The bus up to the mall was more crowded, and we got quite a few stares from the other passengers. I felt much more uncomfortable now; it was one thing being out in public like this when the "public" was across the street or the room, but being within speaking distance of a whole variety of people... What was I to them? Why did they look at me that way, and what did their expressions mean? I kept going back to what I'd wondered at the diner earlier; was I an unusual young woman, in their eyes, or a disturbing simulacrum? An object of desire, or of fear and loathing? And what did I want the answer to be?

Of course, I wasn't comfortable with the idea of people seeing me as a woman at all, when I arguably wasn't one on any level other than external appearance, and I certainly didn't want to be. But somehow, the thought of being seen as less than human - an object trying to pass as a person - felt even worse. It rubbed some deeply-buried but extremely raw nerve in my psyche, a feeling I was already intimately familiar with, but I couldn't put my finger on; not here, surrounded by people, unable to focus on that instead of worrying what everyone around me was thinking.

But the trip was short, we got nothing but some funny looks, and soon we were piling back out of the bus. The mall was interchangeable with any other mall in the nation, set in the middle of a parking lot large enough to land passenger planes on. The sky was gray and overcast; the rain had let up, but it'd be back before long. And, I realized, I hadn't brought my umbrella - mostly because I hadn't thought to, but also because it had changed from a plain pop-out compact job into a lace-trimmed black parasol. Like the dress, it wasn't too overtly frilly - fairly tasteful, on its own merits - but it wasn't my style.

I'd conceded on the need for the purse, though; these jeans were so tight and the pockets so tiny that I simply could not fit either the new wallet or my phone into them, even separately. It drove me crazy; I couldn't even comfortably slip my hands into them! They might as well not have bothered adding them at all...! Well, hopefully we'd find a solution here; I didn't know if they even made normal-fitting jeans for women, but I'd settle for baggy cargo pants, if I could just move around comfortably.

Tammy immediately and assertively took the lead as we entered, just as Emma was pausing at the directory/map kiosk. After this morning, it seemed like she was trying to keep this from turning into a dress-up expedition, which I greatly appreciated. I followed behind, and she kept a modest pace so I could keep up; I was still getting used to my altered proportions. As Emma caught up with us, Tammy charted a course decisively past the main lingerie outlet, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

It still seemed odd that I could do that despite not breathing. Probably, like Emma's new habit of mimicking normal head-gestures with the use of her hands, it helped facilitate relations with the rest of humanity; this was a common pattern seen in many other cases. (I wondered if that explained other oddities like still being able to smell, but that could be a survival feature, too - I really didn't know.)

And I wasn't sure why I felt relieved. I didn't normally feel prudish or shy about women's underwear; really, I didn't think about it much at all. And it wasn't so much that I felt super awkward about the idea of wearing women's clothing, specifically, as that it just fed into the general massive awkwardness of this whole experience...I thought...? But that still didn't quite explain what I was feeling.

Really, it was the idea of Emma making a game out of it that bothered me. It didn't feel malicious when she weighed in on what I should wear earlier, but there was no mistaking that she enjoyed teasing me about it at least a little - and I didn't need that right now; I was still trying not to get mad at her for this catastrophe in the first place. But for now, she kept quiet and didn't try to drag me out of my comfort zone.

The mall was filled with an echoing clamor, tile floors and glass ceilings turning the babble of human voices into a continuous, almost industrial kind of sound. Tammy led us down one wing to a department store that took up the whole end, one of those national chains that once dominated retail: a broad range of mostly store-brand merchandise at affordable-but-not-great prices. Which was fine - I didn't want anything fancy, just something that fit comfortably and didn't stand out. And so we ended up in the women's section, looking for just that.

To my mind, pants that fit were the first order of business. I rifled through the rack of jeans as peppy Muzak chimed out of a distant overhead speaker; after a minute, I turned to Tammy. "Um...what size should I be looking for?"

She laughed. "Honestly? You can pick a number out of a hat; it won't help."

"So they weren't kidding with all those articles about this a few years ago."

Emma shook her head as she browsed through the options herself. "Nope. All the manufacturers wanted to sell the same product at the same actual size with a more flattering number than the competition year after year, but they also had to keep the numbering scheme for their own lines vaguely ordinal, so by this point it's all just anybody's guess."

