The laptop screen casts a blue pall over Caden's hands as he scrolls through endless grids of sports bras — women in mid-stride, frozen in athletic poses, all of them grinning with their hands on their hips like this is some kind of victory. His fingers hesitate over the trackpad. None of these are designed for someone who still lifts weights but needs to strap down what shouldn't be there in the first place.

He types compression bra for men. The results load slowly — a sparse selection of beige garments modeled by grim-faced guys with puffed-out chests. Gynecomastia solutions. Post-surgery binders. One even advertised discreet male contouring. Caden clicks it. The product shot shows a man in a tight tank top, his pecs suspiciously smooth.

Will it actually compress, he wonders, or just flatten? He needs something that won't shift during exercise. Something that doesn't look like lingerie.

The third listing down has a single review: Works for my needs. Attached is a blurry photo of what might have been a crumpled T-shirt next to the packaging. Caden adds it to his cart. Two-day shipping. It will arrive just before the first stop on the tour, a local university speaking engagement where he'll still be introduced as Dr. Caden Voss, despite the fact that his voice now reads as feminine and his ID photo looks like someone else entirely.

The morning of the tour stop, the compression bra still sits in its plastic-lined shipping envelope, unopened. Caden picks it up by one corner — the fabric inside is thin, folded tight. He tears the seal.

It is black, seamless, with a wide band at the bottom. No hooks, no adjusters — just a stretchy pullover style. He turns it in his hands. The material feels dense, almost rubbery. He steps into it, pulling it up over his thighs, his hips, then tugs it higher, over his stomach, his ribs.

When it reaches his chest, he pauses. Then, in one motion, yanks it into place.

The fit is tight. Firm. He straightens, rolls his shoulders. The fabric doesn't pinch. It just — holds.

He turns sideways in the mirror. The silhouette is different. Not flat, exactly. Just contained.

Caden drops into a push-up. His chest doesn't shift. No drag, no jolt of discomfort. He exhales, pushes up. His form feels cleaner. More controlled. He does five more.

After the shower, he pats himself dry and pulls the bra back on. It is damp against his skin, but the fabric wicks moisture fast. He tugs on a men's oxford shirt — one of the longer ones — and buttons it halfway. His jeans, still his old ones, though the waistband gaps slightly now.

He faces the mirror.

His reflection stares back — jaw softer than he remembers, cheeks rounding where they hadn't before. But with the shirt loose, the bra compressing, and his stance wide, the overall effect is ambiguous.

He clears his throat. "Dr. Caden Voss," he says.

The voice that comes out is not his. Higher. Lighter. Undeniably female.

He swallows. Tries again, pitching his tone lower. "Dr. Caden Voss."

Still too light.

Fine. He can work with this.

The student chapter president — Maddie, her name tag reads — blinks at Caden's ID for a third time. Her thumb rubs the edge of the laminated university ID she'd printed, the one with his old square jaw and close-cropped hair. "You're sure this is you?" She doesn't say it like an accusation. Just a question, slow and careful, like she's trying to solve a math problem with the wrong formula.

Caden holds her gaze. "Positive." His voice doesn't waver, even though it is all wrong now, higher than it should be. He keeps his cadence sharp, clipped. Masculine.

Maddie chews her lower lip. Behind her, the lecture hall doors are propped open, the hum of an assembling crowd spilling into the hallway. She pulls out her phone, scrolling with quick jabs of her thumb. "I just — we had a whole security briefing. The contract specifies…" She trails off, then shakes her head. "I'm gonna have to call Jason. The promoter. Just — hang tight, okay?"

Caden nods. He doesn't move. Doesn't fidget. Just stands there in his tailored blazer and compression bra, the weight of eight hundred tickets sold pressing against his ribs.

The fluorescent hall lights buzz overhead as Maddie steps away, her phone pressed to her ear. Caden can hear the muffled rise and fall of her voice — No, I'm serious, she says she's him — before she turns her back, shoulders hunched like she's bracing for impact. He flexes his hands at his sides.

A freshman in a club T-shirt edges past, openly staring. Caden meets his gaze until the kid looks away. The lecture hall's murmur swells — laughter, the rustle of programs, the creak of seats. His talk was supposed to start in thirty minutes.

The promoter's voice crackles through the phone speaker, each word measured and deliberate. "Listen, Dr. Voss — or — whoever you are. The contract was very clear about identity verification. You understand that, right?" There is no malice in his tone, just the steady cadence of a man reading from a liability handbook. "We booked Caden Voss. The guy from the podcast. The guy in the ID photos. Not —" A pause. "Look, I don't know what's happening here, but legally, I can't let someone on that stage who doesn't match the contracted materials."

