A Feminine Look

Chapter Five: A Trip Outside

Not that she normally does this, but it would've been the absolute worst for my Mom to come into my room to wake me up this morning. I think she would've about died from shock had she seen her only son sleeping in his bed wearing women's panties. I wouldn't even know where to begin to explain the ridiculous clothing choice.

But this is one of the sacrifices I agreed to make. Annie was totally right – there's a lot of prep work that goes into being a girl. I couldn't just expect to show up in some ill-fitting dress at one of the parties and expect Scotty to believe I was a real girl.

So I left my house just before 10 AM to meet Annie for the second day of practice. Funny, she never mentioned how many days of 'girl practice' I'd need. I guess I'm just along for the ride.

When I arrived at her place she grabbed me and quickly pulled me upstairs. "My parents are home," she said, quickly shutting the door behind her.

"Cool... why does that matter?" I asked.

She looked at me like I was a total ditz. "Because I don't want them to see what we're doing."

"I mean, yeah." I shrugged. "Let's just do girl practice in your room then. If they knock, I hide and you say I left."

"Hmm... so, I was gonna wait to tell you this til you were dressed up, but it seems relevant now... I made 11 AM brunch reservations for us."

"You what??" I nearly screamed, praying her parents didn't hear me... or her.

Annie sat me down on her chair. "It's okay, it's fine. It's only at Café Soleil. You'll be fine."

I couldn't believe how matter-of-fact she was acting. "Are you insane? Café Soleil is packed like all the time! Don't you think somebody's gonna recognize us?"

She snapped her fingers. "Way ahead of you. I already called ahead and asked for a back booth. They said it's where they put their 'celebrities'." Pfft. As if any real celebrities lived in the suburbs of Chicago... the occasional pro athlete, maybe. But still.

But with time, I started calming down. Annie pleaded and pleaded and reminded me how convincing I looked yesterday and how much of a natural I was wearing girls clothes. Maybe – just maybe – we can pull this off.

She picked out a conservative, girly-but-not-flashy, light-pink sundress for me to wear, paired with white summer sandals. I was also given a white bra and panties set to wear underneath. Annie decided to somewhat match me with her own sundress, but hers was light green and she wore navy blue summer sandals.

"My nails are already painted... but I don't think we have time to do yours. Sorry, Juliette," she playfully cried, knowing full well I was happy about that.

She also applied a little bit of makeup to my face for the first time. Super subtle, but she insisted makeup would only help hide my identity and make me feel more confident as a girl. Not so sure about the latter, but I rolled with it. Annie even handed me a pair of large, feminine sunglasses as an extra layer of recognition protection.

Soon enough, I was fully dolled up. Annie even took a mirror selfie of us, much to my displeasure. "God, you make for such a cutie!" she squealed.

We left the house without running into her parents, and she told them we were off to meet more friends at brunch.

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Café Soleil isn't too far from Annie's house – only a 10 minute walk – but damn did it feel like a marathon. The sandals were comfortable, and I'd gotten a lot of practice yesterday with women's shoes, but the fear that I'd run into someone was immense. We were in my hometown after all. Not on vacation, not in some fake virtual game. Nope. The real world