Vicky reminded me one more time to be careful, and left for her strategy meeting. I watched her go, admiring the way she filled out her jeans but realising as I did so that I wasn’t imagining what it would be like to take her clothes off, I was instead wondering how I would look in jeans like hers instead of the very expensive but rather shapeless Harvey Nicks ones Ben’s personal shopper had picked out. I’d need the bum pads, of course; Vicky’s butt was a hundred times nicer than mine was without my ‘helpers’.

I was envious of her! Perhaps a little attracted to her, sure, but mostly I wanted what she had, who she was; I didn’t want her except as a friend. Was this why no woman had ever excited me the way James did? Had I always been envious of women, and called it desire? No wonder I’d been crap in bed.

Another blindfold comes off, I thought. How many more before I was done? The transgender question was the obvious next step…

Lost in thought, I didn’t notice James had walked up until he stepped into my line of sight. I came back to reality: I was still standing right where I had been been, leaning against the table we’d been sitting at, hugging my belly, staring blankly at the double doors Vicky had left through.

“I presume it went okay,” James said teasingly, “if you already miss her so much.”

“Hmm?” I said, still not entirely in the present moment. I replayed what he said, and detected a touch of sourness in his voice despite his pleasant tone. “Oh, no, it’s not that.”

“You kissed!” he said.

“You watched!” I accused him. “You said you wouldn’t.”

“What I said was,” he replied, sitting down and depositing the two glasses he was carrying on the table, “I wouldn’t listen.”

“If you had listened,” I said, returning to my seat and pulling one of the glasses toward me, “and I’m glad you didn’t, but if you had you’d know it was the furthest thing from a romantic kiss.” I sniffed the glass; rum and Coke, like he used to drink at uni. Perhaps he was feeling nostalgic. “She was just being nice. Reassuring me. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a bit of a mess.”

“You’re not a mess,” he said enigmatically, and sipped his rum and Coke. Before I could interrogate him, he added, “Reassuring you about what?”

He was using his neutral voice, which meant he was pressing down hard on his emotions. I usually heard it when he was talking to soon-to-be- or just-recently-become-ex-girlfriends on the phone.

“She brought something up that was… difficult for me to face,” I said carefully.

“What was it?” he pressed.

Did I really want to get into this with him? Right now? In the hotel bar? No. “Just some stuff,” I said. “Stuff I need a chance to properly think about before I can talk about it.”

“But you talked about it with her?” he said, frowning.

“Like I said, she brought it up.” Was he upset that I wasn’t sharing?

“Hmm,” he said. Yeah, he was upset.

His hand was resting on the table next to his glass. I took it and squeezed it until he looked at me. I tried to ignore his flinch when I’d touched him. “I promise I’ll tell you,” I said when his eyes finally met mine, “if you give me a little time to think about it?” I tried a reassuring smile.

I swear his pupils dilated. “Um,” he said, his face losing all the little signs that he was controlling his expression. “You can’t tell me what it’s about, even a little?”

“Patience,” I said.

He was still looking at me kind of strange, like he didn’t know what to think, so I had some rum and Coke and let him.

“James?” I prompted, after he’d been quiet for perhaps a minute. “Are you okay?”

He shook himself. “Yes,” he said. “Sorry. Sophie rattled me earlier, but I was so busy with work I didn’t have a chance to think about what she said. You’re just kind of… bringing it all up again.”

James went quiet again, so I had another sip and propped my chin up on my wrist to look at him properly. I was rather tired, and the bit of my brain that was usually pretty good at decoding James when he was being mysterious apparently needed new batteries.

“What did she say?” I asked, when it looked like he was going to spend another full minute staring at me without saying anything. It was either that or give him that kick I’d fantasised about earlier, but my white sandals weren’t anything like as tough as my work shoes, and I liked them more and thus didn’t want to break them against his stubborn calves.

“Hm?” he said. I very nearly kicked him anyway; he could buy me a new pair if it came to it. “Oh, it’s really nothing I want to talk about right now,” he added, sounding more confident and James-like than he had the whole time he’d been at my table.

Fair’s fair, I supposed. “Let’s agree,” I said, “to tell each other what’s bothering us after we’ve got done thinking about it. Later sometime, or tomorrow. If we’re both stewing on something, then we both get some peace and quiet after dinner to work on it. Okay?”

He shook himself, visibly returning to the James I knew and— knew. “Oh, shit,” he said, “for a moment I forgot about dinner with Sophie.”

“Lucky you,” I said sourly. “It’s been on my mind for hours. But let’s agree, yes? To put our stuff, whatever it is, on the back burner until we’ve survived dinner? And talk about it with each other only when we’re ready?”

I was still holding his hand; he covered mine with his free hand, sandwiching it in his warmth. “Okay,” he said, smiling. “By the way,” he added, “you look fucking amazing.”

