...Anna Maria began laying out the clothes she'd picked for me to wear.

Chapter 11

In a large, pretty bathroom, all glass and pink tile, Anna Maria began laying out the clothes she'd picked for me to wear.

"First thing, you gonna wear girl's clothes you need to wear something like this," she held out a rather feminine pair of underpants made of some shiny material. They seemed to have padding at the hips and ass. "You tuck the male parts, um, backwards?" She grinned as I winced. "So nothing shows and gives you away."

"That's going to be uncomfortable," I said.

She shrugged. "You get used to it, and it's not so bad as it sounds." She held up another item, "A padded bra will give you some shape up top. This is just padded to about a B-cup. You know how to put one of these on?" She put it on the counter in the little bathroom/dressing room.

"I'll manage," I muttered, wondering if my face looked as red as it felt.

"This is a front closing bra, it's easy," she said. She laid a pair of khaki pants beside the other items. "I got some much prettier things for you but this will look nice. We ought to shave your legs so you could wear shorts or a skirt; you don't have much hair there but more than most girls would allow."

"I'm not going to wear a skirt and I'm not going to shave my legs," I told her. I had doubts about this whole project but not on those two items. The pants, or slacks, had an elastic waist band and no pockets or fly.

A silky, pale green top with the sleeves cut very, very short joined the other items. "Ed called me and told me your measurements, so I figured out your sizes. I think I got this a bit big. Where did he get those numbers?"

"Uh, probably from the tailor in Palm Springs?"

She grinned. "He's a sneaky ol' coyote, isn't he?"

I didn't laugh, at the moment things were just too scary to laugh about them. My senses seemed a bit confused; for a moment, I could taste the lime sherbert of the silky green tank top and feel the desert heat absorbed in some other universe by the khaki slacks. The effect made me dizzy and I shook my head to bring myself back to reality.

A reality in which I stood in a rosy bathroom, my nails painted peachy-pink and my hair cut in a girl's shag--about to dress myself in girl's clothing.

"I could get you something to make your waist smaller, a waist cincher?"

I turned that down, too.

Anna took a pair of pink-and-white Vans from a box. "Your feet really this small? Six-and-a-half in men's sizes is only eight in women's."

I took the tennis shoes in one hand and pushed her shoulder gently with the other. "Yes, I've got little feet. Now, get out of here so--I can change?"

She snickered. "No one here but us girls, chica?" But she left.

I closed the door behind her and ticked the latch. My heart seemed to be beating too fast and the air felt as if all the oxygen had been sucked out. I got mostly undressed with my eyes closed, it seemed easier that way. I had to open them to start putting on the clothes Anna had supplied, though.

The underpants fit very tightly after I pulled my male parts down and between my legs. It wasn't terrifically comfortable but it didn't actually hurt after a few adjustments. I felt my testicles slip up inside the hollow of my abdomen and that felt very odd. I hadn't known they would, or could, do that and it scared me a little. I investigated, they could slip in and out of wherever they were going without pain. It only added to the oddness of everything else.

The underpants must have been actually control panties or something like that because I noticed that they also held my pudgy belly in somewhat. The padding on the butt and thighs felt odd, too. I wondered that so little of it would make any real difference. I turned to look over my shoulder at my ass and decided, that yes, it did. In front, nothing of my male parts showed at all. Disturbing.

The bra was as easy to put on as a one-button jacket, though the closure worked differently than a button would. The straps needed a bit of adjustment. I tried not to look at the effect this addition had in the mirror and quickly pulled the green shirt on over the bra. Then the elastic-waisted khaki slacks. The top hung down to my hips, mostly concealing my chubby middle.

I put the toilet lid down and sat to put the tennies on. Good old Vans--except for the color, they looked pretty much like shoes I had been wearing most of my life. Not quite though, the cut did seem different somehow, more delicate, more feminine. Anna had included a pair of plain white socks with the shoes and I gratefully put them on first. I tied the laces in a firm bow and stood up.

I stared at the mirror. I did look like a girl, dressed in these clothes. Specifically, I looked like my sister, Allison. Our coloring almost matched, her hair a shade darker, my eyes a bit more green, my face a bit longer and my chin not so pointy. She even wore her hair in a shag, though longer than mine was now. The feminine shape created by the underclothes helped the illusion along.

"You decent?" Anna asked from outside the door. "I didn't hear any bodies hitting the floor in a faint."

I snorted and turned away from the mirror. I didn't know if I could actually fool anyone yet but I could see now that it could be done. "I'll be right out," I said. First I folded my boy clothes neatly and put them in a plastic bag Anna had provided.

When I opened the door, Anna nodded approvingly. "Very nice. You look good, Kit."

