I woke to a tray of coffee and what turned out to be Marmite toast being laid gently on the bed next to me. I carefully unglued my eyelids and looked up: James, already up and dressed — although, looking more closely, he was wearing his clothes from the previous night, minus the sweater, so he didn’t win all that many points — was handing out breakfasts like a benevolent toast god.

I pushed myself up the headboard with my elbows, being careful not to rock the tray, until I managed a loose approximation of sitting up, and smiled blearily at him. I was pleased to note that my tits, which I had forgotten to take out before falling asleep, had stayed in their bra and hadn’t, for example, migrated upwards and attached themselves to my head like earmuffs. One of them was a little out of position, though, so as subtly as I could I nudged it with the inside of my upper arm until it fell back into position. How much more convenient it would be to grow my own, I reflected.

“What time is it?” I asked. I winced as I heard my voice. My throat was so dry I sounded like I’d been gargling thumb tacks — although I was still in head voice, miraculously; I was beginning to wonder if I’d have to literally relearn how to speak if I ever wanted to go back — and decided to remedy the situation with coffee. I hooked my fingers around the mug and inspected the contents: plain black, exactly as I preferred; the perfect caffeine delivery system. I slurped noisily at it.

“Seven thirty,” James said, retrieving his own coffee and drinking deeply. “So you’re in no rush to get ready. Ben will be here in about an hour.”

“Thanks for the coffee,” I said, when I came up for air.

“No problem,” he said. “I’ve had two cups already.”

I frowned at him. “How long have you been awake?”

“About an hour.”

I took another deep draught from my mug and mock-glared at him over the rim. “And you didn’t wake me?”

“You’re cute when you’re sleeping,” he said, piercing my heart with a few thousand arrows. “I couldn’t bring myself to wake you until it was absolutely necessary. Besides,” he added, oblivious to my stricken status, “I had some notes to type up for my meetings today. God, Alex, I have so many.” He pressed a hand against his chest to emphasise the enormity of the sacrifice involved in having to actually do work. “I suppose I have only myself to blame; this is all business I arranged yesterday. I should have slacked off, like you.”

“If you really want to feel hard done-by,” I said sweetly, having somewhat recovered, “you could go to those meetings in a dress.”

I groped around on the bedside table until I found my phone. James had raised the spectre of work, which meant I had to check my emails. I unlocked my phone and discovered I had one from one of James’ exes, which made my heart race until I actually read it. She hadn’t left him because he was abusive, she said, or even unpleasant; he was just far too absorbed with work and consequently deeply boring to be around. Plus he constantly cancelled dates because he was busy. Sounded like the reason my last girlfriend left, except with me there was also always an undercurrent of bedroom ineptitude.

Still, I’m cute when I’m sleeping, am I?

“Oh, hey,” I said, scrolling to the next email, “Harry’s asking us for some official quotes.”

“Harry?” James said, perching on the end of the bed and sounding strangely neutral. “Who’s that?”

“You know, the kid from Raleigh’s Journal,” I replied, smiling at the memory. He’d been kind of adorable.

“Oh, the one you were friendly with.”

“Friendly to,” I corrected. “He was just so nervous. Lots of praise for me in this email,” I added, unable to resist prodding at James a little, reminding him that I was still a good frontline employee, even when hampered by a dress that restricted movement down to the knees. “Although he spells my name with a y. I’m not sure why.”

We thought for a second, and then we both said, “Half-Life,” at the same time.

“That’s kind of flattering,” I said, “but I’m way too pale to be Alyx.”

“I’m not,” James said.

“Yes, but you’re the wrong sex!” I said, laughing.

He frowned, mock-insulted, and posed so I could see him in profile. “You don’t think I could pull off Alyx Vance?”

I squinted at him, pretending to consider it. “No, I don’t think so,” I said. “Your hair’s too short.”

I finished my coffee and started on the toast, shuffling around on the bed a little more until my back was finally vertical and my knees were level with my shoulders. “Ouch!” I muttered. My junk had taken the opportunity to remind me I hadn’t taken the stupid stretchy knickers off before I went to bed, and I’d therefore spent the entire night with my testicles locked in their little one-car garages. Probably the end of any chance I had to have kids.

“You okay?” James asked, suddenly nothing but concern.

“Just a little twinge in my back,” I lied. “Heels all day, you know? It’ll be fine. If I ever have to wear heels again after this weekend I’ll start taking yoga classes.”

“I would count it as a business expense,” James said graciously.

“Oh, what,” I said, instantly suspicious, “because you want to get me in heels every time we have something to sell?”

He smirked at me. “I wouldn’t say no. They make your legs look so good.”

He was lucky I’d finished my toast or he would have ended up with Marmite in his eye.

~

After spending far too long taking up space in my bathroom, James left for Kit and Mark’s room to fetch fresh clothes. Which still left me a half-hour or so to get ready for Ben. I judged my hair as still not requiring a wash — a relief, because I needed to properly look up how to care for hair extensions and I didn’t have that kind of time — so all I had to do was get undressed.

I wasn’t looking forward to it. Removing the top, the bra and the boobs was fine, obviously, but I hadn’t so much as touched the tucking underwear since the last time I’d had a piss, which had been an entire night’s sleep ago. I pre-winced before I started pulling them down, which turned out to be a good move because it was like I’d just stabbed myself in the crotch with a carving knife.

