My mouth and eyes were dry, sunlight through my parents window caused me to stir. I rubbed my eyes a little, after opening them I realised what a mistake that was. I had been wearing mascara, eyeliner and eyeshadow last night and hadn't removed it prior to sleep. The black smudged transfer on my hands led me to expect the same on my face.

I shuffled into my parents' on-suite bathroom to confirm the suspicion. With a quick riffle through my mother's bathroom drawers, I quickly found make-up remover and cotton pads. I'd played around with my mother's makeup before when I was home alone, so this particular ritual was familiar, though upsetting, every other time I had removed make up it was the final step of shoving Natalia back into the duffle bag under my mattress.

my mouth and eyes still dry, I made my way to the kitchen.

“Calvi, you were at the gym for like 2 hours yesterday, can't you at least wait until your sister and I are out shopping later?”

A brief pause before and after the word ‘sister’ made it clear to me that although people were trying, that it would take time and effort before it came naturally to them, I decided the effort deserved a return of patience.

“Oh hey sleepyhead, Brad wanted to say goodbye but you were still sleeping when he had to leave for work, but he didn't want to wake you.” Laura’s preemptive explanation of his absence, hinted that she was aware I might be upset to discover him gone without such an explanation.

While she was speaking I had already grabbed a glass from the cabinet over the bench top, but waited for her to finish before filling the glass with the vital fluids my eyes and mouth currently lacked.Calvin and Laura resumed their discussion while I downed the water in 2 or 3 mouthfuls, then ate cereal for brekkie, despite it being closer to lunch time at this point.

By the time I'd finished eating, they had resolved any contention and Calvin left for the gym.

“Since Calvin's off to go sweat with his bros, we should get ready to head to the shops soon. I'll do your makeup again, if you like.”

Nodding with my mouthful of cereal loops and milk, was enough to send Laura off to go grab her makeup.

I finished my breakfast, Laura waited at the dining table with some of her makeup stuff spread out on the smooth, cold glass surface.

After she was a few strokes into brushing my hair, with a grin I could see through her mirror she said “Sooo, last night…” It caused me to blush a little at her teasing as she ran her purple and black brush through my kinda messy knotted hair.

“...Brad kissed you again.”

I blushed, nodded and eeked the word “twice” out between brush strokes,.. normally it hurt brushing my hair when it got knotty like this, I guessed she was better at detangling than I was.

She seemed to be alternating between brushing just the ends out of a section and then progressively brushing out further up the section and returning back to just the ends, with each move further up the section moving knots down into the ends of my hair before focusing just on the ends again.

“OoooOooh.” She lightly teased, while doing the opposite of teasing my hair.

“ You should probably sleep with your hair braided or something if it gets like this often, Natalia.”

“Uh,... that makes sense. I've got lots to learn I guess.”

As she worked on getting my hair detangled, I enjoyed the sliding of little balls on the ends of the bristles against my scalp, I hadn't had my hair brushed by someone else since I was a child until yesterday, and today with a less anxiety racing through me I was able to take in the experience and really enjoyed the gentle massaging of my scalp the brush achieved.

My enjoyment of the brushing eventually became audible as a quiet “oooh.” slipped from my mouth.

“Hah, cute.” Laura said as she smiled and raised her eyebrows after hearing my involuntary expression of relaxation and sensory delight.

“Today we'll go with a light neutral look, I've seen you wear eyeliner in the past, we're gonna avoid that messy smudgy emo look, I'll do your left eye, and you can try to copy on your right. I can fix it up after if you fuck it up though.”

“Uh okay… I'm not very good at keeping the lines neat”

“That's why you're going to practice, it takes practice for everyone.”

“First go shave your upper lip, it's not, like, super noticeable, but it will look even better if you reduce the shadowing and get rid of any roughness.”

A quick pass with the electric razor was enough to get my lip smooth, the shadowing was harder to notice… but unfortunately still visible.

