He She It

six: a home waxing kit

"So," Lilly said through the pencil clenched in between her teeth, "pink, purple, or blue?"

Adam raised his eyebrows, and Lilly made a mental note to invest in a home waxing kit before she let Adam loose on the stage. Apparently, the only boy in school with an inclination to visit the women's clothing aisle was also the only boy in school who had hit puberty quite this hard: Adam was covered in hair. He even had stubble, for Christ's sake, something most of the boys in his year could only dream of.

(Stubble was a lot like Grace Hammond, in that sense).

"I'm sorry," he said, breathing in slightly as Lilly wrapped a measuring tape around his waist. She swatted at his bare stomach, muttering a barely coherent 'don't do that.' He breathed back out. "But what are you talking about?"

She rolled her eyes. "The colour of the dress, dipshit. Pink, purple, or blue?"

"Does it really matter?" Adam asked as Lilly scribbled numbers down into a notebook. "I get laughed at either way."

"And? You might as well look hot while you're getting laughed at," Lilly said, shrugging. She'd given up on trying to convince Adam that parading around in a dress as a sixteen year old boy wasn't the very definition of social suicide, and was now taking a horrendously Tyra Banks-esque approach to the issue. "So, pink, purple, or blue? Your choice."

He shrugged as she looped the tape measure around his chest. "I don't know," he told her, "you're the designer."

There was a wolf-whistle from behind him, then, and two cold, calloused hands clamped themselves on his shoulders. A second later, and the woman that was partly responsible for the state of Lilly's face was stood in front of him, beaming a familiar, goofy smile.

"Adam, this is my Mum," Lilly explained, as if the sheer size of the woman's nose hadn't already made that obvious. "Mum, this is Adam. Do you think he'd look better in pink, purple, or blue?"

Adam folded his arms across his exposed chest, a little self-conscious under the stare of Julie Martin (which, to be fair, had been finely honed by years of working in a prison, and was usually directed at people who had squeezed the life out of someone with their own bare hands just days before). After a minute or so, she wrinkled her nose and turned to her daughter.

"My vote's for purple," she said, and Lilly wrote it down next to her measurements. "And now I have a question for you: pizza, curry, or fish and chips?"

"Friday is takeaway night," Lilly told Adam, throwing her notebook towards her desk. It hit an ornament and sent a bottle of perfume flying. "Shit. And I vote pizza. Adam?"

"Uh, yeah," he said, tugging his shirt back over his head. "Pizza's cool, thank you."

"Pizza it is, then," Julie concluded, "Just tell Lil what you want, Adam, and I'll order it in about an hour. Is that okay?"

"That's perfect," Lilly said, grinning. "Just enough time to give Adam a makeover."

***

"Finished!"

Adam opened his eyes as Lilly leant back, capping the mascara in her hand and tilting a mirror towards him. His mouth, thick with dark red lipstick, dropped open a little: he almost looked like a girl - just a girl with the beginnings of a beard and a distinct lack of boobs.

(Lilly had secretly resolved to fix both of those things, but figured that it would probably be wise to give Adam a few days to get over the eyeliner before she started spreading hot wax over his face and making him wear a bra stuffed with toilet paper).

"Jesus," he whispered, touching his cheek with one hand, as if he didn't quite believe that forty minutes and a bucketload of make-up could turn him, a distinctly male, decent-looking teenage boy, into this: anydrogynous and undeniably hot, just like Lilly had promised when she'd pinned him down earlier and plastered his face in foundation.

It was new, and it was weird, and it was nice.

(And then it was weird again).

"Earth to Adam," Lilly said, waving her hand in front of his face. "Was that a good Jesus or a bad Jesus?"

Adam blinked, hard, and then tore his eyes away from the mirror. "Both, I think."

"It's okay to like it," Lilly told him, idly tossing the mascara from hand to hand. "You are pulling it off fantastically."

Adam laughed in sync with the ring of the doorbell, and Lilly glanced out of her window to see a sight that was always reassuring in any situation: the pizza delivery van, which was apparently still going strong even after some kids had spray-painted a (very realistic) dick on its back doors and filled the engine with washing-up liquid.

(There were very few youth entertainment facilities in Lilly's village).

"You want to think about it over pizza?" she asked.

Adam stole one last look in the mirror and nodded, because there are very few problems that can't be solved - or at least lessened slightly - with a freshly cooked pizza, not even when you're a teenage boy with a face caked in make-up who's just been measured for a dress.

(And maybe kind of liked it).