"I feel like an idiot," I complained.

"Everything fits?" she asked.

"Yeah. I guess." I looked at my reflection in the plentiful mirrors of the main room of the salon. It seemed so unreal.

"You have to work on your voice a little bit," she said holding her fingers up an inch apart.

I didn't want to think about it. Besides, people still mistook me for mom on the phone occasionally.

Anna seemed enthusiastic suddenly, not like she hadn't been pretty animated before. "Come sit over here," she said, almost bouncing toward the salon chair. "I got to do your face." She grinned at me; I suppose I had a peculiar expression.

I sat down and she got started, talking as she worked. "I'm going to pluck a few stray hairs around your eyebrows," I started to protest, "nothing major, not shaping the brow, just getting rid of some mavericks." She giggled. "It's going to hurt a little, that's why I warned you."

"Okay," I said.

It didn't hurt that much. Next she cleansed my face with something that smelled of apricots and another application of something that tingled and made my skin feel--tighter. No wonder it took so long for my sisters to get ready to go anywhere if they went through this everytime. Anna hadn't even put any real make-up on me yet.

And that was a weird thought. I'd been in a school play once and had worn make-up for that. And for Halloween a few times. Nothing girly, though. This was different.

"You got nice skin," she said. "Soft and clear, and we're not going to use much makeup. A little foundation to even out the skin tones." She told me what each item was and I promptly forgot half the names. She took the most time on my eyes and I worried about that. It's a cultural thing where I grew up, the Hispanic girls seem to wear lots of eye make-up. "Look up," she ordered and she put on the mascara.

"Can I see?" I asked.

"Not yet, mija," she said and kept working. She painted a thin line around my lips and then filled it in using a brush instead of a lipstick.

Her giggling and grinning began to make me more and more nervous about things. I thought about all the bad drag comedians I'd ever seen.

Before she let me get a good look in the mirror, Anna added a pair of plastic clip-on earrings, the same color as the blouse. The clips pinched a little, a feeling I'd never experienced. I wondered briefly what having pierced ears would feel like. "Get your ears pierced and you can wear some really pretty ones," she told me.

"Not likely," I said.

Anna laughed and turned me in the chair so I could see. I gasped. The girl looking back at me from the mirror had big, gorgeous green eyes and beautiful coral lips. She didn't seem to be wearing that much make-up and I began to appreciate Anna's artistry. "That's me?" I whispered.

"That's you, chica," she agreed. She added a thin gold chain necklace with a peach and ivory locket and a matching bracelet that had one gold charm, a kitten with green gem eyes. "You gotta ask your Sugar Ed to get you some nice jewelry, but I bought these at Robinson's so they're pretty nice."

I ignored that comment and stood carefully to move closer to the mirrors. I had to admit, I looked pretty good. As good as Alison might look going out on a casual date. Better maybe, Alison didn't have Anna-Maria's professional level abilities.

Everything coordinated; the locket, nails and shoes matched in some way. The blouse, the earrings, my eyes and the kitten's eyes in some other way. I don't really have green eyes, they're hazel with bits of grey and green in them but Anna had made them look greener with subtle choices of eye make-up.

The slacks no longer seemed to be simply khaki-colored but had a richer, softer, more subtle color. I couldn't explain it but I certainly didn't look like a boy named Kit. For one irrational second, I wanted Jay to see me looking like this. I turned away from the mirror quickly.

"Such a pretty smile," said Anna proudly.

"You're a miracle worker," I said. "This ought to satisfy Ed that he knows what I would look like as a girl, huh?"

She grinned. "That old man got a surprise coming, I think?"

I laughed, nerves more than humor. "Yeah, I think he does."

"Don't laugh so big, Kit. It's okay with just friends and girls laugh a lot but not too loudly out in public."

"Huh." I looked back at the mirror and tried a few gestures, touching my hair, the locket, looking at my fingernails. It seemed easy to move and look feminine doing it. "Okay?" I said. "Are you going to call Ed to come over now?"

I saw her reflection in the mirror get an impish look. "First let's work on how you walk and talk a bit? Then we give the cowboy a bigger surprise?"

I felt a little giddy. This was something entirely new. It was like being on stage or dressed for Halloween. I didn't have to be myself, I could be this pretty girl in the mirror. And maybe Ed deserved a surprise or two.

I turned and started walking across the room. "Tell me what I'm doing wrong." I crossed the room and back again.

"Nothing so far," said Anna. "You not real swishy but you're not walking like a boy either?"

"I'm not?" Maybe I had altered my stride subconsciously already. I stopped and sat in a chair, taking a little care to keep my knees together as I had seen my sisters do.