“Fffffffuck!” I yelled. It was beginning to look like putting the horrible knickers on in the first place was one of the stupider things I’d ever done. I felt like I’d been flattened with a hammer, which meant that washing myself down there was going to be even more unpleasant than usual; I’d never been especially fond of interacting with my genitals, so adding searing pain to the experience was unlikely to improve it. I was tempted to put on a fresh pair of the tucking underwear and ram it all right back up there to teach my junk a lesson, but for the first time in days I actually succeeded at a wisdom roll and decided I’d just wear my jogging trousers with no underpants on until the literal last minute.

I stomped off for a shower, walking like a cowboy.

~

Ben was waiting for me when I left the bathroom. I jumped half a mile in the air when I saw him, but fortunately I was wearing a robe so he didn’t get flashed. I just gave him an annoyed look instead, which was in no way diminished in its ferocity by the high-pitched yelp I’d let out moments before, and fell onto the bed.

I don’t know why Ben had a key but James didn’t. Maybe James was just more polite? No, that was probably the most outlandish thought I’d had all week, which considering its competition was saying something.

“Running late, aren’t you?” Ben said.

I didn’t have the energy to respond verbally because I was busy dying in a startled heap on the bed, so I just gave him the finger.

“Rude,” Ben commented, and started making noises consistent with unpacking torture devices from one of the suitcases. I couldn’t know for sure — I was still lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling, waiting for my heart to calm down — but it seemed like the sort of thing he would do. “Hey,” he said, “why’s James’ sweater on the sofa?”

“He stayed over last night,” I said, exactly three seconds before I realised why that was a stupid thing to say.

I sat up just in time to witness the expression on Ben’s face change from glee to stern disapproval. “And you made him sleep on the sofa,” he said. “Shame on you.”

“No,” I corrected him, “he slept in… my… bed…”

Engage brain before opening mouth, Alex.

“It wasn’t like that!” I said quickly. “He came over after I got back, we ate room service, and by the time we were done it was too late to kick him out. We didn’t do anything.”

“Pity.”

I was going to round on him, but he looked genuine.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “But what can I do about that?”

I think I looked sad because Ben stopped setting up his work area and came over to give me a hug, which turned into him leading me gently over to the cushions he’d put down so he could get me ready.

I wondered, as Ben sprayed my hair and painted my face, if my memory of James holding me during the night was from a dream, or if it had actually happened.

~

I exchanged greetings with Kit and Mark, who were finishing laying out all the stuff they’d had to pack up from our booth the day before, waved to Kristen and Maria, and accepted a friendly nudge from Emily, who waved a bag of jelly babies at me. I took one.

“Have a handful,” she said. “Stops you from getting a dry throat from talking, but doesn’t make you have to pee.”

I took three more.

Now that I was back on the show floor I was a lot more relaxed about the prospect of another day at the expo. Perhaps it was because I’d fallen further into my role — as my possible (probable?) failure to appear believably male the previous night indicated — and perhaps it was because I’d actually got some half-decent sleep. I trembled a little as I remembered exactly who I’d spent the night with, and gave myself permission to think for a few seconds about how James had looked in just his (tight) t-shirt and boxers; about how he’d smiled at me as I fell asleep.

On cue, James appeared from the staff door nearest our booth, talking with a woman I recognised as being from one of the larger companies, the ones that had spent Friday circling small outfits like ours looking for buy (or buy-out) opportunities. He saw me looking and smiled at me. I smiled back. He shook hands with the woman, walked over, and got me in a shoulder hug. I leaned in, pressing my head against him. He was warm, and pleasingly firm. My compliments to his gym membership.

“Hi, Alex,” he said, looking down at me. I liked wearing heels around him because I didn’t have to look up as far. And he’d said they made my legs look good.

“Hi, James,” I said breathily. I was absolutely aware of how I was coming across, but I didn’t care any more. If I had to be honest, and I think I’d used up all my credits when it came to lying to myself, I was enjoying playing this part.

“You look nice,” he said. I definitely did not preen.

“Thanks!” I said. “Better than I did first thing this morning, huh?” I said.

“About the same,” he replied, smirking. I stuck out my tongue at him and pirouetted out from under his arm. I was getting good in these heels. He spread his arms, pretending to look disappointed, and I winked at him.

“So,” Emily whispered, amused, “you gave him a break, then?”

“A very small break,” I whispered back, feeling a little giddy. I held up my thumb and forefinger, a centimetre apart, to indicate the exact size of the break I’d given him. She laughed. I glanced back over at James, and he returned my wink.

“Five minutes!” someone yelled above the general hubbub, and I cleared my head. Software demonstrations now, indulgences later.

~

Saturday on the show floor turned out to be less work than Friday had been. There were far more people in the hall but they were mostly members of the public, who flocked only to the larger stands. We still had a fair amount of foot traffic from bloggers and publications that hadn’t been able to make it on Friday and were interested in the esoterica the smaller booths were showing off, but even then they were mostly of the can-I-have-a-selfie-with-you variety, so I didn’t have to spend much time explaining our software solutions in detail.

By midday, James had vanished to some meeting or other, and Emily had gone on her break, so I was dealing with the small queue of selfie-hungry attendees on my own. I was getting pretty good at it, too: beckon them in, stand next to them and wait for them to arrange themselves, smile, wait for the click, and encourage them to move on immediately after; next! Mark, who was pretty tall, was covering for his boredom by playing at bouncer, standing intimidatingly close by with his arms folded. It was quite sweet of him, really. Occasionally I’d catch his eye and he’d grin at me.

