Liam had gone out a few times as Lexi—twice more since being told to go out by his blackmailer. He’d never been much of a dancer, but he’d had so much fun dancing with strangers that night that he just had to go out and do it again. He planned on going out again tonight, and he was excited to see a sparkly blue dress waiting for him in that red box. There was also a pair of white heels and white panties to match. Liam snuck the outfit back up to his room and started surfing around on the Internet for makeup ideas for the night.
He briefly sauntered over to check his Facebook, which he usually did unconsciously every hour or so. He noticed a red notification at the top right corner of his screen. ‘Jacob Andrews tagged you in five photos’ the notification said. Jacob was a guy in a few of Liam’s classes—a quiet guy who hung out with the jocks. Liam clicked to see the photos, assuming they were pictures from class or from some school event. He wasn’t expecting to see photos of Lexi out at the club, dancing on the dance floor.
Liam’s heart stopped momentarily. By the time it started beating again, a comment had appeared from a girl in his biology class. “Oh my God, that really is Liam!” the comment said. And before he was able to process the comment, a second comment appeared. “Is he a faggot!?” Liam’s legs were suddenly numb. His hands were trembling and his gut was aching and churning. He tried pinching his arm, hoping he was just stuck in a nightmare. But it was no nightmare. It was real.
There were ten little laughing faces on the photo album, representing ten students in Liam’s classes who had seen the photos and marked them as hilarious. There were many new comments, but Liam was too sick to read them. He closed his computer down in an attempt to escape his crippling nightmare, but the anxiety only became worse. His phone buzzed, but he didn’t check it. Then it buzzed again, then it buzzed again, and then it started to ring. His friends had seen the photos. It was all over—everyone knew about his secret.
He went back onto Facebook, to see if the photos really looked that much like him. He figured he could lie and say that it was just a doppelganger. But the photos really looked just like him. Jacob had replied to the top comment. “I was at the club with Michael and Jeff and we looked over and Michael said, ‘Isn’t that Liam?’ And it totally was Liam. You can’t make this stuff up!” There were now forty laughing faces and a dozen likes.
It wasn’t long before the news spread. When Liam’s father came home from work, the first thing he said was, “Liam, I need to talk with you in private. In my study, please.” There was a lump the size of a fist stuck in Liam’s throat as he followed his father into the study. His father sat down and stared down at his desk. “I saw the pictures. Your sister showed them to me. Please tell me that isn’t you in those photos, Liam.”
But Liam couldn’t respond. He was too sick and the lump in his throat was too big. He just stood there, looking guilty, feeling miserable, wishing he could go back in time and never leave the house. Or even better—go back in time and never try on his sister’s clothes.
Liam was sent to his room while his father thought about the best course of action. Liam fell face first on his bed. He wanted to cry but he was in too much shock to produce any tears. He wanted to run away, but he had nowhere to go. He wanted to die but he was too afraid to do it. So he just remained flat on his bed, wishing the nightmare would come to an end.
He thought he’d been unrecognizable. He thought the wig and the clothes were enough—and the makeup was just extra. How did Jacob recognize him—of all people? A guy who Liam hardly ever talked to… Liam thought about going back onto Facebook to read the rest of the comments. According to his buzzing phone, there were dozens of comments, and he’d only read the first two. But he was terrified to see what his peers now thought about him.
That night, Liam didn’t dress up. He didn’t put on one of his nightly shows, and not just because his father had been checking in on him every couple of hours to make sure he wasn’t sneaking out. There was no longer any point in putting on the nightly shows. There was no point in stopping the pictures and videos from being leaked. Sure, he didn’t want photos and videos of him jerking off circulating around, but it really made no difference anymore. His reputation was already ruined. Everyone was already laughing at him.
And he had a newfound resentment for his blackmailer. It was the blackmailer’s fault that he ever went out dressed as a woman. He was happy staying at home, dressing up when everyone was asleep. And then this stranger came along and ruined everything. So Liam no longer had any qualms letting him suffer in court. Barry Peters could figure out his own testimony. Maybe he deserved whatever was coming to him. He certainly deserved it after ruining Liam’s life.
