Modern Bride
by Czolgolz
copyright 2000

For the longest time I blamed Lori for what had happened. It seemed easy to lay the guilt on her doorstep. It had been her problem after all, I just was trying to help. But after it was over, I realized that I was the one to blame, if you could call it that. I could have called it all off at any time I wanted to. It’s just that I didn’t.

It started my senior year of high school, round Easter. Ken Woolsey, class of ’99, that was me. I was gearing up for graduation, applying to colleges, doing the usual senior pranks. If you had told me at the time, I never would have believed how differently my life was going to turn out from the way I had planned.

I remember the day the whole thing started. I was still living with my mother at the time (my father was never part of my life, nor is he part of this story). I came home from school to find my sister, Lori, waiting for me.

“Hey sis,” I said as I pecked her on the cheek. “What brings you by?”

“What, can’t a girl visit her family?” She smiled. At twenty-two she was a few years older than me. Despite the age difference, we were rather close. She had moved out a few years ago and it was always nice to see her.

“Just that you don’t come by too often. I was wondering what the occasion was,” I said as I began to fix myself a snack.

“Well, I’ve got a bit of exciting news.”

“I’m all ears,” I replied with my mouth full.

“The Tri-state bridal show is coming to town in a few weeks!”

“Gosh, that’s wonderful,” I said, not bothering to mask my lack of enthusiasm.

“No, you don’t understand. It’s a huge trade show. And I’m going to get to display three of my gowns there!”

That was actually big news. For years my sister had been trying to break into the fashion industry. I supposed working in the fashion industry was a lot like being a musician or a writer: thousands of rejections before you got the big break. My sister had never had a success like this before. If it worked out for her there, it might be the jump-start her career needed.

“Congratulations,” I said, more excited this time. “Don’t forget us when you’re a millionaire industry leader.”

Lori laughed, nervously. “God, if only. Breaks like this come along maybe once every five years. If the customers are interested in my gowns then maybe one of the big companies will take me on as a designer. God, I hope I’ve picked the right gowns.”

“Well, why do you have to use just three? I know you’ve designed about a dozen, I’m sure there’d be room for a couple more.”

“It doesn’t work like that. The gowns will be modeled by women. I’m only allotted three trips down the runway, there isn’t time for more.”

“Ah. So who’s going to be modeling your gowns? Elle MacPherson? Cindy Crawford?”

“Ha, ha. No, I actually can’t afford to pay anyone to model.”

“So you got a friend to do it?” I asked, hoping that maybe she’d introduce us.

“Well, actually I’ll be modeling my own work. It’s unusual, but I couldn’t find anyone willing to sit through all the fittings and measurements for no pay.”

“Well, I couldn’t imagine a prettier bride,” I told her. This wasn’t a mindless, brotherly comment, either. Lori was a lovely woman. I guess you’d describe her as statuesque: just under six feet tall, muscular (though not grossly so), with short black hair, long legs, and a pretty face. We bore a striking resemblance to each other. I think if we had been closer in age we could have passed for twins.

“You’ll come, of course?” asked Lori.

The thrill of going to a bridal show was lost on me, but I knew it would mean a lot to my sister so I assented.

Mom came home and soon the girls were deep in conversation about the upcoming convention. Their fashion talk soon lost me and I retreated to my room.

*

Two weeks later I had one of the worst experiences of my life. I was sitting in my science class when the principal hurried in. He searched the rows until he had located me, and motioned for me to join him in the hall. This is a scary enough experience for a high school student, but he didn’t look angry. He looked upset and worried, which was even more disturbing than if he had been about to punish me.

“Your sister has been in a car accident,” he told me flatly.

“How is she?” I blurted, dreading the answer.

“I don’t know. Your mother just called from the hospital. I’ll drive you.”
*
‘She’ll be okay. She’ll be okay. Probably just a couple of stitches. Hell, they make anyone in a car accident go to the hospital, she’s probably just being held for observation. Her car probably is beat up and they wanted mom to drive her home.’ I told myself this on the hellish ride to the hospital. Of course, it was hard to convince myself. If there was no problem, then Mom would have said so on the phone. If Lori wasn’t hurt then they probably wouldn’t have called me at school.

I nearly football tackled the duty nurse in an effort to find out where my sister was. “Room 701,” she replied, calmly. “And don’t worry, she’ll be fine.”

I began to breathe easier. That was a hell of a scare, and if it’s never happened to you, then you’re lucky. I burst into the room to find Mom kneeling next to Lori’s bed. I rushed over.

Lori was fine in the sense that she would suffer no permanent damage from the accident. But she was hurt. Both of her legs were plastered up to the thighs, and elevated on slings. Her face was badly bruised and one of her eyes was swollen shut. Later I found out she had been speeding a bit, hit a wet spot, and lost control of her car.

I tried to put on a brave face. “Well young lady, you gave us quite…” I then broke down sobbing for the first time since I was about seven. I couldn’t help it. My crying set off Mom and Lori and we hugged each other. Finally, we regained control.

“Why did this have to happen? Why the hell did this have to happen?” moaned Lori, inconsolable.

“Shhh, honey,” said Mom. “It’s okay. There’ll be no scarring, and you’ll be out of here in about a week. The casts come off in a month…”

“No, you don’t get it. The bridal show! It’s in less than a month!”

“Well, you can still go,” I stupidly pointed out.

Lori sobbed again. “I can go, but I can’t model.”

“Why not?” I insisted, demonstrating my utter ignorance about such things. “You’ll still be able to walk on crutches or use a wheelchair.”

I could tell Lori was getting angry, but it passed. “I guess you wouldn’t understand. Look, the people at the convention will be planning the happiest day of their lives. They’ll have nothing on their minds but how perfect they want their day to be, and how they would look in the gowns. I won’t be able to do anything but limp along, and my face will still be a giant bruise. If a bride to be looked at me she’d think of how hideous I looked, and that is not a mental image I want them to have.”

“There has got to be a way!” I shouted. I hated to see my sister so upset, on the heels of a leg-crushing, Buick-totaling accident. “Hey, how expensive could a model be? Really? We can pool our funds and afford it. We’ll just call an agency and tell them what we need. I’m sure we can find a college girl who’d work for a couple hundred…”

Lori shook her head. “Thank you Ken. I know you want to help. But in the fashion industry, you design the gown with the model in mind. Skin color, hair color, body shape, height, weight, you get the picture. Remember all the measurements you had to get for your tux at the dance last year? Well this is about a thousand times worse, and there’s no time for me to do any alterations. Unless you could find a six-foot tall girl with pale skin, a muscular build, black hair, and long legs, I’m sunk.”

I’d never seen her that sad. A nurse came in and told us we should let Lori get some rest. Mom and I retreated to the cafeteria.

“Ken, I want you to think,” said Mom when we sat down. “This is for your sister. Can you think of anyone you know who looks like your sister? A friend, a classmate, a teacher, anyone? It would kill your sister if she had to cancel now. She’s been building up to this moment for as long as I can remember.”

I wracked my brains. No one came to mind. Few women were close to being tall enough. The few tall girls I could think of were either heavyset, very skinny, or otherwise had the wrong body type. Even with what little I knew about modeling, I was aware that altering the dresses was much more involved than lengthening a pair of pants. There wouldn’t be time to do the necessary work that would be required to make the dresses suit them.

“I’m drawing a blank. Do you know anyone?” Mom shook her head. “Well, I guess we can call some modeling agencies tomorrow, though I don’t have much hope. God, don’t we know anyone about six foot, pale skin, dark hair…” Mom stopped short. It seemed she was staring at me, but I guessed she was just thinking.

“What, did you think of someone?” I asked hopefully.

“Maybe. I want to ask your sister something.” She left quickly, and wouldn’t say anything else about the subject that afternoon.

*
That night, after we had bid Lori goodbye, we sat at home picking at the frozen pizza we were having for dinner. We were relieved that Lori had survived the accident okay, but depressed because Lori was about to miss her big opportunity. Finally, Mom asked me if she could ask a serious question.

“Ken, I’ve been thinking about this all day. I want to ask you something, and I hope it won’t make you angry.”

“You can ask me anything, Mom,” I replied, a tad nervous. Why would I be angry?

“You know what a big day the convention was supposed to be for Lori, right?”

“Of course.”

“Well, I think, with your help, she can still display her gowns.”

“You know I’d do anything to help, Mom.”

“You may not want to do this, Ken. Forgive me for what I’m about to ask you to do, but at the same time, think about it.”

“Mom, why are you getting so weird? Out with it!”

“Ken, I think you should model your sister’s gowns for her.”

I was about to get angry at her for joking about something so serious. But then I realized that she was not trying to be funny.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Just listen. Five minutes.” That was kind of an unwritten rule in our family. Whenever any of us got into an argument, we’d ask for five minutes to state our side, without interruption. Not always easy, but it saved a lot of yelling and hollering back and forth. I fell silent, preparing my myriad of reasons why I wouldn’t participate in this insane plan.

“Ken, it struck me at the hospital today. You fit the body type! You’re tall, you’re kind of muscular, especially if you were a female. You have dark hair and look a lot like your sister. If you let me fix you up, with makeup, a new hairstyle, and padding, you could pass for a girl. You go to the convention, walk down a runway three times, and then leave. It could save your sister’s career, and no one would have to know.”

“Yeah, except for the thousands of people at the convention.”

“Do a lot of your friends go to bridal shows?”

“Well, no. Of course not.”

“No one you know will be there, Ken. No one will know you are a guy. Only us, and we’d be there to help you out. We’d never mention it again afterwards.”

“I refuse. I’m not a girl, Mom.”

“Ken, sleep on it, okay? I know what it sounds like now, but at least think about it. Could you do that for me?”

“I suppose.”

*

That night I lay awake, thinking about my mother’s ridiculous plan. Model my sister’s gowns indeed! What the hell was she thinking? I loved my sister, but did she honestly think that her teenage son would put on a gown and model it in front of hundreds of people? I mean, I wouldn’t just have to dress like a woman, I’d have to dress like a friggin’ bride! There was no article of clothing more feminine than a bridal gown, except maybe the string bikini. Well forget it. I had my pride, and that was just a little too humiliating. Lori would have to make do somehow.

I thought of Lori. It was odd, really. Almost no one ever winds up choosing the same career they wanted when they were five (I wanted to be Mr. T), but not Lori. For as long as I could remember, fashion was in her blood. She’d design little outfits for her Barbies, draw dresses in art class, and spend every spare cent on fashion magazines. After she got out of high school, she worked nights as a waitress to afford to go to the top of the line design school. She’d stay up half the night working on some new outfit that she had created. Her fingers were constantly bandaged, due to the repeated pokes with the needle.

While she could create just about any item of women’s clothing she put her mind to, it was in the field of wedding dresses that she shone. Even with my lack of understanding of such things I could tell that her gowns were something else. But to actually wear one?

The industry was cruel. Month after month she would try to get an interview with some major clothes company. Month after month she was given the run around. On occasion she would be granted an interview with some low-level executive, but nothing ever came of it.

I thought of this bridal convention thing. Every engaged woman in the area would be there. What if a bunch of them approached her wanting her to design gowns for their weddings? What if Lori’s dresses caught the eyes of some of the industry representatives there? Could this be the big break she was looking for? Couldn’t this make her dreams come true?

My sister had always been there for me. She drove me around before I got my license, helped me with my homework, gave me advice about women… but this was different. It’s not like she ever had to pretend to be a man for me! Then again, it wasn’t like I ever had a career opportunity hanging in the balance, either.

Was I being just a little short-sighted? Mom was right, it’s not like anyone would see me up close, especially not anyone I knew. I loved my sister and I knew this would be a gift to her she’d never forget, even better than the humorous fake severed arm I had given her for her last birthday.

But then, even supposing I did do the honorable thing, would it really work? I mean, if I anyone realized I was a guy it wouldn’t be merely embarrassing for me (and embarrassing it would be) but it could get her blackballed from the bridal circuit. If word got out that her gowns were being modeled by a man, then she’d wish that she had modeled them herself, casts or no. I’d need more convincing if I were to do this thing.

*

The next morning I approached Mom about her idea. “I guess maybe I could possibly think about doing this. I know what it would mean to Lori. But, well, do you really think we could pull it off? I mean look at this.” I held up a bridal magazine that Lori had left in the bathroom and pointed to the cover model. “This woman is gorgeous! Maybe I’m no Mr. Universe, but I’d like to think that I’d look a bit silly in a wedding dress!”

Mom nodded. “Ken, of course you are right. If you threw on a dress right now you’d look ridiculous. But I think, with padding, tons of makeup, a some lessons on feminine deportment, you could pass for a woman. No one would expect you to look like the cover girl there, all we’d need if for you to look like a woman. You’re skinny enough, no beard, and your jaw isn’t too prominent. Your trips down the runway would be less than a minute each, and after that we’d forget this ever happened.”

“Hmmm. Maybe it’s just the male programming in me, but I’m still having my doubts.”

“Listen, honey. Lori left some clothes here the other day. Maybe if you tried them on…”

“What, you think I’d feel more comfortable?” I barked, fearing she was mocking my manhood.

“No, no one expects that. I was thinking that if you saw yourself in women’s clothes, with padding, makeup and all, you’d realize that under the lights you could pass yourself off as a woman.”

I was dubious. “C’mon,” said Mom. “It’ll only take a couple of hours. If you aren’t convinced, then just change back and we’ll pretend it never happened.”

I sighed. “I’m agreeing to nothing, you understand? I just want to see whether this is at all possible. If it is, I’ll decide then, not now.”

A few minutes later I stood naked and alone under the harsh bathroom lights. Was I really about to do this? Let my mom, my own mother, doll me up like a girl? Well, what’s the worst that could happen, I thought, as memories of Anthony Perkins dressing as his mother and knifing tourists flashed through my mind.

I looked down at my naked body. Points against me passing as a woman: my height (though that was actually a blessing in this case), my slightly muscular frame, and my penis. Points for: I wasn’t too hairy, or too big, and my voice wasn’t too terribly deep.

Mom knocked on the door and tossed in a pair of dark panty hose. “Put them on like socks, not pants,” she told me through the door. “They’re dark, they’ll cover your leg hair.”

I yanked them on, wondering how women managed to wear these things every day. Finally I got them on more or less correctly. I bulged out in the front, the hose designer obviously didn’t have individuals with penises in mind. Still, my leg hair was covered, and I guessed there wasn’t anything too obviously masculine about my legs from the thighs down.

“Are you doing okay?” called my mother.

“Yeah, it’s kind of odd to be wearing these things on my legs instead of over my face.”

“Mr. Funny Guy. Do they feel okay?”

“Kind of weird, you know? Tighter than pants, tighter than socks. So close to the skin. But soft too.”

“Wait till you get used to them. You’ll get sick of they way they are constantly getting torn soon enough.”

“Whoa, I’m not ‘getting used’ to anything. So far as you know this will be a one-time thing.”

“Yeah, I know. I didn’t mean anything by it. Here, try this on.”

She passed in a gray, full-length, pleated skirt. It zipped up in the back, I slipped it on. In all my eighteen years I had never put on a skirt, even for fun. It was an odd sensation; I think that if my legs hadn’t already been wrapped in panty hose I would have felt like I was standing there with nothing on. I looked at myself in the mirror. Well, the skirt covered up my legs, so I was alright there. I knew that a wedding dress would be full near the bottom with only the bride’s shoes visible. So I was okay downstairs, I supposed. But above the waist was another matter. I had seen a few of Lori’s gowns before and I knew that most of them hugged a woman’s figure. I certainly didn’t have the curves required to slip into something like that. I began to feel a little relieved. If I looked silly enough, maybe Mom would forget about this crazy plan.

As usual, Mom had thought ahead. She passed me something through the door. “Slip this on.”

It looked like a corset, only smaller. It wrapped about my stomach and closed in the back with hooks and eyes.

“Mom, what the hell is this?”

“Don’t worry about it, just put it on.”

“Don’t worry about it? Is this a corset? Where did you get it?”

“I ordered it off TV, okay?” said Mom, embarrassed. “It, uh, can help hide a woman’s stomach.” I smiled. Mom was fighting the middle-aged woman’s battle against cellulite. “Just put it on, it’ll make it look like you have curves.”

“Lucky me.”

“Be sure it’s on its tightest setting.”

I yanked and pulled, took a deep breath, and groaned. After about ten minutes I had it cinched at its second-smallest size. I figured that was the best I could do.

“How are you doing?” called my mom.

“I can taste my kidneys.”

“I’m sorry honey, but it’s the only way you’ll fit into that bridal gown. Remember, if you do this, it’ll only be for a few hours.”

“Yeah, who needs to breathe?” In my reflection I looked like a boy in a skirt and corset. Maybe I’d look less stupid when I put on some kind of top.

Mom passed me what I’d be wearing. It was a blouse, a white one. It was poofy and trimmed with lace. I looked at it dubiously. “Well, here goes nothing.”

“No, wait,” said Mom. “We have to give you boobs first. Can I come in?”

“Sure.” Mom suppressed a grin when she saw how I looked. “Was this my idea?” I asked, defensively.

“I know. Sorry.”

“So what now?”

“We have to give you breasts.”

“Great. How?”

“Turn around.” I knew what was coming, even though I hoped it was wrong. My slipped my arms through the straps of a bra and closed it in the back. It felt very tight and looked quite stupid.

“Mom, I don’t exactly fill this thing out.”

Mom rolled up a couple of washcloths and stuffed them in the cups. They stuck out stupidly, like a couple of falsies on one of the ‘Kids in the Hall’ actors. “Do you honestly think Lori would look worse than this?”

“Wait till we’re finished. How you holding up?”

“Cold and uncomfortable. And I’d be humiliated as well, if I thought anyone else would know about what I’m doing.”

“You’ll be fine.”

“No one will know what I’m doing, right?”

“Honey, I swear I wouldn’t tell anyone. I know this isn’t your idea of a fun afternoon. If you agree to go to the show we’ll tell your sister, no one else.”

“You know I’m only doing this for Lori. Only because this is her big chance.” Even though Mom hadn’t implied anything, I felt I had to justify what I was doing.

“Honey, I’m sure Lori will never forget this.”

“Yeah, well, I’d just as soon she did forget.”

Mom had helped me into the blouse and buttoned it up in the front. I looked in the mirror. The change was disconcerting. While I was shirtless, the corset and bra lucked just plain dumb. Now, they simulated the curves and chest of a young woman. It appeared that I had an hourglass figure and an ample chest. I knew I couldn’t survive in an outfit that showed off too much flesh, but with the long shirt and long sleeved blouse it seemed I had the body of a woman. Wedding dresses didn’t show much flesh, and I knew that if my Mom could fix up my face well enough, then I’d have to excuse other than my own fears to duck out of going to the bridal show.

“There you go. Looking better already. You’d never be able to do this on a daily basis, but I really think no one would notice if you tried it for a few hours.” Mom was trying to convince me to help my sister, that was for sure. But by saying I could never pass on a daily basis, she was telling me I wouldn’t be less of a man. I shrugged.

Mom took out a brush and spritzed up my short dark hair into something a little more, if not feminine, then neater. It was kind of an androgynous do. Mom didn’t seem happy with it. “There’s only so much I can do with hair this short. If you agree to do this, your sister will have to help you out.”

She then took me to the well-lit kitchen and began on my makeup. Draping a towel over my shoulders, she instructed me to ‘just relax.’ I wondered how well she’d relax if someone were trying to make her look like a man.

First came the foundation. It was freezing, and I felt like my face was caked with mud. I kept having to keep myself from touching it, it felt so goopy and gross. Then, gently and carefully, Mom reddened my cheeks with a hint of rouge. “The blushing bride,” she giggled.

“I’m warning you, Mom…”

“Lighten up, Ken. I’m not trying to humiliate you or make you feel like a sissy. We both know you’re doing this so that you can maybe help out your sister. Don’t be so defensive.”

She began to apply the eyeliner. That took forever, I kept getting the impression she was about to jam the makeup pencil in my eye. Finally, she finished. Then she took out a mascara brush and lengthened my eyelashes. It felt disgusting, like I had crusty eye boogers in my lashes. Lastly, she took out a red lipstick and colored my lips. “Finished!” she said happily.

I groped for the mirror, but she stopped me. She refused to let me look until she had taken care of everything. ‘Everything’ unfortunately, included a manicure. I initially balked, but after she explained that the only after-effects would be well trimmed nails, I assented. Soon my nails had been filed, trimmed, polished, and painted pink. Mom assured me the paint would come off quickly with a little alcohol.

Finally, she clipped a silver chain around my neck, a smaller one around my wrist, and two clip-on earrings on my lobes. She then told me I could look in the mirror.

I won’t get into cliches like I didn’t recognize myself or that a stranger stared back at me. I knew it was me; no amount of makeup can change one’s eyes or the shape of their nose. But it was a very disturbing change, nonetheless.

I remember once, fooling around on the internet, that I found a commercial photo morph site. Most of the photos advertised were to create fantasy pictures, such as standing next to a celebrity, but there were a few gender change photos. The owner of the site boasted that they could make you look like you would have, had you been born the opposite gender. That was how I felt now.

It was my reflection, yet different. All padding and corset thing gave me the impression of natural curves. If I hadn’t known that it was my body, I’d have assumed that its owner had a flat tummy, a curvy frame, and an ample pair of breasts. As for what was under the skirt, I didn’t even want to think about what people would assume was under there!

The face, however, was what really blew my mind. It was my face, and yet it wasn’t. It looked more like Lori’s. Softer. Well maintained. Not rough, smooth. The face of a teenage girl.

I stared and stared into the mirror, observing myself from all sides. I didn’t like it, not one bit. I knew that with a more careful makeup job, a new hair style, and a little practice, I could easily pass as a girl for a couple of hours. Why the hell was my beard taking so long to come in? Why didn’t I keep my new year’s resolution to bulk up? Even my height, the one thing that should have made me look masculine, was working against me: I had been chosen to replace Lori for that very reason.

“So what do you think?” asked Mom.

“I dunno…”

“Be honest. It’s a heck of a disguise. Do you honestly think anyone would recognize you?”

“Maybe not recognize me, but could anyone guess my true gender?”

“I doubt it. You’ll need a lot of work before you go on…”

“Hang on now, I never agreed to anything.”

“Ken, look at yourself. Tell me why you couldn’t dress like this for one afternoon.”

I looked. I tried to relax, make myself look a little more normal. Like I was just a teenage girl, about to do a favor for her sister. ‘Calm down,’ I told myself. ‘You are helping out your sister who is lying in a hospital bed right now. You are about to do an honorable thing. This will not make you less of a man.’ I thought back to the previous fall when I had a bit roll in the school’s production of ‘Music Man.’ Maybe if I just thought of this as an acting roll…

I stared at the feminized reflection. I ventured a smile. The girl in the mirror smiled back. I wondered what I’d look like to a stranger.

“Have you talked to Lori about this?”

“Yes. She said she’d only consent to it if you agreed totally. She said she refused to do anything that would make you uncomfortable.”

That was my sister. Always thinking of others first.

“Do you really think we could pull this off? I’m going to be scared to death to attempt this.”

“You sister is the industry expert. How about you go see her and see what she thinks?”

“How about not.”

“Well, why don’t I take a picture of you, let her be the judge.”

