I look at kade, lying on this operating table, sedated yet conscious and know he’s going through hell – because as you all know, I’ve been there.
As I listen to the pre-surgery specifics being exchanged between The Surgeon’s soul and The Twins, my mind races. Thoughts, ideas, scenarios and all sorts of get out plans course through my head: stumbling, jumbling and making little coherent sense.
One thing I know for sure is: the panic app is useless here!
‘Calm, Tan’ I repeat over and over to myself in order to make sense of what’s happening in my head. But, The Surgeon's voice overrides my thoughts – "Remember, this patient has not undergone any hormone therapy, so this is very much a slice and dice job. Also, we don't have the time for full anesthesia, so he will be conscious. I suggest you work swiftly, because if you work too slowly he may pass out, and we don't want that, we want him to experience the full intensity of the pain. That said, we can craft a fully functioning vagina at a later date, when we have more time."
All this is addressed to Twin: 2, who brandishes the scalpel in her hand. I watch her eyes dart from the scalpel down to Kade's boy bits and notice the sick relish in her eyes.
Twin: 1 joins the conversation with enthusiasm, "My sister's been practicing, and she is very, very good. On her last session she managed to fully castrate a hog in under sixty seconds," she says, proudly.
The Surgeon quivers with a perverse pleasure, "That is mightily impressive. And when you consider that human male genital tissue is much softer and more compliant than a hogs, she may well beat her personal best on this procedure," she says, with the warped smile that I never thought I'd see again.
I steel a glance at Kade. All the color has drained from his face and his eyes are widely dilated. I look away and chant to myself: I WILL SAVE HIM!
Then a word pops into my head: DIVERT.
I must find some kind of diversion tactic, anything to buy time.
I stare at The Surgeon, and the words spill from me before I can even think of the consequence, "So, you never were my mother, were you?"
Twin: 1 immediately lowers her head, whilst The Surgeon's face-hardens, "Did she speak with that pig woman?" She asks, her voice loaded with anger.
When neither twin immediately answers, I jump in with, "If you mean The Nanny, The Twin’s Nanny, then yes, we were fortunate to meet her before she sacrificed her self – for us," I say.
The Twin’s silence and the look on The Surgeon's face tell me I've hit a nerve that I must capitalize on.
I steel another glance at Kade and he mouths the words, 'The letter' – I know he's thinking the same as myself.
The information in The Nanny's letter comes racing back to me and I fix The Surgeon with a knowing eye, "You were born 'intersex' a 'hermaphrodite' with both male and female genitalia – weren't you?"
She doesn't answer me, instead she shoots words at The Twins, “You let that thing impart this confidential information to them?" I jump in, "She wasn't a thing. She was the man who supported you as a child, your endocrinologist, the person who knew you wanted to be a boy...”
..."SLICE HIS BITS OFF – NOW!" Screams The Surgeon at Twin: 2. The scalpel flashes and glints in her hand, which is trembling alarmingly as it moves towards Kade's exposed crotch.
"WAIT!" I scream with such intensity that Twin: 2 jolts and her arm shoots up, launching the scalpel upwards towards the ceiling.
Realizing her error, she looks up, just in time to have the scalpel embed itself with a sickening squelch into her right eye. Blood spurts from her eye-socket like a burst water pipe spouting claret.
