AnnouncementHello, lovelies!

  You can read up to 4 chapters ahead on this story, plus two ahead on Trade Paperback Romance, by becoming a paid subscriber to my Patreon!

  Helena Heissner's Patreon

  Don't forget you can buy my books here:

  Amazon.com: Love During Robot Fighting Time eBook : Stacy, Helena: Kindle Store

  Amazon.com: Magical Girl Exorcist Squad: Love Thy Enemy: 9798343324785: Heissner, Helena: Books

  And you can follow all my socials here:

  Helena Heissner | Instagram, TikTok | Linktree

  Briar

  Day 1

  “So, Ms. O’Neil, you say you want to start hormone repcement therapy?” the endocrinologist, Dr. Maria Parikh, a tall and curvy Indian-American woman in her fifties with gray-bck hair flowing down her back and a gorgeous pair of golden hoops hanging from her ears, said to me as I sat in her office.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “You identify as a transgender woman?”

  “Yes,” I lied.

  Kyle’s overnight visit st week had been eye-opening. The game was changing. I didn’t entirely know what the object of it was anymore, but I knew that if I was going to keep pying it, I would need to maintain the pretense of who Rose was. Kyle thought Rose was a trans girl. And that trans girl wanted to be on hormones, wanted real breasts and real hips, wanted a cuter face and cuter disposition. Rose was a trans girl, and as long as I was pretending to be her, I needed to embody all that would entail.

  “Well, we already have all your b results from your primary care visit earlier this year. How would you feel about getting your first injection today?” “Just like that?” I balked.

  “Yup! You’re in great physical condition, and I understand that women like you are often tired of all the waiting. We can start you on Estradiol and Spiro and Progesterone right now, provided you’re comfortable with it. Are you?”

  I expected to flinch, to hesitate, to do something that would give me away as the lying sack of shit I was. But there was none of that. Instantly, I nodded, and my lips curved upward into an eager smile.

  After that, I soon found a needle in my shoulder, pumping the cocktail of feminizing hormones into me. Only the tiniest part of me was hesitant, while the vast majority of the canvas of my soul was painted in sunshine and blue sky hues. This was my most brilliant move yet: with this gambit, Kyle wouldn’t see anything other than a trans girl trying to fix her body! He wouldn’t suspect a thing, and I’d be locked in for victory! Haha!

  That’s still why we’re doing all this, right, brain? I thought. And I whacked the thought down like a mole in an arcade game. Of course that was why I was doing this. It wasn’t like I was actually… There was no way I was… I couldn’t be… I wasn’t allowed to just be a girl. That was ridiculous. Other people, sure. Trans women were women, they were real and valid and they were daughters of God just trying to make their way in the world and be happy as themselves. Not me, though. I wasn’t a daughter- I wasn’t His daughter, because I was His son; I wasn’t his daughter, either, because I was meant to be his son. My father’s son. That was what I had to be. That was what I’d promised him, and what I’d promised Mom.

  The tiny part of my soul-canvas that was stained a harsh, ugly gray-bck color seemed to grow then, devouring parts of the sunshine and sky I’d elsewise crafted for myself. I shook my head as the needle was pulled out of my arm, and the nurse smiled at me. “Well,” he said, “There you go, Ms. O’Neil.

  The gray misery receded a few inches, and the sunshine won out. “Thank you,” I said, pulling my sleeve back down and slowly rising to my feet.

  I pulled out my work phone, the one I was using to talk to Kyle as Rose, and texted him, “Just got my first HRT injection!”

  “Hell yeah!” he replied within an instant. “Proud of you, babe.”

  My cheeks heated as I took in that st word. It was so simple, a single but powerful sylble that conveyed everything. We weren’t… Rose and Kyle weren’t… Hadn’t put any bels on it yet, but once the ‘babe’ threshold was crossed it was a little hard to act like there wasn’t anything serious going on. Maybe not anything monogamous, but still.

  Something inside me tore apart like paper as I realized what that meant. If it wasn’t monogamous, that meant that Kyle could find someone else. Could get some other girl, some real girl who could actually give him what he needed. That would be for the best, the most hopeful outcome. I mean, yeah, the idea of Kyle with someone other than me- other than Rose, not me, I wasn’t real- made me feel like I was drowning under a pile of dirty snow and motor oil, but that was just my guilt and shame talking. What I was doing with Kyle was wrong. And all for the sake of a clean apartment- I mean seriously, what was wrong with me.

  There. That was it. I could still salvage this. I could keep Kyle happy as Rose for the time being, give him a dream of a cute trans girlfriend who he could clean for and dote on, while, as Briar… Brian… As the unfortunately real version of me, I could try to find someone else for him who could do all those things better.

  And it would all be fine. It would all be fine fine fine fine FINE-

  Day 7

  “I see you’ve been to the endocrinologist,” Violetta said as she sat at her desk, smirking at me.

