I got used to being out on the show floor pretty quickly. It was boring sometimes, especially when the others at my booth were all busy and I had no-one to talk to. It was a little creepy sometimes, when a guy stood too close to me and brushed his hand against my arm. But mostly it was quite fun. There were times when I felt unexpectedly glamorous, standing there in my very silly dress, selling our software, having my picture taken (although we were less photographed than Kristen and Maria, the stewardesses next door). Friday at the expo was a closed session, with only representatives from other companies and a few select journalists supposed to be allowed in; Emily told me I was lucky my first modelling experience was on a relatively quiet day because Saturday, when the doors opened to the public, was likely to be crazy.

Emily was looking out for me, which helped me feel a bit more free to enjoy myself. A rep from a smaller company approached me when I was taking a momentary breather, resting on one of the stools we had at the side of the booth and shifting at least some of my weight distribution from my heels to my butt, but before he could get close enough to talk Emily inserted herself between us, smiling, asking him his name and who he represented, and guiding him so subtly over to the other side of the booth I don’t think he noticed he was being manipulated.

After he left, she explained.

“If you’re sitting down and guys come over,” she said, “sometimes they take that as an opportunity to get closer to you, and especially to put their hands on your legs.” I made a face. “They act like it’s all casual and friendly, but they’re just copping a feel. If you’re standing, it creates a bit more distance; it’s more formal. They have to be that much more of a creep to try anything.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I’ve been to these things before — well, one of these things — but I never expected to be in this position, and it’s still kind of disorientating.” I looked down at myself. “I mean, there’s never having been so dressed up before, and there’s never having been so on show before. I feel like I should buy a taser.”

“The important thing is just to keep your distance. If they really do try anything we can yell for security — or for Mr McCain when he gets back,” she added, smiling and nudging me. I chose to pretend I hadn’t heard that last part, which she noticed. “Poor guy. He’s being so nice to you today! Maybe give the lovesick thing a break?”

Emily was still on the James-loves-Alex train, which I had very much leapt off of between stations (I was now, to extend the metaphor, fiddling with Google Maps, trying to work out which was the easiest way back to Skegness, or, er, manhood). Her convictions on that front had only deepened when James spent the first half-hour of the open floor hovering near me, glaring at conventioneers, practically bodyguarding me. I’d finally got fed up and asked him to let me have a little space, which had sent him into a two-minute sulk. He’d then made the excuse that he needed to go change for a big meeting with a huge corporation, and vanished.

“I gave him a break,” I protested. “And then he left.”

“Hmm,” Emily commented, sounding remarkably like Ben. It suddenly occurred to me that the two of them had probably gossiped about me while Ben was doing her makeup, and the idea was distasteful; I resolved to find him later and insert both my high heels into him somewhere. “As I was saying,” she continued, “keep your distance, and enforce it as much as you can. If you judge it safe to shake someone’s hand, that’s fine; if you judge it safe for someone to take a posed photo with you, even a selfie, that’s fine. But you make the judgements. Take as much control of the interaction as you need. And if they cross the line you set, don’t be afraid to ask for help, from me or the boys, or from security.”

“If we make a fuss, won’t they make a fuss?” I asked, worrying about losing MCAC a sale because of my squeamishness.

Emily gave me a serious look. “One, your safety is more important than the product; and don’t protest because you know your boss agrees.” I protested anyway, but inside. “Two, while I’d love to say in 2019 that most of these reps’ bosses wouldn’t want a whole Hash Me Too thing on their hands, it’s definite that some of them wouldn’t. So don’t be afraid to assert your boundaries.”

“Thanks,” I said again. I was thanking her a lot today. “That’s actually really helpful.” I squashed the urge to give her a hug; she was seriously big-sistering me and as an only child (of parents who were… questionably present at the best of times) it was blowing a lot of relays in my head. She reached out and squeezed my upper arm anyway, and I gripped her hand in gratitude. “Hey,” I added, suddenly struck by one of my periodic bouts of self-consciousness, “you really don’t think I look silly?”

“You look great!” she said, for the ten-thousandth time.

Without access to a mirror to periodically reset my default view of myself as a questionably-presentable borderline troglodyte, I was having a regular-as-clockwork crisis of confidence. I hadn’t thought of myself as shallow before, but it turned out large parts of my self-image were based around not being looked at by hundreds of people and not being surrounded by women who were all really, really good at the same thing I was trying to do. All the women in the conference hall — all the women in very silly outfits, anyway — were drop-dead gorgeous, Emily, Maria and Kristen included, and hell, the other women, the ones who were there in more sensible clothes, still all seemed to ooze a grace and poise that was beyond me. I was an imposter, suddenly very aware of my fake boobs and my padded hips and bum, too aware of the shape and feel of my body, too aware of its ugly, shapeless maleness; apparently in agreement, my junk chose that moment to complain about its entrapment, twanging a nerve in my scrotum that caused a flash of pain when it hit my head and seemed to reverberate around inside me.

Emily, naturally, spotted that I wasn’t all that reassured this time — I was starting to think that my every emotion was immediately readable on my face, like I was some kind of educational toy for kids to learn about the perils of insecurity — and added, “You really look good. Natural. Like you belong here. Um,” and she dropped into a whisper, “except when you look terrified like you suddenly do. Just calm down!”

I took and held a deep breath, counted to a billion, and let it out.

“Besides,” Emily said, amusement dripping from her voice, “when it comes down to it, we’re pretty ordinarily-dressed here. And we don’t have to wear neon wigs or anything. You should thank whoever picked these outfits.”

“I picked them,” I said, still trying to internalise what Emily was saying. “I just never thought I’d end up wearing one of them.”

“Then thank you. I guarantee you half the models here are jealous of us.” She grimaced. “You should see some of the stuff I’ve had to wear at other events; crazy outfits like out of a video game. When you take your break, get out of this corner we’re stuck in and have a look at the other models, see what ridiculous shit they’re stuck in. Especially the big companies. Lots of money often equals lots of stupid accessories to lose. And temporary tattoos of the logo.”

