It’s impossible to know what’s in someone else's mind. You can know their actions, their words or their tears but you can’t ever truly know their thoughts.
This was never more evident to me than when I met Lee. Life for me is a balance between what I want and what I need. Some days, everything is fine and I make it through without ever once feeling the pull of women’s clothing on my psyche. Some days are harder than others.
There are a lot of people in the college who believe I’m gay. It would be fine with me, if I were actually gay, but I’m not. It’s possible I’m bisexual, but that’s not even the issue here.
And that’s not even accurate. My sexuality isn’t defined by what a person looks like, but more by who a person is. I’m attracted to people who treat other people well, who are interested in what the person across from the table with them more than just in their appearance or what they can do for them.
That sentence is so convoluted, but I hope you get what I mean...and it’s getting ahead of the story.
My girlfriend was the reason that I was feeling a bit down. She was also the reason I wasn’t dressing as much anymore. She was uncomfortable walking around town with me in drag, and I didn’t want to make her uncomfortable. We still went out shopping together, but even that had been slowing to a trickle in the past couple of weeks.
“Jared, we need to talk,” she said on wednesday morning the last week of the summer term. I’d just finished my last exam so I had some free time.
“Sure, Aimes. What’s up?”
“Not here, I’d don’t want to talk about this here,” she said looking around at the other people in the Commons, our student center.
We walked back to my room in silence. It wasn’t the comfortable pleasant silence that exists between people who know and trust each other and it began to agitate me. “What’s going on, Aimes?”
“Wait,” she said and then didn’t say another word until we got back to my room.
“Before you say anything, Jared, I need to have my piece. You’ve had your chance in the past to fulfil what I’ve been asking for. You could just man up and stop being such a...pansy.”
“Oh, really? A pansy? Now you, of all people, are accusing me of being gay?”
She colored slightly but that didn’t knock her off track. “Jared, you are a good friend, and a good guy, but you’re not really the one for me.”
“That’s not what you said over spring break.” I didn’t mention it’s also not what she was saying when she was screaming my name in our hotel room, unless she was faking it, which was always a possibility.
She really blushed at the mention of our time spent together over spring break, something I felt no joy over. The very fact I brought it up was petty and beneath me. “Aimes, if you’ve found someone else, then just say it. Don’t try to hide behind someone else’s arguments. I assume that you discussed all this with your new boyfriend?”
“Well…”
“Who is it?”
“Why should I tell you?”
“Because I want to know who was ‘man enough’ to steal your heart.”
“Remy,” she said quietly. For a moment I could see nothing but red as I struggled to keep my emotions under control.
“Remy? You’re dating that oversexed, low EQ neanderthal? The one who you said made you feel ‘creeped out’ everytime he looked at you?”
“He’s not that bad.”
“You just think he’s great in the sack.”
“Oh, is that from experience,” she said in a snarl.
“What?” I said, growing cold.
“Oh, he told me how you…”
“Get out.”
“Did I strike a nerve?” she taunted me.
Anything I’d thought I felt for her before faded in a flash as she continued to smirk at me. “Get out of my room, Aimes, and never show your face here again. I don’t care what he told you happened. I don’t care whether or not his buddies backed him up. They were there after all when he raped me. All of them took turns. The only reason he’s still here in school is because I didn’t want to deal with it, the accusations going into the media, his high priced lawyers dragging me through the mud. None of it.”
“Jared,” she began, reaching a hand toward me.
“Get the hell out of my room,” I bellowed at her. I kept it all together for a moment or two. I watched her face crumple and she turned and fled my room in tears. As soon as the door to my room closed I sank against it, my back to the wood, and sobbed.
I stripped off my shirt and attached the girls to my chest. There was some stubble there so the seal wouldn’t be perfect, but it would be good enough. I just needed the feel of the weight to ground me. I slipped into one of my laciest pink bras and pulled on a gamer ladies tee.
I slipped into the bathroom with my grooming kit and spent the time to make myself up perfectly. This wasn’t over the top drag makeup. It was just light and designed to change my androgynous features over the line into the feminine. My beard hair had been getting darker of late so it did take a touch more concealer than it had in the past, but only a touch. The concealer helped to even out my skin tone, anyway.
