November 3rd, 2024.
The perfect life for Grayson would be one where she didn't have to do anything. Not a thing. Just laying in the same spot in the dirt all day and collecting sunlight like a flower was the kind of life she was cut out for. What was she doing instead? Looking over some old ass books, all written in a language she couldn't even begin to comprehend. And all in the name of figuring on whatever fucked up fetish nightmare was going on. Grayson was all for finding a way to stop this Bimbo thing, but even just figuring out what was happening seemed like an impossible task.
She'd probably bring these books in to the nerds at Sam's university tomorrow, Grayson couldn't make heads or tails of what she was looking at. Well, some of it she understood. Mainly the roughly sketched drawings of tits and vaginal sex. See, why couldn't the whole book just be like that?
Grayson was currently looking through the books while laid out on the bed in her mother's guest room. It was at the end of the hall in the apartment above the bakery, where her mother now lived. Grayson had...not exactly patched things up with Jill, but she'd offered Grayson to stay for a day or two and they could maybe spend some time together. It was a nice gesture, and both were comfortable just doing that without talking about the weird tension between them. Maybe it'd just blow over, at least until the next time they'd inevitably blow up at each other again.
Jill wasn't particularly conservative, but Grayson had always been able to feel how disappointed she was in having a daughter that was barely a daughter, gender-wise. Like Grayson should've been wearing pink and marrying a man and be in touch with her emotions or whatever. And well, all that expectation just made Grayson wanna do the opposite. If she was going to disappoint her mother, at least she would let her down on her own terms instead of never being a good enough daughter.
But was it on her own terms? Like, she was never going to be totally feminine, but how could anyone else define for her what did and didn't make her feel feminine? If she wore a dress or makeup and it made her feel like Grayson more than it made her feel like a girl, who were they to tell her otherwise?
Grayson then pushed all those thoughts away, as she always did. She didn't want to be a girl, and all that feminine stuff was emblematic of that. For sure. It disgusted her, cute clothes and makeup and jewelry. All that stuff was vapid and shallow. At least, that was the impression they always gave you of that sort of thing. Grayson was into things that totally were never vapid or shallow, like smoking weed and playing video games.
Hmm. In any case, Grayson still had stuff to do, even after going off to another city on a scavenger hunt for Sam. It was her day off, but she still had to go back to the record store to pick up some stuff among what she'd ordered for the shop. So the dirty-blonde was off to the mall, putting the books back in her bag. Grayson reckoned these books were important, and in any case she didn't want Jill coming upon them and wondering why her daughter had The Kama Sutra For Pilgrims on her bed.
Grayson practically skipped into the record store with glee, excited to get her new albums, before she quickly coughed and went into a normal walk as soon as one of the other employees saw her. Jack, Vic's brother, was clearly trying not to laugh as he organized records.
"You saw nothing." Grayson said. Jack rolled his eyes.
"Sure, sure. Anyway, here's your records." He said as he slid them toward her, lp's and a few tapes. Grayson grinned and took them into her hands. Trip Hop, EDM, Plunderphonics, and some Drum & Bass. All good stuff that Grayson genuinely really enjoyed, but she had to admit that she was kind of curating what she saw as her 'aesthetic'. Someone would listen to it and go "yeah, this sounds like Grayson".
"You know, this is all great shit, but considering that you're working here, maybe you should try expanding a bit." Jack said, smiling as he knew this would annoy her.
"I've forgotten more music than you'll ever listen to in your life, fuckface. Enlighten me on what I could possibly be missing out on?" She bantered. Jack grinned and pulled out a tape.
"Sasha Grace. She's this new pop artist everyone's talking about, mostly just singles and ep's so far. She just got signed to a major label, though. Probably gonna blow up real soon." He said. A chance for Grayson to know an artist before they got popular? She could already imagine the potential future bragging rights.
"What genre?" Grayson leaned in.
"Pop." He said. Grayson gulped.
"...Indie-pop?"
"No."
"Folk-pop?"
"No."
"Hyperpop, right?" She asked.
"No."
"Chamber-pop? Baroque-pop? Art-pop? City-pop?"
"No, just pop. More kind of dance music type shit, the kind of stuff white girls twerk to in clubs. Your favorite." Jack laughed. Grayson groaned.
"Not interested." She said.
"Come on, give it a try! You can't be the big music nerd you are and shut out entire genres like that. People aren't gonna think you're worth your salt as a music expert if you don't know anything about some of the best shit coming out right now." He said. He was definitely trying to push her buttons.
"Fine, fine, I'll give it a listen." Maybe it was at least good dance music. Grayson sighed and put the tape in her bag, right on top of the weird sex books. She blinked, for a brief second she thought she saw a pink flash of light in the corner of her vision. Weird.
