Who Made the LambBy Fakeminsk

  Chapter One: Standing StraightThere’s this photograph of his father. Alex rescued it from a pile of old papers his mum put aside, intended for the bin during the cleanup after the funeral. It’s a poroid, turning sepia with time: Morgan ’98, Winch. Arms, Taunton scribbled sntwise across the back. Morgan is twenty-four, looks work-tired but happy, celebrating a promotion, and rexed in a way he never did in life. He doesn’t know about the two children he’ll father, though the first is less than a year away; doesn’t know he’ll die young, of a heart attack at forty-nine. Left arm severed by the photo’s edge, the right sits comfortably around the waist of a girl in a floral print dress. There’s a table covered in pints, anonymous hands flourishing fag ends fring bright white spots in the faded image. His father grins, dressed in jeans, white shirt with the top button undone, loose-fitting jacket. He’s looking to someone out of frame.

  And wouldn’t you be proud of your son? Alex thinks. He goes to slide the photo into his pocket, then remembers he doesn’t have any, not dressed like this, stupid girl trousers. Instead, he pces it in the handbag banced on the sink, then retrieves the lipstick his sister packed for him. If only you could see me now, Dad. He touches up his lips. It’s one of the few things he can manage with any degree of confidence, and without his sister’s help.

  This whole charade’s her idea.

  ***

  “Misandrist dyke bitch!” He smmed the door behind him. “Fuck!”

  The interview, he expined to his sister, did not go well. The woman took one look at him and made up her mind. She frowned, looked down at the open folder on her desk and what he assumed was his CV and job application. Truth was, he didn’t remember sending the application. He’d sent so many over the past three months, he couldn’t keep track. This was the first hit he’d had in weeks, an actual invitation to interview for a real job.

  “Alex?” the woman asked. She never introduced herself. Her frown intensified. “It says here, Alexandra.”

  “Alexander, actually,” he corrected. He’d seen the typo on the invite and assumed it was a computer glitch.

  She levelled a look at him generally reserved for the street scum you scrape off your shoe. “I would’ve had a job for Alexandra,” she muttered, just loud enough for him to hear. “After due consideration,” she continued, louder, “I’m afraid you’re not suitable for the role.” He tried to protest, and she cut him off. “Don’t waste my fucking time, okay? The listing was clearly for a woman. Think you’re the first guy to come in here, spouting shit about diversity discrimination? Fuck!” She leaned back in her chair, gring at him. “I’ve got a job to fill, and I don’t have time for this bullshit. If I don’t fill this slot today, I lose my budget.” She swept his CV into a waiting bin. “Tits and a pulse, that’s what I’m looking for at this point. Tell you what, Alex. Know any women looking for work? I’ve got an open interview slot this afternoon at four. Send her in, she’s got a job.”

  “It’s not fucking fair,” he told his sister. “Fucking diversity and inclusion bullshit.”

  “Yeah.” It was nearly eleven am, and Sophie sat at the breakfast table in her morning kimono over coffee and morning bagel. She looked washed out after a te night, bags beneath her eyes, dark hair a tousled mess. “White guys being totally underrepresented in the workpce.”

  He rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean,” he said.

  “I know you sound like a MAGA dickhead,” she said. “Again.”

  “Whatever.” He stalked back and forth, tugging his tie loose. “It’s not fair,” he said. “The best person should get the job.”

  Sophie ughed. “And that’s you?”

  “I’ve got a pulse!” he said. “And a 2-1 from Bristol. I’m just missing the tits.”

  The bagel paused halfway to her mouth. “What if you had them?”

  Her idea was simple and stupid. Dress as a girl, she expined, grinning. Show for that four o’clock interview, give that woman the tits and pulse she’s looking for. Alex sat at the table with her, ughed at the joke.

  “Can you imagine?” he said.

  “Yeah, I can,” she said.

  He frowned. “I don’t look like a girl.”

  “You made a damned convincing Juliet.”

  “That was a school py five years ago.”

  “Yeah, and you totally nailed it,” she said. “Beth told me about the afterparty. You had everybody fooled, right?”

