Bradley sat in an empty, sterile room, his ankle chained to the leg of a chair, and his hands resting on a formica table.
The chain was unnecessary, a joke; even if he cut it, where could he go? His life was now a barren room, no matter where he went. Dead ends in every direction.
One manila envelope was in front of him on the table. He knew what was in it, because he wrote it.
He was a man at that moment, because that's what the verdict read: hereby sentenced to 35 years in a military prison at Fort Leavenworth. That was a male prison. It was full of men, who like him had committed crimes. But they were not like him. Not at all, really. No man was.
The identification badge on his army uniform, which he was only wearing because it was required for the tribunal, his real uniform for the past year being a prison jumpsuit—read simply MANNING. But neither name ever felt right; Bradley is a man's name. And "Manning" had always felt like a cruelty.
His real name, he knew, was Chelsea. And he was no man.
Above the steel door, which had locked with a THUNK after the guards had chained him to the chair, and now was surely blocked by those same guards on the other side of it, armed and ready to kill him if he tried to escape, hung a circular black clock. The minute-hand ticked, audible and echoing in the otherwise silent, blank-walled room.
"That clock," he thought, "must have been a model they made a million of back in the cold war." He suspected this because he knew it was the same kind they had at his elementary school. Not only did it look the same, but that "tick" of the minute-hand had echoed through his life just as it did the room.
That "tick" had surely marked the moment, whenever exactly it was, when he knew was a woman. In his soul. The moment when he started to resent his own names. He knew it had been in 1st grade, because he could remember the realization that he had a crush on the father of his best friend, Tom Gunderson. Bradley remembered that at this point he had known he was woman, had just started to grapple with it, but this was his first crush: Tommy's dad, Jeff, with his prematurely white hair, his lean build supporting western-shirts with snap buttons and Levis 501s, and his smooth, resonant voice that made Bradley quiver whenever he called his name from the next room, on overnight stays when Bradley was ostensibly visiting Tommy. Pretending to like Tommy's NES games and action figures. Pretending to like Tommy's toy guns. Hell, pretending to like Tommy.
"Bradley, did you bring a toothbrush?"
It became a regular thing, those sleepovers. Bradley saw to that. Often, Jeff would leave Tommy at home when he came to pick up Bradley, and for those 25 minutes of the return trip, Bradley would have Jeff all to himself. Jeff, who had supposedly quit smoking, but really only "quit" for those every-other-weekends when he had custody of his son, would wait until the first red light, leaving Bradley's neighborhood. Then he'd reach a hand over to the glove box (Bradley, of course, breathless as Jeff's hand crossed over a few inches above his cock) and snake out a dented box of Marlboro Lights from behind the oil-stained Toyota pickup owner's manual.
Jeff would wink at Bradley as he drew out a smoke one-handed, rolling down the window with the other.
"Our little secret, eh Brad?"
He said it that way every time, not-yet-lit cigarette bobbing on his lips: "Our little secret, eh Brad?" After the first time, and the way it had made him feel, he had grown to look forward to it, anticipate it, the buildup and delivery and subsequent release laying the groundwork in his brain, the motions of obsession and orgasm he was still too young to understand then.
The minute-hand ticked again. Reality came back, the room with it.
It must have been Jeff Gunderson, with that blazing white hair and that voice, that had made him fall for Julian. That made Bradley want to do anything to please him, just to hear that voice again as he handed Julian the disc with all those classified documents on it.
"Our little secret, eh Brad?"
He never said it, of course. Julian Assange would never use such a coarse, inarticulate interjection as "eh" in his speech, and his voice –while sexy—was nothing like Jeff's. Julian was eurotrash. And, Bradley had come to accept, was kind of a prick.
And, yes, finally, tragically, Brad also accepted that Julian Assange was straight (maybe he wasn't as eurotrash as he could be, in that case.) He met Bradley's security leaks with appreciation, and pride, and promises of discretion. At best, a handshake. The approval of a colleague, not a lover.
The minute-hand ticked again, and brought with it the CLUNK of the hour turning over: 11:00am.
Right on cue, the ding of the elevator down the hall arriving, the doors swooshing open. Click-clacking of military shoes drawing closer, about-facing just outside the door, and the crisp movements of the visitor and the guards exchanging salutes.
The door unlocked with a low click, and the steel swung open slow. In walked a man.
He was tall, even for an army officer. Which he certainly was, as Bradley scanned his uniform adornments: First Lieutenant. Square-jawed, clean-shaven and blue-eyed, he was the picture of American masculinity that the Army so loved to embrace, but his face held a certain kindness, as the dimples on his cheeks told the world he was a man that preferred to smile, even though he wasn't now. He wore a dark beret, spotless and crimped perfectly. His identification badge read "HUGHES".
Hughes strode across the room, powerful but without menace, and stopped at the table, across from Bradley.
Without thinking of it, Bradley stood up, ramrod straight, and saluted. Only at that moment did he realize how his blood was flowing differently since the man had appeared in the room. Slightly dizzy, his heart pounding, he sat back down, and the chain on his ankle jostled the leg of the chair, piercing the silence with a slight "urk" on the tile floor.
"Sorry." Bradley blushed.
"What are you sorry for, Private?" His voice had the timbre of a hollow oak tree, lush and baritone. Deeper than Jeff Gunderson's. Stronger than Julian's. Bradley quivered now, in kind.
"Nothing. Sorry."
Bradley bit his lip, looking away, but Hughes let the awkward moment pass. Hewas kind. In boot camp, the Drill Sergeant would hammer Bradley about his stammering and constant apologizing, getting in his face and screaming for him to "shut up and think before you speak, faggot!" Bradley knew that Hughes must have had the same experience – maybe even the same Drill Sergeant; he looked to be only a few years older than himself – but Hughes knew how it had felt, and chose not to repeat it here. Here, when Bradley was his most alone, and most vulnerable, suddenly a man cared just a little bit. That felt nice.
Bradley relaxed. Hughes put the briefcase down on the floor. Bradley realized that there was no chair for Hughes to sit in, and looked up at him. "Sorry, I would tell you to sit down, but..." as if this were his home, and not a cell.
"It's alright."
Bradley kicked the chain on his ankle taught, making the "urk" sound again.
"I would even give you mine but, you know..."
Then Hughes really did smile. The dimples deepened, and his blue eyes shone as he chuckled.
He immediately erased it from his face, coughing, then blushing from his own embarrassment at dropping his firm façade. But he pressed on.
"I don't need a chair, Private. I will stand. Do you have the letter you requested to send?"
The letter! Bradley had almost forgotten about it.
"Yeah, yes. Sorry. Right here."
He fumbled for the manila envelope, which had been sitting face-down, and flipped it over. It was addressed to "PRESIDENT OBAMA", which had made Bradley feel childish when he wrote it, like a 2nd grader writing a letter to the White House, but he didn't know what else to write. He quickly flipped it back over.
Hughes reached over and slid the envelope from Bradley's side of the table toward himself, his manicured and powerful hand brushing against Bradley's for a moment as they passed. Bradley gasped, his legs drawing instantly together, eliciting another urk as the chain caused the chair to squeak once again.
"Are you sure that you want to send this?"
Bradley let the words play twice in his head, but still didn't get it. His heart was pounding so hard he could barely think.
"I'm sorry?"
"I said," Hughes furrowed his brow, "are you sure that you want me to deliver this letter?"