I’d just dispatched the last one when I heard the clip-clop of approaching heels and sighed with relief. As accustomed as I was getting to herding horny men, it’d be nice to talk to a woman for a change; I was getting tired of nervous hover-hands. I’d almost started my welcome spiel when the face recognition circuits in my brain ticked over and I went cold.

It was Sophie, James’ cousin. The one he’d originally asked to do hair and makeup for the models, before all the me stuff happened and he enlisted Ben. What was she doing here?

Fuck. She knew me. The old me the boy me the real me who-the-fuck-ever; she knew me.

“Oh my God,” she said as she approached, “you have no idea how long it took me to find the booth. This place is huge and this map—” she brandished a pamphlet of the sort you could pick up at the front doors, “—is fudging useless! I swear I’ve been confronted with more useless gadgets and gizmos than I ever want to see in a million years. Hi!” She extended a hand to me. I took it, trying not to cringe. She’d visited the office several times, had even gone out to dinner with James and me, but didn’t seem to have recognised me so far. “I’m James’ cousin. Is he about? Mr McCain, I mean.”

Praying my head voice would be sufficiently different from my old voice, I said, “Mr McCain is in a meeting at the moment. He shouldn’t be long.” I would have been amused that I’d dropped straight into my customer service voice if I hadn’t been so tense.

“Oh, that’s fine,” Sophie said. She pulled one of the stools out from under the booth and perched on it. “I was originally going to be doing your makeup, you know,” she added, squinting at me, “until he decided he’d rather have his mate from uni do it. Seems like he did an okay job, though.”

‘An okay job’? I was offended on Ben’s behalf.

“Ben?” I said, before my survival instincts could properly kick in and tell me to just smile and nod. “Yeah, he did us both.”

“Well, I decided I wanted a holiday anyway, so I thought I’d come see my little cousin. See what he’s doing with all that money I keep hearing his dad complain about.”

I hadn’t had much exposure to James and Sophie’s family apart from James’ father, but I’d got the impression James’ decision to try his hand at making a name for himself in technology — albeit with a big pile of daddy’s cash as a starter fund — was mildly controversial in a family that tended more towards silly hats at Ascot.

I paid attention to my own internal monologue this time, and just smiled and nodded.

“So, what’s it like?” she said. “Booth babe-ing?”

I coughed delicately. “It’s ‘trade show model’, not ‘booth babe’.” For some reason I’d taken a strong dislike to the term. “And it’s mostly smiling for photographs, answering extremely simple questions, and showing off the demo hardware.” I shrugged. “Today it’s almost entirely smiling for photos.”

Sophie was still squinting at me. “You know, this is the craziest thing,” she said, “but I really feel like we’ve met before.”

I was running through possible answers when a hand that didn’t belong to either of us appeared in front of me, clutching a bag of jelly babies. Emily was apparently back from her break. I don’t know why I didn’t hear her walk up; probably I was just so focused on looking unrecognisable for Sophie.

“Hey, Alex,” Emily said, “I got you your own bag.”

“Alex?” Sophie exclaimed. I closed my eyes. “Alex fudging Brewer? I knew it!”

“Excuse us,” I said to Emily, and took Sophie by the arm. She didn’t resist; I think she was using all her energy charging up, Dragonball-style, to yell something incriminating at top volume. “Sophie, would you come with me?” I delivered the last three words through clenched teeth.

“Yes, of course,” she said in a daze.

I practically frog-marched her out through the staff door and into the same women’s toilets I’d had my minor breakdown in the day before. I checked the stalls to make sure they were all empty and then risked a look at her, preparing for an explosion of anger, or disgust, or something.

She was giggling. “Al— Alex, this is the ladies loos!”

“Yes?” I said. “Sort of goes with everything else.” I gestured down at the clothes I was wearing.

“God— God— why?”

I leaned against a sink, suddenly feeling very tired. “It’s a long story. The short version is, the models we booked fell sick, and we couldn’t get anyone else at such short notice.”

She barked a laugh. “So you just… decided you’d replace them? Just like that? And what about the other one? Is she a—?”

“No!” I said quickly. The last thing anyone wanted was Sophie trotting back out there and trying to look up Emily’s skirt. Emily especially. “It’s just me. And I didn’t decide; James suggested it.”

It was Sophie’s turn to have to prop herself up. She was laughing so hard I thought she’d collapse, so I stepped over and offered her an arm; she took it, but waved me off when she recovered.

“God,” she said. “Let me look at you.”

I didn’t know what else I could do, so I took a step back and presented myself for her approval with a nervous smile.

“Ben does good work,” she said critically. “Of course, he wasn’t exactly working with Chris Hemsworth to begin with.”

I didn’t feel I could argue with that. Chris Hemsworth had, in addition to his spectacular body, a strong jaw and nose — How did I not notice I was into men before? an idle thought interjected — whereas the best you could say about my face was that it was a nicely inoffensive oval shape; at least, that was before it turned out that all I needed to do was strip all the hair off it to pass as a woman.

“True,” I admitted.

