Giant Steps Ch. 04

"That is very specific." Sam laughed. "But I can also immediately see the appeal. Jesus. Every time my parents left the house, when I knew for sure I was alone, I would start crossdressing. Usually I would masturbate and stop, but sometimes I'd just stay in those clothes for hours..." A look of concern grew on his face.

"That's exactly what I'm talking about. Euphoria manifested in you wanting to wear gender-affirming clothes, but I'd bet money on it simultaneously being dysphoric, because you thought of it as 'crossdressing.'"

"Fuck."

"A big part of coming out to yourself is going to be these moments of reevaluating your life and realizing all those random things you couldn't explain suddenly have a reason. Or things you thought you understood make more sense from a dysphoria perspective."

"But there're people who just crossdress and aren't trans, right?"

"Yeah, totally, I mean, I guess. To be honest, I've always been a little confused by that too. But yeah, there are people out there who routinely crossdress for one reason or another and identify as cis. Is everyone who crossdresses secretly trans? I doubt it. But at the same time, it's something most of us trans people do at some point, because it's not really crossdressing for us, it's just...dressing." She let out a small laugh. "It's like a square/rectangle situation. Not everyone who "crossdresses" is trans but pretty much everyone who's trans has worn or tried on clothes different from the one's expected of their assigned gender."

"But-"

Jane cut him of. "-and yes, it may turn you on at first or while you're still in the closet. That's totally normal. First off, you've spent years associating gender affirming clothes with sex, and second, it feels good to be yourself! Even in erotic ways! I promise that goes away over time. Once you're dressing as your real gender regularly, panties stop being exciting and just start being another thing you're wearing."

"So who's to say I'm not just a crossdresser?"

"You could be, sure. We're not ruling that out, Sam. But, hear me out."

"I'm all ears." Sam took a deep breath.

"We're only going to get so far talking about it and I promised fun. From now on, you're not questioning your gender anymore."

"Wait, what?"

"Yup, you heard me. You're not questioning gender, you're gonna do gender. We're going to take it easy today and do some experimentation."

"Fine." Though Sam felt an urge to resist the suggestion, he also felt a strong urge towards it.

"Yes! First thing's first. Would you like to experiment with a different name and pronouns?"

"Well, Sam is pretty gender neutral already, so let's keep that. I guess I could...god I can barely say it." Sam took a deep breath. "she/her pronouns. I want she/her pronouns. Fuck. Why is that such a loaded thing for me to say?!" She said, feeling a sudden burst of emotion.

"That's normal, Sam. It's normal for this whole thing to have strong emotions. That's both you fighting against the repression, and it's your true self coming into being. The fact that it's so deeply emotional was a sign for me that I was hitting at some kind of inner truth. You're also likely going to be coming to the realization of just how few emotions your were feeling before this moment."

As the tears broke though the last of Sam's emotional resistance, she put down her tea and sprung up to hug Jane.

Jane's hand gently rubbed Sam's back as she cried into Jane's shoulder.

Part 3 - Arrival

The sound of the shower erupted at once with the water and steadied out as it established a stream.

"Are you sure about this?" Sam looked at the water and back to Jane.

"You're the one who said she was grossed out by the hair on her legs. We don't have to do this if-"

Sam put up her hand to tell Jane she was good

She stripped from her clothes and stood naked in front of her girlfriend. She then looked at herself in the mirror and felt utterly disconnected from whatever was looking back at her.

"I don't hate my reflection, Jane."

"But you don't like it either?"

"I don't feel anything toward it. Anything."

"Have you ever?"

"Uh, no?"

"That's not great, Sam."

Sam turned in the mirror and tried out different angles but grew increasingly upset.

"This, this isn't going to ever work."

"What does that mean?"

"I'm...no, this isn't going to work. I'm too masculine, I can't be trans."

"That's not how it works, Sam. Just because you've gone through a testosterone puberty doesn't mean you're not trans. And even if you were right that you could never look like a woman, which you are wrong about, it also wouldn't matter, you'd still be trans."

"I'm not doing it." She grabbed her clothes and embarrassedly held them over her penis and moved to leave the room.

"Okay. We might need to start smaller."

Jane opened the door to check if Holly was there and gave Sam the all-clear. Sam shuffled into Jane's room and collapsed onto her bed. She wanted to cry again but she couldn't so her head started to hurt and she disconnected from her surroundings.

Jane looked on, worried.

"I've got an idea. How about you get dressed and I'm going to paint your nails."

Sam groaned in confusion.

"Well, it was a big step for me to realize some things and plus I've been seeing lots of cis guys with painted nails lately so it's not even that big a deal. And if you want it off it takes like a minute to undo."

Sam groaned unintelligibly and shut her eyes desperately trying and failing to cry. Jane laid down on the bed next to Sam and nestled over her as the big spoon. Sam appreciated the physical affection. They rested there for a few minutes.