“Okay, but we’ll have to burn it afterwards.”

“Great,” said Mom. “Just a couple of more touches.” She touched up my makeup, and then got out a pair of her heels. They didn’t fit, so I had to cram my toes into a pair of her sneakers. She then handed me a purse, which I clutched awkwardly in front of me. She snapped the Polaroid. I watched as it developed.

The blurry snap-shot further obscured my true gender. To the layman, I was sure I’d look like a shy girl with a bad hair-do. The only way I could get out of this was to flat out refuse.

*

We found Lori morosely staring at an infomercial on her television. She looked bad; her bruises were starting to swell up in earnest, and she had a dismal air about her which immediately brought me down.

“How’s it hanging, sis?” I asked.

“Ugh. Just trying to put off calling the bridal show and canceling.” She glanced at me out of the corner of her eye, as if hoping I could somehow prevent that. I took a deep breath.

“Listen, Lori. I guess you’ve heard what Mom was thinking.”

“Yes. And I want you to know you don’t have to do it. I mean, It’d be great if you could do it, but it has to be your choice.” Lori couldn’t keep the hope out of her voice.

“Well, look at this picture. Do you think I, you know, could pass?”

Lori took it. I had expected her to enthusiastically agree that I would make a beautiful bride. I guess I was a little shocked when she looked rather skeptical.

“Maybe. You’d have to spend every night for the next few weeks practicing makeup and deportment. It wouldn’t be easy, but I bet you could pass…for a couple of hours at least.”

I began to get annoyed. Not only did it look like I’d have to appear in public as a girl, I’d have to bust my butt to do it.

“Lori, what exactly would I have to do?”

“Well, Mom and I would have to give you a lot of lessons on how to act like a young lady. Femininity is more in the head than in the body. You may look like a woman, but if you don’t act like one then you’re more likely to be found out. Also, we’ll have to have about a dozen fittings until I can get all the gowns adjusted to your body.”

“Great.” I was starting to get annoyed. I think Lori knew it.

“Ken, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. I’m not going to force you or try to guilt you. I’d be asking you to put in a lot of work, in addition do doing something I’m sure you don’t want to do. And I can’t offer you anything in return. It’s your choice, bro. But I want you to know that I’d spend the rest of my life trying to repay you the favor.”

It would have been so easy to back out; no one could really have faulted me on it. Dozens of fittings? Lessons on femininity? Sorry, I had better things to do.

But of course, I didn’t say no. I owed it to my sister. That’s what family is all about. You make sacrifices for those you love. You do what it takes to make them happy.

“Okay. I’ll do it. But the first time I hear a smart-ass comment from either of you, I quit.”

Lori smiled. And it wasn’t simple smile, either. Her whole face lit up. It was like I had just given her the best news of her life. It probably seemed that was to her then. During the weeks that followed, I kept having to think back to that smile to remind myself why I was doing what I was doing.

*

Against hospital orders Lori had checked out that night. She said there wasn’t a moment to loose in preparing me for the convention. Soon I was spending every afternoon and evening developing my feminine nature.

It was hell. Mom and Lori were relentless. It was only going to be for a few hours, and yet they insisted that I had to be totally comfortable, totally natural as a woman.

“Representatives from some of the top design firms are going to be there,” Lori told me excitedly, the first night. “This is how careers are made! If you help me with this, I could be the next Elaine Kessie! Or the next Bertha McRoy! Or Estaphania Gomez!” I had no idea who any of those people were; designers, presumably.

“Look, let’s just get this over with. When you become famous you can set me up with some of your top models.”

“Oh, I was hoping that you’d be my top model.”

“Maybe you’d like to find someone else to do this.”

Lori fell quiet, but that wasn’t the first moment of friction. I felt she was being just a little too demanding of me; it’s not like I was getting paid. Sever times I walked out, telling her I refused to do it anymore. I always returned, feeling too guilty to leave at the last minute. Lori would always cut my apology short with one of her own.

For three weeks this went on. The second I arrived home from school I would practically be forced to put on some new manner of feminine garment. At first, I had naively assumed that all I would be wearing would be the wedding gowns. Not the case! The wedding gowns weren’t adjusted to my size yet. I wouldn’t be trying those on until the end. No, for the time being I had to practice being a girl in Lori’s clothes.

Lori, being a designer, made most of her clothes and found them easy enough to alter to fit me. She never let me wear her slacks, she insisted on dresses and skirts. I had to practice wearing the garments without legs, at least that was her explanation. How to sit (never spread my legs, how to cross my legs like a girl, how to smooth the skirt when sitting and standing, how to make sure I never tucked it into my panty hose). The panty hose were another thing. I began to see why women were annoyed with them. They were constantly tearing, catching on things, making me sweat; not to mention they were especially inconvenient when using the restroom.

I asked my sister why I had to wear these things constantly. She frequently went barelegged. Her answer was simple: she shaved her legs, I didn’t. As a desperate attempt to rid myself of the restrictive pantyhose, I agreed to shave my legs. I’d have to do it for the wedding show anyway.

It was weird shaving. I was never overly hairy, but I always had a bit of fuzz on my legs. Now they were smooth. Girlishly smooth. I knew it would be a while after the show before I could wear shorts. Still, at least now I could go barelegged under my dresses. Of course, I still had to wear underwear. And of course all my sister had were lacy panties. I guess I could have insisted on my own Fruit of the Looms, but what did it matter, ultimately?

Now that my legs weren’t covered by hose, I felt almost naked, like I was wearing a bathrobe and nothing else. I kept looking down nervously. My sister would constantly point out my unease; that was how she justified doing this, so that when it came time for me to do it in public I wouldn’t see so out of sorts.

My tops were another thing. Lori was never a shy girl and didn’t mind showing off a bit of flesh. At first I insisted on wearing long sleeved shirts, bulky sweaters, and conservative dresses. But it was a warm spring that year and it soon became uncomfortable, even in the house. Mom and Lori were insistent: if I wanted to wear something cooler, I’d have to shave my armpits. Well, at least no one at school would notice that.

After I had denuded my underarms, Lori made me take off my shirt and spent twenty minutes plucking my torso with tweezers until the few strands around my nipples and under my navel were gone. They had taken a long time to grow and I wondered how long it would take them to come back. I thought like most teenage boys: macho guys have chest hair.

Once I was sufficiently hairless, Lori allowed me to wear her looser, cooler outfits, like sleeveless sweaters. They looked cute on Lori, but I felt they looked dumb on me, even as a girl. My arms were a little muscular, and I felt that an outfit like this would look stupid on anyone with arms like mine. Lori disagreed. “Lots of women have powerful upper bodies. Trust me, you look athletic, not freakish. Besides, my arms are about as strong as yours, so watch what you say.”

I looked at myself in the bare-armed sweater in a new light. Maybe Lori was right, I was probably just being sexist, not thinking that a powerfully built woman would be attractive. What did it matter anyway? No one would see me like this.

The sweaters weren’t the only top I wore, of course. Some of Lori’s outfits had plunging necklines. Obviously I couldn’t wear anything too revealing, but many shirts revealed a fair amount of upper chest. Not only that, but some of her sweaters had extra large neck holes, so that quite a bit of my bare shoulders were visible. Unmanly? And how!

But that was only the beginning. Shoes in my size were procured and I was forced to wear them. They had high heels of course. It took me well over a week before I could walk in them naturally.

But of course just wearing the clothes wasn’t sufficient for my loving family. No, I had to learn how a girl is expected to act. And that meant a hell of a lot of hard work.

Who would have thought I’d have to learn how to walk again? When Lori told me that was the first thing I’d have to practice, I laughed. Women walked forward one foot at a time, same as guys. It didn’t seem so funny after about a week of practicing my posture and carriage.

Women, as it turned out, walk differently than men do. Lori took me people watching at the mall to demonstrate. Men slouch, they slump over. They lead with their head and chest and roughly plant one foot ahead and to the side of the other. Women, on the other hand, lead with their hips. One hip forward, then the other. That’s what gives them the ‘wiggle’ in their walks. They step differently as well. Instead of extending their feet directly forward like a man, they place their left foot directly in front of the right one and vice versa (next time you have a chance to observe a group of people, watch for this phenomena. You’ll be surprised how obvious it is, once you know it exists).

You wouldn’t think that such little details would make such a big difference, but they do. That night, as I practiced walking in front of a mirror, I was shocked at how girlish my stride was, once I aped Lori’s manner of walking. Wiggling hips, dainty steps, straight posture; I supposed that Lori hadn’t just been compulsive when she insisted that I relearn how to walk. Since walking would be about the only thing I would do at the show, it had to look right. Still, I felt like I was in physical therapy or something: place your right foot in front of the left, stand up straight. It got old fast.

Another thing I constantly had to practice was my voice. While I wouldn’t be expected to say anything during the show, it would be unwise to assume that I wouldn’t have to speak to someone backstage. Lori coached me.

“Your voice isn’t too bad, but it’s still the voice of a man. Try not to speak too loud; just above a whisper should be enough. Don’t deliberately try to make your voice higher, you’d sound like a cartoon. Just push more air into your voice when you talk, don’t say much, and relax.” I asked her how she got to know so much about impersonating a female voice.

“Off the internet. Some help page for cross dressers.” Was I embarrassed? I’ll give you two guesses. Lori finally stopped badgering me about my voice when I managed to order a pizza over the phone and have the person on the other end address me as ‘ma’am.’

While I refused to listen to detailed lessons about makeup, Lori did insist I know the basics. She’d do my face up for the show, but it wouldn’t hurt for me to know how to touch everything up. I’m sure I knew more about makeup than any other boy in my class at that time.

After a couple of weeks of training, Mom and Lori decided I was as ready as I’d ever be. I couldn’t help but agree. Looking into the mirror, I looked back at the twin sister I never had. Her clothes, makeup, deportment, and walk…they were all feminine. Standing there wearing a woman’s sweater and jacket, with a skirt and heels, I certainly didn’t feel like a man. The corset caused my stomach to turn in and the fake breast forms Lori had bought me gave me a convincing bust. My hair was still the same; I wouldn’t let Lori do anything to it until just before the show.

“You look great,” said Lori. “You’ll do fine. Now we’ll have to begin on the wedding dress fittings.”

“Yeah, great,” I replied, sadly.

“What’s wrong honey?” asked my mom.

“What’s wrong? Your son is standing here in a skirt and a bra and you ask what’s wrong? I haven’t had a free night in weeks! I feel like I’m living a double life! Like I’m being brainwashed! I’ve been practicing acting like a woman for so long that I have to keep myself from doing it at school. All I know is that I’ll be glad when this is all over.”

Lori came up to me and hugged me. “I’m sorry Ken. I guess in the rush of everything I kept forgetting how much work this would be for you. You need a night to relax. Can I take you out to dinner tonight? I want to thank you for all your help. Both of you.”

I smiled. “I guess in all the rush I forgot how important this show is to you. Sure, dinner sounds great. Let me change.”

“Well, why bother? You make such a good woman that no one would notice.”

“Har de har har.”

“I’m serious,” said Lori. “You’re always talking about how uncomfortable you are at the thought of dressing like this in public; well, maybe you just need a little practice.”

I was about to tell her to stop joking, when I thought about it. It was going to be nerve-wracking enough doing this at the bridal show. Maybe if I had a little practice beforehand then I’d be a little more comfortable. Better to make a fool of myself in a restaurant, then on stage in front of hundreds of people.

“Okay, but I get to pick the restaurant.” Mom and Lori seemed both shocked and excited that I had agreed.

“So where would you like to eat?” asked Mom.

“Fred’s Steak Emporium.”

“That’s all the way out in the city,” groaned my sister.

“I know. I can’t risk running into anyone I know.”

“But Fred’s? Didn’t they get shut down by the Board of Health?”

“I’m sure they’re reopened. C’mon, it’s there or nowhere.” Fred’s was a dive, it was true. But since so few customers frequented the place I figured that fewer people would see me.

As we headed out to the city I began to wonder the intelligence of my rash decision. True, I was interested to know if I had a change of ‘passing’ in front of all the people at the bridal show, but was this the best way to do it? What if someone found me out tonight? What if I got caught?

When we arrived my confidence nearly failed, but Mom and Lori insisted I go in. I braced myself at the front door (which now proudly bore a ‘B’ rating from the grudging health board) and steadied myself. I straightened my skirt, ran my fingers through my wayward hair, and followed the rest of my family inside.

As luck would have it, there were only about a half dozen customers in the greasy spoon. We selected a booth in the corner and sat down. The waiter approached us and handed us our menus. “What would you ladies like to drink?”

Well, it happened. It was thrilling in a way, as if I were a spy whose shaky cover had worked. At least I’d be a little more confidant when I walked down the catwalk the following week.

I glanced at the unappetizing menu. “Well,” I asked, making an effort to keep my voice soft. “What does everyone want? I think I’ll have the T-bone with a baked potato…”

Lori motioned me to lean forward so she could whisper to me. “Remember, you are a girl tonight. Try to eat like one. I suggest a salad.”

Well, maybe it was the fact that Lori had agreed to pay for my meal, but she did have a point. How many women eat big juicy steaks? Besides, I’d probably have less risk of getting e coli poisoning this way.

After three wilted salads with watery Cokes and stale crackers, we were ready to call it a night. It hadn’t been a relaxing night for me, just the opposite. It’s not that I was overly worried about being caught; I hadn’t had so much of a casual glance in my direction since we walked in. What was stressful was that I could never let down my guard for a second. I was constantly worried about doing something ungirlish. I had to perpetually make sure that my mannerisms, my walk, and especially my voice were on par with my supposed gender. I’d be glad to get it over with. But first there was something to try…

“If you’ll excuse me, I have to run to the ladies room.”

Mom and Lori feverishly tried to object, but couldn’t stop me without making a scene. I girlishly swooshed my way into the final frontier.

The women’s bathroom was dirty, but clean compared to the rest of the restaurant. I snooped around at the unfamiliar sights: the lack of smutty graffiti, the toilet seat cover dispenser, the tampon machine. I started when the door opened and a pair of women walked in. Quickly I ducked into a stall.

I figured that just standing behind the door might arouse suspicion, and besides, I needed to use the facilities. After placing a paper cover over the seat, I tried to sit down. Confounded skirt! Confounded hose! Confounded cramped stall! When you are a man, the world is your toilet. As a woman, you have to plan.

I sat there for a bit, listening to the two women gossip. After getting tired of sitting down forever, I decided to venture out into the restroom. Neither of the women gave me a second glance. As I was washing my hands, I noticed that my lipstick had smeared while eating. It looked rather stupid, so I took out an extra tube Lori had given me and touched my lips up.

It was crazy, but funny in a way as well. Here I was, casually putting on makeup in the ladies room. Knowing that Mom and Lori were probably panicking I decided to extend their fear and re-do my whole face. Who knew when I’d be back in the women’s restroom again?

My confidence was shattered when one of the women, a good-looking blonde of about thirty, asked to borrow my mascara brush. Trying to act casual, like people asked to borrow my makeup everyday, I handed it to her.

“Jesus, I look awful. It’s the damn humidity, my makeup’s always smearing.”

I wasn’t sure how to react to that. Well, when in doubt, just nod and agree. “Tell me about it,” I said. “Just look what it’s done to my hair.” My hair being my worst feature.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she replied. “Actually, I think you can do a lot with it. I’m a stylist, you see. If you’re interested, come by some time for an appointment.” She handed me her card. I thanked her and left.

I was surprisingly giddy when I walked out. I felt like an actor who had pulled off the greatest roll in his career. They didn’t even suspect. While I could have been inclined to take this as an affront to my masculinity, I decided it resulted from a combination of Lori’s instructions and my acting ability. Maybe I could try my hand in Hollywood after graduation. Yeah right.

Mom and Lori waited until we were in the car before they said anything. Then they were all questions. “What happened? Did you talk to those women in there? Did you say anything? Why were you in there so long?” They were excited, I guess they got a kick out of how well their ‘creation’ was getting along.

I answered their questions with a laugh. It had been kind of a fun evening, though I was glad it was over. Lori had been right; now that I had a little of the nervousness out of my system I should be able to face the bridal show with more ease.

All in all, it seemed that I would spend about eight hours out of my life pretending to be the opposite gender. What a thought! Thank God that after the show I’d never have to do it again.

Of course, things don’t always work out the way they seem.

*

A week later I Mom drove Lori and I to the bridal convention. I sat in the car silently, gnawing at my lower lip. What had I agreed to do? Going to a restaurant was one thing; but this convention something totally different. I would be standing on a stage, inviting hundreds of people to scrutinize my every detail. Had I gone insane? How could I have been so stupid?

I thought back to the previous week. After I had proven to myself that I could pass casual inspection as a woman, Lori had begun the final fittings of the gowns. There was little I had to do those nights; just stand there and let Lori alter the gowns to fit my slightly larger frame.

Lori, after realizing I had begun to get over my embarrassment, began to tease me just a little bit. Nothing viscous, just big sister ribbing. “We’ll, after I’m done with your dress, it won’t fit me anymore. I suppose I could save it for your, when you get married. I could make an identical one for your wife, you could both walk down the aisle…”

“That’s enough Lori,” warned my mom. I appreciated Mom standing up for me, but the joking really didn’t bother me. Within a few days all of this would be over and at this point what did a couple of jabs matter?

Lori put down her needle and thread, and told me to take five. She swiveled in her wheelchair and tried to massage her broken legs. I felt sorry for her. Besides having to have her brother model her bridal gowns, she had been stuck at home with a couple of plastered up limbs for almost a month. She was normally someone who hated being stuck at home watching TV, but thanks to her injury and the loss of her car, she’d been almost a shut-in. I had kept my complaints to a minimum to avoid adding to her stress.

I looked down at the half-completed dress I was wearing. Since Lori had to build it around my girlish figure, I was wearing my padding and falsies as well. I was a little disturbed to realize that I was almost getting used to the feeling.

I didn’t feel like taking off the dress only to have to put it on again later, so I hitched it up and swished my way to the kitchen for a snack. Lori wheeled in after me.

“So Ken,” she asked, “what name should I call you by now?”

“Lori, you are beginning to try my patience…”

“No, I’m not trying to be funny. When you model at the bridal show they’ll announce your name. You probably wouldn’t want to be called ‘Ken.’”

“That’s a good point. Well, I guess I’ll choose the obvious and go with ‘Kim.’”

“Okay, Kim it is. Well, let’s say Kimberly. It’s more model-like.”

“Whatever. It’s not like I’ll be using it after next week.”

“Speaking of next week, what are we going to do about your hair?”

“My hair?” I replied, taking a swig from the milk carton. “I dunno. I thought you’d do it for me.”

“I’m not too good at that. Would you allow us to take you to a beauty parlor?”

“No.”

“C’mon, why not?”

“So I can go around with girl hair for a month? I think not.”

“Hear me out. Your gender will be less noticeable if you have a woman’s haircut. You’re hair is long enough now to make it look really cute. After the show we’ll take you home and I’ll give you a crew cut. You’ve worn it that short before. What do you say?”

Well, she had a point. I guess if I were supposed to be a model then I should have convincing hair. And after a quick buzz cut, no evidence would remain. I assented.

“So where should we go?” I asked. I usually got my hair cut at the unisex salon where both Mom and Lori went, so there was out.

Lori began to think, when I had an idea. I hunted down the old purse I had used the night we went out to eat and fished out the business card that read ‘Kelly McGwire, hairstyles for girls and women.’

“I suppose this place would be as good as any other.”

*

The evening before the bridal show, Mom drove me to the salon. It was a small but tidy shop in a suburban mini-mall. It seemed deserted, which pleased me. We stepped inside. I recognized Kelly, the woman whom I had met in the ladies room the previous week.

“Hello there!” she smiled at me. “I’m glad you decided to stop by. What can I do for you?” I suddenly panicked, realizing I knew jack-all about women’s hairstyles. Knowing that it would look ridiculous for a ‘girl’ my age to ask her mother to decide how her hair should be cut, I simply said “I’m in the mood for something new. Could you suggest something?”

Kelly had me sit in one of the barber’s chairs and together we flipped through a book of photos of women’s haircuts. I feigned interest; frankly I could have cared less about a haircut I’d have for one day. But I had to make it look real. Finally, we settled on a style that Kelly could create out of my medium-length, black hair. It was poofier, with a bit of curl, I guess you’d call it a wave. It would give my hair more bounce, and make it look much more feminine. With false enthusiasm, I let her begin.

With a flick of her scissors, spray from a bottle, and about forty-five minutes of time, Kelly worked her magic. Even I couldn’t help but be impressed. Instead of the frizzled, chaotic hair that usually surrounded my head, there was a neatly styled, feminine ‘do.’ Combined with my made-up face, my women’s clothes, and my jewelry, I certainly looked like a teenage girl. Surprisingly, I was happy about the change. It wasn’t permanent; and it would help me blend in at the bridal show.

Of course things were different now, as I sat in the car, parked in the convention center parking lot, and hyperventilated. Mom had already gone inside, helping Lori roll into the building to get settled. In a few minutes she’d be back to help me carry my dresses inside. There was no going back now. Lori had made a commitment to the show. If her model cancelled at the last moment it would be a black mark against her career. I was in for it now. There was no quitting.

When Mom returned, I had my head between my knees, breathing rapidly. “What’s wrong?” she asked, horrified.

“Just look at me and tell me what’s wrong!” While it would have been silly for me to wear the bulky gown on the way to the show, I still had to dress as a woman on the way over. That way no one would see me in male clothes before I had a chance to change. Right now I was dressed in a pair of women’s jeans, a sleeveless shirt, and heels. “I’m about to freak out, Mom. Everyone is going to see me!”

Mom looked me in the eye. “Ken, Lori’s worked hard for this day. But more to the point, so have you. You’ve sacrificed weeks working on getting ready for this, I really don’t think you want to blow everything because of a case of nerves. Just calm down. A few hours and it will all be over. Do it for your sister.”

With a foreboding sense of finality we walked to the building. Mom handed me my prodigious garment bags and wished me luck. She’d be watching me from the audience with Lori. From here on out I’d be on my own.

Staggering under the weight of the three dresses and accessories, I found the staff entrance. I showed the guard at the door my pass and he motioned me down a service corridor. So far so good, he didn’t look like he suspected a thing. I followed the grimy passageway, looking for the dressing room the guard had indicated.

About half way to my destination, I saw a youthful-looking maintenance man going in the opposite direction. He was handsome, about twenty years old, and was carrying what appeared to be a bag of garbage. When he saw me, his face broke into a big smile. He continued to smile and look me in the eye as I drew nearer. I let out a gasp and hurried on. As I passed him, I noticed that his smile had quickly turned to a hurt frown.

It wasn’t until I reached the dressing room that I fully realized what had happened. That punk was flirting with me! Not that I had any right to get mad, I’d been much more overt in some of my quests to get women to notice me before. Still, that meant the guy found me cute, which was rather insulting to me. Passing as a girl was one thing, but an attractive one? That was a headache I didn’t need.

Of course, none of this was really his fault. And he had seemed a little hurt when I had run past him. Well, I had bigger fish to fry at the moment. I reached the dressing room and knocked.

“May I help you?” asked the bespectacled, middle-age woman who answered the door.

