Standard Presentation

Day 32 in chastity

Before too long, all of my clothes started to fit differently because Richard had begun changing and rearranging what went inside them.

Me. Daniel.

Padding was dangerous, he said. Mum might find it. A wig could slip. Stubble took too long to hide when Bluebell was supposed to mean immediately. Every solution created the next problem, and every problem had one responsible, discreet treatment Richard had already researched and procured.

The pills were temporary at first. Everything was temporary at first.

He told me they were collagen to improve my skin. It would make it easier for makeup to sit convincingly on my face.

As soon as I noticed my nipples beginning to bulge beneath a T-shirt, I confronted him.

"These aren't what you said."

"Then don't take them. Call Natalie instead. Tell her everything. Show her what's between your legs now."

"You always say that. You never listen to me. I'm telling you this is wrong."

"I always say that because you always choose the same answer."

I stood in his study with the pill pinched between two fingers and thought about Natalie, about marrying her, about having my own body and my own life and absolutely not wanting the tender swelling beneath my nipples that Richard called my "progress."

Then I swallowed it.

This wasn't the hill to die on. He wasn't going to budge, and I had already been taking them obliviously for weeks anyway. A few more days couldn't hurt while I worked out how to get him to release me - but arguing with him could set me back much longer.

What I really wanted was one more day in which Natalie still thought I was Daniel. That was what I had swallowed. One day. A little more time. Not breasts. Not a future somebody else had planned.

Richard watched the pill disappear and smiled. My fingers were still pinched together after there was nothing left between them.

Hair removal was for speed. The blood tests were just responsible, given the circumstances. The second, more official prescription prevented the first becoming "insufficient." Every objection met a sensible answer and left one less thing to hide, pin on or remember when Bluebell came.

Richard called that progress. I was only thinking about getting towards the end of this punishment.

The salon came on Tuesday.

Richard told Mum we were going shopping, which was technically true. I wore jeans, a sweatshirt and trainers, with my hair brushing my shoulders whenever I turned towards the window, still new enough that I noticed the movement and already familiar enough that my hand kept tucking it behind my ears without asking me first.

"Where are we going?" I asked him as we stepped outside the door. In truth, I was grateful enough to be wearing trousers that I was not so affected by the mystery.

"You'll see."

"I hate when you say that."

"I know."

We stopped outside a bridal shop. I told him we were absolutely not buying anything in there, and Richard pointed above it instead.

Bellamy Beauty & Presentation Studios

I stayed in the car.

Richard got out, opened my door and said my name once. I folded my arms and made him stand there while traffic moved behind him, a woman pushed a buggy past the bonnet and some ordinary man carried two coffees across the pavement without having the slightest idea that I was trying to decide how long an adult was permitted to remain physically attached to a passenger seat before it became another form of asking permission.

"Please can you just tell me what we're doing?"

"You've become more helpful."

That made me look at him. It sounded like an answer to my question, but the words didn't arrange into anything resembling what I wanted to know.

"At home." he continued. "You listen better. You clean without turning everything into an argument. You're easier to direct."

"Because you've made me terrified of doing anything wrong, in case you never-"

"However it happened, I like the result. It's working. This should make things easier."

"Working for you, you mean."

"Yes."

He started towards the building before I had decided whether the conversation I thought I was in charge of had finished. I called after him that I did not need lessons in being easier to boss around, and he told me, without turning, that I clearly had that part handled already.

"But you need lessons in doing it properly for me."

I grumbled and followed him inside.

Halfway up the stairs, my chest had tightened enough that the question escaped before pride could stop it.

"Am I coming home as Daniel?"

Richard glanced back.

"I suppose that depends on how well Gabriella does."

The door above us opened before I could answer. A blonde woman in a fitted black salon dress leaned over the banister, saw Richard, then saw me, and her whole face opened into the sort of delighted expression I had learned to fear because it always meant somebody else had been given more information about me than I had about them.

"Ohhh. Morning, Richard, right? This is him?"

