by Alyson Belle
I felt her arms move and then suddenly light was coming into my dark prison of a dress. Her long, delicate fingers wrapped around my wrist, pulling one arm one way, then the other arm another, before finally tugging on the fabric before my head poked through. My cheeks burned hotter as I tried to ignore how good it felt for her warm fingers to slide across my body.
“It’s got body cage straps around the collar to make it fancy,” she explained, manipulating the fabric so it settled the rest of the way around me. “I forgot that you might not understand how that worked.” She trailed off as she finished, and I noticed how her fingers lingered on the seams of the collar just above my bust.
“Wow. You look amazing,” she murmured, stepping back slightly to admire me.
“I do?” I asked, feeling myself flush again.
“Yeah. See for yourself.”
She stepped to my side and guided me into a position where I could look into the mirror unobstructed, although her hand stayed firmly planted at the small of my back, right above my ass. Just that little point of contact made my chest squeeze. It felt like a live current was going through me, and I swallowed nervously.
“What do you think?” she prompted.
Oh, right.I was supposed to be looking at myself, not thinking about her hand sliding lower… My eyes finally flicked to the mirror, and when they did my jaw dropped open wide.
I wassmoking.
While I hadn’t been reallythatugly since puberty, I’d never thought much of my attractiveness beyond that. I knew I was somewhere in the middle of the road, with a boy next door sort of simplicity.
But now… now I was a grade-A bombshell. Or at least I felt like one. The dusky pink fabric clung to my body in all the right ways, hugging curves that hadn’t existed the day before. My breasts were way bigger than I had thought they were in that loose peasant blouse, and I started to wonder what it would feel like to—
“Well, are you gonna just stand there silently or say something?”
“Wow,” I whispered, feeling tears prick at the corner of my eyes.
Wait, why was I being so emotional about just a silly piece of fabric? But of course, Lyla didn’t miss the warble in my voice, and she threw her arms around me and hugged me tight.
“Oh, sweetie. It’s a lot to process, I know. We can stop and go home if you want.”
“No!” I objected, perhaps a bit too adamantly, while I blinked furiously. “No. No. It’s fine. I like this.” She had no idea just how much I liked this.
“I’m glad. Because I’m having an absolute blast.”
“Me too.”
And that wasn’t a lie. There, in her arms, I felt more comfortable and safe than I had in months. With Lyla, there was happiness. There was joy. She didn’t care if I was Jess, or Tom, or the abominable snow man. She just cared about me.
I could certainly get used to that.
Chapter 4
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” I asked dubiously, looking down at the pretty outfit that Lyla had put together for me.
“Hey, what did I tell you about moving your head without telling me?”
“Sorry,” I said, straightening my head while she went back to lining my lips.
While I had seen both Lyla and Stacey get ready multiple times over the years, I had neverreallythought about all the work that went into fully applying their faces. But now I was getting a first-hand experience while Lyla dutifully did me up in her classic style.
It had started with a primer, which apparently was what people put onbeforetheir makeup. Yeah, there was makeup before the makeup. My mind was blown.
Then had been the foundation, then some contour, then powder to set it. It was mildly uncomfortable, but it did allow me moment after moment of very close face time with Lyla. It would have been so easy to just bend forward and kiss her, but of course, I didn’t, as much as I might want to. I had to remind myself that no matter how attracted to her I was, Lyla wasn’t romantically interested in me. For her, I’d always be just a friend.
I had thought the worst of it was over when she set me to bake, but then she started a whole new process.
My eyes.
I remembered how I’d sprained my ankle once when I was eleven and had fallen off of my skateboard the wrong way. It had been one of the more painful experiences of my life, but I would gladly go through that again rather than have her apply eyeliner to me ever again.
She assured me that I would get used to it, but I didn’t believe her. It was the weirdest, itchiest, most uncomfortable sensation I’d ever experienced. I did not enjoy it in the least. But then after that came eyeshadow, and cream stuff for something called a cut crease, and then the glitter.