“You said it was James’ idea?” she asked. I nodded. “Hah! You know he showed me that photo? On Facebook? From a school play or something? He kept talking about it after; I bet he was just waiting for his chance to have some fun with you.”

“He’s been kind,” I protested. “He hasn’t made fun of me.” She raised an eyebrow. “Okay, a little.”

“So,” she said, leaning forward, continuing her inspection, “what’s it like? Life on the other side of the fence?”

I shrugged. “It’s the same but the shoes are less comfortable.”

“You’re not… bothered by this?”

“No? It’s just clothes.” Oh, I was bothered, but not particularly by the clothes. “Like, it was weird at first, but I got used to it pretty quickly.” I decided not to mention the whole bisexual thing,

“In-credible,” she breathed. “How do you do the voice?”

“Ben taught me. It’s like singing, but you talk instead. It’s not that hard.” I was glossing over the arduous practice it’d taken to get there in the first place, and how difficult it had been for me to recapture it the first morning after, but something in me wanted to show off a bit.

Sophie looked… the only word for it is enraptured. “Alex, this is bloody brilliant!” she said, a little too loud. “I mean, you’re—”

I shushed her, and to her credit she allowed herself to be shushed. “Look,” I said, “you have to be careful. No-one can know about this. It’s just James and Ben and me who do, and we’ve all been working very hard to make sure it stays that way. Emily, the other model, she doesn’t know, she thinks I’m normally just kind of butch, which is why I had to take a while getting used to the heels. And neither do the engineers, Kit and Mark, or anyone else here.”

“Kit?”

“Short for Ankit. Please? Tell me you won’t tell anyone? Or fuck up pronouns around me or something.”

She gave me a look that said I was being an idiot. I was used to that look from James; it appeared to be genetic. “This isn’t my first rodeo. Let’s be clear, though: who do Emily and the engineers and everyone else think you are?”

“I don’t know about Kit and Mark,” I said, “but Emily thinks I’m basically a soft-butch geek girl who never dressed femme until this week. I told Emily I was into girls — it came up, okay?” I added, when Sophie looked like she wanted to comment.

“Why did it come up?”

“She thought James was looking at me,” I said. “I told her there was no chance, because we were old friends, he’s my boss, and I wasn’t into guys anyway.”

“Really?” Sophie was delighted. “James has been looking at you?”

“No, no no no,” I said quickly. “She thought he was. She saw things that weren’t there.”

“I see. Anything else?”

I wanted to bash my head against the bathroom wall, partly to get some relief from the idiot things I kept saying, and partly to see if any genuinely useful information that Sophie really needed to know fell out of it, but I suspected I might look crazy if I did.

“I don’t think so.”

“Well then, come on, girl,” and she beckoned at me as she started to leave the bathroom, “we need to get you back to your stage!”

I had a horrible feeling this was all going to end with her calling me ‘fierce’.

~

I let her lead me back to the booth. As we exited the staff door onto the expo floor I spotted Emily talking to James; I dreaded to think what she was telling him. She caught my eye and raised her eyebrows, and because I was just behind Sophie and thus invisible to her I mouthed, “James’ cousin,” and waggled my finger next to my head in the universal sign for ‘crazy’.

“James!” Sophie exclaimed, as we approached the booth. “How dare you try and keep me away from your expo! It’s such a…” She looked around the local area, which was practically empty; Kristen and Maria looked like they were leafing through the bumpf scattered around their booth, so they were probably bored as hell. “Such an exciting event,” she finished, not quite sticking the ‘sincere’ landing.

“Hi, Soph,” James said, sounding tired. “What are you doing here?”

She finished dragging me over and we arranged ourselves around the booth. I propped myself up against one of the sturdier bits; I was feeling unaccountably light-headed. I was fairly certain Sophie planned to milk the situation for all the awkwardness she could manage. I’d have to play along or she might dob me in just for the drama.

“I wanted to visit my cousin!” she said innocently. “And you weren’t at your booth, but then I ran into Alex here!” James closed his eyes; I felt a silent camaraderie with him. “It took me a long time to recognise her; what did you do to her?”

“He made me put on a dress, the bastard,” I said, trying to get into the spirit.

“Did it hurt?” Sophie asked with mock concern. “When you were turfed out of your Birkenstocks and dungarees and forced into normal clothes for once?” I got the feeling Sophie didn’t meet a lot of lesbians, if those were the stereotypes she reached for; she sounded like a stand-up comedian from forty years ago.

“You call this ‘normal’?” I tweaked the fabric on the skirt. “Save me, Sophie, he’s dressed me up like an idiot!”

I have no idea what Emily thought of this little display. She was looking at us like we were deranged. Fortunately, we’d given James enough time to reboot his brain.

“Soph, don’t encourage her to be mean to me,” he said. “She doesn’t need the help.”

“No, but I appreciate it,” I said. James flashed me a quick apologetic look, so I grabbed his forearm and squeezed, smiling to let him know I was okay. He rolled his eyes; I put on my best ‘Oh God Sophie’ expression.

“Sophie,” James said, taking hold of my forearm and squeezing it in return, then letting it go, “why don’t we go get some lunch and leave Alex and Emily alone so they can do their job?”

“You don’t want to come with us, Alex?” Sophie asked.

“I can’t,” I said, “I’ve got to mind the stall with Emily.”

“Then lead on, James!” Sophie announced. “Emily, it was just wonderful to meet you.”