When I got back to the table Laura used an orange liquid in a tube with a brush tip, squeezing slightly, she drew the orange fluid into the bristles and after a few lightly tickling strokes across my lips, a small foam blob shape I now know was a beauty blender was used to blend the orange across my upper lip. Looking in the mirror I was confused and doubtful that this was going to work, it looked way more orange than I thought it should.

She then undid the lid/wand of a tube of pale concealer and added a few splotchy blobs over the orange before blending it too after it sat on my lip for a moment.

After her tapping the foam against my skin a bajillion times, I peeked at her mirror and was happily surprised to see the result, no shadow to speak of, a very welcome absence.

She added a streak of the concealer under my eye, and blended it out with many light taps of the spongey foam blender. Then she had me try on the other eye
It seemed simple enough, so I managed to replicate it easily.

She sharpened her eyeliner and showed me how refined the point on the eyeliner was. Asked me to close my left eye and then ran the tip over the edge of the upper lid.

She removed her hand from resting on my cheek bone allowing me to open my eyes.

Her line was neat and thinner than I'd usually managed, I was determined to try to achieve it because I liked how it emphasised my eye but in a delicate manner.

I closed my right eye and leaned in towards the mirror on the table, steadying my hand by resting my elbow on the table.

With a very slight shake I ran the pencil tip across my lid slowly and as smoothly as I could, the pencil being sharpened was helping a lot. I managed a passable mirror image of the left eye,.. if it was also smudged slightly.

“Not bad, it'll do.”

She had me blink as she held mascara to each set of lashes and told me not to open my eyes fully before it dried. I already knew it would cause little black transfers onto my eyelids if the lashes happened to touch them.

Next was lipstick. She held up two tubes, a darker slightly plum red and a peachy darkish pink. I chose the pink

“Okay, hold your lips like this”

her left hand gently held my jaw, with her own mouth she demonstrated how she wanted me to hold mine.

After copying her mouth pose,she brought the pink lipstick up to my face, it smelled sweet and peachy and felt nice being applied to my lips.

With an “Okay, uh… stay here I'll be right back” she rushed off to the bedroom that I had been sharing with my brother just a day ago.in her absence I stared into the mirror, the contrast between how I typically felt when catching sight of my reflection and how I felt now was stark. I was sitting here and just staring at myself indefinitely rather than feeling an urge to look away or cover the mirror.

she handed me a brown leather handbag, the action accompanied by “You can keep it, I've put the makeup you've got on in it and you can just put your wallet in there too…”

I felt tears welling up in my eyes, she noticed.
“upp bup bup… you'll ruin your makeup, breath. It's okay. You're okay.”

“Sorry… I'm.. I'm… just feeling really accepted and thankful…” sniffling and blinking for a short moment, I managed to get myself back together.

“You got any shoes that go with that crop top and skirt… “

I did, they weren't specifically women's shoes, just the most neutral casual canvas street shoes I had. I slipped them on, chucked my phone and wallet into the handbag I'd been bestowed and met Laura at the front door.

Nervous but excited I remembered to take some deep breaths.

“You're doing so well. We're just two women on a shopping trip and no one will see it differently, you look great.”

I was suddenly getting dizzy, my breathing got faster. I let out a timid “I…. I can't do this.”

Her hands felt particularly soft as cupped my face, tilting my head towards her eyes.

“Hun. It's okay. Sit down for a bit and just breathe.”

I wound up on the couch, doing my best to collect myself. Being Natalia was what I wanted more than anything but the anxiety was just so hard to push past.

We managed to quell the panic attack, with deep breathing, focusing on the air moving in and out and visualising the oxygen flowing into my veins and moving around my body.

At some point I noticed Laura had put on some music, alt metal with female vocals, the lyrics meant to feel empowering. It helped me pull myself together, drawing on that courage I’d also found last night.

“ Is… Is my make up okay still?”

“Yeah, it's fine.”

“then I think I'm ready…”

Laura opened the front door, she stepped out into the early afternoon sun, light shining through her hair caused the redness of the auburn to glow.

