DerbyGhost

Ah the mall chapter. A classic in all trans fiction. You can't escape it.

Is it a bit cliche? Of course it is, but I initially wrote this chapter when I was first transitioning and its kind of nostalgic for me to look back and read it. All of these magical trans stories are wish fulfillment one way or another, and I feel like writing one of them is a rite of passage. So enjoy~ Sorry about the gap, the serotonin machine was working long enough to edit another one and I'm going to try to be a bit more on top of it. Will I be tho? Haha we'll see.

“And you’re sure this is absolutely necessary?” The fabric was lightweight and the material was soft and pleasant on my fingers, but it was still a bra. 

Well a bralette, but in my mind it still registered in bold letters A B R A.  A bra Kadabra here is an extremely feminine garment for you to wear. Just like magic, here’s my anxiety. 

It had already taken me two laps around the mall with Elle to build up the confidence to even go into Aerie. Two solid laps around pretending to be at the mall for literally anything else. 

Well, okay, we did stop in at Gamestop for a little bit mainly to laugh at the assortment of Funko Pops that we weren’t sure really needed to exist. And then at the Barnes and Noble and much to our surprise there were Funko Pops there too. Does someone really need multiple glorified minion collectibles? Do I love Sour Patch Kids enough to have its horrible frozen face staring at me from my desk? I’m sure someone out there does and that genuinely saddened me. I was half expecting those lifeless beady eyes of those Funko Pops to be staring at me at the Aerie as well, instead this time they’d be half naked and dripping with a certain sense of taboo.

Write this down for later, sexy funko pops? Do those exist? Or have anime titty statues cornered the market for erotic nerd statuettes that you hide when your mom visits. 

Elle rolled her eyes at me since this was probable the fourth time I asked her this exact same question since coming into the store. “Yeah Andi, I regret to inform you that this is definitely necessary. You’re already self-conscious enough about your new body right?”

“Oh yeah that’s an absolutely positive.” Which was in a sense a lie. But I couldn’t exactly verbalize that to Elle, definitely not out here just in public. I was starting to get used to myself a little bit more, and yet it was the reactions of others to me that was really throwing me for a loop. 

Hell, I realized I probably would be much more comfortable in this whole girl thing if it was in complete isolation. There’s an episode of the Twilight Zone where the main character wakes up in this town and everybody is gone. He runs around, froths at the mouth a little bit, something something parable about American isolationism or the cold war or whatever. Anyway long story short I feel like if I was plopped down in that situation where I was all by myself and didn’t have to deal with the leers of gross dude bros and the pointing grubby fingers of children I’d be absolutely fine. Like let me figure out how to walk around in this body in peace y’all. Let me trip on my shorter legs or bump into doors with my boobs without judgement. These things are just like out there, and they aren’t even that big. C’mon!

And like I don’t even know if I want to be cut off from all human contact or whatever! Gosh how many contradictions can a girl have. A Person Have! When walking around the mall there was this femme looking person in a denim jacket with a bunch of patches who told me they liked my haircut. I got flustered and stammered something about liking some of the punk patches and it seemed to make them happy as well. What is this? Random compliments just from other people on the street who weren’t trying to sell you things? Wild. Definitely something that in my 21 years of life I have never seen.

And honestly the punk-y jacket person was really cute. I could imagine it now, going out on a date with them. Maybe going to a dive bar where we would talk and eventually they would laugh and touch my arm and lean in close for a kiss, holding my face. It would be nice, y’know, for science, just to experience that kind of thing as a girl. I blushed, remembering the previous night. Imagining what it would feel like for someone else to touch me right th- no. No. No. Can’t spend time on that. One crisis at a time thank you very much! And currently 

I turned my attention back to the bralette in my hands. It was apparently called a Real Me Bralette (ironic ain’t it) and it was basically the plainest I had seen there. Just a simple design, honestly it could have been a very small undershirt. Just… a really tight undershirt specifically designed to make sure I didn’t jiggle myself into an early grave before we could get this whole magic thing all sorted out. 

