I used to spend a lot of time trying not to think about things too deeply, they always seemed worse when I did. Besides, there wasn’t much to think too deeply about. Not anymore, I’m not stuck with five or six things, or perhaps just one very big thing, that I’m almost certain warrants some deep introspection. The catch is that I don’t know how it would help? If I analyse the problems, they’ll still be there, I’ll just be sad about them. Maybe it’s better to just leave them to simmer beneath my awareness blissfully unanalysed. It’s not like things are bad right now after all, certifiably sort of okay, maybe. They just don’t make any sense which is absolutely, definitely probably not driving me crazy.

I’d worry about my own silly analysis of my intentional aversion to self analysis, but I just don’t have the time, thank god. A lot of time falls to the maths course that I’m probably only on because the university dropped requirements to find soulmates who both could get in. Less time, but still a surprising amount, goes to the gym where Ria and I do cardio almost everyday, which is a miracle given my track record. I could be introspective there perhaps, but I’m already very busy not thinking about the fact that I do seem to have permanently commandeered several old bits of Ria’s gym clothes. Not thinking about that is important. Debating, I’ve learned, is an excellent activity in that it involves thinking deeply about topics that you have no stake in, an introspection free zone. Hanging out Ria and often with Samantha and Joel too, on what may or may not be double dates, fills up the rest of my busy self-reflectionless schedule.

I’ll admit, my stupid brain may have snuck in a few errant bits of processing. It normally manages it, like just now in fact, by keeping me up at night when I’m trying to sleep which is very sneaky of my brain and possibly rude. It just slips frightening thoughts right in! For instance, I’m definitely in love with Ria and my brain has insisted we consider if this is fetishizing lesbians or if something about soulmates supersedes that. Regardless, an answer is to be avoided at all costs.

Brie, is the hardest topic to not think about, because everyone calls me that. I don’t know if I’m embarrassed at the silly origin of the nickname or delighted to have friends who know me by a nickname. I don’t even know if some of my friends know it’s a nickname and I even introduced myself as Brie to a stranger completely unprompted the other day, which I definitely have not been thinking about. I like the name, it’s a cute name… and a girl's name… and also cheese. Some combination of those things would trouble someone who’d thought about it. Probably not the girl thing, that’s a different topic we’re not thinking about!

It keeps happening! I know ‘Brie’ doesn’t help but I’m very obviously not a girl. The gym clothes may also not help… but how could anyone make that mistake? I mean, at least ask for pronouns first! Though I probably should be better about correcting them… it’s just such an awkward conversation to have. As if I’m going to pipe up with ‘Umm actually I’m a boy, just with no real masculine traits, I’m about as assertive as a sleepy kitten and my name is Brie’. I’d be laughed at. It doesn’t help that I’m so short. It was fine at home but everyone here is so tall! And I know I’m getting more insecure about it because it feels like it’s getting worse, I might be losing it. I think Ria spoke to a few of them for me, which absolutely helped my masculine pride... Urgh. Regardless, more and more people keep making the mistake, just what is going on?

Oh god, was I just thinking deeply reflecting? Stop Brie Stop! I mean James… damn it. Okay, onto safer topics, just until I fall asleep. Being a person who goes to the gym is a wild time. I took the stairs to our room a few days ago and I wasn’t out of breath afterwards! I’ve lost a good bit of tummy fat and my thighs are definitely bigger, possibly even with muscle tone! My arms are still basically just noodles but I think I might be getting pecs? Regardless I feel physically great and will be back to the treadmill and/or watt bike tomorrow. Although it would be good if all the exercise got me to sleep quicker. Why am I still awake?

Oh, oh yeah… the party. The lawyers' middle of term party. It turns out Ria’s course has a questionably non-PC tradition that the theme for their first society club night is gender swapped lawyers and ‘sexy secretaries’. All the girls with stereotypical business suits and fake facial hair. All the boys in some approximation of tights, short pencil skirts and too-open blouses. Ria had mentioned it at dinner with Samantha and Joel who, after they’d done their due-diligence complaining about stereotypes, insisted that I go. They were almost weirdly adamant that we needed to go.

Ria employed her usual trick of asking me if I wanted to go and then interpreting my nervous mumble as a yes. I’d then try to be grumpy about it and she’d tell me not to pout. It was a whole thing and appealed wildly to the ‘dommey lesbians are so hot’ part of my brain that refused to consider actually being respectful. The party triggered a thousand emotions and worries and anxieties in me… all of which I would not be thinking about. Ria, being an actual assertive person, had declared it ‘her party and thus her responsibility’, so she was in charge of the costumes and I didn’t need to think about them. I also couldn’t not think about them… and the party was still three days away? Would I ever get some sleep?

