The boyfriend picks out Mason, a thin, African-American freshman, transferring from the San Miguel dorm

“Um, I just have to pick one?” I ask. I’m unsure who to pick, since the descriptions Emily gave me have been lacking.

I take a long while to make a decision and out of impatience, Emily speaks up. “I get it, Eliza. With my boyfriend visiting every night, it might get weird, and I don't want what we do in our room to be a distraction for you. Which is why Tyler actually has a good idea,” she says, finally naming her boyfriend. “Tyler? Babe? What was that you were telling me earlier?”

Tyler seems aloof, his head seemingly in the clouds as Emily does all the talking. His purpose only seems to be a warm body next to his girlfriend and it takes a few gestures to capture his attention. “What?” he asks in his deep voice.

“You told me something earlier about someone from San Miguel?” Emily asks.

“Oh, right. Right. There’s this black kid. Name’s Mason. Freshman. He got assigned to San Miguel Residence Hall by mistake and when he arrived, there were no dorms he could move into. I know the R.A. there. I’ll tell him that there’s a vacancy over at San Rafael,” he explains.

“That is so nice of you, babe. I’m going to let you stay here to welcome Mason as his roommate while I take Eliza to do some shopping,” she says. Somehow, I feel that deep down inside, Emily is hurting, sacrificing her time with Tyler to spend it for my benefit. At least she is assuming the role of my mentor.

She takes me in her car and we go to the local shopping mall. The first place we go to is a clothing store. Before, as Elijah, I would be aimlessly drifting around the store, being dragged by my twin sister, Cassie while she took her time trying out all the different types of clothes on offer. Now that I’m Eliza, the clothes I see on the hangers and the mannequins are the dozens of possibilities of style.

“Unless you’ve tried X-Change before, you probably don’t know what kind of styles you’ll like now,” Emily mentions. I’ve known about X-Change, but I never had the guts to go out and buy a pill. And I don’t think I’ve even had friends who were interested in it, so the chances I would take a pill and become a woman were slim back then. “And I don’t want to be like some of those other mentors, and **** my style on you, so I’ll just help you get a few practical things you can wear around campus. Then you can go buy whatever you want after you settle in.”

Up until this moment, I only thought my mentor Emily paid her undivided attention to her boyfriend, but now that she’s away from his influence, she is able to show me her colors, so to speak. The outfits she picks out are both fashionable and practical. I’m starting to understand the intricacies and the reason why girls spend so much time shopping. With Emily’s style, there is a lot of adaptability. There are rarely any garments that have colors that pop out. The color palette is mostly muted colors and I find that you could combine a pair of jeans or a skirt with any top or jacket. In our time together, I found that the skinny jeans, especially the ones that have the distressed motifs and holes in the knee areas, call out to me. And so, I buy a couple pairs of them. I’ve also found that Emily’s style is more comfortable and modest. It’s a middle ground that I can follow. And the clothes she picks out for me aren’t overly girly or feminine, but still stylish on my new body.

After making our purchases with the gift card, Emily takes me to a store that sells primarily underwear. There is a large collection of bras and panties in various styles and fabrics and towards the back, there is a section dedicated to what they call intimates, which is basically sleepwear for sexy time. “We’ll grab you some underwear too, but I should probably get you some comfy sleepwear too. I’m sure neither of us want you in your underwear when my boyfriend comes over, right?” Emily asks.

“Right,” I simply say. Thinking about it, I don’t want to become a distraction to Tyler’s focus. If I was, he’d set his affections on me, and I don’t think I’d be ready for that. Nor would I be ready for Emily wrath for stealing her boyfriend.

While I get a bunch of bras and panties and even thongs and bikinis, Emily makes sure I get some short shorts intended to be worn to bed, debunking the myth in my head that girls only wore underwear to bed. As we’re leaving the store, Emily whispers in my ear, “I know a lot of the new girls end up with side effects that will make them horny all the time. I’ll help you pick out the perfect vibrator to take the edge off until you meet a guy. Or a girl, whatever floats your boat, Eliza. If that doesn’t help you, maybe you could talk to my boyfriend’s roommate and see if he can help you out.” Emily finds a store that sells sex toys and gets a vibrator for me. The shopkeeper, a heavily tattooed woman with a split tongue, recommends the best one after Emily asks a specific prodding question.

The next store Emily takes me to is a jewelry store, one that specializes in piercings. As I take in the sight of it, knowing I wouldn’t be caught dead as a guy in such a store, Emily whispers in my ear, “They gave us money for getting your ears pierced. It’s actually a rite of passage for us girls. And they make you that much prettier. Now, we could do that for you, but I have a better idea, Eliza. You can get your ears pierced, but you can also get your tongue pierced! I got mine done last year. And, oh my god, does my boyfriend love how the piercing feels when I suck his cock. He always loved me giving him head, but he loves it even more now.” She actually shows me her tongue piercing and for the moment, it feels like it’s part of her character. But would I’d be the same? “But even when I’m not doing that, I still love feeling it in my mouth and thinking about it. And I can sometimes see his guy friends notice it and get jealous of him. And that always makes me a little happy too.”