Owen had never before been so concerned with the design of plastic bags. Any other day, they were a fairly simple vessel in which he’d put a couple bags of ramen in. Maybe even a microwave meal or two if it was an especially decadent day. Today was not so thoughtless, however. Every single person he passed on the sidewalk caused shivers of paranoia to trickle along the hairs of his arms. Could they see into the bag? It was translucent, a cloudy white color that could only be attributed to such a cheaply manufactured bag as this. But the darker pieces of clothing? They were perfectly visible if a passerby took the effort to cast a glance towards it.
But why would they? It was a silly thought, that a stranger would care so much about the contents of someone else’s plastic bag with the text “THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU” written in thick red lines down the length.
That brought an even deeper thought into Owen’s mind. What would happen if they did see what was inside? Did that even matter? If he saw another man along the sidewalk holding feminine clothes the first thought would be that they’re for someone else.
That was only natural, right? But even that thought felt painful. It relied on the implication that the clothes had to be for someone else. No one would suspect that they were Owen’s, because why on earth would they? Suddenly, the idea of getting a brain transplant with Castle felt appealing. They certainly wouldn’t be having this strain of thought, that’s for sure. Owen doubted that Castle had ever been concerned with what others thought of them. The picture of an infantile Castle being unphased by bullies in elementary school came to mind. An entertaining thought, that Owen would have paid good money to see firsthand.
Habit gripped Owen’s hand as he reached towards the handle to his room. He hadn’t realized how close to home he had gotten while swallowed up in the pit of anxieties his mind lay in. He wasted no time in entering the door and quickly shutting it. A soft comfort lined the sigh that left his throat as he flicked the lock shut on the door. His room felt warm. It lacked the chilling onlookers that the outdoors had in store for him. In here, it was just him, and the plastic bags full of clothes that had fallen on their sides to spill the clothes across the floor.
“What now…?” Owen asked aloud, to no one in particular. Getting the clothes home was the only thing occupying his mind until now. Logically, the next step was to put them on. Could he just… do that? Surely it wasn’t that easy. There was this underlying sense that the moment he started to put any of the clothes on, a gender essentialist ninja would pop out to shame and attack him. It was irrational of course.
…Unless
No, it was definitely irrational. But Owen still couldn’t shake the sense that what he was doing was wrong. But it wasn’t, it couldn’t be. Presumably, this was exactly what Aoife had done, and Owen didn’t think of her that way. Not at all! Which meant Owen just had to suck it up and-
“Go nuts.” Owen reaffirmed, hoping that by saying it aloud he could remind himself of the confidence that Castle displayed when giving him the advice.
Nothing to it but to do it, Owen thought. He reached out to snatch the first item of clothing. A nondescript white skirt, with thick doubled black lines that wrapped around the bottom of the hem.
* * * * *
[DO NOT ANSWER: Aoife, are you okay? I’m sorry if I said too much.]
[DO NOT ANSWER: You don’t have to respond right now, but please tell me when you make it home. I want to know that you’re safe. We can continue this later?]
[DO NOT ANSWER: You looked pretty today. You’ve grown a lot in such a short time. I love you to the moon and back.]
Every text vibrated in Aoife’s hands. Every text burned in her eyes, provoking more tears to drip down her face. The wind brushing against her face threatened to freeze the tears against her cheeks as a perpetual reminder of the conversation she ran away from. Jen was trying to comfort. At least, that’s what it looked like to Aoife as she read the messages over and over while walking.
I love you to the moon and back.
Aoife hadn’t heard that one for some time. It was the name of her favorite bedtime story. One that she cherished when it was read to her by her father. Jen had attempted to read the story to her time and time again. It felt sour to Aoife. “I love you to the moon and stars, my precious little one”, the penultimate page read. Aoife didn’t feel like Jen had the right to call her “my precious little one”. She just walked in one day, dressed in over perfumed attire.