"What would I even wear?" She grumbled eventually.

"The outfit you were in before was cute."

"But my leeeeggggssss."

"I get it. I get it." She got up and went to her dresser. She grabbed a simple white camisole and a pair of harem pants she never wore. She threw the items down on the bed.

Sam sat up and held the clothes in her hands. They did look like fun.

She got up from the bed and put on the panties she'd been wearing before. Then she slipped on the cami and the harem pants and smiled.

"These are comfy!"

"Right?!" Jane laughed

Sam began to frown.

"What's wrong?" Jane asked.

"The cami looks dumb."

"It does not."

"It looks bad without boobs. I should have boobs." She said with surprising confidence.

"Uhhhh. No comment."

"Fuck." She panicked but then began to laugh. Maybe the thought that she was trans wasn't so absurd after all.

Jane checked her phone and saw a text from Holly.

"I'm going out and about and giving y'all space to do whatever. Let me know how it goes =D"

"Well, Holly's out, we have the apartment to ourselves." Jane said and smiled.

"Oh thank god." Sam said. "Nothing against Holly, but..."

"This is a vulnerable time for you, I get it."

They proceeded out to the kitchen table and Jane got out her polishes.

"Alright, here you go."

"Any color I want, as long as it's black, right?" Sam quipped.

"I'm a girl of simple tastes." She laughed and Sam joined in.

"Can we play some music?" Sam asked.

"Of course." Jane smiled. "What are you in the mood for?"

"You got any Bowie in your record collection?"

"Of course. Hunky Dory alright with you?"

"Sounds Hunky Dory to me." Sam laughed.

Jane scoffed and then giggled. "You are so lame."

She went out and put the record on and came back.

"Okay, now lay your hands down flat and let's start."

As the piano and strings of "changes" swelled Sam began to feel nervous but Jane wasn't holding back.

Bowie began to sing out of Jane's player:

Still don't know what I was waitin' for

And my time was runnin' wild

A million dead end streets and

Every time I thought I'd got it made

It seemed the taste was not so sweet

Sam felt the cold weight of the polish against her nails for the first time ever. She hadn't expected it to really feel like anything. She was still nervous, but excited too.

So I turned myself to face me

But I've never caught a glimpse

How the others must see the faker

I'm much too fast to take that test

Jane finished up the first two fingers. Sam disliked the smell of the nail polish but powered through anyway.

Turn and face the strange

Ch-ch-changes

"How are you doing?" Jane asked she as finished off the first layer on the first hand.

"It feels weird! But...keep going."

Jane smiled and started on the left hand while the right one dried.

"You've actually got great nails for this."

And so the days float through my eyes

But still the days seem the same

And these children that you spit on

As they try to change their worlds

Are immune to your consultations

They're quite aware of what they're goin' through

Ch-ch-changes

Turn and face the strange

Sam looked up at Jane and she painted her nails and Jane looked back and smiled. Sam leaned in for a kiss and Jane met her lips in kind.

"I--" Sam began to say.

"Shhh" Jane shhhed. "Let me finish up."

Jane went back to her diligent manicure. She finished just as Oh! You Pretty Things finished.

Jane finished and screwed the brush back into the polish bottle.

Sam looked down at her fingers and felt...well...lighter. She couldn't explain the feeling but she felt as though her hands would start to float. These weren't her hands as she'd known them before, they were...girl's hands. She had girl's hands. What did that say about her?

"Be careful, it's probably going to be wet for another 5 to 10 minutes."

"Of course." Sam said slowly. "I...why...why do I like this? I feel...lighter?"

"That's gender euphoria!!!" Jane said excitedly.

"What? But I...huh. That, um, that feels amazing. Is that what it's like all the time?"

"It's not such a high like you're probably experiencing right now but, for the most part, yeah. That lightness becomes more of who you are. It's this deep sense of comfort and rest with yourself that you don't realize you need in your life. It's what I imagine cis people feel like as their baseline. But when you're steeped in dysphoria you don't even necessarily realize that you're walking around with all this excess weight.

"Dysphoria is a weight." She continued. "And it's one you've been carrying for a long, long time. And you're good at it, sure. You're strong enough to carry it, you've had to be. But cis people don't have that weight, Sam, and you shouldn't either. Because no matter how strong you are it will always wear you out and that's no way to live. Once you take off those weights you'll realize you were much stronger than you needed to be."

Sam felt the tears approaching and couldn't help but hold them back.

Jane went around the other side of the counter and hugged Sam from behind.

"You're okay and you're going to be okay, Sam."

At that Sam began to smile.

After a minute or so Jane let go of her and went to make herself some tea. Truth be told she was getting emotionally exhausted from taking care of Sam but it was worth it.

"So, what's next?" Sam asked, eager to continue their experimentation.

"Whatever you want, my dear." She smiled as she poured her tea and Side A of the record came to a close.