The rest of Valerie’s work week glided easily by; but her dreams grew more vivid, erotic, and distracting.

Lucca picked the movie, a polished musical romance from a few years prior. Valerie remembered seeing trailers for it in theaters, but in the years pre-transition she had avoided that sort of picture, afraid of the potential cracks it might reveal in the carefully-constructed masculinity that kept her safe.

Valerie’s headache lingered, much diminished, into Sunday. The exertion of a run that morning would have been cathartic, and she had no lack of stress to work out; but the mere thought of pounding feet on desert regolith to match the pounding in her head was almost enough to bring back the previous day’s dizzy nausea.

Valerie rested her head on the wooden counter-top of the island, simultaneously steadying herself and letting the cool, rough wood surface ground and distract her from the way the room was trying to spin and twist around her.

“Wait, you’re still married?” “I didn’t even read the prenup. I trusted Matt. He flipped through page by page and told me what each one said, only he left out a few things.”

Valerie thought seriously about simply leaving. Lucca’s outburst had not been, precisely, violence directed at her; but it felt like a threat, or at least a danger. It was, at least, not a strong indicator that she was safe with them. She reflected blackly that it at least helped settle the tension between her concerns about how they had treated her, and her arousal and attraction to them. Despite whatever other ways her mind was twisted and broken, Lucca’s demonstration did not in any way draw her interest.

Valerie swallowed, watching Lucca’s back for the few seconds it took them to cross the kitchen, heading toward the basement.

Valerie and Lucca spent Friday wiping, reinstalling, and configure one of Lucca’s old laptops. The old laptop turned out to be several generations newer than the one Valarie had previously owned, now stashed wherever Dana had stored all of her things.

“Pai—” Valerie coughed, almost choking on the bite of sandwich that she had been in the middle of chewing. She took a swig of water, swallowing down the half-eaten lump of bread and peanut butter.

Valerie’s driver politely and professionally refused to give any meaningful answers to the questions she asked. Some of his responses were monosyllabic yes or no in the least informative way possible. The rest he deflected, doing so clearly, directly, and steadfastly.