She was on my lashes now, and they might have been just as bad as the eyeliner. But eventually, she stood back and nodded at me with approval.
“There. You’re perfect.”
“Perfect?” I echoed. “That’s some heavy praise.”
“I know. And I’m just that good. Now, don’t you worry about tonight. It’s gonna be great, I promise. Drunk people are a whole lot less observant, so no one will notice if you’re a little bit off. It’s a great way to start your introduction into the world as a total babe.”
“So, you think I’m a total babe then?” I teased, leaning forward and fluttering my long lashes at her.
To my surprise, she bent over so that her hands were resting on my thighs and our faces were less than a breath away from each other. “Yeah, I do. Got a problem with that?”
I barely restrained myself from releasing a muted squeak. From anyone else, it might have been a threat, but her cheeky smile let me know that she was just giving my energy right back to me. I could have been mistaken… but I was pretty sure that we were flirting. Wasn’t that what this was? It had been a long time, but this was how I generally remembered it back in the early days of Stacey and me. Lyla had never acted quite like this with me before, and it made my whole body feel funny… in a good way. I didn’t trust myself to move with her face so close to mine, so I just smiled back at her and hoped she couldn’t hear how loudly my heart was pounding.
Just a friend, just a friend, just a friend,I reminded myself, calming slightly.She’s not into you! You can’t ever really be with her. Don’t mistake affection for romance.
“Now, are you ready to go out there and enjoy this new body?” Lyla asked.
I tilted my head back and allowed myself a laugh. “When you say it like that, it sounds downright creepy.”
To be perfectly honest, I would rather stick around and cuddle with her like we had the previous night. At first, I had been nervous about just clambering into Lyla’s bed and acting like I belonged there, but she insisted that no guest of hers was taking the couch, and besides that, we were both girls now, right? I couldn’t argue with that logic. It had been so nice sleeping all curled up next to this beautiful woman—even in college we’d rarely fallen asleep like that, and only then accidentally after a long night of heavy drinking—and not waking up the next morning with annoyingly insistent morning wood I would have had when I had been Tom had been downright convenient. I got to pretend the whole thing was completely innocent, no matter how many dirty thoughts had flitted through my head.
Nope, no boners to speak of—only the excitement of laying next to the girl I had loved for so many years, feeling her heart beat against mine. And the comfort of being so close to someone who supported me through anything; Even mystical, body-transforming stuff that happened at ten thousand feet in the air.
“Sorry, I didn’t exactly do my pre-reading on how to treat your lifelong friend who suddenly turns into a mega-hottie,” Lyla teased. “I’ll get right on that.”
“Please, you and I both know that you never did the pre-readings in college.”
“Guilty as charged.” She disappeared for a moment only to come back with a pair of sparkly flats. Were all flats glittery or was my luck just decidedly reflective? “I was gonna put you in a pair of bab
y heels, but I figured even those would be too much.”
“Your mercy is appreciated.”
“Well, I don’t want you todie.” She stood up on her tiptoes, giving me a dastardly look. “But next time, prepare yourself! You’ll need to figure out heels sooner or later if you’re stuck like that.”
“That’s if I survive this time.”
“True. The world of a woman is a strange one.” She waited for me to finish putting on the shoes and grab the purse we had bought before grabbing my hand once more. And just like every other time, what felt like lightning lanced up my back, and I flushed. “Now come on! Our night awaits!”
For someone who was once again wearing super tall, stylized platforms, she was quite fast. I found myself struggling to keep up in my tight ‘wrap dress’, feeling a couple of times like I was going to face plant as we cruised across the paved, grungy, NYC sidewalk. But I made it to our cab without incident, breathed a prayer of thanks, and soon we were headed for the club that Lyla had chosen for my first night out as her hot new lady-friend.
