"You think I don't know that it's too good to be true? I'm not an idiot, Anya!" I waved my phone at my bestie, who sighed heavily, and paused her game. "Just look at it, please!"

  "It's gonna be like the pce in Los Gatos, all over again!" Anya warned me. "Stop pacing, and sit down."

  "Which one? The double wide trailer on the nudist colony that smelled like propane?" I asked, wrinkling my nose and continuing to plod back and forth across the well-worn throw rug.

  "No, dummy," she ughed, "the one with the fire damage!"

  "That was in Palo Alto," I corrected her.

  "Noooo, the Palo Alto pce just had scorch marks on the wall above the stove. The Los Gatos pce had the burned out window, and the crime scene tape," she said, "remember? There was a bidding war!?"

  How could I forget?

  "Oh come on, that pce was literally still smoking when I went to look at it." I protested. "There's no way this pce is that bad!"

  "That's the problem, Sam," she said, popping her gum with wet smacking sounds, "the Silicon Valley douchebags still bid the price on that pce up into the fucking stratosphere, and it was an active health risk. In fucking Los Gatos! So now you tell me you've found...what was it again?" She took my phone and I crossed my arms uncomfortably while she tut tutted over the listing.

  "I know it's probably a scam, but I don't exactly have a lot of options here."

  She blew a derisive bubble in response, and popped it loudly.

  "You're going to throw that away when you're done, right?" I asked. "I'm tired of waking up with gum in my hair."

  "'Fully furnished, new kitchen appliances '," she read, ignoring my compints, "'walk-in closet, newly remodeled en suite with Jacuzzi tub', oh and get this: 'no first and st month's rent up front, just a security deposit'!" she pulled her gsses down her long nose to give me an incredulous stare. "There's got to be some kind of catch! This reads like an add an organ trafficker would write to lure in unsuspecting victims..."

  I gred at her.

  "...oh, I'm sorry..." she said, making scare quotes with her fingers, "...'involuntary, donors'!"

  "The sarcasm isn't helping right now," I grumbled. "I'm serious, An! I can't sleep on your couch forever. I know you don't mind me crashing here, but I'm just treading water! I need to start trying to live my life again!" We had rehearsed versions of this same disagreement so many times that we could do it by rote at this point. Anya lounged back on the couch while I continued to pace back and forth, listing everything I needed to do to start feeling like a person again. "Get a job, get a pce to live, get back on hormones, get all this name and gender marker change bullshit paperwork behind me, get health insurance, get ser hair removal...get out of this funk that I've been in!"

  Anya sighed, and scooched over, insistently patting a spot on the couch next to her until I relented and sat down, head hung low. "You, my dearest Samantha, are somehow too optimistic about the things you should be worried about, and too pessimistic about all the things that will eventually take care of themselves!"

  I grumped a little bit more, "I still think it's worth checking out. At this price I'm willing to put up with whatever is wrong with the pce!"

  "Buuuuut...what if it was the site of a grisly murder?" she prodded.

  "Not a problem! One less person to compete with!" I said, grimly.

  "What if it's haunted?"

  "Well, maybe I don't believe in ghosts?" That was a lie, and she knew it.

  "What if there's an...inexplicable smell...wafting from somewhere inside the walls?"

  "I don't know! I'll wear a mask at home, okay!" I snapped, then sighed. "I'm sorry. I'm just so tired of everything being on hold, you know?"

  Anya let me flop over and curl up so my head was on her p. She picked up the controller and unpaused Expedition 33, "I'm not saying you shouldn't check it out," she said, "I just don't want you to get your hopes up. Who knows what kind of horrors are waiting for you at this pce?"

  ~?~

  Whatever horrors awaited, I was pretty sure they'd be better than sleeping on couch cushions that had absorbed 20 years of my and Anya's farts. And it wasn't like I had many choices left. The money I'd saved from my st software engineering gig wasn't going to st forever, and my disability check wouldn't cover the cost of a pce anywhere else in the city. Not unless I wanted to shack up with a bunch of brogrammers in a repurposed shipping container! I'd seen how those dudes lived. No fucking thank you! My transition might be stalled out, but I was still prissy enough to demand little niceties like...oh I don't know...working plumbing. I'd once seen more than a dozen of them disappear into one of those things, like some kind of reverse clown car.

  And so—despite my misgivings—I'd filled out an online application and crossed all my fingers (and my toes for good measure!) Then I'd gone back to scrolling LinkedIn, hoping someone had posted a new engineering job that wasn't just regurgitating AI slop.

  I put the strange, too-good-to-be-true apartment out of my mind and resigned myself to haunting Anya's couch until I merged into it and became a part of her living room set.

  So I was fbbergasted when, a few days ter, the nddy called me to let me know that she'd accepted my application! I begged Anya to come with me for backup, and together we drove her banged up VW Bus into the city, to see exactly what I was about to get myself into.