  “Whatever gives you that idea?,” I said, hunched over in the seat across from her, looking out at the partly-cloudy winter sky through her window.

  “Oh, you just have a look about you,” Violetta said, fingering her long midnight hair with crimson nails that matched her crimson silk blouse. “So, do you think you’re going to start coming to work en femme soon?”

  “What?” I balked, shifting nervously in my seat. “Of course not- why on earth would I do something like that?”

  She gave me a ft look with her perfectly made-up eyes, all bold mascara and heavy eyeshadow and immacute eyeliner that made her big brown irises seem like they were piercing my soul. “So, that’s how we’re gonna py this, huh?”

  “H-how-how do you mean?” I blinked.

  She rolled her eyes and sighed. “Alright, fine. Be that way.”

  “I’m not sure what you-”

  “Rose, you can fool yourself, but you can’t fool me,” Violetta said firmly. “And I’m guessing you’re not going to fool this young man of yours either.”

  “I mean, I think I’ve fooled him a little too well,” I said, looking at the floor.

  “Oh, honey.”

  “Yes?”

  “Nevermind. Anyway, I’ve got a business trip for you, if you’re interested.”

  “I’m interested!” I said, desperate to be as far away from this conversation, from Boston, from myself, as I possibly could.

  “Then pack your bags. I’m sending you to Toronto for a few weeks to close a deal with an executive at Mansfield’s. Her name is Cameron Postelwait. You’ll like her. She’s very chill.”

  Day 10

  Cameron Postlewait, all five feet of her, screamed at me while juggling three torches and skating on a frozen pond. I hadn’t been sure what to expect when her secretary had given me instructions to meet her here at two in the morning, besides maybe some kind of ritualistic human sacrifice. It was not that, though frankly that would have made more sense than seeing a forty year old woman on ice skates juggling fire while wearing a full face of clown makeup. Complete with a red nose, no less.

  “Um… Hi,” I waved.

  “Raaaahhhhh!” she kept screaming.

  “Rah?” I said.

  “No, no, like this: RAAAAAAHHHHH!”

  “Raaaaaaahhhhh!!!!” I screamed back as loud as I could. I’d brought my own skates and navigated myself onto the pond.

  “Excellent, excellent! You must be the young Rosebud I’ve been told to expect,” Cameron said.

  “My name’s not… Please just call me O’Neil. Everyone does.”

  “Very well!” Cameron said, skating around me in circles, still juggling her torches.

  “Do you take all your meetings like this?” I asked.

  “Only with Americans,” she said. “I need to show them what I think of them.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said, eyes narrowing. “Well that’s, um… I’ll try not to take it personally-”

  “No, no, you absolutely should take it personally.”

  “I see,” I said ftly. “What exactly is this?”

  “I’m practicing for my performance art exhibition next weekend,” Cameron said. “This was the only time I could find to do so with my busy work schedule.”

  “Alright. Um- so we gonna talk business, or-”

  “Only if you can catch meeeee!” Cameron said, skating away from me. Not letting up on juggling for even a second.

  “Oh for fuck’s sake,” I groaned before giving chase. I followed the fire-juggling clown woman down the ke, pouring on as much speed as I possibly could. While we did so, however, I noticed a slight tremble in my chest, a strange aching sensation as my nipples rubbed against my shirt. It couldn’t be, there was no way I was already growing-

  Cameron suddenly turned around and charged at me, screaming once more as she dropped her torches and let the lights die out.

  For a second, I thought about turning around and running away while giving a scream of my own… But then I remembered the object of the game.

  So I let her crash into me.

  It hurt. A lot. Especially in my sore chest. But when it was done, we were both lying on the ice ughing our asses off. “Not bad for a yankee!” she ughed.

  “Not bad for a canuck!” I fired back.

  “Heh! I like the cut of your jib!” Cameron said as she rose to her feet and offered me a hand up. “Still, I must admit I’m surprised- they usually send women to talk with me about business deals.”

  A sickly sweet sensation flushed through me as I got up. “You don’t say.”

  “I do indeed say! But perhaps you have a feminine way about you!”

  “Um…”

  “Regardless! I’ll sign your contract!”

  “Just like that?”

  “Well yes, of course! You won our joust, did you not?”

  “Um… Yeah, I did,” I said, not feeling like I’d really done much but get run over. Still, I had to take my victories where I could get them.

  Day 28

  Yup, my breasts were definitely budding. The soreness in my chest hadn’t abated since I’d arrived in Canada. The itching had been getting worse and worse with each passing day. The most frustrating part was that pawing at my incoming baby boobs was the only relief I felt from the bizarre absence of feeling growing inside my body like a cavity slowly expanding and rotting an otherwise healthy tooth. I sat in my hotel room every night, wishing for the feeling of a dress around my body, long hair cascading down my back, makeup adorning my face… I missed being Rose. I hated that I didn’t have any opportunities to be her while I was working. Brian had to be the one to close these deals, negotiate contracts, grease the appropriate palms, but Brian wasn’t even a real person. Rose was. At least it would be over soon.