The door to the RAs room was open and someone was moving around inside. I said something about him being the new RA and he turned around. “I’m not gay,” I said aloud in way of defense at some point in the conversation, but mostly that was to assure myself that was the case.
I’d never had this sort of physical reaction to anyone before and I felt myself growing immediately hard at the way he took charge of the conversation. Painfully so.
I was thankful that he didn’t look away from my face during that conversation because my arousal would have been evident if he’d even thought to look in that direction. The idea that he was treating me as a woman, and treating me as a woman wants to be treated was putting unclean thoughts in my mind.
“Too bad,” he said with this infuriating little grin. A grin I wanted to wipe off his face with a heart stopping kiss. He continued even before my thoughts finished their course, “because I think you’re really cute.”
My mind short circuited and I felt a goofy grin erupt on my face. My heart thundered in my chest and my blood rushed in my ears. Sure, I might have reacted to him primally by his looks, but he was a really great guy that was just keeping me in this moment, this razor’s edge between lust and love and I never wanted him to stop.
He was laughing in an infectious manner and I began laughing with him. His eyes twinkled. I’d always thought that was just an expression before I met him, but he made that expression true. There was this impish light that illuminated his entire face from the inside and shone out through his eyes. It was a light that told you that he was in on the joke, whatever the joke was, and you just wanted to go along with him so he thought you were in on it all as well.
It wasn’t cruel, this light, just easy going. Light hearted.
“I’m a freshman this year,” he said and my heart stopped. He was almost two years younger than me. This wasn’t fair, in any way. He was entirely too young for me I began to think before I realized that I wasn’t a girl. Sure, it might be weird dating a younger guy if I were really a girl, but in this situation…
It only occured to me in that moment that I wasn’t thinking of myself as guy or girl in that moment. More specifically I’d been just assuming I was yin to his yang. I was his opposite and I was okay with that. Whatever he needed me to be, I would be.
“Mr. Collins…” Mr. Alderman said from the end of the hall and began speaking to, I assumed, the boy standing next to me. He was pulling his normal wheedling trick of convincing people to do something they didn’t want to do. Making it all seem like your idea at the time and never once letting you pick any other choice.
Sure, his smile seemed genuine, at least until you really got to know him. Mr. Alderman was a bigoted little prick.
“When we heard about your work at Forever Swim …”
My opinion of Mr. Collins rose a notch when I heard that he’d worked with Forever Swim. They were an organization that I donated money to every year. Seeing his toned lean body it made me wish I’d donated time to as well.
“Lee,” Mr. Alderman began repeating Lee’s name and then seemed to see me for the first time. “Jared? You’re not hassling Mr. Collins are you?”
“Who? Him? It so happens he asked me out on a date,” I said with a smug smile. Mr. Alderman wasn’t going to get my goat this time. If at all possible, I was about to get his.
“Are you gay?” Mr. Alderman said rounding on Lee. The claws finally come out, I thought as I saw that. I could help but smile in anticipation. His response shocked me to the core.
“I didn’t ask her for casual sex, Mr. Alderman. As long as she looks and acts like a proper young lady I would have no problem being seen in public with her.”
Every time I turned around Lee was showing me a new facet of his personality, and the more I saw the more I realized I was lost.
“Mr. Alderman, as long as she looks like a woman, you will be good enough to refer to her as such.”
Lee was standing up for me, and everyone else in the hall and he did it without needing to. He was normal, and everyone considered him normal, and yet he was standing there, staring down someone in a position of authority for me.
His next statement almost destroyed my attitude toward him, “so, you figured that since I worked with ‘special needs’ kids that I’d be fine working with your...Freaks Hall?”
“I don’t much like being considered ‘special needs,’” I hissed at him. How could he be so awesome one moment, and then begin pitching in with Mr. Alderman and the idiots like him in this school. I was all ready to walk out on both of them right there and then, but something about Lee’s posture made me want to stay.
“See, she doesn’t like you treating her this way. I’ll be the boy’s RA if only to bring a little humanity in here.”
“Until you pledge for Phi Beta Kappa?”
Everything sort of went away as I became cold at the very mention of that fraternity. All of the happy feelings went away. He began to push me about our date again and I was angry at him, at Mr. Alderman and most especially at myself. He was just another entitled prick in a long line of entitled pricks here on their parent’s dime, putting it to the rest of us because they could.
