AnnouncementContent Warnings:
SpoilerDysphoria, Clocking, Spoilers for the film Sing Street
[colpse]2019 September 14Saturday
“Wow, it’s just like I remembered, except it looks nicer of course.”
While it was still original hardware, with some light modding and secondary device, the Spectrum looked clear and crisp on Gil’s modern monitor. Even if he wasn’t as much into the computer itself anymore, he did quite love this whole setup.
“Oh, so you’ve actually used one before?”
“Yes,” Pippa said as she ran her fingers across the keyboard, “when I was young my mum… she’d bring it out of the attic sometimes to show us her old homework and games. She even taught us how to program it to ask your name. But that was a while ago now, don’t know if she got rid of it since.”
Gil suddenly got a fshback to Lena’s comment about Dorley girls and trauma. This didn’t discourage him from wanting to know more about her, mind you, but maybe he could slow down. Just a bit.
“What I always found fascinating,” Pippa continued, “is how you can so easily control every part of it yourself. It’s not locked down or grandma-proof or anything like that. Here’s the computer, do whatever you want with it, it’s yours to use as you wish. Unlike my friend Christine, I’m rubbish with modern computers and I doubt I’m better with this one either, but at least it can be whatever I feel it should be.”
“No imposition, no expectation.”
“Exactly!”
Gosh that made Gil want to really get into messing with this thing again, perhaps now with the help of the servers he’s joined. For now though…
“Would you like to py a game Ms. Pippa?”
“I would love to Mr. Gil. Ha, Mr Gil, sounds like a cartoon fish. Regardless, do you have some cassettes?”
“Yes I do,” said Gil as he started clicking around his modern PC on the second monitor. “But I’ll admit, even if you have a raw, open device which allows you total freedom, the internet can still prove to be rather useful.”
“You make a good point Gil,” said Pippa before loading Treasure Isnd Dizzy. A tone rang, and the screen went from boring grey to a pulsating rainbow.
***
“So those two definitely drowned didn’t they?”
“No doubt, their bodies washed up on a Scottish beach two weeks ter.”
“Other than accidental child death, that was pretty fun, I enjoyed it.”
Gil and Pippa had been lounging in the house’s neglected living room, the former now getting up to retrieve the blu-ray.
“Happy you liked it, this is easily one of my favourite movies of all time.”
“No way, you’re kidding? This is like, totally unexpected for you,” Pippa answered with mock disbelief. She was curled up in one corner of the couch, wearing a rather more rexed fit than her usual business dy attire.
“I know right? How odd is it for me to enjoy a movie about a teenage Irish twink starting a rad 80s band to impress someone he’s attracted to? It’s completely outside of my realm of experience.”
“Wait, pause the sarcasm, you’re Irish?”
“That part, no I don’t rete to, for you see, I’m even worse. I’m French,” Gil replied.
“Seriously? I’ll tell you what, you’re full of surprises Gil Novak.”
Gil chuckled, “To say I am proper French would be an exaggeration, My mother is French Canadian.”
“I don’t actually know how those differ from proper French people now that I think about it.”
“Oh, they’re to the proper French what Americans are to us, but more lovable,” Gil continued, “My dad is a transit engineer, and for 10 years he worked In Canada, splitting his time between Toronto and Montréal. He met my mum in the tter city, and a suspiciously little amount of time ter, I was born. I was raised in Toronto until I was 5, then my dad got a gig being a prof at the university back in Manchester. This was his dream come true, so he convinced my mum to go back to Engnd with him, even though she already didn’t like Toronto and only agreed to marry him for citizenship. The predictable happened, they divorced less than three years ter, and I stayed here with Dad.”
“So do you still keep in touch with her?” Pippa asked, now sitting up.
“Yes, of course, I’ve visited her and my mamie in Québec City nearly every summer since, which for one means I don’t have to deal with the snow. She’s also a cultural coordinator so I got to see a lot of concerts throughout the years. She’s been in a throuple with a man and a woman for ten years now I believe? They have a daughter together, she’s sweet. Haven’t seen them since I started uni due to scheduling and money and the like.”
