by Alyson Belle
“Right. I’m me. So now what?”
“This changes everything!”
“Does it have to? I’m attracted to men and women, you know.”
Liam shot him an accusing glance. “That’s not surprising. You always have been, you know. You’ll see soon enough, in your dreams. In other lives, in other times, I enjoyed that. We’d bring other girls into our bed, always friends, always just for fun, and it was lovely to share with each other in that way. It doesn’t surprise me in the least that it would still be like that for you. But… Fuck, Jamie. I’m straight as an arrow and always have been. I love you. I can’t help it. But I’m not attracted to men. Not in the least.”
“Where does that leave us?”
Liam’s face drooped. His voice dropped to a barely audible whisper. “I don’t know.”
Something stirred in Jamie’s chest. Anger? Defiance? He wasn’t sure, but now that he knew Liam knew, now that they both knew about—and believed in—the strange dreams, there was a small spark of hope where previously there had been none. They might both be miserable, but perhaps they could figure it out? Together, like they were supposed to?
He placed his hand back on Liam’s knee and scooted closer. Liam raised his eyes, staring at Jamie with a mix of longing and desperation. Aftershave wafted off of him, filling Jamie’s nose, arousing him with its clean, manly scent, and he suddenly wanted nothing so badly as for Liam to take him in his arms and hold him close, cradle him as he had in the dreams. His muscles were taught and strong beneath the trouser leg, and Jamie leaned closer, squeezing slightly. Indecision warred on Liam’s face.
Slowly, slowly, Jamie moved to kiss him. Their eyes fluttered closed. Their lips brushed. Liam’s hand fell across his own, squeezed. An electric current of joy ran through Jamie. It wasn’t perfect, it wasn’t exactly right, but it felt more right than anything else ever had.
And then Liam broke away. He rose from the bench and stumbled forward to the railing on the bridge, breathing hard and choking back a sob.
“I… I can’t. I’m sorry, Jamie. I can’t. You don’t know how badly I want to. But this isn’t right. It doesn’t feel right. Not for me. I’m so sorry.”
A million emotions flooded through Jamie, a million things he wanted to say to Liam, but it was overwhelming. His whole life he’d been searching for something, he didn’t know what, but it was clear now that it was Liam. To finally find him, and then not be able to have him because of simply who he was, how he had been born in this life… it was too terrible to contemplate.
He fled into the night as fast as his legs could carry him, ignoring Liam’s protesting calls as they faded away behind him.
Back down the trail, back down the path, running at full speed, tears streaming down his cheeks as the streetlights whizzed by, one after another, until he was back in his apartment. He stood breathing hard, a choking, sobbing mess, and surveyed his apartment. This was it. All he’d ever have. This dull, lonely, horrible place. He’d never find a way to be with Liam. And according to him, the dreams would keep coming. Torturing him. Taunting him.
On his shelf, sitting atop his books, was the tiny ceramic blue and white Songsparrow that Marisa had given him. That fragile, lovely symbol of hope and affection.
Jamie walked up to it, took it into his hands, held it close.
Then he hurled it against the wall as hard as he could, shattering it into a million tiny pieces.
Chapter 6
For weeks, Jamie was miserable. Liam had tried to reach him, dozens and dozens of times, but the messages on Jamie’s phone went unanswered. He’d avoided the bridge ever since the awful night where Liam had both confirmed their eternal destiny and made it clear that there was no way for the two of them to be together. It was like discovering the meaning in his life, the missing piece he’d always secretly been searching for, and at the same time having it cruelly yanked away from him.
He’d been calling in sick to work to the point where everyone was worried about him, wallowing in self-pity and self-loathing and despair as he burrowed under blankets and tried to numb his mind with TV and alcohol. Nothing helped.
The dreams didn’t stop coming, either. Every night, every afternoon nap, a different woman, a different man. Always the two of them, deliriously happy in their reunification and delighting in their eternal love. They’d gotten so vivid, so many little aspects of his litany of former lives coming back to him, that he wasn’t sure if he’d become terrified of sleep for the pain of awakening or desperate for the dreams for the joy of being his true self… of being with Liam.
