The bedroom was quiet except for the hum of the apartment's ancient heating system and the soft murmur of Tracie's own voice emanating from her phone. She sat on the edge of her bed, still dressed in the foundation garments that had become her second skin over the past four hours-the honey blond wig slightly askew, the glasses perched on her nose, the full-coverage bra and corset creating an unmistakable hourglass silhouette beneath her silk blouse.

"I am a woman. I am 35 years old. I embrace my unique beauty and celebrate my femininity. I attract positivity and radiate confidence in my femininity. My femininity is a source of power and grace. I am feminine in every way that I move and think."

She pressed replay, again and again, until the words stopped being words and became something else-something that settled into her chest like warm water, softening the sharp edges of who she knew herself to be.

---

Tracy had discovered the transformation items almost by accident, during a late-night internet rabbit hole that had started with "how to look older for bars" and ended somewhere entirely different. The initial motivation was simple and slightly embarrassing: he was nineteen, looked about fifteen, and had been carded at every club in the downtown area for the past three months. It was humiliating, the way bouncers would tilt their heads, squint at his driver's license, and then shake their heads with that particular expression of pity that made him want to crawl out of his own skin.

But the website he'd found wasn't about makeup tricks or padded shoulders. It was about something called "foundation garments"-a term that seemed almost medical, which had appealed to his logical mind. The women on the website spoke about compression, about shaping, about creating a smooth canvas upon which to build an outfit. They showed before-and-after photos that seemed almost magical in their transformation.

He'd ordered the pieces hesitantly, using a prepaid card and having them delivered to a package locker across town. When they arrived, he'd felt a strange mixture of shame and curiosity as he examined the items: the full-coverage bra with its substantial padding, the high-backed corset that pulled his waist inward, the girdle that flattened and rounded simultaneously, the gray nylon stockings that completed the illusion with their subtle sheen.

The first time he'd put everything on, standing in front of his bathroom mirror, he'd barely recognized himself. The padding in the bra created the impression of full breasts. The corset pushed his frame into curves he didn't know a body could achieve. The girdle smoothed everything beneath his waist into an undeniably feminine shape. The wig transformed his dark, unstyled hair into something soft and golden. The glasses-he'd chosen a slightly oversized, femininely styled pair-completed the picture.

He looked like a woman. Not a glamorous woman, not a beautiful woman by conventional standards, but a woman-a woman in her mid-thirties with a pleasant face and a curvy figure, a woman who might work in an office or attend her nephew's birthday parties. A completely unremarkable, utterly convincing woman.

He'd stood there for twenty minutes, touching his own shoulders, watching the reflection move when he moved. There was something almost vertiginous about it, like looking at an optical illusion that your brain refused to properly process.

---

The club had been easy. He'd chosen a place on the edge of the theater district, somewhere that attracted a diverse crowd and had notoriously poor lighting. He'd walked up to the bouncer-a woman with close-cropped hair and an expression of profound disinterest-and prepared for rejection.

"What name?" the bouncer had asked, not looking up from her phone.

"Tracie," he'd said, pitching his voice higher, softening his consonants the way he'd practiced.

She'd glanced at him briefly, stamped his hand, and waved him through. No ID check, no squinting, no humiliating delay. He'd walked into the club feeling like a spy who'd just slipped past enemy lines, his heart hammering beneath the padding of the corset.