I closed my eyes as I leant forwards to kiss him on the lips. We'd done it countless times before, and I was praying that it would still feel the same. There were his lips, delicately and sensitively moving over mine, the lips I knew and loved. But then there were the feathers, all around his mouth, tickling my cheek, the feathers which didn't belong.
I pulled away from my lover. "I'm sorry," I said, "I guess I'm going to need a little time to get used to... to the way you are now."
His face fell. "You don't like it?"
"Oh no, Fabien, you look beautiful. Stunning. It's just... you're so different, I can hardly recognise you under there."
Over the last few decades, cosmetic surgery had sprinted forwards. No longer was a man required to accept the body nature had bestowed upon him, now the Reshapers could embellish it as his imagination saw fit, and even alter its very form, at only modest cost. It was nothing unusual to walk down the street and see fur or tails, webbed feet or claws, silver skin or even gleaming iridescent eyes on your fellow human beings. What people kept in their pants was even more surprising. And now Fabien had joined the Reshaped by fulfilling his lifelong desire - for a full coat of feathers.
As he stood there in our hallway, swathed in a still-dripping raincoat, all I could see of his new plumage was his face, standing a few inches higher than mine. Cheeks, nose, forehead, chin, lips: all were covered in short, soft brown feathers, looking from a distance like neatly cropped fur. Around his eyes, they darkened to a deep black.
With a small, mischievous smile he threw back his hood, watching my reaction closely. He needn't have worried - I was impressed. His hair had gone and in its place were more feathers: these ones long and brilliant orange, sprouting magnificently back and down across the sweep of his head. It gave the impression of a dancing flame engulfing him as they wavered gently in the breeze.
"Good God," I said, unable to keep from grinning, "I've got an orange boyfriend!"
He ran a hand playfully through his vivid feather-hair, fanning the flames. "You nearly had a green one, Sam. I was torn."
An understatement. He'd been drawing up all kinds of designs for months, ranging from the drab to the technicoloured. The final plan had been kept a close secret from all but him and his Reshapers; I'd never asked to see it, I knew he wanted to surprise me.
"You made the right choice. Green would have made you look like a tree. So what happens further down?" His clothes afforded a view of nothing lower than his neck, where a pair of black lines, delicately picked out against the brown, trickled down the curve of his throat on either side, leading suggestively down below his collar.
"Tsch. Impatient!" He winked, grinned. "You'll see, all in good time."
I knew him well enough to see that he was yearning to strip then and there and twirl in front of me, to show off his new body in its full glory. But Fabien was patient. He'd tease me. A little bit at a time. Drawing out the pleasure, lapping up my reactions, savouring his seconds, that was his way.
"Sam, I'm knackered. Mind if I go straight to bed?" It was nearly midnight. He'd been at the Reshapers since early morning, and I didn't think he'd slept much the night before.
"Of course not. I'll join you, it's been a long day for me too."
"Then: to bed." And he surprised me, sweeping his right arm around my shoulders, taking my left hand in his own and leading me upstairs, wet coat and all. His hand felt warm and fuzzy against mine. I glanced down, noticing it for the first time: orange feathers across the back of the hand and fingers, like on his head, but much shorter and neater. The palms and undersides of the fingers were covered in a pale brown down, soft and pleasant to hold. I squeezed it, he squeezed back.
He looked beautiful. I could put to rest my fears that he would turn himself into a botched monstrosity or a psychedelic garish horror. But I still had the deeper fear, gnawing away inside me. The fear that I wouldn't be able to see through the feathers. That they would stand immovably and unbreachably between me and the old Fabien, the man I'd fallen in love with.
***
It was nearly midday when I awoke. Looking over, I saw that Fabien was already up, with only a few loose feathers on the sheets to mark his having been there. The night before, he'd made me go to brush my teeth while he got himself undressed and into bed, and had himself tucked firmly between the sheets before I got there, leaving his new body a secret for a little longer.
Getting up and dressed, I wandered across to the living room, hearing Fabien in the shower downstairs. It was a scorching hot day, the air still humid from yesterday's rain, and I threw open windows. Then I cleared a space for breakfast on our little table, put on the kettle and two slices of bread to toast, got out plates and mugs. The toast done, I spread both slices squarely with butter and marmalade, and started on the tea. I was just stirring in the milk when Fabien came upstairs, rubbing his feathered head dry with a towel.
"Sam, we're going to need to buy a lot more shampoo."
He was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, leaving his arms bare. The outer sides were forested with feathers of the same fiery orange that adorned his head, from long ones near his shoulder to shorter, denser growth at his wrist. The inner sides were brown, only slightly shorter than their orange counterparts. A few subtle black markings complemented the whole, just enough to break the monotony of his long slim arms without seeming to lose the simplicity.
