Chapter 21: 8:20. Ce N’est Pas Une Fille

It was Tuesday, after lunch. Tammy still had med classes for the rest of the day, but Emma and I had the afternoon free. We'd been using it as a catch-up day for assignments, but there wasn't much that needed doing this week; thankfully, none of our professors felt like handing out anything big this close to Thanksgiving break. As such, it looked like our day was pretty much going to consist of bumming around the dorm.

Which was fine with me; Tammy was running late to lunch and had to dash off to her next class without taking the time to wind me up, which meant I was probably going to run down earlier than usual. A quiet afternoon in our room suited me just fine.

The only problem was that as soon as we got back, Emma put her books away, freshened herself up a bit, and got ready to go out. "H-hey, wait," I said, "you're not staying in?" I'd have to get her to wind me up before she left, then...

She hoisted her head over her shoulder to look back at me. "No? I had some errands to-oh, right, you need a boost, don't you."

"Well, not just yet," I said. "But before too long, yeah."

"Right," she said, turning the rest of her to face me. "Guess we should get that taken care of..." She trailed off, a thoughtful expression on her face. "Actually, heck, why don't you come with? You don't have any plans, do you?"

I didn't, but I didn't imagine that Emma's errands were anything of interest to me, and I had a sneaking suspicion that her invitation had more to do with my new ability to carry any arbitrary number of bags without straining my arms. "Thanks, but I'm fine."

"Aww, c'mon," she said, lowering her head to the perfect height to gaze up at me with puppy-dog eyes. She was getting way too good at this.

"Emma, we both know you're planning to make me carry your stuff."

She looked a little indignant. "Hey, now. I've never made you do anything."

This was technically correct; she only cajoled and wheedled, and allowed my natural inclination to do what people wanted of me to do the rest. But I still wasn't buying it, and I gave her a firm shake of the head to show it. "Uh-uh."

There was a brief silence, measured out by the quiet ticking of my internals. Finally, she shrugged in resignation. "Fine, fine. I promise I won't let you carry anything you didn't buy yourself."

This caught me by surprise; I was sure that was the goal. "Wait, you, uh...you actually want me along?"

Now she looked a little hurt. "Well, we are friends. Besides, I, ah...I still feel a little awkward about the other day, to be honest."

"You really don't have to..." I began, but she shushed me with a dismissive little wave of her hand.

"I mean, I'm not wracked by a mountain of guilt or anything," she said. "But I do feel a little bad, and I just wanna make sure the hatchet is good and buried." She grinned. "C'mon, whaddya say?"

---

To the surprise of neither of us, I ended up accompanying her after all. I didn't know what she was planning here, but she seemed earnest, and I didn't want any hard feelings between us. So here we were, as I suspected, entering the mall after a short bus trip across the hillside.

"So, uh, what're you...we...here for?" I asked, as we went inside.

Emma chuckled. "Early sales. They won't roll out the big price breaks until Black Friday, but some of the stores want to catch the holiday shoppers early - and I'm not going out on the day of, believe me. I don't have to worry about them slitting my throat anymore, but the mob'll be just as happy to knife me in the ribs over discount clothing."

I spared a brief, notional shudder at the thought of her getting caught in a crowd press, where she might fumble or have her head knocked out of her grasp and lose it in a forest of frenzied shopper legs. Still... "So it was clothes," I said, trying to suppress a sigh.

"Hey, don't get all judgy on me," she said, a little annoyed. "I like 'em, okay? Just because I'm a math major doesn't mean I have to stick to button-down shirts and pocket protectors."

"N-no, it's fine," I said. "It's just..."

"'...not your thing,' I know," she replied dryly. "Have you ever figured out what is 'your thing,' Stu?"

I felt mildly irked at that. "Hey, I like things. They're just not the things you like."

"Right, right, sorry. It's just..." She sighed. "For being so easy to read, you're freakin' hard to figure out. You have all these things you don't want to be or do, but you don't seem to know what you do want. Like, sure, you can name bands you like, fine - but why are you even in metamorphic studies? Apparently not because of your obvious interest in the subject, since you keep pretending that's not a thing."

I felt something grinding in the back of my head. "I...really don't want to talk about it, Emma."

"With me, or with anybody?"

"...With anybody."

She shook her head slowly. "Stu, this really isn't healthy. And it doesn't make it any less obvious to the rest of us that you need to talk to somebody about it. But...okay, fine." She sighed again. "Let's just get to it, then. We'll do...something else after, if you can bear to divulge anything you would like to me."