  He felt a prickling in his skin, and his mouth went dry. “Whatever, this is stupid,” he said, stood up and walked away. Five minutes ter, Alex stalked back and thrust a finger in her face. “And if I got the job, what then, did you think of that? I don’t want to work as a fucking secretary, or whatever the job is, not as a girl.”

  Sophie shrugged: “expose their unfair hiring policy for the bullshit you think it is, threaten to go to the press if they don’t keep you on. At the very least, you get some interview practice. And I bet you could get an article out of it, publish it online or in the Spectator.”

  “Or The Guardian,” he mused. “I can see it going either way.”

  “See? You’re always compining you’ve got nothing to write about.”

  He shook his head, scratched at his beard. For ten months he’d been trying on and off to grow it out. “I like my beard,” he said.

  She rolled her eyes. “Give it up, Alex. That’s not a beard. It’s not even beard-adjacent. It’s a soul-patch with delusions of grandeur.”

  “Yeah, well, I can’t pass for a real girl,” he said.

  “You did in the py.”

  “I was a kid! And on stage. This is different. This is stupid. Why are we even talking about this?”

  “Because you need a job.”

  “Not like this, I don’t.”

  “Yes, like this,” she said.

  This past week, Sophie had started dropped hints that she wanted him out. Escating comments about the effect of having him around all the time left him feeling guilty and angry. She resented him cramping her lifestyle. And Alex wanted out, too. He came to London expecting to find a job quickly, settle into his own ft, make friends, get out, get id. Instead, the summer had come and gone, and he’d only gotten id twice, one of those times with Jenny, his ex from back home, the other with some girl he met at a networking event the first week here.

  “There’s no way you can make me look convincing,” Alex said.

  “I’ll take that bet,” Sophie said.

  An hour ter, Alex grudgingly admitted his sister was right. First, she had him shower and shave off his beard and moustache. Truth be told, he wasn’t that sad to see it go. “Legs too, she said. “Nope,” he said, “no fucking skirts, no fucking dresses.” Sophie didn’t push him. By the time he finished showering and shaving his face, Sophie had several outfits id out on his bed in the guest room, clothes she’d outgrown this past year. It was the happiest he’d seen her in weeks. “This is fun,” she said. “For you,” he said. “This is fucking embarrassing, I can’t believe I’m even considering this.”

  She held up a skirt, a brown check mini from John Lewis. “You sure about the skirt thing? This would look great on you, with this—she held up a ribbed white long-sleeved top—and a belt, some sheer tights.”

  “No skirts,” he insisted. “No dresses.”

  Eventually, they settled on a pair of tapered beige trousers from M&S and a tight bck button-down shirt from Next, long-sleeved and paired with a slender gold belt. A bzer, too—let’s keep attention away from those shoulders, Sophie said. A pair of clip-on fake pearl earrings and a slim watch finished the look. Beneath it all, one of Sophie’s old bras, white with vender decorative ce, tight around the chest and Alex wasn’t too pleased to discover she was a C-cup. She filled a pair of stockings with rice, tied them off and stuffed the bra. The makeshift breasts sat heavily against his chest, knots pushing out like nipples.

  “How’d you know to do that?” he asked.

  She ughed. “Before you moved in, I rented your room out to all sorts,” she expined. “Had a drag queen living there for a few months, Madame Bouffante, big burly d from up north but wow, what a performer. Fucking awful mess to clean up afterwards, let me tell you, pancake makeup everywhere, and half their stuff left behind. But I learned a few things. It’s why I’ve got this, it was left at the back of the closet,” she added, and passed it to him.

  “What the fuck is this?” he asked, holding it at arm’s length. This turned out to be a high-waisted girdle for padding out hips and bum. “I’m not wearing this,” he said ftly.

  “You are,” she said, “or the trousers won’t sit right, and it’ll keep your belly in, you’ve put on weight.”