"Orange and brown, with a bit of black," I said, sitting down at the table in front of one plate, pushing the other towards the empty chair. "You've got a consistent colour scheme at least. Is it like that all over?"
"No," he replied, throwing the towel to one side he sat down opposite me. His head feathers stuck out at odd angles from the towelling, giving him an appearance less of a flame than an explosion. He smiled, warmly and expectantly. "Well, do you fancy trying that kiss again? You quit half-way through last night."
I didn't want to kiss that feathered face again, attractive yet unfamiliar, but I couldn't let Fabien know that. I smiled. "Oh, alright, if you insist." He leaned forward, bringing his hand round to hold the side of my head; I rested my own on his shoulder, feeling the strange softness of the feathers on the side of his neck. My heart was racing. I kept telling myself: this is Fabien, the man you love, whom you've kissed a thousand time before. Just see through the feathers, see him. Our lips met, caressed, softly. The feathers on his face tickled all around my mouth as our lips slid over one another, like kissing a man with a full beard, but softer. Not unpleasant, but for me, an unwanted sensation. As we pulled gently apart, I felt ashamed to be glad that it was over.
"Are you alright, Sam?" His face was a picture of concern. "You didn't seem to be fully into that."
"Sorry, Fabien", I replied through a mouthful of toast and marmalade. "I'm still getting used to the feathers. I'll get there." He frowned, and seemed about to take it further, so I quickly changed the subject. "You seem to be moulting," I said, pointing to some loose feathers on the floor.
"They said that'd happen for the first day or two, then settle down. And I can go back for a refresh whenever I need it. So don't worry! I'm not going to end up looking like a half-plucked parrot in a few months. This is forever." As he said it, he grinned to himself, looking down at his arms as if in amazement.
Fabien had wanted feathers for as long as I'd known him. It was his foremost ambition, he was obsessed. Feathers fit his idealised self-vision, were to him a part of his identity with which nature had failed to equip him. And yet, he'd been willing to forego the procedure for my sake, to sacrifice his dream to keep me content. But I wouldn't have it, I encouraged him, seeing that without feathers, he'd never in his own mind be a truly whole person. I helped him. I told him that if he was beautiful to himself, he'd be beautiful to me, and tried to believe it.
"Sam, what are we doing sat in here on a day like this? We have to get out there and show me off to the world!"
And with that, he was on his feet, downed his tea, and rushed out the room with his half-eaten toast in one hand, to ready himself for his first public appearance. I finished breakfast at a leisurely rate, listening to the sounds from the bedroom, which were suggestive of Fabien learning a lot about the limitations of a hairbrush. Wandering downstairs, I smothered my face in sun cream, and considered leaving it out for Fabien but then decided he probably wouldn't need it.
A few minutes later he emerged, the earlier post-shower unruliness gone, every feather meticulously arranged, ready to be presented to the world. He'd changed his jeans for shorts, showing off his legs, feathered orange and brown like his arms, with the orange at the front, the brown at the back. And thick, getting thicker further up the leg, until by the thigh I could imagine sinking my hand into the voluptuous plumage and losing sight of the fingers.
"Looking good, Fabien. Ready to turn some heads?"
"Not unless you do something about that sun cream, look at you, you look like you've just been hit by a cream pie. Hold still a minute."
He was in front of me in an instant, frowning in concentration as he moved his downy palms back and forth across my face in gentle, rhythmic motions which tickled me and made me giggle despite myself.
"There," he said, pinching my cheek affectionately once the last of the thick white cream had been spread, "pretty as a postcard. Now let's get out there before you manage to spoil those good looks all over again."
He offered his arm, and I took it as we walked outside into the summer heat.
***
We'd turned a few heads, received a few stares, but not so many as one might expect. There were stranger things than Fabien walking the streets those days.
The tall gorgeous stranger with whom I walked arm-in-arm was not my lover Fabien. He didn't look like him: Fabien had had smooth, pale skin, chaotic brown hair and brilliant green eyes; it startled me how much I was discovering that my bond with him was tied up in my mind with that image. I'd presumed that I could learn to see the same man through the feathers, but it was more than that, Fabien himself seemed a different person. More confident. Gone were his slight shyness in public, his desire to be led. Perhaps, to his way of thinking, this was the first time in his life he'd been anything other than naked?
We'd stopped in the park, thronged with people on the bright summer's afternoon, and sat on the grass to enjoy the sunshine. Fabien talked at length, chirpily, bouncing haphazardly between subjects. I listened only intermittently. Whilst he talked, he held my hand, gently caressing it absent-mindedly with his thumb, back and forth, back and forth. Something in me told me that I should be enjoying this time together, but I just felt a little cold inside.