“Thanks,” I said, returning his smile and willing myself not to blush. The heat I felt in my cheeks suggested I had, as usual, failed. “I kind of… wanted to look nice tonight.” I’d chosen this: picked the outfit, done my own makeup, and been pleased with the results. No sense in even trying to deny it any more.

“Do I— do you have Ben to thank for that?”

“Nope,” I said, grinning. “Well, his personal shopper bought the clothes, obviously. But I picked them out, did my face, and so on.” I angled my chin to give him a good view of my face. “I think I’ve got pretty good at it.”

He nodded. “Really good.”

We sat in silence for a moment. I don’t know about James, but I was enjoying a bit of a break from disasters and huge questions about my identity. It was nice just to be in his company again, and I was glad to see he seemed to have gotten over whatever reticence had made him flinch when I held his hand. Spending time with James wasn’t how it used to be; we seemed both closer than ever and further away, more apt to touch each other and yet more careful about what we said. I didn’t mind, though.

It was worth it, it was all worth it, just to be able to look in his eyes and know, at last, unequivocally, what I wanted.

His phone alarm chimed. I sighed; it would have been nice for the moment to have lasted a little longer.

“Dinner time,” James said, letting go of my hand and standing up. As an apparent afterthought he drained his glass.

I left mine half-finished on the table. My body was already flirting with exhaustion, and I didn’t want to add drunkenness to the shit it would have to keep me upright through. As it was, when I got out of my seat I must have stepped oddly on my heel because I wobbled a little.

Before I’d even worked out what was going on, James had a steadying arm around my waist. I let him take my weight for a moment so I could relocate my centre of gravity without any more risk to my verticality. And because I liked the way it felt when he had his arm around me.

“Forgot I was wearing these for a second,” I explained, waggling a foot to show off the sandals.

“I thought you were used to heels by now,” James teased, yet to let go of me.

“I’m used to them, for sure,” I said. “But I’m forgetful.”

“Would you like a little help getting to the restaurant?”

Honestly? Yes. I was more tired than I’d realised. “It couldn’t hurt,” I said.

He released me, but before I could be disappointed he presented his arm to me, like a real gentleman. I linked arms with him and let him lead me out of the bar.

~

Sophie’s reaction, when she saw us walking arm-in-arm into the restaurant, was contained entirely within her eyebrows. But between them they did a lot of work. I wondered if James had persuaded her to keep her voice down in polite company, but then I remembered: the rich are trained to be decorous in restaurants; it was only in the wider world, among the plebs, that they really let rip.

She stood up as we approached, walking towards us and opening her arms. James let me go and Sophie and I embraced and exchanged cheek kisses. She stepped back from me in the same way Vicky had, and looked me over.

“You look fantastic, Alex!” she said.

“You too,” I replied. She really did. Slightly overdressed, perhaps, for a mid-priced hotel restaurant, but I had no real room to talk there. Sophie wore a midi dress, similar to the one I’d worn that first night but in black and probably worth ten times as much, and paired it with a simple but stunning pair of black sandals with a criss-cross pattern up her calves and a spike heel of sufficient height it made me wince.

I still thought James was the better-looking of the two, though, even discounting my bias. He was wearing another suit from the Very Expensive collection by Georgio Expensivo (I’m a fashion ingénue but I learn fast). Thankfully for the sake for my equilibrium it wasn’t the charcoal star-of-my-wet-dreams suit; this one was navy blue with matching tie over a white shirt. I felt a familiar stab of lust when I looked at him in tailored clothing — accompanied by a stab of pain from my much-abused dick, just letting me know in case I’d forgotten that it was jammed up against my body and not having the greatest time — but I was also a little sorry for him that his options were limited, in such an environment, to various flavours of fitted suit, when I got to be wrapped in silk.

Sophie had gotten us a spot at the edge of the dining area: three soft-backed chairs around a circular table, so we could all be equidistant from each other. She gestured towards the chair that backed against the wall and, walking perilously unaided for the first time in an hour or so, I made it to my seat without falling down or even visibly wobbling. I appreciated the wall behind me — enough people had scared the shit out of me over the last few days by poking or tapping on me from behind that I was beginning to want a portable one to take everywhere with me — but it did mean I was effectively boxed in by McCains on both sides.

Well, Sophie was a Lincoln-McCain. Same difference.

“You really are adorable, Alex,” Sophie gushed, when we were all in our places and she could make a proper start on embarrassing the shit out of us without disturbing our fellow diners. “How long did all that take you?”

“Give her a break, Soph,” James said.

“I am giving her a break!” she insisted, with an emphasis on the pronoun so slight I’m not sure someone who wasn’t listening out for it would have detected it. “I’m being nice!” She directed her attention back to me. “Who picked out that gorgeous outfit for you, Alex?”

