Ellen Datlow - Off Limits

Bondage probably isn’t my ideal equal opportunities sport. I have poor circulation and a short temper. I’d never want to take my turn as the bondee. But this story isn’t really about acting out control fantasies. It’s about the invincible human vices (aka survival traits) of cowardice and laziness. Sexual negotiations are costly and dangerous, and as soon as there’s a way to swipe the pleasure while avoiding the risks, nothing’s going to stop people, of whatever gender, from opting for McDonald’s.

I’m an unreliable witness on the subject of my stories and novels. I tend to give a different answer every time, as different aspects strike me as important. Magna est veritas, and there’s no end to it. But this is certainly some of the thinking behind Sonja.

Mike O’Driscoll lives and writes in Swansea, England. When not writing, he works with adults with mental health problems. His fiction has been published in Black Static and its predecessor The Third Alternative , as well as in Interzone , The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction , Crime Wave , and Albedo One . He has also placed stories in several anthologies, including Inferno , The Dark , Lethal Kisses , Gathering the Bones , and Years’ Best Fantasy & Horror #17, and two volumes of Mammoth Book of Best New Horror.

His story “Sounds Like” was adapted for the Masters of Horror television series. He writes a column about television for Black Static . His novella Eyepennies (2012) is the first in a new fiction series.

WHILE DR. KLEINFELD CARRIES out his gynecological explorations, I try to recall a life beyond the Sanctuary. It is an old game, one whose necessity is greater than ever now that the parameters of existence are closing in on me. The old dream has become a sour and sterile reality; my new dreams are of the disease.

Dr. Kleinfeld completes his probing and unhooks my legs from the stirrups. He makes notes in silence, ignoring me; his report is for Spengler’s eyes, not mine. Seeking some reassurance, I ask him, “And how is my cunt, Doctor?”

He says, “Is it necessary to use such terminology?”

“That’s what it is.”

“No no,” he protests. “Had you undergone reassignment surgery in Brazil, then such a crude appellation would be appropriate.” And then he’s off into his spiel about the techniques he developed to construct my labia, clitoris, and vagina, and the breakthrough he’d achieved in being able to lubricate the vagina from the seminal vesicles and Cowper’s glands, on and on like some demented Frankenstein.

“I’ve been having dreams,” I cut him off.

“Isn’t that the purpose of dreamdust,” he says, an attempt at sarcasm that doesn’t become him. “Why do you need that stuff?”

“I’ve been dreaming about the disease.”

I see the momentary panic in his eyes before it is replaced by a synthetic reassurance. “It can’t harm you, my dear.”

“It killed the woman who discovered it,” I say.

He smiles and says, “A woman, Estela, which only confirms my point. What Dr. Komatsu found in her tests on precancerous cells from a patient’s ovaries—the dysfunctional estrogen—merely served to illustrate what it was she would die from.”

“She was an expert,” I persist. “And she couldn’t save herself.”

Kleinfeld shakes his head, as if speaking to a capricious child. “It caught up with her too fast. By the time she discovered that luteinizing hormone was triggering an abnormal reaction in estrogen, and that symptoms were only manifesting in women, she was already at the hemorrhaging stage. She lived just long enough to establish the viral origins of the gonadotrophin mutation. It was left to others to prove that this Hormonal Dysfunction Virus caused the disease.”

“But I carry the virus,” I tell him, watching his reaction.

“Yes, as do eighty percent of males; but there are absolutely no cases of activation of the disease in men.”

“How do you know it will stay that way?”

“Our knowledge of HDV is still growing, but the latest research indicates that the presence of male hormones may inhibit the viral activation. It’s apparent that HDV is hereditary, and lies dormant in both male and female until the onset of a premature puberty. When the pituitary gonadotrophins are at a high enough level to stimulate production of the sex hormones, this process triggers the virus, which in turn causes the dysfunction of the estrogen in the ovaries. The indications are that when sex hormone production begins in males, the androgens produced somehow prevent the virus from becoming active.”

“I produce high levels of estrogen,” I say.

“Yes,” he agrees, “but you still produce androgens in sufficient quantities to counteract HDV.” He pauses, as if to savor a triumph. “A feature of the surgery I performed on you six years ago; you carry the virus but it cannot interact with your production of female hormones. The triggering process cannot take place.”

Despite the words, I sense his doubt. “Am I to be replaced?”

He frowns. “What have I just told you? There are no reported cases of Komatsu’s Syndrome in transsexuals.”

Soon afterward, Heinrich, my null, drives me back through the morning rain to my apartment overlooking the River Spree. As I undress I hear the phone hum, but I make no move to answer it. He picks it up, listens, then informs me that Spengler wishes to speak to me.

Spengler owns The Birds of the Crystal Plumage. He had me brought to Berlin; everything I have, has come from him—this apartment, the car, the clothes, the dust, and the body, most of all the body. Sometimes I feel I have as little free will as Heinrich. He is a eunuch in mind as well as in body, conditioned by hypnotics to respond only to my commands.

Reluctantly, I take the phone. “Estela,” Spengler says, “some business associates are stopping in town tonight. I want to take them to the club. They’re keen to see your act.”

“They always are,” I tell him. “I don’t feel well.”

Mock concern creeps into his voice. “What is it now, my dear?”

“Bad dreams.”

Spengler laughs, a brittle, humorless sound. “Don’t be stupid, you know they came for you.” He goes on to tell me which costume to wear, which jewelry, which perfume. “I’ll expect you at eight. Be in a good mood, Estela, don’t disappoint them.”

This life in paradise is my reward; it is the way I profit from the disease. I remember months of preparation, even after the surgery—instruction in oriental sexual techniques, as well more cerebral refinements, French, German, and English languages; literature; art—I can hold my own in the most refined or debauched company. And I recall my first years in Berlin, when the bars of my cage remained invisible.

I enter the bedroom, searching my body for signs of corruption. I lie on the bed as Heinrich comes in with a crystal pipe on a tray. He loads the bowl with dreamdust. As he heats it, my anticipation is tinged with the hope that I won’t dream.

Late afternoon finds me stronger, vaguely pleased at some dust-induced memory. This sense of well-being lasts only until Rudy Thessinger calls. “What do you want?” I ask him.

Laughter flows down the line, poisoning my brain. Rudy and I go back a long way, to Rio de Janeiro, more than six years ago. Rudy brought me to Berlin. He’s Spengler’s talent scout, my pimp.

As usual he inquires about my well-being, then says, “I have some news about an old friend of yours.”