Apparently, we were going to a relatively close one, as it was the cheapest. I offered to pay for us to go to a more upscale place, but as usual, Lyla refused my charity. I knew that she was still recovering from missing some work back when she had bronchitis a couple of months ago, so I was at least able to whittle her down to letting me pay for the cab there and back rather than having us walk.
Despite literally insane levels of traffic, it didn’t take us all that long to get there. The two of us clambered out of the car—Lyla stopping me briefly to pull my skirt down so I didn’t flash the underwear she’d lent me to the whole crowd standing outside the cab—and then we found ourselves in a surprisingly long line.
There were approximately two nightclubs in the mid-sized city I lived in. One was your typical, skeezy place full of flashing lights and too-drunk, overly hot-headed people (both male and female) that I didn’t care for, and the other was a similarly flashy gay club I rarely visited, being a terrible dancer in a monogamous, straight relationship. Even on the most hectic of evenings, I’d never seen a line out front at either of them—not even when Stacey went to the drag shows the gay club put on every other Thursday night. Lyla hadn’t said whether the place we were going to tonight was a gay or straight place, but I didn’t really care as long as I got to have fun with her.
As we stood in line waiting to get in, I once again felt like there were too many eyes flitting over me in a way that made me uncomfortable, so instead I just focused on Lyla’s body. Although she was petite, she was undoubtedly a woman who knew how to work with the body she had. Tonight she wore a low-cut little black number with billowy sleeves that hugged her curves alluringly. Her stockings were actually fishnets with rhinestones, and she was wearing another set of specialty platforms, black with purple clouds all over them.
Normally I would find that outfit kind of drab, but her bright hair and her colorful makeup balanced it out, making her look like some sort of benevolent fairy that was magically gracing my pathetic human existence.
Granted, the sparkling glitter on her cleavage probably also helped with that illusion.
Keeping my eyes on Lyla helped the line go by fast and before I knew it, I was at the door being looked over by the bouncer.
It was in that moment I froze, realizing I didn’t have an ID that looked anything like me. Even the name was wrong. And while I understood people were more accepting nowadays, I doubted that this bouncer would be willing to overlookthatmuch of a difference. Nobody was going to believe that Tom’s ID belonged to me no matter how hard I tried to persuade them.
“Oh hey, Lyla. Who’s this?”
I was surprised when the mammoth of a man smiled down at my friend, offering his hand in a low-five for him but a high five for her.
“This is my friend Jess! She’s visiting from the Midwest! I’m so excited, I’ve been talking about this place nonstop.”
“Hah, well I hope you didn’t get her hopes too high.” He stepped to the side, moving the velvet rope to let us in. “Be responsible.”
“When aren’t I?” she asked with a wink before pulling me in behind her.
Wow.The inside was even more alive than I had been expecting, with the music booming and bodies bouncing against each other within seven feet of the door. Lyla pulled me along, not even hesitating as we cut through the crowd.
I felt someone slam into me, almost making me topple over. But the same person caught my arm, making sure to pull me back onto my feet.
“Sorry about that,” he said, and I didn’t miss the way his eyes shuttled up and down my body. “Wanna dance?”
Looks like it’s not a gay club then,I reflected.
“Nah, she’s thirsty,” Lyla said, pulling me along. “But you’re welcome to buy us both drinks at the bar.”
With that, she continued on, but we didn’t get that far before someone else slid into our path.
“Hey ladies. Where are you two going in such a rush?”
“To get a drink,” Lyla replied. I was still a bit too scared to talk to a stranger if I didn’t have to. I didn’t know what rules I might accidentally violate, and I certainly didn’t want some bro to think I was hitting on him.
“Maybe I can buy you one,” he pressed.
“You’re always welcome to,” she said with a lilting sort of laugh. “If you’re into buying drinks for a couple of lesbians out on the town?”
His eyes flicked back to me, suddenly hesitant. “Really? You’re both into girls?”
