Chapter 3: Working

 

Sophia had been trying a hip new boymoding outfit at work lately. She’d change in the bathroom, switching the masculine hoodie for a spiffy t-shirt and flannel combo. How fashionable. Even the flannel pattern was meant to confuse would-be predators. And it was buttoned up halfway, of course - just enough contours to give the impression of her breasts, while still being baggy enough to avoid being too conspicuous. Playing in the in-between between real and imaginary. The dweller on the threshold.

Nobody seemed to have overtly noticed any changes at work - or at least, didn't say anything directly to her, which is just how she wanted it. Every time a customer called her a She by mistake, it lit up her entire day. A single 'She' was blessed and heaven-sent. She loved trying out a new vocal training trick on a few customers and seeing in real time how well it worked, and tweaking her larynx and inflection as the days and weeks and months went by. It was the best field training a tran' could ever ask for. If her voice was so good that it overrode her still super masculine appearance, then she must be doing something incredibly right. Maybe if she practiced enough, events like what happened at that bar will stop happening for good. She was progressing like in some RPG, and everything made sense and pleased her skinner box primed brain.

Sometimes managers would even say "You can go to Nick there for help, he'll help you out," and the customer would still greet her as a woman. That felt like fucking euphoria. She was conquering over reality itself.

What if a coworker overheard the customer calling her a girl? What if word got around that she was actually a girl in disguise? What if they started treating her as one of the girls? Or at least, a gender non-conforming guy? Someone who was clearly not like the other normal straight bros and dudes they knew? Someone sort of androgynous, in-between? Someone gentle and feminine, someone not into girls? Maybe one of the managers would have to follow some woke HR manual and pull her aside to ‘ask them their pronouns’. Ugh. Disgusting. Or maybe they’d just start calling her a girl on instinct, without Sophia having to do anything? That would be so amazing, and far more validating. It would mean she passes, in body and 'spirit'. She would give off the aura of being a "girl" to others, and treat her accordingly. That's true passing. If someone needs to tell someone they're a girl, Sophia thought, are they really a girl at all?

Something about doing all this at work felt more comforting than doing it 'outside'. She felt more secure here, somehow - customers would come and go, meaning there was basically no consequences for being a little weird sometimes, just like when she used to trawl in online chatrooms or videogame servers. She never felt safe at school growing up. She never felt safe at her family home. And while moving out to an apartment felt liberating, it was still suffocating too considering the people she was rooming with. Somehow, the exhausting laborious workplace was more of a safe haven for her than anywhere else. 

There was something overwhelmingly addicting about it all, too. The rush of the torrential stream of new stimuli, threatening to build her up or break her down. Every word has the power to make or unmake her very identity, her hopes and dreams. Every new customer interaction could spell the beginning of a new life, or the destruction of everything. Although she'd never gambled before, she imagined it was as addicting and thrilling as pulling the slots or betting on a horse. A constant stream of potential validation around every corner like a shimmering jackpot. A little dog treat for the day was enough to give her enough dopamine to last a whole week, as long as she kept reminding herself of her victory: “I got called a girl...they saw me as a girl...they think I pass as a girl…I pass as a girl? I am a girl...?”

A single seed of doubt could shatter this, of course: “Maybe they were just being polite…”. But today, she was feeling pretty good and confident. Something about her brain wiring was just firing on all cylinders and she wasn't going to take it for granted. The threat of nagging cynicism was always dwelling on the borders of her mind, but constant vigilance could help resist her brain's addiction to pessimism. It just took a lot a lot a lot of energy.

Living so close to the edge like this was still dangerous, but also exciting. She could get mistreated. Harassed. Fired. She could lose everything. But she could also gain everything. This was the first time in her life she's ever done anything risky at all. Sometimes, transitioning felt like she was actually alive for the first time in her life. That somehow, normal people actually feel like she does now, all the time, and always have. Like they were keeping this emotion a secret from her this whole time. That they feel ambition, happiness, excitement, instead of constant suffocating stifling paralyzing fear.

This is just like I'm living in a slow-change gender transformation story...

