By the time Election Day dawned, I'd been awake for thirty-seven hours straight. Not because I'd been out until dawn at Pulse again-I was self-destructive, not stupid-but because I'd been lying in the dark next to Casey's sleeping form, counting the minutes until this whole nightmare could end. Or transform into something else. Or continue forever. The possibilities spun through my exhausted brain like a slot machine that would never stop.
Tomorrow. The magic word that had kept me functional for months. After tomorrow, Casey promised, we'd figure everything out. After tomorrow, I could stop being democracy's trans show pony. After tomorrow, maybe I'd find out what existed between Evan's ghost and Yvonne's performance.
Except tomorrow required surviving today first.
At five AM I gave up on sleep, sliding out of bed carefully to avoid waking Casey. She stirred, murmuring something that might have been my name-though which name, I couldn't tell.
"Go back to sleep," I whispered. "Long day ahead."
She was already gone, pulled back under by the exhaustion that had become her default state. I envied her ability to disappear into unconsciousness. My body had forgotten how.
The apartment was tomb-quiet. I padded barefoot to the kitchen, feeling the now-familiar but always disconcerting shift of my braless breasts with each step. The campaign t-shirt-"Fenstemaker 2018" in faded blue letters, a relic from when Casey and I were just junior staffers who occasionally fucked in supply closets-hung loose everywhere except across my chest, where it pulled tight. The boyshort panties I'd paired it with rode up with every movement.
I made coffee with excessive care, trying to stretch the ritual into something that could eat up minutes. Five-seventeen. Democracy wouldn't need me for hours yet.
My phone screen hurt my eyes in the darkness. Social media had already devolved into Election Day performance art. The same accounts that had been screaming at each other for months were deploying their final salvos:
"REMINDER: A vote for Beau is a vote for FASCISM"
"Fenstemaker crime family about to steal another election"
"If you don't vote today you're literally committing violence"
"Amazing how voting machines only 'malfunction' in certain counties..."
The quote tweets and ratios spiraling into infinity. Anonymous accounts with American flag avatars battling rose emojis in an endless war where nobody convinced anybody of anything but everyone got their dopamine hit from the engagement.
A viral thread about how today would either "save democracy" or "end society as we know it." The same hyperbolic stakes that turned every election into Armageddon, every candidate into either savior or Satan. No room for the mundane reality that we'd wake up tomorrow and still need to fix the same bridges, fund the same schools, help the same families struggling with insulin costs.
For a few minutes, I allowed myself to wonder about the real people whose lives we'd actually affected with boring policy work while the internet shrieked about civilization's end. But those stories didn't trend. They didn't generate clicks or ad revenue or the righteous fury that kept everyone scrolling.
Five-twenty-eight.
I gave up and headed to the shower, moving quietly back through the bedroom where Casey hadn't shifted position. The bathroom door clicked shut with merciful silence.
The hot water felt like absolution I didn't deserve. I stood under the stream, letting it run over skin that had become alien territory-too soft in places that used to be firm, too sensitive to temperature changes that once passed unnoticed.
The arousal was already there, had been there for weeks like an alarm I couldn't turn off. My cock was hard before I even touched it, but when I did, the sensation felt distant, like a signal degraded by static.
I tried the familiar motions that had worked for thirty years, but my body refused to cooperate. The physical mechanics were all wrong now-what used to build steadily toward release just circled endlessly without progression. Like trying to climb stairs that kept adding new steps, never reaching the landing.
Five minutes became ten. My hand cramped from the effort. The water started running cold but I kept trying, desperate for any kind of relief from the constant ache of need. But orgasm remained stubbornly out of reach, my body demanding something I couldn't provide alone-not technique or pressure but context, scenario, the right confluence of factors that existed only with another person present.
I turned off the water and leaned against the tile wall, still hard, still desperate. The hormones hadn't just changed my shape; they'd rewritten the entire operating system, and I'd lost the manual.
Five-forty-one.