The one I was holding was just a simple dark blue with a sky blue trim. This I could handle, I think. Once we got into Aerie Elle immediately went to a more lacey and complicated bralette. It was strappy, frilly, feminine, and it 100% freaked me the fuck out. From the look on her face that had to be absolutely intentional. All glee and ill omens shining behind her friendly eyes. Part of me wished that she would take this more seriously, but at the same time I was glad she was here. The same humor helped keep things light, even if part of it was pointed at me. I could deal with it though. I was a big girl.

Really I was just trying to gather up the courage to go pay for it. We had already scrounged around the underwear section and I had picked up some boyshorts that seemed like a pretty comfortable transition for me. Maybe one day in the future if I can’t switch back I’d be a little bit more adventurous with what I was wearing. Maybe I’d lean full blown into femme and really get risque with the lingerie. 

There is the potential to just dive headfirst in the World Of Womanhood and really just make the most of things. If I was a different person, maybe that would be me. I’m not really the kind of gal who just does things because they decide they want to. Hell, I’ve spent this entire mall trip dissociating while staring at various types and styles of fabric. So for now baby steps are the best steps. Which brings me back to the issue at hand.

“Elle I just. I don’t know if I feel comfortable with this. My boobs are small enough right? I can totally just get away with layering and whatever and people won’t notice the difference?” This was the last ditch effort. The hail Mary play. Even though my first five attempts to talk my way out of this ended in failure, well, we can still be optimistic.

I feel like Elle could sense that my resolve was wavering. She slid her arm around me and pulled me into a side embrace. “Trust me Andi, this is going to be much more comfortable in the long run. Even though you’re on the small side the bounce is gonna be annoying eventually. And it sucks but society expects us to try as best as we can to keep our female presenting nipples from horribly wrecking the mind of anyone who happens to witness it.”

“Ah yes. The Lovecraftian terror that comes from nips. Just one look can drive a being into madness. Speaking in unknown languages. Scrawling horrid signs upon the walls. Abandon All Hope, Titties Are Here.”

She gave me a playful punch. “That’s right. You now possess horrors that that musty old racist couldn’t have even dreamed of. So we must protect the poor innocent public by wearing at least something. I know it’s a little bit on the expensive side so if you feel comfortable with that style of bralette we can grab a few just so you don’t have to wash it as often. On the positive side, you won’t have to deal with hooks and underwire for a while and we didn’t have to get you measured.”

I turned a bright shade of crimson and looked away. This was the compromise that we had made. It seemed a little bit like a cop out, but I wasn’t going to learn my bra size for now. We figured just getting the damn things would be enough of a hassle. Again if I can’t change back that’s something that I’ll need to know, for now though I was satisfied with simply knowing I was a medium and sticking with that.

I kind of kept back when Elle payed for the bralettes and mumbled a thank you when she shoved the bag into my hands. After that we dipped into a few different stores to see if we could find some essentials. We tried to stick with some of the cheaper areas. Scoured the clearance in Forever 21 and H&M to see if there was anything that looked “College Student-y” and didn’t seem to break too much of my bank. Fortunately I was able to stick with either a small or medium depending on the sizing, which seemed to be a total crapshoot. I was kind of a stocky guy so I wasn’t sure if I would be able to easily find anything to wear if I wanted to wear women’s clothes before the transformation. Not that I thought about that or anything, mind you. Well not more than most guys normally do. 

How to Find and Wear Women’s Clothes: Andi’s guide to Everything You Need To Know.

Hello and welcome. So you’re a newly minted girl and you’re wondering how you can transfer your sizes and styles from men’s clothes into women’s. First of all oh you poor poor fool. I apologize for this unfortunate journey that you’re about to go upon. I mean sometimes shopping can be totally fun and I’m not saying I enjoyed it or anything but your brain is going to be broken trying to convert everything you knew into this brave new world that is measurements.

Pants:

Give up on having pockets unless you pay a lot of money and sometimes you can’t get

pockets there. On the plus side you can be a cliche and be like “thaaaanks I have pockets” like you’re some kind of tumblr poster from 2015. After trying on my first pair of skinny jeans, I realized that if I wanted to stick my phone anywhere I was going to have to settle for butt pockets. Because let’s put our pocket computers at the mercy of our ass. That is definitely a good decision made by someone.

