Chapter 4: The Persistent Glitch
The numbers on the screen were a grey, hypnotic stream. John focused on the flow of digits, the strict logic of debits and credits, a world where everything balanced. It was the only anchor he had. The faint, phantom soreness in his hips had faded to a memory he could almost dismiss as imagination.Then a glint of pink caught his eye.
Not on the screen.On his hand, resting beside the mouse.His breath hitched. His fingernail, usually a bit ragged, bitten down to the quick on the index finger, was now smooth. Elongated.Painted a soft, pearlescent pink.A perfect oval. He stared, uncomprehending.It was Joanna’s manicure. He curled his fingers into a fist, but the sheen was undeniable.A cold sweat prickled at the back of his neck. He glanced wildly around the cubicle farm.Sandra in the next pod was typing, headphoned. No one was looking.He slowly opened his hand.All ten nails were transformed.Elegant. Alien.His heart began a hard, fast thump against his ribs. This wasn’t a sore feeling.This was visual proof.Solid. He shoved both hands under his desk, into his lap, squeezing them between his thighs as if he could crush the change out of them. He closed his eyes, counted to sixty. The office sounds—the distant ring of a phone, the murmur of a conversation about quarterly reports—felt suddenly grotesque, a soundtrack to a horror movie only he could see.
One one-thousand.Two one-thousand.
He focused on the feel of his own denim-clad legs, the coarse texture of his chinos.Normal.Male. When he reached sixty, he dared to look.His hands were his again.Short, clean, unpolished nails. A little dry from winter air. He exhaled a shuddering breath that fogged the edge of his monitor.A one-minute glitch.A temporary… whatever.He needed to move. To break the spell. He stood up, a little too quickly, and his chair rolled back with a squeak.That’s when he felt it.A constriction. A tight, unfamiliar pressure, a line where no line should be, between his legs. The fabric of his boxers had changed.It was no longer soft cotton. It was a thin, insistent band, a sleek, unforgiving tension.The feeling was intimate and horrifying. He knew, with a certainty that dropped his stomach to his feet, what it was.
He sat back down hard, hands gripping the edge of the desk.No.Not here.He had to get to the bathroom.Now. He stood again, carefully, his body moving with a stiff, unnatural caution. Each step was a revelation of wrongness. The gentle sway he’d felt in the apartment was back, a slight, instinctive shift in his hips that made the new, constricting garment pull and pinch. He walked past Sandra’s cubicle, offering a tight, nod-like grimace he hoped passed for a smile.
The men’s room was empty, thank god. He slammed into the last stall, fumbled with the lock, and leaned his forehead against the cold metal door. His fingers, now thankfully his own again, went to his waistband. He undid his belt, his button, his zipper with frantic, clumsy movements.He shoved his chinos and briefs down just enough to see.
Black lace.A intricate, delicate web of it, forming a thin triangle up front. The sides were mere strings, digging into the skin of his hips.A thong.
A sound escaped him, a half-choked gasp of disbelief and revulsion. He grabbed at the lace, trying to pull it off, to rip it, but it was snug, stubborn.The elastic held fast. He pulled harder, the lace biting into his flesh.This was worse than the clothes.This was underneath. This was on him.A violation so complete it made his skin crawl. He closed his eyes, trying to will it away, to think of numbers, of beer, of anything but this.
After a long minute of standing there, pants around his thighs, trembling in the fluorescent buzz of the restroom, he felt it shift.The tension lessened. The delicate, tickling texture of lace melted and reformed into the familiar, soft cotton of his boxer briefs. He let out a shaky breath and pulled everything up, fastening his pants with fingers that still trembled.
He splashed cold water on his face in the sink, avoiding his own wide-eyed gaze in the mirror. The door swung open, and Phil from logistics walked in.“Hey, John.You alright? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Just… a long morning,” John said, his voice thankfully steady.He grabbed a paper towel, roughed it over his face. “Bad numbers.”
“Tell me about it,” Phil grumbled, heading to the urinal. “My whole week is a bad number.”
John went back to his desk.He didn’t look at the spreadsheets. He sat perfectly still, hands flat on the desk, feeling the phantom memory of lace against his skin. It was accelerating.It was happening in real time, in public. His rational mind, the part that had built a life on predictability, finally broke its leash.This wasn’t a stress dream. This wasn’t a hallucination. Something was rewriting him, cell by cell, and the lie he’d told Dave had somehow made it bold enough to follow him here, into the stark, unforgiving light of day.He had no idea what to do. He could see the calculator, a dark rectangle on his desk.A totem of the normal world. It seemed like a relic from another lifetime. He was just starting to contemplate the unthinkable—going home, locking the door, and never coming out—when his phone buzzed with a text.It was from Dave.
Hey, hope your cousin’s doing ok.Really sorry about the misunderstanding. BTW, a bunch of us are hitting Brews after work.You in?Could use a laugh.
John stared at the screen.The casual invitation was a lifeline to sanity, to the person he was supposed to be. John Marsh would go. He’d have a pint, complain about work, laugh at stupid jokes.He typed back, his fingers feeling thick and clumsy.Yeah.Sounds good. See you there.He put the phone down.The decision was made.He would go to the bar. He would act normal. It was the only weapon he had left: the pretense that nothing was wrong. But as he shifted in his chair, he felt a strange, new lightness on his scalp, a subtle shift in the way his sandy-brown hair fell against his neck. He didn’t dare touch it. He just sat, waiting for the clock to tick down, a prisoner in his own cubicle, in his own skin.