Chapter Five

Jacob’s apartment was at the end of town. The cab ride was a long twenty minutes in which Ethan’s resistance was tested as they sat with an inch between them. As soon as they were in the door, Jacob locked their hips together, mouths desperately trying to reach one another. Ethan’s head craned back to allow Jacob access to his throat. He felt so much shorter in his arms; his five foot seven was nothing to Jacob’s six three. His long arms and legs were intimidating, but comforting as Ethan was lifted onto his bed.

Jacob stripped off his clothing easily. When he undid Ethan’s pants, he wasn’t shocked by what he found there. He wasn’t pretending Ethan was a woman, either, which was what happened with some men Ethan had fucked in university before he dated his ex-girlfriend. Jacob’s panted groanings of “fuck, yes” were always tinted with an unquestioning desire of someone fucking a man; Ethan had been in enough relationships with both men and women to know the difference in tone. The short utterances, the strong grip on Ethan’s thighs, and the ferocity of Jacob’s mouth as they kissed gave it all away. Jacob was bisexual, perhaps, but definitely treating Ethan as a man. Jacob also uttered Ethan’s name. Constantly, relentlessly. He called Ethan’s clit his cock, and he asked to fuck him in his hole. Not his pussy—not anything of the sort. The way his hands rubbed over his body left no doubt that, despite what his license had printed, Ethan was marked with an M in Jacob’s mind. 

Yet, Ethan refused to let Jacob see him topless. His collared shirt was discarded within moments, leaving him in only a compression tank top. Though breathing hurt through the constricted fabric, Ethan needed the barrier. His breasts were small by most standards, but they were too large in his mind. If they could fit in his own hands, it would mean that Jacob would engulf them. And it was the one place he didn’t want touched. 

Even if he somehow knows every last corner of your skin anyway. Somehow, allowing Jacob to see the mark between his breasts, along with his breasts, was crossing a line. 

Jacob kissed Ethan’s neck. His hands glided over Ethan’s waist on the edge of the tank top. “Can you take this off? I want to see you.”

“You see me right now. You’re about to fuck me.”

Jacob gasped a short breath of laughter. Ethan groaned as Jacob shifted to spread Ethan’s legs wider and grasped his hips. Childbearing hips, Ethan chastised, then forgot. Testosterone had changed his body shape, made his menstruation stop, and eroded whatever feminine reproductive system he had; it even made sex better, more enjoyable than estrogen ever did. The black tank top blocked out the one thing, the only thing, Ethan could never forgive his body for. 

Jacob kissed his neck and ran his hands up and down the fabric. “You’re gorgeous. But whatever you want is fine.”

“Good. Now go.”

And Jacob did. 

*

“Do you have anything to drink?”

“Water from the kitchen,” Jacob said, gesturing out the bedroom’s narrow door. Ethan found his boxer briefs on the ground and slid them over his body. His tank top was drenched with sweat, chilled now, but he liked it. 

“Anything stronger than water?”

Jacob chuckled. “Maybe some vodka in the freezer? A can of old beer in the fridge.”

“No such thing as old beer, only vintage. These all sound like single servings though. Do you mind if I polish one of them off?”

“Help yourself.”

When Ethan returned to the bedroom, he had an old plastic promotional cup filled with cranberry juice and vodka. He brought another cup filled with beer for Jacob, but knowing he’d probably reject it, Ethan would finish it anyway. Jacob was still shirtless with a metal chain around his neck. It bore a symbol Ethan didn’t notice until now, and when he did, he didn’t recognize it. The edge of Jacob’s boxers were visible, but his sheets obscured the lower half of his body. He fiddled with his phone, barely looking up as Ethan sat on the edge of the mattress.

“Are you calling me an Uber?”

“No, sorry, this is work.” Jacob set down the phone but picked it back up with concern in his eyes. “Why? You want me to call you one?”

“Most people I fuck usually don’t want me to stay.”

“Hence the drinking right after?”

Ethan shrugged.

Jacob picked up the glass Ethan offered him, taking only a small sip. “If that’s the case, you sleep with shitty people.”

Jacob made no effort to exclude himself from those previous shitty people; he returned to flickering around on his phone, drink in his opposite hand. It was almost dawn, but Jacob’s blinds were shut as tight as they could be. Birds pecked at the tree outside his door; some of them chirped.

“So, you obviously do night shift work too. Ever gonna tell me what it is?” Ethan asked.

“Not quite night shift. But sort of.”

“Are you playing this game now?”

“What game?” He took another swallow of his drink before he set it down, along with his phone. His eyes zeroed in on Ethan’s tank top, right between his breasts. “I bet I can tell you how you got your mark.”

“I didn’t get it. It just showed up.”

“After you died, right?”

Ethan heard the boom-crash of the waves in his memories. “Why do you say that?”

“Because I know several people with similar marks. This is Mary.” Jacob retrieved his phone to show Ethan a photo of a woman. She stood with a man—clearly not Jacob—in front of Niagara Falls. She wore a deep-cut lavender dress with the same mark between her breasts. It was hard to see—she’d gone to some effort to blot it out with concealer or something similar, but it was there after the water had washed some of her efforts away. In the same photo, she wore flip-flops, and a similar mark was on her ankle.