I agreed to his date, hoping to be able to embarrass him during the course of the evening. He’d given me two hours to get ready and I planned to make the most of it. I shaved my chest and legs, and covered myself in scented lotion. My closet betrayed me. Most of the clothing I had left was for hanging around campus, not for giving assholes a taste of what they were missing and would never even get the chance to have.
I slipped on a pair of shorts and a tank top and went around to the entrance to the north stairs. I’d wondered, often, who’s bright idea it was to put the girls on the third and fourth floors of the hall, but right now it just gave me some more time to let go of the anger that was boiling just under the surface.
“Gabby!” I said pounding on the door to her room. She opened the door looking bleary eyed and her hair was sticking out in all directions.
“What is it, Fleur? Do you have any idea what time it is?”
“Yeah, it’s seven pm.”
“Right, too early, come back in an hour.”
“An hour will be too late,” I whined at her and she really looked at me for the first time.
“Wait...who has you so pissed off right now?”
“The new RA.”
“And why does the new RA have your panties in a twist?”
“He asked me on a date,” I replied quietly.
“So, tell him no,” she said and began to close the door.
“Gabby!” I whine again and stomp my foot. “I can’t do that. I already said yes and I have to be ready in an hour.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s an asshole,” I said with all the venom that I could inject into four words.
“Laura, get up. Fleur has a date.”
Laura crawled out from the pile of blankets that graced the only bed in the room. It was just one more example of the idiocy that was the administration of the school. Segregate the boys and the girls, but it was fine to allow lesbians to room together.
If I wasn’t still so pissed off about Lee’s behavior it might have gotten me to laughing.
“Who’s the lucky girl?” Laura said as she stood and stretched. She was completely naked and wasn’t moving very quickly to the clothing strewn across the floor.
“He’s the new RA,” I said through clenched teeth. Laura knew I wasn’t attracted to her, but that never stopped her from flirting with me. She was entirely too shallow for me to be interested in that way. It didn’t mean I didn’t like the girl, I just couldn’t see myself dating her.
“Why am I doing this,” I said as soon as the thought struck me. “Why didn’t I just tell him ‘no.’”
“Cause you’re hot for him, duh,” Gabby said with a smile and I smiled back at her. We’d tried to date once or twice. I was just too much man for her. She liked me well enough, but she had a lot of body image hangups where her partners were concerned.
“No, I hate him. He’s entitled and stuck up and pledging Phi Beta Kappa and…”
“Wait, and you’re still dating him?” Laura said in a hoarse whisper.
“What is wrong with me?”
“Is he that hot?” Gaby asks me softly.
“He’s nice, at least I think so, but there are moments where I just think that he’s like everyone else in his tax bracket.”
“So, he’s rich?”
“I guess. He didn’t bring any bags with him and talked about visiting a tailor in town for his clothing for tonight.”
“What a snob,” Laura said with a sneer.
“No, he’s not like that.”
“I thought you said he was a jerk.”
“He is...but he did work for Forever Swim.”
The two of them blinked at the apparent non-sequitur and I explained about the charity...and the entire conversation downstairs
“So, he does charity work with kids with disabilities, he didn’t oogle your breasts, even before he knew they were fake,” Laura said and I glared at her.
“Well, they are still fake, aren’t they?”
“They’re still enhancement, if that’s what you mean. I see you still use padded bras, Ms. B-cup.”
She glared at me and Gabby laughed at the two of us. “Will you to cut it out? Laura, get some clothing on. Fleur still isn’t interested.”
Laura huffed and began getting dressed.
“Fleur, if you are this pissed at him, why are you going on a date with him.”
“It’s because she doesn’t want to be pissed at him.”
Gabby and I turned and looked at a now dressed Laura. “What?” I said.
“It’s simple, really. You are really attracted to this guy, but your male self, who still insists he isn’t gay, is trying desperately to find a reason to push away, while your female self is looking for any reason to leap in with both feet and let him fuck you until your eyes roll back in your head and you are completely sated.”
“Laura,” Gabby said a little shocked with her language.
“No, I can’t, Laura. I want to hate him because I can’t let that happen ever again.”
“Sweetie,” Gabby says as she comes over and puts her arms around me.
