Chapter 4: The Receiving LineThe grand staircase was a sprawling, curved monstrosity of polished oak and velvet runner carpets. As Dar and Skye ascended from the dark, low-ceilinged belly of the service corridor, the air grew thinner, drier, and heavily scented with the phantom residue of expensive perfumes and lemon Pledge.

  With every step Dar took, her heavy combat boots sinking into the plush red carpet, the silence of the abandoned building seemed to fracture. It didn't break all at once; it splintered, letting in the auditory ghosts of the past. First, it was the low, indistinct murmur of a crowd. Then, the tinny, recorded strings of a cssical waltz pying from concealed speakers.

  By the time Dar reached the top nding, Skye’s red fshlight beam had vanished. The suffocating darkness of the present was violently repced by the blinding, crystal-refracted gre of the chandeliers.

  Dar wasn’t thirty-four anymore.

  She was thirteen.

  She was standing at the threshold of the long and narrow foyer that stretched across the second floor, acting as a mandatory gauntlet before the main ballroom. The air was stifling, heated by the bodies of fifty pubescent boys crammed into heavy navy wool, all radiating a toxic cocktail of hormonal sweat, cheap drugstore cologne, not the grocery store Axe body spray they normally relied upon, and pure, concentrated panic.

  "Line up, gentlemen! Dress the line! You look like a flock of startled pigeons!"

  The voice cracked like a whip over the murmur of the boys. It belonged to Mr. Abernathy, the lead instructor of the Dogwood Society. He was a man carved from old leather and rigid expectations, wearing a tuxedo that fit him with military precision. He paced the length of the narrow hall, his polished oxfords clicking a sharp, terrifying rhythm on the hardwood floor.

  Patrick, the hollow, flesh-suit that Dar was forced to pilot, scrambled into position. He jammed his pinching, stiff leather shoes against the wall, his shoulder bdes hitting the wainscoting. Fifty boys mirrored the motion, forming a solid wall of navy bzers down the length of the hall.

  This was the Receiving Line. It was the first and most critical drill of the evening. Before they were allowed to even look at the debutantes waiting in the ballroom, they had to prove they possessed the physical machinery of manhood. They had to practice the Approach, the Greeting, and the Grip.

  "The handshake is not a greeting, gentlemen," Abernathy barked, his voice dropping into a resonant, theatrical baritone as he walked down the line, inspecting them. "It is a negotiation. It is the first volley in the war of the room. When you extend your hand, you are not asking for permission to exist in their space. You are ciming it."

  Dar, trapped behind Patrick’s dead eyes, felt her stomach twist into a cold, hard knot. She wanted to shrink. She wanted to pull her arms into her chest and disappear into the wall. But the code had been written. The programming was running. Patrick stood with his feet shoulder-width apart, his posture perfectly, terribly straight.

  "Shoulders back! Chests out!” Abernathy roared, stopping in front of a particurly nervous-looking boy two spots down from Dar. He tapped the boy’s sternum with two stiff fingers. "You are the wall between the delicate world and the harsh reality. You do not show fear. You do not show weakness. And above all else, you do not smile like an idiot."

  Abernathy turned on his heel to address the entire hall.

  "A gentleman’s good nature is not a submission," he lectured, his eyes sweeping over them. "It is power. Politeness is how you control the board. When you pull out a chair, when you open a door, when you speak softly... you are demonstrating that you have the luxury of restraint. You are telling the room, 'I am so completely in charge of this situation that I can afford to serve.'. Do you understand?"

  "Yes, sir," the boys droned in unison. Dar’s voice joined them, an octave lower than she wanted it to be, a forced, gravelly hum that vibrated unnaturally in her throat.

  "Prove it. Pair up!"

  The line dissolved into chaotic, shuffling pairs. Dar found herself facing a boy named Brent, a terrifyingly broad-shouldered teenager who had hit puberty two years early and treated every social interaction like he had something to prove. Brent’s face was already set in a hyper-masculine scowl, his jaw clenched, eager to prove his dominance. Little bits of scraggly, thick hair poking out of his chin and lip.

  "Face your opponent," Abernathy commanded. "Predators locked in eye contact. Hold it. Do not look away. The first man to look down is prey."

  Dar looked up into Brent’s eyes. They were hard, competitive, and entirely devoid of empathy. Dar’s soul, the soft, terrified girl buried deep in the center of Patrick’s chest, began to scream. It was a high, sustained, panicked shriek, begging to look away, begging to submit, begging to just be allowed to exist without fighting for the right to breathe.

  Look down, her mind pleaded. Just let him win so he leaves us alone. But the Dogwood programming overrode the panic. Patrick’s eyes went dead. The muscles in his jaw locked. He stared back at Brent with a bnk, psychopathic intensity that chilled Dar from the inside out.