“I did,” I said, “all by myself.”

“And those curves,” she said, “are they real?” She had to know there was no way they could be.

“Sophie!” James whispered. “Remember what I said?”

She sighed. “Yes?”

“What did you say to her?” I asked him.

“He said,” Sophie announced, “you were having a hard enough time of it without me—” she placed an innocent hand on her chest, “—causing a fuss around you. So I should lay off. But you’re doing so well! Nobody would know—”

“Soph,” James hissed.

“—that you’d never modelled before,” she finished smoothly.

“Well, I haven’t,” I said, “and however relaxed I might appear to be I’ve running kind of nervy all weekend, so a little consideration would be nice.”

“Fine,” she said, dialling down the attitude just a little. I didn’t know what had gotten into her; she was usually a bit pushy, the way she had been in the afternoon, but tonight she had an undercurrent of something I couldn’t identify. It was making me antsy. “I just think it’s a little unfair,” she continued, “that you look so good, considering, you know…”

She left the dot-dot-dot hanging. I picked it up. “Considering what?” I asked sweetly. “And in what way is it ‘unfair’? What advantages do you think I have? How much did you risk when you put on that nice dress this evening?”

“I just hope my cousin remembers what we talked about,” she said, turning her smile on James, who flinched like he had when I’d touched his hand. I wanted to intercept that smile, like a bodyguard jumping in front of a bullet.

“I remember,” James said hesitantly. Under the table, out of sight of Sophie, he took my hand and squeezed it. I took it to mean that she was referring to the same thing he hadn’t wanted to talk about earlier, and that I shouldn’t raise the subject with her at the table. I was about to return the gesture when he abruptly dropped my hand and directed all of his attention conspicuously at the menu.

“Are you ready to order?” asked the waiter, who had somehow managed to sneak up on me despite being in my direct line of sight. Either this place sent their waitstaff to a better class of stealth combat school than Pizza Express did or I was even less alert than I thought I was. Suddenly I really wanted to get the whole dinner over with and hide in my hotel room for a week or two. I had some serious thinking to do, and this was holding me up, increasing the likelihood that I’d pass out as soon as I got back to my room. I didn’t want to have to get through another whole day with such a heavy question hanging over my head.

“Not just yet,” James said, smoothly switching into Rich Guy Mode — he sat up straighter and I swear I heard a little beep in his head as all the Polite Bullshit circuits clicked on — and giving the waiter a professional smile. “May we have a wine for the table while we decide?” He scanned the wine list on the back of the menu and named a bottle which turned out to be worth more than my best pair of (men’s) shoes.

The waiter nodded and melted back into waitspace.

James’ shoulders sagged again. “Can you please be nice?” he said to Sophie.

“I’m just making observations!” she protested.

“Make yourself useful and observe the menu,” James said. “It’s getting late and I’m hungry.”

We all studied the menu. I assumed James and Sophie were getting more sense out of it than I was; they discussed the options with all the impression of knowing what the hell they were talking about, while I squinted at my copy and wondered what a ‘tomato concasse’ was, and what you did to cabbage and apples to make a ‘jus’. When the waiter returned bearing wine — James did the tasting routine again — I ordered the chicken, confident enough in my deduction that the ‘frites’ it came with were something I’d be reasonably happy about putting in my mouth.

My bladder sent an interrupt to my brain shortly after we ordered; it had apparently got done working on my Diet Coke and needed some attention paid to it.

“If you’ll please excuse me,” I said to the table, code-switching (badly) into Posh, the way I sometimes did around rich people, “I must use the ladies’.”

Before I’d even stood up, James was pushing back on his chair, creating some space between him and the table, inviting me through the gap. I smiled at him gratefully and manoeuvred myself past him, trying not to bash him in the face with my arse. If I denied I didn’t take at least some pleasure from pressing my legs against his as I climbed over him, I’d make a liar out of myself; and when he touched his hand against my thigh to help steady me I almost passed out from the electric shock.

I was halfway to the bathroom when I saw Sophie following me. Nothing I could do about that except perhaps run screaming out of the room, and at no point over the past few days that I’d contemplated that had I actually followed through.

“I have to ask,” she said, as soon as the door to the ladies’ closed behind us, “where on earth are you putting your dick?”

“Jesus, Sophie!” I said as my heart jump-started itself into full-on panic mode. I quickly checked under the cubicles, and luckily we were either alone or the women in the stalls had sensed incoming drama and lifted their feet out of view so they could listen in undisturbed. “What are you doing?”

I didn’t actually wait for her to answer because I was quite desperate for a piss and I still needed to disassemble my complicated underwear before I could relieve myself. I picked a stall and slammed its door, harder than I intended.

