The rain hammered down on the cracked pavement like a thousand accusations, each drop a reminder that the world had gone to hell in a handbasket back in '52, when the bombs fell and turned the City of Angels into a monochrome nightmare. I adjusted the strap of my garter belt under my trench coat, feeling the silk stockings whisper against my skin like a forbidden secret. Name's Tracy with a Dick, wait, no, that's too on the nose. Call me Hanimefendi Basortulu, or just Han if you're buying the drinks. By day, I'm the hard boiled gumshoe pounding the shadowed alleys of this irradiated husk of Los Angeles, dodging mutants and mobsters in equal measure. But when the neon flickers out and the Dutch angles of my life tilt just right, I'm something else entirely: a crossdressing sissy in satin, chasing skirts instead of skirts chasing me.
It started with a dame, like all my stories do. Or at least, that's how I tell it to the mirror while I paint my lips ruby red in the dim glow of my office bulb the one that swings like a noose in the wind howling through the boarded up windows. The apocalypse had stripped the city bare, leaving behind skeletal skyscrapers leaning at crazy angles, their glass eyes shattered from the blasts. Food was rationed, water was poison, and hope? That was a luxury for the pre war fools. Me? I survived by sniffing out secrets in the fog of fallout, my fedora pulled low over eyes shadowed with kohl I swiped from a ruined department store.
She slinked into my office that night, a vision in tattered mink and desperation. "Mr. Basortulu," she purred, her voice cutting through the static of my battered radio spitting out old jazz tunes. "I need a man who can handle... delicate matters." Her eyes flicked to my desk, where a stray lipstick tube had rolled out from under some files. I snatched it up quick, heart pounding like a tommy gun. If she noticed, she didn't let on. Her husband, a big shot fallout bunker baron hoarding pre war hooch, had vanished into the undercity the labyrinth of sewers and subways where the real monsters lurked, glowing with radiation and grudge.
I took the case because rent was due, and because her perfume smelled like the lilacs that used to bloom before the sky turned perpetual gray. Slipping out the back door, I ditched the coat for my real armor: a frilly silken blouse tucked into a satin pencil skirt, heels that clicked like gunshots on the debris strewn streets. Crossdressing wasn't just a kink in this apocalypse; it was camouflage. The goons patrolling the ruins looked for tough guys in suits, not a mincing minx batting lashes from the shadows. I'd learned that the hard way, back when the first riots hit and I hid in a drag queen's bunker, emerging reborn in marabou feathers, silk, satin, lace and lies.
The trail led me to the Dutch Tilt District, where buildings leaned like drunks at last call, their angles throwing everything off kilter just like my life. I tailed a suspect through the monochrome haze, my wig itching under the fedora I'd crammed back on. He was a weasel faced rat, peddling black market estrogen shots to the desperate. "Where's the baron?" I hissed, pressing a stiletto heel to his throat after I cornered him in an alley reeking of rot.
He spilled like cheap bourbon: the husband wasn't missing; he'd been snatched by the Shadow Syndicate, a cult of irradiated freaks worshiping the bomb as a god. They operated from the old Hollywood studios, twisting pre war films into propaganda reels that played on loop in the bunkers. I infiltrated at dusk, dolled up in a Lamé cocktail dress that hugged my curves like a guilty conscience. The guards bought the act hell, one even wolf whistled as I sashayed past, my .38 snub nose tucked in my garter.
Inside, it was a fever dream of tilted cameras and flickering projectors. The baron was tied to a chair, force-fed their twisted sermons. But the real twist? The dame was in on it. She emerged from the shadows, gun in hand, her mink shedding like a snake's skin. "You should've stayed in your lane, detective," she sneered. "Or should I say, crossdressing doll?"
We tussled in the projector light, our shadows dancing at mad angles on the walls, her nails raking my stockings, my fist connecting with her jaw. I got the drop on her, tying her up with her own pearls. "In this world, honey," I growled, voice husky from the hormones I'd been sneaking, "everyone's got a secret identity. Mine just fits better."
I dragged the baron out, collected my fee in canned peaches and ammo, and vanished back into the rain. Back in my office, I peeled off the layers, staring at my reflection in the cracked mirror. The apocalypse had taken everything, my city, my withered manhood, my illusions. But it gave me this: a gumshoe in girdles and satin, tilting at windmills in a world gone sideways. And in the end, that's all any of us have left. A story, a smoke, and the next case waiting in the wings.