The pieces of Marisa’s songbird lay shattered where he’d thrown them, and whenever he’d awaken from his stupor and gaze at them they’d stir a low, painful resentment deep in his chest. Everything was broken. Everything was wrong. Nothing was how it was meant to be. Jamie didn’t see a way out, but he was also desperately afraid of the one escape he’d pondered so many times before. In every prior life, they’d found a way to make it work. Highborn and lowborn, different religions, different races… none of it had mattered. Their love for one another, their intense pull to each other, had been too powerful to deny.
But this time, he wasn’t a woman. Something had gone cosmically, dramatically wrong. He cursed his male body. He wanted to hurt it, wanted out of it. But what could he even do? He knew about transgender people, but despite his slender physique there was no way he’d ever be pretty enough—never be woman enough—for Liam. He’d never be able to pass. The idea gave him panic attacks. What would people say? What about his job? How could he live in the world with the shame? He didn’t judge trans people, but he just knew he’d never personally have the courage to attempt a transition himself. He’d look gawky and mannish and awful—habits all wrong. And he didn’t know the first thing about fashion or makeup or… any of it.
He’d never be able to be a woman. How could he even begin? Liam deserved better than that. There were limits to what straight men could put up with, weren’t there?
It was hopeless. Jamie spiraled on these thoughts and fell into an even deeper depression, his days and nights blurring in a haze of alcohol and fitful dreaming.
Some days later—he wasn’t sure how many exactly—he was awakened from another of his terrible dreams by a knock at his front door. As always, it was disorienting to come back to his real self, and the dreams of Liam holding him, taking him into his arms as a female version of himself still seemed more real than this reality as he shook off the daze of his stupor.
Who would be knocking at my door? he wondered. His heart leapt in his chest. Had Liam found his address somehow? He didn’t have the courage to face him. Not like this—depressed and unshaven. Still, he rose to his feet with hopeful trepidation and went to answer.
When the door cracked open to reveal a very-concerned looking Marisa, he was surprised to discover that he felt equal parts relieved and disappointed. He sighed deeply and opened it the rest of the way.
“Where have you been?” Marisa demanded. “I was worried sick about you, Jamie. You haven’t answered my calls, and I looked for you at work and they told me you haven’t been in in weeks.”
“I haven’t been answering any calls,” Jamie mumbled.
“Clearly. Here, come sit down. What’s the matter with you?”
She drew him across the room to sit on the couch with her and studied him with her knowing gaze. Jamie avoided her eyes and said nothing. He was sure he looked disheveled and awful—he hadn’t shaved or bathed all week.
But Marisa knew him as well as any sibling. She always seemed to almost have a sixth sense about what was bothering him.
“It’s that Liam, guy. Isn’t it?” she asked. “I knew that was what was going on. When you told me that story about him, you lit up in a way I’ve never seen before. Then, all of this. It’s not like you. You really believe all this, don’t you?”
Jamie nodded sadly. “If you’d been having the dreams I have, you’d believe it too. It’s okay i
f you think it’s silly. I just can’t ignore it.”
“And he’s not bi-curious at all?”
“No. We… that is, I tried. Even then it felt wrong. He couldn’t do it.” Tears welled up in Jamie’s eyes and suddenly he was crying. Marisa immediately moved to hold him, bringing his head to her shoulder and stroking him gently as he sobbed. She murmured soothing noises and eventually the tears subsided. Jamie felt humiliated, but he was long past caring.
“Everything is hopeless, Marisa,” he murmured.
He lifted his head and noticed that her gaze had strayed across the room to the shattered pieces of the songbird she’d given him, and her mouth was set in a hard line. More shame blossomed and he felt awful.