Now when I went to look for pants, I needed to know my size. Male clothes totally make it easy for you, the consumer. It was just inches for the waistline. I made sure to tell Elle this. In fact, I told her this as much as possible. “Men’s Clothes Are Much Easier!!” I would say. “Shut up and try these five pairs on” was her response. It seemed like brands just had a numbering system because apparently feeble womanly intellect can’t handle numbers that go beyond 16. Those were the Forbidden Numbers apparently, which is code for “we don’t care about average sized women.”

Eventually we settled on two pairs of black skinny jeans. With my new body I had to jump a little bit to get all the way in them (what’s up butt? When did you get so big?) but ultimately they fit kind of like a glove. I always wondered what it felt like to wear them, totally purely from a scientific standpoint. When I was in high school I asked some of my friends if it was uncomfy and they just kind of shrugged. Yes I couldn’t really super bend down in them, but hell I guess that’s the price you have to pay for fashion. Elle told me that it made my butt look fantastic and took a few pictures of me when I wasn’t looking which I’m 100% deleting as soon as I get the chance.

Tops: They’re called tops and not shirts because reasons. Girl reasons. I’m sure.

There are so many different styles of tops I was kind of in a daze when I was browsing around. I just wanted t-shirts to fit my boobs. But then I realized that the graphic t-shirts that I oh so loved when I had a much flatter chest looked a little bit different when they were on a much curvier body type. We just grabbed the cheapest stuff here that we could find. 

But there are so many different kinds of shirts out there. It was honestly kind of fun to just explore and see the different cuts. Some were tight and clung to my body like a glove, while others were flowy and loose and made me feel like I was wearing pajamas. They were also outrageously soft! Elle was smiling the whole time as I darted around the store looking at different shirts to try on. It wasn’t my fault I was excited, there was a wide array of choices and I wanted to know what I was dealing with!

The problem, it turns out, was some of the tops were kind of sheer which lead to Elle trying to convince me to grab a cami. She told me it was good for sweating because boob sweat is the absolute worst and it helps provide a little bit more coverage.

“Wait wait wait. Aren’t I buying the bras so I can have proper nip and curvature coverage?” Part of me was trying to save my poor wallet, but another part of me honestly wasn’t sure why I needed all of this.

Elle gagged a little bit, sticking her tongue out in my direction. “Please don’t say curvature when referring to your tits. You sound like a horny Bill Nye.”

“Hey I can’t help it. Science rules.”

“Noooo stop. You pervert. Look you’re just going to want this to be prepared. Who knows. Maybe you’re in a situation where you want to be all professional and nice and you need the cami to help kind of keep everything in check. Some insurance.”

Reluctantly I bought the cami. 

Skirts:

 Hahaha. Nope. Elle tried but I’m just not ready for that. Something about that seemed to be a bridge too far for me right now. I’m sure they’re great and fantastic and Elle kept saying how it might be nice to have some and experiment and see if I feel comfortable with it but nope. Maybe sometime in the future I can try one of hers on but we aren’t going that far. Not today. Probably not ever if we can get that spell working. 

Dresses: 

There was this one really cute black dress that I saw I think in H&M. It wasn’t too short and just had a simple design with short sleeves and a white collar. Actually it kind of looked like a Wednesday Addams dress, except for adult goth girls who just want that whole Wednesday aesthetic. 

“Do you want to try that on?” Of course Elle noticed. I had been staring at that dress for almost a minute. And dresses are just kind of long shirts right, if you think about it... Stupid. Just so stupid. I wasn’t supposed to enjoy this. I wasn’t supposed to be taking peaks at dresses and thinking about how I look in them. This was supposed to be just survival clothing. I can’t let myself get used to this. Men’s fashion will be so disappointing once I turn back if I try on a dress. So I can’t.

I simply shook my head and tried to stop thinking about how it would look on me. I couldn’t allow myself to think about it.