“I want him, Gabby, and that terrifies me. I want him in a way I’ve never wanted anyone else, ever in my life. I can feel that he completes me.”
“Sexually?” Laura said with a smirk.
“My soul,” I said reverently. “My heart calls out to him, and I can hear his heart respond. For the first time ever I really wish I’d been born a girl.”
The other two just stare at me and I smile half heartedly at them, “you know what I mean. You know my entire story.”
“Why didn’t you become a girl before this? That’s something I never understood,” Laura says to me. For the first time I’m seeing a depth to her that I never knew was there because her expressing isn’t taunting or teasing. She’s looking at me like a friend and she seems to really want to know.
“I guess because I still think of myself as male, even when I’m dressed to the nines in the slinkiest, sexiest skirt I can find. The idea that some guy is seeing a girl and desiring her and knowing the girl is really me turns me on.”
“You fantasize about showing your schlong to some guy during sex.”
“Yes,” I said, blushing bright red.
Laura laughs, but not unkindly and I smile back.
Gabby gets a thoughtful look on her face and then begins rummaging through her closet. She picks out a deep blue gown and holds it up against me. It’s backless, but it goes all the way to the neck in a collar arrangement that will leave my shoulders bare as well. I’m straining against my panties at the very thought of wearing that dress.
“I could never…”
“You can, and you will, Fleur. Wear this dress.”
“But I don’t want him to want me,” I say, but my heart is telling me a different story. It’s pounding against my chest and willing me to take a step forward and touch the dress. My hand begins to move almost of it’s own accord. They laugh and I feel my cheeks heat.
“Fine, I’ll wear the dress.”
I slip out of the shorts and top and then I take off my bra. I slipped into the dress and situated my breasts in the build in cups in the front of it. The air passing across my back was sexy in a way that nothing else I’d ever worn had ever been. It was uncomfortable to sit on my trapped manhood with how aroused I was, but sat I did and let Gabby and Laura work.
I was no slouch at making myself look good in drag. For me, it wasn’t a matter of looking glamorous, even though I’d done that a time or two. It was about making myself look authentic, and most of my talent was focused in being normal. Because of this, I would go as light as possible on my makeup, wearing the bare minimum of concealer. I’d considered getting a nano-hair removal treatment to completely kill all the follicles on my face, but that always seemed a betrayal of my manhood before.
Sitting there, watching as Gabby and Laura transformed me from a plain jane into a vision of beauty, I decided something. It didn’t matter whether or not I could grow a beard. I was a man regardless of any outward trappings, and I was a man regardless of whether or not I was going out on a date with Lee.
They’d piled my shoulder length hair up on top of my head with lots of pins and hairspray. A curl of hair on either side framed my face and softened the harder lines of my face. My makeup was dramatic without being over the top and I had that smoky eye look that I’d envied without ever being able to reproduce.
I gathered up my purse and made my way downstairs. Lee’s door was open when I arrived. I took a moment or two to stand there and just admire his back and shoulders. The jacket he was wearing fit his frame perfectly and made me want to run my fingers across the material and feel the muscles underneath.
A simple knock on the open door got his attention and he turned to look at me. His initial reaction was all I could have ever hoped for. It seemed he was speechless and after a moment or two I said, “You know if we’re going to be dating you might as well relax the whole segregation by floors thing.”
He laughed it off and we made our way to his car. It was implied that he was loaded. Him driving a Porsche really pounded the point home. That’s not even really accurate. It was more the fact that he drove a Porsche but he didn’t really care that he drove a Porsche. It was almost as if he were driving a Dodge or even a Toyota.
It made me even more angry, but not at him this time. It made me angry at myself. He was a good guy from everything that I saw, but I kept trying to cast him in the horrible light. Never before in my life have I ever really wanted to use the cliche of it being me and not him...and actually mean it.
He talked with me as we drove. He listened to my responses and I could feel myself responding to him as we continued. He made me feel special the entire time we were in the car. When we parked at the valet parking stand I sat there for a moment trying to decide how I was going to get out of the car without ruining my dress when my door opened and Lee was standing there with his hand offered to me.
My heart melted and I let him help me to my feet. As we walked he put his hand at the small of my back. The feel of his skin on my bare back ignited a fire within me and I could help but smile at the Maitre D’ as he walked us to our table. Once there Lee was again leaping to my aid. He helped me into my chair with a practiced ease and I settled myself in for the dreaded ‘first date chat.’
