Chapter 1: The Pleated Skirt
The afternoon light was thick and honeyed, slicing through the dorm room window to catch the dust motes dancing above Marcus’s bowed head. He was kneeling on the scuffed laminate floor, a pin held between his lips, his focus absolute.The navy wool of the pleated skirt was heavy in his hands.
Jack stood perfectly still, his bare thighs brushing the backs of Marcus’s knuckles whenever he took a shallow breath. He was wearing one of Marcus’s sweaters, a fine-gauge cashmere the color of oatmeal that hung loose on his frame, the sleeves covering his hands. The fabric felt alien and impossibly soft.“Don’t move,” Marcus mumbled around the pins. His voice was a low vibration Jack felt through the floorboards. He gently tugged the hem straight, the cool metal of the ruler a brief shock against Jack’s skin. A pin slid free from between his lips, pressed into the wool, a tiny, definitive click.
“It’s weird,” Jack said, his own voice sounding strange to him.“What’s weird?”
“The sweater. It smells like you.”
Marcus didn’t look up.A faint smile played on his lips. “And what do I smell like?”
“Like your laundry detergent. And that stupid cedar closet in your dad’s study.” Jack paused.“It’s nice.”
Another pin clicked into place. Marcus sat back on his heels, surveying his work. His eyes traveled up, over the draped sweater, past the column of Jack’s throat, finally meeting his gaze. Jack’s expression was a map of nervous tension—a clenched jaw, eyes a little too wide. But there was something else there, a fierce, fragile hope.
Marcus reached up, his thumb brushing a stray thread from the sweater’s hem.The touch was fleeting, deliberate. He let his hand fall but kept his eyes locked on Jack’s.“You’re going to be the prettiest girl on campus,” Marcus whispered. The words weren’t a tease.They were a promise, soft and absolute.
A laugh burst out of Jack, too sharp, too loud for the quiet room. “Shut up.”
“I mean it.” Marcus’s voice was still low, a private sound. He pushed himself up, his knees cracking in protest. He stood close, closer than necessary, and began to carefully remove the pins, one by one.His fingers worked deftly, each extraction a careful ritual. The skirt loosened slightly.“What if someone recognizes me?” Jack asked, staring at a crack in the ceiling tile.
“They won’t. You look completely different.”
“My voice.”
“So you won’t talk. You’ll be mysterious.” Marcus smoothed the waistband of the skirt, his palms warm through the wool.“You’ll just smile and look beautiful. That’s all anyone will see.”
Jack looked down at himself.The pleats fell in a neat, military line. The sweater softened his shoulders. In the muted light, the sharp angles of his body seemed blurred, reinterpreted.A strange thrill, cold and bright, shot through his stomach. It was fear, but it was also something else.Something like power.
“Shoes,” Marcus announced, turning to the closet.He emerged holding a pair of simple black block heels, not too high. “Sit.”
Jack sank onto the edge of the bed, the mattress sighing beneath him. Marcus knelt again, this time holding a shoe. He cradled Jack’s foot, his touch clinical and gentle.The foot felt absurdly large in his hands. He slid the shoe on, his fingers brushing the arch, and fastened the strap. He repeated the process with the other foot, his concentration unbroken.“Stand up.Slowly.”
Jack rose.The world tilted.The floor felt farther away. He took an experimental step, the heel striking the floor with a decisive clack that seemed to echo in the small room.He wobbled.Marcus caught his elbow, steadying him. “Look at you.”
He guided Jack toward the full-length mirror tacked to the back of the door.For a moment, Jack didn’t recognize the reflection. A stranger stared back—someone elegant, someone uncertain, someone with Jack’s own eyes wide with shock. The skirt swung with his slight movement.The cashmere draped like a second skin. He saw the intention Marcus had woven into the outfit, the careful construction of a self.“Wow,” Jack breathed.
“See?” Marcus’s reflection appeared behind him, a steady presence. He rested his hands lightly on Jack’s sweater-clad shoulders.Their eyes met in the glass.“Just walk like you own the sidewalk. People see what you show them.”
Jack leaned back, just a fraction, feeling the solid weight of Marcus at his back.The nervous energy began to transform, hardening into a kind of resolve.
“Okay,” Jack said, the word final.Marcus gave his shoulders a soft squeeze before letting go. “Makeup is next.Subtle. Just enough to change the light on your face.”
He produced a small kit, and Jack closed his eyes, surrendering to the brush strokes, the light dusting of powder.It was less about transformation now, and more about ceremony. Each touch was a seal on their conspiracy.
When Jack opened his eyes again, the person in the mirror was sharper, more defined.The same, but not.Marcus stood back, arms crossed. His usual easy grin was gone, replaced by an unreadable, intense pride. “Ready?”
