Troy was sitting in the hallway with her back against the wall, just out of sight of the front window. Her legs were slightly spread and tucked up into her belly, all while her tail beat back and forth in frustration.
Fortunately, despite everything that had happened, Troy had managed to keep the Book of Beasts tucked tightly in her left armpit. She didn’t want to think about what might have happened if she had dropped it. Perhaps the most insidious aspect of these books was that you didn’t know that you were a victim – whatever was done to you just became your new normal.
Troy heard a thumping sound coming from the living room floor around the corner and watched as Rusty slowly came into view. He was on his back, moving by using his tail as a sort of anchor while he rocked back and forth with his shoulders. It was like watching a weird worm move.
As Rusty turned the corner, Troy’s view was again drawn to Rusty’s new “eyes” – two puckered rings of dark, wrinkled flesh that Troy instantly recognized from a few nights ago when they had last had sex. Still, Troy couldn’t believe what she was looking at and reached out, pressing a finger gently into Rusty’s right eyehole.
Rusty was too focused on getting around the corner to react and Troy brought her finger back up to her nose. A quick sniff confirmed that was she had just stuck her finger into was a fully functional asshole.
Looking into the living room, Troy noticed that the furniture had changed substantially. Instead of the nice couch, entertainment system, and other household items that had been there this morning, now there was a bunch of cheap crap.
Troy felt new memories begin to form in her head. She remembered being a new nurse and being assigned to Rusty in the nursing home. He had been born like this – no limbs and assholes for eyes. He required 24 hour assistance and occupied the bulk of her day. She remembered how pathetic he was, but also how nice. How she had slowly grown more and more attached to him until the two got married and she had moved him into her house.
She remembered the first time they had sex. She remembered missing her period. She remembered the positive pregnancy test. She remembered being thrilled to be carrying Rusty’s child. She remembered being madly in love with him.
They were her memories, but at the same time they weren’t. Troy remembered being Troy. She remembered her life as a man and it was those memories that were the dominant ones in her mind. But she also remembered her life as a woman. It was just, despite the presence of those memories in her mind, that woman’s life didn’t feel like her life. For some reason it just didn’t feel real even though it now was.
Troy was snapped back to reality as Rusty asked, “Hun, I need you to tell me what’s going on, did either of us get changed?”
Troy’s brain felt like a dingy awash in a sea of emotion. Troy knew that right now was she needed to keep a clear head, to figure out a plan, to take action to save herself and Rusty, but her body just wanted to curl up into a ball and cry. Choking back tears, Troy managed to get out, “Rusty… I’m pregnant and you’re…”
“You mean you weren’t… I wasn’t…” came the reply.
“No Rusty, we both used to be men, we were boyfriends, you had limbs, you had eyes!” Troy cried out.
Rusty was laying on his back, his face pointed towards the ceiling in a permanent blank expression – with his new limited anatomy, Rusty couldn’t communicate much via body language anymore. Still, the somber tone in his voice told Troy everything she needed to know about how Rusty felt about the situation.
“I don’t remember any of that.”
Rusty lifted his head up and scooted into Troy’s lap, pressing his muzzle up against Troy’s stomach. Troy realized just how weird it was to look down at him like this – Troy could tell that Rusty was trying to point his face towards her but, being unable to see, the best he could do was to look in the general direction of where Rusty thought Troy’s face was.
Troy cupped her right arm around the back of Rusty’s head and pressed his head further against her. The realization that he couldn’t see her, that he had never seen her, and that he may never see her again caused tears to begin to stream out of her eyes.
Troy cried. And cried. And didn’t stop crying. She couldn’t stop crying. Everything suddenly felt so overwhelming, so scary. All she wanted was for someone to save her from this. For some prince to come dashing in through the door. But each time she looked down at Rusty she was reminded of how that wasn’t going to happen. And not only was it not going to happen, but anything that was going to come through her front door was just going to make things worse.
Rusty, for his part, just stayed silent and let Troy cry. He didn’t know what to say. This was normal to him. He didn’t know any other life and his own life experience had been so limited that he couldn’t imagine much else. But from the sound of Troy’s crying he could tell how much better his life had once been.
He had felt so lucky to have found Troy, to have married her, to be taken care of by her. It was so strange to find out that none of that had actually happened. Or had it? He didn’t understand much about how the books worked. All he knew was that this was his life, it just wasn’t Troy’s life or, hadn’t been until just now.