Chapter Text
“All by yourself, handsome?” the kid asks, and Izzy knows it’ll be a long hour he’ll spend in here scoping out shit to covertly — “covertly” — try and sneak into his pin-adorned messenger bag. Izzy’s the only employee in this fucking Hot Topic who consistently sniffs him out. That, or the teenagers he works with just don’t care enough to stop him from shoplifting, which also is pretty plausible.
He really thought the kid would stop coming here as frequently now that school has started up, but he’s either older than Izzy took him to be or he’s a truant, because it’s nearing the end of September and he’s still fucking here, week after week, after lunchtime when business is slow. It’s one in the afternoon on a Wednesday and he’s a walking PSA: do you know where your kids are right now?
“Not offering five-finger discounts today,” Izzy says. “Come back when someone stupider is on their shift.”
The kid smiles this who, me? smile, like he hasn’t been siphoning a steady stream of band and anime merch out of here since June. Braces line his teeth, bands alternating lime green and Cheeto-orange. Different from the red and purple ones he had last time, the ones that matched the now-fading streaks in his hair, the strands still frizzy at the ends with bleach. Izzy raises his eyebrows.
“D’you like them? Got them special for Halloween,” the kid says. He’s leaning on the check-out counter, all long, awkward limbs like a baby deer: he’s lithe, and tall, too, with maybe a few inches on Izzy. His cropped Mindless Self Indulgence sweatshirt cuts off at the small of his back, the front dipping to reveal a thin line of stomach, and he’s wearing a pair of ripped black jeans that Izzy can tell came from this very store. How the fuck do you steal a pair of jeans? They’re hung up on the wall, too tall for him to reach — he definitely had to ask an employee for help. They’re practically giving their shit away to him.
Izzy says nothing, and the kid tilts his head back and hums low in his throat because he can now, his eyes flicking from Izzy to the candy bars below the counter back to Izzy. That’s the other thing about him, is that he’s barely a few months on T, at that ambiguous stage where he just sounds like he has a cold all the time. But Izzy can tell how excited it makes him to know that he’s changing, because that’s exactly what it was like for him, too — he’s twenty-five now and he still remembers the day he started hormones, six months after he turned eighteen.
Izzy’s at a point in his own transition where he’s not really stealth, but he’s not advertising it either. If someone asks he’ll be honest, but no one really clocks him so no one asks. He’s watched the kid since he started coming in, keeping track of him to make sure he isn’t stealing, sure, but also to just… see where he’s at. And he gets these little pangs of concern, sometimes, when he glances strangely at the girls’ clothing section, or plays absently with a necklace before attempting to pocket it. He keeps his hair long and has smudgy black eyeliner on every time he comes in. Izzy never would’ve done that, at that age, at that point on HRT. He has to respect it. He has to wonder about it.
But that’s neither here nor there. A shoplifter is a shoplifter is a shoplifter. Izzy’s manager doesn’t let them keep a Hall of Fame, but if he did, this kid’s face would be at the very top of the list, warning everyone else. Izzy’d fucking gibbet him. Him and those stupid braces.
“Do you need any help today?” Izzy asks.
“I think I’ll be good,” he says, and squints at the nametag on Izzy’s shirt, “…Izzy.”
Izzy is going to be on him like a hawk. The kid pushes away from the counter and starts his usual casing of the joint. He starts somewhere different every time — last week, it was the anime figurines; today, it’s the earrings. He takes a pair off the rack and holds them up towards Izzy. They’re beaded, connected with wire, and look DIY but were made in a factory, the beads arranged to look artfully amateurish just like every other pair.
“You could probably make these at home,” he says. “Don’t know why anyone would pay money for these. It’s like, just go to Michael’s.”
