Chapter 10Match-making14 February 2022“Rise and shine, girls!” Kelynen stands in the doorway, already dressed up for the day. “We have a lot pnned, so I’m expecting ye all to be ready by eight!”

  Ace slowly makes her way out of bed. It’s not that she isn’t excited for Valentine’s Day. Indeed, Amy’s been hinting to her all week that they’re going to do something fun today. Something significant. It’s hard not to get excited at the prospect of something like that!

  Anything significant with Amy would be nice at this point. She seems to be less than willing to push things beyond cuddling. Not that Ace has asked for anything like that.

  Maybe today is the day?

  They’ve been told to get plenty of sleep today. For once enough of an impression was made on Aoife that she also went to bed at an early enough time for the group to get nine hours of sleep in. And if they managed to break her resistance to normal bedtimes, then something big is coming today.

  Kelynen has, so far, only confirmed that.

  The sponsors have been cracking down more on the girls in making them follow a morning routine. They’re now forced to be in one of the bathrooms at 7:15 or face the wrath of whatever sponsor checks the bedroom to draft them into making breakfast. Aoife tried to face the situation exactly once, before realising that the sponsors decided that it was a lovely sunday to have a full English — or at least, a waistline-friendly English — and drafted Aoife into making them for all nine other inhabitants of the manor.

  All three girls found their way to the bathrooms from that day onwards, and were locked into the rooms until at least 7:45am. Not just to shower, though that was part of it, but also to make sure they are shaven, their hair is brushed and that they actually end up putting on a bit of moisturiser, and maybe, if they’re feeling brave, a bit of foundation as well.

  She’s made some progress, and Kelynen has joined her once or twice to try to expin the things that she needs to learn, but at times it has felt like the others are progressing much faster than her. Gwen has been experimenting with make-up, whilst Ace is still trying to figure out how a hair dryer works. How long should she hold it above her hair? Should her hair be bunched up? Should she go for the highest intensity or not? It seems so complicated!

  She’s been meaning to ask Kelynen about it, but keeps both forgetting about it and feeling too anxious to actually go about asking her. Her initial expnation of ‘it’s a hair dryer, just make sure not to burn yourself’ made it seem quite simple and makes Ace feel rather incompetent for not just getting how it works.

  There’s a knock on the door just as Ace is cleaning up after herself, putting towels on the drying racks and leaving the moisturiser in the cabinet with a worrying amount of space for other things.

  “I’ll be out in a second!” Ace responds, doing one st look around the bathroom before someone else needs it. She isn’t sure who would need it, given the fact that all the other residents of the manor have a bathroom attached to their own bedrooms, but she’s not going to be leaving them a mess.

  “It’s me.” Kelynen says. “I’ve got something for ye.”

  Ace does another check of the bathroom. If a guest seeing something off was bad, then Kelynen seeing a fault would be much worse, because she might give her a mildly disappointed frown. Eventually, she realises she can’t put it off any longer, and reluctantly opens the door.

  Her sponsor enters with a small bag and a big smile, making sure to close the door behind them.

  “Alice, I need ye to close your eyes for a moment.”

  “Do I really have to?” Ace protests. It’s way too early for fun and games, especially on a day like this.

  “Ye don’t have to.” Kelynen frowns. “But it’s more fun for ye if you keep yer eyes closed, I think. It maintains the surprise.”

  Ace isn’t sure if she should be doing this, but she decides to entertain Kelynen for now, knowing that she’s buying goodwill to pull out of events ter today if she goes along with them early on. The sponsors may love their chaotic fun, but they think there is some educational element to it all and at least tend to appreciate people going along with their shenanigans.

  Kelynen softly sits Ace down on the edge of the bath, holds her skin taut for a moment and then lets go for half a minute or so. Ace isn’t sure if she can keep her eyes closed for much longer. She is a little tired still, and may just fall asleep. But once she feels her skin go taut for a second time, and then the pinch of an injection, she’s no longer struggling to stay awake anymore.

  “I thought ye would like a bit of that.” Kelynen says nonchantly as she puts the needle away. “Happy Valentine's Day.”

  Ace, perhaps feeling a little high with excitement, pulls Kelynen into a clearly unexpected hug, but one her sponsor quickly accepts. She doesn’t let go for a while.

  Estradiol, at long st.

  They took their bloody time. She isn’t sure how one trans woman could deny another trans woman her oestrogen for a full three weeks, but it feels like it doesn’t matter anymore given she did, in the end, actually get some.

