Cyber World: Tales of Humanity's Tomorrow by Jason Heller

Author:Jason Heller [Heller, Jason]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC028100, FIC028040
Publisher: Hex Publishers
Published: 2017-02-17T23:00:00+00:00

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Zayin never did buy anything from me. He always maintained that he hadn’t seen anything he liked. I didn’t need his thoughts to tell me he was lying—he had seen me, after all. That would prove a recurring trait in him—the need to cover up his inadequacies with small lies and slight exaggerations. To pretend knowledge he didn’t have. I forgave him this flaw for I knew what it hid; I could feel his need like a pleasantly raw wound in my mouth, and I could not help but savour it.

In the evenings, after I closed up the shop, we would stroll along the docks of the Chinese quarters in Obalende stopping to grab dinner at one of the roadside noodle shops there. When we were together, I liked listening to him talk. His voice wavered in that range between the sexes, a melodious feminine and gravelly masculine all at once, and his Mandarin had a Sichuanese lilt I enjoyed. He was not used to being listened to, I could tell. He spoke quickly, the words tumbling out of his mouth as if from a dammed up river finally free, and he delighted whenever I referred to any fact he’d shared before.

He thought me mysterious for not speaking much about my past, but the truth was I often forgot my own stories around him. During the day I would do my best to hoard interesting interactions or observations, but by the time we got together I would lose myself in the chasms of emotion that lay beneath the tales of his life and simply forget to tell mine.

His true name was Zhou Ying but his parents had forbidden him to use it and cut off all communication with him when he had transitioned to female form. The firstborn son of a pharmaceutical family in Chengdu, he never felt comfortable with their demands. More than wanting to be female, he simply wanted to be free of their obligations. He moved to Nigeria soon after his transition and began working at the Confucius Institute on Eko Island. He missed his sisters, though. The pain of that separation was the slice of a thin blade—it only hurt when he moved to look at it.

For almost a year we were careful not to touch. I found physical closeness difficult to tolerate as it put me too close to the core of others. In their smells I could discern their health, their hygiene, their emotional states, and I could not maintain my barriers. And so when I decided to take him to my bed it was out of a desire to plumb the depths of him, not due to any seduction on his part. He had no charm, my Zayin. He was guileless even in his attempts at grandiosity. But I had seen something in his pain that first day, something I recognised and I had to know what it was.

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