“Your mum sounds like quite the character,” Pippa said, smiling.
“Very much so. I’m not as close to her as I am to my dad, but I still think we operate on this emotional wavelength that makes up for it. She’s a wonderful dy, among so many things she was instrumental in helping me sort out my feelings when I realised I had acute bisexuality.”
“I can rete, that special connection really is unparalleled.”
Gil hoped that this implicit statement of her own queerness would lead to her finally opening up more, but it was for nought.
“Does this mean you speak French?”
Gil’s smile turned wry. “Yes, I can speak French, but it’s not exactly the sexy kind of French, especially now that I’m rusty.”
“I’ll need proof of that.”
“Calisse j’aimerais ?a que tu parles plus de toi pour que je n’ai pas besoin de t'espionner ostie.”
Pippa’s expression didn’t change. “You’re right that is… something.”
“In all fairness what I said wasn’t very romantic, but I think you get the gist.”
“Thank you regardless Gil, you’re a really interesting guy.”
There was an awkward pause, which Gil broke with equal awkwardness.
“So, were your friends only coming here to meet up before the show, or did they intend on arriving earlier to hang out with us?”
“I think Paige and Jodie are coming right before, you said around 16:00 right?”
“Yes.”
Another awkward pause.
“In the meanwhile,” Gil tentatively proposed, “we should get ready ourselves.”
“Right, it's the 80s so I’ll have to dump a hundred quid of makeup on myself?”
Gil swallowed. Here goes.
“I’ll let you use anything you’d like in my kit - As long as you tell me about your friends.”
Pippa quizzically tilted her head.
“Are you bckmailing me Gil?”
“Maybe just a bit,” Gil said, the question cutting into his very being, “knowing more about Paige and Jodie before I meet them would be nice.”
Pippa’s sustained positivity somehow felt more dreadful than if she’d straight-up rejected him.
“Fine, but you’re not going to get my whole life story if that’s your end goal.”
“Not at all, I merely thought if I am going to meet your friends, we might as well have something to talk about, not to repeat the awkwardness from st tuesday.”
“That’s very reasonable, I don’t think I’d let any guy other than you get away with that.”
Of course, Gil already knew who Paige and Jodie were, he’d even lurked on the former’s IG account and the tter’s streams. For his own conscience though, he needed to learn it legitimately in person. It would help keep his secret tight.
***
“Not that I have a wealth of experience, but you have the most bountiful and organised bathroom I’ve ever seen from a single man.”
It was unlikely she was lying; every square inch of avaible surface was filled with some kind of skin product or makeup, with some extra lighting and mirrors for good measure. That wasn’t counting the case in the corner that likely contained some more.
Gil ughed. “Well I should probably be disqualified since I’m one of the girlies and all. Colin’s hygiene and self-care routine are exactly what you’d expect of him, so I essentially have free run of this pce.”
“I’m genuinely surprised he doesn’t burst into fmes at the sight of all of this.”
“Sometimes it can be rather impressive how much the brain can bnk if it isn’t tuned to the right frequency,” Gil said with a small pause. “As stated, you may do as you please with all of it.”
“Thanks, Gil.” Pippa said as she began picking and choosing from the collection. “So in return you wanted me to gossip about my friends while we get ready?”
“Now gossip is such a dirty word,” Gil stated with a mock-theatrical affectation, “reying information about their going ons and your own personal connections with them is rather more à propos what I seek from you my dear.”
“Do you do drag?”
“Doing my makeup switches on my queen mode, what can I say -” Gil reverted to his normal voice as he dabbed orange on his jaw. “I’ll admit I have flirted with this line many times, the 80s and all of that, but tonight will actually be my first proper gig fully crossdressed.”
Pippa turned to him with a twinkle in her eye. Gil continued.