Giving up, I toweled off and started pondering what I'd wear today. For a quiet moment I let myself imagine I was still Evan, that I could pull a pair of slacks and a crisp button-down from my closet and be fully dressed in under three minutes. But then I caught sight of my body in the mirror, of my hips that had widened enough that men's pants were a geometric impossibility.
The navy dress I ultimately chose was deliberately understated-professional, respectable, the kind of thing a serious person would wear to discuss democracy. It still clung to every hormone-crafted curve, but at least it suggested I might have thoughts beyond being decorative.
Casey emerged as I was on my second cup of coffee, already scrolling through three different phones. She'd always been beautiful, but stress had carved her into something sharper, more dangerous. The woman I'd fallen for had been ambitious. This version was ruthless.
"GOTV starts at seven?"
"Six-thirty. We're hitting the early shift workers at the Ford plant." She glanced at me over her mug. "You've got the voting photo op at nine, then briefing at ten."
"Then what?"
"Then we wait."
Right. The Press Secretary's job on Election Day: look pretty at photo ops, deliver prepared statements, then become furniture until results arrived. At least when I was Chief of Staff, I'd have been managing crisis response, coordinating with county offices, making decisions that mattered. Now I was decoration with speaking privileges.
"You okay?" Casey asked, actually looking at me for the first time.
"Just tired."
"Did you sleep at all?"
"Some," I lied.
She studied me for a moment, and I wondered if she could see the cracks spreading through whatever facade I'd been maintaining. Then her phone buzzed with crisis number forty-seven of the morning, and I became background noise again.
"I'll see you tonight," she said, gathering devices like ammunition. "Try to rest if you can."
Then she was gone, leaving me alone with a body that no longer felt like anywhere I'd want to rest.
The voting photo op played out like dinner theater where everyone knew their lines. Beau and his wife at their polling place, feeding ballots into machines while photographers captured American democracy in action. Ms. Fenstemaker maintained a careful distance-close enough for photos, far enough to avoid Beau's whiskey breath at nine AM.
After leaving the voting booth, he delivered the standard remarks to the assembled reporters before departing, but not before I caught him staring at my ass when he thought the cameras weren't watching. Ten months since he'd demanded I wear panties to make a point, and he still looked at his creation with the hungry confusion of Dr. Frankenstein realizing he wanted to fuck his monster.
The press briefing at ten was muscle memory. Confidence without arrogance, optimism without specifics, saying nothing with perfect diction. The reporters were already writing their stories-victory or defeat, they had their narratives ready. I could have recited grocery lists and they'd have nodded along.
"Exit polls?" Robert Nash asked, though we both knew I wouldn't answer.
"You know better than that, Robert. We're confident in the work we've done reaching voters."
"The lieutenant governor situation-any regrets about waiting so long to name Rivera?"
"The governor's thorough vetting process ensured we found the right partner for the state's future."
Amy Rodriguez raised her hand. "Ms. Cross, after the election, will you continue in your current role?"
The question hit unexpectedly. I hadn't let myself think that far ahead, too focused on reaching the finish line to consider what came after.
"That's a conversation for after the voters have spoken," I deflected, but the question lodged in my chest like shrapnel.
By noon, headquarters felt abandoned. Everyone capable of affecting the outcome had deployed to the field. I sat in my closet of an office, refreshing polling sites that wouldn't report anything meaningful for hours, feeling increasingly irrelevant.
Derek appeared around one, holding a sandwich I hadn't asked for.
"You need to eat," he said, setting it on my desk.
"Not hungry."
"Eat anyway. Long night ahead."
He sat across from me, pulling out his phone to scroll through early exit polls that meant nothing but felt like everything. I unwrapped the sandwich-turkey and swiss, aggressively mundane-and forced myself to chew.
"Suburbs looking good," he said. "Women breaking our way by twelve points."
"Casey's ground game."
"Your messaging. You wrote the education framework that resonated."
Had I? The months blurred together-hormones and humiliation and brief moments of clarity when I'd actually done my job.
