My Mom Feminized Me For A Daughter; My Dad Joined. Now My Mom Has Two Pretty Girls (Patreon)

The Daughter She Always Imagined

Saturday morning began with a cardboard box Laura had been avoiding for years.

It had belonged partly to her mother and partly to every version of Laura she had once been—school photographs, cheap jewelry, ribbons, certificates, forgotten cosmetics, old earrings, and pictures from family weddings.

Ethan sat cross-legged on the floor beside her, dressed in an old black T-shirt and sweatpants, impatiently passing things into piles.

Then he found a photograph.

Laura was about twenty in it, sitting in front of her mother's vanity. Her dark hair fell past her shoulders in soft waves. She wore earrings and a pale dress that ended around her knees.

Ethan stared.

"God. Grandma really had you looking like a department-store catalogue."

Laura reached for it. "Give me that."

"Wait."

He looked at the photograph again.

Then at Laura.

Then at himself in the dark reflection of the television.

"That's weird."

"What?"

"You actually looked a little like me."

Laura went quiet.

Ethan immediately pointed at her. "Don't."

"I haven't said anything."

"Your face has."

Laura held the photograph beside him.

"Same eyes."

"Mom."

"Similar mouth."

"Put the evidence down."

"And if I softened your hair around the forehead—"

"There it is."

Laura laughed.

A few minutes later Ethan absentmindedly picked up one of her old drop earrings and let it swing between his fingers.

Laura noticed.

He put it down immediately.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"That was definitely something."

"You're curious."

"About an earring?"

"About all of it."

"Absolutely not."

Laura simply returned to packing the box.

"Probably for the best."

Ethan frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing."

"Mom."

She shrugged.

"You wouldn't survive being my daughter for one afternoon anyway."

That did it.

Ethan knew he was being manipulated.

He followed her upstairs anyway.

Laura listed the things she would have done if she'd raised a daughter: hair, makeup, clothes, arguments about skirts, family functions, hairstyles, earrings.

Ethan folded his arms.

"I've survived twenty-three years of you."

"As my son."

Laura smiled.

"Different difficulty setting."

"I could handle one afternoon."

The second the words left his mouth, he regretted them.

Laura's eyes lit up.

"No."

"You just said—"

"I know what I said."

"Hair and makeup. At home."

"That's it?"

"That's it."

Ethan picked up the old photograph again.

"And you seriously think you could make me look like that?"

Laura smiled.

"Closer than you think."

Ten minutes later, she had moved the good chair in front of her makeup mirror.

Ethan stopped in the doorway.

"No."

"You don't even know what I'm doing."

"You moved the good chair. I know enough."

But he sat down.

That was the beginning.

Laura started with his short hair.

She changed his usual messy part, softened the front, tucked one side back and shaped it around his face.

Ethan complained almost constantly.

"What are you doing to the front?"

"Giving it shape."

"It had shape."

"'Forgot to comb it' isn't a shape."

When she told him he had nice ears, he looked genuinely alarmed.

"That's an unsettling compliment."

Then came makeup.

Nothing dramatic. Concealer. Foundation. Brows. Mascara. A little blush. Soft pink on his lips.

When Laura finished, Ethan stared at himself longer than he meant to.

"Why do I look so different when you barely used anything?"

"Small things add up."

"Don't say transformation."

"I wasn't going to."

"Your face was."

Laura said nothing.

But she smiled.

That afternoon somehow became shopping.

And shopping became six outfits.

A blue sweater with a pleated skirt.

A blouse with an absurd bow.

A soft blue dress.

A cardigan.

A black dress.

Feminine trousers with a blouse.

Ethan disliked some, tolerated others, and accidentally admitted he liked one.

Laura very carefully did not celebrate.

That made him more suspicious.

The first truly embarrassing moment came in the lingerie section.

Ethan stopped walking.

"No."

"You haven't even looked."

"I looked enough."

Laura explained bras in the least glamorous way possible. Clothes designed for a certain shape simply fit better with the correct undergarments. A badly fitted bra was uncomfortable. A good one should sit level, support properly, and not hurt.

"It isn't sexual," she told him. "It's underwear. Its job is to make clothes sit correctly."

"That explanation somehow made this more embarrassing."

During the fitting Ethan fought with the hooks behind his back until Laura finally told him to fasten it in front and turn it around.

"You could've told me that before I nearly dislocated my shoulder."

Later, fully dressed again, he looked at the blouse in the mirror.

It did fit better.

Laura waited.

"...Okay."

"I didn't say anything."

"You were going to."

"It fits better."

"Don't."

Earrings became their next war.

Laura suggested them.

Ethan refused.

Then she asked him to touch one of hers.