“Marisa, I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to break—”
“Stop it,” she said, her voice hard. “Just stop it. I hate hearing you talk like this, Jamie. And I don’t care about the stupid trinket. I care about you. Why can’t we talk seriously about this problem? Why won’t you just admit—”
“Admit what?” he snapped back, suddenly angry. “Admit that I’m probably transgender? Admit that that might be a way forward? I look like a man, I sound like a man, I am a man, Marisa. I could never be a woman… Even if I have been a woman before, it’s not the same. Look at my face! Look at how masculine I am! I’ll never be able to be good enough for Liam. He deserves better.”
Now Marisa’s tone softened and she rubbed his shoulder lightly. “Listen. No one is saying you have to do anything you don’t want to. But I’m worried about you. You’re so stuck on this guy and so down on yourself, I’m worried you’re losing perspective. You have so much to live for…”
“I’m not sure I want to live with all of this on my shoulders.”
Marisa was silent for a long moment, staring again at the broken songbird on the floor.
“Jamie…” she finally began. “You trust me, right?”
He sniffled and nodded. “Dumb question. Of course. More than anyone.”
“I want you to come over to my place. Tonight. We need to cheer you up. And I don’t want any excuses. Yes?”
“Why?” Jamie asked warily.
Marisa tsked. “Just trust me and do it. For me. Okay? We have got to snap you out of this funk. I promise we’ll have fun.”
“I don’t know I could have fun right now, but you’re welcome to try cheering me up if it makes you feel better.”
“Trust me. See you at six, okay?”
He nodded, even though he knew that there was nothing she could do to help him.
At 6pm that evening he found himself dutifully standing in front of Marisa’s apartment, wondering what she had in mind for him. She always had been able to cheer him up out of his funks in the past: a fun board game, a movie they both loved, a surprise trip out on the town. But this time there was nothing she could do to fix his mood. He was the problem.
When she answered the door, she seemed to be in an unusually cheerful mood. Smiling, laughing, joking. She ushered in him excitedly.
“Come on, come on. This’ll be fun.”
“I don’t know what could possibly be fun right now, but okay.” In spite of himself, he felt cheered a little by her demeanor. It was always nice to see his friend so bubbly, even if he was miserable.
Marisa dragged him into her bedroom and sat him down on the bed, just as she had hundreds of times before when she wanted his opinion on her outfits. Jamie grimaced.
“I’m not really in the mood for a fashion show right now, Marisa…”
“Shush. Close your eyes. Do it!”
He played along, keeping his eyes closed for several agonizingly long minutes while she rustled around behind him on the bed.
“Okay, open!”
Jamie was confused by what he saw. Laid out on the bed were dozens of articles of clothing—shirts, skirts, pants, and dresses. Panties and bras.
“What is all this?”
“Tonight,” Marisa said dramatically. “We’re turning you into a girl.”
Jamie’s heart sank and the familiar panic he was so used to whenever this topic came up threatened to overwhelm him. His face flushed and chest felt tight. This was not what he’d wanted.
“Marisa, no! You know I can’t do this. We talked about this. It’s not real… it’s not the same. Being a guy in drag isn’t what I want. It’s not what Liam deserves, either—”
“Quiet. This isn’t about Liam, Jamie. This has nothing to do with him. This is about you, having fun with me. You said you trust me, right? Play along with me tonight even if you think it’s stupid and let’s see. What do you have to lose?”
Jamie was quiet for a long moment. “I’m going to look ridiculous,” he finally said.
“Humor me,” Marisa said firmly. “You promised.”
Jamie sighed. She was right. It was just him and his best friend in the world. Why not prove it to himself once and for all that he was hopeless?
“Fiiiiine. But no pictures, and we never talk about this again. Deal?”
“Deal. Start by taking your hair down and go get in the shower. We need to clean you up first.”
