Chapter 3: Chapter 3: Awkwardness

Getting up the next day, Romeo’s morning routine wasn’t overly changed. There were still teeth to be brushed. Still skin to be cared for. No shaving, though. That had taken a moment to realise. But Romeo rolled with it.

Everything done, Romeo smiled at the girl in the mirror who was looking downright radiant. How had she not figured out she was a god’s daughter bef—daughter!?

Why was he thinking about himself as a girl?

“Is it the curse?” he wondered aloud, staring at his reflection. Did it affect his mind too?

Sure, he was rather in touch with his feminine side some days. To the point he’d almost thought he was trans too in high school. But he liked being a guy… most of the time? 

Ok, most of the time he didn’t really think about gender much, but the days when he’d felt more exploratory about his gender were rarer than the ones he was quite happy as a guy. 

So, full on thinking of himself as a woman. That had to be magic, right? Hormones didn’t do that. 

Or, well, maybe they could nudge at those feeling of in-touchness with femininity? Make them stronger? The way Logan had talked about feeling more confident in his masculinity once he’d started testosterone?

Romeo couldn’t say. He was no neurologist. Or endocronologist. Or… whatever the term was for the most relevant… was it endocronologist? Endocrinologist? Endocronoligist? 

He was pretty sure it wasn’t that last one. 

It was confusing, and too early in the morning to try to remember a six-syllable word. He turned to leave the bathroom, when he had an itch on his ankle. Nothing weird, but, when he scratched it, he noticed how his legs were hairy. About the same as they normally were. It was maybe a little thinner, but… 

---

Romeo let Logan and Frankie into the suite, each carrying a bag or two of freshly bought clothing. It had been weird for him to stay in the hotel while they shopped for him, but Rachel was worried about the risk of paparazzi or a fan of some sort taking photos and leading to a whole scandal. So Romeo was stuck in his room.

“Good news. We found some platform boots in your size,” Frankie said, holding up her bag. “That should help with the height change.”

“Oh that’s—wait. My old size or my new size?” Romeo asked.

The other two blinked, before blushing.

“Right. It would make sense for your feet to shrink too,” Logan mumbled, looking down at the smaller feet poking out of the bottom of now too long sweatpants. “… why are you wearing full pants? You never wear full pants in summer, unless Rachel forced you to.”

It was Romeo’s turn to blush as he squirmed under his bandmates’ curiosity.

“I—uh… I cut myself a little,” he mumbled.

“You what,” Frankie asked, the tomboyish woman’s eyes filling with concern.

“Is the dysphoria that bad? Do you need emergency help?” Logan added, hurrying over and grabbing Romeo’s hand.

“Em-er—what!? Oh! No. No.” Romeo shook his head, pulling away. “I—It was an accident. I was trying to shave my legs. I guess I got impatient or… something.”

“Why did you shave your legs?” Frankie asked, tilting her head in confusion.

“I don’t know! I… I just had the impulse to try it. I… last night I was reading about a dude named Tyresias who got turned into a woman for seven years by Hera, and… I don’t know. I guess I wanted to get started on skills I might need if my transformation lasts that long,” Romeo replied, trying to forget the odd feelings of happiness that had come with having smooth legs even while covered in cuts and scrapes.

Logan gave a nod. “I suppose different people respond to crises differently. You always seemed to be about adaptability… well, either way, you should try on the clothing we bought. We’ll see how well you can pass. Especially since Rachel decided we’re flying out tonight.”

“Wait. What? We still had, like, three days left?” Romeo asked.

“She wants to get back to the studio and see what we can figure out with a few days grace period,” Logan explained.

“I’m also pretty sure I heard her muttering about being afraid you might get yourself pregnant if you’re left unattended at a resort,” Frankie added with a mischievous grin.

“I’m not going to get pregnant,” Romeo muttered, his cheeks going warm.

Logan, who was blushing far worse than Romeo felt he was, cleared his throat and offered his bags to Romeo. “So, we should get to work.”

Romeo nodded, grabbing the bags to put them on a chair, and then pulling his shirt off. The sports bra proved a very tight fit, but he supposed that was the point. It was supposed to compress after all. 

Logan was grumbling about how much better a binder would be for the job, when Romeo became aware of a shift in his blood flow. Specifically towards the area he’d been surprised to find unchanged the night before. Why in the world would that be—right now? 

Was it from wearing the bra? Was wearing women’s undergarments really turning him on? Even one this utilitarian?

He wasn’t sure, but he sat down, pulling the bags onto his lap. He hadn’t had something like this happen since high school. It was severely embarrassing.

“Y-you ok there, Romeo?” Frankie asked.

“F-fine. Fine,” he mumbled, waiting for the issue to sort itself out.

“Are you sick?” Logan asked, leaning in with concern in those warm brown eyes of his.

Because, yep. Remembering his lingering awkward attraction to his old friend was totally what he needed when trying to calm down his… downstairs.

“The way your shifting those bags on your lap,” Frankie started to say, “I’d half think—”

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“Ok! Ok! So… it turned out it was only a ‘half’ transformation,” Romeo blurted. “I wasn’t sure how to bring it up, but… well, I don’t know why wearing a bra is having this effect.”

Logan blinked, silently mouthing the word ‘half’.

“Oh. That’s easy,” the bassist said, her hands in her pockets as both men turned to her. “The chest is a sensitive area. Especially with estrogen running through your system. Contact there gets your body on edge, and so… other areas respond. Physical arousal doesn’t always connect to mental arousal after all. Heard about it happening to plenty of trans women who then get self conscious. It doesn’t mean you’ve got some secret fetish or something… probably.”

