“What do you mean I need a makeover?” Romeo asked as Rachel dragged him down to the garage.

“You’re going to be presenting as a female celebrity now. That has a higher standard,” she replied. “We need to get you to the label’s consultant.”

“I am a known fashion icon,” he said in protest. “I think I can handle myself.”

Rachel gave him a lidded stare. “Male fashion icon translates to barely passable for a female celebrity. How many times have you worn a simple suit to an event?”

“Those were designer suits…”

“Suits are suits,” Rachel said, leading him to her car. “There’s small variations, but they’re generally all about the same.”

“I’ve worn more interesting things than suits,” he added as further defence.

“Yes, yes. And you were called an icon for daring to wear something other than a black tux. Even if it didn’t suit you,” Rachel replied. “As I said, you could probably be barely passable. But we already have Jovita on the band to do that. Especially when you throw in Frankie’s butch styling. You need to actually look cute… someone in the band has to.”

“I’m feeling guyish today, though,” he muttered, though he got in the car.

“Today?” she asked, while turning it on.

He blushed slightly, but then explained what he’d worked out with Logan. Thankfully it didn’t take much to make Rachel understand the concept of gender fluidity. She had some experience with the trans and gender non-conforming community after all.

In fact, she proved surprised that Romeo hadn’t figured it out before, considering the way he’d acted in the past. There’d apparently been days she’d forgotten he was ‘really a guy’ before this whole curse thing. Which he found both reassuring (in that it told him the curse hadn’t changed his actual essence) and embarrassing (in that he’d not noticed).

With the knowledge he could go feminine now, Rachel encouraged him to try. Not knowing how one started at that, he decided to close his eyes and try muttering about being girly. 

Unfortunately that led to a flash of the confusion of the night before and a shiver running down his spine.

“No good. I don’t think I can change on command,” he muttered.

“Ah, well. We’ll just get you the basics today, then. Next time you feel girly we’ll have her give you a proper appraisal and lesson,” Rachel replied. “So you can enjoy it.”

“Do you enjoy that sort of thing?” Romeo asked.

It seemed an unfeminist assumption to make, in his eyes.

She glanced at him as they waited at a red light. “No. But I’m not you. We’ve already established you like fashion. I just figured you’d like girly fashion more when you’re feeling girly.”

The logic of that was pretty sound, so he couldn’t argue.

Instead he stared quietly as they pulled into the parking area of what seemed like just another warehouse in the Port Lands. Romeo knew better, though. He’d been to their style consultant before. He’d gotten a basic assessment for himself, as well as providing moral support whenever Jovita got dragged in and lectured for wearing jeans and a fandom t-shirt to official events.

The warehouse was near enough to the main film studios to be ideal for helping with productions, and was out of the way of the more common shoppers on Queen St. Which helped it keep a low profile from those not ‘in the know’. And therefore gave those in the know more time for their consultations.

While he’d been before, though, he’d never been here ‘as a woman’, and so he did have to wonder how different it would be.

The fashion consultant was waiting for them as soon as they stepped in. 

“Oh, but you really do look just like Romeo,” she said. “That’s good, assuming your colours are the same. We can do a quick test for that.”

Romeo nodded weakly. He’d done something along those lines before, being dragged in front of a mirror under specific lighting conditions as a series of fabrics were draped in front of him. It had been a while, so he didn’t remember how long the last time took, but he was reasonably certain it went faster this time. The woman muttered that ‘she’ was a little more pink toned than ‘he’ was. Otherwise things were apparently about the same.

The woman then began to take his measurements. A process that he swore required rather more places being measured than before. 

“You’ll need to remove the binder, of course,” the woman said after measuring his limbs. “Why were you wearing that anyhow? You weren’t trying to make her pretend to be Romeo, were you?”

“We were thinking about it. Just a few little appearances here or there… we were probably being a bit overly optimistic over how quickly we could get Romeo back,” Rachel replied.

“Poor thing,” the woman said. “Forcing a girl like you to try to pretend to be a man.”

“A girl like me?” Romeo asked as he took his binder off, not quite sure what that meant.

“Your pants are fairly tight, dear,” the woman said. “And I was measuring your thighs.”

“Oh,” he mumbled, blushing slightly. “I’m… uh… I’m ok with it.”

“Again, we were thinking it would only be a few appearances anyway,” Rachel added.

“Mhm,” the woman said while moving to measure his torso.

Once she had the measurements she handed them off to an assistant who plugged them into a spreadsheet. That then apparently spat out a list of outfits they had on hand that could fit him well. Which meant a flurry of outfit changes. The consultant muttered something about flaring skirts to hide his small hips. 

At some point Romeo found a sticky strapless thing stuck to his chest, serving the role of a bra. It was one of the weirdest things he’d ever… worn? Was something so sticky technically ‘worn’ or did you use a different word for that? 

He couldn’t guess, and he’d had to try another three dresses on before he realised it. It was all rather a blur. Rachel tried to intervene to save him, but the consultant would have none of it. It was set to be ‘Rosalind’ ‘s first appearance. ‘She’ needed something memorable. Or else the fashion consultant would feel she was neglecting her duties.

And so Romeo grimaced and accepted the next hour or so of new outfits. Then makeup, which he couldn’t hope to keep up with. He’d need another tutorial later, because this was just a blur.

At least it ended eventually. Though not until after he’d been decorated up further with more jewelry than he’d ever worn. Especially the earrings, which felt surprisingly heavy and large.

