GILBERT

Can I just say, fuck the sun.

It's a big goddamn ball of radioactive heat floating up in our sky, and it burns skin and makes ya go blind and causes cancer and makes stinky stuff smell ten times worse. And the whole greenhouse effect thing. Poor polar bears, man.

Yeah, it keeps the earth warm enough to live on, but who gives a shit. Being alive ain't all it's cracked up to be. Way overhyped.

I have to wear a T-shirt over long sleeves, with my collar turned up over my neck, gloves on my hands, a cowboy hat, and sunglasses.

When Arthur sees me, she covers her smile with her fingers.

"Yes, I know, I look fuckin' unspeakably sexy," I say, holding up a hand. "No need to tell me. The attraction you feel is perfectly normal."

She giggles, a sound that goes right into my chest and tickles my heart. "You do, you look nice. I like the hat. You would make a good cowboy. A gunslinger."

I pick up a banana-gun from the fruit bowl—hell yeah I have a fruit bowl, I'm a fucking domestic housewife—and pose for Arthur. "Howdy pardner. Hows about y'all come with me down to the waterin' hole?"

"Watering hole?" she says through laughter, eyes going squinty in the corners.

The happiness on her face and the giggles make me grin and say, "Yessiree, I'm a cowboy on the African plains. I ride a zebra and herd gee-raffes all day long."

She takes the banana from me and wipes happy tears from her eyes. "Your Southern drawl sounds amazing with a German accent underneath."

"Thank you kindly, ma'am." I touched the brim of my hat and lead the way to my car as quickly as possible.

"Will you catch on fire?" she asks when we're driving. Well, when I'm driving and she's unpeeling her banana.

"Yup, I'll sizzle to nothing like a wet witch." I'm freaked out to be driving around during the day, when there are actually other people out here. My brain feels squishy from waking up at one-thirty PM, hours before my usual rising time, but driving with hundreds of potential accidents on all sides keeps me alert. "Feel free to turn on the radio, Miss Kirkland."

Arthur clicks it on curiously, and the disc I'd forgotten was in there starts to play. Paul McCartney sings about how he wants to tell us something he thinks we'll understand.

"Oh, you like the Beatles?" Arthur looks surprised. "I didn't know they were popular in Germany."

"I got into 'em in Russia, actually. Boss Man is a fan, if you can believe it, and he listened to them with me enough that I knew all the words. He was a pisspoor father figure at one point, but not anymore. We still both like the songs, though. One of the very fuck few things we have in common."

Ivan actually helped me out a lot, in the beginning. Gave me a place to stay, taught me some Russian and English (he's fluent in about whatever language you can think of), and showed me what I thought I knew from aborted army training: how to kill.

Yup, he helped me lose my murder virginity. We toasted vodka over the corpse of a prostitute. I got blood on the glass; there was dark crimson under my fingernails for days after that. Cheers, da?

You stop smelling blood eventually, but you always taste it, like copper, at the back of your throat. Some people think the smell and the taste are disgusting. Some pussies can't even stand the sight of blood. But I've never had trouble with it. I like everything about blood. It's bright red. Its scent is exciting.

I wanna hold your hand, I wanna hold your hand.

"So . . . is that why you became a hitman for him?" Arthur asks, looking over at me. "Because he was like a father to you?"

"Mmm . . ." I check my blind spots twice; Jesus, where do these bicycles come from? "I guess, yeah. Maybe. I guess I thought if I was a hitman I could make believe I was a soldier, like I wanted to be. Back then I didn't really understand morals and stuff like that. I just figured if he was telling me to do something, it was on him. I was just another weapon in his hand."

Arthur makes a little thoughtful sound, but not a judgemental one. "Kind of like a dog. It's not the dog's fault if the owner teachers it to bite people. Not to call you a dog—"

I laugh at her panicked expression. "You can call me whatever you want, Kirkie. Most of the time it'd probably be an accurate title. And besides, dogs are great. Ludwig used to have three of 'em, he loved 'em. They didn't particularly care for me, but they weren't bad dogs. He was a good owner. Of course."

Arthur brightens at the mention of pets, looking fond like when she talked about her imaginary friends. Makes you wonder how someone with four brothers could be so lonely. "What happened to the dogs once he was gone?"

"Couldn't tell ya. I assume our father took care of them until they died, but I wouldn't put it past him to just take them to a shelter." I also wouldn't put it past him to put a bullet in their heads to save on the shelter fee, but I don't tell her that. "Did you have any dogs or cats when you were growing up?"

"No, none of our own, just whatever Dylan brought home to take care of for a while. Our stepfather never let him keep anything. He said we couldn't afford to feed anymore animals. You know, besides the kids." Arthur's looking down at her lap again, folding up the banana peel. I didn't see her eat it, but maybe that's for the better; driving and phallic activities should probably be kept as separate as possible.

"Did you want a pet?"

"Well . . . maybe. I wasn't ever really a dog or cat person, though. Dogs get too excited and cats tear things with their claws. But maybe something else, like a little hamster? Although they do get smelly, and changing their bedding is a bit of a chore. A fish? But they are sort of dull . . ." She's not looking at me while she goes through these options, she's tilting her head in consideration and perking up at every new possibility, talking to herself more than me. I can't stop smiling at it. She's so fucking cute. Too bad she didn't wear the pompom hat today.