  “Speak for yourself,” he muttered, but conceded the point. After three months of sitting around the ft, drinking beer and pying games, he’d birthed a little food baby though the rest of him remained slim. Not as much as she had this past year, but still. Grudgingly, and feeling sick to the stomach for the wrongness of it, he pulled the undergarment on, before slipping into the trousers and buttoning the top over his recently acquired breasts, fumbling with buttons set on the wrong side. The top felt cool against his skin, stretchy and tight and accentuating his fake boobs. Then Sophie did his makeup, taking her time, wiping him clean and restarting a few times until she got it right. Finally, she tackled his hair. He hadn’t had a haircut since reaching London, and over three months it'd grown out into a shaggy, mouse-coloured mess. “You’re lucky,” she said. “You got Mum’s hair, I can work with this.” With a copious use of hair product, a little styling and some hair clips ter, she tamed the tangled mess into something both presentable and undeniably feminine.

  Eventually, she stood him in front of the mirror. “Ta da!”

  He looked at himself in the mirror, plucked at his sleeve, and shivered. “I feel like a fucking poof,” he said

  “Homophobe much?”

  “Really?" He rolled his eyes. "My best friend’s gay. I’m no fucking homophobe.”

  “Fine. Dickhead, then.”

  He ignored her, poked at his hair, brushing it out of his eyes, and lightly tugged at an earring. He swept his hands down his sides, felt the shapewear beneath that created convincing curves. “And I’m not some sissy femboy, either. This is stupid, Sophie. I’m not doing this.”

  “You don’t think you look good?” she asked.

  “I look good,” he said. Truth was, he was taken aback at how good he looked. There was a girl in the mirror, and that girl was him. Makeup had softened the sharper features of his face, and the clothes were undeniably feminine. He felt an echo of five years ago: the school py freaked him out then, too, at how convincing a Juliet he made. Single-sex private school, end-of-year production, Mr. Dixon gave him the part, you earned it, he said, you’re the man to py our girl. And he pulled it off, enjoyed it even. He made a very pretty Juliet, seventeen-year-old smooth-faced boyish good looks making for surprisingly alluring girlish good looks, too. There’d been a lot of good-natured ribbing, and some uglier ‘banter’ that bordered on bullying, and a few genuine questions by sensitive cssmates.

  St Oswald’s wasn’t a school to skip on costs, and Alex experienced the full Juliet: corset and stockings, flouncy dresses and flowers woven into hair extensions. After the final show, his best friend Luca, Romeo to his Juliet in the production, convinced him to go out still dressed like a girl. It’ll be a ugh, he said. And it was. He borrowed a skirt and top from Luca’s sister Bethany, low-heeled shoes and wore them over the Juliet corset. He’d always fancied Beth and went along with everything she suggested and sat quietly as she redid his makeup in a vibrant teenage style. After the after-party, the three of them tried the ‘Spoon in town. They got in, the two of them anyway, but not Luca. His friend never forgave him for that. But Alex looked older, as a girl, like a university kid and he liked that, felt mature, felt powerful in a new and exciting way he didn’t understand.

  Bethany and he chatted over pints of Butcombe, the first time they’d really spoken together alone. She held his hand. He remembered vividly the way their nails contrasted, her matte white next to his glossy pink press-ons. Then a creepy older man bought him a drink. That was less fun. Afterwards, he made out with Beth in her car. He remembers sliding his hand under her top, over her bra. She sighed and took his hand and guided it beneath her skirt. It was the first time he touched a girl there.

  When he got home, his father was waiting for him. Morgan was away with work, again or so Alex thought. But his father came back early to watch the finale of his son prancing around on stage in a dress. It was the only time Alex could remember his father attending anything he’d done. That night, Morgan stood, fists clenching and unclenching at his side as though he wanted to punch something. His lip curled in an ugly sneer, and he stared at his son standing there wide-eyed in a colourful skirt and midriff-baring top pushed out by Beth’s padded bra, teenage drunk with lipstick smeared across his face.

  Faggot, his father said.

  “I’m not doing this,” Alex said to his sister, pulling an earring from his ear.

  “You’re doing this,” she said.

  “You’ve had your fun, Soph. Ha ha. But I’m not doing this.”