  I started packing up my stuff, cramming everything into my drab brown suitcase, when my phone dinged. For a moment, I hoped beyond hope that it was Kyle. He and I had been texting every day, calling every night, sometimes falling asleep while phoning each other so we’d be the st thing either of us heard before drifting off to dreamnd.

  The previous night had been weird- he’d been out at a bar, by the sound of it, from the murmur of drunken crowd noises around him and the sound beer being chugged. I could’ve sworn I heard someone say ‘let Lisa talk to her’ before Kyle had found somewhere quiet to talk. “Sorry about the noise,” he’d said. “Now. What’s going on?”

  “Just… Just the hormones are really messing with my head, Kyle,” I’d said, rolling onto my back and staring up the bnd hotel room ceiling.

  “In what regard?”

  “I’m crying all the time,” I said. “Like, I just see a baby on the street and I start crying. I’m not even sure why!”

  “I mean… Do you like babies?”

  “Yeah, I mean, they’re adorable little people who are experiencing everything for the first time, not yet worn down by the bitter, exhausting grind of surviving in our harsh world. What’s not to love?”

  Kyle had ughed, which, naturally, put a smile on my face. “Certainly a unique perspective.”

  I’d crinkled my nose. “You disagree?”

  “No, actually, I love kids, for basically the same reason you just said,” he’d kept on chuckling. “I’ve… Honestly I’ve always wanted to be a dad.”

  “You… You’ll make a really great dad one day,” I’d said. I don’t know what I’d been basing that off of, but I just… Felt it.

  “Thank you. And, uh, I think you’ve got it in you to be a good mom.”

  I swallowed a big old lump of sorrow and joy at that point. “Thank you,” I’d choked out. And I’d started crying again.

  I said a silent prayer that it would be Kyle as I reached for my phone.

  No such luck. It was Violetta. ‘I have another trip for you, if you’re interested.’

  I sighed. Part of me wanted to go home… But another part of me, a much louder, shriller, harsher part, calling out from the deepest recesses of the byrinth like some sort of drunk minotaur with a yeast infection, screamed a resounding ‘no, you’re not ready.’

  So I texted back, ‘I’m interested.’

  And just like that, she was sending me to Detroit for another month-long trip. Apparently I would be able to meet with a doctor at a clinic she’d been to before for my hormone injection once I arrived.

  I sent her a thumbs-up emoji, then dialed Kyle’s number. “Hey, I am so fucking sorry about this…”

  Day 40

  “Are you sure this is safe?” I asked from behind the wheel of the hydropne. It was a small, sleek motorboat stationed on Lake Saint Cir, floating on gentle waters beneath a silver-clouded midday sky in the city of the straights.

  “Of course it’s not safe, that’s what makes it fun!” Guitano DiMaggio, a forty-something man with olive skin, long bck hair worn in dreadlocks down his back, and a menagerie of facial piercings, said from his own parasail next to me. I’d spent the st two weeks buttering him up, telling him how impressive his company was, how honored my firm would be to buy him out, how we’d be able to double his annual income and that of all his workers, plus get everyone on a better health insurance pn. Given this was a man who walked around everywhere with a diamond-knobbed cane he didn’t actually need and raced hydropnes on weekends, getting to be an eccentric millionaire was clearly on his bucket list.

  But he’d required one thing of me before he could agree, a sign of respect amongst men. Which I was. Something I was, at this point, having to remind myself of every morning in the bathroom mirror while I ignored the cones gradually pushing out of my chest and the increasing fir in my hips. The sign of respect was beating him at his own game. Which was, of course, hydropne racing. So I stood on my own hydropne, which I wasn’t even licensed to drive but apparently Guitano knew the right people to bribe to make that a non-issue, wearing a wetsuit under my winter coat.

  “You know the rules?” Guitano said. I tried to avoid looking him right in the eyes, mostly because if I did, I’d be confronted by a warm stirring in my chest and nether-regions that I wasn’t in the mood to unpack.

  “First one to the Canadian border and back wins,” I said, gesturing to the edge of the water protected by several Canadian border patrol operatives on their own boat, all armed with shotguns they were prepared to use if we went even an inch over the line. On the shore, meanwhile, a team of news reporters armed with cameras and microphones sat waiting to interview Guitano when he inevitably won and, hopefully, set a new record time.

  “Alright, let’s gooooo!!!” Guitano bellowed.

  We took off. The frigid air contorted around me as I clumsily navigated this ridiculously powerful machine through the freezing kewater. There was no way I could possibly win this.

