Chapter Text
He asked for it. She would never even have thought of such a thing if he hadn't. Even then it made her feel guilty. Filthy. She must have done something to put the idea in his head.
They'd been lying on his bed, the narrow, flimsy, captive's bed she already feels bad enough about putting him in, his head on her chest, sort of cushioned against her. Perfectly innocent-- maternal, even. A parodic sort of pietà. Until he'd looked up at her, his soft, boyish face between her breasts, and whispered that he wanted to make her feel good, and she knew what he meant.
Stuff like that happened, in the Nation, of course. Young people close together, confused about their bodies, confused about each other, largely blood related. Some of it consensual, some of it not. It does NOT happen here.
So she went to Maria about it, as she does when she has a really tricky problem. She doesn't want to burden her with more weight on her mind-- there is so, so much there already. Lifetimes' worth. But perhaps because of that, she is the wisest person Edith has ever met. There wouldn't be an Edith without her, after all.
"Are you quite sure he meant that in a sexual manner?" is the first thing Maria asks.
"Yes. It's... how someone would have said it, where we grew up." Maria knows exactly what that means, naturally. "You couldn't acknowledge sex. You couldn't acknowledge anything like that as something someone would do, outside of what the Voice had planned for them. But we all knew it was. We'd just make believe it was a different thing. Not sex, because sex is what a man does to his wife. Just-- making someone feel good."
Maria nods once, looking quite nonchalant about the, to her mind, salacious and shocking information Edy is dropping in her lap.
"Well, it's not unheard of. I can't say I think sponsors and their pupils making love should be Hall policy, but Abby and Melissa seem to be happy together. And happier for having found each other, I dare say."
"Come on, baby, I want to be with you. You know that. And we're related. And-- look, all I need to know is how to quash this without hurting him. Or alienating him, or... making him feel unloved. If anything I want him to know I love him too much to hurt him."
"Well, it's not as if you're going to get him pregnant, now, are you?" The quip shocks her. She does love Maria's giggle-in-a-graveyard grins, even when they're wildly inappropriate. But it sure is wildly inappropriate right now.
"That isn't remotely my first ethical concern."
"What is?" And her face, as fluid as water, shifts back into sincere interest. "That you think you'd hurt him?"
"Yes."
"You might, if you weren't careful. But you said yourself you could hurt him by rejecting him, if you're not careful. Of course," she's quick to add, "you have every right to say no to a request like that. But hurting him is in the cards either way, so what else is making you so certain?"
She really can't believe there's a conversation to be had, here.
"It's incest, Maria. And he knows that, now! So-- so even that he wants it is a sign of something we should be re-educating out of him!"
"Oh, I don't know. We're in the business of producing women, not sexually normal women. If he wanted to, well, dominate you, subjugate you, that would be one thing. But it sounds like he's interested in putting your pleasure first, in giving care to someone else for their benefit. We encourage that in our girls."
"Not with sponsors. Not with their half-sisters."
"Not with people who don't want it. Do you?"
"That isn't the question."
"Fine. But did you, when he asked?" The grin is back. "See, I'm selfish, and I love you very much, so what really matters to me is your happiness."
"I don't--"
Well. His face. There had been something about it-- eyes wide and open and unguarded, as if in prayer, as if looking for God, but looking for her, looking at her, with joy and satisfaction, like what he saw was every bit worthy of his worship, more worthy than anyone, more worthy than God... but that isn't the point.
"I can't really imagine that you would be happy with me-- giving him what he wants."
Maria snorts.
"You can't say no, can you? Edith, it's really alright. So you want to have sex with him; I know you don't want to hurt him. I care a lot more about that. You both want it; whatever. There's far too much pain in this world to give yourself a moral headache over a bit of mutually consensual mutual license."
"You, my love, are a crude utilitarian." She smiles as she says it. Maria shrugs.
"I suppose this career brings it out in me. That, and a long life of being reminded far too often that I am only mortal."