  “Fine. Then grab your stuff and get the fuck out my ft.”

  The hand at his ear his ear froze. “Excuse me?”

  “Three months, Alex. I’ve had it up to here with you. Three months I’ve put up with your shit. You’re my brother and I love you, but I’ve had enough. You don’t pay rent, you eat my food, you bitch nonstop, and you’re a sexist cunt, too. If I hear you manspin another Jordan fucking Peterson video again, I’ll scream.”

  He opened his mouth to protest, but she wasn’t having it.

  “And how many job interviews have you had, hm? You turned down that offer when you first got here, you fucking idiot, thought you deserved better, holding out for Sughter and May or some shit like that. And since then—what, one? Maybe two. Are you even looking anymore? Far as I can tell, you lounge around my ft all day doomscrolling Youtube videos, pying Switch and binging Netflix.”

  “That’s not fair,” he said. “The job market— the economy—"

  “Is shit. Yeah, I know, whatever,” she said. “I don’t care. You think the market was great when I got here? Tail end of a pandemic, you think anyone was hiring? But I got a job, anything I could find. You need a serious reality check, Alex. Stack shelves at Tesco, pull pints down the pub. I don’t give a crap about your fucking degrees, nobody does. Get over yourself and just get yourself some work.”

  Alex pulled at the silky fabric of his top. His stomach roiled with anger, or disgust. “Christ, you sound just like fucking Dad. ‘When I was your age,’” he mimicked in a gruff voice, “’I stacked shelves in the warehouse. Five years ter, I ran the joint!’” Alex crossed his arms across his chest, frowned, shifted them below his bra line. “I didn’t stick it out for a Masters’ degree to be a fucking waiter at Café Rouge.”

  Sophie ughed. “You’d be lucky to get a job at Café Rouge. They wouldn’t have you.”

  “You’re just jealous,” he said. “You’ve always been jealous. That I went to uni and you didn’t.”

  He immediately regretted his words and knew then that he’d be doing what she asked. Sophie had always been the stronger personality, had a way of getting her way when they were growing up. In many ways, it’d been a relief when she moved out at nineteen. He missed her terribly, though he’d never tell her that, but at the same time he felt a heavy weight lift from his shoulders, with her gone

  “You’re going to this interview,” she said. “I need to know you’re still trying. If you don’t, you’re out of here. I’ll give you until the end of the week to get your shit out of my ft. I’ll even buy you a coach ticket, you can go back to Mum.”

  And the thought of going back to that almost empty house, the weight of failure and the hollowness the thought of home brought to his belly, it felt even worse than the fear he felt at the idea of stepping outside in his borrowed sister’s clothing.

  He turned back to the mirror. “You really think I can pull this off, Soph?”

  “With a bit of effort, yeah, I do.”

  Sophie completed his look—a coat of clear varnish to his nails—and then a handbag, shoes, and gave some cursory instructions on moving like a girl, had him walk back and forth across the ft a few times, sit down at the kitchen table, shake her hand. “Just don’t overdo it,” she said. “You remember your girl voice?” He thought back to Romeo and Juliet and Mr. Dixon’s instructions. He thought of all those videos off of YouTube and Tiktok, those crossdressing Minecraft streamers or Omegle pranksters. “I’m ready for my close up, Mr Demille,” he said, reaching for the right pitch, finding his voice. Sophie ughed and said, “good, not bad, keep practicing.” Finally, she filled his handbag: three tampons, a condom, a chintzy little makeup bag, slim girl wallet, hairbands, Ibuprofen, small metal water bottle.

  Alex prodded the makeup bag. “What am I supposed to do with all this? I don’t know how to use this stuff.” He flicked a tampon. “And I definitely don’t need this.”

  “No shit, Sherlock,” Sophie said, “but it’ll help keep you in character. Just—don’t touch your face, okay? The makeup’s long wear, should get you through the interview at least without needing a touch up. Maybe just your lips. Here, let me show you how.”

  Swipe and wipe, ten minutes of practice, and he just about felt like he could manage. It was just a pencil, after all: fill in between the lines, try not to slip. Still, it felt emascuting, standing at the mirror, painting his lips.

