NOVEL NEXT PART FOUR: Polished Draft of a Girl
In her dreams, Jamie found that she had somehow become a ballerina—a real ballet dancer, a professional. She was performing in a performance hall somewhere in Europe, perhaps London or Paris or Berlin. The audience was comprised mostly of men wearing suits and ties, applauding her.
Her body was graceful, but all lean muscle, her breasts as small as they'd been when Alexandra first changed them, her hips narrow and boyish. She wore a pink leotard with gold trim and a tutu with matching pink slippers. She danced effortlessly through the piece, spinning and pirouetting around poles and other dancers, executing difficult movements with ease.
When she finished to thunderous calls for an encore, she went backstage to her dressing room. A man in a suit approached her and took her hand in his own. He kissed each of her fingers individually before taking hold of both hands in one of his.
"You're incredible," he told her sincerely as the two of them walked towards the dressing room together. "How would you like to come work with me in Los Angeles?"
"Really?" asked Jamie. "That would be amazing! What kind of company?"
"A new one, starting up. We're building an academy for aspiring dancers from all over the world. Our goal is to create an environment where everyone feels welcome and encouraged to follow their passions." He paused for a moment as they entered the dressing room. "You're obviously such a talent, you'd be an excellent role model." Jamie blushed; she'd never thought of herself as a role model for anyone. She tried to say something about how she'd have to talk with her girlfriend but found she couldn't quite explain what she meant.
The man leaned forward and kissed her softly on the lips. She was so stunned that she didn't react. "We can discuss it later." His breath smelled strongly of coffee and mint gum. "Was that all right? I like to work closely with my prima ballerinas." Jamie blinked. She wasn't sure exactly what he meant by “prima” ballerina, but it made her heart race all the same. She nodded mutely, aware of her heart pounding.
He stepped away and pulled open a drawer on the dressing table, reaching inside to remove an envelope. "Here's my card," he told her. "Call me."
"Okay," Jamie replied. She watched him walk towards the door, which closed behind him with a click. Then she opened the envelope and unfolded the white business-card within it: it was a blank surface with nothing written on it whatsoever.
***
Jamie woke up slowly, in the darkness. It was late at night, the bedroom illuminated by the glow of Alexandra's monitors as she sat curled up in her fancy chair, browsing through what looked like reference images. Jamie felt strange, different—nothing unexpected there, as she'd had her whole body made over. She stretched, and it was unlike any time she'd ever stretched before. Her joints and muscles were all loose and relaxed, but her skin felt firmer than ever before, perfectly supple. It was almost like she'd spent months working out or practicing some form of martial arts... or dance, she supposed was the case.
Jamie stood up and walked around the room experimentally, finding that everything felt lighter and more balanced than usual. Looking around, she seemed to be the same height, but her proportions and balance were all subtly different again, her hips just slightly wider but not pronounced or as round as Alexandra's, her legs longer, her arms thin.
Her waist was narrower than before, tapering down from a slim ribcage; when she put her hands around the narrowest point, she felt as if she could touch her navel and her sides in one span. But her hands were smaller as well, with long delicate fingers. She ran her hands down her sides, then back up, and marveled at the sensation. As she paced around the room, she found herself walking differently as well. Everything was light and fast and springy, like she was skipping across the floor rather than stepping.
She turned and saw Alexandra watching her with a catlike smile, and a curious, entranced gaze. Jamie decided to show off and did a spin on one foot. She landed on her heel in a graceful crouch, then sprang back up to standing, landing smoothly on the balls of her feet and then pushing herself back upright in a continuous motion. She kicked her right leg up and held it, balancing on one leg while maintaining the pose for several seconds. Then, suddenly aware that her vulva was on full display, she straightened up and shook out her shoulders.
Alexandra applauded with a waggle of her eyebrows. "So I take it you like your new body?"
"I haven't even explored much of it yet," said Jamie. She sprung lightly over to the mirror leaning in one corner. The girl she saw there was slender and lithe and feminine in every way, except for the fact that her face was still Jamie's—the same features, the same dark eyes and floppy hair.
Jamie's breasts had grown fuller still; maybe they were C-cups now? Hard to say, as they looked larger against her small torso, swaying gently as she moved, the size of softballs, or the Asian pears her father's mother had occasionally sent her as a child. Alexandra, ever hungry for her nipples, had made Jamie's larger even when not standing at attention; they were dark brown against areolae that were a deep pinkish orange. Her hips were still narrower than most girls, and her stomach flat and toned. A dancer, but...