  Day 41

  I sat in the hotel’s dining room, a pte of pastries and scrambled eggs and fruit lying uneaten before me, head in my hands as I looked at the newspaper headline. Motor City Sadness: Hometown Hero Loses Parasailing Race to Record-Setting Out of Towner. Beneath it was a photo of me shaking hands with the mayor as he gred daggers at me. Actually, everyone was gring daggers at me as I sported a confused, sheepish expression while I was awarded the key to the city. I’d not only beaten Guitano, a champion hydropne racer, I’d set a state fucking record. On my first try.

  Honestly, I’d hate me too.

  Honestly, I did hate me too.

  But I’d closed the deal, and now I could go home and be Rose again. I wasn’t prepared for how much I’d missed it. I’d gone fifteen years without pretending I was a girl, but a few weeks of regression and I was back on the hook. How pathetic. My rapidly changing body, courtesy of the monthly injections, was no-doubt a part of it.

  I sighed. Even with all the confusion, at least I’d get to see Kyle tonight-

  Then my phone dinged, and it was Violetta, offering me another multi-week trip, mentioning how there was a clinic there I could get my injection at when I nded…

  I sighed, then called Kyle, and I found myself sobbing as I expined myself to him. Fucking hormones. At least I was prepared for the changes. At least there would be no more surprises.

  Day 55

  There were, in fact, more surprises. I’d never been a terribly hairy guy, but the smattering of reddish fuzz on my arms and chest was growing slower and thinner with each passing day. And the degree to which I didn’t mind it was starting to freak me out. The degree to which I missed Kyle was becoming more severe, the number of days where I woke up in a hotel room crying because I missed the feeling of him holding me becoming higher and higher.

  The previous night had both helped and not helped. I’d called him up the second I got to my hotel room, and to my eversting gratitude, he picked up after a single ring.

  “Hey, you,” he’d said, and I started crying immediately. “Hey, heyyy, it’s all good.”

  “I’m sorry,” I’d said, “I shouldn’t be crying to you like this.”

  “Why shouldn’t you be?”

  “I… I don’t know. It just feels wrong somehow.”

  “Well screw that,” he’d said, and I heard him shuffling around our apartment, along with the sound of a surface being scrubbed. The beautiful lunkhead was cleaning for me while I was gone. God, I didn’t deserve him. “If it’s wrong, then to hell with being right. Now, how can I help?”

  “Just… Just talk to me,” I’d said. “Tell me about your day.”

  “Okay,” he’d said gently, “I can do that.”

  And so he’d talked to me, and I wondered why I wasn't there with him. I wondered why I was so scared to go home.

  Part of me knew. The rest of me wanted to pretend I didn’t. The rest of me pushed the image of my childhood home, of my father’s tombstone, of the enraged face of my mother, back into the deepest recesses of the Labyrinth.

  I walked down the streets of Denver, the cold air nipping at my face and the wind sweeping my growing red hair. Growing it out was part of the game, a necessary part, and I had to remind myself over and over again that I wasn’t supposed to like how it made me feel. My point of contact, Nadia Bilodeaux, strutted next to me in a tan sweater-dress and bck scarf and stiletto boots, and I was doing my best not to acknowledge the feelings of envy and inadequacy coming to a boil in my stomach. Nadia’s colr-length raven bob fluttered about in the wind, her golden earrings dangling from her ears, her makeup perfect, everything about her… Everything about her made me jealous, and it was killing me. We held our coffees in hand- Nadia had ordered mine for me without even asking what I wanted, then shoved it into my hands and began guiding me down the street. I’d spent the week shadowing her, and that mostly meant her telling me what to do. It was exhausting. She was exhausting.

  I wanted to go the fuck home already. But I had to close the deal first, get her to agree to a five year contract with my firm. And this woman was clearly not used to doing things for other people. She was used to saying ‘jump’ and getting ‘how high’ as a response. Was this that ‘pretty privilege’ I’d heard so much about? Must’ve been nice.

  “Honestly, I can’t believe they sent you, of all people,” Nadia sneered at me.

  “And what exactly is that supposed to mean?” I asked, eyes narrow.

  “Someone so terribly unfashionable,” she said, her hair back.

  “I am plenty fashionable, thank you very much!” I said, unable to believe what I was hearing.

  “Oh really?” she said as we came to a stop in the middle of an upscale Denver retail district. “Care to put your money where your mouth is?”

  My brow crinkling, I said, “How do you mean?”

  “A competitive shopping marathon, of course!”

  “Is… Is that a thing?”

  “It’s absolutely a thing, you silly little man!” Nadia excimed. “The rules are simple: we each have one hour to put together the most fabulous outfit possible! And we’ll let the internet decide the winner! If I win, I’ll have humiliated yet another silly little man!”

  “And if I win, you sign the contract!” I fired back.