Nodding silently, I followed her. It's not like I haven't been having that conversation with myself for years now. I clenched my teeth. And it's been so helpful...

---

Emma led me through a number of stores as she checked over a list of targets she'd made on her phone. I was a little confused, though; there were quite a few things she found that she obviously liked, but didn't actually pick up, moving on to the next thing instead. Finally, I asked her about it.

"I dunno," she said, "I've always done it this way. There's still more shops to hit, and we won't know what we find 'til the end; then we come back and grab the best selection we can, given my limited disposable income as a college student."

"You're not worried about somebody else beating you to it?" I asked, trying to model the scenario in my head. It seemed pretty reasonable when she put it like that, but there were still a bunch of other shoppers...

She shook her head. "I mean, the stuff I am worried about being scooped on is what I've been grabbing right off the bat. But most of these they have multiples of, and the odds of three or four other people who all want the same thing coming by in the next forty minutes are low, probably. Plus, I don't have to carry the whole lot with me both ways. And half the fun's...in the...hunt..."

She trailed off, lifting her head to stare at something on display over in another corner of the store, but I was a bit distracted myself as I was beginning to run down. "Uh, Emma?" I said. "Liiittle help here?"

She nodded thoughtfully to herself, as if she hadn't heard me. "Yeah," she said absent-mindedly, "yeah...uh? Oh, right. Here, c'mon back to the changing rooms..."

I followed her, unsure why that was necessary; she wasn't normally shy about this. But instead of going straight to the back of the store, we wound our way over to the display in question, where she surveyed the mannequins, thought for a moment, and grabbed a couple pieces of clothing. Okay, she wanted to try something on, fine. Just so long as she didn't take too long...there were worse places to run down, but it was always a little unsettling.

At the changing rooms, Emma set her things and herself on the bench outside the stalls, went around back of me, and took hold of my key. But she only gave it a half-turn before releasing me. "Emma, what...?" I said, confused.

She turned back to me, holding out the clothes she'd grabbed on the way. "Here you go," she said, from down on the bench.

I frowned. "You know I'm not interested."

"I know you tell yourself you're not interested," she said. "And, heck, maybe you aren't. But I'm asking you to trust me on this - just this once."

I could feel my tempo jump, tension coiling up inside me, eating into the little bit of energy she'd just given me. "It's not gonna be 'just this once,' Emma," I said. "We both know that. And, what, are you just gonna let me run down if I don't?"

Emma gave me an injured look. "Of course not; that was just to get your attention. But I promise - scout's honor."

My eyes narrowed. "You were a Girl Scout?"

"...I was in 4-H," she replied sheepishly. "But really, honest - let me make my point here, and I'll stop bugging you about it."

I thought about it for a minute, my mind whirring. I didn't want to give in - I didn't like having her second-guess my feelings for me, and I doubted that this would be the end of it, plus I just knew I'd feel all weird and awkward about it. But...on the other hand, she seemed about as serious as she ever got, and it would be nice to be able to point back to this if she ever raised the issue again... I sighed. "Alright, it's a promise."

She grinned. "Great. I'll leave you to it, then."

With a sigh and an eye-roll, I went inside. I set my purse down, unbuttoned my shirt and took off my jeans, and set them aside; then I looked over the clothes she'd chosen for me, and felt a surge of embarrassment.

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"What the hell is this!?" I hollered to her, outside the stall.

I heard her fail to suppress a snort. "Don't forget, it's a promise!" she called back.

"My ass!" I snapped.

"...is gonna look great in that, you're welcome!"

The clothes in question were a navy-blue skirt that was not too tight or short generally, but a whole lot moreso than I was comfortable with, a sort of wraparound sleeveless, strapless stretchy white thing that I assumed must be what a "bandeau top" was, based on what she'd said an age and a half ago, and a similarly strapless band of cloth that I assumed was a bra to match.

Honestly, it wasn't scandalous by the standards of Our Modern Age, but the whole, taken together, was so much more overtly "21st-century college girl" than anything I'd ever considered wearing that I almost thought I'd prefer whatever weirdo doll-cosplay stuff Anne wanted to put me in. This wasn't me - I was sure of it. I'd never felt a desire to wear this kind of thing, never had any inclinations towards cross-dressing, and I certainly wasn't comfortable with exposing...however much of myself this would show off, but...

