“This outfit is incredible!” Janisse gushed as she poked and prodded at Emily’s outfit, lifting the bottom of his skirt to get a better look at his matching pull-ups. “Where did you even get something like this, Lauren?”
“Oh, I just had it lying around.” Lauren responded casually. “My mom used to sign us up for a bunch of mother-daughter beauty pageants together. I always kind of hated it, but she seemed to get a kick out of getting me all dolled-up and parading me around on stage with her. After I got old enough to tell her that I didn’t want to do it anymore, she stopped making me go, but for some reason she kept all of the outfits. Must be a nostalgia thing, I guess. None of the outfits fit me anymore, but I’m sure she wouldn’t mind if I gave them a new home with our little princess here.”
Emily began to sweat a little when he heard this. It was humiliating enough to be dressed like this at Lauren’s house, but he knew for sure that if Melissa saw him come home with a box full of girl's clothes in his hand, it would only accelerate the path of feminization he was on. His mommy would no doubt want to make sure he got the most out of these new additions to his wardrobe, and he worried that he may never see boys' clothes again. Before he could respond however, the girls had already moved on to fishing more obnoxiously frilly and feminine garments out of Lauren’s closet, eager to find other ways to make their little doll as cute as humanly possible.
“Oooh, what about this one?” Janisse asked as she held up a yellow spandex leotard and an accompanying large, rainbow-colored tutu.
“Oh my God, yes!” Lauren squealed. “I know just the things to go with that, too!”
Lauren took a moment to dig around some more before pulling out a brand new pair of white dress shoes, yellow ribbons for Emily’s hair, and a pair of white tights to go over Emily’s legs. Soon Emily found himself going through the whole process of getting dressed and undressed all over again. They didn’t bother changing his makeup, but it truly was like Emily was their plaything. Kept mute by his pacifier as the girls towered over him, moving his arms and legs this way and that as they shaped the look they desired, he felt like he was becoming little more than their own human doll. The group could not get enough of Emily in her white tights, yellow leotard, rainbow tutu, white Mary Janes, and matching hairbows. They lost track of time as they giggled and took pictures and videos from every conceivable angle.
“That’s it,” Janisse said. “That’s got to be the look! If she gets any cuter than that, I might die.”
“Besides,” Heather said, “isn’t Emily’s playmate probably beyond ready to meet her?”
Lauren laughed and nodded in agreement as Emily’s blood ran cold. Playmate? What were they talking about? He did not want to be seen by anyone while he was dressed like this! He almost said something, but he knew that if he did, Janisse--who was hovering near him and adjusting the skirt of his tutu--would simply scold him right back into silence. So he remained silent as the girls led him out of Lauren’s bedroom and down the upstairs hallway to a door marked “Cara’s Room” in pink cursive letters.
Cara, Emily knew, was Lauren’s little sister. She was six.
“Lauren!” Emily blurted out as they paused in front of Cara’s door. “You’re kidding, right? You’re not going to make me play with Cara, are you?”
“Hey!” Lauren said, kneeling and grabbing Emily’s pacifier off of the carpet where she’d dropped it. “First off, no talking. Second, of course you’re going to play with Cara this afternoon. I was so excited that you were coming to my special party today, but given how much older me and all the other girls here are compared to you, your Mommy and I decided that it’d be a good thing for you to spend the afternoon playing with someone closer to your own age!”
“Cara is not my age!” Emily protested.
“Okay, true,” Lauren said, sliding Emily’s pacifier back in her mouth. “Cara’s definitely older than you, but you don’t need to be scared about hanging out with an older, more mature kid. She’s really nice, and really excited to play with you!”
Without further ado, Heather opened the door in front of them and Janisse and Lauren herded Emily inside Cara’s room. It was pure little girl princess: white carpet, soft pink walls, a huge canopy bed with bows and ruffles and lace everywhere. Cara--blond like her older sister and wearing a pink pair of overalls and a white shirt--got up from the floor, where she’d been coloring, and made a bee line for Emily.
“Hi!” she said. “You’re Michael from across the street but Lauren says you’re Emily now and that you’re a girl now and that I’m older and you have to do what I say. Your tutu is really cute. Let’s color!” With that, Cara grabbed Emily’s hand and drug her deeper into the room. Emily, numb with shock, complied.
Turning to Heather and Janisse, Lauren said, “I think Cara has been a little jealous this week with all the attention I’ve been getting for my birthday. But she perked right up when I told her she’d get a special new playmate.”
“I cannot believe Mich -- Emily -- is really going to color with your little sister,” Heather snarked.
“Well, believe it,” Lauren said. “This is who Emily is now.”
Janisse chimed in next: “This time is probably really helpful to her. It’s a space where there’s no more pretending that she’s something she’s not. Let’s sit down and watch her adjust.”
Emily could not believe his friends were treating him like this, but his attention was soon overtaken by Cara, who was both very excited and very bossy. As Emily knelt on the floor near her pile of coloring books and crayons, Cara quickly took charge, telling him which coloring book to select, which page in that book to work on, and which colors he should use. If he even came close to coloring outside the lines, Cara scolded him. Although he tried to keep his attention fixed on what Lauren, Heather, and Janisse were talking about, he soon found that Cara’s instructions took all of his attention. Plus, if he focused intently on coloring and meeting Cara’s demands, Emily found that he could sort of forget about the weirdness of the situation and his own humiliation within it.