The next time she sees Adam, he's anxious, skittish. After she's knocked to be let into his room for their usual evening together, to talk quietly with him and brush his hair and hold him gently as his world slowly comes apart and reshapes itself into a new one, he sits sheepishly beside her on the bed and mumbles
"Are you... angry at me?"
"No! No, of course not. You've been doing very well." She moves to hug him, but he scoots away on the bed.
"But... are you angry at me for, what I said? What I wanted to do? Because I just-- I mean I would never, never force myself on you, or anyone, not like," he seems to repress a shiver, "not like him. Because, just, you've really helped me. And I wanted," he whispers, embarrassed, red-faced, to his lap, "to make you happy. Only I don't know how. And, I thought, maybe, that was one thing I could, do for you?"
"I'm not angry at you, Adam, of course not. But-- you know why we couldn't do that, don't you?"
"Yes," he mutters, sounding doubtful.
"It's not you I'm worried about doing something wrong. I know, even if we are blood relatives, we weren't exactly raised like it, not after I left. But I have power over you, Adam. You'd be putting yourself in a position to be exploited. To feel obligated. Like you have to-- do that, for me, or else I'd treat you differently."
"You wouldn't do that to me."
"I can't imagine wanting to, Adam. But I could do it without meaning to! I could..."
"You wouldn't! You're good!"
"Adam... Listen. When you leave this place, as a woman, out in the world, people will have power over you. Men. Not like in here, not to use it to help you. It's important you learn not to submit to it without question. Even for people who seem good."
"I know that, but I wouldn't-- I wouldn't put out for anyone," he's getting back towards normal speaking volume, confident in what he's saying, and the crass phrase startles her, a remnant of their father's invective against harlots, "I want to do it for you. Because I'm happy, now, like I haven't been in a while, and I can, I can be a person and not just a little loudspeaker for him. And you did that. You did that for me, because you love me, and I want to do this for you because--"
He breaks off into sniffles, and collapses back into her waiting arms.
"Do you think you'd do that?"
"No!! But that isn't the point, it's--"
"Yes, what is the point? I had power over you, once, and now we're lovers. I doubt you'd ever be in a long-term romance with Adam, but I don't think that's what either of you wants."
"I am concerned for him. It's like rather than moving past what his father, our father, did to him he's... attaching to a new figure of coercive authority. Me. He did whatever he could for the Voice and now he wants to do the same for me. And that might make him more prosocial but it isn't-- it's not how we make him a fully actualized woman, a real person."
"Do you think he hasn't changed? Grown? That he hasn't started to think more independently?"
"Well of course he has. But this is a stumbling block on that road, if anything."
"I don't know. It's going to take more than just his first year to altogether move past his former life. And the person it made him into will always be part of the person we can make him into. But we can use that capacity for loving loyalty. It's not exclusively a negative."
"No, but-- well. What he said made me wonder," she admits, "Because he has a point, right? We all make that calculation, in our relationships, that the people we love are good enough not to use the power they have against us. You sleep next to someone and trust they won't use the power that gives them to strangle you in your sleep. Telling him I have that power wouldn't be enough to put him off of this if he's absolutely convinced I'd never use it to hurt him. And-- and I don't think I would."
"And I don't think you would, either."
Maria leans in, like a co-conspirator.
"Let me tell you honestly what I think. I think this boy has spent his entire life waiting to be at the center of the universe, and it is valuable for him to be taught that someone else, not himself and not God and not a man, can be the most important person in the world. That he can submit himself to someone, serve somebody else, and not have it be bad, or humiliating. And I think he's handed you an opportunity to show him that. And, frankly, I love you very much and I think you deserve to be worshiped once in a while."
"If we do this..." She's holding him, mostly chastely, on top of her in his bed. It's getting late; he's had dinner and spent a long time chatting with Martin, and he seems contented and happy, his head resting heavy on her breast. "It's important that it isn't because you think you owe it to me. Because you've already given me everything I could possibly ask of you, at least at this stage of the programme, Adam. And you're perfectly on track to be a wonderful young woman in two years. If we do this it's because you want it. Do you want this?"
