NOVEL NEXT PART FIVE: Revisions to Style
They spent the first week dressing up.
Jamie had most of her girl clothes at Alexandra's place already, but the selection was slim. All her other clothes were at her family's home, and she had no plans of going anywhere near there for the foreseeable future. "What if they recognize me?" asked Jamie. "Or wait... what if they don't recognize me?" She couldn't decide which would be more distressing.
So, they went thrifting; with a newly redrawn body, and Jamie experiencing the freedom of being able to move through the world as herself, it was a tempting and bountiful opportunity. She was drawn to vintage clothing like a moth to flame—it felt so natural to be wearing dresses from the '40s and '50s instead of an oversized t-shirt and jeans.
Luckily, they were able to find some inexpensive finds by scouring more distant neighborhoods; Jamie had some savings, but far from endless. Her tall frame was especially suited to classic fashions: long dresses with wide skirts and shirt tops, knee length pants or capris (which Alexandra insisted were absolutely the cutest on her long legs), tightly tailored blouses, and halter tops with low necklines.
Alexandra bought a few items for her own more modern wardrobe as well: a leather skirt and ankle boots, some bangles, a t-shirt with some strategic slashes through the front.
It wasn't until they'd spent almost too much money that they realized Alexandra could simply draw new clothing into existence with the Burin. She slapped her forehead, having forgotten her first experiments in creating simple objects. They went home, and the costume party kicked into high gear.
The very first outfit Alexandra drew for Jamie was, predictably enough, a cheerleading uniform. It was blue and gold, with a stretchy long-sleeved performance top, matching shorts, and a pleated skirt; the design was based loosely on one of those cheesy old movies like Bring It On and Sugar & Spice, which Alexandra claimed were classics. Jamie didn't mind at all; she knew that Alexandra had harbored "dating the cheerleader" fantasies in high school. She strutted and posed, twirling around, kicking her legs up, and jumping in the air.
"What do you think, coach? Did I make the squad?" Jamie was bright eyed and out of breath. Alexandra looked like she was about to burst into flames with repressed desire.
"Maybe," she said. "I'll need to see you in the locker room, after practice." She pinched Jamie's ass, hard. Jamie squealed and rubbed it. "Now do the splits again, we've got to work on your form."
"Yes, coach!" yelled Jamie, and dropped to the floor gracefully. The training regimen that followed was grueling indeed, and left both of them out of breath.
It didn’t stop there. In rapid succession, Alexandra dressed her girlfriend up as a sailor girl, a mod rocker in go-go boots and a color-blocked mini dress, then a gothic vampire queen with black lace gloves and tight corset over a tattered, bloodstained gown.
Jamie loved every minute, reveling in how each outfit accentuated her femininity in different ways, and Alexandra couldn’t get over watching her girlfriend blossom, coming out of her sullen shell to ham it up in varied roles. Jamie only drew the line at wearing a kimono (“No offense, but I want my first kimono to be an authentic item, hopefully from my father’s family?”) and a “sexy firefighter” costume, which earned Alexandra nothing more than a disbelieving stare.
Alexandra’s favorite had a simple, classic silhouette: the secretary look, with a pencil skirt that hugged Jamie's hips; a crisp white blouse with a prim Peter Pan collar; and dark thigh-high hose with seams up the back. It was the stiletto heels that posed a problem.
“I don’t think I can handle anything that high,” Jamie pouted, as she rubbed her ankle after a near fall. “I haven’t had any chance to practice with lower heels yet. You might have drawn me like someone with graceful, practiced muscles, but I’m still awkward and untrained upstairs!” Alexandra hummed thoughtfully, took some notes, and sketched late into that evening.
***
The second week, they went out dancing.
Along the way, they discovered some limitations of the Burin's magic. First, the clothes Alexandra produced out of nothing weren’t necessarily durable. They had been about to leave for a restaurant one evening, Alexandra gushing about how eager she was to show Jamie off to the world, when the leather jacket she’d drawn for Jamie suddenly ripped open at the shoulder seam. Alexandra hurried over to inspect the creation she’d drawn just an hour earlier; the artist also noticed threads coming loose at the side of the matching leather skirt, and groaned in frustration.
“I should have known… if I don’t get every stitch in place, what’s holding it together for long? Fabric glue and magic, maybe.” She grumbled as she picked up the Burin and tried to add more lines to the jacket, fixing it. ”I may as well become a seamstress if I want to make clothes that last at all, I guess?”
Jamie chucked her artist under the chin, smiling softly. “Don’t forget that this is all still a wild miracle, miss visionary. A jacket that looks like a Helmut Lang original? Maybe it’s worth thinking about it more like costume design, or something? Made to last for at least one performance, get patched up for the next when necessary.”
