We made our way clear across the mall, passing in front of almost every store and just off the side of the food court. I kept glancing this way and that, almost expecting someone to shout an expletive my way, but the few people I noticed looking at me only gave me a passing glance, or looked away as soon as our eyes met. Apparently my fears had been unfounded, and Nora was right: even though I absolutely didn’t pass, and everyone who looked at me saw a trans girl (or what looked like a trans girl, anyway)… no one cared.

And why should they care? As long as everyone minded their own business, I was sure that trans and cis people – queers and cishets – could get along just fine. The only slight hiccup was cis people pretending to be trans for their own purposes, whatever those might be: even though I had yet to meet one – I’d talked with Vicky, Elanor, and the other trans members of the GSA enough times to be certain that they actually were trans and weren’t just pretending – I was sure they had to exist. Otherwise, it just wouldn’t make sense.

After all, wasn’t that exactly what I was doing in the first place?

“We’re here,” Nora said, shaking me from my thoughts.

I looked around: she’d guided me into a side corridor, just off the side of the main area of the mall, and we were standing in front of… a salon.

“Surprise!” Nora exclaimed. “Happy Valentine’s Day, Lily. This is your present.”

“My present?” I asked.

“Yup,” she nodded. “Not the salon, of course, I’m not nearly rich enough to buy you a whole store. But I’ve made an appointment, and they’re going to make you cute. Well, cuter. You’re already cute.”

I smiled; I never got tired of my girlfriend telling me that, it always gave me a fuzzy, happy feeling deep in the pit of my stomach.

“But yeah, you’re getting a haircut, a mani-pedi, they’re going to do your make-up… The works.”

“Well, this will be an experience, then,” I said.

“The first time of many, I’m willing to bet,” Nora smirked. “After all, every girl wants to get pampered every now and then.”

Taking my hand once more, she again took charge and guided me inside the salon; a girl was sitting in a chair just inside the doors, and she rose to her feet, grabbing a small book, when we entered.

“Hi there, and welcome,” she said with a smile. “Do you have an appointment?”

“We do, you should have it written down under Hartley,” my girlfriend replied.

The girl nodded, opened the book, and looked through it. “Hartley… Oh, yeah, here you are,” she said. Then, louder, she called out, “Molly, your four thirty is here!”

“Coming!”

Another girl – about as tall as me, with long blonde hair tied back in a ponytail and a face speckled with freckles – made her way across the store. “Hi, I’m Molly,” she said when she reached us. “Nora Hartley and Lily O’Connor, right?”

I gave Nora a look. She’d actually told Molly my name when making the reservation? I wasn’t sure I was entirely comfortable with that, to be honest: the more people knew me as Lily, the more difficult it would be to eventually go back to being a completely basic, run-of-the-mill, 100% boring cis man once I was done with this whole thing.

Neither Molly nor Nora seemed to notice my stare, though. “Right,” my girlfriend nodded.

“Perfect,” Molly replied. “Right this way, I’ve got everything set up in the back.”

We followed her across the salon and through a door, into a wide room filled with mirrors and sinks and comfy-looking reclining chairs. I sat down in one, and Nora in the one next to it.

“Okay, you’re getting The Works today,” Molly said, and I swear I could hear her pronounce the capital letters. “Both of you.”

“Wait, you too?” I asked, looking at Nora.

“Of course,” she replied. “Every girl wants to be pampered every now and then, even me. And doing it with a girlfriend is part of the experience,” she concluded with a wink.

“Okay,” I said.

“Now sit back, relax, and enjoy,” Molly said, reclining our chairs all the way back; she looked at me for a moment, and then she narrowed her eyes. “Excuse me, Lily, is it alright if I touch your face for a moment?”

“…Yes? Of course,” I replied, puzzled.

Molly nodded, and then reached out, running her hand across my cheek; I grimaced a bit as her fingers caught my stubble – the noise made it sound like she was rubbing a piece of coarse sandpaper.

“When was the last time you shaved?” she asked.

“This morning.”

“What with?”

“An electric shaver,” I said. “Why?”

Molly shook her head. “No, this won’t do at all.” She marched over the door, opened it, and called out, “Jules, get in here please. And bring your things.”

“Be right there!” a male voice called back; a minute or so later, a tall, middle-aged man with black hair and a bushy grey beard walked into the room.

“Lily, this is Giuliano,” Molly said. “He’s going to give you a shave.”

Giuliano smiled. “Pleasure to meet you.”

“Wait, we didn’t ask for a shave,” Nora said, frowning slightly.

