Chapter 2: Convincing Mark
The engine of Sabrina’s little couper coughed into silence. I stared at the imposing facade of Mark’s mansion through the windshield, my hands gripping the steering wheel with a grip that felt weak, the bones too slender under the skin. The drive over had been a nightmare of hyper-awareness. Every bump in the road sent a tremor through my chest, a soft, heavy oscillation that made my face burn. The seatbelt had cut across my neck, not my sternum, and the strap had ridden up into the cleft of my breasts in a way that was distractingly, unbearably present.
I took a shuddering breath, the air tasting different somehow—cleaner, sharper in this smaller nose. I grabbed the hot pink gym bag from the passenger seat and pushed the door open.
My boots—size five, impossibly tiny—clicked on the cobblestone driveway. Each step was a lesson in a new physics. My center of gravity was in my hips, not my shoulders. I walked from them, a slight, unconscious sway in my gait that made the denim of the cut-offs brush against my inner thighs. I could feel the gentle, separate weight of each breast moving in opposition to my steps, the red lace of the bra strap digging slightly into my shoulder. The cool evening air whispered across the strip of bare skin between my tank top and shorts, a sensation so alien on what I still thought of as my stomach.
I rang the bell, the action requiring less reach upward than I was used to. I waited, acutely aware of my own silhouette reflected in the polished black door.
It swung open, and there was Mark. Six-foot-four, broad in a fitted t-shirt, his usual expression of relaxed confidence shifting into one of polite, male curiosity as his eyes traveled down and then back up the form of the stunning blonde on his doorstep. That look, the one I’d seen him give women a hundred times, sent a bolt of pure nausea through me.
“Can I help you?” he asked, his voice warm but guarded.
My mouth was dry. I opened it, and the sound that came out was a brittle, high-pitched thing. “Mark. It’s me.”
He blinked. “I’m sorry?”
“It’s Justin.” The name, in this voice, sounded ridiculous. A parody. Panic clawed up my throat. I started babbling, the words tumbling out in this breathy, feminine rush. “In college, you got so drunk on tequila you confessed you were terrified of clowns. Ronald McDonald specifically. You have a three-inch scar on your left knee from when you wiped out on your mountain bike on the Pine Ridge trail because you were trying to impress Lori Dennings. Your first million, you spent fifty grand on that stupid, autographed Walter Payton jersey because you said it was an investment in ‘vibes’.”
His face went slack. The casual leaning against the doorframe posture straightened into rigid shock. His eyes, which had been scanning the body, locked onto my eyes—Sabrina’s huge, blue, currently terrified eyes.
“Holy shit,” he whispered, the color draining from his face. He didn’t ask another question. He just reached out, grabbed my arm—his hand encircling my bicep completely, my slender arm disappearing in his grip—and pulled me inside, shutting the world out with a solid thud.
The grandeur of his place usually impressed me. Now it just felt vast and threatening. My small boots sank into the plush rug. He steered me to the massive leather sectional. I sat, and the sensation was all wrong. The couch didn’t meet my back where it should; it hit lower. And when I sank in, I felt the leather cradle the new, prominent curve of my ass in a way that was intimate and shocking. I set the pink bag down like it was contaminated.
Mark paced in front of the roaring fireplace, running a hand through his hair. “Justin. In… in that.”
“They zipped me up, Mark,” I said, my voice cracking. “They put my body in a bag. I was right there. I watched it.”
He stopped pacing, his face grim. “Okay. Okay. So you’re… here. In Sabrina Parker. I’ve seen her at the gym.” He shook his head, a faint, disbelieving laugh escaping him. “Christ. The guys used to have a pool on who could get her number first.”
A fresh wave of horror washed over me. I looked down at myself, at the red lace peeking from the tank top, the smooth legs curled beneath me. I was the subject of their stupid pool. I wanted to vomit.
“We need a plan,” Mark said, his business-brain clicking into gear. He sat on the heavy oak coffee table across from me, his knees almost touching mine. The sheer size of him was more apparent now, a mountain of male muscle facing this fragile, feminine form. “You can’t go home. Your place is a crime scene, or soon will be. You can’t go to her place. You’d have no idea what you’re walking into. You need papers, ID, a story.”
He stared at me, thinking. Then a slow, familiar grin spread across his face. It was the look he got when he’d found an elegant, if unconventional, solution to a messy problem.
“How about you pretend to be my girlfriend?”
I just stared. The words didn’t compute.
“Hear me out,” he said, leaning forward. “You need a place to stay. Here. You need a reason to be here, constantly, that isn’t ‘my best friend’s consciousness is in a teen model’s body’. Girlfriend covers it. It also,” he added, his grin turning wicked, “solves my little Jasmine Rodriguez problem. She’s been circling for two years, man. If she thinks I’m seriously dating someone, especially someone who looks like… this, she’ll finally back off. It’s clean.”
“Clean?” The word finally burst out of me. “Mark, look at me! I don’t know how to be a girlfriend. I don’t know how to be… this!” I gestured frantically at my own body. The movement made everything jiggle. I flinched.
“You don’t have to be anything. Just exist. Stay here. Use her ID, her cards for now. We’ll figure out the legal hell later. But for public consumption? You’re Sabrina, my new, very serious girlfriend.” His tone softened, seeing the sheer terror on my face. “It’s a roof, Justin. It’s safety. It’s me believing you.”
The gratitude was real, a warm lump in my throat. But the unease was a cold, lead weight in my gut—a gut that was now flat and soft and female. Pretending to be Mark’s girlfriend meant being seen with him. Touched by him. Seen by others as his. The mortification was so profound it felt like a physical shrinking.
I nodded, because there was no other option. “Okay.”
“Good.” He clapped his massive hands on his knees and stood. “First things first. You look like you’ve been dragged through a hedge. And you’re wearing gym clothes. You need a shower. Guest suite is upstairs, second door on the left. Everything you need is in there. Clean towels, robes.” He looked me up and down again, not with lust this time, but with a kind of pragmatic assessment. “There’s probably… girl stuff in her bag. Figure it out.”
The dismissal was clear. He needed to process this, too. I stood, the world tilting for a second as I adjusted to my new height. I picked up the pink bag, its weight both insignificant and profoundly heavy.
I walked towards the sweeping staircase, each step an echo in the silent, cavernous room. Halfway up, I caught sight of us in a huge, gilded mirror on the landing. Him below, a giant in his domain, staring into the fire. Me above, a slender, blonde ghost in tiny clothes, clutching a silly bag.
The reflection held me. I saw the perfect arch of the eyebrows, the pout of the lips, the dramatic swell of the breasts under the thin fabric. I saw a beautiful stranger wearing a mask of my own horror.
I turned away and climbed the rest of the steps, the unfamiliar weight of my body a sentence I was just beginning to understand.