New dress code

When they saw her approaching from a distance, the girls exchanged uneasy glances. The confident stride, the daringly short skirt, the sharply tailored cropped blazer… everything about her — formerly him — defied the logic behind the punishment they had devised. This was supposed to be a consequence, not the start of a new fashion era in self-discovery.

They had done it together, in secret, on a night marked by tears, long-standing frustrations, and the kind of solidarity that only forms when patience has run dry. Turning their boss into a woman had seemed, at the time, like a symbolic — and effective — way to make him rethink every toxic word, every invasive look, every inappropriate dress code he had enforced with smug superiority. It was magical justice. Revenge.

But now there she was — elegant, confident, strutting down the sidewalk like it was a runway during fashion week. And the strangest part? She was smiling. Not with irony or mockery, but with a calmness that left the girls unsettled. As if, in that new body, something had awakened — something even he hadn't known was buried.

“Ladies,” she said, casually adjusting the purse on her shoulder with a grace that was almost infuriating, “we need to rethink our dress code. From now on, everyone should dress with more boldness, more self-expression! This look? It’s the new standard.”

Silence. A few nervous laughs. One girl looking at another, still trying to process the scene.

Maybe the magic had been too generous. Maybe it hadn’t just changed his body — maybe it had freed something he never had the courage to be. After all, who would’ve imagined that a man in his early sixties, hardened by decades of arrogance and condescension, would bloom upon seeing himself as a young woman full of life, beauty, and freedom?

What was meant to be a lesson had become a rebirth.

And now… they’d have to deal with it.

“Oh, by the way,” she added with a playful smile as she turned to walk off, “do any of you know if Daniel from accounting is single… or married?”