“She’s right,” Maria said from the edge of her booth, having apparently overheard us. “I’d kill to be on your stand right now. Do you know how hard it is to keep the seam straight on these effing stockings? Oops,” she added, as a man approaching her booth waved for her attention.

I laughed, feeling my tension, embarrassment and self-consciousness start to dissipate alongside each other.

“Thanks for keeping me from going crazy, Emily,” I said.

“No problem,” Emily said, smiling. “Are you okay to cover solo for fifteen minutes? I need to pee.”

I felt recharged, so I shooed her away. “Go, go! I’ll be fine. I can always yell for Kit to rescue me if someone gets weird.”

She flashed me a smile and disappeared in the direction of the maze of small rooms at the back of the convention hall. I watched her go — she really did look good in the dress, despite its obnoxious blueness — and fixed in my head the fact that this ridiculously beautiful woman thought I looked perfectly okay, and that therefore I probably did look perfectly okay.

You’re fine, Alex, I told myself. You’re just like everyone else here. Everyone else in a stupid outfit, anyway. You don’t stand out. You don’t stand out.

I looked back out across the hall in time to see a boy who didn’t look much older than me trot up to our booth.

“Hi!” I said, in my customer service voice, which had turned out to be pretty ideal for talking to potentially-horny guys when I was wearing eye-catching clothing; approachable and friendly but absolutely professional. “Welcome to our stand. Is there anything you’d like to know about McCain Applied Computing or our products?”

“Um,” he said, and took a full two seconds to recover. His blush would have been visible from space if we weren’t indoors; I bet you could have spotted it with one of those heat-mapping satellites anyway, if you knew where to look. Remembering what Emily said about controlling the interaction, I took a step forward, so that we were only a metre apart, but knotted my hands in front of me, to establish that this was my space. I liked looking down on someone for once; he was around my height, but I was in heels. I smiled at him, which only intensified his blush. I wasn’t worried about this kid trying anything; if it came to it I could probably have beaten him up myself without taking off my shoes first.

“Uh,” he rallied, “I read your company’s promotional post on, um, Reddit? And I was interested to learn more about your software.”

The boy looked like he was about to die of sheer nervousness, so I disentangled my fingers and extended a hand for him to shake. “I’m Alex,” I said, as he limply took my hand and sort of waggled it. I pointedly didn’t look down to see if his trousers tented; I pointedly also did not giggle at the thought of it. “I wrote that post. I’ve also had a hand in the code for most of our projects, although—” I disengaged from the handshake and shook a warning finger in what I hoped was an obviously light-hearted manner, “—I can’t give you a deep dive here on the show floor. What’s your name?” I added, when his only response was to swallow.

“Harry,” he said, after a good long think. I’d put a small bet on him having needed some time to remember his name. “I— I write for Rayleigh’s Journal.”

I was impressed. Rayleigh’s Journal was quite a big fish in the picayune-technical-details pond: a former print magazine, now entirely online, catering to the kind of technology nerd who never needs an acronym explained in the same way Loch Ness Monsters cater to credulous tourists. Or the same way salmon contribute to bears.

“Would you like to speak with one of our engineers?” I said, looking around. Mark was on his break, Kit was showing someone our only demo unit, and James was presumably still schmoozing people at his ‘big meeting’. “They’re all engaged at the moment, but I’m sure someone will be available to talk to you soon.” I wouldn’t have bothered for a random blogger, would have told him to come back later, but I didn’t want to take the chance on losing access to Rayleigh’s readership. I was kind of curious what they would say about our work, anyway.

“I can wait,” Harry said. “You have one of the more interesting software proposals on the floor today. Um, if it works.”

I smiled again, enjoying the way his eyes widened slightly when I did so. “I can assure you it does,” I said. “You need an OLED screen, or to be willing to accept a slight brightness loss in the pixels above the lens if you’re using IPS, but it definitely works.” I’d have shown him the selfies I’d taken with the prototype screen and lens assembly we’d commissioned to test it out, but I didn’t have my phone with me, and — I winced as I remembered, hoping it didn’t show — all the shots were of the old me, anyway. Not a good thing to show someone.

“Then I’d love to see it,” he said.

“Kit can show you when he’s free,” I said, “or Mark, or Mr McCain if he comes back before anyone else is free.” I decided to tell him a half-truth, or rather, to omit the inconvenient part: “I’d show you the selfies I took with it, but I’m not allowed a camera on the show floor.”

He swallowed. I realised I’d leaned towards him a little, as if sharing a scandalous secret, so I leaned back. A laugh I couldn’t quite suppress came out just as another smile.

I looked back at our booth and noticed Kit had finished showing off the demo phone. I reached back and picked it up, unspooling the wire that tethered it to our booth.

“Here,” I said, “why don’t I show you the demo unit?”

It wouldn’t pass as a modern phone even in low light — it was an older Samsung model from before they started doing the wraparound screens, and we’d hacked it apart to move the camera under the screen, so it was twice as thick as it should be — but it worked well enough. I unlocked it and paged through a couple of home screens, so he could see the screen working unimpeded, and then loaded up the camera software and handed it to him.

“Try and find the selfie camera,” I suggested.

Puzzled, he covered the place where the camera hole used to be, at the top of the phone, but he could still see his face, partially obscured by his palm. He slowly moved his finger down the screen until he finally found it, just below the centre. He covered and uncovered it, squinting at the image on the screen, looking for defects. I knew he wouldn’t find any; the implementation on our demo unit was carefully tuned to the subpixel layout on the OLED panel.

“This is incredible,” he said.

“Thanks!” I said.

He jumped. I don’t think he’d realised I was watching over his shoulder. I took a step back and held out my hand. Reluctantly he gave the unit back to me, and I replaced it in its cradle.

“What was your name again?” he asked, biting his lip and then realising what he was doing and hurriedly retracting his teeth. I tried not to laugh; I’d probably break his ego into a million bits. We were almost definitely around the same age, and cut from the same dorky cloth, but I’d never been as terrified of attractive women as he obviously was. Sure, they mostly hadn’t been interested in me, but that was another thing entirely.