“I want to moderate your expectations, I don’t have a drag name or persona or the like, this isn’t really something I’m interested in doing, but I got this lovely dress ages ago, and I finally convinced myself and stupid nerves to give it the attention it deserves.”
“I’m sure it’ll look gorgeous on you Gil, though I am a bit surprised you’ve never worn a dress before.”
“I don’t know, I never mustered the energy to go there I guess, never felt it was right.” Gil took a breath. “I believe I should thank you then, for at least partially inspiring me to try this tonight.”
“Really? I hope you’re not about to wear something like my weekday ensembles,” Pippa replied deep into doing her foundation.
“No not at all, lovely as those outfits are. It’s hard to pin down actually, but I feel like spending time with you, short as it's been so far, has made me perceive myself in some new ways. I like it, it’s novel.” Gil expined as he was working on his concealer.
“Interesting.”
Pippa finished her preliminary yers first, as though Gil had shaved earlier today, he still did extra work to keep the stubble at minimum visibility. Electrolysis had been brought up a few times in the server so far, and unlike the surgery, Gil was not only interested, he considered getting it himself. It’s not like he’d ever wanted a beard, yet here he was wasting shaving products and extra makeup to conceal its traces. The way the girls talked about it only reinforced his previous justifications; the retively short excruciating pain was worth being free of this annoyance for life. It would be like a vasectomy, but for his face. Maybe when he was closer to Pippa and she openly came out to him he could ask her where she got hers done. Every Dorley trans girl seemed to be in the process or to have gone through with it previously, so they had to know a damn cheap pce. Cheap everything reted to gender-affirming care now that he thought about it.
Gil was rambling as the two were in the thick of thick eye shadow; something about a feud between Alice and her former roommate, which had been triggered by an ismophobic IG story or something. Pippa’s flow state was mostly muting out the drama, but after some time had passed she decided to interject.
“Do you like all of this drama nonsense?”
Gil did not flinch; he was currently going for a deep red on bck.
“Of course, comes with being one of the girls and all that. At least that’s how it’s always been, and it’s fun, something new to talk about every day.”
“So are all your friends like that?” Pippa gently asked.
“Not all, even in my friend group Alice is by far the biggest magnet for this sort of thing. Some of them are more chill, and I also have some guy friends who have different things going on among them. I will restate that being with you is quite a bit different than my usual, and that’s a good thing. Variety is the spice of life and god bless, the whole lot of us on this isnd need some supplements”
“Is that why you wanted to meet my friends?” Pippa answered with a giggle “To see if there are other “different” girls like me?”
“…Yes. I’m sorry I’ve been a bit forceful about it. I’m fine getting to know them organically, for ck of a better term.” Gil expined.
“Actually,” Pippa said, turning to Gil, “since you’ve been so kind and accommodating, I can fulfill my side of the deal.”
Gil’s embarrassed blush showed through the one he’d just painted on. A deal. He’d made a fucking deal with her. What was wrong with him?
“Oh, did that come off wrong? I’m sorry if it did,” Pippa said, holding his shoulder.
Gil winced to himself. He’d done it. He’d tried to get close to her and he’d been an absolute prick and now she would push him away and he’d never get to follow through and -
He took a deep breath. He focused on his words as he spoke.
“Sorry, I noticed you weren’t actually talking about your friends, and I’d accepted that. Being reminded of my stupid deal thing made me feel terrible, and then a million other things at once and - anyways. It’s my fault I pushed you to reveal personal information you weren’t comfortable sharing, Please don’t think I’m entitled to this, you alone can set your boundaries.”
God Gil cursed himself for being so bloody awkward once again. Expining fucking boundaries to her? Why did he have to mentally piss himself every time he was with her? Why couldn’t he just be a normal kind respectful man like always?
It’s because she’s a -
Will you shut the fuck up? He waited for a few seconds to see if his brain had any other clever thoughts.
