Chapter 6
Josh sat heavily down on the train seat and zoned out even as it pulled away from the station.
He hadn't gone to sleep immediately, so had decided to end the day on a happier note. The trouble was, that was much easier as a guy than it was as a girl. He had reached half-way down to his crotch but then recoiled. What was he supposed to do with what was down there?
He'd tried, regardless. By the end, some of what he had done was pleasurable, he guessed, but mostly it just felt uncomfortable. Since all whores (and since all women were whores, that meant all women) liked a dick inside them, it followed that in order to get off, he would have to stick something inside. He'd tried to convince himself to try, using his fingers, and for a while he couldn't bring himself to do anything so degrading. But once he had tried it, he'd found that it kind of hurt, and he didn't think he'd actually gotten his fingers in, anyway. Did he have a defective body or something?
And by the way, why did it smell so strong? It was like there was something wrong, down there.
In the end, he'd given up and turned onto his side to sleep, fuming at the unfairness of it.
He got into town and headed for the hostel.
The hostel had a smell. Dust and sweat, cleaning materials and bread. A blonde guy with a Scandanavian-style beard sat casually at a reception desk, watching the TV in the room, which another five people were also watching as they ate bread rolls.
The receptionist turned his attention lazily to Josh. “Hi.”
Josh cleared his throat awkwardly. “Hi,” he mumbled in his newly-feminised voice, not quite able to look the man in the eye. “I want to check in, please.”
The receptionist (how come a man was doing a woman's job? The guy didn't look like someone who hated himself) took out a book, opened it, and poised a pen over the page. “How many nights?”
Josh shrugged. The guy watched him almost dispassionately, waiting for an answer, so eventually Josh decided he had to give some answer or other. “Dunno. Long as I need.”
“Shall I put you in for a week to start with? If you need more, let me know as soon as possible and I'll put you down for longer.”
Josh shrugged again. “Okay.”
The guy wrote something in the book. “What's your name, please?”
“Josh,” said Josh without thinking.
The guy paused, then smiled patiently and wrote this down in the book. “'Josh'. Okay Josh, I'll show you around.”
Then Josh realised that of course, his name no longer fit. What could he do about that? He didn't want to give himself a girl name – he wasn't a girl, no matter what had happened to him! He drifted into thought about that as he followed the receptionist along the hallway.
“My name's Darren, by the way,” said the receptionist with a look at Josh that was clearly meant to be friendly. When Josh didn't return it, Darren got on with the tour instead. “This-” he walked into a large room, “-is your dorm. Your bunk is number seven.” There were two guys in the room, sitting on the floor with clothes and bags and toiletries strewn about, as if they were re-packing their bags. They looked up and smiled at Darren and Josh before returning their attention back to their task. “Further down the hallway...” he prompted, doubling back on himself and leading Josh onwards, “...is the kitchen. The stove isn't working at the moment, just so you know. And then we have the toilet block. Ladies this way, gents that way.”
Josh wondered about that. At some point he was going to have to go into the ladies' showers. He'd managed to figure out how to go to the bathroom the previous day, and Jesus, was it weird compared to being a guy. He hadn't had a shower either since turning into a... since his transformation, either. It was probably time to do that soon. He'd heard in high school that the girls' showers were communal, so they all showered together. Was it the same here, too?
He didn't want anyone to see his body. He didn't get a chance to fret about that though, because Darren was still talking.
“...hang out in the communal room if you want some peace and quiet, but the wi-fi's stronger in reception, which is why most people are hanging out there instead. We put on a basic breakfast of bread, cheese and sliced meat, and... I think that's it.” Darren went back behind the reception desk again. “So that will be $116.70, please.”
Josh's face fell. “What?”
“$19.45 per night over six nights.”
“But how am I supposed to pay all that?” Josh asked, suddenly very worried.
Darren did a kind of lop-sided shrug, but offered nothing more.
Josh shifted from one leg to the other. So that meant he could pay for two nights max, and then have nothing but a few coins in his pocket after. Why was living here so expensive?! They should have let him stay as long as he needed, and pay the money only when he could!