“Alex,” I said, and he nodded. I’d realised shortly after talking to my first rep on the show floor that I was giving my real name to a whole lot of people who’d now seen (and occasionally photographed) me in a dress — James couldn’t have engineered a more awkward situation if he’d tried — but I decided that on the remote chance any of them ever swung by the office, I could be my own cousin or something; we’d be from one of those cult families that gives everyone the same name. Perfect.

We were silent for a few moments. It was awkward, and Kit was still unavailable. “So, how did you come to work for Rayleigh’s?” I asked, to make conversation. I’d have tried to engage him on a technical level but one of the things we hadn’t had time for was to give me the same brief Kit and Mark had about what level of disclosure was appropriate, and I didn’t want to rely on common sense and guesswork. And when it came down to it, I was just a gopher and not an actual engineer.

“Oh, um,” Harry said, and then sat on the um for a bit while he thought. “I’m still at uni, so I’m only submitting the occasional article. My old project supervisor works as an editor at Rayleigh’s; he asked me to work for him.” When he mentioned his old supervisor a beam of pure joy temporarily replaced the nervously neutral expression on his face. “Part time,” he added. “He couldn’t attend CEE this year, so he sent me.”

It was like looking in a mirror, minus the university part and the general sweatiness; an older man, a mentor, someone he clearly liked, asked him to come work for him and later had him attend a trade show. I was half-tempted to warn Harry to run as fast as he could should his editor ever look at him with a gleam in his eye and suggest he try wearing a dress, just for a change.

We discussed his university project for a few minutes — he was working on an interesting idea to do with eliminating clipping artifacts in video games; not my field, but fascinating — and he came out of his shell a little. The shell was absolutely still there, and I could absolutely prompt a retreat back into it if I smiled at him too much, but he was doing pretty well! Pretty well.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Kit finishing up with the man he was talking to, so I put a hand on Harry’s shoulder — he jumped again, which was adorable — and made to guide him over.

“Oh, er,” Harry said, blushing again, “before I go, could I get a selfie? I mean, one I can keep.”

I laughed. “Sure!” I said.

He dug his phone out of his pocket and held it up, framing us on the screen. I put on my best smile, stuck one arm around his shoulders and did the peace sign with my other hand, for the hell of it. He snapped a couple, and I let him go.

He thanked me profusely.

“Old technology, now,” I said, indicating his phone.

It took a moment for him to get what I meant, and then he laughed far harder than the joke merited. Flatterer. “Um, yeah,” he said.

“It was nice meeting you, Harry,” I said. “Good luck at Rayleigh’s.”

I guided him over to Kit, made the introductions, patted him on the back, and returned to my position at the front of the stand, clamping down on my need to laugh as much as I could.

Being able to do that to guys was kind of fun.

~

“Alex,” Emily said urgently as she walked up next to me, her break over. “I just ran into Bethany from our agency and they’ve got her dressed up like a sexy cop!”

“Oh my God,” I said. “Can we see her from here?”

Emily narrowed her eyes and pointed. I looked and, sure enough, when the crowds parted, I caught occasional glimpses of four cops at one of the larger booths in the mid-size section of the floor, only police uniforms weren’t normally quite so shiny, and the skirts generally left more to the imagination.

“Holy shit,” I said. We both laughed, and I felt grateful once again to Past Me for not fucking us over with a ridiculously short skirt or anything. “God, I just saw one of them have to tug her skirt down. I feel bad for laughing.”

“Don’t, seriously,” Emily said. “At the last one of these, she got to wear jeans and I had to be a fucking mermaid.”

“Oh no,” I said, “with the tail and everything?” She nodded. “How did—” I lowered my voice. “How did you pee?”

She shuddered. “They had to drop a curtain around the pedestal I was on, so it wouldn’t ‘break the illusion’—” air-quotes and an extremely derisive tone of voice, “—and I had to shimmy out of the fucking thing right up there and peg it out the back door. At least they let me wear leggings under it.”

“Wow,” I said.

“And other there—” she pointed, “—is a bunch of girls dressed in what I think is tin foil, with fairy wings, advertising something to do with steering wheels. No, I have no idea what the connection is supposed to be. I think those women there are supposed to be some kind of knock-off She-Ra army, and you can’t see them from here but there’s a booth with like a dozen women all in the same wig and coordinated makeup and they even have different size heels on to make them all the same height, it’s eerie. Oh yeah, and whoever’s done the outfits for that booth has a serious hard-on for platforms, look.”

I looked, and saw about five women who were wearing relatively simple skirt-and-jacket outfits but with platform boots that made my back ache just at the thought of wearing them. I wondered if it was supposed to symbolise something.

“God,” I muttered, “there are so many sadists in trade show costume design.”

Emily shrugged. “Sadists; straight men; what’s the difference?”

“I will never complain about a simple blue dress ever again,” I promised.

~

A short while later, one of the big brands announced some big demonstration event and almost instantly cleared out the entire convention hall as every rep, journalist and blogger disappeared in the direction of their huge booth. Kit and Mark, with some encouragement from me, followed; I wasn’t particularly bothered about going as I’d never been as interested in finished products as I was in the building blocks, and I knew they’d come running back in a panic if anything was announced that could trump one of our in-the-works projects, so I promised to field all inquiries in their absence.

Emily and Maria took advantage of the lull to make me practice doing ‘modelling poses’ — which, I maintained, don’t actually count as real modelling poses if you can’t stop giggling — that all coincidentally involved one hand or another stretched out, the better to keep eager businessmen at minimum safe distance. To my relief, the three of us almost immediately devolved into messing around, and then into bitching about our bosses. As models, we were officially discouraged from having our mobile phones on the show floor because most of us had outfits that didn’t allow for pockets or bags, and security had (in theory) better things to do than watch out for our valuables, like watch out for violations of our personhood, so bitching was basically all we had left once we’d run out of productive lines of conversation.

I was in the middle of telling the (edited) story of my first overnight stay at the office, when James had both promised to come back and help, and hadn’t, and neglected to tell me the heating turned off at 9pm, when the bottom fell out of my world.