Anna laughed. "So modest." I winked and she laughed harder. "Do that at Ed and he'll buy you a condo in Maui!"

"Anna!" I know I blushed but I think I must have giggled too. Something glimmered in my mind, an image of the power a woman could wield over a man. "What about my voice?" I asked.

"Not bad," she admitted. "But you're not even trying, are you?"

"Uh?" I stammered. "No, I wasn't." Maybe I was a bit too good at this?

Anna came and sat beside me. "Women talk more in the front of their mouths," she said. "You can often see the tip of a girl's tongue when she says a th-sound or an l. If you can lisp just slightly--move the s and t sounds farther forward--without sounding like a cartoon? And try to be more musical, men talk all in monotones."

That was too much information all at once. "What about the pitch? Is my voice too low?"

She shook her head. "Not really, you don't have a deep voice, Kit. In fact, if you got the other things right, you could even pitch your voice down a bit." She grinned, "Sexier that way."

I didn't think I wanted to sound sexy but we practiced with some things for awhile. I did try to pitch my voice upwards a bit and added a bit of a lisp. I spoke Spanish in the Madrid accent I had learned in school to get the effect just right, then switched to English. Anna thought this was hilarious.

"I'm not overdoing it, am I?" I asked, a little nervous.

"No, no, it's just that accent makes me laugh," she grinned. "Like an upper class British accent sounds in English? I want to hear you order a beer. Por favor thenyor, una thervetha." She exaggerated the lisp and accent, like Daffy Duck doing Peter Lorre.

We laughed together. "I'm not old enough to order beer," I pointed out. "I'm only eighteen."

"Old enough in Mexico," she said.

I shook my head which reminded me of the clip-on earrings she had attached. They had begun to pinch a little and I wondered how long I could stand to wear them. Would an afternoon of this masquerade be enough to satisfy Ed?

Anna handed me a magazine, Cosmopolitan. I blushed a little when I noticed the titles of some of the articles. "Just open it somewhere and start reading," she said. "I'll give hand signals for how you are doing."

"Huh?"

She demonstrated, "Finger up for raise the pitch, wavy hand for more melody, crossed fingers for remember to lisp." She grinned. "An okay sign for you're doing fine."

I flipped the magazine open and read for a bit, some article on choosing an apartment. Anna gave me signals like a mad, transvestite version of a third base coach. She added one without saying anything, grinning widely to show that I should smile more when I spoke. After five minutes of reading and several okay signs in a row, I stopped.

"Anna," I said, "why are you doing this?"

"You wanna just talk for a while?"

I nodded. I'd finished the first article and the next one was on how to know when to take the initiative with your date and I didn't really think I wanted to know Cosmo's take on that subject.

"Why am I helping you? Or why have I done what I did with my own life?" she asked.

"Why...why everything I guess?"

She shrugged. "Ed asked me to help someone, I've helped other girls find themselves. Why not you?"

I sighed. "Anna, I'm not like you? I never wanted anything like this? I'm just doing a favor for Ed? 'Cause he has this crazy idea about me?"

"Uh huh?" she said, but not as if she believed me. "You're good at this, Kit. Maybe you never knew what you wanted?"

"I ought to know what I want."

"People ought to," she agreed. "It's surprising how few do, though."

I stood up and went to look in the big mirrors again. My image seemed just as strange as ever--or did it? I felt irrational about the whole project, I wanted to go put on my own clothes and call my mom to come get me; Whitewater Canyon was less than 30 miles away across the spur of the mountain, it wouldn't take her long to get here.

Or I could call Jay. It'd be easier for him to get away, to come and get me. I would have plenty of time to change back. But--the idea of Jay seeing me dressed this way struck me again. There beside the pool, less than six months ago, he had wished that I were a girl. Now I looked like one.

I touched my hair, an earring, my lips, the padding on my chest. "It's all so crazy." I didn't want to think about Jay.

"Life is crazy, chiquita," said Anna. "Would it be so bad to find out you would rather be a girl? You've got Ed to help you, it's not like a lot of other kids who find out such a thing and don't know what to do about it or can't afford it or...."

"I don't know what to do," I said. "I don't want to believe what you're saying." I didn't want to think about Ed and his plans, either.

She came over to stand beside me. She gave me a hug and I hugged her back. "Life is crazy," she repeated.

"I don't want to believe what you're saying," I said again. "What Ed seems to believe, it would mean...I'm someone else, not the person I've always thought I was?"

"You don't have to believe," she suggested. "An agnostic can still pray to God and maybe God listens?"

I smiled a little shakily. "Go call Ed to come over," I told her. "Before I panic and take all this stuff off."