This story is used for a contest on GaiaOnline. We had to use one of the three prompts given so I used the quote given, "What have I become?"
There isn't much to say. This was written in an hour and I'm actually pleased with it. It's funny how the works I write that I like best were written quickly--definitely with effort, just without much time taken to write.
Enjoy and PLEASE review with some constructive critism.

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Alexander placed the thin cigarette between his full lips. He didn’t light it though, not wanting to look stupid to the people passing by him on the sidewalk in front of the coffee shop he worked at, coughing for his life after taking a puff. He had never gotten the hang of smoking and never really planned to. Not many people paid attention to him anyways, so they probably wouldn’t notice that the cigarette had not been lit and would only see him simply as a man smoking. Or maybe not.

Unfortunately, many people walking by did notice, due to his lack of not even pretending to blow smoke out. A short man with his black hair gelled back glided beside Alexander, pulling a lighter out of a pocket in his dress pants.

“Hey, toots, need a light?” he asked. His voice was slimy, like his hair, and his teeth were a deep shade of yellow. Despite the foot or so he had on this man in height, Alexander could still smell his atrocious breath.

“No, thank you,” Alexander replied politely, flicking his mess of blonde hair of his shoulder in a manner that he thought might be attractive. He always imagined himself as irresistible and did little things like flicking his hair or leaning toward people closely as a way of tempting them, like Genesis’ ‘Forbidden Fruit’. Yes, that’s exactly what Alexander wanted to be considered. Alexander wanted to be everyone’s Forbidden Fruit.

As a man, Alexander was just that. With his messy, short hair and classic good looks he was the apple of every woman’s eye. But as a woman, or at least dressed so, he didn’t even make it close.

The slimy man frowned but thought nothing of Alexander’s attempt at irresistibility. He walked away, possibly at a quicker pace consequential to the fact that he realized that it was no woman he had just been talking to. Alexander watched as he walked away, not completely positive if the reaction he got was good or bad.

Alexander was bisexual and extremely self-conscious. If he liked a woman, he would become a man. If he liked a man, he would become a woman. He didn’t like to be judged and was always trying to please everyone. Of course, life isn’t always fair and not everyone can be pleased. Alexander was uncomfortable in woman’s clothing and felt out of place in a man’s clothing. Hell, he hated himself naked! He didn’t like anything about himself. In truth, he never even took the time to know himself, other than finding out he was bisexual. He was always to preoccupied making everyone else happy. An act some would call selfless even though, in his case, it was usually an act that he did selfishly.

His first and only marriage ended in divorce. To pay child-support to help his wife and his fifteen year old daughter, he had to work two jobs. One of the jobs was during the day close to them and the other was at night and near his house across town. The coffee shop was near his daughter and wife. He never saw any danger in cross-dressing anywhere because no one would recognize him. What he didn’t know was that the people who knew were too embarrassed, ashamed, or doubtful to even ask if the blonde-haired, firm-jawed worker was their old friend Alexander. But in every army, there is always a brave soldier.

“Dad?” Her voice was disgusted and dejected at the same time. The single word dripped with the feeling of betrayal. Alexander looked down to see his ex-wife’s neat blond hair that must have been recently cut into a bob. But when he looked closer, he noted her eyes. His ex never had the exact same brown eyes as he did.

Realization hit. It wasn’t his wife that stood in front of him, but his daughter. It was the first time he thought about how hurt she might be or his ex-wife might be. Not many people respected a cross-dresser, but having one as your father or ex-husband…that was even more embarrassing than being seen with another man while still dressed as a man.

Scared, Alexander simply turning on his heel and bolted into the shop. He ran into the men’s bathroom accidentally. But, hey, he is a man. It would be easy to make that mistake when dressed as a woman.

Thankfully no one was in there.

He looked at himself in the mirror and frowned. He was wearing thick makeup, but that still didn’t change his manly features. It was so obvious that he was a man, it was disgusting.

What have I become?

A people-pleaser. A self-conscious wreck.

No, that’s what I am. I havebecome ignorant of others.

He turned on the hot water and washed his face. He took off his heels and bra, which he didn’t need for the lack of his chest.

Alexander was a man and he couldn’t change it. Alexander was a people-pleaser and extremely self-conscious but he couldn’t change that either. The least he could do, he thought, was try accept it all.