"You know what I miss?" I said.
Derek looked up.
"I miss believing any of this mattered. That we were doing something beyond winning for winning's sake."
Derek pulled out his phone, finding something. "The Martinez family. Remember?"
Vaguely. A photo op from spring, back when I still thought November would solve everything.
"Their daughter sent this last week." He showed me a handwritten letter, a child's careful cursive. "The insulin price cap we passed saved them three hundred a month. She says Beau's her hero."
"Beau's nobody's hero."
"You're wrong." He found a news clip. "School board meeting last week. Watch."
A mother on screen, talking about how the education funding we'd secured meant her son could finally get reading support. She was crying, thanking the governor's administration for seeing her family as more than numbers.
"The funding initiative was yours," Derek said quietly. "I was there when you wrote it. Three AM, completely wired. You wouldn't have done it if you didn't believe you were helping people."
I stared at the screen. Despite everything-despite becoming Yvonne, despite the drugs and degradation-we'd actually helped real people.
"It mattered," Derek said. "Even if you can't feel it right now."
He left me with the sandwich and the strange thought that maybe the last ten months hadn't been complete waste. The policy work had been real, even if everything else felt like performance.
By three, the building was empty except for me and ghosts. I sat in unexpected clarity-no Adderall needed because there was nothing to focus on, no immediate crisis requiring chemical intervention. Just waiting.
Casey called.
"How's it looking?"
"Good. Maybe very good. Urban turnout is destroying our models."
"That's incredible."
"Yeah." A pause, rare from someone who treated silence like weakness. "Listen, I'm sorry."
"For what?"
"For disappearing on you. For treating you like a prop instead of a person. For prioritizing everything except us."
The apology caught me completely off-guard.
"Case-"
"No, let me say this. After tonight, things change. We can figure out what comes next. Together. I mean it."
"Okay."
The conversation left me raw but oddly hopeful. I pulled out a legal pad-something I hadn't done in months-and started writing. Not talking points but actual ideas. Policy structures that could help families like the Martinezes. Education reforms that went deeper than soundbites.
For the first time in months, I could imagine a future that wasn't just about surviving the next injection or press briefing. Maybe policy work, behind the scenes where competence mattered more than cup size. Maybe using "E. Cross" professionally, finding some middle ground between Evan and Yvonne that felt livable.
By five I was in the hotel room Casey had booked near the Marriott, preparing for what I'd decided would be Yvonne's funeral. Standing naked in front of the full-length mirror, I took inventory of what ten months had built. One last honest accounting before I retired this version of myself forever.
The breasts were real B-cups now, modest but undeniable, with nipples that stayed perpetually sensitive. If I stopped hormones tomorrow, they'd probably shrink some but never disappear completely. The thought of needing reduction surgery sent a spike of panic through my chest. A medical procedure meant more needles, not to mention trying to explain to doctors what I'd done to myself.
My waist had narrowed while my hips had widened, creating a silhouette that would never quite return to masculine lines. Fat had migrated to my thighs and ass, softening angles that used to be sharp. Even if I regained muscle, the fundamental architecture had shifted. My face was the most disorienting, feminine markers that no amount of makeup removal would erase. Softer jawline, fuller cheeks despite the weight loss, larger-seeming eyes. I'd need new documentation photos eventually; the man on my driver's license had become a stranger.
Body hair was basically extinct except for a few stubborn patches. The laser treatments had been thorough. My skin felt different too-thinner, more sensitive, prone to bruising in ways that made me careful about bumping into furniture.
Some of this might reverse if I stopped hormones. The fat distribution could shift back, the skin might toughen, the emotional volatility might settle. But the breasts were permanent without surgery. Some of the facial changes were here to stay. Hell, I was probably infertile at this point. Even if I went back to calling myself Evan tomorrow, I'd be explaining this body for the rest of my life.
"Fuck it," I told my reflection. If tonight was Yvonne's funeral, she deserved to go out spectacularly.