There's been another change as well - some of the girls at work seemed to initiate small-talk with her more, oddly. Brooke most of all. She terrified Sophia a bit, actually. The closer someone gets to you, the easier it is for them to clock you, to hurt you. To find out your secrets. And not only that, she was drop-dead beautiful, too. The sort of girl you'd think came out of a magazine or Instagram ad, but actually existing in real life. She reminded her a bit of the girls from high school she used to idolize and admire, in a terrifying way. There was virtually no trace of masculinity on her.

She seemed so friendly, too, genuinely so. Nothing like the stereotypes. She had seemingly no aversion to talking with Sophia or being seen with her - something she'd never felt from a cis girl before. At some point in her life growing up, she felt that girls started to become naturally repulsed by her, and Sophia had started to become afraid of them as well. She couldn't really remember how it started, but at some point, Sophia started viewing other girls as some kind of distant aliens looking down on her from afar, while boys were the aliens living amongst her, surrounding her. She remembered having her guts tie themselves up in knots when being around the popular girls at school, almost as if being threatened by them. It was a different kind of fear than being around the popular boys - less visceral and physical, and more psychological and emotional. There was no way someone like Sophia could've had female roommates. Maybe trans ones, though.

Sophia would sometimes spend a few seconds a day to try and glance at what sort of outfits Brooke wore to work, or how she did her makeup - maybe she’d need to emulate that one day. 

Maybe someday I can even girlmode here...

"Hey Nick! You closing tonight with me?" Brooke asked, with a big smile and no sense of fear in her body language whatsoever, getting within a few inches of Sophia.

"Ah, hi, ah, no, I'm off early tonight...came a bit earlier...so..." Sophia mumbled off like a trainwreck without making eye contact, trying to subtly move back from her enclosing advances. Her heart beating, palms sweating. She hated how she was feeling, these remnants of wretched male loner behavior. No genuine girl would ever be afraid of other women like this. 

"Ah, you're lucky then! It's a nice day out, so enjoy the weather while you can!"

Was it fear? Was it envy? Was it love?

My heart also beats around certain men. Sometimes I get scared of them too. So maybe I'm bi or something, or just gynophilic after all. Maybe I'm attracted to Brooke. Maybe I just need to ask her out and be a man and those anxieties will turn to good vibrations of love that normal people talk about all the time and make songs and stories about. 

So, she was a little scared of Brooke. And a little jealous. And a little intimidated. And a little drawn to her, wanting to be closer to her, somehow. But terrified of how beautiful she was. Maybe if she stayed close enough to beautiful girls, she could become like them too, their femininity rubbing off on her somehow. That's how female socialization works, right? Maybe someday she'll even have a group of all-female friends like her sister had growing up, to have her own BFFs that weren't just a bunch of nerdy dudes, and her whole way of socializing with others will start transforming, evolving. Her brain would start rewiring itself to how it should've been all along. She'll finally shed the anxieties of being around attractive women, and become one of them.

Maybe someday she'll even be able to talk about boys with her girl friends. She could talk about Chad, her current? future? boyfriend. Would they be grossed out? Would they include her? If she finally gets accepted, would she stop feelings this internal stabbing sense of shame about men? It always seemed to creep in from somewhere, from inside her, from around her, from over her shoul-

“Nick! We need you to get these boxes up on the top shelf there. Go get a ladder.”

“Can you set those tables up on the floor? And bring the bins from the back too.”

“Nick to the front please. One of the mannequins needs to be taken down for a customer.”

As the only Male on shift, it was inevitable that she'd have to do those kinds of tasks. It doesn’t matter what kind of male she was, what kind of voice she had, what her build was like, or whether she was running on estrogen and had atrophied muscles. If you’re a "guy" on the schedule, you live a guy’s life and do man's work. Some beautiful young woman like Brooke would never be expected to fill a man's role, and were never asked to do the things Sophia was. That's just how the world works, even in "progressive" environments.

—

She hated having to walk home from work. Considering parking would be near impossible where she lived now, she had to give up her car when she moved out from her parents. Some sacrifices in life need to be made if one is to grow and make progress - that's what Sophia keeps telling herself, anyways. This is all part of growing up. While public transit was okay, and work wasn't too far, she was afraid of one thing: How would she walk around at night if she looked more like a woman? Or more like a tranny? Would she become another statistic? 

