Mike just sat there, staring down at himself and feeling torn. Part of him insisted that it'd be absurd not to think of himself as a woman; this was plainly a woman's body, from the breasts tenting out his shirt to his broad hips and the cleft peeking out from a thatch of soft, dark hair at the base of his pubic mound, and if they were going to try passing as transfer students in the women's dorm, wouldn't it just confuse matters for him, trying to juggle two different identities for a whole year?
But could she really just accept that, she asked herself? After all, she'd spent her entire life as a guy; it was what she was, all she knew how to be. And it wasn't like this was permanent; in a year she'd be right back to normal. Could she really put her whole identity on a shelf for that long? And if she did, how was she to know that it wouldn't make things all weird when she had to be him again? Wouldn't it be better to keep her true self in mind, no matter who she had to pretend to be on the outside...?
The door to the ladies' room opened, and he heard chatter and laughter as a group of girls entered, gossiping among themselves; by the sound of it, they were younger, probably fresh out of junior high. He tried to count the voices - two? Three? He wasn't sure, but there were only three stalls; was he occupying one of theirs? For a minute or two they just chatted, making no move to leave the vicinity of the sinks; maybe they were just checking themselves in the mirror...?
He sat there, wondering uncomfortably if it was even possible for him to fit into this whole other social context that he was dimly aware of but had never really understood. But then, it wasn't like he'd ever grasped a lot about how other guys socialized... She was still trying to sort that out when she finally got up, tugged her jeans back over her hips, and exited the stall; she hurriedly washed her hands, feeling intensely self-conscious around the girls - plain, dressed in ill-fitting clothes, probably making all kind of blunders in mannerism she didn't even realize - and left the bathroom.
Mike crept uneasily over to the women's clothing section; he'd always felt a little weird about all the underwear and stuff they'd have right there on display (practically sitting in the aisle, in some stores!) and it was weird to think that other people would no longer see her as out-of-place here. Her nerves flared a bit when Jo flagged her down from over by the bra display. "Yo! Shelly!"
She still felt all weird at that, but she probably would need to get used to responding to her fake name, to keep up the ruse if nothing else. "What?" she answered, a bit moodily.
"So, I've been reading up on bra sizing," Jo said, consulting her phone. "I tried measuring myself and I think I did it right; about matched what the nurse gave me. C'mon, let's do you; there's changing rooms over here."
Mike...Michelle...wanted to protest - he'd refused the bra the nurse had offered him, since it made him feel awkward to think about and it wasn't nearly as obviously necessary as it was for Jo - but she'd had cause to reconsider on the way over; even aside from the motion, her more sensitive nipples chafed annoyingly under her shirt. She followed Jo to the changing rooms warily, half-expecting that, at any moment, one of the staff or shoppers might do that Invasion of the Body Snatchers point-and-shriek bit.
Jo shut the door behind them, then spent a moment struggling to put her phone away. She wasn't swimming in her jeans like Michelle (in fact, with her longer legs they were a little short, if anything,) but they were still pretty baggy...mostly. Her hips and thighs, however, stretched them tight enough that just getting her hand into the pocket was a challenge. "Cripes," she said, "we are gonna need purses." She turned to Michelle. "Okay, shirt off."
"Wha-? No!" Michelle said, flushing slightly. She felt self-conscious enough just having breasts, let alone exposing them to anyone else...
"Seriously, dude," Jo said, rolling her eyes. "If we're gonna stay roomies while we're like this, we're gonna have to get used to seeing each other's tits."
"B-but...now?" she replied, a little embarrassed at her own reaction. Her friend's logic was sound enough, but... "Can't you, like, measure with the shirt on, or something?"
"...I dunno, actually," Jo said thoughtfully, putting a finger to her lip. "But probably not with a shirt that doesn't even fit right. C'mon - I'll take mine off, if it makes you feel better."
"No, that's, uh...that's fine," Michelle said hurriedly. She started to pull her shirt over her head, but cringed at the sensation of the fabric dragging across her nipples. With a sigh, she stuck her thumbs under the hem, stretching it out enough to lift it over and bunch it up atop her bust, slipped it off, and set it on the little bench; then she turned back to Jo...and softly gasped.
Mike was intellectually aware that changing rooms had mirrors in them, but it'd never been much of a factor for him, and she hadn't even considered that in this context 'til just now. But there on the wall opposite, just behind Jo and Jo's reflection, Michelle was confronted with another reminder of just how different things were for her, now. It wasn't that he didn't know what breasts looked like, but actually having them - having them be a part of her, personally sharing in the experience of breast ownership - was something else entirely.