Caden presses the phone tighter to his ear, his voice dropping into the lower register he'd been practicing in hotel mirrors. "It is me. Check the records — the IPs from my email confirmations, the contract amendments from two months ago. The routing numbers for the deposits." He can hear the promoter tapping keys in the background, the faint click of a mouse. "You think I'd know the contract if I weren't the one who negotiated it?"

A long exhale. "Christ." The promoter's chair creaks. "Even if I believe you — and I'm not saying I do — you've gotta see the optics here. The university's already twitchy about the topic. If I put a woman on that stage claiming to be the guy they paid for, it's not just breach of contract. It's a PR nightmare." Another pause. "I'm sorry. Really. But the stop's canceled. We'll figure out the rest later."

The call ends with a soft beep. Maddie is staring at her shoes, arms crossed tight over her club T-shirt. The freshman has vanished. Caden slides the phone into his pocket, turns and walks toward the exit, his dress shoes clicking against the linoleum. The automatic doors hiss open, releasing him into the brittle sunlight of the campus quad.

The email draft glows on Caden's laptop, cursor blinking after Attached: bank statements, contract amendments, passport scans (2019-2023). He hovers over the send button, thumb pressing into the trackpad hard enough to whiten the skin. The click sounds louder than it should.

The promoter's reply comes while Caden is still considering whether to make coffee. Not disputing the paper trail. But the optics are untenable. Venue's already demanding their deposit back. Then: You understand, right? No apology this time. Just the dull thud of a door closing.

Caden sets the laptop aside. He pulls up the banking app on his phone. The numbers haven't changed since he last checked three hours ago, but he subtracts the cancelled appearance fee anyway, then the Airbnb penalty, then the last-minute flight rebooking. The total pools at the bottom of the screen: $14,872.31. Enough for ten weeks if he eats like a grad student again.

He'd never budgeted before. Not really. The speaking fees had always rolled in faster than he could spend them — conference honoraria, consulting retainers, the steady drip of subscriptions from men who liked their evolutionary psychology served with a side of spreadsheet. Now the taps are twisting shut, one by one.

The email to Hale's assistant takes three drafts — too groveling, too cold, then something in between. Caden settles on logistical difficulties re: tour stop and potential miscommunication before hitting send. The reply comes twenty-seven minutes later: Mr. Hale suggests discussing this in person. His apartment, tomorrow, 7:30pm. Caden types Confirmed and doesn't add a thank you.

A few minutes later his phone buzzes. Petra's name flashes, then vanishes. A text instead of a call — her new pattern since the cabin. He swipes it open. You okay? Saw the tour cancellation notice. Neutral. Careful. The kind of message you send when you're trying not to care but failing.

Caden types a reply — Fine. Venue backed out — then deletes it. Too defensive. He tries Handling it instead. Sent. The read receipt pops up immediately. Three dots pulse, stop, pulse again. Then:

I love you. I've thought about this as much as I can. I can't keep doing it.

Simple. Direct. The kind of clarity Petra always admired in data sets. No hedging, no caveats. Just the result.

His thumb hovers over the keyboard. The dots don't return. Of course she wouldn't call — calling would mean hearing the voice, and the voice would be information she didn't want delivered that way. The text is its own information about what they've become.

Caden pours water into the coffee maker with slow precision, watching the stream hit the reservoir like it's some kind of chemistry experiment — measurable, controllable. The machine gurgles to life. He leans against the counter, palm flat against the cool granite, and counts the drips into the carafe. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. His old routine would have had him checking email by now, firing off replies between sips. Instead, he just stands there until the last drop falls with a hollow plink.

The mug warms his hands. He takes a sip. Black. No sugar. Same as always, except now the bitterness registers differently, sharper on his tongue. He swallows and sets the mug down too hard. Coffee sloshes over the edge, pooling on the counter.

His laptop sits open on the table, keynote slides frozen mid-transition — a graph of fertility rates by education level, the red bars plunging like cliffs. The cursor blinks, patient. He reaches out, taps the trackpad once. The screen goes dark.

The wall calendar glares at him from across the room, color-coded blocks marching through October like a parade he'd been kicked out of. Green for speaking gigs, blue for podcast recordings, yellow for deadlines. He walks over and yanks a pin from the corner. The paper flutters, then sags. He unpins the other side and lets it drop into his hands.

It is lighter than he expected. He folds it once, creasing the months down the middle. Then again. The edges don't line up perfectly, but he presses the fold hard anyway, thumb riding the seam until it lies flat. He holds the calendar over the recycling bin for a full breath before letting go.

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