I gritted my teeth. Damn it all...just this once, just this once, and then I never have to take any crap from her again...

Chuffing in aggravation, I removed my camisole and examined the bra. It wasn't quite a plain band of cloth - there was some padding on one side, to support the "breasts" that didn't need it and conceal the nipples I didn't have. But it was dead simple in pretty much every other respect, except the respect of how to get the damn thing on. After some thought, I passed it around my key, down the shaft to my back, and hooked first one arm and then the other through it, slipping my head through and pulling it down into place over my bust.

The top was similar; I was glad that it was a plain stretchy piece of fabric rather than some of the others we'd seen that appeared to just have a matrix of shoelaces in the back, but it still made it a pain to wear. I'd figured out the procedure, though, so I got it on with no trouble...until I realized that, on top of being strapless, it didn't come down to the...wait, I didn't have a navel. Well, if I had, it wouldn't have covered it.

Groaning in embarrassment, I moved on to the last item. The skirt was dead simple by comparison; a zipper down the back, and that was it. But it was definitely more figure-hugging than the dress my clothes had turned into (though not as confining as the jeans I'd borrowed from Alicia,) and it was much shorter, swishing and fluttering with my movements just above the knee. Altogether, I felt entirely too exposed and out of my comfort zone.

While I stood there, staring into space and feeling weird and uncomfortable, Emma knocked on the door. "You decent in there?" she called. Was I? I didn't feel like it; I was afraid to even look in the mirror...

After a minute, a pair of hands reached under the door and deposited a disembodied head on the floor of the changing room. I yelped in surprise and stepped back; Emma laughed. "Relax, Stu. I can't see up your skirt from here." (In fact, she was turned to face the door.)

A moment later, her body crawled through; she hissed softly as her "smoke" wafted up against the bottom of the door. She stood up, dusted herself off, knelt down, and picked herself up. "Alright, good, you are dressed," she said, turning to me. "Now tell me: are you a different person than you were five minutes ago?"

"Uh, no?" I said, frowning. "Seriously..."

"You sure?" she said, that teasing tone creeping into her voice. "Nothing that makes up the core of your very self is being irrevocably altered right now?"

I knew what she was getting at, and it irked me. "I said this stuff isn't my thing, Emma. I didn't say I was afraid of catching cooties from it."

She nodded in mock-sagaciousness. "Right, right. Then what you mean is, what? You hate the way you look in this?" She gestured toward the mirror. "Have you even seen yourself right now?"

I hadn't, and she seemed to know it; I'd been avoiding it since I undressed. But why? It was obviously silly to think that the clothes I wore changed anything about my self; but then, what was I worried about, if not that? Not the embarrassment per se; I was learning to cope with that, every time I had to be wound up in public or started to emit too much noise in class...

No, what worried me wasn't what this might do to me; it was how I might react to it. I saw it in Lucky, blithely unconcerned with what had happened to her, if she even comprehended it at all; and in Emma, just as comfortable, but wholly conscious of and actively curious about it all. I thought I might be seeing it in Tammy, who'd grown less and less dour when the topic turned to her new form, ever since she'd learned to handle being in the water...

And I did not want to see it in myself. Even if my friends were coming to terms with this, I still wanted to change back, dammit! I didn't intend to just meekly and passively accept this, like I had so many other things...this was my body, my identity, my entire self! I had to hang onto that; I couldn't let it be taken from me, just because it might be easier to shut up and go along...

I found I was shaking, something inside me whirling erratically and setting my whole frame a-shudder. Emma held herself in one arm and put the other around my shoulder. "You're hard to figure out, but you're ridiculously easy to read," she said. "Come on, now. It's a mirror; it doesn't do anything but show you an image - and the reality doesn't change, whether you see it or not. We're not talking quantum superposition, here."

None of which was untrue; but that didn't make it any less intimidating. It was the knowing that scared me the most. It wasn't even like that first night, where the fear of knowing was overpowered by the need to know; but Emma tucked her hand under my chin and turned me firmly but gently, like she would her own head, to face the mirror.

I saw an image there. A young woman, with a modest figure, pale cream skin, silver hair, and purple eyes. She wore an outfit that was reasonably stylish, not too flamboyant or revealing. Her pretty face was darkened by a shaken, troubled expression, but it was okay; she was someone else.