But she repeated it. Time and time again, chipping away at a single brick, as if it would let her through the entire wall. As soon as Aoife had gotten a phone, Jen would always finish their conversations with the phrase, as if it was a professional signoff.
The words had no meaning to Aoife. She’d seen them far too many times on the small screen of her smartphone. So why wouldn’t the tears stop? Why did her chest quiver with the desire to sob?
She just needed a break. A warm bed and some of her stuffed animals to lull her into a slumber in which she couldn’t cry. Her phone buzzed once more. Another text. She couldn’t handle one more, the previous three already fogged her mind with doubt. With shaking hands, she held the power button on her phone and slipped it into her pocket.
She just needed to get to bed. Everything would be better in the morning.
* * * * *
“Hello.” Owen couldn’t help himself from speaking out loud. He stood awkwardly in front of his mirror. Shaky, unshaven legs wobbled underneath the focus of his attention. The soft skirt that fit surprisingly well around his waist.
“Funny meeting you here.” He joked, knowing there’d be no response from the reflection. It was all he could do to trim away the awkwardness he felt wearing an item of clothing he’d never even held onto before today. That was one on, and so far none of his skin was melting off, and no gender essentialist ninjas had shown up to stop him. Another item couldn’t hurt in that case.
Owen slowly pulled his shirt off of his body, letting it drop towards the edge of his bed. He didn’t dare glance in the direction of the mirror. It wasn’t a sight he wanted to behold, at least not until he had thrown something else over his body. He scrambled through one of the bags until he found the item he was most embarrassed to check out with. The selection of bras in Thrift King were understandably lacking. He didn’t even know much about bras, but he could easily understand why it wasn’t a piece of clothing you’d want to get secondhand. He untangled the straps from the shirt he had tightly wrapped it inside to pull it free.
“Fuckass Lament Configuration bra.” Owen muttered on his third consecutive minute of attempt to latch the bra behind him after putting it on. It seemed simple when it was in front of him, but when he was straining his arms behind him and attempting to do it backwards, he couldn’t manage to clip it together until the fourth minute. This chapter was taken from novelping.com without permission.
“Ugh, finally.” He relaxed his arms, which were on the verge of cramping from the way he was contorting them behind his back to reach the bra. With the bra on, he snatched up the shirt he was most excited to try on. Did it match with the white skirt he was wearing? Who knows. Owen had only ever known how to style in video games where the clothes were adorned with spikes and bizarre painted patterns. None of that experience lended itself towards him being able to TJMaxxify himself. He slipped the cropped black shirt onto his body, admiring the tattered edge of the hem that made it look naturally distressed and worn.
Like a fashion show meant for one, Owen walked up to the standing mirror next to his bed. Sure enough, the person in the mirror was wearing a white skirt with black stripes and a black cropped shirt. It was Owen, but it was not. There was a feature within the mirrored Owen that divorced it from himself. A bright, unbridled grin. Ear to ear. It was an expression of such joy that Owen could barely recognize himself within the image the mirror provided.
“Oh.”
Words shunted through his throat alongside awkward laughs.
“Who are you?”
He turned to the side, admiring the full profile of himself within the reflection.
“Whoever you are… It’s nice to meet you.”
The smile would not relent. It beamed ever bright as he gave a quaint spin to watch the skirt fluff up for a moment.
“I want to get to know you. I’m-”
Owen didn’t feel right. The name, that was. Owen couldn’t say the name that so firmly attached itself to his identity like a barnacle. It was his name, sure. By all means, the name Owen was him. But like this? That didn’t fit. It felt wrong, almost regressive to attempt to apply that name to himself when he seemed almost unrecognizable to himself. Owen didn’t smile like this. This couldn’t be Owen.
He quickly moved from the mirror to his desk. With a flick of his mouse, the monitor came to life, showing the launcher to ULTRA MEGA DEATH KILLER already opened and ready to launch at a buttons’ press. He clicked the launch button as soon as the mouse hovered over it. He wanted a reference, a comparison. To himself in his current state, and the woman that he had dreamed of being within the game.
