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The door shut with a sharp click and Matt just stood there, in the cramped mess of their shitty kitchen, staring at it, lips poised like he was about to say something, to call after him, but the words died in his throat.
Jay had gone out. With a girl.
He had said he wouldn’t be long, a few hours at most, but the seconds since he’d left the apartment already felt too long.
She was pretty, this girl, even Matt could admit that. He didn’t know why but he had told Jay she wasn’t. She was cute, in a mousey sort of way, small with big brown eyes and a pinkish nose. And tits.
Of course, she had tits, Matt thought dumbly, all girls had those.
She had nice ones; Matt could admit that too. Round and even and perfect in that strappy brown top that matched the warm tone of her eyes, black bra strap ever so slightly peeking out, contrasting beautifully with the pale skin of her shoulder. Matt felt sick. She was flaunting it, the bitch. Although, if he was truly honest with himself, he knew she wasn’t, not on purpose, she just had a nice top. Matt hated her.
He scowled to himself, his frustration snapping him out of the trance, eyes scanning unseeingly from the door to the empty cereal box on the counter to the stain he hadn’t noticed on the rug in the living room. The thought to clear up left his mind as quickly as it entered and he was rushing up the stairs before he could even register where he was going.
Matt stumbled slightly as he ran into the bathroom, turning on the light and shutting the door unnecessarily aggressively. He looked at himself in the mirror for a few seconds, hesitating, thoughts not quite catching up with his actions, before shrugging out of his blazer, leaving it crumpled at his feet, and working his way through the buttons on his shirt, dropping it on top of the blazer. He crossed his arms over his torso and pulled at the hem of his binder, struggling a little to get it over his head.
He’d show her. That girl with her stupid perfect smile, and her stupid perfect name he couldn’t remember, and her stupid perfect tits. Well, Matt had tits too. Matt had-
Matt's tits were...
They were fine... Completely unremarkable, if a little lopsided. He'd never hated his chest, not especially, he didn’t like it sure, but it had never bothered him as much as he knew it did other guys. His boobs had never been big and with the testosterone they had only gotten smaller, and with the smattering of light hair there now, if he unfocused his eyes a bit, he could even pretend like they weren’t there at all, like he was just a normal regular guy. That isn’t to say that he’d ever show them off, ever leave the apartment with his tits out for all of Queen Street to see. He wasn’t quite that desperate to play the Rivoli. Although...
Matt quickly dismissed that train of thought. That was a risk to great in the gambling game that was his dignity versus Vince Valance.
Besides, without his binder, clothes made things more complicated. They tended to accentuate the curve of his chest in a way that was much more difficult to ignore and resulted in a lot more self-conscious slouching and meticulous adjusting. No, a shirtless Matt Johnson was a state reserved exclusively for the confines of his own bedroom, or bathroom he supposed.
Matt stared at himself in the mirror for a while, not quite focussing on anything in particular, dissociating. His brown eyes were wide and had a slightly confused shadow to them, his lips parted absentmindedly. He prodded at himself gently, pushing his tits together as far as they would go, dropping them when they wouldn’t meet with less than a couple centimetres of space between them, fascinated by the way they jiggled slightly as they returned to their original position. It was like looking at a car crash, or picking at a scab. He repeated this once more until he became too aware of the way the fat felt as it moved and it made him want to crawl out of his skin. He shook himself to escape the lingering feeling, cringing as it only made his chest move again. Matt bent down to retrieve his discarded shirt from the floor and shrugged it on, not bothering to do up the buttons. Out of sight, out of mind, or whatever.
As he looked into the man’s eyes in front of him, a thought popped into his head, and he smirked slightly to himself. This was gonna be good. He gave himself a final quick onceover in the mirror and turned, pushing his way out of the room and down the hallway. Into Jay’s room.
Matt knew that Bird kept a box somewhere of all the random crap that girls left behind, because he was a little creep that liked to keep souvenirs. Matt even suspected most of it had been purposely hidden, the pervert. But when Matt tried to push the door open, he was immediately met with resistance. Huh. He tried again harder, and it gave way just enough for him to slip through the gap. He looked back and saw that a stack of books had fallen over and blocked the door. That was good, at least Birdie wasn’t trying to keep secrets from him, other than the fact that he can apparently read. On closer inspection, each spine was fully intact and there was a thin sheen of dust on the covers. Yeah, that made more sense.
Jay’s room was decidedly in a bit of a state, worse than it usually was; you could hardly see the floor under the stray clothes and magazines and God knows what else. Not that Matt could talk, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d changed his sheets let alone what colour his carpet was.
Matt approached the edge of the hastily made bed and nudged a pair of what looked to be Jay’s (hopefully clean) briefs out of the way with his socked toes so he could see underneath. He knelt down and peered under, belatedly realising it was probably a bit dark to see anything. Thankfully, though, immediately in front of him was a rather conspicuous shoebox. Jackpot. He pulled it out, placing it in front of where he was sat and lifted the lid. He didn’t really know what he was looking for, sorta just hoping inspiration would strike once he rummaged around a bit. He grabbed a few things that seemed interesting and shoved the box back under the bed, retreating to the bathroom.