Pippa’s voice remained steady, like the therapist he’d met once. “It’s okay Gil, I do want to talk about them, you’re not forcing me. I didn’t make myself clear. No one’s at fault, it’s a misunderstanding, it’s okay.”
It’s okay.
And so Pippa resumed doing her own dramatic bck shadow while talking about Paige and Jodie. The former a fashion influencer, the tter a goth RPG streamer, both with the looks to match. A lot of story Gil had already picked up from the server, like Paige’s still lingering affection for her tomboy programmer ex, and Jodie’s somewhat reclusive nature in contrast to her online image. She mentioned some fun anecdotes he’d never heard of, but nothing overly surprising. Not surprising either was Pippa forgoing to mention they were trans as well, which had been confirmed by a discussion about hormones he’d stalked. He knew all of this, none of it was new information, unlike his regur friends, this was no fun. He’d spoiled the whole of that wonderfully absurd community that was Dorley for himself, and he hated it.
Normally he didn’t even mind spoilers all that much.
To prevent himself from dwelling on his inner auto-fgeltion further, Gil asked Pippa if she wanted to take the washroom to change. She nodded yes, letting him retreat to his room.
Here, already prepared behind the door of his wardrobe, was his outfit of the night: a loose mid-length dress with a blotchy red and green and bck pattern, stockings, low heels and a neckce, the tter two of which he’d pinched from Sandra. With his complimentary makeup and always-explosive hair, he looked the part?
She looked the part?
Best not delve into the wider gendered aspect again. There, he could feel it: Dresses were nice bits of clothing, same as everything else in his wardrobe. He checked himself in the mirror.
He was more than presentable.
Feeling as confident as he could be in the still unfamiliar wear, he stepped out in the hall to find Pippa waiting for him. She was wearing a little bck dress with stockings and a perfectly gaudy neckce of her own. While he hadn’t bought a pack since breaking up with Malcolm, Gil would’ve loved to give Pippa a cigarette just to pose with.
“Wow Gil,” Pippa said in awe, “that dress looks stunning on you!”
He wanted to fold into himself, but in a good way.
“You look really nice yourself Pippa,” he said with the words barely leaving his mouth.
“You’re probably the nicest crossdresser I’ve ever seen, girl how do you pull it off?”
He bnked like a deer in headlights. Pippa looked him over, her face oddly apologetic.
“It’s okay, the first time is always a lot.”
After another few seconds, Pippa could tell he was no longer in the mood for talking, and so suggested they watch something downstairs. She queued up a cooking show on Netflix, and though he wanted to contest, uttering even a single word felt impossible. This allowed enough time to pass for him to clear the weird emotional wash of wearing a dress out of his mind. Gil was back to functional right as the doorbell rang.
Paige was as Gil had seen her on IG, a very tall and attractive blonde woman, here wearing a loose green top and bck skirt that were tastefully appropriate for the night. Jodie, to Gil’s delight, was rather more daring in appearance. In her streams, she pyed the part of the vampiric D&D goth, wearing dark crimson gowns with an endearing cospy-like sheen (and they may very well have been cospy, Gil didn’t know much on the subject). Today, she’d managed to go all out tradgoth with white makeup, bck hair as explosive as Gil’s own, a delightful period jumper, and a whole attic’s worth of chains, safety pins and silvery jewelry yered on top of everything.
“Jodie, darling, you look amazing!”
Jodie’s face was pure glee, or more precisely, a pure alloy of glee and monochromatic makeup.
“Thank you! I got so excited when Pippa invited me, so I watched a ton of youtube tutorials and did as best as I could in the timeframe, honestly I’m super happy with myself. I’m Jodie by the way, nice to meet you, it’s cool to meet Pippa’s first guy friend!”
Pippa gave her a nudge. Gil’s mind bnked out again for a second.
“Anyways, I’m super hype to attend your night, hell, just going to the Starlight instead of Legend for once is nice, even if the drinks are like, crazy expensive.”