I didn't need another shower, but taking one felt like partaking in a ritual. Shaving legs that barely grew hair anymore. Exfoliating skin that had become impossibly soft. Washing hair that fell past my shoulders, heavy with the kind of shine that came from expensive products and religious conditioning. Every step of the routine had become muscle memory, but tonight I paid attention, conscious this might be the last time.
The lingerie came first. Not the practical nude panties that avoided visible lines, but black lace that existed purely for how it made me feel. They sat high on my hips, elongating legs that had lost all their masculine muscle tone. With the backless dress, a bra wasn't possible, just silicone sticky cups that lifted and pushed together what I had while adding several cup sizes that I didn't.
Makeup took forty minutes. If this was goodbye, I was going full glamour. Foundation that created a porcelain base. Contouring that could cut glass. Eyeshadow in gradients of gold and bronze that made my eyes look enormous. Winged liner sharp enough to kill a man. False lashes because why not. Lipstick in red-patriotic and slutty, the American dream.
Hair took another twenty-waves that looked effortless but required three different heat tools and enough product to lacquer a small boat. The extensions had been removed weeks ago when my natural hair finally reached an acceptable length, but I'd learned their styling tricks. Big hair for a big night.
The dress I'd brought was borderline inappropriate for a victory party, which made it perfect. Black silk that caught light like oil on water, luminous fabric that would catch every breath. The neckline plunged to my sternum and a slit climbed scandalously high up my thigh, threatening to reveal everything with each step. The back was completely open except for thin straps that crisscrossed from shoulders to waist.
The dress slithered on like fate. It was too much. Too revealing, too sexy, too everything for a professional political event. Which was exactly right for Yvonne's last performance.
Final touches. Four-inch heels that made my legs look impossibly long while promising future pain. Diamond earrings that caught light like tiny fires.
Looking in the mirror, I saw someone who'd stopped apologizing. The dress was too much. The makeup was too much. Everything about this look screamed that Yvonne was done playing respectability politics. It was perfect.
By six-thirty, I was in the ballroom we'd rented for the victory celebration, watching the space transform into democracy's prom night. Balloons, bunting, televisions everywhere showing talking heads analyzing nothing with profound certainty. The energy was building-supporters filtering in with the desperate hope of people who'd invested everything in a single outcome.
Casey appeared as they were testing the sound system, and something in her expression made me really look at her. She seemed softer somehow, less armored than she'd been in weeks.
"You look beautiful," she said, and it felt genuine rather than reflexive.
"Thanks. You look exhausted."
"It's been a long ten months." She touched my arm, the first unprompted physical contact we'd had in days. "But we're almost there."
My phone buzzed: "Polls closed. Exit numbers holding. -Derek"
This was it. The finish line we'd been killing ourselves to reach.
Supporters clustered around mounted televisions like supplicants at electronic altars. The energy felt electric and desperate simultaneously-hundreds of people who'd invested months of their lives about to learn if it had meant anything.
I navigated the crowd in my funeral dress, the exposed back meaning I felt every air current, every accidental brush of fingers. Men stared openly. Women assessed me like a threat. Good. Let them look. Let them remember Yvonne's last night.
Rivera intercepted me near the bar, looking good in his charcoal suit and the confidence of someone who'd already seen internal polling.
"Moment of truth," he said, handing me champagne I hadn't asked for.
"Or consequences."
His expression suggested he heard the edge in my voice. "You alright?"
"Peachy. Just ready for this fucking circus to end."
"Aren't we all." He shifted his weight, clearly wanting to say something but not finding the words. "After all this is over, we should talk. About… healthcare initiatives."
Healthcare initiatives. Sure. We both knew that wasn't what he meant, but the pretense felt necessary.
"That would be good," I said.
He started to leave, then turned back. "Yvonne, I-"
Whatever confession had been building died unspoken. He shook his head and disappeared into the crowd.