“Oh, I’m throwing it in, free of charge,” Molly replied, waving her hand. “After all, we can’t do most of the rest unless she’s clean-shaven.” She looked at me. “Are you comfortable with that, Lily?”

I glanced at Giuliano, who was setting down his tools – including a long, menacing, straight-bladed razor – onto a nearby sink. I gulped, and nervously nodded. “Let’s do this.”

He nodded back, and grabbed a hot, moist towel, which he wrapped around my face. “To soften the skin and open the pores,” he explained. “I’ll leave this on for just a minute, and then get to shaving. You can close your eyes if you’re nervous, I know some people don’t do well with a blade next to their face.”

“No, it’s alright,” I replied: I relaxed and sat back, looking at the ceiling as he used a brush to slather my face in shaving cream, and then grabbed his cut-throat razor and got to work. I glanced at him a few times while he was doing his thing, but I was careful not to move my face. The whole experience was surprisingly pleasant, albeit brief: after less than ten minutes spent manoeuvring his razor across my chin and cheeks and around my nose like an expert sailor steering a ship, the barber had managed to remove every trace of hair from my face.

“Done,” he said, wiping what little shaving cream remained with a towel. “What do you think?”

I reached upwards and ran my hand over my cheek: it felt completely smooth. “Wow,” I said.

Giuliano smirked at me. “Like a baby’s bottom, right?” I just nodded in return.

“You may consider permanent hair removal, though,” Molly interjected. “It’ll take a while, but this way you’ll never have to shave ever again.”

“Aw, girl, do you really wanna put me out of business? Just like that?” Giuliano said with a smile.

“Shush,” Molly replied, lightly slapping his shoulder.

“Hair removal, you said?” I asked.

“Yeah. For you, it’s probably going to be electro. You’re a ginger with very light skin, so laser would just be a whole lot of pain for very poor results,” Molly said. “A friend of mine had to do electro too, and she has light brown hair, so her beard is also light-coloured. Well, was light-coloured. She doesn’t have any now.”

“Huh,” I mused. “Alright, I’ll consider it.” And I was considering it, quite seriously in fact: I’d never liked having a beard, and the thought of not having to shave again was very enticing.

“Until you get to that, I recommend a safety razor,” Giuliano said as he gathered his things. “You can get a much closer shave than with those modern plastic-y things, and the blades are much cheaper.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Thank you, Jules,” Molly said. “Can you please send Mary in now?”

Giuliano nodded. “Of course.” He left the room, and a couple minutes later the girl who’d greeted us at the door walked in, and introduced herself as Mary.

“Okay, let’s get to the main course now,” Molly said. “I’ll do Lily, Mary. You do Nora. The Works.”

“Okay,” Mary nodded.

“Just remember,” Nora interjected. “Lily is not quite out yet, so let’s not do anything which can’t be easily hidden or reversed.”

I smiled my thanks to my girlfriend as Molly took on a pensive expression. “Hm, that means no eyebrow threading, and no nail polish on her hands,” she mused. “Can we put polish on your toenails, though?”

I thought about Joe: I almost always wore shoes or slippers when I was in my dorm room, true, so the chance he’d notice my painted toenails was slim, but it was there. I couldn’t risk it.

“No, better not,” I replied, shaking my head.

“Okay. It’s a shame, though. But it is what it is, I guess. I’ll give you a rain check for the polish,” Molly said. “Let’s get to work.”

“How long will this take?” I asked.

“It will take as long as it takes,” she replied cryptically.

‘As long as it takes’ turned out to be quite a while: Molly put on some relaxing music and, after apologising, she slipped my tights off my legs and put my feet and hands to soak in basins of scented hot water. I closed my eyes and took in the experience as she steamed my face with a towel once again, and then softly scrubbed it with a coarse-feeling paste before washing it off and replacing it with a floral-smelling cream. Then she quickly cut and shaped my hair: there wasn’t much to do with it, it was still quite short.

I heard both her and Mary walk off, leaving Nora and I alone, probably to give time to the various concoctions to act. I found myself smiling: before getting embroiled into this whole trans thing, I’d often found myself wondering how exactly girls managed to keep their skin so smooth and radiant. There had to be a secret, right? After all, it was like magic. Well, now I had the answer – and it definitely felt like magic. Or witchcraft, at least. A secret coven of magic practitioners, passing down mysterious secrets through generations.

This was seriously bliss. I felt as if I was floating on a happy fluffy cloud. As if every trace of stress was leaving my body.

“Lily?” Nora whispered. “Are you awake?”

“Hm?” I whispered back. “What’s up?”

“Nothing, really,” she said. “I just wanted to hear your voice.”