The rain hammered down on the cracked pavement like a thousand accusations, each drop a reminder that the world had gone to hell in a handbasket back in '52, when the bombs fell and turned the City of Angels into a monochrome nightmare. I adjusted the strap of my garter belt under my trench coat, feeling the silk stockings whisper against my skin like a forbidden secret. Name's Tracy with a Dick, wait, no, that's too on the nose. Call me Hanimefendi Basortulu, or just Han if you're buying the drinks. By day, I'm the hard boiled gumshoe pounding the shadowed alleys of this irradiated husk of Los Angeles, dodging mutants and mobsters in equal measure. But when the neon flickers out and the Dutch angles of my life tilt just right, I'm something else entirely: a crossdressing sissy in satin, chasing skirts instead of skirts chasing me.
It started with a dame, like all my stories do. Or at least, that's how I tell it to the mirror while I paint my lips ruby red in the dim glow of my office bulb the one that swings like a noose in the wind howling through the boarded up windows. The apocalypse had stripped the city bare, leaving behind skeletal skyscrapers leaning at crazy angles, their glass eyes shattered from the blasts. Food was rationed, water was poison, and hope? That was a luxury for the pre war fools. Me? I survived by sniffing out secrets in the fog of fallout, my fedora pulled low over eyes shadowed with kohl I swiped from a ruined department store.
She slinked into my office that night, a vision in tattered mink and desperation. "Mr. Basortulu," she purred, her voice cutting through the static of my battered radio spitting out old jazz tunes. "I need a man who can handle... delicate matters." Her eyes flicked to my desk, where a stray lipstick tube had rolled out from under some files. I snatched it up quick, heart pounding like a tommy gun. If she noticed, she didn't let on. Her husband, a big shot fallout bunker baron hoarding pre war hooch, had vanished into the undercity the labyrinth of sewers and subways where the real monsters lurked, glowing with radiation and grudge.
I took the case because rent was due, and because her perfume smelled like the lilacs that used to bloom before the sky turned perpetual gray. Slipping out the back door, I ditched the coat for my real armor: a frilly silken blouse tucked into a satin pencil skirt, heels that clicked like gunshots on the debris strewn streets. Crossdressing wasn't just a kink in this apocalypse; it was camouflage. The goons patrolling the ruins looked for tough guys in suits, not a mincing minx batting lashes from the shadows. I'd learned that the hard way, back when the first riots hit and I hid in a drag queen's bunker, emerging reborn in marabou feathers, silk, satin, lace and lies.
The trail led me to the Dutch Tilt District, where buildings leaned like drunks at last call, their angles throwing everything off kilter just like my life. I tailed a suspect through the monochrome haze, my wig itching under the fedora I'd crammed back on. He was a weasel faced rat, peddling black market estrogen shots to the desperate. "Where's the baron?" I hissed, pressing a stiletto heel to his throat after I cornered him in an alley reeking of rot.
He spilled like cheap bourbon: the husband wasn't missing; he'd been snatched by the Shadow Syndicate, a cult of irradiated freaks worshiping the bomb as a god. They operated from the old Hollywood studios, twisting pre war films into propaganda reels that played on loop in the bunkers. I infiltrated at dusk, dolled up in a Lamé cocktail dress that hugged my curves like a guilty conscience. The guards bought the act hell, one even wolf whistled as I sashayed past, my .38 snub nose tucked in my garter.
Inside, it was a fever dream of tilted cameras and flickering projectors. The baron was tied to a chair, force-fed their twisted sermons. But the real twist? The dame was in on it. She emerged from the shadows, gun in hand, her mink shedding like a snake's skin. "You should've stayed in your lane, detective," she sneered. "Or should I say, crossdressing doll?"
We tussled in the projector light, our shadows dancing at mad angles on the walls, her nails raking my stockings, my fist connecting with her jaw. I got the drop on her, tying her up with her own pearls. "In this world, honey," I growled, voice husky from the hormones I'd been sneaking, "everyone's got a secret identity. Mine just fits better."
I dragged the baron out, collected my fee in canned peaches and ammo, and vanished back into the rain. Back in my office, I peeled off the layers, staring at my reflection in the cracked mirror. The apocalypse had taken everything, my city, my withered manhood, my illusions. But it gave me this: a gumshoe in girdles and satin, tilting at windmills in a world gone sideways. And in the end, that's all any of us have left. A story, a smoke, and the next case waiting in the wings.
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