When I left for work that morning, Rowan was still asleep as usual. I made a mental note to tell her that I want to go by Lillith now, and I headed out the door. When I arrived at work, I was the first one there other than my boss Clara, which I was thankful for. I had to psych myself up for the conversation that we were about to have, even though I knew she would be fine with it. Summoning all of my courage I headed over to Clara.

“Hey, Clara, can we talk for a minute?” I asked, while putting on my apron.

“Sure thing, Azzy, what’s up?”

“Well, I was hoping it would be okay if I went by a different name from now on.”

“Sure thing, I’ll go make you a name tag as soon as we’re done talking. What name did you want to go by now?”

“Well, uh,” I said, feeling my nervousness grow, “I was actually hoping I could go by Lillith if that’s okay?”

“Oh! Of course you can Lillith, you know I should have seen this coming with how different you’ve been looking recently. Did you want to change your pronouns too while we’re at it?”

“Um, no?” I said, making it sound far more like a question than I had intended.

“Okay, that’s totally fine. I know it’s store policy to have pronouns on your name tag, but if you want I can just leave that spot blank for now?”

I had to wonder, did I want that? I mean I never really liked being referred to as sir, or man, or whatever. I guess leaving it blank would be fine, most people would probably just assume I was a guy anyway when they looked at me. Maybe it would even be a nice change of pace if someone actually referred to me with different pronouns though.

“I guess that would be fine, thank you,” I replied, and after giving a firm nod Clara made her way into the back room to make me a new nametag.

After that conversation the day continued on, but it was certainly not normal. All of my coworkers took to the new name very well, as if they were all expecting it. One of my coworkers even said that it was about time, and another one told me they thought I was so brave. Feeling weird and a little bit guilty about how everyone was reacting when I hadn’t actually put any effort into the changes, I decided to try and focus on my work, but that was no help. Apparently I must look far more feminine than I thought, because I didn’t get gendered as male once throughout the entire day. I tried to ignore how it felt, but every time someone called me ma’am, miss, or some other feminine term, I would just get this warm and content feeling in my chest. I was also, however, getting a decidedly less pleasant feeling in my chest area as well. Every so often my nipples would rub up against my shirt and it would chafe, and itch something awful. 

As soon as I got home from work, I took off my shirt and made my way to the bathroom to see if there was anything wrong with my nipples. Nothing appeared to be wrong with them, though; the only thing that looked different was that they seemed a bit bigger and more pronounced. They also felt far more sensitive, and when I tried touching and pinching them I had to stifle a moan, it felt so good. Hoping Rowan didn’t hear me, I ran into my room to put on the softest shirt I had. It happened to be an old Against Me t-shirt that I actually bought the women’s version of accidentally, but it felt so comfortable and soft I decided to keep it. Looking around the apartment I found Rowan sitting on the couch eating leftover Chinese food and watching something on TV. I knew it would be better to talk sooner rather than later, so I decided to rip the band-aid off.

“Hey, Rowan, can we talk about something?” I asked, fidgeting around nervously.

“Yeah, no problem, Azzy, what is it?”

“I was hoping it would be okay if I started going by the name Lillith from now on.”

“Of course that’s okay, Lil, why wouldn’t it be?” Rowan said, and I felt that same warmth from earlier at her calling me by a nickname of my real name.

“Well, I mean you’re a demon, and I don’t want to come off as appropriating your culture.”

“There are plenty of girls named Lillith and no one cares; why would it be different for you?”

“You know, I didn’t actually think of that.” I said, and couldn’t help but giggle at that.

Wait, did I just giggle? I hadn’t giggled since it was a kid. I had to admit I kinda liked it and thought it sounded cute.

“Oh wow, you are adorable when you giggle like that,” Rowan said, and I felt myself blush.

“Th-Thanks, I guess. Oh, and there is one more thing; at work today I kept getting called by feminine terms and I kinda liked it, so I was hoping I could try out having you do that too if it’s not too weird.”

“Of course I can, Lil, it’s not weird at all. Is that all, though or was there anything else you wanted to tell me?” Rowan asked, while giving me an appraising look.

“Um, no, I don’t think so.”

“Okay, just know that I’ll always support you no matter what,” Rowan said and I smiled in response.

That evening I tried to get comfortable and watch TV with Rowan, but I kept getting distracted by how itchy and sore my chest was. Because of this I decided to go to bed early and hoped that it would be better in the morning. As soon as my head hit the pillow, I was asleep. The dream was mostly the same as last night until I looked around to see if there was anything new. In the distance I saw a rather large building, so I made myself appear there. As soon as I recognized the building as my old school I had only one thought, ‘No no no no no, anywhere but here.’ Knowing that I would have to see what was in there eventually, I decided to get it over with. The school was exactly the way I remembered it, that is to say dark, cold, and with a dark aura permeating the whole building. As if being pulled by some unseen hook, I opened the door to a nearby classroom, and saw myself sitting at a desk surrounded by distorted and cruel shapes that vaguely looked human. I saw that I was working on classwork of some kind with the name Lillith at the top. Shortly after, my younger self made her way to the front of the classroom to turn in the work, but the teacher stopped her.

“Azazel, why did you put the name Lillith where your name is supposed to go?” the teacher asked, not trying to keep his voice down at all.

“Because that is my name from now on.”

“Azazel, you can’t have that name it’s a girl’s name and you’re a boy.”

“Well maybe I’m actually a girl then,” my younger self replied with a self satisfied smile, and I couldn’t help but smile with her.

“Listen here, boy, you had better stop talking like that or your life is going to get very hard around here,” the teacher said, the disgust on his face plain to see.

True to his word, when I didn’t back down from using the name Lillith or saying I was a girl, my school life became much worse. At first he was just much more strict with me and would grade my work far more harshly than everyone else. Eventually, though, he started outright failing every single piece of work I turned in and would go on tangents about how you can never change what you were born as. After a while of this, the other students noticed that since a teacher was picking on me, that must mean that it was okay for them to pick on me as well. The bullying was relentless, I was called just about every slur that I knew of over the course of a few months. When I came home with bruises all over my arms, my mom decided that enough was enough and she took me out of that school and put me into a new one. What I never told anyone was that I gave myself those bruises, hoping for that exact outcome, knowing that my mom would never stand for her child being hurt. When I got to that new school, I decided to hide who I really was, and I made my mom stop calling me Lillith. 

The rest of the dream passed by in a blur, but I already knew those memories well. Memories of not having any friends. Memories of doing nothing but eating, going to school, and then sleeping. Memories of not feeling anything at all and just drifting through life. Memories of not leaving my room for days or even weeks at a time. I woke up with my heart racing and covered in sweat. As I sat there I realized that I wasn’t frightened or angry, I was sad, sad that I had forgotten who I was and that I had let other people make me live a lie. I knew that from that moment on I was never going to let myself forget that I was a girl named Lillith ever again.