“Great hard body, pal. You look superb. I’m proud of you. You’ve got guts. How do you feel?”

“Never better,” I said. They were my words, but my voice was strong. “Thanks, Ralph, for doing this for me.”

“By the way,” he said. “What’s your name?”

“Sorry?”

“You’ll need a new name. You could keep your old name, of course, or a derivative. But it might cause confusion. You’re not really Adam anymore. What do you think?”

My instinct was to change my name. It would help me remember that I was a new combination. Anyway, hybrids were hip.

“What will it be?” he asked.

“I’ll be called Leo Raphael Adams,” I said at last. “Does that sound grand enough?”

“Up to you,” he said. “Good. I’ll tell them. You have money, don’t you?”

“As you insisted, enough for six months.”

“I’ll make sure you receive a passport and driving license in your new name.”

“That must be illegal,” I said.

“Does that worry you?”

“I’m afraid so. I’m not a good man by any means, but I do tend toward honesty in trivial matters.”

“That’s the least of it, man. You’re in a place that few other humans have ever been before. You’re a walking laboratory, an experiment. You’re beyond good and evil now.”

“Right, I see,” I said. “The identity theorists are going to be busy worrying about this one.”

He touched my shoulder. “You need to get laid. It works, doesn’t it—your thing?”

“I can’t tell you how good it feels not to piss in all directions at once or over your own new shoes. As soon as I get an erection, I’ll call.”

“The first time I had sex in my new body, it all came back. I was with a Russian girl. She was screaming like a pig.”

“Yeah?”

“I knew, that night, it had been worth it. That all those years, day after day, watching my wife die, were over. This was moving on in glory.”

“My wife isn’t dead. I hope she doesn’t die while I’m ‘away.’”

“It’s okay to be unfaithful,” he said. “It isn’t you doing it.”

We talked for a bit, but I felt restless and kept bouncing on my toes. I said I wanted to get out and walk, shake my new arse, and show off. Ralph said he had done the same. He would let me go my own way as soon as he could. First, we had to do some shopping. Ralph had brought a suit, shirt, underwear, and shoes to the hospital, but I would need more.

“My son only seems to possess jeans, T-shirts, and sun-glasses,” I said. “Otherwise I have no idea what twenty-five-year-olds wear.”

“I will help you,” he said. “I only know twenty-five-year-olds.”

I was photographed for my new passport, and then Ralph took me to a chain store. Each time I saw myself in the changing-room mirror I thought a stranger was standing in front of me. My feet were an unnecessary distance from my waist. Recently, I’d found it difficult to get my socks on, but I’d never been unfamiliar with the dimensions of my own body before. I’d always known where to find my own balls.