  ~?~

  The apartment was exactly as perfect as advertised. It was in a cheerfully painted Edwardian style building just off of Fulton Street, in the inner Richmond district. The ground level was bright orange, and the two upper floors were baby blue, with white supports beneath the bay windows. Green detailing gave the entire building an almost cartoonishly welcoming air.

  The nddy—a tiny older Japanese woman named Seiko—met us out front and let us into the house.

  "You two gals take your time looking around! Let me know if you have any questions!" she said, her warm smile spreading across a weathered and wrinkled face that looked like a map that had been refolded a different way every day for a decade.

  "No fuckin' way!" Anya kept saying, over and over again, as we walked through the airy rooms, with the high-ceilings and original wainscoting. The furnishings were a bit more eccentric than I would have chosen for myself—an eclectic assortment of styles and aesthetics that added up to a vibe somewhere on the spectrum between 'traditional Japanese tea garden' and 'carnival whorehouse '. And yet somehow, improbably, it felt cozy and welcoming.

  After the tour, I found myself sitting next to Anya in the nddy's office, unable to shake the dreamlike feeling that at any moment now a goateed creep with a TV camera was going to jump out from behind the curtains and shout "Surprise, idiot!"

  "Now, I'm not interested in renting to just anybody," the older woman said, her voice dusty and dry. "I don't need the money. I just need someone nice, who will appreciate everything the pce has to offer!"

  "I'm... I'm honored that you picked me!" I said, trying to keep the suspicion out of my voice. Had she clocked me? She must have, because here I was in a skirt and blouse (trying to look presentable) despite the gut-clenching, meltdown inducing, "M" that she must have seen on my license. "If it's okay with you, I'm in a hurry to move in! When can I sign the lease?"

  "Oh, today, dearie! I think you're just the right girl to take good care of my old ft!" she winked suggestively at me. "You wouldn't believe the trouble I used to get up to in there!"

  I couldn't help the little flicker of hope that guttered to life inside me. Maybe things were finally turning around for Samantha (name still in beta) Spaulding!

  ~?~

  "You know, I didn't expect to be saying this, but I got a good vibe from the pce!" Anya said as we walled back to her car.

  "I know, right!?" I said. "And did you see, it's close to a bus stop, and the Park! And there was even a 'help wanted ' sign in the coffee shop on the corner!"

  "Oh right, sure, you're going to pull espresso shots, and make foam art on cappuccinos at The Daily Grind!?" Anya snorted, derisively.

  "Well why not?" I said, not even having to feign indignation. "I'm bcklisted from most tech jobs in the area, and honestly the idea of being a 'hot tranny barista' is a lot more appealing to me right now than cwing my way back into an engineering role with people who hate me. And no force on earth could make me sell my soul to another start-up!"

  "Alright," my bestie said appraisingly, "I dare you to go fill out an application!"

  "Oh really, you dare me!?"

  "Too fuckin' right, I dare you! Do eeeet!"

  "You know what, okay! I will!" I said, and spun on my heel to stalk back to the coffee shop we'd passed on the previous block.

  I was so intent on my objective that I almost crashed into the trio of women who'd been walking down the sidewalk behind us. I heard Anya gasp "Look out!" and I managed to pull myself up short before I bowled them down!

  I opened my mouth to apologize but no words came out as I took in the three most breathtakingly beautiful women I'd ever id eyes on. The one on the left had dusky skin, and wavy dark hair striped with purple highlights. She wore paint-spttered overalls, and a bandanna tied up around her forehead. She radiated futch lesbian vibes. On the right was a Japanese-American woman in a tex catsuit, steampunk goggles, and shockingly pink hair tied up in pigtails. A pink and white leather colr around her neck had a tag on it that read "good girl". The statuesque blond in the middle was the most impeccably put together woman I'd ever seen, in a ribbed cream turtleneck, high-waisted dress pants, and Jimmy Choo stilettos. She looked down her aquiline nose at me and raised a perfectly sculpted eyebrow. I fought the inexplicable and overwhelming urge to throw myself on my knees in front of her and beg forgiveness for daring to make eye-contact.

  The pink haired girl leaned over to the blond and whispered (loudly enough that I could hear her): "I told you she was cute!"

  "Stop it Amy!" the golden haired goddess said with a fond smile on her face, turning to her companion and running a manicured finger along the other woman's jaw. "She's far too common for the likes of you."

  The third woman stepped forward, tossed her mane of hair over her shoulder, and stuck a hand out. "Don't mind Mattie! She's convinced that the earth revolves around her. I'm Inara!"

  I stared dumbly at the hand, noticing dirt underneath her fingernails, unable to comprehend what was happening. Anya elbowed me, and with a start I reached out and took it, uncertain if I should shake it, or kiss it. Instead I just stood there, holding it awkwardly. "Ummm...h-hi?" I managed to stammer.

  "Hi!" she said with a big smile, "we saw you talking to Ms. Miyagawa just now! Are you going to be our new downstairs neighbor?"