Tammy nodded. "Yup. Just grab stuff that looks right and try it on. You can get a rough idea holding it up to yourself, but it's all trial-and-error in the end."

I sighed. "Guh."

Emma chuckled. "Welcome to our world. I've honestly thought about trying to start a service to cut the BS out of this. There's gotta be a million-dollar idea in there somewhere."

Tammy thought for a minute, while I looked through the variously distressed, skinny, flared, distressed-and-skinny, distressed-and-flared, skinny-and-flared, distressed-and-skinny-and-flared, etc. jeans on offer, in search of something normal. "How d'ya mean?" she asked. "Like some kind of wiki for manufacturer size conversions, or...?"

Emma grabbed a pair of slacks with one hand, holding it up to her head for closer inspection. "I hadn't thought of that, but it's probably more doable, isn't it? I was thinking of a shop that would keep your measurements on file and compare them against the actual measurements for whatever they got in, and text you if they got something with a good fit in the styles you like. But that's got all the usual problems for a startup, plus trying to make it in retail in the 21st century."

"Ooh," Tammy said. "I mean, you're not wrong about the viability, but I'd kill for that."

"Same," Emma replied dryly. "Now if only I had any expertise in business, instead of all this science stuff, right?"

Tammy laughed, and I couldn't help but chuckle as well. A moment later, I finally happened across a pair of jeans that looked fairly normal; holding them up to my waist, they weren't obviously the wrong size. "Hey," I said, "can we look for any more of these? They seem pretty okay."

Tammy shrugged and began looking; Emma gazed at them with mild distaste. "If by 'pretty okay' you mean 'generic and bland,' sure."

I felt my tempo picking up again and tried not to get irritated. "Look, I'm not trying to draw attention here."

She shifted her head further up into her armpit, raising her shoulder to bring herself a little closer to eye level. It was oddly effective, considering that this was still a head shorter than me. "There's plenty of reasons besides drawing attention, Stu. Looking good makes you feel better - science fact. And you could use a mood-lifter right now, right?"

I couldn't figure out if spinning her game of dress-up as an act of compassion was sincere, or a ploy to get me to play along. No, she probably did mean it; Emma might be a schemer, but she wasn't really duplicitous. But then, she was prone to projecting her obsessions onto others and trying to rope them in, which was why we were in this mess to begin with...

"Honestly," I said, feeling frazzled as I tried to play nice and engage her argument sincerely, "it doesn't do much for me. I know some people really do care about this stuff; I'm just not one of 'em."

She bit her lip and bobbed her knee impatiently as she tried to come up with a response; a ventilation fan rattled somewhere overhead. "But it's such a waste..." she said, half disappointed and half pouting.

My neck twitched at that, and something inside me skipped a beat. I'd heard that line more times than I ever cared to, and I definitely didn't care to now. I started formulating a comeback, trying in vain to keep myself from getting worked up, but Tammy stepped in. "Okay, seriously, Emma," she said. "If Stu wants to keep it simple, that's h-his decision. You can have plenty of fun dressing up yourself, without badgering other people when they don't want to."

Emma said nothing for a moment, visibly working out some inner conflict. Then she sighed, her shoulders drooping. "Fine," she said. "No, um...sorry. It's just...I can't stop thinking about how to make the key shaft work with an outfit, or turn those seams at the elbows into an accent, or...y'know, stuff like that. It's just begging for a real thematic unity. I'm jealous; this-" - she gestured to her absent neck - "-is pretty neat, but all I can do with it is dress up as Anne Bole-"

She stopped short, and her eyes went wide. "Wait, wait, wait, holy...!" She put the slacks she was holding down, took her head in her hands, and set herself on a nearby shelf. Then she turned around, arching her body this way and that as she observed herself from an entirely new angle. "My God!" she cackled, grinning broadly, "I can actually tell if things make my ass look big!"

We stared at her. "That's your primary concern here?" Tammy asked.

Emma waggled her hand in that universal more-or-less gesture. "Eh, it's more of a spin-off benefit. But seriously! I don't have to awkwardly crane my neck to see in the mirror or ask someone to give me the honest truth anymore!"