  "Extend the hand!" Abernathy shouted.

  The emptiness they called Patrick moved his arm, inside her truth felt like watching someone else operate heavy machinery from a distance.

  "Grip!"

  Their hands collided.

  The sensory feedback was instantaneous and repulsive. Brent’s palm was incredibly wet, slick with the cold, cmmy sweat of adolescent anxiety, yet his grip was immediately, aggressively violent. He cmped down on Patrick’s hand like a vice, trying to grind the metacarpal bones together. It was a physical assault masquerading as a social grace, an unspoken, desperate attempt by a terrified boy to prove he was the apex predator of the foyer.

  Firm grip, Abernathy’s voice echoed in Dar’s head.

  Dar wanted to yank her hand away and wipe the sweat on her trousers. She wanted to cry out from the sharp pain shooting up her knuckles. Instead, the Gentleman routine engaged perfectly. The shell known as Patrick squeezed back. He didn't just match Brent’s pressure; he calcuted the exact amount of force needed to stop the crushing, locking his wrist so Brent couldn't twist his arm into a subordinate angle.

  They stood there in the overly bright, long, narrow hallway, two boys locked in a silent, sweaty, bone-bruising war, staring unblinkingly into each other's eyes. Brent’s lip twitched with the effort, his face flushing red. Patrick’s face remained a mask of polite, terrifying stone.

  "Hold!" Abernathy yelled, pacing past them. "Firm grip! No smiling! Feel the power of your position! You are the masters of the house!"

  Dar was drowning. The wetness of Brent's palm felt like a thick yer of grease coating her skin. The pain in her hand was nothing compared to the agonizing, tearing sensation in her chest. She was performing the ritual perfectly. She was winning the dominance game. She was proving she was a man.

  And she had never hated herself more.

  She realized, with a sudden, crystal crity that pierced through the pubescent haze, that Abernathy was right. The good nature was a power move. Chivalry was a cage that kept her safe. Every polite nod, every door opened, every firm handshake was designed to put her on a pedestal built on the assumption that women were weak and required her to survive. By participating in this, by succeeding at this, she wasn't just killing her truth; she was reinforcing the very system that made finding Dar within Patrick impossible.

  The horror of it threatened to break her. A tremor started in her locked wrist. A desperate, frantic urge to rip her hand away, to drop to her knees and scream, and cry and run.

  "And... release!" Abernathy commanded.

  Brent yanked his hand back, wiping his sweaty palm on his trousers, panting slightly. He looked at Patrick with a mixture of newfound respect and fear.

  Patrick gave Brent a curt, perfectly measured nod. The Command Smile. A slight upward curve of the lips that conveyed zero warmth, only a chilling, superior acknowledgement of victory.

  Deep inside, Dar curled into a tight, miserable ball, resigned to the dark. A darkness she wouldn’t escape for decades.

  “Excellent gentleman.” Abernathy said with almost a touch of approval, almost. “Allow me to check in with Mrs. Potterdale, to see if the girls are ready for us.” He gave the boys in the room a small nod and then carried on into the ballroom. It only took a beat before the lewd talk began, as it always does.

  “Did you see Jessica out in the parking lot?” Dar heard behind her, through Patrick’s rapidly disassociating ears. The boys around her began their usual, favorite topic of conversation - sex. It was fully approved and accepted to just be a gross, horny boy, encouraged within these halls. To put out the appearance of civility while containing utter depravity in a sharp suit. She did her best to zone out, but these particur horn dogs were right behind her.

  “Her tits are getting huge, I think she’s wearing a real bra now.”

  “Bro, those cow tits are asking for it.”

  “They’re all asking for it. You see how they dressed? All dolled up just for us.”

  “I hope I get Naomi. Ooh, my hands might ‘slip’ so I can cop a feel of her ass.”

  The boys behind her chuckled in chorus at these insidious pns. Her shoulders shot up instinctually, something about it made her uncomfortable but she could never quite expin it. But this too was expected of her. This too was a requirement for her existence in the world. To disrespect women and treat them as property to be cimed. If she did not embrace this ideal, if she did not allow it to slip into her core - they’d know.

  It would happen again. Just like when she first got to middle school, and her soft and sensitive nature was still more present. Dar was bullied quite frequently, particurly during gym css when she wanted to read comic books rather than do any physical activity. By trying to be different, she simply invited scrutiny. After the third time of nearly getting her ass kicked in the bleachers by some bored bullies who could somehow smell the queer on her, she decided it was better to blend in.

  It was around this time when Dar first began attending the Dogwood Society. When she first began to let the world cram her into that Patrick shaped box that it expected her to die in.

  The snap back to the present was violently quiet.

  There was no Mr. Abernathy barking orders. There were no boys snickering behind her. There was only the heavy, stagnant air of the second-floor hallway and the dull red glow of Skye’s fshlight sweeping across the faded wallpaper.