His response is immediate, as he rises from reclining on top of her to stare, wide-eyed and blushing, into her face.
"Yes."
"Adam--"
"Don't try to convince me we shouldn't. Please. I know you want to protect me but I also know you want this, or you wouldn't have brought it up. And I want it, I want to make you feel good. And you're my sister so it's supposed to be wrong, but so is kidnapping, and that's turning out to be pretty good, in my case. So let me. Please?"
Maria presses mute on the monitor, to be safe, as she steps away momentarily to put the electric kettle on-- no going down to the kitchen when something like this is happening, but she wants another hot cup of tea if she's watching it all the way through...
"Adam. It matters to me that you know you can stop this."
"I won't want to."
"Okay. But maybe you will and then you need to know you can, and I won't be upset. Say you understand and agree."
"I understand and agree."
"Okay. Come here, sweetie." She takes his head in her hands, fingers resting gently over his ears, pulling him, from his crouched position at the foot of the bed, towards her, where she's lying, and towards her groin. "I want you to put your mouth on me. Do you know how to do that?"
It's a fair question. The New Church doesn't think men need to know such things.
"I-- not really. I know I should, um, put my tongue on your clitoris?"
"Good. That's at the top. Don't go there first, though. Work it along the vulva back and forth until I start getting wet, then focus on it. Suck it when it starts to swell up."
He's surprisingly eager once he gets his mouth on her. Or maybe not surprising; it was his idea.
Like a kitten, she can't help but think, licking at a saucer of milk.
"Yes. Good. That's good. But push a little harder with your tongue? Yeah, good. Good girl."
She slips the moniker into her rambling instructions without meaning to, and worries momentarily that she's slipped up, pushed him too far, reminded him of his ultimate fate at the worst possible sensitive moment.
But Adam only whimpers quietly and pushes his face hard into her cunt, bathing his tongue in her desperately before sucking hard on her hardening clit.
She lets her grip on his head tighten, hold him in place.
"You are, aren't you? Such a good girl, yeah? Serving me like this. Show me you love me, huh? Show your Sister your devotion. Such a good," she has to break off, moaning high and long as his tongue encircles her, "such a good, good girl."
His hands clutch timidly at her thighs, beckoning her to press down on him harder, as he makes little mewling sounds into her, and she finds herself rocking into him, practically fucking his face, until she has to pull momentarily away so he can lie flat on his back and let her lower herself onto him.
"Such a sweet, gentle girl, too, aren't you? Letting me use you like this." She rocks into his nose with a gasp, and he makes a blissful, dizzy sound. "You're not a tyrant, are you? You're not the man they wanted you to be, You're my sweet girl, my good girl. Push your tongue into me darling, come on. Good."
...which she is. Purely in a professional capacity, of course. As senior sponsor, she's acting properly in her role to oversee and evaluate whether what Edy is doing is adequately helping Adam-- which he evidently thinks it is, if the happy little sounds he's making through the wet noise of Edy rutting against his face are anything to go by.
She raises an approving eyebrow at how positively he seems to be responding to her vocal application of feminizing language, seeming to redouble his efforts with every good girl, sweetie. She'd mentioned he's been developing a fixation on breaking his old church's taboos and Maria saw at once how this could be beneficial: learning to find pleasure in others without judging them or placing himself over them--
Maria was right, as usual. This was a great idea.
He wants it. So, so bad. To be good, and to be good for her.
He loves her. More than just like a sister. She is his saviour. She has lifted the weight of a miserable destiny off of his shoulders, set him free to be good. And if he has to be a girl-- well, so what? His sex has only ever really had an abstract, theological existence to him-- "Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam." But he doesn't have to be bound by that, anymore.
She's warm and heavy and comforting on top of him, and she tastes of heaven, of deliverance, and he pushes his tongue further, hard against the soft, wet rigidity of her clit, and she shakes above him like a sycamore in the wind, and it's good, it's all so, so good.