"That's, uh...that's great, really," Tammy said, before resuming the search. Emma shrugged and returned to her own explorations, piloting her body around her head to retrieve the slacks she'd set down with only a little stumbling. It was fascinating to watch, but I had my own goal right now.

Tammy and I collected a modest pile of jeans in a few different sizes, and I made for the changing rooms to see what actually fit - but she stopped me. "Hold up there, Stu, we're not done yet. Still need to decide what to do for you up top."

"Huh?" I said, frowning. "I thought we were gonna hack up some of my shirts with a sewing kit or whatever." I wasn't thrilled about it, but we could use the ones I wasn't too attached to, and it beat the alternative...

She shook her head. "Uh, no," she said. "Under the shirts."

"Um, wait," I said, realizing what she was getting at. "I...don't actually need anything like that...?"

Emma came over to me, casually reaching down to turn her head in my direction as she did, and put a comforting hand on my shoulder. "Hate to break it to you," she said, "but...you kinda do."

Tammy nodded, looking just a bit embarrassed for my sake. "Stu, we all saw how you're, uh, built this morning. You don't need support, but your, uh, 'assets' are fairly detailed, and I'm gonna guess you probably don't want everyone on campus taking notice of that."

Emma was too far from herself to reach over and give a nod, so she gave my shoulder an affirmative squeeze. "I mean, you're only getting away with it now because that top is on the starchy side. If you're really gonna wear those same old worn-out T-shirts...sure, they're not tight-fitting, but without a bra or camisole they're gonna drape in a pretty revealing way. Especially if that 'skin' causes static cling."

I squirmed, feeling myself rev up, my body quivering as I wanted to blush and couldn't. There was no reason for this to feel any more awkward than our whole situation did, but I couldn't help it...

Tammy gave me a sympathetic look. "Hey, if you're uncomfortable with anything...girlier, we can just get some plain stretch camis. You don't need anything more, just something for contour, and they're way less fancy than even what you had on last night."

"It's, uh..." I tried to suppress a grimace. "It's just...the principle of the thing, I guess."

She shrugged. "Yeah, I guess - but those're basically your options. You can go without any layering, but you're gonna attract more attention that way, which you said you don't want."

The Muzak switched to something generically mellow and soothing, but it didn't help matters any - there were no good options here. I wasn't a cross-dresser, and I wasn't thrilled with the idea of wearing women's underwear; on the other hand, I really didn't want to draw more attention like this than I would just being like this. Tammy and Emma probably knew what they were talking about, but...could I really...?

I huffed in irritation (another odd respiratory tic, come think) and felt even more irritated at the sound: something like the chuffing of a steam locomotive raised to a pitch about halfway to "whistling teakettle," filtered through the same shimmering metallic something-or-other as my new speaking voice. As if this wasn't all ridiculous enough...

Get it together, I told myself. Are you really that insecure? This is a temporary necessity, that's all - just until we can use the machine again. But no matter how much sense it made, no matter how I tried to rationalize it to myself, it still felt weird and awkward to think about. If only dealing with issues was as simple as talking myself into believing what I chose... Still, there wasn't much choice. "Fine," I sighed. "Let's just get this over with..."

Tammy nodded. "Of course. C'mon, Em."

Emma shook her head. "Actually, I was gonna go look for some button-up tops, if you're cool. Not much I can add to that discussion."

The subtext was clear: she'd been hoping to get me in something fancier than what Tammy had suggested, and she'd lost interest once that was off the table. I tried not to get irritated with her; at least she wasn't nagging. "Sure," I said, "that's fine. We'll meet you up front?"

She nodded and went her own way. Tammy led me to the other side of the women's section, through an unsettling forest of disembodied mannequin torsos modeling various tops, past the displays with rows of different bras, and back to the aisle where they kept all the plain, no-frills stuff. She spent a minute or two browsing before gathering up a few different pieces and turning to me.

"Okay," she said. "You can try these on, then we'll come back here and grab a few of whichever fits best. I can guesstimate for socks and underwear, but these we want to check."