  Dar gasped, her lungs pulling in the dusty air as if she’d just broken the surface of a frozen ke. She was standing frozen at the top of the stairs, her feet pnted shoulder-width apart, her spine locked in a terrifyingly perfect, rigid line. But it was her right hand that betrayed the ghost. Her arm was extended, fingers cmped together so tightly her knuckles were white, locked in a phantom, bone-crushing handshake with a boy who hadn't been there in twenty years.

  "Hey," a soft voice broke through the ringing in her ears.

  Warm fingers wrapped around her rigid wrist. Skye stepped into her line of sight, her dark eyes scanning Dar’s pale face. Gently, methodically, Skye began to pry Dar’s fingers open, one by one, releasing the invisible grip.

  "Who were you fighting, Muffin?" Skye asked, her voice a low, grounding rumble.

  Dar stared at her empty, trembling palm. "All of them," she whispered.

  She let her arm drop, the "gentleman" posture colpsing instantly as she slumped against the wainscoting. She pulled her cardigan tight around her chest, feeling a sudden, intense chill despite the July heat trapped in the building.

  "They…really fucked me up here, Skye." Dar said, the words spilling out fast and jagged. "I was so terrified of them finding out I was different, Skye. I was so scared of the boys in that line... the way they talked about girls, like they were meat on a rack. I realized if I just pyed the game perfectly, they wouldn't look closely enough to see the girl hiding inside the armor. Hell I didn't even see her for decades, I was so buried."

  She looked down the long, empty stretch of the hall. The red fshlight beam illuminated the dust motes dancing in the dead air.

  "I hid in my manners, I still do." Dar confessed, the truth of it settling heavily in her stomach. "I wasn't polite because I was a sweet, kind kid. I was polite because it made me invisible. It was the best camoufge I had. Like an agreeable vase you hardly notice."

  Skye leaned against the wall next to her, keeping her shoulder pressed against Dar’s to anchor her in the present. "It’s a hell of a survival strategy."

  "But it backfired," Dar said, her voice cracking with a sudden, frustrated anger. "Don't you see? It ruined my wiring. My head is all fucked up now. I spent years perfecting the art of the polite smile and the agreeable nod, and now... now I'm just a woman who doesn't know how to tell a guy to fuck off. I don’t know how to tell anyone to give me any space."

  She dragged a hand through her wavy hair, tugging at the roots. "When I transitioned, I traded the armor for a target. All those boys I stood in line with? They grew up into the men who corner women at bars. And when they come down on me, when they get predatory, my brain defaults to the exact same programming. Smile. Be polite. Don't cause a scene. The 'power move' turned into a trauma response; fawning. I just stand there and let them boundary-stomp because this pce taught me that polite submission is the only way to survive."

  Skye let out a dark, knowing scoff. "Yeah, well, that's why you have me."

  Dar looked up, her tear-filled eyes catching the faint red light.

  "You remember that guy at the Publix parking lot?" Skye asked, a wicked, predatory grin touching the corners of her mouth. "The one in the lifted F-150 who wouldn't take your very polite 'no thank you' when he asked for your number?"

  A small, watery ugh escaped Dar’s lips. "You threw a grapefruit at his windshield."

  "It was a pomelo, actually. Better density for structural damage," Skye corrected, crossing her arms. "Or the finance bro at that downtown mixer your company threw? The one who kept trying to touch your waist while you were giving him your 'customer service' smile?"

  "You spilled your whole tallboy on his khakis."

  "I tripped," Skye said, though her tone suggested nothing of the sort. She turned to Dar, her expression softening into something fiercely protective. "You don't have to know how to tell them to fuck off, Dar. Not yet. You spent your whole childhood being forced to be a shield. You're allowed to just be the girl behind one now. Let me be the blunt instrument. I actually find stomping on chaser nuts kinda fun.”

  Dar looked at Skye, the combat boots, the cargo pants, the sharp eyeliner, and the absolute, unwavering certainty in her posture. Skye didn't hide in her manners. Skye didn't have any. She moved through the world like a hawk, daring anyone to challenge her airspace.

  "I don't want to fawn anymore," Dar whispered. “I’ve been working with Dr Ocampo about it for a while now, but it feels like it’s the only defense I have left.”

  "I know," Skye said. She nodded toward the heavy set of double doors at the end of the hallway. The entrance to the main ballroom. "That's why we brought the vodka."

  Dar looked at the doors. Behind them y the dance floor. The T-shaped room where the Receiving Line ended and the real performance began. The epicenter of the Dogwood Society.

  She flexed her right hand. The phantom ache of the handshake was gone.

  "Okay," Dar said, pushing herself off the wall. She adjusted her cardigan, not to hide, but to square her shoulders. "Let's go to the st dance this pce will ever see.”