Unfold Truth

LEONARD:

I woke Bernard the next morning with my loud knocks. I had returned home the night before, but I didn’t sleep. Not really. Lucia’s scent in his home had kept me restless.

He had said his phone was in repairs and would be delivered today, but I was too impatient to wait for the delivery…or for Bernard to send Eric’s pictures as he promised.

“Leo?” he yawned weakly.

Aftereffects of drunkenness.

“Let’s go,” I said, pulling him out of the door and into my car.

“Where?!”

“To your phone.”

Bernard needed a shower. A hot bath, if I were considerate. He reeked of alcohol and tears, but I didn’t care. His protest didn’t reach my ears.

We got his phone, and unable to bear his slowness, I snatched it and powered it on myself.

“What’s going on with you?” he asked, bewildered…just as the repairer looked at me strangely.

Instead of responding, I shoved the phone to his face to unlock it.

“Do you mind telling me why you’re on edge?”

“There are no pictures,” I said, ignoring his questions, scrolling up and down his gallery.

“What do you mean?” He took the phone from me.

He searched. The phone was clean. Slate clan clean.

“I had—how…” He turned to the repairer. “Did you tamper with my files? Did you format my phone?”

The repairer shook his head. Said he had only fixed the screen. If he had formatted the phone, other documents, pictures and videos would be gone too. But the only missing files were Eric’s pictures and videos.

“Then how did his pictures vanish?” Bernard shot back.

I couldn’t explain that either. Sorcery? Signs and wonders? None of these gave us an answer.

I drove Bernard home. He didn’t stop swearing that the pictures and videos were on his phone. I believed him. I did. If I remembered the night at my house, Lucia…Eric? Fvck!

Whoever was in my house that night had knocked Bernard’s phone to the floor to stop him from showing me those pictures. What I didn’t understand was how the files were wiped if the phone was broken until Bernard took it to repairs.

Who exactly is Lucia? Eric? Erica2?

Help me, Lord. I was going insane. My sanity was deteriorating, yet somehow, I was holding on.

I stayed home. Missing work had become my new job and habit. Being useless and helpless, my new identity. For a week, I lay in bed, convincing myself I was delusional. Lucia couldn’t possibly be Eric. She just couldn’t. She better not be. Because I hated to admit I was missing a man. That I was pleasured by a man. That I was hopelessly in love with a man.

I could’ve gone back to that apartment, pulled the truth from the nerd, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. I knew I wouldn’t survive the truth that was already clear. I would rather wait until I met Lucia again…if she hadn’t disappeared from my life. I would wait until she proved she wasn’t Eric. Wasn’t the same man Bernard was in love with.

And that part—Bernard and Eric? I couldn’t open that chapter of reality. I couldn’t accept the undeniable that while I was getting a mind-blowing blowjob from her? Him?...he was fvcking Bernard.

Erica returned from her trip to complicate things further. I didn’t care about her. I barely paid attention…not when she apologised for deceiving me, not when she promised to make it up with more sincerity and devotion, not when she tried with food, conversations, messages, cleaning, even laundry.

I didn’t pay attention. And yet, it hurt more. That she was still deceiving me, still pretending to be sincere. She had brought a man into my life, not a woman. And now she parades apologies and devotion on the false pretence of having a female double.

Her lies and deceit were blinding to see, too much to bear. I threw myself back into the office to minimise her presence. I knew. I could’ve sent her away, called off the damn wedding, but I didn’t. Something I didn’t want to admit—held me back. Something I prayed would turn out to be what I hoped for.

Erica didn’t stop. Once she saw me return to work, she scrapped her remote-working decision and went back to the office, bringing her excessiveness with her. She was everywhere, doing everything…slipping into my office at every chance. I also noticed the cold shoulder she gave Nathan. After the gossip of what happened in my father’s house with Nathan spread through the company—I still don’t know how that leaked—she made a choice. She blacklisted him, told security to keep him off the management floor.

However, it felt like she was doing it too loudly. As if for me to see. Ridiculous as it sounds, Erica was acting like a woman in love with me.

Her antics drove me insane. Or so I wanted to claim. Because I knew what was really driving me crazy. What I was truly furious about.

To escape everything for a while, I left the office. I needed Erica out of my sight, and leaving work before closing time guaranteed that. She wouldn’t be home yet. And for six hours, I would have peace.

But the moment I stepped into my living room, her scent struck me. That perfume. Lucia.

She was here. Still here. She had cooked…a feast lined up like a wedding banquet on the table. The aroma stirred my hunger instantly. But hunger wasn’t the point.

Since she was here, I could as well know her truth. Lucia would either strip before me, or I would strip her. One way or another, I would confirm what was hidden beneath her curves.

“Lucia?”

My chest tightened as I called her name. My voice trembled. My heart pounded louder than my words. Not because of the truth about to unfold, but because I missed her. After two weeks, I missed her so much it made me weak.

“Lucia.”

The shower was running. I could’ve waited, given her privacy. Except the truth demanded she be naked. And we were long past modesty. She had seen all of me…seen me dripping from a hot shower. Seeing her under running water shouldn’t be different.

I opened the bathroom door.

My knees buckled. My breath broke.

On the hanger: wigs, padded bras, hip pads…stripped away.

The water masked my ragged breathing. His smooth legs, his flawless back…blinded me with fury. His hand stroking himself blinded me more.

I lunged forward, turned him, pinned him against the wall.

It was true. The truth was right there. He was Lucia. He was Erica2. He was fvcking Eric.

His eyes widened. His lips trembled. His mouth gaped. Slowly, I looked down…hoping, for the sake of my ache, to be proven wrong. That he will become a woman despite his short hair and flat chest. Still, no matter how long I looked, his erect cock was poking at me.

“Leonard…”

In that fake Erica’s whisper, I heard it. A thick voice that could sell out a man. Any man. How hadn’t I noticed before?

I huffed. Broken. Tears spilt—the kind I hadn’t shed burying my father, losing a ninety-billion-dollar project. Tears that I didn’t drop surviving a near-crash in turbulence. But here, in the shower, I wept because the woman I loved was a man. The man fvcking my best friend.

Rage consumed me. I wanted to see his breath drain out of him.

Then he said he loved him.

Unbelievable. But those words arrested me. They pinned my hands. Instead of strangling him, I stormed into the living room.

Anger surged back when I saw the banquet. I flung the plates across the room. Yet, I couldn’t fling out the images of him in my head…Eric in his real form.

Jesus. How could a man be so beautiful? Prettier than any woman I had ever seen. Not even strippers with their polished skin compared to his delicate body. I hated admitting it, but Eric was heavenly.

“Leonard…” His real voice called behind me.

I leaned over the kitchen table, gripping the edges, trying to calm the storm.

“I am sorry,” he muttered. “I can explain. Please hear me out.”

I turned, scoffing the moment I saw him. He was back in his gown, but without the padding, without makeup, without even covering the bruises on his neck.

“Leo…”

“You can explain?” I said, my voice low, trembling more than I intended. “I'm listening.”