by Alyson Belle
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 overlook that much 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 even she couldn’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 leane
d 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 a real woman, 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.”
“Aw, come on. We’ve been friends for years. You think I can’t tell when you’re uncomfortable?” Her eyes narrowed a bit as she regarded me, and I was sure that I was about to be found out.
“You need help getting out of your clothes again, so you can pee, don’t you?”
I heaved a sigh of relief, glad that she was so off for once. “Yup. That’s it. Exactly.”
“Well, come on. I don’t know if you know this, but holding your bladder as a girl isn’t nearly as easy as it is for a guy. We’ve got some extra organs that like to press on our bladder depending on where in our cycle we are.”
“Cycle? Oh, right. Periods.”
The thought of menstruation was just mysterious and taboo enough for me to shake my obsessive thoughts of my friend. Was I going to have to deal with getting a period now? Obviously. I was not looking forward to that. But my distraction was short-lived, and as Lyla pulled me towards the bathroom, I found all my dirty thoughts rising up in me again.
I needed to stop it, and I needed to do it fast. Lyla was my friend, and she was being the best support I could ask for in an impossible situation. It was selfish of me to take advantage of her kindness and lust after her like some prepubescent boy who thought that if a girl smiled at him, that she wanted in his pants. We’d always been close, and it was only natural we’d feel even closer as girls. It didn’t mean anything.
I took a deep breath as we headed into my bathroom and sternly told myself that there would be no more of this nonsense. If I kept letting my imagination run away from me like this, I was sure it could only lead to tears and misery.
Chapter 5
I didn’t think it was possible for me to lighten up after such heavy thoughts, but my mood recovered quickly from my depressive stint after the bathroom. Maybe it was because there was a girls’ club I had never known existed in there where everyone who stood in the sink link all ferociously complimented each other, or maybe it was the alcohol Lyla and I pounded right afterwards. Either way, when Lyla and I finally decided to stumble home, I was feeling much better about everything.
Even when we piled into a cab and Lyla accidentally bashed her platform into my knee, I couldn’t help but giggle. Lyla shushed me, then all but melted into my lap.
“You’re drunk!” she accused, smiling up at me.
“Hardly,” I replied, stroking my hand through her hair. It was so soft. Was all girls’ hair this soft, or just ours? “Tipsy though, for sure. How’d that happen? I hardly drank anything.”
“Women have a lower alcohol tolerance than men,” Lyla answered, and I could sense her going into one of her explanation-spiels that I so loved. “Partially due to their larger body mass and usually more carb and protein heavy diet, but also because their liver is better at producing the enzyme that breaks down alcohol.”
“So what you’re saying is women are cheaper to get drunk?”
“It’s our one upside. Sure, we may only get paid seventy cents to their dollar, but at least we only need three drinks to be feeling gooood.” Her hands moved down her body as she wiggled, and I couldn’t help but stare, completely enraptured. She seemed to notice what she was doing belatedly and quickly stopped. “Sorry. I guess I’m a little bit tipsy too.”
“It’s alright. Sign of a fun night. And neither of us are messy drunk or puking, so I’d call that a win.”
“You’re a win.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I just laughed and let the conversation fade, enjoying my afterglow. I was surprised just how much fun I’d had once I let go of those feelings that I’d allowed to bottle up inside of me for so long, and I resolved to keep things that way. Lyla was my friend, and that was good enough. More than good enough.
When we got back to her flat, I was feeling much more sober with only the tiniest sliver of my buzz left, and we quickly made our way upstairs. But once we were inside, I tried to tug my tight dress over my head, only to get it stuck in my hair.
“Oh my God, Jess!” Lyla laughed, way harder than she probably should have. “I told you in the bathroom, you gotta unzip this dress to get out!”
“I forgot,” I said with a blush, finding myself in a situation uncannily similar to the changing room. “Help me, please.”
“Don’t worry, big, strong Lyla is here to save the day.”
I heard her kick off her shoes and come over to me, tugging my dress down until it was free enough for her to unzip. I let it fall to the floor, unencumbered, and stood there in my underwear for just a second.
I didn’t miss how Lyla’s eyes lingered on my form a bit longer than necessary before she turned.
“Now be a friend and undo mine too.”
I could have been mistaken, but I was pretty sure that she had just slid that over her head earlier in the night to get it on. But of course, I wasn’t going to argue with her, so my slightly shaking hands moved to her zipper and slowly pulled it down.
Bit by bit, her pale flesh revealed itself to me, disrupted only by the black band of her bra. I could see the solid lines of muscle on either side of her spine, then the little dimples before the curve of her backside, and then finally her underwear itself as she let it fall to the floor.
“Wow, you’re beautiful,” I heard myself whisper without thinking as she turned around to face me, smiling happily.
In all our years together, I didn’t think that we’d ever had a moment this intimate together. At least physically. Sure, we shared our secrets, we shared our hugs, we shared laughs and tears, but we never went so far as undressing each other. This was entirely new for us. This was—
All of my thoughts ground to a halt as I realized something warm was pressed against my mouth. Something sweet and remarkably pleasant. The entire world blinked out for a minute, lost in fuzzy white noise, and it took longer that I’d like to admit for me to realize it was because Lyla was kissing me.
Years of what ifs and impossible daydreams suddenly became reality, the real reality I was experiencing right at that moment, and I let myself sink into the affection and kissed her back. Our mouths moved against each other while her arms wound around my waist. I even thought I might have whimpered, but I was so spellbound by the moment that I couldn’t say.
Every nerve in my body felt like it was throwing itself into overdrive, so it could catch and record even the most minute detail of our heavenly embrace. But at the same time, I felt so light and happy that it seemed like my soul was physically leaving my body.
Sure, I had kissed people before, but it had never been like this. Maybe it was because this was my first kiss in this new, female body, or maybe it was just because my lips were that much more sensitive.
Because boy, the sensations rolling through me were incredible. I didn’t have any words that fit what I was feeling other than a long stream of positive adjectives that sounded like they could have been shouted by a comic book super hero.
But then those hands at my back were on the move, gliding up and down my spine, caressing my bare skin.
It was only then that I remembered that we were both in our underwear, our bodies pressing into each other like we were glued together.
After a long while, my head started to swim, and I realized that I wasn’t breathing properly. Lyla seemed to notice and pulled back, looking up at me with her sparkling, jewel-like eyes.
“Is this alright?”
“It’s more than alright,” I whispered, my voice cracking. I felt myself blush again but she just smiled softly.
“Let’s go somewhere more comfortable,” she said, gently tugging me to her room.
I followed, the whole encounter becoming a bit surreal, and I ended up in her bedroom again. But this time the context was so much different than the night before, and I found myself taking in every single detail again.
She placed me on the bed before sitting down beside me and pulling me into another heated kiss.
This time her tongue slid out to trace my bottom lip, teasing, coaxing. I opened my mouth to her, and soon I was melting into a hormone driven puddle, but she didn’t seem to mind.
Those hands were on the move again, gliding up my form and leaving goosebumps in their path. I tried to follow her example, but then my own limbs just got in the way and I ended up bumping into her or jabbing her with my elbows.
“Sorry,” I whispered after accidentally jerking my hand back and scratching her arm on the way. “I, uh, don’t really know what I’m doing. This is my first time… er, you know.”
Which was ridiculous! I wasn’t a virgin by any stretch of the word. But suddenly everything was so new and different that I found myself at a total loss. Maybe I was a virgin. A virgin in this body, anyway.
“It’s alright,” Lyla said, her voice low and lyrical. “You’re still figuring out this whole woman thing. Just sit back and let me show you what kind of amazing things your body is capable of.”