“Likewise,” Emily managed.

James smiled at the both of us and then practically dragged his cousin away. The last thing I heard her say was, “So, how did you get Alex to dress up?”

I closed my eyes and put my full weight on the sturdy bit of the booth again. I let the nervous energy drain from my body.

“That was an experience,” Emily said.

I gestured from Emily towards the empty space where Sophie had stood, and back again. “Emily; Sophie, James’ cousin. Sophie; Emily. She’s a bit much, I know. Comes from being rich, I think; they don’t have the same shut-the-fuck-up filters the rest of us do. Everything’s a game, everyone’s just maahvellous fun.”

“Birkenstocks?” Emily asked, grinning.

“I wore sandals to work one time…” I griped.

“Well—” Emily started.

“Alex?” said a voice.

I was getting tired of people saying my name as if they’d just found out I was an alien. I almost didn’t want to look and see who it was. When I did, Vicky from the bar was staring right at me, lowering an expensive camera, an unreadable look on her face.

I realised James’ theory that Vicky had thought I was a woman when she bought me a drink was about to be tested, and slumped just a little more against the booth.

“Alex, are you okay?” Emily asked. I nodded, hoping that I was. Poor Emily; she signed up for an ordinary trade show job, and now she was stuck babysitting a crossdressing idiot who was set to break the world record for number of nervous breakdowns in a weekend.

“Alex?” Vicky said, walking up to me so she could talk quietly and still be heard. “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to startle you.”

I tried to regain my professional composure. “It’s fine,” I said. “It’s just that I’m easily startled right now. It’s not your fault.”

“Do you want to talk for a few minutes?”

I shook my head. “I really can’t,” I said. There was a large-ish group of people hanging around in the middle of the show floor, looking like they might head in our direction once they’d gotten their bearings. “I’m not leaving Emily to cover this place alone again, especially since Sophie’s still around.” I also didn’t want Sophie collaring Emily on her own. I wasn’t convinced she could hit the correct pronouns every time if she wanted to talk about me, and she would definitely want to talk about me.

“Sophie?”

“Long story.”

Vicky frowned. “Why don’t you tell me later,” she said. “Which hotel are you staying at?”

I named it.

“Same,” Vicky said. “Meet you in the bar there, seven o’clock? Just for an hour or so; I still have work stuff this evening.”

I smiled. “Sounds good,” I said, trying to put some feeling into it.

“Good.” She nodded decisively. “Um, would you mind?” She waved a hand towards the both of us and raised her camera. “I need to get some pictures of the stand…?”

Emily and I obliged with our product-demonstration poses. Vicky snapped a couple of shots, got a close-up of the demo device as I held it for her, nodded and smiled at me, and headed off with the man who was presumably her boss for the next booth.

“I am never modelling again,” I said to Emily, as soon as they were out of earshot.

“You say that now; I said exactly the same thing after my first time,” Emily said. “Although my first time was mostly just men being unpleasant. I managed to avoid dramatic repercussions until some guy I dated at uni saw me on a booth babe website.”

“Oh shit. That doesn’t sound good.”

“It didn’t go well,” she said, grinning toothily, “for him.”

I was about to ask for more details when Mark tapped me on the shoulder — it was a good thing I’d seen him approach out of the corner of my eye, because I was that jumpy I might have lamped him otherwise and badly hurt my hand — and wordlessly handed me his phone. It was James.

“Alex?” he said. The grumpy noise I made into the handset was obviously sufficient to confirm my identity, because he continued, “Sophie has agreed to leave you be for the rest of the weekend—” I sighed in relief, “—if you agree to have dinner with us tonight.”

“Do I have to?” I whined.

“I think, overall, you probably want to,” he said.

“Fine,” I said. “I’m having drinks with Vicky at seven, so make it eight-ish at the hotel restaurant.”

“Vicky…” James said, obviously having trouble remembering.

“From last night?” I prompted. “Before you came over to my room? At the bar?”

“Oh,” James exclaimed, as Emily’s eyebrows tented, “that Vicky. Did she call you?”

“She appeared,” I said flatly. “Here. She’s a photographer, and apparently we — Emily and me — are among her subjects.”

He laughed, and if he were physically present I would have kicked him the ankle with my pointy shoe, but he wasn’t so I just had to use my imagination and put my trust once again in my psychic powers. “So, uh, was I right about her?”

I sighed. “I honestly have no idea.”

“Oh,” James said, sobering up. “That could be awkward.”

“Yes,” I said. “That could be extremely awkward.”

“Take your phone,” he ordered, all trace of amusement gone, “and have my number ready to call so it’s the first thing on the screen when you unlock it. I’ll be at the bar with my phone out in front of me. Not close enough to overhear you, so you can talk about— about whatever you might need to talk about in private, but close enough that if you dial my phone I can be over at your table by the second ring.”

He’d spoken with such urgency it left me momentarily speechless. “Um,” I said, “don’t you think that’s going a little far?”

“Remember what I said about your safety?” he said. “I won’t risk it. If she already knows or finds out you were a guy and threatens to hurt you—”

“She won’t,” I said. “I’m sure.”

“I’m not,” he said, and hung up.

“Jesus,” I commented, staring at Mark’s phone. I waved it at him, dumbly, and he came to collect it.

“Okay,” Emily said, “I’m way too curious about this to mind my own business.”

