Chapter 1

“Welcome guests,” Tanner Chapman says. “Thank you for joining us on this special supernatural issue of Tanner Talk. I’d like to welcome Natasha Joon to the stage. Let’s give her a round of applause.”

Natasha walks onto the gray carpet from stage left. Her dark hair is freshly cut at her shoulders and her recent bangs are feathered. Her pale skin has been caked with make-up for television, which she thinks is strange since most of the people who will see this broadcast will be watching on a squished tablet or iPhone screen, but the bold eyeliner and red lips make her feel like a protector goddess, anyway. She wears a red dress with a plunging neckline and does so for her scars to be visible. They radiate from her stomach, reach her collar bones; the pink of her marred flesh highlights the red of the dress, and she knows that the cameras will pick up everything. She waves with a practiced hand and smiles without showing teeth. When she sits, she crosses her legs and leans close toward Tanner.

Tanner shakes her hand. “So nice to have you on the show, Natasha.”

“Please, call me Tasha. Everyone I care about does.”

“Well, thank you, Tasha. We will get right to those people who care about you soon enough. But I wanted to give our viewers some background. For those of you who may remember, Tasha came out with a book about a year and a half ago. What was it called again?”

“High Moon: A Life in Phases. I didn’t even know the half of the phases I’d enter when writing that book. It demands a sequel. Should have known better than to title it like that, especially if I wanted a peaceful life! But who really wants a peaceful life?” Tasha chuckles. She already knows she’s taking the show away from Tanner, but from the way he plays along with her statement, she also knows that’s okay

“I hear you loud and clear. It’s why I have my show! People say it is all dirty laundry and paternity tests, nothing new under the sun, but maybe I should have been looking toward the moon,” Tanner says, and then becomes serious. “Take us through that public reading which started your adventure, with as much detail as you can. It will be best for the audience to grasp all the aspects of this fascinating story, and then we can attend to the proper ending on stage.”

“Yes.” Tasha glances toward the stage left where she entered. She does not see the remaining parties for this affair, but she knows they will crowd her spotlight soon enough. Always get the first word, her editor told her for High MoonEspecially when you’re trans in a cis world. Speak first. Then the audience can question you—because they will always question you—later

Tasha sighs and shakes her head. “Well, Tanner, I suppose I should have been suspicious when the women’s book store invited me to give a reading shortly after my memoir came out. Never read your gender change memoir to a group of second wave feminists, especially lesbian separatists. It’s always the start of a horror story…” 1

Tasha knew it was a trick the moment she stepped into the store.

On paper, At Stake Bookslooked like an average book store in Ottawa, Ontario, the Nation’s capital. The squat brown and red brick building was close enough to several universities that it could stock overpriced textbooks and make back double what it needed to stay afloat, while also maintaining a smaller arts and independent culture that had regular readings, like the one she’d been invited to tonight. The bookstore owner, Beatrice, had invited her—through her PA and best friend Lydia, of course—to give a reading of her memoir that had come out four months ago. Since sales often plummeted after the first quarter, Tasha had agreed right away, without any of the necessary encouragement from her editor or Lydia herself. She and Lydia both shared a two-bedroom apartment in the business district of Montreal, so heading to Ottawa for an afternoon and evening would only cost a tank of gas and a couple meals on the publisher’s expense account. Lydia had even wanted to turn the business venture into a fun road-trip, where they could dress up with sunglasses and scarves like Thelma and Louise.

“Except you know,” Lydia had said. “We’re not going to drive off a cliff.”

Now driving off a cliff was exactly what Tasha wanted to do. While Lydia parked their car, Tasha had walked into the store and realized what a dreadful mistake they had made. The small reading area was packed with people, at least fifty judging by all the chairs, but they were all older women, perhaps in their fifties or sixties, with plain clothing, gray hair, and placid expressions. Copies of Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuchand Andrea Dworkin’s Intercoursewere promptly displayed on the shelves behind them. Many of the women also clutched feminist tomes to their chest, but each and every author on the by-line had recently been outed on online message boards as trans exclusionary radical feminists. Or, TERFs for short.