“Definitely,” I answered with all the honesty I had in my newly transformed body. My form might have changed, but my orientation sure hadn’t! I had no desire to find out what getting fucked by a man might be like, and I was relieved that Lyla was here to fend these pushy guys off of me.
“Whatever.” With that, he walked off, no doubt to try his game on more straight-oriented prey.
After dodging two more would-be suitors, we finally reached the bar, and I let out a relieved breath as I settled onto a stool. “Is it always like this?” I asked. “I don’t think it’s ever taken me so long to cross a room.”
“Like I said before, you’re a mega-hottie,” Lyla replied with a wink. She waved down the bartender and ordered two amaretto sours before turning back to me. “You’re tall and thick as a bowl of oatmeal which is totally in right now. You’ve got these big, soulful eyes and kissable lips. And your hair looks like it’s never seen a knot in its entire life.”
My heart did that thing again where it skipped multiple beats and I could feel my face flush all the way up to my eyebrows. Thankfully, Lyla’s make-up job was pretty much full coverage, so I was willing to bet that evenshecouldn’t see my blazingly red cheeks.
I didn’t know what to say, so I just clinked my glass with hers and downed my drink in a few gulps, hoping the liquid courage would help me get through this crazy, bizarre night. Lyla followed suit and then her hand slid into mine once again.
It felt right, pressed there against my palm, our fingers intertwining, and my blood thrummed in my veins. I didn’t think I had ever met a more beautiful woman than Lyla.
“How about we hit the floor?” she asked suddenly.
“Sounds good to me.”
I let her pull me out there just as a faster paced song came on. It felt strange to move my new body, it was so much more…flexible.I’d never been much of a dancer, always feeling sort of awkward on the dance floor, but it seemed so much easier in this body than it ever had when I had been a man. I found myself making more winding, fluid moves instead of my normal jerky side-stepping in time with the beat. It took about half the song for me to get my bearings, but then Lyla wrapped her arms around my waist and pressed her body into mine, moving along with the music.
Oh.
Oh.
I’d danced with Lyla before, but this time it was different. It felt like I’d stuck a fork into an electrical socket, and my heart leapt into my throat. I tried my best to
follow her lead, but it was hard to concentrate with every single neuron in my brain dedicated to reporting on all the different sensations I was getting from the feeling of her body moving against mine.
The softness of her breasts as they pushed against my ribs. The delicate curve of her wrist resting just behind my spine. The pulse at her neck. My brain translated all of this in a deluge of information, and I never wanted it to end.
Sometime during that moment, I had reached up and let my hand rest on her shoulder, touching her luminescent skin.God. She was even softer than I was, like silk and satin had combined into the ultimate texture. And as my palm rested there, I could feel the tension of her breasts rising and falling with her movements. A short moment later, I realized mine were doing the same, resulting in a strange circle of both pleasure and pain.
I felt myself getting rapidly overwhelmed by the physical sensations of a body spinning wildly out of control until my mind could only spit out one thought.
Kiss her.
Kiss her!
I leaned forward, my eyes fluttering closed. Then I stopped myself just short of actually doing it.What the hell am I doing?!
I stopped dead in my tracks, staring in horror at my friend. There was no way that Lyla would ever be receptive to the things that I was feeling, or the thoughts running through my head. She was just being a good friend, helping me through a tough time! I wasn’t arealwoman, and I was an even worse friend. I had no doubt that even with my new name and body, I was still Tom in her mind. Some imposter who was kind of like a female novelty, but not real enough to ever go beyond that. Eventually we’d figure out how to change me back, and then what?
I was an idiot. And not only an idiot, but an idiot who was about to ruin her relationship with the only person in the world she could count on.
“Hey, are you okay?” Lyla asked, standing on tiptoe and speaking into my ear so that she didn’t have to shout.
“It’s nothing,” I replied, far too quickly and nervously. “I just lost the beat.”