Hers were hardly as large as Jo's (she could tell that much even clothed) but they weren't exactly tiny, either - modest but surprisingly perky things, tipped with soft brown nipples and areolae which were substantially larger (and a little darker) than they'd been before. For a long moment she just stood there, trying to process the way they looked on her, seeing herself topless the way she'd already gotten a good look at her new privates, and trying to figure out how in the hell she was supposed to feel about it...
"Okay, so," Jo said, producing a measuring tape she'd borrowed from the vacant supervisor's station outside the changing rooms, "apparently what you do is measure around the ribcage at the base of the breast, first. You wanna, or shall I?"
Michelle said nothing and simply stared, which Jo read as a sign of assent. "Right," she said, gently slipping her hands around Michelle's chest and pulling the tape taut, "so that's...thirty inches, or pretty near, which is what the band size is, apparently."
She removed the tape, and looped it back around the breasts proper. Michelle squirmed a little at her touch - it was weird enough having them, let alone having someone else touch them - but managed to keep her composure.
"So then," Jo continued, "you measure around 'the fullest part of the bust,' which I think is, like, someone's prissy way of saying 'at the nipples,' and that's...thirty-two inches, looks like. They say you should breathe in for this part, so you don't under-measure."
Michelle breathed in. Jo nodded, confirming the measurement. "Yep. And apparently the cup size is just a kinda shorthand for the difference between the two; from what I read, that makes you a 30B." She glanced down at her own chest, shaking her head in wonderment. "Geez, the things I never thought I'd have to think about...uh, you can breathe out, now," she added, glancing back at her roommate.
"Huh? Oh, uh, right," Michelle said. She hadn't realized she'd been holding her breath; she'd gotten to feeling all weird at finding herself involved in this discussion. Like with walking into the ladieswear section, it felt a little like she was trespassing in a world where she didn't really belong - but with Jo treating it as normal, and acting the part of someone who knew what she was talking about (to the extent that reading about it on the Internet counted,) it was...almost like some kind of induction...
"And...I guess that's it," Jo said, breaking her out of her trance. "They've got, like, a million styles, but we can probably start with basic stuff and go from there. I dunno how many we need - do you change 'em out every day, or what?"
"I...don't know...?" Michelle said uneasily, trying to remember if she knew how many his sister had in her closet at home as she tugged her shirt back on, and wondering if that was a weird thing to think about. "I guess it probably wouldn't hurt, if we've got the money."
"Makes sense," Jo said, heading back over to the bra display as they left the changing room; Michelle followed, still a little nervous.
There were indeed a plethora of options, although she found to her annoyance that there weren't as many in the sizes at her end of the rack. That was alright, she told herself; she just needed plain stuff, nothing fancy or...weird - but she got hung up a bit on the colors. White was supposed to be the "plain" color for underwear, right? But the strap might be visible; were you supposed to coordinate it with anything? Would people look at you funny if you didn't? Should she get black, to match her hair? Or that beige that clearly wasn't the same color as her actual, personal skin...?
She ended up getting three each of white and black, because they were discounted in a three-pack, plus one "nude," which she felt a little weird and awkward about; did they have to phrase it like that? She went back to check on Jo and found her dithering over the selection; she gawped and felt a little insecure again when she saw the size they were tagged with.
"Geez," Jo complained, "damn near everything in this end is either, like, reinforced, or full-on sexy lingerie."
Michelle wasn't sure how to respond to that. "Would not have guessed we'd have kinda the same problem," she finally said.
Jo chuckled and gave her a sympathetic smirk. "Hey, at least you don't have to lug these things around 24/7 for a year. Besides, your 'girls' look pretty cute on you." She frowned. "Huh, is that a thing women actually call 'em, or is that just in TV shows?"
"Don't look at me," Michelle said, feeling all weird again. "I'm as new to this as you are."
Jo eventually picked out a selection of what she thought were fairly "normal" bras, plus a couple lacier numbers in a darker red; she got a little sheepish when Michelle shot her a Look at that, and explained that she thought they complemented her hair. She held them out at arm's length, inspecting them curiously. "So...do you try them on, or...? I mean, is that okay?"
Michelle sighed. "Not a clue. Let's worry about that later, I guess."
Jo nodded. "Yeah, I guess we can figure it out when we've got some other stuff to try."
Underwear was next; Michelle went with the plainest panties she could find, though she did get colors to match her bras. (Not that it really mattered; it just seemed like it'd be weird for them not to match.) She ended up picking up a supply of tube socks in women's sizes, too; her old ones were currently bunched up around her ankles, clearly too large for her daintier feet and slenderer calves.