I explained, keeping it brief and altering some of the details to suggest that I wasn’t sure whether or not Vicky had been coming on to me, not that I didn’t know which gender she’d read me as. Which was ridiculous, but hey; my life.

“And James wants to be at the bar to— protect you?” Emily said, puzzled. “Or because he’s jealous and he wants to see what women who come on to you look like. You know,” she added, “I think he has a point: it took her about five seconds to ask you for drinks tonight. She’s definitely coming on to you.”

“Only for an hour, though.”

“Still.”

I made an unhappy noise. At this point I wanted a friend much more than I wanted a hookup. And I really didn’t want to be thinking about this when we had photos to smile for.

“So what did you do to that guy?” I asked, hoping to force a subject change. “The one who saw you on a booth babe website?”

Emily looked a little put out, but she consented to tell the story: she screengrabbed all his messages and sent them to his mother, who had some choice things to say to him about respecting women. After that, whenever we had free time between attendees, we began swapping dating horror stories; I didn’t have to be careful about genders when it was my turn because Emily already thought I was a lesbian, or a bi woman who preferred other women, so my personal disasters went more or less unedited.

Overall, I was sufficiently diverted, both by Emily and by my bag of jelly babies, that I was spared too much time to myself to worry about whether or not Vicky knew, and what her intentions were.

~

I blessed Ben down to his cotton socks for spending so much of James’ money at Harvey Nichols. I had the contents of both suitcases spread out on the bed, looking for something nice; I wanted to look like I knew what I was doing, especially if she was going to expose me. I couldn’t put my finger on the impulse and I didn’t have time to question it, so I just went with it, eventually picking out a matching floral print silk top and midi skirt, paired with a small white shoulder bag and an absolutely gorgeous pair of white leather sandals that, despite the one-and-a-half inch heel, felt like they were kissing my feet.

I’d already taken off the slightly garish show floor makeup and I’d done my best to replicate one of Ben’s more subtle efforts. I was still terrible at eyeliner, though, so I mostly didn’t bother with it except in the outer corner. I vowed to practice when we got back to London.

In the end, I was quite pleased with the result. The clothes fit me perfectly, obviously — well, they fit me with the padding around my chest, hips and bum provided by Ben’s little accessories — and were beautifully made; and all the good parts of my hair were extensions put in by expensive hairdressers. It would have been a waste of James’ money if I hadn’t looked amazing, which I was mostly reassured by, but which also left a slightly sour taste in my mouth. I decided that when this was over I wanted to try a little shopping for myself, and see if I still looked good when someone of ordinary resources (me) was the most I had in my corner.

I retrieved my phone from where I’d left it on the bed that morning, checked the time, and opened James’ contact page before I locked it and threw it in my bag. One last look in the mirror — Alex, you’re starting to get vain — and it was time to go.

I wondered if Vicky, assuming her intentions tonight were good, would send me a copy of the photos she’d taken at the expo. As a memento.

~

Vicky was waiting for me outside the hotel bar, and smiled when she saw me. I couldn’t detect a hint of vindictiveness in her expression, and I scolded myself for doubting her intentions. She was dressed casually: blue jeans, white trainers, and a white blouse with a print pattern of what looked like little parrots on it. Her dark hair was up and she was wearing, if I was any judge, very little makeup.

Instantly I felt overdressed, but she didn’t comment. I let her take me by the arm and lead me to one of the more private corners of the bar, where we were instantly accosted by a waiter.

“Just an orange juice, please,” Vicky said to the waiter. I asked for a Diet Coke, and when we were alone again she explained, “I shouldn’t drink; I have a strategy meeting tonight and then tomorrow I have to be on the other side of the city, bright and early.”

“Same,” I said. “I’m meeting my boss for dinner after, and I’d rather be awake for it.”

I was inwardly pleased. She wasn’t likely to think of this as a date — even a quick one — if she was ordering orange juice and clarifying her excuses upfront. And there was no way she knew I was crossdressing, unless she’d absorbed the idea so calmly she hadn’t thought it worth even mentioning. I relaxed, letting the tension out of my shoulders and allowing the cushioned back of the chair to take my weight.

The waiter smoothly glided past our table, dropping off our drinks and returning to the bar. I spotted James, fiddling with his phone, ignoring his beer, positioned so he could see us out of the corner of his eye. True to his word, he was too far away to hear our conversation.

Unless he’d installed a listening app on my phone…

“Work never ends, does it?” Vicky said.

“This is… more of a social obligation,” I said, wincing. “With his cousin.”

Vicky choked on her orange juice. “Your boss isn’t trying to hook you up, is he?”

“Not with his cousin,” I said carefully. “Definitely not.” I couldn’t help smiling at the thought.

“Speaking of work,” she said, “you’re a booth babe!” She looked incredibly pleased, like she’d just turned over a rock and found a winning scratchcard underneath.

“Trade show model,” I said. “And when you said you’re a photographer, that means…”

“Technical photography, today,” she said, grinning. “Shooting the ‘exciting’ new devices for a tech website — and the booth babes, obviously; sorry, trade show models — and tomorrow is more of the same but offsite. Monday I get an actual day off, and then Tuesday we’re shooting for a local fashion designer. We’re contractors: if you can’t afford a full-time staff photographer, you hire us.”

“Sounds more interesting than modelling,” I said. “Although that’s not what I really do.”

