The long dusty road to happiness.

When she had been young she understood how unforgiving this land that gave no second chances really was, yet now she sought one last chance at redemption.

As the wind howled across the broken expanse, rattling the bones of the dead and blasting the already dried out grass, she walked ever onwards through the stinking dust and the heat haze. Her red lips once beautiful to look at, now cracked and parched like the earth that had not seen rain in many decades. The soft skin around her painted nails had blistered from the uncaring assault of the burning earth beneath her feet. Lurching onwards almost like a ghostly mirage in the heat on the dust bowl, her skin burnt from the sun and the wind, from the agony of life around her. She knew she had to push onwards for behind her lay only shame.

Part 1 - The First step.

"There is a storm coming and it will bring changes..." came a voice.

Spinning around Alex came face to face with a young woman who was dressed as a sexy fortune teller, right down to having a crystal ball.

"I see it all so clearly now," said the young woman waving her hand above the crystal ball, "you will set foot outside the closet and this town will never be the same again."

"Ha, ha!" said Alex as he stood there with the hot outback wind blasting his slim hairless body while it played with his long orange hair, "Amy, this is already hard enough, please do not make it any harder..."

"Okay, see you tonight sis!"

When the young woman named Amy was gone Alex took a deep breath, causing the hot dry air to burn his lungs slightly. Looking to the horizon Alex sighed for a moment because he knew there was a storm brewing, heck everyone knew it, but this was not a metaphysical storm, no that would come later, this was a real storm.

The little farming town a Grinders Pass, where Alex happened to live was near bursting point, it was one of those towns that was made up of ten houses and a pub. Well Grinders Pass was a little bigger then ten houses and a pub, it had a stable population of 602 people and they were about to explode. Six long years of drought had left the locals uneasy, with most of them being farmers or else relying on farming to make their living, a drought was a bad thing, added to that the fact that a lot of their land was being bought up by a man from the united states as well as the fact that the local pub had run dry, and Grinders Pass was ready to explode.

With the Mayor’s Halloween ball that he had thrown in honour of the man from the states and the man’s family, on that night, Alex hoped that both the real storm and the metaphorical one would hold off until he had done what he needed to do.

Knowing that he needed to get ready for the Halloween ball, Alex turned from the storm front and headed into his house where the heat was just as oppressive as it was outside. Pondering if he was out of his mind with what he was planning, Alex shook off his doubt and having done that he headed to his bathroom to have a cool shower before he got on with his big plan.

Drying off after the shower which was neither cool nor relaxing, Alex wrapped his towel around himself covering up both his chest and his groin, in much the same way a woman would. Stopping before the mirror that hung upon the wall, Alex checked out his body to see if he had any hair that would ruin his plan but thanks to the farming accident he had when he was younger, his body simply never grew any hair like a male body should. Leaving the bathroom behind, Alex walked back to his small bedroom so he could get to work.

Looking around his room for a moment, Alex sighed, then having done that, he walked to his vanity where he took out a rather heavy pair of panties. Pulling the panties up his smooth legs, Alex took a few moments to tuck his male private parts back between his legs before he used a very sticky piece of double sided tape to tape everything in place. With the tape holding what he did not even want to think about in place, Alex then took an old clump of his own hair, which he stuck to the other side of the double sided tape. With the panties snapping into place once Alex had finished his work, he smiled because what he had done gave him the illusion of a flat front.

Opening another draw that was normally locked, Alex took from it a pair of breast forms. Alex really did not know how big his fake breasts were, he had bought them off of the internet and sizing data on them was kind of lacking, but what he did know was that he got them for less than $100 and he loved how female they made him look when he was fully dressed.

Having spent a few minutes holding on to the breasts as their adhesive backing bonded to his smooth chest Alex finally let go of them. As the fake breasts bounced for a moment on his chest Alex spent a moment dreaming about the day when he would really get to feel real breasts bouncing on his chest.

With the breasts fixed in place Alex noticed that they did not look as good as he wanted so he picked up a large tube of liquid foundation. Carefully placing a ring of the liquid foundation around the false breasts, Alex then blended it in so that it made his skin and the breasts look like they were all one thing.

Giving the foundation enough time to set Alex noticed the first rumblings of thunder in the distance. With the foundation set Alex took a pretty looking black full cup bra and with all the expertise of someone who had put a bra on many times before he slipped it on and did it up.

Pausing at that point to take stock of what little he had done for the coming night, Alex decided his next stop needed to be his make-up. As Alex sat down in front of his little vanity to set to work he knew that some people had they seen the way he was doing things would have thought he was doing it back to front but he had a good reason. From a bad experience with his make-up ruining a good blouse when he had dressed before doing his make-up, Alex had learnt to do things the other way, it was safer.

