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Victoria has been, in a technical sense, experiencing girlhood for almost eleven years. But the first time she feels like it—like it’s something she can freely partake in—is when she’s sitting in a chair in front of Samira Mohan’s dressing table, staring at the assorted mess of makeup and miscellaneous skincare items Samira owns, and Samira is massaging argan oil into the damp, loose coils of her hair.
“You’ve seriously never done this before?” Samira asks, hands smoothing Victoria’s dark brown strands down. “I was under the impression that every Indian mom drilled this into their daughters.”
Victoria chuckles. “Really?”
“Yeah,” Samira says. “My mom used to insist on oiling my hair every single time I left the shower. Supposed to be…ritualistic. My friends used to always complain about their moms doing the same thing, how it was such a hassle. But I honestly find it relaxing now.”
Victoria smiles, looking down at the table. “I guess my mom didn’t have time for all of that.”
She didn’t consider me her daughter for a long time, she almost adds. But she doesn’t.
It’s not that she thinks Samira would be…weirded out, or something. But Victoria has learned that she needs to prioritise her safety. Being trans isn’t exactly something a lot of people accept, or even consider allowed. God, even her own mother had taken a while to even become tolerant of it. And now they just don’t talk about it. It’s become less relationship-shattering over time. Now, Victoria’s gender identity is just another thing about her that annoys her mom. But she can deal with that. It’s better than the screaming matches she was forced to participate in at the tender age of eleven.
“Well, either way,” Samira says, “I don’t think you needed it. Your natural hair is gorgeous, with or without assistance.” Victoria sees her shrug in the mirror, smiling ever so slightly.
She makes the statement casually, and it hits Victoria—Samira really has no idea how much that means to her. Being called gorgeous.
Throughout most of her childhood, she’d been showered with compliments from her relatives.
What a smart, handsome little boy, a distant relative had said, upon meeting her for the first time. I just know he’s going to be such a ladies’ man. Her father’s told her that that was his reaction to her birth, something he feels guilty for now. She appreciates the development in his mindset, but it still stings, knowing that some part of her is still tied to this masculine interpretation so many people had—and may still have—of her. But Samira just jumped directly to gorgeous.
Would it be so bad, to tell her? She’s in this place, where she feels fully tethered to femininity for the first time in her life, and she feels safe. Would it be worth it, to risk that feeling, and to tell Samira?
Before she can make a decision, she gets pulled out of her own thoughts by the realization that Samira is still talking.
“You know, argan oil isn’t even from India. It has Moroccan origins, but it’s used by so many Indian women and it’s somehow so fitting for our hair, especially when…” she continues talking, saying something about cultural exchange and overlap, voice growing progressively more animated, and Victoria realizes just how perfect the situation she’s in is. Because Samira cares. She cared enough to drag Victoria to her apartment the second she found out she hadn’t experienced something that was this important to Samira, even if it was ultimately insignificant. And whatever her opinion on Victoria’s gender is going to end up being, she would never do anything ill-intentioned.
“What are you thinking about?” Samira asks softly, her warm fingers still pressing themselves into the skin at the back of Victoria’s head, the thickness of the oil blending with the heat of her fingertips. The sensation is soothing, just gentle enough for Victoria to finally summon the courage to say the two words she hasn’t uttered since she was ten years old, tears running down her face as she sat down opposite her parents in their cold, unforgiving living room.
“I’m transgender.”
Victoria watches Samira’s reaction carefully through the mirror. Samira’s eyes widen in clear surprise, but there’s no disgust behind them.
“Oh,” she says, simply, and then— “Shit, that’s why you never—oh my God, I kept telling you how shocked I was that you’d never oiled your hair before, and—Victoria, I’m so sorry. I should’ve been more sensitive.”
All Victoria can feel now is relief. Samira’s instantaneous reaction is to apologize, and she hasn’t even done anything wrong. In fact, this one evening has already helped Victoria feel so much more comfortable in her skin.
“Relax,” Victoria says. “You didn’t make me feel bad or anything. And if I’m being completely honest, I came out when I was ten years old, and today is the first day I’ve felt like I’ve actually experienced girlhood. Like, I’ve always been a girl, but no one’s ever fully validated that. Until today.”
Samira’s expression softens, brown eyes glistening. She looks like a deer, Victoria finds herself inexplicably thinking.
