CW: sex, gender dysphoria, self-harm

Annie spends a lot of time in the deli’s walk-in meat fridge, calls it “returning to his roots.” The base fact of human existence: cluttered hunks of flesh, gristle, bone. It’s soothing, so much so that once he drifted to sleep behind a row of mutton and wasn’t found for several hours. His fingers were purple and peeling for two days, then red for another week. Manager chewed him out about safety but didn’t fire him—Annie makes a damn good sandwich, too good for the deli to lose.

The fridge’s silence is a sanctuary for Annie: a shield not from any external noise but rather from his own voice, his mouth which always seems to pack its bags and run from topic to topic at a louder-than-necessary, heady pitch. Annie is talkative; he does not like his tongue and yet he uses it often. Annie is what is known as an attention whore. (For some, he is also known as a whorey whore, a common slut, but that is beyond the current point.) Regardless, his stubbornly soprano voice bears no bearing in the fridge. In place of words, he exhales ice crystals, foggy silence. The cold controls him where he cannot control himself.

The fridge is his holy temple, and it frustrates him immensely that others must penetrate its frigid depths to keep the deli running. They smear their slick, latex-encased hands against all the perfect tranquil meats, and Annie’s flesh writhes at their sloppy ignorance. The sensation reminds him of when he lets guys do missionary. Their cocks rise triumphantly before his gaping maw, and Annie glares at them. Sometimes they waggle their penis as if to say, look what I have that you do not have. Watch what I can do. Then they plunge themselves into him and it is as though they are forcing his lack deeper into his body. Punctuating the empty space at his crotch with a throbbing exclamation mark.

That’s why he mostly fucks women nowadays. It’s easier, anyways—most people assume he’s some sort of lesbian, and why bother correcting them? Whenever he talks about fucking men he’s met with shocked-and-skeptical eyebrow raises. He should just shut up, but of course he’s too much of a big-mouthed slut for that.

He’s only had sex in the walk-in once. It was with his coworker named Raine but pronounced “rainy.” They had entered the space innocently enough, retrieving a stack of pork ribs before rush hours. After Raine stepped inside, Annie shut the door. I’m trans, he said. Cool, Raine said, no pun intended. Can I kiss you? Annie said. Please do, Raine said. So they fucked among the racks of raw meats and it was perfect. Raine called Annie her boyfriend (in private) for two and a half months, but then he had sex with too many other coworkers and she switched jobs.

Annie spends a lot of time in the deli’s walk-in meat fridge. He likes sometimes to curl up and imagine barricading the door, then succumbing to sleep and deep-freeze. One day he walks in, doffs his shirt, and examines his tits. Ugly sacks of meat and fat. They hang from his chest, lifeless as the stacks of dismembered animal bodies suspended by hooks all around him. After all, this body is just not-yet-dead meat, he thinks. He is used to cutting meat, he is good at it. He imagines for a moment taking the shiny deli cleaver to his own body, carving it into the shape of a man. Cut me up, Michelangelo, find the statue, find the boy. He shivers. After all, it’s cold, and he’s not dead yet.