But The Party Don't Stop

What? Did she want me to wear it like a crop top? Was I supposed to get artistic with a pair of scissors and fasten it into a string bikini? Pull out some tape and glue from my backpack and go full arts and crafts until I was just covering only the parts that mattered to maintain decency and that was it?

Actually, I didn't even need to know girl-Kim well to recognize that any one of those options would have been preferable to layers.

I only caught a glimpse of myself from out of the corner of my eye as she ushered me out of the room and already I was uncomfortable. I was wearing two shirts, but the combined effect of them had the clothing clinging to me a little too much. I felt like I was constrained, like far more of me was on display than had ever been before and when you combine all of that with this new and unfamiliar body it had the disconcerting effect of making me feel even more out of place than I already was.

And it didn't help that she tried to reassure me. On the way out the door girl-Kim, clearly picking up on my awkward body language, was doing her damndest to buck up my spirits and self-esteem. She kept on calling me a 'cutie' and a 'heartbreaker' and I don't know if any of that would have worked for a real girl, but I know that it was having entirely the opposite effect on me, a man trapped in a woman's body.

So when we burst out through the sets of doors that led from the library to outside and all eyes of every last person in the group turned on us I felt like a spotlight was shining on me. I glanced nervously over the crowd, all the people that I had supposedly only met today but that I had a confusion of a double life with and I found myself blushing even harder than normal as I saw them look back.

Because more than one of them had a certain look in their eyes, a kind of glint in it. More than one of them was looking at me the way that Blake had, with this almost hungry leer that they either didn't care to or didn't know how to hide.

But god I wanted to hide. I wanted to turn and run. And if not for girl-Kim looping her arm in mine and practically dragging me over to the group I just might have.

"Bags behind us," boy-Kim called out the instructions, "Everyone else up against the wall."

Once we were all assembled they had us all line up in a moment that was entirely too reminiscent of a firing squad to ignore. This little voice kept prickling at the back of my mind, speaking up like there was something that I was forgetting and something that I was missing and maybe if I'd been given a moment's peace then I might have been able to find it out.

And maybe I would have been able to figure it out if not for the distractions.

girl-Kim had arranged everything so perfectly. She'd pushed me into the crowd just so, making sure that I was off balance and out of sorts and I didn't realize what her plan was until we were all lined up against the wall and arranged and I felt his hand on my side, on my hip, and felt him pull me into him.

"Hey there," Blake smiled down at me from our place front and center in the group. I was frozen still, staring up at him as he stared down at me and then indicated forward, "Say cheese."

My head snapped forward. I felt the crowd on either side of me. I felt them squeeze in a little tighter and felt them trap me in the midst of them and none of this was right and none of it was familiar.

I'd been stuck on the edge of the group before, off to the left with Eddie by my side. I'd remembered being grateful afterwards, but why? Something had gone wrong here. Something was going to go wrong again.

And it wasn't Blake grabbing my ass, which he absolutely was doing right now. His hand releasing my hip and then touching me again, cresting over the swell of my ass before he palmed it and squeezed and sent a rush of sensation running through me. I jumped, nearly snapping at him before I realized what it was.

But god it was too late. It was too late to do anything.

I'll never see the photo, girl-Kim and boy-Kim didn't share it anywhere and this happening to a different group was the one posted to social media by the school as a show of school spirit. Maybe that was because we weren't photogenic enough or maybe it was me.

Maybe it was the fact that, in the instant before it hit, I realized what was about to happen. Maybe it was the fact that I was smack dab in the middle of the group ruining the whole shot.

Because I was looking dead at the camera when it happened. Wide eyed and fully aware.

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