ARTHUR

After breakfast, I have a shower, where I cry a second time about the misfortune of Alfred and the delight of Gilbert. Then I get dressed in clean clothes and find Gilbert lounging on my bed/couch, typing on his phone (the brightness turned down as low as possible).

"Hey, Kirky," he says without glancing at me. "I'm texting with that surgeon buddy of mine. He's up waiting for his daughter to get home from a party. Naughty sixteen-year-old, apparently. We've all been there."

I sit down on an ugly orange chair. It doesn't look soft, and it's not. The brown stripes in it are an even rougher material than the rest. "Did you ask about helping me?"

"No, not yet. I thought I should have ya here for that."

"Oh." I cross and recross my legs, despising the fleshy mass between my legs that renders this uncomfortable. Oh, please be able to help me. Please.

"My dearest Doctor Dominik," says Gilbert as he types with surprisingly deft thumbs, "I have a new friend who has the body of a man but wants the body of a woman. Can you help?"

Much less lewd than I anticipated, but I suppose he could have been tapping out something different than what he actually said. Watching him on his phone in this dark room at this time of night makes me realize something. "I never asked what you did for a living."

"Nope, ya never did." Gilbert doesn't look at me, and a second later his phone chimes, and he reads, "You make very interesting friends. I'd love to help the latest one. Name and age?" He glances at me, for confirmation.

I nod, clear my throat. "Arthur Jones. Twenty-seven."

Gilbert's right eyebrow quirks a little at the surname, but he must realize Kirkland is my maiden name—a lovely term, I want to be that maiden—because he types it without question. A longer pause than before, then the chime. "Would be the same Arthur Jones who's been reported missing?"

Oh, God. Alfred has police looking for me? Am I on the news? I must be, if the doctor knows about it; Alfred's family is so influential, why didn't I think this would happen? Alfred's love was so complete, very nearly obsessive. Possessive. He never got cross at me for looking at other men, but if other men looked at me? It was glares, threats, but never in a hateful way, always with that unnerving cheerful overtone that he'd gotten from his aristocratic upbringing. Never show negative feelings directly. Never insult plainly. Never come right out and attack someone.

I put my head into my hands, fighting a cry of anguish. So many mind games with these people. Life in Europe was terrible, but at least it was with commoners, people like me, people who are easy to understand (okay, so maybe not like me). At least there, a punch in the face was a punch in the face. Straightforward.

Alfred put up the image of a slightly dim, cheerful, American Dream boy-of-my-dreams, but I can see now that this was just a mask. I was lying to him, and he was lying right back to me. Go figure.

Gilbert is looking at me, so I let out the tangled swell of words inside my head in a raw, uneven voice. "What can I do? If I go to the hospital, they'll recognize me and send me back to him, and he'll put me in some conversion therapy until I lose my mind, and I'll kill himself. I swear I will. If I have to live the rest of my life as this person, this fucking disgrace, I will kill myself."

Gilbert stares, surprise plain. He sets his phone down, gaze never leaving me, and crosses his arms over his chest. "How about this," he says, voice calm, gentle even. "How about we make a deal to be honest from now on? No more secrets, and no judgment. Deal?"

It's only fair. He's my only hope, and he hasn't judged me so far. I reach out to shake his head with my own trembling fingers. "Deal."

"Alright. Good. So who are you running from?"

It startles me a little that he doesn't know, but I haven't told him yet. Everything is so jumbled. Every time I try to focus on one part of the situation, I lose track of all the rest. "My husband. Alfred Jones."

"Jesus. The rich kid guy Alfred Jones? Daddy stockbroker Alfred Jones?"

"Yes. How do you know about him?"

"My boss has done work for his father in the past. Well, not for. With." Gilbert presses a finger into his temple. "And this is where you ask what I do for a living and I tell ya and you freak out and run away and all kinds of bullshit happens." He throws up his hands. "I'm a hitman. People have a problem, they let my boss know, and I fix it. I scare people, or hurt them, or kill them, or all three. I put dead cats in mailboxes. I cut things off of people and give them to other people. It's violent as fuck and also I have a torture set-up in my basement."

My turn to stare at him. "Are . . . you joking?"

He picks up his phone again but doesn't look at it. He looks irritated. "Nein."

"Um . . . are you going to hurt me?"

"No. I got no reason to hurt you unless someone tells my boss they want you to be hurt."

"Do you have someone in your basement right now?"

"Nope, it's all freed up at the moment."

I'm chilled by how offhand he is about this. In truth, I can't believe he isn't kidding. My life feels more and more imaginary ever second. "You kill people." I nod slowly. "Well . . . alright."

Gilbert's brow furrows. "You're fine with it?"

"Well, no, killing people is wrong, and illegal, but . . . I'm a guest, and you're helping me, and . . . it's not my place to criticize you." I shrug. "And by the way you tell it, it seems like they aren't really good people."

"No," he says, "they're not good people. I've never killed someone who didn't have some kind of illegal or fucked-up shit going on."

I nod again. "Right. So. I'll, uh, not report you to the cops for being a murderer."

He kind of smiles. "And I'll not report you to the cops for being not-missing. Why are you missing, anyway?"

I look away. "My husband is transphobic. He thinks I'm deranged. Perverted."

"Is he abusive?"

"No, not physically. Emotionally . . . yes, he is, recently. I guess I could try to go to a shelter . . ."

"No good. They only let ya stay a couple years, if that. Then you'll be out where he can get ya again, and I don't think he'll be too nice after all that time, if he was bad enough for you to leave now."

"I would haved stayed with him. But he loves Arthur, and I can't be Arthur anymore." A simple unendingly complicated situation.

Gilbert starts tapping at his phone. "Husband is an asshole, Arthur is staying here until things can be worked out. Not safe anywhere else. Can we do this privately?"

Barely a pause. Gilbert reads the last text silently, sends one off, and drops his phone on the couch beside him. "Dominik says we can do it at his clinic. He owns it, and he's head surgeon there. It's not a big hospital, just a tiny place, on the other side of the city. You've probably driven by it before. There are no signs out front; most people don't realize it's not just an apartment or something. It's a clinic especially for people like you. Only trans. No cis allowed."

A secret clinic. This place, a shadowy hidey hole. This man, my only friend, a killer. A hitman.

"Great," I said, forcing a smile. It feels easier than it did for Alfred, though. It feels lighter. "Sounds like heaven."

Gilbert chuckles. "Yup. Hallelujah."