After that came the actual clothes. Michelle stuck to solid-color women's tees; her first inclination was to just get a bunch of black ones and call that good, but Jo's comment about making an aesthetic out of it had her a little self-conscious. Not that she would've necessarily objected, but...did she want people reading her as "low-key gothpunk chick?" Hell, how did she want people reading her!? She had no idea...well, she could get some other colors without making this all weird, as long as they weren't too loud or too...well, pink.
Pants proved to be the bigger challenge - not so much that she couldn't find any that looked like they'd fit as that they all looked like they'd fit too well. Her sister hadn't been kidding, all these years; women's jeans were pretty much all designed to flatter the wearer's lower half, even the ones that weren't "skinny," and the pockets were in fact a useless joke. Still, there wasn't much she could do about it...
"You sure you wanna stick with just that?" Jo queried; she was browsing curiously through a rack of blouses, and had a mid-length skirt slung over her arm. "I mean, nobody'd find it weird if you branched out a bit, like this."
Michelle glanced away, feeling awkward. "I would," she said. "Besides, she said we don't have to do anything we don't want to." Just because she was a...because she was like this for a year didn't mean she had to upend her whole lifestyle. Granted, most of what constituted her "lifestyle" choices had more to do with settling on defaults that kept her from having to think about things, but still.
"Suit yourself," Jo shrugged. "Only I kinda figure that when we get around to...um, that, we might want something a bit looser around the waist." She pulled a pale yellow sundress off the rack. "Hey, this'd probably look pretty good on you."
Michelle hesitated for a moment, then cringed at the reminder, and sighed. "I'm not wearing a freakin' dress, Jo." Even if nobody would look at her funny...but admittedly, she did kinda like the color. She looked through the tees, trying to find a close match; that'd probably work with the lighter blue jeans...
"Okay, okay," Jo said. "Sorry, dude."
She glanced around warily, wondering if anyone'd heard them, but they were alone at the moment; then she gathered up her finds. "I'm, uh, gonna go see if these fit."
Once she was back in the changing room, it took her a moment to work up the nerve to undress. She left her boxers on; the panties were in a sealed package and she couldn't imagine it being kosher to try-before-you-buy. Still, seeing herself nearly-naked in the mirror - putting the pieces together into an entire shape - was another high-water mark for strangeness in her day. Her figure was understated but not unpleasant, her breasts perky, her legs...actually kind of nice, even if her derriere wasn't much to speak of. She just stared for a minute, then hurriedly set about trying things on before she had a chance to reflect on how she felt about it.
A brief check on the Internet indicated that it apparently was normal to try bras on, but it took a good bit of fumbling before she was able to do so. Jo's measurements were on the money; it fit snug and secure, and it was oddly comfortable to feel her breasts contained and supported like this. It gave her a new appreciation for what Jo had to deal with, as well; maybe she had gotten the better end of the bargain. Besides, it wasn't like she wanted that kind of attention...
The rest was easy enough, although it took a little finagling to get her baggy men's underwear to sit comfortably in jeans that were not nearly as loose as she was used to. She glanced in the mirror, and was freshly surprised; dressed in lighter, cheerier colors, in clothes that actually fit, the girl in the mirror was kind of...kind of...
There was a knock at the door. "You doin' okay in there?" Jo called. Michelle started. "F-f-fine!" she stammered, glancing back at the pile of clothes. She probably didn't need to try anything else on; she'd gotten the same sizes of everything. Did she have to change back into her old clothes? They let you wear stuff out, didn't they? She thought so; it was a little weird to consider, but probably better than going around dressed in obviously ill-fitting stuff, right? She folded up her old clothes and stuffed them into one of the bags they'd grabbed; she should probably hang onto them, she'd need them again when this was all over, after all...
Jo cocked an eyebrow and cracked a grin when she exited the changing room. "Yeah, that is a good color for you," she said; Michelle glanced away, a little embarrassed, but said nothing. "Anyway," she continued, "I'm gonna try some things on myself. Lemme know if you need anything."
Jo took considerably longer trying things on; Michelle killed some of the time going to find shoes that fit her new feet (simple black flats) and a purse that didn't seem too conspicuously stylish, but she still ended up sitting outside the changing room and browsing on her phone for some time before Jo re-emerged and they finished up and went to the checkout. The clerk gave her a curious look when she explained about having all her old clothes in the one bag and wearing the new stuff out, but said nothing.
In the end, just picking up clothes blew through a significant chunk of Michelle's stipend and nearly all of Jo's; Michelle had a newfound sympathy for her sister, who'd complained about how much women's clothing cost for years. Well, at least they were more or less set, now...but it was strange to think, as they made their way back out to the car, that this was really happening - that this was going to be their lives for the next year...