The following couple weeks were nerve wracking for me. Anytime I was home alone, I felt on edge, like I had to be on guard or else Beatrice might just sneak in. As you could imagine, it was quite stressful for me to have to get through on my own, and well… I only have one prominent way of coping. Not that Reginald could do anything when he was away, nor Max when she was doing those fabled “errands” of hers. I’ll admit that after that incident, I was curious about what Max absolutely had to go out almost every day to do. I felt like since it had officially crossed to affect me too, I should probably be able to know, right? I thought that was a fair argument.

One night when Max came home, I thought I could ask. We were very close anyway, and she knew I had a pair of tight lips. When she came home that night though, Max was in a foul mood. 

“How was your day?” I asked carefully.

“Just swell,” she huffed with gritted teeth. “Beatrice decided to ruin my time in the middle of my errands today and I can’t do anything about it or she’ll tell Reginald. She’s got me right under her thumb and she knows it!”

“What are your errands?” I asked curiously. “And why is it so important that Reginald doesn’t know about them?”

“Aven…” Max sighed. “I’ll tell you sometime, but not right now. It’s been a hard day, and I’d need to think about how to explain it.”

“It can’t be that complicated,” I reasoned. “Unless you’re doing something nefarious or illegal?”

“Listen, just keep it out of your mind,” she tiredly smiled, putting a hand on my shoulder. “I’ve got a more important question for you though.”

“Huh?” I asked, my palms immediately getting drenched in sweat. Had she somehow caught on to my binging when I was home alone?

“Have you thought about James’ proposal?”

“Oh!” I perked up, letting out a sigh. I hadn’t talked to James much since the night of the big Christmas dinner, but his offer to marry me had been on my mind ever since. “Truth be told, I just don’t know whether to accept.”

“Well, tell me about it while we make dinner,” she said, taking off the heavy coat and putting on an apron. “Tonight we’ll be cooking sausages and scrapple.”

“What’s scrapple?”

“It’s like cornbread made of meat.”

“Oh. Ew,” I cringed.

“It’s better than it sounds,” Max shrugged, getting the corn starch out. “But don’t change the subject. Tell me what’s keeping you from accepting the proposal.”

“It’s just a big leap in my life,” I shrugged. “I just don’t know the point of our union. He lives outside of New York, one of us would have to move states, and I hardly know him. Plus I don’t have any interest in having any action in bed, and can’t even give him a child anyway either.”

“Being a wife isn’t all about giving kids, you know,” she said, putting a hand on her hips. “I can’t give any, but Reginald and I are still quite passionate for each other.”

“Yes, yes, but I don’t know about it all…”

“You only live once, you know. You may as well live it to the fullest,” Max scolded. “A life not lived might as well have been wasted.”

“I feel fine just being alive,” I shrugged. “If I just lived with you and Reginald for the rest of my days, I wouldn’t have a problem with it.”

“But the last thing Reginald and I want to see is you being too afraid to go live your best life out there.”

“I’ll consider marrying him, okay?” I smiled. “We’ll exchange some more letters and see where it goes from there.”

“Atta girl,” Max smirked.

“What’s that smell?” Reginald asked, ducking into the house. “Don’t tell me you’re making scrapple for dinner.”

“What’s so wrong with that?”

“I think it’ll just be sausage and bread for me,” he requested. “I don’t think my stomach will be able to take another scrapple night.”

*   *   *   *   *

Days passed, then weeks, then months, and I had completely forgotten about bugging Max to tell me whatever her errands were. Since Beatrice hadn’t come back to the house, I grew to not care about Max’s secret and assumed it had all handled itself.

“Oh come on Beth,” I mumbled, flipping through the pages of Little Women while laying down on the couch. “Pull through that scarlet fever…”

All of a sudden, I heard a knock on the front door that I assumed to be either a solicitor trying to sell a phony product or another associate of Reginald looking to drop off some work documents. It had apparently become rumored that Reginald had an alleged “adopted daughter” at home, and the occasional visitor was usually shocked to see I actually exist. I mean, sure, go ahead and call me an orphan. Better than being labeled a freeloader.

Anyway, the knocking didn’t stop, and I was starting to get annoyed. Clearly whoever was there knew someone was home but couldn’t be bothered to actually call out for them. Frowning, I put a bookmark in my reading and lazily dragged my feet over to the door to answer it.

“If you’re looking for Reginald, he-”

My blood froze at the sight of Beatrice glaring at my forehead. She wasn’t someone you kept waiting. I tried to quickly shut the door, but she wedged a heel in and forced herself inside. The woman let that huge green snake of hers crawl across the coat rack.

