He decides to try one on

The video played on, but Lorenzo's mind had drifted. He paused it, the frozen image of the woman's bare back flickering on the screen. His heart was pounding — not just from the video, but from an idea that had crept in and refused to leave.

He glanced at his bedroom door, then at the window. The house was silent. His parents wouldn't be back for hours.

He got up and padded quietly down the hallway to his parents' bedroom, even though there was no one to hear him. The room smelled faintly of his mother's perfume and, underneath it, stale cigarette smoke. He went straight to her chest of drawers — the bottom one, where he knew she kept her swimwear.

He pulled it open. There it was, folded neatly on top: a one-piece swimsuit in deep navy, with a subtle pattern of small white flowers. It was modest, practical, nothing flashy. His mother had worn it on family holidays for as long as he could remember. He'd seen her in it a hundred times without a second thought.

But now, holding it in his hands, the fabric felt different. Softer. More delicate than he expected.

He stood there for a long moment, the swimsuit clutched in his fingers, his mind racing. *What am I doing?* The thought was loud, but it wasn't loud enough to stop him.

He carried it back to his room and closed the door behind him, even though he was alone. He set the swimsuit on the bed beside his laptop and looked at it, his pulse thrumming in his throat.

The boy shorts were still on him, soft against his skin. That had felt like a small, secret thing. This felt bigger. This felt like something he couldn't laugh off or explain away.

He sat down on the edge of the bed and reached for the swimsuit. The material was cool and smooth. He rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger, then slowly, deliberately, he stood up and began to undress.

His t-shirt came off first. Then the tracksuit bottoms. He stood in just the boy shorts, the evening light from his window casting long shadows across his olive skin. He hesitated, then pulled the boy shorts down and stepped out of them, feeling strangely exposed in his own room.

He picked up his mother's swimsuit and held it against his body. It would be tight — his mother was smaller than him — but the fabric had some give. He found the label: *36*. He didn't know much about women's sizing, but he knew it would be a squeeze.

He bent down and stepped into the legs, the material clinging to his calves as he pulled it upward. It was tight, much tighter than he expected. He had to wiggle and tug to get it past his thighs, and when he reached his hips, he had to work it over his ass with a series of awkward tugs. The suit stretched, the seams straining just a little.

He pulled the straps up over his shoulders and adjusted the front. The swimsuit hugged every inch of him — his chest, his waist, his hips. The boy shorts had been a whisper of softness; this was a full embrace. The fabric pressed against him in ways he'd never felt before, and when he looked down, he saw the shape of his body wrapped in navy blue and tiny white flowers.

He turned toward the mirror on his wardrobe door and stopped.

The reflection staring back at him was... he didn't have the words. The swimsuit flattened his chest, smoothed his silhouette. His shoulders were broader than his mother's, and the straps dug in slightly, but the overall effect was unmistakably feminine. His shoulder-length brown waves framed his face, and his olive complexion seemed to glow against the navy fabric. His piercing blue eyes looked wider, softer somehow.

He turned sideways. The suit clung to the curve of his ass, and the high-cut legs exposed more of his hips and thighs than he was used to. His shaved swimmers' legs looked smooth and long.

He felt a strange, dizzying mix of shame and exhilaration. This was wrong. He knew it was wrong. He should take it off, put it back, forget this ever happened.

But he didn't move.

He just stood there, staring at the stranger in the mirror — a version of himself he'd never met before — and wondered who he was becoming.