Miracle (boyxboy)

Chapter Thirty-Nine

I was dressed. Jeans, t-shirt with the NASA logo, my leather pheromone-blocking bomber jacket, socks and suede hiking boots. And a thick, lumpy menstrual pad stuck to the inside of my boxer briefs, that was presently trying to wedge itself into my buttcrack. How did girls tolerate these things?

I'd been left to myself to process, but I wasn't doing a very good job of it. I couldn't settle on a reaction to the news that I had extra body parts on the inside, body parts that weren't supposed to be mine. Parts that were a foundation for every other human being's basic identity.

Who was I, then? What was I? Being Eljo was bad enough, but I didn't know where to start with this intersex thing.

People had been calling me girly for as long as I could remember, usually as an insult, and I'd chalked it up to homophobia. What if they'd been sensing something deeper? What if, somehow, they'd known that I was some kind of... creepy hybrid?

I was a boy. I felt like a boy. I was shaped like a boy, at least in the places that counted.

But I had never fit in with other boys, had I? I had never been as much of a boy as people expected. I'd told myself it was because of my sexuality, but now I wasn't so sure.

I wasn't a girl, though. Even if I had girl parts in me, that didn't make me a girl. I knew who I was, damn it. I was a boy, with... with a uterus.

Aw, fuck me.

What was I supposed to do with that?

A knock came at the door, and then it cracked open. "Connor, it's me. Can I come in?"

I couldn't answer. Half of me still felt angry with Ezra. But now it was mixed with a heavy dose of embarrassment, and fear. I was tired, and I hurt, and he was still my instinctive safe place. I didn't know whether I wanted to ice him out or crawl into his arms.

He entered the room cautiously, closing the door and wheeling the ultrasound cart out of the way. He sat on the rolling stool, keeping his distance from my perch on the exam table. I looked around, but he was by himself.

"If you'd rather talk to Bo, I'll go get him," he said.

I shrugged. I didn't prefer Dr. Sarias at all, but pride wouldn't allow me to admit it.

"We've been going over the options. There are a few, but we have to decide quickly. Your sepsis is getting worse."

I picked at a loose thread on the hem of my shirt.

"You need surgery. The question is, do we simply enlarge the cervical sinus and drain the infection... or do we do a hysterectomy?"

Looking up, I found him watching me intensely.

"Connor, you need to understand the danger you're in. Elioud Biogenesis already considers you an invaluable research asset. But if they find out about this, you'll be..." He took a breath. "Pet license be damned, they'll find a way to take you away from me. They'll cut you up and harvest your insides like treasure. You'll be... you can't imagine the things they'll do."

I swallowed.

"I can't let that happen, Connor. A hysterectomy will protect you. But Bo is refusing to do the procedure without your permission."

A spark of indignation flared in my chest. "So if it was up to you, you'd do it no matter what I say?"

He didn't look away. "Yes."

"It's my fucking body."

No response. Fury welled up in my chest.

"What gives you the right? None of this would be happening to me if it weren't for you! You made me Eljo. You brought me into this fucked up town, where everyone sees me as a science experiment. You screw around with me when you feel like it, dump me on your sister and the Swan and Dr. Sarias when you feel like it, get all homicidal when you think somebody else is fucking me, and then think you can remove my internal organs just on your say-so? You are such an asshole!"