By the evening—after waxing my legs and arms raw, spending an hour doing my hair, and another hour applying makeup—I had gained a sharply increased appreciation for all the care and effort women went through to get ready. I was exhausted, and we hadn’t even left yet. Luckily, Jake had volunteered to help me through most of my preparation, and while I should have just been grateful, I discovered my pride could only handle so much indignity. After helping me with the eyeliner, I kicked him out of the bathroom, leaving me with a cabinet of makeup left to apply that I could only guess at how to put on.
After that, I had to sort through the hundreds of combinations of dresses, shoes, and other accessories at my disposal, without the faintest idea of how to make my choice. The bra had been an especially thorny problem, given my usual preference for wearing just a tee shirt bra around the house, if I had to wear anything. Ultimately, with dozens of choices in front of me and no way to know which one would be best, I chose a strapless bra, but that left me with the challenge of trying to figure out how exactly to put the damn thing on.
I chose a dress that matched the formal setting of the evening, a cobalt-blue gown that went down to just below my knees. As I picked it out, my only guiding thought was I knew it would have looked nice on Jake when he was in this body, so I figured it would probably look nice on me. Its sleeves came to just below my elbows and were made from a lacy see-through fabric arranged in a flower pattern. The neckline covered my shoulders but also came down in front just enough to show a hint of cleavage. I later learned from Jake it was a sweetheart design (whatever that meant), but all I cared about in the moment was that it was about as provocative a dress as I could screw up my courage to wear in public. Which is to say, it wouldn’t have looked out of place at a Latin Mass. Maybe in the Fifties.
I fished out a pair of simple red pumps to wear to complete my outfit, ones with a modest two-inch heel. Just before leaving the room, I had noticed the jewelry box on the dresser, and with a sigh, I picked out a simple pair of earrings. Grumbling after I fumbled with the small diamond studs to push them through my ear piercings, I turned my attention back to the jewelry box and poked a finger through the delicate chains until I found a small silver locket, which I carefully strung around my neck. I secretly hoped Jake wouldn’t notice my choice. With another sigh, I left the room and headed down the stairs, nearly tripping on the first step.
“Wow.” Jake took in a sharp breath when he caught sight of me half-way down the stairs.
“Wait.” I held up a finger, still clinging onto the banister. I kept my eyes on my feet all the way to the bottom of the stairs. He remained silent until I had cleared the last step. “Okay.”
“You look...” He seemed to be at a loss for words as he looked me over. I scrunched up the side of my face as I met his gaze. “Stunning.”
“Don’t make fun of me.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “I know I look frumpy, but this is the most I can manage, okay?”
“I’m not making fun of you.” He stepped forward, then gently brushed some of the hair off my shoulder. “Honestly, Amber, I’m kind of jealous. I had almost forty years of practice, and I’m not sure I could have pulled off the look you have right now. That dress really shows off your curves. In a good way.”
“I hate that phrase.” I blew a raspberry and spun around to look down at myself. “I never understood it. What are curves, and why do I suddenly have them now?”
He laughed and put a hand on my shoulder to stop me from doing another spin. “You know I love you, but sometimes, you’re ridiculous. These...” He took a moment to trace his hands along my sides, from under my armpits down to my waist, and then to my hips. “...Are your curves. Of course you have them now.”
I looked down at where his hands now rested, which was quite a bit lower than my hips, and my stomach did a somersault. I really wasn’t trying to draw attention to myself. Well, not too much—no. I wasn’t trying to draw attention to myself. Period. I frowned. “Do you think I should—”
“Honey.” He took me by the arm and pulled me toward the front door. “You look nice. That’s the point. You have to remember you’re a woman now. It’s part of the package deal. Besides, even if you showed up tonight wrapped in a tarp, you’d still turn heads. You look perfect, trust me.”
“Fine.” I snatched the purse that he now held out for me. “Let’s get this over with.”
I tried to hide my growing discomfort as he drove us to the hotel downtown where his company had rented out the event hall for the evening. I didn’t think for a second he wouldn’t see through my deception, but I also knew he wouldn’t bring up something like that when it was so obvious I was trying to ignore it altogether. It was one of the things I loved about him.
My unease only grew as we pulled up to the front of the hotel, where a valet waited patiently to park our car. I tried to ignore the flicker of the valet’s eyes as they darted to my chest after he smiled at me, but it still made me squirm a little. Jake held out his elbow, and I tucked my arm around his as we crossed through the hotel’s lobby into the banquet hall. As I looked around the dozens of large circular tables spaced around the room, an unexpected flood of relief washed over me. There were a lot of women around us in dresses much more outlandish than mine. Quite a few of them, I knew, were going to attract more attention than me.