Taking the tube of foundation in hand, once more Alex slowly started to apply a smooth coat of it to where it needed to go on his face as well as his neck, knowing that it would conceal what few male traits he had.

Having finished with the foundation Alex gave it a few moments to dry a little before he started to place a layer of fixing powder over the top of it, even if he did think it was a mostly pointless thing to do. With the foundation and the fixing powder having set in place Alex then took out his eye-shadow kit so he could work on applying a dark smoky eye-shadow to where it needed to go.

Soon after Alex had gotten his eyes to look just the way he wanted them to, he moved on to the job of placing a small amount of blush on his cheeks, just enough to give him that healthy rounded look, he so desired.

Being done with the blush Alex then moved lower down his face to his lips, where he spent a few minutes carefully applying a thick coat of black shiny lipstick to his lips. As soon as Alex had applied the lipstick, he knew he was finished well except for the matter of seeing how it all looked.

Looking at his face, his feminine face in the mirror Alex was sure that it looked about as good as he could make it look so he moved on with the next phase of the plan.

While Daniel when he was fully dressed normally wore false nails because he liked the way they looked and the fact they gave his digits the illusion of being longer thus more slender, more female, on this night he decided to go a little overboard. Taking a set of long black pre-painted nails from storage, Alex started to glue them to his fingers one by one until he had ten digits with long black nails.

Not being done with his hands, which were looking more and more feminine by the moment Alex took an ornate wooden box out of a draw. Placing the old box on the table Alex rubbed his hands over the carved surface of it like it meant something to him. Opening the box carefully to reveal that it was full of jewellery and other trinkets, Alex sorted through it until he had a palm full of gold bands. Setting to work Alex slowly sorted the gold bands out before he started to thread them onto his fingers. By the time Alex was done he had at least one gold band on every finger and two on some of them.

Flexing his fingers to get a feel for the way that the rings restricted his movement Alex sighed for a moment as he recalled his mother wore her rings in the same way he did. Looking sadly into the mirror Alex wondered why that was one of the few things he could remember about his mother, the jewellery she wore, which she claimed was a sign of some kind of god.

Having sort of always blamed himself for his mother leaving, Alex snapped himself out of it because in the end it was not his fault that she had gone off to join some group of worshippers who saw the world in the same way she did.

Standing up at that moment Alex walked across to the other side of the room so he could start to put on his costume for the night. Taking a look at the long dark purple latex dress that formed the core of his costume, Alex powdered the inside of it and then he began the long, long task of slipping into it.

Standing there with the tight purple dress sticking to his skin, Alex spent a moment doubting his costume before he finally worked out that he had nothing else to wear. Sighing because he knew his costume was going to get worse before it got better, Alex picked up the black leather corset. Tighter and tighter Alex pulled the corset strings, all the while feeling how the corset pushed the dress into his skin making everything that much hotter than it already was. Giving a little moan when the tightness got more than he could stand Alex backed the corset off a little before he finally laced it up.

Cursing himself for being silly when it came to the order of getting dressed, Alex put a thick black PVC choker around his neck and then when it was done up, he sat down. Taking a moment to pull the purple dress up as it attempted to stick to his smooth legs, Alex then picked up a pair of thigh high PVC boots which he powdered the inside. Working as quickly as he could which was not that quickly at all Alex slowly pulled the PVC boots onto his feet and legs.

With the boots in place and his legs a lot hotter for it, Alex stood up so he could get a feeling for the heeled boots and once he had he walked around for a bit just to get an understanding of how to move in them.

Finally coming back to where he had started from Alex pulled a pair of fingerless gloves onto his hands in much the same way he had put his boots on.

Turning the fan in his room up really high just for a little extra cooling, Alex then took the final part of his costume, a purple hood that matched the dress. Just before Alex put the hood on he carefully tucked his hair back so that it would not get in the way of the hood.

Placing the hood over his head, Alex frowned for a moment at the heat, then he smiled to try to get into character.

"Hello," said Alex in a very feminine voice complete with a giggle, "I am Keiko, Keiko Katsushika from Watashi wa toransujendāgurittā kyūketsuki o aishi."*

Hearing the chiming of the clock upon the wall, Alex sat down happy that he only had a half hour wait until he was due to pick-up Amy so he could take her to the Halloween Ball...

End part 1.

* Note: Watashi wa toransujendāgurittā kyūketsuki o aishi, I hope reads near to "I love my transgender glitter vampire." If I have stuffed this up badly, sorry.