While waiting for the game to open, he looked to the side, towards the end of his desk that held the other bag of clothes and his phone.
“Oh shit.” He quickly snatched his phone from the desk and opened his messages. Aoife had mentioned that she might be home later. 'Family shit', as she had so eloquently stated. If she came back home right now, it’d be a disaster. He wasn’t ready for any of that.
What would be the explanation? Feminine clothes strewn about the floor, just after she revealed to him that she was trans. Would that carry some kind of bad implication? The idea of having to come up with excuses for any of this caused a frankly nauseating amount of anxiety to fill his stomach.
[Owen: Yo Aoife, hope that family shit is going well. Do you know if you’ll be home tonight? If so, when do you think you’ll get home? I just wanna make sure the place isn’t super messy when you get back.]
That’ll do it. She’d send some kind of ETA, and he’d have it all wrapped up by the time she got home. Relief from the anxiety washed over him like a comforting wave. The flash of light out of the corner of his eye told him that UMDK was done launching. The game had a splash screen for the title that ended with a bomb exploding across the screen to reveal the title of the game. It was very over the top, but at least you’d never have to guess when the game was done loading.
Witch stared back at the confused college student. She looked the same as when he’d last played a couple of matches with her. She was energetic, confident, and covered in enough pink that even Mattel would blush. The most eye-catching feature was an ear to ear grin that demonstrated just how happy she was to shotgun pump her way through a dystopian future. The smile reminded him of his own reflection.
The seconds melded together into minutes as he stared at the screen, slowly rotating the character model with slow drags of his mouse. It could have gone on for longer, if he hadn’t pulled himself away from the screen to gaze once more into the mirror. It was almost addictive, the sense of pure joy that ached in his chest. It was almost like a high he was desperate to keep chasing.
“What’s missing… what’s missing… there’s the legs… I can deal with that later. Hair? I think I’ve got some paper scissors somewhere. Chest? What can I do about that…” He murmured to himself as his eyes remained locked on the figure in the mirror. Glances back and forth towards his monitor and the mirror were helping him formulate a way to get the reflection as close to the model that played idle animations on his screen. It wouldn’t be perfect, he knew that, but it didn’t have to be. A personal curiosity pulled him towards it.
“Socks!” He cheered, racing towards his dresser with the realization that with enough bunched up socks, he could create some semblance of breasts under the cropped shirt. He snatched up a couple pairs that were neatly folded into tight balls and stuffed them inside of the bra.
Sure enough, it created almost exactly the kind of shape he was imagining in his head. When he turned to the side in the mirror, the small protrusions on his chest weren’t much, yet they filled his chest with such an intense warmth he could help but grin even wider.
“Sock boobs… hell yea.” He chimed, holding himself tightly around his chest and giggling softly into the mirror. “What’s your bra size?” He coyly asked his own reflection, a mischievous smile growing across his lips. “Oh, just a Fruit of the Loom… thanks for asking.” He laughed, enjoying every second of his solitary exploration within his dorm.
He felt alive. A feeling usually reserved for when he was frag jumping through the third floor of a control map in UMDK. He had always felt more free as Witch, where he was comfortable with every motion of the character’s physics. His sluggish days in college classes were as divorced from him as the dreams he had each night. They were the in betweens, the limbo that stretched on as long as it took to get back into the seat as Witch. But not now. This didn’t feel like a numb intermission between his sessions on UMDK. This felt like the real deal.
He didn’t want to go to bed tonight. Nothing could be better than this.
The clinking of keys against a metal lock, the sound that said everything he needed to know. The smile peeled its way off his lips, like recklessly tearing the duct tape off of a cardboard box. There was too much to hide, clothes strewn about the floor, all ready to be tried on one by one in a quiet runway of one. There was nothing he could even attempt to change about his appearance in the few seconds it took for Aoife to open the door. He’d be exposed, in heart and sight, as everything he was.