“You have a point…” Alexandra clucked her tongue. “It’s not like I’m trying to compete with real artisans for durability.”
By the following evening, Alexandra had settled on an approach that she was satisfied with. “Stretch fabrics!” she yelled. “Especially if I draw them right on you, to fit.” Then she began to sketch out a pair of leggings on her obliging model’s body, along with a fitted tank top and cropped hoodie; the designs were inspired by Japanese street fashion, and made Jamie look like an athlete with a particularly hip personal brand—though without the tattoos or piercings that might have completed the image.
“Or Sporty Spice, if she were… cool and from today,” laughed Jamie.
“Who!?” said Alexandra, incredulously. “It‘ s called athleisure, at least by those of us who aren’t from a neighborhood still stuck in the last century.’
“I mean… I do look a bit like half the girl from the block in this outfit. Except, you know.. .me.” Jamie smiled shyly, and it was Alexandra’s turn to lift her chin for a kiss.
On the way to Brooklyn for a queer warehouse party one of Alexandra’s classmates had told them about, they discussed the other limitation of the Burin: the objects tended to disappear after a while. It was as if nobody had been thinking about or looking at an object for a while, they faded out of existence. This wasn't really a problem for clothes; Alexandra figured she could always draw something similar if she wanted to wear it again later, and her habit of doing sketches on paper helped to no end.
“Remember the cowboy hat you hated?” asked Alexandra. “I tossed it on a shelf in my closet, and poof! Not there anymore. On the other hand, that green sandal that got stuck halfway under the loveseat for days, where we see it whenever we walk to the bathroom?”
Jamie wasn’t listening, a stricken look on her face as she bent her tall frame over on the subway seat, elbows on her knees. “Um… Alex?! Don’t you see how this might be a little disturbing? Clothes are one thing, but what about my body?”
Alexandra blanched and leaned forward as well, taking Jamie’s hands in hers. “Sweet lips! No no no, I don’t think you need to worry about that. I mean, these are totally fine.” She poked herself in the left breast, which had been one of the first changes she’d made.
“Are you sure?” Jamie’s forehead was crinkling with lines of worry and doubt that Alexandra was used to seeing on her old features, nearly every day. It was a bit heartbreaking to see them return. That’s life, she figured. Always finds a new challenge to throw at you. She slid onto the seat next to Jamie.
“Well… I can’t say I’m 100% sure about anything having to do with magic.” Jamie winced. “But! But. There are a few things that are quite different about these situations. First, nothing that was redrawn, attached to an existing object, has disappeared as far as I can tell. Even the half-junked experiments I did on toys and gum erasers and stuff. I think that’s partly because the original object is there like an anchor, right? It’s ‘thinking about’ my redrawn version because it’s attached. And feel this…” Alexandra took Jamie’s hand and put it right atop her own cleavage, quite noticeable in a lacy camisole.
“You feel amazing, as usual, babe… but…?” Jamie waited for her to continue.
“Not the point, though yes, they’re masterworks. I love drawing boobs. No, I mean… they feel warm, alive right? Not just because the skin is the same; it’s all living tissue, as far I can tell. Same for your body—and yours even started to kick into gear with hormones and monthly cycles and everything. A human body, even when switched to the other hormonal profile, knows how to maintain itself. Oh yes, I almost forgot!” She fished in her voluminous bag and pulled out an apple. The same apple, Jamie realized, that was a former orange. It had developed a few brown spots.
“I thought you were going to change it back to an orange? It’s not looking so good… am I supposed to find this reassuring?”
Alexandra tapped her lightly on the forehead. “You’re such a jock sometimes, dancing queen. Think about it. Oranges don’t go bad like this. It’s an apple through and through, behaving like an apple. I might have been able to erase my work initially and revert it, but I have a… sense? An intuition? …that it wouldn’t work now. I’d have to redraw it as a new orange. You can only move forward, right?"
Jamie studied it. "So... if you apply that logic to my new body parts... I guess you're saying that I have to take care of my health. I could have any of the problems another woman might... so I should get a pap smear soon, huh?"
Alexandra nodded gravely. "Probably, yeah. You're not alone, I'm also incredibly overdue. I mean, who wants to get a gyn exam?"
Jamie gave her a playful punch in the arm. "You really know how to get a girl hot and bothered before a dance party."