Izzy agrees that the earrings are pretty overpriced for what they are, but he wants to laugh right in this kid’s face. He’s taunting Izzy. He smiles again like he isn’t, big and toothy, and the light catches on the brackets of his braces. He puts the earrings back on the rack and when Izzy’s not looking he dips out of Izzy’s sight. Izzy immediately moves from behind the register to follow him. It’s not like there’s anyone else here that he needs to attend to.
But it’s like he vanished into thin fucking air, because Izzy’s looking for a full two minutes before he finds him quietly thumbing through the clearance rack, gazing longingly at a pleated black tennis skirt adorned with chains and buckles and zippers. He doesn’t notice Izzy yet, and opens his bag, trying to work out whether it’d be worth it — he takes it off the rack, then puts it back on, then takes it off, and runs his fingers over the fabric.
“Were you planning on paying for that?” Izzy asks, and the kid jumps. He’s not panicked upon seeing Izzy — if anything, he seems in his element, like he expected this to happen.
“You know I’m a boy,” he says. His voice cracks a little.
“I do,” Izzy says. And, against his better judgement — “I know how you feel, y’know. I went through that myself. The, um. The HRT.”
An expression that Izzy can’t fully identify passes over the kid’s face. “Really,” he says. “You’re trans, too?”
Maybe Izzy’ll actually get through to him. Found his weakness, so he can exploit it. He wants to make an example of him to other shoplifters, sure, but that’s the extent of it. He really doesn’t want to have to call security.
He’d probably be a lot harsher if he wasn’t dealing with a trans kid. It’s common, really. Scared, confused, alone, don’t have anyone to talk to, maybe people giving them shit at school, maybe parents giving them shit at home, so they act out.
“Yeah,” Izzy says.
“You pass really well,” Ed says. His eyes trail eagerly up and down Izzy. Looking for markers, little indicators, now that he knows. Izzy has them, if you know where to look, how to look: stuff that, on its own, doesn’t arouse suspicion, especially after seven years on T, but all together tip off the right people.
“Listen, I know how bad it makes you feel sometimes. I know when I was pre-T, or even for a while after I started it, I still felt shitty about not having a beard or a deep voice. And that’s not even getting into what massive assholes other people can be about it,” he says. “But if you want a support group, they’re available. We’ve got a local LGBT center I’ve been to, it’s not bad. And if you want to talk to me, you can. Just know that it isn’t like this forever.”
The kid grips the skirt in both hands, tight. “Are you really trying to fucking Trevor Project me right now?” he asks.
He doesn't want what he considers bullshit, then. So Izzy won’t bullshit him.
“Listen. I don’t know you very well but I know you’re smarter than this. You don’t have to do stupid shit like shoplifting to get people to pay attention to you,” Izzy says. “You’re lucky I feel bad for you, because one day you’ll pull this around someone who isn’t as nice as I am.”
“You’re right. You don’t know me very well,” the kid says. He’s still looking strangely at Izzy, and Izzy can’t quite get a read on him. “So how do you know it’s for attention?”
“Well,” Izzy says, “sorry to be presumptuous. Christ.”
“No, um. I’m sorry,” the kid says, hasty. “I appreciate it. Good to know that you’re… available.”
Izzy nods.
“I’m Ed,” the kid says.
“Izzy,” Izzy says, even though Ed already knows that.
“I’m gonna try this on,” Ed says, and with a shitty little grin, he adds, “legally.”
He’s searching for something in Izzy’s face — approval, maybe? A safe harbor? Izzy has to wonder what’s going on outside this store, at school(?), at home, although if he’s still a minor(??) and on T —
“You’re not gonna judge me, right? You know I’m, like. A boy?” Ed says again. Izzy tries to calculate how old he might be, if he’s calling himself a “boy,” but again, how early does he have to be on T, since surely that’s a factor, and Ed’s saying, “Izzy?”
“Oh,” Izzy says. “No, no judgement here. Go ahead.”
Ed’s back straightens. “Don’t wait up,” he says, and marches past Izzy towards the dressing rooms. He opens the door and slips inside.