With only enough time to scamper towards one thing in sight, Owen threw himself towards his desk to click the power button on his monitor. There’d be no way to hide everything else that littered the room in curiosity soaked exploration, but he could at least hide his online identity. Witch could be spared from the imminent embarrassment. The door swung open quickly, and shut just as fast. Aoife turned towards her roommate, who was awkwardly standing next to his desk, wearing clothing that clashed in subtle ways.
“Uh. Owen?”
Owen? Right. Owen. It made sense to Owen that Aoife would use that name. What else would she say? The simple address had pulled him back down to the ground and latched the burden of expectations firmly around his body.
“Are you… crying?” Owen asked, narrowing his eyes towards his roommate. It wasn’t hard to notice the glistening tears across her cheeks. Even if they’d been wiped away before she walked in the door, her shuddering breaths and puffy eyes told the rest of the story.
The question was left unanswered. Rhetorical as it was, no feelings were hurt by the absence of an answer. Instead, both individuals focused on their own breadths of questions that remained unspoken.
Aoife wanted to ask what he was wearing. Why was he wearing it? The questions felt cruel. She didn’t want to be cruel.
Owen wanted to know why she was crying. Was it because of her parents? The questions felt far too invasive. He couldn’t stand to be invasive at this time.
It didn’t take long for the roles to reverse. Aoife’s tears were replaced with utter confusion. In turn, Owen’s abrupt alarm at the door opening had given way to his own stream of tears. Owen wasn’t even sure why the tears stung in his eyes. He hadn’t felt like he had done anything wrong, yet he felt like an apology was necessary.
Something needed to change to break the calcifying silence that grew between them. Owen choked back a sob and spoke, the words leaving his throat with a laughing kind of cadence.
“Was the spontaneous family get together nice?”
“...fabulous. Just me and the mom I never wanted having dinner.” Aoife took a moment to respond. She was thrown off by the casual disregard for their current situation.
“Was it good food at least?”
“If you think the heart of a cow with Chateau Margaux is good, then sure.” Aoife replied, using the end of her sleeve to wipe away the tears that had clung to her eyelashes. The fact that it smeared her mascara meant little to her. There was no one else to see it but Owen, and he was already witness to her in what felt like her most vulnerable state.
“Did you eat dinner in fucking Narnia?” Owen asked, incredulously. He was having difficulty deciphering if Chateau Margaux was an oddly named dessert, oddly named person, or something entirely different.
“With the amount of old white people icing me the fuck out it might as well have been Narnia.” Aoife laughed with Owen with a kind of warmth that eased the tension between the two. Aoife couldn’t help but feel like Owen was an expert in deescalating awkwardness. Enough so that she had still yet to verbally acknowledge the Azlan sized elephant in the room.
“Is that what happened to you? Did you just get back from a stint in Narnia?” Aoife asked, pointing towards Owen and the pile of clothes along his desk and floor.
“Oh… yeah. That little bitch Tumnus threw a bunch of clothes on me and I couldn’t seem to get them off.” Owen shrugged. The jokes he told did little to dispel the growing redness across his face. The embarrassment he felt was so intense he thought it might cause him to faint.
“Right…” Aoife smiled and gave a short chortle before speaking once more, this time in a much more serious tone of voice. “Seriously though. There’s only so much we can dance around this Owen.”
“I dunno. I feel like I can dance a pretty good while. You should have seen me at prom. 3 straight hours without leaving the center of the dance floor.” Owen tilted his head to the side in a wily grin, sandwiched between his burning cheeks.
“Owen.”
The words were kind, but firm. The swung like a hammer into Owen’s diaphragm, knocking the jokes and deflections clean out of his system. There was no way around it. He could lie all he wanted, but the truth lay strewn about the floor in the clothes. The truth was wrapped tightly around his waist and chest. The truth lived in the pixels of his screen.
“I don’t know who I am, Aoife.”