  “Guffaw!” she said. Yes, she literally said ‘guffaw’ like some sort of fruitcake. “Guffaw-faw-faw-faw-faw!”

  “I’m not agreeing to this if there’s nothing to be gained from it,” I said bndly but very loudly, my voice echoing between the tall, metal exteriors of buildings surrounding us on both sides. I half-wondered if I could scream loud enough to bring down an avanche from the mountains that permanently overshadowed the city.

  “Very well then, you silly little man!” she said, pointing and ughing at me. Fucking bitch. Didn’t help that every time she called me a man it felt like I was once more trapped beneath an avanche of ice and snow and filth. Maybe that was where the thought had come from: a desire to look how I felt. “On the microscopically slim chance that you emerge victorious from the fields of dubious battle, I shall sign your contract!”

  “Cool, so when do we start?”

  “This very minute, silly little man!” she excimed. And then she went sprinting down the street; fucking sprinting in spite of the six inch stiletto heels her bck boots had! How the hell was that even possible?!

  It didn’t matter: I took off after her, following her into an upscale boutique called Jorgenson’s. The pce was a sprawling, five-story ecosystem of fashion, the first floor a veritable maze of fragrance sellers at gss stands. They all sprayed me as I walked by, an endless barrage of floral scents clinging to me as I emerged from the cloud of pink and purple and traversed the second floor: a sparkling cornucopia of jewelry. Diamonds and emeralds, rubies and sapphires, gold and silver, all of it shimmering in the clear, natural light streaming in from the gss ceiling. A few accessories caught my eye- one in particur. A simple gold neckce with a cross on it.

  I found it drawing me in as I passed it by, and, reflexively, I went up and tried it on.

  “It looks beautiful on you,” the attendant, a willowy bck woman with a crew cut and bright red lipstick accenting a brighter smile, said.

  “Thank you,” I said, a warm and wonderful feeling buzzing through my chest. I found myself paying for it, and wearing it as I dashed upstairs to the next floor. What would go well with this neckce? I already had the perfect accessory, now what would be the perfect outfit for it? Something wholesome and cute, but also stylish and sophisticated.

  I found myself parsing a rack of tops, all made of silk and velvet, until I found a long-sleeved green v-neck blouse with ce trimming on the arms. Perfect- green always complimented my hair, and the soft texture and cssy cut would help bring it together with the neckce. Oh, but this white one with on the sleeves was cute too- I grabbed it for good measure. And this one, a light blue, the same color as my eyes, with white flowers dotting the chest. One more shirt wouldn’t kill me, so I grabbed it too.

  Now for bottoms. Ah, bottoms. I started in the scks section, but nothing I found was good enough- nothing screamed ‘fabulous.’ Or at least, not in the same way as the neckce or the tops did. My mind was exploding with crity and purpose, like the world finally made sense again, like I was doing something I was actually capable of, something I liked and was good at, something that felt like me.

  So what else felt like me? What would bring together these outfits and look good on me?

  I walked over the marble floors until I found a rack of pencil skirts. I needed something strong to bance out the earth tones of the outfit, and saw a bck pleated pencil skirt that stopped just shy of my knees. I ran towards it, and a stiff pain shot through my back and chest as I did so. I realized what it was very quickly- my boobs were bouncing.

  I skidded to a halt. My boobs. MY fucking boobs.

  Holy shit. HOLY SHIT!

  I grabbed the pencil skirt, along with a few longer, more flowy ones, and then darted off to the underwear section. I needed a bra. The song in my heart grew louder, drowning out the minotaur’s pintive wails. I needed a bra!

  I grabbed a few a-cup entries off the shelves as I made my way upstairs to the final floor. Shoes, that was the only thing I was missing. A couple pairs of stilettos completed the ensemble, and by the time I was on the fifth and final floor of Jorgenson’s, I was climbing into a changing room and surveying my options.

  At which point, the minotaur’s howls reasserted auditory dominance over the Labyrinth. Oh God, what had I done- I’d just broken my oath a dozen times over. I hadn’t just bought women’s clothes, I’d bought a small wardrobe! At least three complete outfits stood before me. I hadn’t even done it on purpose, I just… My body just moved. Like my subconscious was guiding it towards what I wanted. What I wasn’t supposed to want.

  Fucking shit. Okay, okay, calm down, Briar, you can still fix this, you only have… No time, there is no time left on my timer, shit shit shit. Okay, new pn: make good on the investment. For God’s sake, at least don’t waste your money.

  So I put on my bra, my back instantly riding a swell of sweet relief as the pain began to abate, then slid on the emerald green blouse and pleated bck pencil skirt and stepped into the bck stiletto heels. Shoving my boring businessman suit into a bag and slowly, delicately walking out, I met Nadia at a circur clearing between sections of the floor, standing beneath a shining halo of sunlight. She was absolutely stunning in a pink bodycon tube dress and matching pink stilettos- my shirt wasn’t the only thing about me that was green at that moment.