Voices immediately moved inside the room. Someone asking if I was here, someone else wanting to see, a third woman laughing before she had even seen anything worth laughing at. I turned back towards the stairs and Richard's hand closed lightly around my wrist, not hard enough to restrain me if I had actually pulled.

"I don't want strangers knowing about this." I whispered to him.

The bright-faced blonde woman came out to us before Richard answered. "Strangers?"

Her hand found my free one with the confidence of somebody greeting a nervous child and she began walking backwards into the salon, drawing me after her.

"How cruel! We'll be your very best friends in the whole world by the time you leave, sweetie."

I took one step because she was pulling, another because Richard was behind me, one arm pulled forward and the other backward as if I were hung on a frame as I was led on, then found myself fully inside before I had made any separate decision to enter.

Mirrors multiplied everything. Vanities, wash stations, pink stools, bright overhead lights and five women who all seemed to turn towards me at slightly different speeds until I could feel their attention landing in sections: my hair first, then my face, my chest, my hands, my jeans, back up again. One of them actually clapped.

"Oh, he's adorable." - "Look at that hair." - "He's already so pretty."

My arms folded across myself for cover. Claire - the blonde woman, apparently - caught both wrists almost immediately and opened them again, pressing my hands down towards my sides with a little smile.

"None of that. No need to hide in here, lovely."

The gesture was so casual that I obeyed it before irritation arrived. My arms softened where she had put them while a dark-haired woman near one of the chairs smiled at me with what looked, for one stupid hopeful second, like sympathy.

"Come over here, sweetheart. You don't need to stand there looking terrified."

My shoulders finally loosened. At last: one normal person.

I looked at Richard. He nodded, and I crossed the room while every woman watched my stiff legs pass. The dark-haired woman placed a hand between my shoulder blades as I reached her, warm palm flattening briefly through the sweatshirt, and guided me backwards until the chair pressed into the backs of my knees.

"There you go. Sit down."

I sat.

"See? Nothing scary."

"Thank you."

"And such good manners."

Her palm remained between my shoulders while her other hand disappeared beside the chair. She smiled at me for a moment, leaning across me so intimately that I almost thought she was going to kiss me, before her hand whipped back across my front.

Click.

A broad padded strap drew tight across my waist.

My hands went straight to the buckle. The dark-haired woman was faster, peeling my fingers away one at a time and returning them to my thighs as though she had expected the movement before I made it.

"What is this?"

"Protection."

"From what?"

"Your squirmy little need to run away, sissy."

The room laughed around me. I twisted towards Richard and the belt tightened across my stomach, stopping my hips while my shoulders continued another few inches on their own; the chair stayed facing the mirror and for one ridiculous second I was caught halfway between facing him and facing myself.

"Daddy." The word came out frightened and automatic.

Claire stopped beside me. Her eyebrows rose. "Ohhh. We're already at Daddy."

My face went hot enough that the powderless skin beneath my eyes prickled. The trainee, a girl around my age who had been hovering behind Claire, edged closer and asked timidly whether that was part of it.

"Everything's part of it," Claire said.

"I call him Richard." I said, staring intensely at the trainee, hoping her confusion might be a path out of here.

A few women laughed, but Claire had already taken my chin between finger and thumb. My head turned left because she turned it, then right, her thumb resting just beneath my lower lip while she examined the side of my face as though my correction had been no more interesting than background noise.

"Skin's coming nicely."

"He's been good with the pills," Richard said.

"Against my will." I argued.

Claire tipped my chin upwards. The ceiling lights filled my vision and my throat stretched open beneath her fingers. "Brows need work. Hair's getting there too - just a bit messy."

Her hand left my face and another pair immediately entered from behind, gathering my hair together at the nape. A comb slid from my forehead backwards, its teeth scratching pleasantly over my scalp and then pulling hard enough at one snag that my head followed before I could stop it.

"This is all just temporary," I said. "He's letting me out soon. He promised."

Nobody needed me to be still because the woman behind me simply held the section closer to my scalp and worked the comb through it. Claire was already asking Richard about laser while her fingertips ran along my jaw, lifting my face slightly towards the light.

"Taking well."

"Body?"

"Taking shape."

