Sonia and Tina were sitting on either side of me while Marjorie knelt in front of me on the floor of Sheila’s Shoe World, tying the ribbons of a pair of espadrilles around my ankles. It felt strange that she would do this—strange because somehow I realized that I was looking up to her now, just as I looked up to my sister. Marjorie was becoming another mentor. Were all my role models to be female now?

“Try standing up now, Sasha,” suggested Marjorie.

I stood up in the espadrilles and took a few steps. I liked them. They were very comfortable. Yet finding that I liked wearing such distinctly feminine shoes also felt—naughty? Being a boy, I wasn’t supposed to dress as a girl, let alone to like it. Yet I did. Since Sonia wanted me to enjoy this, I had opened my mind to it and now was appreciating what she wished to share with me.

“These are nice,” I told my sister and friends. “I want this pair.”

“They have a two-for-one sale here today,” Sonia reminded me. “Get one more pair.”

“But why?” I demanded to know. “There’s no way I’m ever gonna wear all these.”

“Don’t worry,” Marjorie assured me. “You will have more opportunities than you think.”

I wasn’t exactly at ease with that. Even though I had volunteered to do this only for the weekend or so, I couldn’t ignore the feeling that already I had surrendered control of my life to my sister, my girlfriend, and a psychic beauty queen. But I also couldn’t ignore the feeling that, at least for now, that was the safest company that I could have.

Still, I had already purchased more shoes today than I had ever before owned at one time. And that was just the shoes. We hadn’t even shopped for anything else yet.

“Sasha, you need boots, too,” added Tina just then. I noticed that we weren’t wearing wedding rings, so I wasn’t in some kind of illusion. I had apparently had a conversation with Marjorie while hallucinating or in some kind of altered state. Tina called me hubby and we were both wearing wedding rings. Those are definitely signs that things are not what they seem in recent days.

“What?” I asked.

“Boots—for both weather and fashion,” Debbi clarified. I had been so caught up in my own little world that I had forgotten that Sonia’s and Tina’s other friends were also along for the ride. Marcia and Jacqui were eagerly comparing and modeling spring shoe styles at the far end of the middle aisle. But I hadn’t even noticed them coming in.

“I already have more shoes than I can wear,” I raised as protest, knowing full well that it would be dismissed.

“Sasha, a girl can never have too many shoes,” Marjorie reminded me.

“Yes, you told me that already,” I retorted, but deciding not to remind her that I’m a boy. That objection just wouldn’t carry much weight right now.

Debbi brought over two boxes of boots and kneeled next to me. She and Tina helped me take the espadrilles off and put on a pair of blue-gray boots of sueded leather with elegant cuffs folded around the top. Sonia signaled for me to stand. I stood, but teetered atop the heels. Tina and Debbi held me so that I wouldn’t fall or twist an ankle.

“Easy, girl!” Sonia warned me. “Let your heels settle and get a feel for how high you are.”

“These seem higher than anything else I’ve tried. Just how high are these, anyway?” I asked, but in complaint formed as a rhetorical question.

Debbi smiled at me. “These are four-inch heels,” she bragged about me. “And your legs look perfect in them.”

“Deb, I don’t think so,” I denied her claim. Four inches (10 cm)? I’d get dizzy wearing these. “Those shoes of your sister’s are the highest I was comfortable wearing. These are really too high for me.” Debbi had loaned me a pair of her sister’s three-inch (8 cm) pumps that had fit me quite well.

“Sasha has a point,” intervened my sister. “He’ll have to work his way up to higher heels. His legs will still turn heads enough as it is, though.”

My sister had referred to me in the masculine again. That worried me if anyone outside our group should overhear, but on the other hand, she hadn’t forgotten that I’m her brother. I glanced toward Sonia. “Sis, be careful with your grammar,” I whispered. “A pronoun can carry more meaning today than usual.”

Sonia raised a hand over her mouth as she giggled. “Sorry, Sasha!” she whispered back her apology. I guess I dropped my guard after what happened in Gentle Souls®.

Tina got us back on track. “Deb, do they have this in a lower heel?” my girlfriend inquired.