He was on his way back, and he was wearing his best suit.

Of course he was! He’d just made a presentation to a huge company and he would have wanted to make a good impression, so of course he would have worn his best suit. It was just a coincidence that it was the same charcoal suit, off-white shirt and maroon tie he’d worn in the dream I’d had about him, that night at his place, surrounded by his sheets and his smell. The suit that had had a supporting role in the first real wet dream of my life. I felt my junk tense in its awful prison, and I clenched my teeth in response.

He was walking back to our booth and chatting to Kristen as he came.

Of course he was! Kristen was beautiful. Kristen was funny and friendly. Kristen was dressed as a sexy stewardess. Kristen (probably) didn’t have a dick. She was perfect for him.

It was a good thing, I insisted to myself. James deserved to be with someone who could make him happy.

“Alex,” Emily whispered quickly, “do you want to go on your break?”

I forced myself to focus, and noticed she had a hand on my shoulder. I nodded vigorously. What was the point of pretending to Emily any more that I didn’t have feelings for James? I’d stopped pretending to Ben; I’d stopped pretending to myself, despite a brief uptick in inward-focused stubbornness on that front. If everyone knew I was bi then what did it ultimately matter? Just as long as James didn’t find out.

“Go, go, go,” Emily said, gently pushing me out of the booth in the opposite direction.

I almost staggered as I escaped in the direction of the women’s staff loos. I’m fairly sure James watched me go.

~

If I held my breath, glared at myself in the mirror and kicked the bottom of the sink with my foot, I could keep from crying.

I looked around the bathroom to make sure I was alone. When I was certain I was, I started whispering sternly to my own reflection.

“You’re an idiot. I know you want him to like you back, I know you need him to like you back, but it’s not going to happen. It can’t. And you—” I pointed at myself, “—are confusing him by running hot and cold around him. No wonder he called you a bitch.”

Yes, I was still hung up on that. I didn’t seriously believe it was my fault he said it, but something inside me was stuck on the idea and it kept coming up in moments like this.

“And you are a crazy fucking bitch, Alex,” I hissed, really building up the venom now. “A crazy, stupid bitch! You want him, you want him like you’ve never wanted anyone else, but you keep asking yourself, ‘Is it just because I’m in a dress right now?’ as if these feelings will just— will just go away on Monday morning. You stupid—” kick, “—stupid—” kick, “—stupid—” kick, “—fucking, fucking stupid bitch. Look at you.”

Deep breath. Hold it. Let it out slowly.

“Alex,” I said to myself, “talking to yourself is one of the signs of madness. There’s a list somewhere. Although I bet whichever idiot drew up the list in the first place didn’t have an entry for putting on a dress at the behest of your boss, who you are hopelessly in love with, and parading around a huge conference hall in front of hundreds of people.”

Another deep breath.

…Did I just say I was in love with James?

Kick. Kick. Kick.

~

“Nice break?” Emily said to me as I returned, a meaningful look on her face that I interpreted as, ‘I will cover for you as long as you need.’ After this, I decided right there and then, we were fucking well hiring her. We’d pay her all the money we wouldn’t be spending at Harvey Nichols any more.

“Yeah,” I said, taking up my place in front of the booth once more, “it really helped. Thanks.”

James almost immediately disengaged himself from the conversation he was having with Mark and rushed over to me. He touched my elbow. I let him.

“Hi, James,” I said, to forestall any more apologies or anything on his part. “Sorry I had to rush out like that; the bathroom called, you know?”

He nodded, dumbly. “Hey,” he said eventually, “I heard you sweet-talked the guy from Rayleigh’s into giving us a good write-up. He couldn’t stop singing your praises.”

I smiled. “He just seemed kind of shy, is all,” I said. “A bit of a chat and he really blossomed.” Well, maybe a little green shoot finally grew out of the ground; kid would need a hundred beautiful women to ask him about his interests and take a selfie with him before he’d stop nervously staring at their shoulders instead of their faces. “Oh yeah, how did the meeting go?”

I’d decided, after I’d kicked the sink until my foot hurt, just to tough it out. If James wanted to talk to other women, that was for the best; he was never going to be my boyfriend, and that was just a fact. If I really did love him — another confusing question for the pile — then I wanted the best for him.

The best for him was quite clearly not me.

“Really well, I think!” he said. “The longer I talked, the more I got the feeling we have something no-one else has. Something they really want. Their rep is going to bring us a couple of devkits later; next week, you and I have some work to do to get it working with their hardware. If it does…” He finished the sentence with a huge, boyish grin, his eyes warming and crinkling.

I carefully stopped my heart long enough to kill it.

“Congratulations!” I said happily, grasping his forearm with both hands and squeezing.

~

A burst of journalists, bloggers, and company reps who’d had a few drinks at lunch and thus had been less restrained than they ought when it came to respecting personal space had worn away at me. Emily saw it happening and, bless her, earned ten times her paycheque intercepting as many as she could, but they’d kept coming. I could see it wearing on her, too; by 5pm her smile had long since stopped reaching her eyes. When 6pm and the close of the doors approached, she looked like she would happily strangle and eat the next man who so much as looked at her, and I wanted nothing more than to rip off my dress and jump in a bath of acid.

I can’t put my finger on exactly when it stopped being remotely fun, but it could have been around the time Kristen came back from her late break with a Coke for her and a Coke for James. I really didn’t want to hate her — she was really nice — so I decided to hate James instead. It was difficult: I tried to glare at him but his tie really did bring out the deep brown in his eyes, and I couldn’t help thinking about that dream. It rattled me, how much I was focused on it, so I settled for trying and failing to ignore him.

Which compounded the indignity when he rescued me, just before the doors closed, from a particularly unpleasant blogger who persisted in taking a step towards me whenever I took a step back. I could smell his liquid lunch, I could see the sprinkle of stubble on the back of his jaw where he’d missed with the razor; I could feel his hand hovering inches away from my leg, as if it were just waiting for permission from the rest of him to grab me. James had smoothly put himself between the two of us, which given how close the man was had meant I ended up practically perched on the edge of the booth with the back of James’ suit jacket taking up almost my entire field of vision. The blogger was quietly persuaded to talk to Mark instead. James then returned to me and tugged gently on my elbow until I reluctantly consented to follow him around behind our booth, where we were almost completely hidden from the rest of the show floor.