“I…I’m Kimberly Woolsey,” I stammered, trying to keep my voice high. “I’m here to model.”

“Let’s see,” she said, consulting her clipboard. “Woolsey, Woolsey…ah, yes. Step right in, miss. You can get ready wherever you can find room.”

I stepped out of the hall and into a Penthouse letter. There, in the spacious, brightly-lit dressing room, stood about a dozen models, all in various stages of undress. Immediately to my right stood a shapely black woman pulling on her hose, without a stitch on above her waist. Next to her stood a tall, freckled redhead in nothing but her bra and panties. At the rear of the room a blonde was cramming her amble bosom into her tight, strapless gown.

I’d never so much as seen a real, naked breast before, now I was seeing several. I wanted to just stand there and stare. I wanted to drink in the sight with relish, imprint it on my mind. I wanted to take out a video camera and record everything.

With more self-determination that I thought I had in me, I controlled my glances and made my way directly to a changing booth. After closing the door, I began to breathe again. So many naked women and yet I’d never be able to tell a soul. Well, at least I’d always have the memory.

Time for work. I unzipped the first bag and began to organize. First, of course, came the girdle and the falsies. I heaved a sigh of relief at the thought that this would be the absolute last day I’d have to wear the dumb things. Then came what Lori had laughingly referred to as my trousseau.

The dress was an enormous, complicated thing. Lori had shocked me by telling me that it would sell for well over a thousand dollars. All I knew was that it was impossible to get into the thing alone, and yet I couldn’t very well ask anyone to help me with it.

Once I was finished I looked myself over in the wall mirror. Despite my dislike of what I was wearing, I had to admit that Lori really knew what she was doing. The gown was what I called ‘dark-white,’ if such a thing were possible. It had a long, flowing train. Its short sleeves reached half way down my biceps. There were very few ruffles or ribbons, only some lace around the edges and the ends of the sleeves. There was a large bow at my lower back. The neckline was high, of course, but it plunged slightly in back, showing off my shoulder blades.

I glowered at the woman in the mirror as I pinned my lacy veil to my hair. I hated to admit it, but I did look like a bride. Maybe not the kind you see in the magazines, I certainly didn’t have the curves and grace of a supermodel, but I knew it my heart that if I were walking down the aisle to meet a groom, no one would think it odd. They might even comment on how pretty I was.

I winced, and clipped a dangling, pearl earring to each of my ears. Then I slid the fake engagement ring Lori had given me on my left hand. So much for clothes.

After triple checking every detail, I stepped out into the dressing room. I was sorry to see that most of the women had finished dressing; there was nary a leg or breast in sight. Wordlessly I found a seat at an empty makeup table and began applying my face.

“May I make a suggestion?” came a pleasant, feminine voice from beside me. I turned to see the pretty black women I had noticed earlier in a much nakeder state. She was about twenty-five, with deep chocolate-colored skin, long black hair, and a firm, statuesque figure. She wore flowers in her hair and a strapless, lacy gown. She was gorgeous. I comforted myself my thinking how she’d be too old for me to ask out, even if I hadn’t been dressed like this.

“That color isn’t exactly right for your complexion,” she continued, nervously. I guess she thought she might be intruding. I nodded encouragingly, in hopes that she would continue to talk to me. “Here,” she said, “may I?” With that, she began reapplying my makeup. I enjoyed the touch of her soft, manicured hands on my face. I wondered if there was a possibility I could introduce myself as ‘Kim’s’ twin brother after the show. Probably not.

Finally she was finished, and the results were impressive. While my makeup would have done for day to day wear, I could tell, even with my limited knowledge of such things, that she had given me a makeover that would show up much better on stage. I thanked her and introduced myself as Kim.

“I’m Shawna. You look nervous, Kim. Is this your first time working a bridal show?”

“It’s my first time working any show. I’m not a model. My sister’s a designer and needed someone to model at the last minute. I volunteered.”

“Well that was sweet of you.” Sweet? If only she knew.

“It’s just that I’m not sure what I’m doing. Any pointers?”

She smiled sweetly. “You’ll do fine. Look, you go on after me. Just follow my lead and relax. It’s loads of fun, maybe you’ll want to do it more after today.” Fat chance of that!

“Places, everyone!” called the woman with the clipboard. I took my place behind Shawna. She winked at me sweetly.

It took a lot of control not to hyperventilate backstage. All the other women looked calm; of course they were all doing this because it was their job. And (one couldn’t help but assume) they were all women.

Shawna glided out on stage. She made it look so effortless. Just a pause at the curtain while the announcer read her name and designer. Then a few steps down the runway, smile, turn, and walk back, as the announcer read a description of her dress. Simple as that. The audience clapped as Shawna exited the stage. She smiled at me and I was on. I stepped past the curtain.

I was temporarily blinded by the lights. When my vision cleared, I was staring at a sea of people. Mostly young women, all with their eyes riveted on me. I expected at any second for someone to scream “He’s a guy! Look at the pervert in the wedding dress!” Nothing of the sort happened.

“Kimberly is wearing a Lori Woolsey Original,” began the announcer. That was my cue. I stepped forward.

“Kimberly’s dress,” continued the announcer “is antique white (so that’s what it was called). Her gown has a flowing train with embroidered lace and optional ribbon.” I had reached the end of the walkway. I flashed my best fake smile to the audience and twirled to let them see my back.

“The dress has a open back, for the bride who chooses to feature her shoulders. Thank you Kimberly.”

And with that, I was finished. The audience broke into applause. I had done it! It went off without a hitch! True, I still had to do it two more times, but for the first time since I had agreed to be a bride, I wasn’t scared. This was going to work. Lori’s dresses would impress everyone, she’d get a contract, make a million dollars, and be happy. Maybe someday we’d all get together and laugh at how the now famous Lori Woolsey had to have her brother model for her at her first show.

But now onto more pressing matters. I had to quickly duck back into the dressing room and change into my next outfit.

I found Shawna already there, struggling into her new dress. “Nice work, Kim,” she told me over her shoulder. “Told you it wouldn’t be hard. Jeez, do you think this thing could show of any more cleavage?”

I agreed that her dress was a bit revealing for a wedding, then grudgingly tore my eyes away. “Zip me up?” she asked. I helped her, despite the fact that my hand wanted to interpret the command ‘zip up’ as ‘unzip.’ Then it was my turn to change.

Lori’s second gown was an exercise in minimalism. It was plain white, with wide shoulder straps and a high neckline. There were no sleeves; my arms were completely bare. Lori had told me that she wanted the gown to plunge lower to show off a bit of cleavage, but that obviously wasn’t possible. The gown came with the tiniest of veils; it was little more than a slip of fabric I attached to my hair with a barrette. A locket completed the outfit.

I was nominally braver when my turn came up again, but not by much. I nearly tripped on my heels when the announcer made an innocent comment about my imaginary groom carrying me across the threshold on our wedding night. Jeez, I was about getting sick of all this!

Lastly, I put on Lori’s magnum opus. It was an opulent, extremely ornate gown, with ribbons, ruffles, and fake pearls. It was sleeveless, but it came with gloves that went up to my elbows. The veil was enormous; it came down past my butt. Lori had had me wear this one last. She wanted me to feel as comfortable as possible in her masterpiece. Well, after I’ll I had been through, I’d certainly do my best. As nasty as this experience was, I wouldn’t make it all for nothing by not trying my hardest. As I left the dressing room I saw a bouquet of flowers someone had left. Impulsively I grabbed them and walked down the catwalk with them. I thought it added an aura of authenticity to my wedding garb.

Finally, it was all over. I rushed back to the dressing room to get back into the women’s clothes I had arrived in. Then I could find Lori and congratulate her on the show, speed home, and get into some male clothes. Lori would buzz me nearly bald and we could put all of this behind us.

Shawna walked into the dressing room. I groaned inwardly. It would suck that I wouldn’t ever see her again, but there was no way around it. It wouldn’t be worth impersonating Kim again to maintain the friendship, and I doubted she’d understand if I told her the truth. After seeing her naked like that, she’d probably be quite angry.

“Kimberly, there you are. C’mon, we have to get out to the convention floor.”

“Why? The presentation’s over.”

“Yes, but that’s only part of the show. Now we have to mill around with the customers and show our gowns off. You know, so they can see them up close.”

“My sister never said anything about that!” I said, annoyed.

“Well, this is going to be where her gowns get sold. You need to do it, Kim. Otherwise she probably won’t sell a thing.”

Blast and damnation! After putting up with this farce, I find out there’s more to come! Well, if this was how the business worked, I guess it would be futile to protest. Faking interest, I asked Shawna which of my three gowns I should wear. She suggested I use the one I was already wearing; it was her favorite.

Still clutching the bouquet, I followed Shawna out to the convention floor. This actually turned out to be the most uncomfortable part of the day. I wasn’t shielded by the bright lights and barriers of the catwalk; nor was I just another face in the crowd like I was at the restaurant. Here dozens of people were milling around me, staring at me and every aspect of my apparel. I was sure I was about to be found out.

I stood there for over an hour, with Shawna, several other brides, and to my surprise, several male models in tuxedos as well. Many brides-to-be seemed enamored with Lori’s design. I had been standing there for less than five minutes when a young woman, with her boyfriend in tow, approached me.

“Tom, wouldn’t this look absolutely darling? I just love the lacework! And that veil! It’s to die for!”

“It looks wonderful, honey!” said Tom, with great enthusiasm and no conviction. That scene was replayed several times: the gushing bride and the indifferent groom. I chuckled inwardly at how one-sided wedding preparations are.

After what seemed like an eternity, the booths began to close and I finally began to think I’d be able to go home. To stop being a bride and go back to being a teenage guy. When Lori rolled herself over to me I was sure she was going to tell me to change my clothes so we can go.

It was not my lucky day.

“Ken, er Kim! Come with me! Quick!”

“What’s up? What’s wrong?” I was getting just a little sick of the fake falsetto I had affected.

“Lawrence Kunyak wants to see my dress up close!”

“Who’s…?”

“He only owns one of the biggest bridal companies in the U.S! This is it!”

I steeled myself. If he was as big a muck-a-muck as Lori made him out to be, then the least I could do was meet him. He probably wanted to see the dress in more detail.

Trying to look my prettiest, I followed Lori over to the VIP table where Mr. Kunyak was sitting. He looked to be about seventy, reminded me of every other CEO I had seen a picture of. When he saw me, he smiled.

“Ah, Ms. Woolsey. Thank you for coming out,” he bowed his head to me. “You sister told me you were a little nervous.”

“Ah, well, I’m not a professional model.”

“I understand. In fact, that’s the reason I wanted to see you.”

Lori’s face fell a bit. She had assumed that her dress was the only reason he had wanted to see me. “I beg your pardon?” I asked, confused.

“Now don’t get me wrong,” continued the businessman, after seeing Lori’s worried look. “I was sold on the dress the moment I saw it.” He winked at Lori. “I think I’ll be able to offer you a satisfactory offer for the rights to the design.” Lori’s bruised face broke into an enormous grin.

“But,” he said, turning back to me. “I’d also like to speak to you as well.”

“What for?” I asked, nervously wringing my flowers.

“Ms. Woolsely, do you have any idea how I turned a failing transmission repair shop into one of the largest and most successful bridal companies in the U.S?” I honestly couldn’t think of an answer.

“I did it,” he went on, “because I know women. A woman’s wedding day is the most important day of her life. And when she prepares for that day, do you know what she’ll be thinking about?”

“How beautiful she’ll be?” I ventured.

“Wrong. She’ll be thinking how imperfect she is.” I guess the puzzlement showed on my face.

“Ms. Woolsey, I can see that you are new to the fashion industry. It’s an industry built on a woman’s insecurity. And when a woman prepares for the day when she’ll be the center of attention, well, all she’ll be able to focus on will be her imperfections: perhaps she’s a little overweight, or very tall, or whatever.”

I was beginning to see where he was going with this. “And what do the bridal magazines do?” asked the bridal expert. “They bombard the young ladies with pictures of wafer-thin, anorexic, five-foot-eight sexpots. This just makes the future wives all the more insecure. It holds them to a standard they can’t hope to meet.” He paused to take a sip of his gin and tonic.

“That’s why I was so impressed when I saw you. You’re tall, you’re athletic, you’d make a perfect model. You are beautiful, and yet you have the kind of beauty the average women feels she can achieve. I hope I’m not offending you.”

I had no idea how I should feel. Should I be happy that my beauty wasn’t ‘conventional,’ or should I be angry that he called me beautiful in the first place? And how would a real woman react? Too confused to reason, I simply thanked him.

Mr. Kunyak stretched back in his chair, and faced Lori and myself. “So, I’d like to offer you a deal. Offer you both a deal.”

“What sort of a deal?” asked Lori, chomping at the bit.

“Well, in addition to purchasing the dress designs, I’d like you to help me with a show I’ll be having in New York this summer. I’d like you, Lori, to design two or three more gowns, and I’d like you, Kim, to model them.”

Nope, nothing doing. “I’m sorry, Mr. Kunyak. I appreciate the offer, but I’m no model and I only filled in this once.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way. It does pay handsomely.”

“I’m sure it does, but you can find someone else to model Lori’s designs.”

“I’m afraid not. It’s an all or nothing offer.”

I felt bad for Lori, but I had done more than enough for her already. “That’s too bad. Thanks for the offer, but I’m not interested.”

Mr. Kunyak handed Lori a card. “Well, I’ll be in touch about your payment for these dresses soon. Thank you very much.”

*

Finally, FINALLY, we went home. Mom drove, she couldn’t stop talking about what a success the show had been; how Lori had finally made it into the fashion industry. I listened half-heartedly to mom’s descriptions of how this was only the beginning of Lori’s successes; all I could think about was getting out of this dress and trimming my hair. I was unaware of how quiet Lori was being.

It was a relief to get home and change. I wouldn’t let Mom rest a bit when she got home; as soon as I was back in my male clothes I insisted she give my hair a trim. As my girlishly styled hair fell to the bathroom floor, I smiled to think how all this was behind me and I’d never have to dress like a girl again.

The next day Lori packed up to go home. As she was leaving, she took me aside. “Ken, thanks a lot for everything you did. I know I promised not to mention it again, but you really saved me back there. I have my first design contract, and it’s all thanks to you.”

“No,” I corrected, “it’s all thanks to you. You designed the dress, all I did was be a coat hanger.”

“Well, Mr. Kunyak seemed to think of you as more. You know, about the show in New York…”

“Lori…” I said, warningly.

“Look, it’ll only be for a week, and I was just thinking…”

“Well you can stop thinking. Find another model, and that’s final.”

“I understand. It’d be a lot to ask. Well,” she smiled, sadly. “See ya!” Mom helped load her into the car and they sped off.

About a week later I got the call. I was sitting at the kitchen table doing my homework when the phone rang. Mom answered it. “Yes?” she said into the receiver. “Um, I’ll check, just a minute.” She seemed nervous.

“It’s that Kunyak guy,” she whispered to me. “He wants to speak to Kim Woolsey!”

“Tell him I’m out!”

“Please, Ken. This may be about Lori’s contract. Just talk to him.”

Grumbling, I picked up the phone. “This is Kim,” I said in my feminine voice.

“Miss Woolsey!” Kunyak boomed back, “Nice to hear from you!”

“Likewise,” I twittered.

“Listen, the reason I’m calling is my idiot assistant lost your sister’s number. You were the only one I could contact.” I quickly dictated Lori’s number for him.

“So,” he continued. “Have you given any more thought to my job offer?”

“Yes, but I’m afraid it’s just not what I’m looking for. I’m no model, you see.”

“Pity. You know, the job pays $10,000 for a week’s work.”

I nearly choked. “U.S. dollars?” I stammered.

“That’s right. Are you sure I can’t change your mind?”

“Er, could I call you tomorrow?”

“Certainly.”

I hung up, than sat down. Ten thousand dollars! I’d never had more than five hundred in all my life! That would pay for more than a year of college! Dear God, what a windfall!

I related what Mr. Kunyak had told me to my mother. She seemed stunned. “Goodness, Ken, that is a lot of money. And for only a week’s worth of work.” It was obvious that she hoped I’d take the job.

“But I’d have to dress like a woman for a week! I mean a solid week, even when we weren’t shooting.”

“Yes, but wouldn’t it be worth it? It’d be just like the last time, no one would know.”

I was already counting the money. “I’ll call Mr. Kunyak tomorrow. I guess I should tell Lori the good news.”

When I told Lori I would agree to model, she insisted I drive out and talk to her in person. I found her in the living room of her apartment. She was rolling back and forth in her wheelchair, as if she were pacing.

“This is big, Ken,” she said as I walked in the door. “You don’t know how big.”

“Oh, I have some idea.” Like, maybe ten grand.

“No, I mean this sort of thing in the pinnacle of the fashion world. Look.” She handed me a magazine.

It was some sort of fashion trade journal. I found the article she had indicated. ‘Fashion Leaders Preparing for June Bridal Show.’ The article went on to proclaim how this show would be the bridal exposition of the year.

“This is amazing. The opportunity of a lifetime,” ranted Lori, almost to herself.

“Yeah, the opportunity of a lifetime,” I repeated, thinking of the cash.

“But Ken, I don’t think you know what you’re getting yourself into.”

“Oh, I know it will be tougher than last time.”

“That’s an understatement. Ken, I think I need to explain something to you. Have a seat.” I seated myself opposite her chair.

“If you agree to do this, you’ll be surrounded by the chief fashion executives of this country for a week. A solid week. For that entire week, you can’t let Ken out. Not even to sleep. For seven days you’d have to be Kim.”

“I kind of figured on that. Don’t worry, I can keep up the ruse.”

“I know you’d be willing to do it, but could you pull it off?”

“How do you mean?”

“The local bridal show was one thing. It was just a couple of hours and you barely had to talk to anyone. This will be different. You’ll be ‘performing’ without stop for days on end. You won’t be able to make even a single mistake.”

I almost backed out then, but the thought of a cool ten Gs held my tongue. “So what do you recommend?”

“When are you out of school?”

“Late May.”

“Let’s see, the show is in late June. If you agree to do this, I’d want you to live as Kim for about three weeks before the show, to avoid any screw ups.”

“Three weeks? No way!”

“Then I won’t agree. I’m sorry Ken, but this is the big times. If you get caught you’d be humiliated and I’d never work again. I know you’ll be getting paid a lot for this; wouldn’t it be worth a month of living as Kimberly?”

I thought about it. College would be expensive and $10,000 would go a long way towards defraying the costs. A lot of people didn’t earn that much money in a year. Couldn’t I sacrifice a month for financial security?

“Okay. I’ll do it. But I’m only doing this for the money, mind you, I have no aspirations to be a supermodel.”

Lori smiled. “You have to be sure about this. Once we tell Mr. Kunyak you agree, you won’t be able to back out.”

I gulped. “I’m sure.”

“Great. Since I’m sure you won’t want anyone you know to see you, I think it would be best if we moved to New York right after you graduate. You can be Kim in private there, and when it’s all over, we’ll move back.”

The year wore on. I graduated. Soon it was time for me to move to New York with Lori. Mom seemed nervous about the whole thing. She didn’t think the plan was weird, per se. Like me, she looked on it from a financial point of view. Still, I could tell the thought of her son going to New York to participate in a bridal show made her uneasy. But I had signed a contract, and there was no backing out now.

Lori, who had since had her casts removed and was already back to running two miles a day, had moved ahead of me. I booked an economy flight to New York and she met me at the airport.

Lori had rented a small, two-bedroom pad in the not-too-terribly-bad part of town. I tossed my suitcase on my bed to start unpacking, when my sister told me not to bother.

“What do you mean, don’t bother?”

“Look Ken. I meant it when I said you’d have to spend this time as a woman. All of this time. For the next three weeks you are my sister. Femininity has to become second nature or they’ll see through you in a second.”

“Lori, I think you are taking this a little too far.”

“Ken, I’m not trying to do this to humiliate you. Believe it or not, I’m trying to save you from humiliation. I don’t want you to get caught.”

“Yeah, I guess that wouldn’t be good for your career, if people found out your bridal model was your brother.”

“Well, yeah, but I’m more worried about you. You’re really sticking your neck out for me here, I’d hate myself if you ended up getting found out. That’s why I’m going to insist on full time girlhood from here on out.”

“Lori…” I continued to whine.

“Ken, I guess I can’t force you to do this. But believe me, it’s a choice between spending three weeks dressed like a girl with only your sister knowing or getting found out at the show.”

I grimaced. “So what do I have to do?”

“For starters, no boy clothes. Stick your suitcase in the closet, all you’ll need is your toothbrush.”

“So what am I supposed to wear?”

Lori showed me. She had been shopping. There everything was, still in the bags from the many women’s boutiques she had purchased them from:

Two dozen packs of colorful cotton panties.
One pair of women’s sneakers.
Three pairs of women’s heels.
Six pairs of nylon hose.
Three pairs clip-on earrings.
Various chains, bracelets, and necklaces.
Six women’s sweaters (two completely sleeveless).
One basic skirt.
One mastectomy bra (a more realistic simulated female chest) size 36C.
Enough makeup, nail polish, and perfume to last me through the year.

I fingered the material nervously. “You really expect me to use all this?”

“Yes, and constantly. By the time of the exposition, being a woman has to be completely natural for you.”

“I’m not sure I like the sound of that.”

“Don’t worry, I’m sure thirty seconds after it’s over you’ll have forgotten all my training and hard work. Now get dressed, we’re going to the mall.”

“The mall?” I squeaked. I had hoped to avoid publicity as much as possible.

“Yes. I only got you what I knew would fit; we have a lot more shopping to do. And from now on, I want you to talk like a girl.”

“Yes Lori, I said in my best feminine voice and followed her into the bathroom.

“Take off your shirt, Kim, I want to see something.”

“What did you call me?”

“C’mon Kim.”

Sighing, I complied. Lori tutted, and with a pair of tweezers picked out my half dozen chest hairs.

“Hey, do you know how long it took me to grow those back?” Lori shot me a warning glance, then instructed me to shower, and shave my legs and pits. I didn’t object, only because I knew that the hair wouldn't take too long to grow back. If anyone noticed afterwards I just say I had a case of heat rash and had to shave.

Soon I had finished. Lori instructed me to open a package which she had left on top of the toilet tank. “What is it?”

“Just open it.”

I examined the garment I found. It was made of sturdy rubber and was shaped like a pair of panties. “This can’t be what I think it is.”

“If you think it’s a device for hiding your penis, then you are right.”

“Where the hell did you find this?”

“From a catalog. It was designed for female impersonators…”

“I don’t want to hear this!” Grunting and groaning I forced myself into the thing. It was uncomfortable, but not as painful as I had expected. Looking at my reflection, all I could see was a small mound where my manhood had once been. Embarrassed, I slipped on a pair of yellow panties. Thank God Lori had spared me the lacy kind. Next, I pulled on the hose. I was becoming a bit of an expert in that department. I then pulled on my skirt. Half the battle was over.

I then picked up the padded bra. The inserts were quite realistic. They felt a lot like real breasts. At least I assumed they did; I had never actually touched a pair. Try as I could, I couldn’t get them on straight. I finally had to call Lori in for help.

Standing behind me, she held the bra to my bare chest and helped me pull my arms through the straps. Then she fastened me in back.

