I watch in the mirror as Sara wipes the last smudge of powder from my jaw. My eyes look enormous, not quite human. My mouth—her mouth, really—is fixed in a shape I’ve never seen on my face. I wonder if this is what people feel when they get their first tattoo: the horror, the awe, the suspicion that they’ve fundamentally changed something unfixable.
But Sara is right. It’s one night. Three hours tops, and then I can go back to being an atom among atoms.
I close my eyes, grip the edge of the vanity, and let the reality settle over me, heavy and dazzling and absolutely, inexorably, out of my control.
Chapter 2
There’s a moment, as I stare down at the dress draped over Sara’s bathroom towel rack, where I think: maybe it won’t fit. Maybe this is all a hilarious mistake, and I’ll be let off the hook by a simple failure of physics. But then Sara appears at my elbow, armed with a Ziplock bag of foam inserts, padded shapewear, and a look of grim determination.
She hands me the bodysuit complete with gel padding around the hips. “Put this on.”
After I don the padded curves she holds up the dress. “In,” she says, and gestures for me to step into the sequined sheath.
The fabric is cool against my skin, heavy and deliberate, clinging in places I’d rather not contemplate. I wiggle the thing up past my gel insta-hips and realize with mounting horror that the cinched waist is nonnegotiable. If I breathe in too deeply, I might lose consciousness.
“Turn,” Sara commands.
Grunting, I oblige, bracing myself on the sink while she tugs the zipper. The bodice snugs up, and I’m suddenly aware of how much of my chest is exposed—not that there’s anything to see. She slips the foam into a pair of built-in cups, then uses some kind of medical tape to anchor the silhouette, and I’m thankful in this moment for the fact I don’t have much chest hair. I don’t want to know what happens if I sweat.
“Stop squirming,” she says, pinching the fabric at my sides. “The more you move, the worse it gets.”
“Does it have to be so… tight?” I hiss.
Sara shrugs. “That’s the price of glamour. Now—heels.”
She produces a pair of purple stilettos from under the vanity. I stare at them the way a condemned man stares at the guillotine.
“I’m going to break my neck,” I say, but she’s already crouching, easing them onto my feet with surprising tenderness. She pats my ankle, then stands, folding her arms.
“Try walking,” she instructs.
I put on my glasses, so I can see the floor meet my face when I fall, and attempt a step. My center of gravity lurches forward. The wig swings in my face and my knees knock together. I catch myself on the counter, palms clammy against the laminate. In the mirror, my reflection is a fever dream—red hair, redder dress, cheekbones that could slice deli meat. My mouth is a precise, perfect bow of glossy color.
“I can’t do this,” I whisper.
Sara shakes her head. “Of course you can. It’s just muscle memory. Watch.”
She demonstrates in bare feet: one foot directly in front of the other, hips rolling with a practiced sway. She makes it look effortless, predatory, almost mechanical. “Your turn.”
“Maybe you should just go without me,” I say, stalling.
“Not part of the deal, Monty!” Hunter’s voice echoes from the hallway. “You done yet? I wanna see.”
I glare at the door, then back at Sara, who’s waiting with her arms crossed and an eyebrow cocked. “If you break your ankle, I’ll carry you,” she says. “Now walk.”
I take a breath, then another. I try to imitate her stride, planting my heel, rolling onto the ball of my foot, and almost topple sideways. The first few steps are agony—like learning to walk on stilts while wearing a straitjacket. The dress constricts every motion, the heels force my calves into unnatural flex, and the gel and foam padding is a constant, squishy reminder that my body is not my own.
Sara nods. “Not bad. Now give me your hand.”
I do, and she leads me through a half-dozen more steps, pivoting and turning, forcing me to recalibrate each time. She moves to adjust the wig, tucking a strand behind my ear. The gentleness surprises me.
“Are you nervous?” she asks, her voice softer than before.
I try to laugh. “Is it that obvious?”
She smiles. “Only to me. You’ll do fine. They won’t recognize you.”
“That’s the idea, isn’t it?” I ask.
