Brand - part 8 (free version) (Patreon)

[Note - the previous version of this post was flagged for 'nudity,' presumably due to sexual themes in the text as there are no nude images attached. While I wait for an appeal from the Patreon moderation team, I'm making a censored version available to the public. The uncensored version is available to all paid subscribers.]

Caden's spreadsheet glows in the dark bedroom — $11,742 left, not counting the overdue utility bill. He's been calculating the bleed rate for ten days straight, watching commas vanish into decimals with the grim precision of a coroner marking time of death. The last withdrawal was for pads, the next period anticipated with precision, four weeks from the first one.

When the spotting comes, it is barely worth noting — a faint pink smear when he wipes, gone by afternoon. He balls up the stained toilet paper and tosses it without inspection. His body is still calibrating, he reasons. Stress could delay a cycle. Could lighten it. Could make it irregular. He'd read that somewhere. The biology makes sense. He doesn't dwell on the relief that curls through his ribs when no real flow follows.

The clerk's nametag reads J. Espinoza in crisp black letters. Caden focuses on them while she taps her keyboard — three quick clicks, then a pause. Her nails are short, unpainted. Practical.

"You need to check one box," she says, sliding the form across the laminate counter.

Caden stares at the options. Male. Female. X. Simple binaries, no room for footnotes. His pen hovers. Someone's phone vibrates three desks over.

"Sir?" Espinoza prompts.

"It's complicated."

Her eyebrows lift — just enough to note the discrepancy between his voice and his face. She taps her screen. "Your birth certificate says male."

"It is." His grip tightens on the pen. The plastic creaks. "Biologically, I'm now —" He stops. The words stick like burrs. "My phenotype has shifted."

Espinoza's gaze flicks to his throat, his hands, the faint curve under his loose shirt. Professional neutrality, but her nostrils flare slightly.

"The system requires consistency." She pushes the form closer. "One box."

The pen clicks in the stale office air. Three times. Four. His pulse thuds in his fingertips. Male would mean explaining himself at every airport, every bank, every pharmacy. Female would be a lie he'd have to live inside like a borrowed coat.

"Sir?" Her tone hardens. "I have other clients."

He sets the pen down. "Not today."

The form disappears into a drawer with a sharp slide of laminate. "Come back when you've decided."

Eight weeks, maybe less, before the money hits zero. Three rejections in a row, all from places that had praised his work six months ago. Not the right fit, each email says, polite and hollow. His thumb hovers over the dating app icon. Biological urges don't care about dignity. Neither do landlords.

The app asks for a name first. He hesitates, then types his own. Gender: female. Orientation: lesbian. Each checkbox clicks with quiet, mechanical finality — each one its own small version of the ID question. He takes a selfie for the profile photo, emphasizing his feminine curves in a way that makes him deeply uncomfortable at the result. The algorithm pings back a match within an hour. Lena, 29, software engineer, likes hiking and obscure indie films. Her messages are warm, direct. Drinks at The Oak? Thursday, 8? Neutral ground. Safe. She has no idea who he'd been.

He pulls on a thin t-shirt, his nipples poking through the fabric, and examines himself in the mirror. Passably female, he notes.

The bar is dim, all exposed brick and soft chatter. Caden arrives early, nursing a gin and tonic he doesn't really want. His fingers drum the glass. Lena walks in — tall, curly hair pinned up, wearing a denim jacket with a band patch he vaguely recognizes. She spots him, smiles. "Caden?" Her voice is lower than he expected. Grounded. He nods, forcing a smile back.

They talk. Or rather, Lena talks, and Caden listens, interjecting when he remembers to. She is funny, sharp in a way that doesn't feel performative. Halfway through her second beer, she tilts her head. "You're quiet." Not an accusation, just an observation. "Thinking too much," he admits. Her hand brushes his when she reaches for her drink. The contact sends a jolt through him — something deep, electric. He hadn't been touched in weeks. Not like this.

Lena's fingers trace the rim of her glass, then slide across the table to brush his wrist. "Your place or mine?" Casual, like she's asking about the weather. "Mine's closer," he hears himself say.

Lena presses against his back in the apartment doorway, her breath warm on his neck, and for a fraction of a second, he freezes.

She doesn't wait. Her hands slide under his shirt from behind, one palm flattening against his stomach, and Caden's breath hitches. Lena's teeth graze his earlobe. "You're thinking again," she murmurs, and he shudders, half in protest, half in something too sharp to name.

Lena pushes him down onto the couch, knees bracketing his hips, and Caden's hands automatically go to her waist. A familiar grip, a familiar role. When Lena's mouth finds his throat, he chokes on a sound he'd never made before — high, fractured. Humiliation prickles hot beneath his skin.

Afterward, Lena stretches like a satisfied cat, fingers trailing lazily over his stomach. Caden stares at the ceiling, his pulse still throbbing in strange places. His body feels strange — open, almost raw, in ways he doesn’t have words for. The silence stretches. Lena props herself on an elbow. She traces idle circles on his stomach. Caden can't speak. His body hums with aftershocks, each pulse a reminder of how little control he has over it now.

The silence stretches. Lena props herself up on one elbow. "You okay?" Her voice is softer now. Caden swallows. "Yeah," he lies. Her fingers brush his cheek — gentler than before — and he flinches. She withdraws. "Right," she says, sitting up. The mattress creaks as she reaches for her clothes.

Lena pulls her shirt on over her head, fabric catching briefly on the damp skin of her shoulders. She wanders toward his desk — not snooping, exactly, though not avoiding it either. Her fingers hover above the printed spreadsheet, corners curled from being handled too much. "This yours?" she asks, though they both know the answer.

He sits up, the sheet pooling around his waist. The laptop screen is still open to his research portal, demographic clusters color-coded by fertility rates. Lena's thumb scrolls the trackpad absently, clicking through tabs titled Matrilineal Inheritance Patterns and Paternal Investment Correlates. Her expression doesn't change, but her shoulders stiffen incrementally.

"You actually believe this shit?" The question comes out flat, almost curious. She taps the screen where a graph plots marriage stability against female education levels.

Caden reaches for his glasses on the nightstand. The frames feel unfamiliar against his temples. "The data's peer-reviewed," he says. "Methodology's solid."

Lena snorts, scrolling further. "Methodology." The word comes out like a piece of gristle she wants to spit out. Her finger pauses on a subsection titled Ovulatory Cycle Effects on Workplace Performance. For the first time, she turns to look at him — really look — taking in the rumpled sheets, the hipbones protruding just slightly under skin that had softened these past weeks. "You're sitting here with tits and a fucking uterus defending this?"

The air conditioning kicks on. A draft curls around his bare shoulders. He can still smell her sweat on the pillowcase. "Believing data isn't the same as endorsing outcomes," he says, hearing the clinical detachment in his own voice. It sounds weaker now, higher-pitched. Less authoritative.

She stands abruptly, the chair rolling back into the desk with a thud. Jeans zipped, bra clasp snapped shut — each sound precise as a punctuation mark. His phone buzzes on the nightstand. She glances over, then yanks her shirt over her head. The fabric catches on her earring — a small, frustrated jerk that somehow hurts to watch.

He doesn't get up when she leaves. The door clicks shut with finality. The apartment settles into silence.

Caden reaches for the laptop. The cursor still hovers over Paternal Investment Correlates.

The methodology was solid. That hadn't changed. Neither had the standard deviations or p-values glowing onscreen. But the body interpreting them had. His thighs stick to the leather chair when he stands.

The Premium version of this section includes images of Caden preparing for and on the date with Lena, as well as afterwards with her at his apartment.