Izzy pretends to busy himself with sorting the shirts on the clearance rack while Ed changes. There are the soft sounds of rustling fabric — when he looks back over, he can make out the rubber soles of Ed’s Docs, him clumsily unlacing them and pulling them off with his jeans.
“Hey,” Ed calls through the door after a few minutes. “Can I have some help?”
“…You need help putting on a skirt?”
“There’s a lot of zippers and straps and stuff. I can’t reach some of the buckles,” Ed says.
Ugh. “Okay. Fine,” Izzy says. “Just, uh.”
He walks over to the door. Takes a deep breath and braces himself by the forearm on the frame. He’s going to regret this.
“Slide me your ID,” Izzy says, and a few seconds later, Ed is passing a driver’s license under the gap of the changing room door. Izzy can tell it’s not a fake as soon as he looks at it. A fake wouldn’t include his fucking deadname, for one.
It turns out he really is over 18. Just recently, according to his ID — his birthday was back in August.
“Okay,” Izzy says. “I’m coming in,” and there’s Ed, jeans in a crumpled pile on the bench of the changing room, with the skirt sliding down his hips even as he tries to keep it up. He’s put his Docs back on and is wearing thigh-highs, striped, black-and-white, the sliver of skin between sock and skirt pudging the tiniest bit over the elastic.
Izzy knows in that moment that he is going to Hell. He’s not sure what for, yet, because he hasn’t even fucking done anything. But just being here has got to be reason enough.
“So, um, I think there’s a few over here?” Ed says, and turns so Izzy can see the buckle flopping around all loose, meant to wrap around his hip, with another below it. Get in, get out. That’s all Izzy needs to do. Get in, get out, Izzy repeats it like a mantra as he drops to one knee onto the dressing room carpet. He works as quickly as he can — there are three in total, the two Ed pointed to plus another one he didn’t catch lower towards the hem.
“I don’t, like, have a ton of dysphoria about wearing makeup and stuff. I just like it. And skirts,” Ed says. Izzy loops a strap through a buckle. Get in. “Do you think this one suits me?”
Izzy’s half-listening, working on angling his face so he doesn’t look up Ed’s skirt. He turns at the wrong moment and gets a flash of more stripes, this time pale blue and white, outlining Ed’s plump little cunt. He can practically hear getoutgetoutgetout repeating like an alarm in his head, and he faces away again so he’s just tightening the buckle by feel. “Uh,” Izzy says, “it’s — a nice skirt, I guess.”
Ed squirms, brushing Izzy’s wrist against his thigh, and Izzy pulls away. He got in, maybe too in, and now he’s getting as out as he possibly can.
“Is something wrong?” Ed asks. “Did I do something?”
“No, no, absolutely not,” Izzy says. He gets back to work.
It continues without issue with the next buckle, and he’s locating the last one when Ed says above him, “um, Izzy? Can I ask a question about trans stuff?”
“Mm?”
“Have you had… like… top surgery?” Ed asks, saying the words “top surgery” as if to test out and learn the sound of them, as if to practice a greeting in a foreign language.
“Yeah,” Izzy says, and tries to ignore how close Ed’s bony hip is to his mouth as he slips the skirt’s last strap through its respective buckle. He stands up. Tries to concentrate on Ed’s face, rather than his waist, where the fat has yet to redistribute and still has a distinct curve to it; his legs, with those stupid thigh-highs. “Been a few years, but. What do you want to know?”
“I’m just not sure where to start looking into it for myself, I guess. There’s just so many different methods, and I don’t really know what’s right for me,” Ed says. Without warning, then, he’s pushing up his sweatshirt, and with it his sports bra, and shows Izzy his A-cup chest — “d’you think I’d be a good candidate for keyhole?”
“Uh,” Izzy says. He’s completely frozen, jaw slack, hands at his sides, and he’s yelling at himself inside his brain to stop fucking looking at Ed’s tits but his eyes aren’t moving. Ed looks at him innocently, like this isn’t completely inappropriate to say and do.
