Between Contracts, Bodies, and Unspoken Desires

Some choices do not merely rejuvenate the body — they expose long-buried desires that were never spoken aloud. When identity becomes negotiable, truth finds unexpected ways to surface.

Mike was still trying to process what he was seeing.

William was… happy.

Not just satisfied, but genuinely comfortable with this new reality, carrying a lightness Mike had never associated with the man he had known for decades. There was no trace of grief, hesitation, or regret over losing his former body, his established life, or the identity he once inhabited. On the contrary — he seemed finally complete.

And perhaps that was the most unsettling part.

Until recently, William had been a middle-aged white man, plagued by aching joints, tired eyes, and the quiet exhaustion that money never managed to erase. Now, there he was… unrecognizable. Young, radiant, sculpted with an almost obscene precision. A body that seemed to radiate vitality, as if every cell were locked in a permanent state of renewal.

Mike couldn’t tell whether that radical transformation was the result of the youthful hormones that body exuded, the extreme decision to change gender, the warmth of the night air, or the cruel sum of all of it combined. He only knew one thing: both of them had paid an outrageous price to take part in that illegal rejuvenation experiment at a clandestine clinic — and even so, nothing had prepared him for the outcome.

The contract allowed every detail of the so-called “perfect body” to be chosen.

Mike had been conservative. He opted for something close to who he already was, only younger, more functional — as if he merely wanted to rewind time a few years. William, however, had taken the opposite path. A complete rupture. A total reinvention without nostalgia.

Even the outfit chosen for that night felt like a silent manifesto.

There he was — or rather, she — making a point of displaying every curve, every texture, every inch of that new form, as if constantly performing. The sparkle in William’s eyes betrayed an unspoken urgency: he needed to know if Mike approved. He craved that validation.

And that was exactly where the unease settled in.

Because during their conversation the night before, still believing he was speaking in the abstract, Mike had described with unsettling precision “the kind of woman he had always been attracted to.”

Now, that description stood before him in the flesh.

Not as coincidence.

But as intention.