Free The Darker Side by Cody McFadyen

Silverware, a phone book, some pens and Post-its. I’m not really surprised. Lisa was someone used to having to hide in public. She wouldn’t keep her secrets out here where a guest could find them by accident.
    I move to the bedroom. It’s medium-sized, with a lush beige carpet. The bed dominates the room, a California king. The earth tones continue here. Lisa had found her own sweet spot in terms of décor; feminine without being girly.
    I move to the common repository of secrets for women: the nightstand. I open the top drawer and am not disappointed. There’s a plastic bag of marijuana with some rolling papers. I also see some baby oil and a magazine filled with photographs of well-muscled naked men. I glance around, note the CD player.
    I can imagine Lisa, putting on a CD, lighting up a joint and inhaling while she flipped through the pages of the magazine to find the right visual spark. Finding it, lying back, grabbing the baby oil…
    And that’s where we part ways, Lisa.
    My fingers, when they travel down there, arrive at a different tactile experience. I’ve never had a penis, never wanted one, but I’ve held them in my hands. I know what they feel like, smell like, taste like, but I don’t know what it’s like to hold one and feel it being touched at the same time.
    Did that bother you? You were attracted to men, you longed to be a woman. When your hand found a penis, was it alien? Did you transform it in your fantasies to something else?
    I strain to arrive there, to feel it as she would have felt it, but the experience eludes me.
    I close the drawer and open the one below it, find only some paperbacks.
    I move to her dresser and rummage through the drawers. I could be looking through my own. There are no male items here at all. Bras, panties, some T-shirts and jeans. The closet reveals the same, a mix of dresses, slacks, and a ton of shoes. She had good taste, just to the left of classy, a muted flair. Hinting at mischief without giving away the store.
    I leave the room and enter the bathroom next to it. Again, I’m struck by the fact: this is a woman’s place. Makeup, loofah, lavender-scented soap. Bath beads, pink razors, a hand cream dispenser. Even the toilet seat is down. Did she sit to pee, or stand?
    The medicine cabinet belongs to a healthy person. I see aspirin, bandages, the basics. No antidepressants or prescription painkillers. In fact, no medication of any kind, which puzzles me until I work it out. She would have taken her medication with her on her trip to Texas.
    The area under the sink provides another contrast. No tampons there in that easy-to-reach-while-sitting-on-the-toilet position. Just a hand cloth and some tile cleaner.
    There’s a digital scale on the floor, and I step onto it out of habit, still trying to be Lisa. I ignore its lies, as I imagine she would have. A last pause and look around and I leave the bathroom to go check out her home office.
    The office is decorated in the same earth tones as the rest of the condo. There’s a desk placed under the window. She’d have been able to look outside when she felt like it, but her flat-screen computer monitor would have been protected from the sun’s glare. The desk itself is made of dark wood, neither substantial nor rickety, something in between. Lisa liked wood, I think. I’ve seen very little metal in the furniture here.
    There’s a file cabinet next to the desk. A six-foot high bookshelf leans up against an opposing wall, more dark wood. I glance at the titles on the book spines. They’re almost all travel guides with a gay/ lesbian emphasis. Gay Travel in Italy, Madrid—Simply Fabulous, stuff like that.
    A check of the file cabinet reveals nothing of immediate interest. We’ll have to go through it all, but that’s not why I’m here right now. I’m looking for something, anything, that jumps out, that could help put us on the right path.
    I examine the desktop. It’s clean, just a slate cup-coaster and a pen. I