Once in the safety of the locked bathroom, Matt laid out his finds on the counter: a tube that looked like some sort of lip gloss, another tube that was probably mascara, an eyeliner pencil, and a pair of lacy, black underwear that he had grabbed impulsively and only just resisted the urge to sniff...And what? Sue him.
Matt contemplated each item slowly, before deciding fuck it, might as well go all in and reached for the buttons on his jeans, definitely not stumbling as he tugged them off. He didn’t even hesitate when pulling down his boxers and replacing them with the black pants, knowing that if he stopped at any point then he’d chicken out, and he was anything but a chicken.
When he looked up at himself in the mirror, his eyes immediately zeroed in on the way the curve of the black fabric accentuated the way his hips were ever so slightly too wide; the way the too tight elastic dug into his soft belly and thighs; and, most crucially, the glaringly obvious lack of cock and balls between his legs. Matt looked at himself for precisely 3.2 seconds before scrambling to get them off him, tossing them to the side and refusing to take his eyes off one spot on the floor until he safely back in his own boxers.
Okay, maybe he was a bit of a chicken.
When he finally faced himself again, the look on his face was accusatory and hurt, his eyes red rimmed, but he blinked away the sting. Imagine if he had cried, over that? What a fucking loser. What a fucking girl.
That's what this was about though, wasn’t it? Maybe?
Matt wasn’t sure what he was trying to prove by doing this. Prove that he could still be a girl, if he tried? Prove that he couldn’t? He didn’t know who this was for either.
He could lie and say that he simply wanted to be more in touch with his feminine side, that he had grown weary of the restrictive nature of masculinity and wanted to try something new. Bullshit.
He liked being a man. He liked the things that came with it, and not just the political advantages, he liked the way other men looked at him and spoke to him, just being around other men made him feel a sense of belonging that he had never felt among women. And Bird. The relationship he had built with Jay never could have existed if he was a girl, not in the same way at least. They would have fucked for starters, which was a thought that did not disgust him as much as it should have, but now was definitely not the time for those sorts of realisations and so it was very quickly, very thoroughly repressed. Jay probably wouldn’t have so readily agreed to join his band, though, if he was a girl, wouldn’t have such blind trust in The Plans if he was a girl. But thankfully, he wasn’t a girl, and he was very comfortable in his masculinity thank you very much.
Was it bullshit, though? Completely? Yes, he was a man, and he knew that fact with the entirety of his being, as surely as he knew the sky was blue. He had known this for years, not that everyone always believed him, but it was an indisputable fact, Matt Johnson was a man.
So, why did he feel so strange around girls? Why did he find himself considering the way they did their hair, or their makeup, or the way their clothes fit? Sure, he liked fucking them, or rather he liked the idea of it, he had yet to get that far with anyone. But that wasn’t it. That was a completely different sort of feeling, a fascination that came from want. This was more a fascination that came from- from where? Jealousy? Maybe. Regret? No, definitely not. But also, maybe. He didn’t regret transitioning, far from it, it was probably the best thing he’d ever done, despite its lack of influence on his prospects at the Rivoli.
However, he had often felt like he had missed out on something, even if it was as trivial as the amount of clothing options for when the weather gets warmer. Girls were so pretty too, or well, some of them were, and he had wondered if he could have been too. If he had tried, could he have been a pretty girl?
There was only one way to find out, he reasoned.
Matt looked up from where he was leaning against the sink, head hung between his shoulders, and steeled himself. He looked at the items remaining on the counter and grabbed the eyeliner pencil. In all honesty, he didn’t know what he was doing. He had tried makeup maybe once or twice in his early teens when he felt like experimenting, but had quickly decided it wasn’t worth the effort, no one had commented on his lack of it either, so he had never bothered to learn how to do it properly. He was now regretting this fact somewhat, as he stared at the dull, smudgy nib of some girl’s lost eyeliner.
He leaned forward to getter a better view in the mirror before attempting to drag the pencil across his right eyelid. It was fine until it caught in his skin and made an ugly smudge on the outer corner. Shit. He didn’t care enough to fix it though, so he moved over to the left to try again, awkwardly crossing his arm over his body and bending his hand to reach. How the hell do girls do this all the time? Miraculously, it turned out pretty well, he even managed a neat little flick at the end. He admired his work for a second in the mirror, fascinated by the way the black made his dark eyes stand out against his fair complexion.
Then, he reached for the tube of mascara. But upon immediate sight of the tacky bristles, he recapped it and placed it back on the side. That seemed a bit advanced for right now. He had no intentions of going blind again, thank you and goodnight.
Lip gloss, on the other hand, was much safer. He carefully unscrewed the top of the tube, pulling it out slightly, before pushing it back in to gather the product and scraping off the excess. Matt leaned forward again to look in the mirror, swiping the tip over his full bottom lip, repeating the manoeuvre until it was sufficiently coated, before rubbing his lips together to distribute it.
He leaned back a bit to get a proper look at himself. His lips were shiny and pink, and his eyes were dark and inviting in a way he had never recognised before. Distractedly, his fingers skimmed through his fringe, messing it slightly so it framed his face better; his hair was in no way long, but it was longer than it had been in a while and he curled his finger around a wave near his ear.