My first step out to follow her was my first step into the wider world as Natalia, while it was intimidating it was also freeing and exhilarating. I could hear my heartbeat, it seemed much louder than the world around me but my feet continued to place themselves one after the other towards the passenger seat of Laura's dark red sedan, its colour almost matched my nails.

“All good?” She asked as she closed her door, I couldn't remember closing my door, I supposed she had closed it for me.
“Uh, yeah. It would be silly to stop now I guess..”

“We can stop anytime you like, but if you need me to give you a bit of push at any point and you can't find the words for it, just squeeze my hand ok?”

I nodded, then swept the hair out of my face, doing so with a fluid motion moving my hair behind my ear, only realising just afterwards that I might've been subconsciously acting more feminine.

Laura put the same music on in the car, a playlist she had prepared for herself at some point I'd guessed. I spent the short drive trying to focus on the message of some of the lyrics, I could do this.

We pulled into a parking spot, maybe 15-20 metres from the entrance to the shopping centre. She must have noticed I was still pretty anxious as she gently took my hand “No one can tell,I promise”.

“No one can tell” I repeated her words, trying my best to open myself up to believing it.

I was led by the hand to the entrance, a woman and her 2 kids were making their way out of the centre with a half full trolley. The fact that they barely even glanced at me helped me to accept that maybe they actually couldn't tell, or at least that they didn't care.

We went inside, down an escalator and passed a number of other stores before we stepped into a department store, we got a trolley and headed to the women's clothing section. It felt different browsing this section while actually dressed as a woman, nervous for slightly different reasons.

“So, we'll grab a bunch of women's tee shirts first, that's an obvious first step to start filling out your new wardrobe, got a favourite colour?”

“..uh… purple.” consciously focusing on the softness and pitch of my voice.

“Great, they have the same colours in crop tops too, we'll grab black purple and white, 2 tees of each colour and 2 crops of each colour.”

She looked me up and down for a second, grabbed the shirts in medium and added them to the trolley.

As we browsed further a dress caught my eye, a black cotton button up with a dress shirt style collar and two front pockets… the anxiety of the situation dropped away a little as I began imagining myself wearing beautiful clothes I’d previously denied myself.

“ Oooh, cute.You should try that on. But we'll grab a few more before you do.” It wasn't difficult to read the purposeful encouragement in her voice.

I'd never tried on any women's clothes before buying them in the past, instead guessing and hoping. It seemed far more approachable now though, I was after all, already dressed as a woman in public.

“Ooh what about this?” she was holding another black dress, sleeveless, the shoulders were wide bands forming a v neck at the front before they crossed over the bust area, the slightly shimmering stretchy fabric neatly bunched up at the sides from the waist down, becoming looser on the way to just above the knees.

“...You… think it would suit me?” I felt unsure, trying to picture myself in it.

“Yeah, absolutely. You're gonna need a few sexier outfits.”

I hadn't prepared myself for clothes shopping to lead to imagining myself going out to dinners, parties or clubs in sexier outfits. I froze up, my shoulders tensed and I tried my best to take deep breaths, but found them growing shallower and quicker.

“Oh, hun… it's okay, take it easy.”
She led me to the change rooms, I stepped into the closest empty one, closed the door and sat down on the stool. I tried to focus on breathing, but the racing thoughts made it difficult.

“You're going to be okay, I'm going to give you a moment, I'll be back with some stuff for you to try on.. text me if you need me before then” Laura's voice was quiet through the gap between the door and the changing stall walls.

I sat for a few minutes in the small box, with its 3 wall hooks, mirror and the stool I was sitting on. I tried to slow my breathing and just work through the racing thoughts.
I did want to eventually get to a point where I could wear sexier clothing in public, it was something I'd dreamt about, but it was also terrifying, maybe I could do it though, for a long time I'd thought that what I'd already done so far was practically impossible… I started to calm down.

“You doing okay in there? I have 3 dresses for you to try on.”