“I don’t know,” answered Debbi. “But this other pair has only a three-inch heel.” She opened the other box and withdrew a plain boot of simple black leather.

“Those look nice, too, Deb,” I assured her. “I like the simplicity.” And they were quite nice. Besides, I’d already turned down the other pair and didn’t wish to disappoint her again. I sat back down so Sonia and Tina could help me get the suede boots off.

Debbi and Tina helped me get the black boots on. I really liked how they felt going on. Standing up, I had little doubt. “Oh, I like these!” I announced. “If I have to get boots, this is the pair.”

“Those are a good choice, Li’l Sis,” confirmed Sonia. “That’s a classic look. Those boots will go with nearly anything else you’d wanna wear. But you should get the suede boots, too. You will be able to wear them later.”

“But that’s more money,” I objected.

“No, Sasha, it’s not,” Sis reminded me. “It’s two-for-one. Remember?”

“I thought that was just for the espadrilles,” I continued.

“Is for anything in store with same color tags or stickers,” explained Mom, just entering the store. “Is how they do two-for-one here.”

“You must learn khow to buy, моя Саша,” added Aunt Svetlana, trailing behind Mom. “We girls like shopping.”

“But not all at once!” I objected. “All this is too much for me today.”

Mom hugged me then. “Yes, I can see that is overwhelming for you,” she said. “Go out to a bench and sit awhile. We are shopping for us, too.” She kissed me on the cheek and scooted me toward the door of Sheila’s. I juggled my oversized shopping bags of shoes and boots, two from Gentle Souls®, one from Sheila’s, towards the bench outside, where I not so much set them down as dumped then and I more fell than sat down.

* * *

I must have been napping for a moment until I felt a hand on my shoulder gently rousing me. “Wake up, Sasha!” Sonia announced with a smile. “We’ve bought all our shoes for today. Time to continue.”

“Where do we go next?” I asked rather foolishly.

“Well when you get dressed,” my sister reminded me, “you, like, start naked and go from there.”

“So it’s lingerie and foundations next,” concluded Tina. “We gotta decide, like, what sizes and shapes you can wear. I mean you look okay in some of Sonia’s things, but you’re still, like, a little different, too. You need to learn your own sense of style.”

“Tina, this seems way more than I need,” I objected again. “After Monday, I’ll be through with all this.”

“No, Sasha, you won’t,” Marjorie spoke up. “I’ve tried to avoid telling you this because first, I don’t wanna frighten you, and also, I’m not sure how to interpret what I see.”

“Is this all about your reading auras again?” I asked her. “I really don’t buy it. I mean, that was a cool light and sound show you put on for me in the Ladies’ Room after lunch yesterday, but I just don’t go for all this psychic stuff.”

“Sasha, the young woman inside you has awakened, and she will emerge to play her role in your life and in the world,” preached Miss Stedham to me. “She will claim what’s due her. You have a choice to accept her and learn to integrate your masculine and feminine selves, or to resist her and suffer for it. You’ve wondered why Sonia wanted so much to share her girlhood with you? Well, it’s because it offers so much for you to enjoy.”

This all seemed too much for me. I felt like I wanted to turn and just run away somewhere, anywhere. But if I didn’t believe what Marjorie was telling me, why was I so upset about it? What she said was just superstitious, quite unscientific after all. But then how did she manage that light and sound show in the Ladies’ Room of Aunt Ellie’s Kitchen yesterday?

“But don’t I have any say in this?” I demanded. “Don’t I have the right to choose my own path in life?”

“Да, you certainly do, моя Саша,” answered Mom, suddenly entering the conversation. (She, my aunt, and Sonia’s other friends had just caught up with us from Sheila’s Shoe World.) “Or you did. I do not believe that you understand that you have chosen it already.”

“Actually, Mis’ess Petrovna, I believe he has one, maybe two more choices before his destiny along the Androgyne’s Path is confirmed,” advised Marjorie. “I see in his aura that those decisions may still be ahead of him. It’s difficult to read.”

“What decisions are they?” Mom asked her, anticipating my own question.

