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A mirror is a cold, reflecting surface with no soul or opinions: it can only show you an impersonal and unfiltered image, not tell you who you are or who you are supposed to be.
It's easy to say this, when that reflection has not given them for such long, long years the sight of a body that felt wrong on her bones, and that looked like a mismatched shape, like the clumsy drawing of a child.
Alana Bloom used to look at herself only for a few moments before closing her eyes, before starting to imagine her own flesh mutating and transforming following the mere power of her will, of what she really wanted to see.
Her shell falling apart, crumbling at her feet, opening up to reveal the truth of the chrysalis hiding underneath.
Looking at herself again didn't mean, however, breaking the illusion: it was a memento, a motivation, another stone in the wall of her resolution. A wall that grew stronger and higher everyday, built only by her own determination, on her unwillingness to give up under any circumstances.
And now that she finally has what she has always wanted, a body that really resembles her in every sense, she remembers those times with a soft smile that curves her lips, but that doesn't quite reach her eyes: they still sting her heart, remind her of the sufferings and the hardships she has endured, but also make her see how far she has come, that she has won in the end.
It's more than many people can say to feel when they look in the mirror.
---
Dr. Hannibal Lecter has a reputation that precedes and surrounds him like one of his perfectly tailored suits: an ex surgeon who suddenly decided to give up his career for unknown reasons to dedicate himself to psychiatry would be a sensation anyway, but it's made more intriguing by the aura the man exudes, something that makes him look almost unreal, like he's the character of an old Hollywood movie come to life.
He tutors students, but only one or two every semester, students he handpicks himself; has a beautiful office the dean himself put at his disposal and seems to know everyone that matters on campus.
When Alana receives the formal and elegantly filled form that informs her that Dr. Lecter has selected her for his mentorship, she cannot hide the smile on her face.
She expects to be summoned at his office to discuss her studies, her thesis and, maybe, her ambitions: instead, she gets an invitation to join him for dinner at his house. It's probably not very ethical, or not ethical at all, to have a private evening with a student, but apparently no one cares to argue with Dr. Lecter.
And the curiosity she feels towards the man tramples her doubts.
The dress she buys is green, chaste enough not to give him the wrong impression, but bold enough to make it clear she'll not be easy to intimidate. She looks at herself in the mirror for a long time before leaving the house, stares at the way her curves are at the same time sculpted and hidden by the fabric, enjoys the feeling of it against her skin like she does every time she has the chance to wear something really nice.
Dresses where the only feminine item she used to be really drawn to as a child: not even to wear them, not at first at least, but just to feel the fabric against her skin, against her palms, touching them and inhaling the scent of her mother directly for them.
Sometimes she dreams of her future professional wardrobe, of the dresses she'll buy, of the way they'll make her look and feel, of the impression they'll give to the ones who'll look at her; the plain clothes she has to put up with now will be forgotten, the last pieces of her past self, the one who wanted to melt with the walls and hide away until the errors of the past had been corrected, will disappear forever, leaving behind only the shiny and new Dr. Alana Bloom.
But for now, she'll enjoy the evening and then tuck the dress safely away again.
“Welcome, Miss Bloom. Please, come in. May I get your coat?”
Lecter's house is beautiful, with the same old fashioned charm the man himself has: she grew up in a good family, her parents had money, but this is on a completely different level; she feels like Audrey Hepburn in “Sabrina” and the thought makes her smile.
After a while she notices the way the doctor is looking at her dress, at the way she wears it, how it falls on her body; a part of her becomes instantly defensive, too used to curious looks that, usually, are the starting point for unneeded and rude questions.
“I hope it's not too much.”
She looks at him straight in the eyes, daring him to say something, to ask something, anything. But Lecter just smiles and drinks more of the wine in his glass; she still has to touch hers.
“Absolutely not, I was merely noticing something very curious.”
“Such as?”
“That green is the exact color I myself would have picked for you, Miss Bloom. It perfectly suits you.”
---
She goes out with men, has sex with them, pretends to laugh at their jokes, to find them funny or interesting; but most of them are boring, obsessed with proving her how charming and smart they are, focused only on impressing her instead of getting to know her.
It's a good thing only because it makes it easy to end these pseudo relationships before her absolute lack of romantic interest becomes too evident; but it's in no way less frustrating and upsetting. They have a fantasy when they look at her: the overachieving, straight As student, the quiet one who seems to play hard to get and fly around the campus cloaked in her mystery; they don't really see her for what and who she is.