“I'm…I'm feeling… a bit better.” My voice was only a little unsteady.

“Good, good, I'm actually really enjoying hanging out with you, most of my girlfriends have been either working or studying most of the time lately so I haven't had many girls days or nights out.”

I opened the door and Laura stepped into the space with 3 dresses, hanging them on the wall. I didn't immediately investigate the third dress as I was still stuck on the fact she sincerely considered this a girls day out, it was heartwarming.

“Do you want me to stay in here with you?”

“Uh… yeah.” On one hand it's awkward having someone watch, on the other hand her presence made me comfortable, someone to help if anything went wrong.

I stripped to my underwear and she handed me the first dress, the one I had picked out. It was easy to put on, like a button up dress shirt.. only it was much longer with many more buttons…

“You have a good eye Natalia,.. that looks really great on you” her eyes scanned me up and down.

The mirror seemed to agree with her, it fit well, felt and looked good. It would be a nice addition to my wardrobe.

I reluctantly took it off and hung it up on a separate hook.

Laura handed me the sexier black dress.

Stretchy, with no zip or fasteners, I pulled it on over my head like it was a sleeveless shirt, the stretch fabric felt nice, and the ruffled seams settled nicely either side of my waist and hips.

“I have to take you on a Girl's night out in that at some point! Girl, you look so good.” I wondered if any of the guys from high school saw me at a club like this would they offer to buy me a drink,.. that is if they didn't recognise me… although It was becoming easier to doubt anyone's ability to do so.

“Okay, this last one is because I thought we should get you at least one non-black dress today.”

She was holding a light blue floral sundress.

I slipped out of the figure hugging black dress and then into the sundress, its lightly frilled sleeves rested on my forearms hanging just off of my shoulders, the waist was stretch fit and accentuated my bust comprised of 2 pairs of cheap stick on silicone bra inserts, the skirt of the dress draped freely around my hips and legs.

An absolute yes, obviously, and it must have shown on my face or maybe it was the playful swishing of the skirt that brought Laura's next remark.
“I'm so glad you're having a good time again.”

I blushed, she laughed gently.

We looked through more racks of clothes, and we both tried on a few more pieces. I ended up with a few skirts, shorts, some women's jeans, leggings, a women's sun hat and some women's sunglasses before we moved on.

A few steps into the aisle of women's underwear, I reached out to Laura's hand, gently squeezing it.

“It's okay, I'm here. Remember, firstly, no one can tell, at all! Secondly, no one would even care, they're just here shopping too. You can do this.”

The first two points she made helped a little and I found myself agreeing with the third, I could do this.

I stepped further into the aisle, taking note of how nothing bad was happening and that I was ultimately fine.

The variety of sizes, colours, textures and styles of underwear made me feel both happy and a little intimidated. How was I supposed to choose? Especially since I didn't actually have a bra size, I didn't have tits…

“Uh… Laura…?”

“What's up?”

“ I have no idea what bra size I should be…” My mouth stopped even though my mind kept going, what size would be too small? what would be too big? How do I figure out what band size I am?

“Oh right. Uh hmmmm. Let's have a look…”

She pulled out a few sizes of the same particular bra and held them up against my chest, she settled on a band size and then asked for my opinion while cycling between 4 different cup sizes held up to my chest.

“Do you feel like being a little more busty or a little more tame?”

I had no idea, and I said as much.

“I was leaning towards C but I like the D cup on you honestly, looks like it would suit your frame.” she continued, as if noticing my hesitation and wanting to smooth things over a little to help me calm down.

“Uh,.. okay I guess I can be a D cup” it felt good to settle on a size, despite the slight bit of concern that D sounded a little big.

We began looking for bras in my new size, it narrowed the options a little, we found a few different options that I liked and Laura helped make sure I had bras that suited different neck lines etc. We bought some matching undies for some of the bras and a few bulk packs too, as well as a few sets of pantyhose in different shades etc.

“Do you wear heels?” Laura asked, while walking towards the women's shoe section.