"Sorry to interrupt, but we're here," I say, parking the car. The clinic doesn't have signs anywhere except for on the door, and it's so small you have to be about to open the thing before you can read the lettering. It's not like the abortion clinics around here, where you'll have protesters lining up all day, waving signs and thumping bibles. Nope, it's covert, tucked away between two apartment buildings with a parking lot only big enough to hold about five cars if they all hold their breath. You can tell just by looking at it that they don't get much business, like, at all. Dominik has told me that a lot of the time, he's the one putting money into it instead of taking it out. But he's got the money to burn; his family is rich as fuck in Hungary from their stock investments. All hail the Budapest Stock Exchange, ja? This clinic is a labor of love, so he claims. And hey, I believe him. He shoulda had a place like this when he transitioned. Woulda made it a hell of a lot easier on him.

Arthur's green eyes widen in fear, and I put a hand on her knee. The eyes flash to me, bright with anxiety.

"It'll be perfectly fine," I tell her. "There'll be two other people in there, max. The doc, and maybe a receptionist. Dominik's my best friend, I've known him for years. He wants to help."

She looks a little calmed, but the nervousness is still there. I know how she feels. The fear of the unknown can't be blamed.

I get out of the car, and a moment later, she does too. We hurry into the clinic, her keeping right beside me despite her shorter legs, and only when I close the door behind us do I realize she's holding my hand. Her eyes are huge, but I just give her what I hope is a reassuring smile and close the door with my free hand.

The inside of the clinic is a lot nicer than the outside. It's not fancy, though; it looks more like a therapy room than a hospital, which I guess is fair, since Dominik is practically a therapist too. He's a genius, the bastard. The walls are a soft, cheerful blue, and the seats are all cottony and squishy. Very casual, very cozy. A sign on the empty front desk says Make Yourself at Home with a smiley face under it. I watch Arthur look over at the smiley face, and a tiny smile, just a twitch of pink lips, reflects on her own face.

"Hey, Dominik," I half-call, using Inside Voices like a good boy. "You gonna greet us or just make us rob the place?"

"You wouldn't." And there's the man of the hour, coming from a back room with the usual friendly vibes surrounding him. He's a few inches shorter than me, has his soft brown hair cut in a way best described as comfy masculine, and is dressed in his now-typical khaki-chinos-and-pastel-dress-shirt way. He looks like a slightly delicate middle school social studies teacher.

And his eyes are, of course, green.

Arthur's are prettier. More vibrant. Dominik's are pale, like olives. Arthur's are better.

"Good to see you, man," I say, performing a bro handshake with Dominik. "I like the hair. Very American businessman, ja? Very briefcase. And is that stubble I see?"

Dominik smiles and rubs his fingers over his jaw. His Hungarian accent is pretty faint these days. "Yes, yes it is. Testosterone injections are a thing of beauty."

Arthur peers up at us, startled. "Wait, you're—you were—?"

Dominik's eyes focus warmly on Arthur. "Yes, I was born as a woman. My parents named me Elizaveta, but my name is now Dominik. Doctor Dominik Héderváry." He holds out a hand. A small, feminine hand. "Pleased to meet you, Ms. Jones."

"Ms. Kirkland, actually," I say quickly as Arthur shakes the hand with trembling fingers. "Maiden name."

Good ol' Dominik doesn't miss a beat. "Ah, I see. Ms. Kirkland, then. Please, come through here, into my office. I like to sort of combine my degrees when I work. I'm a certified surgeon and medical practitioner, but I also have a degree in psychology. I can't prescribe medicine to treat mental disorders, but I can evaluate my patients mentally before we do anything physically." He sits at his desk, smiling. "Basically, I'm a really good listener."

I can still hear the feminine intonations in his voice. I can still hear him—her, at that time—crying out my name as we fucked on her parents' poolside bar. Didn't work out, obviously. It wasn't too much of a lie when I told Arthur there was nothing for me in Hungary. Just a brief something before an inevitable nothing.

But Dominik is a good friend to have. In this situation, anyway.

Arthur looks at me uncertainly, a shy little girl in the body of a British man. I sit down on a creamy couch, pat the cushion beside me. She joins me without meeting mine or Dominik's gaze. I glance at Dominik. "Think you could lower the lights in here? If it ain't too much trouble."

"Oh, yes, sure. I almost forgot. You do look great in that cowboy hat, though. And the cool shades." He gets up and rummages around in a closet, then sets down a sepia lamp and plugs it in. "There we go."

"Thanks, dollface." Once the light's off, I can remove my hat and sunglasses, but I keep the gloves on. They're leather, and I think they're pretty badass. I'd wear them when I kill people to make them even more badass, but they'd get covered in blood and then they'd be shitty. Mostly when fingerprints matter (not often) I wear latex gloves. Not very badass, but that's the true side of murder, kiddies. Not as sexy as it is in movies.

"So, Ms. Kirkland." Dominik smiles kindly. "Tell me your story."