“Well, I’m really glad you felt comfortable enough to tell me,” Samira says. “And I’m sorry no one else validated you in the way you needed.”
With that, her hands leave Victoria’s scalp. “We’re all done,” she says, smiling widely. To her horror, Victoria involuntarily lets out a whine of discontent. She’d been enjoying this, the feeling of Samira’s skin coming into contact with hers, and for such an extended period of time, too.
Samira laughs. “Did I disrupt someone’s enjoyment?”
Despite herself, Victoria can feel her cheeks turn pink. She turns around in her chair, looks up at Samira, and says, “Shut up,” but there’s no bite behind her words, because her thoughts are still infused with gratefulness at how completely accepting Samira has been.
Samira looks into her eyes and just smiles.
“Okay, get up,” Samira says. “I’m going to guess you never had one of those sleepovers where you ate too much ice cream, watched shitty movies, and stayed up until four in the morning.”
“And you would be correct.”
“Well then,” Samira says. “It’s not too late.”
The amount of ice cream Victoria and Samira go through is enough to warrant health concerns—it’s not a great decision on their parts, at least from a medical standpoint—but as Victoria lies in Samira’s bed, it’s like she’s never been more content.
As Victoria starts to drift off, comfortable under the warm blankets, she’s woken up by Samira’s voice.
“Do you believe in God?”
Victoria rolls over on her side. “What?”
“That’s the type of question my friends and I used to overthink about instead of sleeping,” Samira says nonchalantly. “Don’t you want the full sleepover experience?”
Victoria chuckles, bemused. “Yeah, yeah, alright.”
“So?” Samira says, raising an eyebrow. “I’m waiting for an answer.”
“Well, I mean, my family’s Hindu,” Victoria says. So there’s not really one god we worship, right?”
Samira hums in acknowledgement. Victoria doesn’t know why her first instinct is to explain the religion to Samira. Samira’s family is Hindu too—she’s told her herself. But Victoria’s used to laying out the facts first. It’s what she did when coming out to her parents. She’d been prepared, in an almost academic way, with extracts from the Bhagavad Gita and every relevant Vedic text she could find, all the depictions of gender outside the traditional binary, every time divinity and queerness were mentioned in the same breadth. And in the end, her mother had said, so much of this is just mythology. It’s not meant to be interpreted literally.
That’s Eileen Shamsi for you. Always picking and choosing what she wants to believe in. She practices a religion based on its principles, but when she doesn’t approve of something, she throws it out the window, like it doesn’t matter. And Victoria’s witnessed her treating trans patients, too. She’s always professional about it. So does she only disapprove when it’s her own child?
Maybe Victoria is just destined to disappoint her mother. Making her proud is a hope that grows more and more impossible, more and more distant every single day.
Victoria relays all this to Samira, who, all the while, looks at her with big, sad eyes, and then says, “I don’t know if I actually believe in God. Any gods, really. I may have, when I was a kid, but honestly, the way my mom interpreted our religion…I can’t make myself believe, not anymore.”
“Do you wish you did?” Samira asks.
Victoria nods. It’s true. The weight of the world was so much easier to bear when it felt like there was a purpose behind it all. Even as a kid, Victoria had known there were so many things that were going wrong. But her belief had made it feel like there was something more, some reason so many things were broken.
Samira sighs. “I stopped believing when my dad died. I just knew—if what I’d been taught all my life was true, no deity would have let something so cruel happen to him, to my family.”
Victoria reaches out under the covers, taking Samira’s hand. “I’m sorry that happened to you.”
“Yeah,” Samira says, the beginning of a tear glistening in her eye. “I guess both our childhoods were pretty shitty.”
“They were,” Victoria agrees. “But I’m pretty sure tonight, like, healed something in me,” she says, trying to keep her tone casual, lighter than what their conversation has been like thus far. She fails. “So…thank you for that.”
Her hand is still in Samira’s, and she feels the other woman’s thumb gently stroke the skin of her palm.
“No need to thank me,” Samira says. “All I did was…be a halfway decent person.”
Victoria smiles, feeling tears well up in her own eyes. “You’re a good friend, Samira.”
“Thank you,” Samira says, and what follows is silence as the two of them let the moment hang in the air. Victoria watches Samira’s eyes snap shut, their hands still linked.
When she closes hers, she feels a wave of happiness wash over her, because for the first time, she knows what it’s like to be loved.