Kelvin walked.
He didn’t know where he was going.
He didn’t care.
His feet carried him forward on autopilot, past the manicured lawns of the wealthy, past the iron gates of the estate, down the winding roads that led away from Alexander’s world.
His mind was a storm.
‘A man kissed me.
A man kissed me.
I let a man kiss me.
And the worst part…
the worst part is that I liked it.’ No.
No, that wasn’t true.
He hadn’t liked it.
He had been surprised, caught off guard.
His body had reacted instinctively.
It didn’t mean anything.
‘But you kissed him back.’ The thought slithered through his mind like a serpent, poisoning everything it touched.
‘For just a second, you kissed him back.
You opened your mouth.
You let his tongue touch yours.’ “Shut up,” Kelvin whispered to himself, his voice cracking.
“Shut up, shut up, shut up.” He walked faster, as if he could outrun his own thoughts.
The streets blurred past him—mansions giving way to smaller houses, gardens giving way to sidewalks, wealth giving way to the quiet, unassuming neighborhoods of the city’s middle class.
His legs ached.
His head pounded.
His fever was climbing, he could feel it—the heat radiating off his skin, the chills that wracked his body despite the warm evening air.
But he kept walking.
After what felt like an eternity, he reached the train station.
The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, covering everything in a harsh, unflattering glare.
People rushed past him, oblivious to his existence, wrapped up in their own little worlds.
Kelvin stumbled into the restroom and locked himself in a stall.
His hands shook as he unzipped his handbag.
He pulled out the clothes he had packed earlier—a plain white t-shirt, a pair of worn jeans, a dark hoodie.
His male clothes.
His ‘real’ clothes.
He stripped off the floral dress, the wig, the makeup that had started to smudge from sweat and tears.
He peeled off the chest binders and let out a shaky breath as his lungs expanded fully for the first time all day.
Then he put on his clothes.
T-shirt.
Jeans.
Hoodie.
Face cap pulled down low to hide his bruises.
He looked at himself in the mirror.
Kelvin stared back at him.
Not Kelly.
‘Kelvin.’ A man.
A straight man who had just been kissed by another man.
‘But you’re not straight if you liked it.’ “I didn’t like it,” he said aloud, his voice echoing in the empty restroom.
“I didn’t.” But the words tasted like lies on his tongue.
***** The train ride was a blur.
Kelvin sat in a corner seat, his hood pulled up, his cap pulled down, his arms wrapped around himself as if he could hold his shattered identity together.
The train swayed and rattled, carrying him farther and farther away from Alexander’s world, back to the part of town where he belonged.
Back to reality.
When he finally reached his stop, the sun had set, and the streets were bathed in the orange glow of streetlights.
His apartment building loomed ahead—a crumbling relic from a bygone era, with chipped paint and flickering lights in the hallway.
He climbed the stairs slowly, each step a battle.
His fever was worse now.
He could feel it burning through him, consuming him from the inside out.
But he didn’t care.
He reached his door.
Pulled out his keys.
Unlocked it.
The apartment was exactly as he had left it—small, cramped, covered in a thin layer of dust.
The sink was full of dishes he hadn’t washed.
The bed was unmade.
The air smelled stale and musty.
Home.
But it didn’t feel like home anymore.
It felt like a cage.
Kelvin didn’t bother turning on the lights.
He didn’t bother cleaning.
He just stumbled to his bed and collapsed onto it, face-first, his body sinking into the thin, lumpy mattress.
He lay there in the darkness, feeling the weight of everything coming down on him.
‘I let a man kiss me.’ The thought circled back, again and again, like a vulture over carrion.
‘And I liked it.’ A sob escaped his lips—raw, broken, animalistic.
He pressed his face into the pillow, muffling the sound, as if he could hide his shame from the world.
He thought about Gabriella.
His sister.
The reason he was doing all of this.
The reason he had put on a dress and a wig and pretended to be someone he wasn’t.
The reason he had endured Marcus’s fists and Alexander’s cold, cutting words.
‘What would she think if she knew?
If she knew her brother was out there, kissing men, letting them touch him?’ The thought made him want to vomit.
He reached for the phone—his real phone, not the one Alexander had given him—and checked his messages.
There was a voicemail from the hospital.
He pressed play, his heart pounding.
“Mr.
Kelvin Shepherd, this is Dr.
Gavin from St.
Louis General.
I’m calling with regard to your sister, Gabriella Shepherd.
I’m afraid there’s been a relapse in her condition this morning.
Her vitals have dropped significantly, and we’ve had to move her to the ICU.
Given the circumstances, I strongly advise moving her surgery up from the previously scheduled two months to…
two weeks.
If we don’t operate within that timeframe, I’m afraid she may not survive.
Please call me back as soon as you receive this message.” The voicemail ended.
The silence that followed was deafening.
Kelvin sat frozen on the edge of his bed, the phone clutched in his trembling hand.
The words echoed in his skull, each one a hammer blow to his chest.
‘Two weeks.’ ‘She may not survive.’ ‘Two weeks.’ The air left his lungs in a ragged gasp.
Tears—hot, angry, desperate—spilled down his cheeks, forming tracks through the grime and exhaustion on his face.
He didn’t bother wiping them away.
What was the point?
What was the point of anything if Gabriella died?
He thought about the contract.
The money.
The 1 million dollars that was supposed to be his at the end of the twelve months.
But twelve months was too long.
Gabriella didn’t have one year.
She barely had two weeks.
And Alexander had just kissed him.
‘But what if I made him want more?
What if I gave him more?’ The thought was disgusting.
It made his skin crawl, his stomach churn.
Selling his body, his dignity, his very identity—it was everything he had sworn he would never do.
He had promised himself that he would play the role, take the money, and walk away with his soul intact.
But his soul didn’t matter anymore.
Gabriella mattered.
Only Gabriella.
To be continued…