  She balked at the sight of me. Oh God, here we go. This was gonna be the moment my life- or worse, my career- ended. Fuckity fuck fuck fuck-

  “Ahh, I see, I see,” Nadia said, looking me up and down appraisingly.

  “Umm… How do you mean?” I asked nervously.

  “I thought I was dealing with a silly little man, when I was in fact contending with the considerable might of an absolutely darling princess!”

  I gasped, trying to ignore the feeling that the clouds over my mind had parted and a choir of angels was singing hymns for me specifically. I should have contradicted her, I was supposed to contradict her, I needed to contradict her.

  I opened my mouth, but all that came out was a timid squeak.

  “Oh, how precious, how adorable, how utterly, devastatingly darling!” Nadia said. She ran a hand through my hair, parting my lengthening locks to the side so the hair would frame my face to her liking. Her hands were cold, her touch alien, but her actions were warm and affectionate and caring. “Please, I must know: are you of the sapphic inclination to even the most remote degree?”

  “Uh… Uh… I’m straight,” I said. Which I was. A straight man. That was what I was, that was what I was, that was what I was-

  “A pity, for I sense that you and I could make beautiful music together,” Nadia, stroking a long, red-cquered nail under my chin.

  A series of inelegant, incoherent sylbles sparked out of my mouth.

  “As, I’m sure whatever man you find between your thighs will treat you like the darling you are! May he be handsome and gentle, for a princess such as yourself deserves no less than a prince!”

  “Th-th-thank you!” I finally managed. “Does this mean you’ll sign the contract?”

  “Oh of course, darling!” Nadia said. “But not until after I purchase you some makeup.”

  “I-I dunno if-”

  She grabbed me by the wrist and then began running, somehow, still in her freaking stilts.

  Day 56

  Nadia, it turned out, liked to go out and party, and the hangover I nursed that morning was the proof. It had taken all night, but I’d finally gotten her to sign the contract, which meant I could finally-

  DING! I screamed as I checked my phone, and saw Violetta offering me yet another business trip. Just say no, Briar, just say no, just say no-

  ‘Sure thing boss!’ I replied.

  I grabbed a pillow and screamed into it, then immediately regretted it as I felt my voice croak in real time.

  As Violetta sent me the flight information, I typed up a text to the speech therapist, asking for a telehealth appointment for this week.

  Day 63

  “Is this you?” my contact, Paul Lindegard, a seven foot behemoth of a man with the deepest voice I’d ever heard in my life, said while holding up his phone. He spoke with a thick Swedish accent and a vibrato that had to be practiced. Everything about him was big. I had to actively force down mental images of a certain aspect of him that I couldn’t help but specute as to the size of.

  We sat in his office, a simple affair but for the photographs. And there were A LOT of photographs, primarily of models strutting down the runway. His phone depicted Nadia Bilodeaux’s Insta profile, a reel of the two of us- or more accurately, herself and Rose- out a Denver nightclub. Dozens of photos montaged on the screen of us dancing and drinking while the song ‘I Enjoy Being A Girl’ pyed as the soundtrack.

  I stifled a groan and shifted in my seat, my breasts- still contained within one of the a-cup sports’ bras I’d purchased in Colorado- shifting slightly beneath my suit. I looked out the window for relief, the sight of the Seattle Space Needle serving as a mild anchor. God, it was just so big and… And… Pointy. It almost reminded me of-

  “Yes, that’s me,” I said.

  “Excellent. Then I have my terms for negotiation.”

  “Oh?”

  “You must model for me,” Lindegard said. “I am an amateur fashion photographer, but Seattle Fashion Week is coming up, and this will be my first ever professional gig. I wish to have a model to whom I have exclusive access. It will gain me… What is the word… Clout!”

  I held up my hands and shook them in front of me. “You do not want me for a model! Don’t you have to be super young to do that? I’m 30- I’ll be 31 in two months. That’s ancient by modeling standards-”

  “On the contrary, there is a greater demand for models above the age of twenty-eight this year, to demonstrate the versatility of the designs, their ability to make anyone of any age look appealing. And given you are already quite beautiful-”

  “Look, this is very fttering, but I really can’t picture myself going down the runway-”

  “Oh, no, you silly little dy,” Lindegard ughed. It was like hearing a mountain chuckle. It was what I’d always imagined Santa Cus’ ugh as sounding like when I was a little girl- BOY, little boy!

  I extinguished the warm hearth of giddiness I got from being addressed as ‘little dy’ as Lindegard continued, “You will not be on the runway. Just a photoshoot. I promise.”

  Day 70

  So that was a fucking lie.