“If you mostly attend Legend, I’m sure the Starlight will be a great update.” Gil said before turning to Paige, “also hi Paige, you look lovely yourself.”
Paige responded with a shy smile, quite contrary to her social media image. Gil was happy with how natural it felt to finally be there with them, and actually talk instead of limiting themselves to text on a screen.
Also you can actually talk to them now because you’re not an intruder.
Okay, time to move on now.
“It’s lovely to finally meet everyone, and I would like nothing more than to get to know you better, but right now, our priority is moving the gear I need for tonight to my car.”
Silence.
“You’re telling me you made us dress this nice only to ask us to move your junk?” Jodie asked with outrage.
“Yes apologies, I should have thought this through better.”
The three girls still looked unimpressed.
“It’s not that heavy if anything -”
“Men…” Paige muttered.
His mind skipped again
“Come on,” Pippa said in a kinder tone, “we’ll be nice to him, otherwise we won’t have a show tonight.”
As he was gathering all of his record-reted items, he wanted nothing more than to take his record brush and stick it in his brain. It seemed to be gathering a lot of dust tely.
***
Gil drove the short distance to Starlight with the Dorley girls trailing him, his own aging sedan filled with the “junk” he needed for the night. He had staff to help it make the final leg of its journey to the stage, much to Jodie’s relief. It was Rod, the audio technician who started the conversation as they were lugging the synth and stand.
“I like what you’re wearing there Gil, it’s fantastic that men your age can have some bloody freedom in what they wear for once,” Rod said in his gruff voice.
“I mean, it’s not that different from back then, except now the bloke from Money for Nothing has a twitter account, and half of my peers agree with him.” Gil retorted, trying to change the subject.
“Don’t let the naysayers get you down my boy, you’re one of the finest examples of a man I’ve ever met.”
Gil did not have the time to process before Rod gave him a sp on the back. His very being skipped once.
Gil talked to the bar’s staff, in addition to the activists from school who were gathering money for the Hong Kong protestors, and otherwise engaged in conversation as usual. He showed Jodie everything that went behind his performance, and they traded makeup tips as well. She found it funny that 90% of Gil’s savviness came from the internet. They’d even watched many of the same tutorials. There were also quite a few Saints students he recognized there tonight, his fanclub as they jokingly called themselves. Lena let out a rge squee when she realised that Gil was friends with the Paige.
Him wearing a dress was perfectly normal. Only a small step up from his usual really. People complimented him, but otherwise, no one really cared. Gil was good at what he did, it wasn’t his first time. He’d kill it, like always. Comme toujours.
People started filing in, drinks were sold, the Dorley girls retreated into the crowd. Some gender-diverse people did wear outndish androgynous fits, Gil was one among them. His frock wasn’t even that special, unlike Jodie’s wear, which was on par in quality for a trans -
Gil wanted to murder his inner voice. Luckily, it was time for the show to start.
The lights went dark, the sound of the crowd died down.
Murmurs.
He faded in his first record; a 1981 lecture on learning to use a microcomputer by an American amateur.
Her heavily reverberated voice filled the club.
"I have been into this for seven years, and Tony’s right, I am self-taught."
Gil triggered a simple kick drum under her voice.
It set a pace.
and… transition -
The drum pattern became more complex.
Samples.
Melody.
Bassline.
It’s Tes Girls by OMD.
No! No! No!
No! No! No!
Tes Girls
Tes Girls
Testing out theories
Electric chairs and dynamos
Dressed to kill, they're killing me
People cheered. It was his time on stage, nothing else mattered. No more hard questions, only music.
You wouldn't believe me if I said
The things I've seen went over my head
I've been patient heaven knows
I've learnt the rules and how it goes
I can't sit still or settle down
And when I walk I don't touch the ground
See those girls they're heaven blessed
I guess it's so they know best
He looked into the crowd. He could just faintly see them. Paige, Jodie and Pippa were dancing.