Standing there watching him retreat, I wondered what he'd been about to say. That he was attracted to me? That he was specifically attracted to trans women? That he'd been thinking about me in ways that had nothing to do with healthcare policy?
The exhausting truth was I'd never know. Every interaction came with this subtext I couldn't decode. Did Rivera see a policy expert who happened to be trans, or did he see a trans woman who happened to know policy? Was his interest professional with personal undertones, or personal disguised as professional? When he'd mentioned Pulse, was he signaling that we shared something, or warning me that I was his fetish?
At least with Casey, I knew where I stood-or had known, before she'd disappeared into the campaign. She'd known Evan, had been part of creating Yvonne, had watched the transformation day by day. But Rivera only knew this version. To him, I wasn't someone who'd changed. I was just trans, as much a fact as my eye color or my ability to draft legislation.
Was that better? Worse? I couldn't tell anymore.
Results started coming in shortly after seven-county by county, our colors spreading across the map. Casey found me during a commercial break, vibrating with an energy that seemed directly linked to the precinct results.
"Holy shit, that dress," she said when she saw me.
"Too much?"
"Perfect amount." She touched my arm. "I meant what I said earlier on the phone. After tonight, we start over."
Tomorrow. The magic word we'd been throwing around for months, as if the election would solve everything instead of just creating new problems. Tomorrow I'd still have tits and a woman's name and a body full of chemicals I couldn't stop taking without medical supervision. But sure, we could pretend that tomorrow held all the answers.
"We'll figure it out," I said, which wasn't agreement but wasn't refusal.
"We're going to hit seven points," she said after a pause, checking her phone. "Maybe eight."
"Holy shit."
"I know." She grabbed my hand, squeezing hard enough that my bones creaked. "We actually fucking did it."
The moment felt real in a way nothing had for months. Despite everything-the distance, the neglect, the transformation she'd overseen-we'd achieved something together. Built a winning campaign from polling disasters and Beau's personal scandals. We were competent, successful, politically brilliant.
We were also completely fucked up, but that felt less important with victory flooding our veins.
At 8:07, the networks called it. The room exploded into democratic orgasm. Strangers hugging, staffers crying, donors calculating their return on investment. Beau took the stage like he'd personally counted every ballot, delivering a victory speech that hit all the required notes-unity, vision, mandate for change.
I felt Casey pressed against my side, both of us watching our boss soak in the adulation he'd barely earned. He thanked the voters, thanked Rivera, thanked his team. He singled me out as an inspiration, which made me want to disappear but generated the required applause. His eyes found mine in the crowd, holding contact a beat too long, carrying a message I didn't want to decode.
"He's going to be insufferable," I said.
"He's always insufferable. Now he's got a mandate to back it up."
Casey pulled me into a fierce embrace, and for a moment everything else disappeared-the months of distance, the drugs, the transformation that had changed more than just my body.
"We fucking did it," she said against my ear.
"You did it."
"We did it." She pulled back, actual tears in her eyes. "I love you, you know. Despite everything. Because of everything. I love you."
The declaration hit unexpectedly hard. After months of being managed rather than loved, the words felt like rain after drought.
"I love you too," I said, and meant it.
"Twenty minutes," Casey whispered as the crowd cheered. "Meet me in the green room backstage. We can finally be alone."
"You won't get pulled away?"
"Nothing's pulling me away from you tonight." She kissed me quickly, tasting like champagne and promises. "Twenty minutes."
She disappeared to manage some final logistics, and I stood there feeling something I'd forgotten existed: hope.
Perfect. I'd done my last duty as Yvonne. This was it. The last time. Tomorrow I'd tell Casey I was done with the performance. I'd find policy work where I could dress professionally, maybe wear pants again, use my brain instead of my tits. Something behind the scenes where ideas actually mattered. I could present more androgynously, use my initials professionally, keep the parts of this year that felt real while reclaiming what I'd lost.
The vision felt achievable. Possible. Real.
