Summary: author Julie Steinbacher (image is © Folly Blaine) by Julie Steinbacher read by Jessica Dubish guest host Gabrielle de Cuir This story has not been previously published Discuss on our forums. For a list of all Escape Pod stories, authors and narrators, visit our sortable Wikipedia page about the author… Julie Steinbacher is fully human, whatever that means. She lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, where she is an MFA candidate at North Carolina State University. She is a graduate of the Clarion West Workshop, and her fiction appears in Terraform. You can follow her on Twitter @jofthewolves. about the narrator… Jessica Dubish is a sophomore Theatre Major at George Mason University. George Mason University; The Merchant (Gypsy Busker), Women and Wallace (Victoria), Slumber Party (Nancy), The Blue Room (The Girl), The Vagina Monologues (My Angry Vagina), Dido, Queen of Carthage (Cupid). Jessica is a Teaching Artist at Acting for Young People. narrator Jessica Dubish Chimeras by Julie Steinbacher You’ve heard going chimera is addictive. You’ve never done any hard drugs, so you’re not afraid of what this means. The “Free Consultations” sign on the clinic has drawn you in, not for the first time. It’s raining lightly in the city and droplets cling to your long hair and your nose. Bumps rise on your bare arms. You have the money for the first operation–savings you were going to put toward an apartment just for you and him–and the time: your whole life. You push open the door. # The waiting room is full of people. Some have only subtle modifications, pigment alteration to suggest stripes, lengthened earlobes, eyes that shine in the low lamplight. There are others who stare at you with unblinking reptilian irises, or who run sandpaper tongues across pointed canines. And then there are the other naturals like you, all huddled in one corner, stinking to some, probably, like fear and nerves. The bravado leaks out of you, but you force yourself to the desk, where you add your name to the list. Then you find a place to sit in the center of the room and avoid eye contact with everyone, natural or not. You’re not going to lose your nerve now. You’re making a choice, going against all the promises you made to T–but then, he broke his promises to you. Magazines litter the end tables to make the room look more homey. Animal women are on their covers, or beautiful animal men. There are interviews in Fur & Scales with a handful of celebrities on their personal journeys to chimera. The season’s fashions are highlighted on a page–lacy webbed fingers, dappled rumps, prehensile tails. Your name is called and you furl the magazine and put it in your purse. # After the consultation you have an appointment for your first modification. The date and time are written on a smooth card that you slide into your jeans pocket and touch from time to time on the bus ride home. Your roommates are out, so you slip into your room and strip naked before a mirror. You slide your hands across your thighs and press the jut of each hipbone, stroke the curve of your belly. Briefly you cup each breast and consider its heft and shape. You think about how each part will look, down the line, when you’ve gotten all the modifications you want. “You’re fucking beautiful,” T used to tell you when you made love. It was a friend of yours that saw him in a restaurant with another woman, and it was over when you learned how many he’d slept with while seeing you. The sound of the front door pulls you from your reverie, and you put on a robe. You remove the card from your jeans pocket–a corner bent, now–and put it in the drawer of your nightstand. For now, your secret. # You take a half-day from work for the procedure. It’s in-and-out; the first modifications are often slight, like the remaining balance in your bank account. When you come to, face smarting, the air feels different. The surgeon brings you a mirror[...]