She pushes harder and firmer against his face and starts making louder, faster sounds, so he lies still and lets her use him for what she needs until she crumples in on herself above him, thighs and calves and toes trembling with one last, happy whine that trails off into repetitive mumbling of "good girl, so good, good girl, Adam, sweet girl, good girl..."
His face feels funny-- warm and wet and sort of numb and tingly at the same time. He licks some of the sticky fluid from his lips.
Edith slides sideways off of his shoulders and lies down carefully next to him, looking guardedly at his face, still staring up at where she was a moment ago.
"Are you alright, Adam?"
"Thank you," is the first thing he manages to say once he's gathered his breath. "I feel good. And I'm glad-- do-- do you feel good? Are you happy, I mean?"
She sighs.
"Yes, Adam. Very happy."
Minutes pass. He's not sure how to ask what he wants to. He doesn't want to seem demanding, or insatiable, and he loves her, owes her his life, even if they never speak of this again. Although he does definitely at least want to speak of it.
He just wants to know how they're going to stand in relation to each other, going forward.
"Is that-- are we-- are we ever going to do that again?"
"Probably not, Adam. I'm not-- I don't regret it. You were wonderful, I promise. But that isn't standard practice for how sponsors interact with our girls. And I don't intend to set a new precedent."
"I understand." He does. It would be wrong, perverse, exploitative, if this became an expected part of the Programme. What he's had with his Sister is special, and close, and private. But trying to force it on the other girls would pervert it into something else entirely. They're here to be helped for themselves, and society. They're not here to meet some perverse desire of their sponsors'. He understands that now.
Maria finishes the last of her tea, shuts off the camera feed, and gets up to head downstairs.
She meets Edith leaving Adam's room; he is drifting off to sleep inside. Edy is flushed, disheveled, and, if she reads the expression right, a little exhilarated.
"I am not at all sure I've done the right thing tonight, Maria. He-- he worships me."
"And are you going to pretend you don't enjoy that even a little?"
She does enjoy it. His eyes, glowing with gratitude and admiration, and his mouth, opening to her like empty vessels to be filled with what she chooses. But she's not trying to make him into the girl she wants him to be, dammit, but into the girl it's good for him to be. That he believes those are the same thing is no excuse.
"What I enjoy isn't the point, Maria. It's whether we're raising him into a well-adjusted person. An independent woman."
"Worship can be part of a complete person, love. I would have thought you of all people would be reminding me of that."
"Worship of ideas, maybe. Of God. Not--"
Not your half-sister's genitals.
Adam munches sleepily on a croissant and slurps his cooling tea. The croissant is surprisingly good for something out of the dumbwaiter.
Or maybe he's just happy.
The door to the dorm hallway opens and Leigh steps in, yawning. He raises a timid hand in greeting; he's missed her, but still isn't sure where they stand, right now. He loves Edith, and Edith loves Maria, and she hurt Maria bad. He thinks he still hasn't fully gotten a sense of how bad. But that was when he was William. She's different, now, better.
And he's missed her.
After their first momentary re-encounter, with Leigh's new name and pronouns, he'd convinced Edith to let him sit up most of the night unaccompanied in Leigh's room, talking, trying to rekindle something of the relationship they'd had. He'd gotten to understand something of her, but she'd remained guarded, held apart. More afraid of judgement than ever, knowing that he knew what it was she was afraid he was going to judge. And they haven't talked since.
He hadn't judged her. Not even a little. Mostly, all night, he'd thought two things-- that he wished her relationship with Tabby, much as it seems to be helping her, was as perfect and special and close as his with Edith, and that her eyes, with that kind of nervous happiness he could see somewhere deep in them, sure were prettier than he'd noticed before. He's coming around, now, to seeing that the thing he and Edith have with one another can't really be repeated ad nauseum for all girls and situations, but her eyes are exactly as pretty as he thought then.
"Morning," she mumbles, fumbling with the assorted pastries until she selects a cold scone with some kind of dried berries in it.