“Um,.. I've never actually worn heels, but I do love the way they look”

“Well, that changes today!”
She had me sit down and then brought me a few shoes of the same style but in a few different sizes.

“I'm guessing these will fit, but I brought a size up and a size down to check”

I took my shoes off, then I slid one foot into the shoes, the smallest didn't fit, and the largest had too much room,... She had guessed right.

“Okay, sweet, you're an Aus woman's size 10, not the worst, a lot of shoes have pretty limited size ranges but you shouldn't be too limited as a 10”

I tried on maybe 10 different pairs of shoes, settling on 3 pairs of heels of different styles, 2 different pairs of slip-on flats and a pair of white and pink women's high top sneakers.

After the shoes we headed towards the checkout, I assumed Laura had some good reasons we weren't going to the makeup section of this department store as we walked right past it.

At checkout and Laura offered to pay for half of my new clothes as a coming out gift, it almost made me cry again in the store… She was being so supportive of me.

“Let's get this stuff back to the car first”

The trip to the car and back was largely uneventful, except that Laura encouraged me to change shoes to one of the new pairs of heels, they were an ankle high Black suede lace up boot with a slightly tapered 2 inch heel,I found that they weren't that difficult to walk in, but that they caused me to walk with a bit more sway in my steps.

After stepping off the escalator onto to the main floor of the shopping centre we headed a different direction this time passing a few different women’s clothes stores (Laura remarked about taking me to one of them another day) until we arrived at a a big brightly lit store front, with black and white shiny interior signs denoting each different sections of the store.

Laura basically dragged me in and we went directly to look at the foundations of 2 different brands which I figured must have been her preferred brands. I thought I may as well trust her on their quality.

“We gotta find your shade, I think you're a bit lighter than the shade I used on you, even though I managed to make it work… and you're a little cooler toned too.”

She squirted a few different skin toned cream onto the backs of my hands and blended them a little before wiping them off again and we settled on “ivory”, I hadn't really realised just how pale I was until this point.

She grabbed a concealer and an orange colour corrector then me moved onto eyeliners, eyeshadows and mascara.

We looked through the different colour eyeliners and the pallets of eyeshadows, and she pointed out colours that she thought would go well with my skin tone, eye colour and hair colour. We grabbed a few shadow pallets and liner pencils and a single mascara tube.

“These will be great to start, some neutral tones, some pinks and purples and complementary tones of greens and blues.”

I was glad she was confidently taking control, I was a little lost Frankly.She grabbed a few other things like brushes, a nail file, some make up remover wipes etc. We had a basket full by the time we headed towards the checkout.

“Hey Laura, how are you doing?” The woman at the check out clearly recognised Laura.

“Eyy, thought you might be working today, I'm doing fine, you?”

“Oh, yeah, you know… work’s work right… Who's your friend?”

“This is Natalia, Calvin's sister.”

“Oh, I didn't know he had a sister.. Nice to meet you Natalia, I'm Claire.” She offered a slight smile in my direction.

“Hi…” I managed.

“She's... a bit shy.”

“Ah, only just starting to get into makeup?”

she had at least put two and two together that this assortment of make up was for me and that it was the sort of assortment one might get when just starting out, I was hoping she hadn't also put it together with the fact that Calvin didn't have a sister.

“Yeah, some girls don't really get into it until their late teens. You're lucky to have Laura's help though”

I could breathe again… she hadn't seemed to question my gender.

Claire finished scanning and bagging everything before.
“Okay that comes to two hundred and twenty six dollars and sixty cents.. cash or card?”

“Uh,.. C..” I started before Laura interrupted “Card please Claire. And here's my membership card for the discount”. She was clearly determined to pay, maybe feeling responsible for the magnitude of the purchase.

Claire and Laura talked for a moment but I was lost in thought until I heard “It was nice meeting you Natalia, see you next time” and responded with a wave.