Sex would at least feel good if they weren't so desperate to prove themselves, to make her feel “like a real woman”: most of the times she goes home and takes several showers to wash them away from her skin and never calls them back, not caring at all about the rumors that could spread around about her.
“Nothing can hurt me anymore, I am who I was always supposed to be. They can't touch me.”
She repeats these words over and over until they seal themselves into her bones.
---
The food Lecter cooked for them is absolutely delicious, the meat warm and rich in her mouth, it fills her body and leaves behind a satisfaction that makes her smile despite herself; his voice is smooth, his conversation interesting and his manners impeccable, the perfect gentleman who knows how to make a woman feel like a queen in every circumstance.
But always with a professional detachment that makes it clear he has no hidden interests other than her company and of making her feel at complete ease.
“Are you already considering opening a practice, Miss Bloom?”
“Actually... I think I'll stick to teaching. I tend to take cases too personally, I've been told. And there's need of good teachers and researches, right?”
The man stares at her for a moment, smiling softly, before returning to his food.
“A peculiar choice indeed.”
“Many would call it a waste of time! Spending years and years studying psychiatry to end up just teaching...”
“I never consider culture a waste of time, Miss Bloom. It is important in all its forms and what would we do without competent and admirable teachers? I am sure your academic career will be brilliant. And I will help with it in every way I can.”
She stops eating and looks him for a long time, trying to read what he really thinks on his face, but unable to penetrate the mask of courtesy he is wearing.
“You barely know me, yet you seems so sure of your opinions and judgments...”
Lecter gets a little closer to her, almost cornering her, maker her feel smaller, but oddly enough, not threatened.
“I am very good at reading people, Miss Bloom, and I am rarely wrong. I see a brilliant future ahead of you.”
---
Sometimes when she looks at her old pictures and finds resemblances of her old body in her new one, she's torn between a sense of soft nostalgia and the desire to erase it completely, to forget it ever happened.
She was so young back then, hiding under a facade that was not really her, that never felt right; it was like wearing clothes made of smoke and ashes, something so easy to break, but that at the same time clung to her, too sticky and heavy to be simply shrug off.
Something that took time to be washed away from her skin to reveal the truth underneath.
Alana stares at her naked body in the mirror, caresses her breast, her smooth stomach, stops her fingers for a moment between her legs.
She likes what she sees, likes the way her body moves and responds to her will, the way it looks and bends to match what she really is.
---
“Are we going to breach the hidden subject anytime tonight? Or are we simply going to leave the elephant free to wander in the room around us?”
She shouldn't probably be so direct, especially after too many glasses of wine; Lecter seems confused for a moment, his mouth still half full of dessert, and she can barely refrain herself from snorting out loud.
“My... condition.”
Alana hates that word and hates herself for using it; Lecter makes a face, like he has just tasted something very bitter.
“I am going to assume you are referring to your successfully completed transition.”
She gulps down her last sip of wine.
“Yes, I'm talking the fact that I used to be... That I am trans.”
Lecter doesn't comment on that, he simply looks at her and Alana feels naked, exposed and examined like a body on the autopsy table, cut open and ready to be emptied and studied. She's not sure, however, if she hates the feeling or is strangely aroused by it.
The man knows how to open doors inside her to look at her secrets and her fears: he has been the perfect gentleman the whole night, commenting on her grades, on some of her papers he has read, on her academic achievements and carefully avoided personal questions.
Not now; now he's stumbling into a difficult territory and Alana is curious to see what he will do.
“You are a woman, a very smart woman. What you used to be, it is irrelevant to me. You have always been only yourself. A body is just a body and, as pleasant as it can be to look at, it remains that and nothing else.
"I understand that this may sound very easy to say for me, a cis gender white man who never had to endure what you went through, but it is simply the truth, as much as I am concerned.
"I am much more interested in your mind and your intelligence and those are the qualities I will try to stimulate during these months. However, I am glad you have felt comfortable enough to bring up such a personal subject so early. I am ready to put myself at your service for anything you may need.”
Alana looks away.
“Most men would not say that... People like to ask questions and... pry into the most personal details to satisfy their curiosity.”
She hears Lecter inhaling deeply.
“You will soon find out that I am not “most men”.”
---
When she was in high school, she used to get called names behind her back or blatantly to her face: she kicked back, she screamed at them, showing them her teeth and nails, discouraging them from trying again most of the times.
