Week three began with light.
Not sunlight. The soft, pinkish glow of the medical tanning bed in the wellness wing of the Cocoon. Brett lay naked except for the tiny disposable briefs and the clear goggles Julian made him wear, his hundred and sixty-two pound body still corseted in his mind even though Mara had given him thirty minutes out of it for skin.
"Six minutes today, Brielle," Elena's voice came through the speaker. "We build slow. No burns."
The lid lowered. Warmth washed over him. He had always been pale from Montana winters and warehouse night shifts. Now heat kissed every inch of his skin and he felt himself, for the first time, wanting to be golden.
He thought about his mother saying he looked like her. She'd always been tan in the summer from the diner patio. He was becoming her daughter in slow layers.
When the bed dinged and lifted, his skin was flushed pink. Julian was waiting with lotion.
"Beautiful," Julian said, smoothing cream over Brett's shoulders, his arms, his narrowing waist. "Your skin is taking the hormones so well. Look."
Brett looked down. His skin, once rough from cheap soap, was softer. Almost luminous. The fine blonde hair on his arms seemed lighter.
That afternoon Dr. Ellison came to the villa instead of making him drive to Whitefish. She sat on the edge of the soaking tub while Brett sat wrapped in a white robe, his big blue eyes nervous, his full lips bare.
"Your labs look good," she said kindly. "Estradiol is doing its job. We're going to increase slightly. You'll feel it more this week."
She handed him a new pill dispenser. The pink pills were a shade darker.
"More?" Brett whispered in his girl voice, which was holding steady now at a soft alto.
"Your body is ready," she said. "Expect mood swings. Crying. Brain fog. Tenderness here," she touched her own chest lightly, "will increase. It's normal. Your mind is changing with your body, Brielle."
Brielle. She said it like it was already his name on a chart.
That night after his new, stronger dose, Brett cried in the sauna for no reason at all. He sat in the cedar heat in a towel, his short blonde hair damp, and tears just spilled down his cheeks while his chest ached and his thoughts felt swimmy and soft. He wasn't sad. He was overwhelmed. Everything felt louder, closer, more tender.
He texted Lance at 9 pm through blurry eyes.
Hormones increased today.
Lance: How do you feel?
Brett: Weepy. Soft in the head. Like I'm PMSing and I don't even have the parts.
Lance: That's the point. Ride it out. You're doing great.
No picture request. No flirt. Just steady. Just friend.
Day sixteen was hair.
Julian didn't bring the wig. He brought a woman named Sofia with a rolling case of honey blonde extensions.
"We're done hiding under wigs," Julian announced. "Your own hair is finally long enough to bond to."
Brett sat in the vanity chair for four hours while Sofia worked strand by strand, bonding real human hair to his own short blonde hair that had grown to just below his ears in three weeks of good nutrition. The process pulled and ticked at his scalp.
When she finally turned on the blow dryer and brushed it out, Brett gasped.
It wasn't a wig anymore. It was his. Long, thick, wavy hair that fell past his shoulders and down his back, the exact color his mother had in old photos. He could run his fingers through it and feel his own scalp underneath.
He started sobbing in the chair, big ugly sobs that made his mascara run, and Julian just handed him tissues and let him.
"I look like her," Brett choked out in his girl voice. "I really look like my mom."
"You look like you," Julian said softly.
Day seventeen was pain.
Facial electrolysis. A small, sterile room off the spa that smelled like alcohol. A technician named Priya with kind eyes and a needle.
"It's permanent, Brielle," she explained. "We kill the follicle. No more five o'clock shadow. No more hiding."
Brett lay back in the chair, his face clean, his big blue eyes staring at the ceiling. She started on his upper lip.
The zap was white hot and sharp. Then another. Then another. Tears sprang instantly and ran into his hair extensions.
"Breathe," Priya said. "You are so brave."
Brett gripped the arms of the chair and thought about Lance saying be a good girl for yourself. He thought about the gold B at his throat. He thought about not wanting to shave every morning for the rest of his fake marriage.
He endured an hour. When she wiped his upper lip clean, the skin was red and swollen and completely smooth.
He touched it with trembling fingers and wept again from the hormones and the relief.
Day eighteen was small and silly and somehow the most feminine thing yet.
Mani pedi.
Brett sat in the spa chair in a fluffy robe, his long new hair in a clip, his feet in warm bubbling water, while a technician painted his toenails a sheer pale pink.
"Hands next, Miss Brielle," she said. "What shape? Almond?"
Brett looked at his hands. They were still a man's hands, calloused from work, knuckles big. But they were thinner now. The diet and hormones were taking the bulk away.
"Almond," he whispered, and watched as she filed and buffed and painted his nails the same sheer pink.
When she was done, he held his hands out in front of him. His fingers looked long. Elegant. The pale pink caught the light.
He felt a ridiculous surge of joy that made his chest ache.
That night he stood in front of the mirror after his shower, naked except for his panties, his long honey blonde extensions wet down his back, his skin golden from three tanning sessions, his face smooth and hairless and made up just with moisturizer, his nails pink and perfect, his waist cinched to twenty-seven and a half inches in his sleeping corset.
The scale said 159.
His chest was tender and slightly swollen under his nipples, just enough to make his pecs look like the start of breasts. His hips, still narrow, had a faint softness from fat redistribution. His big blue eyes were glassy from the higher dose of hormones swimming in his blood.
He didn't see Brett playing dress up anymore.
He saw Brielle emerging, slow and real and permanent.
His phone buzzed. 9 pm.
Lance: Week 3. Report.
Brett smiled through fresh tears, his full lips trembling.
Weight 159. Tan 3 times. Real hair now, not wig. Started electrolysis, hurts like hell. Nails done. Hormones up, I'm crying at commercials. I feel... girly in my brain. It's weird.
The dots bounced a long time.
Lance: Good. That's the medicine working. Keep going. I'm proud of you, Brielle.
Brett read his name again and pressed his newly manicured hand to his mouth to stifle a sob that was half happiness and half lonely ache.
He looked at the girl in the mirror, golden and long-haired and soft, and whispered to her in his clear, pretty voice,
"We're really doing this."
Week three had changed his mind as much as his body...