“What am I doing?” Sophie asked, aggrieved. “What are you doing?”

“What do you even mean?” I snapped. Lift up skirt, lift up bum pads, pull down knickers — fuck, too fast, holy shit that hurt — and relax. Aaaaaah. “If you have a problem with me, please say what it is and don’t keep me in any more suspense!”

I heard her enter the stall next to mine. At least she actually needed to go and hadn’t followed me to the bathroom solely to make my life worse.

“I can see you flirting with James, you know,” she said.

“Sophie, for fuck’s sake,” I sighed, “we’re friends. We’ve known each other for years. I’ve probably spent more time with him than anyone apart from Ben and his immediate family. We’re close, that’s all.”

“You walked in arm-in-arm!” she snapped.

“I’m tired, and he was helping me walk,” I said.

“Oh, how convenient.”

“Don’t forget, I’ve only been wearing heels a few days.”

“I saw you touching each other under the table! And earlier, at the expo! Admit it: you’re all over him. You can’t tell me there were reasonable explanations for that.”

I really wanted to bite something. “You know what?” I said. “Fine. You’re absolutely right: I’m into him. I always have been. You know what that makes me? A gay man.” Okay, so if I accepted Vicky’s premise that I might be a trans woman — a big if, but not necessarily an outlandish one — then I was outright lying here. But Sophie didn’t seem like she was going to drop this unless I made her. “And you know what James is? He’s straight, Sophie.” I tried not to be upset about that. “He made it through university rooming with a gay man; five days with me in a dress is child’s play. I’m not going to turn him gay, if that’s what you’re so bothered about.”

“Jesus, I’m not bothered,” Sophie said, less sure of herself.

“You sound bothered.”

She was silent for a moment. I used the time to finish my business and clean myself so I could strap everything back up again.

“Fuck,” Sophie said, much more quietly than before. I raised an involuntary eyebrow; it wasn’t like her to swear. “I’m sorry, Alex.”

Okay, now I was confused. I finished arranging myself, flushed and exited my stall. Sophie was still in hers, but either she was the stealthiest pisser in the world or she was just sitting there with her dress hitched up, doing nothing. I washed my hands while I waited for whatever was coming next.

“I’m protective,” she said, after a good long while. “Do you have any family around your age?”

“Not really,” I said. “I have a cousin who’s twelve. That’s it.”

Sophie snorted. “That’s about the age gap between James and I,” she said. “Our families are very close. I watched him grow up. Watched him grow distant from his parents. Watched him escape.”

“Escape?” I asked.

“You’ve met his father?”

“Yes,” I said. “I’m, um, not a fan.” My dad had known James’ mother for years, through the church. When she married James’ father and moved away our two families had stayed in touch, and she’d brought much of her extended family with her on her occasional visits, but it wasn’t until I’d started at McCain Applied Computing that I finally met his dad.

I heard a flush, and a moment later Sophie emerged, tear tracks on her cheeks, eye makeup messed up.

“Fuck, Sophie—” I said.

“It’s okay,” she interrupted. She concentrated on washing her hands, and then leaned heavily against the sinks. “I’m just— I’m protective of James, like I said. And he’s managed what I never did, which is to just step away from all our family bullshit. I built up an idealised version of his life in my head, and when I saw how you two behave around each other…”

“I’m not who you pictured for him?” I suggested. It hurt.

“It’s not even that,” Sophie said, miserable. “We talked about you at lunch, you know. I… rather confronted him, I’m afraid. Told him he was just playing with you, that you were way too easygoing and receptive to all this, and he was just taking advantage.” I went cold. That sounded a little too much like what I’d said to James, back at the office, when I was angry as hell at him. “He insisted he was trying to help you through a difficult time and that’s all it was, but… Alex, he was too defensive.”

“Of himself?”

“Of you,” she said shortly. “He barely spent any time at all defending himself. The way he talks about you, Alex…” She sighed. “I think he loves you.”

“Um,” I said. It was all I could manage. I started feeling dizzy again.

“But not as a man,” she said. “I would keep calling you ‘he’ — I think I was trying to drum it into his head what you are, because at this point I was starting to think you were manipulating him—”

“Manipulating him?” I interrupted. I couldn’t help it.

She smiled weakly at me. “Look at yourself,” she said. “You’re dressed in expensive clothes he bought for you, you’re prettier than most girls I know, and you’re way too good at this for it to be your first time. I…” She looked away, at the floor. “I thought maybe you were after his money, or something. I’m sorry; it sounds stupid when I say it out loud.”

“To be clear,” I said, “I’m a complete rookie at… whatever this thing I’m doing is. Except for that school play, I suppose. I’m not a— a—” Words failed me.