“I look ridiculous.”

“Here, pull this sweater on.”

She handed me a yellow, sleeveless sweater and I pulled in on over my head.

“You know,” she said, “Kunyak was right. You are rather pretty. Don’t take that the wrong way, I mean, you look like a normal guy, but in a dress you have this female athlete look about you. That’s popular these days. I can see why Kunyak wanted you.”

“Lucky me.”

“C’mon, aren’t you the least bit flattered.”

“Nope.”

“Not even a tiny bit? It’s nothing to be ashamed about.”

“Well…. Jeez, I can’t believe I’m going to tell you this. But I was a little proud of myself when he offered me so much money to model. I know I should have been insulted, but after all that work I went through, well, I guess it was nice to be recognized.” I glanced sideways at Lori, afraid that she would laugh at me, or even worse, act thrilled.

“I know how you must feel,” she said. “You really did bust your ass to help me, and you sure were rewarded. You know what I think?”

“What?”

“I think you are going to end up enjoying all this time as Kim.”

“Please.”

“No, I’m serious. Haven’t you ever wanted to understand women more?”

“Of course.”

“Well, next month you’ll have insights into the feminine psyche that will serve you for years to come. All your future dates will wonder how you got to be so empathetic, but only you’ll know why.”

In spite of myself, I was interested. “Do you really think so?”

“Of course. For starters, you’ll probably never rush a woman out of the bathroom again. And you’ll be able to make semi-intelligent comments about their clothes and hair. Subtle things that will drive the women wild. Women want to be understood, and you’re getting a crash-course in understanding.”

“I wish I could share your optimism.”

“Look Kim. I know how hard it is for you not to complain right now. But just put it out of your head. There’s no backing out now, but if you try to enjoy this, you might just find it’s not so bad.”

“I think you’re exaggerating, but if you promise not to make fun of me, I’ll at least try to have a good time. Hell, New York should be a blast, skirts or no.”

“There’s the attitude! Now let me make you up.”

“Er, no. I probably should get the hang of this and I might as well start now.”

Lori smiled a lovely smile and then did something she hadn’t done for years: she leaned over and kissed me. “Good for you, little sister.”

Finally, after about fifty false starts, my hair and makeup looked at least okay. I clipped on some earrings and grabbed one of Lori’s purses. Balancing on my heels, I looked myself over.

“What’s the verdict?” I asked Lori.

“You tell me.”

“I guess I can stop kidding myself, I don’t really look like a drag queen. I might even say…”

“Yes?”

“That I looked, well, kind of cute.” I looked to Lori for conformation.

“To say the least! Well, let’s hit the town.”

It was hard to remember everything as we took off down the street. How I was supposed to hold my head. How I was supposed to walk. Not to scratch my groin. Lori elbowed me in my ribs. “Relax, you’re doing great.”

Finally, we entered a mall and went into the department store. I knew right away that I was in for an ordeal. As a man I could simply grab a couple of shirts and a pair of jeans and I’d be done clothes shopping for the season. Now that I was a ‘woman,’ things would be different.

Lori dressed me from the bottom up, which meant we started with the shoes. It was hard to find shoes in my size (that was the area where Lori and I differed the most, size-wise) but I ended up leaving with a pair of attractive flats. Lori tried to convince me to buy another pair of heels, but I held fast; I couldn’t imagine a more uncomfortable type of footwear. I did however, buy some more socks and hose.

Next came the skirts. That’s where Lori and I had the biggest debate. I was more comfortable with the conservative, floor-length kind, while Lori kept trying to get me to go shorter and shorter.

“You have such lovely legs, Kim. I don’t know why you won’t show them off.”

Since we were in public, I refused to mention the true state of things, not even in a whisper. “I just don’t like short skirts. What’s wrong with that?”

Much to my horror, Lori called the saleslady over. She was a pretty, twentysomething blonde; I could have died. “Don’t you think my sister would look good in this?” she asked, holding up a skirt that barely reached my knees.

“Oh, yes,” gushed the commissioned salesclerk. “You have such athletic legs, do you work out?”

“A bit,” I admitted. Not wishing to say more, I tried it on.

Lori and the salesclerk made me prance up and down in front of the mirror. I had to admit, I did look good, but I felt almost naked in the tiny garment. Finally, to avoid a protracted argument, I agreed to a couple of the shorter numbers. I’d be dressed as a bride in a few weeks; I couldn’t exactly complain about looking like a sissy now. I did, however, draw the line at the leather mini.

Next came the dresses and tops. Since it was summer time, Lori took that as an excuse for me to show off as much flesh as possible. Soon we had bags full of backless dresses, sleeveless blouses, and low-cut shirts.

As we were standing in a jewelry shop picking out a necklace and bracelet for me, I asked Lori why she was spending so much money on me.

“Well, you’ll be surprised how much clothes you’ll end up needing in the next couple of weeks and it wouldn’t be fair for you to have to pay for it.”

“But it seems like such a waste. No one will be wearing any of this next month.”

“Oh, you’re almost my size. I’ll probably keep most of it.”

“That’s a relief. It would have been rather awkward for me to try to dispose of it.”

The clerk was wrapping up my jewelry. “Kim, I was just thinking about the gown you’re going to be wearing.”

“What about it?”

“We’ll, you’re going to be lovely in it, but I think you’d look even better if you wore earrings.”

“So I’ll wear earrings. We still have those clip-on ones.”

“No dear. I mean earrings for pierced ears.”

“Nothing doing.”

“C’mon Kim. The holes will heal up by the end of the summer. Lots of guys are wearing them these days.”

“Not me.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s too girlish.”

“Kim, you are standing there wearing a skirt, a woman’s sweater, and a bra, and you’re telling me you’re afraid of looking too girlish?”

I left the store with pierced ears.

Later that day afternoon we sat in the food court, sipping out our Diet Cokes. I wanted to take off my shoes and rub my feet; they ached something terrible

“Feet bothering you?” asked Lori.

“Yes! How do women stand to wear these things?”

“Because they look good. Women are expected to look their best, always. You’ll realize that soon.”

“Well, I could use all the help I can get to look like a woman. But if I were a real woman, I sure as hell wouldn’t wear these!”

We were interrupted when a masculine voice said “Hi ladies, mind if we join you?”

“Chuck!” squeaked Lori, happily. I regarded the pair of men that had just walked up. Chuck was tall, blonde, and handsome, about Lori’s age. I wondered if they were just friends, or were dating.

The guy standing next to Chuck looked a little younger, more like seventeen or eighteen. He looked a lot like Chuck, I assumed they were related. He seemed shier, a little less sure of himself than Chuck.

“This is my brother, Jason,” said Chuck, as they sat down.

“Pleased to meet you,” said Lori. “This is my sister, Kim. Kim, this is my friend Chuck.” We shook hands all around. I remembered at the last second to shake hands limply, like a woman.

Soon we were all chatting. I found that Chuck and Lori had met at an art show the previous week. They had never dated, but I got the impression Chuck was building up to it.

At first I was too petrified to talk much, but after a while, I began to relax. Concentrating on my voice, I was soon enjoying everyone’s company. Jason, who was my own age, was an interesting guy. He was a high school senior who played varsity basketball. He seemed shocked that I could talk intelligently about the sport and soon we were talking like old friends.

After a bit, Chuck said that they had a couple of things to and had to go. “But hey,” he continued. “we’re both free tonight. Why don’t we all go see a movie?”

“We’d love to!” replied Lori.

I began to sweat. That sounded a lot like a double date. “Er, Lori? Don’t we have that thing tonight?”

“What thing?” she asked, with effected innocence.

“You know, the thing we have to go to!” If she didn’t go along with this I swore I would kill her.

“Oh, that thing!” she finally said, much to my relief. “Don’t worry, that’s not till tomorrow.” Thanks, Lori.

I waited until we were back home before I blew up at her. “Do you think this is funny? Do you think this is some kind of joke?”

“Calm down. We’re just some friends catching a flick.”

“Friends my ass! You kind of like Chuck, right?”

“Hmmm, maybe,” she said, smiling.

“Well, then that’s a date. And if you two are on a date, that means Jason and I are, as well.”

“No it doesn’t.”

“Lori, I’m a guy. If I were in his shoes, I’d sure think it was. I’m going to cancel.”

“Why? Just come to the theater. It’s not like we’re going to an orgy or something.”

“I can’t believe we’re talking like this. What am I supposed to do, make out with him?”

“Kim, have you ever been on a date with a woman, and she wouldn’t let you kiss her or even hold her hand?”

“Well, yes.” Many times, actually.

“There you go. He can’t do anything if you don’t let him. You seemed to get along as friends. Just keep it like that. Friends.”

I glowered, but she had a point. I’d just keep it strictly buddies. If he tried to make a pass, I’d politely but firmly reject him. If he pressed the issue, I’d tell him I just wanted to be friends.

“Now do you want to shower first, or should I?”

“I took a shower this morning.”

Lori put her hands on her hips. “Kim, c’mon. I know that for you this is just a day out with some friends, but you could try to make an effort.”

Lacking the energy to argue, I stumbled into the bathroom. At least this way I’d know there’d be some hot water left. I scrubbed myself clean with Lori’s girlie-smelling soap and stepped out of the shower. I wrapped a towel around my waist and looked at myself in the mirror. Amid the steam in the bathroom, my new earrings, and longish hair; it wasn’t hard to imagine that it really was a woman’s reflection staring back at me (at least from the shoulders up!). Wiping the mirror clean, I pondered whether or not to wear makeup.

I was shocked when Lori suddenly burst in. “Don’t mind me, Kim. Just needed an aspirin.” With that she was gone.

I was stunned. I hadn’t locked the bathroom door because it never occurred to me that she’d come in like that. I could have been naked for all she knew! While we lived together we had always respected each other’s privacy. What the hell had gotten into her?

Could it be that she was treating me like she would a sister? My God, we were just pretending, but here she was, walking in on my shower as if I really was a fellow woman. I made a mental note to lock the door from then on.

Thinking back to the problem at hand, I wondered if I could get away with no makeup. If I wore makeup it would look like I was making an extra effort to impress Jason. But if I didn’t, I’d look more masculine. I decided to wear a little, just to be on the safe side. After coloring my cheeks and putting a touch of red on my lips, I pulled on a robe and went to decide what to wear.

I searched through the bags of clothes we had purchased today until I found the least erotic outfit I could find. It was more like a business suit: an ankle-length gray skirt, with black pumps, dark hose, a white blouse, and a gray jacket. It looked more like something to wear to the office instead of a movie, and in the summer heat it was a little stifling. Still, it made me look frigid, which was the look I was after. As Lori showered I tried unsuccessfully to put my hair in a bun. I couldn’t manage that so I settled on a simple ponytail.

Lori came out of the bathroom dressed to the nines and looking like a million bucks. “Kim,” she said in a disappointed way, “are you trying to look like a spinster or what?”

“Yes, I am. I agreed to do this, don’t press me.”

At the appointed time, Lori drove us over to the theater. “Don’t worry Kim. It’s just a few friends going to a movie.”

Chuck and Jason were waiting for us in front of the box office. They had both changed clothes and showered as well. “You look nice,” Jason told me when I greeted him. I could tell he meant it too; so much for my plan of turning him off with my clothes.

We took our seats in the dark; Lori and Chuck to my right, Jason to my left. During the movie Chuck casually draped his arm around Lori’s shoulders. Luckily for me, Jason wasn’t that bold. Aside from an awkward and unsuccessful attempt to hold my hand, he kept to himself.

Finally, it was all over. I still felt a little disgusted with myself; Jason had paid for my ticket and that was a date in my book. Matters weren’t helped when Chuck gave Lori a more than friendly good night kiss. I looked over a Jason, afraid he would attempt the same thing. I could tell he was vacillating, wondering whether to go for it or not. I defused the situation by firmly shaking his hand and thanking him for a nice evening.

As we drove home, I grilled Lori about Chuck. “So what’s up with you and this guy?”

“Oh, I dunno. He seems kind of sweet. Maybe something will come of it. So how about you?”

“What do you mean?”

“You and Jason. Think you’ll go out again?”

“Lori, what in the hell are you talking about?”

“I was just wondering. He seems to like you.”

“Lori, will you get a grip? I know you want to treat me like a sister, but some things aren’t going to change! Tonight was a one-time thing, and it will not happen again! Understand?”

“Well, I just thought you might get bored and want someone to hang out with, besides me.”

“Lori, let’s forget for a moment about my objections. How do you think he’d feel? He thinks he dated a girl; it wouldn’t be fair for him to think that ‘Kim’ had a thing for him. This is the end.”

Lori shrugged. I was beginning to worry. She certainly didn’t take long to start thinking of me as her sister. Did she honestly think I would ever consider dating Jason?

*

The time wore on. Jason called me twice but I blew him off. The bridal show was approaching and I began to get more and more nervous. What if I was found out? I could picture the tabloid headlines now: “Teenage Boy Tries to Pass Himself Off as a Bride!” Jesus, that would be all I needed.

Lori helped assuage my fears by plunging me even deeper into my femininity. She put me on a diet that caused me to loose about ten pounds by the time of the show. She forced me to use a depilatory spray that helped me remove all traces of my former body hair. She made me practice speaking, walking, and dressing like a girl for like two hours every day.

Not that she kept me in the apartment. After our ‘date,’ she insisted that I accompany her around New York, many times in the company of her friends. While I made it clear that I would never do anything approaching a date again, I often found myself out on the town with a group of young people, many of them handsome guys.

It wasn’t too bad, I guess. New York is a fun town and Lori’s friends were good people. After I learned to relax, it really wasn’t that traumatic, chatting in a coffee shop or strolling down Broadway, even if I was decked out in a sundress and heels.

Of course, something would always jolt me back to earth. Sometimes it would be a construction worker whistling at me. Or a waiter unconsciously talking to my chest instead of my eyes. Most disturbing, however, were the come-ons.

I guess I should have known I made an attractive woman. Lori, Mr. Kunyak, even my mom said so. I knew I was tall and leggy, and with my padding, well endowed. But I could never really believe that I was beautiful. And yet, almost on a daily basis, someone would ask me out.

At first it would be all I could do to keep from slapping the guy. But I kept my cool. In their eyes I was a pretty young lady who they wanted to get to know better. I’d asked out many girls in my time, many of whom I hardly knew. I just learned to take a deep breath and tell them ‘No thank you.’

Most of my ‘suitors’ were nice guys who just wanted to take me out. Of course any woman will tell you that it’s not always nice guys who ask you out. Once, a guy old enough to be my father asked me if I wanted to take a ride in his convertible. Another time a greasy cook made a sleazy comment about the chicken breast sandwich I had ordered. And once…

Jesus, this is an embarrassing story but I guess I should tell it. I was in a bookstore and this kid, he couldn’t have been older than twelve, comes over and swats my rear. Just like that! I swear, lady or not, I almost broke him over my knee.

“What’s up, sugar?” he leered. Dear God, did he honestly think even a real woman would be interested in a twerp like him?

“What do you say you and me, we get together?” he continued, in a pathetic attempt to sound macho. I was about to shove his ball cap down his throat when a better idea occurred to me.

I had pretty well mastered the art of the feminine voice. I still sounded rather husky, and yet feminine. But now I dropped all pretense of girlishness.

“Why sure, you hot young thing!” I said, as deeply as I could. Instantly, he realized the truth. God, I still regret not having a camera to capture his expression.

I decided to talk to Lori about male attitudes. “Jesus, are we all really like that?” I was afraid that women viewed me the way I viewed the obnoxious kid.

“No, not all men are like that. Most guys are very goal driven and want to get us in the sack, but still manage to be nice. Of course, I don’t have to tell you that there can be some real cretins out there.”

“So what do I do?”

“The same thing you’ve been doing. If you like him, go out with him; if you don’t, then politely decline. If he’s an ass, tell him where he can go.”

Later, I felt a little weird about that conversation. Had I just had a talk about boys with my older sister? It was like Lori was giving me advice about dating men! I looked forward to the day when the only reminder about this experience was the money.

Eventually, it was time to start preparing for the show. Lori had outdone herself. I would be wearing a different gown for each night of the exposition. Lori and I drove over to the convention center to meet with Mr. Kunyak, the show’s promoters, and the other models. I chose a white blouse with a conservative skirt and jacket. I wanted to look feminine, but at the same time I didn’t want to stand out. These would be industry professionals there and I didn’t want anyone to notice anything untoward.

Mr. Kunyak met up with a smile. “Ah, the Woolsey sisters! I’m so glad you both decided to come. I tell you, this is going to be the show of shows.” He turned to Lori. “I’ve been looking over the sketches you sent me, and I was rather impressed. If this show goes well, I can guarantee that ‘Lori Woolsey’ will be a name to reckon with in the fashion industry.” Lori smiled sweetly, but I knew that she was barely restraining herself from doing cartwheels. “And you,” continued Mr. Kunyak, now looking at me. “I’ve been showing your picture around. Once again, I’ve proven myself ahead of the game. Several designers have asked if you would be free next month to do some advertising spots for them. In fact Jemi Tachamuchi (who?) himself said that the athletic look was making a comeback and you were the perfect representation.”

“I’m flattered,” I replied. I was flattered, but also angry. So what if I made an attractive woman; did everyone have to talk about it?

“Anyway,” my boss continued, “you’ll probably get a few job offers before the week’s up. I know you said you didn’t want to do any more modeling, but if you change your mind, just remember that I discovered you and should get first crack at making you an offer.”

Well, fat chance of that. The money was nice, but no way was I going to work towards becoming the next Cindy Crawford. After this show I’d register for college and get on with my life.

“Hi there stranger,” said a familiar voice from behind me. I turned and gasped. There stood Shawna, the woman who had helped me out so much when I did the first show. I gave her what I hoped would pass for a sisterly hug. Soon we were sitting down, chatting like old friends. It turned out that she would be working the same convention. That gave me a good feeling, to know that that there would be someone there to help me out. Our reunion was interrupted when the MC insisted that all of the models meet to discuss the plans for the show.

We all grouped together in the cavernous convention hall. Like last time, there were quite a few male models. The MC, who was tall, handsome, and as gay as a picnic basket, addressed us. “Okay people. Here’s the drill. Each bride will be matched with a groom. Grooms will stand at the front of the catwalk; brides will walk down the aisle. You’ll stand together, smile at the audience, and then leave together. Any questions?”

“What’s he talking about?” I whispered to Shawna. “What does he mean, we’ll be matched with a groom?”

“Oh, that. They’re trying to make the production look more like a wedding. You’ll walk down the aisle and stand next to one of the guys. It’ll give the audience a better idea of how they’ll look at the wedding.”

“So how do we know what guy we’ll be matched with?” I began to panic. Just how far was this wedding illusion supposed to go?

“It’s random. You’ll probably be matched with a tall guy. Hopefully he’ll be cute.” Yeah. That would be great.

The MC began to read names. Shawna was matched with handsome, muscular guy with a shaved head. She winked at me over her shoulder; apparently she was happy with the choice. Name after name was read. I felt weird, like I was being matched with a life partner at one of those Reverend Moon group weddings. Finally, they called my name.

“Kimberly Woolsey? Let’s see…you’ll be with Patrick Elrick.”

I looked around for my ‘groom.’ I hoped he wasn’t sleazy.

“Hello. Are you Kimberly?”

I turned to face the man who addressed me. He was tall, even taller than me. He looked to be about twenty-one. He was handsome, even I could tell that. He had gray eyes, sandy blonde hair, and a good build. Poor guy, he probably was matched with the one female model who could have cared less about he looks.

“I’m Patrick,” he said and shook my hand.

“Nice to meet you.”

“So have you done a lot of modeling Kimberly?”

“Please, call me Kim.” It sounded more like my real name and less feminine. “Actually, I haven’t. I’m just doing this one job.”

I half expected him to tell me I could make it as a professional model; almost every guy I met now gave me some line like that. But he simply said, “Well, it’s a fun job if you’re into it. I do it part time to help pay for college.”

We exchanged some more pleasantries and I excused myself. Well, he could have been worse. No flirting, no staring, no sexist comments. Maybe it wouldn’t be too bad.

That night Lori took me out to get a makeover. My hair was professionally styled, my finger and toenails manicured and polished, overall body wax, and a better makeup job than I could give myself. As I walked out into the brisk New York night I noticed the looks I was getting from strangers. They weren’t all the leering stares of horny men, either. Many were simply the glances that people tend to give attractive women.

The scary thing was, I wasn’t entirely offended. Though I’d never admit it, I felt rather complimented at people’s attention. As a man I never really turned heads, but as a woman it felt kind of nice to be noticed. I felt ashamed, thinking that sort of thing, but what of it? Nobody would know of my secret pride and in a month I’d be a lot richer for my efforts.

*

The organ music swelling, and I marched down the catwalk to the pre-recorded strains of The Wedding March. This was the last day of the show and not surprisingly, I was glad. For an entire week I had been displaying myself like a hunk of meat for nine hours a day. Up and down the aisle, under the lights, in front of the cameras, in front of the audience. Eight different dress changes a day. If I ever got married I swore I’d give my wife all the support she needed in choosing her wedding dress. Lord knows I was an expert.

Without looking down, I thought about the dress I was wearing, probably the last one I’d ever wear. It was an ivory colored silk number with no veil and almost no fringe. I didn’t like it; it seemed more suited to an older bride; a second-time-around wife, not a young ‘girl’ like me. Oh well, Lori had to display the full spectrum of her work; I was only there to look good.

I took my spot next to Patrick. He grasped my hand. When he had done this the first time I nearly fell off the stage, but now I could let him hold my limp hand in his with hardly a shudder. Like everything else I had been doing this week, I just put it down to part of the act and forgot about it.

After the MC described our clothes in detail, we walked, still hand in hand, back down the catwalk. At least they weren’t throwing rice; every time we did this I still had the uncomfortable feeling that this was a real wedding and Patrick was looking forward to the honeymoon. It was a paranoid delusion of course, but after almost a month of being treated like a woman I occasionally had thoughts like that. I guess it went with the territory.

At long, long last came the time for all of us to go out on stage and take our final bows. Patrick and I stood in a row with the other pretend couples and smiled at the audience, almost blinded by the flashbulbs. That’s when it happened.

Shawna’s groom reached over and kissed her. It wasn’t a passionate kiss; it was more like one you’d see at the altar. That was like the floodgates opening; soon every couple on the stage was kissing one another. Everyone, that is, except for Patrick and myself.

Well, what did it matter? I was hired to model, not to kiss. Realistic wedding or no, I wasn’t about to let him put his mouth on mine. I glanced in his direction…

Everything went in slow motion. First, the gentle pressure of his hand on my cheek. Then his face slowly advancing toward mine. I was trapped! I couldn’t jolt away, or tell him no, or try to turn my head. That would be too distracting; it could ruin the whole moment. Lori and Mr. Kunyak would never forgive me.

His lips touched mine. Not for long, not lingering, but they touched. His lips were rough, and for just the slightest moment I could feel the deep pressure from his kiss. Then it was over.

Later, I sat alone in the dressing room in nothing but a terry cloth robe. I was removing my makeup with damp cotton balls, thinking about what had just happened.