“There was one behind her neck too. Just like you,” Jacob added as he swiped to a new photo. Mary’s dark brown hair was tied up in a bun. She was with the same man, at her wedding to him, staring at him as he spoke. The same black-brown mark as Ethan’s was visible, and so was the strange vertical marking with a dot on her wrist.

“Interesting. Birthmarks are like freckles, I guess. A lot of people can have them. Right?”

“The same three spots, the same three marks? And the last one on the wrist? Hardly a coincidence, especially one that specific. I have more, you know. Like Damien.” Jacob flashed a photo of a man on a motorcycle. He had similar features as Jacob, but not quite. Darker skin, cocky attitude, and a clear mark on his ankle. In the next photo, Damien at the beach, the mark was in between his chest hair, almost camouflaged.

Ethan took a long drink as the final mark showed. 

“I have more photos, like I said. But I think you get the picture.”

“I do. But what does it mean?” Ethan asked, sarcasm dripping. “Are we all so special now?”

“Not really. Either we’re all special or no one is special, you dig? So my guess is that no one is special, but some are more skilled at certain tasks more than others. Like me. I’m good at making travel plans. Converting currency. I know seven languages, though two are for writing only. And I’m good at reading people. Finding them.”

“Uh-huh. What have you found in me?”

“Those marks mean you’re an easy vessel. You can carry things a lot farther and a lot better than most.”

“Carry things? Like a drug mule?”

“Sure, but not for drugs. For supernatural items.”

“Come on.” Ethan baulked. “You were serious about all that? Your vacation home for fairies wasn’t an elaborate pick up?”

“I’m wounded by your insinuation.” Jacob rolled his eyes before he grabbed Ethan’s wrist. It was a gentle pull, but his fingers’ pressure was hard and firm. He ran a thumb over the lines against his wrist. “This mark means you’re transparent. Blend in very easily. More people have these, which means more people can blend in. But since you’ve also died before, you’ve become even more acquainted with the in-between realm of the living and the dead. And therefore, you make the best vessel. You blend in, but you also blend in when you’re attached to other things, objects, and people. Mary—she had a vicious allergic reaction to eggs and died for thirty seconds before an ER doctor brought her back. Damien was in a motorcycle accident and died on the operating table before he was brought back. You, I don’t know your story. But I knew you were good at blending in when I first met you, which is why I grabbed your hand. Now that I know you have those other marks, I know you’re a vessel. You’ve died for however long and were welcomed back into this glorious world. Right?”

“I…” Ethan stopped before finished. He didn’t want to tell Jacob the story. “Sure, okay. I’ve died. So I’m like half ghost?”

“Not quite. Ghosts don’t have physical bodies. And you obviously do. But because you’ve been in the land of the dead for a period of time, you can return to it without risking your health. It’s like…people don’t see you. But for once it’s not lonely—since ghosts can see you, they bond with you, and you can earn a good living by getting away with so much. You’re also good at crossing borders. Not just between the living and the dead, but between countries. You’re the perfect passenger—the perfect vessel for travel.”

“Great,” Ethan said. “So you want me to transport coke across the border? Shove a balloon full of heroin in me? Is that what your job is?”

“I told you: no drugs. Nothing that extreme.”

“So you need to recruit people like me to take fairies on vacation?”

“Something like that, but not exactly,” Jacob said. “You don’t have to decide right now. I did want to ask though. Truthfully, I think you’d be perfect for the job.” 

Ethan clenched his jaw. He didn’t know why this suggestion angered him as much as it did. You’re a conduit. Good at crossing borders. All of it was a way to take his gender transition and make it work for other people.

“Mary and Damien,” Ethan asked, “are they trans too?”

“No.”

Thought so. There were none of the hallmark signs he’d learned to look for when finding people in his community. Maybe for once, being good at crossing borders had nothing to do with the fact that he had a mismatched license, or that his lungs were being crushed by a compression tank top that was perpetually too tight and cut into his underarms. He swallowed another gulp of his drink, eyes cast down at the spot on his foot. So like the others. So strange. 

“You can decide later,” Jacob said again.

“How much? Per trip?”

“Depends on what you carry. But most will get you at least three hundred US dollars a delivery. For a night’s work, basically.”

Ethan tried not to show how excited the number made him. Three hundred was an entire week at the duty-free shop. He could do so many shipments and not break his back working so hard. He could save for surgery.

“That’s…a good amount.”

“I make a living.” Jacob winked as he rose from the bed. He flicked on the large screen TV above his dresser. He slipped on a white T-shirt before he scrolled through TiVo. 

“You’re welcome to stay,” he said after he’d selected the morning news. “Or I can call you an Uber. Whatever you want.”

Ethan wanted to stay. But his binder was making it painful to think, let alone breathe. Dawn spilled in through the blinds’ cracks, making everything seem unsealed again. Aurora would be wondering where he was too. Same with Francesca.

“I’ll go,” Ethan said. “But I will work with you. So give me your number.”

“That’s what I was hoping you’d say.” Jacob smiled, half of his face surrounded by darkness and the other half by light.