came up to cover Mark’s, holding them in place against his burned shoulders, and by the incredible care with which he avoided putting any pressure on Mark’s own tender skin from the morning.
Mark rested his forehead against the side of Ben’s head, breathing in the scent of aloe and sunburned skin and cheap beer. The music swelled a little. He let his eyes close.
“I was thinking,” Mark said, the words forming almost without his permission, a lazy, curious thought drifting up on the evening breeze. “Would you like me better as a Latina? Lately I’ve been curious.”
Ben went perfectly still. The swaying stopped. The only movement was the slow drip of excess aloe down the back of his shoulder.
He turned his head slowly, forcing Mark to lift his own. Ben’s eyes searched his face, looking for the joke, the prank, the mockery. All he found was a weird, open sincerity.
“What?” Ben’s voice was flat.
Mark shrugged, a little self-consciously now. “I dunno. Just a thought. This… body. It’s a thing, right? The trial did… this. What if it did something else? A different… model.” He tried a smile. “Maybe one that’s better at pharmacokinetics.”
Ben stared at him. The anger from earlier was gone, replaced by something more profound and bewildered. He looked at Mark—at the blonde hair catching the last of the sunset, the worried blue eyes, the mouth that had just asked such an insane, vulnerable question. He looked at him like he was a complex equation that had just spontaneously solved itself into nonsense.
He didn’t answer. Instead, he leaned forward slowly, closing the small distance between them. He kissed him. It was nothing like the kisses from the shower or the couch. It was slow, and deep, and tasted of beer and something unbearably sad. When he finally pulled back, his hands were still covering Mark’s on his shoulders.
“Don’t,” Ben said, his voice rough. “Just… don’t think things like that.”
He stood up then, the chair scraping loudly on the concrete. He left the balcony, sliding the door shut behind him with a soft but final click, leaving Mark alone with the cooling aloe on his hands and the vast, incomprehensible question hanging in the darkening air.
Mark stood on the balcony until the aloe dried to a tight, invisible film on his skin and the sun vanished completely. The question didn’t fade. It crystallized. Would you like me better? Ben’s refusal to answer was the loudest reply he’d ever heard. He looked at his hands in the dim light from the sliding door, the same hands that had gripped a rugby ball, that had touched Ben’s burned shoulders. They felt like they belonged to a stranger.
He went inside. The apartment was dark. Ben’s door was closed, a thin bar of yellow light underneath it. Mark didn’t knock. He went to his own room, opened his laptop, and found the encrypted email from the trial coordinator. Follow-up visits for morphological adjustment are available to qualifying participants. The words were cold and inviting. He typed a reply, his fingers striking the keys with a force that was all his own. I qualify. Schedule it.
Two days later, he told Ben he had a follow-up physical. “Just bloodwork,” he said, pulling on a hoodie.
Ben was at the table, surrounded by notecards. He didn’t look up. “Don’t get lost.”
The clinic was the same sterile corridor, the same faint scent of antiseptic and ozone. The coordinator, a woman with a pleasant voice and empty eyes, reviewed the new parameters with him. “Full somatic recalibration. Ethnic phenotype shift is a significant reprocessing. The dermal and skeletal restructuring will be more intense than the initial transformation. You understand?”
“Just make it perfect,” Mark said, his voice steady.
He lay on the same pallet. The harnesses clamped down. This time, when the machinery activated, he didn’t try to brace himself. He embraced the dissolving feeling. It wasn't pain, not exactly. It was an unraveling. He felt his bones humming, a deep internal resonance as they subtly reshaped. His skin prickled, a million tiny needles rewiring his surface. The blonde hair receded from his scalp like a tide going out, replaced by a wave of deep, espresso brown that grew rapidly, curling as it fell past his shoulders.
The changes knitted together in a silent, brutal symphony. His hips flared a fraction wider, his waist cinching in a more pronounced curve. The structure of his face remolded itself—his jaw softened, his cheekbones rising higher and sharper, his nose thinning slightly. His lips became fuller. A warm, olive tone infused his skin, erasing the fair, sun-sensitive complexion. When the lasers passed over his eyes, he felt a strange, cool pressure, and knew their blue had been replaced with a dark, liquid brown.
The machine hissed to a stop. The restraints released. He sat up, his body a stranger’s. He was shorter. He felt the weight of the new hair, the different balance of his hips. He looked at his hands. The knuckles were slightly smaller, the skin tone richer. He swung his legs off the table and stood. The motion was fluid, but the center of gravity was new. He walked to the full-length mirror on the wall.
A perfect Latina looked back. Her figure was staggering, an hourglass carved from warm honey. Her face was exotic, fierce, and beautiful. He touched the reflection. The mind inside was the same. The smile that spread across those new, full lips was all Mark Hamilton.
“Do you have a new preferred name for your file?” the coordinator asked from the doorway, clipboard in hand.
He didn’t hesitate. “Mia.” The name Ben had snarled in passion and sighed in surrender. It was a claim now.
“Mia,” the coordinator repeated, making a note. “The vehicle is waiting.”
He walked out of the clinic in the clothes he’d arrived in, the hoodie now hanging differently. The autumn air felt new against his skin. He didn’t go home. He went to a downtown department store, moving through the perfume-scented air with a new, rolling confidence. He bought a single outfit with the remaining trial money: a simple, tight black dress that clung to every new curve, and a pair of ankle boots that clicked authoritatively on the tile.