I had been kissed by a guy! Not passionately, not willingly, but I had been kissed. I kept trying to justify it by saying I really had had no choice, but I still felt guilty. Patrick really couldn’t be blamed; in his eyes, it was just acting. And worst of all, Lori had seen the whole thing. What if she said something? What if she acted like I had enjoyed it? She had better not, if she knew what was good for her.

I looked at my reflection in the mirror. The month I had spent as a woman had taken its toll. I no longer looked as awkward and uncomfortable as a girl. In fact, even now, as I wore nothing but a robe, I still looked naturally feminine. It was scary how well I was pulling this off. I shook my head. Well, at least it was all over.

I heard and noise and turned around to see Lori, smiling at me. ‘Here it comes,’ I thought. ‘Patrick and Kimberly sittin’ in a tree…’

“Kim, you were sensational! Everything went perfectly!” She kissed my cheek. “Thank you so much for doing that, you really did a great job.” I was relieved. Apparently she was not going to mention the kiss.

“Well, I’m just glad it’s all over.”

“Well, it’s not quite over. I mean, you’re still planning on staying here for another week or two, right?”

“Of course. But what’s the point of be being Kim any more? The show’s over, and it’s not like I’m going to be dressing like this again.”

Lori sat down and laid a hand on my knee. “I know, Kim. But think about it. All my friends know you as a woman. All the places we’ve hung out, they know you as Kimberly. I can’t very well tell people that Kim just left town in the middle of the night and was replaced with our brother, Ken.”

“I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Look, Kim. You told me there were still a lot of things you wanted to do here before you went back home. It would be a lot easier if you just stayed here as Kim. If anyone saw you as Ken, we’d have a lot of explaining to do. Besides…”

“Yes?”

“I’ve kind of enjoyed having a sister. I know it’s temporary, but, well, would one more week really matter?"

I threw up my hands in frustration. Lori was right, I guess I couldn’t thrust my male self onto the scene all of a sudden. Besides, I still had to pick up my check from Kunyak as Kim.

“Wonderful,” said Lori. “There’s a bit of a party tonight. I hope you’ll come.”

“Well, after all the work I’ve been doing, I think it will be good to cut loose and relax.”

“Great. I’ll drive us.”

I quickly changed into a pair of black slacks and a white blouse. I finished removing my stage makeup, and then made my face up again. I found Lori in the parking lot and we drove over to the party.

The party was over at Mr. Kunyak’s palatial house. I strolled in with Lori and began to mingle. It struck me as ironic, how much more confident I was now. A few weeks ago I would have moved heaven and earth to avoid going to a party dressed like a woman, now I was looking forward to it.

I spent a long time discussing the show with Shawna. Soon we were talking about all the dresses we had seen at the show. I hated to admit it, but I was becoming a bit of an expert at women’s fashion. Regrettably, the conversation soon turned to men.

“So what do you think about Tim?” she asked me. Tim was the man who played her groom.

“Oh, he seems like a nice guy.” He did. I wasn’t about to speculate on how attractive he might be.

“Yeah, he is. I think he likes me. I wonder if I should go for it.”

“Well, if it doesn’t work out, you can always get a free dinner.” We laughed. Inwardly I felt like I had betrayed males everywhere by saying that.

“So,” Shawna continued, “is anything going on with you and Patrick?”

“No!” I said, much too emphatically.

“Just wondering.” Tim came in, and soon all of Shawna’s attentions were focused on him.

The party was now in full swing. I had a bit of a panicked moment when Patrick came up and started talking to me. I was afraid that he was going to hit on me, but all he did was congratulate me on the job I had done at the show. Thankfully he didn’t mention the kiss.

Woman or not, I was enjoying the party. It was nice to cut loose with the people who had become my friends, and I felt twinge of sadness at the thought I’d never see them again. Oh well, when I picked up my check in a few days, that would make everything worth it.

Soon it was well past midnight. I began to feel like going home. Most everyone else was well on their way to inebriation. I didn’t really enjoy drinking (aside from the fact that I was underage) and their drunken antics were beginning to bore me. I began to look for Lori to see if she wanted to go home, but she was nowhere to be seen.

Eventually I located Mr. Kunyak and asked him if he had seen my sister.

“Oh, I’m afraid she overdid it. She’s asleep in one of the back bedrooms.”

“Asleep? How am I supposed to get home?”

“She left you her keys,” he replied, handing them to me. “You’re welcome to spend the night as well, but if you feel like driving her car, I can call her a taxi tomorrow.”

“Thank you very much.”

“Thank you. For everything. Say, Kim…”

“Yes?”

“I don’t suppose you’d be interested in doing another job for me? Don’t answer now. When you come for your pay, we’ll discuss it.”

Soon I was driving off into the night. It was rather enjoyable, out here on the highway alone, the wind in my long hair (Lori had bought a convertible with her insurance money). I thought back on all the crazy things that had happened to me: being a model, making friends as a girl, making so much money as a bride. It all seemed so surreal. It hadn’t even been all that unpleasant. I could admit that to myself: I had had a good time.

My thoughts were interrupted by the harrowing sound of a police siren close behind me. ‘Please don’t let that be for me,’ I thought,

hopelessly. The patrol car pulled up behind me and flashed its lights. My heart in my throat, I pulled over.

I waited for what seemed like an eternity, trying to calm myself. I supposed I had been speeding, but with my cash windfall, I could pay for a ticket.

The trooper walked up to my window. He was a tough looking customer; I was glad that speeding had been my only crime. “Do you know how fast you were going, ma’am?” he asked.

“About sixty?”

“Are you aware that the speed limit here is only fifty?”

“No, I wasn’t aware.” I fought off an urge to try flirting my way out of a ticket; I wasn’t that desperate.

“License and registration, please.”

I fished my license out of my purse and then handed it to him.

He took a few steps toward his car and stopped.

“Ma’am, would you mind giving me a valid piece of ID? This isn’t you.”

I looked at my driver’s license and nearly cried. It was me, the male me. There was no denying that the photo was of a young man. Barring that, under SEX the world ‘male’ was clearly visible.

“That is me.”

“Ma’am, I suggest that you do not make jokes right now.”

“No…” I didn’t want to do it, but I couldn’t think of an alternative. “I am a man.”

The trooper showed surprise, just for a second. He looked at the photo, then at me, then back at the photo. “Wait here,” he said.

My stomach churned. Was it illegal to dress as a woman? I guessed not, unless he could prove I was doing it with fraudulent intentions. But what did it matter? What if he thought I was gay and was doing this out of pleasure? What if he hated people like that and arrested me? My God, if I were arrested, it would be in the paper, wouldn’t it? And that meant everyone would know that I was a guy! Kunyak would probably refuse to pay me, maybe even sue me for faking my gender! Why hadn’t I obeyed the speed limit? Oh God, I was in so much trouble.

The cop slowly walked back towards my car and leaned into the window. “Your ID checks out. You’re free to go, just try to keep it under fifty.”

“Yes sir.” Had I heard correctly? Was he was letting me off with a warning?

“I’d take that advice seriously. Not everyone is as kind to, ah, people like you as I am. You could find yourself in serious trouble if you are caught dressed that way. Not all police officers are like me. Not all of them understand how it is.” He quickly turned and left.

I pondered his words all the way home. His advice was sound; I knew I was lucky not to be in more trouble than I was. But what did he mean by ‘not all of them understand how it is’? Did he understand? Was he a cross dresser? Did he know someone who was?

I never found out the answers and I never saw him again, though to this day I’m grateful for his kindness.

*

A couple of days later I was at Kunyak’s office to collect my pay. Not wishing for another run in with the law, I had taken the bus. Kunyak smiled at me from across his desk as he filled out the check.

“Well Ms. Woolsey, I must say you more than adequately fulfilled your end of the agreement. I couldn’t be happier with your work.”

“Thank you sir,” I replied, stunned by all the zeros on my paycheck. “You’re too kind.”

“I’m not one to give meaningless praise. A lot of people at the show noticed. You’re at a natural at modeling. You even make what you’re wearing now seem feminine and alluring.”

That was high praise. I had chosen the most severe women’s business suit I could find for this meeting. I had finally managed to put my hair up in a bun and was wearing no makeup. I remembered how he had offered to find me more work, and I didn’t feel like turning him down. I had hoped that my dull clothes would put him off the idea, but apparently they had had just the opposite effect.

“At any rate, I don’t think I want to end our association. A lot of designers want to offer you contracts, but as I said earlier, I think I deserve to make the first offer.”

I felt myself blush. I hadn’t been this embarrassed in years. All I had wanted to do was a favor for my sister; now it seems that everyone wanted to turn me into a Victoria’s Secret model. This had to stop.

“Thank you very much, but…”

“Just hear me out. My company is putting together a new catalog for fiscal 2001. Only we’re going to try something new. Instead of just having photos of models, we’re going to make it read like a story. We’ll follow a fictitious couple throughout their relationship. We’ll start with photos of them meeting, and end with them on their honeymoon. And I’d like you to play the bride.”

Yikes! Wearing a wedding gown was one thing, but I didn’t like the sound of going on a honeymoon with a guy, even if it was all fake.

Kunyak continued. “Shooting will begin in September, we’ll finish in July.”

Ah, there was my perfect excuse to back out. “I’m sorry, Mr. Kunyak. College starts in late August and I’m afraid that I can’t miss it. Thank you anyway.” I got up to leave.

“Sit down.” His voice was not to be denied. I don’t mean that he was threatening, or bossy or anything. It’s just that he had the forceful, commanding way of speaking that made me feel that disobedience was not an option.

“Ms. Woolsey, I didn’t get to where I am today by taking no for an answer. I want you for these shots. I’m willing to do whatever it takes.”

“I…I’m sorry, sir, but college is too important to me.”

“How are you paying for college? Scholarship?”

“No. Student loan.”

“What degree course are you going to follow?”

“I want to be a psychologist.”

“That’ll be about five years of undergraduate work. Then, if you hope to find work, you’ll have to get your masters. That still won’t guarantee you work, though it will mean you’ll be stuck with rather hefty student loan payments.”

“Mr. Kunyak, I don’t appreciate you trying to scare me into giving up my plans.”

“No one’s trying to scare you into doing anything. I don’t want you to skip college; I want you to postpone it for a year to do this promotion for me. In return, I will pay for your college until such time as you get your masters. No strings, questions. In addition, I’ll pay you a nice living wage. A student has to eat, doesn’t she?”

I nearly hyperventilated. Pay for college until I got my masters? That could take eight years! I could devote all that time to my studies without worrying about my finances or whether I’d find work after! If the job market was bad I could work a low paying job without the loan officers banging down my door.

Kunyak obviously was used to getting what he wanted and he clearly wanted me. Why me? Was I that pretty? I must have been; he was willing to plop down a sizeable chunk of cash just to get me to model for a year.

But then again, it would be for a whole year. Twelve months as Kim! No one but my family would know, but what would they think? Could I do it? Could I pull it off? The thought didn’t seem so repugnant now.

Mr. Kunyak mistook my silence for hesitation. “And of course, your sister will have plenty of work to do on the shoot. I’m quite happy with her work as well.”

That cinched it for me. Free college and work for Lori. All in all, I felt I was getting a pretty good deal.

I stood up and shook his hand. “It will be a pleasure to work for you, sir.”

“You won’t regret it.”

I was halfway to the door when a thought hit me. “Who will be playing the groom?”

“Oh, that’s part of the beauty of it. It’ll be your friend, Patrick.”

*

“YOU DID WHAT?”

If I was expecting my sister to be happy about the deal I had cut, I was sadly mistaken.

“Tell me you didn’t sign anything! You didn’t sign anything, did you?”

“Well, he had the contract all ready…”

“Oh, sweet Jesus, this is not happening. This is not happening!” I had never seen Lori this upset, not even after the car accident.

“What’s gotten into you? I thought you’d be happy.”

“Happy? You ruin both our lives and expect me to be happy?”

“Hey, you were the one who convinced me to dress like this in the first place. It’s not my fault it suddenly paid so well!”

Lori sat down. “Listen, Kim. The bridal show was one thing. A bridal gown could cover up anything we wanted hidden. But this is going to be a full year of shooting. It’ll end in the summer. You can’t wear heavy clothes then.”

“I guess we’ll have to think of something.”

“Think of something? Tell me, professor, what are you going to do when they tell you to put on a bikini?”

“I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Obviously not.”

“So what should I do?”

Lori massaged her temples with her hands. “Well, you signed the contract, and from the sound of things he won’t let you renege, so that options out. I guess we’ll just have to think about it for a while. You’ll be wearing heavy clothes for the first few months, at least. We can figure something out by the summer.”

Lori stood up to leave, then paused. “Did he really say he liked my work?”

*

The next day, Lori woke me up to tell me she had found a possible solution to our conundrum. “I’ve been on the Internet all night and I finally found a place in New York that can help us.”

“What kind of a place?” I asked sleepily.

“It’s a clinic. They help out transsexuals.”

“But I’m not a transsexual!” I meekly protested.

“True, but this place might be our only hope. I’ve already arranged an appointment. C’mon, get dressed!”

I pulled on a pair of shorts and a midriff-baring shirt (I had lost weight recently and didn’t look bad in it). After making up my face and doing my hair I got into the car with Lori.

We arrived at a small, nondescript looking building, with a sign that simply read ‘Pharmacy.’ Lori parked and we walked in.

I was surprised to notice the absence of the traditional pharmaceutical counter. Instead, it appeared we had walked into a doctor’s waiting room. Lori rang the bell. After a short wait, a middle-aged woman emerged from the interior of the building.

I found her attractive, from an older woman point of view. She had curly reddish hair mixed with gray, a plump, voluptuous build, and a pretty face. “Hello,” she said with a slight German accent. “May I help you?”

“Yes,” said my sister. “I’m Lori Woolsey, we spoke on the phone earlier.

“Ah, yes, Ms. Woolsey. And you must be Kim.” I nodded. “Please walk this way.”

We soon found ourselves in a small examining room. Standing by the examination table was a fiftyish looking man. He was compactly built, with stern features and surprisingly black hair.

“Please have a seat,” he said with an even more pronounced accent. “Which one of you is Kimberly?”

“That would be me.” I was beginning to wonder what was going on. Was this guy a doctor? A pharmacist? Just how was he supposed to help me pass as a woman for a year? He had a sterile, humorless air about him that frightened me.

“Allow me to introduce myself. I am Dr. Hienrich Klauss. This is my wife, Greta.” He motioned to the woman who had led us in. She passed the doctor a clipboard, gave him a flirtatious wink, and left us alone.

The doctor checked something off on his clipboard. “Ms. Woolsey, your sister explained your situation briefly to us over the phone. Would you care to elaborate?”

Wondering how wise it was to confide to this physician, I gave a run down of my story: pretending to be a model, signing a contract, and having to pass close physical inspection for a year. The doctor nodded.

“So can you help me, doctor?”

“Yes, but you won’t like it.”

When a German doctor says you won’t like something, it’s cause for alarm. “What do you mean by that?”

“Ms. Woolsey, did your sister inform you about what I do here?” I replied in the negative.

“I help transsexuals achieve the bodies that they have dreamed about. I give men the bodies of women.”

“You perform plastic surgery? You’re right, I don’t want any part of that.”

“Yes, surgery is one option, but I was thinking along a different line for you: hormones.”

“Hormones! That’s almost as bad!”

“As, I mentioned before, I didn’t think you’d like the idea.”

Lori piped in, “What effects would the hormones have?”

The doctor replied as if he were addressing the AMA. “A softening of the skin. A reduction in the amount of body hair. An added silkiness to the regular hair. A redistribution of body fat; it will stop collecting in the stomach and began to form around the hips and chest. An increase in nipple size and sensitivity. A decrease in male sex drive.”

I got up to leave. “No thank you. I don’t want to have breasts for the rest of my life!”

“The effects aren’t permanent. They take a long time to become noticeable but disappear at a much more rapid rate. If I were to start you on estrogen now you would develop a lovely figure by next summer. If you were to stop taking the hormones shortly after, you’d be back to normal in a matter of months.”

My head was swimming. “But don’t I have to have a note from a psychologist to get these hormones?”

The doctor looked a little nervous. “The law says you must live as a woman for a year and have a psychologist’s okay before I can prescribe you hormones. I do things a bit differently; I prescribe the hormones, then, after the patient has developed a life as a woman, any psychologist would have a hard time denying the patient permission to continue taking them.”

“So you’re giving out hormones against the law?”

“Perhaps. But is it fair to deny a woman the right to live as such because of some bureaucratic nonsense? If the hormones are a mistake, then they can stop taking them.”

“So what do you think?” asked Lori.

“What do I think? You’re asking me to illegally take hormones to give myself a feminine body! I’m sorry, my answer is an emphatic ‘no’.”

“Kim, listen to me. You agreed to model for a year. You knew that would mean that everyone would think you were a girl for the entire time. So you grow rounded hips and little breasts? What of it? It’s not like anyone you know will think those are strange features for a woman! And you heard the doctor; in just a couple of months your body will revert back to normal.”

“I’m still not convinced.”

“Ms. Woolsey,” interjected the doctor, “allow me to give my opinion. You have been successfully living as a woman for how long?”

“Over a month.”

“And you agreed to do it for an additional year.”

“Well, yeah.”

“And you do make a lovely woman. When you two walked in here, I honestly didn’t know which one of you was the man.”

Lori bridled a bit at this, much to my satisfaction.

Dr. Klaus continued “The point I’m trying to make is, if you are resigned to living this way for an extended period of time, then hormones are your best bet. If you take them, odds are you’ll never be discovered, even in a swimsuit. If you don’t, well, I’m almost certain you will be found out.”

“Kim,” said Lori, “He’s right. If you don’t go through with this, we’ll have to tell Kunyak the truth. It’s the only way he’d let you out of your contract. If he found out during the shoot he’d have to scrap everything, which would cost him millions.”

Someone once said ‘Life is what happens when you are making other plans.’ That phrase had never hit home for me until then. “Okay. But I’m only doing this for the cash.”

The doctor rubbed my arm with cotton and gave me an injection. “This is only for starters,” he assured me. “By the time you are away on your trip we’ll switch you to an oral regimen.”

Lori and I walked back to the waiting room to pay Frau Klaus for the visit.

“Doctor,” I said as I fumbled in my purse. “I’m curious. How does a guy like you get into the illicit hormone trade?”

“It’s a rather interesting story,” he replied. “When I was a physician back in the old country, I received a shipment of antidepressants from a supplier in the former East Germany. I prescribed them to a young patient of mine who was going through the post-adolescent blues.

“After a few months on the pills, I realized something was up. My patient was experiencing exactly the same side effects I described to year earlier. I did an analysis of his medication and realized that it was actually estrogen tablets that had been mislabeled.

“I was about to inform my patient of the mistake, when I realized something interesting. He no longer seemed depressed; in fact he seemed to be enjoying life more than ever. I had originally attributed this to his medication, but since hormones obviously have different effects, I was stumped. But he was happy, so I kept the prescription the same.”

“You did what?” I asked, horrified.

“Like I said, he seemed happy. Of course, he was confused as heck about the changes that were happening in his body, but I told him they would pass in time.”

“How could you do that? That’s horrible!”

“Well, it made an interesting psychological study. By the end of six months he lost all trace of his former depression. By the end of a year he was living full time as a woman. After two and a half years he flew to Sweden for sex reassignment surgery.

“Of course, I had to come clean long before then, he obviously figured out what he was taking wasn’t antidepressants.”

“So was he angry, being experimented on like that?”

“At first. But he got his revenge.”

“What did he do to you?”

“I married him,” answered Greta with a giggle.

The doctor put his arm around his wife and, for the first time, smiled. It took me several seconds to figure out what they were implying.

“You were the patient?” Lori stammered to Greta.

“My name used to be Gunnar,” she whispered with a grin.

*

I couldn’t help giggling when we were alone in the car. Greta, the doctor’s attractive, curvaceous wife used to be a man! My God, I never would have guessed. I’m sure the doctor never would have guessed, either.

Then a frightening thought hit me. “Lori, hormones can’t change the way you think, can they? I mean, they couldn’t make gay, could they?”

“No, of course not. Why would you ask that?”

“Well, look at Greta! She wasn’t a transsexual, but hormones certainly changed her life. I don’t want to end up married to Heinrich Klaus, Jr!”

“Well, I’m no psychologist, but it would appear that Gunnar liked life better as Greta. I’m guessing you prefer life as Ken over life as Kim.”

“Of course.”

“Well there you go. Just keep thinking like a man and it’ll all be OK.”

I nodded, but I wasn’t convinced.

*

Soon the two weeks were up and it was time for me to return home. Since I still had about a month before the photo shoot started, Lori and I decided to spend a little time with Mom.

When I called Mom to break the news about my plans for the next year, she was shocked.

“You’re going to be living as a woman for a year? Ken, honey, don’t you think that this is kind of a radical step?” I could tell she was worried about me.

“Tell me about it, but I’m just doing it to pay for college. Trust me, this is all going to work out for the best.” I could tell Mom wasn’t so sure. Later, I asked Lori what she thought.

“Well, Kim, you know that Mom’s always felt guilty about not being able to afford to send you to college. I guess she’s feels that if she could have provided for you better then you wouldn’t have had to do this.”

“She shouldn’t feel that way. If I didn’t think I could do this, I’d just get a loan.”

“I know. Just let her know that this isn’t going to be a traumatic experience for you. Show her what a great woman you make.”

I guess that’s why when Mom met us at the airport, I was wearing a floral sun dress and heels. What the hell! No one would recognize me now, in fact I think Mom had to do a double take when she realized it was me. But she quickly recovered. Before we had finished the drive home, Mom was calling me Kim.

That night we all stayed up late and talked. It was kind of funny. I had grown up being the odd man out, so to speak. Mom and Lori were women and I felt that they had always been closer to each other than to me. No fault of their own, there are just some thing mothers don’t discuss with their sons and sisters don’t discuss with their brothers. But now things were different.

As we all sat there in our night gowns, eating popcorn and watching the late movie, I suddenly had a feeling like I belonged, that I was truly one of them. One of the girls, as it were. Obviously, Mom and Lori hadn’t forgotten my true gender, but the fact that I was now living as a girl helped them open up to me more than I ever remember them doing before. I went to bed that night contented; I felt like I had truly bonded with the rest of my family.

*

Sitting in front of the makeup mirror, I gazed back at the reflection in front of me and liked what I saw. My makeup was done to perfection. It was a little excessive for daily wear, but I needed to wear extra for the camera to pick up my features. My hair hung down around my shoulders. I had spent hours trying to make it look like I hadn’t done anything special with it. The dangling earrings that bordered my face added to my prettiness.

It was the first day of the big shoot. Today would make or break me. Today I would prove to Mr. Kunyak, Lori, and myself that I hadn’t done a dumb, selfish thing by agreeing to the shoot. Today, I was going to be a woman.

Looking at myself in the dressing room’s full-length mirror, it wasn’t hard to believe I really was a woman. It was early fall, so most of my femininity came from the clothes that covered most of my body. A long black skirt, panty hose, and a blue and white striped jersey were reminiscent of something my sister would wear. Of course, I had been living as Kim for several months now, so I was used to dressing like this. I was living with Lori again, and in order to simplify things, I had never gone back to being Ken since the last shoot.

