Originally Posted by
Hatepeace Lovewar
It had been a run of the mill evening for Haffrage, he'd walked awkwardly in to his open plan one bedroom apartment. Two respectable and well dressed bankers and a police officer had made up his clients for the evening. The later of which had boasted a surprisingly large amount of girth, much to the dismay of his back-side. He had dealt with this before however and the discomfort he was feeling would be eased by a rejuvenating soak in a warm bath, the thought of which had pretty much got him through the ordeal.
He loosened his kneel high boots and cumbersomely removed them, before rolling down his stockings, after which he made his way towards the kitchen, which simply involved navigating around the large arm chair, the only piece of furniture apart from a small laptop and a desk that occupied his the room.
He flicked the kettle and a placed a bag of green tea with lemon into an empty cup. While he waited for the water to boil he moved over to the laptop, which had been left on downloading the last few episodes of the final series of Sex and The City, which Haffrage had been enthusiastically making his way through over the past few weeks. He waved the attached mouse around a few times to bring the machine out of hybernation mode.
His attention was drawn immediately towards a flashing black and white icon on the bottom right of his screen, it was that of Steam, an application used to manage his e-entertainment software, but (along with almost every thing else in this era of social networks) also had a basic social interface built in to it.
He hesitated as the icon could only be flashing because he had received a message via it. It would lead him back towards his old life, his life as an e-warrior, a forumite, some one who used the series of tubes that was the internet to engage in complex military and political campaigns surrounding virtual internet spaceships as well as talk about the finer points of liberty, economics and fat chicks.
It had been his escape, a defence mechanism of sorts, perhaps best described as a distraction. His mind had been distraught over the conflict of interest between his true desire and that of what others around him had perceived as what he should be, putting that conflict to the back of his mind and occupying it instead with that of internet spaceships and animal porn had, for a while at least, helped him get through every day life.
A few months back however he had just been breaking down for no reason, emotions would overcome him and he would break down and become a dribbling mess over Television shows such as Oprah. He'd decided to go see a doctor, figuring he had become depressed or something along those lines.
The doctor had recommended him a visit to a therapist, who had spotted Haffrages issue almost as soon as she had met him. It had been a number of things, his polite remark about her highlights, his terrible parking and the colour coordinated jumper and man-bag combination. He was a text book case, and she had seen it in many other clients before. Haffrage had spent all this time, in his mind, running away from what he wanted to become, he was like a caterpillar refusing to leave its cocoon, to flourish and break free, spreading it's wings. Yet it was not a butterfly Haffrage was to emerge as, no, secretly, he had wanted to become female.
In the 5th session, during an outburst of emotions from Haffrage over the recent withdrawal of Cherly Cole from the American X Factor panel of judges. Amongst the whaling and screams of "but she hadn't done any thing wrong!" she had suggested that maybe Haffrage should consider having an operation, they had talked about cross dressing and acting like a female already, some thing he was quite comfortable with, but this was the first time she had suggested a physical change.
At first she had mistook the look on his face as one of horror, or anger, but slowly she realised his gaunt face portrayed a look of awe, he had taken to the idea immediately, after all he had cast off his defence mechanism, his denial. She had put him in touch with a surgeon, but the only stumbling block had been financial. Haffrage had took to negotiating this obstacle with a change in career that had led him to his current occupation.
He finally took a deep breath and clicked the icon, the screen now filled up with the Steam user interface, at the centre the message displayed as such:
Don Pellegrino: Hey
Don was a fellow virtual internet spaceship enthusiast, a member of a discussion board community that had discussed that and many other things during their free (or for most, during time at work). Haffrage began to type a reply, he wasn't all that used to typing with his elegant and carefully painted red nails. "hi", he responded. Don asked if he had seen a forum post enquiring as to Haffrages whereabouts and his recent absence. Haffrage browsed through it, as he did the nostalgia poured back in to him, memories laughing at the misfortune of others in the relationship help thread, cringing at the animated images of a grotesquely fat kid hurtling down a water slide, the epic thread about evil sulu detailing his weekend antics, culminating in the notification of his death in a motor cycle accident, Derek, a small tear made it's way down his cheek, as it did it pushed away the thick layer of mascara. The memory of the unwitting pencil had hurt the most.
Emotions were set off, like a series of fireworks in his stomach, he felt his defence mechanism rebuilding, starting to envelope him. His hands trembling, he started to reply. "huh" he managed, tears blurring his vision. "I dunno", he followed up with, but that was too much, it had taken all his strength not to return to the old Haffrage and post a reply, he slammed the laptop shut, not worrying about the download progress of Sex and the City. The tears had overflowed now, chasing after the first one that managed to escape earlier. "No!" he shouted and ran towards his bedroom, almost tripping over his leather knee high boots that he had earlier removed. He hurtled himself on to his bed, grabbed a recently purchased brown teddy bear and began weeping, all the while slowly moving in to the Fetal position.
The the battle in his concious raged, exhaustion slowly took over, he had at this point all but forgotten about the pain that the separation of his bum cheeks had caused, and was now well on the way to sleep.
In the morning he would awake refreshed, and determined not to return to his old haunts on the internet, he was on a new course now, only a few more weeks on the street and he'd be able to fund his operation. It had been a fun distraction, but that was all it would remain.
The whistling kettle drowned out the quite murmurings coming from Haffrage as he cried himself to sleep.
Good night, sweet prince.
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