Fuck. Her arm still hurt from the night before when John held her away from Mark. She didn't notice it during her shift, but underlying pains have a way of creeping on you when you're finally not distracted. As she rotated her shoulders, she realized the outline of her breasts kept protruding out from the safe confines of her plain jean jacket. 

She has to be more careful. She's one of those trannies now, or slowly becoming one. She has to be constantly vigilant. She can't let anyone find out, or she will lose everything, and she has to keep this charade up for the rest of her life. She just has to keep going until the juice runs out. Someday, surely, she'll find relief. She'll be able to rest. She'll be able to relax and stop having to try so hard all the time. The day must surely come, or else all this hard work was for nothing. There's no way some divinity would invent Life when it's nothing but decades of constant struggle until you're fucking dead. There has to be some relief at some point, some reward for a job well done, that's not just a casket. "That'll do, Sophie. That'll do."

Something had to change. Something had to change. Just one friend who knew everything about her that she could confide in and feel secure with and rely on. Just one. Just one. 

BUZZZZ. BUZZZZ. Discord call.

Sophia hated voice calls. She'd start sweating and pacing feverishly around the room any time she had to make one, carefully rehearsing what she had to say, just like she used to for in-person conversations growing up. Somehow, real phone calls felt even more invasive and public than just an internet one, but both were still bad. Phones were evil boomer technology, she'd always say to anyone willing to listen to her hot takes and autistic rants. You get none of the finer subtle details of a text message, and none of the body language of face-to-face conversations to express yourselves with, either. Just shitty quality audio back and forth, and constant speaking over each other and interrupting. 

Phones are evil. Stop using them, now.

"Sophia...I'm having another episode..."

"Oh. Hey. What's the matter."

It was him. Or her. Whatever they were comfortable with at the time, which changed every other week or so. A friend she met online, and only knows online. A trans questioner. One of many. 

"It's the trans stuff. It just hit me again. Seeing some girls on the side of the road. The way they looked. The way they were together. I could never be them. I could never be a part of that. It hurt so much. I don't know what to do. You have to help me..." 

Sophia knew exactly what they meant. She felt this way herself all the time. Just from some girls she had just walked past on the way home from work. But she couldn't say that when a friend needed a strong shoulder to cry on. To be a good friend, you have to be strong and silent, and lock yourself up.

"I'm sorry. I know it hurts. Are you thinking about transitioning again."

"No. No I can't. I can't mutilate my body like that". Sophia shivered a bit at XXXXXX's words.

"It's not ruining. It's just changing it. It's just hormones, you know. Not that you have to go on them, but they're just an option," Sophia said, quietly. She was still in public after all - thankfully, virtually nobody was on the sidewalk with her.

She always had to pull back whenever she suggested transitioning, even to obvious friends in pain. Who knows if 5 years down the line, they suddenly detransition, or get disowned or fired or beaten, or even try to kill themselves, and blame it all on her. "It was her, officers! She forced me on those pills! She ruined my fucking life! She turned me into a fucking freak! I could've been a normal family man if not for her!"

"Yeah but I fucking can't... You'd know what my old man would say if he saw anything about that shit around the house. Or on my body. It doesn't fucking matter. But it hurts so much."

"Okay... well, um, have you tried shaving, maybe?"

Sophia never really shaved herself before HRT. Her hair was always too thick and painful to bother doing it before they just grew back yet again in a few hours, and it doesn't really matter if you have leg hair if you always wear pants anyways. The idea of showing skin was still terrifying to Sophia even as her leg hairs started to thin a little bit with HRT.

"Fuck no. People would notice. I wear shorts a lot. You know where I work."

Sigh...Okay. More excuses. How can people just keep making excuses and sabotaging themselves and expect anything in their life to get better? It's so fucking annoying. 

She tried to stifle her momentary frustration and replied, "Well, how about just letting yourself be a little femme here and there? Even in private. Like I suggested before. Have you maybe tried growing your hair out a little? That really helped me feel a little happier..."

"I mean, I am doing that a bit. And I can be myself around you, at least. I don't know how you do it. You're like a queen, you know. You're so amazing. We all look up to you so much."