I blushed under the heavy cream that covered my face. We were quiet for a while, until I spoke up again. “Nora?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

A moment’s pause. “What for?”

“For being here for me. I’ve been under… under a lot of stress recently.”

“Understandable.”

I smiled. “Today has been wonderful. It’s the best day I’ve had in quite a while. So thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Lily,” Nora replied.

We just sat there for a while, in silence, enjoying the music, the pleasant smells, and each other’s presence, until Mary and Molly walked back into the room.

“Alright, we’re almost done,” Molly said.

“Almost?” I asked.

She chuckled. “Yeah, almost,” she answered. “Just need to do the actual mani-pedi, nail polish, and make-up. And don’t worry,” she added. “I haven’t forgotten. No polish for you.”

“Thank you.”

Did I say the experience had been pleasant? I was a fool. I still hadn’t experienced true bliss: someone gently massaging your hands and feet while carefully trimming your nails and scrubbing away all the rough skin and calluses. There weren’t many, true, I’d never been one to use my hands for physical work much, but they felt incredibly soft after Molly was done. It was amazing.

“Now for your make-up,” Molly said, wiping the remaining cream off my face and rubbing what she described as a ‘primer’ into my skin.

“Be gentle with her,” Nora interjected. “This is her first time.”

Molly’s eyes glinted. “Oh, is it?” she said, a mirthful tone in her voice. “Well, well, well.”

I looked at her warily. “Um. Should I be worried?”

“Oh, no, not at all,” Molly said, waving her hand dismissively, but with a grin on her face. “There’s nothing to worry about. You just sit here,” she swivelled my chair around, to face away from the mirrors, “and let me work. This will be fun.”

I gulped. “Alright, I guess.”

Molly was incredibly professional. She carefully explained what everything she used on my face was – besides the primer there was foundation, powder, blush, lip pencil, lipstick, eye pencil, mascara, eye shadow, and at least a couple more things I instantly forgot the name of. Once or twice I tried to turn around slightly, to look at myself in the mirror, but Molly was quick to pull my head back into position. “No peeking,” she chided me with a soft smile.

“Oh, this was fun,” Nora said, standing up from her chair – apparently Mary was done with her make-up. My girlfriend walked around my own chair, to stand in front of me.

I took one look at her, and I blinked.

She looked amazing.

I’d never seen her wear that much make-up; she usually only put on a bit of eyeliner and lip gloss. But everything she’d had done to her face complemented it beautifully: she looked… more. More adult, more beautiful, more confident, more attractive. As I looked at her, I found myself squirming in my chair.

“Well? How do I look?” Nora asked, striking a pose – I noticed her fingernails had been painted a deep red, and I felt a bit jealous at not being able to put on polish for the time being. “Do you like it?”

“I really like it,” I replied truthfully. “Nora, you look… Well, you look incredible.”

She smiled. “Thank you. You’re coming along nicely too, if I can say so.”

“I am?”

“Yep, you are.”

“Okay, I’m done,” Molly said, putting down a brush. “Want to see?”

I nodded, and Molly and Nora together turned my chair back around. I looked at myself in the mirror.

And I gasped.

Reflected in the mirror was a girl. Her face was a girl’s – I could just barely see the make-up, it was so subtle but amazing at the same time – and she was dressed like a girl, and had a startled, deer-in-headlights expression on her pretty face.

At an unconscious level I recognised that the girl had to be me: who else could she be, after all? I was the one sitting in the chair in front of the mirror. Unless this was a trick somehow… No, if I moved my head, turned it this way and that, she mimicked my every movement. It was amazing. Molly had done an incredible work: she’d somehow taken a terribly masculine face, and managed to disguise it as a girl’s.

…No, not disguise. That wasn’t the right word. I was still recognisably me: anyone who knew me would’ve instantly been able to tell who I was. But somehow, the make-up (and maybe the facial and lack of beard, too) had managed to uncover a lot of femininity where I’d thought there was none.

I kept looking at myself for a long time, examining every detail of my face, looking for a ‘tell’ that would dispel the illusion, but there was none to be found.

I was a girl.

No, I looked like a girl, I quickly corrected myself. I wasn’t actually a girl. Don’t forget that, Lily. It’s important.

“I think she likes it.”

Those words shook me from my reverie, and I turned around to look over my shoulder. “Uh? What?” I asked.

“I said, I think she likes it,” Molly repeated. “I never get tired of seeing this reaction. When they see themselves for the first time, their face just lights up.”

“Right?” Nora said; she leaned forward and put a hand on my shoulder. “You look amazing. Happy Valentine’s Day, my dear.” She planted a kiss firmly on my cheek.

