[I... guess I'm probably a dom? I mean - I don't really know, if I were going to actually try to get the right answer I'd want to ask how you'd sort some personal stuff I don't actually want to talk about, but it sounds like the fact that presenting as a sub sounds terrible and presenting as a dom doesn't sound that terrible is a good enough answer.]

[Yup, that's a good enough answer. Are you attached to your hairstyle, in this culture longer hair is sub-coded.] She pulls a pair of jeans from the rack to eyeball against his frame.

He picked dom substantially because he’s still upset about the time his ex thought he’d be better suited to his role in their relationship with fewer body parts and this is the opposite of what he was hoping for! It objectively really isn’t that big a deal but actually somehow it is a really big deal!

[Are you making that face about haircuts or jeans? They're both optional.]

[Haircuts.]

[You can present as a dom with longer hair, though it'll involve putting more thought into your clothes than will come entirely naturally to me. Can I send a picture of you to my brother, he knows more about this sort of thing.]

[Sure.]

She snaps a phone picture, sends it, and repockets her phone. [Okay, he says you want collared shirts - anything showing off the neck is sub-coded, I should have thought of that - and might want to consider cargo pants and wear a watch - I can't explain that one - and he says the bun's good and you should keep it up like that and also he's seeing you in desaturated orange, which I didn't even ask -]

[Black is sacred to my god but if I were being an even vaguely adequate servant of my god right now I wouldn't be freaking out about cutting my hair. Orange sounds nice.]

[Unfortunately if you wear orange and black that's going to look like you are dressing up for a specific holiday.] She rummages in a rack of turtlenecks and finds something in a burnt umber. [Look worth trying on?]

[Yeah. What's the holiday?]

[It's called Halloween. In its modern form it is mostly about children dressing up as things - conventionally things that could conceivably several layers of irony and desensitization ago have been spooky, but it can be almost anything - and going around asking all their neighbors for candy, which it is customary to buy in anticipation, for the experience of handing it out to cute dressed-up children.]

It reminds him of Crystalhue in a bad way.

[Okay. I guess I can give children candy.]

[You don't have to, once you have a place of your own you can just decline to decorate for the holiday and leave your outdoor lights off and they'll mostly skip your house and if anyone doesn't you don't have to answer the door. Most people like it though.]

[I'm sure it's fine.]

She finds him khaki cargo pants and shows him to the changing rooms so he can see if they and the turtleneck fit.

He's very pleased with these items and checks that he can move in them and -

(Why is he so against losing any body parts and why did he not know that about himself until just now? He wasn't before, was he? He didn't end up thinking so when he kept dwelling on the thing with his ex, it was just that he didn't want to be anyone's trophy - but hair is different - but it's probably just that letting anyone else make choices about it for him would be bad for being in the right frame of mind to come across as a "dom" and probably doesn't bear any further thinking about. He should pick something himself and prove to himself that he is willing to serve the Midnight Lord.)

- departs the changing room to show off the outfit.

She snaps another picture. [...he approves this outfit, thinks you might benefit from an earring - I'm not springing for jewelry any time soon, to be clear, it has no bearing on how frequently you need to do laundry, that goes for the watch idea too, but for completeness.] While he was in there she found a black short-sleeved buttondown and a pair of dark jeans.

[I'd like an earring. What kind does he think I should get?]

[Plain silver stud. On the left.]

[Nice. I like the look of that outfit, too - how many outfits are we getting?] NOT making ANY country bumpkin comments. None. Zero. He is so inured to wealth, so cosmopolitan, so at home in high society.

[Probably like eight total shirts - you don't have to try on eight shirts, they come in colors, you can get more of these in more colors or in the same color if you want - and four pairs of pants, you can re-wear those once each without it being too weird. Plus socks and underwear. You don't have to pick everything out today.]

[That's reasonable.] If it weren't reasonable, why would this reasonable person be doing it. Therefore it is completely reasonable to give him eight shirts. [What are the seasons like here?]

[This is a temperate climate, spring summer fall winter. It's late spring right now.]

[Do you have the kind of winter where the rain is chilly or the kind of winter where it's only probably feasible to avoid going out during a blizzard?]