  Despite all the effort, he still felt light-headed leaving the ft, nearly colpsed to the ground for hyperventiting. Shaking her head, Sophie took his hand. He froze at the door and couldn’t let go of the door jamb. “I can’t do this,” he said.

  “Yes, you can. You’ve got this,” Sophie said.

  “I don’t know how to walk like a girl,” he said.

  “Try walking like a human, start with that. Stand up straight with your shoulders back,” Sophie told him. “Isn’t that what Peterson always bangs on about?”

  “Not so you can stick your tits out!”

  “Just be confident. Walk tall.”

  “In heels?” he asked.

  She ughed. “You think you’re ready for heels?”

  Sophie escorted him. Nobody paid attention to two young women on their walk to Angel station. They took the tow path along the Regents’ Canal; a cyclist nearly ran them down, shouted ‘cunts!’ as he flew past, Sophie shouted ‘twat!’ in return and barely registered the exchange. Otherwise, no one took notice, not even when they passed close to other pedestrians. Make eye contact, Sophie instructed, but not for too long. If you keep staring at the ground, you’ll draw even more attention. Especially if you walk into someone. Finally, standing outside the station, she wished him luck. “I’ll meet you in town after the interview, at the All Bar One on Kingsway,” she said.

  Knees knocking, stomach churning, he tapped his phone and passed through the gates on his own. He felt sick riding the escator down at Angel, but by the end of the ninety-second descent, he felt better. This was London, after all. Two o’clock in the afternoon and a steady trickle of people heading down, heading up, and nobody spared him more than a passing gnce. Nobody gave a shit.

  On the Tube, his skin prickled and it felt as though everyone stared. Soon, he realised everyone was staring, just not at him: at their phones, or into the middle distance. Maybe one or two fshed a look his way, but were they the curious looks of someone catching out a secret cross-dresser? No; rather and perhaps worse, he suspected they were men, checking out the pretty young woman sat stiff-backed, legs together on the train.

  He transfers at King’s Cross, gets off at Holborn, joining the crowds flowing up to the surface, and still no one cared, noticed, cried out or showed him anything greater than passing indifference. Gradually, he started to feel a little better. The sun overhead was bright, the air warm and the clothes he wore gradually felt less alien. Not comfortable; that wasn’t possible, with his dick shoved back between his legs, waist gripped tightly by shapewear. The earrings pinched his ears, and the makeup felt heavy and foreign on his face. He hated the watch and kept spinning it around his wrist. But—it was bearable. Better, Alex thought, than heading home.

  ***

  Now, standing in a private toilet waiting for his interview to start, handbag perched on the sink, he touches up his lipstick, and thinks, you’ve got this, Alex. Or rather, Bke, his surname, an easy substitute for a female name he wouldn’t forget under stress.

  He paints his lips matte coral. It takes a conscious effort to not immediately lick and ruin the effort. The interview is in ten minutes, and he’s already gone for a piss three times. Last time he pissed this often in ten minutes, it was before stepping out on stage for some performance at uni. A piss takes a lot more work than usual, he can’t just whip it out as usual and reminds himself to sit down when he goes. There’s the effort to tuck everything back and tug the girdle into pce and make sure the padding sits right. It all feels very wrong, he looks at himself in the soft light of the mirror and think, Christ, I look like a fucking fairy, this is so fucking gay. But he knows that’s not true, because the girl in the mirror is shockingly convincing and in some ways that’s even worse.

  His stomach twists and he breaths deeply to calm himself. Get yourself under control, he thinks. How did that quote go? ‘Men have to toughen up,’ something like that, get his shit under voluntary control, accept the terrible responsibility of life. That’s what men do: take control, take responsibility. Well, he’s trying. It feels fucking terrible. Looking in the mirror, he certainly doesn’t feel tough. Not dressed like this, with lips painted a light pink, a face heavy with foundation and eyeshes fluttering with mascara.

  “A rose by any other name,” he intones, practicing his voice. “Would smell as sweet.”