The comb travelled back again and my chin drifted a fraction higher as Claire turned me towards her. I tried to straighten my head and the woman behind me pulled another section to the opposite side, drawing it gently back before I could finish.

"Good. Face will be faster."

"That's the point."

I stared at Richard in the mirror. "You've discussed this?"

Claire smiled at my reflection. "Sweetheart, he sent photographs."

My scalp tightened as somebody divided my hair with the point of a comb. "What photographs?"

"Progress pictures. Loads of them."

"I didn't... agree to that." I could hear my heartbeat in my voice.

The sentence had barely left me before Claire's palm arrived beneath my jaw again. She turned me towards the trainee, who stepped closer to inspect whatever Claire wanted her to see.

"You knew you took the pictures," Richard said behind me. "You knew you sent them to me. What do you expect happens when something is out of your control?"

My head was still being held slightly sideways. Claire's fingers moved my lower lip out of the way for half a second to look at the skin beneath it.

"I didn't know you would actually... show people."

"Lovely little jaw," Claire interrupted.

I tried to pull back and her other hand landed on the crown of my head, not gripping, simply staying there until my neck stopped trying to escape her fingers. The trainee came so close her knee brushed the side of the chair.

"Can I ask something?" she asked, still looking at me as though I were a wounded animal she were uncertain what the kindest thing to do with was.

"Of course."

Her eyes dropped. I knew where before I followed them.

Oh my God, don't. Please.

"So... is he locked?"

Every woman looked at my lap.

Heat ran from my face down my chest so quickly I could feel it beneath the sweatshirt. Claire's fingertips were still under my chin, which meant I could not even look properly down without pressing against her.

"First week," Richard said.

That sent the room up. Somebody asked how long, and Richard answered thirty-two days while I sat there discovering that he had been counting more carefully than I had.

"And he's still saying temporary?"

"It is temporary." I called out. The last word came out thin because Claire had stretched the skin above my eyebrow between two fingers and another woman had appeared with thread.

The first pull stung.

My eyes watered immediately.

"Hold still, sweetheart."

Another sharp flick above the eye. My head twitched backwards and met a palm placed comfortably against the back of my skull. Thread tightened again. The sting travelled in a thin bright line across my brow and tears gathered before I had decided whether I was actually crying.

Claire caught one beneath my eye with the pad of her finger. "No rubbing. You'll make everything red and runny."

"I don't have makeup on."

"You will."

Another pull. My face tried to follow the thread away from the pain, but the hand behind my head kept returning me to the same angle. The girls did not require my cooperation in any real sense. Nobody pinned my shoulders or shouted when I moved. They simply corrected the movement as it happened, fingers repositioning my chin, palm bringing my head back, one woman's knuckles nudging my hands apart when they clenched together too tightly on my thighs.

The trainee was still studying me. "I thought Bluebell was his name."

I blushed instantly.

Claire laughed. "Bluebell?"

"It was all over his notes."

Somebody near the sinks said it was too floral to be somebody's name.

The trainee looked pleased with herself. "I think floral is good for her. It's really sweet. And she's locked, so it's like... Blue-balls."

The room exploded in laughter. I shut my eyes, which gave the woman threading my brows an excuse to tilt my chin higher again.

"Oh my God, I'm sorry," the trainee said through laughter.

She was absolutely not sorry.

"Daddy? Can we leave?" My eyes opened onto Richard's reflection.

"No."

Claire wiped beneath one of them again and smoothed my cheek with the side of her thumb. "Well, if Bluebell isn't the name, what are we calling her?"

My mouth stayed closed.

The woman behind me drew my hair into a temporary ponytail to clear my face, pulling my head backwards with it until I was staring more directly into the mirror. Five women looked back at me around my own reflection.

"Richard told us you've got one," Claire said. "Don't be shy."

The room supplied alternatives anyway. Something about Princess Prissy Pigtails, somebody else offering Dizzy Daisy Dolly. Their laughter overlapped until I could barely tell who had said which one, and Claire's fingers were back beneath my chin, holding my face up while I tried to sink into my shoulders.