Jamie met Alexandra's gaze in the mirror as she cupped her breasts, each filling up her grip and spilling over. "Naughty girl," she whispered. "These are not dancer's breasts!"
"My dream girl... maybe she had to stop dancing when she matured?" Alexandra winked. "Be good, I'll make you bigger and bouncier."
"How big?" asked Jamie. "Do you really want me to be even bigger than this?" She felt a little dizzy at the thought.
"Oh, I don't know..." Alexandra stroked her chin. "I like having the size advantage on you, and your proportions are perfect, as far as I'm concerned."
Jamie was studying herself again. "Thank you so much, Alexandra. This is a gift... a gift like nobody's ever received, I don't think. Maybe Galatea, from the myths."
Alexandra laughed. "She was a statue brought to life... you were already very much alive, and my love."
Jamie shook her head. "My life is just beginning now, that's how it feels. But, um..." She looked over at Alexandra in the reflection and swallowed hard. "I hate to sound ungrateful, but is there anything we can do about my stubble? Just seeing it is giving me aches of wrongness now."
Alexandra smiled. "Your stubble? I was going to ask if you're ready for me to redraw your whole face."
Jamie's eyes widened. "To look... like someone else?"
"Well, someone just like you, if the genetic dice had given you two X chromosomes, I suppose. I know the sketches aren't all that detailed, but I always pictured girl Jamie with your cute lil' nose, but features a little softer, more delicate? Different hair, too?" Alexandra was looking at her with love, desire, but also that intent look of hunger and ambition that she sometimes got.
Jamie gulped. "I... I guess I've always thought about whether I'd have feminization surgery. But I don't know... I mean, will my family even recognize me?"
Alexandra rested her hand on her chin. "I love you, Jamie Kurokawa. I want to recognize you, maybe even more than they do. So, I'm not going to turn you into someone completely different... maybe just, bring you out more? Still, it's another big step, maybe of the no-going-back kind. We might have to get you new identification, everything."
Jamie ran her hands across her face. She was acutely aware of how masculine it was in some ways: thick jawline, strong browbones, wide cheekbones, broad forehead. There was a lot of her that felt male, but there was enough feminine softness there to have always made her aware of just that small distance between her mundane existence and her ideal, what might be true and right.
"Part of me wants to say... can I think on it for a day?" said Jamie. "But the other part of me is screaming fuck it, let's go for it, it's time! So... I trust you, my artist. My Pygmalion," she giggled.
"Just call me Miss Pyggie," joked Alexandra. "And let me oink my way into your delicious new body." She got up and approached Jamie to kiss her on the cheek. "You'll see," she promised. "It'll be perfect."
Alexandra sat her on the big, perfectly comfortable chair where she usually perched, and adjusted the lights, turning Jamie so the glare of the computer screens was behind her. "This is going to take a while," she said. "Good thing I'm all revved up. I feel like I've just had two cups of coffee... I wonder if this is what people who practice magic seriously feel like all the time?" She toyed with the stylus, thinking.
Jamie closed her eyes when asked to, and Alexandra began to draw on her face. It felt a little bit like getting a makeover, although Jamie had very limited experience of that. Alexandra drew in lines and curves around the edges of Jamie's face, making it rounder, fuller, with more of a gentle swell around the cheeks and jaw line.
By now, Jamie could tell the difference between when Alexandra was using the Burin in "erase" mode, which felt like someone gently scraping away dead skin cells, and "draw" mode, which was the opposite, adding layers of what felt like face paint, but which she knew was new flesh, cellular structure, living body tissue.
Alexandra hummed and clucked her tongue much more during this process than when she'd been working on Jamie's body. There was less eager, semi-lustful intensity, and more perfectionism. "You're just lucky I took a class last semester where we did photorealistic portraiture," she said at one point, "Or you might end up looking like a cartoon, or a girl from an abstract expressionist masterpiece." Jamie almost blanched, but held still. I trust my artist, she thought, to make me beautiful. Make me who I'm meant to be.
***
"All done," said Alexandra, and then let out a long, slow breath. "Wow. That was a lot. I feel like I poured every drop of my energy into... oh, wow. I can't believe it. You're so beautiful, Jamie."
Jamie opened her eyes. She didn't feel any different. She probed her teeth, licked her lips. Maybe they were a little fuller? No, not really.