Socks:

Did you know there are like 10 million different kinds of socks? I didn’t. Much like with shirts, I’m drowning in sock choices. I feel like this is hell for indecisive people. Not to mention tights, leggings, and all the other nebulous “are these socks or pants” choices. I did let Elle convince me into buying a pair of black leggings but like, I guess I should have put that in the pants section. Or should I keep it here? Someone with fashion knowledge help I should never have tried to break this down this way. I’m a fool. Future transformed people look upon my words and tremble. 

It was right about here where my brain just broke. Not to say that I literally dropped from shopping, but I felt like something had snapped inside of me. I fished my phone from my butt pocket to check the time and realized that we had been at the mall for hours.

The mall was a Bermuda Triangle of fashion. Deceptively simple on the outside, treacherous and sinister behind the closed doors and the smiling faces. My mind began wandering, were we going to be stuck here forever? While lost in this reverie I smelled something nice and my instinct was to just think “oh fuck this I’m just going to go look at the nice smell because I’m a literal child.”

And that’s how I found myself wandering into Lush. Being a citizen of the internet, I’d heard of their bath bombs, but it always felt weird to go into their store. Even when my friends begged me to go in with them, I insisted that I was good waiting outside and I didn’t want to intrude. 

Well okay, that’s not entirely true, one time they didn’t take no for an answer. We had come to this same shop about a year ago, but I was mostly ignored. I mean I guess the proper way to put it was “I tried to blend into the background as much as possible or someone would question why I was in that store.” 

Honestly that’s kind of pathetic. I was so afraid to be seen in spaces that had even the slightest bit of feminine connotation. What made me so afraid? Nobody was gonna judge me. Who doesn’t like smelling good? Republicans that’s who. I was going to say monsters, but honestly I didn’t want to insult monsters and I bet Godzilla smells fantastic. She’s all earthy and sea flavored. I bet she gives great hugs too.

There are arguments out there about whether Godzilla was a boy or a girl and I mean just look at her. She exudes big mom energy. Duh! She like, laid eggs in that terrible American Godzilla movie from the 90s that soooo sucked.

“Hi welcome to Lush, my names Shauna. Is there anything in particular I can help you with today.” See this? This is why you can’t spend too much time thinking about monsters. I set myself up for a sneak attack from a sales team. Something deep inside me tells me that I should want to just kind of brush them off. To say no and just kind of slink around the store like a ghost. 

Right when I think I’m about to say I’m good I stop myself. Why should I stand in the way between myself and smelling nice? Isn't it the right of all sentient beings to be nice? To do nice things to ones body And oh Jesus she’s just waiting for a response and I’m standing here like a slack jawed yokel having a little mini existential shopping crisis.

“Uh yeah, so like, I have no idea what I’m doing. Absolutely no idea.” Andi you are the smoothest motherfucker on planet Earth. Yet another social interaction smoothly handled.

Usually I’d think something like this would scare away salespeople, but her eyes seemed to light up at those words. “Oh awesome is this your first time?”

I told as close to the truth as I could muster. “I guess. I mean I’ve been here before but I haven’t like. . . gotten anything from here. I guess I was more just here with friends.”

She nodded like I had just said some sort of sage word of wisdom. The stud in her nose gleamed with the overhead mall lighting with every shake of her head in honestly the cutest way. Similar to the person who complimented  “I completely understand. We can be kind of overwhelming when you first come in. Why don’t I show you some of the newer products and we can figure out if there’s anything you’re really looking for.”

At this time Elle had made it into Lush and seemed to be hanging out with another sales person. I could catch a few snippets of their conversation but was a little more focused on listening to what Shauna had to say. I kind of faked my way through the conversation regarding any kind of system that I had for maintaining my looks and allowed her to try out various kinds of creams, soaps, and scrubs on my hands. And I certainly thought my new hands were soft before. By the end I just kept rubbing the spots that we washed and smelled the lovely variety of tried out scents.

I finally decided on some hand cream, but honestly I couldn’t tell you what it was. I knew it smelled nice. I knew it made my hands feel all soft. And mostly it helped me kind of come back to Earth and relax. We also spent quite a while talking about all the bath bombs.

