Elise sat there for minutes on end, waiting for a response. She couldn't even imagine what Amanda was thinking right now. It had to be a lot to process the message just sent to her.

Though at the same time, Elise also thought she may have been making too big a deal out of this. Perhaps Amanda wouldn't see this as that big of a revelation. Only time would tell.

Of course, there was a lot of context and information that Amanda wasn't getting.

Elise heard her phone vibrate. She had finally gotten a response.

“Okay?”

“Are you planning on leaving Devin?”

That message hit Elise harder the more she thought about it. Upon first seeing it, she realized she probably should've told Amanda that she was still attracted to guys. But at the same time, Devin, or Sierra, wasn't really a guy was she? So what did that mean for Elise? She had wondered about if she would leave Sierra before, but to see someone else ask her if she would hit her a lot harder than she expected.

Elise began constructing her response. “No. I still like guys. I’m not leaving Devin.” She sent the message.

And again, Elise waited. While she did, she started to contemplate the extent to which Amanda could help her. Truthfully, there wasn’t much she could do if she wasn’t getting the full story, or anything even resembling it. So why did Elise ask her for help? Probably just so she could talk to someone. Elise sighed. This would probably be more trouble than it was worth.

Elise felt her phone vibrate again.

“Okay. So what’s the problem?”

Elise was confused. “What do you mean?” She texted back.

“Well, if you’re not leaving Devin and you still like guys, then what’s the problem? You might like girls, so what? It’s no big deal.”

Elise was beginning to get frustrated. With the small amount of information Amanda was getting it was nearly impossible for her to give Elise any kind of help that was actually, well, helpful. Elise was about to text Amanda another vague statement that could possibly grant her a response she’d find comforting or useful, but she stopped herself. What would be accomplished if she did that? They’d just be going through the same motions they just went through, again and again, wasting everyone’s time. There would be no point. It would also make Amanda become more suspicious of what was really going on, making it more likely she’d find out about Sierra before she was ready. It would be for the best if Elise ended it here

“Okay, thanks.” Elise texted Amanda.

Elise turned her phone off and laid it down on her night stand. Amanda didn’t really help her much, but to be fair there wasn’t much she could’ve done. Of course, with the way their conversation went, there was no way Amanda wasn’t going to ask more questions. Elise groaned. At this point she regretted even telling Amanda anything. Now she had even more to deal with.

Elise began to think that perhaps she should go about this situation in a different way. Maybe she should just wait for her new relationship with Sierra to play out, and then find out what she wants to do. And whenever Sierra chooses to “come out”, she can ask others for help. It may not be ideal, but it’s not like she had any other options. Asking others for help right now certainly wasn’t working, at least.

Elise plopped down onto her bed and turned her head toward the window. She’d be going to Sierra’s house again tomorrow. Maybe it was finally time to have some tough conversations with her. Sierra probably wouldn’t be ready, but then again, neither was Elise.

***

The morning sunlight shined through the window of Devin’s room as he woke up. He breathed a sigh of relief. No nightmare this time. Just another random nonsensical dream he was already forgetting.

As Devin got out of bed he wished he could forget about the dreams that would tease him about wanting to be a girl. Unfortunately, for the most part those dreams stayed in his head. The one he had the previous night especially. He could still picture that awful reflection in his mind.

Shaking his head of the unpleasant thought, he got out his phone and saw that Elise had texted him. She said that she was coming over again today. In that case, he should probably get dressed.

As he went over to his closet to find some clothes, his mind went wild with expectations of what Elise and him would do together. He was both excited and afraid. At this point Elise had to have gotten more curious about “Sierra”. She had to have so many questions she wanted to ask. And there was no chance she’d back down from asking them forever.

Also, it was likely that they’d continue reading through “For a Girl”. They were already more than halfway through the story, and it’d be stupid not to finish it after putting so much time into it. Devin was still shocked that Elise seemed to like the story, but he’d been getting quite a few surprises lately.

It was then that Devin remembered exactly which chapter in the story was next.

His eyes went wide as he rushed over to his computer, opened up “For a Girl”, and went to the seventh chapter, only to have his fears confirmed.

“VII - Good Night, Sweet Principal!”

“Shit”, he thought to himself.

On an intellectual level, he knew from when they started reading this story that they would eventually get to this part. And deep down he had dreaded that moment. He’d been able to ignore those feelings before, but now, with the chapter staring right at him, he was forced to confront them.

This chapter was rather infamous among anyone who had read “For a Girl”. At least Devin assumed so, since he had seen multiple reviews on Fictionmania and TG Storytime calling the chapter bizarre, gross, and unnecessary. Whatever the case, this chapter was really bad. If there’s any indication that “For a Girl” hasn’t aged the best it’s this chapter, where Stephanie is manipulated into being spanked by a middle aged man while he doesn’t even try to conceal his erection or arousal. He even takes Stephanie’s hand and has her touch her panties, all while going on about how she was “never meant to be a guy”, and that “she is a good woman because she submits herself under men”.

With all that, it’s not hard to see why the chapter was so controversial.

Devin certainly hated the chapter. For him, it wasn’t necessarily that the story depicted sexual assault that bothered him. He believed fictional stories had a right to depict awful things that happen in real life. No, it was that the story handled a topic as sensitive as sexual assault in such a disrespectful way. In fact, the story itself doesn’t even acknowledge that what the principal did to Stephanie was sexual assault at all, and instead seems to think the experience was some kind of “sexual awakening” for her. That it showed her how much she likes being dominated by men, and so it was good for her.

That was what really tipped Devin off, more than anything else. The idea that sexual assault could in any way be considered a “positive experience”. He understood that in real life, there are plenty of creepy, predatory men that never see any consequences for their actions. It’s simply one of the very cruel facts of life. But the story doesn’t depict anything like that. It instead depicts a sexual assault and doesn’t just not acknowledge that it was a sexual assault, but attempts to argue that it was a good experience for the victim.

And even beyond that, the entire chapter didn’t really add anything to the story. The whole scene of the principal sexually assaulting Stephanie is never really brought up again except for one scene in a later chapter where Stephanie is in the principal’s office again with a news reporter. It simply begs the question “what was the point?”

This one chapter really brought the entire story down in Devin’s eyes. It always left a sour taste in his mouth. While the story was kind of problematic before in the earlier chapters, Devin had always found it manageable. This chapter, on the other hand, was when the story officially jumped the shark. It was the chapter that made it impossible for Devin to think of the story in anything other than a mixed light.

And as Devin looked out his window and saw Elise’s car pull into the driveway, he realized Elise was about to read it.