I allowed Jake to steer me through the sea of tables and chairs to lead us to a table where six other people already sat. I recognized all of them, though I wasn’t sure I should have, only being Jake’s wife. Four of them were my former coworkers, working in the same department that Jake now worked, while the other two were spouses there to support their loved ones. Teresa, the wife of my coworker Arnold, gave me a knowing smile as Jake went through the motions of introducing me to everyone at the table. I worked to keep a balanced expression on my face as I shook the hands of the people I had worked with for years, trying to hide my absurd fear that any one of them would somehow see through my deception and realize that I had once been Jake, their coworker.
As we finished dinner, I was surprised to discover I had slipped into easy conversation with the others at our table. There were a few moments of confusion where I contributed to a conversation and revealed information I shouldn’t have known, but through the din around us and the free-flowing drinks, it seemed my former coworkers didn’t notice, or just didn’t care. Even if they did notice, I figured they would just write-off my mistakes as things that Jake had shared with me. Still, being back around my old coworkers filled me with a strange sense of loss. It was easy to forget about how much my life had changed with our body swap when I was so busy training to be an arbiter, but slipping so easily back into the company of my old friends made me realize how much I had missed my old life without even noticing.
“Honey?” Jake touched my arm some time later, pulling me away from my thoughts. I looked up from the dessert in front of me to meet his gaze. “Would you like to dance?”
I glanced around our table only to see that the two other couples had left. I spotted them a few tables away, where a small area had been cleared for a dance floor.
I nodded and pushed myself to my feet.
He took me by the hand and led me through the sea of tables to the dance floor. We both fumbled a bit as we faced each other, and I had to remind myself to hold out my right hand instead of leading with my left as we started to dance. For his part, though, Jake looked just as uncomfortable as I felt. Watching the way his eyes kept darting to our feet as we swayed to the music, I couldn’t help the smile that crept across my face.
I sighed and leaned my head against his chest. “I’m sorry.”
“What are you sorry about?”
“I guess with everything that’s been going on, I forgot that I’m not the only one who’s had their whole world flipped inside out.”
“I’d be lying if I said any of this has been easy for me.” Only the barest tremble in his voice betrayed how truly sincere he was. “Still, there
’s a part of me that feels like I deserve it. I mean, it was my fault.”
“What?” I twisted my head back to look up at him and frowned.
“It’s my fault. I knew when I went there that day... well...”
“You were doing the right thing.” I struggled to find the right way to say what I felt, aware that our conversation was all too public. Obviously, Jake was struggling under the same constraints.
“I should have told you.” He shook his head. “You should have had a choice in this—”
“Jake,” I cupped the side of his face in my hand to quiet him. “You had good reason not to tell me, and there was nothing we could have done to prepare us for this. It’s okay.”
“You don’t understand. I should have told you. Years ago, when we first met. I—”
“I wouldn’t have been able to understand.” I smiled. “I was really bigoted then. Probably still am.”
“You’re not bigoted.” He scowled, and I was surprised to see he looked genuinely angry. “You had every reason in the world to feel the way you did for all those years. But that’s not what I meant, Amber.”
“No.” I grimaced. “But this really is my fault, not yours. I’ve kept you from sharing a huge, wonderful part of who you are, just because I couldn’t get over something that happened to me more than half a lifetime ago.”
“I’m not sure, if I were in your place, if I could get over it.”
“Yes, you could.” I gave him a light smile, even as I rested a hand on his cheek. “You’ve always been stronger than me. More ready to forgive and grow past the mistakes of others.”
“I don’t believe that.” He ran a hand along my collar bone until his finger rested on the heart-shaped locket around my neck. “They were your parents, Amber.”
For a while, we danced in silence. I sensed his unease, his desire to say something more, and dreaded the thought he would. He always got so strange whenever we talked about my parents.
“Thank you,” he whispered, then leaned in and kissed me on my cheek as the song ended and we broke apart. “Of anyone who I could go through this with, I’m glad it’s with you.”
“Me too.” I gave him another kiss before reaching up to straighten his collar. “You know, I don’t know if I told you this, but you clean up pretty well yourself.”
“I guess.” His tone was subdued.
“Ugh.” I changed the subject, aware of his discomfort at being complimented. I reached behind me and readjusted myself in a rather unladylike way. “Do panties always ride up like this?”
“You’re wearing those lacy ones that you always liked to see on me, aren’t you?” He raised an eyebrow and took me by the hand as another song began.
“What of it?”
He laughed. “Beauty sometimes comes at a cost.”
The rest of the evening passed more quickly than I expected, and before I knew it, we were heading home. Despite all my misgivings, some time between when we arrived and when we left I had started enjoying myself. The strange sense of loss I had felt earlier returned as we made our way back to the car, but I brushed it aside as Jake put his arm around me. Watching him as we walked to the lobby of the hotel, I couldn’t help but remember that I wasn’t the only one who had lost almost everything. We both, unlike almost anyone else in the world, knew what it was like to go through a complete change of identity. In an odd way, this shared trial was just another layer to our relationship, another experience to bind the two of us together even closer. I slipped my arm under his suit jacket and pulled him close as I leaned against his chest while we waited for the valet to bring our car.
