Louis responds.

As we walk to Marci’s I try to ignore the fact that ‘my’ first Instagram post was a big kiss saying good bye my loves and instead focus on the fact that increasing indignities will all lead to a financial windfall. I keep doing this for several months under Sarah’s tutelage and when we’re done I can faze Sadie out and return to being Nick. Sure, it’ll take awhile to grow my eyebrows back out, but by that point I’m sure I’ll be ready for a couple months rest. But every time I get lost into that goal one thing keeps popping up… Louis and the way he was looking at me.

I knew I’d be playing the flirt to guys. I knew I’d be attracting them and visually pleasing them. But I had imagined that being behind the safety of a camera and a monitor. Not in person.

The stop at Marci’s relieves my spiraling thoughts as she seems genuinely concerned about my wellbeing. She apologizes about going so far when I wasn’t a willing participant and even asks me if I need any help once we’re out of earshot of Sarah. I smile up at her and say that while it certainly took me by surprise, it was all good and that I wanted to be the best Sadie that I could be. We spent the next hour going over hair care. I guess Marci was very impressed with my thick hair, saying it would give me a lot of room to change it if I wanted and opened up a lot of chances for different styles. But today wasn’t about that, it was about caring for my hair. I learned a lot about hair, about how it grew, how it generated its own oils, how it protected itself, and how different colorings and styling products damaged it. The rest of the mysterious bottles in Sarah’s shower now made sense as I’d have a pre-rinse, an oil treatment, an all-natural shampoo that would be different than Sarah’s, a second more gentle shampoo, a conditioner, a gentle hair dryer for heat alone, a leave-in conditioner, and finally any styling utensils and products needed.

We all agreed that at least initially, I’d go with simple hair styles. Everyone, including me, thought the twin high ponytail look worked great and would help me develop a brand. Later we could play with variations, but this would help me perfect the cleaning and preparation as it would let me see subtle differences with slight changes to my cleaning and styling routine.

When we walk out, I have to remind Sarah that I’m still learning my heels as she jumps out ahead of me quite quickly. She smiles, returns to my side, and takes my arm again. “Sorry about that Sadie, you’re doing so well and looking so good that I forgot this is still new to you. You look really beautiful by the way. Sexy A F!”

I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to Sarah calling me sexy. Or at least I’ll never hear it in a way that says I’m feminine and sexy. When we get home, I see that Sarah hadn’t wasted any time with my phone while I learned hair care from Marci. Princess BabyDoll had social media accounts on six different platforms. She also included a social media platform manager so I’d only have to make a single post and it would include all my various accounts. “You absolutely need to post every day, but you should target five posts each day. I’ll help you, but these need to come from you as you’re establishing your brand. Who you are to your audience. Do you like fashion? Makeup? Style? Movies? Music? For now, I’ve locked your accounts and account manager so that it will ding me when you post. I’ll review it and then send out the final result or decline it and send it back to you. Oh, and if you can tie it in to your streaming that day, all the better! In fact, I think you have the opportunity to have a second post. Look!”

Looking down, I see that Louis has commented on my Instagram post mentioning that he had met me in person and was looking forward to seeing me stream. He then tagged about half a dozen people directly. Most of them had then either liked my post or commented and added more tags. At this point, about an hour after I’d made my initial post I had two hundred likes and a dozen comments.

Knowing that Sarah would approve, and genuinely wanting this to work… no matter how embarrassing it was… I wait until we’re outside and find an appropriate background. When I’m happy with the tree in full autumn bloom I consider for a moment then pull out my lipstick and make a couple marks on each cheek. Holding the phone out at selfie distance I wink, put up my fingers in a victory sign and snap the photo. I have to retake it several times to look right, but by the time I have it, it’s a clear Overcatch E-Va pose. I post the photo along with the double line caption of ‘Nerf This!’ and ‘I’m Just Getting Started’.

When I hit post, I hear Sarah’s phone ding. As I wipe my E-Va makeup off and touch up my blush I hear Sarah giggle and approve my post. Within seconds I see it on my feed, but see Sarah changed it a bit by tagging everybody who’d commented on my previous post. Looking up at her Sarah winks at me and says “Nice. Gamery, proper look and game specific verbiage, and it even fits in with your noob status what with the just getting started line. You’re a natural Sadie.

On the drive home I got to watch my comments and likes pop up and up and up. At Sarah’s suggestion I make sure to reply to several, keeping a fun and flirty tone. When we pull in at home Sarah says that I can put my feeds to bed for the night as we have some serious things to talk about and I won’t likely be in the right ‘fun’ mindset for the rest of the night.