Androgynous Boyfriend - Part 2

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The next day, when I emerged from the bedroom, I found Max laying across the couch in the main room, working on something in her notebook. But when she saw me, she clutched it to her breast, to hide it from me. Her eyes intensified for a moment, as she thought to herself. Then she released the iPad so that it was in plain view.

I was too far away to see what was on it, and unsure if she really wanted me to know anyway, so I made my way, walking stiffly as I did, to the kitchen area, and pulled myself a bowl of cereal. She didn't do anything with the computer, didn't shut it down, didn't close any windows, instead, she left it open on the coffee table. Where I couldn't help but see what was on it if I sat down in my usual cereal-eating spot, which I did without saying a word.

I half expected to see more pictures of cross-dressing male models, but there weren't, it was just a bunch of headshots of girls. It took me a second to figure out what they had in common, and when I did I finally

spoke, "They all have short hair?"

"Well, yeah" Maxine, said running her fingers through her own hair.

"Are you thinking about getting your hair cut short?"

"Maybe," she said sheepishly, "what would you think?"

It was hard for me to imagine Max with short hair, only because ever since I'd known her, her hair had been halfway down her back. "I dunno could be cute."

She had a strange strained expression on her face, she was thinking to

herself again.

"Is there something you want to say?" I asked.

"I don't know it's kind of silly really," she said dismissively.

"Yeah, well if it's important to you, it's important to me. But you don't have to say anything. Not if you don't want to."

"Fine," she spat out as if it was of little concern. "Just, like in all the time you've known me, well since we were kids anyway, I've always had long hair, and I've usually worn skirts, haven't I?"

"Yeah, I guess so. Now that you mention it."

"But would you say I'm a particularly girlie girl?"

"I dunno, besides the way you dress, I guess not."

"Well, I didn't always dress like that. When I lived with my dad, I used to be known as sort of a tomboy, I used to have short hair, wear pants, and get into fights. When I turned twelve and Mom got custody, I met some of the neighborhood boys, and well when I told them my name was Max, they assumed I was a boy. I never bothered to correct them, I just thought it was funny, and I went around with them all summer. Then Timmy Johnson had a birthday, and his mom called my Mom, to invite her

'son' to the party. You've met my Mom right?"

"Just a few times, but yeah, I suppose she can be a bit controlling. Did it bother her?"

"That afternoon, she took all my pants to Goodwill. Then we went shopping, and I went to the party in a pink dress." Her eyes looked dead when she said this.

"That must have been, interesting".

"It was humiliating. I guess. All the guys laughed, they figured it had been a dare or something. Then one guy dared another, to check between my legs, and then... and then everyone was really sorry and really quiet."

"They speak to you?"

"Yeah, eventually a few weeks later Timmy did. He felt awful about the whole thing. I started hanging out with the guys again. Someone lent me some clothes. And then my mom sent me to a girl's boarding school in the fall."

"Windytop?"

"Yeah."

"Sorry, about that. I mean if you want to be a guy or something"

"No no, don't worry about that. I like being a girl. It's just it seems so arbitrary. I felt like I was part of a group. We were all too young for sex to be an issue, it's just it seems kinda stupid that it's acceptable for me to look one way but not another. Mom even made me grow my hair out."

"Do you hate her?" I asked.

"You know I love her."

"Emm. It is quite possible to both love and hate something at the same time. I might even go so far as to say it's required."

"Yeah well true, but funny this is not really how I was expecting this conversation to go."

"Hey, you told the story," I protested.

"True, just look I was thinking about the whole eccentricity thing again. And I was thinking it might be fun to go back to being a tomboy. If I kept the look clean, and professional, and managed to avoid looking like a butch lesbian. It might be a fun way to be more eccentric."

"Maybe, but I'm not really sure that'd be enough."

"Well, I was thinking that and a pretentious accent.  Like sort of French, but not quite French enough, where anyone could place it. Also, that way I could pretend not to understand people if they say something stupid. And look wise, I was thinking I could dress a little authoritatively. Do you know how a lot of women's styles today started as men's styles from the past? Like knee-high boots and cavalry coats.

They all started as men's wear, but men can't really get away with wearing them today? I was thinking like that."

"It might work, I think you're getting the idea anyway. Act a part, and be a big phony... sounds like fun. You're going to need to get rid of the Sanrio store though," I said holding up a Hello Kitty.

