CHAPTER 15
We slipped out of the tent a couple of hours later as Jude continued to mumble away next to us, avoiding disturbing her by taking our breakfast in the food tent rather than rattling pans in the porch. It was a beautiful morning, various other rallygoers sitting half out of their tents with mugs or bowls as they had their own breakfasts, one, as predicted, eating leftover kebab meat out of a cardboard tray. I averted my eyes after a quick nod of recognition from me, and confusion from him. He’d only met Harry, I remembered, almost too late.

Mark Lansing never wanted to stand out. He was perfectly happy disappearing into a football huddle with the rest of the team until one play made him the talk of the town. Thrust into a spotlight he never wanted, every choice can reshape his future, and every decision could transform him in ways he never believed possible. Mark’s destiny will be determined on the field … assuming he can figure out how to dress the part.

How can something be so wrong, when it feels so right?

That was the single most important thought that ran through Aisha’s mind as she fastened her padded bra behind her, before she took the pair of silky dark tights out of their packet and slowly stretched them one leg at a time over her hairless legs, until the control top held her abdomen and her backside tightly. As she took her plain white blouse and knee-length blue pencil skirt from its hanger, Aisha mused on how the clothes were a far cry from the hijabs and abaya her mother and sisters wore.

At 5:30 the alarm doesn't go off, because I turned it off last night, but I wake up at 5:30 anyway.

I lie there in the dark with the spare blanket and the wrong quiet and the ceiling, and the body starts its inventory: breasts, the weight of them in the position I've been sleeping, the labia warm and in their soft continuous contact, the hip bones wider against the mattress. Eight seconds, maybe. Then I'm done with it and I'm just awake at 5:30 with nowhere to be.

Dance, Dance, Dance, Amy

A Transgender Mythology Romantacy

A Lamur, GA, USA Novel

Chapter Twenty: Consortium Consultation

By Gail Rose Landers

*A Life in Plain Sight* begins with Steve, a thirty-five-year-old man whose small, fine-boned body and naturally androgynous presentation mean strangers routinely perceive him as a beautiful woman—a fact Steve has lived with for years without allowing it to complicate his certainty about who he is. Intelligent, literal, funny, intensely curious, and comfortably isolated, Steve has built a perfectly functional life around work, family, hobbies, and the conviction that *not unhappy* is good enough.

Part 13 Bad Penny!

Friday morning, I was woken with someone at the door. I dragged myself out of bed, threw on a robe and went to open it. Tanya was there with Steve.

“Tony has called to say that your new place is available from this morning. I can’t wait to see it!”

They came in and Steve looked around.

“He said that you don’t have a phone, how on earth do you get on without one?”

I had the trailer to myself until about three-thirty.

Another Country -23-
Erin Halfelven