I remember the cold gate first — iron lace against a clouded sky — and then the hush: a soft, breathy soundtrack that made my ears go hot. One second I was me, the next my hands were small and sure, my silhouette impossible and deliciously familiar; people around me weren’t looking at me though, they were looking at the girl I’d become. My voice in that body sounded like someone else’s memory, and every rustle of fabric felt amplified, the new curves responding to the light like a private drum. I wanted to blink it away, but the reflection in a mirrored cloud showed thighs and breasts I didn’t recognize — and a tiny, wicked thrill that I couldn’t quite hide.

They treated me like the woman they expected: curious smiles, whispered bets, and the kind of looks that make your skin prickle. I had to sit beside them while they chatted, pretending I belonged to the costume and not the face, feeling the suit cling, the soft sway with every breath and the polite hush when the background noise swelled — an intimate, teasing rhythm that made my cheeks burn. I kept my hands folded in my lap, a small anchor, even as something in me leaned toward the attention: equal parts mortified and secretly pleased. If this was a mistaken collab, I wasn’t sure who would notice first — me, or the way the room seemed to enjoy the mistake.