“I don’t know,” Marjorie conceded. “Nor can I say exactly when. I can only be certain that the first one will be very soon, even within a few more days.”

“How can I know what or when it will be?” I asked her, anxious to have some idea of how to direct my own future. “Can’t you give me some clue?”

Marjorie’s eyes began welling up in tears, and she answered with the high-pitched tension of regret in her voice, “I’m so sorry, Sasha, I just don’t know.” The tears began streaming down her face. “I’m too new at reading auras. The answers are there in your aura somewhere, but I just don’t know how to read it all yet.”

She was hurting because she was unable to console me more about my future. So I hugged her and, with a nod and a glance, urged Sonia and Tina to follow suit, and they did. “That’s alright,” I assured Marjorie. “I’m grateful for what you could tell me. You still gave me more than I knew.”

“I’ve had to learn how to read auras by myself, mostly from my own observations and intuition,” confessed Marjorie. “I’ve read what books on the subject by reputable authors that I could, but I really need to find a teacher to study with.”

“Like to find good music teacher,” Aunt Svetlana inserted herself into the conversation. “Often best to trust—khow you say?—word of mouth. I know someone wkho might khelp you.”

“You do?” Marjorie expressed surprised.

“I will ask friend wkhose mother is seer,” offered Svetlana. “Khwen student ready, den teacher appear.”

“Yet Marjorie must not tell Sasha any more about decisions,” warned the boy’s mother suddenly. “His own heart must decide each time without interference. Only thus he will know true destiny. And I believe that he will choose true.”

“But how can I do that without any direction?” I asked.

“Моя Саша, you not wit-out direction,” interjected Aunt Svetlana. “Your mama, your papa, your sister, and myself, next your teachers, your priest, and even your friends, we all khaff given you direction before. You forget your lessons so soon? Now iss time dat you tink on lessons already learned.”

I understood what Marjorie, Mom, and my Aunt Svetlana were telling me, but still I felt apprehensive about what I might be facing.

* * *

Sonia and Tina led me—dragged me was more like it—into another shop, Anne’s Intimate Apparel. To say the least, I was frightened entering this most sacred domain of the feminine. I think that I had this attitude because I had somehow learned that only naughty boys make any effort to view a girl’s undergarments, especially while she was wearing them. And somewhere I’d heard stories about how boys who’d been caught spying on girls in their lingerie might be punished by appearing publicly dressed as girls.

But I’m not being punished. After all, I volunteered to do this. Maybe I’m naughty not for wanting to see girls in their lingerie, but for wanting to see myself in it. Yes, Sonia did want to share girlhood with me, but I was also curious in my own right. Yet I could expect that by Monday, my curiosity would be satisfied. So I did not understand the need to buy myself a collection of matching sets of bras and panties any more than why I had purchased so many pairs of shoes.

Sonia grabbed my left arm to drag me toward a wall replete with racks of brassieres. She began to take a few from the racks and check labels for sizes. Then a tall blonde-haired lady sashayed over to us.

“Good morning, there! I’m Anne Wilson, the owner,” she greeted us. “Can I help you?”

“We hope so,” replied my sister. “Do you fit for bra sizes?”

“Yes, we do,” answered Ms. Wilson.

“That’s great!” Sonia continued. “Sasha here has never been properly fitted and just wears my outgrown bras.”

“Well! We can’t have that now, can we?” Ms. Wilson exclaimed. “Come with me to the fitting room.”

“Do I have to?” I objected.

“Of course you do!” Sonia decreed, taking my hand and beckoning Tina in our direction. My sister continued, “Getting fit for your first bra is an important rite of passage for a girl.”

“Maybe for me that should be a wrong of passage, instead?” I quipped.

“Now you’re just being silly!” Sonia shot back to me, rolling her eyes. “But I’m still hoping your jokes get better from all this.”

I suddenly raised a hand to cover my mouth as I broke into giggles. Then Sonia kissed my left cheek as Ms. Wilson led us behind a curtain into a hallway. To the immediate left was a louvered, bat-wing double door, that opened to the fitting room. Tina rejoined us and kissed me on my right cheek. They all escorted me inside.