"Please stop," I sobbed.

"Then tell us."

I looked at Richard. Nothing.

"Gabriella."

Claire leaned closer. "What?"

I repeated it louder for the room, my voice breaking from a chest full of tears waiting to come out. "My name is Gabriella."

For perhaps a second the room quietened.

Then one woman sighed, "Ohhh, Gabriella," with enough satisfaction that the others began immediately agreeing.

"Much prettier." - "Very sissy."

"I'm not a sissy. This is temporary."

Claire smiled at me in the mirror and drew one finger along my cheek. "Of course not, sweetheart."

After that, the girls stopped needing a conversation.

Hands arrived from different directions and began converting me into a series of separate tasks.

The belt remained warm and tight across my stomach while somebody cleaned my face, one hand bracing the side of my head as cotton travelled over my skin. When I turned instinctively away from the cold pad, fingers at my chin brought me back; when I tried to see who was touching my hair, the comb pulled my head gently towards the opposite shoulder and I found myself following the tension rather than fighting it.

Brows first. Then skin. Then my hands were lifted from my thighs and spread across a folded towel while somebody inspected the nails.

"Relax."

"I am relaxed."

My fingers were rigid.

The woman holding them did not argue back. She massaged my knuckles with her thumb until they loosened enough for her to separate them, then began filing while another woman stood behind me and washed product through the lengths of my hair.

The salon slowly disappeared into sensation.

Warm water against my scalp. The hard lip of the basin against the back of my neck. Fingers pressing circles into shampoo until my head moved under their pressure, left and right, forward when they needed the nape, back again beneath the rinse. Every time I tried to help, I seemed to choose the wrong direction and a hand simply guided me somewhere else.

"Chin up."

My chin rose.

"Little more."

Fingers beneath it supplied the rest of the lift.

"Turn."

My face went right.

"No, sweetheart, other way."

A palm against my cheek turned me left. Somebody laughed softly. I had become extraordinarily easy to move.

By the time I noticed, my own body was beginning to anticipate and assist. When a brush approached my eye my chin lifted before anybody touched it. When Claire needed my face turned, my neck followed the pressure of two fingertips against my jaw. When the woman doing my nails raised one of my hands, my fingers stayed soft in hers rather than trying to reclaim themselves.

"There," Claire murmured to the trainee. "See?"

"I'm just trying not to get mascara in my eye." I hissed back at her.

"Of course, sweetie."

The belt pressed harshly into my stomach every time I breathed deeply, and I had stopped pulling against it, breathing instead in short, silent gasps. My hair was combed wet and straight, treated, dried until warm air baked across my scalp and cheeks, then blended with extra length so neatly that I kept looking for the join and failing to find it.

The new hair moved when I moved.

Claire made the trainee feel where the added sections disappeared into mine, and my head followed their hands as they passed sections between their fingers.

"See? Much better than a wig. She won't be able to pretend she can't find this."

"I'm sitting right here," I said, squirming in my seat.

"Yes, sweetheart."

My nails became soft little ovals beneath somebody else's hands. The brush dragged from base to tip. Pale shine appeared over one nail, then another, while my other hand remained held loosely in a woman's palm so I could not accidentally touch anything.

I stared at them drying.

The makeup came next, and knowing what they were doing made my face betray me constantly. I knew to loosen my mouth before gloss. I knew when mascara meant look down rather than close my eyes. I knew foundation near the jaw required my chin raised, and when Claire said nothing for several seconds while inspecting one side, I turned slightly towards the light before she had to ask.

She smiled.

My face burned.

There was always another hand available to take advantage of whatever spare part of me I offered.

A powder brush turned my cheek. Fingers smoothed a brow. Someone tucked hair behind my ear and then immediately pulled it forward again because they preferred it framing the face. Claire stepped back, frowned, returned and took my chin, tilting my head several degrees until my own reflection lined up with whatever picture she held in hers.

I no longer knew which position was neutral.

Then Claire said, "Bluebell."

My body answered in front of all of them.

