Made in Taiwan 11

Day 51 continued

Seeing the phone in Simona’s hand, I tried to turn my back. I was too slow as a bright light flashed in my face, almost blinding me.

“Nice pose, GG”, She said smiling.

“I wasn’t posing”! I stated in a serious-sounding voice, “can you please, delete that”?

“What the picture”? Simona replied innocently, “why”?

I looked at her like she was crazy, “so no one sees it, of course”!

“Aww… but you look so cute”, Simona cooed”, “tell you what, if you finish our shopping trip dressed like that, I’ll delete it”.

“And if I say, no”? I replied, looking down at the skin-tight patterned dress which had moulded itself to my body.

“Hmm, you won’t, coz, I’ll make it worth your while when we get back to mine, but if you want, I guess I could threaten to show you’re classmates or something”, she said with a giggle.

I felt my legs begin to shake, “you wouldn’t really show them, would you”?

“Probably not, maybe, who knows", Simona said in a ditzy voice, "So, shall we just get going? Then we don’t need to find out”.

“Simona, please, can I just have my clothes back”, I pleaded, “I can’t go outside looking like a man in a dress”.

“GG, you still care too much what people think about you, huh”? Simona stated, tutting, before walking towards me, “you really need to get over that or you’ll never be happy”.

Now, standing in front of me smiling, she reached up and peeled off the wig from on top of her head, “here”, she said placing it on my head, “a disguise”.

“You’re not going to back down are you”? I said with a sigh, looking over and seeing my emasculated reflection in the floor to ceiling mirror on the wall behind Simona.

“I’m just helping you blossom, little duckling”, she replied, giving me a kiss on the cheek, “now, makeup or no makeup, up to you”.

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Back on the streets of Ximen, It suddenly felt as though every eye was on me, which might have actually been true. There weren’t many other couples on the street, showing as much skin as we were. Add to that, Simona’s shaved head, me now sporting bright pink hair and struggling to walk on my new eye-catching footwear. You get the picture, we stood out.

(See image 12)

With the clothes, I wore out earlier now neatly folded up in the pink shopping bag, swinging to and fro in my right hand. I focussed on the placement of my aching feet, trying not to fall flat on my painted face. At least it distracted me from the thoughts of all the people looking at me or the awkward interaction with the salesgirl in the store moments earlier.

If it wasn’t for my face being caked with makeup, she would have seen it was bright red with embarrassment as we approached the front of the store to pay. The interaction was short with Simona helping me explain in Chinese that I would be wearing the dress out of the store.

Having seen us enter earlier, there was no doubt the girl behind the counter knew my true gender. But as uncomfortable as I’d felt, to her credit, she never mentioned it. This helped me relax a little, I mean, as much as anyone could shuffling around wearing those ridiculously tall 6-inch wedge sandals.

For the next hour on my aching feet, we continued our shopping trips, moving from store to store, until Simona found a suitable dress for her mystery occasion.

By this point, I felt much more comfortable, having had a few interactions, with nothing but a few stares, the result. I'd also been testing out something Simona mentioned. She told me to imagine that I was her and she was me. As crazy as it sounded at the time, I have to hand it to her, it actually helped. If I was Simona, I wasn’t walking around the streets of Ximending crossdressed, meaning I had nothing to be ashamed about. It was a strange chain of logic, but with every passing glance or double-take, my confidence grew.

The pill, Simona gave me before leaving changing room, starting to kick in, probably helped too as my body relaxed and my worries melted away.