And so despite the inherent strangeness of the situation--three high school girls watching a girl who had once been a boy and their peer have playtime with a six year old--the room quickly settled into a new normal. Heather, Janisse, and Lauren, sat on and around Cara’s canopy bed. They watched as Cara led Emily in a coloring activity, but as time passed, they began to talk amongst themselves and look at their phones. Absorbed in meeting Cara’s demands, Emily quickly lost track of time. Sometime after finishing up a picture of The Beauty and The Beast’s Belle colored to Cara’s demanding standards, Emily found himself holding Cara’s hand as she demanded that they skip around the room together. Their romp was interrupted by the sound of an incoming text message on Heather’s phone.
“That was Travis,” Heather said, grinning at Lauren. “The boys should be here in about thirty minutes!”
“Travis Richardson?” Emily asked, pulling his pacifier out of his mouth. “Travis Richardson is coming here?”
Heather laughed cruelly and nodded her head towards Lauren. “What kind of a boyfriend would Travis be if he didn’t come to his girlfriend’s sweet sixteen party?”
“Girlfriend!” Emily shrieked. “Lauren, is that -- ? Are you -- ? Are you and Travis -- ? How -- how could you?”
“Awwwww, don’t fret, baby girl,” Lauren said, coming over and kissing Emily on the cheek. “You know I’ll always love you, right? After all, you’re my second little sister now!”
“Yeah,” Heather said, “she’ll just love Travis in a very different way!”
“Heather, you are the worst,” Janisse said.
Emily was panicking now. “I -- I have to change. If Travis and his friends are coming over, you have to let me dress in normal clothes, I have to --”
“What you have to do,” Lauren said, sliding Emily’s pacifier back into his mouth, “is relax.”
“And you ARE in normal clothes, honey,” Janisse said with a giggle, kneeling next to Emily and feeling up his smooth thighs. “Well, normal clothes for the cutest baby girl in the whole neighborhood, which is exactly what you are. You know we’re proud of you, right?”
Emily just looked confused, his eyes wide with the shock of the news that Lauren and Travis were dating, which felt like a huge betrayal. Standing there in a leotard and a tutu, he felt two inches tall. How could anyone be proud of him?
“It’s not her fault, but your Mommy raised you wrong, sweetie,” Janisse said. “She didn’t know any better, but she looked at your anatomy and assumed you were a boy. Which obviously isn’t true. We know it’s a big transition you’re making, and we’re so proud of how well you’re doing. You look so pretty in your big girl tutu, skipping around with Cara. We’re all really happy for you and proud of you, even Heather.”
Heather just rolled her eyes at that.
“Now,” Lauren said, “we need to go freshen up before the boys get here. But don’t you worry, Travis and his friends aren’t interested in little girl stuff, so they won’t even come up here, I promise. You and Cara will have a ton of fun together while we’re gone, and then my Mom will feed you dinner and put you all to bed when it gets to be bedtime.”
“Gone?” Emily squealed behind his pacifier. What was Lauren saying? Where was she going? This party was a spend the night!
“We’re seeing a movie, sweetheart,” Janisse explained patiently. “But it’s a scary horror movie and it’s rated R, so it’s way too mature for you.”
“But thank you for coming over and spending some of my special day with me, Emily,” Lauren said. “It was so much fun.”
Seeing the hurt look on Emily’s face, Heather just stared down at him and laughed. “Oh my God, did this little twerp really think we were going to spend the whole day playing baby games with her? Jeeeeeez. We’re sixteen, not six.”
“Well,” Janisse laughed, “some of us are anyways. Bye, sugarbear!”
“See you in the morning, baby girl!” Lauren said, kissing Emily’s cheek once more. “Bye!”
And with that, Heather, Emily, and Janisse were gone, leaving Emily alone with Cara.
“Tea party!” the little girl blurted out. “Let’s have a tea party! I love having tea parties with Lauren but she’s old and boring and never has time but now I have the bestest playmate in the whole world!”
Plopping down on his leotard-and-pull-up-covered butt, Emily sat, passive and despondent, as Cara dictated the terms of their play, getting various dolls and stuffed animals out of a toy chest and explaining their names and personalities to Emily while Emily stared out the big picture window in Cara’s room, the one that looked out over The Alford’s front lawn. That meant, of course, that Emily could see across the street as well, to his own house, where several large trucks and a van with the logo of a construction company were parked. What was his mother doing now? It was all too much to contemplate.
“Hey!” Cara said, weakly slapping at Emily’s arm. “Pay attention! What kind of voice does Mr. Panda have?”
Emily shook his head to indicate that he didn’t know.
“Mr. Panda is the MOST polite tea party guest,” Cara explained again. “He’s friends with Prom Night Barbie, but he really wants to be boyfriend/girlfriend with Gigi the Giraffe. So we’re to sit Mr. Panda HERE, on my right side, while . . . ” And so it went, on and on. Emily was amazed at how much pretend planning went into staging a tea party and while it wasn’t true that he enjoyed any of it, it was easier to focus on Cara and her childish demands than to think--really think--about how far his status had fallen over the short course of Lauren’s birthday party.
Sometime later, when Emily heard a big, expensive-looking SUV pull into Lauren’s driveway, he couldn’t help but look out the window to see Heather, Janisse, and Lauren rushing out of the house and into the SUV. Giddy with laughter and looking like a million dollars, Lauren ran to the driver’s side window and gave Travis Richardson a huge kiss, with tongue, before getting into the vehicle. Seeing that kiss hurt Emily deeply. He literally couldn’t bear to look at it, and so he turned away, got on all fours, felt a hot jet of pee soak his pull-up, and asked Cara what kind of cake Lottie the Lizard wanted to have with her tea.