My back straightened against the chair. My knees drew together. My hands folded neatly on my thighs despite the half-dry polish, wrists soft, fingers overlapping. My chin settled into the angle Richard liked and a small attentive smile appeared before I had even registered the word.

The salon went quiet. My eyes moved in the mirror. Five women were staring.

Claire looked towards Richard, who was checking his phone. "That's excellent."

"I know."

I tried to separate my hands. They moved apart perhaps two inches before my fingers folded together again.

The trainee whispered, "What was that?"

"Her code."

"My what?" I asked, eyes still fixed straight ahead of me.

Claire had already disappeared behind a screen.

When she returned she was carrying powder blue. Not an outfit exactly. A uniform.

White blouse with little puff sleeves. Powder-blue fitted pinafore with pearl buttons and short crisp pleats. Glossy tights. Pale-blue Mary Janes. Pearls. Two matching satin bows.

Nobody had to hold it against me for my mind to complete the picture.

"I'm not wearing that."

The trainee touched the skirt. "It's really pretty. I think it will suit you so much. You should be excited!"

"I'm not wearing it."

Claire stepped between my knees and held the pinafore against my body anyway, one hand at each shoulder. Blue filled the mirror beneath my face. My own hands remained folded in my lap because Bluebell apparently had not finished with them.

My face looked softer above the colour. Lighting. Blue was flattering.

"We thought this would suit your little Bluebell."

I looked at Richard. "You sent them measurements."

"Yes."

"And photographs."

"Yes."

Claire smoothed the dress flat against my chest while the trainee stood behind me holding the shoulder seams, effectively dressing my reflection before anybody had seemed to remove a single piece of Daniel's clothing.

My voice had begun shaking. "I want this to stop."

Claire's hands left the dress and came gently to my shoulders. "No, sweetheart. This is what you came to us for."

The belt clicked open.

My first movement was not towards the door.

Both hands went to the shallow pressure marks across my stomach.

"Stand," Claire ordered, sounding not unlike Richard.

I looked towards the exit. The dark-haired woman waited beside the chair.

"Stand when I tell you."

Nobody grabbed me. Nobody needed to. The room simply paused around the unfinished instruction until remaining seated began to feel like the only movement anybody could see.

My chest tightened. "I said... I said I'm not wearing it."

I tried to drop my voice lower, give it something solid and masculine. There was not enough breath behind it. What came out sounded small.

"Richard?"

He looked at me.

Natalie. Phone. Photographs. Thirty-two days of temporary.

My knees straightened. Not Richard. Daddy.

Claire pointed towards the changing room and went back to cleaning powder from one of her brushes as though my resistance had produced no interruption worth acknowledging.

"But... I don't want to."

Daddy waited.

My breathing stayed shallow beneath the sweatshirt. I sighed. "Please... can I use the changing room?"

Claire beamed. "Good girl! Of course you can."

Relief loosened my chest so quickly that I hated the gratitude rising with it. I had only needed to ask properly.

Inside the changing room, the outfit fit perfectly, even over my changing body. The pinafore did not hang from padding - it clung to my own breasts. The blouse did not need anything stuffed beneath it. My body supplied the shape.

Not much. Enough, and always the terrifying promise of more.

The white cotton settled over two small tender breasts that belonged, I supposed, to me. Powder blue narrowed around the waist Richard had been quietly altering. Glossy tights slid over legs already smooth enough that there was no costume seam left to find.

I pulled once at the blouse, searching almost stupidly for a removable trick underneath, some ripcord I could pull and bring down the staging of my last month and find myself as Daniel, in bed, with total freedom.

Nothing, of course. If such a thing really existed, Richard would surely have kept every one of them safely out of my grasp.

I could strip every piece Claire had given me onto the floor and still walk out carrying Gabriella's chest beneath my sweatshirt and Gabriella's hair attached to my scalp.

The laughter outside continued without me. It would continue everywhere I went, whether I wore the dress or not.

When I stepped back into the salon it stopped for almost two seconds.

Then the room filled with the sound of pleased women.

"Ohhh." - "There she is." - "Look at that waist." - "She's lovely."

