Quinn Nocturne, Male, Crossdresser

I was average height with poor physique and an unkempt stubble. My hair was black and down to my shoulders. I never thought of myself as attractive, certainly not with my concentrations of fat in all of the wrong places, a big nose, hairy body, and black beady eyes. This gave me a lack of confidence that informed a general social awkwardness, not just with the opposite sex but with anybody. I didn’t have friends, my family practically disowned me, and I never had a girlfriend.

I lived alone in a ratty studio apartment next to one set of neighbors with two kids whose lives I am intimately familiar with, not because I’d ever actually met them, mind you. I knew the details of their failing marriage by virtue of the fact that I could hear every single word they shouted at each other when they argued nearly every night. As for my other neighbor, I was intimately familiar with all of his favorite dubstep tracks, mainly because they invaded my dreams when I tried to sleep.

My apartment was clean and tidy, I spent most of my time on my computer at my desk, either playing the games to distract myself from my own insecurities or listening to synthwave tracks with headphones so I didn’t bother my neighbors, even if they would never return the favor. So, everything else in my room was relatively untouched and largely undecorated. I’d given up on the idea of being boyfriend material long ago.

I sort of got tired of looking at myself as usual, so I wanted to turn away from the mirror; but I didn’t. I just couldn’t manage to pry my eyes away from the strangely flawless surface. It really was odd, something this old should at least have some signs of age, like a somewhat hazy reflection, a few scratches or small chinks. Maybe even a crack somewhere on the glass, but there was none of that.

I slowly reached forward to touch the surface, something I hadn’t actually done yet, even when bringing it up the flight of stairs to my apartment. When my fingers finally made contact, I watched in awe as glowing circles appeared on the spots I was touching, accompanied by a slight heat like they were pressed against a lightbulb. Before I could react and whip my fingers away, I suddenly felt a wave of vertigo, more intense than any I had felt before. Like my whole body had been flipped in a complete circle from every angle possible at the same time.

I stumbled and threw my arms out to steady myself. After a split second I was perfectly fine, perfectly steady with no indication that I had just felt like I had been rapidly rotated in a perfect sphere. I looked back to the surface of the mirror, and it took the span of about two seconds to notice that something was wrong. I looked normal, but my apartment had changed.

In something of a panic, I whipped my head around to peer at my surroundings. Indeed, I was in a different place.

“What the…?” I heard myself say a bit breathlessly. The room I was in looked simple enough, with wood-paneled walls and a royal purple carpet, but no windows to speak of. There were just two dark wooden doors to my left and right. The left-hand door had the image of a clothes-hangar painted in a bright violet, and the other had what looked like an artist’s brush in the same color.

The room’s furniture consisted of two black-colored leather couches with an ornate wooden coffee table between them. Along the far wall were shelves lined with books that had no titles and were only numbered in roman numerals on their spine. All of the furniture, door frames, and even the baseboards of the room had the feeling of classic turn-of the century design. Additionally, nestled into one corner of the room was a small minibar with a couple of stools and a cabinet of expensive-looking liquor.

Standing right in front of me was a woman, and perhaps the most gorgeous woman I had ever seen. She was tall with long, wavy, raven-colored hair and flawless alabaster skin. She was wearing a silken black dress that was quite revealing and didn’t leave much to the imagination, letting me see just how curvaceous her body truly was with large breasts, wide hips and long legs topped with thick thighs. Draped across her shoulders was a stylish black feather scarf, giving the whole look a distinctly crow-like feeling.

“The seal has been set,” she said, cryptically, then proceeded to look me up and down with a pair of heterochromatic eyes, neither of which was a natural color, one being red and the other purple. “Oh, this won’t do at all,” she said shaking her head and tapping her chin. “If I’m gonna serve you we need to get you a new wardrobe,” she said this in a way that didn’t feel offensive, and at this point I could tell the difference, rather she was just being playful. I was still very confused, however.

“Uh,” was the only response I could muster for a moment, “what the hell is going on here?”

The woman spoke patiently and calmly, “You’re in the Studio. I can’t quite explain exactly what this place is to you in a way you can easily understand, the best I can do is tell you what it does. The owner, that’d be you, is capable of using it to create new realities in which you will have total control.”

“What?”

“Sit tight, I’ll show you.”

After a second or so I felt the same strange spherical rush of vertigo as before, but this time I was somewhere else entirely.