He looked back at the entrance. He could go to the homeless shelter for free for a night, but he hated the idea of doing that so much! He'd thought he would be able to hang around doing nothing for a while before he found work, but this, this was unfair! It meant he had to find a job within 1 day or go homeless! “Okay,” he grumbled, slapping $20 onto the desk. “I'll take one night. I'll pay for more if I need it.” He'd use the rest to buy food.
Darren nodded and took the money, apparently unperturbed. “Thank you.” He picked some coins out of one tin and found another full of keys. “Here's a copy of the front door key,” he said as he handed one, plus $1.10, to Josh. “There's no curfew, but please make sure you lock the door on the way in. It's open at the moment but we start locking it after 7pm and before 9am.”
Josh looked forlornly at the meagre collection of coins in the palm of his hands. “Thanks.”
Darren nodded without smiling, and went back to watching TV.
Josh went through to his bunk and sat down, then sighed and put his head in his hands. What the fuck was he supposed to do now? Wasn't it bad enough that he'd been turned into a femoid - the most disgusting, the worst, the absolute lowest of the low? And now he was on the brink of becoming homeless too, through no fault of his own? If there was a God, then he was laughing at Josh-
“You look stressed, girl,” said one of the guys across the room.
Josh looked up slowly; the fact that he was responding to being called a girl crushed him. He looked miserably at the two guys – Chads, he figured, since they both looked confident, with dreadlocks, sun-baked skin, well-toned arms and loose, bohemian clothing - unsure of which had spoken. Not that it mattered. They both thought he was a girl anyway, and it wasn't as if he could prove otherwise.
“What's botherin' ya?” asked the one with the nose ring. By his voice, it was clearly him who had spoken before.
Josh put his head back in his hand. “Don't have a job. Don't have anywhere to live. Don't have anything,” he added as an after-thought.
“Aw, that's pretty rough. Have you tried Discount Sports? They're always hiring. Mainly 'cause they can't keep anyone for long, I reckon, but it's a stepping stone, right?”
Josh looked at the guy. He looked and sounded kind. But surely that was only because he was a Chad who thought he was talking to a girl. Thinking about that gave Josh something to think about. Right now, Josh was getting help (even if it was only a suggestion of where to work) because he was being mistaken for a girl. It was an unfair advantage he was getting, here, that he wouldn't have gotten if he'd still been a guy. If he accepted it then he was taking a step towards becoming something he hated. But could he afford to turn it down?
“Uh...”
“My name's Nigel, by the way.”
“Brad,” interjected the other with a half-wave.
“I-I'll think about it,” was the best Josh could come up with.
Nigel smiled. “All right.”
The two Chads turned back to their bag-organising, and Josh took to staring at the carpet, his eyes involuntarily making patterns out of the weave as he tried to figure out what to do. After a while, the other Chad piped up.
“Do you have anything with you?” asked Brad.
Josh looked at him. “Mm?”
“I just noticed you don't seem to have a bag. Unless you've stashed it somewhere else?”
“Uh... I don't have anything,” he repeated.
Both men looked at Josh, horrified. “You're here with literally nothing but the clothes on your back?”
Josh shrugged.
Nigel and Brad looked at each other. “Strewth. How'd that happen?”
“I don't want to talk about it,” Josh muttered, hunching in on himself.
“Fair enough,” said Nigel. “Well, it sounds like you just dropped out of the sky, so how about this: go take a shower, think about going to Discount Sports, and see if you can't build upwards from there.” He gathered a sage-coloured towel and a bottle of blue shower gel, and brought it over to Josh.
Josh was stunned for a moment, and looked up at the Australian with his jaw hanging. He began to reach for the mini showering kit, hesitated, then accepted it, unsure of what else to do.
“What's your name?”
“J- Uh...”
“You don't want to say? That's okay. Enjoy your shower.” And with that, Nigel went to sit on the floor again with Brad.
Josh numbly got up and walked through to the female showers. The tiles were cracked, the grouting mouldy, and the whole place smelled of mushrooms. The showers, despite his suspicions, were in fact individual and private. The first shower he tried to switch on didn't work, but the second one did, so he stood underneath it and had a long, thorough wash.