"Yeah well, I can put most of that in storage. I might hide a bit of it in the bedroom though. Just to have it around."

The next week, I went with Max to voice lessons. I was hardly busy, and it was fun anyway. Max stripped all the cute Japanese posters from the living room and replaced them with Polish movie posters, which tend to look pretentious and confusing and have little to do with the movie being advertised.   Then she pressed a button on her phone, and everything turned pink and cute again. The latest E Ink displays from Korea, she explained, and then showed me where to find the app for controlling them on my phone.

Things became weird after that. Max started using her nondescript fake accent in public, or really anytime we weren't back at her loft with the posters in cute mode. And then she started giving me funny looks, poking me in the ribs, or pretending she couldn't understand me until I started using an accent myself. My health was improving, I was getting more and more energy, and my limbs were less and less clumsy, though my strength was taking more time to come back, and I hadn't really put on any weight.

One night after we got home, Max asked me in her regular voice, "So do you think I'm ready?"

"For what?"

"You know to be a big phony, am I eccentric enough?"

I smiled. "You've always been eccentric enough."

"Well you know, to fool people into thinking I'm a crazy artist.

There's an art show this weekend at the Underground, and I was thinking about trying to go in character. Get my hair cut, a new outfit, and see how it works out."

"Sure go for it, what's holding you back?"

"Well John, I was kind of wondering if you'd do it with me. I mean

Your accent is as good as mine, and we have a good sort of rhythm."

"You want me to be your sidekick?"

Max chuckled for a second trying to hold something back. "Exactly!" she said beaming at the mouth, "I mean you know the tech as well as anybody, and you get the eccentricity idea. If there's any odd pauses you could help fill them in."

I was a little unsure of the idea. "I don't know if I could pull it off."

"I don't know if I can either. But come on it'll be fun, and if we fail it's just one night."

"I'd need new clothes," I said pointing down to my sweats, hoping for a brief second that it might dissuade her.

"That and a haircut," she said with an even bigger smile than before if that was at all possible. "I was kind of wondering if you wouldn't mind, being a pretty boy." A look of panic flashed across her face,

"Hear me out. It's just that if I'm going to be a serious tomboy, it might balance things out if you went  like one of those pretty boy male models."

"Like the one with the lipstick?" I said trying to be dismissive.

"Well, like the photos of him when he was a boy. You know I seem to remember one summer when your sister got you to dress up like her"

"Oh come on, we were kids at the time. Plus she paid me a lot. And I was helping her out of a jam."

"Well, if we make a lot of money you'll be well paid. And I'm not asking you to dress up like a girl. Just an androgynous man look."

"We?" I asked. "We'll make a lot of money?"

"Yeah well I figure we're kind of stuck with one another for a little while." she said warmly, "I'll split the profits with you," she added coyly. " You know minus costs, rent, food, etcetera."

"Okay, fine, just let's not use my real name."

"I wouldn't have it any other way Jean," she said my name with her most pretentious accent yet.

Max had made an appointment with a style consultant, a woman named Leslie, the next day. Apparently, she had told her the gist of what we wanted to try, as she had booked all the necessary appointments. We met her at a small semi-private salon on the west end of downtown.  Leslie was a short rather skinny middle-aged Asian woman, with an American accent.

She explained to the stylist, "They both need to look androgynous, it's for a function. I want her to look like a pretty tomboy, you shouldn't be able to tell if she's a lesbian, and he at first glance, might be mistaken for a girl from the neck up, but on further inspection, you shouldn't see any one thing or feature that would make it certain."

I was taken aback a little when the stylist asked, "You want makeup on both of them?"

"Certainly on her, let's see what he looks like without it first," Leslie responded. She had an air of authority about her, and to everyone else, it must have seemed like she was our boss. Which in a way helped me be a lot less embarrassed about what was happening to me.

While Max was getting her hair cut, they shaved my entire body.

They sat me down next to Max, who now had a very short bob-style haircut, with locks of hair falling in front of her ears in a way both feminine and reminiscent of sideburns all at once. And they began on my hair as they worked on her makeup.

"His hair will be very tricky," Leslie told the stylist. "I want it long enough where it can be hung like a girl's hair but it shouldn't look styled enough where anyone can say he had his hair done like a woman's. Something a little messy.  Oh but go ahead and bleach it, in layers."