I saw another image there. An object in the likeness of a woman, sculpted from metal, covered in fabric, with wiry filament "hair" and circular gemstone shutters over its optics. It was wrapped in pieces of cloth that complemented its own colors, their lines playing off its own, accenting the bare metal at the joints. It stood there, lifeless; its features were arranged to mimic an expression of confusion, but it was only a machine.

I felt a presence somewhere between the images. A formless, disembodied spirit, lost within itself; unable to touch or be touched, powerless to affect the world around it or change its own destiny. An empty presence, forever caught between possibilities, alone with its own inner turmoil...

The waveform collapsed; the spell was broken. There was only one thing in the mirror, and it was me.

I stared for a long moment, less at the outfit and more at the figure wearing it. That brief spell of...of dissociation, telling myself that it didn't matter what the girl in the mirror thought about the clothes she was wearing because that wasn't me... And before that, the way I'd spent the last few weeks just trying not to think about it at all, compartmentalizing the different aspects of my change as a way to avoid addressing the whole...

I didn't know what to make of it. The whole system of rationalization fell apart as soon as I stopped and thought about it, but what was the alternative? Just accept this? Resign myself to being this way forever? No, I...I wanted to change back, I was sure, but...in the meantime, at least, I had to accept it, provisionally...didn't I? Did I? I didn't know...!

And what did that even mean for me, here and now? I didn't know that either. I took another look in the mirror, at the outfit. Apart from being much more "teen/twenty-something girl wear" than I was used to, it was fairly tasteful-ish. The skirt and the top both hugged my figure more than I wanted, but not enough to seem racy; their colors complemented mine well, and the hem of the skirt and the "neckline" of the top around back made the weird seams at my knees and the shaft of my key seem almost like part of the outfit. Emma really did know her stuff...

But I was relieved that I still felt awkward about it. There was no dark enchantment here, nothing that made me less me simply by wearing the "wrong" clothes; it was just something I wasn't used to or comfortable with. Whatever the answers to my existential crises were, this had nothing to do with them.

"See?" Emma said. I started; I'd almost forgotten she was there. "No voodoo mind-control here, right?"

I sighed and nodded. "...No."

She grinned. "Toldja. See, I figured out what we're gonna do, here. You and me, we're gonna have a girls' day out. You can tell yourself whatever you need to, but I want you to get an idea of what you're holding yourself back from. Anything you decide after that is your own affair - but it at least oughta be an informed decision, right?"

I gave her a Look. "I'm not sure why you're trying to rationalize this to me when you've clearly already decided on it."

She feigned a hurt look, but this time it was entirely playful. "Hey, it's not my fault that you just go along with what people expect you to do. I'm just trying to exploit it to do you some good, for once."

"Sure you are. And the fact that you've been bucking for this from the get-go and get a kick out of teasing me has nothing to do with it?"

"Scout's honor," she said with a grin. "Now c'mon, let's go get you checked out. This one's on me."

I shook my head. "Hell no. If I let you pick up the tab, I'm never gonna hear the end of it when I don't keep wearing 'the clothes I paid so much for...!'"

She gave me a sly smirk. "Well, if you insist..."

I nodded firmly. "I get enough guilt-tripping from my mother, thanks."

She raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. I turned to go, but realized I was already running back down, and motioned to my key. Emma nodded and moved in behind me, winding me up properly this time. I gathered up my clothes, grabbed my purse, took a deep breath, and exited the changing room, feeling awkward and self-conscious, but not as horribly ashamed as I'd anticipated.

We went to the register and I paid - dearly - for the outfit she'd picked out. My mind boggled (and my tempo spiked) at the kind of money women apparently paid for clothes that weren't even that fancy; good thing I wasn't going to make a habit of this. The clerk gave me a shopping bag to put my own clothes in, and we set off in search of Emma's next quarry.

"Now, I hate to break it to you," I said as we left the shop, "but if you're planning on having my nails done, I don't have any."

Emma chuckled and nodded thoughtfully. "Aw, damn. And makeup'd just stain your 'skin,' and your hair probably doesn't grow back..."

"Oh, hey, you're probably right," I said, wondering if I could get a haircut that was a little more neutral.

She laughed. "Don't count on it, Stu," she said, guessing what I was thinking. "People don't see a girl with short hair and think 'maybe a guy.' They think 'Annie Lennox.' But...hmm. Well, we'll think of something."

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