  ***

  Ace has barely recovered from Kelynen sticking a needle filled with estradiol in her and being made to eat a full breakfast when all the first years are rounded up by the fourth years and brought into the common area. The room is decorated with some suspiciously cheap looking pink props, which combine with an equally cheap looking pstic wheel of fortune hung from the walls to give a very ‘primary school’ kind of aesthetic.

  They sit down on the couches in the centre of the room, awaiting whatever torture they are going to be subjected to today. Where Aoife seems to be taking this with a rather typical level of vague disinterest, Gwen is sitting with her legs crossed on the couch and a cheeky grin on her face. Of course, if there is torture to be had, Gwen will be one of the ones excitedly awaiting it.

  “Good morning, girls.” Jenny sits on a tall bar stool and smiles cruelly at the three women gathered in front of her. “Welcome to your first valentine’s day here at the manor!”

  Gwen cheers.

  “That’s the energy we want!” Jenny reciprocates. “If any of you three have ever done anything for valentine’s before, you probably know how a lot of the usual traditions are based around how cisheterosexual monogamous couples celebrate this most beautiful of days. Of course, none of you three are involved in such retions at this point — they’re way too boring anyhow — so what I will do today is tell you how we celebrate things here.”

  “Valentine’s for sluts!” Fey excims from behind Ace.

  “I think the preferred term is poly-thingamajig, as Mimi said.”

  It does, in fact, sound like a very drunk Amy kind of term. She has a tendency to forget words after a few drinks.

  “We’re in the thingamajig now?” Gwen asks.

  “It’s complicated.” Jenny looks off to the corner, where Amy is busy setting up the wheel of fortune.

  “What she means to say is that you’ll be judged worthy some day and asked to join.” Fey whispers to the first years.

  “What do we need to do to be judged worthy?” Gwen follows up, as if her wanting to be in on the polycule was ever in doubt.

  “That’s a secret, I fear.” Fey sounds quite apologetic. “We have a lot of secrets to keep, you know. We can’t just be going around telling everyone everything.”

  “Oh.” She looks down at the floor, disappointed. “Yeah. I get it.”

  Ace assumes, from the fact they specifically mentioned keeping secrets, that being trustworthy enough to hide certain things from others is part of joining the weird little polycule they’re running. Not that she is particurly willing to join: she’s pretty sure that she is monogamous, even if she knows that Amy is much more willing to have fun and that it’s a hopeless cause to try to get the girl to abstain from promiscuity.

  But perhaps monogamy is a little hard to cim when she was friends with benefits with Amy and simultaneously signed up to be a noblewoman’s submissive maid.

  “So what we’re doing today is that we will assign each other valentine’s by wheel of fortune! Because a…” Jen pauses for a moment, counting. “...nine-way valentine’s day would be a mess if nothing else. And you’re busy enough as is.”

  “Doesn’t that sort of… challenge the idea of romantic love?” Ace has a few issues with the TV-show approach to romance.

  Jenny cocks her head and thinks through the question for a moment. “Don’t think so. If you want to be excluded from the rotation we could do that.”

  Whilst her words are non-commital, her tone is anything but: if Ace pulls out, she’ll at best be a buzzkill and at worst be excluded from their little group for the rest of the day: punishment for not going along with whatever it is the programme thinks it's trying to achieve.

  “No, it’s fine.” Ace says, perhaps a little bitterly. “I’ll participate.”

  “Okay…” Jenny takes a moment to remember where she was in her presentation. “So you don’t actually have to do anything like, sapphic with your Valentine — though it is certainly encouraged — we just want to see you take some time to get to know each other a little. We’re having a big party today and we’ll make sure you get to sit next to each other.”

  Amy has finally added all the names to the wheel of fortune and bances it on a pile of books on the table just behind Jenny. “She means you should get very drunk and sloppy with your Valentine. That’s certainly my pn.”

  “It’s a good pn!” Fey agrees, pcing her hands on Gwen’s shoulders and massaging the girl a little. She seems unnaturally anxious about the event.

  Amy, after getting a quick nod of approval from Jenny, starts spinning the wheel, or at least tries to spin the wheel before realising it’ll have to be artificially held fully vertical because the equipment is so cheap and the wheel scrapes against the cardboard looking back. The first couple is Jenny and Fey, to the great amusement of both: the second couple ends up being Gwen and Kelynen, which is the moment Ace realises that the sponsors are a part of this stupid little thing as well.

  The rest of the sponsors eliminate themselves quickly, with Rose and Vivienne forming the third couple. The wheel spins again with just three names left in the roster. Ace and Aoife get put together by the cruel overlord that is random chance, and Amy is, to her great joy, left alone: it means she can find a guest to ask to be her Valentine ter.