  You’ve got this, he repeats and leaves the safety of the loo.

  Bck hard-soled pumps announce his approach to the reception desk at Lockwood and Carmichael. The dark, wood-panelled room reminds him of his sixth form, a smell of wealth and old men. His handbag bounces at his hip, and in his hand a mani folder with his CV. A few quick edits made the necessary changes: Alexander to Bke, Bke to Morgan, M to F and now he’s Bke Morgan, twenty-two and female with a 2-1 from Bristol.

  He walks with tunnel vision, struggles to keep calm. A blonde with long, very straight hair and a bright smile sits behind the heavy marbled desk. She looks up at him. He’d love to ask her out. There’s a bar around the corner. She’s very pretty and professionally dressed in a way that is both feminine and more than a little sexy. Her smile gives no indication of seeing the young man beneath the makeup.

  “I’m here—” and it comes out like a croak, betrays his nervousness. He tries again, pitching it a little higher, a little breathier, as he practiced. “Sorry—for an interview?”

  The blonde looks confused for a second, then her eyes fix on a yellow stickit note stuck to her monitor. She smiles. “Oh yes, Ms. St-Cir said there might be somebody coming by. Please, follow me.”

  He forces himself not to stare as she leads him to the interview room. Her ass rolls enticingly beneath a tight pencil skirt, long ptinum blonde hair swaying to her waist. She brings down a dimly lit hallway to a line of chairs by a nondescript door. “Just you this afternoon,” the girl says.

  “Thanks.” He hesitates, then adds, “Um—any hints?”

  The girl ughs. “Hey, you’ll do fine. Ms. St-Cir is great, her bark is definitely worse than her bite. Just keep smiling, she likes it when we smile.” She gives Alex a once over. “You look great. Love that lipstick, what is it?”

  Alex scrambles to think of an answer. “Uh—” it suddenly comes to him, a name written across the pencil reflected in the mirror, “Nars. Powermatte? Coral pink.”

  She leaves him there, after giving her name: Amber, and wishes him good luck. He sits for five minutes, fidgeting, fighting the urge to check his phone. People walk by, cast a curious eye his way. There’s a few appraising looks, and his skin crawls as one guy about his age openly leers; but otherwise, he's ignored.

  At first, he sits knees apart and then realising he’s manspreading, tries sitting legs crossed, knee to knee. This pinches painfully, so he sits knee to ankle and then thinks it looks unfeminine. Finally, he sits primly with back straight, breasts forward, thighs together, hands hidden between his knees. Then, flustered, he picks up the handbag and rests it on his p. He pulls out the photograph and takes another look at it. Morgan ’98. He sweeps his fingertip across his dad’s face. Missing you, Dad, he thinks, hope you don’t mind I’m using your name.

  “Come in!” A woman’s voice calls from inside the room. Alex tucks the photo away, stands and brushes himself down. Suddenly, he misses his man’s suit, even though he’s always hated wearing it, even the necktie, which he hates even more. He keenly feels the unfamiliar texture of women’s trousers, the clingy fabric of his top and the unnatural weight of artificial curves. His sister’s bra feels too tight, the fake tits heavy and obvious. He’s a man, wearing women’s clothing, and a drag queen’s underwear. Under his makeup, he flushes red and hot with embarrassment. What the fuck am I doing? he thinks. This is insane.

  He can still run away. His fingers curl and uncurl into fists, his palms sweaty, and his nails gleam in the soft light.

  I can’t do this, he thinks.

  His phone buzzes. He checks the text. Good luck! Sophie writes, followed by a bunch of emojis: happy face, trumpet and confetti, kissy face. You’ve got this.

  I’ve got this, he tells himself, and heads into the interview.

  Author's Notes

  Feedback always appreciated! This is a real departure from my usual writing, so would love to hear what people think, whether positive or critical.

  The title of the story comes from the following poem:

  Little mb, who made you?

  Gave you clothing of delight,

  Softest clothing pretty and bright,

  Gave you such a tender voice?

  Little mb who made you

  Do you know who made you?

  (adapted from The Lamb, by William Bke)