Origin story: Riley
Beneath every soft apology Riley whispers mid-kiss…every poem they jot down in the margins of cheap notebooks…and every quiet moan that slips out when praise is too much and not enough.
There was the kid they used to be, sitting alone at the back row of a rural Oregon church, mouthing along to hymns they never quite believed in, in a body that never quite felt like home.
Riley didn’t even have a name for themself back then. Just “him” in every roll call, “son” in every prayer, “boy” in every unspoken rule about how to walk, talk, behave, exist.
They kept their softness tucked behind library books and notebooks. Wrote long letters to imaginary lovers and burned them in the backyard. Practiced kissing their pillow, just in case someday, someone cared enough to stay.
Their parents—the Thompsons—weren’t cruel per se. Just certain. Christian, conservative, confused whenever Riley flinched at the mirror or floundered in gym class. They didn’t utter the word “gay” unless it was followed by a prayer or a sigh. Didn’t say “trans” at all.
Riley learned early how to smile through those sermons. How to fold themself small enough to survive.
They got out the first chance they could: A poetry scholarship at Portland State. It wasn’t much, but it was freedom with a campus meal plan.
The first week, they showed up to an LGBTQ+ mixer in an oversized hoodie and wrote a fake name on their sticker—just to try it out.
The first time someone used they/them in a sentence and meant it, Riley almost cried in the hallway.
And they kept writing, pens and paper being their only refuge. Spoken word nights, open mics, zines folded with trembling hands.
It was a slow coming-out— First to a professor who kept extra granola bars in her office drawer. Then to a classmate they kissed in a haze of cinnamon whiskey. Then, quietly, to themself.
The more they found their voice, the more their birthplace—and their birth name—vanished behind them like mist.
They wrote their new name—Riley Thompson—on every surface they could. Name tags. Journal covers. Bathroom stalls. And some nights, the underside of their own wrist, in case they forgot who they were trying to become (or, rather, who they always had been).
Riley’s first skirt came from a thrift store clearance rack.
Black, soft velvet, slightly too long.
They buried it beneath sweaters in their backpack like contraband. And waited until midnight to try it on.
They stood there for almost ten minutes in boxer briefs, staring at the skirt pooled around their ankles, too afraid to pull it up—as though the simple act of wearing it might split their life cleanly into a “before” and “after.”
But perhaps it did.
Because once it settled around their hips, something inside them unclenched—
Not perfectly. Not magically. They didn’t suddenly become confident or beautiful or certain.
But they looked in the mirror and thought:
Oh hey. There you are.
Small experiments came after that.
Clear nail polish first. Then chipped black polish. Oversized sweaters that hung off one shoulder. Women’s skinny jeans bought online under the pretext that “they fit better” (those barely-existent pockets notwithstanding). Letting their hair grow longer than the same buzz cut they’d always had.
They learned femininity slowly, like a second language stuttered in whispers.
Some nights they felt radiant. Other nights they caught their reflection and felt ridiculous, counterfeit, unfinished.
But every time someone called them “pretty” instead of “handsome,” their stomach flipped in a way that fear or nervousness alone could never explain.
Seattle wasn’t a destination; it was a direction. Riley hitched a ride with someone who needed gas money. Found a shared room above a vape shop. Taught poetry workshops at the youth shelter on weekends just to make rent stretch.
That’s where Sofia met them, quietly volunteering, giving more than they had to give. Where Kaori saw their set at a fundraiser and said, “You blush like a boy in a yaoi manga.” Where June passed them a flask and said, “You’re too pretty to be so scared.”
They weren’t recruited into the harem so much as… Invited. Warmed. Seen.
By this time, femininity no longer felt like a costume they were clumsily borrowing.
It felt like Seattle’s ever-changing weather. Like Puget Sound’s tides. Something alive inside them that changed shape day to day.
Some mornings, they’d hide beneath oversized hoodies, wanting to disappear into softness without being perceived at all.
Other mornings, they’d try to shave off every last stub of facial hair, slip into thigh-highs and a lace top, and blush themself pink watching strangers struggle to decide between “sir” or “ma’am” mid-sentence.
The harem never asked them to choose one version.
That, more than anything, was what made them stay.
Now Riley moves like a quiet soul with nothing left to prove. Their thighs are soft. Their voice lilts when they’re excited. They still get tongue-tied when someone calls them “pretty” or “beautiful.”
But their mouth knows what it wants. Their poems are sharper now. Their eyes stay open when they kiss—so they don’t miss a thing.
They have a toothbrush in every lover’s bathroom. A verse tattooed on their hip that no one’s allowed to read unless they’re kneeling.
They still flinch, sometimes, when praised too loudly. But when Chen moans their name with a mouth full of need, they believe it.
And when June screams her heavy-metal remix of “the radio saved my life tonight, old song that the DJ played made me feel alright” into her electric guitar— Riley is always in the front row, the same way that rural Oregon church had expected of them: Hand over heart, mouth wide open, worshipping the noise that redeemed them.