“Modelling’s just the day job that pays the rent?”

“Actually, the day job is what I spend most of my time on, but two of the models we had booked for the expo got sick at the last minute…” I ran through my spiel, inserting the usual lies. I wondered how many more people I’d tell the My Fair Lady version of this week to by the time it was over, and laughed, having just realised why Ben had found it funny I’d chosen to recite ‘the rain in Spain’ while I was training my voice.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about it last night,” I said when I was done.

“We didn’t exactly talk for hours,” she said.

“I know, but I thought about it and deliberately didn’t tell you.” I frowned. “I made the decision to lie about it. Like I said, I’m a computer nerd and general company gopher; I came into this with some… preconceptions about models I had to drop. I guess I was worried about other people holding the same views.”

“Then you’re forgiven,” Vicky said, smiling. “But you don’t owe that kind of information to a random hookup. Which is,” she added, raising her half-finished glass to her face so she could look at me over the rim, “what I was attempting last night, by the way. Looking back, I’m not sure if you were clear on that.”

I giggled. “Yeah, I picked up on it.”

“You can stop doing the perky straight girl voice if you want, since it’s just us here,” she said, dropping the coy look and smirking.

I’d almost forgotten I’d been attempting a man’s voice — hilariously, an unconvincing one — when we’d met. “I would,” I said, “but if I drop it now I’ll worry about getting it back in time for dinner with my boss.”

“I get it,” Vicky said. “It’s hard for me to get my perky employee-of-the-month shtick back sometimes, too.” She nudged me with her free hand. “We should form a support group; we can’t be the only queer women here this weekend.”

She was smiling at me, looking so open and kind, and I suddenly felt horrible for lying to her about myself. I hated all this bullshit, I just wanted to talk to people, to be around them without either the fear of discovery or the terrible awkwardness of attempting to be a guy and suddenly having no idea how to pull it off.

I’m an open book, like I said; Vicky picked up on my reaction. “Oh, God,” she said quickly. “Sorry, if you’re not queer or gay or anything, it’s just…”

“It’s not that,” I said, defeated. “I— I don’t know what I am.”

“Is that why last night you looked like you might want to kiss me, and then you very suddenly ran away?”

“Sort of?” I drank from my Coke as I thought about what to say next. “I used to think I was attracted to women, and only women. Never gave it a second thought; it was just normal. Normal to me,” I added.

“You were never interested in guys?” Vicky asked. “Not even when you were young — well, younger? The whole compulsory heterosexuality thing?”

I added that to my list of things to Google when I had the time. “Never,” I said. “Until just a few days ago. My boss.”

“Oh.”

“Yep,” I said. “Last night, when I met you, I was still telling myself it wasn’t real, that I wasn’t into him. I went out, to try to feel normal again. But talking to you— I just felt like a fraud. Sorry.” She smiled and shook her head, to indicate an apology wasn’t necessary. “So like I said, he asked me to fill in for the models who couldn’t come, and his friend from uni dressed me up like I’ve never been dressed up before, to see if I could, you know, walk in heels, not flash people while wearing a skirt, that kind of thing.”

“Did he teach you how to talk proper?” Vicky said, putting on a mockney accent. “Like in My Fair Lady?”

Why did everyone else get psychic powers and not me?

“So we went out to dinner,” I said, ignoring her grin, “me and James — my boss. Got a bit drunk, and he kissed me, and…”

I looked down at the table. The whole day my hindbrain had been slowly processing everything I’d felt when I was around James, everything I wanted to do to him and have done to me, and had come to some conclusions that I hadn’t really dealt with yet.

No time like the present.

“And I’ve never felt anything like it before,” I finished. “Never with any girl; with anyone. So now I’m thinking, it’s not that I’m bisexual; it’s that I’m— I’m straight.” I almost said it the wrong way round. Thank God my internal copy-editor was awake. “But then as soon as I think that, I start to worry that none of it is real, that it’s just the whole, um, modelling thing. Dressing like this. Acting like this. That I’ve just got swept up in it.” I gave her an apologetic smile. “And that’s the mess you bought a beer for last night. I feel like I should pay you back.”

“Don’t,” she said, and patted me on the arm. “And I get it, I do. The first girl I was interested in, when I didn’t know I liked girls at all, was a bit of a hurdle for me. Took me a long time to realise what was going on in my head. And it turned out to be kind of a disastrous relationship! But she helped me come to terms with my bisexuality and now it’s just a part of who I am. Of course,” she added after a moment, “she transitioned after that and now he’s a guy, so maybe if he’d been the only ‘girl’ I could have kept fooling myself that I was straight, but then I met Faiza and we dated for four years, so.”

I was stuck on a word. “Transitioned?” I asked.

“Yeah, he’s a trans man. And,” she added, gesturing with her nearly-empty glass, “he didn’t work his shit out until he was twenty-two. How old are you, Alex?”

I blushed. “Nineteen.”

“Nineteen?” Vicky looked scandalised. “God, it’s a good thing we didn’t do anything, fuck. Look, do you know how many people have themselves completely figured out at nineteen? Like three smug bastards in the whole country, per year. I hate them.”

“He really didn’t figure himself out until he was twenty-two?” I asked urgently. “He didn’t know he was trans?”

“No?” she said, puzzled. “He had some stuff happen, said it ‘cracked his egg’, which as far as I know is a term trans people use for when they come out to themselves.”