This again. Sophia had built up a bit of a reputation for herself amongst her internet friends as being some kind of trans heroine. But every time the conversation got like this, she didn't know what to feel. Some sense of complimentary pride, some sense of shameful guilt. There was nothing impressive about her as a person. She was not someone anyone should ever look up to. Even when wanted to help, she started feeling the leering eyes of onlookers peering through her soul - "Trannies try to groom people to transition, because they can't reproduce the normal way. It's a cult!"

Maybe the idea of being a holy trans matriarch helping poor confused trans women find safe harbor, was more about being a siren-like vixen to soothe her own pains of being a barren genetic failure of her own making, a fake female with no future. The only moral solution is to leave them to suffer in quiet desperation, saving them from a futile struggle. At least then, she'd have a clearer conscience. Helping them was just selfishness disguised as altruism. She could barely even help herself, so how could she help anyone else?

She also had no guarantee she could ever help them, anyways. How can she reply to the dozenth selfie asking if she knows if they'll pass or not? Sophia doesn't even fucking know if she'll ever pass or not herself. She couldn't give up tens of thousands of dollars for facial surgery, or somehow help people lose 6 feet from their spine. What does she say to someone who seems beyond help? It fills her with hopelessness and dread and guilt at her small amount of luck - even being able to pass once to anyone at all is a blessing few trans women ever get to experience, even in full girlmode. What right does she have to say anything? 

Does she only do this to build herself up at their expense? Is she taking advantage of their desperation to stroke her ego? Isn't she actually a really evil despicable monster? 

"Thanks. I feel a bit better now. You're such a great listener. That's why you're such a good friend." 

She'd heard that line so many times before. Sophia had practiced her 'listen, don't speak' skills from growing up in a very loud and extroverted family. Some call it strength, but to Sophia, it was mere passivity. 

"Okay...please be good to yourself, okay?" she said, finally ending the call. 

As difficult as the conversation was, she still treasured the compliments. She was still a good person, surely. She had people she cared about in her life now, and people who cared about her, which she'd never had before. She waded through life almost completely alone until the last year or so. This meant she existed at least a little bit as a real human being now. HRT has changed her life. The road to transition is like the journey of Pinocchio, just that he loses his nose at the end instead. She was on the road to become a real girl, and a real human being. If she gets enough compliments like that, she can find happiness and relief, surely. 

She wanted to text Chad now. She needed to take advantage of her rare positive feelings to do impulsive, stupid, human things. She knows how fleeting and rare these sensations truly are, before her real personality sets in again. 

"hey hey :p thinkin about our date again :)"

"cant have another one again for a while sorry. but i do wanna see your cute trap ass in some paaaaanties!! :))"

He was horny. That was so funny. She flirted a bit more before finally reaching her apartment. Guys are funny when they're horny. Maybe she'd take a selfie when she was home. Maybe she'd show him her growing breasts. As a joke. Maybe they'd ERP for a bit and he'd talk about rubbing them in bed together. That would be a fun prank.

After her anti-androgen nuked her libido, she just started to find how horny guys got to be kind of funny. It was bizarre. Sure, she couldn’t ever relate to their sexuality before when she was a boy, but now it was even further beyond recognition. She’s crossed a Rubicon and it made her feel even more happier with her transition. The further away she got from the world of men, the better. The further away she gets from men, the more they'll become exotic and exciting to her, and less just symbols of oppressive grunt bullying from when she was a child. And the closer she gets to women, the more they'll become comfortable and warm close friends, instead of distant intimidating symbols of superiority over her.

If she's able to pull this off, she might just someday finally become a real human being. The real transition. She could become a real girlfriend to Chad. A real daughter to her parents. A real female friend to her friends. A real normie. She'd be able to forget all the pains and struggles and her whole previous life of being a weird freak, and just enter blissful simplicity and happiness and rest of the normie lifestyle. She just needs to keep moving, keep pressing on and pushing forward, and surely, everything will work out someday for her - she told herself, as she contorted her body for a quick butt selfie. 

 

---

 

"Okay class, let’s split up! Boys form a circle on that side of the class, and girls all gather around me instead, okay? Let’s play a game!"

???

"It's okay Nick, you can keep reading in the corner if you want, okay?"

???

Confused, Sophia walked to her friends who had surrounded the teacher. When in doubt, stick by your friends. She didn't want to break the rules. She didn't want to be alone.

"Oh Nick, just go over to the other boys there, okay? Then we can start!"

"Okay!"

???