The next morning, Liam decided not to go to school. There were only a few weeks left before graduation, and Liam figured he could just show up for the exams and still pass. So he stayed home. He only left the house to visit that red box, to see what kind of note his blackmailer had left for him. “What’s wrong? Are you not feeling well? I hope everything is okay,” the note read.
Liam wrote a reply. “I’m not doing your stupid court thing. Go ahead and release your pictures and your videos. It doesn’t even matter anymore.” Liam didn’t bother going back out that afternoon to see if there were any new outfits. Instead, he spent that afternoon stuffing all of his feminine clothes into garbage bags, which he planned on taking and dumping in the middle of the woods the next time he was home alone.
CHAPTER XI
It took Barry a few hours to process Liam’s note. He tried to wrap his head around what could have happened, but it wasn’t hard to figure out once he was back home and on his computer. He navigated over to Liam’s Facebook page and saw the photos. The timing couldn’t have been worse, with just a few days before the court date.
Barry let his face fall onto his keyboard. He groaned and tried to process all of this new information. Did he even have a case anymore? He called his lawyer and asked what would happen if his girlfriend couldn’t make the hearing. “Then you have nothing,” his lawyer said. “Please tell me that your girlfriend will be there, Barry. Why are you even asking? It’s too late to take the settlement. If we ask now for that settlement, they’ll know something is up. Tell me your girlfriend is going to be there, Barry.”
“She’ll be there. It was just a hypothetical question.” Barry hung up the phone before his hands started trembling. He couldn’t even find a new girl to take Lexi’s place—it had to be Lexi. Lexi had already shown her face in all of those videos. Sarah and her lawyer had already heard Lexi’s voice. It had to be Lexi on that stand.
So Barry ran down to the red box with a fresh pad of paper and a pen. He needed to convince Lexi to change her mind. He needed to get her to testify, otherwise he would lose everything. He got to that box in only ten minutes. He started writing, out of breath. At first, he wrote a beg. “Please. I’ll do anything.” But he crumpled that up and stuffed it into his pocket. He couldn’t look weak. Lexi wouldn’t do it for some pathetic begging loser who she’d never seen in her life. So he tried writing up a new blackmail. “Are you sure you’re willing to let your parents see a video of you coating the window with your cum?” But he crumpled that note up too.
There was no longer anything stopping Lexi from taking all of the evidence to the police. And it wouldn’t take them long to track Barry down. How many years can you get for voyeurism? And prowling? What about blackmail? Altogether, he was probably looking at a hefty sentence—maybe even a good chunk of his adult life. And then he would be losing all of his money to Sarah on top of it… Leaving him with no money to pay for a lawyer.
So he tried a different approach. “Meet me tonight at 1:00 AM at the red box and I’ll delete everything.” He slipped the note into the box and hoped for the best—because all he could do was hope. He figured his note was the perfect balance between begging and blackmail, and it gave him time to try to think of something to say to Liam when he met with him in person.
Barry went home
and found himself pacing around his home, trying to think of some sort of excuse. He tried to think if he had some better blackmail—something Liam would do anything to keep from becoming public. He tried to think if he had some other sort of bargaining chip—maybe money. He looked at his bank account to see what he could afford. He only had fifteen thousand dollars left, and that included his retirement savings. But even fifteen thousand dollars would seem like a lot to a young man—hell, it was a lot to Barry—it was everything he had. And losing fifteen grand sure seemed a lot better than losing half a million dollars of money he didn’t have, plus monthly alimony. So he went to the bank and took out as much money as he could, leaving just enough to pay for the next couple months of his mortgage and enough for food and other bills. He was disappointed to see that only left him with nine thousand dollars. Would nine thousand dollars be enough incentive for Liam to take the stand as Lexi? And what if he took the money but didn’t show up in court? It’s not like Barry could actually release any of his pictures of tapes without risking Liam going to the police.