Claire reached me first. Her fingers immediately fixed the collar, then moved aside so another woman could adjust the shoulders. Somebody turned me gently by the upper arm while Claire inspected the back, then turned me again before I had finished following the first movement.

My hair came next. No wig.

Claire stood behind me, divided my actual hair straight down the centre and pulled the sections high. My head drifted from one side to the other as she tightened each pigtail, the pull at my scalp making me follow her hands. Powder-blue bows covered the bands, and the lengths were curled into glossy loops that bounced over my shoulders whenever she moved me.

"Chin."

Two fingers gestured, but weren't required to lift my face into position - I did that myself.

"Eyes."

I looked up.

Pearl studs went through my ears. Someone repaired the blush disturbed during changing. Another woman held my head gently still while Claire refreshed the lashes.

"Loose mouth."

I resisted for a moment.

"Bluebell."

My lips parted. Gloss travelled over them.

When the wand left, I pressed them together automatically.

Claire smiled.

I looked into the mirror. The dress fitted the waist I had. The blouse sat over the chest I had. The pigtails grew from my own head.

For weeks Bluebell had required equipment. Wig. Padding. Clothes. Face. A curation of things Richard attached to Daniel until the result could be called Gabriella and later detached again.

Claire was still adjusting one bow and I could already see her.

My Bluebell.

The words passed through my head with the same easy possessive cadence as my hair, or my boyfriend.

My stomach clenched. Claire's hands continued working through the curls.

Photographs began before I had recovered. Claire took my upper arms and moved them away from my sides while somebody else gathered my hands neatly at my waist, then the side of a shoe touched mine until my feet came closer together. A fingertip arrived beneath my chin, lifting until the muscles at the back of my neck followed, and when Claire said, "Smile," the flash caught whatever my mouth managed to produce.

They turned me sideways almost immediately. My shoulders went first beneath somebody's hands and my feet hurried after them, only for a woman to murmur, "Not like that," and place one ankle delicately behind the other. Another flash came while I was still thinking about the absurd precision of it, then they wanted my back, smoothing the skirt over my hips and lifting one curl away from the others so that it lay exactly where Claire wanted it against my shoulder.

The camera clicked again. Somewhere between the second correction and the fourth photograph, my body began getting there first. Claire raised the camera and my weight shifted, my feet finding the smaller position, my hands coming together, my chin lifting towards the angle her finger had established before I understood I had done any of it.

I caught myself halfway through and felt heat gathering beneath the makeup, but there was nothing obvious left to stop without deliberately making the pose worse. My fingers stayed folded neatly against one another while Claire checked the screen.

The trainee leaned over her shoulder. "What are these for?"

"Training," Claire said.

The word caught beneath my ribs. "What training?"

"Reference."

"For who?"

"For the next girls who come in. And anyone else who need references for a sissy style."

The camera was still in her hand. There were already photographs inside it - my face, my body, the little blue skirt from three different angles - and suddenly the room seemed to open far beyond the salon because I could imagine those pictures continuing somewhere without me, stored, copied, shown to people I would never meet. Pictures of me would be used to terrify other boys brought in here against their will. They would probably think I wanted this.

"I don't want my photograph anywhere," I begged, holding my pose.

Claire crossed the space between us and took my face between both hands, thumbs resting lightly against my cheeks. "Sweetheart, you look lovely. You should be proud."

"That isn't an answer."

She let me go only because she wanted the photograph. "Smile."

My mouth burst into a beaming smile..

I was still blinking the white shape of the camera flash from my vision when the dark woman with the tall ponytail moved away from the counter. She had barely spoken all afternoon, which had made her attention easier to endure somehow, something I could pretend was incidental as long as she stayed over there, but when she stepped towards me the rest of the room seemed to notice before I did.

She came close to me. A few hours ago I might have thought she wanted to kiss me. I held onto the hem of my skirts. There was no question of that now.

She cocked an eyebrow. "Have you thought about dancing for a man yet?"

"No."

Her expression hardened. "Properly."

"I haven't." I was starting to feel scared of her.

"Full sentence, sissy."

My eyes found Daddy automatically.

He gave me nothing.

