Hate flooded over him. “Why do you do this?” he roared at her.

Shaking violently, she lowered her gaze. He stepped back, losing the heat of her body, and shoved her aside. “You don’t belong in uniform.”

He walked back to his car, feeling her terrified gaze on his back.

The daydream made him sigh. That’s what I should have done. He relived it three more times and each time she cowered more, terrified by his power, acknowledging that she’d been wrong to give him orders. By the time he pulled into the parking lot at the DMV, he was relaxed.

He wasn’t taking any more chances with his expired plates.

He looked at his watch.

I’ve been here over an hour! He glared around the dingy DMV waiting room, catching the gaze of a child two rows ahead. Her eyes widened and she ducked down behind the back of her seat, peering cautiously at him over the edge. He was used to the horrified second glances and visible recoils. He wasn’t pretty to look at; he knew it. At one time he’d avoided people, but now for the most part he didn’t give a shit. Keep staring. Get a good eyeful.

Most of the time he wore a cap that kept his longer hair in place over the scars. It helped but didn’t hide everything.

He’d removed it when he entered the building. An echo of the manners his mother had taught him and it made people keep their distance. As a general rule he didn’t like people. He didn’t like their small talk and fake politeness. Removing his cap made people avoid him and that was how he liked it. No one sat in the chairs to either side of him even though the waiting room was packed.

He was a monster. And he was fine with that.

Privately he thought of himself as a type of Jekyll and Hyde. But he had full control over his two personas. One side people knew and respected; the other side everyone avoided at all costs. He chose when each appeared. He wasn’t dissociative; he decided how he wanted to act each day. It was empowering to know that he could cause people to cower in fear.

But it wasn’t satisfying when the scared were children.

He looked again at the small brown eyes studying him. Her fear had dissipated and now she was simply curious. He gave her a half smile and her head rose a few inches above the chair back to smile back at him, a sliver of acceptance in her gaze.

Why don’t adults accept? He’d noticed that small children quickly got over their initial scare and moved on. At what age did humans lose that skill? Adults never got past his grafts. Neither did teens. Somewhere in childhood a person lost the ability to accept differences without judgment.

His number was called.

Relief swept over him and he stood, edging his way out of his row. He was moving toward the window assigned to his number when a woman rushed in front of him and slapped her ticket down in front of the agent. “No one called my number,” she said. “And now you’ve passed it!”

He froze midstep.

The woman looked over her shoulder at him. Her heavy eyeliner and bleached hair made her look like a whore. “You don’t mind, do you?”

He did. He minded a lot. “Go ahead.”

The female agent made eye contact with him, nervously nodded, and focused on the woman’s issue.

Fifty sets of eyes burned holes through the back of his shirt. Do I go sit back down? Or wait? He looked at the automatic number display that declared his number was currently being helped. Was he going to be skipped now? Fury burned up his spine. He scanned the other agents, all busy with customers. Any second they were going to call another number, and he would have to publicly declare he was next. He shoved his hat on his head and heard his mother’s voice berate him for wearing it indoors. Tough shit.

That whore had cut in front of him and the female agent had let it happen.

He stood powerless in front of an audience, stripped of his rights. Sweat dripped down the center of his back. He didn’t move. He wasn’t going to let a woman do that to him again. I will be next.

Women first, Son. Always remember that. He tried not to cringe at his mother’s voice in his head. A physical blow had always followed the words. Either an abrupt slap to the back of the head or a fist to the ear. His mother hadn’t always hit him. It’d started after they had taken away his father—after the cops had taken away his father.

He closed his eyes in the DMV as the memory flooded his brain, clear and sharp as yesterday. But he’d been ten.

His mother had sported bruises and black eyes for years. He’d thought that was normal. Women needed discipline, his father had explained. Their brains didn’t function the same way as a man’s. Without male guidance and protection, they’d all be whores, living on the street and selling their bodies.

He’d assumed a man would purchase a woman because he needed someone to clean for him, iron his shirts. That was why women sold their bodies. It wasn’t until he was in sixth grade that a friend had told him the truth in whispered tones behind closed doors.

Disgusting.

One late evening when he was twelve, the police arrived. He’d been in his bedroom, his music cranked up through his headphones as usual so he couldn’t hear his parents fight. But he’d seen the lights flashing outside his window. He’d lifted his blinds and peered out, expecting to see a fire truck or police car across the street. Three police cars were parked in front of his home. He ripped off the headphones and dashed to the kitchen.

His father was facedown on the linoleum. A cop’s knee in his back as she wrestled to lock handcuffs around his wrists. A male cop held his mother back as she screamed for them to let her husband go. After a moment’s hesitation, he ran to pull the female officer off his father. Hands grabbed his shoulders and another female cop neatly corralled him. “Don’t interfere, son.”