Ok, so it wasn’t that much jewelry, but it was more than he was used to.

“There we go, that suits you, now doesn’t it, dear?” the woman said with a soft smile.

Romeo stared, and had to admit the girl in the mirror looked amazing. He didn’t feel very connected to her right now, but, all the same, he could tell she looked good. And he’d like to look like this on a day he actually felt like a woman.

---

He’d always hated press conferences. They were like piranhas, circling and waiting for any misspoken phrase they could turn into a scandal. Smaller interviews on the red carpet and the like were fine, but when you got too many celebrity gossip reporters together? It was a nightmare.

And wow were they swarming today. He could barely keep up with all the questions.

“Yes, he fell in with European anarchist punk DJs.”

“No, I am not his secret identical female twin… how would that even work?”

“I’m not dating anyone in the band, no.”

“You can’t find anything because I’ve valued my privacy… you trying being a superstar’s cousin.”

“Why would I chan—the money is pretty good.”

Rachel called an end to press conference, having given the press just enough to chew on that to keep the paparazzi from swarming too much. Not for the first time, Romeo was glad that Canada’s paparazzi culture wasn’t quite as feral as many other nations’.

Afterwards, Rachel pulled Romeo back into the studio, where he then found himself nudged into the recording booth.

“Um… what’s this about?” he asked.

“We need to release something with your new voice,” Hank said from the booth. “Something to get people hooked and accepting your position.”

Romeo nodded a few times. “Alright, alright… which song?”

“Love Dash is still the top seller. Unless you’re feeling something else,” Rachel replied.

“I can do Love Dash,” he replied. “Is it going to be a general rerecording, or just new vocals?”

“We’ll see how it sounds,” Hank replied.

Romeo nodded again, listening to the music in his headphones. After a run through, bobbing with the music, he then motioned with his finger for them to restart. Then he began to sing. His voice sounded off to him today, but he decided to go with how it felt more than how it sounded. 

There were a few more attempts, and Romeo slowly let the musical value of that new voice take over against any preconceived thoughts about how it was supposed to sound. Slowly it began to feel right, perhaps helped a little by the rest of what Romeo was presenting with. 

They didn’t quite end up feeling feminine, but they were at least feeling somewhere in the middle, reasonably indifferent to matters of gender. They were good at singing and they were attractive, whatever their gender was right now. They were transcending gender right now, if anyone asked.

“It’s good,” Hank said, after a couple of hours. “We’ll need to re-record some of the instrumentals to balance the pitch, but we can definitely manage to get a mix out on a fairly short turn around.

Romeo gave a thumbs up, before heading to their change room. They asked an assistant to go grab them some green tea to soothe their throat on the way. Next on the agenda was scrubbing the makeup off their face and taking the earrings out. Then they took the dress off, carefully hanging it somewhere a gopher could find. The dress was a designer piece and probably furiously overpriced, even at their salary. Then they flopped on the couch in their underwear, staring at the ceiling and wondering how their life had ended up like this.

“You should really wear a shirt,” Rachel said as she slipped in.

“I’m lounging,” they muttered.

“You’ve got breasts,” Rachel replied, blushing slightly.

Romeo grumbled, but headed over and pulled a shirt out of the wardrobe. “So, what’s up? Did you need me to re-record something?”

“No, no. I just wanted to tell you we’ve got you signed up for a few public appearances to help build your new reputation,” she replied. “Managed to pull some strings to get you to sing the national anthem for a CFL game in London. Then there’s still a couple music festivals that the whole band can crash.”

“We’re supposed to be laying low and recording our next album, not touring again,” they said.

“You’re supposed to be a guy. Things change.”

Romeo made a face, then caught their reflection. That was kind of fun, making silly expressions while looking like this.

“We’ll be setting you up with an Instasnaps account, as well. You need a social media presence. Here’s a schedule for the next week, so that you can give the right first impressions,” she explained, handing over a sheet of paper.

They read it for a bit, and didn’t feel overly impressed. “What sort of a girl do you take me for?”

“A new star who’s a least somewhat of a good girl type,” Rachel said, sounding a bit tired as she realised they might not cooperate fully.

Romeo gave her a look that confirmed her worries.

“I’m still acting like a Valenti. Valentis are rarely well behaved,” Romeo replied, grabbing a pen to scribble out a few things. “Plus, I need to spend more time in the gym. I’ve slacked a bit… we’ll post some gym snaps for sure.”

Rachel gritted her teeth, but kept quiet. She knew Romeo could only be so in character with her plans. It had been doomed from the start.

---

Looking at her new Instasnaps account, Romeo was amazed how many follows she’d gotten in so little time. And how many views her work out snaps and clips had gotten. Unfortunately, the comments were even more of a surprise than before.

She blushed furiously as Jovita and Frankie leaned in to look at what had frazzled her.

“Oh. Yeah. That’s cis straight guys for you,” Frankie said.

“They’re a strange breed,” Jovita added. “Very strange.”

Romeo grimaced. “I’ve… I’ve never been that bad, have I?”

Frankie shook her head. “Nah. Firstly you’re bi, so that improves things to start. Then you’ve always been—-well, you’ve always been genderfluid, you just didn’t clue in… but I understand the fear. I worried about it too, while I was still figuring out my gender.”

Romeo gave a small nod, thanking her for the reassurance.