  I found myself on the runway, adorned in a bck dress made entirely of raven’s feathers, makeup bold bordering on outrageous, my hair gelled back and decorated with pearls. This hadn’t been the pn, to say the least, and I was in no way comfortable with it. Unfortunately, when I’d gotten here the day of, I was quickly shepherded to wardrobe, then hair and makeup, and shoved aggressively out onto the catwalk.

  Fuck’s sake. May as well make the best of it.

  So I strutted in higher heels than I’d ever worn in my life, step step toe, step step toe, until the very end, where I tried my damnedest for a smolder before turning around. God, all those cameras… It’s fine, it’s fine, this will get buried in the culture section of a few online publications, it wasn’t like anybody would actually see this.

  Once I was done, I marched backstage towards Lindegard, grabbed the signed contract out of his hands, and left straight away.

  It was fine, nobody would see this, it wasn’t like it was front page news-

  Day 71

  I sat in the dining room of my hotel, an uneaten pte of fruit and pastries and sausage (delicious, delicious sausage) in front of me as I buried my head in my hands. Spread before me on the table, on the very front page of today’s paper, was a picture of my weak-ass attempt at smoldering. The headline read as ‘Mystery Model Stuns at Seattle Fashion Week!’

  How the hell was this front page news!?

  I wanted to go home. I needed to go home. Fuck, this was killing me-

  My phone dinged. I was terrified of what it inevitably would wind up being, but I looked anyway.

  Violetta: ‘how’s it going?’

  Me: ‘I’m so tired.’

  Violetta: ‘I would imagine so.’

  Me: ‘I take it you saw the photos?’

  Violetta: ‘I did.’

  Me: ‘I also take it you have another assignment for me?’

  Violetta: ‘I have an offer, but you know you can say no, right? Like, you’ve done enough. You don’t have to do this.’

  Me: ‘Do you have any other employees willing to do the same shit for you that I am?’

  Violetta: ‘No, but that’s not the point. If you don’t want to do this, you don’t have to.’

  I pinched the bridge of my nose. I wanted to go home, but there was a part of me that was still flinching at the minotaur’s cries. I wasn’t ready- going home meant having to face what I was doing, the path I was on. Kyle would look at me, and he’d… I didn’t know what he’d do. I didn’t know what I’d do. We were still talking every night- honestly, his strength and reassurance was the only thing getting me through all this. But facing him, especially with how my body was changing, still terrified me. Facing him, facing everyone, facing… Facing one other person in particur terrified me.

  “Can I just ask,” he’d said the previous night, “Are you avoiding me?”

  “No,” I’d said, and it was only half true. “I want to see you. I need to see you. But I… I’m not done yet. There’s more I need to do. I’m not ready yet.”

  “Not ready to see me?”

  “Not ready for how I’m probably going to react when I do see you,” I said in a tiny, terrified voice.

  “I don’t want you to be afraid of me, Rose.”

  “I’m not afraid of you, I’m afraid of myself. I’m afraid of… Of what I feel for you? Does that make sense?”

  “It does. I wish it didn’t, but it does,” Kyle sighed, and I heard the sound of waves washing against the shore around him. Was he at the beach? Huh. “It… It scares me a little bit, too. How much I feel for you. How quickly and how hard I’ve… I’ve…”

  He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t have to.

  “It’s more than that, though,” I’d admitted. “You’re what I want to come back to, but there’s something else. Someone else who’s path I’m inevitably gonna have to cross. Who I’m inevitably gonna have to face.”

  He sighed again, in time with the tide breaking on the sand. “Well, when you’re ready, I’m here to face it with you.”

  Me: ‘I want to do this.’

  Violetta took three full minutes to respond with, ‘k,’ before sending me the flight information.

  Day 90

  As I stood in the small pne with the door opened, a parachute pack strapped to my back, staring down at the California desert, I wondered briefly how my life had gotten to this point. Next to me, an upstart tech billionaire by the name of Priscil Bennington licked her lips with anticipation. A tall, curvy blonde with eyes even bluer than mine and boobs bigger than my brain, Priscil had made it clear the moment I arrived that I would need to accompany her on this little adventure if I wanted the contract signed.

  Above the massive onsught of noise that made me want to curl up in a ball and die, I screamed, “So you’ll sign the contract if I do this?”

  “Already signed, sealed, and delivered, baby girl!” Priscil said, shooting me a wink.

  “Wait, seriously?! So I don’t have to be here?!”

  “No, if you don’t jump, the contract is void,” Priscil smiled.

  Of course it was.

  “Now let’s do this!” Priscil said, pumping her fists. “Today’s the day I break the state record for lowest altitude shoot-pull!”

  She jumped, cackling like a maniac as she shot down towards the desert. I could make out rows of news vans below.

  I took a deep breath. There were scarier leaps of faith to be made then this, surely. As long as I didn’t make the news again, I’d be fine.