“Y’know I don’t think I have had a bath in years.” I don’t know why I sheepishly felt like I needed to confess this to Shauna, but here I was spilling my deepest darkest hygiene secrets to this perfect stranger.

“Oh my God girl, you need to treat yourself. I know a lot of people your age are in college and they don’t really have access to a tub. But you really need to try it.” In what I can only assume was a gesture of good will, she placed her hand on my arm. Her fingers sent a lovely tingling sensation that almost caused a shiver to run down my spine.It felt oddly intimate, but I guess this is just how women talk to each other? Maybe I should ask Elle if this is normal. 

She smiled and told me almost conspiratorially, “There’s nothing better than getting a glass of wine, one of these nice fizzy bath bombs, and maybe finding a safe place for your laptop to get your Netflix and chill on. Y’know. When you came in here you looked so frazzled. Like you’ve been having a rough week.” She’s so sweet and also oblivious. She doesn’t notice that I winced when she called me girl, but I know she doesn’t mean it negatively. More like a “we’re on the same team wink” and yet it feels… nice. I want to be on the same team as her! It probably means that she thinks I’m cool.

I laughed. “God, you don’t know the half of it. It has been quite the time.”

And like that she convinced me to give a nice round orange scented bath bomb a try. She told me just to cut it in half so I got more out of it and to come back and let them know if I didn’t like it so she could give me a bubble bar instead. Part of me wanted to question why she was so nice to me. I mean I know she had to be nice because she wanted me to buy things, of course, but it felt like she was really going the extra mile. When she was checking out my purchases she slipped a little broken bath bomb into my bag and gave me a little wink. “Now be good to yourself okay.” I promised her I would and I swore to myself that sometime this week I’d take some time to take a bath and relax. Who knows, I might like it.

Elle was sitting outside of Lush waiting to pounce on me as soon as I walked out. I feel like I passed some sort of Girl Initiation or something and she was giving me some space. Judging from the look on her face though I knew I needed to prepare myself for full scale teasing.

“Soooooo,” Elle drew out her words all nice and innocent. I had known her long enough to prepare myself for what came next. “Someone had a fun time at Lush.”

The heat rose to my cheeks as I quickly tried to come up with ways to defend myself, “well uh yeah it’s. Y’know. Soaps.”

She nodded “Soaps indeed. And it looks like you were getting pretty chummy with the sales assistant in there. Did you get her number stud?”

If what was happening on my face wasn’t a blush before it certainly was now. “N-n-no she was just helping me.”

“Uh-huhhhhh. Helping you into her pants sounds like it.”

“How do you even know that she’s gay. She could just be, like, extremely concerned about my skincare regimen!” Ha got her there.

“Andi please. Look at her. Dyed hair, nose ring, the way she just didn’t stop looking at you the entire time. It was like she was sizing up a potential snack. Which I mean, don’t get me wrong Andi, you look absolutely adorable. Especially with the way that you are just blushing up an absolute storm.” 

“Elle you’re such a lesbian. You think everyone is gay.”

