My bedroom’s full-length mirrors, complete with all-angle view so I could check the fall of my cape,  confirmed that my cuts and abrasions were gone, gone as though they had never been.  The Namestone had cleared up my face for the video, but the rest of me was healing more naturally.  The mirrors also showed I was looking a bit thinner than I usually do.  I am girlishly slim.  I weigh more than people think…muscle does that…but I don’t have that many pounds that I can afford to lose.  Getting rid of possible scars thanks to high-grade healing is still good.  Yes, there are guys who think a few strategically placed scars make them attractive to women.  I am not a guy, thank you.  And I am very much not convinced that scars, not to mention irregular shaving and under-bathing, make guys attractive. 

I dutifully spent fifteen minutes doing stretches and bends under the healing matrix’s guidance.  The deep bruises would take a while to heal.  Exercise, however painful, speeds the process.  I had my mind control ramped well up so I did not exactly feel the pain, but there was surely a lot of it.  At the end, I very much enjoyed a long, hot shower. 

The time to start wearing my boy clothing had arrived.  Most people see what they expect to see.  I dressed as a boy, in boys’ cotton corduroys, properly lined and not at all tight, not girls’ somewhat tighter blue jeans.  Actually, I like the boys’ long-sleeve loose hunting shirts.  They are heavy, soft-cotton jacquard weaves, warm, all with pretty polychrome patterns.  They have nice big pockets, not to mention elbow patches.  Moose-skin slippers.  Hair combed with a part.  Cue the slight crackle in my voice.  Anyone who met me would see and hear a boy.  I may not be able to do that in three years, but I can do it now. 

Soon I would have to start dyeing my hair again.  By now there were probably ten million personas, not to mention most of the world’s billion people, all looking for me.  Almost none of them qualified as threats, but I want peace and quiet, not a shootout every time I stop at a grocery store.  Disguise is how I make that happen.  Notwithstanding Twain’s famous story, almost no one will look at a girl and think ‘this could be a boy in disguise’, let alone the other way around.  And when I dress to go shopping, no one will look at the dowdy old woman in heavy coat, three pounds of pearl necklaces, pale blue hair, and a heavy veil from her fifty-years-since-stylish hat, and think they are looking at me.  This morning I could go outside wearing a woven cap. No one would be around to recognize my hair color.