  Day 91

  I smmed my head against the wooden breakfast table in the hotel dining room, a pte of nothing but sausage before me, a newspaper on my p. The headline was ‘Businessman Brian O’Neil sets state skydiving record!’ Once again, I was there, looking distinctly confused and uncomfortable, shaking hands with the mayor while being gred at by absolutely everyone present. No wonder newspapers were dying if this was the shit they considered front-page-worthy.

  I hated everything. My breasts had already grown past the constraints of my a-cup bras, and my guy clothes felt starchy and scratchy on my ever-softer, increasingly sensitive skin.

  My phone dinged, and something inside me shriveled up. The fear of being under the media microscope again outweighed any fear of going home, any apprehension I had at Kyle seeing me, any anxiety over if he would like it, still like me, still like Rose. If I was even me anymore, or if Rose was killing me. But how could she kill me if I was never real to begin with?

  And yet that wasn’t true. Brian was clearly a real person, given all his accomplishments. But none of this was making me happy. The only thing, the only person, who could make me happy, was-

  I checked my phone.

  Violetta: ‘I have an update.’

  Me: ‘I can’t do another trip. I’m sorry, I just can’t. I need a break.’

  Violetta: “Well that’s good, because I was gonna offer you another vacation, fully paid. As well as a generous bonus.’

  Tears exploded out of my eyes, wetting the newspaper below. Oh God, oh thank God. I’d been weeping much more often tely. Nearly every nighttime talk with Kyle ended with me crying over how much I… How much Rose… How much I missed him. How much I missed our home, our life together. How much I wanted his arms around me, wanted to know his rough, massive hands would feel around my new breasts, how much I wanted to hear him whisper my name lustily into my ears. Briar Rose. Only he got to call me that. It made me feel like the center of the damn universe when he did.

  Violetta: ‘I also arranged for someone to pick you up from the airport tonight. Better go pack- your flight leaves in three hours.’

  Me: ‘Yes ma’am!’

  I hurried to my feet, drying the tears and snot with a breakfast napkin, as I hurried up to my room, life and vitality igniting a fire in my soul. I made it up to my room, and started packing my clothes, the girl clothes I’d bought in Denver and the dress I’d worn at Fashion Week and the handful of new outfits I’d bought while here in Los Angeles. I stared at one in particur, the blue blouse with the white flowers and the white skirt with more flowers still embroidered onto it.

  I hadn’t seen Kyle in three months.

  Kyle hadn’t seen his Rose in three months.

  I think it was time for him to see just how much his flower had bloomed. And besides, LA to Boston was a six hour flight- I wanted to be nice and comfy and secure for the whole thing.

  Day 92

  The clock struck twelve, midnight as I got off the pne, waltzed towards the baggage cim, and stepped outside into the cool, early April air in Logan Airport’s pickup zone. I expected a cab, maybe a limo if I was lucky, someone holding a sign with the name ‘Brian O’Neil’ waiting to shepherd me home so I could immediately pass out.

  What I found instead was a familiar lunkhead standing there, leaning against the front of his cheap, busted up old car, holding a sign that simply said ‘Briar Rose.’

  I could have cried. I damn-near did cry. But I didn’t want to ruin my makeup, not when I’d done it so nice for him… And honestly, for me as well.

  My blouse gave a peak at my new cleavage, accented by the b-cup pushup bra I’d grabbed before leaving Los Angeles, while strappy white sandals with a slight heel to them adorned my feet. I ran to him, and he looked ready to cry himself as I jumped into his arms. My heart was singing the most beautiful song imaginable, every cell in my body resonating with the melody of pure joy, my brain drinking in the sight of this devastatingly handsome man as my forehead pressed against his.

  I wanted to kiss him so bad it scared me. I was still a guy, after all, and a straight one at that. I wasn’t supposed to be this happy. Damn girly hormones were messing with my head- that had to be it. It wasn’t like I was…

  I was just pying pretend, after all. It was just a game.

  But then he kissed me, gently at first, then hungrily and open-mouthed, his stubble tickling my face and his lips pouring more gas on the proverbial fire inside me. And I decided that for today, tonight, I could lose myself in the game. Tonight, I could be Rose, and that was okay. And Rose was very much infatuated with the strapping hunk currently holding her aloft. Rose was a straight girl. I was…

  I…

  I’d poured my heart out to this man, let him see me, all of me, the scant slivers of good and the massive ocean of bad. And he liked what he saw. And I liked what I saw when I looked at him. I liked Kyle. It didn’t matter who I was, because if I was Brian or if I was Rose, I liked Kyle. I was infatuated with Kyle Duggan, and dammit, that made me feel amazing. That made me feel realer than I’d ever felt in my life. “Hello,” I said between kisses.

  “Good morning, good morning to you,” he smiled.

  He whisked me away, and back to our home the two of us went.