"Good morning." He decides to take a risk on a bit of honesty. "I, um, want to tell you you look pretty. But I think you'll probably think I'm, um, lying. To be nice. But I'm not, though."
"Shut up. I'm in my pajamas."
"Well your clothes aren't pretty, just. Your eyes. They're nice. That's all."
"Fuck off," she mutters, turning red and looking down at her scone.
"No," he says, being a little brave. "Say thank you."
"For what? For patronizing me?"
"No, for telling you the truth about what I was thinking about you. Because it was nice, and you deserved to hear it."
She takes a breath, puts on a smile that starts out looking forced, then seems to settle into genuineness.
"I'm sorry. I-- I'm still not used to letting myself think like that. Believe things like that about myself. But I do appreciate it."
Adam nods happily, takes another bite from his croissant.
Edy rolls over happily in bed, finds the comforting bulk of Maria beneath her and nuzzles deeper into her.
She's just awake enough to think, with some effort, how nice this is before everything goes dark again.
Adam spends the latter half of the morning on playing Stardew Valley with Martin, then retires to his room.
For the first time in a long while he strips to the waist and looks at himself in the mirror. Looks at the breasts beginning to bud in the center of him, the way his nipples seem to have puffed up, wider and softer and further projected.
He wonders if his Sister likes them.
He wonders why he likes it so much, when she calls him a good girl, a sweet girl, a girl. Mostly, he's pretty sure, it's the good part that gets him. He wants to be good, he knows that. But would it be as pleasurable if he was a good boy?
He shivers. No; no, it would not. Too close to something he would say, patting him on the back after a particularly erudite session of spewing hypocritical venom at the flock-- "good work, son. Good boy."
Everybody has their own version of good, he's learning, and it's too easy to just say you know who's got the one true correct one. But if he's going to pick one to embody, it's hers. Not his father's.
So, fine. He'll be a good girl.
"Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace, and be whole."
He's even a little excited about it.
Edith is pleased when she has Adam in her arms again. It's been a stressful few weeks, with ethical dilemmas around every corner and the menace of unseen enemies and ugly memories hanging over the Hall. But tonight, she can hold her sweet girl in her lap and Maria's hand tightly in hers, while Beth and Steph cuddle each other on the other side of Maria, and turn her brain off for a few hours of Even Cheerleaders Get the Blues.
Which is shit. Just... just awful. No idea what Bethany sees in it, but it's alright, because Maria is stroking her thigh casually with the back of her hand and Adam is curled happily under her chin. No emergencies are happening right now.
When she stops focusing so intently on Maria's warm, cozy eyes, she sees that Adam is asleep on top of her, Steph and Beth dozing gently against each other's shoulders. It's getting late. She figures it's probably alright to let the other two stay where they are, but she's not willing to be found asleep on top of Maria and wrapped around Adam by Leigh or Raph in the morning.
So, reluctantly, she nudges Adam off of her and rises groggily to her feet, at which he makes a sad little sound that breaks her heart.
"I know, sweetie, but you need your sleep and I need my sleep. Doing it here will kill my back."
She gives him a consolatory hug. Adam, still seeming half asleep, pushes his face gently up towards hers, then, suddenly quite awake and with wide, guilty eyes, reels back, staring self-consciously at Maria. Who understands immediately.
"Oh, precious. It's alright. Kiss your Sister good night, if she lets you. I don't mind."
Edith does let him, happily. He's soft and warm against her mouth, heels rising from the floor to push closer to her. His tongue, small and soft and sweet, pushes into her mouth; she lets it, gives it a hard suck that makes him whimper before she pushes him away.
"Good night," he whispers, as she presses a final kiss to the top of his head, reminding him gently once more with a whisper against his ear that he's a good girl before he trots sleepily off to bed, and she heads upstairs with Maria giggling at her heels.
They're not going to do it again. They're really, really not.
Because she told him so.
