Informed Consent (v2) - part 1 (Patreon)

Part 2 is available here.

The damp cotton sheets cling to the back of my knees. I lie flat on the mattress and stare up at the ceiling fan. The blades are still. The bedroom is dark, lit only by the streetlamp shining through the gap in the window blinds. My skin is cool. The radiating heat that baked my joints for five days broke while I was asleep.

I reach up to rub my eyes and on the way back my elbow comes down against my own hip. It's not where it was. I do it again to check.

My center of gravity rests lower. My femurs sit at a different angle. My knees are parted slightly; the new width of my pelvic bone forces a wider stance. The ache at the base of my spine doesn't change when I shift. I roll my weight an inch to test it and it goes up through the joint and down the back of my thigh.

I'm wearing the same gray boxer shorts I put on three days ago. The coarse weave of the fabric rubs against my groin.

A heavy, localized swelling sits flush against the base of my pelvis. The inner folds of new tissue press against each other. The friction of the cotton underwear against this anatomy sends a sharp shock of heat straight up into my stomach. A baseline wetness coats the skin.

I took the vial in with me to the supply closet last Monday, where the needles are, and pushed one into my left basilic vein to drive the Expression strain directly into my bloodstream. I spent the four-day incubation period going to work and eating dinner with the man sleeping next to me.

Eli shifts on his side of the bed. The mattress springs compress.

He rolls toward me and his knee bumps against my outer thigh. He smells like plain white soap and the warm scent of deep sleep. He drapes an arm across my stomach, his hand resting on the opposite side of my waist.

He thinks I caught a severe flu from a patient at the endocrinology clinic. He spent the last five days bringing me water and washing the sweat-soaked pillowcases.

He shifts higher on the mattress and presses his face into the side of my neck. His chin is rough with two days of stubble. He exhales, and the hot air washes over my collarbone.

"You're not burning up anymore," he says. His voice is thick and raspy.

"The fever broke," I say.

"Good." He kisses the skin just below my jaw, leaving his mouth there for a second. "You scared me a little bit on Tuesday. You were shaking so hard."

"I feel better."

"You feel cool." He slides his arm higher, wrapping it around my chest.

The secondary metabolic shifts haven't reached my ribcage yet. My chest is still flat, and he holds me the way he has held me for four years.

He kisses my neck again. He drags his lips up to my jawline, then finds my mouth.

I open my lips and he kisses me slow and deep, tasting like sleep. I let him.

He pulls back an inch, brushing his thumb across my lower lip.

"You've been stuck in this bed for five days," he whispers. His voice drops the way it does when we start this. "Were you being a good girl while I was taking care of you?"

"Yes," I say.

"I'm going to make you feel better," he says. "I'm going to lay you on your back and spread your thighs, and you're going to take it just like a girl."

We've played this game for two years. He thinks it's just dirty talk. He expects to reach down and pretend my male anatomy is something it isn't.

Eli pushes his weight onto his left forearm and leans over me. He slides his right hand down my ribs.

I stop breathing.

His palm travels over the flat plane of my stomach and hits the new flare of my pelvis.

His fingers catch on the widened bone. He traces the crest of the ilium.

He pulls his mouth away from mine and lifts his head. The warm light from the lamp catches the confusion in his eyes.

"Marcus," he says.

"I'm here."

Keeping his hand on my hip, he pushes his fingers down to press into the flesh. "You lost a lot of weight."

"I haven't eaten since Sunday," I say.

He shakes his head. He sits up on his knees, straddling my right leg, and the blanket falls away from his torso. He grabs the hem of my sweat-soaked t-shirt with both hands.

"Let me look at you," he says.

He pulls the shirt up, dragging the cotton over my chest and bunching it under my chin. The cold air in the bedroom hits my skin. He works it over my head, then looks down.

My torso dips inward below the ribs. A narrow waist, and then the swell of female hips. My lower abdomen is smooth, leading down to the dark fabric of the boxer shorts.

He looks at the curve of my waist, then up to my flat chest, and back down.

"What's wrong with your stomach?" he asks.

"Nothing," I say.

He reaches out, his hand hovering an inch above my skin. He traces the outline of my new waist in the air.

He touches the elastic waistband of my boxers.

"You're so small right now," he murmurs. His thumb brushes the cotton. "Let's see my good girl. I bet you're already dripping wet for me."

Heat spikes through my pelvic floor. The swollen tissue presses hard against the cotton.