“Oh, also,” Ed says, his mouth moving in the corner of Izzy’s peripheral vision, “if I want nipple piercings, do you think I could get them now, or should I wait until post-top?”
“You’d have to stop binding,” Izzy says weakly, and puts his hand to the doorknob. Ed makes a small sound of protest.
“Izzy, wait,” Ed says, and pulls his sweatshirt back down. The bra remains pushed up, the fabric bunching by his collarbone, and the thin sweatshirt traces the soft lines of his chest. No t-shirt underneath; no, that'd be too easy, just an extra layer through which Izzy could resist him. “I just — there’s not a lot of trans adults I know, and it’s hard to find someone I can trust with questions about this stuff. And since you’ve been through all of this before I figured you could give me, like, actually practical advice.”
At least Izzy can console himself with the fact that none of this is illegal.
Izzy looks at a spot on the wall right above Ed, enough in his direction that he can actually have a conversation but not so much that he’s face-to-tits anymore. “You could probably do keyhole. I think. I did double incision and that wasn’t really a debate for me in the first place so I’m not the best person to ask, so — um — just talk to your doctor.”
“Okay!” Ed says, chipper. “Can I ask some more questions about T? I’ve never really gotten the chance to talk to someone who’s gone through it already.”
Izzy squeezes his eyes shut. “Do your worst,” he says.
“Well, when I started T, I knew it’d up my sex drive,” Ed says, “but I’m just so horny. I’m always thinking about it. And I need it all the time. I have to get myself off, like, three times a day. How long does that last? When does it go away?”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Izzy says. He should not have told Ed to do his worst. Ed’s worst is currently making Izzy’s dick dangerously interested. “You shouldn’t — I don’t think this is appropriate. I think these are questions for your doctor.”
“Oh,” Ed replies. He sounds disappointed. “The lady at Planned Parenthood — I mean, she was nice, but she was a lady, you know? She was, y’know, cis, so she didn’t know how it felt, and what it was like to actually be going through all the hormone stuff. So I just thought…”
“Thought what?” Izzy says. “Ed, I’m a stranger.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Ed asks. “You’ve gone through all the medical transition stuff before, and I just want to know about it so I’m prepared. I trust you. Should I not?”
Izzy wants to grab Ed by the shoulders and tell him that he shouldn’t trust anyone right off the bat like this. Not only is it a solid piece of advice, it’s the right thing to do. Izzy’d be the first to admit he isn’t the most morally upstanding person, but he has at least enough sense to know not to take advantage of a fucking struggling trans youth.
But if the struggling trans youth is making the first move —
If the struggling trans youth is telling Izzy how often he touches himself and showing Izzy his tits and seems willing to let this escalate to however far Izzy will allow it —
Izzy wants to tell Ed the truth. He really does. But instead he says, “no, it’s okay, you can trust me.”
It’s better that Ed go to Izzy, really. There are some sick people out there. Ones who don’t have the self-discipline that Izzy has. Who at the very least wouldn’t go at Ed’s pace, let him decide how far he wants to go at the speed he wants to go at.
Ed smiles. His nose crinkles. Izzy hates himself.
“The libido spike isn’t forever,” Izzy says. “I know you’re eighteen and will be heading into your twenties. But think of yourself as being in the same place, developmentally, as a teenage boy,” a remark that usually he wouldn’t think twice about but now makes Izzy feel like a fucking creep. He hopes the security guard who saw him go into Ed’s changing room on the surveillance cam is asleep.
“I guess it’s good I’m on hormones now that I'm an adult, then. Teenage boys are so immature and clueless, I'd hate to be stuck with just them to take out all this energy on. Plus, I like older guys anyway,” Ed says with a wink, and Izzy gets the sense that legality has never been a factor in whether Ed fucks older men or not. Ed’s taller than Izzy but somehow always manages to come off as if he’s looking up at him. “Thank you, by the way. For this. For just… giving me reassurance. That the parts that are harder to manage aren’t forever.”
