One of the books Lev read about how to ace grad school recommended setting aside Saturday nights for partying, in order to avoid resenting the rigor of the rest of your schedule. He follows the spirit of the advice, if not the letter; no matter how overworked he is, he keeps his Saturday nights sacred.
 
It takes a long time to shave all his body hair; he has hair on his chest and his stomach and his arms and all over his legs, and a week is enough time for it to grow back into stubble. But moving the razor over his skin is meditative. He likes it. It's a way of marking the difference between being Lev and being Leia.
 
Having smooth skin is decadent. Every time he marvels at how soft it is, how easy it is to run his hand along it; every time he feels the slide of sheets against his skin. This is the point in the night where he gets hard.
 
When he gets out of the shower he touches up his toenails; this week they're a light pink. He puts clear nail polish on his fingernails and carefully plucks his eyebrows. No one notices, but he can tell they're there, and it's comforting during the week.
 
He's not blind. He's seen girls, he's even had a girlfriend, he knows what they dress like: Old Navy shirts and faded denim, clothes that wouldn't really look out of place on a man. But he's not a girl. It's just a fetish. And he wants to be beautiful. He wants to be someone you could look at and desire.
 
And he's pudgy and broad-shouldered and flat-chested and unalterably square, he has a little bit of a belly and flab under his arms and most repulsive of all a penis, that disgustingly male body part, that he can't even tuck away out of sight because the process of getting dressed turns him on so much. No one would pause in what they're doing to look at him; no one would want him.
 
But he can at least dress like someone they would want.
 
So he wears high heels and fishnet stockings held up with suspenders, a frilly lacy tulle skirt and a sheer bra. He puts on the cosmetics even the names of which fill him with longing; foundation and concealer, eyeliner and mascara and three kinds of eyeshadow, lipstick and blush and bronzer.
 
It's not right. But if he looks in the mirror and squints he can imagine being beautiful.
 
His hair is shoulder-length now. He jokes about how he never had time to cut it.
 
He doesn't jerk off right away, even though his stupid penis is still hard and making his panties bulge out. Instead he takes out his books from his secret cache. If he were doing it right, it would be transformation fetish pornography. But he's a failure even as an autogynephile. He has Cognitive Psychology of Memory and Blackwell's Handbook of Perception, Advances in Behavioral Finance and Characterizing Human Psychological Adaptations, books from a dozen graduate seminars he's not brave enough to try to audit.
 
He reads for an hour or four, until it is time for him to go to bed; then he begins the most pathetic aspect of this whole sorry business. He scrolls through Facebook for pictures of Sasha where he's smiling, happy, at peace with himself and with the world. He imagines being Sasha's girlfriend, imagines Sasha's dick in her pussy and his mouth on hers and his hands in her hair, imagines walking down the street holding hands and a wedding where she's in a white dress and being called a good girl, his beautiful girl. And when he's horny enough that he can bear it he puts his hand on his dick and jerks off in the most efficient manner possible and finishes.
 
As always, on Saturday nights, it concludes in disgust. The sticky white stuff on his hands is bad enough. Worse, no longer aroused, he's repulsed at how pathetic he is, at his failed imitation of womanhood, at the awkward way he looks in clothing intended for someone more beautiful than him, at the entire concept of jerking off to someone's Facebook feed and of using a real person as a tool to validate his imaginary womanhood, even in his own mind. He strips naked in a businesslike way and scrubs himself red and raw. He hides his books and clothes and makeup, knowing through long experience that throwing them out in disgust now will only lead to embarrassing and expensive purchases on Friday night.
 
He doesn't cry.

One of the books Lev read about how to ace grad school recommended setting aside Saturday nights for partying, in order to avoid resenting the rigor of the rest of your schedule. He follows the spirit of the advice, if not the letter; no matter how overworked he is, he keeps his Saturday nights sacred.
 
It takes a long time to shave all his body hair; he has hair on his chest and his stomach and his arms and all over his legs, and a week is enough time for it to grow back into stubble. But moving the razor over his skin is meditative. He likes it. It's a way of marking the difference between being Lev and being Leia.
 
Having smooth skin is decadent. Every time he marvels at how soft it is, how easy it is to run his hand along it; every time he feels the slide of sheets against his skin. This is the point in the night where he gets hard.
 
When he gets out of the shower he touches up his toenails; this week they're a light pink. He puts clear nail polish on his fingernails and carefully plucks his eyebrows. No one notices, but he can tell they're there, and it's comforting during the week.
 
He's not blind. He's seen girls, he's even had a girlfriend, he knows what they dress like: Old Navy shirts and faded denim, clothes that wouldn't really look out of place on a man. But he's not a girl. It's just a fetish. And he wants to be beautiful. He wants to be someone you could look at and desire.
 
And he's pudgy and broad-shouldered and flat-chested and unalterably square, he has a little bit of a belly and flab under his arms and most repulsive of all a penis, that disgustingly male body part, that he can't even tuck away out of sight because the process of getting dressed turns him on so much. No one would pause in what they're doing to look at him; no one would want him.
 
But he can at least dress like someone they would want.
 
So he wears high heels and fishnet stockings held up with suspenders, a frilly lacy tulle skirt and a sheer bra. He puts on the cosmetics even the names of which fill him with longing; foundation and concealer, eyeliner and mascara and three kinds of eyeshadow, lipstick and blush and bronzer.
 
It's not right. But if he looks in the mirror and squints he can imagine being beautiful.
 
His hair is shoulder-length now. He jokes about how he never had time to cut it.
 
He doesn't jerk off right away, even though his stupid penis is still hard and making his panties bulge out. Instead he takes out his books from his secret cache. If he were doing it right, it would be transformation fetish pornography. But he's a failure even as an autogynephile. He has Cognitive Psychology of Memory and Blackwell's Handbook of Perception, Advances in Behavioral Finance and Characterizing Human Psychological Adaptations, books from a dozen graduate seminars he's not brave enough to try to audit.
 
He reads for an hour or four, until it is time for him to go to bed; then he begins the most pathetic aspect of this whole sorry business. He scrolls through Facebook for pictures of Sasha where he's smiling, happy, at peace with himself and with the world. He imagines being Sasha's girlfriend, imagines Sasha's dick in her pussy and his mouth on hers and his hands in her hair, imagines walking down the street holding hands and a wedding where she's in a white dress and being called a good girl, his beautiful girl. And when he's horny enough that he can bear it he puts his hand on his dick and jerks off in the most efficient manner possible and finishes.
 
As always, on Saturday nights, it concludes in disgust. The sticky white stuff on his hands is bad enough. Worse, no longer aroused, he's repulsed at how pathetic he is, at his failed imitation of womanhood, at the awkward way he looks in clothing intended for someone more beautiful than him, at the entire concept of jerking off to someone's Facebook feed and of using a real person as a tool to validate his imaginary womanhood, even in his own mind. He strips naked in a businesslike way and scrubs himself red and raw. He hides his books and clothes and makeup, knowing through long experience that throwing them out in disgust now will only lead to embarrassing and expensive purchases on Friday night.
 
He doesn't cry.