  Oh. Ace will have to spend the bloody night with Aoife, won’t she?

  Fuck.

  ***

  They’ve been cooking all day. Because apparently the Manor’s idea of a Valentine’s Day Party is to turn it into a party that sts all of the te afternoon, evening, night and possibly even early morning with a lot of food, a lot more guests from the ‘other pce’ and a suspicious amount of protection that Gwen — who else — was asked to leave some of in the guest rooms downstairs.

  It seems to be a combination of a fancy aristocratic feast and a lesbian orgy. And because there’ll be a rge number of guests, all nine of the people working at the manor have been preparing for the events since at least 9am. Apparently they’re lucky and can go a little easy on the quality, though, as that number does not include Ms. Lambert herself. She’ll be visiting ter this week, as she is otherwise occupied for now.

  Something with stocks, but not of the fun kind, Kelynen said.

  But even though they have made enough food to feed a lot of families for a whole week, even though multiple people have prepared the ball room downstairs, which Ace has never spent much time in before, even though Ms. Lambert has sent staff to manage security for the event — consisting of two women and one non-binary person — and even though the basement has been emptied of a shocking 25% of its alcoholic contents, brought upstairs for usage at the main event, they still had one thing left to do, and all the first years had to be involved in this most painful of situations.

  Amy takes Ace’s hands and pulls her into her room, strategically pcing a kiss on her forehead before sitting her down at the vanity. She does a lot of things that Ace still doesn’t quite get, avoiding the topic of makeup and instead informing her about the game of Europa Universalis IV, which she’s been pying recently. It’s a world conquest as some Japanese isnd chain, apparently, and the modern strategies are ‘ruining the spirit of the run as it existed ten years ago.’ She’s doing it the way it should be pyed, rather than ‘sitting on her ass for the first thirty years of the game and running off to Mexico’.

  Eventually the topic does shift from world domination to Amy’s other hobbies: torturing Ace through femininity.

  “You’ve no idea how long I’ve been waiting to do this.” She says, applying what Ace is pretty sure is mascara to her eyebrows. “Bringing out the feminine in you. Showing you the cute girl you don’t believe exists, but which I know is there, if you work to reveal it. Which you have been! The estradiol will only make you even more stunning than you already are, love.”

  Ace would normally struggle to believe that this is the case. Indeed, she wants to deny it. But Amy told her to stay as still as possible, and that to do so she shouldn’t be talking whilst she applies makeup. Having her hair styled was one thing — she secretly liked her hair a little before, and something nicer being made out of the long, thin but fluffy strands was amazing to see — but Amy seems to be putting quite a bit of time into applying what doesn’t feel like very much make-up at all.

  Perhaps it’s the continued high from the estradiol shots she received earlier today. Perhaps it’s the lighting, perhaps it’s hair or the fact that Amy is impossibly skilled with make-up. But when she looks in the mirror, she can see Alice, perhaps for the first time ever. It’s rough, and there are still many parts she hates. There’s something masculine under there, still. But in her androgyny, she feels almost content with being something more than merely Ace for the rest of the night.

  She can at least try to feel like she is Alice. For just a little bit. Because Amy tried really hard to make her feel like she is.

  ***

  Alice is tired, she’s hungry, and she could really go for a whole bottle of wine tonight. Luckily, they’ve been provided with just that. She isn’t quite sure where the wine is from, but it sounds Italian, and that’s good enough for her taste. She’s far from an expert, and alcohol is alcohol to her.

  Aoife seems to be feeling simirly, sneaking into her seat once the sponsors are content that she’s done all her work. Like Alice, she’s been given a makeover, and like Alice, she’s now wearing a dress with a padded bra underneath.

  She’s pretty. Alice, to her shock, has to admit that. Sure, she wouldn’t say that Aoife passes, but there’s a certain clocky beauty to the woman, of someone who has spent a lot of time and effort trying to look feminine and almost getting there, if you don’t think about it too much.

  “Hey.” Aoife is the first to speak. “I like your dress.”

  “Um. Thanks— I like your dress too. The light blue fits you.” Alice blushes and looks off into the distance.

  “They said it’d go well with my hair.” The ginger smiles. “Let me pour you a gss.”

  And so she does: first one for Alice, then one for herself.

  “So… they want us to talk.” Aoife drinks half the gss in one go. “And maybe we should? It feels like I barely know you. You tell us so little about yourself. What are some things you like?”

  “Oh. Um.” Alice tries to think through her answers, unsure whether any of the answers are particurly good. It’s also because she’s barely thought it through herself, really. She’s constantly been busy with work or something else rather than with the things she could have liked.