“Someone please remind me again,” I pled. “Why am I doing this?”

“Because you love us,” replied Tina.

“And because we love you,” added Sonia. “Remember, my dream has always been to share girlhood with you and for you to enjoy it, too.”

For some reason, whenever my sister reminded me of that, I felt calm and content with what I was doing. Deep down, I knew that the reason for all this, even the years of her teasing, was exactly what she’d told me. Being a girl was very important to her. That she felt a need to share it was, for her, a consequence of love; to do so, an act of charity. At first, I thought this was all about dressing up, but quickly I’ve found out that it’s more than, soft lingerie, pretty dresses, and high-heeled shoes. Rather, she’s giving me a lesson in how girls think and feel and treat one another. What really surprised me was yesterday afternoon, when I broke my fingernail, Sonia, Tina, and their girlfriends all gathered around me with concern. If they’d do that over a broken fingernail, I’d have no doubt that they’d close ranks around me should I need them.

“That sounds interesting,” observed Ms. Wilson, as the double doors swung closed behind her. “I mean that she wants to share girlhood with you. I thought maybe you had to be a girl for a school play.”

“No, it’s not for a school play,” I admitted. “My sister had teased me about dressing me up like a girl ever since I could remember. But when I found out why, I felt guilty because I hadn’t. She just wants me to have a good time doing it.”

“Well, are you?”

“Honestly?” Nodding, I affirmed, “I think I am. My sister, my girlfriend, and their friends are doing all they can to make sure of it.”

Ms. Wilson smiled at me as she brought a measuring tape out. “Unbutton your blouse, please,” she politely commanded, so I complied, my fingers fumbling the buttons and my face blushing. “If it helps, girls often feel embarrassed, too, when they get fitted the first time. It marks such a big change in a girl’s life.”

“It’s an even bigger change for a boy’s,” I replied to her.

She giggled at my observation. “Yes, it is,” Ms. Wilson confirmed. “But you’re not the first boy I’ve fitted for a bra, and I doubt you’d be the last. Besides, the reason you’re doing this is not something I’ve heard before, but it’s really sweet. Would you take your blouse off, please?”

I removed my blouse as slowly as I dared. Then before I knew it, Ms. Wilson had already unhooked the back of the training bra that I had borrowed from my sister to wear. “You should slip it off now,” she continued. “Again, Sasha, many girls have reacted to getting fitted just as you have. They’ve learned to keep their breasts intimate and private, so they feel much as you seem to be right now. If you feel embarrassed revealing yours, that’s okay. It’s quite a natural response and very common. Now raise your arms, please.”

I complied and Anne Wilson deftly wrapped the measuring tape around my chest, just above the solar plexus. “Now, hands behind your head,” she continued. This time, she took the tape around right at the top of my underarms. “One more measurement,” announced Ms. Wilson. She wrapped the tape around me, right across the tips of my nipples.

Next, she draped her tape measure over a peg on the wall and then picked a clipboard and a pencil up. She wrote a few numbers and jotted other notes down as well.

“Hmm…?” Ms. Wilson pondered to herself. “I wonder if—I know! Sasha, wait here a moment.” She darted out of the room. Sonia and Tina stepped inside immediately after she had left. Instinctively, I held the blouse over my naked chest to cover myself. My sister and my girlfriend just stared wide-eyed at me and then to each other, open-mouthed, as if to gasp.

“What?” I asked, sensing that they were thinking a shared thought.

“Sasha, we’ve both seen you bare-chested before,” Tina reminded me.

“All the time,” added Sonia. “Even today.”

“So?” I challenged them.

“You covered right up when we came in,” remarked Tina. “Like, to be modest.”

“And you did so apparently without even thinking about it,” exposited my sister further. “You’ve never been bashful about your chest before. “So, we think you’re more a girl than you realize.”

I looked down at my sister’s soft, satin blouse that I was still holding across my chest. Suddenly, my cheeks felt warm: I was blushing again.