“Oh, I know my brother isn’t here,” she scoffed. “He’s not who I’m here for.”

“M-Max isn’t here either.”

“I know.”

That set my stomach ablaze with anxiety. She was here for me. And she came at a time when she knew I would be home alone… What was she here for? Revenge? Torment? To sell me?!

“Oh stop with the cowering,” she commanded. “I’ve got a fascinating place I wanted to take you to today. They’re going to love you there.”

“I-I’m not going a-a-anywhere with you,” I said, standing my ground and sticking my chest out. Reginald seemed to force her out of the house so easily with only his words, so maybe I only needed to take the bull by the horns?

“Hm, disappointing,” she said, feigning sadness. I felt something crawl up my leg, and I felt so much immediate fear that I stopped breathing. Fluffy, the snake, was wrapping himself all the way around my leg and starting to constrict. Beatrice only kept up the condescending tone. “Are you sure you won’t reconsider? Please? Just for me?”

“I-I’ll go,” I choked out in fear. “I’ll come with you.”

“Good, good,” Beatrice deviously smirked, holding out her hand. “Let’s go. You’re my new friend for a day.”

The way she said it like a child getting their hands on a new toy made me feel like cornered prey. Hesitantly, I took her hand, which she clasped and led me out the door. I probably looked terrified, contrasting with Beatrice’s fake plastered smile; it only got worse as Fluffy slithered up my arm to get to his owner. As we walked down the street together, we got the occasional stare, probably baffled that Beatrice would ever have a friend with her. Eventually, we finally arrived at our destination: a rather small house near the edge of the good part of town.

“W-Where are we?”

“My house,” she said, pulling me through the door. “I just can’t stand being with someone so below my standards. You’re going to have to meet my expectations for appearances to stay out with me.”

“This is one of Max’s.”

“Believe me, I can tell.”

“So… what-”

“Put this on,” she commanded, throwing a corset and dress right at my face. I was amazed that she was actually letting me present as a woman. Stunned, actually. “I know what you’re thinking, and I’m only giving it to you because Reginald would be livid if he heard otherwise. And the last thing I need is more trouble with my family.”

“Oh, um, thank-”

“I don't need a thank you! I’m not going to feed your delusions beyond this! Just go put it on!”

I scrambled into the other room and started trying to put on what she handed me. Unfortunately, I didn’t think about the fact that Beatrice gave me one of her dresses, so it was made for waists the size of beer bottles. Not mine.

“It won’t fit!” I shouted out to her. “It’s too small!”

“No, you’re too big,” Beatrice retorted back, stomping into the room and forcing me to shield myself. “Ugh, still with the covering? There’s nothing to cover!”

Without wasting any time, she forced me as best as she could into the corset and harshly pulled the thick binding strings back. Immediately almost all of my air was cut off, and I could hear some cracking from my back and ribs.

“I told you it was fine,” she smiled, dusting her hands off. “We can finally get to the real destination.”

“Huh?”

“I didn't invite you over to play dress up. So come on, we’ve got someplace to be.”

“What about the dress I came here in?”

“Oh, just set it in the trash bin,” she dismissively waved. “I’ll find a proper way to dispose of it later. And keep that one you’ve got on. You’ve ruined the whole thing by just wearing it.”

*   *   *   *   *

After walking to the other side of town in a dress I could barely breathe in, we finally arrived at our destination: a sort of plain-looking building. One you wouldn’t bat an eye at since it looked to have been converted from a regular house into some kind of business. It looked to have been at least attempted to be maintained, but still had cobwebs gathering out front. The house had a brass plaque next to the door with The DuCarmont Laboratory of New York etched into it.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“If you really don’t know Max’s errands, aren’t you dying to know what they are?”

I would’ve maybe tried to run away then and there, but I admittedly was curious. What was Max so secretive about? So that’s why I followed Beatrice inside the house against my better judgment.

“Oh Lucas!” she immediately chirped in glee, grabbing onto my arm so I couldn’t escape. “I’ve brought in a new candidate to study!”

I was greeted by the sight of a diverse assortment of people of all shapes, sizes, and races. I didn’t know who to look at first. There was the rather large woman holding biscuits, or the little girl with flaming red hair. Or this kid dejectedly reading a book. The scariest might’ve been this freakishly tall and skinny man with a cane and goatee. They all gave me such blank stares, like they didn’t know what to make of me. 

“S-Study?” I stuttered. Just as I asked that, this man walked into the room. A thin frame, greasy, slick hair, and one milky white right eye with a jagged scar across it.

