AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“A makeover?”
SJ giggles. “This is mostly for fun. But it is part of it. See, I think maybe you’re demi. Like me.”
“I didn’t know you were demi. Which is cool! But I don’t think that’s what I am. I have definitely felt sexual attraction toward guys I barely know.”
She laughs again with a louder jangle like a chorus of bells. “Not demisexual! Demi-gendered. A demiboy like I’m a demigirl.”
“I… don’t know what that is.”
SJ has finished my contouring and moves onto my eyes, which have thankfully cooled from fueling more tears. For now. “I don’t usually introduce myself as ‘Hi, I’m SJ, the bisexual demigirl with the best fashion sense of anyone you’ll ever meet.’ Although I have considered putting it on my business cards.”
Now I laugh. “You should. But what is that kind of demi then? What does it mean?”
“A demi-gendered person feels mostly like their assigned gender, but not always. Not completely. Meaning I’m a girl who doesn’t always or fully feel like a girl.”
“But you’re so pretty,” I say stupidly. “Like feminine pretty.”
“Honey, so are you.”
“But that just makes people think I want to be a girl, since I’m pretty and enjoy dressing up as Mattie.”
“I’ll give you a minute,” SJ says with a knowing eyebrow raise.
“And I just did the same thing with you, assuming you must want to be a girl because you’re pretty and often wear cute feminine things. But you also mix it with masculine things. It’s part of what I love about your style.”
“Why, thank you. And see, it’s easy to assume things about people, even ourselves. So let me assume a few things, and you tell me if I’m right or wrong. Being Mattie lets you embrace your femininity to the extreme, but I think where you really want to be is somewhere in between, somewhere a little more subtle that you’re afraid to let yourself try. You think if you’re not all in, one way or the other, you’ll somehow be inauthentic. A pretender who doesn’t belong.”
Fuck. That makes my eyes water again. “Are you a shop owner or a therapist in disguise?”
Another patented SJ giggle. “A good salesperson is both, so we can help people find what they need.”
I blink my eyes rapidly again because eyeliner is next.
“Maybe, for whatever reason, you think your story doesn’t matter. Or that it’s wrong. Or that people will think you don’t get it—when IT is literally your life. You are not inauthentic. You’re you. Even if you don’t know who that is yet.”
She is really good at this. “I guess I’ve… been sort of terrified of being called a phony or lesser than the next person, because someone, ultimately, always, always makes me feel that way, and I believe them. Even when ‘them’ is just me, thinking it about myself.”
“I know how that feels too,” SJ says, “and who you are can change. It can evolve. Whatever form it takes, whatever the answer, you belong, honey, just as much as I do. I haven’t even known what I was for all that long. Only since Cas and I got together. It was kind of hard to not recognize my masculine side after a while. That babe of mine has some serious masculine energy.”
“Yeah, she does.” I chuckle. “More than I have.”
“Jeffrey,” SJ scolds, closer, since she’s applying mascara now, and I have to look up, “you might think you’re joking when you say stuff like that, but it’s actually a way to hurt yourself, to put yourself down. You don’t need to do that. You don’t need to be a certain level of masculine or feminine or somewhere perfectly between. That’s all I’m trying to help you understand. If being a demiboy is the right answer for you, awesome, but you don’t have to be that either if it doesn’t feel right.”
She is making it really hard to not ruin this makeup. I almost stop breathing to keep from crying. I want something to be me. I want to know the answer so badly.
And the right questions.
Shit. The Owner did tell me everything I needed with that stupid Tarot reading, I just didn’t get it. The High Priestess card means embracing duality, even the masculine and feminine.
“When I discovered being a demigirl was a thing,” SJ continues, “finding the symbol for it, realizing there is a name for what I am, was so much fun!”
“Fun?” I sputter.
“Yes, fun. What else do you call pure, undiluted joy?” My makeup is apparently finished, but instead of spinning me around, SJ unleashes my hair from its bun, and I realize she’s been heating up a curling iron too. She starts to brush out my hair and separate it into sections. “I was so happy, so surprised, honestly, that it made me giddy. I know not everyone’s experiences with discovering their identities are like that. Some are really tough. Some are sad. Some are filled with fear and danger. But for me it was fun, and I am not going to let anyone take that from me. Whatever our experiences, honey, they are all just as authentic and valid.”
It is a lot to take in, but having SJ brushing and styling my hair while I process all of it helps.
“You know, after telling an old high school friend once about me being bisexual, he actually had the gall to ask me… have you ever even been with a woman?” she mockingly reenacts.