“An en femme fatale?” she asked, grinning. If there was a joke there it was beyond me. “Never mind,” she muttered.

“What do you mean,” I asked carefully, “that he was defending me?”

“Oh. Yes. I kept calling you ‘he’ and ‘him’ and all that, and he kept correcting me. Over and over. ‘She’s a woman, show her some respect,’ that kind of thing. He got quite angry about it.”

I sighed. “That’s just—”

“Don’t say it’s for your safety,” she said sharply. “It’s not that. Well, it is, but it’s more than that. It’s important to him that he thinks of you as a woman, Alex. He’s falling in love with the woman he sees. And that scares me, still.”

“Because I’m not a woman?” I said bitterly.

“Aren’t you?” Sophie asked. “You’re not like any gay man I’ve ever met. You’re not like any man I’ve ever met full stop. So what are you?”

It was my turn to look away. “I don’t know,” I whispered. “I’d never thought about it before.” I laughed drily. “It had never come up. But now, with all this… It’s making me ask questions about myself I never even knew to ask. It’s fucking terrifying, Sophie.”

“I’m sorry, Alex,” she said. “I walked into this whole complicated situation and stuck my size sevens right in the middle of it. Making assumptions. Fuck.” She kicked the wall. “I’ve become my mother. You know why I’m twenty-nine and still single?” I shook my head. “Because my mother was a total bitch to every guy I brought home when I was younger. They didn’t make enough money, or they were ‘too rough’, or they just weren’t right for whatever reason. Like James did, I got away from my parents, but it took me a lot longer, and I internalised a lot of what she said. So says my therapist.” She gave me a weak smile. “I thought I was just a danger to myself. Turns out I’m projecting all that shit onto James. But I have to know,” she added, standing up straight and grabbing me gently but firmly around the upper arm, “if you’re going to hurt him.”

I looked her right in the eye. “The last thing I want is to hurt him.”

“Good,” she said, easing the pressure on my arm a little. “Look, you’ve obviously got more going on in that head of yours that I realised. I thought it was like a game to you. And then when James was really obviously infatuated…” She trailed off, shaking her head.

“You thought I was playing with him,” I finished for her. “I’m not. And I get it; you don’t want him hurt. But—” and this was the point where I had to confront the other thing she'd said, “—you say he’s falling in love with the woman he sees when he looks at me?” She nodded. “Jesus,” I commented, and lost control of my knees. Sophie’s grip on my arm hardened again, and she took another step towards me, supporting my weight. I didn’t fall.

“You really didn’t know?” she asked, smiling softly.

“I didn’t,” I whispered. “I mean, I thought, maybe, but it was such a dream. I didn’t want to hope.”

“I suppose the question is,” she said, “whether the girl he sees in you is real or not.”

I closed my eyes. “She might be.”

The bathroom door opened and made us both jump. I half-expected to see James poking his head in, but it was just an older woman, who ignored us and went straight into a stall.

“Good enough for now,” Sophie said quietly, and gave me a quick embrace before letting me go. “You’ll figure things out before you let anything happen between you, yes?” I nodded. “Good girl.” She looked at herself in the mirror. “Fudge; I’m all messed up. Will you help me?”

“I mean, I’m still practicing,” I said. “But sure.”

~

James’ eyes practically popped out of their sockets when Sophie and I walked out of the bathroom arm-in-arm. Sophie’s idea: a cheeky reference to the way James and I had entered the restaurant.

“The key to dealing with men,” Sophie had explained as I repaired her mascara, “is to keep them off-balance. If he thinks we’ve been talking about him, he’ll feel like we’ve got him on the back foot.”

We were alone in the bathroom again at this point, having dawdled a little fixing her makeup so we could eke out a little more privacy. Sophie, having got done with her interrogation, had moved on to advice.

“We have been talking about him,” I pointed out.

“Mostly about you,” she said.

“It seems a little unfair,” I said.

“No,” Sophie said sternly, holding a finger up in my face. “There’s way too much power in his court right now. He’s your boss, he’s got money, he’s straight…”

“Is he really?” I asked, closing the mascara and handing it back. “If he’s into me, how can he be straight?”

“Because he sees you as a woman, Alex.” She punctuated my name by bonking me on the head with the mascara. “Whether you are or not is something you need to work out, but as far as he’s concerned, you are. So you need to take a little control of the situation. Especially because you need to slow things down a bit so you can get a chance to think.”

“Okay,” I said. “How?”

“I’ve seen the way he looks at you,” she said. “I bet every time you touch him he gets a semi. So, for now, stop touching him. Don’t take his arm, don’t hold his hand, don’t get out of your chair by sliding your arse over his crotch.”

I blushed. “He—” I started.