Because once was fine as an exercise, as a sort of therapy for him, but if it becomes a regular thing, then they have some kind of relationship. Some kind of relationship that isn't sponsorship, or Sisterhood, but some other thing.
They can't be lovers. Even if she is over the fear of offending Maria, who clearly thinks this sordid affair has been first of all a great idea and second very funny, they just can't. Not her and her pupil and certainly not her brother. Or Sister, or sister.
It's getting harder to think of him as male. And she doesn't want to push him faster than he'd normally go just because of... what they've done, but he seems to be happy with what's happening and the pace it's happening at. He likes it when she calls him a good girl. Has made clear he doesn't want to be referred to as a boy at all. She's watched him over the cameras-- which, she reminds herself, isn't an incestuous perversion to be ashamed of, just the normal daily functioning of rehabilitation by forced feminisation-- examining his burgeoning chest with an embarrassed but definitely pleased grin on his face.
So he's her sister. Great! That was the goal!!
Still. She's not going to have sex with her sister, again.
When the Programme had first been laid out for him, when Edith had explained it slowly and gently and shepherded him through his mounting shock, it had seemed to Adam like maybe he was being told they were offering him an easy way out. Men are given power, and some men, weak men, can't handle it, let it drive them to immorality, to sin, and this, what they do here, is the way of letting them out of their own weakness.
And that seemed to make sense. He knew he'd always been a weak man.
But talking with Leigh, and further conversations with Edith, have corrected his perspective.
Wielding power you've been handed is easy. Seizing power you've been denied is what is hard. Even if you're like Leigh, and being a man has been nothing but misery for you... it's still a position with inertia, a word Leigh taught him. It's easy to stay there, stay in your misery, stew in it, get sadder and angrier and worse. Pulling yourself out, forcing yourself to get better, is the hard thing.
The women strong enough to pull themselves out of the ruined lives of terrible men are stronger than any man could ever be.
And that's what he's going to do... if he can be a strong enough woman to do it.
She has sex with her sister again.
Adam had a bad dream. Awful. He isn't ready to tell her about it, yet, but she can guess at some of the contents. He was definitely there.
The girls on night duty had seen him sobbing over the cameras, and woken her; she was annoyed until she got down here. Adam is a wreck, pajama shirt mussed up with mucus and tears, eyes red and running, and he runs immediately into her arms, gasping and shuddering into her own shirt. Of course she can lose a little sleep for her Sister.
Before he can change clothes and get back to sleep, she takes him to the showers. There's nothing particularly sexual about seeing him naked, shivering while he waits for the water to warm up. There's something a little sexual about the way his eyes linger on her before he steps under the water, like he's waiting for her to follow.
It's definitely sexual when she lets herself go for it, shrugs off her tank top and pajama bottoms and panties, follows him under the flow of hot water and takes him tightly in her arms. It's fine. It's the dead of night, and her sweet girl needs to be comforted. And she's already asked the night watch to give them privacy down here until she comes back up.
So she lets Adam's face find its way into the warm, soft place between her breasts, lets him breathe her in. Lets him nuzzle into her until he's licking and mouthing softly at her right nipple, until his mouth is carefully latched around her and he's sucking and tonguing desperately, like she can feed him all the vitality and courage and joy he could ever need.
His body is pressed flush against her, ankles to ankles, his legs on hers, his chest on her belly. She can feel the soft, warm, sticky hardness of him against her thighs, leaking on her, sticking to her. It's fine. This is fine. She's comforting her sister, that's all.
It's fine, as her hand gropes its way down to her crotch, rubbing at the base of her, at the soft warm place at the top of her scrotum and at the hot, sticky, needy tip of her penis until Adam squirms and gasps and goes limp against her.
Somewhere during it, she realizes, she'd stopped thinking of her as a him.
Edith helps her towel herself off, walks her back to bed.
As she's lying against the pillows, Edith getting ready to rise from her side and return to Maria's waiting bed, Adam mumbles,
"I'm sorry for bothering you."