Reluctantly, I followed her to the changing room, took the clothes, and went in. "I'm gonna go look for sewing stuff while you're in there," Tammy called from outside. "Back in a few. Hey, are you okay with snaps?"

"Huh?"

"You know, snap fasteners - for the shirts. I can't do buttonholes without a machine, and I hate those iron-on zipper things. Plus, they'll help hold the hems in place."

"Uh, that's fine, I guess," I answered. I only half-understood, but I really didn't care as long as I could keep wearing relatively normal clothes.

She left, and I set the underwear aside; it still felt awkward, and I wanted to try the jeans on first. I painstakingly peeled off the borrowed pair; they really were unreasonably tight, though the friction from my felt "skin" didn't help. I tried a couple pairs before finding the most comfortable - fairly loose-fit but not in danger of slipping, and not too figure-hugging. Luckily, Tammy had found a couple more in the same size; that should do it for me. After all, if I couldn't sweat, I wouldn't need to change them too often.

Which left the underwear. With a sigh, I unbuttoned my borrowed shirt and stood before myself in the mirror again. The light of day didn't make it any less strange, but without that initial panic, I only felt weird and unsettled looking at the thing that was me now, rather than totally overwhelmed. I thought back to the dismembered mannequins. Tammy was right; I was detailed enough that, had I passed myself on the street in a faded, worn-thin T-shirt, I definitely would've noticed, nipples or no.

I took one of the camisoles she'd picked out and held it up gingerly. It was simpler than what I'd gotten in the change: just a sort of sleeveless undershirt in a stretchy fabric, really not too different from some exercise jerseys. It was cut short; she must've gone with this to work around my key. The fact that it only went to the midriff and the thin little straps over the shoulders were about the most defineably "feminine" things about it. I guess I can work with this, I told myself, if I have to.

Hesitantly, I slipped it over my head and pulled it down into place. Nope, it was too small. From what Tammy and Emma had said, it was probably supposed to fit snugly, but this was noticeably tight around my ribcage (well, the part of my torso shaped like one) and my "breasts," modest though they were. I discarded that one. The next fit much better - just snug, not uncomfortable. It worked alright with my key, too; it bunched up a little over the top of the shaft, but it wasn't too noticeable.

I took a look in the mirror and saw what they meant - it stretched over my bust and smoothed out the details into a simpler shape that betrayed less of the underlying anatomy. Having a bust in the first place was still a problem, and this didn't hide the fact, but at least I'd draw less attention this way. For now, though, I took it off and set it aside.

The last one was bigger, so I didn't bother with it. Dressing in my borrowed clothes again, I exited to find Tammy waiting for me. The fabric/crafts section wasn't that far away, but I was still impressed that she was back already; she could really move, when she needed to. "Hey," she said, her caudal fin flipping idly back and forth, "any luck?"

"Yeah," I said. "I'm good on pants now, and, uh, this one seems like the right size."

"Great," she said, smiling. "We'll go get a few more of those, and put the other stuff back."

"Well, I probably shouldn't need any more," I said. "Emma was right, I'm not gonna be sweating or anything as long as I'm like this."

She shrugged. "Okay, but I figured we could get a couple full-length ones and cut them up the back, in case you weren't comfortable with only having a T-shirt over the midriff. And you're still gonna need some other colors."

"I don't really care how it looks," I said. "It's not like anyone else is gonna see it."

Tammy laughed. "It's not for showing off, Stu, it's for not showing off. Say you wear a dark bra or cami under a white top - it's gonna show through, especially if we're talking about some of your shirts. So you want a couple different colors, to minimize that."

I shrugged in resignation. She was probably right, but I just wanted this whole thing to be over already. We put the other stuff back and grabbed a few of the right-size camisoles, long and short. While we were back in the no-frills aisle, Tammy pointed out another item on the shelves. "Figured those might suit you a little better than the panties," she said.

It was something that I was only vaguely aware existed: women's underwear that wasn't panties or thongs. This was...again, not something that changed much about my situation, but another little scrap of quasi-normality in the midst of the insanity. With a grateful nod, I grabbed a pack of simple, boring solid-color boxer-briefs, ran them by Tammy to check the size, and headed out to the registers.