College is a safe haven compared, with her new name appearing on all her documents and only a few people knowing of her situation. She lives in her own little apartment, she doesn't hang out with people much and tries hard to be there and not there at the same time.
She rises her voice if needed, but unless it is really, Alana is a ghost in her own life, her goal beyond the walls of the school, above the lessons, the exams and the papers. She remember too much, has seen enough, has lived what look and feel like to be two lives and the weight of living both of them for so long is heavy on her shoulder, though it becomes lighter everyday she finally gets to be herself.
The butterfly she has finally become is still waiting for the right moment to spread her frail and tiny wings and fly away.
But it will come.
She knows it.
---
“Have you chosen me as your protégé only because I'm trans?”
They are sitting in his drawing room, Alana on the couch and Lecter on a sofa next to it; the man is smiling again while sipping his whiskey. Her glass is still full and she'll probably not drink it, but enjoys the calm around them, the way things seem to come easily.
He's a stranger, yet has treated her better than many others: maybe that's his secret. Maybe that's how he makes you open up for him and allow him to read inside of you.
“What makes you say that?”
“That's what I would do to appear politically correct. Not many people know, but... still. It'd make you appear so progressive. Sounds like a smart move. And somehow I think you'd like that, you like to give a good image of you, to be seen as... upstanding.”
She has no idea why she's saying all this: usually she tries to talk about it less than she can, tries to forget about it. I'm a woman now, that's how people have to see me. Even when she catches the curious glimpses of the professors, she ignores them, pretends not to see them.
Hannibal Lecter, instead, doesn't look at her in any particular way, doesn't try to peak down her dress to see how her breasts are shaped now, she stopped wearing v-necks after an accident during an exam, doesn't examine her body to try to see what of her old one still remains in her forms.
He looks her right in the eyes, never lets them go and Alana doesn't know how to react to that: she's good at defending herself, she's always ready for that and was prepared to fight even tonight. And now she doesn't know what to do.
Lecter smiles.
“I have no interests in political games. I have selected you only for your qualities. In fact, I am going to reveal you a secret: in four months time, I will open my practice, therefore you will be the last student I will mentor. As you can see, I have no reason to strengthen a position in an environment where I will soon no longer work. Of course, however, I will follow you for all the six months of you mentorship.”
Alana doesn't say anything for a while, looks at him and then at the glass in her hands: she takes a small sip and feel the liquor burn down her throat.
“I... sorry. I shouldn't have assumed things.”
“It is perfectly all right. And you are not wrong when you accuse me of a bit of vanity. I surely enjoy making a good impression.”
She thinks about how he does it, how he manages to slip into the little corners of your armor and see things usually people don't see, how he knows how to put her at complete ease when she knows nothing of him and he barely knows her.
Alana is so used to judgments, silent or vocals it doesn't matter much, they hurt both ways, that feeling accepted without having to impose herself leaves her almost empty.
Lecter refills her glass before she can stop him and she finds herself staring at the brown liquor that looks almost blood red in the light of the fireplace.
The man is staying far away enough from her not to suffocate her with his presence, but she feels it anyway, in the way his eyes study her and in the way he modulates his voice to make it sound reassuring and alluring.
“Are you... flirting with me?”
She tries to ignore the heat that rises to her cheeks and blame it on the alcohol, and not on the fact that she hates how silly she sounds, like a schoolgirl fantasizing on her crush. Lecter's laugh is rich and low, makes her look up to find him smiling almost sincerely for the first time that evening.
“That would be incredibly unethical and unprofessional of me. Am I giving you this impression? If I have, I apologize.”
Alana shakes her head.
“I guess as before I was assuming things. I've had my fair share of unwanted advances, so... I guess it's an involuntary reflex to that. I think I should stop talking now before I embarrass myself further tonight...”
“You should never be afraid to speak your mind, not with me at least.”
“Many don't seem to be very interested in what I have to say most of the times...”
There's a long pause, and something seems to pass behind Lecter's eyes, a shadow that she did not expected to see, something dark hidden behind his courtesy: not directed to her, but to the invisible object of his sudden distaste. It gives her a chill along her spine, but she doesn't look away and relax only when the safe smile returns.
“Well, in that case, it's their loss, I find your opinions incredible interesting.”