Three days came and went, I had accepted my fate. I would put on whatever Ria got me and then we’d pre-drink enough that I could stomach going out looking like a goblin in a pencil skirt. And then we’d get to the party and they’d be a load of other goblins in pencil skirts, I’d blend right in. Well, except for being so short… still a goblin in a crowd of tall goblins or ogres or something was still fairly innocuous.

I should have known something was up when Ria declared ‘we need to start getting ready’ three hours before we actually needed to leave. The small mountain of makeup supplies should have been another giveaway, and wait… were some of those unopened? “Uh Ria? How hard are we trying this evening?”

“Well, there is a prize for the sexiest secretary, so…” That was okay then, she wasn’t just teasing me, although I did catch a smug satisfaction over our link that said otherwise.

“What’s the prize then?” The smug grin had made it to her ever distracting lips.

“The prize is that I’m going to have the sexiest secretary and thus I’ll be able to be smug about it. Now stop whining and please don’t move for the next hour.” My brain spent too long processing for a reply not to feel silly, but she definitely understood the severity of my harrumph.

I learned a lot in that hour. Firstly, I don’t know anything about makeup. Secondly, girls must have some superhuman ability to keep their eyelids still to actually put eye makeup on themselves. My fight or flight response would not shut up about it. And thirdly that Ria had put a lot of thought into this evening, she had a plan and like all her plans I’d need a very good reason to get her to change it. Apparently none of my objections were nearly serious enough.

“Yes Brie, eyeliner needs to be perfect.”

“No Brie, you absolutely cannot rub your eyes.”

“It’s essentially just hair-styling, don’t be a wuss, they’re just scissors.”

I think my complaints came close when she gave me my clothes for the evening.

“The bra is a must, with that blouse and who doesn’t want matching underwear? Besides, you’ll want the garter belt.”

I was in lingerie. Actual, real, not-a-joke, miraculously perfect-fitting lingerie. I needed to get the blouse and skirt on before I had a crisis about something or other. How did it fit though? Nope, Brie, we are not thinking about it. I rushed to finish getting dressed. I spent five minutes steadying my breathing. This was fine, one goblin in a skirt amongst many. One goblin in lingerie… which would only be embarrassing if anyone saw it, which absolutely must not happen.

Drowning in undiagnosed anxiety I emerged from the back room, only to stop dead when I saw that Ria too had gotten changed. I stared. She stared. I could not stop staring, but somehow neither could she. I must look terrible. That thought almost made me stop staring.

Ria had strictly speaking gotten herself a suit, but definitely not a man’s one. I’d been expecting the usual beautiful Ria, probably laughing in an oversized man’s suit. Instead I got Ria in tasteful, sharp makeup and a form fitting women's pant-suit. I wanted to ask her how work had been and cook her dinner and be pinned to a wall by her and just generally worship this gorgeous, powerful woman. Wait, did I want to be Ria’s housewife? Or umm… house husband? No, for Ria it’d have to be housewife. Damn, there goes that fantasy.

“You uh… look… just wow.” Good sentence Brie. “Doesn’t look much like a man’s suit though, just saying.”

Smirking she replied “Well, I figured that if I was going to buy a suit I’d buy one that might get worn more than once”

“So you bought me a skirt and lingerie because…? Maybe we can donate it?”

Horror briefly showed on her face, but was quickly replaced with confidence and a seductive lip bite. “Or you could wear it more than once, you look- oh shit you don’t even know yet.” She pushed me into our shared bathroom and the mirror therein.

Has your breath ever caught in your throat and just been gone forever? That could not be me in the mirror. That wasn’t a guy in makeup, that was a girl. Not a plain girl, not a cute girl, she was hot! Genuinely, legitimately hot. Not my type, that would be the beautiful girl behind her in the mirror. But definitely a lot of people’s type. Wait, Ria’s type? My hair had been getting long and messy, for a guy, hers was a carefully styled bob. My face was fairly androgynous, hers was pristine and feminine, with smoky eyes, loud mascara, cheekbones that could not be mine and wine red lips that were eminently kissable.

Her outfit was a winning combination of simple and alluring, with a splash of slutty. The white blouse had one too many buttons undone showing a hint of black lacy bra and simultaneously ruining any illusions I had about muscle definition in my pecs. The blouse tapered into a waist that was definitely smaller than my own, before tucking into a pencil skirt tightly wrapped around slightly flared hips. A half turn showed off the pert profile of a delightful butt, and I didn’t even yet have on the low-heeled pumps I’d seen in Ria’s bag.

How had Ria done this? Why had Ria done this? Was this who she wanted her soulmate to be? Why did I feel giddy? What would life be like for the girl in the mirror? I stopped my brain from pursuing that line of thought. I didn’t need to analyse it, I was just going to enjoy it, no thinking required. We could have a few drinks and then just go and laugh at people’s surprised reactions. It would be a fun evening and then we’d go back to normal, it’d be uneventful and fine, right?