Jack took a deep breath, the cashmere tightening around his ribs.He nodded.Marcus opened the dorm room door. The hallway beyond was empty, lit by harsh fluorescent lights. It looked like a runway, or a gauntlet.“Remember,” Marcus said, his voice barely a murmur now. “You’re just a girl walking to a party.Nothing to see. Everything to see.”
Jack’s first step into the light was a stumble.The second was stronger.The third found a rhythm. He didn’t look back, feeling Marcus’s watchful gaze like a physical push between his shoulder blades. The click of his own heels on the linoleum was the only sound, a metronome marking his progression away from one self and toward another, down the long, bright corridor and into the unknown evening.
The click of his own heels on the linoleum was the only sound, a metronome marking his progression away from one self and toward another, down the long, bright corridor and into the unknown evening.Each step was a negotiation. The borrowed muscles of his calves and thighs argued with the unfamiliar pitch of the shoes, the rigid support of the arch. He focused on the rhythm, on the swish of the pleated wool against his skin. The hallway seemed to stretch, a cruel trick of perspective and nerves. A door opened halfway down, and a guy in a soccer jersey stepped out, barely glancing up from his phone as he turned the other way. Jack’s heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic bird in a cashmere cage. The guy didn’t even look.He just… disappeared into another room.A shaky breath escaped him.Maybe Marcus was right. People saw what you showed them.
He reached the stairwell door, its heavy metal frame a stark contrast to the softness he wore.Pushing it open was an act of force. The sound of his heels on concrete was louder here, more echoes, announcing his descent. He gripped the cold railing.A door slammed above.Footsteps, quick and light, descending.
Panic, pure and electric, shot through him.He froze on the landing, caught. The footsteps rounded the turn above.A girl, maybe a freshman, her arms full of textbooks. She glanced down, her eyes meeting his for a split second.“Hey,” she said, a polite, automatic campus greeting.
Jack opened his mouth.Nothing came out. He managed a tight, closed-lipped smile and a small nod.
She passed, the scent of her vanilla perfume trailing behind her, and continued down without a second look.The stairwell door below crashed shut, leaving him in ringing silence.His chest burned. He had held his breath the entire time.
He made it to the main floor, to the large glass doors that led to the quad.The common area was buzzing with evening activity. Groups huddled on couches, the glow of laptops and phones painting their faces blue. A line stretched from the campus coffee kiosk.He had to walk through it all to get to the Sigma house.
For a moment, he just stood there, a silhouette against the glass, gathering the courage to enter the ecosystem.
Then he saw Marcus. He’d taken a different route, cutting through the service hallway to emerge near the vending machines.He leaned against the wall, casual as anything, scrolling on his phone. But as Jack watched, Marcus looked up. His eyes found Jack instantly, a ghost of a smile touching his lips.He gave an almost imperceptible nod.
You’re just a girl walking to a party.Jack pushed the door open. The warmer, lived-in air of the common area hit him, carrying the smells of cheap coffee and fabric softener. He began to walk, aiming for the opposite set of doors. The click of his heels sounded obscenely loud to him, but the ambient noise swallowed most of it. He kept his eyes forward, his expression neutral, a gentle mask of preoccupied calm.
A guy he recognized from his Econ seminar—Liam, he thought—looked up from a textbook as Jack passed.His gaze lingered for a second, then two. It wasn’t a look of recognition.It was slower, more appreciative. It traced the line of the sweater, the swing of the skirt. A familiar, leering heat filled Liam’s eyes, a look Jack had seen directed at girls a hundred times, a look he’d maybe even given himself once or twice without thinking. It felt completely different now, a beam of invasive light pointed directly at him. A wave of scalding heat flooded Jack’s face, rushing from his neck to his hairline. He could feel the blush as a physical pain, a betraying stain on his new skin.He looked away quickly, his composure cracking, and fumbled his pace for a step.
Liam, misinterpreting the stumble and the blush as flustered demureness, smiled to himself and went back to his book.
Marcus fell into step beside him just as they reached the outer doors, his presence sudden and solid. “You’re doing great,” he murmured, his voice low.“That was Liam from Econ 202,” Jack whispered, the words tight.
“And?”
“He looked right at me. He didn’t know.”
“Told you,” Marcus said, and there was a hard pride in it now.He held the door open. The cool evening air was a relief on Jack’s burning cheeks. “Ready for the main event?”
Outside, the path was dotted with other students drifting toward the fraternity houses, their laughter cutting through the dusk. Jack adjusted the strap of his small clutch, a final gift from Marcus, and took a deep breath.The blush was receding, leaving a strange, defiant clarity in its wake. He had been seen, and he had not been seen. The power of it, terrifying and addictive, settled in his bones.“Yeah,” Jack said, his voice firmer now. “Let’s go.”