“No,” Vera whispered. “I’m sorry.”

They kept at it, but Iris seemed to not know what to do, like she was driving a car with the controls ripped out. She touched Vera’s dick again.

“Please stop,” said Vera.

Iris’s hand withdrew. Vera fingered her, and Iris was into it, and she touched Vera’s dick one more time.

“Please stop,” said Vera gently.

“Shhhh,” said Iris.

Vera firmly took Iris’s hand away.

Soon they stopped touching each other, and soon they drifted off to sleep.

Vera thought nothing of it until she woke in the night to pee. She got back in bed, and then lay there awake as Iris slept beside her.

Vera.

Yeah, that was nice.

Some things.

Shit, she could finally change her ID then, couldn’t she? Supposedly that was easy in this state. She rolled out of bed and grabbed Iris’s laptop, tiptoed into the living room.

She opened the computer. Iris had been listening to Bright Eyes. She alt-tabbed to get to the internet and instead landed on a Word document, a full single-spaced page that was clearly about her. Vera caught the phrase “my hetero lover has become my homo lover.” Immediately, she minimized the doc.

You have broken her privacy. A voice came to her. So now you forget what you saw.

And Vera did. Instead, she loaded up the old forums to find a thread on gender marker requirements for a New York driver’s licence. Shit, you only needed a letter from a doctor for the marker, but the name change was a whole thing with courts, and that cost money, too. Fuuuuuck. There were a bunch of confusing-ass forms, but there was a legal project here to help people with them. If Vera could call their office first thing in the morning, she’d have hours to start getting this done before her shift uptown.

Some nights later, she was sitting in her bedroom. It was one of those old illegal places in a factory, the bedrooms constructed wholesale out of drywall within a huge room, that in the previous century had made pianos or typewriters or something. The ceilings were so high, in fact, that Vera’s room was far off the ground above the kitchen, as if on stilts. But the rent was pretty okay, considering. She really did want to save up, and then try for her teaching certificate. She’d just scored another gig at a gay bar in Williamsburg, too.

Iris popped up in her Gchat. Hey lover, working tonight?

Without thinking, Vera typed, No, I’m home. How are you?

Starving, but Thai is on the way. You should come over.

Vera stared at the screen for a long time. For a second, she went to a very dark place. And then she typed, I’m sorry, but I don’t think I will. Last time I was there I told you “no” a few times while we were in bed and then you kept doing those things. We can hang out, but I don’t think I want to be physical anymore. I’m sorry, that’s just how I feel. And that’s why I don’t want to come over tonight.