Kerry Allen's Love Emporium

He was in.

Like the lone female who managed to sneak undetected in the University of Gallantry and Heroism every year, Drew had successfully infiltrated the Heroine Academy. Soon he would learn if his inevitable outing was greeted with Oh, haha, how cute or a newsworthy demonstration of hypocrisy and sexism.

He had experienced second thoughts at several points between conception of his scheme and his arrival at the Heroine Academy.

Since dressing like a woman was crucial to the execution of his plan, he overcame his knee-jerk manly resistance to the concept—at least until he actually had to try on the clothes. Every woman he’d ever dated had complained about the difficulty of finding clothes that fit, and he’d dismissed their whining as a cousin of the I don’t have anything to wear despite two closets, three dressers, and four laundry baskets full of clothes gripe. He quickly learned his personal size issues weren’t the only obstacle in finding well-fitting women’s clothes. The designers were engaged in a competition to outdo each other in the field of vanity sizing, making shopping with one convenient number in mind impossible. As a general rule, the more expensive the clothes, the smaller the size. He’d walked out of one frou-frou boutique when its sizing system declared him a two.

He’d played college football. He engaged in recreational hockey, soccer, and handball. He hit the gym twice a week. He was a strapping guy, a far cry from a half-starved, noodle-bodied Old Navy model, and there was something emasculating about being labeled a two.

Size did matter, and bigger was still better when it came to men, even if those men were wearing cocktail dresses.

He took his mom’s advice when it came to shoes and went with the ones bearing jaw-dropping price tags. When a pair of shoes retailed for $700, they came with more than fashion bragging rights. They came with foot-supporting architecture that $20 knock-offs just couldn’t replicate. He could run a marathon in a pair of Louboutins without so much as pinching his toes.

They also came in sizes to cater to any Sasquatch with a platinum card, which was handy since, like the rest of him, his feet weren’t exactly dainty.

He had mixed feelings about pantyhose. Conveniently available in queen size, they were uncomfortably snug but also provided a comforting sense of security that the goods wouldn’t shift during transport. Their main drawback was that the tight weave of the synthetic fabric conspired to trap heat, and his role as a lady didn’t allow him the freedom to fan his sweaty secret until the mercury dropped.

He manfully endured the waxing of his legs, chest, arms, and eyebrows, only to cry like a little girl when told he’d have to manfully endure the procedure once a month, at least.

When it came to reshaping his body, he benefitted from the innovations of a thriving cross-dressing community. A girdle rounded out his hips and butt and nipped in his waist. He could have settled for fake breasts that dropped into a bra, but not knowing what sort of wardrobe situations might arise, he invested in the deluxe silicone-skin crop top that spanned the entire area from mid-neck to just below a fabulous set of fake boobs. The seam where silicone met real skin was concealed by his clothes at the shoulders and on the bottom, and a scarf or necklace hid the one at his neck. A close look wouldn’t betray his secret, since the fake skin had a lifelike texture, had been custom-blended to match his skin tone, and took it to the next level of realism with the occasional freckle and faintly visible blood vessel. After wearing them for a while, they even warmed up to body temperature.

They looked real. They felt real. He would know, since he’d spent quite a lot of time looking at and feeling them. The only possible improvement would be if the hand-painted nipples responded to stimulation and exposure to cold—and the salesman told him that phase was already in development.

Which just went to show that all men, regardless of persuasion, took breasts very, very seriously.

He made a decent-looking woman. He’d try to pick himself up in a bar. Okay, maybe after one drink too many. It wasn’t a perfect transformation, but he’d traveled further on the manly spectrum than some practically gender-neutral guy like Orlando Bloom, who could probably fool sober guys with a disguise consisting of nothing but lip gloss.

Misgivings had occurred, been evaluated, been dismissed as trivial obstacles. He had even prepared himself for what he considered his greatest challenge: maintaining his ruse while surrounded on all sides by blonde bombshells—his favorite flavor. He had stocked up on sports trivia and libido-killing images in the event a problem… arose.

However, he had failed to consider the sleeping arrangements. Something was bound to… slip out if he was trapped in tight quarters with a trio of girls, relaxing on their own turf, walking around in their underwear and pillow fighting and making out like the sorority girls in any self-respecting girlschool flick…

The beast snoozing in his pantyhose raised its sleepy head.

The NHL’s all-time regular season point leader: Wayne Gretzky, 2857 points.

Second on the list: Mark Messier, 1887 points, a difference of… 970 points?

Damn, that’s a big spread.

No! Nothing is getting spread! Quick, think of a mood killer!

Sarah McLachlan’s ASPCA commercial.

John Travolta in Hairspray. Or anything else.

A tap on his shoulder was accompanied by, “Hi, doll. What’s your name?”

He turned to face his questioner, who could have easily passed for an adolescent boy, if not for her pert nose. He extended a limply ladylike hand, which was seized in a bruising, ragged-nailed grip and vigorously shaken in greeting. “I’m Drew Leslie.”

“How… ambiguous,” drawled a raven-haired, leather-clad woman with a lacerating stare.

The miserable-looking drudge half-hidden behind her snuffled into a tissue and said nothing.

His assailant continued to jerk his hand up and down. “I’m Andi, this is Ivy, and that’s… Oh, crap, I forgot.”

“Eugenia,” the one with the drippy nose supplied.

“Right, that’s Genie.”

“Eugenia,” Eugenia corrected.

“What are you, nine hundred years old? Besides, I don’t have the attention span to spit out Yoo-gee-nee-yuh every time I refer to you. I’m calling you Genie. Deal with it.”

Ivy clamped her hand on Andi’s evidently hydraulic-powered wrist. “Stop before you snap… her arm off.”

Drew cradled his throbbing appendage—his crushed hand, not the other one, which had subsided from disinterest with the arrival of these three—against his enviably endowed chest. “How may I help you… ladies?”

“Hey, watch the tone. I’m every bit the lady you are,” Andi insisted, followed by a gurgling snort of suppressed laughter that sounded like a pig being strangled.

Ivy pinched the younger female’s earlobe hard enough to provoke a yelp. “We’re looking for one more… girl to fill out our quad. Are you interested?”

Drew considered his options. A request for a private room would attract unwanted attention and likely be denied anyway. Any other roommate arrangement would no doubt be entertaining, but he couldn’t risk blowing his cover by popping a difficult-to-conceal and decidedly ungirlish tent in his pantyhose.

Brunettes were safe, did nothing for him, especially scary, tomboyish, and mousy ones who would rise a couple rungs from the bottom of the attractiveness ladder if she’d just get rid of those inch-thick horn-rimmed glasses. Damn, she could probably see Saturn with those things. If he opened his eyes and saw that on the other side of the room, his morning friend would play dead quicker than a Hollywood-trained dog.

He couldn’t have come up with a better scenario if he’d arranged it himself. “You’re exactly what I’ve been looking for. Shall we go get our room assignment?”

NEXT: Midnight

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