“I know he basically invited you to do that,” Sophie interrupted. “He’s a man; he’s controlled by his knob. Be the adult in the room and don’t take the opportunities he puts in front of you. However much you want to; and I know you want to,” she added with a grin. “Ease up on the physical contact until you get the time you need to think about—” the door to the bathroom opened again, reducing us to communicating in code, “—about what you need to think about.”

“Okay,” I said, nodding. It was good advice. I had been indulging myself more or less without any idea of where I was taking things, I suppose because I didn’t believe they could go any further than just flirting. “You’re really okay with… with…” I couldn’t bring myself to say it.

“I’m okay with it if it’s what he wants — if it’s what both of you want — and if it’s real. But I mean it: if you break his heart I’ll be mad at you.” She narrowed her eyes as she inspected me closely. “I don’t think you will.”

We escorted each other back to our table. Abiding by our conversation I took the non-James route to my chair. It was a sacrifice, but a necessary one. If Sophie was right, and James really was attracted to the woman he saw in me, I owed it to him and to myself to figure out if she was actually real before I acted on it.

I needed a barometer. I needed to talk to trans people.

~

I got through the meal on autopilot. I had far too much to think about to really taste my food. James tried to touch me a few times — casually, like with the quick hand-grasp from earlier — but I fended him off every time, smiling to let him know it wasn’t out of malice. I hoped it got through.

I escaped as quickly as politeness allowed, picked up a Red Bull from a vending machine on the way through the lobby — I’d had only one glass of wine, but in concert with the half-finished rum and Coke and my encroaching exhaustion it was enough to impede my concentration — and leaped for a closing elevator door, almost colliding with the man inside.

“Hi,” he said.

I checked him out in the mirrored elevator wall. I put him in his early forties, and thus far too old to be directing the hopeful leer he had on his face at a nineteen year-old woman.

“Hi,” I said, trying to inject as much finality into the syllable as I could.

“Which floor?” he asked, with his hand hovering over the panel so I couldn’t hit the number myself.

“Fourth,” I said. Something inside me — the same part of me that was calling me an idiot for getting into a lift without checking its contents first — made me lie. I could always hop down a flight of stairs when I got to the fourth floor.

“Ah!” he said, delighted. “Same as me.”

Naturally, I said to myself.

“My name’s Frank,” he said. “I’m here for the expo that’s in town.”

Naturally times fucking two. “I’m here meeting my husband,” I said, having decided to let the part of me that thought the rest of me was a dumbass control my mouth. It could probably do a better job.

“Ah,” he said again, rather more crestfallen this time. Were men always this obvious? Or was it just the creeps? Who hits on someone in a fucking lift?

We rode the elevator in silence after that. I started second-guessing myself immediately, telling myself I was being rude to a perfectly normal man who was just being perfectly nice and was just — I checked — perfectly looking at my arse in the mirrored wall.

When we got to the fourth floor I stepped back to let him out first, and then hit a number on the panel as soon as I was free to.

“I forgot something,” I said. “Have a nice evening.”

The doors closed on his sad little face.

Did I really want to be a woman, I asked myself as I waited for the elevator to spit me out at the correct floor, if that’s the sort of attention I have to look forward to?

~

I set myself up at the hotel room’s tiny desk, the one with the lighted mirror, and arranged in front of me my work laptop, my Red Bull, Vicky’s card, and my encroaching sense of despair. I couldn’t get the encounter with the man out of my head. He’d looked at me and looked at me and looked at me, in a way I’d thought I was used to after two days being on show at the expo. But in a confined space, with no-one else around, it had been very different.

“Don’t lose heart,” I said to myself. “Just learn from it.”

I talk to myself when I’m rattled.

I booted the laptop, tapped in the Reddit URL Vicky had given me, and settled down to read.

~

Half-an-hour later and I was no closer to an answer. Sure, trans people were far more varied than I’d expected — and, yes, many of them hadn’t realised they were trans until they were my age or older, which was a big kick in the face to my theory that I couldn’t be trans because I hadn’t known all my life — but I was having difficulty applying their experiences to my own. I’d just come to the conclusion that I needed to register a throwaway account so I could talk to someone when my phone screen lit up with an email notification.

It was Vicky, forwarding the photos she’d taken of me at the expo. I opened one.

By this point I’d seen myself in mirrors, car windows, reflective walls, and the phone screens of random guys as they took selfies with me, but something about the photo was different. I was just there, chatting with Emily — Vicky must have snuck some candid shots when I wasn’t looking — and I looked so perfectly at ease it made my heart ache. In a daze I thumbed through the other photos, and they were all like that: there stood a normal woman, albeit in a very silly dress, and she looked like she belonged. She looked real.

