Not Just A Shirt
Saturday, August 19th, 2000
When they had first gotten together, at only sixteen years old, Narcissa and Lucius made a promise that if one of them wanted to wear the other’s clothes, they could. Narcissa had proposed it, a half-joke, but Lucius agreed. She never imagined it would become relevant, yet here she was, twenty-four years later, it relevant.
Narcissa stood in front of Lucius’s closet, of course they each had to have their own, fingering a white button up that Lucius didn’t like because it hung a bit off their frame. She was wearing black trousers and dress shoes, also from Lucius’s closet—thank Merlin they were the same size—and some transtape she bought a week ago at a beauty store the second Lucius looked away. The shirt in comparison was nothing, very androgynous in of itself, but…was it too far?
Everything else was so easy to misconstrue as naturally feminine on its own, but then when you added in the stiff bun, masculinizing makeup, and backup wedding ring that was far from girly…the shirt may force her to accept some things she didn’t even want to look at.
This was wrong, wasn’t it? Using her wife’s gender identity and expression to further her own devious wants.
What was she even doing here?
For the past month she’d imagined herself in this outfit, with that shirt, top two buttons open to show the top of her flat chest off, but why? What had even started it? She’d always been evening gowns and lace slips and woman—this was ridiculous.
“Cissy?!” Lucius called from down the hall, they’d been waiting for however long for Narcissa to finish getting ready, her not willing to let them see any of this disgraceful process, so she really needed to get a move on. Except there was no way to save this outfit. They had to leave within the next five minutes to get to the show in time, which meant she had no choices but the white shirt.
But, buttoned completely or not? Completely was more professional, but also more masculine, and begged for an overcoat. This wasn’t a professional setting anyway; Lucius was wearing shortalls over a yellow sweater and converse, after all.
Unbuttoned, then.
“We need to leave, love!” They reminded.
“Coming!” Narcissa shouted back, buttoning the bottom four buttons as fast as she could.
This was a mistake.