“He just… worked it out one day?” I swallowed against the tinnitus.

“He said, up to that point, he’d been unhappy and uncomfortable with being a woman, and sort of low-key hated his body, but he didn’t put it together until something happened.” She shrugged. “I don’t know the details, I just saw it on Facebook. We had a bad breakup, like I said.”

“I thought they always knew…” I muttered.

Vicky touched my arm again. I withdrew it, unable to think clearly but in that moment not wanting to be touched.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

Fuck. Cards on the table time. If I had to talk about this with someone, better someone who’d be going back to Newcastle in a week, the literal other end of the country from me.

“I think I might be trans,” I whispered, and I fell into a black hole for a while.

~

“Alex?”

I hadn’t given it serious thought before. Because everyone knew transgender people knew from birth, right? Everyone knew that! So I couldn’t be trans, and therefore I had to be something else.

But now…

Even the possibility, properly considered, was daunting.

“Alex?” Vicky said again.

I looked up from the table. “Sorry,” I said. “Kind of went somewhere for a second there.”

“Yeah,” Vicky said, still looking worried. “I thought you’d blown a fuse.”

“Blew a couple, I think.”

“You said you think you might be trans?” she asked. I nodded. “Are you thinking of transitioning?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I mean, it’s been sort of bubbling under all week, but I just thought… God, I’m an idiot.” A world-class, award-winning, record-setting idiot. “I don’t know how trans people feel. I don’t know if it’s real.”

“Hey,” Vicky said, touching my arm. I didn’t move it away this time. “I don’t know loads about this stuff, but I do know that it’s not a race. And I guess now I also know that a high proportion of the lesbians I approach aren’t lesbians at all, but trans men who haven’t worked it out yet.” She smiled at me.

“It’s, uh, not like that,” I said. Was I doing this? Was I really doing this? “If I’m trans — if — it’s not in… that direction.”

“What do you mean?”

“Alex,” I said, and took a deep breath before I continued, “is short for Alexander. I’m a boy. Guy. Man.” I practically growled the last word. It had never felt so poisoned on my lips.

“Oh,” Vicky said. “Ohhh.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I always thought I was an ordinary straight guy, and then my boss gets me in a dress and five minutes later I’m blushing down to my knees when he kisses me. And,” I added, once again preparing to face down a difficult realisation, “I’m more comfortable like this than I ever was before. It’s like someone finally turned on the light and I can see properly for the first time. But I’ve been fighting it. Like last night.”

“Last night?”

“I put the hair under a hat — these are extensions, by the way — and tried to get my old voice back and go out as— as a guy.” I couldn’t look at her for this part. “I told myself I was just too involved in the role I was playing, and all I needed was to be a straight man again to get my head back on.”

I could tell Vicky was trying not to laugh. “You mean, last night you were trying to be a man?”

I smiled. “Yeah, I know. And the daft thing is, that’s basically how I always used to look. Just with scrappy stubble and a different voice. And not usually a hat.”

She squinted at me. “I can’t imagine it.”

“Good,” I said with satisfaction. “Wait; you’re not angry?”

“Angry?”

“I mean, you came onto a… guy.”

She rolled her eyes and held up a finger. “Okay, first of all, I told you I’m bi, right? I like guys, girls, nonbinary people; I really don’t care as long as they’re pretty.” She incremented the finger count to two. “And second of all, it doesn’t seem like you’re actually a guy. Inside.”

I shook my head. “I really don’t know.”

“Alex, I think guys, actual guys, they know that. Someone asks them, ‘Are you a guy?’ and they’re confident about their answer.”

“Maybe.” She was making sense and I was stubbornly resisting absorbing it. It was all too much. “I never thought about it before this week. It just— I just was.”

She smiled. “You think most straight guys would be comfortable doing what you’ve done this week? Wearing that? Being a booth babe?”

“It’s just a job,” I mumbled.

“Oh, no you don’t, young lady,” she slapped me lightly on the arm. I looked back up at her, stunned. “I am literally watching you trying to think of reasons why you can’t be trans, why you can’t be a woman. I know because I did the exact same thing when I realised I liked women. I lost a year of my life to that shit and fucked myself up good and proper. I am going to give you—” she reached into her bag, retrieved her purse, took out a business card and started to write on the back of it, “—the address of a website I found when I heard my ex transitioned and I wanted to know what was going through his head. And you’re going to go there, tonight, and read what the people there say. And maybe talk to them about your own story. Okay?”

I was helpless in the face of an attractive person giving me instructions. It was how I ended up in a dress in the first place. I put the card in my bag; it looked like she’d written a subreddit URL on it.

“Okay,” I said, smiling.

Vicky squeezed my arm. “This is normal, you know,” she said. “Lots of people transition. You’re not alone.” She glanced at her phone. “I have to go, but before I do I want you to promise me you’re going to go to that website.”

“I will,” I said. “I promise.” Like I said, I have no willpower in the face of beauty. It was probably helpful in this case.

She got up, and pulled on my arm until I got up, too. She hugged me, and I hugged her back.

“You be careful, okay?” she said. I nodded. She pulled away from me for a second, and then kissed me on the lips, gently and briefly. “Enjoy your dinner.”

I smiled. “Enjoy your strategy meeting,” I said.

“That,” she said, “is absolutely guaranteed not to happen.”