Chapter 2: Forced Intimacy
The word “yeah” hung in the air, brittle and unconvincing. Andrea’s smile didn’t falter, but her eyebrows knitted together. Her eyes, a warm brown, scanned me—my face, my stolen t-shirt, my shaking hands. The scrutiny was a physical touch, and I fought the urge to cross my arms over my chest, a gesture that now felt different, protective in a new and desperate way.
“Okay,” she said slowly, drawing the word out. She shifted her weight, the movement effortless and solid in her work boots. “Well, welcome. I’m Andrea. You are…?”
My mind blanked. Justin was gone. The name felt like a memory from a different life. “Sabrina,” I whispered, the djinn’ chosen name falling from my lips like a betrayal.
“Sabrina,” she repeated, and it sounded normal coming from her. Natural. “Cool name. You okay? You look really pale. Like, shocky.” She took a step closer, and I caught a scent of turpentine and clean sweat. “First day in a new place can be weird. Especially out here. The quiet gets inside your head.”
A hysterical laugh bubbled in my throat. If only she knew. The quiet was the least of it. The overwhelming reality was the constant, low-level hum of wrongness in my own skin. The soft, insistent pressure of the bra strap—a garment I’d never put on—digging into my shoulders. The terrifying, hollow void between my legs, an absence so profound it made my stomach lurch every time my brain, out of habit, checked for what was no longer there. The weight on my chest was a separate entity, pulling at muscles in my back I didn’t know I had, shifting with a liquid looseness that made me feel unanchored.
“Yeah,” I said again, my voice a little stronger, clinging to this single syllable as an anchor. “It’s… a lot.” I gestured vaguely at the house behind me, a movement that made my new center of gravity sway. I had to brace a hand on the porch railing. The wood was rough under my palm—my smaller, smoother palm.
“I get it,” she said, and her tone softened. She leaned against the fence post at the edge of my property. “I moved in two years ago. Took me six months to stop jumping at every coyote yelp. You want a coffee? I just made a fresh pot.” She nodded toward her house. “Might help. You shouldn’t be alone if you’re spooked.”
The offer was so normal, so kind, it almost broke me. Justin would have mumbled a refusal, face hot, and fled inside. Justin was trapped somewhere under this pink hair and these curves, screaming. But Justin was also the one who had wished for this, in a stupid, clumsy way. To be someone who could talk to people. To her.
Sabrina’s body acted before my mind could veto it. I nodded. “Okay. Thanks.”
A grin spread across her face. “Cool. Come on.”
Walking was a negotiation. My hips wanted to swing. They had a natural, side-to-side rhythm that felt exaggerated, ridiculous. I tried to stiffen my gait, to walk “like a man,” but it just made me stumble on the uneven ground. The denim of my jeans rubbed against the inside of my thighs, a strange, constant friction. Each step sent a faint, unsettling jiggle through my chest and a deeper, more pronounced sway in my rear. It was like parts of my body were on a half-second delay, following the rest of me with a soft, independent momentum. I focused on the ground, on placing one foot in front of the other.
Andrea matched my pace easily. “So what brings you out to the middle of nowhere, Sabrina?”
I panicked. Justin’s life—software, divorce, the quiet desperation—was completely incongruous with the person I appeared to be. “Needed a change,” I said, the lie coming out in Sabrina’s slightly husky alto. “Quiet place to… figure some stuff out.”
“Artist?” she asked, her eyes flicking to my tattoos.
“Something like that,” I mumbled.
Her house was the mirror of mine, but lived-in. Where my porch held only decaying chairs, hers had a small table with a clay ashtray full of paintbrushes soaking in murky water. The inside was a warm chaos: canvases leaning against walls, some finished, vibrant landscapes of the surrounding fields, others just splashes of color. The smell of coffee and oil paint was strong.
“Make yourself at home,” she said, kicking off her boots by the door. “I’ll grab the mugs.”
Home. I stood awkwardly in the middle of the room, my arms wrapped around myself. My own body felt like a hostile environment. The soft press of my own forearms against the sides of my breasts was a shock every time. I could feel my heartbeat there, a double pulse against the constricting fabric of my t-shirt. Without thinking, my hand drifted down, a reflexive, comforting gesture to my own crotch, and my fingers met only denim and a soft, unfamiliar mound. I snatched my hand back as if burned, my face flushing with a heat that was new and immediate.
“Cream or sugar?” Andrea called from her small kitchen.
“Black,” I said, the word cracking. Justin took it black. Did Sabrina? Did it matter?
She came back with two mismatched mugs. Her eyes were kind, curious. She handed me a mug, our fingers brushing. Hers were stained with flecks of blue and yellow paint. Mine, I noticed with a detached horror, had chipped black polish.
“Thanks,” I said, taking the mug. The warmth was a solid, real thing to hold onto.
She leaned against her cluttered worktable, studying me over the rim of her cup. “You know, when I saw you standing on your porch, you looked… haunted. Really lost.”
The directness undid me. The simplicity of her observation, so close to the truth, was a lance through the panic. A tear escaped, tracing a hot path down my cheek before I could stop it. I turned my head quickly, but it was too late.
“Hey,” she said, her voice gentle. She set her mug down and took a step closer. “Whoa. It’s okay. Really.”
“I’m sorry,” I gasped, Sabrina’s voice thick with a sob. “I don’t know what’s… I just feel like I’m not myself.” The understatement was so vast it was a cosmic joke.
“Look,” she said, and her hand came up, resting lightly on my wrist. Her touch was warm, calloused. It sent a confusing jolt through me—a combination of comfort and a deeper, more unsettling shock. “It’s just us two out here. Miles from anyone. That can feel like being on another planet sometimes. But you’re not alone, okay?”
She squeezed my wrist once, her fingers lingering. Her thumb stroked a small arc over my pulse point. It was a gesture of comfort, but it felt loaded, intimate in a way I couldn’t parse. Her eyes held mine, and for a second, I saw something in them—a recognition, an appreciation—that had nothing to do with Justin Peterson. It was for Sabrina. For the short, curvy, pink-haired girl crying in her living room.
My breath hitched. The panic momentarily receded, pushed back by the sheer, overwhelming strangeness of being seen, truly seen, by another human being for the first time in years—but seen as someone I wasn’t.
“Welcome to the neighborhood, Sabrina,” she said softly, her fingers still on my skin. “Even if the neighborhood is just us two.”
She let go and stepped back, picking up her mug again as if nothing had happened. “So,” she said, her tone shifting back to easy camaraderie. “You paint? Sculpt? What’s your medium?”
I stared into the black depths of my coffee, my wrist still burning where she’d touched it. The djinn’s smirk floated in my mind. I adore ironic twists.
I was here. I was talking to her. The wish, in its horrible, literal way, was coming true.
And I had two wishes left. The weight of that knowledge settled over me, heavier than anything this new body could conjure. I took a shaky sip of coffee, the bitter taste a grounding anchor in a world that had come completely unglued.
“I, uh… I’m still trying to figure that out,” I said.