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"But why are you wearing it?" Ruby piped up from up in her bed, bemused at the sight of the binder over my chest.
I turned this way and that in front of the mirror, admiring the sculpted flatness of my torso when binding. Delightfully androgynous. “Because that’s what I felt like today.”
Ruby was still baffled at my non-explanations. “I thought you were a girl?”
"I am. Sometimes. Not today."
It was beginning to dawn in her bright silver eyes. “So are you a boy today?”
I spared her a glance. “Not today, no.” I saw her brow crease in the mirror. “I’m not anything today.”
"Oh… You can do that?"
"Mmhm. That’s what I feel like today. So don’t call me she, her, anything female for today at least."
Ruby’s distress was clear already. I braced myself for a lengthy discussion about gender again. “But what am I supposed to call you?” she whined.
Well. That was something of a relief. “Y’know how you call people ‘they’ if you don’t know their gender?”
"Yeah…"
"Just use that today."
I waited again for some retaliation, some argument about how you couldn’t use “they” as a singular pronoun or how “they” couldn’t work for me because she already knew my sex.
"I guess that makes sense," she mused. "Since you don’t have a gender."
I smiled up at her. “Now you’re getting it.”
I continued getting ready in silence for a moment. Ruby’s brow slowly furrowed again.
"Wait," Ruby finally spoke up, looking deeply disturbed; I tensed up, "I can’t call you ma’am or mistress then, can I? Because that’s female."
I blinked. “…actually, I’m not sure what the neutral term is,” I admitted, crossing the room to my closet to get a shirt. “So you can stick to just those for now.”
Ruby stuck her head farther out from the bunk to watch me get dressed in the male button-down I’d tugged out. “Are you sure? I’m sure I can find something else online!”
I snorted, buttoning my cuffs. “It’s fine.”
She puffed her cheeks out. “You’re not going to punish me for using the wrong term, then?”
I paused and chuckled. “So that’s what you were worried about, eh?” I teased.
"I don’t like taking spankings!"
"Mm, I’m aware. But no, this is me giving you my word right now that I will not spank you for calling me mistress while I’m not female."
That seemed to calm her down. I resumed getting dressed.
Recognition dawned in my little sub’s gaze. “Wait, do you change genders a lot then?”
"I wouldn’t say ‘a lot,’ but it definitely happens with some regularity."
Ruby looked stricken with panic. “So it’s happened before while we’ve known you?”
"It has."
She sat straight up. “And you didn’t tell us? I would’ve called you by the right names if you did!”
The guilty tone made me smile just slightly. For a trained Grimm killer, Ruby was also a massive sweetheart. “It’s fine. You wouldn’t have known; I didn’t tell you.”
"But why not!"
I thumped her in the forehead to settle her back down. “Because there is in fact something called being in the closet. Now leave it alone. This is me officially telling you that those instances are no longer any of your concern. Understand?” Ruby pouted. I relented. “Give me a kiss?”
She gave it all too willingly.
"Good girl."