“That’s so sweet, Sasha!” Tina squealed, embracing me. Now I had felt her soft hands on my naked back before, but this time they felt as soft and smooth as the satin blouse which I continued to hold across my nipples. My girlfriend pressed her lips to mine and my body reminded me that, no matter how deeply I blushed, nor how many dresses, skirts, and satin blouses I wore, nor how sexy the lingerie I might wear under them, nor how high I teetered atop my shoes, in that one way that still mattered, I was still very much a boy. And I knew that I could be satisfied with that.

Just then, Ms. Wilson reappeared at the door, holding two or three bras. “Alright, young ladies, out!” she addressed Tina and Sonia. “It’s too crowded in here. Get out, now! Shoo!” She ushered them out of the fitting room. “Sasha, I’m going to try fitting you with this bra first. It’s called a push-up bra. If it fits you like I think it will…”

Ms. Wilson proceeded to fasten the tight push-up bra around my chest. She declared, “Yes! That’s perfect!” Then she turned me towards the full-length mirror to look at my own image. Then I glanced down at my chest. I couldn’t believe what I saw.

I had breasts.

“What—? How—?” I stammered, not even sure what question to ask. “Sonia! Tina! Come here!” I yelled, stunned, perplexed, and more than just a little frightened by my own reflection.

My girlfriend and sister rushed into the fitting room again. They just stared at me. “Omigosh!” Tina gasped. “You look like you have real breasts!”

“In a sense, they are his real breasts,” confirmed Ms. Wilson. “It is, in fact, his own real cleavage.”

“How did you do that?” Sonia asked her.

“When I measured his band-size, I noticed he had enough soft tissue in his chest,” answered Anne. “So, I used a push-up bra to exaggerate his cleavage.”

“So those aren’t padding or breast-forms?” Tina asked. “Just the push-up bra?”

“No, sweetheart!” I answered. “Such as these are, they’re all mine! But this brassiere is really tight.”

“That’s how it works,” explained Ms. Wilson. “It squeezes what you already have into the cups to create the illusion of larger breasts.”

“Well, at least it’s a consistent theme,” I remarked sotto voce in sarcasm.

“What’s that?” Ms. Wilson followed up.

“Illusion has been my theme for the week,” I said. “Things’ve seemed to me anything but real these past few days.”

“You look real enough to me,” Anne tried to encourage him.

“Thank you, but underneath all this, I’m still a boy,” I reminded her (and myself). “The girl before you is just an illusion created by a few others working together.”

“That’s not entirely true, Sasha,” my sister objected. “You do recall how you covered yourself up in here? You know? Only a few minutes ago? With the blouse?”

I wished that my sister were not so quick to remind me whenever I did something girly. It was getting hard enough to hold on to who I am. Yes, playing along with this was fun, but it was only for the weekend. I really thought that Sis and even Tina might have lost their perspective on that.

Once again, Ms. Wilson reached for her measuring tape. “Alright girls, you’ve had your peek,” she declared. “Out the door! It’s too crowded again. No, not you, Sasha! We have more to do.”

I began to leave because I thought that she had meant to include me as one of the girls. Or did she? She wrapped the measuring tape around me again, this time around the points where my newly pushed-up cleavage was at its maximum. “Sasha, you won’t need or want to wear the push-up bra all the time, but we want your inserts to look as natural as possible,” advised Ms. Wilson. “What your natural size appears to be with the push-up bra is about a B-cup, so I’ll give you the inserts to fill out your training bras to that size.”

Again, the collection of feminine items of lingerie to be purchased for me was mentioned in the plural. How much was there? Definitely, I couldn’t wear all this in just one weekend. And how much would all this cost, anyway? I knew one thing, though: I wasn’t paying for it from my allowance!

“Let me get this push-up off you,” Ms. Wilson said as she unhooked the bra’s fasteners behind me. “Next you can try the training bra with the inserts.” She left it for me to shed the brassiere while she continued other things.

She opened a drawer in a dresser against a side wall and took out a small carton, twice as long as wide but not very deep, bearing a picture of a demure teenaged girl wearing a brassiere. Then she brought out another box, cube-shaped, almost as wide as the longer one, bearing the same photograph of the pretty, smiling teen. Both boxes bore the label Becoming Woman® in an elegant, florid typeface. Only a moment was needed to understand the double entendre used for the product name. Then, reflecting a moment more, I caught yet a third meaning to flow from my own predicament. I was sure that the firm making and marketing these bras hadn’t counted on teenaged boys when forecasting sales, but I was also certain that they’d still appreciate the added business.