With everything else Lee had done right, I should have assumed he would know how to do this as well.
“So, where are you from,” I started the moment the Maitre D’ left.
“Do you really want to know that or are you trying for small talk?”
“Small talk,” I said with a grin.
“Well, then, try this one on for size. What motivates you? What get’s you out of bed every morning and dressing and going to class? Why are you taking summer classes when most of your classmates are just relaxing for three months?”
“That was three questions.”
“Beautiful and smart too,” he replied without ever really responding to my little quip. He just cocked his eyebrow and waited for me. It wasn’t an impatient sort of waiting, or even the inequality of an instructor waiting for a student. It was the strength of a deep patience. He knew I would eventually answer, and he was content to simply watching me as I waited.
I smiled and responded, “words. Words get me out of bed in the morning and torment my sleep. I love the way that words form thoughts and can be rearranged into different throughs just by changing their placement. They have a never ending array of combinations that can keep surprising you.”
“There are a finite number of words in the english language.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“If there are a finite number of words then there are a finite number of combinations.”
“But there isn’t any fixed length to a sentence.”
“Sure there is.”
I grin at him, enjoying the conversation a lot more than I thought I would, “I’ll bite,” I said showing my teeth as I said it, “how long does a sentence need to be?”
“Just long enough to finish it’s thought. No shorter and no longer. The most famous two word sentence in english literature proves that.”
I couldn’t even come up with a reply to that. I had no idea what he was talking about. My confusion must have been evident because he explained, “The bible, as translated in the King James edition has a two word verse, ‘Jesus wept.’ It has both subject and a reflexive verb. It is the smallest idea that can be expressed in english. It encompases everything that needed to be said.”
“Says the man who is taking an entire paragraph worth of sentences to define it.”
“Just because I’m not concise doesn’t mean that I can’t be.”
“Oh really?”
“I love you.”
“What?” I said as my heart pounded in my chest and I felt everything move away from me.
“That sentence. It’s something every one of us has likely said in the past. It is everything we need to say in that special moment.”
“I need a drink,” I said as I caught my breath.
“Wait, did you...I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean. Sorry. I like you, Fleur, but I don’t know you well enough to say that and mean it yet.”
For some reason I didn’t understand I was disappointed. I knew that he’d never meant to say that and mean it. The context of the conversation alone, not to mention our entire relationship to date, entirely precluded the possibility.
“I’d have liked it to be true.”
“Why?”
“Can you not see how great a guy you are?”
“Not really.”
“You helped me in and out of the car.”
“I didn’t want you to ruin your dress. It was just common courtesy.”
“So, you’re saying you wouldn’t have helped me if I were in jeans?”
He blushed and looked away from me and I laughed. “So, you would have helped me if I were in jeans.”
“It’s still common courtesy.”
“Considering how uncommon courtesy is right now, especially in my life, I appreciated it. Heck, it embarrasses me that you consider it so normal and I’ve never once done this for any of my dates.”
“You’ve never held the door for a girl?” he said a little shocked.
“No, not once. That changes tonight, though. It hadn’t occurred to me how difficult it could be to get in and out of a passenger seat without ruining your appearance.”
“Well, at least there is that. Something good has come of this date.”
The waiter appeared at this moment and asked for our order. “Would you mind ordering for me?” I asked him, sweetly, “I have no idea what half of this is.”
“Sure,” he said and ordered. He took charge of the moment and made it feel as if this was normal. That lacking knowledge of something wasn’t anything to be ashamed of. He even took the time to ask me what sorts of foods I liked before he made the decisions for us.
“So, are you an english major?”
“Never,” I said with vehemence.
“Then how does your love of language work into your schooling?”
“You asked me what got me out of bed every morning. You also asked me what motivated me, and that was something else entirely. You still want to hear that?”
“Of course. I want to get to know you better. There are two visions I have of you, and they just don’t fit together for me.”
“Oh, and what are those visions of yours?”
“There is boy you and girl you, of course.”
“Sorry to burst your bubble, but there is only me.”
“And you act like a girl when you’re dressed as a boy?”
“Act is the operative word. I may present myself differently, but inside, where it counts, I’m the same person.”