“Sorry,” he said as an opening, looking down on me with gentle eyes. “I didn’t see what he was doing until he was almost on top of you.”

I remained silent, biting my lip, trying not to look at him, trying not to cry. I didn’t know if I was more upset by the handsy guy or by simply being in James’ presence. I’d been watching him half the afternoon, whenever I was sure he wasn’t watching me, obsessing over how just out of my reach he was. It was too much of an emotional load.

I managed to hold onto myself until James asked, for the millionth time that week, but with a renewed kindness I couldn’t bear, if I was okay. The part of me that wanted him won out and I flung myself at him, wrapping him in the tightest hug I’d ever given him. He reciprocated instantly, and we stood there in silence, holding each other.

I couldn’t have him; he would choose someone else and I would have to move on. But I could still take comfort in his presence, and I chose to do exactly that. For a little while.

I just wished I could stop myself thinking about the way he looked with Kristen, perfect and beautiful and actually female Kristen. I put myself in her place and my brain practically did backflips until I forced myself to remember that I was imagining the impossible.

God, I wanted a vacation from my body. I wanted to rip myself out of it and go spend some time in someone else, someone who could have who they wanted, be who they wanted. When we finally released each other, and James suggested I go back to the hotel a few minutes early to beat the rush, I was out of the doors and climbing into a taxi before I could talk myself out of the plan forming in my head.

If I had to be someone else for a while, then I’d be the only other person I had access to: the ordinary straight boy I’d been before all this started.

In my room, I struggled out of the dress and the bra, wiped off the makeup, stashed the boobs and the hip pads at the bottom of one of the suitcases, found a neutral-looking black top amongst the clothes Ben had provided, and pulled on the unisex jogging trousers and hoodie I’d bought the morning before. I couldn’t take off the horrible stretchy underwear unless I wanted to wear nothing at all because I hadn’t had the presence of mind to pack anything else, and all Ben had packed for me was five more pairs of the same thing. But that apart, I was ready: everything feminine stripped away, except for the hair.

I glared at the mirror in the hotel room, trying to decide if I’d hit the balance I needed: I had to make sure that if I ran into anyone I knew on the way out they’d think nothing was out of the ordinary, that I had just dressed down for the evening; but I also needed to actually look like myself, my old self, when I got far enough away, which was what the woolly hat in my pocket was for, to gather up and hide the hair extensions.

I honestly couldn’t tell any more. My face was still too smooth, and I still had the hair, which might have been throwing me off, but I couldn’t decide if the person looking back at me was a man or a woman. After Harry, I’d taken dozens of selfies with men, seen myself over and over again in their phone screens, had the contrast between my face and theirs so drummed into me that thinking of myself as looking like a woman had become almost natural in a few short (long!) hours.

I put on the woolly hat and pulled my hair into a temporary pony tail so I couldn’t see it from the front, and decided that maybe with the hair completely out of the picture the scales were tipped in favour of man, or boy, or whatever I was. Vertigo played at the edges of my consciousness; I looked away.

The hell with it, I decided. I released the hair so it fell around my shoulders once again, but I left the hat on as I stomped out of the hotel room. I just needed to get out of there.

~

My phone buzzed in my pocket, scaring me out of my reverie. I looked around for landmarks but didn’t see anything I recognised; I was somewhere in Birmingham, but I had no idea where. When I’d left the hotel I’d jammed all the hair under my hat, picked a direction, and zoned out.

I dug for my phone and unlocked it, discovering a text from Emily and one each from Ben and James.

Emily’s read: Hi Alex, it got pretty hairy out there towards the end! I’m binging Netflix and not leaving my hotel room unless there’s a nuclear apocalypse, I suggest you do the same. See you tomorrow for round two! I tapped out a quick reply to the effect that I’d gone for a walk and maybe a drink, and that I hoped she had a restful night. Her instant :) made me smile.

I leaned against a nearby street light and opened the other texts. They were essentially the same: where are you, we’re worried about you, etc. I replied to them both with one text: I’ve gone for a walk. I’m fine, I just needed some space. James, I’ll see you in the morning; Ben, I’m taking the bed, you can have the sofa. The last I’d heard on who got which room was that James was staying with Kit and Mark, and Ben was staying with me, and I wanted to reinforce that in case there was any confusion. Ben could complain about me taking the bed if he wanted but only one of us had spent the entire afternoon in heels.

I put my phone in airplane mode before either of them could reply and kept walking, enjoying the feeling of being quietly unnoticeable. I spent a few minutes getting my old voice back: clearing my throat, humming, and softly singing vowels with a hand on my chest. I wasn’t sure whether or not I could feel the chest resonance Ben had told me about, but I sounded deeper in my head. I recorded myself reciting a nonsense poem on my phone and listened to it back; I was pretty sure I sounded the way I used to. I hadn’t particularly been in the habit of recording myself before, so it was hard to tell.

It wasn’t far until the anonymous street terminated in a bar, one of those basement bars that looks like it’s undermining the much more respectable establishments squatting on top of it. The chalk board next to the entrance advertised ‘Spectrum Night’, which seemed like it meant music from the 1980s, judging by what I could hear. Still, there was probably alcohol inside, and because it was fairly early for a Friday night the queue to get in was almost nonexistent. I decided I wasn’t likely to stumble upon a better option, and got in line.

I had to show the bouncer my ID to get in — a perennial Alex problem — and he did the usual double take. I sighed, lamenting once again my inability to grow a proper beard and thus actually look my age, and wearily held out my hand so he could give my driving licence back.

“Have a good night… sir,” he said. Sarky bastard. How would he like it if he was two months off his twentieth birthday but still looked like he was bunking off school?