Tes Girls
Tes Girls
Writing in their diaries
Now and then they'll watch TV
Now and then they'll speak to me
But heaven knows their recipe
***
Two hours of pure bliss. It was one of his best setlists ever, and those synth parts he added were fwless. He left the stage in pure ecstasy, rushing to meet his new audience. Instead, he only found the old, his regur friends. They were very enthusiastic about him, enthusiasm which was clearly enhanced by various substances. He was panicking. Where were they? He kicked himself for not paying attention to them in the crowd. But no actually he was right because otherwise he'd once again be a creep. He ran backstage to fetch his phone (curse dresses for not having pockets), and saw a single Consensus notification.
PippaLongstockings
Sorry, Paige didn’t feel good and we had to leave, you were amazing though <3
He wanted to hurl his phone against the wall right then and there. Right after he ripped off that fucking dress.
***
Gil and one of the Starlight employees were almost done packing the gear back into his car. Having no spare clothing, he was still wearing the dress, but he had calmed down a bit. He was fine. Out came two very drunk young men from the club. Gil recognized one of them from his old residence.
“Hey! You trannies need some help with that?”
The female employee was quick to respond with a fuck off, which did not deter the men much.
“Fucking tarts! Can’t be fucking graceful when a man shows interest huh? Like that one fucking bitch…”
“Calm down Raph you’re drunk.” the other man said as he helped his friend to move along.
“I’ve got the right to be mad when I show up to a nice night to get pissed, and then the DJ’s a tranny and some bitch disrespects me!”
“Let it be Raph…”
The two of them disappeared into the night, upon which time the employee put her hand on Gil’s shoulder.
“I’m really sorry about this.”
“It’s fine.” Gil neutrally answered.
Driving back to his pce, unloading this back-breaking junk, removing the dress, getting into his pjs, washing up and going to bed, Gil could only think of one thing. Being called a tranny didn’t feel bad at all.
***
“Hey Jodie! Hey Paige! How was the night out?” Christine asked from her computer chair.
Jodie’s ruby red lips spread into a gleeful smile “It was amazing, that guy Gil, so good, I didn’t know any of the songs he was pying but they were so good, and he wore this amazing dress too and was just so happy bopping along and his little synth, he’s so cool! I’ll have to get Pippa to ask him for his pylist. Sucks that we had to leave early.”
“A drunk chav started hitting on me, and got really uncomfortable about it.” Paige continued, her discomfort fairly apparent.
“Oh shit, really?”
“Very much so,” Paige said as she started undressing, “and I think we could’ve dealt with him, but we had to leave immediately because apparently that guy’s 50-50 to be an intake this year, so Pippa has to file a report for Aunt Bea and everything. Probably doesn’t help his chances at this point.”
“Mmh, I’m really sorry Paige.”
“Honestly I feel more sorry for Gil, poor thing seems to really care about Pippa and he’s really good at what he does, it’s such a shame we had to leave him like that.”
“Such a shame,” Christine said in a flippant tone, turning back towards her computer, “it’s not like you can feel too sorry for a straight guy who DJs.”
“He’s actually pretty obviously gay,” Paige corrected.
“And he looks great in a skirt!” Jodie added.
“Well consider me slightly more sympathetic.”
As Jodie began the arduous task of removing her makeup, Paige leaned on Christine’s shoulder as she was focused on the screen..
“Are you still working on the server?”
“It would appear so, Maria gave me mod roles to help clean it up because none of the older sponsors know how the whole thing works. So I’m in charge of doing the brunt of the work now, creating rules, overhauling the channels, making emojis, you know, the usual.”
“Really, someone with your skillset is making emojis?”
“Swiftmageddon is over, no bots left, so it’s what’s left. I could make sure everyone’s accounts are okay and up to date, opsec and all of that, but everyone’s here, everyone is who they say they are, that’s a thing for ter me to deal with.”
“Well that should be easy at least, no surprises,” Paige said as she got up.
“None for sure,” Christine replied. “I could do with no surprises for once.”
SynGirl