What clothing couldn’t give me, padding provided. I still wore the device for hiding my penis, and generous padding for simulating breasts. Of course, this sort of thing would only work when I was heavily clothed. Once summer rolled around…

Well, I was working on that. After several months on hormones, I was beginning to notice their effects. For starters, I no longer had to worry about appearing too muscular for a woman. Most of my muscle tone had disappeared. Or, more to the point, it had changed into flab. Before getting on estrogen I never had to worry about keeping weight off; now I had to go to the gym three times a week just to stay slender.

My weight distribution had changed as well. Fat now gathered in my hips and rear. Nothing that you would really notice, I still had to wear the padding. Still, I knew that these changes were only the beginning. Due to the extra sensitivity in my chest, I knew it wouldn’t be long before I’d start needing a training bra.

There was a knock at the door. “Come in,” I called. Randy, the teenager who did odd jobs around the set, stuck his head in.

“They’re calling for you, Ms. Woolsey,” he said, with forced nonchalance. I smiled back at him and he nervously left. I found his crush on me a little disturbing. At first I thought being mean to him would get him to keep his distance, but it just wasn’t in me. He was just lonely, and didn’t deserve to be mistreated. I simply tried to ignore him as much as possible.

I slipped on my heels, put my purse on my arm, and walked into the studio. As I mentioned before, the theme of Kunyak’s catalog was that it would be composed of seemingly actual photos of a couple falling in love. Today we would be shooting the ‘They Meet,’ scene.

The studio was set up like a coffee shot. I was to sit down at a table, and sip my espresso. Patrick, wearing a flannel shirt and khaki pants, would be sitting at another table. One shot would be him noticing me, another of him walking shyly towards my table, and a third of us talking, seemingly hitting it off. There would be several more of us talking, and then a final one of me handing Patrick my phone number. Each shot would be cleverly arranged so as to show off a particular garment of Patrick or myself. While the whole scene would only take up a couple of pages of the finished product, we’d be lucky if we finished in one day. Oh well, that’s why I got paid what I did.

Patrick was already on the set. “Hey, Kim,” he said as he grinned at me. That was another source of my unease. Patrick and I had never really talked in depth. I knew we’d end up shooting lots of romantic scenes together: holding hands, dancing, and, unless I was very lucky, kissing. I just hoped that Patrick knew what I did on camera in no way reflected my feelings in real life. I guess I shouldn’t have assumed that he would be interested in me, but I wasn’t about to take any chances. The first time I sensed he was getting too into it I’d take him aside and politely tell him to back off. Checking my makeup one last time, I slid into my seat.

There would be no more than eight pictures from this scene in the catalog, but the shooting took over nine hours. I was exhausted by the time Kunyak decided we had had enough for the day. I quickly retired to my dressing room to change back into my jeans and sweater. Though I had planned on leaving my makeup on until I got home, a glance in the mirror told me that stage makeup looked foolish on me. I cleaned it off, then reapplied it at a normal thickness. I sighed. Applying makeup had become a daily ritual with me. I was lonesome for the days when getting ready to go out meant taking a shower, nothing more. I shook my head and left the dressing room.

The studio was dark, but there was a light coming from under the door to the area where the film was processed. ‘Slim’ Arlo, the chief photo technician was probably working late again, trying to get everything processed and ready in time. I slipped through the door and into his workroom to tell him good night.

Slim was hunched over his computer, manipulating the shots of the day on his screen. “Hey, Kim,” he said, not turning around. “Check this out.”

Grudgingly, I walked over. Slim had the tendency to make me slightly nervous. He was middle aged, an ex-GI photographer from the Vietnam War who had a tendency to relate gruesome combat stories. Still, there was nothing overtly unlikable about him, so I bent over the screen to see what he had been working on. To my surprise, I was looking at a finished copy of the day’s shoot, just like it would appear in print.

“I’m impressed, Slim. How did you managed to get this done so fast?”

“Ah, you guys did all the work. They sent me a copy of the captions earlier, so all I had to do was…” he then gave me a five-minute technical explanation that might as well have been in Chinese for all I understood.

I gazed with interest at the screen. The page was titled “Love at First Sight.” Each picture contained a small caption describing a particular article of clothes. Everything was related in details, including my jewelry, and the name of the manicurist who had done my nails.

“This is kind of an odd feeling,” I thought out loud.

“What’s that?” said Slim, still never having looked up from the screen.

“All these photos of me; all these descriptions of what I’m wearing. It just seems like a lot of fuss over me.”

“Hey, you’re a professional model. There’s nothing strange about it.”

“Oh, I’m not really a model.”

“You’ve said that before. But you’re doing a year long shoot for a major bridal company. That makes you a model.”

I didn’t feel like arguing. “I guess it just hasn’t sunk in.”

“Here, let me show you something.” Slim pulled up another picture on the monitor. It was one of Patrick and I, sitting at the table. Patrick is smiling, and I’m laughing as if he had just told a funny joke. That had actually been a hard one to take; it’s not easy making a fake laugh look real. Luckily, Patrick had known a few actual jokes to help me along.

“You see here,” said Slim, “what do you see?”

“The photo form earlier today.”

“Okay, but say this wasn’t of you. Say you were someone else, seeing this photo and not knowing what it was from.”

“I see…” and then I stopped. I didn’t want to say it. I couldn’t admit it. What I saw, was a photo of a handsome guy and a pretty girl out on a date. We didn’t look like models. We just looked like a couple of young people enjoying being together. It was a photo of me on a date. And I was the girl.

“See what I mean?” asked Slim, almost reading my thoughts. “Most models make these shots look staged and awkward. You two, hell. If I didn’t know what I was looking at, I’d swear you were Patrick’s girlfriend.”

I was too flustered to reply. Upon my request, Slim gave me a copy of the photo from his color printer. I went back home to study it. Me, on a date. Me, on a date in a skirt. Me, on a date with a guy. Me on a date as a girl.

When Lori came home, I showed her the photo. “What do you think?”

“You look great. You’re becoming quite the makeup artist.”

“No, I mean what does this picture remind you of? Pretend it wasn’t staged.”

“It looks like a couple of young people out on a…out having coffee.”

“That’s not what you were going to say. You were going to say, ‘out on a date.’”

“Maybe. Look, don’t worry about it! It may look real, but we know it’s staged. Just a photo shoot. Don’t sweat it.”

Late that night, I thought about what Lori had said. It was just a photo shoot. But that picture looked so real. What would the coming photos look like? Me, at a dance with Patrick? Patrick asking me to be his wife? Me as a bride? Me on my honeymoon? I didn’t like to imagine what those pictures would look like.

*

“Lori, have you been using my razor again?” I called out through the bathroom door.

“Sorry, Kim. I’m out of blades.”

“Damn it, Lori, you know I have a shoot today! I can’t very well go in with patchy legs!” Lori was a great roommate, but she got on my nerves at times. As I searched for a fresh blade, I pondered getting my own place.

After sufficiently denuding my legs, I wrapped a towel around me and walked to my bedroom. Lori saw me and giggled.

“What, may I ask, is so funny?”

“Nothing. Sorry.”

“It must have been something, or you wouldn’t have laughed.”

“Oh, it’s just the way you’re wearing that towel. Not around your waist like a man, but under your armpits, like a woman. It’s like you’re trying to cover your breasts.”

Annoyed, I disappeared into my bedroom. I hadn’t even realized I had been doing that! Of course, I had picked up a lot of feminine habits recently. I now frequently ducked into the lady’s room to check my appearance. I was careful with the way I handled things; I didn’t want to break a nail. I signed my name as Kim without consciously thinking about it. The summer couldn’t come soon enough, in my opinion. I wondered if I ever got married, if I’d ever tell my wife what I had done this year.

I pulled on a sweater and a long skirt, caring little about how I was dressed. As soon as I made it to the studio, I’d have to change anyway.

I arrived at the studio about a half-hour early, and found the crew setting up the scenery. The set was supposed to be ‘my’ bedroom in my imaginary house.

“Hey Kim,” said Slim, who was readying his camera.

“Hey Slim. Ready for another day of work?”

“You bet. What’s the deal with the bedroom shot? Inviting Patrick to spend the night already?”

“Har de har har. Patrick’s not in this one. It’s supposed to be of me getting ready for the date. I have to go through about a dozen outfit changes.”

“For one date?”

“It’s supposed to be like I’m so smitten with Patrick that I have to try on every outfit I own, just to find the perfect dress.”

“Sounds like an excuse to show off more of Kunyak’s designs.”

“Bingo. This will probably take over a month to do.”

I left to find Kunyak, to see what the outfit of the day would be.

“Good morning, Kimberly.” Kunyak, as usual, was relaxed, as if everything in his life was going exactly how he had planned. Who knows, maybe it was.

“Good morning, Mr. Kunyak. What am I going to be wearing today?”

“I thought we’d start you off simple. DuProit and Company sent over a pair of jeans, and I thought we’d have you try those pumps we discussed earlier in the week.” Mr. Kunyak was the only man I ever knew who could say something like that and not sound effeminate. I, on the other hand, sounded totally girlish whenever I discussed my clothes.

I looked the jeans over. They certainly didn’t leave much to the imagination. I’d have to pad extra carefully that day, so the tight jeans would show off my ‘curves.’

“And what did you have in mind for the shirt?”

“Well, that depends. Um, have you been dieting?” Mr. Kunyak had been very embarrassed when he asked me if I could try to lose ten pounds. He was of the conviction that I was beautiful the way I was, but since other designers were also contributing to the catalog, he had to put forward their suggestion I slim down, just a bit.

“Well, it hasn’t been easy, but I think I’ve managed to flatten my stomach a bit.” I pulled up my sweater to display my tummy. I wasn’t as flat as Lori was, but thanks to my working out, dieting, and hormones, my belly now curved inwards.

“Thank you, Kimberly. In that case, I think we’ll put you in the short sweater.” I looked at the pink garment. It was a design by another company; a light sweater that cut off just above my navel. I gathered my clothes together and went to try them on.

Getting into the jeans was trickier than I thought. They barely left enough room for my panties. It would have been impossible to fit so much as my keys into jeans this tight. Taking a deep breath, I managed to fit all of me inside. They were uncomfortable as hell, I felt like my testicles had been forced up into my throat.

Next, after adjusting my falsies, I slipped on the sweater. I regarded myself in the mirror. The diet had paid off; I could proudly display my flat little tummy, as was the style at the time. After applying my makeup, we began the shoot.

The entire day’s work left us with only one picture. Me, standing in front of a wall mirror, looking at myself skeptically. There might as well have been a thought bubble above my head reading ‘Will he like me in this?’ Nine hours of shooting and all it netted us was a shot for page six of the catalog. Oh well, that was Kunyak’s business, not mine. He obviously knew what he was doing.

After all was said and done, I didn’t feel like peeling myself out of my jeans. “Mr. Kunyak, do you mind if I just wear these home?”

Kunyak assented with a wave of his hand, a gesture only the truly rich can successfully make. “Come back tomorrow. We’ll discuss the future shots.”

“Okay, see you bright an early.”

“Don’t bother. You won’t be in any shots tomorrow; it’ll be Patrick’s turn. Come in around noon.”

As I hailed a cab to take me home, I began to regret not changing at work. The pants were so tight that they were hard to walk in, and the midriff showing sweater was a bit chilly in the late September evening. The construction worker who whistled at me didn’t improve my disposition, either.

“Hey Lori, I’m home.”

“Hey Kim, I…wow, you look great!”

“What do you mean?”

“That outfit, it really suits you.”

“Please. These pants are about five sizes too small.”

“Really?” She looked at the tag. “They’re not too much smaller than the pants I got you when you first came here.”

“That can’t be. Hell, I’ve been dieting, they should be looser, not tighter.” I noticed Lori was looking at me in an odd way. “What?”

“Kim, do me a favor, and get undressed.”

“Why?”

“Please, I want to see something.”

I went into the bathroom and removed everything but my sex-hiding thong and my panties. Lori knocked and entered. She smiled.

“What?” I was beginning to get angry with her cryptic behavior.

“You haven’t noticed? Those hormones have done a number on you.”

“They might have made me a little chubbier in areas, but I fail to see anything major.”

“I guess you’re too close to things to notice. Good God, girl, your rear end is about twice the size as it used to be. And your hips are as big as mine! Your waist is thinner, but that’s probably due to your diet. And your chest!”

“What about my chest?” I examined it. It had changed, a little. The nipples were larger, and darker. And they stuck out as well, just a little. Humiliated, I pulled my top back on.

“I don’t see what you’re making such a big deal about,” I said, trying to mask my embarrassment. “We knew there’d be changes. That’s the whole point.”

“I know. I just think it’s cute. You are developing a nice figure, Kim.”

I snorted. Didn’t she know how hard this had been for me? I think she sensed my unease.

“Kim, don’t get mad. I’m not trying to tease you. It’s just hard sometimes, not to think of you as a woman. When I tell you that you make a cute girl, I mean it as a complement.”

“Well,” I said, somewhat mollified, “if you want to make me feel good, no more compliments.”

Lori winked at me.

*

The next day I returned to the studio. After a brief meeting with Kunyak to discuss the order and times of the shooting the following weeks, I stopped by the set to see how Patrick’s shooting was progressing. The crew was taking a break. I glanced at some of the proofs Slim was editing.

“What the heck’s this?” I said, looking at a picture.

“What do you mean?”

“What do I mean? All yesterday everyone kept telling me to look nervous and self-conscious, like I was worried about what Patrick would think of me. But Patrick looks like he’s about to go conquer the world.”

Slim grinned. “It’s what Kunyak wanted. Patrick is supposed to be totally sure of himself, but you’re supposed to be frightened that he won’t be interested in you.”

I turned away. It was a nasty experience to know what sexism is like. I guess people like Lori had to put up with it their whole lives; me, I was just starting to notice it.

I was interrupted from my sulking by a voice behind me. “Hi, Kim. Didn’t expect to see you here today.” It was Patrick.

“Hey, Patrick. What are you up to?”

“Just finishing up around here. So what are your plans tonight?”

Without thinking, I told him I didn’t have any.

“Well, maybe you’d like to have dinner with me?” he asked. He wasn’t cocky about it, but he was clearly asking me out.

I opened my mouth to tell him no, when I began to think. We would be working together for a long time, and asking me to dinner was rather innocent. If I said no, he’d probably think I was being snobbish, and felt too important to hang out with him. I’d be working with him for many months, and I didn’t want him to think I was a bitch.

“Okay. Sure. I’ll meet you here around 5:00.”

When I came home, I was restless and uneasy, wondering if I had made the right choice. Lori noticed my discomfort, and wangled a confession out of me.

“So you’re going out with Patrick tonight?”

“It’s not like that. We’re just friends.”

“I understand. So what are you going to wear?”

“I’m not sure. The last thing I want to do is give the impression I’m excited about going out with him. But I don’t want him to think I’m annoyed or bored with him. Jesus, I’m turning out worse than my image in the catalog.”

Lori smiled. “Just dress nice, but not erotically. Be friendly, but not flirty. I know you want to stay on his good side, so just relax, and have a good time. Most guys can tell when someone isn’t interested in them romantically. If you play your cards right, he’ll get the picture without you having to say a word.”

“Good advice. Now can you help me get ready? What should I wear?”

Lori and I scoured both my closet and hers. Finally, we selected a pair of black slacks, a tight gray sweater, and heels. The outfit gave the impression that I had put on something nice for the outing, but nothing out of the ordinary. We would just be a couple of friends out for dinner.

I met Patrick at the appointed time. “You look nice,” he said. As we walked out to his car, I mentally dissected the three -world sentence. What exactly did he mean by ‘nice’? What was he implying? I told myself to calm down and stop worrying.

We pulled up to a rather nice restaurant and soon we were seated and talking. It was the first time I had ever really talked to Patrick, and I quickly realized what a nice person he was. He wasn’t vain, or stupid, or overtly sexist. I began to regret that I wouldn’t be able to be friends with him after the year was over.

As the night wore on, I found myself doing something that I normally avoided: drinking. Maybe it was that I needed to unwind after the past couple of days of shooting, or maybe it was to hide my nervousness at being on a sham date. Whatever the cause, I found myself downing quite a few glasses of wine.

The liquor relaxed me. Soon I was guardedly talking about my fears about the photo shoot and how I would be glad when it was all over.

“It’s not that I don’t enjoy modeling, per se,” I babbled, “It’s just that it’s really not my thing.”

“Well, you’re rather good at it,” he replied. “Do you think you’d like to do more of it after this year?”

“I doubt it. I told you about the deal I made with Kunyak. After this, I’m hitting the books.”

“Wise choice.”

“Hey, what about you? I thought you were a college man.”

“I dropped out.”

“Why? I mean, if you don’t mind my asking.”

“I…I just went through a nasty breakup. I couldn’t concentrate on my classes, so I took a year off. Hopefully working on this shoot will help me to forget…things.”

I smiled my sweetest smile. “Well, it beats the foreign legion. I’m sure you won’t even remember her name once we’re finished.”

Patrick got an odd look on his face when I said that. For a moment I feared that I had offended him; for all I knew, he didn’t want to forget her. We were silent for a while. When Patrick spoke again, he took the conversation in another direction.

“Kim, I’ve really enjoyed tonight. You’re a good conversationalist. I feel that I’ve known you for a long time.”

‘Oh God,’ I thought. ‘Here is comes. He’ll tell me what a friend I am, how he feels a bond between us, how he thinks we’ll get along well, and would I like to come back to his place? Forget it.’

I had misjudged Patrick, however, as I found out when he continued speaking. “Kim, I’m going crazy here. I was in love last year, and when we broke up…I guess I’m wondering if I’ve made the mistake of my life. I’m sorry to unload on you, you’re the only person I know here in New York.”

Relieved that he at least wasn’t going to make a pass at me right then, I began to relax. “Patrick, I know how lonely this town can be (cue musical score). If you feel like talking, I’m a good listener.”

He smiled. “There’s not a lot to tell. I guess I’m wondering what I’ve given up.”

“I take it you still have feelings for her?”

Patrick got the funny look again. “Kim, I know I’m telling you a lot of personal things for someone you don’t know very well. Seriously, we can talk about something else, if you like.”

Though I didn’t exactly feel like playing Freud that night, I figured he needed a friend to listen to him. “Please Patrick, let it out. It’s okay.”

“Kim, can I tell you something personal? Something you’ll have to swear not to tell another soul?”

“Sure…certainly.” Actually, I didn’t like the sound of that. Just what was he about to reveal to me?

“The relationship I ended last year,” he paused again. “It was with a guy.”

I guess my shock was obvious, because he looked deeply ashamed. “I shouldn’t have said anything,” he said, humiliated.

“No, no, Patrick, please.” I felt like the biggest heel in the world; after all, I was sitting there dressed like a woman. Who was I to be shocked at someone ‘coming out’? Overcoming my revulsion, I reached over and patted his hand. “I just had no idea you were…”

“But I’m not!” he interjected. “I never have been!” He couldn’t make eye contact when he said this. “But when I met Jeff last year. I dunno…first we were friends, but then it got physical. I never thought I’d ever feel that way for a man, but I guess that was the closest I’ve ever come to being in love.”

“So what happened?”

“Well, I wasn’t gay, but Jeff was. Openly. He got tired of sneaking around, said he wanted us to be a couple. I couldn’t do that. So we ended it.” Patrick rubbed his forehead. “What the hell’s wrong with me?”

I was surprised how despondent he looked. It wasn’t hard for me to sympathize. He had done an unmasculine thing, and now he was worried about the significance. I certainly felt for him, I was in the exact same situation. Of course, I had Lori to talk to; Patrick probably didn’t have anyone to confide in. On the other hand, Patrick did what he did freely; I had been forced.

I knew what I had to do. Knowing that I would soon be desperately trying to suppress the memory, I took his hand in mine. “Patrick,” I began, “you have nothing to worry about. You were just curious, that’s all. I bet you’d be surprised at the number of guys who’ve been in similar situations.” Patrick instantly brightened. I think he just needed someone to tell him he wasn’t less of a man. I continued. “Now you seem to think highly of this Jeff person, but I don’t think it would have lasted. You obviously aren’t ready to make a relationship like that public, and it would have been unfair to both of you to assume things would have worked out. Treasure your memories, and don’t worry about it.”

Patrick smiled and me and squeezed my hand. I politely retracted it. “Thank you so much, Kim. I guess I just wanted to hear that from someone else.”

“No problem, Patrick.”

Patrick called me a cab to take me home. At the sidewalk, he gave me a hug. I wanted to wrench away, but I couldn’t. Ducking out of a kiss was one thing, but refusing a hug from a friend would have been callous.

*

Due to a series of technical setbacks, Patrick and I didn’t go on our ‘date’ until late October. This set production back considerably. By the time we were ready, it looked like we’d have to work ten-hour days until new years.

On the day of the shoot, everyone looked like they were ready to pull out their hair. I know I would have, had I not just gotten a permanent.

Today’s shooting would be outside on the New York City streets. I was wearing black leather boots, dark hose, a long charcoal skirt, and a white sweater. Patrick met me as I stepped out of the trailer where I dressed. “You ready?”

“I suppose. Let’s get it over with.”

Patrick grinned. “What kind of attitude is that for a first date?”

“I’m not in the mood, Patrick.”

“No, I’m serious. We’re supposed to be falling in love. I know things have been rough recently, but if both of us don’t look like we’re on cloud nine, Kunyak’s going to make us do it all over.” He paused. “Just pretend…uh, that we’re just going out for the night. Just us. No cameras, no catalog. Just relax.”

It sounded suspiciously like Patrick was trying to make this a real date, but I ignored it. He had made a good point. He was playing my future husband, I shouldn’t look as stressed and irritated as I felt.

“I’m sorry Patrick. I’ll put on a happy face. I’ve just been strung out recently.”

“Well, with the schedule we’re going to have to work, I can’t say I blame you.”

“Well, it’s not just that. I don’t know what’s wrong with me; I’ve just been real moody recently.”

“Have you been on any medication? I was on this stomach medication once that made me loopier than a bedbug.”

“Nothing new, just…” just synthetic female hormones. Yikes! Was that why I’d been on an emotional roller coaster recently? I’d talk to Lori about it when I came got home.

Patrick took me by the hand and we went off on our date. We tried to act casual as the cameraman snapped shot after shot of us dining, talking, drinking, window shopping (in front of a store displaying many of Kunyak’s designs, of course), and strolling through the park at twilight. Finally, we came to the scene I had been dreading: the goodnight kiss.

Now, despite the fact that Patrick had given me a kiss at the bridal show, this was different. The bridal kiss had been brief and almost chaste, a public kiss from a groom to a bride. This was different. This would be an ‘end-of-date, will I sleep with this woman someday?’ type of smooch.

Even though it was all staged, his lips would touch mine. And not briefly. We’d have to hold the kiss as the photographers set up the lighting, decided on angles, and a thousand other technical details. Which meant I could be spending about a half-hour with my lips against his.

My senior year in high school, I had been in a production of ‘The Music Man.’ In once scene I had been called upon to kiss a pretty girl. I was all for it, but she let me know that there was no way. We got around it by my putting my back to the audience and pretending to kiss her. I had hoped that I could do it like that here, but no dice.