“Yeah, of course,” Izzy says. “Is — is that it? Or do you have anything more?”
Ed laughs. “D’you want there to be more? You some kind of perv?”
Izzy isn’t even going to justify that with a response, not even inside his own head, because he already knows what it’d be. “If you’re going to be asking questions, you might as well ask them all,” he says. “Get it out of your system.”
“Hmmm,” Ed says. And then: “what about bottom growth?”
“…What about bottom growth?”
“How big does it get?” Ed asks.
Izzy has to be very careful about how he answers this. Ed keeps sending him into a trans mentorship minefield because it’s not enough to steal from Izzy’s store, he has to psychologically torment him, too. “I’m not sure I can answer that for anyone but myself,” he says.
“So answer for yourself,” Ed says.
If Izzy even had anything to say at this, the words have gotten caught in his throat. He evidently takes too long to answer, because after too many seconds without him saying anything, Ed drops to his knees in front of Izzy.
“You could just show me,” he says. His hands come to rest on Izzy’s thighs.
It’s on Izzy to say no. They’re both adults here, in the most technical of senses, but Ed is far from a grown man. He's barely out of high school, for God’s sake. Whatever Ed does now, Izzy is responsible for. And anything Izzy doesn’t resist, anything he lets Ed do, is his to own up to.
But he doesn’t say anything as Ed’s hands move to his fly and pop open the button on his jeans. Ed moves slowly, like he’s waiting for Izzy’s approval every step of the way, and Izzy tacitly gives him that approval with his silence. Ed unzips Izzy’s jeans and tugs them down with his boxers, exposing his dick.
“Oh,” Ed says, softly. A smile breaks out on his face, starting small and then widening. “Wow.”
Izzy doesn’t move. Anything he does now says too much. Ed places his fingertips on Izzy’s outer labia, moves the hair out of the way to further allow his cock to jut out, red and full with arousal, and Izzy’s breath hitches in response.
Ed’s eyes light up. “It gets hard and everything!” he says. “That’s so cool!”
“Oh my God,” Izzy says.
Ed’s still examining it like a scientist who has just discovered a new species. “It’s so… big,” he says, almost in disbelief. Then, looking up at Izzy with those dark doe eyes, asks, “is mine gonna look like that, too?”
Izzy covers his face. Maybe when he lowers his hands, Ed’ll be gone. This’ll all be a dream. He’ll wake up, alone, in his bed, his boxers damp, but at the very least he won’t have to grapple with the ethical dilemma and a half of whatever the fuck this is. “Uh,” he says. “I don’t know. Yeah, maybe.”
“Don’t worry,” Ed says. His breath is hot on Izzy’s dick; he can feel the warmth of Ed’s skin where his face hovers inches away from Izzy’s hips. “I know it’s different for everyone. That’s what Planned Parenthood told me.”
And before Izzy can say please don’t bring up Planned Parenthood when you're about to go down on me, Ed gives Izzy’s dick an experimental poke with his tongue, and Izzy’s hips buck forward with the unexpected sensation.
“Oh!” Ed says. “Should I do more of that?”
“Fuck,” Izzy says. There is no way this kid hasn’t sucked a dick. Right? He’s too… Izzy doesn’t even know how to say it, he knows too much, he’s too in control of himself.
Ed’s tongue presses flat against the underside of Izzy’s dick and licks, once, twice, and something hard flicks at the head of his cock. Izzy groans and Ed does it again, and Izzy registers the shape of it more now that he can expect it, a round barbell in the middle of his tongue.
“Do you have a tongue piercing?” Izzy asks.
“Yeah,” Ed says. “Do you like it?”