I blushed a bit, and smiled at her. “Thank you, Nora. Again.”

She smiled back, and gripped my shoulder for a moment before letting go.

“Alright,” Molly said. “I think we’re done here.”

“Thank you, Molly,” Nora said, offering me a hand and pulling me up from my chair. “You’ve been great.”

I nodded in agreement. “Yeah, this was an experience I won’t forget that easily. I’m already looking forward to next time.”

“Thank you. Be sure to recommend me to your friends,” Molly said, with a smile and a wink.

We made our way back to the front of the store, where Nora paid for The Works we’d been put through; then we thanked Molly, Mary, and Giuliano – who winked at me and said, “Best of luck, girl” – and left the store.

“I think we still have some time until we have to go home,” Nora said. “What do you say we take a tour of the mall? I’d never been here before.”

“You hadn’t?” I asked, puzzled. “Then how did you know about Molly’s salon?”

“I asked someone at the GSA,” she explained. “Shall we go?”

I nodded, and we were off.

The day had already been wonderful: that final hour-and-a-half was the capstone on top of it all. We just went around the mall, ducking inside every store that caught our eye, just browsing, looking around. A few times a salesperson approached us, and asked, “Hello, can I help you ladies?”

“No, we’re just browsing,” we’d reply; but the way they talked to us – as if we were just a pair of normal girls, just going around having fun on a day off from school – made me feel happy, somehow.

Nora and I also took the occasion to sneak a kiss or two. Or three. Or four.

Or five.

God, I really loved this girl. I just couldn’t get enough of her. And, apparently (which still puzzled me to no end), she couldn’t get enough of me, either. I’d never dated one person for so long, and it was wonderful to be able to connect to someone, just like that.

It all came to an end when the afternoon turned to evening, and we had to go back home. After all, it was the middle of the week: we’d both played hooky, taking a day off from school that afternoon, but we’d have to study to catch up on the lessons we’d missed, and to prepare for the following days.

“This has been a wonderful day,” I said once again, as I kissed my girlfriend one more time. “Thank you, Nora.”

“No, thank you, Lily,” she replied, smiling brightly at me. “I’m really glad to have you in my life.”

I blushed, and smiled back. “Now, let me just call for an Uber…” I said, rooting into my purse for my cellphone.

“Um,” Nora said.

I looked up at her. “Yes?”

She gestured at me. “You’re going home… Like that?”

I looked down at myself. “Oh, good point,” I said. “Can’t go home wearing a skirt. Come on, let’s find a clothing store, so I can borrow the changing room and switch back.”

“And the make-up?” Nora asked.

I hesitated. “What about the make-up?”

“Aren’t you going to take that off?”

I hesitated once again; I looked around, found a shop window, and walked up to it. The reflection was faint, but I could see myself clearly. I could see my face.

I bit my lip, the girl in the window mimicking the expression.

Did I have to take the make-up off? After all, Nora had paid for it. Molly had put lots of work into it. And it looked really good. Why couldn’t I just keep it on? For a while at least. Until it was time to go to bed. Yes, that’s it. I would have Nora show me exactly how to remove it, and then I’d take it off later that night, after getting back to my dorm room–

My train of thought screeched to an abrupt halt.

Fuck. Of course. My dorm room. I’d almost forgotten. That was why I couldn’t just go back looking like this, wearing a dress, with make-up on my face. That was the problem.

Joe.

I sighed. “Yeah, I’m going to take it off. I kinda have to, you know,” I said, in a small, tired voice.

Nora nodded, and smiled sympathetically. “I know. Wait here,” she said; she ducked into a store, and was back a minute later with a small plastic bag. “Make-up remover and cotton pads,” she said. “And moisturiser. Since we forgot to get them from Molly.”

I nodded, and let her guide me to the mall’s bathrooms; I hesitated just a little bit before going into the girls’ toilet, but in the end I followed my girlfriend.

In short order, Nora showed me how to wash off the make-up, which wasn’t complicated: you just had to wipe the liner and mascara off your eyes, and then wash your face with warm water and the correct cleansing product. And moisturise afterwards.

I dried my face with a wad of paper towels, and looked at my reflection in the mirror.

Plain old me again.

Then we made our way to a clothing store, where I ducked into a changing room and quickly shed my dress, replacing it with the clothes I’d worn that morning. I looked into the mirror, and sighed.

Plain old me again.

This was a bad end to a good day, but I still managed to smile as I said goodbye to Nora: we kissed – with tongue, she was apparently feeling very passionate – and separated.

I pulled out my phone, and with a few taps on the screen I called for an Uber.

Time to go back to my plain, boring, everyday life.