Fuck.
He looked like a fag.
Of course he did, he was a bloke wearing makeup. Worse, he was a tranny wearing makeup. This was fucking stupid. He was fucking stupid. What a brilliant idea this was, Matthew. Fucking idiot. Fucking fag. Fucking girl.
Matt swore at himself under his breath as he accidentally turned the tap on too much in his haste, soaking his shirt in the process. Regardless, he bent his head to the sink and scrubbed mercilessly at his eyes and mouth until they were red raw. He turned off the tap and reached blindly for a towel. It was only once he had dried his face, towel disregarded on the floor but eyes remaining screwed shut to avoid the mirror at all costs, that he realised he was crying. Shit.
He fumbled out of the bathroom then, light left on and clothes on the floor, and down the hall into his room, blurry eyed and hurt. After shrugging off his wet shirt, he belatedly realised he was only in his socks and underwear so grabbed the nearest pair of jeans and a hoodie he found in the hallway on his way back downstairs; it smelt faintly like cigarettes, and sweat, and something warm and indistinguishable, probably hadn’t been washed in years.
Matt more or less tumbled down the stairs and onto the sofa, intent on grabbing his DS to distract him, but ending up just sat there on one of their shitty leather sofas, staring unseeingly at a stain on the carpet he hadn’t noticed before.
He wasn’t sure how long he was sat in that spot, but it was long enough that he didn’t notice the jangling of the lock or Jay’s returning call.
“Hey! That’s my jumper!”
When Matt didn’t respond, Jay came further into the living room, “Matt?”
He crouched down by Matt’s feet and clicked his fingers a few times in front of his face, “Hey, MJ? Matt, Matt?" Brief pause, "Matthew?”
“Huh? Oh, hey Bird,” Matt blinked a few times, eyes refocusing, looking around the room and past the other man. “Where’s uhh…Where’s…?” Matt trailed off.
“Maddie?” Stupid name. “Oh yeah, she uh, she went home.”
“Right, sure, good, that’s good,” Matt was mumbling.
“Dude, what the hell happened to you? I was only gone for like three hours.” Shit, was it really that long?
“What do you mean? Nothing, I’m fine, like obviously I’m fine, why would I not be fine?”
“Sure…” Jay stood up, walking over to the piano bench.
Suddenly, Matt couldn’t stop himself, words tumbling out of his mouth like an avalanche. Oh no, watch out everybody. “What if I was a girl?” Ah, they're all being crushed by the slide.
That made Jay stop, pausing in the middle of the room, he was facing away from Matt, “What the fuck are you on about?” Ah shit, everybody's dead now, what a shame.
Jay knew, of course he did, it was hard to hide something like that for so long. But they’ve never talked about it, not directly. Matt hadn’t brought it up since the first time and neither had Jay, it had always been an unspoken thing, don’t bring up the fact that MJ’s got a cunt.
He’d broken the rule now though, didn’t know where to go from here, neither of them did. Jay just stood there and Matt was too shocked at himself to even attempt to back pedal.
Eventually, Jay’s shoulders relaxed slightly and he broke the silence, “but you’re not a girl…right?” He sounded unsure.
“No, I know.”
“Do you want to be?”
“No.”
“I don’t understand, then,” Jay had turned around now, he was looking right at Matt, confusion morphing quickly into concern, “MJ, are you crying?”
“No.” Yes.
Matt tried to will himself to stop, blinking back the tears that hadn’t quite fallen but they got caught in his throat and manifested in a huge, mortifying sob.
Jay was on the floor again now, right in front of Matt, he was sort of floundering, he looked like he wanted to help his friend, but he didn't know how. He kept lifting his hands like he wanted to touch but he was too scared.
Matt could hardly stand to look at him. His fucking perfect beard, and his perfect voice, and the perfect curve of his jaw, and the way his shoulders slope and the way his shirt fit, and Matt hated him for it. Except he didn’t. He knew it was a lie even before he thought it. Matt looked up into Birdie’s stupid, scared face and the dam broke. Years of repressed rage and confusion and anxiety and helplessness and frustration and sadness and jealousy all culminating in this one horrific moment.
At some point he grabbed onto Jay’s shirt (his nice 'date night' shirt that was in reality no different from any other shirt he owned), and pulled him in, soaking his collar with a gross mix of snot and tears and spit. Jay leaned into it, wrapping his long arms around Matt’s shaking shoulders, and running a hand occasionally through the hair at his nape.
They sat together in a silence punctuated by slow, wet sobs for as long as it took for Matt to start breathing normally again. At which point Jay deemed it an appropriate time to complain about his knees on the hard floor, and they readjusted themselves, Matt was pulled on top of Jay, stretched out along the sofa.
It was just as Matt started to drift off, after residing himself to never bringing this up and the assurance of complete denial if ever questioned on it, that Jay spoke.
“You’re wearing my jumper.”
“Oh,” Matt mumbled into Jay’s chest, “sorry.”
So that’s why it smelt weird.