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in her complexion, which had cleared so beautifully. The estrogen had even aided in the effectiveness of the facial electrolysis she'd had out in California. Now rubbing her smooth chin and cheeks, she recalled the Cadillac of treatments she'd endured, which had cost a whopping four thousand bucks and had been paid for entirely by her transgender mentor, a wealthy heiress and sometime lawyer who'd already done likewise. Kris had been unsure at the time, but the procedure, which had lasted seventy-one and a half horribly painful hours, had been definitely worth it.
    She reached for her makeup bag, rumbled through her cosmetics, and the first thing that came to hand was, oddly, her old double-headed razor, now crusted with rust and so dull the blade would barely cut butter. Holding it between her long painted fingernails—fake fingernails, naturally, because the night of the infamous accident she'd also lost the tips of three fingers—she wondered why she'd never thrown it away, at the same time realizing she never would. It was true: Once she'd been so desperate to escape her problems and this world that she'd considered suicide. A few years back she'd held this very same razor much as she did now. Back then, however, she'd popped out the blade and pressed it against her left wrist. All she'd had to do was apply a little pressure, cut through her skin, and bleed out. After all, she'd thought that night, wasn't a miserable fate like that the destiny of every weirdo like her?
    But then she'd stopped, suddenly realizing what it all meant.
    And suddenly angry for the first time in her young life, furious that she'd been pushed that far, to the very brink.
    It was true: The only image she'd ever seen of someone like herself was, over and over again, the one straight society had presented, that of the sick, psycho killer who had no place in this world. But did she really hate herself that much, was she really so evil, so horrible? Absolutely not! And so the very next instant she'd taken back her life, calmly lifting the blade from her wrist and putting it back in the razor, if only to say one thing and one thing alone: Fuck ‘em.
    “Krissy!” now called a tiny voice.
    Shocked back into the present, Kris spun around.
    “Mom says she's sorry,” said Rachel, standing in the middle of the bedroom in an oversize T-shirt. “Will you read me the story?”
    “Oh, honey, I don't know, I—”
    “Come on, please!”
    “But I had such a long day.”
    “Krissy, you didn't finish the story last night, the one about the owl.”
    Kris stared down at the girl, saw her straight hair curling just at the ends, the face all round and hopelessly angelic. Wasn't that the kid she was supposed to have been?
    “Okay, okay …” said Kris with a smile. “I'll be right there.”
    “No, come on. Come with me now,” begged Rachel, stepping into the bathroom and wrapping both of her tiny hands around the wrist Kris had once wanted to slit.
    “Sure, sweet thing.”
    Setting the rusty razor down on the edge of the sink, Kris looked quickly at her image in the mirror. Screw the system, she thought as she was led away. Screw the programmed system that says you have to be one or the other, M or
F.

5
     
    “I'm not crazy,” said Todd. “I saw someone get shot.”
    The day after the storm, the day after Mark Forrest—if indeed that was his real name—had vanished, Todd stood on the Stone Arch Bridge, staring through the haze at the roaring falls of St. Anthony. The mighty Mississippi was all the mightier from last night's torrential rains, and a continuous wall of water burst over the concrete apron, rushed and swirled its way toward the inevitable gulf.
    Todd felt a hand on his back, and then heard Steve Rawlins say, “I'm sure you did.” Nodding to the sheriff's boats anchored down below and the handful of divers, Rawlins added, “And I'm sure they'll find the body soon.”
    The air was close and hot, a slight rain was falling, and Todd