Ms. Wilson beckoned me over to the dresser, took the push-up bra from me, and laid it aside. Then she picked up the other bra from the box and one of the inserts. “I think this training bra is perfect for you,” she said. The clothier continued to explain while demonstrating, “The cup has an inner lining that forms a pocket for the insert. The inner linings are made of the same fabric as the cups, so you feel the bra, not the padding. That should feel much more pleasurable. You put the other one in.”

I did as instructed, noting how soft and smooth the fabric felt.

“That’s right!” Ms. Wilson approved. “Try it on now.”

I used the trick that Sonia had taught me, placing the cups in back, hooking the bra in front, spinning it around, and pulling the straps up over my arms. Ms. Wilson looked at me, shaking her head.

“What?” I queried.

“That’s not the right way to put a brassiere on,” she objected. “You’re cheating!”

“Cheating?”

“Yes, cheating!”

“So sue me!” I retorted indignantly. “I’ve only been wearing a bra for two days. “Besides, that’s how my sister showed me to put it on.”

“I know it’s not so easy at first, but the proper technique is to put your arms through the straps, pull the cups to your chest, and hook it behind you,” she explained. “It may take some practice, but it’s really simpler than what you just did. It’s just a matter of getting used to where the hooks are.”

What Ms. Wilson said made sense to me, although I’m not too concerned if I’ve put my brassiere on correctly. If I really had to worry about it fitting my breasts, maybe I’d think more about it, but as it was, it didn’t matter.

Or so I thought.

* * *

While I had been in the fitting room with Ms. Wilson, Sonia and Tina had been putting together a small, basic collection of lingerie for me to wear. Knowing the sizes to get, they had begun to gather matching bra and panty sets, camisoles, boy-shorts, slips, half-slips, and sleepwear. Of course, they had also been selecting more than a few such garments for themselves. After all, I had noted signs around the shop displaying a range of markdowns on a variety of items.

When Anne Wilson and I emerged from the fitting room, Sis and Tina met me with handheld shopping baskets laden with their choice of lingerie for me and themselves. Giggling, they presented me one basket, already filled with their recommendations.

“Again,” I observed, “these seem a lot more than I’m going to need.”

“A girl can never have too much lingerie,” remarked Ms. Wilson.

“That’s what everyone’s been telling me about shoes all morning,” I told her.

“Well, it’s true,” Sonia assured me. “For both lingerie and shoes.”

“I just can’t shake the feeling that I already have more girls’ clothing than I’ll ever need,” I complained.

“It’s not that much, Sasha,” replied Tina. “We ought to’ve bought you more before the wedding.”

I smiled at Tina and glanced down at my left hand. Please, not this again! There they were—my wedding rings. Tina and I both wore matching sets of a diamond engagement ring and interlocking wedding band. This set seemed normal, somehow, for a couple like her and myself, but only within my hallucination. Anyway, I was fairly certain that I had to be hallucinating again. Although my manicure was now the same inside and outside the hallucination, I noticed that something else was different. While I remembered wearing new two-inch (5 cm) heeled pumps out of Gentle Souls®, I now teetered atop four-inch (10 cm) heels, and my skirt was just as short as Tina’s and Sonia’s were. But strangely enough, I felt accustomed to what I was wearing.

“I hope we’re all ready for a break, now,” I whinged. “I need to eat something. And I think my chest is itchy from fitting all the bras.”

Tina intertwined her left hand fingers with my right. “Sasha, I don’t think fitting a brassiere is why you’re itching,” she said.

“Then what do you think it is?” I quizzed her.

“Exactly what it ought to be,” my girlfriend/wife answered, reaching into her purse and withdrawing a squeezable tube of some kind of medical cream. “I’d been expecting this any day,” said Tina, handing me the tube. Smiling, she whispered in my ear, “You’re growing a pair, now.”