Does Izzy like it. Does he fucking like it? Ed’s got a secret weapon in his mouth to torture Izzy’s dick like it owes him money and he wants to know if Izzy likes it.
“I think you do,” Ed says, going back in without warning. Izzy shudders when the barbell makes contact with his dick, and another low noise escapes his mouth.
Before Ed goes any further, he pulls away and settles back on his heels. He roots around in his mouth with a finger and Izzy hears a soft snap, and realizes he’s pulling out his braces’ elastics. He can see another glint of the light closer to the center of his mouth that he knows now is the piercing.
“Jush hahha tahe hese ouh,” Ed says, his finger looping around the second rubber band and placing it with the first one in his palm. He puts them both in his jeans pocket. “Sorry. Just had to take those out.”
His dick twitches. This should not be turning Izzy on. None of this should be turning Izzy on, obviously, but Ed removing his fucking rubber bands before sucking his dick being what does it for him is truly rock bottom.
“Don’t worry,” he says, to reassure Izzy, he isn’t sure of what, “I’ve got a thousand of them. It’s no big deal.”
“Great,” Izzy says, because there’s nothing else for him to really say, and then Ed is on him again. Izzy’s head falls back, and the pain from thunking against the door is muted by the feeling of Ed’s lips drawing him in like a suction cup. His hands fly to Ed’s head, with his fingers tangling themselves in that thick hair. He doesn’t pull, just rests his hands there, which Ed seems to like based on the way his mouth closes around Izzy even tighter and his throat vibrates with a moan.
He’s a fast learner, Ed. He knows to let up at the right moments, and when he pulls away he lets spit burble on his lips to ease the path of his tongue. It’s like Ed can sense he’s about to cum because he pulls off entirely, a trail of saliva and what little slick Izzy’s generated connecting him to the head of Izzy’s cock, just when Izzy’s starting to get close.
He lets out a little huff of a laugh, his shining mouth slightly parted. “It’s, like, throbbing,” he says. He sounds like he’s in disbelief. He seems to be genuinely delighted. “I thought only cis guys’ dicks did that.”
Okay. So that confirms it. He has sucked a dick. Possibly more than one. Not like Izzy is going to think about that for the rest of his life — not that Ed’s not doing a fine job down there but the thought of him struggling to take a cock six or even seven inches long, spit bubbling on the sides of his mouth, his throat rippling around it, sends a new shock of arousal through him in a way that makes him feel kind of evil. Not as evil as the creeps who undoubtedly pressured him into doing that in the first place, took advantage of his youth, of what naivety he must’ve had at that point.
He isn’t naive. Anyone this self-assured has seen some shit. He shoplifts. He fucks around with older men, if the way he’s behaved with Izzy is any indication. He has a piercing — do his parents know about it? But there’s a strange sort of innocence to him. He’s a kid, plain and simple. He’s got badly-bleached streaks in his hair that he probably did with a friend, or even alone; he’s all giddy over getting to make decisions for himself, go on T, like a grown-up. He’s anxious for someone, anyone, to pay attention to him. And he’s learned how to get that attention one way or another.
“Does your cum change?” Ed asks. “Like, mine is clear and really liquidy right now. Does it change texture or taste or anything?”
“Fucking shit, Ed, you can’t just ask that,” Izzy says. And now all he can think about is Ed tasting himself. If you’re jacking off three times a day, though, what else are you going to do?
“Oh, I’m stupid. Duh. I can just compare,” Ed says, and dives back onto Izzy’s dick with the clear intent to get him off, and Izzy — or rather, Izzy’s body — is not about to deny either of them that pleasure. Izzy feels his dick pulse in Ed’s mouth, and his mind goes blank with the distant feeling of Ed sucking him through it, one of Ed’s palms flat on Izzy’s lower stomach and tangled in his pubes, the other hand grasping his hip.