They arrived at their destination, although the building at the address looked more like an old auto body shop than a warehouse. The event was already in full swing, with people pouring in and out of half-raised garage doors. The queer party-going crowd was a mix of gender expressions, styles and dress codes; some were dressed in elaborate fashion and makeup, while others wore simple jeans and t-shirts—but most seemed to be wearing the sort of casual uniform Alexandra associated with queer parties: cargo shorts or jeans or whatever else they liked, and tops that didn't show off too much skin.
Jamie started to feel nervous. The last time she'd gone to a party like this she hadn't known anyone and felt painfully awkward, terrified of being labeled as a straight boy or a pre-everything trans "egg." This time she was with Alexandra, but she was still feeling anxious about being surrounded by unfamiliar faces.
"Relax," Alexandra whispered. "You look amazing. And everyone else is either amazing and will be thrilled to meet you or trying hard to look like they're not trying; that doesn't leave much extra attention span to be catty." Jamie had her doubts. She took off her plain old pea coat and was suddenly even more self-conscious of her bare belly and the way the shape of her butt was on full display.
"It's one thing to walk around Manhattan being stared at by strangers," she hissed to Alexandra, "but this is like... a cool kid party!"
Alexandra gave her a side-eye glance. "It's a queer party full of dorks, Jamie! Everyone's here to get laid, or because they can't stand going to yet another game night! Just follow me and don't freak out!"
Terrified of being left behind, Jamie plunged after Alexandra into a short hallway lit with blue and ultraviolet lamps, lined with corrugated metal.
A line of a dozen people waiting to get in snaked down the hall toward the entrance at the end of the building—the storage spaces lining the hall had been broken into smaller rooms, each with its own theme like "gothic micro-chapel," "queer history diorama," or "indoor garden." There was a bar serving drinks in the front corner of the building, but activity was concentrated in a much bigger space where a DJ booth on a low staged presided over a dance floor. Loud dance music—Jamie thought it might be that Swedish pop singer, Robyn?—was blasting as nearly a hundred young people moved in a frenzy of motion.
Alexandra led her to the bar and received two small plastic cups of vodka with lime juice, being served from a large tank; they headed towards the dance floor, sipping. At each of the four corners of the dance floor, a tall platform with railings had been set up, and four performers were doing stripteases, go-go dances, a pole dance and a burlesque number, in various states of undress. A rapt audience around each one was yelling and hollering. The sheer volume of the pounding dance music, along with the flashing lights, made Jamie feel like she was floating in space; she began bouncing on her toes, trying to catch the vibe and energy of the crowd. Alexandra swayed near her, casting her glance around as if looking for someone.
Other people were looking at her, Jamie realized—checking out the new girl, their gazes taking in her outfit, her hair. One masc, heavy set with close-cropped hair and a baseball cap, caught sight of her while walking past and whipped their head around as if noticing a car accident, but with an expression of awe. When they made eye contact, the other queer smiled with a lift of their eyebrows. Oh my god, thought Jamie, I’m being checked out!
Alexandra was taking her almost-empty drink, setting it on a shelf with her own drained cup. She pulled Jamie towards the dance floor, and the crowd parted for them. Then they were swallowed by it, engulfed by a mass of bodies moving in waves of heat and light but also composed of each person’s impulses to step and sway. Alexandra held onto Jamie's shoulders and spun her around; Jamie lost her balance and fell into her embrace. They kissed and danced some more.
***
At some point, Jamie and Alexandra lost track of each other—though they’d danced together for what seemed like hours, enjoying holding and even grinding against each other in the dimly lit pulse of bodies, Alexandra went to get a drink, while Jamie headed for the bathroom line, insistent that she didn’t need a chaperone. Alexandra ran into friends she knew well enough to score an invite—Casey, a diminutive androgynous type with a blonde fauxhawk and their two partners in crime, all part of some electroclash revival act called “Schmetterling.” They exchanged pleasantries, but Alex excused herself, anxious to find Jamie.
Circling around the edge of the dance floor, she spotted Jamie sitting with a few other girls. Whoa, she thought, she’s already been adopted by the femmes! Jamie had another plastic cup in one hand and was gesticulating with the other. She was talking animatedly to a willowy blonde in a low-cut blue gingham dress that looked like it would be slightly more at home at a picnic than a dance party—but this girl wore it with utter confidence. Her hair was swept up with artfully loose tendrils. Behind her, on a couch, sat a few other girls, chatting aimlessly or looking disaffected—a girl with a mop of black hair, her black canvas outfit festooned with straps and buckles; a small, curvy girl with an undercut and a fox-like look; and a shy-looking woman with glasses, curly hair and a party dress.
Jamie caught sight of Alexandra and waved. "Hey! Come join us!"
The girl in gingham turned to face Alexandra with a curious smile. "Hi! I'm Gail." Her voice was a purr, and Alexandra found herself wondering if she was trans.
