emoryahlberg

The Dancer

Added 2020-03-06 21:52:17 +0000 UTC

Sometimes you need a little push to find your true passion.

And maybe even your true identity. 😉

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At first, Kyle despised the idea. He was a gamer, not a dancer. Besides, even if he’d graduated high school, the small-town bullies still made fun of him because he was a skinny nerd who lived at home.

“You’re skinny because you don’t move,” his mother had said. “You sit on that computer all day. How do you expect to build any muscle? You’re lucky you have your father’s genes or you’d be terribly fat.”

Kyle had to take her word for it; he never met his dad. Eventually, to make Kyle attend dance classes, she bribed him with the promise of a new, high-end computer. Kyle said yes, expecting to learn some cheesy pop dances in a couple weeks and score his dream machine. But, when he arrived, he discovered the truth: She’d enrolled him in a ballet class.

He was outraged. If people in town made fun of him now, they’d torture him if they discovered he was taking ballet.

Except...there were lots of pretty girls. And they were kind to him, and complimented his physique: “Oh, you definitely have a dancer’s body,” they’d said. For a young man who garnered no (positive) female attention, this was intoxicating. Kyle kept going, month after month, and soon discovered something else surprising: He was a talented dancer!

Only, something began to change in his body. Sure, he’d put on a lot of lean muscle, but other areas—conspicuous areas—seemed to get very flabby. One day before class, Kyle’s instructor pulled him aside. “Your mother told us all about your transition, sweetheart. There’s no need to be embarrassed. The girls and I already half-suspected. Anyway, I think it’s only appropriate if you wear a lady’s training outfit from now on, don’t you? Oh, and I took the liberty of getting you this.” She handed him a bra. “You’ve been...bouncing, a lot.”

Kyle was mortified and dumbfounded. What transition? But then, he understood, and realized he’d blatantly ignored the changes to his body for months. Kyle struggled with the bra, but finally figured it out. His instructor was right, it helped with the bounciness.

He’d get to the bottom of what was happening to him later. But first, he had to practice. There was a performance coming up next week, after all!