I remembered seeing other photos of myself, from before, and how uncomfortable they’d always made me feel. I’d always thought I was just another self-conscious nerd who didn’t like having his picture taken; I’d thought everyone who wasn’t supremely confident in their own appearance felt like that. But seeing these photos instantly recontextualised every other photo of myself I’d ever seen.

It turns out it isn’t normal for your skin to crawl when you see yourself.

I had to talk to someone. I registered a fresh Reddit account and thought about what I needed to say.

~

[-] donut_appreciator
dude that’s the most egg thing I’ve ever read in my life

[-] random_throwaway_484357
‘Egg thing’?

[-] donut_appreciator
you don’t know what an egg is?

okay so an egg is basically a trans person who doesn’t know they’re trans yet

and you’re like making this big post about how basically you’ve been living as a woman for like three whole days now and you’ve never felt as comfortable or as accepted in your life

and immediately after typing all that you’re like “help I don’t know if I’m trans”

which is the most classic egg thing ever

like with most eggs it’s like they’re looking wistfully at girls or boys or whichever and wishing they could be like that but then write it off as perfectly normal curiosity, the sort of thing everyone feels

like it’s the main feature of being an egg

in your head you turn very obviously trans experiences into “well that’s just how everyone feels”

“every man hates being a man and secretly wishes they were a girl, that’s just what it means to be man” sort of thing

but you basically transitioned three days ago and you’re happier than you’ve ever been and you’re STILL trying to make excuses

there’s a big flashing neon sign up in your face that says YES YOU ARE TRANS and there are like musicians and singers and backup dancers all on the theme of YOU ARE A GIRL and you’re looking at the whole stage show like “yeah, but what if I’m not?”

[-] random_throwaway_484357
But I’ll be going home in less than two days and taking all this off.

What if when I do that it feels okay?

[-] donut_appreciator
do you WANT to do that?

or do you feel like you SHOULD do that?

[-] random_throwaway_484357
I have no idea. Both?

[-] donut_appreciator
ok well first of all fuck “should”

if all of us did what we “should” do then I’d be a miserable girl still living with my mum and spending all my time playing video games in the dark

instead of being a happy guy living with my dad and spending all my time playing video games but with the curtains open this time

(I’m recovering from top surgery)

“should” is the word we use when what we NEED conflicts with what other people WANT from us

except from what you said it sounds like the people around you are pretty chill with the idea that you’re a girl

so the biggest obstacle here is you

and “should”

[-] random_throwaway_484357
But that’s the thing, what if when I stop doing this I realise I was just caught up in the novelty of it all? In the way dressing and acting like this makes me feel?

[-] donut_appreciator
how does it make you feel?

[-] random_throwaway_484357
Happy, I think. But that could just be from getting out of my rut.

[-] donut_appreciator
you’re making excuses

it’s a funny thing, when people treat us as who we really are, it tends to make us happy

and when WE let OURSELVES be who we really are, it tends to make us happy

bottom line:

IF there were no obstacles in your way, no-one to tell you what to do or who to be, if you could just flip a switch and be a woman forever, would you do it?

don’t think just answer

[-] random_throwaway_484357
Yes.

[-] donut_appreciator
https://urlshorti.fy/2tx34

My vision swam as I stared at the single word I’d typed. Was I really that certain? I pictured myself returning to my life as ‘old’ Alex and realised I could imagine no future for him. Sure, he’d keep working at McCain Applied Computing, he’d make some money if the company did well or he’d have to find another job if it went under, and maybe at some point one of the occasional women who took an interest in him would stick around, but it didn’t look like a life; it was a series of sketches, empty snapshots of an existence with no meaning. Alex-the-guy would work and work and eventually die.

I pictured remaining as I was, committing to it, becoming a woman for real, and saw a future. I found myself imagining day-to-day life, getting caught up in the details of how I would redecorate my nasty little apartment, where and when I would go shopping. I imagined hanging out with Ben and Sophie and Emily and, yes, I definitely imagined a relationship with James, as unlikely as that still seemed despite Sophie’s claims. I saw a life. Sure, I’d have to get treatment or whatever, but if trans people managed it… if other trans people managed it, it had to be do-able.

The link took me to an offsite FAQ with the title, “So your egg cracked. What now? (UK edition)”. It laid out the paths to treatment like they were three marathon runners, from slowest to fastest. Slowest, with a timetable of at least a year before treatment could start and a warning that it could be considerably longer, was going through the NHS. In the middle, at up to six months to treatment, was a guide to how to arrange an appointment with one of a small brace of private doctors. Fastest, at a couple of weeks and with a handful of warnings attached, was just going online and buying the requisite medication from an overseas pharmacy.

[-] random_throwaway_484357
Thanks for the link! It’s all still pretty overwhelming though.