“Mmmm… I guess so. Still embarrassing,” Romeo mumbled. 

“W-well, hopefully wearing the bra for a while works it out of your system…” Logan added, blushing away. “I… also, good that you’re left with something. Hopefully it helps with any dysphoria issues… at the very least it means you don’t have to worry about periods?”

Romeo paled, looking down at his gut. “I… well, I don’t know what’s going on on the inside, since the change is all patchy, but… I really hope I won’t have periods.”

“We’ll… uh, we’ll take you to a doctor when we get home,” Frankie offered.

Romeo nodded. “That sounds good.”

---

The rest of getting ready had gone rather less awkwardly. The second sports bra helped compress Romeo to something almost approaching flat (he wasn’t one for false modesty and was more than willing to admit the Spring of Salmakis had been good to him… something he chalked up to being the grandda—grandson of Aphrodite). The baggy t-shirt overtop and a bit of advice on bad posture from Logan to help him further hide his chest had him looking roughly like his old self. Just… when he was 14 or something, with the softer face and lost height. Sunglasses and the new boots helped further, and, well, they’d run out of time before they had to grab taxis to the airport. 

It was a decent drive to the airport they were using, and then there was the early arrival recommended for international flights. Along with Rachel’s insistence to have a buffer on top of that, to deal with ‘celebrity problems’ that did have a habit of cropping up. Paparazzi. Fans. Getting instruments through customs. Romeo sneaking off to a bathroom with someone he’d just met that found the whole ‘world famous popstar’ thing wildly attractive.

That last one wasn’t an issue today, though. He wasn’t sure how someone would react to his changed body here in Turkey. Or in most of the world.

And everyone in the band was watching him like a hawk, seemingly convinced he’d be the victim of another angry ancient supernatural force. Or transphobia. Or… both? He hoped both wasn’t a possibility, but figured it was best not to jinx it. Weren’t Amazons supposed to be pretty brutal to anyone vaguely masculine?

Were Amazons a thing?

Thankfully he was able to pass through security with relative ease. He looked enough like himself he was able to claim the passport photo just had bad lighting. He got past the metal detector, only having had to remove his boots. Which lead to comments about celebrities always being shorter than they wanted you to know. Annoying, since he was normally 5’10”, which was a perfectly respectable height. Not tall, sure. But acceptable. Unfortunately the curse had him down to, what, 5’6”? Maybe 5’7” when he was fresh out of bed in the morning.

It was depressing. Turned into a girl was one thing, but turned short? That was just rude.

He decided to pout for most of the next hour. Partially over the height change. Partially because the barista at the nearby coffee shop was really cute and clearly star struck when she looked his way. Yet he couldn’t do anything with that right now.

What was the point of apparently being the child of the god of physical desire if he had to behave himself like this? Especially since he’d basically been under lock and key since Krakow, where he’d apparently misread his Polish phrase book while mildly drunk and accidentally proposed to a woman when trying to call her pretty. Then his dating efforts in Bodrum had been torpedoed by Rachel before he’d gotten anywhere more than a kiss or two.

He pulled out his phone, plugging some headphones in and tossed on music. It was a good way to tune the world out for the next forty minutes until they boarded.

That only lasted a moment, though, as Rachel reached out and touched his hand. Confused, he pulled off his headphones.

“I know you’re stressed out, but we’ll figure this out,” she said.

He could tell she was tired, now that they were making eye contact. She wasn’t wearing makeup, her clothes were more casual than normal, and her eyes seemed so much softer. So much kinder.

Like she’d look at the end of their first tour. When—

“It’s not the curse,” he blurted, trying to forget the mistake they’d both made all those years ago. Only to blush as he looked around, making sure no one was paying attention. 

He’d gotten lucky, the band were the only ones seated nearby. Well, apart from an old woman who was quietly reading a novel.

Plus, in retrospect, it wasn’t like people would think he was talking about real magic.

“Are you sick, then?” Rachel asked.

“No. No. It’s nothing… just annoyed by the vacation ending early,” he lied.

Rachel let out a groan and rolled her eyes.

---

Sitting down in his business class seat, Romeo found himself between Logan and Rachel. He probably shouldn’t have been surprised by that. Logan was his closest friend in the band, so worried about him, while Rachel liked to keep him on a short leash whenever she thought he would misbehave.

Well, that or she was actually worried about him, but… she was probably more worried about her family’s record company’s bottom line if something happened to him than worried for his own sake.

He plugged his headphones into the entertainment system, hoping to watch a movie or two on the flight to Paris. Of course, the safety video came first, which he was ready to tune out.

Until he realised the flight attendant on the small screen had wings. It was Hermaphroditus, arms crossed and wearing a smug grin.

“You have some serious commitment issues, don’t you?” they asked.

“What,” he muttered, glancing over to see both Logan and Rachel’s screens were showing normal safety presentations.

“I’m an Erote. I can sense the feelings you have for those around you. Yet you ignore any relationships that would lead to actual commitment. You chase after short term flings that have no chance of turning serious while avoiding your feelings for those around you,” the winged deity said, the camera having zoomed out to show more of their flight attendant outfit while the background changed the same as in the normal video.

Romeo blushed and crossed his arms, slumping in his seat before whispering a reply. “I’m not going to get psychoanalyzed by a flight safety video.”

“Well, I hope you realise I’ll be paying more attention than I originally planned to. You’re an amusing little mortal, and, as the deity of marriage… I’m invested in fixing those commitment issues,” Hermaphroditus said, grinning away on the screen before the safety video finally ended.

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