Again, all he could do was hope.
He thought he would need a suitcase for the money, but he only ended up needed a single wad. He looked at the wad and felt sad, realizing all of the money he had to his name fit comfortably in a single wad of cash.
It was midnight when he started walking towards the red box. He left Whiskey behind. He didn’t even need his flashlight to light his path but he brought it anyway. He knew the path by heart now. He knew every root and every fallen tree between his house and Liam’s house. Every couple of minutes he checked his pocket to make sure that wad of cash hadn’t fallen out. It wasn’t until he reached the red box that he realized it would have been a good idea to wear some sort of disguise, in case Liam showed up with a video camera of his own, or even just the camera on his phone. And it wasn’t until Barry had been standing at the red box for five minutes that he realized he should probably be standing away from the box, hiding somewhere in case Liam called the police and tipped them off.
But before Barry could turn around and find somewhere to hide, Liam appeared in the distance. He was walking towards Barry—a black silhouette in an already black forest. As Liam came closer, Barry noticed he was carrying two large black garbage bags, stuffed full. They looked heavy. Barry opened his mouth to greet the young man, but no words came out.
Liam stopped ten feet away and put the garbage bags down. Barry could just make out the features on Liam’s face. The woods became silent for a moment. And then finally Liam said, “Do me a favour and take all of these clothes with you.” He let the garbage bags fall forward. “You can throw them out or bring them to some charity or you can even keep them, I don’t care. The wig in there is worth a few hundred bucks, just so you know. And then there’s all the stuff you bought.”
“You’re just throwing it all out?” Barry asked.
“What else am I supposed to do with it?”
“Don’t you want to keep it? It’s good stuff.”
Liam shrugged his shoulders. “Want to? Sure. Can I? No. It’s already a miracle my dad hasn’t disowned me. I was just going to dump it all out in the woods, but I figured you might want it back seeing as you bought most of it. Or maybe you stole it—I don’t know.”
“I bought it,” Barry said. “Just for you. It’s all in your size.”
“I know,” Liam said. And then the woods became silent again. “So you’re going to delete everything and leave me alone then?”
Barry’s heart stuttered. “You really won’t testify for me in court?” he said, trying not to sound too desperate.
“You said that you would delete everything if I met you here, and I met you here. I know who you are, you know. I recognized you at the bar. I know roughly where you live and I know where you’ve worked. I can have you arrested. You know that, right? I could have had you arrested a long time ago.”
Barry’s body suddenly felt cold. He knew that what Liam was saying was true, but it was hard to hear out loud. “Yeah,” he managed to say. “But I guess I’m desperate and I really need your help. I went to the bank. I thought I had more than this, but I guess my lawyer’s fees have been more than I thought.” He pulled out the wad of cash. “Nine thousand dollars—if you tell the judge that we are a couple and were a couple for the past few years. 2:30 PM on Wednesday. It will only take five minutes. I promise.”
“You’re a seriously weird guy,” Liam said. “Of all the people in the world, you picked me? Why me? How did you possibly get caught up in a lie like this? Why would you tell anyone that you were dating a trans chick?”
“I told them I was dating a woman, not a trans chick. And you looked like a woman. And I figured your identity would be safe because you would be all… dolled up. It was a win-win.”
“A win-win for you maybe,” Liam said. “Now everyone in my school knows my secret. I can’t go into school because I know they’ll all mock me and I’ll probably get my ass kicked. I was fine before you showed up.”
“I’m really sorry for that.”
“Just keep your money. Maybe you can sell some of these clothes to pay your lawyer’s fees. Now I have to get home before my dad checks to make sure I’m still in my room.” Liam turned around and started towards his house.
“Please help me out.”
“No,” Liam called back. “Now leave me alone or I’m calling the police.” Liam disappeared over the ridge.
And in that moment, Barry realized he was doomed. His court case was lost. In forty-eight hours, Sarah would own everything he ever worked for.