“The kiss,” Kunyak had told me, “is vital. This catalog is targeted to young brides. They have to be thinking ‘this is true love.’ After that, they’ll associate my clothes with that feeling. So kiss him like you mean it. He’s not bad looking, it shouldn’t be too hard.”

Shouldn’t be too hard. Right. Maybe if I was a real woman, but as a guy I had zero desire to lock lips with Patrick. I wondered what he’d think if he knew my true gender. At first I thought he’d be disgusted and angry, but now that he had confided his romantic past in me, I had begun to wonder. Maybe he’d even like the fact I was secretly a guy. Well, it was an academic point. He’d never know my secret.

I approached the kiss the same way that I faced having my wisdom teeth out: I didn’t think about it until it was happened. Even when I stood in front of him at the door to ‘my’ apartment building, my mind was elsewhere, avoiding what was about to occur.

Patrick placed his hand on my cheek. He moved his head closer. I could smell the chewing gum on his breath. His lips touched mine, and pressed. Hard.

At first, I closed my eyes and tried to pretend I was kissing a girl. No such luck. Patrick’s stubble, prominent jaw, and rough hand precluded any thoughts of femininity. No, I was kissing a man.

I tried to relax. Really I did. But the fact that I was locking lips with someone of the same gender kept creeping back to my mind. I guess it showed, because Kunyak yelled for us to stop.

“Kim,” he said, “you need to calm down. I know it’s not easy kissing someone on command, but remember what I told you earlier. Try not to look so tense.”

Take two. I took a deep breath and let him kiss me. I put everything out of my head. With a little biofeedback I managed to let my muscles go limp, my breathing to calm, and allow myself to be smooched. In a little more than ten minutes, it was all over. When Kunyak announced we could stop, I got the irritating impression Patrick held on to me just a little longer than he needed to.

Wishing to avoid looking at Patrick, I excused myself to go home. In order not to think about what just happened, I engaged in mindless banter with the cabby. Soon I was back in Lori’s apartment.

“So how did the shoot go?” she asked.

“It went okay, I guess.” I could tell Lori was dying to ask about the kiss, but prudently held her tongue. She knew how sensitive I was about this.

“Lori, can I ask you a personal question?” I ventured, wondering if I should even mention it.

“Of course, Kim. What’s on your mind?”

“Would you ever consider dating a guy who’d spent a year as a girl?”

Lori sat me down on the sofa. “That’s a good question. I guess you deserve an honest answer. I don’t know. That would be a lot for a woman to take.”

I sighed. “Lori, I’m getting scared. I’m wondering if I’ve got in too deep. Being Kim for a year, growing breasts, dressing as a bride…not to mention I practically had to make out with Patrick tonight. Maybe I should just give this up and get my manhood back.”

Lori slung an arm around me. “Kim, you’re right, you are in very deep. Too deep to walk away just now. After all you’ve suffered, do you really want to stop now? You’d be giving up a great opportunity, not to mention all the work you’ve done so far. See this thing out; you’ve worked too hard to quit.”

“Maybe so, but I feel like I’m loosing my mind! One moment I’m disgusted with myself, the next, I’m upset because I broke a nail. I go from ecstatic to weepy in a couple of minutes. This lifestyle’s making me bonkers!”

Lori smiled. “I don’t think it’s the lifestyle, sis.”

“Then what is it?”

“The hormones. You’re experiencing the ups and downs of womanhood. Don’t worry, you’ll get the hang of it. Just keep a cool head.”

“So in other words, I’m going through PMS. Jesus, could I be any less manly?”

“I’m starting to worry about you. I’ll tell you what, maybe you’re approaching this the wrong way.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just forget you were a man. Pretend you were always a woman. Hell, sometimes I forget you weren’t born my sister.”

“Don’t be stupid, Lori. I can’t ‘forget’ my gender.”

“I don’t mean literally. Just stop thinking of how a man would act. Every time you have to do something unmanly, just tell yourself ‘I am a woman.’ Living in denial can be powerful.”

I shook my head, and locked myself in my room. I disrobed down to my panties and regarded my naked form. Hairless. Big rear. Hips. Flat stomach. Tiny breasts with sensitive, perky nipples. My sex drive had decreased recently, as well. I could still get an erection, but the lust I used to feel for all pretty women was gone.

I pulled on a padded bra and looked at the girl in the mirror. “I am a woman,” I told her. “I am a woman and the year will be over before I know it. Be brave.”

*

It’s weird how often an innocuous event can change the course of one’s life. People meet their soulmate at a change encounter at a 7-11. Someone gets hit by a car crossing the street to buy a newspaper. A summer job becomes the career of a lifetime.

Sometimes I’m amazed at how many little events lead up to what eventually happened. Lori breaking her legs. Kunyak taking a shine to me. My avarice overcoming my pride when he offered me a job. And of course, there was the snowstorm.

November passed in a series of ten to twelve hour a day blurs. Patrick and I went on several more sham dates. Parties, where dozens of models had a chance to show off their clothes. A symphony, where Patrick and I could model our fancy formalwear. A winter hike, where we could display the outdoorsy designs of one of Kunyak’s colleagues. We were about to get back on schedule and be able to slacken our pace again, when the blizzard hit town.

It was a freak, late fall occurrence. Anyone who lived out east at that time is sure to remember it. Roads shut down, schools closed, electricity out, general headaches all around. Everywhere we had planned to shoot was buried under two feet of snow. We managed to do a few impromptu shots in the studio, but that quickly petered out. We could only show Patrick and myself in our ‘apartments’ so many times.

Kunyak was beside himself. He’d pace the darkened studio, tearing at what little hair nature had left him. Every day without shooting would mean a few less pages in the finished product. And less pages meant fewer ads. And fewer ads meant less money.

I remember it was December 3rd when Kunyak called me at home, telling me to meet him at the studio, ASAP. I wondered what was up. I hoped he had found a new photo location. With the money being lost every day, there was talk of postponing the whole project indefinitely.

When I arrived at the studio, a found Kunyak leaning back in his director’s chair, calm and confident as ever. Patrick arrived a few minutes later.

“So what’s the big news?” asked Patrick. “Figure out a way to do some shooting?”

“Perhaps. Kimberly, would you mind showing us your back?”

“Beg pardon?”

“Your back. Could you pull up your shirt, please?”

Wondering what was going on, I hiked the back of my sweater up over my shoulders.

“Hmmm,” said Kunyak. “What do you think, Patrick?”

“Uh, about what?”

“About Kimberly’s back.”

“Um. Well, it’s nice. Muscular. A guy might enjoy rubbing lotion on it.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

I let my sweater drop, offended. “Are you two through?” I asked, angrily. “Or should I show some leg now?”

“I apologize,” said Kunyak. “But believe it or not, I do have a reason behind this. You see, I think it’s time for you to sleep with Patrick.”

“All right!” yelled Patrick. I assumed he was horsing around. I, however, was much less enthused.

“What exactly do you mean?”

“Hear me out. In catalog time, you and Patrick have been dating for almost half a year. I have a friend who has a cabin upstate. I was thinking catalog Kim and catalog Patrick could spend a weekend there. More outdoor clothes, bathrobes for when they change out of their winter things, and pajamas for the night (we’ll save the lingerie for the honeymoon). Also, a supplier of home furnishings has expressed interest in this spread. You know, bedding, curtains, throw rugs. If this goes off, we can recoup most of the losses.”

That wasn’t what was on my mind. “So what does this have to do with my back?”

“Well, myself and several of the other designers thought that there hasn’t been enough sensuality between you and Patrick. We’re going to need a shot of you two in bed. And in order to really sell it, you’ll need to be topless.”

“Topless? No thank you! This is a clothes catalog we’re making, not soft core porn.”

“Relax Kimberly. The shot will be set up with Patrick in the background, facing the camera. You’ll be facing him, with your back to the camera. Very sexy, very erotic, but only your lovely backside visible.”

“So that means Patrick will see my bare chest.” Patrick looked nervous, but not unhappy, when I said this.

“I suppose, but if you just try to see things…”

“No way! Not a chance. Nothing doing.” I couldn’t very well let Patrick see my tiny little fake breasts. He’d know the truth instantly.

Mr. Kunyak looked at Patrick. “May we have a few moments alone?” Patrick excused himself.

“Kimberly, I have to be honest with you. We’re really hurting financially here. I can’t afford to keep everyone on the payroll when we can’t shoot. We must do this, or I’m just going to write this project off. And I’m afraid that means your scholarship will go too.”

“Is it really that serious? I mean, does this whole shoot depend on Patrick seeing my breasts?”

“I’m afraid so. The sponsors want sexy. You should have seen the shoot they originally wanted to do.”

I was growing upset. Giving up the scholarship I had sacrificed all these months for. I wanted to cry. But one fact remained. There was no way I could let Patrick in on my dirty little secret.

“Look, just think about it tonight. I’m sorry I have to be like this, but I’m a businessman first.”

I left without saying goodbye.

When I got home, Lori was out. ‘Stupid sexist society,’ I thought. ‘They can’t even sell bed sheets without me taking my top off. I should have known better than to try and get away with this.’ Taking off my shirt and inspecting my breasts, I wondered if they could pass for real.

No, no such luck. While I was surprised at how quickly they were developing, they still looked like they belonged on a thirteen-year old girl, not a woman. True, they jiggled a bit. They were also pert and soft, with brown nipples the size of quarters. Extra sensitive as well. I now knew why women wore bras, even when they were home alone. But I could never pass myself off as extra-flat. Patrick would think something was up.

But then I began to think. Hadn’t Patrick confided an embarrassing secret in me? True, one homosexual experience wasn’t nearly as weird as dressing like a bride, but it was a bond. Maybe if I leveled with him, told him what to expect, he’d understand. Or at least keep his mouth shut about what he saw, if not for my sake, for the sake of his job.

Now the fact that we had kissed several times complicated matters. How would he react? Well, he had kissed another man willingly, so he’d probably let this go.

There was a knock at the door. I wasn’t surprised when it turned out to be Patrick. “Kunyak sent you over, didn’t he?” I said before he could say anything.

“Uh, yes he did. Listen, would it really be so bad? I promise to be a gentleman. Seriously, would this be the first time a guy saw your breasts?”

“Yes, Patrick, it would.”

“Oh.” Patrick seemed stunned, I guess he didn’t have me pegged for a virgin.

“But that’s not why I’m scared,” I continued. “Look, I’m mature enough to do this, and I trust you. But I have a secret, Patrick. Something I’m afraid to let you know.”

“Please Kim, you can tell me. What? Do you pad your bra? It’s okay, I won’t tell.”

“Well, yes, but it’s not that. Patrick, earlier this year you told me a secret. Can I tell you one now? A bigger one?”

“Um, all right. What?”

“I’m not really a woman. I’m a man in drag.” Patrick laughed.

“No, I’m serious. I’m Lori’s brother, not her sister. I had to fill in for her at the bridal show after the accident, and I stayed on because the money was so good. Here, look at this.” I showed him my old driver’s license. “See, that’s me.”

Patrick stared at the picture a bit. Then, without a word, he stood up and kicked Lori’s coffee table half way across the floor. “You son of a bitch!” he screamed.

I began to fear for my safety. “Patrick, what the hell’s gotten into you?”

“What’s gotten into me? How in God’s name can you ask that? You let me kiss you a bunch of times, and then expect me not to be pissed off?”

“Well Patrick, I thought you’d understand. I mean, you’ve already…” I trailed off.

“I’ve already what? Kissed a guy? Is that what you were going to say?” He punched the wall. “I guess you think that makes me a fag, huh? Well it doesn’t. I told you before it was a one time thing. I don’t care how you live your life, but I’m sure as hell never getting close to you again. In fact, I’m going to go tell Kunyak the truth.” He left before I could say anything else.

It had never occurred to me he’d be this angry. I should have left bad enough alone and quit when I still could have. Now, Kunyak and all my friends from the shoot would know my horrible secret. I was sunk. I curled up on the sofa and did something I hadn’t done since Lori’s accident: I bawled.

I must have fallen asleep on the couch. When I glanced around the apartment, I realized it was the middle of the night. I rubbed my tear swollen eyes and got up. A lone answering machine message told me that Lori was going to spend the night at a friend’s house, thereby depriving me of the one person I could confide in.

I wandered to the bathroom to wash my face. ‘What should I do?’ I asked the frightened, disheveled girl who started back at me from the mirror. ‘Face Kunyak, or just run away now?’ I was interrupted from my introspection by the shrill ringing of the phone.

Late night phone calls are never a good thing. Perhaps it was Mr. Kunyak calling to fire me on the spot. Or Patrick, wanting to yell at me some more. Still, it could have been a real emergency, so I picked up.

“Kim, is that you?” It was Patrick.

“Yes,” I answered guardedly.

“I’m sorry to call so late, but I need to talk to you. Can we meet somewhere?” He didn’t seem angry. Hoping for a way out of the mess I found myself in, I gave him the address of a local greasy spoon and told him I’d be there in a half-hour.

When I arrived at the all-night diner, Patrick was already there waiting for me. “Kim, please sit down.” Good, he was calm. Maybe we could work out some way for me to hold on to my secret.

“Patrick,” I began, “I’m sorry for lying to you. I shouldn’t have…”

“No, Kim, I’m the one who should be sorry. I confide a secret in you and you’re there for me, you confide in me and I blow up. I had no right.” I tried to interject something, but he held up his hand.

“Look, it’s just after what happened between Jeff and myself, I’ve been really questioning my manhood. I was afraid I was gay. And when I met you, I…well, I might as well be honest. I was really attracted to you. I’ve been thinking about you constantly, ever since the first bridal show. I really enjoyed kissing you on all those shoots, and when I thought I was going to see you topless…well, let’s just say I was convinced that my attractions lay firmly with women. Then, when I found out the woman I had been fantasizing about all these months was a man, it just put me back to square one.”

I hung my head. “I’m so sorry, Patrick. It wasn’t fair to you. At least you were honest with from the start. I haven’t been honest until now.”

Patrick took my hand and I didn’t pull away. “I’ll tell you what. Let’s just pretend tonight never happened. If you’ll forget my bad attitude, I’ll forget your secret. And if you do decide to do that topless shoot, trust me, I’ll never tell.”

As I left the diner that night, I was both relieved at Patrick’s understanding, and ashamed at my own deception. I was also nervous. I had no idea Patrick’s feelings were that strong for me.

Of course I ended up agreeing to that damn sexist shoot. Our jobs would have been in jeopardy otherwise. So for two solid days, I held hands with Patrick as we pretended to ice skate, toasted him as we snuggled in front of the fireplace, and made out with him as we rolled around on a bearskin rug.

Finally, ‘the’ shoot came. I warned all the crew that if anyone so much as tried to catch a glimpse of my front side, I was walking off the project. It was bad enough I had to expose my new breasts to Patrick, a guy who admittedly had the hots for me. The crew agreed. Since my back was to the camera, they all stood a few paces back, allowing me security from any prying glances.

Patrick did a good job of playing it cool. Very rarely did I catch him stealing a glance at my developing nipples. But he did see everything, from my head to my navel. I was glad when Mr. Kunyak said “That’s a wrap,” and I could get dressed again.

As I sipped hot chocolate and waited for the drivers to bring around the trucks to take us back to town, I pondered what had happened. Why did I feel so naked back there? I had been topless at dozens of pools, beaches, and locker rooms all my life. And yet with Patrick, I felt I was standing there without a stitch on.

God, these hormones were doing strange things to me. I guess now that I had breasts, I felt quite girlish. Women don’t take off their tops for the world to see. I guess I was experiencing was typical feminine modesty.

Patrick tapped my on the shoulder. “Great shoot. Bet you’re glad it’s over with.”

“Bet you aren’t,” I teased him.

“Well, I’m not the only one. Randy (the teenage gofer), has been pestering me to give a Technicolor description of what I saw.”

“Wonderful. Just remember your promise.”

“Yeah. Hey listen,” he looked around to make sure no one could hear us. “You told me you were a guy, but that sure wasn’t a man’s chest I saw there. I mean, they were tiny, but those were definitely breasts.”

I blushed. “I’m taking estrogen. I’ve developed a bit, you might say.”

Patrick shook his head, as if to clear it. “Kim, I know you claim to be a man, but if you don’t mind my saying, you’ve got the makings of a damn fine woman.” He hurried off before I could think of a comeback.

*

That was the last major shoot of ’99. We all had a week off for Christmas. Lori and I both looked forward to spending Christmas with our mother. Since my rapidly increasing breasts made wearing male clothes impossible, I elected to spend the holidays as Kim.

Christmas was relaxing. Mom eagerly asked questions about the shoot, the clothes I was wearing, how I wore my hair, and such. At first I found it a little unnerving; it was if I were her daughter and had always worn dresses, but after a bit the three of us were chatting away about female clothes, as natural as could be.

When Christmas morning dawned, Lori and I rushed to the tree, as eager as if we were still both six years old. Mom and Lori both appreciated the clothes I had gotten them with my employee discount at Mr. Kunyank’s firm. Most of my presents were my usual Christmas fare: books, CDs, a video game. But a couple of presents made me wonder. Lori had gotten me an expensive makeup mirror. Mom had gotten me a curling iron and a blow dryer. I thanked them, but I began to wonder. In six months the photo shoot would be over. Why would they get me presents that I would only need for half a year?

Finally, Lori and I opened two presents that mom insisted that we open together. I was surprised to find that both boxes contained a white sundress, with a floral design. Lori squealed and thanked mom, I did so with less enthusiasm. It seemed like such a waste of money. I’d maybe be able to wear it a couple of times in the summer; after that it would just go to goodwill (or more likely, Lori’s closet).

“Well, what are you waiting for?” asked Mom. “Try them on!”

Lori took me by the hand and lead me two her bedroom where we began to change into our Christmas gifts. It wasn’t until Lori was helping me button up the back that I realized we both had just stripped to our skivvies without a second thought. We were both used to thinking of me as Kim, I guess.

Lori insisted that we dress as much alike as possible. Matching shoes, matching jewelry, matching makeup. When she finished, we stepped out and presented ourselves to Mom.

“You two look darling!” she said. “Like twin sisters.”

“Hang on, now,” I replied. “Remember, only one of us is a sister.”

“I know,” said Mom, “but you could easily pass for one now.”

I didn’t want to cast a pall on Christmas by arguing, but I felt I had to say something. “What do mean by that? You realize I’m only doing this for the money.”

“But are you having any fun?” asked Lori.

I was about to answer with a resounding ‘no,’ but decided to think about it a bit. “Well, New York’s been fun, and I guess I’ve met some interesting people. But it’s only going to last for a few more months. Why did you guys get me all this girl stuff?”

Mom looked at Lori and she nodded. “Well,” began Mom, “I know you keep saying you want to go back to living as a guy. But Lori and I both want you to know, that if for any reason you want to continue being Kim, well, you won’t owe us any explanations.”

I tried to protest, but Lori beat me to the punch. “We’re not saying that you like living as a woman, or that you should or anything. But we both think you make a lovely girl. So if, for some reason, you don’t want to go back to being Ken, we’d support you completely.”

I took a deep breath to control my temper. “Thank you, but that won’t be happening. Now who’s up for ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’?

As we watched the Christmas classic, I tried to decide why my family was acting this way. I confronted Lori when we were alone.

“What was all that about?”

“I guess we were a little presumptuous there. I’m still trying to figure out how you feel about things.”

“Nothing’s changed. I don’t like this lifestyle, I can’t wait to change back.”

“We figured as much. But you used to complain about it constantly, now you seem to really be happy. I haven’t seen you in male clothes since the summer, and those hormones are turning you into a doll! I guess we just figured that if you happened to enjoy being Kim, you didn’t need to be ashamed of it.”

“Well, thanks for the sentiment, but come July, it’s all over. Still, I guess I am getting used to Kim. It won’t be easy turning back.”

“You’ll do fine. Just remember what we said.”

*

All too soon the vacation was over and we had to fly back to New York. We did not, however, have to immediately have to return to work. Kunyak had arranged a huge New Year’s party for everyone involved in the shoot. Just about everyone attended. As the world rang in the new millennium (or hunkered down in Y2K survival shelters), Lori, myself, and about forty crew members gathered at Kunyak’s mansion to count down till midnight.

Soon the party was in full swing, with all kinds of dancing, romancing, and drinking. Since I didn’t care to do any of these things, I ended up in a back bedroom, watching a broadcast of the celebrations in La Paz, Caracas, and Halifax. I was lonely. This was the big new years, the once in a thousand years celebration, and here I was, alone. No date, no chance of romance, not even a kiss at midnight.

There was a tap at the door. Patrick walked in. He was wearing wet swim trunks and had a towel wrapped around his shoulders. I had never realized how muscular he was.

“Hey Kim. You ought to go for a swim. The water’s great.”

“Sorry, Patrick. Um, I don’t exactly fit in a swimsuit.”

“Oh, er, right. Sorry. I keep forgetting.”

“So do a lot of people. My family included.”

Patrick shut the door and sat down next to me. “So why are you back here all alone?”

“I guess I’m a little depressed. It’s new years and I’m alone. I can’t meet a girl like this, and I’m not interested in meeting a guy. I’m just stuck between two worlds and I’m beginning to realize just how long a year is.”

Patrick patted my shoulder. Ever since I started being Kim, I became aware of how guys would use any excuse to touch a woman. I couldn’t help thinking that even Patrick’s friendly pat was an excuse to make physical contact with me. I sighed.

There was a hubbub from the main room of the house. I realized that the final countdown to midnight had begun.

“Patrick, you better join everyone or you’ll miss the big moment.”

“Are you going?”

“No. I don’t feel like it.”

“Can I stay with you?”

“If you like.” I could hear the other partygoers chanting TEN, NINE, EIGHT… Patrick touched my cheek.

“Happy new years, Kim.” SEVEN, SIX, FIVE

“Happy new years, Patrick.” FOUR, THREE, TWO… Patrick moved in to kiss me.

“Patrick, no!”

ONE! Suddenly, all the electricity in the house went off and didn’t come back on. We found out later that it was the world of a prankster who had snuck down to the fuse box to give everyone a Y2K scare. He screwed something up and couldn’t get the power back on immediately.

We were in a windowless room and the door was shut. It was pitch black. Patrick gently took my face in his hands and pulled me towards him.

I don’t know why I didn’t resist. ‘It’s new years,’ I told myself. ‘Out of all the girls here, he chose to be with me. What’s the harm of one little kiss?’

His lips pressed to mind. Soft, yet forcefully. ‘We’ve kissed before, why should this be all that different?’ His arms wrapped around my waist. ‘I’m going to have to tell him to stop soon. Very soon.’

I laid my hands on his bare, powerful chest. His tongue probed my lips. We began to breathe harder. Suddenly, we were startled by the flash of the lights going back on. And there I sat, on the bed, making out with a half naked man.

“I have to go!” I said, as I darted from the room.

*

The next day, as Lori nursed a hangover, I sat around and thought. Why had I kissed Patrick? Much as I wanted to think otherwise, Patrick never forced me to do anything. Of my own free will, I sat and kissed him. It wasn’t for a shoot, or for the sake of the public. I had kissed a guy for no reason.

Lori, even with her headache, noticed my squirreliness and asked what was wrong.

“Lori, I need to talk to you. Can you promise to stay serious and be honest?”