"No. No, I haven't thought about dancing for a man yet."

The last word was all the seemed to matter. Yet.

Laughter lifted around the room and heat rushed through my face. "I didn't mean it like that."

"Of course not." She came closer, slowly enough that I had time to want her to stop. "You've never imagined being dressed up like this because some man was coming over, have you? Little skirt, heels, hair all pretty, knowing you're supposed to entertain him."

"No."

"You wouldn't be waiting for the doorbell wondering what he was going to think when he saw you."

My mouth had gone slightly open.

She noticed.

"You wouldn't wonder where to put your hands. Whether you should stand there nicely while he looked you over. Whether he'd sit down and tell you to show him what you've learned."

I swallowed. "Stop. I have- I have a girlfriend. I'm not like this. Please."

She continued as though I had not spoken. "You'd be nervous at first. Tiny little steps because you wouldn't know what you're doing. Hands fussing with your skirt because you needed somewhere to put them. Looking at him every few seconds to see if you're doing it right, just like with your Daddy."

My palms had already found the powder-blue fabric. Both hands smoothed down the pleats, rubbing them down, and then up, my hands coming closer together in the centre over my cage with each motion.

Her eyes dropped to them. "There."

I snatched them away.

The laughter came immediately, louder because everybody had seen the same thing at once.

"I wasn't-"

"You were."

"I was just fixing the skirt."

"It wasn't creased, sweetie."

My hands hovered uselessly beside me now, which only made the picture she had been building feel more complete. I could see the man sitting down because she had told me he was sitting down, could see myself standing in front of him in the little shoes and ridiculous skirt because there was nothing else for my mind to put in the empty space she kept describing.

"And then maybe he tells you to come closer."

"No."

"Closer than that."

She stepped towards me.

I backed up before I thought about it and felt the pale wall touch my shoulder blades.

A few women laughed again.

"Maybe he puts his hands on your waist because poor Gabriella still doesn't know what she's doing and she needs to be told what to do."

The cage tightened.

My knees came together beneath the skirt. She saw that too; her eyes flicked down briefly and returned to my face without comment, somehow leaving me more exposed than if she had pointed it out.

"He'd show you the rhythm, wouldn't he? Just enough to get you started. You'd be all stiff at first, trying so hard not to move properly because everybody knows you don't want to enjoy it."

"I wouldn't."

"No? But he'd pull you a little closer anyway."

The picture shifted without permission. The imaginary man was no longer simply sitting there. His hands were at my waist now because she had put them there, steady and confident where mine had been hovering stupidly, and my body had nowhere sensible to go in the picture except where those hands directed it.

She kept watching my face. "Maybe he stands up."

My breath caught.

"Maybe you realise he's enjoying watching you."

"Stop." The word escaped me as barely more than a whisper. I rested my palms back down over my cage and pushed my hips back.

"And you're still trying to be good, still trying to do exactly what you've been taught, because you'd hate to disappoint him after getting all dressed up."

My lips had parted again.

She smiled very slightly. "Maybe he pulls you against him."

Something moved through my hips.

So small I almost missed it.

A tiny shift of weight forward, then back, the beginning of a rhythm that belonged to the picture in my head rather than anything happening in the room, my hips grinding slowly backwards and forwards as my chin lifted and my lips parted in an ecstatic, relieved 'O' shape.

Her gaze dropped.

I froze.

The room erupted. "Oh my God."

My hands flew away from the skirt again.

"I wasn't doing anything."

"We all saw you, girl."

"I moved."

"You were practicing for your Daddy," she mouthed exaggeratedly.

"I was not."

She tilted her head, still looking at my hips. "Do it again."

My knees pressed harder together. I could feel my mouth hanging open and closed it until the gloss caught faintly between my lips, but the imagined movement had already happened and now that I knew exactly what my body had done I could replay it perfectly.

The man in the picture had moved with me. She had never actually said it, but I made it happen in my mind, which made it happen in my body. I had lost control. I didn't know what secrets I had left to be exposed and laughed at.

"So, have you ever thought about dancing for a man?"

"No."

She waited.