“Well, I like the person I’m getting to know,” he said as he looked deeply into my eyes. I had to turn away, and I blushed. What was wrong with me?. I wasn’t normally this girly, even while dressed, but at every turn he was bringing out the feminine in me, and I couldn’t truthfully say that I disliked it.
The food was amazing, and the conversation continued to be wonderful. At the end of the night I was fully ready to continue dating him. He dropped me off at my door and the only thing I could think of was what his lips would feel like pressed against me. I’ll admit to severed disappointment when all he did was hug me. He was gone before I could go in for the kiss myself.
“So, are you finally admitting you’re gay?” my roommate said the moment I slipped through the door.
Just like that the world came crashing down on me again and I was embarrassed to be in the clothing I was wearing. I felt naked under my roommates leering gaze and it pissed me off. I stripped myself naked and then peeled off my breast forms.
The only thing left of my date was my elaborate up-do. “See something you like?” I asked in my Jared voice and he turned green. He shook his head slightly at me.
“Then fuck off,” I said and gathered up a robe. I went and cleaned off my face and took down my hair, the entire time silent tears streamed down my face.
I got off campus the following morning. I’d completed all of my tests for the previous semester and I just wanted to get away from everything. Beyond just wanting to get away from my roommate I didn’t think I wanted to deal with Lee for the time being. I hiked trails and did a few free climbs. Sure, there are women who hike and climb, but the physical effort always seemed to ground me in my masculinity.
It’s nothing against those girls, but it is how it always felt to me, while I was doing it. If I’d ever done either of those things in drag then it wouldn’t have, I’m sure, but they were a part of my male life that had never overlapped with my female persona.
Monday morning everything seemed to be falling into place. My roommate had already left for the day when there was a knock at my door. I opened it to see the new RA standing there.
“Lee?” I said, frantically thinking. I was a mess, since I looked like a guy. Why in the world hadn’t I wanted to dress this morning. And there it was. I hadn’t want to dress this morning. I was having a fantasy relationship with this guy, but I wasn’t the girl he was looking for.
When he said, “I think I’ve fallen in love with a fantasy,” it was the only confirmation that I needed. I gave him an out by letting him feel that he wasn’t the only one lost in this relationship, but I wasn’t feeling it anymore. He was a really good guy and I wanted to feel that way for him, but I just didn’t.
We hugged awkwardly and he left me to my turmoil of emotions.
For the rest of the week I hung out with my friends and generally spent as much time outside the dorms as I possibly could.
I hate greek week. It is an opportunity for the least common denominator to multiply itself by hormones and alcohol. The problem was that I wasn’t above the insanity myself. My favorite thing to do during greek week was to go around to the different frat houses and taunt the pledges.
When I arrived at the Phi Beta Kappa house, though, Remy was the one tormenting the new pledges. I tried to hide in the crowd, but I couldn’t leave. Lee was a god standing amidst the mere mortals who were taunting him. While watching him I guess that I somehow let my guard down and ended up in the front of the crowd.
Remy’s goombas grabbed me and began pulling me toward him. My stomach roil at the look in his eyes. There was lust there in that look, and it reminded me of the night last fall when he’d raped me. My knees went weak and I tried futilely to pull away from the boys who were holding me.
Remy and Lee were talking quietly together and there was a gleam in Lee’s eyes as he did it. It took my addled mind way too long to realize that it was anger. “Let the fai..” Remy began, but when Lee glared at him again his mouth shut with an audible snap. “Let Jared go, boys, we have much more lively game here.”
My heart swelled in my chest and I wanted to say something to Lee, but his expression, his hate, was turned in my direction. He was just a good guy after all, but it was too late for that to mean anything for me. He’d protected me because that was what he did, but it didn’t mean anything to him. It didn’t mean anything because I hadn’t ever really let him know it should mean something.
As soon as I got back to the dorms I went into my room and got together a jean skirt and the same tee shirt I wore the first day I met him. I took my time in the bathroom, shaving carefully and applying my breast forms with equal care. Then I got dressed and applied my makeup.
It was close to six when I finally made it to his room. The door was slightly ajar so I pushed it open. There was no one there, however, and I was disappointed. I closed the door behind me and went and sat down on his bed. There were a few TV shows that I occasionally watch with new episodes on Hulu, so I watched them on my phone while I waited.