Jamie hardly ever let his hair down anymore—it felt too embarrassing for a man to have long hair—but he did it for Marisa. She gave him strict instructions and he followed them dutifully. First he washed his hair with her shampoo and conditioner in her shower and scrubbed himself with her body wash. It felt silly and girly, but the smell was nice and it wasn’t like he was going anywhere anyway. Next, he shaved his face, legs, chest, and armpits with her razor. This felt especially embarrassing, as he’d never done it before, and god was it a chore.
One of the many reasons why I could never do this regularly, he thought. Fortunately, he’d never been especially hairy thanks to his blonde, light body hair, but there was still so much surface to cover. He struggled through, and when he got out of the shower he had a brief flash of disappointment as he saw himself in the mirror.
He looked… like himself. Wet. Disheveled. Very clearly a man with long hair, who happened to smell nice. His skin felt funny where he’d shaved it, sort of cold, and goose pimples broke out across his body. He covered himself in a towel from the waist down and walked back into Marisa’s bedroom.
“I still look like a boy,” he muttered.
“We’re just getting started, baby. Sit down. No more mirrors till we’re done, okay?”
Jamie sat sullenly while Marisa clucked over the clothes, picking them out for him. The whole experience was more than a little humiliating, but he patiently endured it. He knew he’d never really look like a woman, but he was starting to be curious what Marisa’s plan here was, exactly. When she handed him a pair of bra and panties though, he balked.
“Really?”
“Really. Put them on. I’ll turn around if you want.”
Jamie sighed and dropped his towel as she turned away from him and struggled to pull on the unfamiliar garments. They were silky and white, complementing his skin nicely, and he was surprised how smooth and comfortable they were as he tugged them on. The material dragged against his skin pleasantly as it slid up his shaved legs and over his arms, and it lifted his mood a little despite how silly he felt. The bra was a challenge, but he’d watched girls put them on enough times that it wasn’t too difficult to figure out.
Next Marisa handed him a dress and he hastened to pull it on over his head, embarrassed to be sitting in front of her in his underwear. It clung to him surprisingly well—Marisa must have had a good eye to find something that fell down his flat-chested body so nicely. It was red and flowy, and he had to admit it was kind of fun to wear despite how silly he felt. It even flared out at his waist to hide the small bulge that was ugly and obvious in his panties. Wearing it felt so familiar, despite that he’d never put a dress on in his life, and his thoughts strayed again to his dreams and the thousands of lifetimes of experience he must have had wearing things exactly like this.
“I still don’t feel like a girl,” he said qui
etly.
Marisa studied him thoughtfully and waved for him to sit down. “Not done yet. Let me take care of the rest, okay? You just be quiet.”
She blow-dried his shoulder-length blonde hair and curled it, even as he winced ever time the heat of the unfamiliar iron neared his neck. Every time he tried to talk she shushed him and told him to be patient. He felt like a Barbie doll the way she was fussing over him, but again his curiosity allowed him to just play along with it.
Next was the makeup. She painted his eyes, his cheeks, and his lips with layer after layer of unfamiliar material to the point that he knew it would be hopeless for him to ever try to learn to do it with the skill she effortlessly demonstrated. When she went to put mascara on his eyes, he winced at every brush until she scolded him. Then she stood back and inspected her work, frowning to herself.
Jamie sighed. “I still look like a man in a dress, don’t I? I told you, Marisa. No amount of makeup is going to help here.”
“Jamie. Stop it. We’re just having fun. I think I’m done. Why don’t you see for yourself? There’s a mirror behind my closet door.”
He’d sat through the whole agonizing experience, so he might as well take a look. He dragged himself to his feet and plodded over to her closet, keeping his eyes closed as he opened the door. He was a little scared to look. Curious, but when this just confirmed all his fears, he knew he’d sink into an even deeper depression.
But when he opened his eyes, he was shocked.
The person staring at him in the mirror, glossy lips slightly agape, was… beautiful. His eyes looked so large and feminine… the makeup heightened his cheekbones and hid the slight, blonde shadow of his beard. While he had no breasts to speak of, the dress complimented his slender body in a lovely way that made him look slight and youthful.
