Chapter 57
The inside of Richard Sullivan's Gulfstream did not look like a plane.
It looked like a salon.
White leather seats had been pushed back to make room for three stations, bright ring lights, rolling carts covered in brushes and bottles and palettes. The air smelled like acetone and expensive hairspray and something floral and clean that Brett couldn't place.
The woman in the black suit — introduced only as Mara — guided Brett inside with a hand light on his elbow, not unkind, just efficient.
"Mr. Sullivan wants you ready by six," she said. "We have two hours. Please remove your clothing and put on the robe."
Brett hesitated at the doorway, his hoodie clutched around him like armor, his eyes darting to the three strangers waiting — a makeup artist with a sleeve of tattoos, a hair stylist with silver scissors, a nail tech already laying out white polish.
"I..." Brett's voice was low, hoarse, the testosterone making it crack. "Do I have to..."
Mara's expression didn't change. "Yes."
Brett undressed slowly, his hands shaking so hard he could barely get the hoodie over his head. He kept his back to them, hunched over, trying to hide his chest — his breasts that had once filled a D cup so perfectly in Singapore, now tender and shrinking and wrong without the estrogen, the "girl parts" he was so self-conscious about.
He heard the makeup artist inhale quietly, not in judgment, just in assessment.
The white silk robe they gave him was short, slippery, cold against his bare skin. It gaped open at the chest. Brett clutched it closed with both hands.
First was the spray tan.
They stood him in a little pop-up tent in the back of the plane, naked except for a paper thong, while a machine hissed warm bronze over his entire body. Brett closed his eyes and held his breath and tried not to cry as the mist settled over his legs, his stomach, his breasts — breasts that now felt foreign, like props glued onto a body that was trying to be male again.
It all felt wrong. The color was the same golden honey he'd had for the wedding, but his skin didn't want it anymore. It felt like paint on someone else.
Next was the mani-pedi.
They sat him in a white leather chair and soaked his hands and feet in warm water. The nail tech didn't speak, just worked efficiently, pushing back cuticles, filing his nails into soft ovals, painting them a perfect, bridal white. Brett stared at his hands — big hands, veiny, the hands of Brett from Montana — and watched them turn into Brielle's hands again, one coat at a time.
It felt foreign. Like a costume.
Hair and makeup took an hour.
They washed his honey blonde hair twice, deep-conditioned it, blew it out smooth and straight, then curled it into big, soft Hollywood waves that fell over his shoulders just like they had on his wedding day. The makeup artist contoured his jaw to hide the slight squareness coming back, highlighted his cheekbones, smoked out his eyes in bronze and brown, painted his lips a perfect, kissable cherry red.
Brett watched himself in the mirror and didn't recognize the person looking back.
It wasn't Brielle. Brielle had been happy. Brielle had been in love.
This was a doll. A dolled-up, spray-tanned, made-up version of a boy from Kalispell who was losing his mind without hormones.
"Beautiful," the makeup artist murmured, stepping back.
Brett wanted to throw up.
Then came the lingerie.
Mara opened a flat white box lined with tissue paper, the same kind of box from La Perla in Singapore. Inside, laid out like an offering, was the whitest, sexiest wedding lingerie Brett had ever seen.
Not the set he'd worn on his wedding night. Something new. Something for Richard.
A white silk push-up bra with underwire so fierce it lifted Brett's shrinking breasts up and together, creating cleavage where there was barely enough tissue left. A matching garter belt, the sexiest one Brett had ever touched, with six satin straps and tiny pearl buttons. Sheer white stockings with a lace top that gripped his thighs. A pair of white silk high-waisted panties cut high on the hip.
And the shoes. White Louboutin So Kates, the exact six-inch heels he'd worn down the aisle at CHIJMES, the red soles flashing like a warning.
"Put it on," Mara said.
Brett's hands shook so badly he couldn't hook the bra. The makeup artist had to help him, her fingers cool and impersonal as she fastened it, adjusted the straps, pushed his breasts up into the cups.
It all felt wrong. The lace itched. The garter belt dug into hips that were thickening back toward male. The stockings clung to legs that were growing hair again despite the morning shave. The push-up bra made a cleavage that felt like a lie.
He was a man in women's underwear, and for the first time since he'd started hormones at twenty-four, his brain agreed with that cruel voice.
He felt self-conscious and exposed and foreign in his own skin.
Last was the perfume. Mara misted it over him — the same white floral scent from the wedding, expensive and clean — and then the silk robe, long and white and tied loosely at the waist.
Brett stood in the middle of the plane, dolled up from head to toe, spray-tanned and made-up and poured into white wedding lingerie, his hair in waves, his lips red, his nails white, his feet aching already in the six-inch Louboutins.
He looked exactly like the bride Richard's son had married.
He felt exactly like the boy from Montana who was disappearing.
"One more thing," Mara said quietly, holding out her palm.
Brett looked down. Then his breath caught.
"Your ring," she said. "Mr. Sullivan's instructions. Until it's over."
Brett's left hand flew to his platinum wedding band, the one Lance had slid on at CHIJMES, the one he'd worn through concrete dust and canned soup and every night in their little rental.
"No," Brett whispered, his voice breaking. "Please. I can't—"
"It's temporary," Mara said, not unkindly. "He said you wouldn't want to... damage it."
It was a lie and they both knew it. Richard didn't want Lance's ring on his pet.
With tears spilling down his perfectly contoured cheeks, ruining the makeup they'd just spent an hour on, Brett twisted the band off his finger. It stuck slightly — his fingers were swollen from crying — then came free.
Mara slipped it into a small black velvet pouch and tucked it into her jacket pocket.
Brett's hand felt naked. Cold. Wrong.
He was led down the stairs of the plane at exactly 5:58 p.m., the white silk robe fluttering around his thighs, the Louboutins wobbling slightly on the tarmac because he hadn't worn heels in weeks and his balance was off and his mind was screaming.
A black stretch limo idled twenty feet away, windows tinted black, engine purring.
The back door opened.
Richard Sullivan sat inside, in a dark suit, a glass of scotch already in his hand, his blue eyes — Lance's eyes — raking over Brett from head to toe, lingering on the push-up bra visible through the open robe, on the white stockings, on the red soles of the Louboutins.
A slow, satisfied smile spread across his face.
"Well," Richard said, his voice low and possessive as he patted the leather seat beside him. "Look what a little money and makeup can do. Come here, pet."
Brett stood on the tarmac in his wedding lingerie, his wedding ring gone, his husband at home thinking he was with a girlfriend, his body spray-tanned and foreign and wrong, and felt the last piece of himself shatter.
He took one shaking step toward the limo in the six-inch heels.
So it begins.…