He arrived back at the apartment just after eight. He could hear the game on TV. He used his key, pushed the door open, and stepped inside.
Ben was on the couch, a beer in his hand, eyes on the screen. “Took you long enough,” he grunted, taking a sip. “Your blood get up and walk out?”
Mark said nothing. He dropped his keys into the ceramic bowl by the door. The clink made Ben glance over.
Ben’s head turned. Then his whole body followed, stiffening. The beer bottle froze halfway to his mouth. His eyes widened, scanning from the dark, curly hair down the陌生 body in the little black dress, back up to the unfamiliar face. Confusion, then dawning, horrific recognition.
“What the fuck.” It wasn’t a question. It was a low, disbelieving expulsion of air.
“You didn’t answer my question,” Mark said. His voice was different. Slightly huskier, but the cadence, the flat affect, was utterly his own. He walked into the center of the living room. “So I got curious.”
Ben stood up, the bottle forgotten in his hand. “Mark?” The name was a plea, a denial.
“Mia,” he corrected. He did a slow, deliberate turn, letting Ben see all of it. The new heritage in every line. “You like this model better? The specs are pretty high-end.”
Ben looked like he’d been punched. All the color drained from his face. “You went back. You actually… you changed it all.” He took a step forward, his free hand clenching at his side. “Why? Because of some stupid thing I didn’t say on the balcony?”
“You said plenty,” Mark—Mia—said. He took a step closer, invading Ben’s space. He could smell the beer on Ben’s breath, see the panic in his eyes. “You said ‘don’t.’ So I did.”
Ben’s hand shot out, gripping Mia’s upper arm. His fingers dug into the new, softer flesh. “Change it back.” His voice trembled with rage. “This isn’t a fucking game. Go back and tell them to undo it.”
Mia didn’t pull away. He smiled, leaning in until their faces were inches apart. “It’s not reversible. Not this part. It’s in the contract you never read.” He watched the words land, each one a hammer blow. “So I guess this is me now.”
Ben’s grip tightened, his knuckles white. For a heartbeat, Mia thought he might shake him, or hit him. Then the fight seemed to shatter inside Ben. His hand fell away. He stumbled back a step, his eyes roaming over Mia’s body with a kind of terrified hunger.
“You’re insane,” Ben whispered, his voice broken. “You’re a fucking crazy person.”
“Yeah,” Mia said, picking up Ben’s abandoned beer from the coffee table and taking a cool, smooth swallow. He wiped his new, full lips with the back of his hand, a gesture that was pure Mark. “But I’m your crazy person. And you’re stuck with me.” He held the bottle out. “Game’s still on, Brains. Your move.”
Ben stared at the bottle in Mia’s hand, his eyes tracking from the familiar label to the entirely unfamiliar fingers curled around it. His face was a canvas of pure conflict, muscles twitching under the skin. The game on the TV was just muted noise now.
“My move?” he repeated, his voice hollow. He took the beer bottle from her hand, his fingers brushing hers. A jolt passed between them, static-charged and sickening. He didn’t drink. He just looked at her, at the impossible reality of her. “You have no idea what you’ve done.”
“I know exactly what I’ve done.” Mia took a step back, the new boots clicking on the hardwood. “I fixed the problem.”
“What problem?” Ben’s laugh was a brittle, broken thing. “There was no problem! There was just… us. Messed up. Figuring it out.”
“You didn’t like the blonde,” Mia stated, simple as a fact. She turned and walked toward the hallway, feeling his gaze burn into her back. “You called me ‘Mia’ when you were inside me, but you flinched every time you saw that face in the morning. It didn’t fit.” She paused at the mouth of the hall, looking over her shoulder. The light from the living room cut across her new profile. “So I got a face that does.”
“It’s not a face!” Ben exploded, the bottle finally slamming down on the coffee table. Suds foamed over the rim. “It’s a whole fucking person! A stranger is in my apartment!”
“No,” Mia said, her tone chillingly calm. “Your roommate is in your apartment. The one who still can’t parse a pharmacokinetics equation. The one who still hogs the shower. The one who knows you scrub your left shoulder blade first when you’re stressed.” She tilted her head. “The one you fucked over the couch yesterday.”
Ben moved then. It wasn’t a walk; it was a charge. He crossed the space in three long strides, his body a wall of muscle and anger. He didn’t stop until he was towering over her, his chest heaving. The scent of his rage, his sweat, his cheap beer, filled the space between them.
“Prove it,” he hissed, his breath hot on her face.
Mia didn’t blink. “Your first girlfriend was Becky Shoreham. You cried for a week. You still keep her scrunchie in your bottom drawer like a pathetic little trophy.”
Ben’s jaw tightened. His hand came up, not to strike, but to grip her face. His thumb brushed the new, fuller curve of her cheekbone, a gesture that was both an examination and an invasion. His touch was rough, searching for a seam, a lie. He found only warm, real skin.
His eyes searched hers, looking past the dark brown irises for some glimpse of the blue he knew. He was looking for Mark. All he saw was his own shattered reflection.
The fight left his body in a defeated slump. The anger melted into a raw, bewildered pain.