"It's alright, sweetie." Gazing down at her she tucks her hair, getting longer, behind one ear, and gives her a last kiss on the forehead. "I have nightmares too. Are you ready to talk about it?"
Adam looks pensive.
She's about to tell her it's alright, they can talk about it tomorrow, or not at all, but then Adam opens her mouth to speak, quietly and carefully.
"He-- he was here. He came for me. And he hit me, and called me a... and he tried to take me away. From here. From Leigh, from Martin, from you. Everybody. He said..." She breaks off. Edith can guess at the rest.
"Oh, sweetie. Nobody will make you leave until you're ready. I promise."
And Adam believes her.
She wakes with a jolt.
She feels great. New. Like-- and it's the first time in a while she's thought of such things without a lingering sense of dread, guilt, and betrayal-- like Jesus must have felt after sleeping for three days.
She has to tell them. She has to tell everyone.
Another morning, another croissant and cup of tea. Leigh is nowhere to be seen, though; it's Martin, this time, who greets her first, already masticating his Weetabix.
"Morning, Adam."
"Martha!"
"Pardon?"
"Right, sorry, it's-- I'm-- I'm Martha. Now. Martha."
Martha. From the Gospel of Luke. The sister who messed up at first, too caught up in the chores of power to focus on the truth, but got there in the end.
"Damn. You too?"
"Yeah. I think so? Yeah. Yeah! Not like, you know, not like Steph or Leigh. But, yeah."
She keeps having much the same conversation with all her fellow Basementees, as they rise and head to breakfast. She doesn't bother explaining how she settled on the name, but smiles appreciatively when Leigh nods sagely and mentions the Gospel story. She's glad Leigh doesn't seem to be nervous of "falling behind" her-- it's not a race, but if anything, Martha would like her and Leigh to be more or less doing this at the same speed. They can support each other, be Sisters.
Raph, unsurprisingly for the beauty queen he seems to be turning into, mentions something about teaching her to do her makeup. She appreciates it, although in her head she doubts she's going to be ready for that any time soon.
When she pictures Martha from the Bible, she's definitely not wearing any eyeshadow.
Edith wants to just be happy for her sister.
Which, she is! And it's not that she doesn't believe her, doesn't take Martha's news seriously. She'd thought something had changed herself, last night, after all.
But she has to ask. So, while the rest of the basement cadre is arguing over some snide remark of Beth's, she pulls her aside.
"Martha. I'm so, so happy for you. I-- I'm sorry even to ask this, just. You're not-- accelerating your transition for me, are you? To-- to please me? I mean, you really do want to be Martha, right?"
The expression on the girl's face makes her regret asking, immediately.
"It's-- well, partly it's, for you? Because, I mean, you helped me get here, but I'm doing it for myself too. And, and everyone else. It's-- I mean, it doesn't even feel like I'm doing it, exactly it's just. I'm listening to who I feel like, now. Starting today."
She pauses, takes a breath.
"You-- you believe me, right?"
Of course she does. Of course she does. She grabs her sister, holds her close, sniffles into her hair.
All the girls do, at least in part, accelerate in the process through the influence of their sponsor, through a desire to please her. Right? Anyone can see that Bethany thrives on Maria's approval, that Leigh is coming out of her shell because Tabitha's desire for it makes her believe it's possible. They've all bonded; she and Martha aren't that different. Maybe the approach they've taken can't be applied to every girl, but then, they're not proposing to do that, are they?
"Yes. Yes, of course I do, Martha. I'm sorry, I've just-- I've been worried, for you. But I believe you and I'm so, so proud of you."
They never talk, in so many words, about not doing it again. But they don't.
A sort of tension remains, but it's a nice tension, like the sheets on a bed pulled tight. They stay close, maybe unusually close, for anyone looking too closely at it. Kiss each other good night, sometimes.
And the years of the Programme go by, ultimately not so very slowly, and Martha, her sister, her Sister, is happy, and free, and far, far away from him. And that's all she's ever wanted.