~

It occurred to me as I was waiting to be served that all I’d eaten that day was a cereal bar from the box Kit had passed around, so when the woman behind the bar asked my order I stuck with a light beer. I wasn’t planning on getting drunk, and it’d be easy to overshoot with so little in my stomach. She handed over the bottle and I found a table as far from the speakers as I could.

God, it was nice not being looked at. I unzipped my hoodie a little and sat back in my chair, enjoying the anonymity and sipping from my bottle. Sure, I was a little out of place in my tracksuit bottoms, like I’d gone out drinking straight from a run, but for some reason I didn’t feel bad that literally everyone else in the bar was dressed more garishly than I was.

I found myself swaying gently to the music. It was something by Madonna, but not one of the ones I knew well, so I was saved the embarrassment of half-consciously mouthing the lyrics. I stretched out my legs and wiggled my toes inside the trainers — no heels! room for my toes to actually move! — and drained my bottle.

I was on the verge of closing my eyes, I was so relaxed, when someone put another bottle down on the table in front of me. I looked up and saw a dark-haired, fair-skinned woman smiling down at me.

“Mind if I sit down?” she said. “I brought another beer as payment.”

“Sure,” I said, returning her smile and taking the beer. I took a swig as she sat down opposite me.

“I’m Vicky,” she said in what sounded like a Manchester accent.

I shook her outstretched hand. “Alex. Just visiting town.”

She grinned. “Hey, same.” She took a long drink from her own beer and propped her head up on her other hand. “So why are you here tonight?” she said. “In this bar, all alone?”

“Oh my God,” I said. “I had the longest day and I needed to get away from everyone I spent it with. So I started walking away from the hotel and ended up… here.”

She laughed. “That sounds familiar. I spent the entire afternoon travelling down here with my boss, who is a huge arsehole, so first chance I got I escaped, looked online for places that seemed okay, and came here.” She looked around the place. “But it’s kind of empty, and I’m bored, and you looked bored too, so…” She was right; the bar wasn’t exactly rammed. It wasn’t much past 7pm, though.

“I hadn’t even noticed there weren’t many people here,” I admitted. “I’m only half awake. I feel like I’m jet-lagged, but I only came up from London.”

She smiled.

I felt like I ought to make a move on her, if I really was out tonight to be the old Alex, the straight Alex, but my experience in actually starting things with women was more or less nil, and I didn’t want to risk making an arse of myself and ruining her night. So I smiled back, and drank some more of my beer.

We moved on to small talk. She was a photographer — which dispelled my nagging worry that she was in town for the expo — originally from Manchester but down from Newcastle for the next week or so. I obfuscated my own story a little, specifying that I was from London but fudging over exactly why I was in town. I told her I was being dragged around by my boss, too, and needed a break from him.

Vicky leaned closer to me as we talked, but I found myself leaning back in my chair again. I don’t know why. Something about our conversation was making me uncomfortable, but I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what. I considered that maybe it was just that I’d grown so used to pushing men away over the course of the day that I wasn’t prepared for a casual conversation with a woman, but chatting with Emily and Maria hadn’t felt strange at all. It had felt normal; this felt anything but.

The thought gave me a stab of vertigo. I dismissed it with a shake of my head; Vicky frowned.

“Are you okay?” she asked, pausing her account of a photoshoot back home in Newcastle that had gone horribly wrong.

I smiled. “I’m fine,” I said, “but I’m sorry, Vicky; I’m just really tired and I’m getting a little loopy. I think I should probably go back to my hotel room.”

“Sorry,” she said, “I’m boring you.”

“No!” I insisted. “Absolutely not. I just think that what I need more than anything else is to sleep for like a million years. And probably what you need is someone who won’t fall on their face mid-conversation.”

I went to zip up my hoodie and she pulled out her phone. “You want to exchange emails?” she asked.

“Sure.” She was nice, and fun to talk to, if I could just get over myself. She gave me her email address; I had to turn airplane mode off to send her a quick message, and I winced when the voicemail icon lit up in the notification tray. “I bet a tenner that’s my boss,” I said, showing her the notification. “Wish me luck.”

“Good luck!” she replied, sounding genuine. We shared one last smile and wished each other a good night. I went outside to wait for my Uber and listen to my voicemail; she stayed at the bar, presumably to look for a guy who wasn’t as much of a mess as me.

~

I puzzled over the encounter all the way back to the hotel, but no matter how much I thought about it I couldn’t identify why talking with Vicky had felt so strange. Comparing it to earlier times women had approached me, back when I was a supposed adult man (as opposed to whatever I was now), I wasn’t able to come up with a common thread.

The Uber driver left me alone with my thoughts, obviously sensing that I was struggling with the mysteries of the universe in her back seat; I gave her five stars.

As soon as the car pulled away I whipped off my woolly hat and headed back to my room, taking the stairs to reduce the chance of running into anyone I knew in the elevators. Back in familiar territory I was extremely uncomfortable at the idea of being seen in such a half-and-half state, and when I got back to my room I found myself almost automatically fishing the bra and the boobs out of the suitcase and putting them on. I just felt safer that way.

I didn’t put the bum pads back on, though. I’m not a masochist.

I dug another top out of the luggage — off-white, short-sleeved, and more obviously feminine than the one I’d worn out — and was struggling into it when a knock at my door kicked my adrenaline into high gear.

“Just a second!” I yelled out, retroactively pleased I’d slipped back into the higher register without issue.

I examined myself in the mirror as fast as I could. No makeup, but no facial hair either — I had to get some of that goop Ben had used on me for myself; the idea of never having to shave again was a glorious one. My hair looked… messy, like it had spent hours under a hat, but I didn’t want to brush it out as I still wasn’t confident I wouldn’t fuck up the extensions, so I found a clip and put it up, teasing a few locks out to frame my face.

I stood back, to check out my figure, which was unexciting without the bum pads on, but probably passed. I didn’t have the tits glued on but I didn’t think they were in any danger of falling out as long as I didn’t do any handstands.

“It’s James!” James yelled through the door, just before I opened it.

“I’m coming!” I shouted, doubling back. I rooted in my bag, found some lip gloss and quickly gave myself a coat. Just because I knew it couldn’t happen between us didn’t mean I couldn’t look nice.