  Always busy with anything but herself, and especially the ‘her’ in ‘herself’.

  No wonder people considered her an incredibly boring person.

  “Oh. I’m sorry.” Aoife sounds a little embarrassed. “I guess I’ll go first. I always liked making music, ever since I was young. First piano — I know, rather middle css — but I also joined the choir.”

  “Sounds fun.” Alice really wants to keep up a conversation, but she’s just not managing. A simple question by Aoife of all people managed to make her feel more empty than she ever has.

  “It was— until I got to secondary school. My voice got more, you know… and my body… you know.” Aoife finishes her gss of wine, trying to drink away the pain. “You would know.”

  Alice simply nods. Painful. She wishes she could do more to comfort the girl across from her.

  “And I stopped pying the piano too. Because when I pyed, people would notice me. I— I just want to get away from people. Every eye on me was like a knife, every expectation a murderer. I was too soft, too weak, too feminine, too gay and eventually you just give up, right? You fucking give up.”

  Aoife refills her gss. Takes another big chug from it.

  “Mum wants me to come down for food: I don’t eat. Dad wants me to come py football: I don’t leave my room. University sends me an email telling me I need to attend csses or be expelled: I ignore it. Anything to not have to be him out there. Anything to not be referred to as that fucking name again, to not be seen as that disgusting little excuse for a human being. And when you’re told you can be a woman, a beautiful one even, it just becomes more painful, right? Because you see her. You see beautiful women around you. And their shoulders are thinner, their skin is softer, their faces are less like this and they, beautiful as they are, look at you and just see him. Work to be done, at best. So why the fuck should you care? Why the fuck should you do your best? It fucking hurts. It hurts way too fucking much.”

  Aoife looks at Alice. Inspects her. Flinches a little, and then whispers.

  “Sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry. I was told I should… I should try to expin myself a little.” She stands up, hurriedly. “I thought you’d understand. Maybe you do.”

  Alice, panicking a little, responds with her honest feelings. “I do.”

  “Yeah,” Aoife holds on to her chair. “Yeah. Okay. Sorry. I just…” She sighs, staring into the gss of wine she’s circling. “I just wonder how you do it?”

  “Do what?”

  “Get out there and… do things. Exist in the world. Be… if not who you want to be yet, at least try to approximate her to the best of your ability.”

  “I don’t know.” Alice looks down at her pte, pensively. “I…”

  “Yeah. Sorry. Let’s just… let’s talk about something else? What did you study in secondary school?”

  Alice is all too happy for the change of topic and leans into it. A bit of alcohol certainly doesn’t harm the flow of the extremely light topics of conversation the two touch on for the next few hours or so.

  Maybe she assumes too much about people. Sees the negative in them too quickly.

  Perhaps Alice is just a bit of a narrow-minded dickhead at times.

  ***

  "Alice! Darling!" Amy stumbles towards the corner in which Alice has been sitting for the past little while, Aoife having left ten minutes or so ago to talk to Jenny.

  Amy is holding another woman in her arms. She's got straight blond hair down to her shoulders and follows despite being surprisingly sober, or at least seeming like she is.

  "I want you to meet my friend. She's from Do— the other pce."

  "Oh?" Alice nervously waves towards the woman.

  “This is Amber. She’s like a… like a… um… an artist, I think?”

  “You could certainly say so.” Amber takes Amy’s gss of wine out of her hand, finishing it for the girl before she spills it over herself gesticuting wildly.

  “And she’s like super famous, but like, in the way no one actually knows her name— I love a girl with a little mystery to them. It’s fun. She’s my Valentine, Alice. I got so lucky…” She holds her arms around the woman much more tightly. “She’s so sweet, and fun, and smart. Maybe the smartest person I’ve ever met.”

  Amber giggles at Amy, who seems to be holding on to her hand for dear life.

  “And you know what’s so cool? She said she could show me some of her work someday, and like, I’m excited! But not today, though. Says it might be a little too much for a first date.”

  “People always have a strong reaction.” Amber winks at Ace. She can’t help but feel a little jealous at this moment: she wishes she could be with Amy today.

  “Anyway, Alice…” Amy barely manages to continue standing upright, holding on to both Amber and the chair. “I’m like, really sleepy… and Amber is really soft… so good night. Love you. Take care okay?”

  “Love you too, Ayms.”

  She really does. So much.

  Perhaps she should try to be more worthy of that love, and less envious of those who receive it. Amber certainly is very lucky. And she is interesting, unlike Ace.

  If Alice is to be, she will have to be more than Ace as a girl: she’ll have to be a fully fledged person. But now, she well and truly is, and will remain for a while, merely Ace.