He reluctantly moved the small gold drop with his fingertip.

"That's lighter than I expected."

"You notice the movement more than the weight."

A week later Ethan was sitting in a professional piercing studio.

He still insisted this had somehow been Laura's fault.

"You spent a week talking about earrings."

"And you spent a week looking at them online."

"How do you know that?"

"You saved screenshots on the family tablet."

Ethan closed his eyes.

"I hate this family."

But he got both ears pierced.

Six weeks later Laura replaced the starter studs with small silver drops.

Ethan turned his head.

They swung beside his face.

He turned again.

"Okay good or okay terrible?" Laura asked.

"Annoyingly good."

The hair came next.

Long dark extensions.

Ethan stared at the pile on Laura's table.

"That's an unreasonable amount of hair."

"You've had short hair your whole life."

Halfway through, the sensation of hair touching his neck and chest made him visibly uncomfortable.

"This feels bizarre."

"Bad bizarre?"

"Hair-is-touching-places-it-never-used-to bizarre."

But when the finished dark hair fell around his shoulders, he kept touching it.

Then, unexpectedly, he asked:

"Would bangs work?"

Laura froze.

"That reaction is exactly why I didn't want to ask."

They chose soft bangs.

No hair coloring. Ethan was strangely firm about that.

"No blonde. No pink. No highlights."

"Your natural dark hair suits you anyway."

Hair care became its own education.

Brush from the ends.

Don't drag through knots.

Tie it properly for sleep.

Check the scalp.

Keep it out of food.

When Laura inspected him for lice after he scratched his head one evening, Ethan looked deeply offended.

"This may be the least glamorous thing you've done."

"Long hair isn't only curls and pretty pictures."

There were no lice.

Probably dry scalp.

"So we conducted a criminal investigation over dandruff."

"Basically."

Yet those quiet hair sessions became some of Ethan's favorite moments.

Laura talked about her own mother—how she had brushed Laura's hair before bed, checked for lice, braided it, argued about hemlines and hair color and earrings.

"Strangely," Laura admitted one night, "those are the memories I miss most."

"Getting your scalp examined?"

"Sitting with her. Talking about nothing important."

Ethan looked at her through the mirror.

"We're pretty good at talking about nothing important."

Laura smiled.

"We're excellent at it."

David returned from a work trip three weeks later and walked into a completely different household.

Ethan now had long dark hair, bangs, silver earrings, lavender nails and a soft cardigan.

David stopped in the kitchen.

"I appear to have missed several episodes."

Ethan looked uncomfortable.

"Hi, Dad."

David approached, gently moved Ethan's hair behind one ear and noticed the piercing.

"You pierced them."

"Voluntarily."

Laura called from behind them.

"Eventually."

"Nobody asked for production notes."

David smiled.

"They suit you."

That quiet acceptance mattered more to Ethan than he expected.

Later, David asked him privately if he wanted another name.

"No. Ethan's fine."

"What about 'he'?"

"Usually."

Ethan hesitated.

"If I'm dressed like this and someone says 'she,' I'm not going to collapse."

David nodded.

"Fair."

"That's it?"

"Were you expecting paperwork?"

Ethan laughed.

Then David admitted something nobody expected.

Watching Ethan had brought back memories he had spent decades burying.

When David was younger, he too had wanted to try makeup, dresses and longer hair.

Sometimes, he admitted, he had wanted to look in the mirror and see a girl.

"Did it go away?" Ethan asked.

David looked at him.

"No."

He had simply become very good at ignoring it.

Laura stared at her husband.

Then started laughing.

"I spent years complaining that I never got a daughter."

David covered his face.

Laura shook her head.

"Apparently the universe was laughing at me."

The following weekend David sat in Laura's vanity chair.

Ethan watched from the doorway with enormous satisfaction.

"You seem very pleased," David muttered.

"Justice is beautiful."

Laura did his makeup.

David was nervous at first.

Then emotional.

"I imagined doing this when I was seventeen."

Laura slowed down.

"Then we'll do it properly."

Clothes followed.

Then a feminine hairstyle.

Eventually David chose a name for those moments.

Dana.

Only when presenting femininely.

And when Laura put one arm around Ethan and the other around Dana and announced, "Two daughters," both of them groaned.

But nobody asked her to stop smiling.

Later, David gave Ethan advice that changed the direction of the whole experiment.

"Don't let your mother's excitement make your decisions."

Ethan raised an eyebrow.

"Could you repeat that directly into a recording device?"

David laughed.

"But don't let embarrassment make them either."

He told Ethan to experiment.

Wear feminine clothes if he liked them.

Use makeup.

Go out with friends.

Dance.

Enjoy himself.