One last quick look at myself: I’d have to do.

James, it turned out when I opened the door, was dressed almost as casually as I was. He’d swapped his suit for a teal sweater and some of those comfortable-looking trousers that I thought might have been called chinos (I have never been, like I said, a fashionista; after a few days’ pummelling from Ben I was probably more up-to-speed on women’s fashions than men’s). It didn’t matter: he still looked amazing. I stepped aside to let him through, beaming up at him like an idiot.

And I mean up: without heels on, he was like a mountain next to me.

“Did you get my message?” he said, watching me carefully as I closed the door.

I nodded. I don’t know what I’d expected, but his voicemail had actually been pretty light: he’d wished me a fun night out, reminded me to stay safe and to call him if I needed any help, and suggested I get a lot of sleep to prepare for chaos come the morning. I winced as I remembered that Saturday was 10:30 to 6pm on the show floor; a full day spent being pawed over didn’t appeal.

“So?” he continued, sitting down on the edge of the bed and kicking off his shoes. Fantastic; now the height difference in his favour was reduced by a whole half-centimetre. “Did you have a good night?”

“I had a short night,” I said, sitting down next to him. I would have sat on the sofa but it would have put us a weird distance apart and I, for one, didn’t mind being close to him. I was just glad I’d popped the boobs back in before he’d knocked; I didn’t want him to see me as a guy again. Not yet. I only hoped I didn’t need the full makeup job to fully tip the scales in the proper direction, because if I had to pop to the bathroom for fifteen minutes I’d probably have to explain myself to him after, and I wasn’t sure I could. “Went for a walk. Went to a bar. Met a girl.”

“And how did that go?” he asked. I couldn’t detect anything but honest curiosity in his voice.

I shrugged. “It was… awkward? She was nice and everything. She approached me, bought me a drink, and we talked. But it felt…” I frowned, searching through my memory. “Unnatural. Not the situation; I felt unnatural, me. Artificial. Like I was faking it.” Just thinking about it was making my gut churn. “I made my excuses and left.”

“Maybe you’re not cut out for the lesbian lifestyle,” James joked. I hit him. Not hard, just a tap on the arm, to let him know I was maybe more upset than I looked. “Sorry,” he added.

“I wasn’t there like, you know, like that,” I said, struggling with the words. “I kind of… took it all off. I went out as, uh, the old me.”

“Oh,” James said. A lot of emphasis for a single word.

“Yeah.” I was ashamed of it. I don’t know why. I couldn’t look at him. I leaned against him instead, covering the last inch or so between our bodies and resting my head on his shoulder. He responded by putting an arm around me.

“I’m surprised,” he said slowly, “you went to the trouble of putting it all back on again after.”

“All what?” I said. “Oh. Yeah, I put the boobs back on when I got back here in case anyone came to my door. I’m supposed to be a girl here, remember?”

“No…” he said quietly. I looked up at him, and he seemed puzzled. He was looking at our reflections in the mirror on the wall. “I mean, all the makeup and stuff.”

I frowned. “I didn’t. I mean, when I heard it was you I put some lip gloss on, but—” I shut myself up as soon as I heard what my idiot mouth had said, hoping James hadn’t noticed.

“You’re not wearing anything except lip gloss?” he said, looking down at me.

“Nope,” I said, still looking up at him, confused as to why he thought I was.

He smiled. “Which you put on after you knew it was me at the door,” he confirmed.

Shit. Rumbled. “I have to look nice for the boss,” I said, trying to make a joke out of it.

He laughed, but didn’t stop intently looking at me. “You do, you know,” he said quietly. “Look nice.”

I blushed. Why hadn’t Vicky done this to me? Why hadn’t Emily or Maria or Kristen? Why was my sexuality being so fucking inconvenient all of a sudden?

I think it was obvious on my face that I’d thought about Kristen, because James asked, “What is it?”

“Oh, um,” I said, looking away and stalling for time. “I just wondered why you’re alone in the hotel tonight. Or alone with me. I thought you might be out with Kristen.”

“Kristen?” he said, surprised. “Oh, she asked, but I’m…” he trailed off, then rallied, “I’m not here to meet women. Except in a professional capacity.”

I blinked, feeling stupid. “You were talking to her…” I muttered, only half-conscious of what I was saying. “I thought you were interested.”

He was silent for a little while, until I looked back up at him, at which point he made sure we were looking in each other’s eyes and said, carefully, “No.”

I swallowed, light-headed. I swayed a little on the bed, and had to put a hand out to steady myself.

“You okay?” James said.

“Yeah,” I replied, “I just haven’t eaten anything today. I think it just hit my brain.”

A sudden manic grin lit James’ face. “We can solve that,” he said. “Room service!”

~

He charged it to the company. Very decadent.

We sat nearish but not right next to each other on the bed, him cross-legged, me with mine tucked underneath me, and a spread of food in front of us. I’d put down a towel, just in case. We hadn’t ordered anything too heavy, so it was mostly sandwiches, but James hadn’t been able to resist ordering a single serving of chocolate cheesecake.

I ate happily.

“So,” James said, mouth full of sandwich like some kind of disgusting child, “what was it like being out as a guy again, after all this time?”

I poked him. “I have nineteen years’ experience of being a guy, you know,” I said. “I’ve only been doing this for a few days. But,” I added, remembering, “it did feel kind of weird.”

He grinned. “As weird as that first evening in the restaurant did?”

“Weirder.” I paused to think, and he let me. “In the restaurant, I was with you, you know? I know you and I trust you — even though I probably shouldn’t.” His grin widened. He was unrepentant. “But with Vicky—”

“Her name was Vicky?”

“Yeah. Didn’t I say? With you, it was like I had training wheels on, so even though it was new and scary it could only go so wrong. Despite your complete freak-out when we first got there.”

“Oh, yeah,” James said. “Sorry about that.”

“With Vicky it was like I was on my big-girl’s bike for the first time and I’d just been pushed down a hill. When I thought she might be coming onto me I felt completely out of control, like we were headed towards something I didn’t want.”