“When I make myself heard too forcefully, many find it annoying or even insulting. Don't know if it's because I'm a woman or, if they... know, because I dare to rise my voice. I guess it makes men feel threatened... But I don't want to speak ill of any of your colleagues.”
Lecter is silent again for a while and Alana tries not to let her mind wander too much into those old and hurtful thoughts; but they come anyway and she tights her grip around the glass she's holding without realizing it.
She remembers when a professor she had a quarrel with in his study once, called her “Bloom, Alan” three times during an exam, staring at her while doing so: she didn't reply, stubbornly refusing to give in and submit to that disgusting game, no matter the cost, but feeling a burning humiliation spreading inside her. He pretended to have misread her name when he realized she wasn't going to surrender to his revolting scheme and probably to avoid looking bad.
But she never forgot it. And felt grossed out for a long time after that.
“You must have had very unpleasant experiences during your life, I cannot even begin to imagine how hard it must have been. I suppose it played a role into your decision to dedicate yourself to psychiatry...”
She smiles and relaxes a little again.
“Probably it did, yes. And I try not to think about those times. They are in the past after all, it's better to just move on and look ahead.”
Lecter nods, approvingly.
“That is a philosophy I wholeheartedly agree with. The past can teach us much, but must not hold us back.”
---
The first man she has sex with after the transition treats her extremely well, an understanding boyfriend who does everything he can to support and satisfy her. He caresses and touches her like she instructs him to, doesn't say anything stupid and she even manages to have a sweet and fast orgasm that leaves her tired and smiling.
But it's the way he looks at her that burns out her passion fast, the way he talks to her like he has to carefully measure every word, like he has to over think everything to come out perfect and impeccable to her eyes.
It's fake, artificial, like one of those romantic novels she could never stomach or one of those movies so predictable they manage to kill any kind of excitement.
He tells her how good she feels, how beautiful she looks, how amazing everything she does is, but Alana can never tell if he's really sincere or if he's playing a part, if he's really interested in her or just wants to feel good about himself.
When she stop calling him back and he quietly disappears without making a scene, she's grateful and relieved.
It's almost always the same with many of her men after him: they are all nice at first, but then become too emotionally demanding, ignoring her desires of detachment, trying to force her into feelings she just doesn't experience, or just never give her the impression of being in a relationship with her, but only with their idealized idea of her or who she's supposed to be in their eyes.
Alana is not scared of loneliness, she feels complete and happy by herself; but acceptance, sincere and unfiltered, means a great deal when it comes from outside the protected core of her close friends and family.
She wonders if she'll ever really experience it.
---
“I have the tradition of gifting all the new students I mentor with a book from my personal library, with the promise that they will tell me what they thought of it once they finish reading it.”
Lecter comes back with a small tome in his hands and gives it to her with a glimmering light of interest in his eyes. The books looks old and has a beautiful illustration on its cover, making it look incredibly elegant. She can't pronounce the title, so she just thanks him and then waits for him to explain her his choice.
“The “Lysistrata” is a play written by Athenian comic playwright Aristophanes. It tells the story of the women of Athens, who decide to begin a sex strike against their men in order to stop a long, expensive and bloody war. But I do not want to spoil you the story, I'll leave you the pleasure to discover what happens next.”
He sits down again and observes her reactions, with Alana trying not to show too much confusion on her face: the man maintains his respectful distance, an amused smile on his lips; she takes a deep breath and stares into his eyes.
“I wish I could say I understand this choice, but honestly I don't. And if I can be absolutely honest, I struggle to make myself a clear opinion of you after tonight, Dr. Lecter.”
His smile, if possible, becomes even wider, but it's not mocking her: it's almost like he's admiring her for being straightforward and blunt enough not to hide her thoughts, for being so honest about everything. Somehow, it makes her feel proud of herself.
“The main character of this play fights for her own ideas, for herself and doesn't let anyone trample her or put her down. It seemed to fit you very well. Also, her name “Lysistrata”, means “army-disbander”. I like to imagine you as winning many battles, Miss Bloom, with a little help on my part if it's needed.”
Alana doesn't say anything for a long time, looks at him and feels at loss, every word sounding useless and not good enough for what she's really thinking. She doesn't even feel grateful or in debt towards him, even though only a few people have praised and made her feel so accepted like he did: she feels worthy of it, worthy of every positive emotion he gives her. And that just brings a bright smile to her lips.
“Well, I hope you'll be right, Dr. Lecter.”