A man has to earn a living - Back to Hemm

The sandals move on. Whoever was listening decides its not worthwhile meeting yet and the passage goes back to water-sounds and a distant bell. You have a minute in this body on the blanket-edge that is finally yours.

Reflecting on your experiences. You are stuck here in this world. This curse has given you more than a few grievances, but this world is not going away any time soon. So you decide to plan how to make yourself useful and earn a living, which means earning coin that is not a king’s leftovers..

Brin does not stop you at the door. She looks at the shift on a man’s frame and bites her lip once more and lets the street have you.

Needle Row is eight minutes of occupied glass. You walk it taller than you did as Sera and the wardens barely glance, even in sister-cut linen, because the beard and the height set the stage. Hemm’s window still has a girl in it — not two Selas, just one tired display in a cheap knock-off of the ivory-and-black, frame on a low roll — and Hemm himself is at the counter with chalk in his teeth, pinning a hem on a dummy.

He looks up, looks through you, and goes back to the pin.

"If you want a pilgrim’s mend, Orla does charity on sixth-day. I don’t."

"It’s Charlie," you say, quiet. "I was the one you pulled out of Pell’s line. You put Sela’s dress on me and then the old queen kit. I was her in your glass. I’m finally back in my own body. I came to ask if you could do me a favor by teaching me the trade."

The pin stops. He takes it out of his mouth and looks at you properly: the brown hair, the beard, the mid-calf hem on long legs, the band doing nothing under the shift. He laughs once, not kindly, and it is as close to fond as he gets.

"I sold twenty of the queen lingerie set to houses that could spell her name, and fifteen cheap copies to men who wanted their wives to look like the traitor of the kingdom for a night. Best week I have had since the dummy was new." He sets the pin down and his eyes go to the window slot, where the girl on the low roll turns her face away, and there is a rise in his trousers he does not bother to hide. "By the Gods you walk in here as a man in rough novice linen...tell me you can do that again."

"I can put worn clothes on and become the woman who wore them. I don’t like how people say that. But I still need to eat."

"Then I can use a helping hand," he says, already measuring your shoulder with a look, talking while his hands hunt a tape. "I will teach you cut and pin and how not to waste a bolt. You sleep on the back bench and you eat what I eat. Caveat." He glances at the slot again and the rise does not go down. "We use your talent when I see fit. A sample that has been on a body sells. A sexy body in the glass sells better. I won't fill that window with the queens kit again unless the street is stupid enough to want it twice. I will put other worn things on you, and you will stand where I point, and when you are a man again you will pack the boxes. That's my offer. If Hallin at the pub already owns a piece of you I do not want to know until he is in my door."

The tape is around your chest now, sister-linen and all. The girl in the window keeps rolling. Hemm is waiting on a yes with an opportunistic smile.