He didn't have to decide immediately what any of it meant.

That conversation finally gave Ethan permission to want something instead of merely reacting to Laura.

A few nights later, while Laura braided his hair, Ethan asked:

"What if I wanted to do this properly once?"

Laura stopped.

"Properly how?"

"Full dress. Hair. Makeup."

He hesitated.

"Friends there."

Then more quietly:

"I want one big night where I don't hide it."

Laura's smile slowly appeared.

Ethan pointed at her through the mirror.

"That exact smile is why telling you things is dangerous."

The celebration became enormous.

There were gown fittings, hair trials, earrings, makeup, photographs, music and, because Laura insisted, cake.

Ethan tried several formal gowns.

Emerald.

Navy.

Others.

Then he stepped out wearing a blush-pink gown with a flowing skirt and delicate detailing.

Laura stopped talking.

Ethan looked at her.

"You're doing the face."

He turned toward the mirror.

For once there was no joke.

No resistance.

No pretending he didn't care.

"This one."

Laura smiled.

"This one."

On the day of the celebration she did his hair in long dark curls with a half-up style and delicate decorations.

He selected crystal drop earrings himself.

Laura reminded him of the piercing fight.

"You deserved every minute of that fight."

"And now?"

Ethan deliberately turned his head and felt the earrings swing beside his curls.

"Now I understand the appeal."

Dana attended too, in an elegant navy formal dress.

When Ethan became nervous at the entrance, Dana took his hand.

"Everyone's staring."

"Keep moving."

Dana leaned closer.

"I'm fifty-one, wearing makeup, feminine hair and a gown in front of half our family."

Then she smiled.

"You're not doing this alone."

Ethan laughed.

And walked in.

He danced first with Dana.

"If I fall—"

"I'll fall louder."

Later his old classmate Lucas approached.

Lucas stared for a moment.

"Okay."

"That doesn't sound encouraging."

"I was recalibrating."

"That was worse."

Lucas smiled.

"You look great."

They danced too.

Ethan laughed when Lucas nearly stepped on the giant pink skirt.

There were photographs with the girls.

Photographs with his male friends, who all tried ridiculous masculine poses while Ethan stood in the middle posing naturally in his gown.

"You look like our manager," one friend said.

"You all look unemployable."

The camera caught everyone laughing.

The cake simply read:

TO TRYING THINGS.

Ethan stared at it.

"That's actually perfect."

Laura smiled.

"I thought so."

A few days later the family went to the beach.

Laura wore elegant beachwear.

Dana wore a navy one-piece and sunhat.

Ethan wore the feminine beach outfit he had chosen earlier and spent the first twenty minutes insisting he regretted everything.

Dana watched him smiling.

"He's been smiling for twenty minutes."

"Nobody asked you."

By afternoon Ethan was ankle-deep in the ocean.

A cold wave hit him.

"Cold!"

Laura laughed from shore.

"Stop laughing!"

Ethan splashed her.

Laura splashed back.

Dana joined.

Within seconds the three of them were soaked and laughing like children.

Later they tried taking a family photograph.

The wind blew Ethan's long hair directly across his face.

"I can't see anything."

Dana shrugged.

"You wanted long hair."

"Nobody explained wind."

Laura braided it over one shoulder.

When Ethan complained about the pulling, Laura barely reacted.

"I barely touched you."

"Tradition requires me to complain."

"Fair."

They finally took the photo.

That evening Ethan looked at it on Laura's phone.

He was smiling beside his parents.

Long hair.

Earrings.

Feminine clothes.

And for once he did not immediately search for something wrong.

"Send me that one."

Laura looked surprised.

"Really?"

"Yeah."

He studied the picture again.

"I actually like how I look."

Laura didn't tease him.

She simply sent it.

The next morning Ethan sat in front of Laura's mirror wearing his soft nightdress while she brushed the knots from his hair.

"Ow."

"Knot."

He smiled.

"At least some things never change."

Laura began braiding.

"So what happens now?"

Ethan looked at himself.

At the hair that had once felt ridiculous.

At the earrings he had fought over.

At the person in the mirror who no longer felt like a costume.

"I keep the hair."

Laura carefully kept her face neutral.

"Still no coloring it," Ethan added.

"Still no coloring it."

He touched one of his earrings.

"But I want another pair."

Laura's carefully controlled expression instantly became a huge smile.

Ethan caught it in the mirror.

"There she is."

Dana appeared in the doorway.

"If we're shopping for earrings, I'm coming."

Laura looked at both of them.

"Two daughters."

Ethan groaned.

"We're never escaping that sentence, are we?"

Laura smiled.

"Not a chance."

And this time, Ethan didn't really mind.