Fuck it, I'd earned a celebration. My hand found my clutch, fingers searching for a pill left over from my evenings at Pulse. I found something familiar-sized and swallowed it dry. A Xanax. Just a little something to smooth the edges while I waited for Casey. I deserved to relax.
I mingled for fifteen minutes, accepting congratulations and deflecting increasingly personal questions from donors who'd celebrated too hard. When I finally slipped away, nobody noticed. The Press Secretary's job was done-democracy had performed its ritual, and I was no longer necessary.
The backstage area was quieter, muffled from the celebration. The green room was small but private-a couch, mirrors, a door that locked. I sat down, letting victory and exhaustion wash over me in equal measure, waiting for the gentle calm of benzodiazepine to settle over me.
Instead, my jaw started to clench.
That wasn't right. Xanax didn't cause jaw tension. Xanax caused-
My skin began tingling, hypersensitive to the silk dress against it. Energy rose instead of dissipated. The familiar onset of something. Not Xanax. Definitely not Xanax.
"Fuck."
I dumped my clutch out, seeing the pharmaceutical lottery I'd been carrying. Pills in torn baggies, loose tablets, unmarked offerings from a week of eternal nights when strangers at Pulse had pressed things into my hands. The actual Xanax was still there, distinctive. What I'd taken was something else. MDMA, based on the way my body was responding.
"Fucking Pulse. Fucking pill roulette," I muttered.
The molly was already in my system, no going back. Nothing to do but ride it out and hope Casey arrived before it peaked. I hoped she'd understand.
But the drug worked faster than expected, probably because I hadn't eaten since Derek's sandwich. Within ten minutes, every nerve ending had become a live wire. The silk dress felt like liquid sex against my skin. The air itself seemed to caress me.
Where was Casey? Already ten minutes late. The waiting just made me hornier. The molly was making me bold, daring. I reached under the dress and slid off my panties in one fluid motion, the black lace suddenly feeling like a proposition in my hands. Casey would come through that door any minute, see me holding them, understand the invitation. We'd finally consummate months of frustrated desire properly, with attention and intention rather than stolen moments between crises.
At twenty minutes, the pill had fully bloomed through my system. Every breath felt like a tease, every shift of fabric against skin like foreplay. Casey had to be on her way. Maybe someone cornered her with questions. Maybe she was grabbing champagne for us.
At twenty-five minutes, the euphoria started curdling into something desperate. My skin felt too tight, like I might split open if someone didn't touch me soon. The panties in my hand had gone from sexy invitation to pathetic prop.
I finally realized Casey wasn't coming.
My mind started its familiar spiral, but the MDMA amplified everything. She'd promised twenty minutes. It had been almost an hour. She'd said nothing would pull her away. But here I was, alone again, waiting for someone who always had something more important to do.
I stood, pacing the small room, the dress sliding against oversensitive skin with every movement. The MDMA was peaking now, making me feel like I might crawl out of my body if someone didn't touch me soon. Not just sexual need-though that was there, overwhelming and undeniable-but the desperate human requirement for connection, for proof that I existed beyond political utility.
I couldn't stay here alone-the walls were starting to feel like they were breathing, and I needed human connection before I came apart. But returning to the party in this state seemed dangerous. Who knew what I'd say, what I'd do, who I'd end up pressed against in the crowd.
Thirty minutes. I needed to get out of here. I grabbed my panties from where I'd dropped them on the couch and turned toward the door. Time to get back to the hotel room, take a cold shower, ride this out alone.
The door opened.
It wasn't Casey.
Beau stood in the doorway, drunk and victorious and glancing between my face and the panties dangling from my hand, like I'd just offered him a gift he'd been waiting for.
"Oh shit," I said, brilliantly.
"Well." His voice carried whiskey and something darker. "This is unexpected."
I tried to stuff the panties in my clutch, but my hands weren't cooperating, the MDMA making fine motor control difficult.
"I was waiting for Casey."
"She's at the party, still working the room. Didn't seem like she was in a hurry to leave." He stepped inside, closing the door behind him. "Why don't we find a way to pass the time instead?"