CHAPTER XII
Liam was getting ready for his first final exam, reviewing notes on his computer, when he finally decided to go back to Facebook to read those comments, to see just how bad the damage was. He hesitated as he opened up Facebook and saw that he had over one hundred notifications. He hovered his mouse over the notification tab but he was too afraid to click.
It had been a few days since he’d gotten dolled up and he was already missing it. It was strange going to bed at night without feeling the snug fit of his lacy panties (which he usually wore under his pyjama bottoms). After his parents went to sleep each night, he found himself bored and wondering what people did at night. Watching television got old fast and he’d never been a big fan of video games.
He’d even caught himself digging through his closet one night, to see if he’d left behind any fun outfits that he could try on, just for a bit of fun. He couldn’t decide if he was disappointed or if he was relieved when he found nothing.
That red glowing number on his computer screen grew. People were still reacting to and commenting on the photos Jacob posted. But Liam was still too afraid to go any further than that home page. He finally took a deep breath and clicked. There were dozens of comments on each picture. He started reading through them.
And then he found himself in a state of shock and disbelief, as each comment he read was positive. His own friends had left supportive comments, saying they were by his side no matter what. People he knew from school but had never talked to were leaving warm comments like, “You’re so brave,” and, “You look so beautiful. I wish I could pull that outfit off.” Liam had to read the comments a few times before they registered in his brain.
Then he went to his nightstand and pulled his phone out from the drawer. He’d stashed it away and turned it off without reading the messages, too afraid to know what his friends were saying. Now, with his phone on, he could see that no one was mocking him. Jacob and his jock buddies were the only ones who seemed to think Liam’s situation was funny.
For the next few hours, Liam found himself messaging his classmates back, thanking them for being supportive. And then he received more support—more and more messages telling him how brave he was and how he shouldn’t let people like Jacob get him down. “Come to school as Lexi. We’d love to meet her,” one of his classmates said in a private chat. Liam found himself blushing. Could he go to school as Lexi? W
ould people really be accepting?
Liam checked the time, realizing it was getting late. It was 1:30 PM. In one hour, Barry would be starting his day in court. Liam still didn’t know why Barry needed Lexi’s testimony so badly, but suddenly, Liam felt guilty. If it wasn’t for Barry, Liam would have never left his bedroom as Lexi. Had he never left his bedroom, the life he’d always wanted would have remained a complete secret. And maybe he would have even died without ever becoming who he wanted to be.
Liam took a deep breath. He stood up and then he rushed over to his sister’s room. His sister was on her laptop, on her bed. “What are you doing?” she asked.
“I’m borrowing some clothes,” Liam said.
“Are you serious?” she said. But Liam didn’t reply. He just took what he needed and rushed it back to his room. While he was changing, his sister appeared in his doorway. “Oh my God, you’ve actually lost it haven’t you?”
“Maybe,” Liam said as he wiggled into one of her dresses. It was a snug fit, but it looked great on him. “I need to borrow some makeup—just some mascara and a bit of eye-shadow.”
His sister looked shocked. She hesitated, but then she went to get the makeup. He grabbed it from her and quickly applied it. His sister laughed. “You actually look pretty good,” she said.
“Thanks. I know,” Liam said. He looked around and realized his wig was gone. He’d given it to Barry. But he didn’t have time to look for it. He could just go with short hair. He took a bit of mouse and side-parted his hair. It took a bit of tinkering, but it ended up looking surprisingly feminine—kind of like a pixie cut. Then he stuffed his wallet into one of his sister’s purses and he took off.
“Where are you even going?” his sister called out.
“To court!” he shouted back, and he ran to the bus stop. His neighbours stared at him as he ran down the street. Especially without his wig, everyone knew who he was. But he didn’t care. This was who he was now—Lexi was who he’d always wanted to be. He got to the bus stop just in time. He checked the time on his phone. It was already 2:20 PM. He was going to be late. Hopefully being late wouldn’t be a deal breaker for Barry. Hopefully his court session lasted more than an hour, so that Lexi could make it at all.
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