"Your lips were always the most perfect part of you, silly." Alexandra was beaming at her like a proud parent, or maybe a mad scientist watching her creation come to life. "I think they changed shape a little bit when I got rid of all the follicles around them, the source of that stubble you hate so much. But I didn't want to touch them otherwise. Wait, wait—let me get you a hand mirror so you can have a closer look."
Alexandra ran off, but Jamie couldn't resist feeling her face with her new, delicate fingers. They touched the corner of her jaw, slid over her chin, traced along her lower lip, touched at the corners of her mouth. Her new face felt... smooth, that was for sure. No stubble. And soft. She'd never imagined being able to describe something as soft before, but somehow, her new face felt smoother than her old one had.
She heard footsteps approaching and looked up into Alexandra's smiling face. Her girlfriend placed an oval mirror in her hands. "Here, I'll let you do it in your own time," she said with barely suppressed eagerness.
"This is like... a scene in a movie where someone takes their bandages off, I guess? And you find out what's happened to their face?" Jamie was hesitating. This was such a big deal. Maybe more than her body, which had been gradual. She lifted the mirror.
Jamie saw an oval face with high cheekbones and wide, sensual lips that seemed to have more color than usual in the mixture of lamplight and Alexandra's screen glow. They were her lips, but somehow let loose, her lower lip slightly fuller, her upper lip with a more pronounced bow. She turned the mirror back and forth slowly, taking in all sides of her new self. Her hair was longer now, flowing down past her shoulders in dark waves, darker at the top and lightening, just slightly, to her familiar chestnut color, as if Alexandra had pulled more deep-rooted black locks up from her skull.
Her eyes looked subtly different as well; she blinked several times as she examined their shape—still almondine, same epicanthic fold that showed her Asian heritage, but somehow wider now? She peered at her irises. They were still brown, but perhaps a little greenish-golden in places? Not quite as dark as they used to be? Her eyebrows appeared higher as well.
She looked at herself again, tilting her head left and right to see the whole picture from different angles. She wasn't certain what she was expecting to feel or discover; after all, she'd been dreaming about this change since she first realized she wanted to become female, and yet... nothing had prepared her for the sudden rush of emotion. Was this real? It certainly felt real. She pressed a palm against her heart as if to make sure it was still there.
Alexandra knelt beside her chair and wrapped both arms around her waist, pulling her close and kissing her cheek. "Who do you see, love?" She sounded almost teasing, but there was a hint of uncertainty in her voice.
Jamie put a hand on Alexandra's cheek. She tried to think of what to say. It was all so overwhelming. "Let me take that question as seriously as I possibly can." She held up the mirror again, and looked the girl there in the eye, taking her whole face in: the sweep of hair, the cute nose, the cheekbones that were still as high, but softened by the new roundness. The mouth that had once seemed too large for the rest of her face now fit perfectly.
"I see myself," she said simply. And it was true: She saw a new Jamie in the mirror, and she knew her.
Alexandra kissed her deeply. "You are stunning," she whispered.
Jamie yearned up towards her, grazing her lips for another kiss. "Thank you, baby. I... I don't even know what to say anymore. You've given me everything." She reached up and stroked Alexandra's cheek. "But I haven't given you anything."
Alexandra smiled slyly. "Oh yes you have..." She pushed Jamie backwards onto the chair so she could straddle the tall girl's naked body. "An unparalleled opportunity. Your trust, your love."
Jamie gasped when she felt Alexandra's warm wet mouth on her neck. She clutched Alexandra's hair and moaned softly when Alexandra sucked gently on a nipple. "You've made me into this creature..." said Jamie. "A creature that hungers..."
Alexandra laughed wickedly. "What are you hungry for, beast of the night?"
Jamie sighed happily as she felt Alexandra's hot tongue lick along the curve of her breast. She arched her back, pressing her breasts against Alexandra's face. "The hot cunt of a master artist," she moaned. Suddenly she felt Alexandra lifting her.
"Oh! Oh my goodness," said Jamie. Alexandra hadn't been able to lift her so easily before, but her new muscles were built for flexibility and agility, not bulk. Alex grunted and threw her on the bed, then flopped next to her.
"I cannot possibly describe how exhausted I am, my love," said the artist. "But there are two services you can render me."
Jamie snuggled up to Alexandra and gave her a tender peck on the cheek. "Anything for you."
"First, eat that hot cunt of mine until you're satiated. After, wake me up when you can feed me some breakfast!" Alexandra's smile was blissful.
Jamie stretched herself on all fours, then rolled over on top of her girlfriend, sliding down Alexandra’s body towards her waist. "At once, master artist!"