Ed traces his fingers through Izzy’s slit and gathers some of his cum. He pokes out the tip of his tongue and prods at it. “Hm,” he says. Keeping the hand held up, he uses the other to grab onto Izzy and guide himself back to standing. Izzy helps him up and Ed sits on the bench.
What Izzy hadn’t noticed is that while Ed was sucking his dick, he seemed to have removed his underwear: he’s leaning back on the bench, lifting the skirt up so Izzy can see way too much. Or maybe exactly enough — this is what Ed wants him to see, nothing more, nothing less. The hem of the skirt and the socks frame his slit like it's a centerpiece, with his clit a hard, slick little nub right above it.
“Do you think my bottom growth looks good so far? I know it’s only been a couple months, but I swear I can feel it changing,” Ed says. “Is that normal? Like — I can feel it in my pussy.”
Izzy nearly chokes on his own spit. He saves it at the last moment, just makes a sort of strangled noise from the back of his throat.
“Is it weird? That I like calling it my pussy?” Ed asks. He tilts his head like he doesn’t know what he’s doing to Izzy. His clean hand is trailing down his body, with two fingers coming to rest on either side of his clit, rubbing gently at it through the hood. “I know it’s something that gives a lot of guys dysphoria.”
“Everyone uses different words for themselves,” Izzy says. “Whatever makes you comfortable.”
“What do you like to use?” Ed asks. “Do you like it when I call it your cock?”
Izzy inhales sharply. Ed’s hand speeds up and he sneaks his middle finger into his — well, Izzy’s just respecting the language that Ed wants to use, he starts fingering his pussy, letting out a little squeak with the insertion. He grinds the heel of his hand down onto his clit. “I think you do,” Ed says. “I really liked it. Sucking your cock.”
“Thanks,” Izzy says, strained. He doesn’t know what else is appropriate to say in this moment.
Ed gets off remarkably quickly for someone only using one hand and balancing on a shitty built-in dressing room bench, his whole body going tense and a whine tearing out of his mouth. Izzy could probably go again just from seeing the orgasm reverberate through Ed, him fighting to keep his thighs open, his cunt dribbling onto the heel of his Doc Marten where he’s got his leg crossed under him.
He rubs his fingers through the mess he’s made and holds it up to the weak light of the dressing room, spreading them so he can gauge the texture compared to Izzy’s. Slowly, putting on a show, he licks off the fingers covered with Izzy’s cum, and then his own.
“It’s different,” is his final verdict. “That’s so interesting. I should keep an eye on that.”
Ed wipes off both hands on his sweatshirt, then roots around in his jeans pocket. He finds a permanent marker, and, before Izzy can say anything, he grabs Izzy’s arm and scrawls out a phone number on its underside.
“This has been, like, so helpful,” he says, pulling his underwear back up and his bra back down under his sweatshirt. “I’m so grateful that I have someone to talk to now. You’ll text me, right, Izzy? So we can keep in touch? ‘Cause I have so much to process about my transition, and it’s just super inspiring to see older trans people like you and just know that I have a future, too.”
Izzy nods, dazed. He’s not even that old. Ed’s acting like he’s got one foot in the grave when Izzy doesn’t even have a decade on him.
“Maybe you can… I dunno. Teach me to shave sometime?” Ed asks, almost shy as he gathers up his jeans. When he bends over to pick them up off the bench, Izzy can see the growing wet spot on his underwear, coloring the stripes a darker shade of blue. Ed continues talking to him, looking at Izzy over his shoulder while stuffing them into his messenger bag. “My dad isn’t really around, so now that I’m starting to grow facial hair I don’t have anyone to walk me through that stuff.”
“Sure,” Izzy says, “yeah. Okay.”
“Awesome,” Ed says. “I’ll be counting on you to text me, then,” and with that, he walks right past Izzy out of the dressing room. Izzy can only stumble out behind him and watch. It only dawns on him now, as Ed flounces out of the store in his new skirt, that Ed didn’t even pay for it.