I must have fallen asleep at some point because the next thing I knew I was being awakened by the sound of someone fumbling their key in the lock. I sat up and smoothed down my skirt with my legs under me. I quickly smoothed down my hair, wishing I had a mirror to check my makeup in.
He stumbled in, smelling of alcohol and rotten fruit. He blearily looked around the room, not seeing me sitting there on the bed in the darkness. Something must have caught his attention because suddenly he turned and really saw me.
“Hi,” I said quietly.
“Fleur? What are you doing in my room?” The shock was evident on his face, but even more evident was his smile. It lit up the room and made me feel warm and wanted.
“I waited for you. What you did for me today...no one has ever done that for me before. People are willing to accept me for one side or the other. They make assumptions about me. I dressed like this for you, as a thank you.” I said the words, but I wasn’t sure if I meant them. That’s not exactly true. I knew I was lying when I said those words. Not about my gratitude that he was treating me well, but about why I’d dressed tonight. I’d dressed tonight to let him know what he was missing, and from his reaction he already knew.
“Fleur, thank you, I appreciate it, but I’m too tired not to do something I regret.”
“Then let me properly thank you.” I have no idea what possessed me to kiss him, but it was like I was possessed, or like I wanted to be possessed. There was a depth to the way he was kissing me that had me reacting on a primal level, and made me want to give myself to him without any consideration of the consequences.
“Wow,” was all I could say when he finally broke the kiss. I looked up into his eyes and he smiled down and me and said, “yeah.”
“You really stink,” I said as I continued to look up into his eyes and smiled at him. We laughed and I left him to take care of his hygiene issues.
I didn’t trust myself to be able to control my hormones if I were to visit him again that late at night, and since he spent the rest of the week with the jack-ass squat out at the Kappa house, I kept my distance. On Friday night, however, I dressed myself in a long dress and a short coat and went out to the ‘fire pit’ that the Kappas had prepared for their little induction soiree. There were a lot of people out there just having a good time, and I joined in with the festivities.
They tossed an ironic pick tee shirt at Lee and then offered him a nano-potion of some sort. Almost immediately something went wrong. Lee fell to the ground and began convulsing. I ran over to him and picked him up and held him to my chest while I dialed 911. “Lee? I’m getting you help. Stay with me.”
“Hey, Fleur,” he said with a goofy grin and then mumbled something else. I felt something pushing at me from his chest and realized that he was growing breasts.
The truth of what had happened dawned on me and I carefully laid Lee down on the ground before I rushed over to where Remy and his cronies were standing.
“What in the fuck were you thinking? You gave him a Femin-U potion? Are you insane? There have been deaths from people taking that potion.”
Even in the dim light I could see Remy pale, and he turned to run, but he ran into the police officers who had been standing on the edge of the crowd until now.
“Is what she’s saying true?”
“He’s lying.” Remmy spat at me.
“Oh really? So, that is a lie?” I said pointing at a rapidly changing Lee. He...she was getting scary thin and her breasts were huge on her narrow frame. Her shudders had slowed and instead of bringing relief that made me even more scared. I rushed over to her side and lifted her up again. In the moments since I’d held her the last time she’d lost weight and she was burning up.
“Don’t leave me. I love you. Stay with me, Lee.” I hoped that she could still hear me, but her heart beat was so quiet that I couldn’t hear it at all. I lay her on the ground and began to apply compressions to her chest. I had to keep her heart pumping. An EMT roughly pushed me aside. “We heard she drank something, what was it?” the other EMT asked me.
“He drank a Femin-U potion, I think.”
“Shit,” the EMT who’d pushed me aside said. “I need a glucose drip now, Bert.”
The second EMT pulled a clear plastic bag from his kit and expertly pushed the IV needle into her skeletal arm. The bag drained faster than I thought they were supposed to and Lee gasped. Some color came back into her cheeks, but she was still skeletal thin.
The hooked up a second bag and then a third, “this is my last one,” Bert said. This one didn’t drain instantly so they got her up on the gurney and wheeled her away.
“Please don’t let her die,” I called out to whatever gods might be listening to me. The holographic flames where the only things that replied, and they just cackled at me, laughing at my pain.