It was exciting and scary having my hair done. Like Max had mentioned, I had dressed up like my sister before, but that was on a dare when we were kids. I hadn't expected my face could still look feminine. I think the weight I lost at the hospital helped immensely. I hadn't noticed just how skinny my neck was until they added the hair extensions.

And while they didn't apply any makeup on my face, my now tweezed and arched eyebrows were much darker than my bleached blond hair, which gave the impression that I'd used a brow pencil.

The next few stops were to the back rooms of several high fashion clothing designers, Leslie knew who was trying to clear out inventory. Although the prices were still higher than anything I'd seen before, with Max picking up the bill, I could hardly complain.

Again it was a little odd when Leslie had us try on the same clothes. No skirts or dresses, just a lot of boyish, women's wear. Eventually, she decided on an olive three-piece girl-cut suit for Max and a more

casual soft silk shirt, (or was it a blouse?) and boot cut leather pants for me.

Max completed her new style with a pair of copper embossed 3" heel booties, that raised her up to 6' even. While I had on a pair of loafers, almost slippers really, that kept my  5'8" countenance right where it had always been.

Overall it was a very weird, but fun day. The art show was at nine, and we got home around six in the evening. I laughed a little too loud when we closed the door to the loft and Max started using her regular voice again.

"What's so darn funny?" she asked.

"Oh nothing, just seeing you dressed up and sleek and elegant, and then having to switch to your regular voice, the sound, and the picture doesn't exactly match."

"That's the pot calling the kettle black." She carefully looked over my body. "Or pink as it were."

"Yeah this is a bit of a change," as I spoke, I slowly crept in front of the mirror. My head looked just a little too feminine for comfort.

Max slid in behind me, running her fingers through the hair on the back of her neck, where it was shortest, "This hair is weird, it feels really light, but it's course."

"Do you miss your old hair?"

"Just when I stroke it. But I have your hair to play with now." she reached up and slowly ran her fingers through my hair. I jerked back a step when I became aroused.

"Oh sorry," she said, "but that does answer one question."

"Oh yeah?" I asked in reply.

"Well, I mean I've been wondering. You know, about how affected that had been by the hospital stay... sorry"

"Apparently it's fine."

"Look, I didn't mean to," she apologized

"No worries really, I was wondering something myself."

"What about?" As she asked, fear crept over her face.

"About, us," I responded.

"I've just been too worried about your health. And I didn't think you needed, the complication."

"I'm still a little weak, but I'm not frail. You're not going to break

me. But I hadn't seen you in so long, not since, since..."

She swallowed some air and finished my question," Since Mr. Davidson you mean." A tear rushed down her cheek and fell to the floor.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to bring it up," I said.

"We're both saying sorry an awful lot. You didn't have anything to do with that. No more than I had anything to do with your troubles. The man is dead, and I'm sick of dealing with his specter every time I want to think about you."

"Okay, but that still doesn't answer that question."

She smiled, held my head by the back of my hair, and rammed her tongue down my throat.

As we lay in each other's arms, the bedroom clock slid past my eyes, "Hey Max, it's eight. I think we ought to be getting ready to go."

She shushed me, straddled my naked body in hers, and kissed my forehead. "Well, at least that really took the edge off."

Once we left the loft, our phony personalities took over again. The art show seemed more like a party game than anything. Max and I would wander next to wealthy-looking individuals, and begin criticizing the art. Then we'd take turns breaking the ice, asking them questions about this piece or that, and whatever they said, whether it was good or bad, we'd find a snobbish way to agree with them. I was actually better at breaking the ice than Max, that is once I got a drink or two in me. And she'd jump in whenever anyone would test us on art knowledge.

At first, I wasn't sure if our new looks were helping out at all, then I overheard one woman exclaim to another in a very excited voice, "At first I thought he was a woman. He's so pretty." The pair then saw me and both ladies began to blush, to which I flourished my eyebrows, and got a good laugh out of them.

By the end of the night, we'd each passed out a pile of business cards. Max went by her real name, but we decided I should go by Jean (pronounced ja-on, or John with a soft J) Dutch. It made it easier for me to stay in character, and would also cut down the likelihood of someone Googleing "John Hollander" and finding a picture of my geeky self.

We started getting calls the next day, although the first few didn't go so well until we figured out that people think you're not in demand if they can get ahold of you. After that Max had the bright idea of

answering business calls in her normal voice and pretending to be her own secretary. Soon after, we'd booked most of next week, and we had to go shopping again so we'd have clothes we didn't have on at the party.