[-] donut_appreciator
well I mean you don’t have to make any decisions right away

but remember

even if right now you’re lucky enough to be able to pass with just some makeup and rubber tits, that WILL NOT LAST

unless you have a condition that makes you insensitive to testosterone, which is possible but far from guaranteed, then YOU WILL start to masculinise sooner or later

it happens to everyone

it’s probably already happening for you in little ways

I started T at 18 and I wish I’d started earlier

[-] random_throwaway_484357
So I’m basically sitting on a ticking clock?

[-] donut_appreciator
More like a ticking time bomb.

[-] random_throwaway_484357
You think I should just buy the medication online?

[-] donut_appreciator
it’s not ideal like at all

ideally you’d have someone take your bloods and work out an exact treatment regimen for you

and then you’d come back every six months for more blood tests to make sure you’re not over or under dosing

but what ACTUALLY happens for most trans people in this country on the NHS is we just get put on the same dose as everyone else and then blood tests happen later

so if you buy off the internet you’re not ACTUALLY doing anything the NHS wouldn’t do for you, you just don’t have like the official rubber stamp to get your HRT for cheap at the corner pharmacy

[-] random_throwaway_484357
But wouldn’t it be safer to see a doctor who can diagnose me? I need to know I’m not about to make a terrible mistake, surely?

[-] donut_appreciator
lol

ask any british trans person on here

the diagnostic procedure comes down to, “do you have a persistent wish to live as the opposite gender” which is what I asked you earlier but with the word persistent in it

[-] random_throwaway_484357
Oh.

[-] donut_appreciator
yeah lol

no one has a foolproof machine they can point at you that goes beep if you’re trans

like in some countries they have a thing called informed consent where you just sign a piece of paper saying I understand what I’m doing now gimme hormones

so in buying off the internet you’re just doing that really

I understand what I’m doing and here’s my credit card now gimme hormones

anyway going on HRT is diagnostic in itself

if after a couple months your mood has worsened and you feel like shit all the time and you don’t like the changes that have started in your body you can just…… stop

[-] random_throwaway_484357
You really can just stop HRT? There’s no side-effects or anything?

[-] donut_appreciator
yeah

your body will just take over hormone production and start pumping out testosterone again

depending on when you stop you might have like slightly bigger nipples but a couple of months isn’t enough time to like give you a supermodel body

[-] random_throwaway_484357
I can’t believe it didn’t occur to me I could just try them out. I’ve been thinking of this as a huge, life-changing decision.

[-] donut_appreciator
yeah it’s really just a load of little ones

imo the life-changing decision has already been made

you said yes before

you know what you want

you know what you need

now you just have to get past your doubts

~

I was reading the section of the website that covered the effects I could expect from HRT — softer skin, some breast growth, a fleshier butt, but no help with my voice or facial hair — when my phone chimed again. This time it was a text from James.

Hi. Mind if I come up?

Sure, I replied. And then I took a deep breath and slowly composed another message. You can bring your overnight bag and something to sleep in if you’d like. Since you were so well-behaved last night.

James’ reply took longer than I’d like, considering what I’d just put on the table. Five minutes then, he wrote, to get my stuff together.

I had five minutes to prepare. I closed the laptop lid so I could inspect myself in the mirror; I still had the makeup on I’d done for dinner, but that was fine. I stood up and looked in the full-length. The clothes I’d worn for dinner were gorgeous, of course, but they felt rather too formal for… for whatever was about to happen. We’d promised to tell each other what was going on inside our respective heads, and I didn’t want to be an immaculate Harvey Nichols-clad goddess for that. Even though, thanks to Sophie, I had a fair idea of what might have been bothering James, I still wanted to be approachable and maybe not flaunt my fake curves quite so much.

I dug out the not-terribly-comfortable jeans and top combo I’d worn for the journey up from London and quickly got changed. I didn’t bother with shoes or socks. But when I checked myself out in the mirror I still felt a little too dressy. It took a moment for me to identify why, and I was just wiping my lips on the back of my hand when James knocked.

On my way to the door I noticed I was practically skipping. I took a deep breath, calmed myself, and opened it.

James hadn’t changed his clothes, but he was carrying his suit jacket and tie over one arm. His shirt was unbuttoned at the top, and I had to bite my lip to stop myself focusing on the little scruff of chest hair that was visible.

He looked downcast. My heart fell out of my chest.

“What is it?” I asked urgently. I took his free hand, intending to lead him into the room, but he flinched away from me. “James?”

He hesitated, and then reached out for my hand. “Sorry,” he said.

I took his hand, and he didn’t resist this time. I closed the door behind him, led him over to the bed and sat him down. He kept looking at the floor.

“James,” I said, “what’s going on?”

He was silent.

“James?” I repeated. “Please look at me.”

When he finally met my eyes, all I saw in him was utter despair.