Week four smelled like expensive lotion and nylon.

Brett woke up on day twenty-two already golden. Three weeks of medical tanning had turned his once pale Montana skin into a warm honey glow that made his big blue eyes look bluer and his long honey blonde extensions look sun-kissed instead of salon-done. The scale in the marble bathroom blinked 155. Twenty pounds gone from the boy who walked into the Cocoon. His waist, even out of the corset for his morning skin check, measured twenty-seven inches soft.

He swallowed his darker pink hormone pill with green juice and felt the familiar swimmy warmth behind his eyes within an hour. Dr. Ellison had warned him week four would be mental more than physical. She was right.

He cried because Elena made his eggs perfectly. He cried because a song on the spa speakers was pretty.

He didn't hate it.

Mara was waiting in the dressing room with a black silk box instead of heels.

"Time," she said simply.

Brett, in his robe, his hair clipped up, his face bare and smooth from electrolysis, sat on the velvet bench while Mara lifted the lid.

Inside, folded like treasures, were stockings. Not tights. Real stockings, sheer black luxury nylon with a deep lace top. Next to them, a black satin garter belt with six silver clips. A matching black lace bra and panty set.

"For posture," Mara said, though her smile said she knew better. "And for learning how fabric moves on a woman's body."

Brett's hands shook as he took the stockings. They felt like water and air at the same time, cool and impossibly soft between his fingers.

In the privacy of the dressing room, he sat down and rolled the first stocking over his foot. His legs were completely hairless now from weeks of laser and electrolysis, silky from daily lotion. The nylon kissed his skin as he drew it up his calf, over his knee, to his mid thigh.

He gasped out loud.

It was a gentle, perfect pressure, a second skin that made his leg look long and flawless and golden. He did the other leg with held breath, then stood on shaky legs and fastened the garter belt around his newly small waist. He clipped the front two garters, then reached behind to clip the backs, the satin straps pulling taut against the lace tops of the stockings.

The pull was intoxicating.

Every time he moved, he felt the little tug at his thighs, the reminder that he was held, that he was dressed, that he was contained in something beautiful. He ran his newly manicured hands, pale pink nails perfect, down the front of his thighs and shivered at the delicious, sensual glide of nylon against his own hairless skin.

"Oh my god," he whispered in his soft girl voice, and it came out breathy.

He couldn't stop touching them. He walked in slow circles in front of the three-way mirror just to feel the stockings whisper against each other, just to feel the garter straps shift. He put on the black lace bra, which barely filled because his chest was only just budding tender from the hormones, and the matching panties, and then the four-inch black patent heels Mara left by the door.

The girl in the mirror wasn't Brett in lingerie. She was Brielle, fully realized for the first time.

Long honey blonde hair down her back, big blue eyes lined soft and smoky by his own hand that morning, full lips painted a deep berry, smaller nose highlighted, golden skin glowing, waist cinched to twenty-six inches in the garter belt, hips finally showing a curve from fat redistribution, legs endless in sheer black nylon.

She looked expensive. She looked feminine. She looked like she belonged in this villa.

Brett turned sideways and the garter pulled, and a wave of blissful, heavenly pleasure rolled through him that had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with rightness.

He sat on the bench in his lingerie and just stroked his calves for twenty minutes, eyes closed, lost in the sensation.

That night, after his tanning session, he was curled on the huge white sofa in his silk robe, his stockings still on underneath because he couldn't bear to take them off, watching mindless TV while Elena prepared his measured dinner.

A cologne commercial came on. Black and white. A male model with sharp cheekbones and wet hair and a suit open over a bare chest, walking through rain.

Brett's breath caught.

He didn't think I want to look like him. He thought he's dreamy.

His stomach flipped. His heart did a slow, warm roll. The model turned and looked straight at the camera with eyes like smoke and Brett felt his cheeks heat under his blush.

It was a man. And Brett, who had only ever dated girls in high school because that's what boys in Kalispell did, felt a pull of pure, girlish attraction so strong it scared him.

"Oh my god," he whispered out loud, his hand flying to his gold B necklace.

The hormones weren't just softening his skin. They were softening his mind, opening doors in his brain that had always been locked. He was feeling things like a woman feels them. He was noticing beauty and wanting to be near it, not just to be it.

His phone buzzed at 9 pm. Lance.

Week 4. Report.

Brett's fingers, still tingling from the nylon, typed fast.

Weight 155. Waist 26.5 in corset. Tan almost perfect. Wore real stockings and garter belt today for first time. I can't stop touching my legs. They feel amazing. Hormones are messing with my head, Lance. I saw a guy on TV and thought he was hot. Like actually hot. Is that normal?

He hit send before he could chicken out, his heart hammering.

The dots appeared. Then disappeared. Then appeared again.

Lance: Completely normal. Estrogen changes attraction patterns for a lot of people. Don't freak out. How did the stockings feel?

Brett laughed wetly, tears springing to his big blue eyes from the hormones and the relief of being honest.

Like heaven. Like I never want to wear pants again.

Lance: Good. Then keep wearing them. You're doing this perfectly, Brielle. Three more days and I'm home. No pictures till then. I want to see you in person.

Brett read the text three times, his hand sliding down his silk-covered thigh to feel the faint edge of lace under the robe, the gentle pull of the garter.

He wasn't doing this for Lance anymore. Lance still wasn't attracted to him, still kept it business, still kept his distance from Singapore. That was fine.

Brett was falling in love with the feeling of being her.

He curled up on the sofa in his lingerie, his long blonde hair spread over the pillow, his pink nails tracing patterns on his stockinged calf, and watched the rest of the TV show in a dreamy, blissful haze, waiting for the man on the screen to come back.

Week four had taught him how good luxury nylon could feel against a body that was finally becoming his own...