I hook my fingers under the elastic and pull.

The fabric clears my hips. It catches for a fraction of a second on the heavier swell of my upper thighs before I drag it down to my knees.

The lamplight falls directly on the junction of my legs. The folds of the vulva rest against my widened pelvis, dense with blood and swollen. The cleft is open slightly, a sheen of moisture reflecting the light.

Eli freezes.

His hands remain gripped on the t-shirt. He stares at the tissue, holding his breath. He looks for a seam or the silicone edge of a prosthetic.

He looks up at my face. His eyes are wide.

"Marcus," he says. The word cracks.

"Just touch it," I say. My voice sounds desperate.

He drops the shirt and forces his hand flat against the slick flesh.

I jerk my hips upward, pressing the wet tissue into his palm. A sharp sound escapes my throat.

Eli gasps.

He tries to yank his hand away, but I grip his wrist harder. I press his fingers directly against the clitoris.

The friction sends a jolt down my spine. My thighs tremble. I open my legs wider.

"It's me," I say. "Eli. It's real."

He looks at my face, then down at his hand trapped against the wet folds of my body.

He doesn't pull away this time.

His fingers flex. He strokes the slick tissue, a hesitant movement.

I arch my back. "Yes."

He touches the inner labia, the dampness coating his index and middle fingers. He traces the opening. I drop his wrist, reaching up to grab his shoulders and pull him down over me.

He collapses against my chest. His breathing is ragged. He presses his face into my neck. His hips press forward.

Reaching down between us, I feel his erection hard against my stomach.

"Wait," I say. I push against his shoulder. "Condom."

He lifts his head, confused.

He reaches for the nightstand, opens the drawer, and pulls out a foil square. I watch him tear it open and roll the latex down.

He finishes and presses back over me. I guide him lower, lining him up with the slick cleft.

"Marcus," he says into my skin.

Lifting my hips, I push my vulva directly against the head of his penis.

"Wait," I say. "Not like that."

He waits. I move until the pressure stops being the wrong kind.

The slip is immediate. The tissue parts around him as my hips drop back down onto the mattress.

The stretch is a blunt ache. It doesn't stop being an ache when the rest of it starts. The nerve endings stretch to accommodate his width.

I wrap my arms tight around his back and bury my face in his shoulder, biting the skin of his collarbone.

Eli groans. The sound is low and torn from his throat.

He pulls back an inch and drives forward.

The impact hits my cervix, sending a dull pressure through my lower abdomen. It's a new kind of pain, deep, anchoring me to the bed. With his next thrust, we find a rhythm as the mattress squeaks.

I drag my nails down his spine, feeling the familiar ridges of his vertebrae and the sweat slicking his shoulders.

The friction is a constant burn. Every time he pulls back, the tissue clings to him.

He pushes deep and holds it there. His breath hitches. He shudders against me, a long release.

I squeeze my pelvic floor muscles around him. I let my head fall back against the pillow, breathing hard.

Eli goes still.

He doesn't pull out. He rests his weight on his forearms, keeping his chest pressed against mine.

I run my right hand up his back, smoothing the sweat on his skin. I rest my palm flat between his shoulder blades.

His skin is burning.

I stop moving, keeping my hand flat. The heat coming off him is dry.

I slide my hand up to the back of his neck. The skin there is even hotter.

"Eli," I say.

He doesn't answer. He turns his head slowly and rests his cheek against my collarbone.

A tremor runs through his left arm, a fast vibration. Then his shoulders twitch.

"I'm cold," he whispers into my skin.

He's sweating in a warm apartment, and his teeth click together.

"My back hurts," he says. His voice is weak. "My joints."

I didn't infect him just now.

We had sex on Thursday night, the night before my fever spiked. I didn't know the virus could move before the first symptom. Nobody had ever tracked a case that far back.

It's in him now, working from the bottom up.

He shivers again, a spasm that rocks his hips. He rolls onto his side of the mattress and curls into a tight ball, dragging the cotton duvet over his shoulders.

I sit up. It takes two tries.

The cold air hits my new anatomy. My hips ache with the memory of his weight.

He's huddled under the blanket, shivering. In five days his fever will break, and he'll wake up with his pelvis widened and his anatomy replaced by the flesh I'm sitting in right now.

I look at the widened spread of my thighs on the sheets.

I sit in the dark and listen to his teeth chattering against the pillowcase.