Laura and I headed towards the food court, having woken up late, I'd had a late breakfast and no lunch… I didn't let Laura pay for my lunch as well. We wound up on a four seated table together with a maccas cheeseburger each. I ate a little more carefully, aware that I could mess up my makeup.

My phone vibrated in my hand bag, it was a text from Brad.

“Hey, sorry I wasn't there when you woke up, I had to get to work and didn't wanna wake you, hope you're doing well, you busy Monday night?”

I blushed.

“That was Brad wasn't it?”

I nodded.

“Need some help responding?”

“ I.. I just need a moment.”

I took some deep breaths, then started tapping away a response to Brad.

“ Hey, no worries, and I don't have any plans for Monday night.”

I wanted to say many more things, but I was worried about being too much too fast.

Laura and I talked for a while, eventually she asked “Your parents get back tomorrow right? Sunday Arvo?”

“Yeah,... I'm not really looking forward to it… I have no idea how they're going to react.”

“Do you want me to be there? Or do you think it should just be a family thing?”

“I have no idea Laura… I have no idea how it's going to go… it's kinda overwhelming to think about.” I was raising my voice just a little, though I was trying hard not to lose my composure since we were in public.

“It's gonna be okay nat, Calvin and I have already talked through some plans for handling it all, so just try not to think too much about it okay…” to which I gave a sincere “I'll try.”

We took our macca's rubbish to the nearest bins on the way back to the car parks. I was glad my feet weren't hurting at all from walking in heels for the first time, I liked the way they looked and felt, they did make me just a little tall though and I worried maybe my height would make me stand out and be a cause for scrutiny about my gender… I tried to shake the thoughts from my mind, but the only thoughts I could find to replace them with were also negative and self-doubting…

Once we were back in the car I asked Laura

“While we've been out, did I do anything that could have drawn attention to the fact I'm a dude… or uhh,... trans…?”

“No Natalia. You did good.”

I must have looked like I was struggling to believe her because she followed it up with “Hun, no one could tell, I promise.”

“Okay, I guess I'll take your word for it,.. I probably can't really trust my own thoughts to be unbiased against myself in this context”

“That's a very analytical way of putting that… but yeah”

We listened to a different playlist on the way home, maybe 4 songs before we got back home.

“I can help you get your stuff inside but I gotta go back to my place tonight, I gotta feed my cat and study and stuff.”

“Oh, okay…”

“You better send me pics if you play with your new makeup tonight though!” Laura made us both laugh a bit there..

She helped get my stuff inside and was gone soon after. I left the clothes in their bags and put them on my bed in the bedroom that I was no longer going to share with my brother. I took the makeup to my desk, placed a small mirror onto the desk. In the past I had done this alone with only one or two items of makeup and no real idea what I was doing. Now I was alone again but I had way more makeup and a much better idea of what to do.

I sat for the next few hours or so wiping off make up and putting make up on again differently, trying to get an idea of what colours look good on my eyelids together and how to blend them, also playing with using the silver eyeliner pencil as the first couple millimetres of my inner eyeliner, I had recalled seeing women put lighter colours in this area of the eye to make them feel more open or something…

When Calvin got home he mostly left me to continue what I was doing until around 8:30 or so..

“Hey Jacob, you want pizza?,... Sorry I mean Natalia.”

“Yes, uh.. a large Aussie, please..”

“Okay, I'll let you know when it gets here,..”

I got back to practicing drawing on my face, taking a few photos every so often and sending some to Laura. For the rest of the night the only other interruptions were the pizza and a text from Brad saying he had booked somewhere for Monday night, that It wasn't super fancy but hopefully a nice place for a first date. I had to pick out what to wear at some point between now and then but I was content for the moment to just continue playing with makeup.

Eventually I got tired and laid down on my bed. I reasoned that Calvin could have the couch especially since, depending on how coming out to my parents went, I'd potentially be moving this bed to the office.

It took a while to fall asleep since I struggled to stop walking through the variety of different ways my parents might react, but eventually I found myself dosing off.