“Corey,” Flavius said as he nodded at me. “I hear you’ve got to take money from rich people. Like Robin Hood.”
“Pretty much,” I mumbled, trying to not show how pleased I was at the idea of being Robin Hood. Especially since I’d had a crush on the Disney version when I was growing up.
(Yes. The fox one. Shut up.)
“Your hair still looks amazing,” Flavius said. “You’re welcome. Lead the way to your room and I can show you what I’ve brought.”
Resigned, I started to do just that. Sandy began to follow, but Flavius shook his head. “Let me handle this, all right? You stay out here with your soft-core porn.”
Sandy narrowed his eyes. “But—”
“I got this,” Flavius said. “Trust me.”
And wonder of all wonders, Sandy agreed.
Flavius followed me down the hall, and I shut the door behind us after we entered my room. He laid the garment bags on the bed before turning to look at me, a sunny smile on his face. “You doing okay?”
I shrugged and rubbed the back of my neck. “It’s been a weird week.”
“I hear that. I hope you don’t mind it’s just the two of us. Sandy can come in if it’ll make you more comfortable. I just thought it’d be nice, you and me.”
“It’s fine.”
“Okay,” Flavius said, turning back to the garment bags. “I have two options for you. I’m going to leave both of them here, so you don’t need to make a decision right away. I hate being put on the spot myself, and from what Sandy told me, you’re already outside of your comfort zone. I don’t want to make things worse, so no pressure, all right?”
I nodded.
He began to unzip the first bag. “I showed your picture to my wife. The one we took at the salon? You’re a little taller than she is, but her shoulders are just as broad as yours. She thought this would be a good choice with your skin color.”
He pulled out a dress. It was black with long sleeves and a fluttering hemline. It had prints of flowers on it, cream and mint and gray and pink. It was beautiful. And it looked really expensive.
“Nah,” he said when I asked. “She got it for, like, sixty bucks but said when she wears it, it makes her feel like she’s worth millions. I tell her she could be in sweats and be worth the same to me.”
I was touched. “And she’s okay with me borrowing it?”
Flavius squinted at me. “Of course. Help a sister out, you know? Or a brother, if you want to wear what I’ve brought. Dealer’s choice.”
He set down the dress carefully on the bed before he unzipped the other garment bag. Inside was a handsome blue sharkskin suit with a checkered dress shirt underneath. There was a red-and-white striped tie hanging down the front. “Color,” Flavius said. “Suits should always be about color. Black and white is boring. Got to give it a little pop, if you know what I mean. You and I should be about the same size. It’s a slim fit, so the hips and ass might be a little tight, seeing as how you’ve got more junk in your trunk than I do, but I think it’ll work.”
“You did this for me?” I asked, not quite understanding why I was getting choked up.
Flavius looked surprised. “Of course. Sandy’s good people, but so are you. We take care of each other in this community, you know? It’s the only way we’ll survive. It’s important to foster togetherness. Now more than ever.”
He set down the suit next to the dress as I came to stand next to him. “I don’t know what to pick,” I admitted.
He patted my shoulder. “And that’s why you don’t need to make that decision now.” He hesitated. Then, “And please tell me to shut up if I’m talking out my ass, but….” He shook his head. “You know that no matter what you choose, it’s okay, right? One isn’t better over the other. You do you. You’ll be gorgeous either way. Gender is… I think it’s always in flux. Oh, you won’t hear the majority of people agreeing with that, but why should anyone give a damn if I want to wear a dress to work? And while I’m not equating what I do and how you exist, I just want you to know I get it. Or at least I try to.”
I got what he was trying to say. Even now there were days when Kori still felt like a shield, someone to retreat into when things were becoming too heavy. That wasn’t always the case, but it sometimes could be. There was something called alternating gender incongruity, where the switches in gender were described as unwanted or involuntary. I didn’t know if that description quite fit me, but there were times when I woke up wondering why I was in this body, and the next day I’d wonder what I’d been thinking the day before. I had learned a long time ago that studies showed it was a shift in brain connectivity and hormone release that could create the sense of gender alternation.
It made sense.
Most of the time.
“You’re good people too,” I told Flavius. “And it sounds like your wife is the same.”
He grinned. “She’s the better part of me. Why don’t you try these on and we’ll get it sorted if anything needs to be altered. Fashion show!”
IN THE end, I chose the suit. Friday morning I woke up and I was Corey, and that’s the way it was going to be. I’d tried forcing it in the past just to see what happened, but it never worked out well.