chapter 21: back at my apartment...

"I'm going to have to start wearing a bra, again." Jeanie comments, fingering the thick, heavy ring through her left breast, as I'm fumbling the key in the door of my apartment. "Otherwise the weight of these things are going to make me start to really sag. I'll have to ask Paul about it next time I see him..."

My whole body tingles, I'm still not used to being hairless, and the new tattoo on my lower back stings, just a little. I still can't believe I let Maddix do that to me, I can't believe I didn't even protest, that I actually blew him afterward, there, in the middle of his shop, nude, on all fours, strapped down.

I can't believe that thinking about it, now, is making me hard. What the hell is wrong with me?

It's fine, I'm sure it's fine. I'll settle in for the night, get a good night's rest, think about it in the morning, I'll figure this all out and get myself back on track, I just...

Where the hell is my furniture?

Everything in my living room is gone, my bookcases, my couch, the wall art taken down. The stereo is still there, and the television, but anything I might sit on has been replaced by a thick, heavy mat on the floor of the room.

Similarly, my kitchen table and the four chairs around it have vanished from my kitchen. As I walk through the apartment, discarding clothes behind me as I go, I realize there's nowhere at all for me to sit but the floor, and even with the mat that's been put down for me, I can't imagine it's going to be a comfortable living situation. Nowhere to just sit down and have a moment to myself, every second of every day, at home, spent on the floor, like an animal.

Like a pig.

Turns you on.

Makes you hungry.

"Where... where is everything?" I ask, naked and erect and deeply confused, "What did they do with all my stuff? I... I thought they were just going to clean the place up a little..."

"They did," Jeanie's hand is on my fat bottom, "it's minimalist, just to take some of the clutter out of your life, so you don't have to worry about having so much to keep tidy. We did the same thing in your bedroom, bookshelf and dresser gone, bed frame taken out, just a mattress on the floor, a couple outfits for days off when you have to go out, a couple suits for work, all hung in the closet. Simplify things, and then you have less to worry about and can focus on becoming who you are. Do you like it?"

"I..."

I mean, it's unexpected, it's not what I wanted, and I'm a little bit hurt that Jeanie, that Paul, that they'd take everything without asking first. But she sounds so plaintive as she asks, she so obviously believes that this change will make me happy, that I can't bring myself to tell her it's crossed a line, so I just nod, meekly, and mumble something about it making my life easier...

"Good, I'm glad. We also stocked your freezer with frozen cakes from the Circle K on the corner, in case you're feeling cake-ey, and Paul put a few of his workout shakes in the fridge in case you get thirsty. If you need more, he told me to tell you just go downstairs and ask. He'd probably like to see your new ink anyway."

"Yeah..." I tell her, blushing, "I will."

"Good. Then I'm going downstairs, I've got to tell him how our day went, I'll let you get used to your new apartment. I really do hope you enjoy the space, Brian. I think this will be good for you. You enjoy the night."

And just like that she's gone, the door to my now much more Spartan apartment closing behind her, and I'm left to my new space. I grab a shake from the fridge, and drinking it I realize that there's nothing to read in the place, so I put on the TV, some dumb sitcom, the sort of thing that I'd have thought beneath me a few weeks ago, and sit on the floor, naked, hairless, slurping my shake, falling into the show. The screen flickers, a little, as I watch, the cleaners or movers must have damaged the set as they moved things around, but it doesn't matter, it gives me something to occupy my mind, to fall into, to calm me down as I drink my shake, and get used to how my home has changed around me. How my life has changed around me...

When I'm done the shake, I fetch myself a cake from the freezer.

When the pizza arrives, I don't even remember even having ordered it...