The laughter subsided around us, leaving enough silence for me to hear my breathing.

"Have you thought about it?"

The man was still there. The chair, the skirt, his hands at my waist, the tiny humiliating movement my hips had supplied without being asked.

My face burned. "Yes."

"Full sentence."

I stared at the floor. "Yes. I've thought about dancing for a man."

A soft little murmur went through the room.

"Because you made me," I added quickly.

She touched my cheek with almost affectionate gentleness. "I can't see inside your head, sweetheart."

"You told me what to imagine."

Her hand left. The picture did not. She had put something inside me that wasn't there before. My knees shook.

Claire rescued me by announcing the final photograph before the woman could ask anything else. "No more," I said immediately, but Claire promised one, and somehow a promise of one had become enough for them to begin moving me again.

They put me against the pale wall. There was almost nothing to discuss by then: one woman levelled the bows while another ran her hands down the pleats, my fingers met at my waist as soon as they were guided there, the side of a shoe nudged one foot inward and it stayed. Claire wiped at an imperfection in the corner of my gloss that I could not feel, then took my chin and lifted until I was facing the camera exactly as she wanted.

I kept my mouth rigid.

Nobody told me to smile.

They simply stepped back and waited around the finished arrangement.

Richard said nothing either. He watched from beyond the lights while I stood in the shape everybody had constructed, and after several seconds my eyes found him because apparently silence had become another thing I expected him to resolve for me.

There was no instruction in his face.

My lips softened anyway.

The flash filled my vision.

"Beautiful."

Warmth moved through my chest while the white shape of the flash was still hanging behind my eyes. By the time my face began burning again, Claire was already looking down at the photograph.

The trainee actually whooped. "There she is! That's the one!"

My name beneath it. My Bluebell in it, for anyone to see, and completely out of my control.

I did not know then that I would see the photograph again.

Richard collected my old clothes into a carrier bag.

"Thank the ladies."

My hands were already together again. "Daddy..."

"Thank them."

I looked at five delighted faces.

The easy answer - thanks - felt unfinished in my mouth because he had taught me well enough to know what he was waiting for. "Thank you for helping me look pretty."

The room made delighted little noises.

Richard still waited. My thighs tightened.

"Properly."

Something in the circle of women relaxed.

I stepped backwards. The skirt moved around my legs.

One foot slipped behind the other before I understood what my body was preparing to do, the position already familiar from photographs and corrections and all the little movements other hands had spent the afternoon arranging.

My knees began to bend.

Both hands spread automatically across the skirt to keep it smooth. My head dipped.

For one suspended second the entire room existed above me: five smiling women, Richard beyond them, blue pleats stretched beneath my palms and my own knees bent into a curtsey nobody had physically forced me to complete.

"Thank you soooo much for helping me look pretty," I offered in my lightest, breathiest, girliest voice.

Laughter and applause broke over me as I stood. My cheeks felt scalded and tough from hours of blushing.

Claire kissed my cheek. "Come back soon, sweetheart."

Their laughter followed us down the stairs.

I carried Daniel's clothes in the plastic bag. Richard carried nothing.

In the car my pigtails brushed my shoulders every time I turned towards him. "Is Mum home?"

"I don't know."

"You can't take me home like this if she is," I said, neither a demand nor a question, just my inner monologue being spoken aloud. My secrets were out of my control now.

Richard started the engine.

"Daddy. Please."

The cage tightened as I shifted in the passenger seat, and immediately the woman's voice returned from the salon.

Little skirt. Heels. One man watching. Doing as you are told.

My knees squeezed together to bury my cage inside the flesh.

Richard glanced across. "You did well. I hope you enjoyed your reward for all your good behaviour lately, sissy."

I smiled instinctively and thanked him, before I could question what kind of reward this was.

The window beside me had gone dark enough to reflect blue bows, glossy lips and the shape of my own body filling the dress. When the car moved, the girl moved with it, pigtails stirring against her shoulders. I didn't spend the journey thinking about Natalie, or being released from my cage, or making my own life as a man.

I only had one thing on my mind.

My Bluebell.