Grayson was then off, pushing Jack being annoying as usual out of her mind as she strode away. As she did so, the young music enthusiast couldn't get this idea of girly stuff out of her mind. The pop music, everything. That shit didn't matter to her at all, but then why did it bug her so much? Why did she feel a weird kind of shame and excitement at the prospect of listening to girly pop music, and when Tessa called her pretty? And why was she stopping now to look at some stupid dress through the window of a clothing store?
Grayson's eyes widened as she came upon the dress. All dainty and frilly; it was white but mixed in tastefully with soft pinks and violets. It looked like the exact opposite of something she'd ever be caught dead wearing. And something about that made her heart flutter. It was so unlike Grayson, so unlike everything she tried to project about herself to others.
She would never buy this thing, let alone wear it, but she wanted to get a closer look. She could at least admire it, while recognizing that it wasn't something she'd look good in. Right? But how could she know without putting it on?Grayson took a deep breath and entered the store. Her eyes rolled as she looked over all the women spending loads of cash just for stupid bra and tops.
She felt embarrassed just being seen in here, she didn't want anyone to get the wrong idea. She was just curious. She didn't even know why she'd had all this on her mind. Was it because the craziness with the Bimbos had awoken something inside of her. Grayson's eyes widened in silent wonder at all of the cute patterns and soft fabrics.
"Grayson?" Her entire body went stiff as a board, eyes darting to her right immediately as that voice startled her. Fuck, it was Aurora and her friend. Thankfully, Sam wasn't there, but she couldn't trust that Aurora wouldn't tell. Immediately, the red-faced Grayson covered her head and ducked away as fast as she could, hoping to God they didn't get a good enough look at the girl to confirm it was her. She was beyond mortified, Sam totally would get the wrong idea if she knew Grayson was here. Right? Would she care? Making fun of a friend for looking at cute dresses was more something Grayson would do, but still.
As she ran away, the blonde music nerd then came upon it. The dress. In this area of the store were several women including a not insignificant population of Bimbos. Grayson wasn't so judgmental of the fucking, she was honestly kind of jealous, but it was intimidating being among them. Like she might contract it. She kind of felt bad for them, they had no idea how this had been forced upon them. Well, maybe. Maybe they were accepting whatever this was into them, even if they didn't remember it?
In any case, what mostly disturbed Grayson was the girlishness of it all. All the makeup and slutty clothes and high heels, it was just too much. She felt like she was back in Highschool, surrounded by popular girls with their fancy name brand clothes, who would make fun of her and Sam for being tomboy-adjacent. Except the Bimbos were a lot nicer than that, it seemed. She'd actually not once met a Bimbo that wasn't all sunshine and friendly. It would be kinda creepy if it didn't feel so genuine.
It was so stupid, she didn't know why she was obsessed with this or why she came in here. All that girly shit was vapid and stupid, there were more important things in the world than looks, people put way too much pressure and weight on it. Maybe she could put it on just so that she would know for certain that she would hate wearing a dress. That she wouldn't look good in one. Grayson felt tempted to use the changing room, but she didn't dare risk running into Aurora again. It was entirely possible that Sam was with her too, she might've just been in another aisle.
Grayson could just buy the dress and then return it tomorrow. Yeah, smart. Then she'd wear it and know for certain that she didn't like wearing it, then all this bullshit would stop bothering her. So she brought the dress to the counter, blushing something fierce and looking to the floor in shame until she was able to get out of there. She hastily stuffed the dress into her bag and practically ran out of the store.
Grayson collapsed onto her bed in the guest room, thoroughly pooped from her little adventures today. She kicked off her shoes, then her jeans, and then her sweatshirt so she was now only in socks, shorts, and a t-shirt. Ahhh, better. Grayson opened her bag back up, pulling out the records and tapes, books, and...the dress.
Then she turned to the mirror, holding the dress against her body as she mulled over whether she wanted to do this. She had butterflies in her stomach. Whatever, she had no reason to be nervous about this. She would put on the dress, see that it didn't look or feel like 'Grayson' at all, and then promptly stuff it back into her bag.
But she had to do it right, if this was to be a proper test. Grayson grabbed a brush and went to work on her normally wild mane of shaggy hair. Then some makeup. She normally only put on enough to hide the lines and bags on her face, you know, like male actors did in movies. But this time, Grayson was following a makeup tutorial she looked up on Youtube to actually look...pretty. The girl was admittedly pretty hot, which made Grayson feel better about this. But there was no way she'd look as pretty as her.
Then came on the dress. Grayson breathed deeply, trembling as she turned toward the mirror again to get the full effect. She looked...
A small whimpering sound came from Grayson's mouth. Nope, nope, nope. She felt a deep heat of...something, begin to rise within her and make her cheeks feel all hot and itchy. She realized she'd felt a hint of pride, followed by an intense feeling of embarrassment. She couldn't believe what she was doing, dressing like some vapid doll. Grayson promptly pulled the dress off and...set it on a chair next to the bed. For now. She then undid her face and washed it, breathing a sigh of relief as all of the makeup went off.