Everything about that moment was so alien. My legs felt naked under my dress. The cool, slippery fabric of my dress rubbed easily against my equally smooth skin as a light breeze played between my legs. My makeup chaffed every time I moved a facial muscle, or even did something as simple as blink. A little bit of my lipstick would flake off every time I spoke or moved my lips. Worst of all, my whole body felt wrong in a fundamental way that had nothing to do with what I was wearing. Something about my balance, in the weight and distribution of my muscles, was impossible to ignore. It was all so completely wrong. It made my skin crawl with an itch that was impossible to scratch. And the itching desire grew to a burning insanity every time I noticed it, which was often.
What should have been the strangest thing—that I had wrapped my arms around a man and that he was holding me tightly in turn—was oddly the only thing in that moment that made absolute sense. It should have been unbearable. Instead, it was the most comforting thing I could imagine. Some things, no matter what happened, could not change. No matter what happened. Jake was one of those things. Maybe the only thing in my life, if I thought about it. With him, nothing could be wrong.
I smiled as he began to run his hands through my hair.
I went into the hub that next Monday feeling more nervous than I thought possible. It was crazy to think that they wouldn’t pass me, since I knew for a fact that the list of arbiters weaker than Gravita was much, much larger than the list of arbiters stronger than her. Actually, once primes got to a certain power level, there wasn’t much point in making comparisons between them anymore. And Gravita had been at the top end of that scale. But I wasn’t Gravita. The fact that I had, by my estimates, only managed to give a passable demonstration of my powers only worked against me. I was trying to take the name of one of the most well-known arbiters in Chicago, and doing it while being almost twice the normal age when primes took the certification test to be an arbiter. Passable wouldn’t cut it. As the elevator stopped on the lowest floor of the hub, I berated myself for not accepting Jake’s offer to accompany me to the meeting. But it hadn’t felt right when he had made the offer. I would have to do things on my own at some point without Jake’s help. If I couldn’t handle the meeting, I had no business trying to fight crime as an arbiter.
I tried to ignore the way my high-heeled shoes clicked on the cement floor as I made my way down the corridor to my meeting room. I had followed Jake’s advice and had taken an extra hour that morning to make sure I looked presentable, which of necessity had included both makeup and a skirt. I still felt unspeakably uncomfortable to be wearing makeup, but his point made too much sense to ignore. I was trying to show the administrators I was adapting into my wife’s life. If I couldn’t handle makeup, how could they trust me to handle being an arbiter? At least the black business blazer I wore over my blouse was somewhat familiar. I could almost pretend I was wearing a suit. Right.
I blew out of the side of my mouth to get a stray hair out of my face after taking a breath outside my room and then, without giving myself time to think through how my stomach was rolling around like someone had put it through a rinse cycle, I pushed the door open and stepped inside.
There were nine people seated at the front of the room, all behind a long table. I tried to smile as I crossed the room and took a seat at the solitary chair on my side of the table, then scooted forward a few inches so the table would be at arm’s length. Only then did I study the nine faces across the table from me, and my heart skipped a beat. Not only were the four arbiters I had faced in the trial looking back at me, but Kiara as well. I recognized the other four, two men and two women, as administrators from my hub. I had seen the woman directly across from me at the hub a few times before, but I would have recognized her even without that. She was one of the few arbiters I had known by name even before swapping bodies with my wife, even though she had retired from active duty close to a decade before.
It seemed she presided at the meeting, as I listened in near silence to her read through the notes from both my theoretical and practical exams, then waited as she turned the time over to the four arbiters I had faced in the maze to give them a chance to talk through their impressions of our fights. To my surprise, they almost all had nothing but praise for the way I handled myself in the exam. All except for...
“Sloppy.” Greg gave me a deep frown as he met my
gaze. “You were using far too much force. With the amplitudes of power you were working with, if you had slipped up, even for a second, it would have been fatal.” He looked down at the notes in front of him, then looked over at the other three arbiters with a scowl. “In fact, that was a pattern seen throughout the other fights as well.”
“She seemed to use the right amount of force to me.” Steelframe met his gaze with an icy expression. “In fact, I was deeply impressed with the measure of control she demonstrated in the exam. Do you know how much you have to deform steel before it melts?”
“That’s not—” He began.
“How much would you think, Mary?”
“Given that Amber was only using gravity and, therefore, the weight of the steel itself to heat and deform it?” Machina, whose name I now knew was Mary, sighed as she tapped a finger on her notepad and raised an eyebrow in apparent concentration. “I suspect she was bending the metal in a field on the order of maybe a billion times the strength of earth’s gravity?”
“Wait, what?” I stammered, my heart speeding up. “I didn’t—I mean, I meant to warp the metal, but I didn’t realize I was bending a field that strong. I—”
Steelframe shot me a look that, even through my muddled stress, told me to shut up. I snapped my mouth close.
Prime Identity Page 9
