Being a girl had improved Edith’s relationship to parties. She was a charming drunk—she made jokes and pulled stories from strangers like a magician’s colorful string of scarves. The trouble was that she had no way of knowing how drunk anyone else was. Afterward, in her sick daylight sobriety, she judged every move as if only she had been messy and strange.

But it was an excuse to put on a slutty dress, put effort into her makeup. Sloppy drunkenness, all its carelessness and stupidity, was acceptable from a girl.

Bernard lived in a house on the east side, a grubby bungalow he shared with a rotating cast of other trans dudes and two ginger corgis named Gumball and Jonestown. When Edith and Seb arrived, everyone was in the backyard. “Heart of Glass” poured through the empty house. Out back, they were greeted by a chorus of their names and the two excited dogs. Seb rubbed both their bellies.

You guys are just in time, Bernard said. We’re going to watch Di do a backflip.

Watch Di beef it, you mean, Cyrus said. His top surgery scars visible through his open shirt. You could trace them with your tongue.

Cy, don’t say that, you’ll jinx her.

I am unjinxable. Di was one of the few trans girls in this group. Her black cotton skirt flowed around her as she warmed up for the flip. Edith never understood why they weren’t friends—why every trans girl she knew had too few tgirl friends. She assumed if she were hotter this problem would solve itself.

Can I get you guys drinks? Bernard was sweet, tall, stolid. He opened a Yeti cooler packed with White Claw.

No distractions, Di said. Edith thought watching anyone permanently injure themself was probably more trauma than she could take on right now. The backyard was patchy grass, a doghouse with fresh white paint, a bike with weeds growing through it. There was a bucket of golf balls that partygoers chipped over the fence and into the woods beyond. There was a geologic index of Bernard’s parties back there, moon-white Titleist balls stained with earth.

I cannot do this with everyone watching. Cyrus booed. Others sighed in defeat and relief. Everyone close your eyes. Edith laughed. I’m serious.

How will you know if one of us cheats? Seb asked.

I’ll know.

They formed a line and held hands. Edith stood between Seb and Bernard. Her hand bound in the strength of Bernard’s, his rough knuckles.

Ready when you are, Diana.

I see you peeking, Cyrus.

I am not!

I will hit you in the nose, Cyrus. It will sit sideways on your face and all the pretty girls will laugh when you try to kiss them.

My eyes are closed!

A twitch of desire moved through Edith’s stomach. Not a butterfly, but the kick of a dead thing hooked to electrodes. Bernard ran his thumb across her fingers.

Listen closely, because I am only doing this once.

People sieved the silence for something that sounded like a backflip. Even the dogs stood at attention. Bernard’s thumb swept back and forth. Edith didn’t know when in the process of transition she had come to feel desire in the base of her sternum. She felt it most often watching Wong Kar-Wai movies: Tony Leung leaning into Faye Wong; a pair of painted toes turning over in bed. It was like she was suspended on a meat hook. It would take a stronger pair of hands than her own to get her down.

There was a whoosh and thump. Ta-da. Di was red with exertion as if she’d been crying. Everyone clapped uncertainly. This invisible feat out of the way, the party began in earnest.

By her third White Claw, Edith had hit a comfortable rhythm. She chatted on the couch with Seb and identical twins who had done quite a lot of ketamine. She bummed a cigarette from Cyrus in the backyard; he was deep in conversation with a girl who’d looked more fem before her transition than Edith did now. Out front, they played a game they’d learned from watching Funeral Parade of Roses: you walk a chalk line and remove a piece of clothing whenever you fall off it. Edith chased Gumball and Jonestown until her ribs ached. She effused about Sweeney Todd, Riverdale, Chantal Akerman. Immoderate, immodest, alive. She made out with Cyrus, and Bernard, and one of the ketamine twins. It was fun. A reminder of desire. Bernard’s hand on hers was a meaningless intimacy.

An all-star of cognitive dissonance, Edith still believed this when Bernard was fucking her on the floor of his bedroom. Her face buried in a pile of his clothes, each breath drawing the tang of his late-winter sweat. The silicone cock was abrasive—it had been a while, and Bernard was low on lube—but she half-turned to him, watched him labor and sweat, and insisted, Harder. She was a piece of paper, slowly torn along a perforated line. Edith guided one of Bernard’s hands to her throat, one to her breast. On the other side of the door was Yes and laughter. She’d later identify the song as “Long Distance Runaround” but now she was free of thought. She puppeted Bernard, pressed his fingers into her throat. Not safely cutting blood flow but pushing on her windpipe. She dropped her hands for balance and Bernard’s stayed put, crushing the lively, spiraling core of her.

He stumbled, dropped her to catch himself. Are you okay? he asked.

Yes.

She throbbed in the places his cock and hands had been. More hooks in her.

I think I’m too drunk for this, Bernard said. Do you want to cuddle?

She wanted to be pulled apart.

Bernard handed her wet wipes, chattering about a Cary Grant film. The wipes mopped up the usual effluvia—lube, shit, blood. Sex was a test of the body’s limits. What you could give, what you could take.

She slipped back into her dress and underwear, and they left his room one at a time. Nothing had changed in their absence.