“You think she was coming on to you?”

I shrugged. “She bought me a drink, unprompted. I’m not great at spotting the signs, but I’m pretty sure that’s a big one.”

He was quiet for a minute, thinking. I took the opportunity to demolish another sandwich.

“How did you…” He looked awkward. “How did you go back? To, like, ‘guy mode’.”

“Big hoodie. Big hat. Changed the voice.”

He was squinting at me, like he was trying to imagine it. It made my skin crawl.

“Stop that!” I said, and almost threw my half-finished sandwich at him.

“Sorry. Just trying to imagine it. I was wondering…”

“What?” I prompted, when he didn’t finish.

“…If Vicky’s a lesbian.”

Well that gave my brain a kick.

“What do you mean?” I said slowly. I started connecting the dots in my head, though. I hadn’t been sure I had chest resonance back when I did a quick voice practice in the street, so I’d just lowered my pitch a bit; I could have just sounded like a woman with a deeper voice. I’d shoved all my hair under a hat, sure, but as I’d finally acknowledged to myself, I had to have a fairly feminine face to pull all this modelling stuff off in the first place, and without facial hair to tip the balance in the other direction…

And the bouncer had made a thing of calling me ‘sir’ after seeing my licence.

“Mother fucker,” I said.

James was grinning at me again. I really did throw my sandwich this time.

~

I saw the funny side eventually. I’d gone out to be a man for the first time in days, and fucked it up completely. A part of me wondered why I wasn’t more bothered about it, but mostly I was just embarrassed. I couldn’t stop seeing myself walking over to the table in that bar, in jogging clothes and a woolly hat; my imagination kept inserting a try-hard swagger I’d never knowingly attempted in real life, and it made me feel like an idiot.

“Don’t worry about it,” James said. “We can rediscover your manhood when all this is over. Go out to a straight bar and you can pull. I’ll be your wingman.”

The idea didn’t appeal. I shrugged. “I was never any good at pulling, anyway,” I said. “The old me’s batting average isn’t much higher than the new me’s.”

James smiled, but looked thoughtful. “You keep saying ‘the old me’,” he said. “Not, like, ‘the real me’ or something.”

I suppose I did. “It’s just the way I’ve been thinking about it lately. It’s easier to stay in character if I don’t think about going back afterwards too much. Whenever I do I get kind of… it’s like vertigo?”

“Maybe…” James started.

I raised my eyebrows at him when he just sat there, looking inward, but he shook his head.

“Want to split the cheesecake?” he said.

“Sure,” I said, grateful for the subject change. I wasn’t the biggest fan of talking to James about that kind of stuff.

He split the cheesecake into two halves with the fork, and looked expectantly at me. I spread my arms out, to say there was only one fork and I wasn’t going to eat with my hands. He smiled, sliced off a bite, and held out the fork to me.

I wasn’t going to let a cue like that go unappreciated. I leaned forward and ate the cheesecake right off the fork. I kept eye contact the whole time, clenching my stomach to keep myself from laughing.

He smiled, ate a piece himself, and offered me another one. We alternated until the cheesecake was all gone. I’d love to say that it was delicious, but honestly, I have no idea what it tasted like.

~

“Where’s Ben?” I asked. “I thought he was staying here tonight.”

We were lying on top of the bedsheets, looking up at the ceiling. I’d taken my hair out of its clip and shook it out, hoping the frizz had calmed down a little, but I wasn’t all that bothered if it hadn’t; I was too full and content.

“He found another room for the night,” James said.

“He paid for one?”

James laughed. “God, no, Alex. He met someone.”

“Oh.” I giggled. “Good for him.”

“Speaking of rooms,” James said. “I should go join Kit and Mark so I don’t wake them up stumbling in after midnight.”

I blinked sleepily. “Midnight? What time is it?”

James pointed at the alarm clock on the bedside table. The time was literally right next to my head; it was 11:52pm. I felt, as usual, a bit stupid. I put it down to intense tiredness this time.

“You don’t need to go,” I said.

Silence from my left for a few seconds. “Are you sure?” James said, sounding serious.

I yawned, one of those huge ones that makes your toes stretch. “Yeah,” I said when I was done. I was having trouble keeping my eyes open. “Just don’t molest me or anything while I’m all vulnerable.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

I must have drifted off for a few minutes, because when I came back to consciousness James had taken off his sweater to reveal — damn — a white t-shirt underneath, and was wandering aimlessly around the room while he brushed his teeth.

“Oh shit,” I muttered. I hadn’t done mine. He reached out an arm and helped me up, and I staggered into the bathroom.

By the time I got done I was even sleepier, and decided against trying to change into pyjamas, both because I’d have to get naked in front of James and because I wasn’t convinced I could actually change clothes without falling over. So I just kicked off my tracksuit bottoms, left them in a heap on the floor and climbed laboriously back into bed.

James was hovering in the middle of the room.

“Shall I take the sofa, then?” he said.

Fuck it. “You’ll be cold,” I said, and patted the pillow next to mine. “Just remember what I said about not molesting me and we won’t have any trouble.”

He took off his trousers and got in the other side of the bed without any further hesitation. I was glad: I was starting seriously to fall asleep and all this conversation was getting tricky. I rolled over to face the wall, arranged my arms under the pillow, and let my consciousness drift away.

“Alex,” James said, bringing me back after what could have been a few seconds or a few hours. I liked the way my name sounded on his lips.

“Mmm…” I said.

“You know,” he said, “maybe the reason you don’t like thinking about going back… is that you don’t want to go back.”

“Mmm…” I said. I couldn’t concentrate on what he was saying. I just wanted to make agreeable noises so he’d be quiet and let me sleep.

“You said you were having fun. Could it be more than that?”

“Mmm…” I said.

“You think maybe a part of you wants to stay this way?”

I rolled over to face him. He was still talking, and even though I wasn’t able to pick out individual words it was enough to keep me awake.

“Ssshhh,” I said. “Go to sleep…”

“Goodnight, Alex.”

The last thing I remembered was James smiling at me.