"And I'm your date tonight," said Jamie, sliding an arm around Alexandra’s waist. Introductions went all around—Vahini, Shrike, and Emily were the girls sitting on the couch—and then Gail turned her attention like a spotlight back on the couple.
“I can’t believe we haven’t met before,” she pointed out; her tone was friendly, but with a note of acquisitiveness. “I mean, Alexandra… your girlfriend here is thoroughly adorable, where did you even find her?!” She put a friendly hand on Alexandra’s knee; Alex noticed her nails were elegantly done, in burgundy with French tips and a rhinestone in the center of each.
Alexandra grinned, trying to suppress her instinctual urge to flee from an obvious “queen bee” type. “Don’t I know it? Sometimes I think she’s so perfect that I must have dreamed her up.”
“Aha!” said Gail with a genuine smile. “So you’re the one who magically transed her, huh?” Alex’s mouth fell open.
Jamie looked sheepish. “I didn’t tell them anything, but they totally clocked me for as a trans girl.”
If anything, this surprise Alex anymore. “Get out of here! How the hell… wait, is there something about her that…”
Gail laughed. "Oh wow. You're worried she doesn't look perfect, that she's not as fishy as you could possibly make her? Don't freak out, girl! She's flawless. Almost too flawless."
Jamie knew the expression on Alexandra's face too well—la mixture of wounded pride and confusion. She kissed her girlfriend on the cheek. "Silly, it's not you... it's me. Gail said she could tell I was either a recent girl, or been locked away in an isolated rural community since childhood. Something about wide-eyed wonder and joy? Kind of nice to be recognized by other trans women, really."
Gail winked at them both. "Spot 'em every time." Alexandra certainly couldn't have spotted Gail, she thought. Was she...? Maybe it didn't hurt to ask.
"Sorry, I don't know if it's rude, but... are you also... like Jamie is...?" Alexandra did her best not to sound awkward, and failed. Jamie covered her mouth, smiling a bit too much at her affect.
Gail placed her fingers dramatically on her bodice. "Am I... a magically transalicious girl like your cutie? Actually, it is seriously rude. I think. They're still deciding. Portals may have been around for twelve years, but the etiquette is changing constantly. Anyway, I'm not at all a magical trans girl, and I don't mind telling you—I transitioned in the boring old-fashioned way, years ago, in the dark ages of magic."
Alexandra and Jamie proved an eager audience for Gail, who was clearly happy to meet some "new blood," as she called them. Gail's other friends were tolerant, but more interested in drinking and making out sloppily. Were they all dating each other? thought Alexandra. That seems... complicated. Alexandra felt relieved, but a little embarrassed; although she was more familiar with the queer scene than her newly-transformed girlfriend, she hadn't enjoyed any queer community before getting to college, and wasn't nearly as well-versed as she sometimes implied to Jamie. Now Jamie was... making new friends? And maybe she was too.
Jamie really was opening like a flower, chatting animatedly, tossing back drinks, occasionally getting up to dance, but always returning gratefully to Alexandre's embrace. She was clearly having the time of her life, maybe because her new life hadn't been very long. It had been years, Alexandra knew, since Jamie'd had anyone but Alex herself to confide in, to feel assured would understand even the most basic things about her reality. Alex knew from history that shared experience wasn't always a magic bullet in terms of making trustworthy friends or even getting along, but surely some kind of community was vital, nourishing?
The night became a blur of images, sound, and light. All of them were drinking, and dancing, telling stories and trash-talking, and the music kept going. At some point, Alexandra was kissing Jamie in a bathroom stall; then they were helping Gail inject estrogen directly into her shapely ass. Gail was handing Alexandra some electrical tape, which she applied in two Xs on top of Jamie's nipples. Jamie whooped and jumped in the air, another cheerleader pose. Alexandra remembered helping Jamie up onto one of the platforms, where Jamie gyrated and kicked, doing her best to emulate the go-go dancer who was on a break.
She does look amazing, thought Alexandra as she looked up at Jamie, who had one hand on the floor as she bounced her hips towards the ceiling. And she's enthusiastic, at least. If only she could actually dance!
Much, much later, after they’d said goodbyes to new friends, returned home on the slow, rare late-night trains, and crashed gratefully into bed and slumber, Alexandra woke up. Her sleep had been far more abbreviated than was reasonable or healthy, but something had occurred to her unconscious mind.
She went to her drawing table, picked up pen and paper, and began to sketch, consult some references online and in books, then sketch some more. After an hour, she picked up the magical stylus, clicked it on, and approached Jamie’s sleeping form.