“Of course, Kim,” replied Lori, obviously worried.

“I kissed Patrick last night.”

“So? You’ve kissed him lots of times.”

“That was for the catalog, this was different. It was a new years, midnight kiss. And it lasted a few minutes.”

“I was wondering where you were. But what’s the big deal? It was new years, and you got caught up in the moment.”

I wished I could be convinced. “But it was more than that. I mean, I’m a guy! What am I doing kissing another guy for?”

“Listen, Kim. You told me yourself that thanks to the estrogen you’ve lost most of your sex drive. Patrick’s a cute guy, and you’ve been playing the part of a woman for months now. You’re just getting into the roll, that’s all. I wish I had a nickel for every guy I kissed that I shouldn’t have.”

“So what do I tell Patrick when I see him next?”

“You won’t have to tell him anything. Just because you kissed him, doesn’t make you his girlfriend.”

I pretended to take Lori’s words to heart, but I was still a bit disturbed. I wouldn’t have kissed a woman I didn’t like as long as I kissed Patrick. What had I been thinking?

When the time came for me to go back to work, I honestly wanted to call in sick rather than face Patrick. I knew better than Lori did about how guys think. I wasn’t so sure Patrick wouldn’t take my kiss as proof that I liked him.

I ran into Patrick in the studio parking lot. “Hey Kim, great to see you,” he said.

“Hi Patrick,” I replied, a little more enthusiastically than I had planned. “It’s nice to see you too.”

“I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye after new years.”

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that. Listen…” How to put this?

“Don’t worry, I understand. It was just something special for new years, that’s all.”

“Um, yeah. That’s it.”

“Okay. I hear ya. See you inside.” He grinned and entered the building. It was simple as that. He blew off what had passed between us. Just like it was nothing.

True, that was just what I wanted, but I felt strangely annoyed. I didn’t think anything of the kiss, but I was a little put out that it meant so little to him as well. He could have at least pretended I meant something to him.

The shot for today was another sham party, with more models and more clothes to try on. As I pretended to mingle comfortably in my blue pantsuit, I tried to shake the bizarre feelings that assaulted me. Why was I so offended at Patrick’s seeming indifference? What did it matter?

I couldn’t think of an answer. All I knew is that I was miffed. I guess that’s why when Patrick asked me if I wanted to have dinner with him that night, I agreed.

When I got home, Lori asked me how it went. “Okay, I suppose. But, um, I agreed to have dinner at his place tonight.”

“Hmm, wouldn’t take no for an answer, would he?”

“It’s not like that. In fact he kind of blew me off. I don’t know why I agreed to do this.”

For a second Lori looked stunned, but then she quickly recovered. “So he’s cooking you a meal? I can’t remember the last time a guy did that for me.”

I wore my hair up that night, with a long black skirt, and a sleeveless white top that buttoned in the front. I put on heels and spent almost an hour doing my makeup. Lori helped me. Following her advice, I unbuttoned my top further than I was used to wearing it, and spritzed on a bit of perfume. A little voice in the back of my head kept asking me why I was making such as effort. But I ignored that voice. I wanted to dress up. I’d work out the psychology behind it later.

When I arrived at Patrick’s place, I touched up my makeup one last time. “This is just a friendly dinner,” I told myself, and knocked.

Patrick was showered, shaved, and dressed up. His apartment had been cleaned and I could smell something delicious cooking in the kitchen. Light music played on the stereo. Patrick took my coat and asked me to have a seat. Then he poured us each a glass of wine.

As I relaxed and Patrick finished the meal, I pondered what I was getting myself into. Obviously, Patrick had planned a romantic evening for us, and wasn’t letting my protestations of non-interest get in his way. But for some reason, I was more flattered than disturbed.

During dinner, neither of us mentioned what had passed between us earlier. We chatted, laughed, and enjoyed each other’s company. After dinner, we sat on the couch and sipped some more wine. I giggled at Patrick’s attempts to subtly turn the lights down lower.

I wasn’t surprised when I felt Patrick lay his hand on the back of my neck. “Patrick,” I said, in spite of myself, “I told you, just friends.”

Patrick grinned sheepishly, but didn’t remove his hand. “I know, Kimberly. But I’m only human. I told you earlier how hard I’ve fallen for you. I thought your, ah, confession would make me stop seeing you like that, but it hasn’t.”

I stood up to get out of his reach, and turned my back towards him. “I’m sorry, Patrick. But you know…what I am.” I couldn’t bring myself to say ‘you know I’m a man.’ “I could never think of you in a romantic way.”

Patrick put his hands on my shoulders. “Look me in the eye and say that. Tell me, face to face, you have no feelings for me and I’ll never put the moves on you again.”

“Patrick, I have no feelings for you!” There, I said it.

“You’re still turned around. Face me and say it.” Patrick’s fingers pressed into my shoulders and gently massaged my neck. It felt good.

“Patrick, I…”

“Yes?” I could feel his breath on my neck.

“I…are you sure you want to get involved with me? I’m not sure what I want right now, but I am sure I’m going back to a life you can’t be part of in a few months. And that’s a fact.”

“We’ll worry about that when the time comes.” I felt his hot mouth kiss my neck. I stopped talking.

A few hours later, I was home, disheveled, makeup smeared, and nervously giddy. I removed all my clothes and climbed into the bathtub. I felt a little guilty, but not ashamed. While Patrick and I never went past first base (at my insistence, not his), we certainly had done more than I ever thought I’d happily do with a man.

I was confused, tired, and secretly happy. Nonetheless, I waited up for Lori to get home. When she entered and found me half-dozing on the couch, she smiled.

“So how did your…evening out go?” she asked, slyly.

“It was a date. We might as well say it.” Lori giggled.

“You like him, don’t you?” She seemed happy at the news.

“I’m not sure. Well, I guess. We just spent two hours making out.”

“You slut!” she chided, and hugged me. “But, um, Kim. Does he know about, you know?” I nodded, giving a brief account of how I told him, but leaving out his secret confession to me.

Lori collapsed in a spasm of laughing. “What’s so funny?” I asked.

“Nothing. I’m just happy for you. Patrick’s a great guy.”

I laid my head on Lori’s arm. “What the hell’s happening to me? I’m dating a guy! I’m not gay! I’m not a woman! So why am I enjoying it so much?”

“I dunno. Maybe I’m not the one to ask. You ought to talk to Dr. Klaus, he might have some ideas. Or better yet, his wife.”

“Good idea. I’m not sure I like the idea of getting involved with a guy when I’m about to give up womanhood forever.”

Lori looked a bit sad. “Truth be known, I’ll miss Kimberly. Just remember what we said at Christmas.”

*

The next day, I managed to make an appointment with Dr. Klaus, the German physician who supplied me with hormones. As I hung out in the waiting room, a young redhead exited his office. She was pretty, in a washed-out sort of way. What I couldn’t help noticing was how tall she was. She was well over six feet, a good deal taller than myself. As I gaped at her height, I suddenly realized what kind of doctor’s office I was in, and the probable reason behind why she was so tall. I caught her looking at me from the corner of her eye; she had probably come to the same conclusion about me.

‘She’ left and I was called into the doctor’s office. “How are you feeling today?” asked Dr. Klaus.

“Fine, thank you.”

“You’ve taken to womanhood quite well, if I may say so. Tell me, are you enjoying yourself?”

“That’s kind of what I need to talk about. Listen, is your wife in?” Dr. Klaus summoned his wife from the other room, and left us alone.

I surveyed Greta again. It was hard to believe she was anything other than an attractive, somewhat plump, middle-aged woman. “So what can I do for you?” she asked.

“Well, I’m having a lot of confusing thoughts recently. I was wondering if you could help me sort through them.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“Well, you know I only agreed to get on the hormones for my job. But the longer I’m on them, the more it seems like my life as a woman is the normal one. I think less and less about changing back, and more and more about becoming more of a woman. My family seems to think that there’s no reason for me to become a man again, and to make things worse…there’s this guy.” Greta smiled.

“He knows my secret, but he still likes me. And I think that I’m falling for him! I don’t know why that should be, but it is! Does any of this make sense?”

“Of course it does. When I first started taking hormones, I had no desire to become a woman. I didn’t even know I was on hormones. But after the physical changes forced me to adopt a female lifestyle, I loved it! I was attractive, popular, and had much higher self-esteem. Perhaps you’re just finding that your life is more exciting and fulfilling as Kim than it was as Ken.”

I thought about it. My life certainly was more exciting, with all the work, glamour shots, and popularity. But what about Patrick?

“As for this young man, I’m willing to guess he’s a nice guy who you get along with. There’s no telling what’s behind your attraction. My advice is to just go with it. If he knows your secret and your family is supportive, then there’s no reason not to risk seeing where this leads.” I thanked Greta and hugged her.

When I returned home, I noticed a big bouquet of roses on the table. “Who sent you the flowers?” I asked Lori.

She sighed over-dramatically. “No one.” My curiosity piqued, I looked at the card.

‘Kim’ it read,
‘I had a great time last night.
I have a feeling this is the start
of something wonderful.
XXX

Patrick’

“Oh, that is so sweet!” I said, no longer caring how girlish that sounded. Lori pretended to be jealous, but I could tell she was happy for me.

*
And so began three months where I stopped thinking of myself as a man. I took a ‘why fight it?’ attitude about the whole thing. I was going to be living as a woman, so, following Lori’s advice, I starting trying to think like one. It made things simpler.

It was hard to describe the relationship I had with Patrick at that time. I guess the easiest thing would be to call us ‘boyfriend and girlfriend,’ thought it wasn’t quite like that. I knew that come July I would be returning to manhood; I wasn’t so far gone as to want to spend the rest of my life as a woman. On the other hand, we certainly acted like a happy couple. We’d go out every weekend, go on dates, and do a lot of kissing. Patrick, in fact, wanted to do a lot more than kissing, but I refused. I was growing very fond of him, and didn’t allow myself to think of what would happen after the shoot was finished.

I was living in a fool’s paradise. Did I honestly think I could play with fire like that and then have everything turn out okay? I guess I assumed that Patrick never had any long-term plans that involved me, that he, like I, saw this as a fling, not a commitment. Still, the long nights and exciting weekends I spent with Patrick were a lot of fun. Little did I know how hard I was falling for him.

The whole thing came to a head when Patrick proposed to me. Not in real life, in the catalog. It was springtime, and I had shucked my winter clothes for halter-tops, sundresses, and spaghetti strapped tank tops. Patrick and I spent many days being photographed running through meadows, making necklaces out of daisies, and wading in brooks. I knew swimsuit season wasn’t far off, which worried me, but Lori said she had the situation under control.

Anyway, the plans called for Patrick to ‘propose’ to me while we were out on a romantic picnic. As I adjusted my sleeveless, backless dress and put on my sun hat, Patrick knocked and came into my dressing room.

“So are you ready to pop the question?” I teased him.

“Yep. And just look at the diamond the prop guys gave me.” He displayed a little plastic trinket that would only pass for the real thing in a distant photo.

“You honestly expect me to say yes to that? Please.”

“Don’t worry, if I ever ask you for real I’ll get something nicer.”

I didn’t like him even joking about that. Didn’t he know this was a one-year thing? “Let’s keep this serious,” I told him.

He frowned. “Well, you never know what the future holds,” he said, defensively.

“I know what the future holds for me. In a year I go back to being plain old Ken.”

“And adios to me?” he said, suddenly angry.

“Patrick, you knew when this started what my plans were. Did you honestly think I was going to spend the rest of my life as Kim?”

“I honestly thought I meant something to you. That maybe we had something special. You never even considered a long term relationship?”

“Of course not! Well, I guess I thought about it…”

“Kim, don’t do this to me. I couldn’t stand to lose you!” I had never seen him this shaken up.

“I’m sorry, Patrick. You…I’ve never felt this way about a man. If I were a real woman I know there’d be no problem. But I’m a man and I have to go back.”

“You make a lousy man. You’ll never be able to go back easily. Why do you need to go back at all?”

“How can you even ask that? I have to change back because…because…I just do!”

“You ‘just do’? You’re going to walk out on me because you ‘just do’? Wonderful. Goodbye, Kim.” He left and slammed the door.

That scene obviously cast a pall over the romantic proposal. It made both of us so edgy that Kunyak postponed the shot until tomorrow. Then, in front of the whole crew, he said “I don’t know what’s going on with you two, but by tomorrow I want it stopped. You’re about to start a new life together, so try to project a little less hate.” Ouch.

I didn’t stop to talk to Patrick after the shoot. I was too angry. Did he honestly expect me to give up my manhood forever, just to please him? What did he think, that I’d marry him? Be his wife? Settle down, buy a house, and spend my life with him? I paused a bit, thinking about that sort of future. As a wife. Patrick’s wife.

I shook my head. No! It couldn’t be! It wasn’t right! I was a man. Maybe it was for the best that we had a falling out now, it would save heartache later. I just had to get through the next few months and be done with it.

Slim, the fifty-something photographer, tapped me on the shoulder. “What’s up with you and Patrick?” he asked. He was always direct; ‘mind my own business’ wasn’t part of his vocabulary.

“Just a fight, that’s all.”

“About what?” About none of your concern, that’s what.

“Nothing. We just want different things out of life. I don’t think it’s going to work out.”

Slim sat down, and motioned me to do so as well. “Let me tell you a story,” he began. “You probably aren’t in the mood, but I’m old and you’re young, so you really have no choice.” Looking off into the distance, he related his tale.

“It was back when I was in ‘Nam. I was young then, and in love. Her name was Li Duk Thou. By God, she was lovely. I never stopped loving her. Everything I was looking for. I wanted to marry her, but…” Slim paused. Painful memory.

“She didn’t want to come back to the States with me. Not for at least a few years. I, on the other hand, had no thoughts but getting back, I had been overseas almost two years. One thing lead to another, and the next thing you know, I’m back stateside. I never saw her again.

“It’s funny really. I thought my whole future lay in coming back home. But when I did, everything was different. My friends were gone, my parents died a few years later, I couldn’t find work. I could have stayed in-country. Lots of guys did. I didn’t have to leave her, but I was so caught up in what I thought my destiny was, I gave up my one true love. I’ve been divorced twice. I never stopped loving Li Duk. I pissed away my chance at happiness for my friggin’ plans.

“Listen, I don’t know how serious you and Patrick are. But before you decide to end it, think about your choice. Remember, plans can usually wait, but true love doesn’t happen often. Don’t ruin your life like I did.” Without making eye-contact, he got up and left.

I went home, burst into the apartment, and screamed. Lori came running out of her bedroom and asked me what was wrong.

“What’s wrong? What’s wrong? Everything’s wrong! Patrick wants me to stay a woman!”

“Well…I guess that’s bad news. Right?” She was uncertain.

“Yes! I have to be a man! I am a man! I’m going to change back!”

“So what’s the big deal? Patrick won’t die.”

“I know but… but maybe I don’t want to give up Patrick. I’m not saying I want to live as Kim forever, but maybe…one more year. Just to see how things work out.”

Lori hugged me. “Kim, maybe I’m not the one to be telling this to.”

Despite the fact that it was eleven at night, I took a cab over to Patrick’s place. There was no answer, but the light was on, so I continued to bang. Eventually he came to the door, wearing nothing but a towel, and soaking wet.

“Kim!” he gasped, surprised to see me. I barged into his apartment and shoved his bare chest as hard as I could.

“You jerk!”

“Hey, what’s the big idea?” He was confused.

“You jerk! I had my life all planned out, and then you come along…come along…” I started crying again. “You jerk!” I sobbed, and buried my head in his chest hair.

He wrapped his damp arms around me and held me. Finally, I pulled myself together. “I’m so confused, Patrick. I don’t know what I want anymore. But I don’t think I can leave you. I’m not promising anything, but…I can do another year as Kimberly. One year, that’s all I promise. I’ll be able to make a decision one way or another after that.”

I didn’t have time to say anything else. Patrick grabbed me and gave me a five-minute kiss. Finally, I broke free. “Er, Patrick, I think, your towel fell off.”

“Did it?” he asked, running his hands over the back of my skirt.

“Put some pants on.” Men. Always one thing on their minds.

The next day, Patrick proposed to me on the shoot. Kunyak commented on how this time, it really seemed like we were in love. Who knows, maybe he was right?

As June wore around, Kunyak brought up the topic that I had been dreading: swimsuits. The shot called for Patrick and I to spend a day on a North Carolina beach with our ‘friends,’ displaying a wide variety of beachwear. I was nervous. How was I going to fit into a woman’s bathing suit? Lori had always claimed to have the situation under control, but would never elaborate. Well, it was time for her to come clean.

“Don’t worry,” she said, when I brought up the conundrum that night. “I told Kunyak that I had a special bathing suit I wanted you to wear. He approved it.”

“So what is it? How will it cover up…you know?” Recently, I had found myself unwilling to mention my true gender, even to Lori. As for Patrick, he never brought up the true state of things.

Lori escorted me into my bedroom, and told me to disrobe. This time, it didn’t even occur to me to feel any sort of shame. Why shouldn’t a girl get dressed in the same room as her sister?

As Lori left to fetch the swimsuit, I regarded my body. My breasts had blossomed. I still only had A cups, but so did a lot of woman. I could, I supposed, shuck all upper body padding, but decided against it. The whole crew, Mr. Kunyak included, thought I was well endowed, and I couldn’t very well let them know otherwise.

My hips were rounded, my stomach flat, my skin smoothed. Now that I thought about it, all that was left of my maleness were my genitals. I looked at my small, withered, and almost forgotten penis. It really wouldn’t be so hard to hide.

Lori interrupted me by smacking my bare butt with a towel. I squeaked and jumped away. “So what kind of suit do you have for me?” I asked.

“A bikini!”

“You have got to be joking!”

“But I’m not. The hormones have really changed your appearance. It just took a little ingenuity on my part, and I’ve made you a suit that will make you rival any swimsuit model you’ve ever seen.”

My curiosity aroused, I took a look at what Lori displayed to me. The lower half of the suit was composed of a pair of loose fitting, women’s bathing trunks. They allowed me to show off most of my thighs and the area below my navel, but still covered my manhood. A latex sex-hiding device was sewn into the inside. I quickly grunted my way into it. Not bad. Not bad at all.

The top of the bikini was a large, spandex halter-top. Inside the cups, two foam pads were sewn, to give me the impression of large breasts. The top covered everything from the bottom of my neck to the bottom of my ribcage, covering up all areas where my breasts supposedly were. My arms, back, and shoulders were exposed to the air.

I twisted and twirled around in front of the mirror. “Lori, you are a genius. I never thought you could do it, but you made me look great in a two piece!”

“I didn’t do anything. You made yourself look great!” We hugged.

The beach shoot was one of the most grueling we’d done yet, and lasted for three days. We played volleyball, barbecued, and swam. Most of these activities I had to perform while wearing makeup, dangling earrings, and heels. I had to hand it to Lori, not once did anyone suspect a thing. Eventually, we came to the last shot.

It was of Patrick and I, laying down in front of a beach fire at night. I’d be laying back on a towel, with Patrick bending over me. The next shot would be Patrick and I, kneeling in front of each other. Patrick would be untying the back of my top. The final shot, only our feet would be visible behind a sand dune. In the foreground would lie Patrick’s trunks and my entire swimsuit.

After everything was over, Patrick and I sat alone on the sand dune, still wearing our swimsuits (we weren’t really naked behind the dune; they were extra suits in the foreground). We stared lazily at the dwindling fire. Patrick put his arm around me. I winced.

“What’s wrong, honey?” he asked, concerned.

“I didn’t put on enough lotion today. I’m burned.” In the firelight I pulled back part of my top, revealing the contrast between my sunburn and the covered area. I now had a bikini tan.

Patrick retrieved some aloe from his bad and began rubbing it in my shoulders. “That feels good. Don’t stop.” Soon he had rubbed my entire back, arms, neck, and legs. I lay down so I could enjoy his touch more. I guess I wasn’t surprised when he undid the back of my top to have easier access to my back.

It doesn’t take a genius to guess what happened next. My top came off, soon I was being kissed and fondled in a way I had never experienced before. I didn’t move, I felt like I was melting. Soon, Patrick was groping with my shorts.

“No, Patrick…”

“Kim, I love you. I need you.”

“Oh Patrick…”

“Let me make love to you.”

“Patrick…be gentle. It’s my first time.”

*

There was pain, but more pleasure. There were tears, but more smiles. There was regret, but more relief. My decision was made.

An hour later, Patrick and I went for a midnight skinny dip. The ocean at night had always scared me, but with Patrick’s arms around me, I felt safer than I ever had. Soon we were in up to our necks. He kissed me in the moonlight.

“Kim, I love you.”

“I love you Patrick.”

“I want to marry you. Will you marry me?”

That was totally unexpected. “Patrick…”

“I promised myself I’d wait until you had more time to think about things. But tonight, I realize I don’t need any time. I’m going to love you forever, and I won’t be happy until you are my wife. You don’t have to make a decision now; take your time. Take a year if you need it. But I want you to know just how deep my feelings are for you.”

I let him hold me. I felt drowsy. I remember the warmth of the water, the silver of the moon, the ache between my legs. “Patrick, I don’t need a year. I don’t need another minute. I love you. I want to be your bride.” And there you have it.

*
Kunyak was ecstatic when we told him we wanted to get married on the set. The final page of the catalog would show our actual wedding. Mr. Kunyak said that you couldn’t buy publicity like that. An actual wedding? Two models who fell in love on the set? People would go nuts!

The wedding was easy enough to set up. It was simply a matter of finding a cameraman who was subtle enough not to interrupt the ceremony, and getting some of our guests to wear Kunyak’s designs.

I remember Mom started crying when my maid of honor, Lori, walked down the aisle, arm in arm with Patrick’s best man. She wasn’t ashamed, she had made that clear. She was just weepy. After all, her youngest daughter was getting married.

As the wedding march played, I paused. This was truly it. There was no going back. I couldn’t very well get married to a man and then decide I didn’t want to be a woman anymore. But then I caught site of my groom waiting for me. Patrick. I had to stop myself from running down the aisle to be next to him.

Of course, Lori had designed my gown (and the gowns of my bridesmaids). My gown was white, with a long train, huge ribbons, and a veil. I felt like the most feminine person on the planet. Who cares if I was still, technically a man? We managed to wrangle a legitimate marriage certificate, and the union was legal. Maybe someday I’d have a full sex change, but we’d worry about that later.

Patrick and I danced every dance at the reception. Mostly with each other, though of course he danced with my mom, Lori, and Greta; I danced with Dr. Klaus, Slim, and Randy (hands where I can seem them, please).

Eventually, it was all over. We drove to the hotel where we’d spend the night, before going off on our honeymoon (a trip to Hawaii, Mr. Kunyak’s wedding gift).

Patrick picked me up and carried me across the threshold, laying me gently in bed. “Kim, you’ve made me the happiest man on earth.”

“Oh Patrick, I love you so much.” We kissed. We then wasted no time removing each other’s clothes. The catalog originally called of some honeymoon shots, but you have to draw the line somewhere. Tonight was ours, and ours alone.

“Kim,” he said, as he turned out the light. “We’re going to have a wonderful life together. Welcome to our new life.”

I kissed him and let him take me. Our new life? You bet. My new life? Absolutely.