“Pssh. Not everyone! My gaydar is just extremely well tuned and ready for cuties. Like you!” All I could do was babble and try to walk away from her as fast as possible. This damn body is so easily flustered, must be the girl hormones. Yeah. . .Science rules, blame the danged estrogen ravaging my system. That was the perfect excuse. 

~~~

Eventually Elle dropped me off at “Pho-nomenal” at about 7:55. We had gone back to her place quickly so I could change into a simple outfit from that night’s shopping. I settled the pair of black skinny jeans, a black t-shirt, and yes. The bra. I even let Elle convince me to do a little something with my hair. She brushed some of the tangles out of it and put in a little vanilla smelling product into it that gave it a little bit of an extra shine. I guess that’s where that lovely nap inducing smell came from.

On the ride over she asked me if I was nervous. I was in such a go mode with shopping that I hadn’t really thought about the prospect of seeing Josh. I felt like I had bottled that up for the whole day. So all I could do was look her as straight in the eyes as I could while she was driving and whisper “I’m dying.” There we go. Good ol’ humor to lighten the mood. All I got in return from that was a wry smile and a hand squeeze.

We agreed that I’d text her when I was done with dinner and then we’d bop over to Zoey’s bar to see if her mysterious customer had come in yet. We also agreed that I’d text an SOS in case things got really rough and she’d be over as soon as possible.

I didn’t want to go into the restaurant since there was no way I’d figure Josh would recognize me looking like I did now. Aw wait shit I probably should have prepared him just a little bit for this. 

I glanced at the phone again, 7:56 could time go any slower? I typed up a quick “hey I’m hanging out outside Pho-Nom. Just a heads up, I look a little different than you last saw me.” And send. Wait was that a weird text? How about a “But I’ll be there. Just outside. Like sitting on the bench. You’ll find me.” There’s no way that that’s not enough information. Better send that text too. I got back a quick “lol omw.” My gut felt like someone was slowly squeezing the life out of it with steel gloves. That pit feeling when you're sure something is going to go wrong and no matter whatever safeguards you take to protect against disaster they just aren't good enough.

After an agonizing 3 minutes I see him from a distance. What should I even do? Wave? I guess I could. But instead I let him approach and then once he’s about outside of the restaurant I flag him down. He immediately gets this “I’m processing things” look on his face when he sees me and I take a quick breath. I can handle this. He’s my brother and I love him.

“Hey can I help you, miss?” Aw look at him, being all polite to the weird woman who beckons in his direction. Someone raised him right. I’m gonna take the credit for this one honestly, since for the most part my parents were just kind of fine. Standoffish at times sure but they were good people, for the most. Sure a little traditional at times, which led to me learning how to relax (as… much as I was good at that), a lesson that I made sure to try to pass on to Josh.

“Yeah actually Josh. You’re here to meet your brother right,” I smiled, trying to appear as nonthreatening as possible. I didn’t want to freak him out already, at least not before the whole magic is real part.

If he had a processing look on his face before he now went completely 404 does not compute. I’d seen that look multiple times when he was trying to figure out things as a little kid. Even though he was almost out of high school he still looked so young and adorable when he was completely befuddled. “If this is one of Andy’s jokes I don’t really get it. Or if it’s a reference to something, well let me say that he’s gone above and beyond this time. Where is he?”

“Well. Let me try to deliver it to you in a riddle. Who’s got two thumbs, used to be your brother, and has somehow been magically turned into a woman? This guy!!” I did a real exaggerated thumb point to myself and almost poke myself in the boobs. Gotta be careful with that. I waited for him to catch on but he was still clueless, and I couldn’t blame him. “It’s me Josh. Your uh, brother Andi. And I know this is kind of odd but I felt like I needed to talk to you first and tell you all about it so we could potentially think about how to talk to mom and dad about this. Hello? Hi? Earth to Joooooosh.”

Josh looked like he was about to say something in response before whispering a slight “what the actual fuck.” I’m about to explain some more when my heart drops. I hear an immediately familiar, yet terrifying, voice. No no no. The last people that I wanted to talk to. Not here. Not now. How could this have happened?

“Hey boys we know this was supposed to be just a you two thing, but Andy we hadn’t seen you in a while so we thought we’d just swing over and join you for-” That voice was so familiar. I’d heard it all my life, and yet this is the one time where it made my blood run cold. It’s like someone took my worst-case scenario for the night and decided to just make it even more terrible than I could have ever possibly dreamt. 

Rounding the corner were my mom and dad looking at Josh and I with a confused expression on their faces. He must have told them about the meeting. Josh still looks kind of shell shocked from my revelation, he hasn’t even processed that our freaking parents are just here. Why here of all places? Weird that they couldn’t just let us have a normal dinner like siblings all by ourselves. Josh isn’t responding and me? Me I’m giving them that confused expression right back and mentally calculating how long I should wait before texting out a quick SOS.

DerbyGhost

Will Andi ever admit to herself that being a girl actually rules? How will meeting her parents for the first time go? Will she ever stop being an anxious mess and try on a freaking dress? Well, we'll have to see now won't we? As always, leave a comment If you liked the story. Be kind to your local trans friends, give em a digital hug.