“Who… is this?” the man sighed. He must’ve been Lucas.

“His name is Adam,” Beatrice proclaimed proudly. A sentence that immediately lowered my self esteem. After some thumping, Max barreled from the hallway with a biscuit clenched between her teeth. 

“Aven!?”

“Stuffing your face again, I see.” Beatrice jeered. “Adam’s here for questioning, whether you like it or not. And if I hear another word on it, I won’t hesitate to say something to my brother.”

“Fine,” she huffed, clearly not fine about it. What were these people about to do to me? And why did Max have reservations about Reginald knowing about it? Lucas turned to me and cleared his throat.

“Are you ready Ms…?”

“Murphy,” I quickly said, trying to cough and heighten my voice.

“Right this way, Ms. Murphy,” Lucas said, gesturing for me to follow him, which I did. All the way down the hall into a room that I assumed to be his office. It was cluttered, with papers on subjects I couldn’t understand stacked on chairs and mismatched books and journals lining shelves, some with loose papers sticking out. 

“So… what exactly do you do here?” I asked quietly.

“I’ve been studying odd people,” he said in a dull, flat tone. “I want to know how the mind works, and what makes some people so radically different from normal ones.”

“I’m assuming you’re DuCarmont then?”

“Right,” he nodded, opening a journal to a blank page and writing a couple things down. “Name?”

“Aven Murphy, sir.”

“Age?”

“Eighteen.”

“Can you explain to me what Beatrice was on about with calling you ‘Adam’ back there?”

“It’s… it’s my given name, sir. Aven is my chosen one.”

“Alright,” he nodded. With the very answer, he would scribble more notes in his book. “So what makes you odd or irregular?”

“Um… does this stay between us?”

“To the grave,” he said in such a blank tone that I couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or not.

“You see, I wasn’t born a woman,” I said awkwardly. “Well, actually I think I was born a woman, but I was born mismatched into a man’s body. Does that make sense?”

“No, no it does not…” he shook his head, writing vigorously. “But I am curious to know all the details so I can understand.”

We spent the next maybe 20 minutes talking about my journey into womanhood. It was kind of unnerving how he never once acted like I was a freak, but jotted down every word I uttered. By the end of the session, he looked very pleased with his pages of filled ink.

“Thank you very much,” Lucas said, pulling out a genuine grin. “I hope to learn so much from you.”

“You don’t think I’m… I don’t know, an escaped asylum patient?” I asked, confused as to why he seemed to actually have a sense of… understanding. He hardly even batted an eye when hearing I was born a man but am supposed to be a woman!

“Listen, Ms. Murphy, you’re not the most outlandish story I’ve heard here,” Lucas side-eyed. “Just yesterday I had a hysterical woman telling me that her great great grandmother was an Aztec goddess who descended from the clouds; her proof was that her skin was such a slight tint of red that I could barely see. Tell me if that’s easier to believe than me looking at a woman across from me.”

“Oh… Well then, I suppose when you get women like her, I do seem quite normal in comparison, don’t I?”

“The world is full of odd people, Ms. Murphy.”

“Just Aven is fine,” I requested. Formal words were so suffocating to me. “Are we almost done here?”

“Just about,” he nodded. “If I had your permission, I’d love to see you come back here sometime to ask more questions and maybe even do a couple tests.”

“Do I have to come with… with Beatrice?”

“I’d prefer you not.”

“I can do that,” I sighed with a smile.

“Good, good… One last question, actually.”

“Hm?”

“After your death, would you mind donating your body to my science?” Lucas asked in the most disturbingly casual manner. “I’ve never had a subject like you, and I’m very curious to see what makes your brain different.”

“Um… if Max says it’s ok, then sure…?” I said awkwardly. I wasn’t sure if I should care what happens to me after I die. It’s not like I’ll be alive to be bothered.

“Thank you,” he winked. “Let’s go back out now. Max is likely waiting.”

Lucas guided me back out of the office, where Max breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing me, then looked skeptically at Lucas.

“He wasn’t too hard on you, right?”

“No, it was… it was ok.” It was hard to open up but good to do, in a way.

“Let’s just go home,” she sighed, looking at my outfit.  “Did Beatrice give you that dress?”

“She said if I was going to go out with her, I needed to meet her standards,” I shrugged. “Since Reginald’s stipulation was that she had to let me be female, she gave me this dress and let me keep it.”

“Huh, really? She values those dresses… A lot.”

“Told me I had ruined it by just wearing it, so I could just keep it.”

“Weird… Just weird…”

“The corset is killing me,” I painfully huffed. “Please, get me out of this death trap.”