Because you're my boss. Because you forced this transformation. Because I hate you. Because Casey's coming.
But Casey wasn't coming. Casey had chosen politics again. And I was so fucking tired of waiting for her to choose me.
"This isn't-" I started, but he was already moving closer, and the drugs made his proximity feel electric.
"You're beautiful," he said, and my spiraling brain accepted even his obvious manipulation like truth. "You've been beautiful for months, driving me crazy, walking around in those dresses."
"Stop," I said, but it came out breathy rather than firm.
"You're holding your panties," he pointed out. "Just like how this all started between us."
His hand found my shoulder, and the touch through silk sent electricity down my spine. The molly turned what should have been unwanted contact into something my body craved.
"You deserve to be wanted," he said. "Really wanted. Not penciled in."
The words hit exactly where I was vulnerable. Months of Casey's neglect, of interrupted intimacy, of being treated like a prop with occasional privileges. Here was someone offering to want me completely, even if it was wrong, even if it would destroy everything.
When he kissed me, I felt my self-respect crashing down around me but somehow I didn't care. His hands were confident in ways Casey's had never been, taking what they wanted without apology. The wrongness of it cut through the pharmaceutical haze, making me present in ways I hadn't been for weeks.
"Fuck," I breathed against his mouth.
He took that as encouragement, pulling me closer, his hands finding the delicate straps that crisscrossed my back. When he started pushing the dress off my shoulders, the silk whispering across my skin felt like something tearing-maybe my career, maybe my last pretense at dignity.
The rational part of my brain screamed objections, but it was drowned out by the ecstasy singing in my blood, by the silk dress sliding against oversensitive skin, by the simple fact that someone wanted me enough to stay.
I slid off the couch, some last vestige of self-preservation making me want to control something, anything. But kneeling in front of him, looking up at his flushed face and obvious arousal, I realized I'd just made everything worse.
"Christ," he breathed, hands tangling in my hair.
His zipper was right there. The bulge behind it unmistakable. This was the moment to stop, to leave, to salvage whatever dignity remained. Instead, my hands moved to his belt, the moment making every sensation feel necessary and urgent.
His zipper came down with the sound of everything ending.
The door flew open.
"Ms. Parker, can I get a quote about toniiii-WHAT THE FUCK?"
The voice was young, shocked, delighted. I turned to see Tyler Marsh-political blogger, gossip columnist, absolute worst person to discover this scene. He'd apparently been looking for Casey backstage. His phone was already in his hand.
"This is fucking incredible!" Tyler narrated while photographing. "Governor's trans press secretary giving victory head!"
In my head, I saw the image that would be trending within minutes: me, on my knees in front of Beau, hands on his cock, looking exactly like what I was about to do if we hadn't been interrupted.
"Tyler-" Beau started.
"Don't stop on my account!" Another photo. "This is Pulitzer shit!"
And then, Casey appeared.
She stood beside Tyler, taking in everything-me on my knees, Beau's rapidly shrinking erection, Tyler documenting it all, the green room that was supposed to be our reunion.
The look on her face wasn't anger. It was complete devastation, as if something precious had shattered beyond repair.
"Yvonne?" Her voice broke on my name.
The molly made her pain feel like my own, cascading through me in waves of shared destruction. I reached towards her while trying to find words, the drug making coordination difficult, making everything too much.
Casey's eyes met mine, and in them I saw the death of every tomorrow we'd imagined.
"I was coming to celebrate with you," she said quietly, tears streaming down her face. "To choose us."
Then she turned and left. Tyler followed her, trying to get a quote about the affair, probably already uploading photos and live-tweeting the whole disaster. Beau and I stood in the wreckage, him trying to restore his appearance, me pulling the dress back up with shaking hands.
The victory party continued outside, oblivious.
"Fuck," he said.
"Yeah."
Eight points. We'd won by eight points.
And I'd lost everything else.